There are a number of new great tools and resources out to give web designers and developers that extra leverage for their job. This month we have some great free tools and resources worthy of a try, starting from a plugin to create cool photo effects to a plugin for content and image sliding with genuinely cool transition.

So, let’s check them out.

Recommended Reading: Fresh Resources For Designers And Developers – October 2012

Proto

Responsive web design is now becoming the standard practice in creating a website. This makes this tool really helpful to get the job done. Proto is built upon SCSS for prototyping responsive layout quickly by providing pre-defined CSS classes ready for use, defining the responsive grid and some device specific classes.

Grid Displayer

If you are working with Responsive Design frameworks like Bootstrap or Foundation you probably need this bookmarklet to keep track of the grid in the browser. This tool will show an overlay grid on the webpage you are viewing. It’s quite handy, just drag & drop it into your Bookmark bar. Just click on the bookmarklet anytime you need grids to show.

BootMetro

Windows 8 applies the simplicity of Metro design language. If you want to embrace this style on your website, BootMetro is probably what you need.

Underscores

There are many WordPress starter themes available in the Internet, but no other is as great as Underscores. With it, you can specify and personalize the Theme Name, Description, Author and specifically the Theme Slug, which applies to the theme function once you download the package, so you will get something like theme_slug_function.

Jarallax

Like the Parallax effect you see in websites like this one? If you want to apply a similar effect to your website, you can use Jarallax, a JavaScript animation library to create the Parallax effect (in almost no time).

Windy

Are you bored with gallery sliding effects that only moves horizontally? Then check out Windy, which uses 3D transformation to run the content in a genuinely unique way. See the demo here.

TiltShift

In short, tiltShift in photography is a technique to make a photo looks smaller, almost miniature-like than it really is. Check our collection of such photos in this post: “Tilt-Shift Photography”. If you want to apply such an effect in your photo gallery, you can simply use this JavaScript Library, TiltShift.js.

Mailrox

Mailrox is a free web tool that aims to design a beautiful email template. You can simply upload your design, slice it and turn it into an HTML email that is compatible with email service like Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor.

Sequence

Sequence.js is a Responsive jQuery slider plugin with some advanced transition effects. Unlike the other slider, Sequence does not come with its own built-in theme. So, we can completely customize the look and feel to match our website.

Delta

jQuery UI is a complete set of common web user interface and interaction, which is easy to use. However, the default theme is boring. So, if you want to have a different look for jQuery UI, yet don’t want to get your hands dirty with CSS, you can simply replace the default CSS styles with Delta, a slick theme for jQuery UI.

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1. Fresh Resources for Designers and Developers – October 2012
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4. 50 Useful Responsive Web Design Tools For Designers

Every year, large batches of design students graduate and launch their careers in the market. Some of them land at proper places, which groom them professionally and set a solid career path for a successful future. Then there are designers who are not so lucky, who do not find the kind of professional approach they were looking for.

To help these designers cope with their career decisions, there has been much literal support through books, websites and blogs, and even debates on issues like to be a freelancer or not, to start with a smaller organization or a bigger enterprise and where and how to start professional networking etc.

(Image source: Fotolia)

However, one aspect of professional indecisiveness, which has been observed in many fresh designers, has not been discussed upon very frequently, i.e. to be a jack of all trades and be a generalist designer with multiple skillsets, or to be a master of one specific field of design career.

We will spin our article around this very topic and will discuss its different aspects in detail.

The Root of Argument

Designing, nowadays, is an extremely voluminous concept with hundreds of branches and sub-branches springing up from its core. When asking about your profession, even the most irrelevant of minds would ask “what kind of designer are you?” rather than be content with "I’m a designer".

(Image source: Fotolia)

There are two kinds of trends seen in a designer’s professional life cycle. Some designers learn a specific skill and once their learning reaches a saturated level, they develop a curiosity to learn its associated skills too.

On the other hand, some designers learn a number of design skills at the start of their career and as they move up the professional ladder, they tend to layer off the extra skills and focus themselves onto one specific skill for the rest of their professional life.

But what about newbie designers? There is bound to be a bout of confusion as to which professional approach to opt for. Here is some food for thought.

The Benefits of Being a Generalist

When you are a "Jack of All Trades", you are:

I. Highly Sellable

The biggest advantage of having a multiple skillsets is that it makes your profile highly sellable in the market. When you storm into the market with a diverse set of skills, there are chances that your different skills attract clients both individually as well as collectively, and will land a good bunch of projects on your desk.

Moreover, there are a number of clients who prefer to have a ‘one-window solution’. Therefore, it may happen that rather than getting only a part of it, you get the entire project on the basis of your diversified skills which will probably bring in bigger profit margins.

