macOS is one of the most popular operating systems in the world. If you just bought a Mac, you may need some apps that are very easy to use to help you edit some photos or even create some great icons or logos on your Mac.

Graphic Design Software for Mac 12. Sketch is a graphic design tool exclusively for Mac users. It’s considered one of the best graphic design software tools on the market, particularly preferred by UX and UI experts. Sketch creates wireframes and clickable product prototypes.

Infogram is an easy to use infographic and chart maker. Create and share beautiful infographics, online reports, and interactive maps. Make your own here. Canva Infographic Maker. Canva infographic maker is a powerful and easy-to-use online tool that’s perfect for all kinds of design tasks from brochures to presentations. Hundreds of free design elements let you enjoy creating visualizations no matter what system (Windows, Linux, Mac) or browser you are using. Download Infographics Prime - Templates for macOS 10.12 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. ‎Behold Infographics Prime – a brand new infographics powerhouse from Graphic Node! Over 3000 unique infographic and data visualization designs to make your data pop and your work stand out!

So, here are the best 15 graphic design apps for Mac:

1. Icon Plus

If you are looking for an app that can help you create or modify an icon or logo then we recommend you try out Icon Plus. This app comes with some amazing features like combining images and text for creating fabulous logo designs. You can also edit existing graphics for obtaining great user interfaces. You can download it from the Mac App Store for just $4.99.

2. Gravit Designer

Gravit Designer is one of the most complete apps in this business. This app can be used for all sorts of design jobs (app icons for example) and even animations and presentations. You have to pay if you want to use the PRO version of this app, but the free one is really excellent too.

3. Inkscape

Inkscape is a very useful design tool which you will find on the Mac App Store. It focuses on the SVG format and it offers some special features that are not available with other apps such as alpha bending, markers and cloned objects, all for free.

4. Krita

This one is pretty cool. Being in development since 1999, Krita is a great painting tool that comes with different types of brushes and with advanced filters that will make your work easier. You can download this app for free.

5. GIMP

If you are searching for a free app that is very similar to Photoshop you should download GIMP. Even if it’s free you can use the full suite of tools like painting tools, clonning, correction or selection.

6. Image Tricks

If you are the type of person that likes to play with images and edit them, this app is perfectly suited for you. As the name suggests, Image Tricks gives you the possibility to apply a multitude of different photo effects on your pictures, all for free.

7. Comipro Plus

Comipro Plus is the creation of a Japanese company but it can be used by english speakers too. This app was made for the cartoon enthusiasts and enables them to create various modern comics. You can get this app for free from the Mac App Store.

8. Scratch

If you have a passion for animations you have to download Scratch. This app is very easy to use and you can create animated stories or small games just for fun. This application is completely free.

9. DAZ Studio

If you want to create 3D programs where you can use 3D objects, people and animals this app is perfect for you and you need to download it immediately. You can download DAZ Studio from the Mac App Store for free.

10. ArchiCad

If Google SketchUp isn’t enough for you and you need a 3D design app with more features, then ArchiCAD is the app for you. This tool allows you to bring your ideas to life in 3D, all for free.

11. Adobe Ilustrator CC

This app is one of the best in the business, it helps you create some great graphic designs for websites, video games or apps. It also comes with a state-of-the-art digital illustration tool. Even if it’s not cheap, this app is a must-have.

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12. CanvaFile viewer app mac.

Canva is a great app that can be used by both begginers and professionals, by both individuals and teams. Canva is an app that lets you create professional graphic designs very easily. It offers you access to over a million graphics or images.

13. Corel PaintShop Pro

This image editing software is an easy to use tool for anyone. It comes with a lot of features that help you create graphic designs or improve your photos and it is very similar to Photoshop. It might not be free, but is a very useful app.

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14. Piktochart

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If you are looking for a very easy to use infographic maker, Piktochart is exactly what you need. It comes with a large library of themes and templates that help you customize your multimedia projects, all for $12.50/month.

15. Venggage

This app is pure gold. It helps you tell your stories and present your data. It is especially created for marketers and it helps you create whatever materials you want.

Animated Videos have become one of the signature tools of marketers worldwide for telling a story and creating effective marketing campaigns for the future.

Depending on your purpose and skills, you can choose from different types of software available both offline and online, for professionals and amateur users, 2D, 3D, whiteboard or stop motion animation tool, etc.

Below are our picks for the best animation software for mac of 2019. For more background information, see a more detailed buying advice below the picks.

