Today’s post is the second of a 4-part series that started with DesignCap’s review. The series explores three sites that can help you create stunning visuals and offer a free version.

As a bonus, some of them will give away free subscriptions to the first five of my readers to click on the links at the end!

How EDIT can help you

EDIT is an online graphics editor service. It promises to simplify your design experience by offering you a bunch of templates to choose from.

EDIT helps you create design material for your social media and web pages, but also lots of printable material, like flyers, business cards, or posters.

EDIT seems to be targeting people who have already some knowledge on creating design material, as it includes quite a few tools for you to work with.  There are of course templates that you can follow. However, the main advantage of EDIT is that it allows you great flexibility and creativity with the template – and that requires a higher level of expertise.

Ready-Made Templates

EDIT provides you with a large selection of ready-made templates that you can use as your base to create your own design. They cover from trendy to more classic designs. Designs with fonts as their main element, in particular, are especially elaborate and interesting.

EDIT review | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's books

Example of an elegant template focusing on text. 

Templates can be filtered in two ways:

  • By Categories or themes, with an emphasis on seasonal themes like Black Friday, Christmas etc.
  • By Format, such as various templates for social media. These are a great timesaver as they incorporate the correct dimensions for all social media. You don’t have to search for the exact dimensions for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Formats also include printable materials (flyers, business cards, posters etc). Unfortunately, they don’t include Bookbub and they don’t have book-related templates.

Moving from one format to the other

Probably the biggest advantage of EDIT, and what sets it apart from its competition, is that you can switch your design from one format to the other easily. If you spend one hour to create a Facebook post, then want to use it for Twitter, well, YOU CAN!

Just “Change Size” to a pre-sized format or to your own dimensions. Your work will be transferred to the new dimensions, and you can easily adjust pictures, font sizes etc. Simply drag and drop to fit the new dimensions.

Many other online apps do not allow you such flexibility, and you need to start over with your design in new dimensions. EDIT has nailed it with this one – because as a self-promoting author you want to re-use your Christmas template to Facebook, Twitter, Bookbub, your newsletter banner and so on.

Libraries of photos, clipart, backgrounds

EDIT has an extensive library of royalty-free photos to use in your designs. Unfortunately, they are not sorted into categories. You can use the search tool to find those that might do, but it would be helpful if they came organized in categories as well.

Romance, sci-fi, fantasy, and thrillers are well represented with photos you can use as background. However, if you don’t find what you are looking for, you can always upload your own photos in the application.

Strangely enough, shapes, clipart, and backgrounds are organized in categories. Somehow, they seemed somewhat old-school compared to the photos.

Fonts: beautifully styled for you

One of the best things about EDIT is the Fonts library. This is extensive, with beautiful fonts for every occasion and genre. All usual formats (bold, italics, underlined, sizes, color, and alignment) are available and easy to change.

Most of all, EDIT has a great library of font combinations to insert in your designs. So, if you need to add text to a template, instead of creating it from scratch you can choose from ready-made styles and font combinations. Fonts are also categorized into families to help you choose.

You can also modify each text by opening an editor window, which makes editing and formatting much easier. This is very appreciated, especially if you have busy designs with overlapping text, vertical text, small fonts, etc.

How it works

Take some time to browse before you start your design

Using EDIT to a satisfactory design quality will require you to familiarize with the application. The first time you use it, put aside at least half to one hour, as the application provides you with tons of menus, tools, and libraries.

So, don’t jump right away with an urgent design. Get to know your tool, try different templates and formats, browse the photo library, and so on.

Unfortunately, EDIT doesn’t specialize in books and has no book category in its templates. You could find your perfect template in Bakery & Pastry Shops, in Religion, or in Fitness Clubs. This is another reason why taking some time to browse before you start can save you time later.

Create your image

Unlike other tools, you are not guided through a wizard (e.g. choose template, edit text, etc.). Instead, EDIT works like an application where you see everything on a single screen.

First, select your template, either by category or by format.

If you choose a format that you like but is not on the proper dimensions, start by changing size and adjusting the design elements to the new size. You can always change your dimensions at any stage of your work, without losing your work in progress, which is one of the biggest advantages of EDIT.

Work on your template by changing photos, backgrounds, texts, fonts, etc. You can upload photos if needed, and edit them using various format tools.

EDIT has only a few ready-made recoloring functions for your images, but it gives you the tools to modify them on your own. Making your picture transparent, removing the background of an image, cropping, embossing or pixeling are a few of these tools that require some mastering on your part but can give you outstanding results.

Once you are happy with the result, you can save your creation (which allows you to edit it in the future), and / or download it in various formats (including jpg, a transparent png, or a pdf) and sizes. You can also print it.

EDIT review | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's books

From template…

 

EDIT review | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's books

To my own Facebook Post…

 

EDIT review | From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's books

…and to landscape dimensions!

The minus

If you are new to creating marketing material, then EDIT might not be the ideal tool to start with. EDIT is an application that can seem daunting at first, due to the number of tools it provides.  Creative chaos, anyone? That’s how you might feel at the beginning.

Also, I found layering very difficult in EDIT. I really did not get how this menu works and wonder if it’s simply buggy.

Another bug hit while I was uploading photos: the upload simply stopped working. I had to log out and in again to get it to work.

One last aspect with room for improvement is the menus. There are menus on top and on the right of the screen, which is a bit confusing as many seem redundant at first sight. Menus could also be more self explanatory or intuitive. Some of them may leave you puzzled (like the layers menu).

How much does it cost?

As with many design applications, EDIT has a basic level of service provided for free. Then you get the whole package for $12.90 a month, with the first month being a free trial.

However, the first five readers to use the links below will win a one-year Premium account, valued at $120:

  1. Yes, I want an EDIT Premium Account!
  2. Yes, I want an EDIT Premium Account!
  3. Yes, I want an EDIT Premium Account!
  4. Yes, I want an EDIT Premium Account!
  5. Yes, I want an EDIT Premium Account!

(To clarify, I’m NOT in any way affiliated with EDIT or any of these online tools. The codes above are a kind offer by EDIT to the readers of my blog).