Articles

Poll: Are You Excited by Windows 11?

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It’s only been a few days since Microsoft officially followed Apple past the $2 Trillion valuation mark, and having done so it appears to be mimicking more of its long-term rival’s approach with hardware cut-offs and a macOS-style GUI refresh.

Hardware Shock

The first surprise for fans of Windows is that there is a Windows 11; the push for Windows 10 adoption was widely expected to all but eliminate numbered versions; creating a landscape in which there were numerous, regular minor updates. The arrival of Windows 11 later in 2021 kills off that idea.

Once Windows users come to terms with the fact that their (for the most part) reluctant upgrade to Windows 10 was short-lived, they’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that their hardware is probably about to be bricked by Microsoft.

Okay, so “bricked” is an exaggeration. But if you’re one of the many Mac users who were tempted over to the other side by the lure of the very desirable — and very expensive — Surface Studio 2, you’ll be understandably put out to discover that it is deemed too out-of-date to be supported by Windows 11.

The only hardware that Microsoft will officially support are those machines with AMD Ryzen 2000 processors, or better; you’ll also need at least a 2nd generation EPYC chipset. For those who cannot afford, or cannot stomach, purchasing new hardware this year, there is some respite to be found in the fact that you may be able to run Windows 11, you just won’t be officially supported and you’ll have to put up with regular compatibility warnings. You can check your hardware’s compatibility here.

It’s an unexpected departure for Microsoft, whose USP has until now been that — unlike macOS — Windows is hardware-agnostic, and the box you run Windows on is a personal preference.

macOS Style GUI

If however, you’re one of the lucky few who can download Windows 11, you’ll be confronted with a very macOS-style GUI. The whole environment has had a subtle refresh, with rounding happening throughout the design, resulting in a visually smoother, more Mac-like user experience.

The most obvious change is that the start button has been relocated to the center of the screen, making the process of using it considerably closer to macOS’ dock.

Windows 11 also includes a redesigned set of icons, which thankfully retain much of Windows’ current aesthetic.

Tablet mode has been removed in favor of a fullscreen option which indicates that Microsoft expects a greater blurring of the lines between traditional desktop machines, and touchscreen devices in future.

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Soft UI: Making Sense of the Latest Design Trend

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A new design trend has emerged in the last year: Soft UI or Neumorphism is everywhere. 

Even Apple is in on the trend; the company introduced a host of changes in both its mobile and desktop operating systems that use the style. The elements of Soft UI introduced by Apple reflect various aspects of the Microsoft Fluent UI design too. 

So, if soft UI is such a huge concept, what do we need to know about it? How does soft UI work, and what are the pros and cons of using it?

What is Soft UI (Neumorphism)?

Soft UI involves using highlights and shadows in design elements to make them look as though they’re layered on the page. 

The term neumorphism is derived from a previous design style — skeuomorphism, where designers create something as close to its real-life counterpart as possible. If you remember the shift between iOS 6 and 7, you’ll remember the switch between skeuomorphic and flat designs. However, neumorphic design isn’t quite as dramatic. 

Neumorphism doesn’t focus excessively on things like contrast or similarities between real and digital elements. Instead, this “soft UI” practice creates a smoother experience for users. 

With neumorphism, you get the sense that buttons and cards are actually part of the background they’re on. This trend removes the flashier aspects of a typical interface and focuses on a softer style that stays consistent throughout the design. 

The Common Features of Soft UI

Soft UI is all about smoothing out the experience by making everything feel more connected. There’s nothing overly harsh in the aesthetic, hence the term “soft.”

So, what kind of features can you expect?

Rounded Corners: Soft UI removes some of the sharper parts of the interface, like the corners on modules and segments. This allows for a more gentle appearance overall. In this experimentation from Iqonic Design, we can see how the round corners tie everything together.

Transparency and Background Blur: Background blur and transparency are more popular today since the infamous iOS 7 solution emerged. Most people hated the appearance of ultra-minimalism, combined with thin fonts. However, the background blur effect was more popular. The blur in soft UI shows that part of the window is connected to the rest of the OS. It seems like parts of the background in the app are pushing through to the surface. 

Unified Symbols: Everything needs to fit perfectly in a soft UI design. Anything that doesn’t look like it’s part of the same entity throws off the experience. In this design experiment by Surja Sen Das Raj, you can see how all the colors, shadows, and gradients tie together consistently. Because everything is more uniform, the experience flows perfectly for the end-user. 

Implementing Soft UI Elements in Your Design

So, what does neumorphism look like in your UI design process?

Ultimately, it’s all about subtle contrast and aligned colors. Every part of your interface needs to look like it’s part of the same form. Your element and background need to be the same color so that you can create a feeling of objects protruding from the background. 

With Soft UI, the keys to success are shadows and highlights. 

Let’s take a look at some key steps. 

Achieving the Soft Look

When you’re designing your interface, remember that sharp edges make the interface more serious and formal. Rounded corners are more playful and friendly. 