II. A Professional Chameleon

A chameleon has a natural mechanism of changing the color of its skin to blend in with its surroundings in order to deal with a situation. ‘Jack of all’ designers have the ability of being a professional chameleon and modify their profile to suit the needs of the project being offered. Having multiple skills enables them to play any card from their deck of skills and win a project.

III. More Productive

Being highly productive is the biggest concern of a designer from any field or sub-field. For designers, productivity not only means financial gains but is a matter of mental and morale satisfaction. In case of a design generalist, productivity almost never ends. Their multiple skills keep a steady flow of projects coming inwards, and they stay busy for most of their career.

What Could Go Wrong?

Being multi-skilled has its downsides, which includes:

I. Too Much to Handle

As I have mentioned before, although professionals get projects in bulks, everyone has a maximum workload that they can handle. These designers will reach their full work capacity at a very early stage. This situation sometimes results in a serious work burnout leading to chain of non-productive days.

(Image source: Fotolia)

II. No Exclusive Projects

Exclusive projects are every designer’s dream. Exclusive projects relate to a specific field of design, require much focus, are generally paid higher than usual projects and are a gem for a successful design portfolio. However, it happens that the clients usually do not opt for a generalist designer mainly due to the fact they already have multiple projects and might not be able to focus and work exclusively for their project.

III. Weak Project Management

Project management is one of the few add-ons that are required for a smooth flow of design business. Although project management is itself a skill (good to learn for both types of designer being discussed in this article), nevertheless, a ‘jack of all trades’ type of designer, mostly due to the pile of tasks in his plate, cuts a sorry figure in this respect.

Such designers amass design projects (those too with a variance in scope of work), usually end up messing everything up and ultimately eat into their own profit by spending money on outsourcing.

The Benefits of Being a Specialist

Now, let’s take a look at what good there is to being a specialist designer.

I. Depth of Experience

In any field of work, experience is the biggest feather in the cap of a professional. As a matter of fact, professional life is one of the few places where ‘being old’ is a compliment. In the professional life of a specialist designer, working in the same field for years and years, experience becomes his greatest asset. And so when a client is leafing through profiles and portfolios of designers for some project, the ones with more experience readily catch their eye.

Moreover, when a designer works in the same field for a long time, he becomes fluent in it and so, working on a new task becomes less challenging for him.

II. Streamlined Approach

Being a specialized designer helps you in developing a streamlined approach in work flow. As a specialist designer works on projects with same or similar scope of work, new tasks easily get adjusted in his work flow enabling him to stay focused without losing his productivity.

III. Charge Higher

Whenever you add the title ‘specialist’ in your professional profile, this immediately puts a positive impact on the other person’s mind and adds a lot to your value. This is the same case with a ‘master of one’ designer.

When you offer your services to a client by saying that you are a ‘specialist’ in this certain field, it automatically gives you a reason to charge higher than a generalist designer. Also, most clients do not argue on this as well and consider it justified to pay you handsomely for your expertise.

Master of One – Cons

Now don’t get too carried away on being a ‘master of one’ because there are some disadvantages associated with it as well.

I. Lack of Alternatives

The most basic disadvantage of being a specialist is that you do not have a lot to offer your client. For instance, a client works with a web designer and both develop a very good professional chemistry with each other, however as the web designing task ends, the client asks you if you can provide him further services like web development or CMS so that he may not have to deal with people he is not comfortable with, you end up disappointing him as you do not have any such skill.

Therefore, being a specialist designer may result into a relatively shorter business relationship with your clients.

II. Much Outsourcing

The designers who work in a single field of design sometimes get projects that require skills more than their own. In such a situation (and somewhat the kind of situation mentioned above), these designers have to outsource part of their projects.

Although outsourcing facilitates them and fill in the aspects they lack, however, the profits gets divided, sometimes quite unevenly. Also, with outsourcing, you lose control of the overall quality of the project which affects your market reputation.

III. Lower Chances of Business Expansion

In design business, like all other fields, business expansion is the ultimate goal. Particularly from the perspective of a freelancer, there is always a stage when he wants to increase the circumference of his business to keep up with the competitors.

(Image source: Fotolia)

However, with a specialized approach towards design career, this may seem difficult. For instance, if a person with multiple skills would consider business expansion, he will most probably rely on his own skills to offer a variety of services to the client. On the contrary, when a specialist designer would plan for business expansion, they would not be able to do it without external help.

Conclusion

I have tried my best to give a balanced picture of the choice between being a specialist or generalist from the perspective of a designer. This may give you some points to convince yourself to adopt whichever approach suits you. Nevertheless, I also understand the fact that every person has his own situation and circumstances that will mould his career approach preference.

So do share your personal experiences in this regard and let me know if this piece of writing has helped you in any way.

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