Design Resources
👋 Hi, I’m messy.design! This information was originally compiled by @skullface. I am just here to spread that knowledge and add what I can so that the most comprehensive list is avaliable to my project leads and teams. My contributions include UX Strategy, HCI and IA resources. 📚
💫 If you would like to access this information on the web, @skullface has created a fantastic online design resource here, which is reproduced in full below!
Table of contents
Accessibility resources
Checklists
18F Accessibility Guide Checklist — WCAG 2.0 compliance checklist for developers, driven by priority
HHS.gov’s checklist for creating accessible PDFs — designing accessibly for artifacts that aren't apps or websites is important, too!
Vox Media Accessibility Guidelines Checklist — best practices for designers, engineers, PMs, QA, and editorial staff (with sources to read more; great to send to coworkers on different teams)
Guidelines
18F Accessibility Guide — hub of accessibility resources and principles by government office 18F
Empathy Prompts — open source list of considerations & challenges to help build empathy
Google Material Design Accessibility Principles — practices for color, sound, motion, layout, copy, hierarchy, focus, and implementation
Inclusive Design Principles — seven clear principles to follow to put people first, by leading experts The Paciello Group
Microsoft Inclusive Design Principles — Microsoft's guidelines for designing accessible and inclusive experiences, including a detailed manual (.pdf) with awesome visualizations, and activity cards for considerations & challenges while brainstorming
Industry leaders, educators, and consultants
Online courses
Pluralsight “Meeting Web Accssibility Guidelines” course — [paid] — practical course with code examples to meet Section 508 and/or WCAG 2.0 requirements for government/education projects
Udacity Web Accessibility course, by Google — [free] — practical course focused on front-end design and development regarding markup and visual styling
Pattern/component libraries
Requirements and standards
🌐 WCAG 2.0 — the W3C’s “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines” web standards specification
🇺🇸 ADA — Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities
🇺🇸 Section 508 — amendment to the Workforce Rehabilitation Act federally mandating all tech developed, procured, maintained, or used by the federal government be accessible to persons with disabilities
🇨🇦 AODA — Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, enacted for the province to become “accessible for people with disabilities by 2025”
Testing tools and development references
Accessible-email.org — browser-based semantic analysis to report a11y and usability issues errors in marketing emails
Colors palettes & contrast testing tools — listed in the "Colors" category 👇
HTML5 Accessibility — lists current accessibility support status of HTML5 features across major browsers
pa11y — automated accessibility testing on the command line for programmatic accessibility reporting
tota11y — Khan Academy's jQuery-based semantic analysis that can be inserted into a page or run as a bookmarklet
Further reading
Accessibility Wins — single-serving Tumblr showcasing small victories in accessible web design and development
Awesome Accessibility — a curated list of awesome accessibility tools, articles and resources on GitHub
Books on accessibility — listed in the “Books” category 👇
Books and zines
Individual publications
Accessibility
A Web for Everyone by Sarah Horton & Whitney Quesenbery, 2014 — practical advice and examples to build accessible web products without sacrificing design or innovation
Inclusive Design Patterns — Coding Accessibility Into Web Design by Heydon Pickering, 2016 — real-world techniques and strategies to build and prototype accessible interfaces
History
Megg’s History of Graphic Design by Philip B. Meggs, 1983 — the unrivaled college textbook authority on the history of graphic design, mostly in America and Europe
Independent practice, consulting, freelancing
Design Is a Job by Mike Monteiro, 2012 — no bullshit lessons on selling yourself and working with others
Pricing Design by Dan Mall, 2016 — brief and invaluable reference on value-based pricing
Process and mindset
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, 1992 – classic international bestseller on the creative process
The Shape of Design by Frank Chimero, 2012 — sometimes insightful, sometimes insufferable; a rumination on making things for other people
Sprint by Jake Knapp & more, 2016 — a balanced book of details, examples, checklists, and scripts to perform your own famed Google Ventures design sprint
User experience and interaction design
Microinteractions: Designing with Details by Dan Saffer, 2013 — straight-forward examples on the small details that exist inside & around a product’s features
Human computer interaction
Microinteractions: Designing with Details by Dan Saffer, 2013 — straight-forward examples on the small details that exist inside & around a product’s features
Information architecture
Microinteractions: Designing with Details by Dan Saffer, 2013 — straight-forward examples on the small details that exist inside & around a product’s features
User research
Just Enough Research by Erika Hall, 2013 — breaks down the huge topic of design research in a digestible, approachable, organized, and humorous way
Publishers and distributors
A Book Apart — top of the class brief books for people who make websites
Chronicle Books — innovative and design-y adult and children’s books, based in San Francisco
Draw Down — large catalog of small-press books and zines on graphic design, culture, criticism, art, and more
Gestalten — high-quality books on graphic design, art, and culture
MIT Press — hundreds of new books published yearly from leading researchers on technology, art, and science
Rosenfeld Media – user experience books, training, workshops, seminars, and experts
Smashing Magazine — affordable, practical books from digital design practitioners
Browser features
Google Chrome extensions and bookmarklets
Tachyons X-ray — debug & align objects to an 8 or 16px grid
Type Sample — identify and sample webfonts — 3 samples for free, or unlimited samples for $5/year subscription. available as a bookmarklet or Chrome extension
WhatFont? — inspect a webfont’s name, family, weight, size, style, color, line height, and source (if hosted via Google Fonts or Typekit)
Google Chrome DevTools
Animation timeline & editing — powerful tools to inspect and modify CSS animations
Device Mode — test responsiveness by using popular viewport sizes or creating your own presets
Full-page screenshot — it’s inside the Device Mode — no additional browser extension required!
