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We’re far removed from the days of the janky-looking Netscape browser, websites coded by hand on Notepad, and the widespread use of Flash in now-defunct website intro pages. While all of these interesting elements defined the earlier, foundational years of website design, there have been many improvements in our slightly more modern times that have brought about productivity and aesthetic improvements to the process.
Save some time on your next web project with these ingenious web design tools—most of them are free to use! Here’s the list, carefully prepared by Maddy Osman form Blogsmith.
What is a website without content? As visuals help visitors create quicker connections than text alone, you’ll want to use these free web design tools to stylize your website accordingly.
Sure, we’re biased, but you had to have seen this one coming! Icons8 provides free and paid web-friendly icons for any design project. Our free icons are .PNG only with a 100x100px limit and require linking back to Icons8. Choose from 60,000+ options.
Our paid unlimited plan offers access to all icons of any size and format, HTML snippets, a recoloring feature, and no linking required. Grab access for $19.90 per month or $199/year.
Icons aren’t the only visual asset your budding web project may require. Instead of individually searching dozens of stock photo websites, use an ingenious free web page design tool like Librestock to search 47 free stock image sites all at once. Connected stock image site options include StockSnap, PixaBay, Pexels, Free Stocks, Foodies Feed, and My Stock Photos.
Use this ingenious web design tool to generate your website’s favicon.ico file. You can upload an existing image using different formats that include PNG, JPG, and GIF. Once processed, it will be converted to a Favicon (ICO/.ico) and App Icon.
Creating custom graphics for an upcoming web design project? This website hosts a number of free design resources in different formats. GraphicBurger offers PSD mockups (devices, products, collateral, and more), IU kits, icons, text effects, and backgrounds. Everything is royalty free for commercial use!
Moose is another great stock photos website with a comprehensive collection of high-res images. You can use all these images on your website for free for linking back to Moose. To use them without attribution, get a paid subscription for $13/month or $119/year fees.
There’s no need to re-code the wheel when incorporating these ingenious tools for web design.
HTML-Ipsum is the next level Lorem Ipsum HTML-based tool for websites and other online projects.
If you’ve been living under a rock (hardly a place for a web designer), Lorem Ipsum is the most-used dummy text by web designers for when the design has to come before the copy. Rather than just share text snippets, this tool provides users with Lorem Ipsum samples that are already pre-formatted as HTML tags in terms of lists, forms, paragraphs, and so on.
Using HTML Ipsum is easy—just go to the website, click the heading of any section on the page, and the HTML-Ipsum block will be automatically copied to your clipboard.
A similar tool is Bacon Ipsum, which provides a lot of the same functionality with a humorous (and delicious) twist in line with their tagline: “A Meatier Lorem Ipsum Generator”.
Nobody wants to pay $149/year for Hello Bar. And if you opt for the free version of the tool, you don’t want 10% of website visitors to see their messaging over yours! Cut the middle man out and configure your own “Hello Bar” with this code clone.
Sometimes, you have to start designing without content—images included.
PlaceIMG can help you cut down on time otherwise wasted pulling in dummy images. Using custom URLs, you can use the tool to generate placeholder pictures in various resolutions, choosing options with regards to certain categories and effects.
This tool can be more useful than other placeholder generators because it makes it easy to put in an actual image instead of just a blank box.
That said, Placeholdit.co would be a better image placeholder tool if you prefer a solid color placeholder instead of an image.
If you’re not using a page builder, you may not have any built-in button functionality. Instead of coding and refreshing constantly until it turns out right, use CSS-Trick’s button generator. Easily customize the various aspects of your button using the tool and grab the code by clicking on the button that you created.
Did you know? <table> is a deprecated tag that can negatively impact SEO. This online tool can be used to convert <table> tags into more SEO-friendly <div> tags.
Div Table is a similar type of tool that allows you to generate, convert, and style div-based tables. It spits out code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
While we’re talking about proper code, it seems proper to mention Embed Responsively. This tool provides responsive CSS to go along with embeded code from different websites/platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, and Google Maps.
Before you design, you must first wireframe! These (mostly) free web page design tools make the process easy.
Website wireframes, also known as page schematics or screen blueprints, are important for any website (and other design projects!). These initial designs serve as the skeletal framework of your website.
Though there is no shortage of wireframing tools on the market, WireframeApp stands out as a top choice. This is because it offers a lot of intuitive tools, plenty of stencils, and smart sharing options. If you happen to grab it during one of their Appsumo (or email newsletter-based) deals, you’ll get lifetime access for a fraction of the cost.
If you can’t wait for a lifetime deal, don’t sweat it. WireframeApp’s reasonable pricing starts at $9/month for the Basic plan, $19/month for Pro, and $29/month for Enterprise.
This easy-to-use web-based tool offers a simple interface for sketching wireframes. It is free to use at a basic level, with upgraded features available starting at $16/month.
LambdaTest is an AI enabled test execution and orchestration platform, driving the evolution of testing and development for web and mobile applications. LambdaTest sets itself apart through its extensive testing capabilities, high scalability, robust features, and high performance, making it a trusted choice for 2 million+ developers and testers worldwide.
