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Download Free Xmas Patterns

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Christmas is just around the corner, and these free Xmas patterns are a great way to get into the Christmas spirit!

There are so many different ways to enjoy these Christmas patterns, from cards to ornaments, and everything in between. Why not design your own custom wrapping paper, or print garlands to hang throughout the house?

These illustrated Christmas patterns are also the perfect way to add some holiday cheer to your business’ marketing. Create a festive email signature, add banners to your website, or just post a message of peace and goodwill on your social media. The happy snowmen and cheerful Santa characters are sure to bring a smile to the face of the staunchest Grinch, so download them now.

You may use these patterns for personal and commercial purposes. You MUST add a link to our site www.webdesignerdepot.com wherever you use these patterns online. If you use them for print, you must clearly credit us somewhere in your product with written text crediting our website www.webdesignerdepot.com If you can’t or don’t want to add a link to our site, please contact us for a special commercial license that doesn’t require any kind of linking or attribution. Licensing fees start at only $15 but may be more expensive in certain situations. Please reach out for more details. These files cannot be distributed in any shape or form on their own.

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Download Free Xmas Illustrations Today

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Tis (almost) the season to be jolly, and with Christmas Day just one month away, it’s high time to start putting together your Winter holiday promotions.

Today, we want to share some incredible free Xmas illustrations. There are several greetings card-style designs that are just perfect for sending to customers as part of an email campaign. You’ll also find dozens of Christmas-themed items that can be combined to create your own seasonal illustrations for websites, emails, and print promotions.

It’s never too late to spread some goodwill by wishing your contacts the compliments of the season. So download these illustrations for free and get started today.

You may use these illustrations for personal and commercial purposes. You MUST add a link to our site www.webdesignerdepot.com wherever you use these illustrations online. If you use them for print, you must clearly credit us somewhere in your product with written text crediting our website www.webdesignerdepot.com. If you can’t or don’t want to add a link to our site, please contact us for a special commercial license that doesn’t require any kind of linking or attribution. Licensing fees start at only $15, but may be more expensive on certain situations. Please reach out for more details. These files cannot be distributed in any shape or form on their own.

Download the WDD Xmas illustrations for free.

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Exciting New Tools For Designers, April 2022

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Bored with the same old design tools? There are plenty of new toys to experiment with, from fun divots to functional design tools that could become your new go-to’s.

Here’s what is new for designers this month…

Kosmo

Kosmo is a new project management and invoicing system designed just for freelancers. Designers and developers will love it because the interface is sleek and modern. The tool lets you send invoices, track time, manage projects, send proposals and contracts, and manage billing. You can customize everything from your brand to colors so that your invoices reflect your business style. The platform has a free option as well, making it easy to have the tools you need to run your business. (Plus, there’s a very affordable premium plan if you want more features.)

STUDIO

STUDIO lets designers layout and publish responsive websites, including the ability to connect to backend data, all with a low learning-curve GUI and no coding knowledge prerequisites. You can publish to a free URL with free hosting on the cloud. The free version also includes forms. STUDIO also has premium plans if you like the tool for websites of all sizes and bandwidth needs.

NFT.js

NFT.JS allows you to deploy an ERC721 contract that can perform all the required functions without writing a single line of code. Interact with the contract by calling functions and sending transactions to the contract with a couple of lines of NFT.JS. Provide the input file into the metadata object, and NFT.JS uploads all the files provided in the metadata to IPFS as well as uploads the metadata.json file to IPFS and mints the NFT.

Color Morph

Color Morph is a fun little tool to help you generate mesh gradients in SVG format, or generate CSS, that you can snag and use in projects. The patterns are trendy and fun to use.

Scripts Organizer

Scripts Organizer is an advanced code editor for WordPress. This premium tool helps you make workflow scripts work for you with scheduling, advanced functionality, live previews, safe mode, SCSS partials, code injections, import and export, and more.

Texture

Texture is a fun web project that creates generative art that you can use for backgrounds or pretty much anything else. Preview the textures, pull the JavaScript or CSS or even edit and continue to play with them on CodePen.

Avvvatars

Avvvatars are a set of unique placeholder avatars that are free. The tool is easy to use, includes 40 colors, is accessible and lightweight, comes with 60 shapes, and is customizable. You can grab it on GitHub or as a Figma file.