What also makes the design look lightweight and delicate is plenty of deep shadows and highlights. When you add shadows to elements, you create a visual hierarchy. The items that cast a larger, deeper shadow are the ones closest to you. That’s why only a few elements need to cast an intense shadow. Everything else should work in the background. 

Take a look at this design by Alexander Plyuto, for instance.

Creating Smooth and Delicate Gradients

Gradients are part of the shadow and highlighting process in Soft UI design. Ideally, you’ll need to choose colors from the same palette, just toned down or brightened, depending on your needs. The gradient needs to be barely visible, but just enough to make the elements stand out. 

For white gradients, like highlights, use a very delicate color somewhere between white and your background shade. For instance, consider this design from Marina Tericheva.

Consider the Little Details

Finally, remember that the neumorphism design principle is all about little details. 

Choosing a font that visually matches the background is an excellent choice. However, you can also choose something more contrasting, as this will help information stand out. 

Adding a little bit of the background into your fonts might be suitable too. For instance, if you have a green font and a grey background, add a little grey into the mix. 

Extra elements in your design, like allowing a button to shift into a more recessed state after being clicked, are a great way to make the soft UI more engaging. Everything your end-user interacts with needs to feel smooth and perfectly unified. 

The Problems with Soft UI Design

Just because a design process is trending – doesn’t mean it won’t have its issues. 

Neumorphism is a fun way to make apps, operating systems, and websites feel more friendly and informal. However, this softer approach has a weak spot too. 

When you’re dealing with a small margin of contrast and color where neumorphism works well, it’s hard to get the effect right every time. For instance, this all-yellow design for Dtail Studio may be overwhelming for some.

A slight deviation in saturation or a problem with your shadowing could render the entire effect of Neumorphism completely pointless. 

Another major issue is accessibility. The soft UI design looks great for people who have a full visual range. However, visually impaired users might not see the same benefits. Anyone without perfect vision may see crucial objects disappearing into the background.

Your users don’t necessarily need significant vision problems to struggle with neumorphism, either. The design is all about softness that causes elements to almost blend together. People with low-quality screens that don’t have as many pixels to work with won’t see these elements. 

Issues With Buttons and CTAs

Another major issue of neumorphism is that its subtlety can lead to problems with attracting clicks and conversions. Usability is the most important consideration of any UI design. 

Unfortunately, when you focus on subtle elements throughout your entire interface, usability sometimes takes a hit. 

Let’s consider buttons, for instance – they’re essential to any interface. To simplify the customer journey, these buttons need to be noticeable, and they need to shift into different states when your customers interact with them. 

For the button experience to be excellent, users need to notice the design instantly. However, the heart of neumorphism revolves around the idea that nothing stands out too much. 

This isn’t just an accessibility issue; it’s a problem for conversions too. 

Neumorphism is soft on the eyes, with minimal color contrast and few color pops. This means that CTA buttons don’t stand out as much as they should. Buttons almost blend into the background, and the website struggles to pull attention to the areas that demand it most. 

How to Experiment With Soft UI (Free Kits)

The key to unlocking the benefits of soft UI interfaces without getting lost in the negative points – is proper experimentation. Like any new design trends, professionals and artists will need to learn how to merge the elements of soft UI together in a way that doesn’t compromise usability. 

Trends in UI design can’t focus exclusively on aesthetics, as a customer’s comfort will always be an essential part of the process. 

If you want to start exploring, here are some of the best kits and freebies to get you started:

Closing Thoughts on Soft UI

The world of design and the trends that we use are constantly changing. Companies are always searching for the best ways to connect with their users. Often, this means focusing on an interface that really connects with your target audience and delivers the best possible results. 

The soft UI design trend has its benefits and its downsides. On the one hand, the smooth appearance of every element on a combined screen can deliver a delightful aesthetic. Buttons feel less imposing, and elements are friendlier and easier to interact with. 

On the other hand, neumorphism also makes it difficult to truly capture your audience’s attention in the places where it matters most. It suffers from accessibility issues and requires plenty of care and practice.

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7 Best Browsers for Developers in 2021

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With the widespread acceptance of web standards, and the resulting deprecation of browser prefixes, there has been a noticeable change in the browser market. Where once browser manufacturers would try to lure users in with promises of feature support, now the focus is on privacy, speed, and developer tools.

When it comes to web development, you should really be testing on every browser and device you can lay your hands on; you’re probably already doing so using an app like LambdaTest, or BrowserStack.

When quality assurance testing, you probably work by market share: starting with Safari on mobile, Chrome on desktop, and working your way down to Opera and (if you’re a glutton for punishment) Yandax; naturally, when testing, it’s the largest number of users that concerns us the most.

