How do you get that mojo back? Sometimes visiting a site based upon creativity, inspiration and design is the solution. Fresh ideas will be all around you to build from.

Custom web design is one of the more prominent areas where designers get stuck. Building exactly what a client wants might be boring. It is their site, don’t over think it and just do it.

Easier said than done sometimes, yes, but give them what they want. Clients are particular. They know how they want their brand displayed.

Cures for Creative Blocks

When you sit and stare at a blank screen wondering how to implement something fresh, it’s time for inspiration. This can come from viewing designs by an artist or searching web design trends online. The ideas should start flowing shortly.

You can also consider using a directory based upon ingenuity, inspiration and creativity too. You may see something in a design that works as an element for a website layout. Taking ideas from other structures is the key to fighting creative block.

Design Something New

Step away from the website and have some personal design time. Do something fun. It will aid in getting those creative design juices flowing.

Some fun design ideas:

• Create an artistic piece for a design contest
• Make a new banner for your own site or blog
• Create a forum signature just because
• Play with a new technique and share it via social media
• Create your happy place with graphics

Print out a copy of the file to display in your workspace. Create a collage of items when you suffer these creative blocks. One day those off-kilter designs will be your inspiration.

Stay in Current Trends

If you learn to stay within design trends, it is fun to use new techniques. This can mean blending new colors or trying a new font. Font play leads to custom font creation, which is a load of fun.

Trendy web designers are found to be in higher demand. It shows flexibility and the understanding of what society wants. More customers will come your way with off-the-wall ideas to keep your mind flowing.

Play with a New Program

Perhaps you are used to Photoshop, as an example. Consider using something like Gimp or even a simple drag and drop program. Using tools in other programs shows different aspects of design.

Perhaps you saw a cool technique that you want to figure out by looking at a blog post. The images can provide ideas for backgrounds. This can make for a very interesting design concept.

Use Fun Advertising and Marketing Campaigns

Take ideas from advertising. Look at how many times it has been shared. This concept works and it is okay for you to borrow from it.

What graphics grab your attention in an ad? Take that concept and use it in a new website design. Clients may just like the idea that you bring to the table.

Creative blocks happen often. Sometimes taking ideas from what others showcase gives you the ideas to move forward. A quick tutorial shows you how to use new tools.

These new tools open up a whole new world of design concepts for you.  You will have that new web design completed in no time. Try some of these tips to see how well they can work for you.

Fresh designs and ideas come when least expected. It could be something seen in a television commercial or on the cover of a book. Don’t let creative block stop you from designing a killer website.

The post How Do You Get Creative? appeared first on DesignCanyon.

For example, of the 10 billion page views in April 2013, according to Kiss Metrics, the average loading time was two seconds. Your website has to be coded so it can remain at this competitive level.

There are so many things you have to take into account with web design. Here are some free web design tool recommendations from web design experts at Shrewsbury by VibeCreative.

1. Lootback

You need photographs for your website and custom themes to build it with. This is all well and good, but you need to make sure you’re getting the best deal. Licenses are expensive, and anything you can save will help.

Lootback is a free online tool you can use to compare the prices of themes in different marketplaces. There are, sometimes, some quite marked differences between prices, depending on where you shop.

Although this is a free service, they don’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts. They have an agreement with major sites, such as Themeforest, where they’ll gain a commission from every sale.

2. Nutcache

As a web designer, you need to be able to send invoices to all the right people. If you’re making your own invoices, this is time-consuming. The obvious option is to pay a monthly subscription and get someone else to do it for you.

Nutcache allows you to get the most value from your accounting practices. It’s a free service which lets you send professional invoices to all the right people. Now payments don’t have to be a frustrating part of the design process.

3. Namebox

If you need to buy and sell witty domain names quickly, it would be handy to have them all in one place. Namebox is an online auction website. The makers saw the problems associated with relying on your web hosting service for domains.

Nameboxdoesn’t differentiate between the various sites. They simply supply a list of domains up for sale with their prices. If you have any spare domains lying around, you can also set them up for sale with a price. Let the buyers come for you and make some money over time.

4. Google Web Designer

HTML5 is the language of the future. It’s quickly replacing Flash for a lot of web applications. If you want to get ahead on your education, and build some easy applications for your website at the same time, use Google Web Designer.

It’s a fairly recent addition and has received a massive uptake. Consider this an easy way to impress your client by adding new and innovative applications to their website. It also saves on work in the future.

When Flash eventually does disappear into the history books, you won’t have to upgrade their existing Flash applications to HTML5.

5. TypeWonder

Fonts are an important part of the effect you get from a website. It’s also surprisingly time-consuming. You have to spend lots of time typing the code in and previewing the website. All you want to do is find out what it would look like.

TypeWonder is a free tool designers can use to preview a font without typing code in and deleting it again. Itwon’t change the way you design websites, but it will make the process a whole lot faster.

6. AnimateScroll

AnimateScroll is a jQuery plugin available for designers who want to do amazing things with menu bars in a short space of time. This is something, which might go out of fashion over time, but for now animated menu bars are hot. For a free tool, this provides unbelievable value for money.

All you have to do is enable this plugin and you can interact with a menu bar with over 30 unique effects, allowing customisation of your website.

7. CSS Deck: Forms

During your training, you would have spent a considerable amount of time figuring out how forms work in the grand scheme of things. They’re amongst the most important tools to a web designer.

Forms are used for everything. Use CSS Deck: Forms and you can generate them quickly and simply without spending hours agonising over coding. Feel free to make them as complicated as you like. You can see how the form would look in a preview window without typing in all the code.

Beginners will also benefit from this free web design tool. Whilst we would never suggest skipping out on your education on forms, it’s a way to get started designing without months of trying to remember what line of code goes where.

8. Topcoat

If you’re building a complicated website, the apps will take up a considerable part of your time. Make the job easier with Topcoat. This is an open source CSS library which helps developers build apps quickly according to their specifications.

You can take Topcoat and manipulate it to suit your work habits. The fact its open source means you can adjust the code and change everything about it. If you have some spare time, you could change in such a way so it drastically increases your productivity.

Originally, Topcoat came from Adobe. This Adobe-like language evolved through the community, which changes and supports it today. It’s truly an app designed by web designers for web designers.

9. Two.js

Web designers know how important it is to have some advanced graphics on their website. Its how it’s going to stand out from others and impress their clients. Most designers tend to subcontract this work to someone else, because they don’t have the artistic ability to do it themselves.

If you want to save money, you could try drawing something yourself. Two.js is a free drawing library, which allows you to experiment and create things.

You might still struggle with the more complex areas of illustration, but it’s a good start and it can save you a lot of money.

Overall, these nine tools just scratch the surface of web design. They focus mainly on saving you time and effort. This is the key to staying ahead of your competitors. If you can deliver a high-quality website in a faster time than anyone else, this is an awesome marketing point you have.

Many web designers have found reducing the time they spend on menial tasks produces better results. They have more time to focus on the things, which really matter. Try out some of these tools and you won’t be disappointed with the results you see in your business.

The post Free Tools to Aid Your Web Design appeared first on DesignCanyon.

Today we have collected 50 Useful Responsive Web Design Tools to ease the design and development process of responsive websites. You may also be interested in our other articles on Responsive WordPress Themes, Twitter Plugins for WordPress, Free Portfolio WordPress Themes and Magazine WordPress Themes.

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