11 – Stuck in a Web Design Rut? How We Find Fresh Design Inspo

[00:00:00] What up y’all? Welcome to the Web Design Empire where we share stories and strategies to help you build your web design empire from a side gig to multiple six figs. I’m John. I’m joined by the lovely Kelly. We’re full-time freelance web designers who’ve escaped the real world, broke up with our jobs, our bosses, our cubicles, and commutes over 15 years ago, and we haven’t looked back.

We’re also course creators, web design, business mentors, web design, store owners, Kelly and Airbnbs. I’m maturing, professional, musician. All that to say we are building our empires. We like variety. What can I say? Yes. I feel like you’re getting bored with that intro variety of spice a lot. I do like the new music though.

I, I like the intro. I, I always, okay, okay. I’m always, I’m always worried, if people are like, yeah, I know this part. You know, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just get it over. But it’s important to, to. [00:01:00] Highlight the intro, the empires, you know, because that sounds right. That’s point. We’re gonna have more empires to add, whether it be a true a tech startup or who knows, , crypto investing, , whatever you and your husband are, are up to.

I don’t know. Like, you know, I know we just sold a bunch of stuff. I know that much. So we’ll keep, doing , the intro, although the over 15 years ago might have to change.

And you do need to adjust that. Yeah, a little bit because I was talking, I think we’re officially, you’re at 18, I’m at 20, right? The only reason I remember it is over 15. The only reason I remember, like when I st, I mean obviously there’s, there’s the date where I started freelancing with artillery, but then there’s like the date where you actually incorporated or whatever.

Right, right, right. Yeah. Well, the, but the actual year that I started like artillery, the only reason I know this, because my password used to be AM 2006, and so it was in 2006 that I officially like, Hey, I’m gonna start freelancing under this name. Arti the media now. ’cause I was just doing my own name before that, you know?

[00:02:00] But, but you know, we’re saying, 15 years ago, we’ve Right. We escaped the real world into this fantasy land that we live in now. Yep. Fantasy land. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So yeah, that was a good, convo with Jake. ’cause he wants to put 20 years on the website. I’m like, no, that’s not, it makes me sound old. I don’t wanna do that yet.

It’s not white de fish. Oh. Oh. Well then there’s that whole aspect. I think I’m over that. I we are old dude. How is your week going? I have a almost 17-year-old. , Good. I’m a 17 month old. See that’s, that’s the difference. That’s why I feel so much older than you. , I’m launching three sites this week, and that was not like supposed to happen.

So it’s been quite busy and just, , my brain’s a little scrambled right now, but I’ll talk about design inspo all day. But yeah. How about you? Anything, uh,, anything new, anything exciting? Well, as Kelly just said this today’s episode is all about. Design inspiration and the tools we use to create our designs.

And I just actually wrapped up a homepage mockup yesterday for a [00:03:00] client. I’m really excited about it. I really like this one. . It’s a financial, it’s a folks that help financial planners level up their skills through technology. And so it’s cool to be able to use like tech photos and tech graphics and high speed graphics and, but not lame ones.

Not like, here’s someone, you know, pointing to a chart graph. Like yeah. You know, like it’s, there’s some abstract. Cool. Kind of like motion stuff that I think will be kind of cool. And they’re open to it and so they want to be a little different and not just the typical, here’s a guy in a suit with his iPad and he’s Yes.

Analyzing something. Yes. Um, these stereotypical stock photos of financial people in their suits. Yeah. I love that. That’s good. I, I don’t love that, but I love that when clients are open to when they give you that freedom. Yeah, totally. Like, yeah, like, hey, like, like, hey, we hate stock photos too. Let’s find photos that are, that are non stock photos, even though they’re still stock photo, but you, you get it right.

That’s the [00:04:00] trick. Lovely. Well, yeah, , let’s get into this. I think , this topic came from one of our mentors students who mm-hmm. And, and honestly, we’ve gotten this question a few times, and so it seemed like a, a relatable topic and something that everyone struggles with. , Basically what happens is , you get into.

Projects, you know, once you’re doing this, , for 20 years, 18 years, and sometimes you get in a creative block or you think, man, , the last like four websites I did kind of look the same to me. Even if they don’t really look the same to the clients, you just , get used to doing things a certain way and you get in a rut.

Or I think the other thing that happens is the client provides, , a really crappy logo and or really bad photos. And so you’re stuck with this kind of garbage that you have to like polish and make look good. , And so you have to kind of go rogue , and get creative, , in that process.

