June 30, 2022
October 15, 2021
September 14, 2020
The core of any organization’s online presence is its website. A company’s website is its face to the world, first impression for many prospective customers, online storefront or office, key brand communication vehicle, and digital sales engineer—all rolled into one.
A business home page needs to concisely communicate what the company does, for whom it does that, and why it is different and better than every other firm with similar offerings. It should logically guide visitors down paths that meet their needs, and compel them to contact the company, subscribe, download, or simply learn more.
Ideally, the website should set the company apart not only through words but also the visual presentation: what “personality” does the brand convey through the colors, fonts, layout, and other design elements?
The 28 tools here will help web designers choose just the right colors, fonts, icons, patterns, and other visual design components to convey just the right brand image to the online world.
1) COLOURlovers
Google Review Count: 354
COLOURlovers is a creative community where people from around the world create and share colors, palettes and patterns, discuss the latest trends and explore colorful articles. Browse immense libraries of user-named colors, palettes, and patterns.
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media
2) IcoMoon
Google Review Count: 344
Browse more than 4,000 free vector icons, generate icon fonnts, import SVGs to make fonts, or download vector icon packs.
Pricing: free, $9, or $19 per month
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media
3) Google Fonts
Google Review Count: 330
Google offers an extensive collection of open source fonts you can explore, sort, and test for use in more than 135 languages. The collection showcases individual type designers and foundries.
Sample review: “Want to spruce up your site pages, presentations, ebooks, and other content with cool and different new fonts? Little-known fact: Google has a directory of 600 free fonts ready for you to download and use.” — HubSpot
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: HubSpot, Likeable Media, Siasat
4) Font Squirrel
Google Review Count: 290
A categorized directory of high-quality free and almost-free fonts for commercial use.
Pricing: free or by font
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media
5) Paletton
Google Review Count: 290
Paletton’s Colorpedia is the encylopedia of colors. It’s a constantly growing source of information about color theory, color perception and color psychology, color vision and color blindness and many more information related to colors, including color combinations, color schemes and overal color usage.
Sample review: “Paletton is another great design tool for marketers who lack in overall design. By typing in your main color of your organization (RGB or Hex Code), you can find color palettes that mesh well with your main colors, along with darker and lighter tones of each palette. This is great when you are looking to do a website refresh with a bit of color or completely start fresh with a new color scheme.” — SmartBug Media
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: SmartBug Media
6) Placeit
Google Review Count: 210
A collection of more than 2,500 mockups and demo videos, for virtually any device type, to showcase design ideas, without PhotoShop. Also includes hundreds of apparel and print designs.
Sample review: “PlaceIt serves a very specific purpose: It allows you to upload images of your site or product into real-world environments of people holding phones, tablets, and laptops. PlaceIt will automatically alter the image to make it appear natural with the angle of the phone’s screen — which will save you time learning and/or editing in more advanced software to get the angle right.” — HubSpot
Pricing: free, $29, $99, or $199 per month
Showcase reviews: HubSpot, Jeff Bullas
7) WhatTheFont
Google Review Count: 210
Ever seen a cool-looking font online and wondered what it was? Submit an image to WhatTheFont to find the closest matches in our database. Or, let cloak-draped font enthusiasts lend a hand in the WhatTheFont Forum.
Sample review: “Creative timesavers: WhatTheFont – Find the name of the font used in a particular image.” — Wrike
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media, Siasat, Wrike
8) Stripe Generator
Google Review Count: 210
A tool that does just what it says: generates stripe patterns for use in web designs. Play with sliders and color pickers, untill you obtain a super-cool stripe tile, then press “Download” to save your creation.
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media
9) Icon Finder
Google Review Count: 195
Looking for icons to use in a blog post, web design project, print collateral, or other media? Get instant access here to more than 30,000 icon sets. With a paid subscription, 70% of the cost is paid out to designers. Into creating icons? Become a contributor.