But before you reach the QA stage, there are a number of browsers designed to assist development. Browsers that offer tools, especially for front-end developers, that assist with code and speed up development. Here are the best browsers for web development in 2021:

1. LT Browser

LT Browser is an app for web developers from LambdaTest. Like many of the apps in this class, it offers side-by-side comparisons of a site in different viewports. Additionally, LT Browser has a number of features that make it stand out.

As well as previewing web pages, LT Browser offers developer tools to rival Chrome, which is handy if you want to see how changes across different devices affect your Lighthouse scores. LT Browser also supports hot-reloading, which means when you make a change to your code, you don’t have to hit ‘refresh,’ the viewports simply reload — it’s surprising how much of a time-saver that simple addition is.

LT Browser requires a LambdaTest account, there is a free plan, and paid plans start at $15/month.

2. Firefox Developer

The best conventional browser for web development in 2021 is the developer edition of Mozilla’s Firefox.

The standard edition of Firefox is an excellent browser, packed with features, and privacy-focused. The developer edition adds to this with a suite of tools aimed at developers. The CSS and JavaScript debugging tools are superb, and the Grid tools are unparalleled for coding layouts with CSS Grid.

Firefox Developer is free to download.

3. Polypane

Polypane is one of the new generation of web browsers that are firmly intended as development aids rather than browsers. Polypane allows you to compare different viewports and platforms by placing them side by side. Interactions like scrolling are synced.

Polypane takes a step further than many browser apps in this class by showing social media previews. It even has a suite of accessibility tools, including some handy color blindness simulators.

Polypane has a 14-day free trial, and plans start at $8/month.

4. Blisk

Blisk is another browser for developers that allows you to line up a collection of viewports in a single app. URL and scrolling are synced, making testing interactions and animations effortless.

Blisk is awesome fun to play with and delivers a great preview of a responsive design. But be warned, synced viewports can be addictive, and it’s easy to line up browsers and become hypnotized by the synchronized movement; you’ll need a very large screen to get the most out of Blisk.

Blisk plans start at $9.99/month.

5. Sizzy

Sizzy is another app that allows you to view multiple viewports at once. It also has synchronized interactions, and like many competing apps, Sizzy allows you to screenshot different views.

Sizzy also includes a very clever synchronized inspect tool, so you can focus on individual elements across different viewports. It’s an excellent option for debugging, particularly if you’re digging into someone else’s code.

Sizzy has a 14-day free trial, and paid plans start at $7.15/month.

6. Brave

Brave is a privacy-focused browser that runs up to three times faster than Chrome. If you’re someone who balks at rendering speeds on most sites, Brave could be for you.

Brave’s main benefit for developers is that it supports Chrome extensions while maintaining privacy — it can even access the Web using Tor if simple privacy mode isn’t enough for you. There are hundreds of useful Chrome extensions, and if you avoid Chrome due to privacy concerns, then Brave solves your problem.

Brave is also pioneering a new system for monetizing site revenue, allowing viewers to tip sites, and soon, to control how advertising revenue is distributed.

Brave is free to download.

7. Chrome

Boring it may be, but Chrome is still the world’s most popular browser from the US to mainland China. Where once sites were “best viewed in IE,” Chrome is now the Web’s default.

No matter the site you’re designing, it has to work well in Chrome, and no simulator is as good as the real thing.

In addition to being the benchmark for page rendering, Chrome developer tools are the simplest way to access your Lighthouse scores, which helps you track down issues that may be holding you back in Google’s search results.

Chrome is free to download.

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20 Best New Fonts, June 2021

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Welcome to a new series of articles, in which we round up the best new fonts released from some of the top designers on the Web.

In this inaugural edition, the collection includes fonts released or expanded over the last few months. Many of the fonts have free weights available. If you use any of them in your work, be sure to let us know!

Cedar

Cedar is a unique angular serif built by wrapping vector shapes around calligraphic structures. It has its roots in woodblock printing but creates a very modern aesthetic.

Tome Sans

Tome Sans is a very usable business-like type family of ten weights, plus italics. It features some awesome ligatures that you don’t often find in a sans-serif.

Midnight Sans

Midnight Sans is a chunky sans serif, suitable for display sizes. There’s a rounded variation for added warmth and dozens of OpenType features. It’s a good alternative to Impact.

Nouvelle Grotesk

Nouvelle Grotesk is a workhorse sans serif that you’ll come back to all the time. The humanist forms are a little more considered for digital usage than Akzidenz Grotesque or Helvetica.

Glaser Babyfat

Glaser Babyfat is the first typeface designed by the late, great Milton Glaser. It has been released posthumously by P22 alongside three other fonts based on Glaser’s designs.

Kristal

Kristal is a flexible and highly readable serif, suitable for large blocks of text in small sizes. It has some beautiful details, including a selection of ligatures and a fine set of italics.

Lightbox 21

Lightbox 21 is a redesigned version of Lightbox; the original made use of the golden ratio for its geometry, the redesign completely abandons that resulting in a more readable typeface.