Epic Ruler

Epic Ruler is a premium design utility tool that measures distance, dimensions, position, pick colors, test contrast, and align on-screen elements anywhere on your screen. You can also create alignments, and it comes with a great color picker that helps you pinpoint hues down to the pixel.

Jotform Apps

Jotform Apps is a new set of app tools from the company you may know for form-building tools. The free no-code app builder lets you add forms, links, widgets, and branding to one fully customized app that can be downloaded onto any smartphone, tablet, or computer. Get started with a template to jumpstart projects.

Spruce

Spruce is an open-source, lightweight CSS design system that’s built on Sass. The tool, which is in beta, is designed to help you start with a solid foundation for projects. It includes structure and code, typography, tables, and buttons.

Yaade

Yaade is an open-source, self-hosted, collaborative API development environment. It’s made for those who want self-hosting in security – if you don’t know the password, there’s no way in! You can import OpenAPI v3 files, there’s data import and export, and a dark mode default.

Agnostic UI

Agnostic UI is one stylesheet that works with multiple frameworks. The user interface components work in React, Vue 3, Svelte, and Angular. It includes semantic and accessible HTML with unprocessed CSS so you can code on the platform to get ahead of web standards.

Turbulent Buttons

Turbulent Buttons is a button-and-hover animation that goes the extra mile. This is a fun button and animation that is anything but boring.

Never Install

Never Install is a cloud platform that allows you to run any application from the browser without installing it on your device. It is an alternative to traditional desktop application usage and enables people to stream applications over the web. The developers are working on a next-generation cloud platform to bring any GUI application regardless of the operating system, device, and system requirements to the browser. The tool is free to use.

Photoinsight

Photoinsight is a tool (free and paid) to manage digital assets, including photos, videos, and 3D elements, in one place. You can search, filter, and group views based on your preferences. Plus, there are tools such as batch renaming and statistics and trends to help you manage files.

Formspector

Formspector answers that nagging question – are my forms working? Use the tool to set automated tests that will notify you if anything stops working, from newsletter signups to contact forms to support requests.

Wikifox.js

Wikifox.js is a lightweight, powerful, and restful JavaScript library that connects to the Wikipedia API. This library can be used to get content from Wikipedia.

Lightning Builder

Lightning Builder is a free browser-based drag and drop website builder. You can design a mockup in minutes so that you can show developers or writers what you are thinking when you are planning a new design or website project. Use it to ease communication for teams with new project builds.

Waaard

Waaard is a tiny tool with a lot of practical applications. Use it to create a protected link or file that only people you want to access it can open. With plenty of verification methods, you’ll know your links are safe.

Doodle Ipsum

Doodle Ipsum is the lorem ipsum of illustrations. Customize doodles, grab the code, and use them on web prototypes, landing pages, or no-code tools.

FF Din Stencil

FF Din Stencil is a fun display typeface for just the right application with a distinct style. It comes in a variety of weights and styles and is part of a greater FF Din family.

Fontanella

Fontanella is a typeface designed by Coto Mendoza, which emerged from calligraphy and manual drawing exploring the skeleton and classic proportions of Roman capital letters. It has an easy-to-read style with interesting sans serif characters.

Sarlotte

Sarlotte is a statuesque typeface with long tails, swashes, and flourishes. From the type designer: It seduces your eyes with its curves yet still manages to maintain its classy serenity, it’s perfect for branding, logos, invitations, and more.

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Typewolf’s Definitive Guide to Free Fonts

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The choice of typeface is one of the most critical factors in any design; it gives the text its voice. It can be desperately frustrating to find the right voice for your project, only to discover it’s outside your client’s budget.

Who doesn’t love a free font? There’s no question that something for nothing is an attractive proposition. When it comes to fonts, the problem is that high-quality fonts require months, sometimes years of work; high-quality fonts are expensive to produce; as a result, many free fonts have to cut corners.

However, decreasing costs for font design software and an open-source culture is making the industry more accessible, leading to hundreds of free fonts as good, if not better, than their premium rivals.

The challenge for designers is where to look. The solution is Typewolf’s Definitive Guide to Free Fonts. This tremendous, 107 page PDF covers everything you need to know to find the best, high-quality free fonts on the web.

Typewolf is one of the most trusted names in digital typography, with an excellent track record of educational guides; you can be sure the suggestions in this guide are second to none.

