Inspire

Designing and building a modern frontend in any web project can be a long and arduous process. Here’s a collection of links to help you. Enjoy!

Concept

These sites are good to get a general idea of possible layouts and style paths to take.

• TheBestDesigns - General list of hand picked sites from across the web.
• Awwwards - More awesome sites of various styles.
• Dribbble - Snaps of icons, doodles, sites, and more from a talented group of people.
• Siiimple - Another list of sites, but on the much simpler side.
• Httpster - A curated list of the best sites around the Internet.
• SaaS Pages - An inspection of Netlify’s page made especially to bring you inspiration.
• siteInspire - Get inspired.
• Designer News - The best design / development links from the ’net.
• CSS Winner - Reviewed list of great websites.
• OnePageLove - Great influence for one page and general website design.
• CodeMyUI - List of code snippets for fancy CSS/JS that make an awesome UI.
• CodePen - Central repository of user submitted code concepts/snippets. Great for experiments.
• CodyHouse - Tutorials and showcase of awesome UI elements.
• CSS3 Cheat Sheet - CSS3 Cheat Sheet
• Codrops - Web design/development blog that publishes articles/tutorials about the latest web trends.

Creation

These sites are good for building a basic framework for the site.

• Color
  • ColorsWall - Place to store your color palettes.
  • Coolors - Super fast color scheme generator.
  • Kuler - Easily create or view a custom color swatch for your site.
  • uiGradients - Gorgous gradient generator.
  • Spectral - Minimal color swatch creation.
• Unsemantic - Provides a good grid framework for small to large projects.
• MDN - Documentation for HTML, CSS, JS, etc.
• Bootstrap - Very popular framework for building modern websites and web apps.
  • Bootswatch - A list of free themes for Bootstrap.
• iconscout.com - Get high-quality Icons, Illustrations and Stock photos at one place.
• Iconmonstr - A collection of free, simple icons.
• Ionicons - Another great collection of free icons.
• Subtle Patterns - A massive archive of free backgrounds for your projects.
• Google Fonts - Tons of free, easy to use webfonts.
• Text to ASCII - Add some sexy Easter eggs in your source code.
• CSS3 Animation Cheat Sheet - A collection of CSS3 animation snippets.
• Flat UI - A superb HTML and CSS framework for flat design. It’s the juice.
• CSS2Stylus - Convert your CSS to Stylus.
• YMNNJQ - See jQuery functions in natural JS. No libraries.
• User Inter Faces - Get ipsum images for user images.
• Images
  • AllTheFreeStock - All the Free stock mmages, videos, sounds and icons in one location.
  • TheStocks.im - A collection of great stock photo websites.
  • Unsplash - Free, high quality stock photos.
• MinWiz - Starter kit for minimal, viable, good looking, production-ready websites.

Tools

Every painter needs a brush. Well… Most do.

• Sublime Text - A very popular text editor for developers.
  • Themes
    • Flatron - It’s flat, purple, and hella sexy.
    • Predawn - Gorgeous dark interface and syntax theme.
• Atom - A hackable text editor for the 21st century.
• Brackets - Modern, open source editor with live preview.
• VSCode - Free text editor
• Hyper - Beautiful, extensible command-line interface
• FileZilla - For those who fear FTP in the terminal.
• WinSCP - Upload files to a MEAN stack or VPS server.
• Sketch [OS X only] - A professional vector graphics app.
• Taskade [OS X only] - Create beautiful task lists and outlines.
• DevSession - Open a collaborative online IDE from a local directory.

Collaborate

Working with a team? These links are for you.

• Cloud9 - An awesome, zen way to work with others in the cloud.
• Gist - Share code and text with others fast. Like a mini repository.
• Scratchpad - A simple, RTC tool for coding and previewing websites.
• Red Pen - Share your design and get feedback seamlessly.
• Invoice Ninja - Open source invoicing platform.

Backends

Every awesome web app needs an awesome backend.

• Firebase - A real-time front-end database for your sites.
• DigitalOcean - A cheap and quality VPS hosting company.
• Heroku - Cloud application platform; very easy to scale.
• Auth0 - Authentication, done for you.
• Hasura - Platform to build and deploy app backends fast.

Testing

Before you launch, these are good tools to make sure your site is ready for stardom.

• Checkbot - Browser extension that tests your website follows 50+ SEO, speed and security best practices.
• Placehold - Generate custom placeholder images of any size.
• Browserling - Cross-browser test your website.
• CodePen - A free web editor in your browser.
• WooRank - A review tool for SEO elements, W3 validation, and numerous other variables. Free basic service.
• Yslow - Tool for analyzing and finding fixes for multiple causes of slow site loading.
• Hurl.it - Make HTTP requests in the browser.
• Localtunnel - Open localhost ports to the world.
• Postman - A tool to make HTTP requests, generate mock servers and make API documentation.

Good Reads

Need something to read in your spare time?

• Smashing Magazine - A magazine for all things digital design.
• CSS-Tricks - Awesome blog on anything and everything related to CSS.
• Codrops - Great collection of design techniques for modern web developmers and designers.
• Insert HTML - A blog covering current and upcoming techniques and technologies for web developers.
• 1stWebDesign - A good, simple blog on web development and design.
• A List Apart - Guest bloggers and full books on topics from coding to business practices.
• GoodUI - It’s definitely not bad.
• Mentor - Get random advice from other designers and developers.

License

To the extent possible under law, Noah Buscher has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.