Free Web Design Information

For all those front end web designers out there here are some great resources I have come across over time. I have one rule of thumb; If its useful and or has potential for at some point being useful to me (a front end web designer) then I will likely list it here. If something is missing, let me know!

ALSO see my Web Design Examples!

HTML 5 Resources

• HTML 5
  HTML 5 is here to stay, here is an official look into it.
• HTML 5 Example Page
  Highlights some of the core HTML 5 elements on a page.
• What browser supports what HTML 5 features
  Compatibility tables for support of HTML5, CSS3, SVG and more in desktop and mobile browsers.
• W3School HTML 5
  HTML 5 tag reference. I always like what these guys do.
• HTML 5 Tutorials
  A site for some fairly good HTML 5 tutorials and articles.
• HTML 5 Cheat Sheet
  This cheat sheet is essentially a simple visual grid that contains a list of all HTML tags and of their related attributes supported by HTML 5. The simple visual style I used to design this sheet allows you to find at a glance everything you are looking for.
• HTML 5 Canvas Cheat Sheet
  HTML5 canvas element cheat sheet... Here is another one you can try Skilled.co

Web Design Resources

• The Power of Color
  What colors you choose is important.
• Copy Paste Special Characters
  Your one stop shop for all those pesky special HTML characters.
• Web page test
  Test a websites performance. Why? Because you are the worst judge of your site’s performance.
• Responsive Web Design Testing Tool
  Responsive Web Design Testing Tool. This tool has been built to help with testing your responsive websites while you design and build them.
• JSFiddle - Share your Code
  A great online editor for snippets build from HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The code can then be shared with others, embedded on a blog, etc. Using this approach, JavaScript developers can very easily isolate bugs. We aim to support all actively developed frameworks - it helps with testing compatibility.
• HTML Elements Index
  A continuously updated list of all HTML and XHTML elements and their corresponding versions.
• Web Designer Heaven
  Great list of resources for all things relating to web design.
• Web Standards Solutions
  The Markup and Style Handbook. A definite must have for anyone learning web design. The book is easy to read through, insightful, and full of practical solutions for essential elements of web design.
• Bulletproof Web Design ∴ Example Code
  Example code from the master himself Dan Cederholm. The book is Bulletproof Web Design and I would say it's a must have for anyone learning web design.
• Visibone Web Design Reference Sheets - What more can I say other than I loved this so much I bought it and use it on practically a daily basis. Sure this information is easily accessible on the web but it's a hell of a lot easier using this guys functional and equally beautiful layouts.
• Excellent Front End Cheat Sheets
  A link to various great cheat sheets out there for all that front end syntax you are trying to remember.
• 14 Rules for Faster-Loading Web Sites
  These rules are the key to speeding up your web pages. They've been tested on some of the most popular sites on the Internet and have successfully reduced the response times of those pages by 25-50%. Also see this working example. Also run your own test here.
• Sexy Buttons
  Rediscover the ancient secrets of the button.
• ListAMatic
  Learn all about making beautiful lists. Lists come up more often than not, trust me.
• Color Detector Tool
  A cool tool to detect the color of anything on your screen.
• A List apart
  Some great articles on general design principles.
• JDPrint and Pixel Ruler
  Some random but still useful tools. Measure anything on your screen and print a list of all the files contained within a directory.
• Awesome List of Resources
  A great list of resources put together and updated over time.
• HTTrack
  It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer.

Mock Up Tool
A rapid wireframing tool that looks and works great.

Pingdom
Speed Test.

Make your code beautiful

• CSS codebeautifier.com (for CSS) - Alternate Site
• JavaScript jsbeautifier.org (for JavaScript)

Leaders in Web Standards
These guys kick some serious coding arsss so be sure to check out their websites and learn from the best:

• Andy Bud
• Andy Clarke
• Richard Rutter
• Dave Shea
• Jeremy Keith, see also adactio.com
• Jakob Nielsen - Usability Expert

E-Mail Related

• HTML E-Mail How To Guide
  A must read for anyone trying to figure out sending html formatted e-mails. Warning: Headache may follow.

Newsletter Distribution Solutions

• Vertical Response
  A great way to manage your newsletter with marketing analytics.
• Constant Contact
  Another source for e-mail newsletter software that is fairly popular.
• Get Response
  Another well priced option for e-mail newsletter marketing, foreign based.

Website Analytics:

• Click Tracks Analytics
  Dig deep into your websites statistics.
• Google Analytics
  Powerful and free software from Google. They should be charging for this stuff.
• Add This
  A great bookmarking tool to integrate into your website. You need to have a way for users to bookmark your pages easily.
  
  See Example:

Domain Name Tools:
Getting a quality domain name can make a huge difference. Here are some sites I found useful in addition to where you would normally register a website.

• GoDaddy
  After market domain shopping on GoDaddy.

Editors:
So many editors out there. Here are a few links to some I have used.

• Sublime
  Excellent and affordable editor.
• Color Themes
• Custom Theme Creator