Irregardless

Irregardless is a tall sans serif with organic shapes that feels almost like lettering. Unusually for this style of typeface it has upper and lowercase letters. It’s perfect for a retro design.

Futura Now

Futura Now is Monotype’s redrawn version of Paul Renner’s classic Futura. As well as being massaged for screens and expanded to cover more languages, it’s also now available as a variable font.

Granite

Granite is a slab serif with high-contrast strokes, giving it the feeling of an Old West woodblock font. There’s a stencil alternate set that adds to the rustic aesthetic.

Magnet

Magnet is a sans-serif with heaps of character. There is a condensed headline variation that’s perfect for display purposes, but the real standout feature is the quirky ear on the lowercase g.

Bowdon

Bowdon is a warm serif in the Bodoni tradition. The contrast between serif and stroke creates a sense of luxury. It’s available in three weights: regular, narrow, and wide.

Euclid Mono

Euclid Mono is an attempt to design a monospaced font that doesn’t fit the traditional mold. The extended shapes create a dance-like composition with plenty of movement.

Fave Set

Fave Set is a collection of marker pen scripts that are always handy to have in your toolbox. There are ten fonts included in total, with condensed and extra casual styles adding to the number.

Saison

Saison is a wonderfully energetic outline font. It only works as a display option, but it’s perfect for editorial work or even branding.

Hernandez Niu

Hernandez Niu is a slab serif that takes lots of character from its exaggerated ink traps in weightier sizes.

Gomme Sans

Gomme Sans is a typeface with 12 weights. The extended style creates a modern feel, and it’s suitable for display or short to medium amounts of text.

Dobb

Dobb is an Arabic typeface designed to offer a playful and expressive option for pairing with illustrations. It has a graphic novel feel in extended text blocks.

Hatch

Hatch is a slab serif that has drawn inspiration from reverse stress typefaces of the nineteenth century. It has some quirky details that make it distinctly modern and a beautiful italic.

Sculpin

Sculpin is a sans serif with sharp strokes and corners, inspired by the sharp edges of tools like chisels. It comes in five weights with matching italics, and there is a variable font available.

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Popular Design News of the Week: June 14 2021 – June 20, 2021

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Every day design fans submit incredible industry stories to our sister-site, Webdesigner News. Our colleagues sift through it, selecting the very best stories from the design, UX, tech, and development worlds and posting them live on the site.

The best way to keep up with the most important stories for web professionals is to subscribe to Webdesigner News or check out the site regularly. However, in case you missed a day this week, here’s a handy compilation of the top curated stories from the last seven days. Enjoy!

22 Exciting New Tools for Designers, June 2021

7.css

Does the Hamburger Menu Make Mincemeat of UX Design?

Top 15 Tools and Resources for Designers and Agencies

Loaf Animation SVG Library

WordPress 5.8 Introduces Support for WebP Images

Star Trek + Design

11 Landing Page Design Tips You Should Follow Today

Isometrica 3D Constructor

HTML Semantic Tags Cheat Sheet

What is a Design System?

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3 Ways to Design More Inclusively

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Inclusive design is often mistaken for accessibility, or even used as an interchangeable term, which is a good indication that most designers don’t know what it means.

Accessibility is a process that seeks to mitigate issues in a design that is not sufficiently universal; inclusive design increases the universality of the design. In real-world terms, an accessible building may replace its front steps with a ramp; an inclusive building is constructed at the same level as the sidewalk.

Accessibility is concerned with objective, measurable improvements. It’s a UI concern. Inclusive design is subjective, more difficult to measure, and is a UX concern. By designing inclusively, we extend our designs to the widest possible user group and contribute to a better society. Here are three ways to get started.

1. You’re the Edge Case

When designing, it’s normal to assume that we are normal. After all, we are the center of our experience of the world. Everything from our preferences to our empathy stems from our individual place in time and space.

When we use the term “edge case,” what we’re referring to is a minority experience, a way of using our design that is uncommon or distinct from our own expectations.

But what would happen if we treat ourselves as the edge case? What if all of the experiences that we deem to be minority experiences are actually the core, common user experience of our design?

If we start from the position that we are the one out-of-step with the design, that most people will not think or act as we do, then we’re eliminating thousands of biased decisions about how our design should be.

Draw From Life

It has always surprised me that in Europe’s dark ages — ranging from the decline of the Roman empire to the Proto-Renaissance — it didn’t occur to anyone to draw from life. Artists drew things the way they thought they should look, which is why so many Byzantine icons of the infant Jesus look like a middle-aged blonde man that has been shrunk.

It’s important to draw from real life as much as possible. That means abandoning personas — which are by definition under-representative and frequently loaded with bias — and engaging with actual users. Most of all, it means taking a step back and opening your eyes.

2. Stop Making Inclusive Design Part of Your Practice

Inclusive design cannot be a part of your practice; it’s an all-encompassing attitude. Your design practice must be inclusive. At least, it should aspire to be…

As human beings, we are biased—all of us. The reason for that is that bias — be it racism, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, or anything else — is cultural. And we all exist within society. We’re all bombarded with information that reinforces those biases every day.

