Whether it’s the final piece of the puzzle for that tight deadline, or a life-saving asset that saves you precious time, having access to useful resources can be invaluable to designers.
Knowing where to find some of the best resources can make life so much easier. Sometimes we discover new tools and wonder how we ever lived without them! I wanted to cover 5 areas in this round up and provide you with a number of resource sites to explore.
Stock Photos
A fantastic resource for realistic and natural looking stock images. Unsplash have recently added tags, making the library searchable. These awesome photos are licensed under the ‘Credit Commons zero license’.
Death to the Stock Photo delivers a fresh set of great stock to your inbox every week. They provide really great natural looking stock photos and also offer a premium upgrade to access the complete library with added bonus packs too.
Graphics
Graphic burger are serving up some awesome print mock-ups, UI elements and more. Very handy if you need to do a quick mock-up to see your design in context. You’ll find a great range of free mock-ups here.
Pixeden is a useful source for device mock-ups—but also offer a rich variety of quality resources to download—with an optional membership plan for access the available premium resources. You can, however, pick up an excellent array of freebies here.
Icons
An ever-growing library of simple and effective icons. I really love the simplicity of the icons on Iconmonstr. All the icons have a similar style, which is great for linking up assets in a project.
A fantastic source for iconography. You can download some brilliant icons here—but be sure to double check the license before going wild. You can upload and sell your very own icons and take inspiration from their vastly rich icon library.
Applications
Sketch has become hugely popular, mainly because of its flexible features—geared towards today’s digital design standards. The graphic elements you create are 100% vector, which makes updates for different screen sizes hassle-free. It may take some time to get used to Sketch but it can be an excellent piece of software for those who work with Interface design.
Wunderlist is great App that helps you organise work, personal projects and just about anything you want. Working as a todo list, you can make lists of anything, set reminders and collaborate with other members of your team.
Typography
Typekit is a subscription based service with a huge library of fonts. Instead of purchasing individual licenses, you have easy access to a wide range of typefaces, adding great fonts to your website couldn’t be easier.
Fontfabric is an independent type foundry, that provides high-quality fonts. There are some fantastic free fonts that can serve you very well. Launched in 2008, the Font Fabric library is constantly growing with fresh and innovative fonts added frequently.