Sample review: “IconFinder is the god of all Icon websites and tools. Its basically an icon search engine that anyone can use for free. All the icons are available to download for free in different file formats and sizes. If your a web designer, this tool is worth having a look at.” — WebDesignDev
Pricing: free, by icon set, or $9 or $29 per month
Showcase reviews: BuzzBlogger, Likeable Media, Siasat
10) OptimalSort
Google Review Count: 188
Card sorting is a quick and easy way to design an information architecture, workflow, menu structure or website navigation paths. OptimalSort makes card sorting easy with an online card sorting tool for information architects, web designers and content writers. Use card sorting to find out how people think your content should be organized.
Sample review: “Focus…on human users first, technology second…begin with a clear, extensible information architecture. Information architecture (IA) is organizing, labeling, and connecting (website) content so that it is easy to find and easy to use…The tool I like to use for testing information architecture and site navigation is called OptimalSort.” — Robbie Richards
Pricing: free, $166 per month (full design tool suite), or enterprise pricing by quote
Showcase reviews: Robbie Richards
11) DaFont
Google Review Count: 176
A vast collection (more than 31,000) of free fonts, categorized and in multiple languages.
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media
12) disposableWebPage
Google Review Count: 175
Need a temporary web page for an event, campaign, or other purpose? Use this site to easily create a page with text and images, publish it, and set a “dispose” date for it to disappear from the web.
Sample review: “Create a temporary web page that will automatically self-destruct.” — Wrike
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Siasat, Wrike
13) Adobe Color CC
Google Review Count: 170
Explore a collection of pre-made color themes or create your own based on complementary, compound, monochromatic, or other color patterns. Learn more about Adobe color editing.
Sample review: “Stuck on color choices? (Adobe offers) a web based app that allows you to collect themes and share them with the community. Download any public available themes and even upload a photo to collect a variety of palettes.” — Likeable Media
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media, Siasat, Wrike
14) Uberflip
Google Review Count: 160
A content experience platform that aggregates all of your content (blog articles, eBooks, videos, white papers, and more) so you can create, manage, and optimize tailored content experiences for every stage of the buyer journey. Create custom streams and convert PDFs to Flipbooks.
Sample review: “Uberflip is innovative software designed for content marketers, and is a great content marketing tool. This platform displays different content on your site depending upon who is viewing it, which makes it perfect for targeting unique audiences and providing valuable material.” — Express Writers
Pricing: contact vendor for quote
Showcase reviews: Express Writers, SnapApp
15) The Noun Project
Google Review Count: 157
Search for icons and icon sets for almost any design purpose.
Sample review: “Looking for a certain icon? Check out The Noun Project : an amazing site dedicated to providing users with standard clipart for every noun in the English language. Slick, consistent, easy to read, they are perfect to use in your custom designs.” — Likeable Media
Pricing: free or $10 per month
Showcase reviews: HubSpot, Likeable Media
16) Vecteezy
Google Review Count: 130
Browse, search, and download free vector artwork, icons, and patterns. Vecteezy now has a browser-based vector editing tool– Vecteezy Editor. The tool allows anyone to quickly and easily create beautiful graphics directly in a web browser.
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media
17) Freebbble
Google Review Count: 130
Browse and download from 1,000+ design freebies including backgrounds, icon sets, patterns, sketches, fonts, illustrations, wallpapers and more.
Sample review: “This site features more than 1,000 high quality designs made by Dribbble users. Most are editable and can be used for web or mobile. Such an awesome collection.” — Entrepreneur
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Entrepreneur
18) HTML Color Codes
Google Review Count: 130
Want to know exactly what color is used on a website or in a certain area of an image? With the magic of HTML5 you can get colors from any image with this simple online tool.
Sample review: “Have you ever had some last minute design work before a project goes live or have had to update old Calls-to-Action (CTAs) with no style guides in place? HTML Color Codes can grab every color from your existing images with just a quick upload. This is an extremely helpful tool when updating and creating new marketing collateral without an existing style guide or documentation in place.” — SmartBug Media
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: SmartBug Media
19) Type Genius
Google Review Count: 130
Select any common font and find its ideal complementary design combination.
Sample review: “All you do is enter the main text that you’d like to use, and the system tells you exactly which text you should use with it as the subtext font.” — StoreYa Blog
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: StoreYa Blog
20) Google Web Designer
Google Review Count: 130
Download Google Web Designer to create engaging, interactive HTML5-based designs and motion graphics that can run on any device.
