75 of the Smartest Resources for Web Designers
A lot of these lists just cram everything and anything into the lineup. So, we decided to pick our designers’ brains to bring you the best resources that we are using on a daily basis.
Feel free to add other useful resources in the comments below :)
Images + Video
1. Showbox
Create studio-quality video from your browser.
2. Coverr
Beautiful, free videos for your homepage.
3. Compressify
One of the best tools to optimize video files online.
4. Pexels
The best free stock photos (and videos), all in one place.
5. Unsplash
A database of beautiful, high-res, free (do whatever you want) photos for creative use. No awkward office stock photos.
6. Death to Stock
A photo and inspiration haven for creatives crushing their path.
7. Photype
A great way to view and test photos, dimensions and effect with overlay text, before you actually download anything.
8. JPEGmini
Your photos, on a diet. Reduce image size by up to 80%, without compromising quality.
Icons
9. Iconfinder
A small team working to create one of the largest, searchable databases of icons in the world.
10. The Noun Project
Building a visual language of icons anyone can understand, this is a massive searchable database of glyph icons created by a community of designers.
11. Flaticon
Another hefty collection of free icons available in SVG, PSD, PNG, EPS and BASE 64 formats.
12. Icomoon
An icon library for the more pixel-conscious among us and an icon fonts generator.
13. Material Icons
As you’ve probably guessed, this is Google’s beautifully crafted selection of icons.
14. Icon Store
Fun free icons by first-class designers and platform for you to submit your icon work as well.
15. Illustrio
A massive searchable database of all sorts of icons that you can customize to fit any brand.
Type
16. Right Font
A lightweight font manager for your Mac. It helps you preview, sync, and organize fonts stored in any location.
17. Font Reach
Scanning the top million sites to show font usage across the web, it’s like the zoo for designers.
18. Google Fonts
A showcase of individual type designers and foundries as well as hub to download font families to use in design files.
19. WhatFont
Literally, the easiest way to identify and inspect fonts, right from your browser.
20. Font Flame
New and relatively simple, this highly addictive font-pairing site is like Tinder, for fonts.
21. Typekit
Premium fonts galore, by Adobe.
22. Typeface
A new kind of font manager for Mac. It helps you pick the perfect font by focusing on quick and accurate font previews.
23. Font Squirrel
Hand-selecting typefaces presented in an easy-to-use format, free!
Colors
24. Color Hunt
Pinterest for colors. You can scroll through four color combinations, infinitely.
25. Hello Color
A handy, super simple, one-click color contrast generator.
26. LOL Colors
Curated color palette inspiration by Mackenzie Child.
27. Coolers
A super fast color schemes generator that allows you to create, save and share perfect palettes in seconds!
28. Adobe Kuler
A compass for the color wheel, use it to explore combinations of analogous, monochromatic and all sorts of different color combinations.
29. ColorZilla
An advanced in-browser eyedropper, color picker and analyzer extension for Chrome and Firefox.
30. Design Seeds
A daily dose of inspiration for all who like color.
31. UI Gradients
A handpicked collection of beautiful color gradients.
Inspiration
32. Muz.li
Designers’ secret source for all the inspiration you need, at your fingertips, each time you open a new tab in Google Chrome.
33. Landingfolio
A curated gallery featuring the best in landing page design.
34. Awwwards
Website Awards that recognize and promote the talent and effort of the best developers, designers and web agencies in the world.
35. UpLabs
The best of design & development inspiration, resources and freebies. Every day!
36. Pricing Pages
We love this site (and Product, Store and Checkout Pages too). It’s a directory of the best pricing pages around and an inspiration goldmine.
37. User Onboarding
Incredibly detailed (and useful) walkthrough slideshows that show the on-boarding flow of well-known web and mobile apps.
38. Mindsparkle Mag
One of our favorite places to roam the most beautiful and inspiring projects in the fields of graphic & web design.
39. Eye on Design (AIGA)
An exploration of the best new work from emerging and established designers from around the world.
40. It’s Nice That
An alternative online publication that believes creative inspiration is for everyone, showcasing the most exciting/engaging work online and in print.
41. The Great Discontent
Candid interviews with those who create and an off-the-beaten-path source for ideas.
42. Typewolf
A daily bit of typography-in-the-wild inspiration.
Mockups & Prototyping
43. InvisionApp
A web-based prototyping, collaboration & workflow platform that allows designers to create highly interactive mockups for web and mobile projects.
44. Sketch
Professional digital design for Mac.
45. Napkin
Design quick mockups, directly on your phone.
46. Placeit
Generate product screenshots in realistic environments.
47. Frontify
Create free style guides in less than 5 minutes.
48. Pixel Budda
A collection of free mockups among other resources.
49. Graphic Burger
A buffet of premium quality design resources offered for free, to the design community.
Website Builders
For Designers
50. Webydo
An online responsive website builder for web design freelancers and digital agencies — with built-in CMS and hosting — to create websites faster and grow their business.
51. Adobe Muse
An offline website builder that allows you to create fixed, fluid, and adaptive websites without having to write any code.
For Code-Savvy Designers
52. Wordpress
Web software you can use to create a beautiful website, blog, or app.
53. Dreamweaver
A tool for designers and front-end developers that let’s you create, code and manage websites that look amazing on any size screen.
For Amateurs
54. Squarespace
Whether you need a powerful landing page, striking galleries, a professional blog, or an online store, it’s all included, mobile-ready from the start.
55. Wix
Uniting beauty and technology, this cloud-based DIY solution enables anyone to create HTML5 websites with it’s drag n’ drop studio.
Collaboration & Productivity
56. Lingo
Build and share libraries of visual assets with your entire team — all from your desktop. It’s like Dropbox for design teams.
57. Mural
Your personal online whiteboard for brainstorming, synthesis and collaboration.
58. Wake
A private space to share and discuss design work with your team.
59. Slack
Collecting all of your communications in one place, it’s real-time messaging, archiving and search for modern teams.
60. Trello
Helping you keep track of everything, from the big picture to the minute details of each design project.
61. GoVisually
The simplest way to go from idea to design approval with rapid client feedback on your projects.
Communities
62. WebdesignerNews
Curated stories and discussion on design, development, creativity, tools and inspiration.
63. DesignerNews
A place to discuss and share interesting things happening in the web industry and beyond.
64. Designer List
A global directory of designers by the kings of inspiration, Muzli.
65. Slack Communities
The most comprehensive list of every design / web design community that you’d ever want to join on Slack.
66. Dribbble
The place for designer show and tell of mini-projects and WIP.
67. Behance
A showcase and discovery platform for the latest work from top online portfolios by creative professionals across industries.
Learning & Education
68. NuSchool
Learn to run your freelance design business like a boss.
69. HackingUI
Hacking UI is a community for designers, developers and creative entrepreneurs with a passion to learn and engage.
70. Phlearn
One of the best tutorial sites for all things Photoshop.
71. Just Creative
Articles on branding, logo design, photography, web design social media and more.
72. Tuts+
Learn how to design for the web with thousands of free web design and development tutorials from expert instructors.
73. How Design University
The Designer’s Source for Continuing Education.
74. Design for a Perfect Screen [eBook]
A beautiful, in-depth eBook that will perfect the way you design for screens.
75. A Beginner’s Guide to SEO
A comprehensive guide and infographic detailing the universe of on-page and site-wide SEO for web designers.
Have more resources you want to add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!
Author
Caroline Reder, Director of Content & Communications at Webydo.
