What’s new for designers, February 2014

The February edition of what’s new for web designers includes new web apps, icons, color resources, webmaster tools, graphics programs, CSS frameworks, JavaScript 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.

GV Library

The Google Ventures Library is a great resource for entrepreneurs and designers alike, straight from Google. They offer founder interviews, design advice, and more.

Nasty Icons

Need something to spice up your designs? Nasty Icons is a set of 45 free icons with a decidedly adult theme, featuring plenty of violence and some rather racy content. (While these icons are just line drawings, they may not be safe for work.)

CSS Colours

Want to call your colors by name rather than hex code? CSS Colours is an incredibly thorough guide to CSS color names, including many obscure ones like “lavenderblush”, “tomato”, and “oldlace”. You can even view specific color families.

Feedthebot

Feedthebot offers up a complete guide to complying with Google’s webmaster guidelines. There’s a brief rundown of each topic on the homepage, linked to more in-depth coverage of each.

DevArt

DevArt is a new gallery from Google of art created with code by developers. It includes some truly innovative, engaging digital art installations.

BootstrapTaste

BootstrapTaste is a collection of free templates for use with Twitter Bootstrap. So far there are templates for a landing page and a single-page site.

Rrrepo

Rrrepo is a new site that features collections (repos) of high quality links on individual topics. It’s currently in private alpha release.

Headlinr

Headlinr is a billboard featuring startups and product launches, with no more than ten features each day. It’s a great way to stay on top of the industry.

Mondrian

Mondrian is a free online vector graphics editor that works right in your browser. It’s completely open source and easy to learn.

900dpi

900dpi is a hosting service that lets you create a simple CMS using only CSS that’s managed from right inside your Dropbox folder. They offer designers a free portfolio site, and paid sites for your clients are just $20/month.

Guideline Colour

Guideline Colour is a guide to the official colors used by some of the most popular brands out there. It’s broken down by category, and also searchable.

Titon Toolkit

The Titon Toolkit is a collection of UI components for creating responsive, mobile, modern websites. It includes toosl for HTML5, CSS3, Sass, JavaScript, jQuery, and more.

Min

Min is a tiny CSS framework, weighing in at less than a single kilobyte. It includes all the basics you’ll need for things like buttons and typography, and has support all the way back to IE5.5.

Start Bootstrap

Start Bootstrap is a collection of templates and themes for Bootstrap from Iron Summit Media Strategies. There are templates for single page sites, admin dashboards, landing pages, and more.

CSS Front-end Frameworks

This comparison of CSS Front-end Frameworks will show you compatibilities of the various major CSS frameworks, including Bootstrap, Foundation, Kube, Less, and many more.

Creditcard.js

Creditcard.js is a more usable credit card form built with JavaScript that addresses many of the UX shortcomings present in most credit card forms.

Uinames.com

Need names for your next project mockup? Uinames.com is a simple way to generate fake names for your projects. Just pick whether you want male or female names and press the spacebar.

Bootstrap 3 Vector UI Kit

This Bootstrap 3 Vector UI Kit includes all of the Bootstrap 3 UI controls in vector format, as well as Glyphicons and other bonus UI elements.

Social media cheat sheet – super speedy, all you needy

This Social Media Cheat Sheet gives you the image sizes and specifications of every major social network, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.

Share Button

This beautiful Share Button is quick to implement and looks fantastic on virtually andy kind of site. Click on the button and a tooltip-style group of share buttons will appear.

Wow.js

Wow.js lets you reveal CSS animations as you scroll down the page.

HTML5 UP

HTML5 UP is a set of fully responsive HTML5 and CSS3 site templates that are super customizable and completely free.

Squarespace Logo

If you need to create an incredibly simple logo quickly and easily, then check out Squarespace Logo. Using stock shapes and typefaces, it’s not going to replace a real designer, but it is a passable quick and free stand-in.

Speaking.io

Speaking.io shares a great set of practical advice for those who worry about public speaking, whether it’s at a conference, company meeting, or anywhere else.

UI Faces

UI Faces is a simple way to grab avatar images for your mockups. Just set the avatar size,spacing between avatars, border width, background color, and container width, and you’ll get a block of avatar images to use. You can even get avatars that are authorized for public use.

The Pattern Library

The Pattern Library is a set of free patterns offered up for free by leading designers. You can use them freely in your designs, or even submit your own pattern to share.

Bebas Neue (free)

Bebas Neue is a sans serif typeface that’s become a sort of “Helvetica of the free fonts”, now with four weights: thin, light, book, and regular.

Simplifica (free)

Simplifica is a condensed sans serif typeface designed by KAIWA. It’s simple, clear, and very legible.

Abraham ($10)

Abraham is a free display font that includes upper and lowercase characters, fifty standard and interlocking ligatures, and more.

Brandon Printed ($29)

Brandon Printed is an eroded, printed take on the famous Brandon Grotesque typeface. There are four variations of every letter and several different styles in the family.

The Carpenter ($51.35)

The Carpenter is a stylized, elegant script family in three weights. It also includes ornaments and patterns, and is great for titling, posters, logos, and more.

Industry Inc ($29)

Industry Inc is a type collection based on the uppercase styling of the Industry family, with fourteen fonts included, with both stand-alone styles and a layered type system.

Castor ($24.50)

Castor is a distressed woodtype and letterpress style hybrid font based on grotesque letterforms. There are three options for each letter: lowercase, uppercase, and alternates.

Hitchhiker (free)

Hitchhiker is a stylized display font inspired by mid-20th century America and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

Port Vintage ($84)

Port Vintage is a modern twist on the Didone typeface. It has the exuberance and elegance of calligraphic type, while being inspired by the well known forms of Bodoni and Didot.

Black Fox ($59)

Black Fox is a bold, retro-styled typeface designed by Mans Greback.

Have you tried any of these resources? Know of a new app or resource that should have been included but wasn’t? Let us know in the comments.

Featured image/thumbnail, Leather Nunchuck via The Pattern Library.

Cameron Chapman

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