Sample review: “Google Web Designer is an easy DIY banner-creation service that allows you to easily create banners for any device you want.” — Express Writers
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Express Writers
21) WPThemeDetector
Google Review Count: 91
This is a free tool that allows you to find all the details about the WordPress theme and plugins currently being used by a site.
Sample review: “Love the theme of a website you just stumbled upon? WordPress’ Theme Detector will tell you which theme the website is decorated in and which plugins are employed.” — Social Media Today
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Social Media Today
22) Power Banner
Google Review Count: 90
Design banners for websites, social networks, email, and paid campaigns using professional-lookig stock images, fonts and buttons along with predesigned templates.
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: StoreYa Blog
23) MyScriptFont.com
Google Review Count: 90
Letters typed out using standard computer fonts inevitably have an impersonal look to the document. MyScriptFont.com enables you to use your own handwriting like every other font installed on your computer. It gives your digitally produced documents a personal touch.
Sample review: With “MyScriptFont.com create a vector font from your own handwriting.” — Wrike
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Wrike
24) Countdown Monkey
Google Review Count: 90
You can (theoretically) increase conversions by creating scarcity or time-sensitivity to offers: CountdownMonkey is a web-based service that installs a countdown timer on any WordPress or HTML webpage, with various expiration and time zone options.
Sample review: “After doing a lot of research, I found this cool website called CountdownMonkey.com, which allows you to create different kinds of timers for your website (scoreboard, rolling, etc.). You can even control the special effects, colors and font sizes.” — Social Media Examiner
Pricing: $37 (one time)
Showcase reviews: Social Media Examiner
25) Image Color Picker
Google Review Count: 50
Use the online image color picker to select a color and get the HTML color code, HEX value, RGB color code, and HSV value of any pixel from any website or online image.
Sample review: “Remember that time you wanted to match your call-to-action design to that color you were using on all your event swag … but the one person who would know what that color was didn’t work at your company anymore? Next time that happens, snag a picture of that swag and upload it to ImageColorPicker.com, or use any image URL to do the same thing.” — HubSpot
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: HubSpot
26) 1001 Free Downloads
Google Review Count: 50
Search for and select from for download any of thousands of free vector images, photos, fonts, icons, wallpapers, patterns, clip art, and more.
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media
27) ColorRotate
Google Review Count: 30
Browse color palettes or create your own. Adjust, mix, and blend colors in a 3D model.
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: Likeable Media
28) HubSpot Icon Library
Google Review Count: N/A
135 free icons for marketers to use when designing websites, blogs, or marketing collateral.
Pricing: free
Showcase reviews: HubSpot
More Tools
Launchrock
Google Review Count: 182
Build a responsive website for free based on Launchrock’s library of templates, including functionality for capturing signups and “pre-sale ecommerce.” Make sure you understand the pros and cons of free website builders before committing to any no-cost platform.
Pricing: free
MobileTest.me
Google Review Count: 179
A mobile site emulator that enables you to preview how your website or blog will appear on a wide range of mobile device screens: iPhone / iPad, HTC, Samsung, Google—more than 100 total.
Sample review: “MobileTest.me is (a simple) way to get mobile images for your blog. It’s designed to let you test websites on smartphones and tablets, but many bloggers find it useful when writing about mobile apps or wanting to illustrate a point about customer experience, blogging or social media.” — Jeff Bullas
Pricing: $10/month
Showcase reviews: Jeff Bullas
TemplateMonster
Google Review Count: 160
A supermarket of website templates, themes, and graphics, offering professionally designed ready-to-deploy themes for a variety of content management systems (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Moto CMS), ecommerce sites (WooCommerce, Shopify, PrestaShop, BigCommerce, Magento and others) and categories (business, tech, entertainment, education, etc.).
Pricing: featured templates range from $14 to $110
Toptal Subtle Patterns
Google Review Count: 145
Hundreds of background patterns that can be used free of charge, with effects like Cloudy Day, Graph Paper, Natural White, and Cheap Diagonal Fabric. There’s also a page on their site featuring a network of freelance graphic designers that help organizations with visual design projects.
