Developers argue a lot about language supremacy, but whether you like it or not, they're all here to stay. What I've learnt is to use the right tool for the right job. You don't have to agree with me, but the 5 free tools I'm about to tell you about, would make your life a lot easier.
As a fullstack developer, I often find myself sketching interface designs for client approval before spending hours building something that would be eventually discarded. But, my work doesn't end there. I need to find the best Icons and Images to work with and it's often not a very easy task. but with the 5 free tools I'm about to share with you, it's going to be easier than what you've been doing all these while.
1. Canva - www.canva.com
Canva is a pretty easy to navigate tool for some basic image editing and graphics creation. For example, it took me 3 minutes to create the cover image for this story. Yes, 3 minutes. 1 minute to find a good template to work with and the other 2 to modify the text, size and position. I bet that's not enough time to fire up photoshop 😆. Ofcourse, it's not half as sophisticated as photoshop, but who needs an aircraft to travel 2 miles? And it's very easy to learn, even on your own. Duriyah Prints would teach you the important Canva tricks and shortcuts for next to nothing. You can reach her via: +234 810 862 8501.
2. IcoMoon - www.icomoon.io
If you really want to make your website fast and light, you might want to choose font-icons over image icons. But, why should you use font-awesome and include 100 extra icons you don't need just so you can use a few. With IcoMoon, you can select what icons you need to use and download only what you need. Thank me later.
3. Flaticon - www.flaticon.com
Well, there are some scenarios where font-icons just don't work or aren't worth it, those scenarios mostly, you want to have multicoloured icons that are quite sophisticated. Flaticon has nearly 3million different icons for you to choose from. You can download it as a svg or png image, whatever works for you.
4. Freepik - www.freepik.com
Created by the same guys behind flaticons, freepik, on the other hand, gives you a haystack of awesome vector images. You could use them as-is, or import them into your graphics editing tool and modify as you please. Don't forget to attribute the author though.
5. Unsplash - www.unsplash.com/
Unsplash in their own words is the internet’s source of freely-usable images powered by creators everywhere. What this means, it a site where you can find highres stock images of children playing or people boarding a flight and everything in between. This is especially useful if you're tired of getting poor quality images from clients which reduces the sophistication of your work.
I hope you find these tools useful, don't forget to share with friends too.