An effective, well-organized workflow is an important asset of professional web designers. The more useful and time-saving your tools are, the more time you can focus on important things, thus creating a foundation for timely good-quality results. The problem is that there are just way too many tools, services and resources out there, so it has become difficult to keep track on them and find those tiny little time-savers that will spare you headaches and save time in a long run.

And this is where we come in. Back in old days, Smashing Magazine used to publish lists after lists, with plethora of links that covered different topics all somehow related to web design and development. We have undergone quite a development since then, and are now publishing almost only in-depth articles — written by some of the best professionals in the industry. However, useful, carefully prepared and filtered lists are still useful, and therefore we keep publishing them as well.

Below you'll find 50 useful tools and time-savers for web designers and developers. Among other things, you will find recently released tools, useful reference sheets, articles and further resources. Such posts are prepared over months, each containing resources found, reviewed or bookmarked by the Smashing Editorial Team. We hope that at least some of them will help you improve your workflow!

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• 50 Powerful Time-Savers For Web Designers
• 50 New Useful CSS Techniques, Tools and Tutorials
• 45 Incredibly Useful Web Design Checklists and Questionnaires

  

An effective, well-organized workflow is an important asset of professional web designers. The more useful and time-saving your tools are, the more time you can focus on important things, thus creating a foundation for timely good-quality results. The problem is that there are just way too many tools, services and resources out there, so it has become difficult to keep track on them and find those tiny little time-savers that will spare you headaches and save time in a long run.

And this is where we come in. Back in old days, Smashing Magazine used to publish lists after lists, with plethora of links that covered different topics all somehow related to web design and development. We have undergone quite a development since then, and are now publishing almost only in-depth articles — written by some of the best professionals in the industry. However, useful, carefully prepared and filtered lists are still useful, and therefore we keep publishing them as well.

Below you'll find 50 useful tools and time-savers for web designers and developers. Among other things, you will find recently released tools, useful reference sheets, articles and further resources. Such posts are prepared over months, each containing resources found, reviewed or bookmarked by the Smashing Editorial Team. We hope that at least some of them will help you improve your workflow!

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• 50 Powerful Time-Savers For Web Designers
• 50 New Useful CSS Techniques, Tools and Tutorials
• 45 Incredibly Useful Web Design Checklists and Questionnaires

  

Camera is a remarkable piece of innovation. However, it is people — professionals and newbies alike — who make it truly remarkable. It’s the photographer behind the camera. It’s his imagination, passion and talent and knowledge of the medium. You don't need a high-end costly equipment to get beautiful results. Just your talent and a way of looking at things differently is together more than enough for a great shot. It's also the ability to envision the final result in your mind which is also important.

A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens and with a single small aperture — effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. You can easily construct this camera by yourself using things lying around like match boxes or any kind of boxes, paper, duct tape etc. The small amount of light passing through this pin sized hole produces image on a photographic film or a CCD sensor.

  

Camera is a remarkable piece of innovation. However, it is people — professionals and newbies alike — who make it truly remarkable. It’s the photographer behind the camera. It’s his imagination, passion and talent and knowledge of the medium. You don't need a high-end costly equipment to get beautiful results. Just your talent and a way of looking at things differently is together more than enough for a great shot. It's also the ability to envision the final result in your mind which is also important.

A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens and with a single small aperture — effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. You can easily construct this camera by yourself using things lying around like match boxes or any kind of boxes, paper, duct tape etc. The small amount of light passing through this pin sized hole produces image on a photographic film or a CCD sensor.

  

In this post we release a free Facebook GUI PSD Kit, designed by SurgeWorks and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The main idea behind the kit is to speed up the prototyping of Facebook application UIs and Facebook fan pages, thus sparing you from drawing all the comps and letting you customize all the texts, buttons and data as you need. As usual, the kit is free to use in all projects, without any restrictions.

The kit brings the Facebook vector icon and logo. Also, since the focus of this resource are the UI elements, it brings a main window with the header, menu and the chat window for you to set up your realistic mock-ups. Plus all the modal components, comment boxes, buttons, message boxes, tabs, etc. All the components are full layered, built using vectors and blending options, so that scaling and editing the objects will not be a problem.

  

In this post we release a free Facebook GUI PSD Kit, designed by SurgeWorks and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The main idea behind the kit is to speed up the prototyping of Facebook application UIs and Facebook fan pages, thus sparing you from drawing all the comps and letting you customize all the texts, buttons and data as you need. As usual, the kit is free to use in all projects, without any restrictions.

