Tools & Resources articles

Pantone’s annual quest to dominate the “and finally…” portion of the pre-festive news has kicked off, with the announcement of its Color of the Year for 2019. The official selection for the coming year is Living Coral, or specifically 16-1546 (that’s #FF6F61 to you and me). Pantone’s announcement always sets the color agenda for the following 12 months. After all, in 2018 we’ve seen nothing but Ultra Violet color schemes;...

After an extended wait, Zurb have finally released the much anticipated version 6.5 of its popular Foundation framework. (This is in place of the originally intended 6.4.4 release.) So, what has changed? Well, this is not a major release so we’re not getting CSS Grid yet, but the changelog is pretty long. The folks behind this release have grouped the changes into 3 categories: improved stability, improved accessibility, and improved...

Designers and developers are hard at work creating tons of new goodies to make work life easier. This month’s roundup of tools for designers includes a smorgasbord of resources that includes everything from productivity and collaboration tools to icon and design kits to fonts that you’ll love. 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...

Winter is coming, and so is WordPress 5.0. From some of the chatter about Gutenberg—the new content editor in WordPress—you might be led to believe that it’s worse than White Walkers. Others of us are more cautiously optimistic. We can all agree on two things: dragons are cool, and a lot of theme developers are going to have some work to do. The WordPress developers themselves are leading the way with a brand new theme they’re calling...

WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal; these are perhaps the three biggest names in the world of the consumer CMS. They are known, they are loved, they are behemoths for a good reason. There’s no escaping them. We are all WordPress, now. No, but seriously, there’s almost nothing they can’t do, with the judicious application of plugins, themes, and coding knowledge. Yeah, believe it or not, I’m not here to rag on them. Kudos to their developers....

Adobe’s annual MAX conference is well underway in LA, and as usual there’s a big buzz around changes to the Creative Cloud suite. Adobe’s product line often seems archaic—parts of Photoshop’s first codebase were originally painted onto the walls of caves by neanderthals—but this iterative approach also provides a solid platform to venture into new ground in ways that would bankrupt a startup. Not only has Adobe pivoted into...

 You might notice a theme this month in our collection of new tools for designers: color. There are lots of color resources sprinkled throughout this collection. But there are plenty of other goodies as well, including a beta tool from Google and some new ways to think about layouts. 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...

One of the perks of freelancing is that you can work from pretty much anywhere. However, the pressures of staying connected to work may leave you stuck behind a computer all day anyway. While there’s something to be said for the levels of productivity and output you achieve from a dedicated workspace, there’s no reason you can’t keep the momentum going while you’re out and about. The following list of tools and mobile apps will help you...

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been biased toward the Vivaldi project ever since its first release in 2015. While it has (until now) lacked the sort of polish that would make it my go-to browser on a long term basis, the developers have been chugging along steadily. Now, it’s looking pretty… well… pretty. And pretty stable/fast. Plus, Vivaldi doesn’t track any of your data unless you opt in to the sync function (more on that below). In...

The typeface Gotham is one of the most popular sans-serifs in circulation. Designed at the turn of the millennium by Tobias Frere-Jones for the Hoefler & Co. type foundry, it is based on the basic letterforms that Frere-Jones saw in use on buildings around Manhattan, in signage and architectural lettering. The quintessentially American feeling in the design has resulted in the typeface’s use in countless branding projects—Barack...

The hotly anticipated Smashing Book 6: New Frontiers in Web Design, is released today. Dedicated to some of the thorniest problems we face in our professional lives, it takes a swing at some of the biggest headache-triggering issues in contemporary web design, from the accessibility of single-page apps in React and Angular, to designing for Smart watches. You’ll find solutions to problems with CSS’ latest layout tool CSS Grid, as well...

This month’s collection of new tools and elements for designers has a common theme – productivity. There are so many things here to help you do work better and more efficiently. But there’s fun too…make sure to look for some of the hidden design gems deep in this article. They’ll bring a smile to your face for sure. 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...

What’s old is new again; that’s the theme this month with new tools for designers with a few new tools that are rooted in the “old” concepts of design theory. From working with typefaces, to a color wheel, this roundup is packed with goodies. And then there are some new “new” tools as well, including a couple of cool 3D elements. If we’ve missed something that you think should have been on the list, let us know in the comments. And if...

What kind of projects are you working on? It might be the hotter days (with more time at a computer) that have me focused on ways to enhance productivity. In this month’s roundup of new design tools and information, you’ll find plenty of helpful items that relate to workflow. 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 next...