Between myself and the other web designers here at Creare, we often pass tips and links to each-other about useful free online web design resources that aid in completing our jobs even more effectively and most importantly, to an even higher standard.
In general, these resources either help us add that extra touch to our website design or alternatively aid in developing our websites more efficiently.
Compiled below is a collection of what we deem the essential online tools for Web Designers that we hope will also hopefully help you in your web design practice.
NET RENDERER
http://www.ipinfo.info/netrenderer/
As standard, web designers at Creare build their websites to be cross-browser compliant, and one of the ways we ensure this is by using NetRenderer. This tool allows you to see how your website looks across various versions of Internet Explorer, including the tricky IE6.
COLOUR LOVERS
http://www.colourlovers.com/
Stuck for colour inspiration in your website design? ColourLovers is a user-contributed website which offers suggestions on colour palettes and schemes that you can incorporate into your web design work. Useful for web designers who are looking for that extra shade of colour to use in a content box, which I often find myself doing!
TYPETESTER
http://www.typetester.org/
If you’re a website designer who works on typography focused designs, you’ll be familiar with Adobe Photoshop’s issue to render type that effectively matches what actually renders within a web browser (which is often, TrueType).
Typesetter takes this headache away, allowing you to customize, preview and compare how your chosen font will ultimately look on-screen when sitting alongside your web design.
W3C VALIDATION SERVICES
http://validator.w3.org/
It’s likely that if you’re a Web Designer, you’ve utilised the W3C Validation services in some format before. But, what usually goes ignored is that, even if your website fails W3C Validation, the service will offer feedback on how to correct these issues, and even further, W3C Schools can educate you on the necessary HTML/CSS coding.
Although gaining the W3C Validation badge may be seen on occasion as the holy grail of web development standards, if you’re a regular web designer, after a few tweaks its likely your websites will pass the standards every single time.
For even more web designers resources, make sure to check out our web design video blog, including our latest video on CSS optimisation. Alternatively, keep an eye on our Twitter profile in which we often discuss industry happenings and links to further web designers resources.
