When you’re working at a small organization or business, you wear a million different hats. And wearing all of those hats eats up your time – so much so that you may find yourself working overtime or on weekends just to get everything done!
Producing graphics for social media, print, TV, lobby displays, or on-screen service announcements takes time and creativity. There are a number of options out there – Canva.com, PicMonkey.com, Photoshop … but none of them have all of the features I’d like in a graphics designing software.
Enter VistaCreate. VistaCreate is a graphics design software offered by Vistaprint, a website that I’ve used for 12+ years. VistaPrint has an online graphic design tool to create beautiful print products, like posters or flyers, but you can only download a low-resolution pdf with PROOF watermarked across it. VistaCreate is specifically intended to create digital graphics for online use on social media, your website, in emails, or anywhere else on the internet. Of course, if you choose to, you can also use those same graphics to order printed versions.
I’ve made really good use of PicMonkey and Canva over the years and have found them to be invaluable in creating images and graphics for events, programs, Bible Studies and a variety of other things in our church’s ministry areas.
But now that I’ve discovered VistaCreate, I’ve been relying on it more and more.
Simple & Incredibly Diverse Graphic Design
There are several reasons why I really like what VistaCreate is offering. Here are a few:
Background Removal Tool: Canva and PicMonkey both offer background removal … for a price. LunaPic is the only free online tool that I’ve found that does a half-way reasonable job. VistaCreate has background removal built in, and it’s included in the free tier
Diverse Templates: The number of templates included in VistaCreate can be overwhelming, but what a great change to have such a wide range of choices! The designs cover the gamut, from personal to business. Templates are sized for Facebook, Instagram and Youtube (of course!), but also Ebay, Twitch, Twitter, SnapChat, Tik Tok and more! Presentation sizes (16:9), posters, brochures, newsletters, and so many more are also available.
Free Stock Photos and Videos: PicMonkey had free photos before they were bought out by ShutterStock. Canva has many free photos, but the majority are paid. While VistaCreate has a number of paid photos and videos, the selection of free images is quite substantial.
Animations: Animating text and objects is either paid or very limited with the competitors, but VistaCreate offers it for free. You can animate any layer, using a selection of movement styles that are designed to draw attention to your image. And of course, having the option to download in either MP4 or as a GIF means your post will stop the scroll when people are viewing their social feed.
Affordable Paid Tier: The free tier is more than I need at this point, but even if I did decide to upgrade, it would only cost me $10 USD/month. That’s definitely worth it! The comparable tier for PicMonkey is $12.99 USD/month and $12.50 USD/month for Canva.
One Drawback to VistaCreate
There is one big omission in VistaCreate is that resizing is not available on the free tier. So, if I create an square post for Instagram, there’s really not an easy way to create a copy in a 16:9 size. Instead, I have to download the square post, start a new appropriately sized project, and then add that square image to it. I can change the background colour to match, but of course, I’m left with a square image in the middle of a rectangle. That said, VistaCreate is still ahead by a mile!
What’s your favourite online tool for producing graphics?
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