There’s a vast amount of resources available on line to help make what can often be very complicated tasks in the web design and development process just that little bit quicker.
We’ve decided to list a few of the ones that we love in case they might be of use to other people. Some of them we use a lot, and others we use on a more ad-hoc basis, but they are all great web design tools in their own right and it’s well worth checking them out if you get a chance. All these resources all free to use, although we would suggest that you try and support the developers if you find the services to be of value.
1. Stripe Generator
This fantastic little web application lets you create any kind of striped tiled background. You can select any colours, angles, thicknesses. Then it outputs the design of your choice as a web-ready PNG file. Just set your background to repeat and you’ve got an instant seamless tiled stripey pattern. Fabulous!
2. Google Font Directory
OK, whilst this isn’t exactly an online tool, the Google Font Directory API allows you to radically change the look of your websites so you are not constrained to the usual suspects (Arial, Tahoma, Times etc…). It’s easy to use and the results can be brilliant. Just be careful not to go mad. Careful selection is always the key to good design ;)
3. Blind Text Generator
This is a brilliant tool that not only comes in handy for web design projects, but also for normal graphic design and print work too. It allows you to quickly create Lorem Ipsum dummy text and copy it to your clipboard for use in concept layouts. You can specify the number of words, characters and paragraphs you want and choose from a number of different text output options.
4. Favicon Generator
This easy to use little tool helps create Favicons that you can use for people who bookmark your site. It includes usage notes and there is even a facility to create animated favicons by uploading animated GIF’s. Simple, but very effective.
5. W3C HTML Validation Service
It goes without saying that you need to create websites to the highest web standards. The W3C validation service is the defacto tool for ensuring your HTML code hits the mark.
6. W3C CSS Validation Service
There’s no point in having perfect HTML if your CSS coding lets you down. This CSS validation service highlights any problems with your cascading style sheets, so you can deliver the best possible experience to your website users.
7. XML Sitemaps Generator
This great little tool will automatically generate an XML sitemap that you can submit to search engines to ensure all your website pages are included in their index. It’s free to use for sites of up to 500 pages, but there are also plenty of other premium options available if you have a large site, or need more flexibility.
We hope you find these useful. Let us know if you have any other web design or development tools that we might find useful and we will consider adding them to the list.
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Great list here. The favicon generator will come in handy for me. The stripe generator :), maybe that will be useful oneday. The XML Sitemaps tool you suggested is a good tool, I would also recommend GSite Crawler which is a free program which runs locally once you download it.
Great list here guys. Thanks for sharing!
I just used Google font’s in a couple of recent projects. The directory will grow hopefully, and knowing Google they probably will expand it if more people use it. I’m all for font’s that render well and quick.
Not used the stripe generator but as @Tom Howlett says it could be useful so it’s defo one for the bookmark!
Hey!
What a list! Totally new and really helpful.I like Blind text Generator and Google font Directory the most, But the question is that how can I implement these while designing my site? Do I need to download some plugins?
I am regularly useing W3C validation for my sites. Blind text generator is also very userful. I also take care of html and xml sitemap.
I lurve the stripe generator, brilliant but of kit, and I am already a keen user of google web fonts.. as another comment outlined once their library grows a little, it will be another area of the web that they dominate.