Accept that you have biases and that your biases will pull your design work away from the inclusive solution you aspire to. But equally, accept that by acknowledging your biases you’re limiting the influence they have over your decision-making.

Do Not Require Users to Self-Identify

It’s divisive and abusive to partition users into groups, especially when the act of doing so perpetuates bias.

One of the most encouraging developments of the last decade has been the introduction of the answer “prefer not to say” in response to personal questions about race, gender, status, and so forth. But if “prefer not to say” is a valid option, in other words if you don’t actually need to know, then why ask at all?

Beware Occam’s Razor

Occam’s Razor is an often misquoted idea that (to paraphrase) states that when making a decision, the one with the least assumptions is the correct choice.

The problem is that Occam’s Razor implies that there is a ‘correct’ decision. But in fact, inclusive design benefits most from a flexible UI and a high tolerance for deviation.

If you can identify the assumptions in a design decision sufficiently to count them, then you’re best served by testing, not comparing, those assumptions.

3. Design Flexibility Into Everything

There is no such thing as a “natural normal,” but there is “perceived normal.” Much of our behavior is governed by the experiences we’ve had since we were very young. Despite existing somewhere on a scale of ability and preference, most of us have inched towards what we have been told is a “normal” range all our lives.

However, it is a physiological fact that every characteristic exists somewhere on a spectrum. There are no black and whites; it’s all grey.

When we design a site or app, we tend to silo certain characteristics into one. Someone who is visually impaired is treated to the same ‘solution’ as someone who is blind, even though visual impairment can range from screen reflections on a sunny day to someone who was born without optic nerves.

There are people who have lost their sight through degeneration or accident and will be able to make visual connections based on remembered visuals. Other people have never seen anything and their conscious mental process isn’t figurative at all.

To accommodate the full gamut of possible interactions with our design, we need to design to a scale, not with absolute values. This means thinking less about set colors and sizes and more in terms of contrast and scale.

Avoid Communicating in Color

Few areas are more indicative of a spectrum of experiences than color.

Color is instantly problematic for designers because quite apart from color blindness, color has deeply personal associations.

Over the last couple of decades, it’s been repeatedly proven that it is contrast, not hue, that increases engagement. Green does not always mean go; red does not always mean stop.

Color involves so many biases and assumptions that it’s simply better to work with contrast than select the ‘right’ hue.

Bigger Typography (Sometimes)

In the first draft of this article, I wrote that increasing the scale of your typography was always good.

My rationale was that some users will benefit from larger type, and zero users will be hindered by it. But that’s not true. Larger type means fewer lines per viewport, which means more scrolling; not a problem for some users, but potentially an issue for those with motor control issues.

That was one of my biases right there.

Congratulations, You’re Now An Inclusive Designer

Good design is self-aware in origin and unselfconscious in execution.

Inclusive design isn’t about enabling access for everyone; it’s about designing for a user experience that is welcoming and respectful. Every one of your users should feel not just enabled but validated.

Inclusive design isn’t a series of items on a checklist; it’s an ideal, like harmony or beauty, that we may struggle to achieve but that we should strive for nonetheless.

 

Image via Pexels.

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22 Exciting New Tools For Designers, June 2021

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This month’s new tools and resources collection is a mixed bag of elements for designers and developers. From fun little divots to tools that can speed up development, you are sure to find something usable here.

Here’s what new for designers this month:

June’s Top Picks

Codewell

Codewell is a service to help you learn, practice, and improve HTML and CSS skills with real templates. The benefit here is pretty obvious. When working with real templates, you can see the result of actions and changes. The tool includes free and premium options with new templates to work on weekly. Everything works in a responsive environment, and free plans have access to free challenges and a Slack community; a paid plan also includes source files and premium challenges. You need a Github login to get started.

LoomSKD

LoomSDK is an easy and reliable way to add video messaging to your product – and it’s free. The SDK enables your users to record, embed, and view with Loom videos directly within web apps – adding clarity and context to any workflow.

Pintr New Image

Pinter New Image turns photos into funky and fun line images. Upload an image with plenty of contrast, use the controls to set the look you want to achieve, and download. The new images are available as PNG or SVG. Maybe use it to create your next profile photos for social media or a nifty avatar.

Terms & Conditions Apply

Terms & Conditions Apply is a game that explains all those little pop-ups that you accept to enter and interact with websites. You are tasked with a mission to start the game: Do not accept terms and conditions, say no to notifications, and opt-out of cookies. Can you do it?

Khroma

Khroma uses artificial intelligence (via personalized algorithm) to learn what colors you love and create palettes for you to discover, search, and save for use in projects. The beta tool is easy to get started with, although you do have a little color-picking homework to get started.

