Tools & Resources articles

All modern browsers support the SVG filetype and it’s quickly becoming a favored choice among web designers. You can design beautiful icons as SVGs and scale them to any size without quality loss. This is one of the biggest benefits of the SVG format considering retina displays are on the rise. If you’d like to animate or manipulate your SVGs that’ll take a little more work. But these free libraries offer the best tools for the job if you’re...

Sometimes you need to practice a little self-care. When it comes to self-care for work and design professionals that often means spending a little time to learn something new and re-energize yourself. This month’s roundup has some great options for doing just that. Not only are these items new, but they are almost guaranteed to make you better at your job. From learning how to create better web type, to a design conference you can attend in...

Sometimes you run across a website or app that just blows your mind. You sit there for a minute, wondering just how in the heck they pulled that off. How indeed? Well, good news for everybody! There’s this thing you can do where you can right-click on a page and... I kid. Inspecting the source available in the browser can only tell you so much. Sure, you can extrapolate some aspects of the design and development philosophy by looking at what’s...

Start 2018 by deleting some of those old tools from your computer that you never use in favor of some fresh, new options. While old favorites can be great for a while, there are so many great new elements out there that can streamline your workflow, or help add more creative spark to projects. If we’ve missed something that you think should have been on the list, let us know in the comments. And if you know of a new app or resource that should be featured...

Businesses looking for online marketing and web services are rarely looking for one provision. Typically, they are looking for an agency that can act as a one-stop-shop for all their internet-based projects. Pay-per-click advertising is one such service that businesses are interested in. The ability to promote their company on search engines like Google and Bing is integral to earning revenue online. But if you’ve never delved into...

The holiday season is upon us, and that’s the perfect time to give yourself a few design goodies. While the season for new releases has slowed some, there are still plenty of news design tools and beta releases to test out. Take the opportunity to play with some of these great new elements for designers. If we’ve missed something that you think should have been on the list, let us know in the comments. And if you know of a new app or resource that...

Even if your WordPress website is mobile-first and responsive, you could still be missing out on a huge chunk of traffic by not offering your visitors a mobile app, and the smooth user experience that comes with it. The only problem is that it’s incredibly difficult (and expensive) to build a native mobile app from scratch. Thankfully, there are a number of high-end plugin solutions that can help you turn your existing WordPress website into...

If huge discounts at the mall aren’t enough to drag you away from the turkey leftovers, then we’ve got the perfect solution for you: We’ve put together the 35+ best crowd-funding projects that are live right now, so you can spend your hard-earned green with the least effort possible. Crowd-funding sites are packed with tempting offers, from must-have gadgets, to community projects you’ll be proud to back. Take a look at some of the...

With everyone getting excited (on a positive or negative note, depending on who you’re taking to) over Gutenberg launching in WordPress 5.0, it’s easy to forget that WordPress had another major version update that went live in the past week. WordPress 4.9 officially launched in November, 2017 after a slight delay from the original anticipated launch. Announced on the official WordPress website, developers are calling the update...

Fall into something new this time of year, with a collection of challenges, tutorials and new tools to speed up your workflows. This month’s collection of new design and development tools is sure to inspire you to try something a little different or add a new skill or tool to your repertoire.  If we’ve missed something that you think should have been on the list, let us know in the comments. And if you know of a new app or resource that should...

With Black Friday/Cyber Monday just a few weeks away, it’s time to get clients set up and ready to sell. The list of solutions to choose from keeps on getting longer, so how do you pick which one to go with? Start with a list of features that are must-haves for your client, be clear on what their budget is, decide how much development you want to do to get the thing set up, and whether you want a hosted solution, or separate hosting. Once you know what...

Every modern website needs a responsive design. This does require more effort but the end result is worthwhile. I actually recommend testing your ideas with responsive design tools to see how your site looks at each stage. You can look for usability issues on different screen sizes all from one handy tool. And these free tools are my top picks for responsive testing since they’re all super easy to use. Best of all these support many device...

If you’re thinking of launching a design conference or attending one yourself this list should be all you need to get started. Out of many annual conferences I’ve curated my 10 picks for the top conferences on web and UX design. These each feature something a little different and they all have their appealing specialties. So whether you’re looking to grab a ticket or design a site for your own conference I think you’ll find something...

This month’s collection is packed with tools that span the scope of website design projects. From icon packs to seasonal vectors to a few cool typefaces and some code snippets to make your life easier, we think you’ll find at least one element in this roundup that you use right away. If we’ve missed something that you think should have been on the list, let us know in the comments. And if you know of a new app or resource that should be featured...