Canva has been a crowd favorite in the design space for years. While it's a powerful tool, it received a major price hike, making Canva unviable for small teams and freelancers working on a tight budget. What if I told you there is a powerful, AI-driven alternative that delivers stunning visuals without breaking the bank? Enter Microsoft Designer.
It's not just another graphics design tool for slapping text on images. Designer is a full-fledged creative powerhouse with neat AI tricks. I have been exploring Designer on my Android phone, and I am here to tell you why it's a must-have solution for anyone who wants to create compelling visuals without sacrificing budget.
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Posts Why did I ditch Canva?
Canva started as a graphic design tool, but I feel the Australian startup is getting distracted. Instead of focusing on and improving fundamentals, Canvas has added Docs, Whiteboards, Presentations, and the ability to create websites. As a result, it received a steep price hike (around 300%). This is where I decided to ditch Canva and explore alternatives on Android and desktop.
Microsoft Designer was off to a rocky start. The templates library was slim, the results based on text prompts were average, and it lacked some essential editing tools. However, Microsoft has done a solid job by adding new features and simplifying the user interface.
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Posts A respectable template library
While Microsoft Designer's template library might not boast the volume of options found in Canva, it's good enough for most. It offers a curated collection of professionally designed templates that cover a range of common graphic design needs. Think social media posts, presentations, invitations, flyers, and more.
It should be sufficient for most everyday design tasks, such as creating engaging social media content, crafting eye-catching marketing materials, or putting together simple presentations. The best part is how Microsoft offers text prompts for each template. You can hover the cursor over any image and check out its text prompt. It gives you an idea of how to use different text prompts to generate images with a single click.
Create your designs with an AI
Here is where Microsoft Designer hits it out of the park. Let's say you need a banner for a summer sale. Instead of hunting for stock images and fiddling with design elements, type: A bright, playful banner with a beach scene, featuring the text "Summer Blowout Sale - 50% Off! in bold, wavy letters. Designer's AI generates multiple banner options, each with different layouts, color palettes, and font choices.
Similarly, you can create unique backgrounds for social media posts by prompting a minimalist background with abstract geometric shapes in pastel colors or generate fun stickers by describing a cute cartoon avocado wearing sunglasses. The results depend on your text prompts. So, be as elaborative as possible with your text prompts.
Free Microsoft accounts receive 15 AI credits monthly, Microsoft 365 subscribers get 60, and Copilot subscribers have an extensive number of credits.
Handy AI editing tools
Microsoft Designer isn't only about generating new designs. It packs a punch when it comes to refining existing images. You can erase photobombers without leaving a trace, move objects, tweak focus on an image, color pop a specific part, and more.
The Background Blur tool lets you achieve that stylish effect in seconds. Select the image, click the tool, and the Designer's AI intelligently separates the subject and applies a smooth, natural-looking blur to the background. Other editing goodies include selective editing, auto enhancement, and markup tools.
Designer saves your generated designs to your OneDrive account and makes them accessible on all your devices. You shouldn't have a hard time editing your images and getting attention-worthy results.
Frame your photos
This is my favorite addition to Microsoft Designer. I can upload an image, add objects or themes to my frame, pick a style, and generate a cool-looking frame with minimal effort. I upload my image, add elements like party, balloons, neon theme, cake, and see results. I can pick any framed image and refine it with the built-in editor. I use it all the time to create personalized birthday greetings and unique travel memories.
My design workflow just changed
Is Microsoft Designer perfect? Absolutely not. I would love to see more templates and a better stock media library with illustrations, icons, and more. The brand kit, which was available earlier, is missing. There is a learning curve with Designer. However, after you get comfortable with text prompts, the results are truly mesmerizing. It's clear Microsoft put serious thought into making design accessible to everyone.
Aside from Designer, Loop is another Microsoft tool worth exploring. I gave it a shot, and here is why I'm not going back to other productivity tools anytime soon.