The guide is split into four sections:

  • Section one covers the closest free alternative to every font on Typewolf. The free alternatives list focuses on the popular, and in many cases, the most expensive fonts used by professional designers. That means you’ll have access to over 1,000 recommendations, all listed alphabetically for easy look-ups. Simply find the premium font you want, and you’ll find the closest free font available listed alongside it. In many cases, there are multiple suggestions to give you some agency.
  • Google Fonts is an excellent source of free fonts, but its own recommendations are weak. So the second section of the guide is dedicated to the ten best serif and sans-serif combinations on Google Fonts. The best serif and sans-serif combinations include visual examples, and explanations of why these typefaces complement each other, so you don’t find yourself designing in the dark. This section is excellent for anyone who’s unsure where to start with free fonts and needs to identify an effective pairing quickly.
  • As good as Google Fonts is, it’s not the only source of free fonts, and if you only look there, you’ll miss out on some real gems. That’s why section three of this guide introduces the 40 best free fonts that aren’t on Google Fonts. Each font listed is carefully presented to preview it at display and body sizes.
  • Lastly, to finish off this excellent ebook are the ten best free “hipster” fonts. You know the ones: they’re perfect for coffee shops, small-batch brewers, tattoo parlors, and anywhere Rockabilly is still in style.

All told, there are enough recommendations in this guide to last you an entire career. So no matter what you’re looking for, whether it’s a free version of a particular typographic voice or some fresh inspiration, you’ll find it in this essential ebook.

What’s more, you’ll receive lifetime updates for free. With new content added weekly, this ebook will be a source of knowledge and inspiration you return to again and again. Lifetime access means you can re-download the guide every time you have a project that needs free fonts. You’ll also get access to an exclusive section of Typewolf that showcases only free fonts, so you can see how free fonts can be used well.

Every good designer understands the value of high-quality typography, but not every project has the budget to allow you to use premium fonts from top type foundries. This guide helps you leap that hurdle by offering carefully selected, free alternatives. If you’re new to the world of typography, this helpful guide will give you some practical insight on how to locate free fonts for use in your design work.

This guide will save you hours trying to find the suitable typeface for your project, as well as introduce you to some excellent designs that you might not have considered.

You can download Typewolf’s Definitive Guide to Free Fonts today for the bargain price of $39. You could even gift it to the typophile in your life.

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Exciting New Tools For Designers, December 2021

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With the holidays fast approaching, there are plenty of fun gifts for you in this roundup of new tools and resources for web designers. Make sure to share anything you find helpful with others to spread additional holiday cheer.

Here’s what is new for designers this month…

Volley

Volley, billing itself as Snapchat for work, is a new way to collaborate with remote teams. The tool addresses the two main problems of remote teams (lack of communication and loneliness) with an async video messaging app with interactive transcriptions neatly organized into workspaces. Volley emphasizes talking over typing (76% of volleys sent are video), doesn’t require you to coordinate schedules (it’s 100% asynchronous), and lives in a threaded conversation with context that’s neatly organized. Plus, the tool is free to use.

Upnext

Upnext is a new type of reading list. It’s designed to help you save, organize, and focus on fantastic content while expanding your knowledge on your favorite topics. You can create playlists with almost any type of content that you can refer to later and follow “thinkers” that you love. Search and filter content, focus on reading, integrate videos, and even highlight and note specific content in your customized library. This brand-new web app has a waitlist that you can join to get access soon.

Startup 5

Startup 5 is a new version of the popular website builder, and it’s a perfect tool to create your online presence. With Startup, it’s fast and easy to get your business online with pre-designed blocks. It includes a visual editor with 150+ blocks with pre-designed and pre-coded elements and styles you can easily customize in a drag and drop interface. It’s an easy tool for building a website quickly without a coding background. Most users can publish a website quickly and easily.

Flatmap

Flatmap generates Mapbox Vector Tiles from geographic data sources like OpenStreetMap. It is memory-efficient so that you can build a map of the world in a few hours on a single machine without any external tools or database. Vector tiles contain raw point, line, and polygon geometries that clients like MapLibre can use to render custom maps in the browser, native apps, or a server. Flatmap packages tiles into an MBTiles (SQLite) file that can be served using tools like TileServer GL or even queried directly from the browser.

Cleanup.Pictures

Cleanup.Pictures is a web-based tool to remove objects, people, text, or other defects from your images before using them in projects. It’s an AI-based alternative to other photo-editing software.

Linkz.ai

Linkz.ai helps you make smart link preview popups for your website to help encourage greater engagement and interaction for links. It works with a line of code you can install quickly and easily, and then you get smart link previews (in two style options) for every link on your site.

