With Christmas coming up very soon, you might be swamped with Christmas-themed designs.

Everyone wants to get their job done as efficiently and quickly as possible. 

That’s why I collected loads of free Christmas design resources for you.

Everything from free Christmas icons to free Christmas PNGs, vectors and images, I’ve got you covered. 

You’ll be “sleigh-in’” it this winter season with all these free Christmas design resources, let’s get right into it.

Free Christmas Icons

Last week I wrote The Ultimate Collection of Design Resources that you should definitely check out for your day to day use. 

But today, we’re talking all about free Christmas design resources.

Having some free Christmas icons will surely save you lots of time, so you don’t have to start from scratch. 

3Here is my pick of free Christmas icons that you can use. 

Flaticon

Flaticon has lots of free Christmas icons for you to use for any of your Christmas projects that are coming up.

 It’ll save you lots of time, and the fact that hundreds of these icons are free will help you save a buck as well! 

Upgrade to premium in order to get thousands of icons! 

Freepik

Freepik will help you spread tons of Christmas cheer with their hundreds of free Christmas elements. 

They have flat designs and 3D designs alike in their Christmas icons. You don’t want to miss out! 

Vecteezy

Vecteezy has lots of color and happy icons for you to use for free. 

Just choose the ones you like, download, and use to your liking! 

Free Christmas PNGs

Make your clients happy with the best Christmas PNGs out there. 

Here are my top favorite free PNG websites that will certainly help you out this season. 

Pngtree

Pngtree is great for everyday use but especially has some great Christmas PNGs. 

Their quality has never once disappointed me.

The only downside to their site, in my opinion, is that you only get 2 free PNGs a day.

So choose wisely, or consider upgrading to a premium account! 

Pngfly

Pngfly has over 20,000 free resources for you to use this Christmas. That’s definitely not an offer you want to miss out on.

Pngmart

Pngmart has tens of pages for you to browse through when looking for the perfect free Christmas PNGs. 

Check em out!

Free Christmas Vectors

Vectors are a huge part of graphic design, so it’s only right that we go over the best websites with the best free Christmas vectors that the internet has to offer.

Let’s do it.

Vexels

Vexels has some of the best vectors I’ve laid my eyes on. Colorful, cheerful, perfect for Christmas. 

If you’re looking for great free Christmas vectors, then you definitely need to check them out!

Vectorstock

But wait—there’s “myrrh”. Vectorstock has over 13,000 free Christmas vectors for you to use!

Vector4free

Vector4free is a great choice for using in your everyday designs, but not only.

They have lots of Christmas vectors for you to choose from, so I recommend you get to it! 

Free Christmas Images

Christmas images will give a warm, homey feel to any project. 

If you don’t have a camera or time to take any Christmas pictures, definitely give these free Christmas stock images websites for your work! 

Pexels

Pexels is definitely one of my personal favorite stock images websites. 

They have lots of high-quality images from great individual photographers.

 And if you want to, you can support the artist, by donating to them! 

Pixabay

Pixabay has loads of photo choices for you to choose from.

With over 20,00 free images solely dedicated to Christmas time, you’re bound to find the photo you’re looking for.

Unsplash

And finally, we have Unsplash. 

Unsplash has tons of Christmas photos for you to choose from, that are extremely festive.

Check out their site and find all your Christmas photo needs there! 

“Wrapping” up

Well, you guys snow the drill. This is the end of our time together.

I hope you found these design resources helpful! 

Until next time,

Stay creative, folks!

Read More at The Ultimate Collection of Free Christmas Design Resources

When establishing a brand, you should never put your logo on the back burner. 

If your logo doesn’t represent you well or it looks unprofessional, then your customers are going to bounce, leaving your business to plummet. 

We’re going to go over the 10 elements of every great logo, that you can implement into your logo design. 

Let’s get straight into it. 

1. Memorable

The first, most important element of every great logo is that it’s memorable. If your logo isn’t memorable, then you’ve got a huge problem. Because people won’t remember who you are, what you offer, and you won’t come to mind in the future when they need the product you have to offer. 

Being memorable is key. Make an original first impression on people so that they’ll always remember you when they need to. 

2. Simple

A good logo is simple. If you have a great design, then it doesn’t need to be super intricate. Yes, get all the little details and hidden images in there. That’s amazing, but it should still, in its essence, be simple and easy to grasp.

3. Easy to understand

This goes hand-in-hand with simplicity. If your logo is so complicated that no one understands it, then you’ve done something wrong. Your logo shouldn’t need a huge in-depth explanation of what it represents and means. Of course, your logo can have some subliminal messages and hidden images, but it shouldn’t be so hidden that people awkwardly say “oh… okay”.