The kit brings the Facebook vector icon and logo. Also, since the focus of this resource are the UI elements, it brings a main window with the header, menu and the chat window for you to set up your realistic mock-ups. Plus all the modal components, comment boxes, buttons, message boxes, tabs, etc. All the components are full layered, built using vectors and blending options, so that scaling and editing the objects will not be a problem.

  

Mark Rothko, an American artist who described himself as an "abstract painter", once said that he was not the kind of person interested in the relationship of form, color or similars. He didn't define himself as an abstractionist, but rather as a person interested only in expressing basic human emotions such as doom, tragedy, ecstasy and so on. This was one person's vision of art, but what do we mean by art today? Why is defining the concept so difficult?

This article is an exploration of the meaning of art and an attempt to understand the relationship between art and artists, with some useful insights via interviews with both traditional and digital artists.

  

Mark Rothko, an American artist who described himself as an "abstract painter", once said that he was not the kind of person interested in the relationship of form, color or similars. He didn't define himself as an abstractionist, but rather as a person interested only in expressing basic human emotions such as doom, tragedy, ecstasy and so on. This was one person's vision of art, but what do we mean by art today? Why is defining the concept so difficult?

This article is an exploration of the meaning of art and an attempt to understand the relationship between art and artists, with some useful insights via interviews with both traditional and digital artists.

  

Think of Tumblr as micro-blogging on steroids (technically, it's called "tumblelogging"). Whereas Twitter and similar services limit posts to 140 characters or less, Tumblr lets you post updates of any length, although it's best suited to short-format posts. Tumblr bridges the gap between full-blown blog and micro-blog.

Tumblr is also a great option for designers and creative types, because it gives you complete control over the look of your tumblelog. It also offers great opportunities for theme designers, especially with the recent launch of premium themes (which range in price from $9 to $49). Read on for your complete guide to using and designing for Tumblr.

  

Think of Tumblr as micro-blogging on steroids (technically, it's called "tumblelogging"). Whereas Twitter and similar services limit posts to 140 characters or less, Tumblr lets you post updates of any length, although it's best suited to short-format posts. Tumblr bridges the gap between full-blown blog and micro-blog.

Tumblr is also a great option for designers and creative types, because it gives you complete control over the look of your tumblelog. It also offers great opportunities for theme designers, especially with the recent launch of premium themes (which range in price from $9 to $49). Read on for your complete guide to using and designing for Tumblr.

  

A website is never done. Everyone has worked on a project that changed so much after it launched that they no longer wanted it in their portfolio. One way to help those who take over your projects is to produce a style guide.

Edward Tufte once said: "Great design is not democratic; it comes from great designers. If the standard is lousy, then develop another standard." Although there's no stopping some clients from making their website awful, by creating a style guide, you're effectively establishing rules for those who take over from you.

  

A website is never done. Everyone has worked on a project that changed so much after it launched that they no longer wanted it in their portfolio. One way to help those who take over your projects is to produce a style guide.

Edward Tufte once said: "Great design is not democratic; it comes from great designers. If the standard is lousy, then develop another standard." Although there's no stopping some clients from making their website awful, by creating a style guide, you're effectively establishing rules for those who take over from you.

A common occurrence: you or someone you know wants to create content and have it published online. A slightly less common occurrence? Having that same someone articulate high aspirations for their content. For those select few, instead of creating content destined for some digital landfill, their content is special; it’s going places and it’s taking them, their brand, and their experience with it.

Table of Contents

• What is Content Strategy?
• How is Content Strategy performed?
• Content Strategy Luminaries
• Tools of the Trade
• Related Resources
• Content Strategy Books
• Additional Resources

Consistently publishing content requires that we deal with a foe known as content management. Content management is just what it sounds like: a way to manage the creation and dissemination of content. To systematically do that, it’s imperative that publishers employ what’s (aptly) known as content management systems (CMSs). The most common of kind of which is called a blog.

To be sure, all this jargon is difficult to succinctly summarize; I have to assume that you, dear reader, know the basic mechanics of blogging and content management. That way we can discuss the larger issues at hand, such as strategy. If you don’t, you might want to turn back now …

But back to content. If you or someone you know is getting ready to unleash content on the world, what guides the creation efforts?

At this point, visual design—design of the actual CMS itself—is irrelevant. Nobody should really discuss what the system will look like (expect, maybe, the visual thinkers in the room), but instead, the heart of the matter: what’s this all about? What content will this website deliver? Moreover, when will it deliver it?

And everyone wants to add their $0.02. It’s kind of like debating what content should be on the homepage. Which is another thing: what content should be on the homepage?

Egads. Content, you’ll find, is everywhere.

