Piktochart is a web-based application which can be used to create infographics, presentations and flyers. You can create great looking visuals in just a few steps, without the need for specialist graphic design skills or software! I was able to sign-up and create a poster all within my lunch break.
Background and purpose
I am not going to lie here – I am not the most graphically talented of individuals. Don’t get me wrong, I am creative and I LOVE designing things, however it’s not my strong suite. I find colour choices difficult so often look at using premade colour palettes for inspiration. Learning about design and Gestalt principles at University has really helped me to improve and I have learnt some great basic photoshop skills which help me to get by, but I am no expert!
ou can create infographics, presentations and printables with Piktochart and they have various free templates available to use. If you use the free version, your designs will be watermarked, so that is a consideration to keep in mind if you are using Piktochart for commercial purposes. Piktochart has several subscription plans available, including special education prices for those at College or University. The pro subscription is fairly pricey, at around £30 per month.
Key features
Features of the free subscription are listed below:
- Create as many visuals as you want
- Limited templates for making visuals
- Piktochart watermark is added at the bottom of all visuals
- Store your uploaded images up to 40MB
- Download visuals in web resolution JPG or PNG
- Limited Privacy options when publishing visuals. Only available for public viewing
These features are more than enough for the occasional user.
Review and Experience
As mentioned in the summary of this post, I was able to sign up and create a infographic within half an hour. The website is very intuitive and easy to use, I found myself starting with a template and altering it to suite my needs.
piktochart.com
You begin by selecting what you would like to create, from there you can select a blank project or a template. I personally like the “About Me” template, as it could be used to create a nice C.V or the “Minimalist 2” template, which is what I used to create my initial project.
https://create.piktochart.com/infographic/ About Me infographic template
The tools used to create your project are displayed on the left and from here you can add shapes and text or change the colour scheme and background. Most of the features are drag and drop, so you just pick what you want and drag it onto your project.
Pros and cons
Piktochart provides you with a platform to create sleek visuals with limited skill, for free! However, if you are not a graphic designer, you could find yourself using the templates a lot which could make your visuals very similar. The paid version is also very expensive, if you already have access to Photoshop, then buy yourself a course (on Udemy or similar) and learn how to create visuals the hard way, it’ll pay off in the long run. If you don’t have access to Photoshop, but have access to Microsoft PowerPoint, I feel that you could technically create very similar visuals using this instead, however with Piktochart pro you do get access to export visuals as an SVG so this might appeal to some users (depending on what your visuals are going to be used for).
Summary
If you need to create a sleek JPG/PNG quickly and don’t mind the image being watermarked, then Piktochart is for you. The templates are great and the application is easy to use. However if you need something more professional, you will need to either purchase a paid subscription, or look for another tool to suite your needs.
You can view the poster I made using Piktochart here.