Design your way

There’s no doubt that there are a number of excellent tools and resources online that will make any web developer’s life easier. However, finding them isn’t always the easiest task. Most of the time, you’ll end up shifting through a lot of products that sound good but on which you can’t decide.

We’ve thought to lend a helping hand and tell you about the 10 best tools and resources we could find for both web developers and graphic and web designers.

1. Stamplia

Email templates are a big part of being a web developer or a graphic or web designer. Regardless of whether you’re using them or making them, elegant, professional email templates are a much sought-after commodity. No place is this more evident than on Stamplia. Stamplia is an email templates marketplace that has been around for quite some time and it has amassed more than 200 templates.

This is largely due to the fact that a lot of developers and designers have chosen to put their work up for sale on Stamplia and enjoy all the benefits this brings them. By selling their templates through Stamplia, they have a steady income ensured, waste less time hassling with clients and are free to explore their creativity.

What’s more, Stamplia offers developers access to the Stamplia Builder that will help them create amazing email templates in no time. With the Stamplia Builder you will be able create templates via drag and drop and visualize everything that you do in real time. Without a doubt, Stamplia is the best place for all you email template needs.

2. Notism

Nowadays, teams of people working from different sites are a common occurrence. Even though the Internet has enabled us to work on the same project from different parts of the world, it hasn’t made it particularly easy. This is where Notism comes in.

Notism is a real time design and video collaboration platform that caters to the needs of all creative industries that work with teams of people who need to communicate easily and frequently. By using Notism, you will be able to share, review, present designs and video work in a simple, effective manner. Moreover, getting feedback on your work and adding your own notes to the work of others has never been this straightforward.

Notism also allows you to turn static screens into interactive prototypes for web projects or mobile applications. Anyone from UX professionals, to designers or copywriters can use Notism and all of them will quickly see how much easier their work process will become.

3. Fire Checkout

At the moment, Magento is one of the most used eCommerce platforms available on the Internet. It has become the best choice for anyone running an eCommerce website and, naturally, it benefits from a vast array of extensions. The best extension for your Magento-powered website is without a doubt Fire Checkout.

This one page checkout extension is guaranteed to increase user experience and conversion rates for your website. Fire Checkout is fully AJAX based, meaning it makes the entire checkout process faster and easier for your clients. Moreover, it is fully responsive, ensuring that you get the best possible checkout experience regardless of what device you are using.

You will also be able to customise the Fire Checkout layout however you see fit: add up to 5 custom fields on your checkout page that can have any content you see fit, vary the sort order of address fields and provide each of your customers with an unique checkout experience.

Fire Checkout is now available in 11 languages and supports all the popular payment and shippent methods like PayPal, Google Checkout, DHL and more. Without a doubt, Fire Checkout is the best choice for your eCommerce website.

4. Pintastic – The Pinboard Social network script

Pintastic 4.0 is an online pinboard script that will allow you to set up and run your very on pinboard website in no time. By using this scrip you will not only be able to create a website where users can share their pictures or videos, but you will also enjoy a number of ways to monetize your traffic.

Pintastic offers you the option to create featured pins or power users as well as the possibility to extend it by adding a marketplace solution. Pintastic comes with a bundle of features that will help you easily manage your website.

It offers you faster smart search, responsive design, meta tags optimization options to improve SEO, integration with the most popular social networks, multi-language support and more. There’s no doubt that Pintastic is the best possible solution for you to create your very own Pinterest clone right now.

5. Argento Template

In order for an eCommerce website to truly be successful, it has to provide visitors with the best user experience possible. And achieving this is easier than ever now with Argento theme. This theme has been around for a while and it has stood the test of time. It features more than 15 of the most popular extensions for Magento and it was designed with speed in mind.

The CSS sprite techniques it employs means this theme makes less https requests and helps you navigate faster. Also, Argento theme is fully responsive and it works beautifully with any mobile device be it iOS (it is optimized for retina screens), Android or Windows Phone. What’s more, Argento is completely customizable. It allows you to add your own personal touch to anything from CSS files to template and layout files without having to alter any of the core theme files.