So make sure your logo comes across well, is creative and original, but also is easy to understand.

4. Recognizable

You want to be easily recognized. On the street, in the store, online- people should see your logo and go “Hey! I know that brand.” This is just as important as memorability. If people don’t remember who you are and don’t recognize you, then your company is going to die. That’s that. 

So make sure you’re recognizable, make a statement, and are memorable.

5. Timeless

How terrible if you work months and months on your logo and company, and you fall into some crazy fads, and next year your company logo looks a little bit crazy. You definitely want to follow some great trends, but make sure that your company logo will look just as good this year as it will the next five. 

6. Scalable

Your work should look good, big or small. Whether you’re being displayed on a tiny little RDA or a giant billboard in your town. This also means that you need to have a high-quality logo design, so when you blow it up or scale it down, it looks just as good, quality-wise. 

7. Relevant

Ask yourself when designing your logo, “Why this logo design? What does it represent for me?” If your logo doesn’t describe what you’re doing and isn’t relevant to your brand… then you may be doing something wrong. You want to make sure people understand why your logo is the way it is, and you want to make sure that your target audience will vibe with it. 

8. Attention-grabbing

You’ll want your logo to turn heads. When some3one is walking by and sees your logo, you’ll want them to stop for a minute and dedicate their full attention to you. For this, you can have a cool geometrical design or some bright colors. As long as your intricate design is memorable, relevant and attention-grabbing. 

9. Be Different Than Your Competition

The worst thing you can be classified as, if you want to be a reputable company, is a knock-off. If you’re trying to have your own company, then for the love of all things good, don’t copy your competition. Yes, be inspired by them, but don’t try to be exactly like them. Look at them, take some notes, and move forward and do better. You’ve got this! 

10. Don’t be afraid of change

Everything evolves, and that means your company logo will evolve as well. Maybe not this year or the next, but somewhere down the road, you’ll need to make adjustments to make your customers happy. So don’t be set in stone, afraid to change. Change is good and should be embraced. 

And Finally

Be yourself and have some fun when designing your company brand and logo. 

Let us know in the comments what some of your personal tips are when it comes to designing a logo.

Until next time,

Stay creative, folks! 

Read More at The 10 Elements of Every Great Logo + 10 Logo Examples

Your product could be the most amazing and useful product in the world, but if your packaging is not on point, then your entire business could be in some major trouble.

Imagine this scenario: You’ve designed the best product in your field, invested all of your funds into creating the product, and put packaging design on the back burner. You get on a free mock-up website, make something in an hour, call it day, and show it to your investors. 

Terrible idea. 

In my personal opinion, you should put just as much effort into the packaging design of your product as you put into the product itself.

According to science, it only takes a person 1/10th of a second to create or form an opinion about someone or something. That gives you literally not even one second to give someone a great first impression. 

The first thing your potential customer is going to see is your packaging. And you better hope to goodness that you’ve aced your first impression and wowed your target audience with your packaging design.

Best Packaging Design Ideas for 2019

I’ve rounded up 20 of my favorite packaging designs for you to be inspired by for your next design project.

Let’s check em out!

1. Mint

[source]

This face wash for men is so simplistic in its design that it’s easy and enjoyable for the eye to look at. The black color of the face wash gives off tones of luxury and the pastel colors on the box, combined with flat design, simply works for this packaging. 

2. Care Market

Continuing on with the pastel trend, we have Care Market packaging design. The palette they chose here is lovely, as pastels have been all over the place this year. The consistency in font usage is just perfect, using only two different fonts and using dividing lines between each new phrase. 

This packaging design shows us that you don’t need elaborate graphic designs to exude elegance and professionalism. All you need is a great color palette, and nice, coinciding fonts. 

3. Botany

[source]

Less is more, as the saying goes, and botany nailed it. Minimalist, flat design is the key here and with three different color schemes that all complement each other, I can wholeheartedly say, I believe this design will catch the eye of anyone who is looking for a high-quality serum. 

4. Roji

When someone is looking for a healthy drink, they’re going to be looking for sleek, professional fonts that look organic. My favorite part of this packaging design is that the designer thought through the choice of font colors. 

Since the bottle is made of glass, you’ll be able to see its contents and the yellow font matches the beverage inside the bottle. The yellow-colored font perfectly complements the contents of the bottle. A simple, well-thought-out packaging design overall.

5. Sophia’s Tea

Stepping out a little bit from the pastel color palettes and into something a little bolder, we have Sophia’s Tea packaging design. Flat design really has taken the lead in 2019. We see it all over the place. And luckily for us designers, it makes our job a little easier. 

