Our Favourite Tools to Nail Different Design Styles

April 18, 2017

We feel a pretty strong desire to share the most vibrant ideas how to simplify your work and push you towards some creative breakthrough!

As the years pass, we still can't help wondering what else can the design industry bring us. And the good news is that this progress is unstoppable - just think how it has grown and evaluated during the last few years. Along with beautiful, amazing artworks you can find on the leading marketplaces, the designers' toolboxes burst with plenty of totally handy stuff, which is to spare hours, days and even months on your side projects for instance.

The diversity is getting so striking, so we, Pixelbuddha team, feel a pretty strong desire to share the most vibrant ideas how to simplify your work and push you towards some creative breakthrough (let's call it this way).

Artistic Toolkits

It's a great secret, but we probably love them best of all. Sure, if you're working on a font and need a breathtaking showcase for it or if you're a UI designer and not an illustrator, it might be a serious portion of stress to conquer the art of watercolor or hand-drawn doodle styles.

“Hey, man! I've been designing sites for all my life, and even magic will not turn me into Dega. I swear.” And we believe you. We really do. And we've taken here some amazing toolkits to slightly calm you up and liberate from painful drawing lessons after work. Just pick up a product you need and bring an artistic touch to your creations.

A humungous kit of everything you may need to feel happy and even sightly moony: vector graphics, fonts, watercolours, foils, patterns, papers, splatters and...design secrets (and we believe the author, yeah) !

Looks just like plasticine cartoons (oh, you must give them a go if you haven't done it yet) and follows them in their versatility and vibrance.

Quite a pretty comprehensive toolkit for Photoshop and Illustrator full of useful tools, resources, and assets for you to nail hand-made watercolor style, popular as never before.

Mockups & Scene Generators

Mockup Templates have been running the designer's world for a pretty long time, and we are absolutely sure you've been downloading them by the dozen at the start of your way, and you probably still surfing the net for some rare mockups that your collection lacks.

The cool thing is that the mockups are not the final stage of the evolution. Why? Just imagine: you put your pots with flowers, stationery, snacks this way and that. Make the shoots. And realize it is NOT what you had in mind. And you need a bone of a unicorn to make it look at least acceptable. For such cases the designers have set about to produce not single mockups, but Scene Generators - really huge packs including hundreds of customizable elements to create unique scenes that you will love. And your customers will love. And your followers, too. Bluntly put, everyone will love them.

A great mix of unmixable (from the first sight) objects. Combines pretty surprising items with beautiful everyday stuff, and it looks really good.

We can only guess what you're working on, but we're sure that even if you want it truly outstanding and maybe slightly shocking - it's the right toolkit for you to pick up!

No idea what's made the word go potty over this drink, but if there're lovers, you should be there with a full set of these mockups to showcase all the coffee attributes. And that's not all - the collection strikes with the variety of packaging and different everyday objects, looking really-really nice.

Looks so beautiful, that you want it all and now. Perfect for bloggers and restaurant sites, or, at least, you may just admire them with no special reason. Try not to be hungry at that time.

UI Kits

Okay. It's fine with mockups and textures and all that artistic stuff. But what about UI rising? If it's right what you do, have a sigh of relief, as there is something adorable for your toolbox, too.
Curious? Today has come the age of flowcharts to prototype or design interfaces, original UI kits for mobile and web to save a huge amount of your time at any stage of development: no matter if you're building from the scratch or polishing tested and ready-to-launch interface. How about grabbing some helpful ideas?

The title says it all - lots of handy elements put together to boost up the prototyping stage in Sketch, Adobe AI and Figma.

Another must-have library of app templates and iOS UI elements for Sketch and Adobe Photoshop. Don't mean there're too much of them already, but it's great that such cool packs are released.

The authors of the project have stressed huge variability and universality as their top priorities - and what have they got? Over 120 high-quality source files for Sketch and Photoshop. Yay!

Full of various features and easy to customize. So change text styles, colors, add or replace photos and graphics, do anything (but no criminality, please) as much, or as little, as you want. You're in control.

Social Media Kits

If you tell you are not a Facebook (or Instagram. or Twitter. Or something) geek, we will hardly ever believe you. The power of social network doesn't need any approvements (of course, you know it), so it turns to be the right moment for the social media kits to take the stage of the graphic design and make a conquest of designers and businessmen. The studios craft fine kits, containing all possibly necessary assets for eye-catching posts in Facebook, Twitter and even Pinterest.

Includes 15 templates designed natively for Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and appears to be an amazing way to make your work with social media not only much easier but also more effective.

What's inside? 15 vibrant templates featuring beautiful geometry shapes, vivid colors, and trendy patterns for your profile to stand out of the crow.

The pack contains a total of 60 files; 20 designs in 3 different formats and is an irreplaceble yummy tool in your toolbox, crafted to rejoice you with fine design and tender colors

Resume

Ok. Let's draw the line (have always had troubles with that, but let's try). Of course, scene generators, UI and artistic toolkits, are only a tiny drop in the illimitable ocean of ALL handy stuff, offered by design industry to make your work process more enjoyable. Basically, your comfort is the goal of its activity, so it has no right to stop.

Need a font? The only problem with finding a script or a vintage monoline typeface is due to a big amount of high-quality fonts (and it can make the one feel dizzy), so you're gonna have serious troubles while picking one the one you need.

Wanna a Photoshop and Lightroom photo effect? There're dozens, hundreds, thousands of them, born (or crafted, if you like it better) to turn even the most generic photo into a breathtaking shot.

Look for text styles? The only thing you need is understanding of what you actually need, what may fit your project or your style. And then comes their turn to alter your printing product beyond recognition.

Dream of a logo templates set? That's not a problem either, as all the fine marketplaces are pretty flush on unique products, and you may use them as a constructor for a logo of your dream. Or of your client's dream, why not?

Of course, no artice and no research can cover all the amazing features and innovations of today's design industry. And, basically, we've just lifted the veil, and you still can find so many wonderful eye-catching design tools to boost up your work process or just inspire you - and that's already a lot! Hope we've done it well ;)

written by

Ksenia Pedchenko

Ksenia is our Audience and Plus membership curator. Getting in touch with Pixelbuddha? The possibility you’re talking to Ksenia is extremely high. Also, Ksenia is a regular author in the Pixelbuddha Journal, where she shares fresh news of the industry.