Images speak volumes if you do it right. In this age of Snapchat, quick texts and limited allotment of time to understand anything, designs and illustrations are becoming an inextricable part of businesses. Every company wants to have a compact, effective and user-friendly website, and one must acquire some knowledge in web-designing to achieve it. So here, we are going to present to you some top-notch web designing tools that are used by all major Canadian Web Design companies. These tools are going to help you get professional output even for your personal purposes. These recommendations have been made on the basis of research done on users of various web designing tools. So let’s get started.
Sketch
Sketch is a people’s choice application which makes “sketching in web”, or web designing to say it in a less corny way, smarter and more convenient. Sketch covers the basic tools of web designing in a neat, non-messy interface while it also provides plug-ins which cover all kind of web content generators. You can get “Sketch Toolbox” to manage your plugins. Now, the uniqueness of this app is that it’s vector-based and pixel-friendly at the same time. This basically means that you can resize your content for all purposes and different prototypes without the regular hassle of creating separate mockups for each. Also, being pixel-friendly means that resizing doesn’t make your vector-based content lose quality in Sketch!
Pattern Lab
Pattern Lab is a super flexible web designing tool, which can be used as a style guide framework and front-end web developing tool. Some people find using this tool a little bit challenging because of the assortment of tools it has within its own package. For creating atomic design system with help of the right collection of tools, Pattern Lab is the right choice. While creating responsive designs, one could use this tool and get reviews from clients about improvement of their deliverables.
CodeKit
CodeKit is a simple task manager which helps you, the user, to generate code compilation for different web languages. It’s often called a “web developer’s Swiss Army Knife”. CodeKit will operate as a background tool for all current projects you are working on, and you will have to keep all of those projects active to make this work. It does all the compiling and processing itself but you would need some knowledge about coding to operate various functions of this app as it focuses more on code and less on setup.
Foundation
Foundation is a CSS framework which started as an internal style guide. It has some amazing features like optional JavaScript extensions, responsive usability and brilliant grid system capabilities. This framework brings in a do-it-on-your-own style in a web designer’s life. With additional built-in widgets, frequent launching of updated versions of the frame work and its responsive interchange of media, Foundation is a beloved tool for the ones who want to create their own, original style.
Avocode
To turn your Photoshop content into web designs, Avocode is a great tool. Avocode comes with convenient Photoshop plugins, which helps you to turn PSD content into UL as soon as you need it. The best thing about Avocode is that it doesn’t discriminate between Linux and Mac operated files. Whether you work with PSD or Sketch designs, Avocode will be our cross-genre host and enable you to work with both simultaneously. It has automatic asset sync, which means you can get all the necessary content using one interface at one time, without downloading various additional apps for each kind of assets! Designers love Avocode for the time it saves from their hectic work-schedule.
Marvel
Co-founded by Murat Mutlu, Marvel is a shortcut way of creating amazing looking websites and apps for web-designer community. Unlike some other apps of framework, while using Marvel, the users don’t have to worry about generating code at all. This is why it’s called Marvel; it cuts out the “coding” part, fetches your image files from your dropbox and turns them into real, interactive prototypes.
PostCSS
PostCSS, as the name suggests, is a post-processor of CSS. This is the newest of recommended collection we have here and its job is to offer you faster plugins which you can use to transform your regular CSS in a very short time. The best part: It enables you to use content in any browser, be it old or new. Isn’t that what you have always wanted while designing your web-content?
From cheap web design services to big established web design companies, these tools are used by many in the industry. We are not telling you to drop your current tool and jump in for all these. As fellow enthusiasts, we are asking you to explore these options, mix them up, try them on your different projects, then settle for the combination which works best for you!
Happy designing!
Anurag Choudhari is the co-founder of Geekenized Technologies LLP, a web development & digital marketing agency that helps various SMBs & SMEs in developing & maintaining their online presence.