What I appreciate about this design is that the name of each drink matches the design of each recipient. The color scheme on each bottle matches each other, making a buyer recognize the brand, if they were to see each bottle on a shelf in a store. 

6. Juice.

Since we’re on a drink roll, check out this summery packaging design for juice. Again, we’re hit with flat design and beautiful colors. The font sticks out perfectly on the foreground of the design. Juice. Simple, clean, clear, and to the point. 

7. Brightland

I’ve never seen an olive oil packaged quite like this. At first glance, you would wonder what this beautiful bottle is doing in the oil section. 

You’re inclined to pick it up, you read that it’s olive oil, you’re shook, you compare prices between this and another oil, you realize it’s the same price, and naturally you buy the more beautiful packaging design of the two products. Hit people with original, innovative designs and you’re sales will skyrocket. 

8. Mayberry Spirit Co.

[source] 

This bottle makes me want to have a nice, classy night at home with all my friends. The vintage font works beautifully with the design of the bottle, and I love that the color schemes match the rich color of the whiskey itself. 

9. Gatorade

Here are some rebranding sketches for Gatorade. Simple design that gets across, yet still embraces the originality of the Gatorade logo. You won’t lose any brand recognizability, and it looks more modern.

10. The Restored 

The packaging design for these vitamins is everything. The manly, muted earth tones will remind a person of organic produce, making them trust your brand even more. Color association is very important when it comes to designing your packaging and establishing your brand, so choose wisely! 

11. The Restored

Here’s a second version to Restored vitamins. This packaging design is a touch more feminine, using a more pastel green, and creating more dimension in the background by using two different colors. The pop of orange in the corner brings the eyes to the directions.

12. American Crew Fragrance

This simplistic design is one way on the box and reversed on the bottle. By using one font, they really had to play with the scaling and spacing of letters and words to make it interesting and captivating. Again, packaging design can be simple and just as engaging as a super complicated design.  

13. Roys Morning Serum

Roys morning serum has two beautiful colors: a muted pink and a relaxing gold. Color association is everything. If you can convince your customers that your product is what they need and you really sell your product by having a luxurious packaging, you’ll have clients talking about you for days. 

14. Zinus

You can recognize an eco-friendly package design from a mile away, and most people are becoming very concerned and aware of their consumerism and trash contribution to the world. Using a bio-degradable packaging or using recycled material will help you loads when it comes to sales. And you’ll be helping the world. It’s a win-win.

15. Mapuche Maqui

Sometimes, making healthy choices isn’t the easiest or most fun, so presenting a fun looking health product can be key in your sales. This berry powder packaging design looks fun and friendly, used flat design, a beautiful color palette, and bold font. With all these elements combined, surely it’ll catch the eye of a customer. 

16. Botanical Coffee Co

This coffee design is so relaxing to look at. The intricate design on the sides, the simplicity on the front, and the choice of font combinations are just lovely. Again, going with flat design and pastels. See the pattern? 

17. Publix Cereal Line

Did you know that the color red increases your appetite significantly? The designer here for kids cereal certainly knew what they were doing. By combining real-life elements and flat design, kids will surely be intrigued by this design and be inclined to beg their parents for the cereal. 

18. Coffee

This coffee packaging is so bright and captivating, yet still has colors that are easy on the eyes. When choosing your color palette, you need to be sure that you’re choosing colors that soothe and colors that people want to look at. And of course, brand colors that represent you and that your audience will enjoy. 

19. Tesco Fish

Check out these “fishy” illustrations! What I really enjoyed about this packaging design was the fish. I love the very finely defined, cut-off design of the fish, and then the can and text. Each fish is design to represent its kind, and I find this design very creative, colorful, and appetizing. 

20. Moon 

And finally, we have Moon Night Cream. Notice how to colors and graphic designs represent the night. So simple, clean, and fresh-looking that you actually can’t wait to use this cream tonight before bed.

Wrapping things up 

As we all know, packaging is everything when it comes down to actually selling your product. Make sure your design represents you, your brand, and your product, and is creative and makes people feel like they need what you have to offer, in their lives. 

I hope you found this article inspiring and you’re more than ready to jump into your next design project.

Until next time,

Stay creative! 

Read More at The Best Packaging Design Ideas for 2019 You Need to See

I believe I speak for everyone when I say that I love to find amazing, high-quality design resources for free.

 Sometimes, when you’re in the middle of a design process, you find that you’re about to have to invest more money than you originally intended. You should save money when you can and you should spend money on things that require investment. 

That’s why I came up with the ultimate collection of free design resources for you to check out. 