6 WebTools

Mmm

Mmm is a different type of website builder. The tool, which is still in alpha, allows users to create drag and drop websites in a simple manner. It works almost like making a digital collage. Users can get a custom URL, and every page is responsive. The interface is designed so that you can even build yours on a phone. And here’s the other feature – they encourage messy designs.

LightGallery

LightGallery is a lightweight, modular, JavaScript image and video lightbox gallery plugin. It works with React.js, Vue.js, Angular, and TypeScript. It includes plenty of demos and documentation to help you make the most of this gallery tool.

Vandal

Vandal is a nifty browser extension for Firefox or Chrome that allows you to navigate back in time without changing tabs. The utility of Vandal is to allow quick and easy access to all the archived snapshots for a URL, and it supports navigation to a snapshot as well.

CSS Layout Generator

The CSS Layout Generator is a tool for creating the CSS for layout components. It is also a learning tool for teaching what is possible in CSS for positioning elements in the browser. Tweak specifications to see how it impacts the layout, CSS, and HTML.

Alpaca Data API

Alpaca Data API is an easy-to-use feed that allows you to bring in stock market data for modeling and backtesting. (it includes free and premium options based on your needs.)

Mobile Palette Generator

Mobile Palette Generator is a color-picking tool that will help you select the best hues for mobile design projects. It then shows you all the specs for primary, secondary, and accent colors.

6 Icons and UI Kits

Iconoir

Iconoir is an open-source icon repository with more than 900 SVG icons. Search icons, browse by category or poke around for what you are looking for. Everything is ready to use without signups or forms to fill out.

Pmndrs Market

Pmndrs Market has a collection of more than 300 three-dimensional elements and drawings of things for use in projects. Model renders are in a rough style with a realistic feel.

Boring Avatars

Boring Avatars is a fun collection of semi-customizable avatars without faces, hence the name. It’s a fun playground that puts a new twist on something that you might not expect to do differently.

Spark

Spark is a free download with three different website design starters. The hero images are ready to build from and are made for Figma.

Venus Design System

Venus Design System is a premium UI kit packed with more than 2,000 components and states that allow you to design fast. There’s also a demo version for you to test before you buy.

ReadyUI

ReadyUI contains more than 200 blocks and designs for agencies, developers, startups, and more. Everything is production-ready using Bootstrap and Figma files. Choose from light or dark themes and search for a design that works for your project.

5 Tutorials

Creating Generative SVG Characters

Creative Generative SVG Characters is a marriage of JavaScript and SVG that creates fun characters derived from drawings. Using shapes and a little code, you can see how to draw smooth lines, create polygons, and add other shapes for a fun feel. There’s a full demo on Codepen.

5 Steps to Faster Web Fonts

5 Steps to Faster Web Fonts helps you remove some of the bulk from popular typography options. Iain Bean explains a set of methods you can deploy to ensure that load times are quick with some applicable code snippets. Here’s a preview: Tip 1 is to use the most modern file formats (WOFF2).

The Perfect Link

The Perfect Link walks you through some accessibility checks from the A11Y Collective for linking best practices. Some of the things you think are the “right way” may be challenged here. The information goes through everything from design to semantics and is wonderfully thorough. It’s a must-read.

Readsom

Readsom is a curated collection of newsletters and emails that you can read online or sign up for. Its catchphrase is to “discover content you’ll want to read.” It is a good way to find newsletters that interest you, including plenty of design and development options that you might not otherwise know about.

Famous First Websites

Famous First Websites isn’t a tutorial per se, but it does provide a good place to do some visual learning. See what your favorite websites looked like when they launched and the evolution of the designs.

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Popular Design News of the Week: June 7 2021 – June 13, 2021

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Every day design fans submit incredible industry stories to our sister-site, Webdesigner News. Our colleagues sift through it, selecting the very best stories from the design, UX, tech, and development worlds and posting them live on the site.

The best way to keep up with the most important stories for web professionals is to subscribe to Webdesigner News or check out the site regularly. However, in case you missed a day this week, here’s a handy compilation of the top curated stories from the last seven days. Enjoy!

Patttterns

What I Learned by Relearning HTML

All You Need is 5 Fonts

What Is Glassmorphism? (With Examples)

Half the Internet Went Down Today — Here’s What Happened

3 Essential Design Trends, June 2021

50 Free Cursive Handwritten Fonts to Spice Up Your Design

The 4 Biggest UI Trends Shaping Apple’s Future

Google Changes Core Web Vitals Metrics

Storytelling In Design – Top Trends For 2021

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9 Amazing Design-Resource Package Sites

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Every designer has their own preferred strategy for collecting resources. Some pluck brushes, fonts, and templates from different “stock photo sites” and public marketplaces. Others collect graphics from swipe files and forums around the web.

The never-ending desire for themes, visual content, and graphical components has prompted an influx of “design packages” to appear around the web. These all-in-one bundles, ranging from Envato Elements to Elegant Themes, promise a selection of valuable creative content in exchange for a single fee or monthly subscription. 

