What’s new for designers, December 2012

The December edition of what’s new for web designers and developers includes new web apps, jQuery plugins, productivity tools, design tools, video editing tools, CSS and HTML frameworks, Photoshop resources, security tools, 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.

Smore

Smore is a new beta app for creating online flyers you can share with anyone. It’s great for creating flyers for things like events, apps, and more.

Weavly

Weavly is a free online app for mashing up sounds, videos, and GIFs from a variety of sources, including YouTube, Loopcam, and SoundCloud. Just search for the resources you want to use and arrange them in a timeline, just like offline video editing apps.

Artery

Artery is an easy way to sell digitial content through your Dropbox account. You can use it to sell art, music, templates, software, photography, books, and any other digital products you create, all with no monthly fee.

Foldify

Foldify is a new app (coming out 12/13) that lets you design 3D figures that you can then print and fold into actual 3D shapes.

Photoshop Secrets

Photoshop Secrets is a continuously-updated Tumblr blog that offers new Photoshop tips and tricks. Learn all sorts of techniques to improve your PS skills, find resources to download, and more.

LaunchKey

LaunchKey is an upcoming app that will allow for physical authorization of accounts, instead of passwords. It will be available for both iPhone and Android.

Docverter

Docverter lets you convert plain text documents written in HTML, Markdown, or LaTeX into Docx, RTF, PDF, or ePub formats with a simple HTTP API. It’s open source, and you can run it on your own hardware or on Heroku.

PostMaven

PostMaven makes it easy to create well-designed ads for Craigslist in less than 10 minutes. It includes a growing number of templates, an easy-to-use dashboard, and the ability to save customized ads to re-post at any time. And for a limited time, it’s free to use.

Streak

Streak is a CRM browser plugin that works right within Gmail. It makes it easy to track sales, bugs, customers, hiring, and more.

PublikDemand

PublikDemand is a social version of a “Better Business Bureau”. It lets users post complaints about big companies and then use social media to get solutions.

Timetastic

Timetastic provides a solution for tracking time off among team members. It allows for both tracking of scheduled time off (like holidays, vacation, personal days, and more), as well as a way for employees to request time off.

Site44

Site44 lets you use your Dropbox account to host your website. They offer a free account that allows for up to five websites and 100MB/month of data transfer, and paid accounts that start at under $5/month.

Tuts+ Jobs

Tuts+ Jobs is a new job board from Envato. It includes part time, full time, and casual employment opportunities from around the world, and is free for job seekers (to post a job costs $99, with a 30-day money-back guarantee).

WordPress Bootstrap

WordPress Bootstrap is a free WordPress theme that includes Twitter Bootstrap. It’s built with LESS, and includes a homepage carousel, four page templates, a configurable theme options panel, two different sidebars, and Bootstrap shortcodes.

34Grid

34Grid is a responsive grid system that’s based on an “equally distributed columns” layout. It contains a few options for margins, transitions, and more.

Punch

Punch is an open source, intuitive web publishing framework that’s simple to use for both designers and developers. It uses boilerplates to quickly set up a site, Mustache for minimal templates, and Markdown for formatted content.

Selfstarter

Selfstarter is an open source crowdfunding platform for setting up your own crowdfunding site. It’s based on Ruby on Rails and includes full documentation to get youstarted.

Crumble

Crumble is a jQuery plugin that uses grumble.js for creating an interactive feature tour on your website. It’s easy to implement, with the data included in an ordered list.

Singularity

Singularity is a responsive grid system that’s completely, and easily, customizable. It lets you create symmetrical or asymmetrical grids, and even compound grids!

Spectragram

Want to pull an Instagram feed into your website or app? Spectragram makes it easy to fetch and display user, popular, or tagged photo feeds.

Ai–>Canvas

Ai–>Canvas is an Adobe Illustrator plugin that lets you export vector and bitmap artwork directly to an HTML5 canvas element so you can build well-designed, interactive canvas-based web apps. It includes drawing, animation, and coding options like events.

Any List Scroller

Any List Scroller is a jQuery plugin that makes it easy to scroll any list, with any content. It’s easy to use, and lists can be scrolled horizontally or vertically.

Heyoffline.js

Heyoffline.js warns your users when their network is down so they don’t lose whatever they’re working on.

Dashing

Dashing is an open source, Sinatra-based dashboard framework that includes premade widgets as well as the ability to make your own, a drag-and-drop interface for rearranging your widgets, and more.

jGravity

jGravity is a jQuery plugin for adding gravity to elements within a page. It’s easy to use, and can be used with default gravity settings or customized.

Method Draw

Method Draw is a free, online SVG editor from Method of Action. It includes basic tools for drawing shapes, text, and more. The selection of custom shapes is impressive and well-categorized.

Calendario

Calendario is a flexible calendar jQuery plugin that provides layouts suitable for both small and large screens, with a fluid structure when possible.

OneLogin

OneLogin is an app for identity management in the cloud that uses single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, directory integration, user provisioning, and more. There’s a free plan available, as well as paid plans starting at just $1/user/month.

Cedvel

Cedvel is a grid design application that makes it easy to explore alternative grid layouts. Just create a rectangle and then adjust the number of columns, rows, gutter width, and more to create your own custom grid design.

Alertify.js

Alertify.js is an unobtrusive customizable JS notification system. Set up alert dialogs, confirmation dialogs, and prompt dialogs, complete with custom labels, log messages, and more.

Two-B Slab (free)

Two-B Slab (scroll down to find it) is a free slab-serif typeface from Flux Collective. It’s great for display use, with bold letterforms.

Flex Display (free)

Flex Display is a light sans serif font with all lowercase letterforms. It’s free for both personal and commercial use.

Wave Me In (free)

Wave Me In is an experimental geometric typeface, inspired by wave shapes and triangular edges.

Facunda (name your price)

Facunda is a condensed sans serif type family that includes a variety of weights and styles, including a shadow style and italics.

Venera (name your price)

Venera is a sans serif typeface inspred by the futuristic forms of the space race, with five weights.

Grand Hotel (free)

Grand Hotel is a script font inspried by the title screen of the 1937 film “Cafe Metropole”. It’s particularly suited to designs related to the holidays or bakeries.

Breakers Slab ($96)

Breakers Slab is a companion to the sans serif Breakers, and is great for both headlines and body text. It has a range of distinct weights, from thin to ultra bold.

Halis Grotesque ($19)

Halis Grotesque is a modern sans serif typeface that includes eight weights, normal and italic styles, as well as small caps for all weights and styles.

CPL Kirkwood ($75)

CPL Kirkwood is a distressed, condensed bold type family that comes with both slab and sans serif versions.

Chalk Hand Lettering ($79)

Chalk Hand Lettering is a vintage style font with a hand-lettered style. It includes both normal and shaded varieties, as well as “Chalk Hand Elements”, which includes chalkboard-style graphics.

Did we forget something you think should have been included? Let us know in the comments below!

Cameron Chapman

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