Whether it’s free vectors or mockups, or free images and presets you’re looking for, I have it all right here in one incredibly comprehensive list for you, so you don’t have to search all around for your answers. Everything is right here, in one place.

Now, let’s get into it.

Free Stock Images

Photography has been and will always be a key piece of design. Stock photos are no longer what they used to be, luckily. No longer will you be seeing just those awkward group photos of people laughing or two businessmen shaking hands. 

No, there are so many stock photo sites for you to choose from with quality work from real photographers. Check out these 10 awesome free stock images websites!

Unsplash

I want to start this list off with a bang. Unsplash is my personal favorite free stock image website. I use it for everything from article writing to making designs. Unsplash has a huge collection of images, consisting of over 110,000 high-quality free stock images. Just type in a keyword and see hundreds of images that can suit your needs. All images are released under Unsplash’s copyright policy.

Stocksnap

Stocksnap has hundreds of new high-quality free stock images added to their library every week. They have stock images to fit just about any occasion you can think of. From website building to brochure making, they having everything you need. You can find any image you need by typing in tag words, and you’ll be presented with hundreds of images that will be perfect for you. All images are free for you to use! 

Pexels

Pexels has one of the most beautiful stock images website interfaces I’ve ever seen. Pexels provides tons of high-quality stock images that are free for you to use under their license. With hundreds of thousands of beautiful free images of you to choose from, surely you’ll find what you need here. 

Reshot

“Reshot. Uniquely free photos. Handpicked, non-stocky images. Yours to use as you wish”. That’s a pretty self-explanatory and sweet tagline. They work hand-in-hand with amazing professional photographers and give them a great place to display their work and be discovered. Find amazing free stock images on Reshot!

Pixabay

Pixabay has loads of free photos, but not only. They also have art illustrations and vectors. All images, art illustrations vectors, etc are released under Creative Commons CC0.

Life of Pix

Next up, we have Life of Pix. Free high-resolution photography for everyone. Besides having loads of amazing photos to choose from, they also feature a new photographer of the week. Find new photographers whose work you love every week and in turn, have tons of stock photos to choose from! 

Foodiesfeed

Foodiesfeed is for the foodie at heart. Which gorgeous, appetizing stock images that look so delicious that you can almost smell them just by looking at them. If you have a food blog or just need some inspiration, check out this awesome stock image site. 

Gratisography

Gratisography is for the non-mainstream person. If you’re looking for the complete opposite of the classic boring stock photo, this website is for you. You truly won’t find photos like these anywhere else.

Foca

FOCA is a great stock website if you’re looking for a little more than just some stock images. They have everything from free photos to videos and templates! 

Kaboompics

Kaboompics is so aesthetically pleasing, it hurts. The amazing blog pictures are everything. According to their about page, Kaboompics is one of the most popular sources of free images for lifestyle, interior design and specialized bloggers in the world. 

Free Vectors 

Creating your own vectors can take up so much of your precious time, and that’s why finding perfect vector art or vector icons can be a major time-saver, but finding them for free is like finding treasure. That’s why I picked out my 10 favorite free vector websites. Check ‘em out.

Vexels

Vexels has great free vectors for you to use for personal and commercial use. What I really like about their vectors is that many of them are editable. You can get everything from icons to backgrounds and designs that are ready for print. Give them a try!

Vector Stock

Vector stock has over 300,000 vectors for you to choose from. With such a wide variety of vectors, surely you’ll find something that’ll suit your project and save you loads of time. 

The Noun Project

The Noun Project can be summed up in icons, icons, icons! They have over 2 million royalty-free vector icons for you to use. And what’s better? You can edit them. That is insane, people. Don’t sleep on the noun-project. They have all those quality things you’re looking for.

Vector 4 Free

Vector 4 Free has vector art for everyone. Their goal is to share vector art created by professional designers with everyone. They have all sorts of formats, such as .ai format, but also .eps, .pdf, .svg, and even .cdr. All of their vectors are free for personal use, but for commercial use, you have to check each artist’s terms of use, as they all differ. 

Freepik 

Freepik has over 708,000 free vectors for you to use for personal use and also for commercial use. The styles vary as far as feminine and elegant-looking invitations to vectors that are perfect for backend technology promotion. You’ll find every style you could need here, and you can download everything in .Ai and .EPS formats.

Free Vector

Free Vector is full of fun and colorful cartoonish vectors. They are basically a world full of free vector art that is simply at your fingertips. Type in your keywords in the search bar to find vectors that suit your style, or scroll to the end of the page and find tons of categories to browse through.