In this article, we’ll take a brief look at Content Strategy—that odd amalgamation of Web Savvy, Information Architecture and editorial process that adds up to something infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. You’ll learn when and where to apply strategy to your content endeavors and when you should simply raise your hand and start asking the important questions.

Back to topWhat is Content Strategy?

“Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content,” says Kristina Halvorson, author of the book Content Strategy for the Web.

“It plots an achievable roadmap for individuals and organizations to create and maintain content that audiences will actually care about. It provides specific, well-informed recommendations about how we’re going to get from where we are today (no content, or bad content, or too much content) to where we want to be (useful, usable content people will actually care about).”

Taking a step back, Louis Rosenfeld adds:

“If [Information Architecture] is the spatial side of information, I see content strategy as the temporal side of the same coin.”

This abstraction is important: If Information Architecture helps us say “where” content lives, Content Strategy tells us decide “when” it lives. The combination, in due course, helps us as well as our clients understand “why” it’s there in the first place.

This quote from Louis carries extra significance because it’s based on actual experience. You see, Louis is the guy behind the UX publishing house Rosenfeld Media. His company makes real, honest-to-goodness books. You can hold them in your hand.

So if I had to guess, Louis knows quite a bit about Content Strategy—even though he might not identify someone well-versed in it—because Content Strategy is part and parcel to the publishing world.

Digital Publishing

The distance between print and the web, when it comes to a prudent publication process, isn’t all that vast. In fact, if you think about all of the stuff required to publish books—authors, reviewers, technical editors, copy editors, publishers, graphic designers, distributors, etc.—you begin to see that their analogous roles on the web are just, by default, not designed into the process …at least, not when everyone and their mom can publish content.

Content Strategy is the way forward. It helps both clients and project teams understand what content is being produced, how it’s being produced, by whom, when, and why.

Back to topHow is Content Strategy Done

Kristina Halvorson, in her article The Discipline of Content Strategy, says that “at its best, a content strategy defines:

• key themes and messages
• recommended topics
• content purpose (i.e., how content will bridge the space between audience needs and business requirements)
• content gap analysis
• metadata frameworks and related content attributes
• search engine optimization (SEO), and
• implications of strategic recommendations on content creation, publication, and governance.”

That means that, at their best, strategists will provide a document explaining how their teams will accomplish these goals.

Relly Annett-Baker, in her article Why you need a Content Strategist, points to a rough methodology:

When we first meet, I ask a lot of questions about how your business works, what messages you want to get across and what your business’/products’ best features are. I look at (and sometimes create) the wireframes and the proposed information architecture of your website, consider interaction instructions, and [determine] whether a message is best explained with a screencast or a series of step-by-step by pictures.

The Content Lifecycle

Content, just like the websites they inhabit, are living, changing things. When strategists seek to assess and improve the quality of a website’s content, they typically follow a four-part process. The following diagram (used with permission) was created by Rahel Bailie while the descriptions of the phases were borrowed from Jonathan Kahn’s articles Content Strategy for the Web Professional:

1. Analyze

   In this phase, strategists figure out what what kind of content they’re dealing with. Jonathan suggests: Ask questions about content, right from the start. Utilize user research or personas to decide what content is needed. Answer the question, “who cares?” Carry out a content audit, and/or a gap analysis.

2. Collect

   Here we figure out (or plan for) the commonalities across our website’s content. Jonathan recommends: Establish key themes and messages. Write a plan for creating and commissioning content. Insist that the client plans for content production over time (an editorial calendar).

3. Publish

   In this phase, we’ll see our content through to publication: where does it live on the website and how does it get there? Jonathan recommends: Annotate wireframes and sitemaps to explain how both interaction and content will work. Specify CMS features like content models, metadata, and workflow based on the content strategy. Write and aggregate your killer content.

4. Manage

   After we’ve published content, it’s time to look back, see what worked, and plan for the future. Jonathan says: Write comprehensive copy decks, based on common templates. Write a style guide for tone of voice, SEO, linking policy, and community policy.

Back to topContent Strategy LuminariesRahel Anne Bailie

Rahel is the principal of Intentional Design, a Content Strategy consultancy. There, she and a select group of professional partners help organizations create and better manage their communication products. Her blog posts spark great discussions on the nature of content strategy.

Learn more about RahelMargot Bloomstein

Margot Bloomstein is an independent brand and content strategy consultant based in Boston. She focuses on crafting brand-appropriate user experiences to help organizations effectively engage their target audiences and project key messages with consistency and clarity. She’s presently on the road.

Follow Margot’s travelsKristina Halvorson

Kristina is widely recognized as one of the country’s leading web content strategists. She is the founder and president of Brain Traffic, a web content agency, and the author of Content Strategy for the Web.

