Online Design Resources For Small Businesses

Whether you’re just starting up, on a tight budget, or you’re flying solo, saving money wherever you can within your business is crucial!

With the power of the internet and some seriously genius hacks, there are so many online services (some which are FREE!) that can help you become a professional in all areas of marketing your business. By cutting costs on design and imagery specifically, you can have money to spend on the skills you really need help with. Like your website!

So what are the things you can do all by yourself at very little cost? Designing your own social media posts, invites, and flyers, is a great place to start.

These are the tools we love to tell our clients about.

Design

Canva

Canva is a DIY design tool that allows even the most amateur designer to create professional-looking pieces. Whether you’re wanting to create a business card, e-invite, Facebook post or email header, this is the fastest and cheapest way to get it done – by doing it yourself! With pre-set fonts, graphics, icons and more, it’s the easiest way to create marketing materials, and with each design costing no more than $2 (for the image) it’s also quite possibly the cheapest!

If you really love it and you’re happy to pay a small monthly fee, Canva for Business will remember your colour palettes and provide you with even more freebies! www.canva.com

99 Designs

This is where you’ll go if you want to leave it to the professionals, yet still want a competitive price. 99 Designs allows you to submit a brief that will be picked up by many of their talented freelance Graphic Designers. You will then receive multiple options to choose from before you pick your favourite. The brief could be anything from logo design, business card, t-shirt, packaging and even car-wrap designs. www.99designs.com.au

Pixe Den

Pixe Den was created to house all of the tools that a designer requires day-to-day. Created by a design and developer duo, the site offers high quality resources for both print and web. You can sign-up for a free account, and if you really love it, you can opt for the Premium Membership which allows you to access some seriously cool items for as little as $10 a month or $72 per year.   www.pixeden.com

Imagery

Unsplash

Every day a new photo is shared on the site. These photos are taken of all sorts of things, mostly nature and landscape – anything from the urban streets of Melbourne to an African sunset complete with token giraffe. The best news? These images are 100% FREE – every day of the week, you guys! Check it out and subscribe to receive 10 free images every 10 days – delivered straight to your inbox: www.unsplash.com

Death to the Stock Photo

The name pretty much speaks for itself. In a world where stock imagery is not only pricey, but super repetitive and a bit “blah”, these guys are offering creatives free imagery every month when you sign-up. There’s a section of goodies for writers as well as photographers. Check it out! www.deathtothestockphoto.com
Graphic River

Fonts, icons, info-graphics, illustrations, PowerPoint presentations and more. Graphic River offers a huge range of services and goodies at a fairly cheapish price point. Similar to Fiverr, the services offered here all focus on graphics and printable goods for marketing your business. There’s a heap to see here, so it’s worth having a look-see just for inspiration alone! www.graphicriver.net 

Odds & Ends

Fiverr

If you haven’t stumbled across this gem as a sole trader or small business, you my friend have just found the honeypot! In a nutshell, Fiverr is a website where professionals offer their services for a super competitive price. This could be anything from recording voiceovers for you, editing your files, converting your files, creating animations, and there are even people on their willing to trial and then promote your goods to their social media audiences. It’s all there, from the very helpful to the slightly random. It’s definitely worth a look. www.fiverr.com 

Air Taskr

Need something done? Air Taskr is a community of over 500 000 people who want your business. Whether you need something couriered ASAP, a wall in your office painted, or any sort of practical task basically, Air Taskr is where you can look. It’s competitive, it’s professional, and it’s super handy. www.airtasker.com

Until next time, enjoy!