Llline

Llline is an SVG generator that helps you create smooth and organic lines and strokes with plenty of customization options for almost any application. This tool helps create graphic elements in just a few clicks, allowing you to add a few points to a canvas and then draw a smooth curve using these points. You can then tweak the resulting SVG graphic by rotating it, changing its color, giving it a gradient, making it a dashed line, and then you can download or copy the SVG markup.

Lorem.Space

Lorem.Space is a valuable placeholder image tool. With just a little bit of code, you can pop cool placeholder images – from movie posters to shoes – right in your website mockup so that the design is easier to visualize. It’s a great solution that’s fun and keeps you from having to put empty boxes throughout the design. And everything can be randomized, so you don’t spend time looking for placeholders.

Huetone

Huetone can help you create more accessible color palettes by making use of the Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm. The contrast ratios and color combinations show on one screen to help you quickly develop palettes and combinations. Plus, the tool has hotkeys that make it easy to change hues, toggle, and adjust quickly. Then you can export everything to Figma.

Rowy

Rowy is an open-source tool to build on the Google Cloud Platform. You can manage Firestore data in a spreadsheet-style user interface, write Cloud Functions in the browser, and connect to third-party platforms.

AdCreative.ai

AdCreative.ai uses artificial intelligence to help create better ad creative. To get started, you upload logos and color files, connect social and other accounts, pick the sizes you need, write text, pick a background, and upload product images, and let the AI do the work. Once you have the creative you like, you can connect to your online ad accounts for easy use. This is a premium tool that’s free to try.

Flowrift

Flowrift is a tool to browse and then copy and customize Tailwind CSS blocks in groups of collections. Filter by block type and then experiment with the options. It even has e-commerce blocks.

Layout Patterns

Layout Patterns is a collection of layout patterns built using modern CSS APIs to help you build common interfaces such as cards, dynamic grid areas, and full-page layouts.

You.com

You.com is a new private search engine that summarizes the web. The tool is in open beta and includes superior privacy choices, actionable results, extensible apps, and personalization through preferred sources.

3D Icons

3D Icons is a fun set of three-dimensional, full-color icons that are free for all uses. (Donations are accepted.) They integrate with pretty much any web design tool you are using and come in four color styles – clay, gradient, color, and premium – so you can get just the right look for your project. Each icon also includes three rendering views – dynamic, side, and isometric.

Arco Design

Arco Design is a comprehensive React UI components library based on the Arco Design system. It includes a customizable theme and more than 60 crafted components that you can use out of the box.

Seekvectors.com

Seekvectors.com is a search tool to find free resources in five different formats, PNG, SVG, JPG, EPS, and AI.

Outline to Single Stroke

Outline to Single Stroke is a tool in the Figma community that works just like the name implies. Select a filled vector on the canvas, and then you can outline it to a single stroke and adjust the line weight if you like.

Codeamigo

Codeamigo is a new self-paced platform to help you learn coding skills. It’s packed with various lessons for different languages and templates and has something for every level from beginner to advanced.

Sizze

Sizze is a Figma to React Native export tool to create app prototypes and instantly export to code.

CodingFont

CodingFont is an excellent game that can help you pick a font to use for coding that you like! If you spend a lot of time looking at code each day, the right font can help reduce eye strain and make the work a little easier to see.

Christmas Revue

Christmas Revue is the first in a trio of holiday typefaces that you can use this season. This SCG color font is fun and perfect for the holidays with exciting glyphs. It is free for personal use only.

Hotsnow

Hotsnow is a fun display font that has interesting fills and shapes in an all-caps character set. It is free for personal use.

Marlwich

Marlwich is a feminine handwriting-style typeface that has the feel of signing a holiday letter or card. It contains upper- and lower-case characters and is only for non-commercial use for free. (A paid option is available for commercial projects.)

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Exciting New Tools For Designers, October 2021

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There are some spook-tacular finds in this month’s October collection of resources and tools for designers and developers. From interesting tools that can help in the design process to boo-tiful typefaces, there’s something for everyone here.

Here’s what is new for designers this month…

Atropos

Atropos is a lightweight, open-source JavaScript library to create touch-friendly, three-dimensional hover effects. The results are stunning and have a nice parallax style. Everything is highly configurable and customizable. It’s available for JavaScript, React, and Vue.js and has zero dependencies.

