Hey friends! I'm Kate from over at Diaries of an Essex Girl where I talk about travel, health, love and all kinds of random nonsense. I am excited to be sharing something with you all today on Allie's blog, isn't she just a pretty cool lady? I'm pretty sure we can all admit to thinking dinosaurs are pretty rocking - amiright?
Blog designing is something I've actually been into for years but as times have changed, so have blogs and although now it is less time consuming - it requires a lot more tools that just Photoshop and somewhere to code. In fact, you don't need either of those things anymore if you don't want to or know how to use them. I've compiled a list for you of the 5 top resources you need to start using now to make your blog designing that little bit more seamless and the best part is - they are all free!
1. Design Seeds
Design Seeds is an awesome website for designers because it has thousands of colour palettes to choose from. Each palette has six colours that compliment each other beautifully and are inspired by different themes or images. Some of my favourite categories are Flora, Autumn and Nature. No matter your blog niche, writing style or personal colour preferences - you will find the perfect palette on Design Seeds!
2. Browserling
Have you ever coded an awesome layout and then had someone tell you it looks crappy in XYZ browser? No? Well it sucks. Browserling allows for cross-browser testing so all you have to do is type your URL in and it shows you how it looks in all available browsers. This way, you can spot an error BEFORE you share the blog design with the Interwebs and have someone tell you your design sucks for them. Winning.
3. Image Maps
If you already know how to Image Map, that's awesome. If you don't, let me tell you how and welcome you to the world of prettier designs! All you need to do is upload your image, create a shape around the part you want to link, enter the link and then move on to the next shape. Done. This can create lots of different links on one image without them overlapping - great for pretty navigational bars and social media icons.
4. Design Your Way
When browsing Google one day, I stumbled across an incredible page - Big fat collection of free resources for designers. I mean, the name alone sells it right? This page is full of textures, patterns, brushes, themes, fonts, social media icons, vectors, EVERYTHING you could possibly want. All for free to download right this very second. Happy browsing!
5. Pic Monkey
Maybe I'm a little late to the party with this one, as I believe Pic Monkey is pretty popular with bloggers. However, I really think it's an important one to share because it shows that you do not need Photoshop to create pretty images for your blog. I've seen some amazing tutorials online for Pic Monkey on how to make navigational bars (with Image Maps!), advertising buttons, bio images and page headers. On their blog, Pic Monkey shared the Top Ten Tutorials for using their service to pretty much design your whole blog. Can't ask for more than that can you?
Here's hoping I've shared at least one tool with you today you didn't know about - unless you are a total blog designing superstar and in that case, lets hear about your favourite design tools!
What tools do you use to design your blog? Sharing is caring!
This is awesome!! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing all of these awesome resources! I'm bookmarking all of them.
ReplyDeleteKate, thanks for sharing your design wisdom for Luddites like myself to use :) I adore Picmonkey and have really been getting into Photoshop and Gimp. Can't wait to check out these other options!
ReplyDeleteThat Browserling is just pure gold! Thank you for sharing. This is so going to help my next designing process. I can't believe I didn't know about this one! I've actually had to download pretty much every browser I could find and individually test my layouts in each one. That's so much work.
ReplyDeleteBut this! you just save my day, Kate! :) (and possibly my designing-life)
Thanks for these great finds!! I can't wait to start looking at them and start creating pretties!!
ReplyDeleteBrowserling sounds genius. Had NO idea it existed, and am pretty stoked to try it out. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteOne of the most helpful posts I've read in a long time- thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteI adore Pic Monkey!
ReplyDeleteYay, thanks Kayli :)
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I'm a Photoshop girl but Pic Monkey can be pretty handy at times. And I think it's a great tool for people without Photoshop!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome!
ReplyDeleteYou are most welcome Pinja! It's a great tool :)
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! Let me know what you think :)
ReplyDeleteMore pretties on the web is only a good thing :)
ReplyDeleteI have them all bookmarked too! Good shout ;)
ReplyDeleteI agree! :)
ReplyDeleteWow!! Thank you thank you thank you!!
ReplyDeleteYou've shared 5 I don't think i knew about! Just what I needed - thank you! x
She's giving away our secrets!!
ReplyDeleteSo glad they helped you!!
ReplyDeleteBrowserling link did not work for me but the rest of the links were great ideas so thank you. :)
ReplyDeletehttp://lovehopeandfaithforever.blogspot.com/
Yeah, I've heard it's not working for some people but it worked for me. Sorry! :/
ReplyDeleteI've heard some people are having trouble with it but it worked fine for me...sorry! :/
ReplyDelete