You’ve started on a project. You have full confidence in the tools and web design resources you have on hand. Everything is proceeding smoothly. When suddenly a problem crops up that not only slows you down but threatens to bring everything to a grinding halt.
A deadline looms, and if you don’t meet it you’re going to have one unhappy client. The problem? There’s a task that has to be done just so, and the design tools you have simply aren’t up making that happen.
It doesn’t matter if a tool, or a resource, is an old favorite. It needs to be replaced with something better.
If you make it a habit of upgrading your toolbox with the best tools and resources available, a problem like the one above isn’t likely to happen. Any one of the following top 15 tools and resources for designers and agencies could make a difference if you want to avoid missing deadlines. You will put wide smiles on the faces of your website viewers and your clients as well.
Investing in a premium multipurpose theme like BeTheme is one way to keep your toolbox up to date. When complemented with specialty themes or plugins, BeTheme should be more than able to handle anything a client might throw your way.
This theme’s 40+ powerful core features coupled with its 200,000+ sales to date attests to its all-around usefulness and immense popularity.
Several BeTheme highlights:
- The Muffin Builder page builder/editor when used with Be’s other core features, makes creating a website a joyful adventure.
- Be’s Admin Panel and Shortcode Generator gives users all the flexibility they need while eliminating any need for coding
- BeTheme’s library of 600+ customizable pre-built websites is in many ways the star of the show. These customizable and professionally-crafted design aids cover 30 business sectors and every popular website style and type. They are responsive, and cool UX features and functionality are embedded in them.
Click on the banner to check out all of Be’s other core features and website-building capabilities.
Trafft is a brand new software booking application that features a game-changing approach to appointment and events booking operations. You can create your unique booking environment with it and easily integrate it into your website or use Trafft booking page ready in seconds.
Having done so, your clients and customers can book appointments online 24/7.
- Trafft will streamline and speed up your booking operation
- Clients and customers can automatically receive real-time email notifications
Trafft easily integrates with Zoom for training and other purposes - Employee assignments and schedules can be tracked and managed
In the event you do not have a website, Trafft will provide you with a webpage for your clients to use. Trafft is still in final development. If you would like to participate by contributing feedback to the developers, you’re invited to sign up for the Early Bird plan for $5.
Click on the banner to learn more and sign up.
The wpDataTables WordPress plugin is the best-selling in its category on the market. While there are other good ones, your options become severely limited once you discover what wpDataTables can do for you that most of the others simply cannot.
A few examples:
- wpDataTables can create tables and charts that are responsive, interactive, frontend editable and easily maintainable
- wpDataTables can quickly process thousands upon thousands of rows of data in various formats and can come from various sources
- wpDataTables can process real-time (e.g., MySQL data)
With the wpDataTables plugin at your fingertips you can improve the readability and informative value of your tables and charts by highlighting or color coding key information.
Click on the banner to learn more about this superbly-documented plugin’s features that include add-ons, advanced filtering, and cell merging.
Amelia is an easy to use WordPress booking plugin that saves time for businesses and their customers by managing appointments and events from a single platform.
With Amelia:
- Customers or clients can book or change appointments online 24/7
- Employees and customers have their own front-end dashboards to manage meetings, appointments, and events
- Amelia can serve multiple business locations simultaneously.
- Amelia integrates with Zoom to schedule or conduct consultation or training events online with ease
- Amelia can also create packages of services with discounts and validity periods
This pixel perfect creative WordPress theme is a ThemeForest all-time best seller with 80.000+ sales to date.
- With Uncode’s Dynamic Content you can create custom layouts and designs that can be used as templates for category pages;
- You can create the ultimate shopping experience with Uncode’s WooCommerce Custom Builder’s, Quick View, custom Cart, My Account, and other features;
Uncode has a growing library of tutorial videos and its showcase of user-created websites is worth viewing.
You can do much more with LayerSlider than just create sliders. This multipurpose WordPress design tool enables you to create animations and engaging content to spice up stale websites.