And so I think those are the two scenarios that happen is you either get stuck in your creative rut . Or you’re stuck with garbage assets that you [00:05:00] have to, you know, put lipstick on a pig kind of situation. Been there, I’ve been there for, for sure. Few, few times. That is interesting ’cause right now we’re working on like a refresh of our main website and we’re having, one of our designers is working on a style tile right now and

, The main heading font she submitted , is a sans serif font. It’s very simple. It’s great, but it’s not the same sans serif font as our logo is, right? Yeah. But our logo. Sans serif font is Futura. And which I don’t like how fu looks lowercase. I only like it when it’s all uppercase.

True. And so. If you, if, if anyone was tracking with that kudos, you are officially a professional. It’s a web design podcast. Alright. I know, but like, I feel like Futura is an old ass font, so like I feel like that takes Yeah, but it keeps coming back. It keeps coming back. You know, it’s like, it does, it’s like cargo pants and it does, it looks great [00:06:00] in all caps.

It just looks, it looks stupid in lowercase. I got you. Anyway. It does, it does. It does. So, so then I’m looking at , the sans serif font that she’s proposing. I really like it. Mm-hmm. But , if we keep our logo up there, it’s kind of gonna clash. And so then I just said, hey, I, and this might be sacrilegious, but I was like, Hey, I’m actually fine with, let’s ditch the logo and let’s just have artillery in all caps in that same font that you want.

Up on the website because we could still use our logo in other spots, , it’s like a sub logo. , Just for this version of the website. , Just have it because it’s so plain of a logo. Anyway. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. You talking about when a client gives you assets, like a bad logo and you have to work with it, .

And you can’t really ignore it, you know? Right, right. So yeah, , you either try to massage it, like, I’m proposing we do with our artillery one. Let’s massage it a little bit. Yes, yes. So anyway. Yeah, . That’s a hard card to deal with , when you get dealt that card of a bad logo. I agree. Just crappy assets or again, or the photos are like, , they look [00:07:00] like they were scanned in or something, or they’re from a old iPhone that wouldn’t even function today.

It’s like, really guys, this is what, , I mean, we all love the projects where we get this. Wonderful, , professional logo and this whole branding guide with all the colors and the fonts mm-hmm. And the everything. Mm-hmm. And these professional photos, I mean, that’s the dream, right? But that, the reality is that just that rarely happens, especially for, small business clients like, like we generally deal with.

But it does happen. And those are glorious projects. They make everything go better. But anyway. Well, I have two, I have, I have two confessions to make, uh, uh oh. Number one, sometimes when they give me the brand guide with the colors, sometimes I still punch up the colors a little bit. Do, do you I still will make them a little more vibrant.

And here’s my reasoning. ’cause folks might say, what print looks different than, oh yeah, print looks different. And even web looks different than web. Like you pull up a website on, on, on Chrome and then you pull it out on Firefox. The colors on [00:08:00] Firefox are gonna be, they’re punchier. Um, that’s funny. Which I’ve never realized that, but Oh.

Pull up the brick in the website on, on Chrome. Is it like fluorescent? Does it burn your eyeballs? And then, and then pull it up on Firefox and you’ll be like, holy cow. Like that is a, that’s a difference. That’s, I like that. That’s, uh, interesting. Life, life giving. And then the other thing that I confess, I must confess, um, little Britney Spears there for you.

, I don’t use their photos in the mock up. Or style tile I will not use. Oh, I don’t, I don’t either. Yeah. I’ll not use their photos. Purpose. Why don’t we do that on purpose? To be like, this is what, it could be that. Exactly. And I don’t want them to get caught up in like, oh, that person doesn’t work here anymore.

That’s the, the wrong photo. Yeah, exactly. You know, like that’s, , so knowing those couple things, we already already off on tangents. Yes. Well, well, but you know, talking about inspiration, like, hey. You don’t have to live with those colors. You try punching ’em up a little bit. Yeah.

Hey, you don’t have to live with those photos. Show them what’s po what could be possible. You know, even this last one, they sent over this certain font [00:09:00] in their brand guideline , and , I didn’t like it, but there was a wider version of that font on Adobe Fonts that I liked. And so I ended up using that one and I just told ’em, Hey, this isn’t the same font family.

This looks more modern tech. And then I showed them like. Here’s a paragraph with that heading font. Here’s the, here’s the narrower one that your brand guide has on there. I think we should go with this one. And they went with a wider one. . So one thing, if you’re in design block is sometimes , you can bend those, bend the rules.

I like that constraints that you think you have from given to the client. , ,

a quick note that I wrote down was, ‘ we have a couple designers that work for artillery , and then a gal that does wire frames. And I feel like about once every six months this idea comes up of like, man, , our sites kind of look the same, wire frames look the same. And I’m actually like.

