Ask Need: design

Every Web Designer Needs 5 Tools

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Every Web Designer Needs 5 Tools</td></tr>
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<strong> </strong>From experience, I know there are tons of web design tools out there, 
and finding the ones right for what you need can be time consuming. 
Here’s a toolkit of sorts that I compiled to help you get back to the 
drawing boards and spend time designing. Hope this helps!<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><strong>1) Sketchpad</strong></span>
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That’s right, plain old paper and pen. This is for putting 
rapid thoughts down in initial planning phases. Having these sketches 
and outlines on paper really lets you get a visual of the design you’re 
looking for before jumping right into the code. Be sure to snap a 
picture of these sketches with your phone so you have a copy just in 
case they get lost in the shuffle.</div>
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<span style="color: red;"><strong>2) <a href="http://www.invisionapp.com/">InVision App</a></strong></span></div>
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Because we have a fair amount of employees working 
remotely, I do need to put work online so the rest of my team can see 
what I’m working on and provide any feedback or suggestions they have. 
My favorite design collaboration tool is InVision, which allows users to
 maintain conversations around interactive screenshots, complete with 
versioning control. They recently added a feature for powerful real-time
 collaboration – think screen sharing specifically for designers.</div>
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<span style="color: red;"><strong>3) <a href="http://www.photoshop.com/">Photoshop</a></strong></span></div>
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More powerful than a legal pad, albeit a bit more time 
consuming.But it’s important to create mockups to see what these 
sketches will look like on the screen. My favorite Adobe tool for design
 remains Photoshop. To note, it integrates smoothly with InVision so 
it’s easy to share these mockups with my team before digging in to the 
code.</div>
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<span style="color: red;"><strong>4) <a href="http://www.sublimetext.com/"><strong class="StrictlyAutoTagBold">Sublime Text</strong> 2</a></strong></span></div>
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As I mentioned above, <strong class="StrictlyAutoTagBold">designers</strong>
 really do need to know how to code; and a nice editor always enhances 
the experience. Turning your sketches and mock ups into prototypes and 
making sure you have a good foundation to work from is an important next
 step. While there are a lot of text editors out there, my favorite one <strong class="StrictlyAutoTagBold">Sublime Text</strong> 2, which works great on my Mac.</div>
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<span style="color: red;"><strong>5) Forums</strong></span></div>
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It’s always good to stay up to date with design trends and 
to pick apart issues with other professionals. Blog posts are powerful 
ways to get bits of information, but interactive discussion forums add 
an entirely more valuable level. My favorites are UX.Stack Exchange and 
Stack Overflow. There’s tons of info on both from live discussions to 
archived Q&A’s. If you ever have a question or just want to see 
what’s new, these sites are the place to go.</div>
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Hopefully my toolkit will help you on your way to completing your 
next project or at least help you get ready for whatever you need to 
tackle next! Feel free to add your favorites web design tools in the 
comments below!<br />