7 Learning Design Tools That You Should Be Using in 2022

Key Takeaways Articulate 360, which includes Rise and Storyline, is a top tool for learning designers and it’s the tool that our clients request most. We love its modern, user-friendly interface and responsive technology.

Figma is a UI designer’s dream tool—it’s top-notch for workflow and learning design. Use FigJam to brainstorm, collaborate, and gather feedback.

Adobe Creative Cloud remains a staple in learning design. Photoshop is essential for photo manipulation and Illustrator is our go-to for creating character or icons sets, graphs, and infographics.

When you’re a learning designer, you’re making magic happen all day long. Whether you’re illustrating a set of characters or creating brand cohesive course components, you need the very best learning design tools at your disposal to make great learning happen.

What tools are you using most right now? Are you up-to-date on the latest tools out there and how to make the most of them?

Learning designers are changemakers and innovators—they’re the ones in the trenches using their creativity and design chops to bring interactive learning projects to life. There are plenty of resources already out there about the top instructional design tools (we have plenty to say about that, too!), but it’s just as important to remain on the cutting edge of design technology in order to make great learning happen.

So, what tools are creating the most buzz in 2023? Here’s a roundup of the learning design tools that our Interactive Design team loves and why you should give them a try, too.

1. Articulate 360

Of all the course development tools out there, the Articulate 360 suite is our go-to for developing beautiful, responsive courses. Articulate 360 includes both Rise 360 and Storyline 360, plus a slew of other eLearning design software apps. Articulate 360 delivers pretty much everything you need for course development in a single subscription. And it’s not only our preferred authoring tool—it’s also what our clients request most.

Articulate 360 has a modern, user-friendly interface that makes learning accessible and functional. For example, courses in Rise use component-based learning and customizable blocks to deliver quizzes, assessments, and multimedia content that work on all kinds of devices.

We’ve been working in Rise and Storyline long enough to become experts in what’s possible in both tools—whether that’s unique ways to customize components or workarounds to make an accessible Rise course. Another reason we love authoring eLearning with Articulate? The entire suite of tools work seamlessly with one another, ironing out a lot of the usual kinks of course development. We’ve even used Storyline interactions inside of Rise to accomplish an activity that is beyond Rise’s capabilities.

Free response field in Rise—instant download! Check out our instant download to create customizable free response fields in Storyline for Rise and give learners the option to save their work. Download now→

2. Figma

What is Figma? We call it a UI designer’s dream tool—but officially, Figma is a cloud-based, collaborative interface design tool for creating, prototyping, and gathering feedback all in one place. Figma is primarily a UI tool, and it’s top-notch for workflow and learning design.

Even though our team is relatively new to using Figma, it’s quickly become one of our favorite learning design tools. With a little bit of creativity, Figma functions well as an elearning design software—we’ve found that we’re able to use Figma to accomplish most everything we need for creating course assets.

But here’s where Figma really outshines other tools: it’s a cloud-based, teams-friendly tool. That means collaborators can all work in the same Figma file together, checking out designs, making edits, and leaving comments—all in one spot and in real-time. If sending large Photoshop files back and forth tops your list of pet peeves (it’s on ours!), Figma is a great solution.

Pro tip: if most of your eLearning courses are authored in Rise or Storyline, create preset frames sized to the assets you’ll need. Our team created master components in Figma for different Rise components and Storyline slides. That way, we can export directly from Figma and upload them inside of our courses.

3. FigJam

FigJam is an online whiteboard for teams to ideate and brainstorm together. A browser-based tool, you can use FigJam to organize ideas, give feedback on design projects, UX, and anything else that calls for cross-functional innovation. FigJam is especially convenient if you’re also using Figma. FigJam and Figma function seamlessly together so that your work can live all in one place, from concept to design.

We use FigJam for meetings and brainstorms, especially when we’re collaborating virtually or asynchronously. FigJam is a great tool for everything from note-taking and organizing ideas to leveling up engagement through interactive features like voting, activity templates, and live chat.

We also love using FigJam to build moodboards. From ideation to internal review with clients, you can use Figjam to lay out your board, react to ideas using emojis and voting, and gather feedback using sticky notes and other interactive features.

