The Best 15 Tools and Resources for Designers and Agencies to Use This Year

Designers have toolboxes of industry tips and techniques they put to use in every project. Most, though not all, seriously attempt to keep their tools, website design resources, and techniques up to date. Even those that do often have “favorites” they are reluctant to part with. This sometimes leads to creating products that may not be as competitive as they should. Or, adhering to processes that are not as efficient as they could be.

Finding a tool or resource designed to keep you ahead of the curve in a certain area is not always as easy as you think. The main problem being that there are so many design tools and resources on the market. So it takes too much time to sift through them.

That is where experts come in to play. Those people whose purpose in life seems to be finding the best among everything belonging to a certain category – and in this case they have.

One or more of the top 15 tools and resources for designers described here could provide some incremental improvement to your designs and design efforts. Cause substantial improvement in one area or another, or serve as a game changer.

See for yourself, starting with –

1. Trafft

Businesses around the world are using Trafft booking solutions to automate and manage their business appointments and booking operations. Trafft can quickly be put into operation and used without any need for technical support.

Trafft offers a free plan and 3 paid plans you can tailor to your business since you choose only the features you need.

• Trafft can manage an unlimited number of appointments, including group appointments, at multiple locations.
• Trafft integrates seamlessly with supporting services such as Google Calendar, Google Meet, MailChimp, Zoom Meetings and others.
• You can easily customize your booking page by changing fonts and colors or adding whatever custom code you may need to fit your brand.
• Trafft plans come with SMS and Email notifications, employee schedule, assignment, and special days tracking, as well as online payment for services rendered.

Trafft software is GDPR compliant and protects its users with highly secure end-to-end encryption software.

Click on the banner to learn more about what Trafft has to offer.

2. Be – The Biggest WordPress and portfolio WordPress theme

Three BeTheme key features, BeBuilder, Theme Options 3, and 650+ customizable Pre-built Websites together with 40+ other core features give Be’s users unlimited design flexibility.

• The new BeBuilder feature is the most flexible WordPress builder ever. BeBuilder offers an array of page-building features including an autosave function that allow you to create limitless layout possibilities by importing 3000+ pages from Be’s pre-built website’s and retrieve blocks of content and design revisions to create the page backgrounds you always wanted to.
• Theme Options 3 augments BeTheme’s Admin Panel by allowing users to set portfolio, shop, and blog page styles and modify design elements and their layouts.
• The 650+ responsive and customizable pre-built websites give designers a jump start toward creating any layout using sections, wraps, shortcodes, and styling options

Click on the banner to find out more about BeTheme and the new BeBuilder.

3. Total WordPress Theme

Something to look for when choosing a multipurpose theme is one that lets you build any page layout without being bothered by restrictions or limitations.

The Total WordPress theme does exactly that.

Total makes web design easy for beginners, advanced designers, and developers by allowing them to –

• build websites fast with 90+ Section templates, 75+ pre-styled post entry cards, and 45+ quick-import sample demos.
• create and customize any web design with the WPBakery page builder, with Templatera its add-on for creating and managing page layouts, and 500+ live customizer settings.
• use Vanilla JavaScript with its built-in hooks & filters together with 600+ snippets and custom addons that give developers complete control over their website building or maintenance tasks.

Total is compatible with popular plugins including WooCommerce, bbPress, WPML, Toolset, TablePress, and others.

Click on the banner to see if Total is right for your needs.

4. Slider Revolution

Slider Revolution helps beginner and mid-level designers impress their clients with professional-level website page visuals.

Rather than spending a lot of time trying to change a website from boring to supremely engaging, Slider Revolution helps you do so quickly and effectively with –

• 200+ impressive templates and 25+ addons
• it’s ability to accept dynamic content from social media sites
• Web Graphics Library slide animations that do not require a plugin to put into use.

5. wpDataTables

wpDataTables makes creating tables and charts from large amounts of complex data easy.

• 4 chart-building engines – Google Charts, Highcharts, Chart.js, and Apex Charts – can be used to create responsive, interactive, editable, and maintainable charts
• wpDataTables can work with data from multiple databases and in multiple formats and can create tables fusing Google Sheets API
• Conditional formatting allows users to highlight or color code key data

wpDataTables integrates seamlessly with Elementor, Divi, and Avada.

6. Amelia

The Amelia plugin saves businesses and their clients time and reduces stress by automating their appointment and event booking operations.