LambdaTest offers a range of features that cater to various testing needs:
LambdaTest’s pricing starts with a Freemium plan with limited testing time. The premium plans with unlimited testing starts at $15 per parallel session per month, and can be scaled up based on testing needs and infrastructure requirements. There is special discounted pricing for startups and open source projects.
With its robust features, LambdaTest is an invaluable tool for developers and testers aiming for high-quality, efficient web and mobile application development.
Using a user testing tool is useful for getting out of your own head and seeing how someone else uses the website you’re designing.
Peek is the free version of the more well-known UserTesting. After you sign up and submit your website, you will see and hear a 5-minute video of a real person using your site or app. Although it’s free to use, think of it as a trial for UserTesting’s main offering—you only get one user test for free.
BrowserStack is a cross-browser testing tool that offers live, web-based browser testing. It gives instant access to all mobile and desktop browsers.
Features include a real device cloud, 1100+ desktop browsers, test dev environments, security, and privacy. You’ll have time to explore the tool via a free trial but will have to pay if you want to use BrowserStack over the long term.
Browser testing plans starts at $29/month for the Live plan, $99/month for Automate Pro, $149/month for Automate Mobile, and you can contact BrowserStack for a quotation for the Enterprise plan. Mobile App Testing plans starts at $49/month for App Live, $199/month for App Automate, and again, contact for a quote if you want to make use of the Enterprise plan.
Words can convey a lot of meaning with the proper aesthetics. Make use of these free web page design tools to ensure that your typography is on-brand and on-point.
Wordmark.it helps developers test or preview text with fonts on their computers.
Canva is an amazing online graphic design software tool used by many developers and designers. Canva also offers a free typography tool call Font Combination. As you might guess by the tool’s fairly straightforward name, you can use this tool to test out different font combinations for your web design projects.
Check for best fonts to download for free!
Just My Type is yet another online typography tool that features collections of font pairings from Typekit and H&FJ.
If you come across a font you’d like to use (or match), WhatTheFont makes it easy to identify that font from an image. To use this free tool, simply upload an image and WhatTheFont will try to match it to the closest font they have in their database. They also offer a forum feature if you need additional help finding the name of the font in your submitted image.
Trying to replicate a certain look, feel, or functionality? Use these free web page design tools to see behind the hood of other websites.
Use this tool to discover the tech stacks behind any website.
Similar to the aforementioned, this tool allows you to determine which technologies are being used by certain websites and apps. TechStacks offers a list of popular stacks and technologies in different categories, such as programming language, OS, database, and server.
ScanWP allows you to scan a WordPress website and detect its theme and plugins. It is an easy way to determine how a particular WordPress website was built. Just enter the URL and click “detect”.
Are you a great web developer but not so familiar with graphic design? Don’t worry, these (mostly) free web page design tools aren’t hard to master when it comes to basic edits and image creation.
As already mentioned previously, Canva is a really easy to use online graphic design software. This tool makes it easy and quick to create necessary image assets—even if you wouldn’t consider yourself to be a graphic designer. Make use of free graphic assets, templates, and paid stock image options.
Sketch is a design toolkit that helps designers see a given project through from start to finish. It features a complete toolkit, non-destructive editing, grid and guides, vector editing, iOS mirroring, code export, export presets, and pixel precision. Licenses are available for $99/year (but you can start with a free trial).
Envato operates a group of digital marketplaces with creative assets for designers—including WordPress themes, plugins, stock photos, and graphic assets. Envato Elements is one of their tools that allows users to download unlimited templates that can be used for graphics and web design for just $29 per month. All of Envato’s “elements” are created by independent designers. Also included with an Envato Elements membership: ebooks, online courses, and an AND CO membership!
This image color tool helps designers choose color palettes for websites. It’s free to use—just upload your image and Pictaculous will provide you with a matching color palette.
No image? No problem. Adobe’s online color wheel allows designers and developers to easily pick colors and process them to their HEX equivalents. Explore popular color palettes for inspiration if you’re stuck.
Your browser can be used for so much more than simply viewing websites. Try these free web page design tools—easily configured with Google Chrome as extensions!
Eye Dropper is an open source Chrome extension that allows designers to pick colors from web pages, color picker, and your personal color history.
This Chrome extension is used to resize your browser window in order to emulate various screen resolutions. It helps web designers and developers in testing layouts on different browser resolutions.
This Chrome extension allows you to highlight, copy, edit, and translate text from any image on the web.
This Chrome extension helps designers and developers draw a ruler to determine pixel dimensions and positioning for measuring page elements.
This Chrome extension is used to view any web page—local or on the web—with a wireframe overlay.
Without proper processes and systems, a web design project can end up going way over scope. Employ the use of these ingenious (mostly) free web page design tools to become a more efficient web developer.
Did we forget one of your favorite ingenious free web page design tools? Tweet one or many at @Icons8 and we’ll share our favorites!
Also, check out our ultimate guide on How To Become a Graphic Designer
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