CSS Gradient Editor

CSS Gradient Editor helps you create the perfect gradient style – you can start from presets – that you can use in projects. Design a background, fill, or almost any other gradient element you might need, make adjustments or customizations, and then get the CSS with one click so you can use it right away.

Octopus.do

Octopus.do is a fast visual sitemap builder that lets you work in real-time using the content brick method. Share and collaborate in real-time and there’s no signup required to use it.

Pirsch Analytics

Pirsch Analytics is a privacy-friendly, open-source alternative to Google Analytics — lightweight, cookie-free, and easily integrated into any website or directly into your backend. It includes filters to see metrics in the way you want and light and dark modes.

Basic Pattern Repository

Basic Pattern Repository is a collection of simple SVG patterns for projects. Everything is rooted in a simple style to help push projects along quicker. You can get it via GitHub or as a Figma Library.

Blobr

Blobr is a way to get a branded API portal, manage access, and monitor usage all in one place. Customize everything to fit your brand and the tool grows as you do with the ability to increase or change capacity. Plus, it is easy to set up and free to use.

HEXplorer

HEXplorer helps you better understand something you use all the time – HEX colors. This pen by Rob DiMarzo shows how the values for different colors come together to provide greater comprehension when it comes to this color format.

CCCreate

CCCreate is a curated collection of tools and resources for web creators. It includes some tools that have been around for a while as well as some newbies. Everything is grouped and sorted by type of resources – color, icons, type, layouts, animation, shapes, docs, and miscellaneous so you can find what you are looking for faster.

Glass

Glass is a photo-sharing app for photographers. It’s a social network of sorts that lets you share images with the greater photography community without “likes.” Just great images.

Revolt

Revolt is a chat app that’s still in beta and designed for easy communication without having to download apps. It’s an open-source project that is customizable and with an intuitive and recognizable interface. The thing that’s different about this app is that it is built on a privacy-first model.

Doodle Ipsum

Doodle Ipsum is the illustrated version of placeholder elements. Customize your doodles, grab the code, and use them on your web prototypes, landing pages, or no-code tools.

Mechanic

Mechanic is an open-source framework that helps you create custom, web-based tools that export design assets in your browser. The best part is you can try it right on screen using the “poster generator.” If you like what you see, there’s plenty of documentation to help you along the way.

Medio Website Template

Medio is an agency-style website design template for Bootstrap 5. The layout is perfect for a design agency or marketing group but can be adjusted for almost any multi-purpose design. The free template includes a minimal design and includes features such as parallax, popup video, and more.

Tutorial: Simplifying Form Styles with Accent Color

This tutorial is a life-saver when it comes to using and understanding the new CSS accent-color property. This quick lesson will help make your life easier and is simple to use. It starts with setting an accent-color property on the root element and then applying it.

Houdini.how

Houdini.how is a worklet library that is full of CSS and code examples to help you work smarter. See how different elements look cross-browser and learn to adjust the code and put them together in just the way you want. Houdini is a set of low-level APIs that exposes parts of the CSS engine, giving developers the power to extend CSS by hooking into the styling and layout process of a browser’s rendering engine.

Chainstarters

Chainstarters is a powerful, rapid, Web3-enabled platform for software developers. It eliminates the burden of setting up and maintaining a secure and scalable infrastructure, allowing you to focus on creating amazing technology.

Web Vitals Robot

Web Vitals Robot is a search optimization tool that monitors SEO metrics for you – so you can prevent your business from disappearing from Google.

Searchable

Searchable is a unified search tool that looks at local, cloud storage, and apps to find the files you are looking for. It returns results in a jiffy with previews so you don’t have to open every file to find what you are looking for.

Athlone

Athlone is a fun serif with lots of personality. The free demo version includes a limited character set for personal use only and the full version has everything you need for fun display or branding with this typeface.

Capitana

Capitana is a Geometric Sans typeface with humanistic proportions and open apertures. This means that all shapes are constructed from basic forms, the circle, triangle, and square, and are designed according to the classic proportions of the Roman Antiqua. Distinct ascenders and pointed apexes with deep overshoot give it a cool beauty and classic elegance. It includes 784 characters per style in nine weights from Thin to Black, it offers both light and extremely heavy weights for striking headlines.

Colours

Colours is a funky script with just enough texture to keep it interesting. The free version includes a partial character set and is for personal use only.

Flexible

Flexible is a variable typeface that includes 18 styles in the family. It’s made for creativity and display use. This typeface is made for experimenting because there are so many things you can do with this single family.