Vecteezy

Vecteezy has thousands of gorgeous vector art for you to use. Everything is copyright free, so you never have to worry about that. There are tons of free vectors for you to use, or you can upgrade your account to a pro account and have access to everything at your fingertips. 

Flat Icon

Flat Icon is the largest database of free icons that are available in PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD, and BASE 64 formats to date! With a free account, you can access thousands of free icons, or you can upgrade your account and get millions of icons for free. 

Pngtree

Pngtree has wonderful vectors for you to choose from, and with a free account, you have access to 2 daily downloads. Get royalty-free PNG images, vectors, backgrounds, templates, and text effects from Pngtree. 

Free Mockups 

Showing real-life visuals of your work to your client is a vital selling point, and that’s one of the huge reasons that mockups are so crucially important. Here are 10 free amazing mockup websites for you to use for your next project.

Placeit

Placeit is a site where you can visualize all of your designs on products within seconds. Not only can you just upload your images, but you can also make designs on the platform, and create videos. Create your own design, or try out one of their 32,938 smart templates! 

Smart Mockups

Smart Mockups is the fastest web-based mockup tool out there right now. It’s user-friendly in the manner that advanced designers and beginners alike can use and understand their product. You can use a free account and create 200 mockups and use basic features, or you can upgrade your account and have access to all mockups and features. 

Mockuuups

Mockuuups will generate tour product mockups in literally a second. The tool is easy to use, as it is drag-and-drop based. Download the app to your computer to start using. You can use a free account and still have access to lots of features and mockups, or you can upgrade your account to have access to everything! 

Mckups

Mckups has a beautiful, minimalist interface and beautiful, free mockups for you to use. The mockups are hand-crafted by professional designers and are just waiting for you to use them. 

The Mockup Club

The Mockup Club is absolutely free and that might just be my favorite part. It’s a one-stop shop with loads of free mockups for you to use to showcase your lovely designs. 

Psd Repo

Psd Repo has every mockup imaginable. From key-chains to shorts, to t-shirts, to protein powder packaging, I think I can safely say they have it all. The mockups are made by talented designers who want to share their work with you for free. Download your favorite mockup as a PSD file and get to designing! 

Mockups Design

Mockups Design is an easy-to-use website where designers can find professional mockups for free to use in their next design project. From DVDs and CD to letterheads and brochures. They have lots to choose from.  

Good Mockups

Good Mockups can be summed up about something like this: High-quality, hand-picked, premium mockups for all to use. They strive to have mockups to fit everyone and every design. With an entire list for you to go through, I believe that they are truly well worth your time. 

Mr. Mockup

Last but not least, we have Mr. Mockup. They have a team of professional and creative designers working to mockups for everyone. With a vast experience in designing just about anything, you can count on them to find beautiful mockups for your next design project.

Wrapping up 

I hope you guys found this ultimate collection of free design resources helpful! Let us know in the comment section below what sites you’ll be using in the near future, or tell us about a website you know that you think is worth mentioning.

Until next time, 

Stay creative! 

Read More at The Ultimate Collection of Free Design Rersources

Each year, loads of development tools come out. It’s becoming harder and harder to decide what tools you actually need and which ones you can live without.

 Honestly, it’s probably a personal preference, but it really helps me decide what I need when I have a list of useful tools to look over.

 So here we go: the top 8 development tools you absolutely need in 2020.

1. IPstack

IPstack allows you to locate and identify website visitors with an IP address. This is extremely helpful for a lot of reasons, but simply knowing who is coming to your website is one of the most valuable tools anyone can ever ask for.

Built within this tool are 5 different modules that are definitely worth mentioning:

• Location module

This module gives you all the information for the visitor’s location. All the way down to the zip code. With this information, you can optimize your ad targeting based on geolocation.

• Currency Module

Using the information above, you’ll also get an accurate report on the primary currency being used in the visitor’s region.

• Time zone module

The time zone module instantly lets you know the local time of the visitor. No more guessing and counting in your head.

• Connection module

Gather valuable information about the ASN and the hostname of the ISP your website visitors are using.

• Security module

IPstack will also detect any proxies, crawlers, or tor users. Security is a big deal for many users, and Ipstack makes sure you feel comfortable at all times.

Ipstack is fast and trusted by literally the biggest names in tech. To top it all off, they partner with the largest ISPs around the world, so you can rest assured that the information you’re getting is 100% accurate.

2. VSCode

VSCode is an open-source code editor that makes editing code as easy as pie. The developers of this tool basically took everything that sucked about coding and reinvented it to be easier.

So for example, they use InteliSense, which provides smart completions based on variable types, function definitions, and imported modules.