Network performance — analyze resource requests and emulate mobile experiences
Brushes
Kyle T. Webster — best Photoshop brushes for drawing and adding small texture (though they are not of much use without a pressure-sensitive tablet)
RetroSupply — Photoshop and Illustrator brushes for multiple uses, including adding large (2000px) texture. recommended packs: Standard Issue Brush & Texture Bundle, Standard Issue Subtle Brush Kit, VectorFuzz
Shauna Lynn Panczyszyn’s "Hand Lettering Toolbox" — Photoshop brushes made exclusively for digital lettering, with more specific sets here
Syd Weiler — gorgeous Photoshop brushes, niched mostly toward organic shapes and textures
Colors and color palettes
clrs.cc — really pretty default colors for prototyping
Coolors — interactive color palette generator
Google Material design colors — choose from all the hues in Google’s material design palette, see a tint and shade of each, and test against white & black text for accessibility
Kuler — Adobe color palette resource
Paletteable — interactive color palette generator
Sip — macOS and iOS colorpicker app, allows you to save custom palettes
Wikipedia’s category for color shades — if you wanna nerd out
Accessible color palettes
Randoma11y — accessibility-friendly random color generator for text & background combinations
Accessibility testing tools
Color Oracle — open source macOS color blindness simulator
Contrast Analyzer — open source macOS eye-dropper tool for text/bg accessibility testing, shows fail/AA Large/AA/AAA results
Contrast — [paid] — minimal & gorgeous macOS menubar eye-dropper tool, shows fail/AA Large/AA/AAA results
Hex Naw — input up to 12 hex codes to test entire color systems for accessible contrast
Online contrast checker — input text/bg hex codes for accessible contrast testing
Spectrum — Google Chrome extension to instantly test web pages for different types of color vision deficiency
Fonts
Directories and marketplaces
Google Fonts — hundreds of free webfonts hosted via Google or self-hosted, downloadable via GitHub repo with individual licenses
MyFonts — thousands of fonts from all kinds of foundries, includes some trial fonts & free families. (good for searching and testing, but it’s better to buy through the foundries themselves!)
