TOP PICKS | 22 TOOLS
Apps and Websites for Making Posters and Collages
Top Picks
RELATED
Print list
Faces iMake - Right Brain Creativity
Open-ended collage maker teaches symbolism and revs up creativity
Bottom line: Faces iMake - Right Brain Creativity is a don't-miss art app that encourages creativity at the same time as modeling it.
Grades: Pre-K–6
Price: Paid $2.99
MoMA Art Lab
Interactive projects, cool prompts, and famous works inspire creation
Bottom line: The overall experience is very open-ended, making it easy to bounce between creating and exploring art.
Grades: 1–8
Price: Free
Popplet
A compact, simple organizational tool for minimalist presentation
Bottom line: Great web-based presentation tool for beginners.
Grades: 1–12
Price: Free, Paid Subscription pricing ranges from $0.50 per student per year (over 1000 students) to $2.00 per student per year (up to 50 students).
Adobe Capture CC
Magical design tool extracts colors, patterns, and more from images
Bottom line: The rare combo of "wow" factor and utility, this tool help students recognize and use the designed world around them.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free A free Adobe Creative Cloud account is required to access all features.
Adobe Photoshop Mix - Cut out, combine, create
Impressive photo-editing app focuses on compositing, blending imagery
Bottom line: While it's tackling a slightly niche design need (blending, layering, compositing photos), Photoshop Mix is an incredible tool that makes these processes shockingly simple on mobile devices.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free
Canva - Photo Editor & Design
Create snazzy designs in seconds with flexible, cloud-based tool
Bottom line: A flexible, accessible way to get kids -- especially design novices -- creating digitally in your classroom if you have stable internet and time to get students set up to be successful.
Grades: 4–12
Price: Free
The Noun Project
Think in pictures with vibrant visual language everyone can understand
Bottom line: It's a neat, well-executed concept with lots of possibilities for learning, imagining, and creating.
Grades: 4–12
Price: Free To download icons without attribution, monthly rates range from $10 (personal) to $500 (agency).
Flickr
Popular sharing site potentially useful as a classroom photo resource
Bottom line: Make use of some incredible photographs in your classroom, but don't let students wander astray on the site.
Grades: 5–12
Price: Free
Smore
Create online flyers, learn a little about marketing with design tool
Bottom line: A fast way to fashion attractive flyers, but students will need outside help to learn about PR and marketing and effective, concise writing.
Grades: 5–12
Price: Free, Paid Basic, very limited version, is free. Personal, business, and corporate plans available for monthly fees. Educator plan is $79/year.
Adobe Photoshop Express
Top-notch photo editor helps perfect pics for creative projects
Bottom line: This is a powerful, free creation tool from the industry leader in photo editing.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free
Microsoft Sway
Cool scroll effects, flexible features boost visual storytelling tool
Bottom line: A great tool for design and presentation, if great visuals and easy sharing trump having the active viewing features present in other tools.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free
Procreate
Outstanding art tool supports the workflow of seasoned digital painters
Bottom line: For iPads, this is a best-in-class tool with enough pro-level features and technology, and some nice support resources.
Grades: 6–12
Price: $5.99 Additional tools can be purchased in-app.
Easelly
Think critically, share creatively with infographic-creation tool
Bottom line: Even though the basic themes and images are limited, when prepared well, this tool can help students connect with content in a meaningful way.
Grades: 7–12
Price: Free
Infogr.am
Snazzy, easy infographic maker visually pleasing but lacks design help
Bottom line: The site is a great asset for classroom presentations and analyzing data, but educators need to provide guidance to ensure students learn while using it.
Grades: 7–12
Price: Free, Paid Free version supports 10 projects and public sharing only. Pro version, available for $25/month or $228/year, supports up to 100 projects and allows for private projects, as well as premium theming and a large library of images.
Lucidpress
Collaborative publishing and design tool has lots of options, templates
Bottom line: An easy-to-use mash-up of InDesign and Google Drive, Lucidpress fills a niche for publication creation and collaboration.
Grades: 7–12
Price: Free to Try, Paid
Piktochart
Add oomph to info with sleek infographic tool
Bottom line: Tech-savvy kids will immediately take to this well-designed, reasonably easy-to-use tool.
Grades: 7–12
Price: Free, Paid There's a free version. The paid version for educators is $39.99 per year and allows access to all templates. It also adds 400MB of storage for custom photos, a variety of options to download projects, private projects, and removes the Piktochart watermark. There's also a classroom account that supports up to 30 accounts for $120 for four months.
Autodesk Sketchbook
Impressive creation tool for teens serious about art
Bottom line: Gives students easy access to professional tools for creating digital art.
Grades: 7–12
Price: Free to Try While the app is free to try, the full Pro version is $4.99. This version adds a host of creative options from brush types to colors to more layers. There's also a $29.99 per year Sketchbook subscription that unlocks the Pro version across all platforms.
Venngage
Create impressive infographics with ease
Bottom line: Surprisingly simple way for students to think critically and communicate ideas in an appealing, visual format, but could be a bit more edu-friendly with extra educator/student supports.
Grades: 7–12
Price: Free to Try, Paid $29/month gives educators 35 accounts for students and teachers, class sharing, and premium features for all users.
The yearly subscription costs $99 and gives educators 35 accounts for students and teachers, class sharing, and premium features for all users.
Adobe Spark
Super-flexible design tool for crafting fab images, videos, and sites
Bottom line: This free, one-stop shop for creating sleek graphics, web stories, and animated videos is incredibly easy to use and challenges students to think critically about visual presentation.
Grades: 6–12
Price: Free
PicCollage - Photo Collage Maker & Picture Editor
Versatile, intuitive, engaging collage maker yields impressive designs
Bottom line: With some privacy setup, and possibly upgrading to the paid version, this can be an excellent design tool for creating custom collages, teaching graphic design, layout, and photo editing.
Grades: 8–12
Price: Free, Paid In-app purchases available from $0.99 to $2.99, including sticker packs and the ability to remove watermarks and ads.
PicMonkey Photo Editor
Reliable photo editor built for design and social sharing
Bottom line: A great, social media-friendly option for teaching teens design, layout, and photo editing, but the paid version is more competitive with other tools.
Grades: 8–12
Price: Free, Paid There's a free version that has basic functionality and ads. The ad-free and more functional Premium and Supremium versions are $3.99 and $8.33 per month, billed annually. Premium has storage for 50 images while Supremium has unlimited storage and more organizational options.
Grafio 3 - Diagrams & ideas
Flexible app transforms sketches into pro-level designs and diagrams
Bottom line: A terrific choice for creating simple diagrams or presentations on iOS.
Grades: 9–12
Price: $7.99