Singo Sans Serif

Singo Sans Serif is a simple and strong typeface that would make an excellent display option. The free version is for personal use only. Fun fact: Singo means Lion in Indonesia, which is where the name of this strong font comes from.

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Review: Should Designers Use Design Bundles?

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One of the most challenging stages of a design project is laboriously producing all those assets that bring it to life.

Whether you’re a web designer in need of icons, or a brand designer looking for mockups, it’s a smart move to fall back on stock assets to speed up your turnaround, reduce costs, and enliven your designs.

With so many stock sites to choose from, which should you opt for? Today we’re going to take a look at DesignBundles.net and ask if it’s the right choice for your project.

What is Design Bundles?

Design Bundles is exactly what it sounds like: sets of design assets that you can download for free or at huge reductions on RRP.

Launched five years ago, Design Bundles is brought to you by the same team that delivers Font Bundles.

Over two million customers are already enjoying the benefits of Design Bundles’ weekly updates.

What Can You Download From Design Bundles?

There are currently over 800,000 products listed on Design Bundles, and the collection is growing all the time.

The files have been produced by 6,500 of the world’s leading independent designs. Because the products are top-quality, you can really make them work: scale them, flip them, distort them, recolor them; just about anything is possible when you’re using high-quality raw ingredients.

What’s really impressive is the range of products that are in the collection. You’ll find backgrounds, logos, icons, textures, patterns, and clip art. For product designers, there are mockups and web elements. Print designers will love the huge range of cards, invites, flyers, posters, and brochures. And if you’re looking for standard stock images, you’ll find a gargantuan range under popular themes such as technology, architecture, travel, and business.

Because Design Bundles is relatively new, you won’t find its collection padded out with out-of-date Gifs. In fact, Design Bundles is one of our favorite places for free SVGs, the best format for graphics on the web.

All the products are royalty-free and licensed for personal and commercial use, so you can relax knowing that you’re fully covered.

What Makes Design Bundles Different?

There are a lot of design bundles services online, so what makes Design Bundles different? Well, firstly, the quality; Design Bundles has a consistently high level of designs. We love the freebies. They make a huge difference and are great for trying out ideas you might not be ready to invest in.

Design Bundles differs from other stock sites because it offers curated bundles of complementary assets — you don’t just download a vector file; you download a set of vector files. This innovative approach means you don’t have to go hunting for matching images; once you’ve found the right download for your project, you have a whole range to enjoy.

The whole process of using Design Bundles is simple, from browsing through the available assets to choosing a design and through to the fast, simple checkout process. It’s all designed to make including design assets into your projects as simple as possible.

The website is user-friendly, and in the unlikely event that you’ll need them, the support team is friendly, helpful, and prompt to handle queries.

Is Design Bundles Good Value?

We’d be lying if we said that cost wasn’t a big bonus of using Design Bundles. Design Bundles offer up to 96% discounts on regular prices, meaning that you can get the same incredible assets that top design agencies use at a fraction of the price.

In terms of time-saved, inspiration-delivered, and graphics-acquired, your Design Bundles subscription will more than pay for itself.

Alongside the daily and weekly deals, you’ll find products you can try for free. For example, design Bundles provide a whole heap of free SVGs. And not just sample files. There are thousands of files to download and use in projects. You can’t get better value than free!

There are new freebies every week, so it’s worth subscribing just to ensure you don’t miss anything.

For freelancers, the licensing model is particularly attractive. Because there’s no limit on the places you can download design resources once you’ve bought them, you can download files at home, in the office, or at a client’s workspace — whatever is convenient. Meaning you carry a huge library of resources with you wherever you go.

Oh, and if you want to make the most of your new Design Bundles assets, don’t forget to check out its YouTube channel, where you can learn tons about how to create effects, edit images, and complete creative projects.

Should Designers Use Design Bundles?

When you’re designing a project, whether you’re a digital artist, a web developer, or a crafter, the result relies on the quality of its component parts.

Design Bundles offers you the chance to work with high-quality assets from some of the web’s top designers at a fraction of the price of creating them yourself.

We’re confident that if you give Design Bundles a go, you’ll quickly see the benefits for yourself. But if you’re still not sure, why not sign up for its newsletter and check out some of the daily and weekly deals and the freebies that are available to you.

Design Bundles is a recipe for success that you’ll be happy you discovered.

 

[— This is a sponsored post on behalf of Design Bundles —]

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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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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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