Top Creative Automation & Productivity Tools : Jan 2018 Edition

This has been a while coming :) As the headline suggests, this post covers a longlist of products & services i’ve found interesting, have used or bookmarked for later use. The common theme — ‘automating the creative process’.

This has insights from 18 months ago. We’re living in a bubble where Ai goes.

But before you jump into the list, check out this link:
The Automation of Creativity

Ai & Automation are impacting creative industries in ways that few are talking about openly. If you’re a ‘creative’ individual — you’ll need to up your game to stay ahead.

I believe Automation & Ai is challenging creative thinkers to deliver to their highest potential — which is faaar beyond ‘the best looking design’.

Especially in the space of graphic design — what wix and wordpress did to webdesign 15 years ago — that’s just around the corner for us.

Onto the List!

Image

Even photographers use it.

Pexels — High resolution free stock photos

DuoTone:ShapeFactory — Customize and download free duotone photos

ImageResize - Resize images — Upload or URL

ScreenPeek — Paste your website address — get a mockup!

Giphy — All the gif’s in the world

GifMock — Create Gifs!

Font

FontJoy — This is the site you need if you struggle with pairing fonts

Tyffle — Discover the right google font for your project

Icons / Vector

Ever wondered why all food brands are red and yellow?

IconsResponsive —Screen sizes are different — so why the same icon when you can have many?

Undraw — Free high quality customisable illustrations from MIT

TheNounProject — Icons for everything

Color

GradientsParty - Copy ready CSS for gradient colors; Hex or RGB

PandaColors — Generate color palettes

Coolors — An alternative

Don’t struggle with finding those complimentary colors. Trust the interwebs.

Video

If you aren’t ‘Videoing’ — your consumer might not find you. Regards, Google.

Rocketium — Create and edit videos on the fly from free video stock or videos from your phone

Vidyard — Record your screen — while also using your webcam to record yourself. Great for training videos.

Pexels Video — High resolution free stock videos

Virtual Designers

Do you really want to spend 5 hours resizing artwork?

TailorBrands — A virtual logo designer — get auto-generated results in less than 5mins — and a complete brand look and collateral for $11 a month.

LogoPony — An alternative

Outlined — A B2B brand automation tool. Push your brand templates online — generate .pdf, .jpg, .png or .html in minutes. Auto adapt sizes. Version control. Team collaboration.

Canva — A B2C tool for individuals to create posters, flyers and a variety of design collateral without using complex design software.

Social

SocialBook — An Ai powered influencer search engine

No need for a designer or a digital marketer. But — do you know when to push what?

Buffer — Design your social posts and schedule them from one place

Hootsuite Promorepublic — An alternative

Web / App / Code

Froala — Bootstrap based ready design blocks for websites and mobile apps

All the options the client would ever want.

Launchaco — Super simple virtual website designer. Good for landing pages.

Froont — Create your website on your own — great on SEO

ConversionChecklist — A 41 point checklist to help your website conversions go up up and away

Productivity

Reason8 — A mobile app that auto-transcribes your audio notes

DeepGram — Transcribe notes from an audio file — search by ‘sound’.

ILovePDF — Everything you’d want to do with a pdf — without using Acrobat.

Skynet in your home.

IFTTT — Connect your various devices and online presence (mobile / fitness / home automation / car / social channels etc) — get everything to interact without you intervening.

Draftsend - Make a presentation, add voice, email — skip that meeting.

IndiaIPOnline — Find out if someone has already registered that product name. (India only)

PixelSnap — An easy way to measure anything on your screen. Anything.

Sales / Marketing

If you’re in Sales or Marketing — we know you relate.

Docsify — Track open rates of your documents and website etc. from within G-Suite

Siftery Alternatives — Find all your competition from one place

Test4Startup — Automate the research needed to validate your idea

Zest — Stellar marketing content — as a chrome extension.

Learn

Design Principles — A fantastic resource to understand design fundamentals of blockchain design, road design, interaction design or even foodspotting!

Beyond ‘Ultra Violet’.

Graphic Design Trends — Where is graphic design going in 2018?

UX Design Trends — Many of these will find themselves in the graphic design trends of 2019 — given print design has been playing ‘catch up’ with UI/UX for a while now.

Interbrand — The best reports on the best brands globally

Conferences

You spin me right round baby right round

Standuply — A list of Machine Learning, AI & Blockchain Conferences all over the world in 2018

Aweconf — A list of a variety of awesome conferences across the world in 2018

BONUS :)

PatentWallArt — A very cool site to buy posters of original patent drawings. Star Wars fans will love this!

beep boop boop beep whirrlllllll beep whistle beep

R2D2Speaks!

Remarkable — A true ‘paper tablet’.

NomadList — Get to know what wifi, air quality, cost of living, nightlife (top 4 things for me apparently) are like in over 1250+ cities globally. Especially if you want to work — around travel.

FreakonomicsBooks - All the books discussed on the Freakonomics podcast

Signed: Bugs, Porky and Daffy

If there’s a tool you feel should be added to this list — please share it in the comments below so other’s get to know as well.

Any other feedback? → karn@outlined.co

And lastly — if this article helped, do ‘clap’ (the double hand icon) so more people can discover it on Medium :) Cheers!

Disclaimer : This list isn’t ‘sponsored’ in any way. Please draw your own opinions on the quality and standards of the products/services in this list.