This way, you will be able to customize essential homepage elements, add widgets, change the look of the navigation, add custom blocks and more. Argento theme will help you with your websites’ SEO and give your customers the best possible user experience. It is now available in 5 languages including English, French and Deutsch.

6. actiTIME

Looking for software that will help you keep track of your projects, lower the costs and make your business stronger? Then actiTIME is the tool you need. This time tracking software is suitable both for freelancers and managers.

It will help you better manage deadlines, stay on top of the time spent on projects and leave time taken by employees , thus improving your team’s performance. Used by over 9000 companies all over the world, actiTIME stands out from the crowd by offering the possibility to adjust the product to your individual needs. Use task estimates to keep track of your progress, run detailed reports on staff performance and accurately bill or invoice your clients.

It’s available both in cloud and on premise, so you can decide where your data is stored. actiTIME will help you make efficiency your main focus. With the help of this software you’ll never exceed your budget or forget about a deadline ever again.

7. actiPLANS

Keeping track of your employees’ vacations, sick leaves and time off can be difficult whether we’re talking about a small team or a big company. actiPLANS is the ideal tool that helps its users manage their leave time and make things run smoothly. actiPLANS’ shared calendar will tell you exactly who is at work today and who is away.

You can now say goodbye to the boring spreadsheets and paperwork. Thanks to actiPLANS you won’t have to send dozens of emails back and forth in order to request or grant a leave. With this software you’ll be able to automate the leave time management process and calculate the paid time off balance of the employees.

Several PTO rules make actiPLANS highly flexible so you can adjust it to any leave policy. This cloud-based leave time management software is free for small teams up to 5 users.

8. PowerMockup

Having a good wireframe is an important step in any design process. Luckily, having such a wireframe is easier than ever right now by using PowerMockup. This resource allows you to turn your Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, 2010 and 2013 into the ideal wireframe tool.

As soon as you’ve installed PowerMockup, you will have access to an incredible library of interface components straight in PowerPoint via the new pane that will appear on the right side of slides. Using this tool you will be able to create wireframes easily without the added hassle of learning to use another software.

The Stencil Library PowerMockup provides has all the templates required for any website or app a designer needs: buttons, text boxes, menus, tabs etc. And all you have to do to include them in your wire frame is drag and drop them into your page.

Moreover, you won’t waste any time looking for an item you wish to add to your wireframe, as PowerMockup comes with a search function that automatically filters the list of stencils to give you what you need. You can also create your own stencil by selecting a shape on a slide and then clicking on “Add stencil” and you can also import a stencil and increase the size of your library and export it if you’re feeling creative.

9. IconBeast

Every iOS developers knows that you can never have too many icon options. Whether you need icons for personal or commercial use, iconbeast.com is the website you need when it comes to getting your hands on 3000+ iOS Tab Bar and Toolbar icons.

The IconBeast royalty free license will allow you to use them without any limitations. In fact, one of the coolest things about IconBeast icons is that they will also work great on Android devices, websites, banners, prints, etc. The available formats are PNG (which comes in three sizes), Vector AI, Vector EPS, SVG, and PSD. Even icons in active state are available.

Moreover, icons are designed and engineered in grid, so you can rest assured that they will always be pixel perfect. However, if you want to make any adjustments to the icons yourself, you can do so with the vector files EPS and AI by using any software such as Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Inkscape.

Another great thing about this package is that it comes with free updates for your icons, which means that whatever project you’ll be working on will always look top notch. If you are not ready to purchase the full pack, check out the free 500 iOS Tab Bar Icons that IconBeast is offering right now.

10. Getsy – The Multi Vendor Marketplace Script

Getsy is a marketplace script that allows you to create your very own multi vendor online business easily. With Getsy 2.0 you can have your very own professional marketplace website up and running in less than 24 hours. This social marketplace script is written in PHP, one of the most popular and reliable languages for websites available.

By creating your website using Getsy you will enjoy features like responsive design, integrated security, multiple payment options and integrated multi-currency and language options. With Getsy you will be able to create a social eCommerce website where your users will be able to interact with each other, create stores, buy and sell items as well as communicate with sellers and buyers via instant chat or messages. By using Getsy 2.0 you will be able to set up your very own online marketplace that will rival the likes of Etsy or Storenvy.