• Clients can make or change appointments online 24/7
• Amelia manages bookings at multiple locations, including group appointments and event bookings and event ticket sales
• Amelia also tracks employee’s assignments, schedules, and days off
• Amelia integrates with Google and Outlook Calendar and also integrates with Zoom and Google Meet to conduct consultations or training sessions.

7. LayerSlider

Content created with LayerSlider can make an unadventurous website exciting and engaging with modern and trendy graphics, interactive features, and eye-catching animations you have never seen before.

• LayerSlider has 150+ website, slider, and popup templates along with an intuitive editor interface like those seen on professional desktop applications.
• LayerSlider is cost-effective and very easy to come by. Customers can easily make an expensive-looking website for a tiny fraction of the supposed price.

8. Uncode – Creative & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Uncode, a pixel-perfect multiuse theme for freelancers, bloggers, businesses, and agencies, is an Envato top seller with 95.000+ sales. Uncode’s WooCommerce custom builder is considered by many users to be this theme’s most impressive feature.

• Uncode’s Wireframes plugin’s 550+ section templates and powerful frontend editor enable its users to create virtually any layout they can think of
• Uncode’s “must- see” showcase of user-created websites emphasizes this top-selling theme’s site-building opportunities and possibilities.

9. WHATFONTIS

WHATFONTIS helps designers find a font they want or need in seconds with its AI search algorithms and its database of  850,000 free and commercial fonts.  A PRO subscription ($39/year) gives you –

• positive identification of fonts with a > 90% accuracy
• premium support for those seldom cases when an AI algorithm produces not-s-good results

WHATFONTIS is the most popular font-finding tool used by professional designers.

10. Essential Grid

Essential Grid is a WordPress gallery plugin created by the developers of Slider Revolution and has a customer base of 9 Million users.

Essential grid is an ideal solution for creating galleries designed to inject new life into both old and new websites.

With Essential Grid you can easily –

·         Share your engaging blogs and eye-catching portfolio with others

·         Create unique and appealing product displays

·         Share your videos and audio gems

And more!

11. Mobirise Website Builder Software

Mobirise is a free offline website builder that is ideal for creating small to medium size websites fast. It’s a great tool for non-technical types who would usually prefer to build a website visually.

• Mobirise does not tie you to a specific platform
• Mobirise can host your site wherever you wish
• More than 4000+ website blocks, premium HTML themes, and home page templates are included along with cool sliders, galleries, videos, Google maps, and more.

 12. 8bio – Link in Bio Tool

Why spend time and money building and maintaining a website when you can use 8bio’s easy setup to create a link in Instagram or TikTok to promote yourself or business?

• Enter your social username and 8bio will create a link automatically.
• Your link can display a catchy animated background, an image, your photo, or a message, and creating one offers powerful SEO and tracking options.
• You can use your own domain or link to *.bio.io.

13. XStore – Best WordPress WooCommerce Theme for eCommerce

Name a popular WooCommerce theme that’s available at a bargain price and features 110+ ready to customize shops and 550+ pre-made XStudio sections to get you started.

The obvious answer: XStore.

• You’ll have your online shop up and running quickly if you have your content at the ready
• $520 worth of premium plugins make XStore an even better bargain.
• WPBakery and Elementor are supported together with collections of page layouts and product design elements.

14. Get illustrations Stock Illustrations Bundle

Getillustrations is a library of 10,000 premium illustrations that come with commercial licenses and once purchased are yours to keep without limitations.

• Getillustrations can change your approach to website UI, app, and presentation design.
• Illustrations are available in Vector AI, SVG, PNG, Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD formats

Getillustrations offers the world’s biggest bundle of product and presentation design illustrations.

15. Litho – Multipurpose Elementor WordPress Theme

Litho is a modern multipurpose Elementor WordPress theme that you will find to be an excellent choice for building niche, portfolio, blog, or eCommerce websites.

• Litho uses WordPress Customizer and Elementor custom widgets to give its users maximum flexibility and customizability.
• Supporting features include more than 300 design templates and home pages, and over 200 creative elements.

Litho’s customer support is highly rated as is its detailed online documentation.

***** 

You need to find a tool or resource that will accomplish great things for your business. Or keep you abreast or ahead of the competition. Yes, it is not always an easy task. This can be especially true if your design toolbox contains too many “favorites” that you may be reluctant to part with.

This is one area where listening to the experts will serve you best. Their role in life is to find the best tool, resource, or design technique that addresses a certain subject

Based on what the experts have to say, one or more of the top 15 tools and resources for designers described here could incrementally or significantly improve a design, a workflow, or a process or be a genuine game changer.

We trust you will find one or more here. Hopefully one will be a game changer.