Leveling Up Your Visuals: How to Choose the Right Basic Design Tool

2025.10.13

Last month, I wrote about what it means to be a professional designer in response to the ongoing debate between graphic designers and Canva users. This month, let’s take a closer look at Canva and some other popular basic design tools: Adobe Express and Kittl.

Whether you’re a volunteer, a small business owner, or part of a professional design team, there’s no shortage of platforms claiming they can make design easier. But which one is actually worth your time?

Canva

Let's start the conversation with Canva, the most well-known basic design tool. Canva, founded in Australia, has a simple mission: to empower the world to design. It has become popular amongst marketing teams, non-profits, and small businesses, and for good reason. With a huge library of templates and drag-and-drop editing, Canva has become a household name.

Pros:

• It’s beginner-friendly. Even non-designers can create usable visuals quickly.
• Volunteers, teachers, and small business owners are likely already familiar with it due to widespread adoption.
• Canva Pro unlocks brand kits, premium templates, and collaboration features at no cost to eligible nonprofits and schools for free.
• Beyond social graphics, Canva now offers presentations, simple videos, and even layouts for printed flyers.

Cons:

• Overused templates can make designs feel repetitive and unoriginal.
• Creatively limited when you need highly customized, brand-specific, or polished work.

Best For:

• Casual users (volunteers, teachers, small businesses) who need quick, good-enough graphics.
• Nonprofits/churches that rely on volunteers or part-time staff.
• Not ideal for professional designers who need deeper control and originality.

Adobe Express

Next, let's talk about Adobe Express. Adobe Express began as Adobe Spark and has received massive improvements in the last few years. It’s designed for non-designers but lives within the Adobe ecosystem, making it especially useful for teams that already use Creative Cloud.

Pros:

• Has polished templates that are generally more professional-looking than Canva’s offerings.
• It seamlessly integrates with Adobe’s professional design tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for hand-offs between designers and non-designers.
• Brand kits that help keep logos, fonts, and colors consistent across a whole team.
• Express adopted a Canva-like layout, making it less intimidating for beginners.

Cons:

• Volunteers and casual users are less likely to know it because it is mostly used in professional design settings.

Best For:

• Professional design teams (in-house or agency) that need non-design staff to make quick edits or create graphics without breaking brand guidelines.
• Nonprofits/churches with at least one designer on staff who already uses Adobe software.
• Small businesses that want polished, brand-consistent visuals without investing in full Adobe licenses for every team member.

Kittl

Finally, there’s Kittl, a newer design platform based in Germany. While Canva and Express are aimed at casual users, Kittl sits in an interesting space: aimed more at designers. Unlike Canva and Express, Kittl is a web-based tool but leans into advanced design features like text effects, vector editing, and illustration tools.

Pros:

• Advanced text and vector tools, which is great for custom work.
• Because of its unique templates, it feels less generic than Canva, leaning toward designer aesthetics.

Cons:

• It is not volunteer-friendly, few casual users will know it, and it has more of a learning curve.
• It’s still new with a smaller ecosystem, fewer integrations, and no nonprofit pricing yet.

Best For:

• Professional designers who want more creative freedom without diving into Photoshop or Illustrator.
• Freelancers or creative hobbyists who need more than templates but less than full Adobe software.
• Not recommended for volunteer-led teams or casual users.

So, Which One Should You Choose?

It depends on your role and your team:

• If you’re a volunteer, small business owner, or nonprofit relying on part-timers: Canva is your best bet. Easy to use, free for nonprofits, and widely adopted.
• If you’re part of a professional design team or collaborate with designers: Adobe Express is ideal. It bridges professional workflows with non-designer accessibility.
• If you’re a designer yourself and want more control without the Adobe price tag: Kittl gives you advanced creative tools with less overhead.

At the end of the day, the best design tool is the one that fits your workflow. A tool should save you time, make collaboration smoother, and support your mission, whether that’s running a business, serving a church, or delivering client work.