That might not be a bad thing. Correct. Because maybe, maybe we found, I think that’s important to point out. Yeah. Maybe we found the formula that works, you know? Right. Like in like the pop song formula that [00:10:00] you know is like intro verse one, chorus verse two, chorus bridge, course chorus out. You know, like that’s, that’s the formula.

That’s, , yeah. Logo navigation, hero, three things, , story brand. Right. , I think that’s one thing to keep in mind is, hey, designer, . When you’re feeling that way, , there’s gotta be a different answer then let me just. Lemme just come up with off.

Totally unique. , And users can’t use. And I know on another episode I did the, the, yeah, the , rental car analogy. I’m not gonna do that whole thing here. , But basically people are used to things working a certain way, right? And so , how can we be creative but still put things where they expect them to be on the website?

, Correct. Okay. But for those times when you do want inspiration. Starting a new project. Kelly, where do you get the inspiration from? Where’s right? Well, where the inspiration should come from, is, , the client and a strategy questionnaire, and again, their logo and brand. I mean, ideally that’s the perfect situation.

But again, we’re gonna talk about what happens when that isn’t. Perfect. [00:11:00] But , even if the logo , and photos aren’t great, , looking at , the site, , we always ask John and I both in our questionnaires ask, , please send over some sites that you like the look and feel of.

1. They don’t have to be in your industry. They could be whatever. , Just so that we can get a general vibe of, of , what they’re going for. You know, sometimes it’s super modern and obvious, like, okay, they like the super duper clean. Sometimes it’s, , swirly and curly , and more fancy and , totally different vibes.

So that is definitely where I look to start inspiration. Mm-hmm. And but sometimes they send over really crappy websites. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Unfortunately as well. And so you kind of gotta find , , this happy medium type of place. , But that’s where I start. I assume you start in the same place, John yes, I do. And yeah, sometimes you luck out and their ideas , are pretty solid. But even then, I still feel like I. I have to bring my own flair. That’s what they’re paying me for. Correct. But I love it when , , they’ll say, I, I like on this certain page how they did this.

FAQ. It’s like, [00:12:00] okay. Wow. Revolutionary. An FAQ toggle. Wow. That’s great. Thanks for that. You know, uh, well, sometimes I, I’ll have clients who, when they fill that out, I don’t know if they feel like they have to do this or it just happens naturally, but they’ll like, pick my own websites that I’ve made. Oh, that’s nice.

Like, okay, okay. Thanks for the, you know, making me feel good. But like, do you, great. Do you really, like, are these your. Favorite. I doubt that. Um, that doesn’t happen to me. That doesn’t happen to me. I have not, I have not arrived. Or they’ll say, I like your website. I like your website. Yes, yes.

Or they say, I can’t think of any. We had one recently was like, I can’t think of any. And they put it and they put us, they’re just being lazy. They put a smiley face, but it was the old school way of doing like, like a colon in the, like the backwards. Yeah. No, it was like the typed out one, like not an emoji.

Anyway, I still use that. Is that not, you can’t do that anymore? No. That means I am old school

emojis exist. Okay. Uh, I know, but, but when you’re [00:13:00] typing, that’s easy. Okay. So yeah, so the strategy questionnaire or whatever, you have them fill out mood board. We, we have them do a mood board and I, I actually really encourage them like, Hey. If you’re gonna send us some sites, a couple can be your industry.

But yeah, please send some not in your industry. ’cause that might make us think a different way about, a fresh way about this, whatever industry that you’re in. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where else do we get design inspiration from? Okay. And , when that’s not enough then, or, , even if I’m just looking for what, what are other people doing?

Looking for that inspiration. Honestly, I go to artillery site and look at their latest stuff. I’m not lying. You guys do great work. So I think that’s always a good starting point. But even if, even if your clients don’t send you your own. But then another thing that I do, is , I will Google that industry, whatever industry that the client is in.

And then a big city, like New York City or LA or something, just to see. ’cause I just assume, , [00:14:00] those types of companies in those big cities are probably spending really big bucks and seeing what, , those agencies are spitting out , for those types of sites. , Sometimes it’s very fruitful and sometimes that is a waste of time.

Sometimes you just get crappy websites when you do that. But that has been something , that has worked for me in the past. . , . So I’m not the only designer, art Hillary, so I also reference, I. The work that other designers do. ’cause it’s different than mine. And I’m like, Ooh, I really like what Sierra did there. Yes. But personal faves, , and the style of my design, which will, maybe we’ll get into another podcast, but my style really lends to , like the apple, the square, the square up, the super clean.