Pricing: free
Strikingly
Google Review Count: 131
If you don’t need all the power and flexibility of WordPress and are looking for a simpler alternative, Strikingly is an incredibly easy-to-use website builder that will enable you to quickly create and launch a professional-looking site. Easily add ecommerce capability, a blog, sign-up and contact forms, your social media feeds, and more, with no programming skills required. If you do get stuck, 24/7 support is available.
Pricing: free; $8/$11/$34 per month
Icons8
Google Review Count: 104
Icons, illustrations, photos, music, and design tools for web developers and designers, including Lunacy graphic design software with built-in assets; plugins; a smart upscaler that enhances photo resolution using AI; a background remover; and a drag-n-drop library of high-quality graphics. The site also offers a free face-swapper tool which is probably more than useful, but interesting.
Pricing: free; $13/$19/$29 per month
UXtweak
Google Review Count: 68
UXtweak provides online unmoderated task-oriented UX studies, user recordings with advanced filters in search, tree testing, card sorting and prototype testing, activity tracking, and more. The company’s qualitative UX studies are conducted in the context of real-life scenarios directly on your live web.
Pricing: free; $165/month; enterprise pricing by quote
Sitejet
Google Review Count: 67
An all-in-one web design platform designed to make it easy for agencies, independent consultants, and corporate marketers to collaborate with team members and/and customers to build, manage, and launch websites. It includes a high-speed CMS/website generator with full code flexibility.
Pricing: $5/$19/$89 per month
Ibexa DXP
Google Review Count: 55
A B2B ecommerce content management system (CMS), Ibexa DXP is a modular system that consists of three distinct products, each of which can be used as a standalone tool or combined for enhanced performance and a more comprehensive digital experience. From delivering product recommendations and creating tailored content to providing your business with the digital infrastructure it needs to scale, Ibexa DXP makes B2B e-commerce simpler.
Pricing: multiple package options starting at $26,000/year
Flat Icons
Google Review Count: 38
A massive collection of icon sets: flat, 3D, 3D illustrated, 3D animated, and vector icons, as well as backgrounds, avatars, and characters. Pick up any popular set such as craft beer icons, animated animals, or office and office supplies, or grab their ready-to-use bundle of 20,000+ unique, customizable icons with free lifetime updates.
Pricing: by set or $79 for the mega-bundle
Color Hex Picker
Google Review Count: 10
Select any image you have stored; click on any area or point on the image; and get the hex code and the RGB value along with the name of that color instantly from this hex color picker.
Pricing: free
Showcase Reviews
BuzzBlogger
Entrepreneur
Express Writers
HubSpot
Jeff Bullas
Likeable Media
Robbie Richards
Siasat
SmartBug Media
SnapApp
Social Media Examiner
Social Media Today
StoreYa Blog
WebDesignDev
Wrike
This was the 25th post in the Best Online Business Tools series.
#1: Best Online Business Tools Series Kicks Off Today
#2: The 12 Best Competitive Intelligence and Benchmarking Tools
#3: The Nine Best Facebook Marketing Tools
#4: The 14 Best Content Planning and Research Tools
#5: The 23 Best Content Ideation Tools
#6: The 24 Best Online Writing Tools and Apps
#7: The Six Best Google+ Marketing Tools
#8: The Four Best Online Education Tools For Business Pros
#9: The 14 Best Marketing Automation Tools
#10: The 17 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO and SEM
#11: The Seven Best File Sharing Tools
#12: The Five Best Infographic Creation Tools and Services
#13: The 28 Best Influencer Marketing Tools
#14: The Five Best Pinterest and Instagram Marketing Tools
#15: The 24 Best Visual Content Creation Tools
#16: The Six Best Online HR, Payroll, and Employee Scheduling Tools
#17: The 20 Best SEO Rank Tracker Tools
#18: The Six Best Screen Capture Tools
#19: The 15 Best Special-Purpose SEO Tools
#20: The Four Best Online Survey Tools
#21: The 26 Best All-in-One SEO Tool Suites
#22: The 32 Best Twitter Marketing Tools
#23: The 29 Best Web Analytics Tools
#24: The 24 Best Email Marketing Tools
#25: The 28 Best Web Design Tools