Possibly the worst thing about coding is debugging. At the very least, it can be quite time-consuming. But not so much with VSCode. You will no longer have to print out a debugging statement. Now, you can simply identify the bug and fix it right from the editor. Attach this to your running apps and debug with breakpoints, call stacks, and an awesome interactive console.

VSCode has built-in Git commands, it’s completely customizable, and it’s completely free. Check it out.

3. Postman

Postman is a collaboration platform for API development, and it has a lot to offer. Essentially, it’s your all-in-one tool for creating APIs. Here’s a list of some of the features you’ll have access to:

• API client

Send REST, SOAP, and GraphQL requests super fast.

• Automated testing

Automate your manual testing process.

• App mock

Run simulated endpoints and predict potential behaviors of the app.

• Monitor

After all is said and done, keep an updated report of the performance of the app.

Of course, there are quite a few features that Postman offers. Overall, it’s definitely worth checking out and using. It will make your life so much easier, and the amount you end up paying compared to the value you get out of it is incredible.

4. Docker

Docker is a platform for building, testing, and deploying applications. As simple as that sounds, it has quite a bit to offer. When I say a lot, I really mean a ton. There is a wide variety of development tools ready to go at any time. 

Docker has been a developer favorite for a while now, and it’s only getting better. If I added absolutely everything you have to look forward to on the list, we’d be here for a while. My best advice is to go and check it out for yourself to see what you think.

5. Sublime Text

I think Sublime Text said it best when they described themselves as a sophisticated text editor for code, markups, and prose. Even if they didn’t use the Oxford comma in their original description. 

In fact, just watching the demo on their main page shows you just how easy it is to fix and create text. Across the board, Sublime is getting great reviews for its ease of use, friendly interface, and for being the best text editor on the market. 

You may want to take the time to learn all of the specific commands for making the process even faster, as there are quite a few to memorize. But, all-in-all, you really won’t find a better product for editing text for code.

6. GitHub

Github has been a fan favorite for many years now. Some even consider it to be the best social coding and social sharing platform on the market.

The concept is simple: code together with your team to avoid confusion and delays. It sounds kind of messy, but I can assure you that it works pretty flawlessly. It really streamlines the process of bug fixing as well. Instead of making changes on a local device and then sending off the patches to be approved and implemented, you can simply (if approved by the lead developer) fix it on the spot.

7. Sifter

Sifter is definitely one of the best issue tracking software out there today. Possibly one of the best things about Sifter is how easy it is to learn and use. I would be very confident in suggesting this tool to even beginners.

Sifter brings all the issues it found to one platform. From there, the lead developer can label, attach files (screenshots, Docs, etc.), and assign them to qualified team members in basically minutes. On top of that, Sifter leaves a progression trail so that you can track exactly who did what.

Sifter also integrates really well with Slack, GitHub, and others to make sure that you have absolutely everything you need to make your app perfect.

8. Microsoft Visual Studio

Visual Studio by Microsoft is an IDE that is a great fit for anyone. It uses IntelliSense to autocomplete code and is notorious for the massive amount of languages it can support.

Visual Studio is jam-packed with all sorts of integration, plugins, and shortcuts to make your life easier. And that’s what we all really want, right?

Wrapping up

Now don’t get me wrong, there are thousands of development tools out there to get lost in. This is simply a list of the top 8 development tools you need in 2020. Or the top 8 that you should at least look into.

Regardless of your skill level, I think you’ll find something on this list that will help you out tremendously. Be sure to check out each link and take advantage of those free trials!

Read More at Top 8 Best Development Tools You Need in 2020

As we continue through this eventful 2019, there are many newsletter design trends that have already come and gone. But, there are also quite a few that have stuck around, and even more that are just beginning to show up. 

So what are they? Great question. Newsletters are one of the most simple and effective marketing strategies out there, so it’s worth knowing what’s trending and what you should avoid. With that said, here are some of the best 2019 newsletter design trends that you’ve gotta know.

Interactive newsletters

Interactivity has been a trend in the design world for a while now. The reason is as cut and dry as it gets: people love to be entertained. There’s just something about being able to navigate, click, and watch the screen evolve in front of you that just can’t be beaten.

Take this newsletter from Ann Taylor, for example. It has a simple design that allows users to interact with it, see all the new products, and even go straight to the online store. Things like sidebars, drop-down tabs, and shopping links are actually taking off as a trend. This is an interactive email newsletter if I’ve ever seen one. As long as you don’t go overboard with it, this is a great trend to follow.

Simple and clean design

Minimalism is a huge trend in design right now. It’s no big surprise that it’s snuck its way into newsletter design trends, too.