TypeKit — included with Adobe CC subscription, some fonts & families are only available for desktop or web use. larger selection available for individual purchase through Typekit Marketplace
Type Network — incredibly high-quality fonts by select independent foundries
YouWorkForThem — thousands of fonts in the “original creative marketplace”
Individual foundries
Icons and emoji
EmojiOne — [free & paid] — emoji set with free & premium licensing options available; downloadable as pngs, vectors, and font files
Emojipedia — [free] — every emoji, ever
Google Material Design icons — [free] — 900+ open source icons from Google’s gorgeous design language
The Noun Project — [free & paid] — available for use with Creative Commons attribution or available to purchase without attribution for fair prices; best quality selection in one place
SymbolSet — [paid] — super high-quality icon fonts categorized by topic and style
Vector Emoji — [free] — iOS emoji faces recreated in vector as layered PSDs or Sketch files
Inspiration and criticism websites
Brand identity
BP & O — killer packaging and brand design gallery
Brand New — brand identity case studies
Shipcom — collection of shipping, manufacturing, transport, and logistics logos
Illustration and art
Boooooooom — art, illustration, design, photography interviews and features
Jacky Winter — illustration collective
Motion
Wine After Coffee — curated channel of the best motion graphics, animation, and video
Print, layout, packaging, art direction
Art of the Menu — restaurant-specific print menu design case studies
Designspiration — photography, print design, cool stuff gallery, Pinterest style
FPO — print design case studies
Grafik — cutting-edge and old school fringe aesthetic case studies
It’s Nice That — creative inspiration worldwide
Mind Sparkle Mag — print, brand, interior, industrial design features
Trendlist — graphic design trends for the designer’s designer
Typography
Alphabettes — commentary, research, and work showcases by women in type design
Fonts In Use — highest quality public archive of typography indexed by typeface, format, and industry
Typographica — reviews and commentary on type books and typefaces
Type Wolf — curated examples of typography on the web with premium guides and resources
Web, mobile, product
UX patterns and components
Capptivate — mobile design patterns and components in video form
Collect UI — UI design components gallery populated from Dribbble posts
Empty Stat.es — empty state designs
Little Big Details — delightful, thoughtful UX components that make a big difference
PTTRNS — mobile design patterns and components
Pattern Tap — website components gallery
UI Movement — UI design components gallery and newsletter, largely culled from Dribbble
Unmatched Style — website design and interactive components gallery
Visual design
HTTPSTER — website design gallery. sort by category and style
Lapa — website design gallery. sort by category and color
One Page Love — website design gallery featuring only one-page websites
Pages.xyz — website design gallery for digital product marketing and ecommerce sites
Really Good Emails — email design gallery
Siteinspire — website design gallery with the tightest curation. sort by category, style, subject, or CMS. includes starred favorites
Site See — website design gallery. sort by category and color. includes custom curated collections
Web Creme — website design gallery, updated sporadically, online since 2005(!)
macOS apps
Development
Dash — [paid] — instant offline access to 150+ API documentation sets.
Font management
RightFont — [paid] — preview, sync, install, and manage fonts on your Mac or Dropbox/Google Drive
Menubar apps
LittleIpsum — [free] — sgenerate lorem ipsum lightning fast (can automatically wrap in
ptags, too)LICEcap — [free] — weirdest name, most straightforward and lightweight way to capture parts of your screen as a gif (also available for Windows)
Mockups
Facebook Design — [free] — diverse hands holding mobile devices
Graphicburger — [free] — physical product mockups & templates
GraphicRiver — [paid] — any product mockup you could ever think of
Pixeden — [free & paid] — physical product mockups & templates
Prototyping tools
Adobe Experience Design — included with Adobe CC subscription, for creating wireframes and protoyping interactivity
Atomic — prototyping tool for mobile or desktop interactions or animations
Figma — the first real-time collaborative interface design tool
Framer — prototyping tool built on framer.js for prototyping mobile and desktop apps
InVision — collaborative click-through prototyping tool for web and mobile
Marvel — simple click-through prototyping tool for web and mobile apps
Principle — motion design prototyping tool for mobile and web applications
Stock graphics
CreativeMarket — huge marketplace for design assets of varying qualities (including fonts and stock photos), great for when you need to recreate a specific style or work in a particular niche
RetroSupply — well-made and well-priced assets that skew toward retro/vintage
YouWorkForThem — cool textures and imagery from the original online creative marketplace
Stock photography
Death to the Stock Photo — [free & paid] — new sets emailed weekly, premium plans available for more photos and unlimited access
Gratisography — [free] — photos by one photographer requiring no attribution, most are weird but some are chill to save in a folder for later since they’re free
Magdeline — [free] — similar to unsplash, some are licensed in public domain, some require Creative Commons attribution
Masterfile — [paid] — stock photos, a little higher quality than iStock. registered account includes unwatermarked hi-res comps
Stocksy — [paid] — high quality, stylish lifestyle paid stock photos (watermarked comps)
Unsplash — [free] — the first of the hip and gorgeous free with no strings attached stock photo sites
Women of Color in Tech — [free] — photos of women in color in tech settings since every other stock photo site fails at this hardcore
User testing and interactive feedback tools
Lookback — users record their screen, face, voice, and touches while using your site/app/prototype/wireframe
UsabilityHub — for quick 5-minute qualitative, navigation-based, or hot-spot based remote tests for static images or a series of images
UserTesting — finds participants for you, runs a usability test, and records and stores videos of real people speaking their thoughts as they use your site/app/prototype/wireframe
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