SO many great tools are out there to help you build your site. Here are some of my favourites which I hope you will find useful!
- Canva
- PicMonkey
- Color Picker pro
- Pexel
- HTML/CSS Validator
Canva
Design superb graphics in seconds. Search Canva’s library of millions of stock images, illustrations, backgrounds and fonts. Start with beautiful layouts or design from scratch. (source: canva.com)
From creating a simple graphic for your website, designing images for all of your social media needs and onwards to document template design. Canva allows you to rid yourself of the expensive graphic design software and simplify your life (and lighten your wallet). WAY more is included in this great tool than listed here! Check out the site for yourself!
Pricing: Canva offers a free and paid version.
PicMonkey
Another awesome online photo editing and graphic design tool. I find PicMonkey to be an online comparison to Adobe Photoshop (a simplified version). Perfect though for many of the tools you will need relating to web design, photo touch up, resizing etc.
“PicMonkey’s got all the effects you want and all the tools you need. Take your pics to the next level. PicMonkey is the photo editor that says “Booyah!” to whatever your creative heart desires.” (source: PicMonkey)
Pricing: PicMonkey offers a free trial and SUPER reasonable sign-up fee.
Color Picker pro (Chrome extension)
Have you seen the perfect image and coloring scheme but stuck how to find out what the color is?
Color Picker pro is the tool you need! A chrome browser extension, this tool gives you a color picker to select any area within the browser to locate the hex code (example: #FFFFFF – for white). If you are new to the web design realm, this 6-digit code used within your CSS, inline styles, and most graphic editors.
Pricing: FREE!
Pexel
Have you often wondered where you can find great hi-res stock photos for free? Pexel is your friend!
Pexel has a great selection of various topics and categories. Keeping in mind, this is a stock photo site and I would not recommend using these as your product’s brand, rather source an image through Shutterstock or another alternative to ensure your copy is licensed and unique for your brand.
Pricing: FREE!
HTML/CSS Validator
Going into the fundamentals of building your website, knowledge of HTML and CSS are key. The w3c.org site is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to coding, standards, best practices and validators.
What is a validator? This is a tool that checks your site code for errors and warnings. If you are hand coding your site (or various elements) it is vital to ensure your code is structured properly (beginning and end tags etc.). If there are errors in the code, often you will find the display of your code ‘off’ and the page or elements will not display correctly.
There are MANY other great reasons for which a properly coded site is key, for which I will go into in future blog posts.
Pricing: FREE
