The Top 10 Must-Have Tools for Designers

The Top 10 Must-Have Tools for Designers

The best tools for designers in 2026 form an essential tech stack covering everything from core creation to collaboration.

This is anchored by the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, including Photoshop for raster and Illustrator for vector work, complemented by Figma for UI/UX design.

For hardware, a Wacom tablet is crucial for digital illustration, while productivity platforms like Notion allow for seamless project management and client feedback.

1 – Adobe Creative Cloud

The Adobe Creative Cloud is the undisputed industry leader in design software. It's an indispensable collection of apps that cover everything from photo and video editing to digital illustration, web design, UX, and print layout.

For designers, the core apps include:

• Photoshop: The premier image editing and compositing app, perfect for photographers, digital artists, and graphic designers.
• Illustrator: The go-to vector graphics editor for illustrations, logos, icons, and anything that requires precision.
• InDesign: The professional tool for page layout and print projects like brochures, books, and magazines.
• XD: Adobe's UI/UX design platform for designing and prototyping websites, mobile apps, and more.

While the entire Creative Cloud subscription provides access to over 20 apps, just those core four make the subscription worthwhile. Adobe rounds out the toolkit with deep integration between apps, built-in templates and asset libraries, and seamless cloud collaboration. For professional designers, the Creative Cloud is non-negotiable.

And let's be honest, you can't talk about Adobe in 2025 without mentioning the AI. The thing is, their Firefly generative AI is now baked right into the main apps, and it's not a gimmick. In Photoshop, ‘Generative Fill' is a bit of a lifesaver. You can select an empty space and just type “add a vintage armchair,” and it'll create it, lighting and all. It's properly useful for fixing photos or mocking up concepts fast.

Over in Illustrator, the ‘Text to Vector Graphic' feature does what it says on the tin. It lets you create icons and patterns from a simple prompt, which seriously speeds up the grunt work. The best part? Adobe trained it on their own stock library, so it's built to be commercially safe. It's about working smarter, not harder.

2 – Sketch

Sketch has emerged as an incredibly powerful design platform for UX and UI designers. The vector graphics editor is tailored for interface, website, and app design with a workflow that facilitates rapid prototyping.

Key features include:

• Fast, flexible tools for creating wireframes, mockups, and high-fidelity visuals.
• Smart layers, symbols, and reusable components that accelerate the process.
• Powerful prototyping capabilities to preview interactions.
• A vast library of UI kits, wireframing templates, icons, and design assets.
• Syncing and collaboration features for cross-functional teamwork.

With an intuitive, uncluttered interface and focused toolset for UI design, Sketch allows designers to work smarter and faster. It's become the tool of choice for many digital product designers.

3 – Figma

Whereas Sketch is designed for the individual designer, Figma facilitates real-time team collaboration in the browser. Designers can work together on the duplicate files, allowing for rapid ideation, feedback, and iteration.

Figma provides:

• Multiplayer editing allows multiple people to work on a file at once.
• Built-in commenting and version history features for team feedback.
• Prototyping and linking tools to design interactive flows.
• Libraries of components and styles for consistent designs.
• Plugin ecosystem for added functionality.
• Platform-agnostic with Mac, Windows, and Linux support.
• Dev Mode for Developer Handoff: A dedicated space for developers to inspect designs, grab assets, and get code snippets for CSS, iOS, and Android, taking the guesswork out of the handoff.

For teams of designers, product managers, and engineers who need to collaborate closely throughout a project, Figma is a game-changer. The seamless team design capabilities allow creativity and ideas to flourish, and the addition of Dev Mode further bridges the gap between design and development for a much smoother handoff process.

4 – Affinity Designer

For designers who want fast, powerful vector graphics and a raster image editor at an affordable price, Affinity Designer is a compelling alternative to Adobe Illustrator. The one-time purchase delivers professional design tools without a subscription.

Key advantages include:

• Smooth, precise vector tools for illustrations, branding, icons, and more.
• Pixel-level editing for photographic retouching and composition.
• Adjustment layers for non-destructive effects and edits.
• Perspective, blend, and warp tools for 3D effects.
• Export for web, print, and video.
• Compatible with other Affinity apps like Photo and Publisher.

For all vector projects, from logos to book covers, Affinity Designer provides an agile, intuitive design workflow. The minimal interface allows users to focus on the design rather than hunting for tools. At a fraction of the cost of Adobe's offerings, it makes an excellent addition to any designer's toolkit.

5 – Procreate

For digital artists and illustrators, Procreate offers one of the best creative painting experiences on the iPad and iPhone. The easy-to-use digital canvas delivers beautifully realistic tools, unmatched performance, and intuitive gestures, allowing artists to focus on the art.

Standout features include:

• Over 190 handmade brushes with rich textures and fluid flexibility.
• Super-fast 64-bit drawing engine even on large canvas sizes.
• Multi-touch gestures for natural painting, sketching, and blending.
• Complex layer compositing with glows, blurs, masking, and more.
• Perspective and reference tools for accurate illustrations.
• Record time-lapse videos of the creation process.

Made exclusively for iOS, Procreate taps into the touch capabilities like no other app. For digital painting, sketching, and concept art, it provides an unrivalled tactile experience.

