Moving out West to work at ZURB was a dream come true for me. When I was looking for summer internships, I was adamant about going someplace that put a heavy emphasis on design. The product engineer inside of me, however, insisted that I go someplace where I’d be working on products that would be developed and supported and loved for years to come, not some agency that just hands off work to the client and then moves on to newer and better things.

ZURB fulfilled both requirements for me, being a thought leader in the field of responsive design, as well as having built (or bought) a number of apps and sites.

Since arriving at ZURB, I’ve been amazed not only by the level to which my coworkers produce amazing work, but also the breadth of the properties that they’re responsible for creating and maintaining. Nearly seven months after arriving at ZURB, I’m still discovering some of ZURB’s web properties (there are almost 40). To date, here are the ones I’ve found most interesting (or helpful).

Website Tools

Code and tools for building better websites.

Foundation

No list of ZURB’s accomplishments would be complete without mentioning Foundation. Not only was Foundation 3 my first introduction to responsive design, but its most recent iteration (Foundation 5) has become an irreplaceable part of my toolkit.

Playground

Though it’s been redesigned since I first discovered it in high school, the ZURB playground is still as whimsical and inspiring as the day I first found it. The playground is a collection of cool plugins and code snippets, often started as side projects or as experimental code to fulfill a specific need on the site. The more popular pieces often go on to become a part of the Foundation core.

Bounce

Bounce is the tool I immediately reach for whenever somebody asks me for feedback on a design, either at work or on a personal level. It’s a simple annotation tool that lets you mark up a webpage or an image, and it gives you a short, sharable URL, rather than making you mess around with accounts and sharing options (I actually prefer it to its older brother Notable because of this).

Research

Putting the science in design.

Quips

Reading a lot about design and usability has turned me into a library of random data points and design patterns. Thanks to Quips, I can actually track down the original sources as I need to in order to back up and justify my design decisions (and completely pwn haters in design arguments of course).

Triggers

For when I really need to go hardcore in my design research, I turn to Triggers, the newest member of the ZURB family. Triggers explains the cognitive science and psychology behind motivating various user actions, so it TL;DRs the tough stuff and keeps me from having to dig out my old Human-Computer Interaction textbooks.

Inspiration

Ways to get your problem solving skills kicked into overdrive.

(The New) Forrst

I’ll be the first to admit it … I used to think that Forrst was a barren wasteland. Since the mobile-first redesign, however, the site is not only easier (and prettier) to use, but it’s a lot easier to see the activity on the site— filling my feed with beautiful examples of cutting-edge web design whenever I need to break a creative block. It’s also a great place to practice giving feedback, since quick comments or words of encouragement tend to be welcomed by the posters, rather than recieved with hostility like some design communities.

Friday15

For when the block is less local to one person and is instead affecting an entire team, it’s time to break out Friday15. Based on the creativity and teamwork exercises we do at ZURB every friday, Friday15 is probably the ZURB site I recommend to people most often.

Design Philosophy

A look into the ZURB mind.

Word

Whenever I want to check out the “official” ZURB stance on something, I always check out ZURB Word, our design glossary/bible. Filled with lots of extremely detailed information on almost any design concept imaginable, it’s an extremely detailed library of our (sometimes opinionated) takes on all facets of design, and also includes lots of hidden nuggets, such as this inexplicable ice phallus.

Manifesto

For a more succinct (and really pretty) version of what ZURB believes, check out the Manifesto. Covering hot button issues such as the fact that everybody can be a part of the design process and that there’s no such thing as UX design, the manifesto gives a quick, but thorough, taste of our perspective on Design (with a capital “D”).

Speaking

For more proof that we practice what we preach, just check out the speaking page. Every talk that ZURBians give gets hosted here, so you can check out breakdowns of our projects, overviews of our process or tips and tricks for getting the most out of your tools and frameworks.