There’s nothing more annoying than getting a newsletter, opening it, and finding an explosion of information that you can’t seem to click away from fast enough. The whole point of a newsletter is to grab someone’s attention quickly and direct them to the announcement.

Something like this simple newsletter design clearly shows the reader that there’s a summer sale, it’s 50% off, and then gives them a link to go shopping. There’s nothing overwhelming or misleading about it. By definition, this is a perfectly simply newsletter, and it does the trick.

Catchy newsletter names

You may think that a name really isn’t part of the design, but I think that the name is the first thing that really grabs the reader’s attention. Amidst the absolute ocean of emails that some of us get daily, the subject lines can easily blend in with the background.

It helps to have a name that people not only recognize as your own but by having a name that stands out. There’s really no guideline for this other than be creative. Overall, you should just try to avoid names like (insert company name)’s newsletter.

Infographics in newsletters

If you absolutely need to give a lot of information, a nice infographic can really help maintain your clean design. One particular style of infographics that a lot of businesses are using is video infographics.

Video marketing, in general, has really rocketed forward in recent years. For many businesses, it’s their main focus. A simple video infographic is an easy way to pump out a lot of your information and still keep the target audience engaged.

Personalization

Creating a newsletter design that is easy to adapt to any reader can be hard to do, but it drives opening rates and engagement like crazy.

A good example of this would be Pinterest. For years now, they have sent you Pins via email based on the things that you like. 

On top of that, they will often use your name in the subject line. It makes it feel less like a corporate cash-grab, and more like a friendly email from a close friend. I don’t know about you, but when scrolling through my inbox, my name in a subject line stands out drastically. Many times, it’s all I look for.

Videos in newsletters

The reason videos work well in newsletters is simple: people love to be entertained. On top of that, listening to a video requires much less effort than reading.

That being said, adding a video to a newsletter can be tricky. If someone has rendering issues, or they can’t watch the video the moment they open it, then they may leave and never come back. There has to be a balance between making the video catchy enough to grab their attention and keep it and being short enough to not waste their time. Basically, keep it short and sweet.

Bright and contrasting colors

A little splash of color never hurt anyone. This statement rings true for a lot of things, but with design, it’s a little more complicated. It’s true that the right colors can really help any design. But, notice I said the RIGHT colors.

Just because you toss in some bright and contrasting colors doesn’t mean that people are going to love it. In fact, if you don’t get the colors almost exactly right, most people are going to hate it.

The colors you choose have to make sense. They have to match your brand’s tone, but they don’t necessarily have to be the brand’s colors. Take this newsletter for example:

We’re all familiar with the trillion-dollar company, Apple. They’re infamous for their simplicity in design. Most of the time, their devices are simple gold, black, grey, or white. It was quite a shock when they released the 5c, simply because they were like nothing Apple fans had ever seen.

Granted, this email newsletter design is a few years old at this point, but you can see the strategy in using these colors. They absolutely pop off the screen at you. They used the phone’s colors to highlight the phones themselves on the screen.

Or, how about this one:

Again, what we have here is an ingeniously implemented design with contrasting colors. They’re not wildly different from each other, but they certainly do a great job of highlighting the products. These colors make sense, and they look good.

Full-width images

Just like the colors, images have become the main focal point of the newsletter in 2019. And, just like the example above with Apple, the images have quickly started to take up the majority of the newsletter.

It makes sense if you think about it. Let your product do the talking for you. Even if you’re newsletter is a software or a simple announcement, you should be confident enough with what you’re proposing in the newsletter. 

This newsletter advertisement is a perfect example of this. The image of the woman in the middle takes up nearly the entire thing, from end to end. 

In fact, this particular design hits on a few of the points we talked about, so we’ll end it here. You have a nice big image, contrasting and bold colors, a simple image, and interactivity.

Get creative

As I hinted at several times throughout this article, creativity is key. Most people will scan their emails, look for only the most important emails, and forget about the rest, newsletters included.

A combination of many or all the design elements above will definitely give you a competitive edge, but don’t forget to play around a little. Just because someone doesn’t open a newsletter email of yours once, doesn’t mean they’ll never do it again. This process will have a lot of trial and error, but you will get the hang of it eventually. Especially is you use these 2019 newsletter design trends.

Read More at 2019 Newsletter Design Trends You Have to Know About

Dark design is and always will be a trend. The level of darkness will always vary, but basically, it’s really hard to screw up a simple, dark design. This is especially true for dark UI design.

Not everyone gets it right all the time. There are a few things you have to keep in mind when working with a Dark UI. But, don’t pull your hair out yet. We’re going to go over the elements that you need to keep in mind, and a few you’ll probably want to avoid. This is the basics to dark UI: the good, bad, and of course, the ugly.

