15 Essential Graphics Tools for Online Designers

Great design is a process of hard work and inspiration. There are no shortcuts, but technology offers you plenty of tools to save time and increase productivity. Of course the hard part is actually finding the software that fulfills your needs.

Over the course of the last year I’ve created an online toolbox, composed of software and websites that I use for my day-to-day design needs. These tools streamline my work and increase my efficiency. Today I want to share them with you so you can spend less time working and more time enjoying the things that are important in your life.

Adobe Color Wheel

Coming up with the great color combinations can be a challenge. Adobe Color Wheel helps simplify the process. Pick one color and the Color Wheel automatically selects a number of colors that work well with it.

Colorzilla

Colorzilla gives you the power to instantly discover the color combinations used on any website. The software provides you with the hex codes for the color scheme used on the page you are visiting. It’s available as a plugin on Google Chrome and Firefox.

Font Face Ninja

Font Ninja is a great online tool. At the click of a button the plugin identifies the fonts used on a website and then gives you the option to download the font (of course you shouldn’t abuse this feature). It is available for Safari and Google Chrome.

Type Genius

Type Genius suggests fonts that work well together. Select the font you want to use and Type Genius reveals different fonts that work well with it. To help you make a decision the site gives you examples of font pairings so you can see what they will look like alongside each other.

Youzign

Background image removal is one of those daily tasks that I found myself struggling with before I started to use Youzign. This online graphics design software offers a simple online solution to image cropping. In literally 20 seconds flat you can remove the background of any image.

Convert My Image

Sometimes you need a simple piece of software to do one basic job. Convert My Image is a great example of this. It lets you change an image to a different format. The nice thing about this software is that it includes a large range of image formats. For example, JPG, BMP, RPG and PS.

Pixlr

Pixlr is my go to tool for simple photo or graphic editing. There are three parts to the software; Pixle Editor, Pixlr Express and Pixlr O-Matic. Pixlr Editor offers a range of tools for graphic editing. Pixlr Express lets you add tints and text to an image and Pixlr O-Matic lets you add borders, overlays and effects. That’s a lot of functionality for a free piece of software.

Tiny Png

Load time is an important factor for search engine rankings. Tiny Png compresses the file size of your images while maintaining the quality. It’s a small thing, but it does make a difference to page loading speed.

Page Ruler

Page Ruler lets you measure the pixel dimensions and positioning of online elements. It is a very useful tool for anybody involved in designing software or a website. The plugin is available on Google Chrome.

Perfect Pixel

This useful plugin lets you add a transparent image overlay onto a website so you can see if what you created is identical to your mockup. The interface is clean and easy to use and is a valuable tool for anyone designing online. The plugin is available on Safari, Google Chrome and Firefox.

Resize Window

Resize Window lets you see what a website will look like across a variety of devices (mobile, tablet and desktop computer). There are a large number of screen resolutions to choose from. You can also create your own.

Fillerati

Fillerati is a placeholder text generator. It’s a nice alternative for anyone who is bored with ‘Lorem Ipsum.’ Depending on your needs, another option is the ‘Corporate Ipsum’ Chrome plugin that generates meaningless business jargon you could fill a report with.

Light Shot Screenshot

Since I started working online I’ve used Light Shot on an almost daily basis. The software lets you take a screenshot of whatever you are working on. You can then add some notes and either upload the image to the server, and receive a url, or download the image to your desktop as a png.

Last Pass

Last Pass stores all your passwords and usernames in one place. Once you’re signed in you can use the software to automatically log into any website that requires login information. The pro version lets you share your passwords and usernames across your team, while not actually giving anyone the actual password.

Stay Focused

If you love Facebook or find yourself getting distracted by the Internet while you work then Stay Focused could be right for you. The plugin keeps you productive by blocking access to sites during your working hours. Stay Focused also keeps track of how long you actually spend browsing the Internet while you pretend to work.

I hope you found this list of online tools useful. I know there are plenty of alternatives to the tools I suggested, but these are the ones I personally use. They’ve helped me in my day-to-day business life and I’m sure a few of these tools will help you to.

P.S. If there are any great tools I’ve missed let me know about them in the comments below (I’d love to check them out).

