The Best Tools And Resources Available Right Now For Designers

Any web developer or designer is constantly on the lookout for tools and resources that will help make his or her life easier. Unfortunately, the truly useful ones aren’t always easy to come by. This is why we’ve taken the time to look for some of the most useful tools and resources available right now and compile a list of the best we could find.

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1

Stamplia is the go to marketplace when you’re looking for an email template. Ever since its launch in 2013, it has gathered more than 200 templates and attracted over 6000 collaborators from across the world. Stamplia seeks to provide independent web designers with a place where they can put up their work and find clients easily. If you choose to sell your email templates through Stamplia, you will be free to explore your creativity and waste no more time dealing with clients about their expectations. What’s more, Stamplia also offers you the best possible tool to use in order to create email templates: the Stamplia Builder. This builder makes it easy for you to create your design by adding elements to it through drag and drop and reviewing them in the live previewer. In addition to this, the Stamplia Builder takes care to make your templates responsive and fully compatible with the most popular email providers like Mailchimp, SendGrid or Campaign Monitor. Also, the Stamplia Builder is now available as both web app and desktop application.

2

Swapping feedback emails back and forth with your clients is a nightmare for most creative teams out there, whether we’re talking about the design, advertising, media, entertainment or technology industry. Luckily, Notism is an ingenious platform that worked out how it can help you present your work and review other people’s projects in no time. How does it actually work? Notism has a key feature that allows its users to communicate through notes or sketches, right on the uploaded work. This way, communication between team members and between the company and its clients will run smoother than ever. What is more, with Notism you can turn static screens into interactive prototypes without writing a single line of code. The handy notifications will keep you posted on everything that’s going on with your projects. And if you want to upload more than one version of your work, you can easily swap back and forth between them with just a click.

3

There’s nothing more tedious and frustrating for an online buyer than having to deal with a complicated checking out process. If you have an online business and want to keep your customers satisfied and increase your store’s conversion rate, then you need Fire Checkout. This is an awsome extension created for your Magento-powered store, packed with loads of great features. It is fully AJAX-based, so customers can say goodbye to undesired reloading and instead enjoy the quickest checkout process possible. Whether they’re visiting your store from a desktop or mobile device, your clients will enjoy a responsive checkout page and the easy and a swift payment method, as all popular methods of payment and shipping are supported by Fire Checkout. Even more, your registered customers will be able to place their order with just one click thanks to predefined billing and shipping settings. Installing this awesome extension will be a walk in the park as you won’t have to make any core modifications to your website. Get Fire Checkout now and be ready to take your store to the next level.

4

Pintastic is a Pinterest clone software that will help you get your pinning website up and running in no time. Pintastic has been on the market for quite some time and it has earned its place as the best clone software online by offering a reliable and complete solution to its clients. Pintastic 4.0 comes with over 40 modules that will help you extend your software. It also comes with a bundle of awesome features like multi-language support, multiple payment options, a SEO-centered system, full social networks integration, a built-in email notifications manager and much more. Pintastic offers you diverse ways in which to monetize your website as well. You can create featured or VIP pins, give your clients power user status and even integrate a marketplace solution that will allow your users to buy and sell the items they’re pinning.

5

Argento is one of the few awesome themes on the market which are both highly customizable and easy to install. It was especially created for the Magento platform and completely optimized for speed, being based on CSS sprite techniques that reduce the number of https requests for your website. Even though Magento is known for being a complex e-commerce platform, having the Argento theme set up on your website couldn’t be any easier. On top of this, you will also get one month of free support from the Magento team. Some of the features you will enjoying as an Argento user will be retina screen optimization, mobile-optimized navigation and a high SEO ranking. The Argento layout is both functional and pleasing to the eyes, and you are allowed to customize essential home page elements. For example, you could change the look of navigation menu or product blocks, set the label, design your own banners as well as have fun with implementing Nivo slider animation options.

6

Ever wish you could keep a close eye on the amount of time you actually spend working on various projects? With actiTIME timesheet you’ll be able to do that and much more. Managing deadlines and making sure you hand your work in on time is stressful enough. actiTIME gives you all the help you need for keeping the work flow organized and staying on top of things at all times. Some of the benefits of this tool include project cost control, accurate clients billing and invoicing, payroll calculation and paid time off control. With these top-notch features, actiTIME will set you on your way to improve your team’s performance by making efficiency your main target. With actiTIME you won’t be wasting hours on administrative small tasks and you’ll be able to use your time on the things that really matter. actiTIME is ideal both for employees and managers, for small team and big corporations because it’s flexible and will adapt to your particular needs.

7

actiPLANS is the ideal leave time management tool both for employees and managers. This cloud-based software has everything you need for accurate leave time planning. Interactive work schedule and one-click leave requests will ensure things run smoothly and help you eliminate spreadsheets and paperwork forever. Its wide range of key features and customizable options make it suitable for small teams and big corporations. With actiPLANS, managers will always have a clear picture of resources availability right at their fingertips. The configurable message parameters, PTO balance calculations and personal leave time history will make this software infinitely useful. Employees will be able to submit leave time requests with just one click, mentioning the duration and the type of their leave. actiPLANS also seamlessly integrates with a time tracking software helping manage working time and control past and future leaves in a more efficient way.

8

Need a wireframe tool for prototyping web, mobile and desktop apps without having to break the bank and spend hours learning how to use it? If the answer is yes, PowerMockup is the perfect tool for you. This PowerPoint add-on works with PowerPoint 2007, 2010 and 2013. Their extensive library offers wireframe elements and icons that you can easily drag and drop onto a PowerPoint slide. With PowerMockup you’ll have all the tools you need for creating storyboards and basic interactive prototypes right at your fingertips. Using this PowerPoint add-on is intuitive and easy to learn: simply select a stencil from the library pane and drag it on your PowerPoint slide. The Customs Shapes feature allows you to add your own items to the shape library, while the Smart Shapes offer extra functionality allowing quick changes, resizing and reshaping. Since everyone is familiar with PowerPoint, you can rest assured your colleagues or business partners will be able to participate in the design process.

9

If you’re in the market for professional iOS icons, then you can’t go wrong with IconBeast. They provide over 3000 iOS Tab Bar and Toolbar icons available in various formats: PNG (30*30px, 60*60px or 90*90px for tab bar and 20*20px, 40*40px or 60*60px for toolbar), Vector AI, Vector EPS, SVG and PSD. All icons are available in active (fill) state as well. And the best part is, these icons work just as well for web based or Android applications. You can rest assured that all icons provided by IconBeast will be pixel perfect as they are designed and engineered in grid. What’s more, IconBeast has a simple, easy to understand license: purchase the icons and you are free to modify and use them in any projects you need. And if you want more good news, IconBeast also offers you 500 free iOS Tab Bar Icons through IconBeast Lite.

10

Getsy is a PHP script that will help you create your very own Etsy clone website in a matter of minutes. By using this script you will be able to set up your very own community driven marketplace easily. Your website will allow users to interact with each other, set up stores, buy and sell items, review buyers and sellers, chat directly with each other or via messages. And that’s not all Getsy has to offer. Among its features you’ll find 100% responsive design, powerful build in SEO tool, improved security and scalability and more. All the tools and features bundled up in Getsy will help you create an online marketplace that will rival with Etsy or Storenvy. Let Getsy help you turn your hobby into a profitable business today!