Top 7 Online Tools for Web Designers - Pittsburgh Graphic & Web Design and Online Marketing by Thought Space Designs As a freelance web designer, you can quickly find yourself buried under mountains of work with no visible end point in site. If you’re like me, then you look for every online tool available to help you lessen the stress. I’ve rounded up 7 different web based tools that are guaranteed to streamline and simplify the workflow of any good web designer. 1) Trello I figured I’d head off our list of productivity aiding apps with nothing other than a project management system. 2) FontSquirrel @font-face Generator A lot of you may be familiar with this one, but for those of you who aren’t, you should become acquainted very quickly. 3) MailChimp Have you ever sent out a HTML email newsletter to your clients? 4) Lispum.com When wireframing, do you find yourself typing “content here” repeatedly, or worse yet, smacking every key on your keyboard as fast as you can to fill an area of text? 5) XML Sitemaps Generator Sitemaps are extremely valuable tools for any website. 7) Top Alternatives
Creating Web Design Wireframes: Tools, Resources, and Best Practices Wireframes can be one extra step in the beginning of any web design project that can save a significant amount of time later on. Besides improving productivity, it also improves the final result of each single webpage, and the website as a whole. A wireframe is a "template" of simple lines, shapes, and labels that can be used to predefine a website's layout before any of the design's details are actually placed. Editing a simple wireframe in order to change a layout can be a lot simpler than trying to change the layout of a final coded design, or even a PSD. Of course, this is both true for personal and client projects. Showing a client a wireframe at the beginning of the design phase can allow the client and designer to collaborate more efficiently on the final content placement, and come to a set agreement to make the design process smoother, and reduce the number of major revisions. By Hand, Wireframing Tool, or Graphics Program By Hand, On Paper Image credit: purecaffeine Conclusion
CodeKit — THE Mac App For Web Developers 20 underrated web design tools to check out today | Web design If you build websites for a living, you'll undoubtedly use the obvious web design tools - Firebug, Browsershots, plus the various font embedding services and page speed analysers. So this article isn't about them. Instead we thought we take a look at the more underrated tools that can help you improve client-side browser development and rigorously test everything that you build. Read all our web design articles here 01. CSS3 Click Chart is a handy reference tool for CSS3 attributes; I'm sure we've all struggled to remember quite what order a CSS box-shadow values are required in at some point, and that's where CSS3 Click Chart comes in. 02. Patternizer is an online tool to help you generate CSS3 stripes using an online interface. 03. CodeKit is an app for Mac that allows frontend developers using SASS or LESS an easier life. 04. 05. 06. Making your website appeal to window shoppers is enormously important. 07. Sprite Box is a useful system for generating CSS sprite classes and IDs. 09.
Type lovers rejoice: Firefox DevTools is getting a Font Inspector, available in the latest Nightly Typography is fast becoming one of the most important aspects of Web design, and it’s a good thing: we’ve all seen enough 12px-sized Times New Roman and Georgia to last a lifetime. This shift is important for the future of design, but it also comes with a learning curve. That’s why it would be nice if more Web design tools took typography into consideration. Now, Mozilla is stepping up to the plate. The tool itself isn’t complicated; it simply displays the font with editable “Abc” placeholder text, names the typeface and shows the @font-face CSS. The most useful aspect of the tool, however, is the “See all the fonts used in this page” button, which lets designers understand exactly what Web fonts and font-based icons are in use and see them in one place. If you’re concerned that Mozilla’s DevTools risk over-crowding with this new feature, it’s worth noting that Mozilla appears to be considering whether it should include features like this as add-ons to augment its existing tools.
20 Incredibly useful tools and resources for Web designers When it comes to Web design, the tools you use play an integral part in your results. Of course, we’re big fans of getting down to the basics, like putting pencil to paper, but sometimes finding new apps and resources can help you get those creative juices flowing. Check out our list of 25 incredibly useful tools and resources for designers and developers below. Then, be sure to let us know your favorites (or if we missed your favorite) in the comments! 1. Niice essentially operates as a design search engine, pulling in results from Behance, Dribbble and Designspiration. 2. Pixel Dropr is a Photoshop plugin created by UI Parade which allows designers to create collections of icons, illustrations, photos, buttons and other elements that can be dragged and dropped to any PSD file. 3. If you’re a Hacker News reader, you already know how Designer News works. 4. 5. Cloud Comp is a lightweight tool powered by Cloud App which lets designers share app and website mockups with clients. 6. 8. 9.
A Community Where Developers & Designers Improve Their Craft CSS Query (I've been out of practice) James Robert Gardiner Hi guys, I've been majorly out of practice with website development, and I'm currently developing a website for a friend of mine. Essentially he wants a scrolling website with anchor links, which is fine. Responsive Layouts, Responsively Wireframed Responsive layouts, responsively wireframed Made with HTML/CSS (no images, no JS*) this is a simple interactive experiment with responsive design techniques. Use the buttons top-right to toggle between desktop and mobile layouts. Using simple layout wireframes, this illustrates how a series of pages could work across these different devices, by simulating how the layout of each page would change responsively, to suit the context. Responsive layouts? Producing static wireframes to design layouts for websites, web applications and user-interfaces has worked well for a long time. However, this solution creates a new problem: How should we go about the process of designing these variable layouts? Enter, responsive wireframes? The 'wireframes' on this page (which are only very simple, high-level examples) were created with HTML/CSS, and some argue that this is the answer; to design in the browser. So which is better? Traditional wireframes? HTML? So, what's the answer? Just wondering...
Essential tools for every web designer Every web designer requires the right tools to do their job. To create well crafted original designs you certainly need to be inspired to do so. Getting to that point is sometimes the hardest challenge in the field of web design. Luckily enough for us and our fellow design community there are tools available to assist in completing the job quicker and more efficiently. Below, I have outlined a list of tools I recommend for any web designer. Be sure to bookmark these pages so you can utilize them to your advantage like I have! Color Adobe Kuler (free) A great tool offered by Adobe which allows members to upload, create, and edit color schemes of their choice. Pictaculous (free) From the creators of Mailchimp comes a color palette generator different to any other. Colorzilla (free) Dribbble.com (free) Many designers turn to dribbble.com for great inspiration. Hues ($2.99) Interested in native apps rather than web apps? Typography Google Webfonts (free) Font Squirrel (free) Lost Type (from $1)
40 Incredibly Useful Web Design Tools You Should Use Daily This article will showcase tools which should and could be used by designers daily. If you need some inspiration – you can visit the most popular and recommended design showcase sites to find really good works and examples. Check out design related tools, online generators, free font sites, template sites, great websites helping to test and manage websites – those all have been created to save your time! Remember - not always the best way is to create everything by yourself. Be smart and you will accomplish your tasks much easier and quicker without struggling! I strongly suggest you to go through this article and bookmark tools, which could help you or just bookmark this page and come back whenever you feel discouraged or struggled! Inspiration 1. Deviantart is one of the largest artist showcases on internet. 2. Web Design Library is an internationally refereed resource that provides a platform for the dissemination of design thinking and research. 3. 4. 5. Design tools 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.