RE: Some Resources for Designers
During the past few months, I stumbled across several interesting websites that can be useful resources for designers. I added these to a Google Sheet along with any apps, books, articles, software, etc. that came up during my first semester in the CMCI Studio.
Here are a few that I found especially useful or unique.
Stylify Me
Stylify Me was created to help curious designers easily identify the colors, typography, and image dimensions used on a website. Simply copy and paste the URL, wait a few seconds, and you’ll have the style guide of your favorite website. It also allows users to download each guide as a PDF.
Here’s the Stylify I results from the Edgewater Public Market website:
Builder
Builder allows users to create an app from scratch using their pick and choose library. They found that 20% of all app features makeup 80% of all apps and compiled those into an easy-to-use, do it yourself studio. It even gives an estimated cost and timeline. Builder will assemble your idea weather its a prototype or a full build.
Httpster
Httpster feels like Pinterest’s older, cooler sibling that you wanted to emulate all through freshman year of high school. It is an inspiration resource for minimal, but effective, websites from all over the world. Their goal is to showcase unpretentious design and good typography, even if some poorly coded ones fall into the mix. While the idea isn’t entirely new, Httpster gave the never-ending scroll inspo sites a facelift.
New Old Stock
This website features vintage photos from public archives that are free for personal use (and possibly commercial, depending on the image). Need a photo of gold miners in New England at the turn of the century? Or maybe a pic of a museum/gas station combo in McNary, Texas circa 1979? New Old Stock is my favorite distraction that I didn’t know I wanted.
Color Safe
Color Safe is a great tool that helps users find accessible color palettes for their website. Set up a canvas by choosing a few details like background color, font, size, and weight and then start experimenting with different text colors. The website will tell you whether or not the contrast ratio fits into the suggested Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
