Top 24 Online Resources for Web Designers

Sources of Inspiration

Behance

Behance is an open platform where designers can showcase their creations. Every day thousands of web artists upload their UI designs, GIFs and even just simple aesthetically appealing images. With access to artists from all over the globe, you can easily find inspiration. Just look and learn and admire their sense of beauty.

Design Is Kinky

Design is Kinky is an Australian portfolio site that collects cool web designs from all over the globe. It also includes links to designers and artists projects into Art, Design, Events. and Photography. If you’re searching for something beautiful on the web, a visit to Design Is Kinky is a must.

CSSMania

CSSMania is a leading CSS portfolio showcase platform. The site appeared as a section of a personal blog but grew to become an independent resource profiling website designs built with HTML5 and CSS technology. It is especially useful as a tool for business owners looking for ideas that can strengthen their online presence.

Dribbble

Dribbble is another community of talented designers. These people share their web and graphic works: illustrations, icons, logos and other pieces of art, and are even on standby to answer any design-related questions you have. It is a perfect place to show and promote your designs as well as discover and explore design trends and new techniques.

COLOURlovers

While looking for attractive colour patterns and palettes, you’ll find inspiration at COLOURlovers. Here you can meet artists from around the globe who together are building a creative community dedicated to colour. Anyone is free to discuss the latest trends or get expert opinions on their colour scheme. You can also create your own palette and get helpful advice from other users.

Beautiful Web Type

Beautiful Web Type is a vivid showcase of the best typefaces available from Google’s 600-strong web fonts directory. It boasts a collection of high-quality fonts and provides a closer look at font combination options. This website can encourage you to experiment with typography and achieve better results.

News & Trends

The web industry is a pretty dynamic and fast-paced one. It’s continuously evolving, introducing innovations and emerging technologies and adopting new trends. To keep up with this industry and keep users loyal, web designers need to be aware of the latest trends and techniques in web design and development. A good idea is to have your own bank of topical magazines, blogs and sites handy.  

Bittbox

An all-in-one website that offers quality information resources for any designer’s needs, Bittbox is considered a knowledge hub, aimed at helping designers keep up with the latest trends and simplify their creative process. An intuitive search bar will help you find everything from graphics and hot news to free tutorials.

Logo Design Love

To make sure you’re always on top of the latest logo trends and learn about the history of famous logos, visit Logo Design Love. It features regular updates once or twice per week, allowing you to keep up to date on everything logo-related.

Web Designer Wall

Web Designer Wall was founded by a Toronto-based web designer active in WordPress theme design, stock icons and other illustrations. He has spoken at well-known design conferences and is a trusted source when it comes to web design, and now that his blog has become a renowned website with quality content, you can always use it to find fresh and useful ideas about design trends. 

Noupe

Noupe will help you follow the dynamic world of the design industry. It contains articles on a variety of topics including information about how to take advantage of design technologies such as CSS and Ajax and all aspects of web design. Here you can find all sorts of relevant information about trends in graphics, typography, animation and more.

Abduzeedo

Abduzeedo is another designer’s blog collecting designers’ thoughts on architecture, design, UX and photography all in one place. This digital publication regularly posts articles from various writers all over the world. Fresh ideas and quality information make this website one of the most sought-after design resources on the Internet.

Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine provides readers with useful information and emerging news about the web industry. Pay it a visit and get acquainted with the latest trends and techniques in web development. It has a quality range of products for artists including articles, digital books and tickets for their conferences and workshops.

DIY Platforms

Even if you can’t leverage sophisticated design tools, you can always build your business website with intuitive Do-It-Yourself (DIY) platforms. Such tools are usually based on an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface. Below we’ve put together a list of resources to help you achieve your goals without any technical background.  

Weld Websites

Another DIY platform focusing on elegant website creation is Weld Websites. Its capabilities are more comprehensive than Readymag’s as it lets users build a greater variety of websites from information resources to e-commerce sites with integrated features and custom design. You still don’t need coding skills and can easily build a responsive solution complete with features such as interactive animation effects. Visit the website and watch the introductory video to see how it all works.