Checkout Kristina’s ConsultancyColleen Jones

Colleen Jones is a Content Strategist based in Atlanta, GA. For more than 13 years, Colleen has created successful interactive experiences for a variety of industries and brands. She’s presently working on a book about Content Strategy (CLOUT: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content) due this December.

Learn more about ColleenJonathan Kahn

Jonathan is a self–described web developer, user experience designer, and basmati rice maestro. He lives in London. At his blog, lucid plot, he writes about working on the web, covering subjects such as web standards, user experience design, and content strategy.

Read Jonathan’s BlogErin Kissane

Erin Kissane is a writer and editorial strategist who focuses on clear and precise business communication as a prerequisite for strong relationships with employees and customers. Erin serves as an editor of the quaint little publication, A List Apart.

Read Erin’s BlogRachel Lovinger

Rachel is a Senior Content Strategist at Razorfish. She’s on a never-ending quest to understand how people make sense of information, and how to make it easier for them. She recently finished NIMBLE, a report on publishing in the digital age.

Read Rachel’s BlogJeffrey MacIntyre

Jeffrey is a New York-based freelance journalist and interactive media consultant. He’s worked in various editorial positions over the years, spanning print, web and television production. Currently, he manages the content strategy agency Predicate, LLC.

Read Jeffrey’s BlogKaren Mcgrane

Karen McGrane is a user experience professional, content strategist, information architect, and interaction designer. She runs a company is called Bond Art + Science. In addition, she’s a professor of the MFA program in Interaction Design at SVA. Phew.

Read Karen’s BlogOn Twitter

@rahelab

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@mbloomstein

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@halvorson

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@lucidplot

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@kissane

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@leenjones

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@rlovinger

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@jeffmacintyre

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FollowBack to topTools of the trade

Content strategists are always discussing better ways to get valuable content from their clients to their audience. So, while the list below is indicative of the tools that a strategist might use, they’re by no means prescriptive.

Wordpress

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. It’s far and away the most popular blogging platform, and its vibrant community is committed to helping authors spend less time reading documentation and more time writing their content. Creating a publishing process with Wordpress is a (relative) snap. (And hey, it runs this blog, so how bad could it be?)

Learn more about Wordpress.

Expression Engine

Expressions Engine is a full–featured CMS. That is to say, if your organization wants to publish more than just blog entries, they should give this a look. Expression Engine is nice because it allows for for segmentation: particular people can edit particular parts of your website. Although newer, shinier CMSes are born everyday, EE is still a formidable workhorse.

Learn more about Expression Engine.

Facebook

Facebook has helped define a social revolution. Regardless of whether you think that’s good or bad, it’s far and away one of the best channels to meet with and engage your website’s audience.

Learn more about Facebook Marketing.

Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows an individual or organization to send timely updates out into the world. Like Facebook, it’s helped define what it means for someone to be social in the digital space.

Learn more about Twitter for businesses.

Microformats, Metadata, Tagging

Microformats, Metadata, and Tagging mechanisms help content authors (and publishers alike) append information about the content that they’re publishing. In turn, this provides anyone looking for that content and easy way to find it.

Learn more about Microformats.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the self–described enterprise-class web analytics solution. What does this mean to you? Google Analytics gives you insight into your website’s effectiveness through a variety of metrics; including bounce rate, keyword frequency, etc. Married with web analytics and measurement, this enables content strategists to gauge contents efficacy.Back to topRelated ResourcesWriting Content Templates

One of Erin’s older posts, this describes how to create and utilize content templates in your production process. From the article:

A content template is a simple document that serves two purposes: it’s a paragraph-level companion to your website’s wireframes … and it’s a simple, effective means of getting useful information from your experts to your writers … you might think of content templates as a kind of wizard for content development.

Example Content Strategies

In this post, Colleen Jones provides a couple of short examples of what might be found in a content strategy. Consider these as good “jumping off” points as you author your own.

Back to topContent Strategy Books

• The Web Content Strategist’s Bible: The Complete …
• Content Strategy for the Web
• Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy
• Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works
• Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Back to topFurther Reading

• The Discipline of Content Strategy by Kristina Halvorson
• Content-tious Strategy
• The Case for Content Strategy—Motown Style
• Why Everything Sucks, Why That’s Awesome, and How It’s Changing Us
• Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data
• The NIMBLE Report
• Toward a Content-Driven Design Process
• Intentional Communication: Expanding our Definition of User Experience Design
• Content Strategy – a knol by Jeffrey MacIntyre
• Content Strategy for the Web Professional
• Content Strategy for Everybody (Even You)
• A “Do It Yourself” Guide to Content Strategy — a presentation by Jonathan Kahn
• In Defense of Lorem Ipsum
• Web Content Strategy – How to Plan for, Create and Publish Online Content for Maximum ROI

  

Smashing Editorial: Please notice that the language in some parts of this article may be very informal. If you think you might be offended, please stop reading this article now.

