New resources are constantly being released that can be of great help to designers and developers. Even better, many of them open-source, so you are free to download them online and use them without having to pay for a licence. Here are just some of the many resources that you can download and use in your day-to-day work.
Flatastic Mobile UI Kit
This user interface kit includes hundreds of different elements to assist you when designing a mobile UI in Photoshop. It includes many actions, and various sets of icons have been included. It is open-source so you can use the elements where you want, but the developers ask for a link to their website if you share them.
stickUp
This free and simple jQuery plugin allows you to stick elements to the top of the window in the browser when the user scrolls down, making it very useful if you want to keep an element of the page constantly in view. It can be used on both single-page and multi-page sites.
Rocketeer
Sometimes the simplest plugins can make a real difference to how you work. For example, this one for WordPress changes the presentation of the Jetpack set of plugins in WordPress. With Rocketeer you can bulk activate or deactivate the plugins with ease, and you can present them in a list format instead.
IconLite
This software for Macs is very useful and incredibly easy to use. It provides you with a simple way to replace the system folder icons such as Trash, Finder and Downloads with the icons of your choice using a simple drag-and-drop process.
Social Kit
This free Photoshop plugin assists you with the creation of covers and profile pictures for social media accounts including Facebook and Twitter. Whenever you need to create a profile picture for an account, simply choose your preferred social media account and a template will be generated automatically in the correct size. It is also automatically updated whenever a social site changes its design.
Type Scale
This is a very useful tool for finding the right font scaling to use on your website. Simply set a base size for your font, a font family and font weight, then choose a method for scaling. It is set up to encourage experimentation, and the results are immediate.
Toy Chest Theme
This is a colour scheme to use in your coding text editor, which claims to make coding ‘look as fun as it really is’. It is available for a number of applications such as Terminal, Vim, TextMate 2 and more.
Jarvis
This WordPress plugin is described as an ‘administration assistant’ that uses a launch bar interface to make it very quick to go to the admin page that you want to edit. Constantly getting to the admin page that you need to edit can be a hassle, so this can be an excellent time-saving tool.
Where Can You Find Them?
Many of these tools are open-source so they are free to download. Some of the developers may ask for a link back to their site, but generally you can use them how you wish. You can find all of them on the developers’ websites, but you may also be able to find them in other places online, and you may want to use torrent software to search for them.
Check Out These Tools Today
You can use any of these tools if you think that they will be of assistance. Many of them are free to use, and they could prove to be incredibly useful and save you lots of time every day. Find them on the developers’ websites as well as elsewhere online, and start using them today.
John Kyser is a passionate web developer with a penchant for mentoring industry newbies. He enjoys blogging about tips and tricks for a successful and creative career in web development and design.
Loveish Kalsi
Loveish Kalsi is a freelance Web and Graphic Designer from India. He is the owner of famous design blog Creativedesignmagazine.com