FigJam is quickly becoming our tool of choice for thinking through and dreaming about how to push a brand or project further. With clients, we’ve used FigJam to establish and share a cohesive design preview and even share some of how their course content will look in Rise. This approach allows clients to visualize our direction and rationale—from graphic elements to typography—and understand trends that will resonate with their audience.

4. Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Creative Cloud has over 20 design-related apps. But when it comes to learning design tools, our favorites are Photoshop and Illustrator (more on Illustrator in the next section!).

Photoshop is the ultimate photo manipulation tool. Photoshop is our go-to when we need to remove backgrounds from images, clean up eyesores, or adjust photographs to match branding. ​​

In Photoshop, you can manipulate even a generic stock photo for brand cohesion by applying cropping techniques, colored overlays, transparencies, and other graphic elements.

Similar to how we work in Figma, we use preset artboards in Photoshop sized to the different Rise and Storyline assets we need. That way, we can export images out of Photoshop and upload them directly into our learning projects—no dimension adjustments needed.

5. Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a design industry standard for a reason: it’s a versatile and high-quality tool for creating precise designs, Illustrations, and vector graphics.

We use Illustrator primarily to create custom illustrations and graphics. If you’re looking to make character or icons sets, graphs, or infographics, Illustrator is usually the right choice. Many of our courses incorporate motion graphic videos. Using a series of artboards in Illustrator, we create our characters, settings, and on-screen text as still imagery. Then we hand off our illustrations to our motion designers to import them into After Effects (another Adobe tool!) for animation.

What about Canva for learning design tools?

Illustrator can take some time to learn, plus you’ll need a subscription to use it—so what about Canva? This free graphic design and publishing platform helps make complex design easy. There are tons of templates to customize, or you can create your own design right in the tool. If you’re looking to create artboards for your courses, start by creating your own design and sizing it for your component. Then you can upload or create your image and download it as a PNG to include in your course (be sure to check transparent background if you need it!).

6. Getty Images

Every learning designer needs access to high-quality stock photos. There are several options for selecting great stock photography for your learning, and Getty Images is our top pick. With a Getty subscription, you have a huge variety of photos, vector-based illustrations, and videos at your fingertips. You can search Getty for the type of asset you’re looking for and in our experience, the database always turns up something worth downloading.

Although a Getty subscription can be expensive, other stock photography options are often way pricier—a single image can sometimes run you hundreds of dollars. If you’re working with stock photography often, it’s probably worth considering adding Getty images to your arsenal of learning design tools. In our case, the subscription is well worth it—our design and media teams use Getty assets in all kinds of creative ways across mediums and projects. Our advice? Work with a sales rep from Getty to get the best annual deal.

If a Getty subscription is out of the question, there are other free stock photography websites worth checking out. Our favorite is Unsplash—these photos have an artistic, high-quality, and global feel because photographers submit from around the world. You can also check out other free stock imagery sites like and

7. Flaticon

Many course development tools come with a high price tag. But there are free resources out there that can help enhance and streamline the learning design process.

Free graphic resources are a great way to save time on learning projects without sacrificing that professional polish. Freepik is the parent company for several projects. Our favorite is Flaticon, where designers can download free icons and stickers.

On Flaticon, you can search for designer-made icons, stickers, interface icons, and animated icons in PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD and BASE 64 formats. You can even search by author so that the graphics you download have a consistent, cohesive feel. A cool perk: you can also contribute your own designs to the Flaticon database and earn money.

Learning works best when beautifully designed

No matter the tools you choose to make it happen, great design is at the heart of an effective learning experience. Not just the beautiful visuals you create, but also the thought and care you put into designing a solution that truly serves learners’ needs.

Design is more than just decoration. We know that learning designers invest time and energy into understanding the right solution to build for their projects—and with the right design tools and apps in your toolkit, making great learning can be even more fun, efficient, and collaborative.

Top 10 Adobe Tools to Learn in 2022- Learn Adobe Tools!

Background

Graphic design is becoming popular day by day. Many software companies are hiring skilled graphic designers to lead the industry. Similarly, Adobe has created many apps which provide various tools to its users to bring out their creativity. They are being used widely for advertising and commercial purposes. Hence, we have stocked the list of the worlds’ most used Adobe tools in this blog.

The Ultimate Creative Guide

Top 10 Essential tools in Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is a photo editing software utilized on several business platforms. In addition to photo editing, it is also broadly popular; for graphic designing, editing, and digital art. This design software, which is at the core of every creative and imaginative project, is available and supported by Windows, iPad, and Mac.