Part1. Whiteboard Animation Tools
Part2. 2D Animation Tools
Part3. 3D Animation Tools
Part4. Stop Motion Animation Tools
Part5. Motion Graphics Software
How to Choose the Right Animation Software for Mac

Part1. Whiteboard Animation Tools

#1. Best Whiteboard Animation Software for Mac: VideoScribe by Sparkol

This program is produced by Sparkol and it remains one of the best whiteboard animation software programs for both Mac and PC. You can also use it on a number of mobile devices including devices that run android. There are elements of the program that works through the cloud making it very simple to upload and edit video wherever you might be.

Videoscribe works quite intuitively for building business presentations, TED talk style videos, tutorials, creative marketing solutions and more. What is produced out of this program looks hand-drawn and extremely professional for any type of marketing campaign. The best part is that you can use many of these tools to create these effects with very little animation knowledge.

Even children enjoy using this program because of its ease of use. There is a full library of stock images, animation and more as well as an extensive voiceover soundtrack that can be used with the solutions here.

The yearly and monthly subscription also ensures that there is a flexible use for the program. It also comes with a seven-day free trial with features to try before you buy.

#2. Best Free Animation Software for Mac: PowToon

This is a fantastic online presentation maker for academic use, presentations and infographics.

The program is completely free to use and has a number of animation effects on board that can make anything exported out of the program seem extremely professional.

The free templates available in the program as well as the quality of the animations that are presented within the platform make it a true favorite amongst many brands.

A number of major companies now almost exclusively trust their creative tools to Powtoon and it can be used almost anywhere where there is an Internet connection with mass compatibility.

As a fully cloud-based system there’s no use for installation or downloads to take full advantage of it. Its available for free use on any Macintosh computer as long as you are willing to use the watermark.

Part2. 2D Animation Tools

#3. Best 2D Animation Software for Mac: Toon Boom Harmony

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This is a program that actually deserves some surprising recognition. The company has partnered with major film companies like Warner brothers, Disney, and Nickelodeon and it’s currently one of the best and most powerful 2-D animation suites for commercial use.

With the use of this program you can build anything from traditional animation all the way to amazing drawing tools that can produce the future of 3-D animation. The 3-D cameras and integration available in this platform can provide fundamental solutions for drawing, rendering and building beautiful projects.

There are tools and tasks available here that can suit small hobby animators all the way up to professional uses. The premium version delivers the top tool professional solutions that you might expect at of any major animation suite. The essentials level of the harmony program is designed more for hobbyists and it delivers a scaled down version of some of their more high and customization techniques.

Toon Boom not only remains one of the best 2-D animation programs for mac but it is a regular fixture in the animation world today.

#4. Runner-up, Best 2D Animation Software for Mac: Adobe Animate

Adobe is one of the successors to perhaps one of the most popular 2-D animation software is available. At the core of Animate are the flash tools that have been working to create high-quality animations since the early days of the Internet. Today the program uses vector-based publishing to produce intuitive and inexpensive animation results.

Although it may not have all of the professional animation tools that you would find in some major production suites, it’s possible to get very professional looking results.

#5. Best Free 2D Animation Software for Mac: Pencil

This is a simple and open source vector-based program that’s designed for the Mac OS X platform. It’s also available on Linux and Windows and it was originally created for producing digital comics. The platform allows animators to use the basic hand-drawn techniques that were experimented with long in the past. Pencil is an ideal program for beginners that don’t want to invest in expensive license for a program. It can teach the basic principles of animation and with a timeline feature it’s possible to add new layers to arrange fun effects.

This is one of the best programs for beginners and sketching characters as well as setting keyframes can all be done using the pen tool, fill tool and the vector layers tool. The interface on this is actually based off of some of the original Adobe flash platform’s and it produces some good quality graphics even on a tablet device. Perhaps one of the best parts of using this program is that it automatically exports everything in.FLV which gives it mass compatibility with a number of online sources. The videos that you export here will be easy to embed or upload in video sharing sources and more.

Part3. 3D Animation Tools

#6. Best 3D Animation Software for Mac: Maya

Autodesk Maya remains one of the best 3-D modeling software programs that’s designed for Mac, Windows and Linux. The program itself has migrated many of the tools away from Autodesk Mud and now has features that you would normally find in several different pieces of software for creating highly detailed 3-D models. Autodesk Maya is a 3-D modeling software that is designed mostly for professional artists but with the templates that are available for download and the massive amount of tutorials online, it is possible to see quite a difference with this software when you are working with it over time.

