What’s new for designers, March 2013

The March edition of what’s new for web designers and developers includes new web apps, jQuery plugins and JavaScript resources, productivity and project management tools, CMS’s, CSS and HTML frameworks, web development tools, coding resources, and some really great new fonts.

Many of the resources below are free or very low cost, and are sure to be useful to a lot of designers and developers out there.

As always, if we’ve missed something you think should have been included, please let us know in the comments. And if you have an app or other resource you’d like to see included next month, tweet it to @cameron_chapman for consideration.

Foundation 4

Foundation 4 is the newest release of Zurb’s responsive front-end framework. It’s now mobile-first, has entirely semantic, cleaner code, and has rewritten JavaScript plugins with Zepto rather than jQuery.

Baseline.js

Baseline.js helps maintain your vertical rhythm (set by your typographic baseline) despite oddly-sized images in your articles and pages.

Mailstrom

Mailstrom is a tool to help you clean out your email by powering through your messages in seconds. It’s currently in beta and has an unlimited free trial, though it will later be available by subscription.

Do

Do is an easy to use team project manager that makes it simple to get all of your work done. In addition to the web app, there are also mobile apps for iPhone and Android.

ownCloud.org

ownCloud.org is an open source cloud file hosting app that lets you keep complete control over your data. It makes it easy to host files, music, pictures, and even contacts and a calendar.

Typeplate

Typeplate is a typographic starter kit that defines proper markup with extensible styling for some common typographic patterns, without restricting your aesthetic choices.

Browserhacks

Browserhacks is a database of browser-specific CSS and JavaScript hacks, compiled from all over the web.

Galleria

Galleria is an image gallery framework built in JavaScript that makes it easy to create beautiful galleries for web and mobile devices.

Adobe Edge Reflow

Adobe Edge Reflow is a new preview app from Adobe that lets you create responsive designs visually. Create high fidelity styles via CSS with an intuitive user interface.

Adobe Edge Animate

Adobe Edge Animate makes it simple to create interactive, animated content for the web. It offers precise control via a timeline editor similar to video editing software.

Koken

Koken is a free CMS for creatives that makes managing creative content simple. It has a desktop-like interface, and has powerful tools for working with virtually any kind of content from text to images to video.

PicDigest

PicDigest sends your photos from Instagram and Facebook in a single daily email to whoever you choose. While it’s meant for sending pics to family and friends, it could theoretically be used for more than that.

Prevue

Prevue is a free way to present your concepts online and even get feedback. You can password protect your image sets and send custom URLs to your clients.

Feedly

Feedly is a feed reader that makes it easy to keep up with your favorite sites from your browser or mobile device.

Imageloader.js

Imageloader.js is a free jQuery plugin for preloading images on your website.

Alternion

Alternion is a single portal for keeping up with your social media and email accounts all in one place. It work with virtually any email account, plus Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Flickr, and Picasa.

Typeform

Typeform makes it easy to create engaging, beautiful, and flexible forms that work on a variety of devices, with no need for coding.

Voke

Voke is an instant PHP and CSS search engine. Just start typing your search query and possible results will auto-complete right away.

TypeUp

TypeUp is a Compass extension that takes the font size and line length you specify and turns it into a set of CSS rules for a vertical baseline in ems.

Ui Kit

Ui Kit is a set of gorgeous, clean PSD UI elements you can use in your designs.

jQuery Nested

jQuery Nested is a plugin for creating a gap-free, multi-column grid layout. It works on a variety of devices, and grid elements animate to rearrange when the viewport size changes.

MFG Labs icon set

MFG Labs icon set is a friendly icon set that can be embedded in a website or app via a webfont and CSS. It includes common icons for everything from media players to social media sites.

Hook.js

Hook.js enables “pull to refresh” on websites, just like it works in mobile applications. Just scroll down a bit and then back up and your page will refresh.

PredictionIO

PredictionIO is open source prediction software for developing predictive features, like personalization, content discovery, and recommendations, in your apps.

SVG.js

SVG.js is a lightweight JavaScript library for animating and manipulating SVG files. It’s very small at only 6k gzipped, and lets you animate size, position, color, and more.

Spoiler Alert

Spoiler Alert lets you hide anything (image, text, etc.) by blurring it out, and only reveal it when a user clicks. It’s great for hiding spoilers on your site.

Paperkit

Paperkit makes it easy to create and customize your own graph paper templates that you can then download and print yourself. Specify everything from page size to spacing to stroke color and width.

Gumroad

Gumroad is a platform for selling digital files directly online. They handle the hosting, payment, and delivery for you, quickly and securely.

Coffitivity

Coffitivity mimics the audio ambience of a coffeeshop, making you more productive. Combine it with your own music and you’ve got an optimal work environment without having to leave your office.

User Inter Faces

User Inter Faces offers up sample avatars for your designs. Just customize the size avatars you need, the spacing between each one, and the border radii, and then grab a screenshot.

Hello Denver (free)

Hello Denver is a free font from Good Apples design studio with stencil-like letterforms.

Pettit (free)

Pettit is a stylized display typeface that’s elegant and tasteful, with a retro feel.

Ollie ($59.99)

Ollie is a casual script with a friendly, bouncy feel. It takes full advantage of OpenType savvy applications.

Handy Labels ($39)

Handy Labels is a template font for making tags, signs, and similar labels. It includes 3 fonts, each with 52 glyphs.

Prism ($30)

Prism was inspired by Rudolf Koch’s sketches and the proportions of Avant Gardey by Herb Lubalin. Proportions and widths stay the same from ExtraLight to Black weights, giving you more design options.

Pops (free)

Pops is based on the handwriting of the designer’s father, one used mostly for short messages and headlines.

Soundtrack ($34)

Soundtrack is a lively all-caps typeface with two versions for each letterform.

Nova Horst ($35)

is based on the etchings of artist and print-maker Horst Janssen. It includes contextual alternates and different letterform versions on upper and lowercase sets.

Sundowners ($29)

Sundowners is a simple and versatile font with interlocking glyphs and a groovy mood.

Hakone (free)

Hakone is a sans-serif typeface with a full set of glyphs, that was designed to go along with some very cute characters.

Know of a new app or resource that should have been included but wasn’t? Let us know in the comments!

Cameron Chapman

Cameron Chapman is a freelance writer and designer from New England. You can visit her site or follow her on Twitter.