Crank Up Your Design Productivity: The Free Online Tool for Logos, Colors, and Gradients

Not many students know these online design tools, but those who do swear by them! Duotone is my favorite one. I’ll demonstrate what they are, why they rock, and how to get them in this post.

Check them out and use them, and I guarantee that you'll see a huge increase in your productivity in doing projects – not to mention the amount of cool new things you’ll be able to pull off! Enjoy!

Duotone by ShapeFactory

Website: https://duotone.shapefactory.co/

Duotones are images that only use two colors. It's a technique that's been around since the advent of photography and it can often be seen on magazines. As the name suggests, this free online tool allows you convert any photos to a duotone within seconds! No need to open Photoshop!

Why it will increase your slide making productivity

The interface of the tool is user friendly and visually appealing. The default images shown on the right side are all from Unsplash, a website dedicated to sharing stock photography for free, so that you can use them for any projects without worrying about copyrights.

In addition to the default pictures, you can also upload your own. Drag the image directly into the tool:

If you are not satisfied with the current tones, customize the colors right away:

Spotify Duotone Photo Effect Tutorial:

If the Duotone feature alone can't impress you, there are still much more for you to explore. The ShapeFactory offers four different design tools that make it easy for you to build logos, as well create color compositions and gradients. ShapeFactory itself is an amazing tool, especially as a source of inspiration for your own designs, or to simply pass some time.

The logo tool lets you create a logo in one minute, by entering the wordmark, and choosing a font. There are tons of different fonts available to choose from. This includes simple sans-serif and serif fonts, but also fancy and modern fonts, which are very striking, making them a great choice for logos.

Professional graphics designers probably won’t get much use out of the ShapeFacory. After all, Illustrator and Photoshop are way more powerful.

However, ShapeFactory has a very appealing and sophisticated design, and playing around with the individual tools is fun. As a graduate student, I always need to do group projects and make presentation slides in a timely manner. Sometimes it's just unrealistic to waste too much time and energy on the visuals alone.

ShapeFactory’s advantage is that the results are shown on the fly, with various versions on the screen at once. It’s definitely worth checking out, even if you may never use the tools in practice. It can still be a source of inspiration now and then.

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Weekly Challenge

1. Use Duotone website to create a logo for Quigley Brewery

2. Share your masterpiece with us in the comment below