#7. Runner-up, Best Free 3D Animation Software for Mac: Blender

Blender is a program that is designed with open source technology for 3-D modeling and it’s made mostly for beginners that want the option to learn how to play and get comfortable with reading modeling on their Mac computer. This open-source program does feature many of the basic features that you can expect to find including rigging, animation, architectural support and even the option to create full games. The philosophy that’s behind it allows for the inclusion of many different templates and it is very well suited to use by a number of creators. Blender remains some of the best 3-D modeling software for creative artists with its completely free use.

Part4. Stop Motion Animation Tools

#8. Best for Making Stop Motion Videos: Dragonframe

Dragonframe remains one of the best stop motion software solutions for mac today. It’s one of the top choices for many of the world’s largest studios like Laika and Aardman. It can produce high-quality masterpieces in stop motion animation and it is a perfectly suited set of professional tools. The program allows for easy capture of a number of precise movements and you can also compose in light various angles using the camera controls on board. Editing images as well as performing advanced image review techniques can all be done through the program as well.

The process of inserting and editing audio can be done according to a characters needs and based off of the animation that you want to create. The advantage to using some of the precise movements and controls in this program is that you can have a wide array of improvements at your fingertips for professional products.

#9. Runner-up: Stop Motion in Movavi Video Editor

We selected this is our runner up because with this program there’s no need to pay for a dedicated piece of stop motion software. This is an open source piece of technology that delivers a full-featured video editor that suitable for many beginners.

The program itself is perfect for getting all of the features that are often teased in many full license software programs. Because it’s open source there are also a number of templates that can make it easy to use. The full-featured video editor is excellent for its features and for the newest features that are being added by the community regularly to keep up with the stop motion technology of today.

Part5. Motion Graphics Software

#10. Best Motion Graphic Animation Software for Mac: After Effects

With a number of motion graphic animation software programs available for Mac, after effects sets itself apart.

Adobe After Effects is truly one of the most masterful programs for any motion graphic artist. Of course many of the features of aftereffects can be found in other Adobe programs, but there is no other piece of software that can be so versatile for the creation of motion graphics. The way to the menus are set up and the way that the program behaves makes it an intuitive leap for 3-D modeling and 2.5 D animation.

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The whole goal of aftereffects is to help you produce almost any type of animation that you may want without having to involve 3-D modeling. After effects remains one of the primary pieces of software for motion graphic work in storyboards, motion comics and more. There are elements in this program that are close to Photoshop and illustrator but they have been optimized for the purpose of creating motion graphics here.

How to Choose the Right Animation Software for Mac

When it comes down to choosing the program that you may want to purchase a license for or download on your computer, you need to be very focused into the types of animation that you are looking for and what you need out of any program. The first thing you need to understand is the various styles and techniques for animation and what you might want out of a program:

2d animation

This is the traditional style of animation that comes from the idea of cell shading or digital cell shading. In the past animators would draw images on transparent pieces of paper and then later than one frame at a time to create motion. Today drawings can be rendered and layered on top of one another using a digital timeline and computer vector animations.

3d animation

This is a completely new and different way to look at traditional animation that requires understanding the basic principles of composition, movement and 3-D modeling. Creating 3-D graphics can involve scanning objects or even piecing together various 3-D models to create characters, share complex ideas and then animate all of the items along a storyboard.

Motion graphics

A motion graphic is considered to be one of the newest forms of animation. These motion graphics are fairly common in items like banner ads, short comics and more. Usually these types of graphics are designed for commercial purposes.

Stop motion

Stop motion involves taking photos of an object and manipulating it ever so slightly to eventually produce a storyboard of motion. Completing and repeating this process over and over eventually gives the full allusion of movement. This is a very time-consuming process that often involves manipulating objects slowly over hours of movement to create just a few seconds of animation.

Presentation or whiteboard style

This is a popular style of animation that has taken off over the past few years. The online marketing videos that are produced and the specific programs that have been created for building whiteboard videos are proving that this is a format that truly keeps people engaged and remains a trend for school projects, business presentations and more.

Hey, My name is Paul – nice to e-meet you 🙂 I’m a freelance video editor who has over 4 years experiences of making all types of videos. I founded this website to provide step-by-step and easy-to-follow instructions to first-time editors or beginners like you who want to start their journey in video editing.