I hate the division represented in this title. It’s the major stumbling block in modern business. Power struggle is never constructive, and it at least doubles workforce effort at a time when streamlined is crucial for a positive ROI. You can spell “team” from the word “marketing,” but I’ve yet to see a sense of it in marketing. What can one spell from “creative”? “Reactive”? I’ve seen plenty of that, and for good reason.

Don’t get me wrong: I love marketing as a practice! Relatively speaking, marketing is a fairly new practice (marketing in the sense of "public", broad mass marketing, applied to products in the modern age — ed.), and one that has to evolve each day to keep up with consumerism and technology. As a designer, coming up with marketing ideas is orgasmic. Guerilla, sabotage and viral marketing are the work of genius, which is why we don’t see them very often. But you are probably thinking horrid thoughts about marketing practitioners right now, so let’s rethink for a second.

  

Smashing Editorial: Please notice that the language in some parts of this article may be very informal. If you think you might be offended, please stop reading this article now.

I hate the division represented in this title. It’s the major stumbling block in modern business. Power struggle is never constructive, and it at least doubles workforce effort at a time when streamlined is crucial for a positive ROI. You can spell “team” from the word “marketing,” but I’ve yet to see a sense of it in marketing. What can one spell from “creative”? “Reactive”? I’ve seen plenty of that, and for good reason.

Don’t get me wrong: I love marketing as a practice! Relatively speaking, marketing is a fairly new practice (marketing in the sense of "public", broad mass marketing, applied to products in the modern age — ed.), and one that has to evolve each day to keep up with consumerism and technology. As a designer, coming up with marketing ideas is orgasmic. Guerilla, sabotage and viral marketing are the work of genius, which is why we don’t see them very often. But you are probably thinking horrid thoughts about marketing practitioners right now, so let’s rethink for a second.

  

Today we are glad to release CMS Icon Set, a set with 12 high quality icons in 48×48px, available in the .png-format. The set was designed to be used in content management systems, but can also be useful for other user interface designs. This goodie was designed by the Russian design studio Pixel-Mixer and released especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the icon set for free! You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed or rented. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

  

Today we are glad to release CMS Icon Set, a set with 12 high quality icons in 48×48px, available in the .png-format. The set was designed to be used in content management systems, but can also be useful for other user interface designs. This goodie was designed by the Russian design studio Pixel-Mixer and released especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the icon set for free! You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed or rented. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

  

CSS3 continues to both excite and frustrate web designers and developers. We are excited about the possibilities that CSS3 brings, and the problems it will solve, but also frustrated by the lack of support in Internet Explorer 8. This article will demonstrate a technique that uses part of CSS3 that is also unsupported by Internet Explorer 8. However, it doesn't matter as one of the most useful places for this module is somewhere that does have a lot of support - small devices such as the iPhone, and Android devices.

In this article I'll explain how, with a few CSS rules, you can create an iPhone version of your site using CSS3, that will work now. We'll have a look at a very simple example and I'll also discuss the process of adding a small screen device stylesheet to my own site to show how easily we can add stylesheets for mobile devices to existing websites.

  

CSS3 continues to both excite and frustrate web designers and developers. We are excited about the possibilities that CSS3 brings, and the problems it will solve, but also frustrated by the lack of support in Internet Explorer 8. This article will demonstrate a technique that uses part of CSS3 that is also unsupported by Internet Explorer 8. However, it doesn't matter as one of the most useful places for this module is somewhere that does have a lot of support - small devices such as the iPhone, and Android devices.

In this article I'll explain how, with a few CSS rules, you can create an iPhone version of your site using CSS3, that will work now. We'll have a look at a very simple example and I'll also discuss the process of adding a small screen device stylesheet to my own site to show how easily we can add stylesheets for mobile devices to existing websites.

  

In previous video roundups, we've collected together some interesting videos and presentations from a variety of speakers discussing topics covering usability, graphic design, CSS frameworks, web standards, and more. In this small roundup, we've included seven videos that we think would be of great interest to web app developers in particular, with less focus on design and standards.

These presentations are a little more technically heavy than ones we've featured in the past, but we think they're worth every minute. Check them out, and be sure to comment to include links to any related videos that you feel are worth mentioning.