Adobe Illustrator, mainly accredited for its use by artists and graphic designers, is a vector graphics-based drawing software. It creates simple illustrations like logos and icons and elaborate graphics as it contains the features of Adobe Sensei AI. It is available for Windows, Mac, and iPad.

InDesign is an Adobe software used for page layouts and designing worldwide. It is used commonly for commercial purposes such as making posters and flyers. Also, it is for creating presentations and eBooks. Many qualified creators and digital designers use it to grasp the attention; of the audience towards advertisements.

Premiere Pro is one of the best video editing programs. Although it is a complicated tool to learn, it is still extensively used by the television and entertainment industries for making films, commercials, and music videos. It is used by YouTubers; for editing their videos. It allows its users to reframe their footage. It is also used for marketing and designing purposes.

It is a multi-purpose UI/UX design tool. Mainly used for creating animations and prototypes, it visualizes and ensures its effective properties for; making 3D transformations, layouts, and design elements. It works on Mac and Windows and is; used for creating apps and websites.

Adobe Dreamweaver; is chiefly used for web designing and is considered the best software for this purpose. It is used by beginners even. It provides operations like templates, live view editing, and monitoring compatibility.

Adobe Premiere Rush was introduced by Adobe; as a much simpler version of Adobe Premiere Pro because it can be used by beginners easily. Along with different sound and color tools, it allows its users to crop, resize, and also; rotate their video edits. It can even be used as a social media video editing software because it offers high-quality graphics, title adjustments, and transition tools.

Adobe Lightroom apprises the creativity and skills of photo enthusiasts and professional photographers. It is easy to use and; can be used for brightening and editing photos. It also provides presets to envisage our pictures with better filters and colors.

Adobe After Effects is used; by designers as an animation software because it creates incredible visual and graphic effects. It consists of creative tools like lighting, compositing, usage adjustment, layers, and keying. It produces short animations using special effects used on websites.

Amateurs, who don’t have a familiarity with Photoshop or Illustrator, use Adobe Spark for editing and designing, as it is popularly used, for creating social media graphics. It makes impressive edits and videos which can make our social media aesthetically pleasing. It even provides information and advice from many renowned experts to help you stand out on your social media platform.

Related Posts

List of Top 5 Adobe Tools

Adobe Apps you need the most

Adobe Creative Cloud’s Applications for the Desktop

Top Graphics Design Tools you need to know

About the Author

This article was written and Optimized by Omar A. Malik. He’s an SEO Content Specialist and a Software Engineer. Visit my LinkedIn profile for more details. Omar A. Malik

The 5 Best Software Tools for Designing Brochures

Whether you're a do-it-yourself-er, a creative hobbyist, or a professional designer, sometimes it's challenging wading through the sea of creative tools available today to pick the right one for your specific project. The default for most of us is to try to make it work with our go-to tools — the ones with which we are most familiar, but sometimes the software in our 'comfort zone' is not the best software for the job. That's why I put together this list of the 5 best software tools for designing brochures, in hopes that something mentioned here might do a better job than the tools you're using today.

Of course, being a professional designer myself, my best advice would be to get professional design services that will give your brand and your brochure the treatment they deserve. If that sounds good to you, any time you're ready. If you're looking for more of a creative how-to and less of a technical one, have a look at our post How to Design a Brochure: 10 Pro Tips and Free Templates. Otherwise, let's move on.

Here my top five favorite tools for designing brochures, why I think they're the best, and what I think their strengths & weaknesses are.

1. Adobe InDesign CC

Designing multi-page documents is what InDesign was built for, and it is very good at it. In addition, InDesign is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud software suite, which is considered the industry standard. InDesign has many strengths, and very few weaknesses.

if you plan on working in this environment.

Strengths

Industry standard design tool

Seamless Integration with Creative Cloud (e.g. Illustrator, PhotoShop, Acrobat, etc)

Configurable paragraph & character styles (setup type styles & re-use easily)

Master pages (page templates)

Configurable workspace

Asset linking

Output packaging

Advanced font management with TypeKit support

Advanced color management with support for PMS, FOCOLTONE, HKS, TOYO & more

Way more than can be listed in a basic bullet list on a blog post of reasonable length

The subscription is only $50/mo. So if you really need to, you could just get the subscription, design your brochure, then cancel the subscription.