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15 Essential Graphics Tools for Online Designers

Essential UI kit

An essential UI kit providing six widget-style elements featured by a flat look. Free PSD released by Adrian Goia.

The post Essential UI kit appeared first on Freebiesbug.

Essential UI kit

10 Essential Magento Extensions You Need

Magento is probably the most solid e-Commerce platform around. If you own an online store, you probably have given some consideration to using Magento on your site. Even big names like Nike, MotherCare, and Bazaar are on Magento. Still, Magento has a few features that could really be improved further, which is why sometimes you need to be proactive and check out what you can better achieve with extensions.

Magento Extensions is a collection of extensions that can add extra functionalities that you might want on your e-Commerce website. Whether it is to track your sales and invoices or to make checkout a lot easier for your visitors, these extensions can help you better manage your online business and more.

Recommended Reading: Ultimate Guide To Setting Up Your First Online Shop

1. MageMonkey

MageMonkey is the official MailChimp extension that integrates with Magento. It will effectively improve how you communicate with your customers and potential customers. It allows you to create auto-responding emails for completed transactions, birthday wishes, reminders about abandoned carts among others.

2. Blog

Even if you have an e-Commerce site, you can still use a blog to announce promotions, news on upcoming products, write about your company alongside other relevant content about your business. This may help in attracting visitors to your online store. If you want to have a blog try Blogs.

The extension serves as a regular blogging platform including RSS, native WYSIWYG editor, and excerpt fields.

3. One Page Checkout

By default, Magento set six separate steps to complete checkout for the goods you are buying, which in truth may annoy some of your customers. This extension, One Page Checkout, simplifies the checkout process into just a single step.

The extension also comes with auto-complete feature that will fill the checkout for your customers. Try this if you want to uncomplicate the checkout process.

4. AddShopper

AddShopper adds social icons into your product so your customers can share them onto various social sites like Facebook and Twitter. In addition, this extension also provides a record of the number of products shared. You can see which products are the most widely shared, or most sold, from the social share as well as see the highest revenue-generating item.

5. MatrixRate

MatrixRate lets you adjust the shipping cost based on customer location, destination, ZipCode numerical ranges (e.g. 5000-6000), product price and number of items, cart weight, subtotal or quantity. If you want more flexibility on how you decide the shipping price, this is the extension to install.

6. Yopto

Shopping online may be convenient but there are people with reservations against trusting a seller that you haven’t seen in person. In cases like that, customers usually fall back on reviews by other buyers to help determine their purchasing decisions. Yopto improves the Magento review facility by allowing you to email customers after a purchase for a review and thoughts on their purchase.

You can also customize the email style and the Reviews widget.

7. Related Product Manager

Want to keep your customers scrolling on your page? Use this. Related Products Manager is an extension that generates related products, up-sells, and cross-sells automatically based on various data including previous purchases and views by customers. The Related Products Manager will display the related products randomly when there is no data to decide additional products to display.

8. Address Label Printing

Cubix Address Label Printing is a Magento extension that will allow you to print address labels — the kind you attach on a package before sending it out. This extension lets you print the label directly from the admin panel. You can determine the label size, layout, and pieces of information to include in the label.

9. Magento WordPress Integration

Magento WordPress Integration will integrate your Magento online store with your WordPress blog. You can easily switch to the WordPress dashboard with one click from Magento’s admin panel to start blogging.

This extension also supports a wide range of WordPress plugin integrations. WordPress and Magento is the best platform in their respective fields. With this extension, you can enjoy these two togetether seamlessly.

10. Fooman

For each completed purchase order, Magento will generate a separate numbering convention for the documents to the sale, documents such as the invoices, memos, and shipment notes. This could be very inconvenient when you need to find an invoice for a particular sale due to the inconsistent numbering.

Fooman helps you better manage your invoices by auto-generating these documents with consistent numbering, so you can easily find locate the document you need.

Now Read:
E-Commerce Tools To Understand Your Users Better

No related posts.

10 Essential Magento Extensions You Need

10 Essential Magento Extensions You Need

Magento is probably the most solid e-Commerce platform around. If you own an online store, you probably have given some consideration to using Magento on your site. Even big names like Nike, MotherCare, and Bazaar are on Magento. Still, Magento has a few features that could really be improved further, which is why sometimes you need to be proactive and check out what you can better achieve with extensions.