- The exclusive popup feature opens up new ways to interact with visitors
- LayersSlider’s user-friendly drag and drop editor eliminates any need for coding
LayerSlider has been a favorite among web designers for the better part of a decade with its millions of active monthly users.
Mobirise is a top 2021 offline website builder you can use to create a fast, responsive, user friendly website, and it is free.
Features contributing to Mobirise’s performance include:
- Google Amp and Bootstrap 4 frameworks
- 3,500+ website Templates plus cool selections of sliders, galleries, popups, and eCommerce features
- Zero coding – everything is drag and drop
Click on the banner to download your copy.
8b is a brand new website builder that is fast, user friendly, mobile optimized, and Google friendly. 8b is also free.
With 8b at your fingertips you can:
- Create websites on any device whether you’re at home or away
- Choose among professionally-crafted selections of quick-start templates and website sections
- Get fast Google ranking
Host it anywhere you want to
Click on the banner to download your free copy.
Total is fast, flexible, user friendly, and a great choice for designing any type of website.
- Total’s WPBakery page builder is augmented with selections of pre-made demos and page-building modules
- Total fully supports WooCommerce and is Translation and RTL ready and developer friendly
- The Theme Customizer allows you to change fonts, colors, column widths, or section widths
Click on the banner to learn more about this drag and drop website building theme.
Dr. Link Check saves you the time and trouble of having to manually check every link in your site for any that need to be repaired or removed.
Dr. Link crawls through your site in search of:
- Broken links and improper URL formatting
- Blacklisted links that typically host malicious content
- Placeholder sites that are lacking in valuable content
Dr. Link Check can provide downloadable reports on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
The GOODIE web development platform connects developers with people or businesses who need to get a website reliably coded and up and running.
The services GOODIE provides are ideal for:
- Web designers seeking a development partner
- Startups looking for opportunities to test their business ideas and concepts
- Small businesses that want to establish an online presence or augment an existing one
GOODIE specializes in small, WordPress, and eCommerce websites, and responsive email templates.
You can save time and money and significantly reduce customer complaints by letting Heroic Inbox manage your business’s departmental email inboxes.
Heroic Inbox:
- Encourages staff collaboration on email assignments and responses
- Facilitates the realization of the coveted Inbox Zero status
- tracks key team performance evaluation metrics
Heroic Inbox also provides its users with smart workflows and a fast and friendly UI.
WhatFontIs, with a catalog of more than 700K commercial and free fonts and its font-finding AI software is the top tool on the market that enables you to identify a font from an uploaded image.
WhatFontIs:
- Correctly identifies an uploaded font image 90% of the time with low quality images accounting for most of the remaining 10%
- Provides answers almost immediately
- Shows 60+ similar or related fonts for every uploaded image
Litho, with its Bootstrap 4 framework, is a responsive multipurpose HTML5 template that offers each of its 33,000+ trusted customers a perfect website-building starting point.
It’s repertoire of features include:
- 36+ unique home page demos together with a large selection of ready template blocks
- Inner pages and page styles for blogging, portfolio, gallery, and shop websites
- Working contact forms and newsletter subscription forms with PHP mail, SMTP and Mailchimp integration
Litho offers 5-star customer support.
The XStore WooCommerce theme may be the best and most intuitive tool for anyone looking for a fast and easy way to create a conversion-rich eCommerce website; and for just $39.
The package includes:
- More than 100 customizable good-to-go shops
- A full Ajax shop
- Over $500 in premium WordPress plugins
- A super-useful single product builder, product filters, and a powerful header builder
You can probably take pride in your toolbox of industry tips and tricks, and especially so if it has served you well in the past. Your toolbox may be superbly stocked. You know that it’s not always easy to stay up-to-date with the design tools and design resources you eventually may need. You need these tools to stay abreast of industry demands.
This article features the best available15 Tools & Resources for Designers and Agencies for 2021. Any one of which might just be what you need to stay on top of your game.