Weaknesses

Steep learning curve — if you've never used InDesign, it can be a bit taunting

Price — although the subscription is worth it for a professional designer, shelling out $50/mo annually can be a bit steep for someone who just wants to design a brochure this one time (but remember: you can simply cancel the subscription when you no longer need it)

2. Adobe Illustrator CC

Illustrator has many of the same strengths and weaknesses as InDesign, but with a slightly different workflow. Illustrator is intended for professional designers who want to create high-end vector art, but for a basic design like a brochure, Illustrator can easily be your go-to app if your more comfortable with it.

if you plan on working in this environment.

3. Scribus

Scribus is an open source desktop publishing tool originally designed for Linux, BSD & Debian systems. Although not as powerful or flexible as Adobe's software, Scribus has an impressive feature set that can be leveraged to create your perfect brochure. Much like InDesign, learning Scribus is not exactly a cakewalk, but unlike InDesign, Scribus is FREE. If you're planning on going this route, it might be a good idea to get the (also free) image editing app Gimp, as they have some nice integrations.

You can .

Strengths

Price (Free!)

Powerful layout tools

Supports industry standard measurements & layouts

Integration with Gimp

Configurable paragraph & character styles

Master pages

Asset linking

Output packaging

and more...

Weaknesses

Steep learning curve

Not as powerful or polished as InDesign

4. Inkscape

Inkscape is to Illustrator what Scribus is to InDesign. It is an open-source full-featured vector art editing program that uses the SVG standard as its native file. And just like Scribus, Inkscape is free to download and use. Since Inkscape confirms to the SVG standard, it only supports a single page or canvas, and is therefor lacking all of the cool canvas tools that might make creating a multi-page brochure a little easier. However, when all is said and done, you can just create two files (front and back), and Inkscape will let you have both open simultaneously. So it's not a huge compromise.

Strengths

Price (Free!)

Powerful vector editing tools

Supports industry standard measurements and page sizes

High-quality PDF export

Weaknesses

Not as well-suited for the job as InDesign or Scribus

Not as powerful or polished as InDesign or Illustrator

No cool canvas tools

5. Microsoft Publisher

Although my least favorite suggestion on the "best" list, Microsoft Publisher has made something of a name for itself among do-it-yourself designers. It has lots of built in templates, with more available online, and has an interface that might be familiar to users of Microsoft's other Office software.

Strengths

Familiar interface (for Office users)

Built-in templates

Included with Office 365 (Home)

Weaknesses

Not a professional-grade product, which can make getting press-suitable files difficult

Limited functionality

The 'Meh' List

These are not necessarily recommended, nor do I have a lot of experience with them, but that are well known and have a decent reputation.

Microsoft Word

It's not too uncommon to see the office professionals of the world to attempt a design in Word, and although Word is an extremely powerful word processor, it is just not the right tool for the job for many reasons. You can try it if you have nothing else, but I would recommend Publisher as an alternative if you're limited to 365 products.

PowerPoint & Keynote

If Word is bad, PowerPoint is terrible. Although it's really easy to design in PowerPoint, it is intended for screen use only. Great for presentations, bad for print. That being said, it's still not impossible to get a great-looking print job out of these presentation tools. Have a look at our tutorial: How To Make a Print Ready File In Apple Keynote.

Ones to Avoid

The following is a not-necessarily-complete list of apps I would recommend avoiding when creating your brochure. Although you can get some of these to sort of work sometimes, in the end you'll just end up making a lot more work for yourself and invite expensive fixes from your print provider.

Excel

Please just don't. Excel is a spreadsheet program, not a design tool.

Photoshop

Although much more capable than many other apps on this list, Photoshop is undoubtedly the worst of the 'Big Three' Adobe apps (Illustrator, InDesign, PhotoShop) you could use for this type of project. It is an unrivaled photo manipulation tool, but for layout design use InDesign or Illustrator instead.

Paint

Hopefully nobody's trying to use this to make a brochure. I really like Windows 10's new Paint 3D tool, but please just no.

OK that about wraps it up. Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or would like to mention your favorite design software and what you like about it (or add to the list of software not to use), sound off in the comments below. Don't forget, if you ever need us, .