ImageoptimWindowsFree Image Optimizer Compress and resize photos. Using this free online service, you can resize, compress and optimize your image files. Using the service is as easy as clicking of button Optimized images are betterThey are more suitable for web pages, email attachments, or even storage on your disk. Give it a try nowEvery web designer has a secret or two. Hard won workflows, hidden hacks, and insider knowledge that are the mark of true experience and the stuff that separates great web design training from good. Here, weve managed to persuade some of the webs busiest devs and designers to part with their most closely guarded tricks and tips. Its quite a collection. Packed with professional know how, youll discover secret features of well known tools, the beta services that the design industry is buzzing about and CSS tricks that make page design for multiple platforms easy. So whether youre a beginner at online design or a web veteran, youre bound to uncover one or two tips here that will change the way you work. Faster coding. 01. The FrontEnd Checklist Application is perfect for modern websites and meticulous developers Follow the rules and deliver the best of your work in a generated. PNG compression app for Windows. Uses PNGOUT, OptiPNG, and DeflOpt to create the smallest PNGs, without sacrificing any image quality. Mac6Windows. Code. Kit for browser reloading. Code. Kit enables you to instantly see changes in your browser, without refreshingIf youre on a Mac then Code. Kit is a must, says Keir Whitaker, co founder of Viewport Industries. The browser reloading feature is worth the small cost alone. The days of hard refreshing your browser to make changes take effect are long gone. Apply global changes. JmlE.png' alt='Imageoptim Windows' title='Imageoptim Windows' />Heres a coding tip from musician, producer and web dev Elliott Fienberg that can help speed things up at the early stages of your design work. Use the wildcard CSS rule using an asterisk as the selector and you can globally apply changes to an entire page. For example, to change all the fonts on a page to sans serif, you just need font family arial, helvetica, sans serif This is a great designers trick to have in your pocket while youre going through the design process. Of course, its not such a great idea to leave it in your live code, so use this trick carefully and sparinglySet garish outlines. File this in the simple acts of genius folder a tip from Christopher Murphy of Web Standardistas that makes cross platform design so much easier. When working with media queries, set an outline in a garish colour, says Murphy. For example outline 1. This enables you to instantly see which exact rules are being applied to what youre currently looking at. Check your character count4. Trent Walton, founder and designer with Paravel. Theres a quick trick to ensure your responsive or fluid design supports this. Place a line of dummy text on your page with an asterisk at character 4. Now test the site to make sure it resizes within these parameters. Use Fit. Vids for video embedding. HTML5 has simplified video embedding, but designers still have two problems. Imageoptim Windows' title='Imageoptim Windows' />The first is getting video to resize responsively, the second is to ensure resizing degrades gracefully for Flash when HTML5 embedding isnt supported. Enter Fit. Vids, a j. Query plugin that takes care of all that for you. Dealing with images. Smushit for image size reduction. Smushit uses optimisation techniques to remove unnecessary bytes from image files. Sites with highly optimised images load faster and work better on more devices. Smush. It is a great option to reduce image file sizes, says web developer and Microsoft evangelist Martin Beeby, and we agree. You may also want to give Trent Waltons fave Image. Optim a try. 0. 7. Export images as 8bit PNGMartin Beeby makes an old school suggestion for handling PNG image files. If youre exporting an image from Photoshop to PNG, and it doesnt need to be transparent, try exporting it as an 8bit PNG, he explains. In most cases the image quality wont be affected but you will massively reduce the file size. PNGQuant for image conversion. If you want to maintain transparency and minimise file size, theres a service that can help. PNGQuant can convert 2. PNGs to 8bit PNGS and still maintain transparency. Theres fancy for you. Layouts. 09. Use Guide. Kundli 5 Pro Full Installation Download. Guide. Guide. Guide is a columns, rows, and midpoints panel for PhotoshopThe best websites are designed to a grid, says Rhys Little, director of digital marketing agency Plug and Play. Setting up grids everytime in Photoshop can be tedious, though. He recommends Guide Guide It makes the process a breeze and save you a lot of time creating custom grids. Use a 1. 2 column grid. Another tip from Rhys Little Typically it is a good idea to use a grid with columns nicely divisible by 2, 3 and 4. Therefore, a 1. 2 column grid is one of the most popular and versatile grids to use. Check out 9. Find colour inspiration. Were already fans of Adobe Kuler Martin Beeby has uncovered a use we hadnt thought of Im colour blind and so when Im putting colour palettes together for a project I always reach for Kuler, he explains. He also recommends Colour Lovers a creative community where members share colour schemes, designs and ideas. Web typography. 12. Typecast for typographic palettes. Typecast helps you build up a typographic palette quickly. Typecast, an app produced by the talented team at Belfast based design agency Front, makes designing typographically rich sites a breeze. It enables you to rapidly build and compare typographic palettes, enthuses Christopher Murphy. Use Typecast with Google Fonts. Monotype recently teamed up with Google to release a new, free public version of Typecast which can be accessed through Google Fonts. It enables you to select any font on the Google Fonts website and then follow the link to the Typecast app. From there, you can work with that font on text of any length and use a wide range of type controls to build clear, readable type systems through adjustments such as font size, weight and line spacing. Your work can be exported as production ready HTML and CSS, or PNG files, to share with others or merge with comps. Font Squirrel for free web fonts. Free web fonts have really come of age. With Font Squirrel, Google Web Fonts and the font face attribute of CSS3, theres no need to put up with the typography troubles the last generation of web designers struggled so much with. Heres our round up of some of the best free web fonts around. Plan the perfect site. Use Dropbox for version control. Dropbox Pro can be used as a simple versioning system. Keir Whitaker suggests using Dropbox Pro as a simple versioning system. As well as having 1. GB of storage, youll get versioning of your files for 3. More than enough to help you out with those accidental deletes, says Whitaker. Slow down. Visual creatives have a habit of whipping out their sketchbook first. Aidan Martin, senior designer at Alienation Digital, says we all need to slow down. Dont start with a design take a scenario based approach, says Aidan. Firmly establish the users goals, map out their journey and then build the design around this. Put your site on a Post it. Does your design idea fit on a Post it note, asks Elliott Fienberg One exercise I like to do is to write down your core content on a small piece of paper like a Post it note, he says. This will help you figure out what is really important and what can be omitted. The small piece of paper simulates the attention span of most users these days. Plan your user flow. Want to know what to do with the rest of those Post itsYou can expand this exercise by planning out your user flow on a series of Post it notes, adds Elliott Fienberg. I guarantee your project will be far more focused. Other sticky notes are available, of course, including virtual Sticky Notes on Windows and Stickies on OS X. Photoshop workflow. Name your layers wisely. Be as descriptive as possible when naming your Photoshop layers. Rhys Little offers a clutch of tips on sharing Photoshop layouts within your team.