6 – Capture One

Capture One aims to be the ultimate RAW photo editing software for professional photographers and retouchers. Unlike Adobe Lightroom, it's dedicated solely to processing RAW files with precision colour, detail, and control.

Key features include:

• Customisable workflows for organising and editing photos.
• Powerful colour editing tools with unique colour profiles.
• Advanced layer editing for non-destructive retouching.
• Top-tier noise reduction and sharpening.
• Lens/camera profiling for optical corrections.
• Seamless studio tethering capabilities.

The extensive RAW processing toolkit, combined with speed, organisation, and customizability, has made Capture One the preferred choice for high-end studios and photographers. It provides unparalleled control over the RAW development workflow.

7 – Adobe Portfolio

Adobe Portfolio plugs into the Creative Cloud for designers who must showcase their work online in a polished, customisable portfolio. It allows users to quickly create a portfolio website, seamlessly integrating with Behance and Adobe apps.

It provides:

• Beautiful, responsive portfolio templates.
• Easy customisation with colours, fonts, and layouts.
• Integration with Behance projects and analytics.
• Ability to manage and showcase project work.
• Customisable domain name.
• Built-in image galleries.

Whether you use it as your leading portfolio site or for specific projects, Adobe Portfolio allows designers to put their best work online with minimal hassle. And with the Creative Cloud synergy, it's easy to manage and update frequently.

8 – Dribbble

Dribbble is the premier online community for inspiration and self-promotion for designers to share work, connect with clients, and get noticed. The skilled artistic community provides a constant source of outstanding designs across various disciplines.

Designers can:

• Upload shots of designs, illustrations, user interfaces, and more.
• Follow other top designers in their field.
• Like and provide feedback on others' work.
• Build their reputation through likes and followers.
• Get hired for freelance projects.

Dribbble provides a platform to gain global exposure as a designer, get immediate feedback, and form meaningful connections. Those just starting can draw inspiration from top creatives, while established designers have an outlet to solidify their brand.

9 – Marvel

To bring digital product designs to life, Marvel allows designers to prototype interactive interfaces and user flows. By connecting images or design files, designers can simulate the user experience before coding happens.

Marvel delivers:

• Simple linking tools to create clickable prototypes.
• Ability to test prototypes on actual devices via the Marvel App.
• Options for basic animations and transitions.
• Commenting tools to gather feedback.
• Link sharing and analytics.
• Developer handoff capabilities.

This form of prototyping allows designers, clients, and team members to experience and interact with the end product early in the process. Marvel brings user flows and experiences to reality quickly.

10 – Webflow

For designers who want to prototype and build production-ready websites without coding, Webflow provides the ideal design workflow. Designers can design, build, and launch responsive websites through intuitive visual tools and menus, rather than writing lines of code.

Webflow empowers designers to:

• Create responsive, interactive website and landing page designs.
• Animate elements and interactions with ease.
• Build web forms, shopping carts, popups, and other dynamic features.
• Host and publish sites or export clean code.
• Design and prototype CMS templates.

The drag-and-drop editor mimics the design tools designers are familiar with but generates clean front-end code. This allows designers to bring their visual concepts directly into a web environment that is ready to deploy. Webflow bridges the gap between design and development.

Bonus: Emerging Tools You Can't Ignore

Spline for Collaborative 3D Design

Right, 3D used to be a massive headache. You needed ridiculously powerful computers and software that felt like flying a spaceship. Spline changes all that. It’s a browser-based tool that makes creating 3D scenes and objects genuinely straightforward and, dare I say it, fun.

Think of it like Figma, but for three dimensions. You can work with your team in real-time, pulling in models, adding textures, and building interactive experiences. It's perfect for creating those slick, animated 3D elements you see on modern websites, product showcases, or even simple game assets. You don't need to be a 3D guru to get something that looks brilliant.

Midjourney for AI-Powered Ideation

Now, this one's a bit different. Midjourney isn't for finishing projects; it's for starting them. It's a generative AI that creates incredible images from text prompts, but its real power is in breaking you out of a creative rut.

You access it through Discord, which feels a bit strange at first, but it works. When you're stuck for a concept or need to build a mood board, you can feed it ideas and get back dozens of highly artistic, stylised visuals in minutes. It's like having an impossibly fast concept artist on call to help you explore directions you'd never have thought of on your own. It's the ultimate tool for pure, rapid ideation.

Power Up Your Design Workflows

This collection of 10 tools covers everything from industry-standard design apps to team collaboration, inspiration, prototyping, and publishing tools. By adopting some of these solutions, designers can boost their productivity, streamline workflows, access design inspiration, and bring their ideas to life visually, interactively, and publicly.

The design world constantly evolves, but these tools provide a strong foundation for delivering standout work. Each one solves challenges that designers face regularly. Investing time to learn and integrate these ten tools will pay dividends through quicker ideation, improved teamwork, simplified execution, and elevated skill development.

In 2024, step up your design game by tapping into the capabilities of these must-have designer tools! Leverage them to maximise creativity, problem-solve effectively, and streamline workflows from concept to finished product. Any designer who uses these tools will be empowered to work smarter, faster, and better.