Why use dark UI?

To be completely honest here, I don’t think every site can pull of dark UI. It is an interesting design tactic, but it sometimes just doesn’t fit the overall style or brand.

But, putting that aside, it is a very visually striking change. For starters, you don’t see lots of dark UI in the digital world. It’s way easier to put dark text on a light background. Most blogs, for example, choose to go with the light UI simply because they pump out a lot of content.

But, what about the other types of sites? I mean, even a blog can pull it off if they try hard enough. You just have to make sure the dark theme will work. And with that in mind, remember that “dark” doesn’t always mean “black”.

A dark background can be a variety of colors. As long as it’s not completely light, or at least has more than half its elements in a dark color, you could consider it to be a dark UI theme.

To be fair to those who don’t choose dark UI, you have a little more maintenance with a dark background. You have to choose everything (fonts, font size, icons, images, colors, etc.) perfectly. If you have a font that’s too small, it will be engulfed by the dark background. If you have a color that contrasts just a little too much, it can make the entire design theme look cheap.

So, why use dark UI? It’s bold and awesome.

Good examples of dark UI

I’m always a fan of examples, so this is where that portion is going to start. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of horrible dark UI examples, but let’s save those for the finale. For now, let’s talk about good examples of dark UI and discuss what they’re doing right.

Spotify

Welcome to the Spotify app. This is the application window that you get when you download Spotify to your device. Spotify is notorious for their dark UI, and it’s for good reason.

For starters, “dark” doesn’t always mean black. There is a slight color gradient that breaks up the normal “black” scheme. It’s very smart because they only integrated the gradient into the middle and right side. If you notice on the left, the sidebar is still solid black, outlining it subtly, but just enough.

Netflix

Here’s another name we’re all fairly familiar with: Netflix. Netflix has a beautifully dark UI throughout. Most of us already know the dark UI they have when selecting a show to watch, but few of us probably remember the signup screen.

The reason I selected this screenshot is to highlight another element of dark UI that you need to remember: consistency. You simply cannot have a dark UI in one area, and then switch to a light. Visually, this is kind of an eye sore.

Sony

Here we have Sony’s main site. The dark background draws your eyes instantly to the center where all the content is gathered. It’s very, very simple, but it does the job. Plus, Sony’s logo is notoriously white, so a light background would’ve been a poor choice.

So what is Sony getting right? The lack of elements. The dark UI is contrast enough, and they know that. They don’t need to load up their main page with gradients and contrasting colors. They went with black, plain and simple. 

The bad and ugly dark UI

In order for there to be good examples of dark UI, there also has to be at least a few bad ones, too. Honestly, we can probably learn the most from bad examples. They teach us what not to do instead of giving us examples that we just copy. 

I don’t really like calling anyone out, so we’ll avoid names here and just jump straight to what’s wrong with the UI. To do that, let’s play a little game involving the image above. I like to call this game: Spot the tablet. Believe it or not, there are 2 tablets in that image. Can you spot number 2?

The point of this is to show you that not all images work well with dark UI. Sure, they could of had limited options. But this all points back to one of our original points when using dark UI – pick your images wisely. The fact is that the tablet blends in almost perfectly into the background. It doesn’t work.

This one I want you to really look at. From a glance, it looks pretty okay. There’s nothing special about it, but it’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

What they did wrong here is the overuse of contrasting colors. Bright redish-pink, lime green, and neon blue all come clashing together to make this app look like the inside of a cheap nightclub. It simply doesn’t work. 

Now, if they had gone with fewer colors, or maybe turned the intensity of the colors down a little bit, this could work very well. But, as it sits now, there are better designs out there.

Additional things to avoid with dark UI

We hit the basics on things to avoid with dark UI (too much color, poor image choices, etc.) but there are a few guidelines that I want to leave you with here:

• Avoid a lot of text

We briefly mentioned how choosing the right size font makes a big difference. Well, the amount of text does, too. If you have too much light colored text on screen, it can be hard to focus.

• Avoid a lot of content

In general, you’ll probably want to avoid too much content on screen at one time. Again, it can be very hard to focus.

• Don’t use too many colors

Even if the design has nothing but dark colors, using too many can cause a lot of headache. With a dark UI, your brain will automatically be attracted to anything that stands out. Including varying colors. The quick change for your eyes can and will be straining.

There you have it everyone: dark UI. Overall, it can be quite a challenge to pull off dark UI design. But, if it’s done right, it will definitely make you stand out. But of course remember, dark UI is absolutely not for everyone.

Read More at Dark UI: The Good, Bad, and Ugly