A designer’s job is to take an idea and transform it into a well-developed and organized finished product. Since there are many aspects that go into each project, designers rely on a variety of tools to help them accomplish tasks. Here are some tools that may help you become a better, more efficient designer. Feel free to add your favorite tools in the comments.

 

 

Inspiration
• Smashing Magazine
• Net Magazine
• Web Designer Magazine
• Behance
• CSS Elite

Stock photos
• iStock
• Shutterstock

Font tools
• Dafont
• What the Font?
• Urbanfonts

Color tools
• Pantone color guide
• Kuler
• Color Hunter

Coding tools
• Firebug
• Pencil Project
• Cacoo
• Litmus

Creative
• Really good head phones – to keep those brain waves moving
• A decent sketchbook – Moleskine

Check out what the web designs guys can’t do without in their toolbox.

Adam – Mailrox! It made the experience of working on HTML emails change from agony to…well not ecstasy but something at least on the pleasurable side of the spectrum.

Zack – Sublime Text and several of its plugins are super useful for web design/development. Emmet is a tool to do short code for HTML and CSS. It lets you get stuff coded a lot quicker.

Click here for more information on some of the best graphic, app and web design tools and resources