150 Tools and Resources

Edit images online by resizing or cropping them, adding text or borders,
and creating round corners or animation.

An image editing software with tools that both amateurs and
professionals can enjoy. It’s free for personal use.

An open-source vector graphics editor that can be used to create or edit
illustrations, diagrams, line arts, charts, logos, and complex paintings.

A software development studio that creates vectors for online video games.

A stylish painting package that’s easy to use
and works on Windows, Mac OS X, and iPad.

A freeware paint and drawing program for Windows that can simulate natural brush
strokes and effects for artists who are used to working on a canvas.

A simple online time tracking and invoicing software that makes it easy to manage your
time across multiple projects simultaneously. Know which clients are taking up all your time!

This stationery set includes letterheads, stickers,
and envelopes with a variety of colour swatches.

A free tiny script/plugin that provides an automated layout of grids and guides in Photoshop, forming rows and columns with automatic gutters, margins, and spacing. You can also save your favourite layouts for next time.

A wireframing and mockup app for iPads that allows you
to design on the go. No more time wasted on public transport!

An iPhone/iPad app that turns your device into a graphics tablet so that you can use it to draw directly into Photoshop or another application on your Mac. Its features include palm rejection, pinch and zoom, customisable shortcuts, and pressure sensitivity.

iDesign works on iOs 5+ with iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.
You can create high-quality 2D illustrations and technical drawings.
It also comes with multiple layers, smooth multi-touch zoom, iCloud support, and more.

A media painting app that’s compatible with Photoshop, allowing you to finish and touch up your designs on your computer. It also comes with brushes, full colour, paint, erase, smudge tools, and more, and allows you to work with up to 5 layers.

Not only can you get Photoshop brushes here, but you can also find vector packs
and clip art, t-shirt designs, and t-shirt vectors in both illustrations and fonts.

This brush pack contains 12 brushes, from grungy
shapes to clouds. There are an extra 5 optical flares included also.

Brush set with 21 beautiful flower brushes for Photoshop.

This package includes 9 high-resolution fairy tales brushes for Photoshop.
Perfect for creating fantasy backgrounds and textures reflective of rocks and metals.

A themed selection of background textures, from Seamless Burlap
to Retro Linen, which can be used in specific contexts.

Find a variety of textures to choose from, including water, wood,
paper, nature, soil, fabric, ground, marble, plaster, plastic, roads, rock, and tiles.

There are over 65 free textures here, including coloured smoke,
abstract paint, grunge, leaf, rust, rope, cracks, old paint, concrete, and more.

Not to be confused with the free textures above, this set
includes rusted steel, circuit boards, bubbles, and spray paint.

Pentagram used a simple grid of squares to create a new visual identity for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology research centre. The new logo is an abstract set of pixel-art hieroglyphics that expresses multiple groups in the lab. The finished identity is essentially a typeface masquerading as a logo.

Cornell Tech’s 1 year educational program tackles the intersection of technology
and entrepreneurism, and Sullivan’s recognisable mark symbolises the intertwining
strands of knowledge required for today’s tech careers.

Sound Meets Type is basically the interpretation of a user’s sounds in order to shape new typefaces, which leaves an exploded wireframe that visually captures how a letterform sounds.

If you’re interested in 3d printing, here is a list of the top
3D printing resources that should be on your radar.

A blog that celebrates creative talent from around the world. Get your daily fix
of print and graphic design, art, illustration, typography, photography, and branding.

One of the best places on the web to find
fresh and beautiful inspiration for web design.

Covers graphic design, product design, web design,
typography, leaflets, and plenty more for your inspiration.

Offers useful information for web designers,
including tutorials, news, and articles.

A weblog that offers design tips, tools, tutorials, and inspiration.

Shares the latest and greatest findings, tips,
and techniques for both web and graphic designers.

A small collection of high-quality stock photos
and images released to the public domain for free.

Contains high-resolution photos of mostly beautiful
landscapes submitted by photographers for public use. The site
adds 10 new photos every 10 days, and attribution is required.

A collection of free photos that can be used for
personal and commercial purposes. New photos are added daily
from various categories, including fashion, nature, abstract, technology, and more.

This is a photography community where you can search,
share, buy, and sell royalty-free photos. The library has 50 million inspiring photographs.

This site offers a massive selection of free fonts. You can
download over 30,000 fonts in more than 15 font families,
as well as preview custom text prior to downloading.

A collection of over 28,000 free fonts shared by
designers around the world. You can preview several
fonts simultaneously for comparison prior to downloading.

Here you’ll find free fonts in a variety of categories.
You can also search fonts by keyword and preview before downloading.

Offers a nice glossary of design terms
relating to fonts. With this full A-Z of design terminology,
you can find out how to search for the font you want.

With a free account on Typecast you’ll get access to more than 3,650
web fonts. You can also design a working prototype that can be exported
and produced in HTML and CSS to be used in your web designs.