If you’ve been planning to seek out a few of these high-value subscriptions yourself, you’re in the right place! Today, we’re going to talk about some of the top designer resources available on the market. 

1. Envato Elements

Probably the best-known of all the designer resource marketplaces, Envato Elements advertises itself as the unlimited creative subscription. On this website, you’ll be able to access around 54 million creative assets through a single subscription. There are endless resources to unlock here, ranging from templates for your graphics to video templates, audio, and stock photos. 

Unlike most marketplaces, Envato gives you peace of mind by promising only the highest quality designs and graphics. Your content comes with quality assurance, and there are many PSD elements on the site, too, including stationery and web design templates, mock-ups, and more. Categories for your creative content include:

  • Stock photos
  • Video templates
  • Music
  • Sound effects
  • Graphic templates
  • Graphic designs
  • Presentation templates
  • Fonts
  • Photos
  • Web templates
  • Add-ons
  • CMS templates
  • WordPress resources
  • 3D content

Pricing: Pricing starts at only $16.50 per month, and this gives you unlimited access to everything on the site, including millions of digital assets and stock photos. You’ll also be able to use various courses and tutorials on the website too.

2. Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes is an all-in-one creative resource for website themes. The solution offers you access to some of the most popular WordPress themes worldwide. 

You’ll also get access to a visual page builder as part of the kit. When you sign up for the Elegant Themes subscription, you get access to all of the resources within, including the Divi page builder and WordPress theme, Extra, Monarch, Bloom, and more. If you’re a site builder or work on building pages for clients, this is a must-have subscription. 

Elegant themes are currently the go-to resource for more than 750,000 people. It’s also home to some of the highest-rated themes around. Features include:

  • Divi WordPress page builder
  • Endless WordPress themes
  • Page editing tools
  • Monarch, Bloom, and Extra 
  • Hundreds of website packs
  • Lifetime premium support
  • Unlimited website usage

You can either pay for yearly access with Elegant Themes or pay a one-off price for lifetime access. For most, the lifetime option is likely to be a pretty appealing one. You don’t have to worry about renewing your subscription this way.

3. Template Monster

Template Monster offers the “ONE” web development membership, perfect for creative professionals. The MonsterONE offering is a complete unlimited subscription for all of your creative needs, with access to unlimited downloads, new weekly items, and simple licensing. You also get plenty of support from the Template Monster Team. 

A goldmine for anyone who needs to upgrade their selection of video and photo assets, graphic templates, HTML templates, or anything else, Template Monster is packed full of amazing resources for any project. You can also find new products from fresh contributors all the time, so the value of your membership is constantly increasing. 

Features include:

  • HTML templates
  • Presentation templates
  • CMS templates
  • Graphic templates
  • Video assets
  • 3D models
  • Audio assets
  • WordPress themes and plugins

Pricing starts at a tiny $6.90 per month, with a slight discount if you pay yearly. The lowest-cost package gives you access to all of your graphic and design assets, but you won’t get any eCommerce or WordPress themes. However, if you upgrade to the all-in-one package at $14.95 per month, you get a more extensive range of resources.

4. Creative Market

Creative Market is another one of those amazing all-in-one environments for creatives and designers. This marketplace is supplied by thousands of independent artists from around the globe, each offering a host of top-quality designs and resources. You’ll find photos, graphics, templates, fonts, web themes, and countless other tools on the Creative Market. 

If you’re looking for sheer size, it’s hard to find another company that competes with the Creative Market package. There are literally millions of ready-to-use products available, including Instagram templates, textures, and procreate brushes. 

You’ll have access to 3D content for your immersive website designs and a host of purchasing products. Although there’s no “subscription model” per-se for this marketplace, you can invest in a credit plan that allows you to set how much you spend on your assets each month. 

Features include:

  • Millions of creative products
  • Huge selection of independent designers
  • Brushes, textures, templates 
  • Fonts and web content available
  • Huge selection of stock photos
  • Convenient credit plan

The individual purchasing plan is likely to appeal more to people just beginning to test Creative Market for the first time. However, if you want a subscription experience, we’d recommend using the credit plan to estimate how many credits you’ll need each month.

5. Adobe Stock

All web designers know Adobe. The chances are that no matter what kind of creative work you do, you’ve developed a few skills with an Adobe product, from Photoshop to Lightroom. Adobe Stock is also one of the leading platforms for images on any topic. 

Although Adobe Stock doesn’t compete with other marketplaces in terms of versatility, it still stands out as one of the main resources for designers. There are hundreds of millions of stock images, videos, editorial content, and vectors. You can also access a premium collection of custom content and 3D resources too. The great thing about Adobe stock is that you can easily create your own libraries and download content into your Adobe software. Resources include:

  • Stock photos
  • Premium images
  • 3D content
  • Vectors and brushes
  • Stock video footage
  • Royalty-free templates
  • Vector art and illustrations
  • Stock music and audio
  • Integration with Adobe software

Adobe Stock is a little pricier than some of the other marketplaces available today, but it’s still pretty impressive. You’ll pay around $29.99 per month for 10 assets per month, or you can access a full annual plan at $199.99 per month. The amount you pay will depend on the quality of the resources that you want to download.