Readymag

Readymag perfectly fits publishers who want to create their own microsites, magazines, photo stories, portfolios and presentations. You don’t need any coding skills; only your sense of imagination. Video tutorials are there to explain how the platform works, meaning getting results will be easy as pie. The range of services on offer is comprehensive: everything from responsive design to SEO friendliness is available for your project to benefit from.

Lucidpress

Lucidpress is an intuitive design tool for everyone. You won’t need to install anything as the design process is made highly intuitive using drag-and-drop functionality. With this solution you can easily interact with your favourite tools such as Google Doc, YouTube, Dropbox, Facebook and Flickr. The results of your efforts can then be both printed and published online.

Haiku Deck

With Haiku Deck you will be able to create breathtaking presentations with no need for professional designers. The tool leaves an impression thanks to its simplicity and clarity, helping you take full advantage of your creative flow while making even amateur projects look professional. The platform offers a range of stylish fonts, layouts and images. Just start by selecting a template and get creating, whether it be a press release, startup pitch, social media report or one of 8 available formats.

WordPress

WordPress is an open source framework for building custom websites with no ads. Statistics show 28% of the web uses this technology. With knowledge of PHP and MySQL, you can create a completely customised business site, display images galleries, build a responsive design and really take advantage of all the capabilities this software offers you.  

Strikingly

Strikingly - one more website builder that offers businesses their own website with a custom domain name, store functionality, integrated blog, built-in analytics, contact form and other features that will set it apart from standard ‘template’ sites. These tools provide opportunities to customise your web experience taking advantage of everything web design has to offer.

Educational Resources

With the development of technology, education is becoming more accessible providing aspiring students with an opportunity to become lifelong learners. It’s no longer even necessary even to go to school to enlarge your knowledge base; the internet is chock full of educational materials. Whether you are a beginner in web design or a professional, you can easily find resources that will meet your expectations. If you feel that a run-of-the-mill website design doesn’t fit your business, visit these sites.  

Evanto Tuts+

Evanto Tuts+ offers video courses and tutorials that embrace design topics including illustration, photography, video, web design and more. Here you can learn design tricks and later apply them to the development of your business website. These tutorials are completely free and based around specific projects so you won’t get lost in endless irrelevant information about the theory of design.

SitePoint

SitePoint was founded by web professionals to help web developers, designers, web product creators and entrepreneurs flourish. The Australia-based site is a lively hub for web specialists where they can share expertise and their passion for IT. It also provides numerous courses and educational articles, books, podcasts and forums on topics such as HTML & CSS, Design & UX and SEO, as well as plenty of others.

I Love Typography

I Love Typography is a good source of information for those who want to know more about typeface design, lettering and how to make text look attractive. The site brings the study of typography to the masses and can help you become proficient in the art of making words work for you. Here you can find out about the history of letters and fonts and learn to select the fonts that will help make your design look even better.

Video Copilot

Integrated videos giving information about a business and its services are something we come across more and more often. Videos help engage visitors. If you want to master video effects and learn more about special techniques, Video Copilot will be of service with its support, training and tutorials. Get acquainted with the innovative tools and master motion design and visual effects.

The Tiny Designer

The Tiny Designer’s website claims that “each of us has a tiny designer somewhere inside,” and that with its help everyone achieve their goal of creating incredible designs. The site provides non-designers with relevant background design knowledge via a five-part email course including information about how design theories relate to business goals.

Coursera

For certified advanced-level education, you can try Coursera, which unites top educators from leading universities all over the globe. The education process consists of video lectures along with peer-reviewed and auto-graded assignments. Within 4 or 6 weeks you can successfully complete your chosen course and obtain the accompanying certificate. The site provides plenty of courses for web designers and enables you to learn a new skill within a month.

Conclusion

You can start creating your next masterpiece as soon as you finish reading this post. If you encounter any problems, you can always rely on Magora’s assistance and professional support, so feel free to ask any questions. Next time we will introduce more sophisticated and advanced tools that will help you to meet your aesthetic needs and build even more elegant websites. 

Andrew Volgin

Business Development Manager

With a sharp eye for market trends and strong relationship-building skills, Andrew leads initiatives that drive Magora to the forefront of tech innovation and success.