The biggest collection of fonts on the web. You can buy
the fonts and host them yourself with MyFonts self-hosted kit;
this way you get to own your fonts instead of renting them.

Web font hosting service by Hoefler & Co. Their ScreenSmart
fonts look beautiful onscreen, well worth paying $99 a year for.

Provides a huge selection of high-quality
desktop and web fonts in a single subscription. Sign up
for free or subscribe for as little as $7 a month.

Find that perfect font without wasting time.
The website’s simple layout makes it easy to navigate through the fonts.

As more designers and institutions create typefaces
for the public domain, this site provides information
and airs ideas about the concept of free fonts.

A curated gallery of all things type.
With many pages of gorgeous and inspiring
typography, We Love Typography is type heaven.

For type in all shapes, sizes, colours, and styles, look no
further than Typeverything. The types are created by a handful of
talented artists. Just scroll down the site to view hundreds of inspirational images.

WalkOn is a retro font that fuses an Art Deco feel
with a contemporary approach. Use it to add a splash of class
to your corporate designs, or for headlines and editorial copy.

Stellar is a condensed sans-serif with an elongated x-height
that remains legible, whether it’s big or small, and gives the font
personality. Designed to give purpose to your ‘galactic or atomic’ ideas.

If you’re new to typography or need a refresher,
Matthew Butterick’s valuable guide offers practically everything
you need to know to be a better typographer in 10 minutes.

Learn how to mix font families as well as how to create
a typographic palette with Wit, Energy, Poise, and Dignity.

Wordmark.it helps you choose fonts by allowing
you to preview words and phrases using them. Also
preview text in any font installed on your computer to save time.

A free hosted service that provides access to
a large library of fonts that you can add to your site.

A bookmarklet that allows rapid checking of fonts and font
styles directly in the browser without the need to edit code and
refresh pages, making it the ideal companion for creating CSS font stacks.

Another typography tool, this one allows you
type in the word you want to see and instantly view
it set in the typefaces installed on your computer.

A search engine for more than 16,000 glyph vector
icons, such as logo and web or social icons. Includes
a Photoshop plugin to insert icons directly into a project.

The best place to download original and exclusive
free vector graphics, illustrations, wallpapers,
backgrounds, and illustrator brushes.

A collection of icon-style vector graphics that
include pages, folders, RSS, and comment graphics.

A massive collection of free vector art, graphics,
wallpaper backgrounds, illustrator brushes, silhouettes, and lots more.

Free Christmas themed vectors for your festive designs,
including Xmas characters, classic Christmas shapes, baubles, and more.

30 sets of free attention grabbing icons for designers.
These include supernova icons, payment icons, flag icons, and more.

Give your website a spooky makeover for
Halloween or any other spooky occasion with icons
of skulls, pumpkins, coffins, horror characters, and lots more.

Create a colour scheme and preview
the combinations of colours made in real time.
You can also view the results via an interactive web layout.

With ColorPic you can generate a colour
palette of up to 16 colours, and then used 4 advanced
colour mixers to select from a spectrum of colours.

Another free colour picker tool that
can grab the pixel under your mouse
nad turn it into different colour formats.

A portable application that supports a variety of colour
codes, including RGB, HEX, HTML, and HSV. It also provides
colour palettes from selected colours and has HSV and RGB sliders.

A simple free tool to act as your colour diary and it
also has a colour picker and magnifier. It supports CMYK,
RGB, LONG, HEX, as well as web colour codes in various formats.

A colour app that has 3D effects. The
interactive 3D pyramid allows you to change the
hues and tints and also mix two colours at the same time.

Here you’ll find user submitted and
voted design news, articles and inspiration.

Showcase your work and get constructive feedback from
other designers. There’s also an active business and freelance
section where you can ask questions and find many useful tips.

Another huge graphic and web design
forum that covers a variety of related topics
and has tens of thousands of searchable posts.

Online marketplace that offers logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to the best freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world via a process called crowdsourcing at a low cost. Post a project on DesignCrowd and watch designs pour in from around the world.

The how-to magazine for everything Adobe.
Also provides in-depth tutorials, cutting-edge
techniques, secret tweaks, and expert insights.

Provides graphic, web and freelance designers with essential business
information, including cutting-edge technological advances, profiles of
famous and new designers, noteworthy projects, as well as creative inspiration.

The international journal of visual communication,
presenting the best work produced internationally in
graphic design, advertising, illustration and photography.

Publishes the largest showcase of emerging designers and
artists, along with expert insights. Also features award-winning
designs and coverage from a wide variety of sources.

Lists more than 100 stock image websites and also
features listings for fonts, sounds, clip art, logotypes,
Photoshop brushes, textures, icons, mixing tools, and more.

Design a website for free without code! You’ll also
be able to manage content easily and publish independently.

This brochure template has a large space dedicated
to imagery, which can help showcase your best work.