6. Motion Elements

If Elegant Themes is the go-to resource for designers searching for WordPress themes and web design solutions, Motion Elements is the top choice for “motion” content. Here, you’ll find videos, SFX content, images, music, 3D solutions, and so much more. 

Though it’s located in Asia, Motion Elements is available worldwide. The marketplace offers a monthly subscription plan wherever you can download unlimited products to suit your needs. There are tons of resources to choose from here, including After Effects elements, tools for Lottie, Premiere Pro, FCPX motion, DaVinci Resolve, and more. 

Features include:

  • After Effects elements
  • Premier Pro resources
  • FCPX Motion
  • DaVinci Resolve
  • Video and audio content
  • Stock images
  • SFX resources
  • 3D content

Pricing starts at $16.50 per month for an unlimited annual plan. This means that you can download as much as you like without having to pay any more. There is a small discount if you pay for a full year of access in one go.

7. Creative Tim

Simple but effective, Creative Tim is an amazing resource for front-end and back-end content bundles. You get fully coded UI tools here that can help you create various mobile and web apps and a huge selection of dashboards and templates. If you’re the kind of designer who likes working on top of things like Bootstrap, React, Angular, Laravel, Node.js, and more, then Creative Tim has you covered. 

This is one of the more technical creative resource packages that we’ve looked at so far, but it has a lot of value to offer. That’s probably why there are already more than 1.5 million people using the service. You can search through administration dashboards, UI kits, premium templates, free content, and design systems. Of course, everything is easy to access too. Features include:

  • Frontend design technologies for endless platforms
  • Soft design, light design, paper design, and more
  • Bootstrap content 
  • Resources and third-party tools
  • Complete design and web kits
  • UI kits and templates
  • Admin and dashboard templates

There’s a free version of Creative Tim available for beginners if you want to keep your costs low, but it’s generally much better to sign up for the premium subscription. You can also purchase kits and templates on a one-off basis if you prefer to start small. However, the best prices generally come from buying the bundles from Creative Tim’s subscription side. 

8. Storyblocks

Similar in style to Motion Elements, Storyblocks is a creative design resource for any designer getting involved with the video world. This website is home to some of the best free-to-use videos around, with simple licensing available at a click. Aside from high-quality videos and templates, you also get audio and sound effects as part of your subscription and images or illustrations. 

The unlimited access pass gives you all the resources you might want, from 4K and HD footage to music and sound effects, After Effects templates, and photos, vectors, or illustrations. You can also export a host of your own video projects with access to the Maker video editor, which allows you to make various changes to your custom video content. Features include:

  • HD and 4K video footage
  • After Effects Templates
  • Sound Effects and Music
  • Photos, Illustrations, and Vectors
  • Unlimited video exports
  • Video editor access
  • Licensing support

The standard all-access plan from Storyblocks starts at a very affordable £39 per month for all of the content you might want. In addition, everything you get here is unlimited, so you don’t have to worry about running out of credits. There’s also an enterprise option available if you want to share access to resources with your team.

9. Motion Array

Motion Array is an all-in-one video creation platform for those with an eye for visual content. This fantastic resource center is packed full of valuable tools, from Da Vinci Resolve templates to Adobe Premier Pro Content. As part of your subscription payment, you’ll get endless presets, audio effects, plugins, video footage, tutorials, and more. 

Though a little more expensive than some of the other premier subscription services on the market, Motion Array does offer a lot of content that you can’t get anywhere else. There’s an unlimited marketplace constantly updating with access to royalty-free footage, stock photos, music, and sound effects. You also get plugins built for Premiere Pro. Features include:

  • Adobe Exchange elements
  • Final Cut Pro and DaVinci resolve templates
  • Royalty-free music and sound effects
  • Stock footage and video
  • Photos and images
  • Time-saving integrations with your favorite apps
  • Portfolio site builder
  • Stock media requests

There’s a free subscription option for Motion Array, which you won’t find from most alternatives. This only gives you access to some basic stock photos and assets, but it’s a nice way to start. When you are ready to upgrade, you can pay $29.99 per month for the full stock media library, as well as requests for custom media assets and exclusive plugins.

Start Stocking Up on Designer Resources

As a designer or creative professional, keeping a constant stack of resources available is crucial to your ongoing productivity. Fortunately, there are tons of premium marketplaces out there today, making it easier to access everything you need. 

Whether you’re looking for full UI kits and templates, or you want some free-to-use images and videos for the website content you’re creating, there’s something for everyone. With most monthly subscription services available at a highly affordable price, you could even sign up for multiple sites at once. 

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