Right. Modern. Um, and I feel like . When I’m presenting a mock up to someone and I, I do a video, a screencast. Mm-hmm. And if I say, oh, and I got this idea from Apple Site on this page, and I pull that up, that’s nice. That’s a nice little like Yeah. , I’m referencing an expert here.

Oh, it be like Apple? Yeah. What’s funny is for this mockup I did yesterday. Yeah. I was actually [00:15:00] on, I’m a big fan of Obey Clothing. I’m wearing their hoodie right now, actually. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I went to their website yesterday and on the, in the footer, it was just a white background footer, and as, as big as possible, it had the obey, obey.

Like it was so big. And I was just like, we do that on our Superfly site too. Oh, yeah. I, I like it. I like it. I love that. So I did that. On this mockup, that I’m sending out today, , they’re called Mutual Group and they got this mutual, but it’s in this cool modern, it’s in a cool font and it looks really nice.

You’re right. You can only do that if the logo is cool. Yeah, yeah. Correct, correct, correct, correct. It’s one of those garbage logos. Don’t make it. And then there’s another agency, called Drain and Mortar that is out of Omaha, and their stuff is always amazing, and I I Oh, nice. Look at their stuff quite a bit.

So those, those are kind of my, dribble. I still get on Dribble and look around dribble’s.

Has some dope modern designs on there. Nice. But the, probably the biggest one that when I’m really, when I’m really feeling like, man, I need some validation or some new [00:16:00] ideas it’s Squarespace, honestly. And I know a lot. Yeah, I knew you were gonna say that. Yeah. A lot of designers don’t like Squarespace because it’s competition or whatever, but you gotta know that there.

They’re spending money on research. They’re spending the big bucks on those templates. Yeah. And they look great. They look so clean. They do. And nice. The colors are always great. Like, oh gosh, I just steal stuff from there all the time. , Similar to Square Forest Squarespace. Square Forest Theme. Forest Theme Forest is, is a, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s hit or miss.

It’s hit or miss. It’s not dumpster diving, but it’s hit, or it is, it’s stuff above that. It is hit or miss. Yeah,, there are some good things. And then, I mean, there’s tons of places, but as far as the main, I have a RSS reader that subscribed to these guys. Whenever they put out a post, I get notified web designer depot.com, .

They’ll have , the freshest sites in February or, or whatever. Nice. So, yeah. But [00:17:00] fun fact though, for the current artillery site, the Browns and the yellows and the vibe, I actually got inspiration from that from , there’s a clothing line called Brixton and they sent me a catalog in the mail and I.

I love the colors from it and the typography, and that was the main thing I referenced for the current. That’s awesome. Contemporary site, isn’t it funny? Yeah. I used to keep a folder of print stuff. I, I mean, I still have it, I just haven’t added to it in a long time of things that I would get and be like, wow.

Mm-hmm. So yeah, I still, I still have that. That’s funny. But even like, band album, artwork, poster design, I get inspiration from that ’cause I’m in the music scene. But you do too. You got poster commend.

You follow. Yep. We, we like art in this house. It’s mostly my husband. , I do follow, I follow a lot of artists online, and , not just web designers, , like artists, artists who do, , branding or various print like, uh, posters.

Like this gal, she does these, , , band posters. So yeah, I definitely pull [00:18:00] some inspiration from, random other artists that I’ve found online that I just follow on Instagram or whatever.

Well, and I think that’s where print is, kind of where some of the, in my opinion, I feel like a lot of the overlapping stuff came from. So like when you got images that overlap Oh yeah. Break out. Or like, you got like this big font that kind of overlaps an image here. Yeah. I feel like , that was inspired from print at some point and brought into the web design.

Definitely. It’s almost like a, like a scrapbook, almost vibe, in some cases, but like a very streamlined, modernized version, . Yeah, definitely. Which helped us., That got us away from. You know, here’s your content and here’s the sidebar, or here’s the two side. Oh my gosh.

I am doing, I’m doing a site right now by committee, that will not go on my portfolio. , I’m just gonna start with that. There’s like 13 people involved , and so many people have, I mean, this is, it’s an exact. Process of the web’s design goes straight to hell poster. [00:19:00] But , at this point, the people who are actually in marketing, there’s three of us, we don’t even speak.

And everyone else is just like trashing every little tiny little thing. So anyway, what we’re left with is something that I could have literally made on a Word document. It’s photo text. Mm, text photo. Mm. Because they didn’t want any. He’s like, oh, why is this text overlapping? Or you, it’s hiding part of the photo.

