Tuesday Tech Tools: 33 Design Tools
/Some of the tools available for graphic and UX design.
Adobe Indesign
Adobe product that is the industry standard for page layouts and design (posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers and books). For professionals and high end projects but for personal or smaller projects, there are other programs with a lower learning curve.
Adobe Pagemaker
While not on the level of Adobe InDesign, it is an effective page layout program for the non-professional. Includes predesigned templates that can be modified.
Adobe Kuler
Find complementary color palettes using a color wheel.
Axure
For UX design. A wireframing prototyping software tool. No coding needed. Aimed at web and desktop applications.
Balsamiq
Design software, a quick starter for wireframing tool.
Beautiful.ai
Quickly make beautful slides with these graphic tools. Slightly different workflow than PowerPoint so it takes a little time getting used to but more fun. Free.
Butterick's Practical Typography
Everything font-related including kerning, spacing, formatting, and more.
Color Me
Visualize hex colors.
Commarts
"Inspiration for graphic designers, art directors, design firms, corporate design departments, advertising agencies, interactive designers, illustrators and photographers—everyone involved in visual communication."
Design Thinking
Blog by Tim Brown about Design issues. Brown is author of Change by Design.
DesignEvo
Create logos. Easy to use but the free version allows only limited sizes and only paid accounts get trademark options. The paid accounts are somewhat expensive.
Florish*
A data visualization tool that makes it easy to create both standard charts and a mobile-friendly animated charts. Some customization available. Examples.
Font Feed (no longer available)
A "daily dispatch of recommended fonts, typography techniques, and inspirational examples of digital type at work in the real world."
Font dragr (no longer available)
Browser based tool that checks for web-friendly fonts. Just drag and drop.
FontJoy
This site will generates font pairings for your design project whether you are aiming to create balance, tension or set off content. Free.
FontPair
Helps you pick font combinations for your resume, website, poster, etc. so your creation stands out from the typical Times New Roman on other material.
Font Shop
This link takes you to the design section of the website where you can "improve your design skills with typography tips and tutorials. FontShop Education docs are formatted for easy downloading and printing, perfect for the classroom or studio." There's also a healthy glossary section, among other things.
How Design
This site seeks to meet the "business, creativity and technology needs of graphic designers."
Idea Mag
Japanese design magazine.
Indesign
See Adobe Indesign.
Kartograph
Simple to use data visualization tool if you know some Python or Javascript. Free.
Keynotopia
UI design templates.
QuarkXpress
Page layouts for Mac or PC.Alternative to Adobe InDesign.
Lucid Press
Page layouts for the non-professional to design flyers, newsletters, etc.
Markup Wand (no longer available)
Photoshop to HTML/CSS converter. Strip down Photoshop files (.psd) and convert them to embeddable HTML or CSS code.
MockPlus
Prototyping tool for Mobile app design. Drop and drag. No coding needed.
MyFonts
Large selection of professional fonts.
OmniGraffle
Design software. Industry standard.
PagePlus (no longer available)
Page layouts for Mac.
Page Stream
Page layouts for the non-professional to design flyers, newsletters, etc.
Principle
Popular UI prototyping tools for designing mobile apps. Especially useful for creating animation. No coding skill needed. $129.
Print Mag
Design tips, education, resources from Print Magazine, a bimonthly magazine about visual culture and design.
SassMe
Colum vizualize color functions by inserting Hex codes.
Society for News Design
Columns and tips on design, workshop schedule, membership database and more.
Society of Publication Designers
Scribus
Page layouts. Alternative to Adobe InDesign.
UXPin
Prototyping tool for Mobile app design. Simple setup with drop and drag.
What the Font
Figures out what font you are looking at.
More Tech Tools here.