Magento Extensions is a collection of extensions that can add extra functionalities that you might want on your e-Commerce website. Whether it is to track your sales and invoices or to make checkout a lot easier for your visitors, these extensions can help you better manage your online business and more.

Recommended Reading: Ultimate Guide To Setting Up Your First Online Shop

1. MageMonkey

MageMonkey is the official MailChimp extension that integrates with Magento. It will effectively improve how you communicate with your customers and potential customers. It allows you to create auto-responding emails for completed transactions, birthday wishes, reminders about abandoned carts among others.

2. Blog

Even if you have an e-Commerce site, you can still use a blog to announce promotions, news on upcoming products, write about your company alongside other relevant content about your business. This may help in attracting visitors to your online store. If you want to have a blog try Blogs.

The extension serves as a regular blogging platform including RSS, native WYSIWYG editor, and excerpt fields.

3. One Page Checkout

By default, Magento set six separate steps to complete checkout for the goods you are buying, which in truth may annoy some of your customers. This extension, One Page Checkout, simplifies the checkout process into just a single step.

The extension also comes with auto-complete feature that will fill the checkout for your customers. Try this if you want to uncomplicate the checkout process.

4. AddShopper

AddShopper adds social icons into your product so your customers can share them onto various social sites like Facebook and Twitter. In addition, this extension also provides a record of the number of products shared. You can see which products are the most widely shared, or most sold, from the social share as well as see the highest revenue-generating item.

5. MatrixRate

MatrixRate lets you adjust the shipping cost based on customer location, destination, ZipCode numerical ranges (e.g. 5000-6000), product price and number of items, cart weight, subtotal or quantity. If you want more flexibility on how you decide the shipping price, this is the extension to install.

6. Yopto

Shopping online may be convenient but there are people with reservations against trusting a seller that you haven’t seen in person. In cases like that, customers usually fall back on reviews by other buyers to help determine their purchasing decisions. Yopto improves the Magento review facility by allowing you to email customers after a purchase for a review and thoughts on their purchase.

You can also customize the email style and the Reviews widget.

7. Related Product Manager

Want to keep your customers scrolling on your page? Use this. Related Products Manager is an extension that generates related products, up-sells, and cross-sells automatically based on various data including previous purchases and views by customers. The Related Products Manager will display the related products randomly when there is no data to decide additional products to display.

8. Address Label Printing

Cubix Address Label Printing is a Magento extension that will allow you to print address labels — the kind you attach on a package before sending it out. This extension lets you print the label directly from the admin panel. You can determine the label size, layout, and pieces of information to include in the label.

9. Magento WordPress Integration

Magento WordPress Integration will integrate your Magento online store with your WordPress blog. You can easily switch to the WordPress dashboard with one click from Magento’s admin panel to start blogging.

This extension also supports a wide range of WordPress plugin integrations. WordPress and Magento is the best platform in their respective fields. With this extension, you can enjoy these two togetether seamlessly.

10. Fooman

For each completed purchase order, Magento will generate a separate numbering convention for the documents to the sale, documents such as the invoices, memos, and shipment notes. This could be very inconvenient when you need to find an invoice for a particular sale due to the inconsistent numbering.

Fooman helps you better manage your invoices by auto-generating these documents with consistent numbering, so you can easily find locate the document you need.

Now Read:
E-Commerce Tools To Understand Your Users Better

No related posts.

10 Essential Magento Extensions You Need

Essential Apps For Coffee Lovers [Infographic]

We all have a little something that gets us through the day. For quite a few of us, it is coffee that gives us the spirit and energy to rise above the adversity of looming deadlines and projects. After all, what can soothe our souls more than the comforting smell and taste of a good cuppa?

There’s an app for everything these days, so why not some for the (true) nectar of the gods? Our friends over at Espressoworks have created this very handy infographic featuring apps for all coffee lovers (yes, it’s a thing). Find a cafe nearby, learn how to make your own cup of espresso or get recipes on how to cook with coffee with these apps.

Whether you’re a barista or just someone who loves their cup of joe, you’ll want to check this out.

Recommended Reading: 10 Extraordinary 3D Latte Art By Kazuki Yamamoto

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Essential Apps For Coffee Lovers [Infographic]