When I design websites, I go through a design process that helps me both creatively and systematically create a finished product. Below you’ll find tools and resources that’ll boost your productivity, efficiency and inspiration, as it has done for me.
1. FONT COMBINATOR
You can choose any web font and see how it pairs with other fonts. You can easily choose your H1, H2, and paragraph text fonts. You can even adjust line-height and background color.
2. PEXELS
Pexels is a great collection of royalty-free images that you can use for placeholders until photographs are provided by the client.
3. SUBTLE PATTERNS
You can preview before downloading these tileable patterns. From grain textures to subtle diagonal patterns, this site has numerous free patterns to choose from.
4. FONTELLO
Fontello makes it so easy to embed vector graphics into a page. Instead of looking for separate social icons, arrows and icons on multiple sites, you can choose from various icons on Fontello and it quickly packs these vector icons into web fonts and it’s free to use. No login required either.
5. GRIDPAK
Make your developer happy by using this interactive tool for creating responsive grid layouts.
6. NIICE
There is no productivity when the creative juices aren’t flowing. I first heard about Niice during our company-wide meeting called Whiteboard Fridays from Moz a few months back and it has been my favorite visual search engine for fresh inspiration from typography, website design, print, and fashion.
7. FLAT ICON
Search free vector images and download them in any format possible: PSD, PNG, EPS, AND SVG.
8. DESIGNERS.MX
DesignersMX combines design and music, which all of the mixes are connected to Spotify. Designers need that perfect mix in order to get in the right mood, whether you need an upbeat mix or coffee-sipping kind of music.
9. COLOR HAIL PIXEL
There are many color picker sites out there, but Color Hail Pixel makes it fun and engaging while picking and precisely adjusting the colors that pair with Marsala, Pantone Color of the Year, 2015.
10. THINGLER
Thingler is a simple, real-time, collaborative to-do list. This tool is great especially when multiple people are involved in a web design project.
CONCLUSION
And, so my hope is that this list of tools and resources help you and your designers become even more productive, efficient and inspired. If there are tools that you currently use that help you in the design process, feel free to share them below in the comments.