Design Council
AIGA is wonderful, in its own light. However, the UK Design Council provides free information that is useful especially when trying to answer the question of “how will this investment in design pay off?” The case studies are absolutely amazing. Not necessarily because of their format, but because they’ve done the research that proves the validity and purpose of design. As a young designer, I found it very hard to prove my trade’s validity to The Big Man. Whether its your stingy boss or a client with absolutely no budget, many of these hardcore facts will help to enlighten them on why they should invest in themselves if they truly want to grow their business.
Other than the case studies, the organization of the UK design standards shown throughout the articles is definitely something to aspire to. If the AIGA provided organization, free information, and support at the same caliber as the Design Council, it might just be a perfect world.
ColourLovers
I’ve already posted an article on the uses of ColourLovers, so I will avoid being redundant by getting into that. However, there are plenty of online color tools on the web, so I will get into what’s different about ColourLovers. For me personally, ColourLovers sets itself apart by providing more than just a tool–it provides a community that challenges your creativity. Its something that you can come back to even when you’re not trying to create a palette or pattern for a client and get back to fertilizing your creativity.
Creative Commons/Flickr
As a designer on a tight budget, even spending $1-$5 on a stock photo isn’t an option. Granted its not really that big of an expense, but if you can find what you need under a Creative Commons license then there’s no need to shell out money for a stock image. My biggest (and so far only) complaint about Flickr is their lack of usability for their Advanced Search. It’d be ideal for usability for them to just straight up add a link for searching images under a Creative Commons license, but even their Advanced Search link on the main page would be a major improvement. That’s why I’ve started using Creative Commons’ website instead of heading straight to Flickr. Well, that and CC lets you search Google and Yahoo images as well, among others. (They still need to add Deviant Art, though!)
CG Textures
Though Deviant Art has a plethora of texture resources, its sometimes difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for. Even though CG Textures is still stuck in frames, you can quickly find exactly what you’re looking for. Very rarely have I not found what I was looking for. However, as you can tell from the background of my main site, I definitely lean more toward real, photographic textures instead of those of faux/illustrated/digitally created.
WordPress
For my current needs, WordPress meets them all. For clients who need a simple site with a blog and a few static pages, it can’t get any better IMHO, especially with the support of the community and extensive list of plugins. Then again, for most, WordPress needs no introduction.
WDD
This has quickly become my favorite d&d blog. It doesn’t offer articles that simply show you pretty things and leave it at that. Honestly, I’m a bit sick of those that only offer articles that are meant to “inspire”. Web Designer Depot doesn’t just inspire, it challenges you. It provides resources to expand all of your horizons: development knowledge, design knowledge, etc.
For Web Designers
When I first bookmarked this site, there were a little less than 200 resources listed. Now there are so many, they’ve stopped keeping tabs. An extensive list of CSS Galleries, you can go right down the list when submitting a site to them.
Krop
Not just another job board, Krop.com also lists many freelance positions. The live search makes it as easy to use as it can get.
daFont
Again, being on a budget can often tie your hands on resources such as unique and project-specific fonts. daFont has close to 9,000 different (and free) fonts to date. My favorite part of the site is its ability to take custom text and let you preview it in each font. That way, you’re not downloading something you think might work only to download, install, and realize that it doesn’t. Also, instead of trying to find a font management software that’s cheap (or scrolling through your hundreds or thousands of fonts in Photoshop or InDesign), you can always go back to the site and test out your custom text on multiple fonts at a time. Another good use? If you’ve searched extensively for a Photoshop or Illustrator brush and are at a complete loss, try looking through the dingbats to see if there’s anything worth using.
Its nothing new: Google provides TONS of resources to keep your life.business.design organized all in one spot. Here are a few uses I’ve found for it:
iGoogle
This is where I keep up on all the latest posts from my favorite design, development, freelance and other blogs.
Google Calendar
Keep your schedule all in one place. You can have multiple calendars appear all on the same interface to keep all parts of your life in sync. For example, I have my main calendar (Ann Edwards) that has personal appointments, interviews, and special dates. Then there’s the Design calendar that keeps tabs on all the design events (local and national), both social events and design contest deadlines. The Conferences calendar has events such as SXSW and An Event Apart on it.
Google Docs
My most recent use for this was sending a document to a prospective employer. I had recently moved and hadn’t yet hooked up my printer. I needed to bring references to our meeting later that day and thought that I could use my boyfriend’s printer to print them off just before leaving. Unfortunately, his wasn’t working properly. So, I improvised. Though I was somewhat nervous about using this approach instead of bringing a physical piece of paper (as is the traditional approach to such a thing), it worked out perfectly. I was able to not only email it directly from where I created the document, but I was also able to save it for anyone else who I might need to send it to.
Another use I’ve found for it is sharing documents with others with Google accounts. For those who are working from different networks or who aren’t using a versioning software, this could be a cheap fix for sharing documents on a project.
nice list. i’m glad you prefer colour lovers over “kuler”