I’m like, yeah, hard read. It’s called, it’s called the design element. There are, there is no design left on this website. It is just font photo, and it’s awful. I hate it. They love it. Whatever. Anyway, not everything., I, that’s what I was gonna end this episode with, but. Not everything goes on the portfolio and that’s okay.

True story. That’s true. So even if,, even if you’re not in love with the design that you presented your client probably is, , like it gets to that point where, , it gets approved , and it gets launched. , Yeah. You’re not gonna love everything you do and that’s [00:20:00] okay.

I remember, one of my first. Bigger project as a freelancer, it was $6,000 This was probably five years into my freelance experience and it was for this construction company in town and their logo was , they had used like a stencil font for the logo.

You know what I’m talking about? Like a yes. , Speaking like bands love that stuff. They, , on their gear, like spray paint, whatever. But it was like part military, part stencil, and it was like, oh my gosh. And so in the mockup, I just redesigned a logo for him.

I’m just going to, I’m just gonna think what I think it should be and based on whatever. It’s nice of you. And, they came back and the owner’s name was Justin. I remember he said, we really do like your logo, but we cannot. Change the logo right now. It’s on everything. It’s on everything.

It would cost us 50 grand to change the logo on all our trucks and signage and everything else. Yeah. And that’s when I was like, okay, sometimes I’m just gonna have to deal with the logo they give me and just be creative in other ways [00:21:00] and Yeah. But still have to, , so for example, , this artillery redesign, part of the reason why I was like, Hey, maybe let’s go with that sans serif font as artillery. Yeah. Because if we do put our artillery up there , with our mark, our mark , is a triangle that has sharp edges. Yeah. Well then, then our buttons need to have sharp edges and.

, But in the style tile though that she did that didn’t have our logo, the buttons were rounded like pills. And I actually really liked how it looked and ooh, and that’s, so that’s kind of why I was like, you know, I can’t believe you’re letting a junior designer do your, I don’t have time.

I don’t have time. I don’t have time. I don’t have time or the creative energy effort that it would. , If anything I’d make it more simple, which is not, , and she wants to, that’s usually what she, that’s what I did. Yeah. She like, she wants to use more just solid color backgrounds, which I’m fine with, but I also said, Hey, I’m fine with that.

But we need to mix in a couple texture backgrounds that are parallax. ’cause clients love that stuff. They love [00:22:00] seeing. I love that thing on your website where you scroll and the picture state, you know, like they want that stuff and we might be over it. We are over it. Yeah. I mean, I would just do a black and white like.

You know, I’d probably use our, have you seen my site, John? It is. I’ve a black and white. I would do exactly what I would do exactly what you did. I would go to be superfly.com and buy the minima theme and there you go. I would use mini and, I would, that’s exactly what I would do.

Anyway, before we get into any, anyway, before we get into the tools that we used, time to highlight our sponsor today, it’s break into web mentoring. Kelly and I have seen so many web designers struggle with their businesses. They’re unsure which direction to go, unsure how to start or grow their business.

They feel alone. Lost. I’ve been there. With our mentoring, we can meet you exactly where you’re at, whether you’re just getting started or you’re already making six figures and you wanna figure out how to get to multi six figures, we can give you the best path forward to get to that next [00:23:00] level. Get daily access.

Yes, I said daily. Get daily access to myself and Kelly for direct questions and answers. We’ll talk everything from building your web design business, how to find clients, how much to charge design reviews, send us your designs, we’ll review ’em, when to bring on an employee or subcontractor, growth, financial planning, accounting advice, health insurance.

Maybe even buying rentals. Whatever you want. I’ll talk drums with you if you want. Hey, this, this mentorship is the solution that we wish we had when we started over 15 years ago. Have over breaking the web.com to learn more. And fun fact, when you do our mentorship, you also get our break into web. Train, of course, which includes advanced courses, which one of those is a design masterclass where we Yes. Go through a lot of the stuff that we’re talking about right now, but yeah, let’s talk, tools.

Well, we talked about some sites that we go to for just general design and spo, but as far [00:24:00] as tools go, I know you got way more than I do, but like of course , stock photography and stock images, are a big part of web design. I personally have a subscription to. To Adobe stock. I just figure, you know what?

I’m already paying them for all this other stuff. Might as well pay ’em for that too. And it, you know, they all, I feel like all the sites have the same stuff anyway, or all the paid ones. So that’s my solution, I rarely use the freebie ones. Unsplash, , Pexels, whatever. I know you use those more.

I just thought, I had the hardest time like, I’ll type in a search term and I’m like, why did it, how did it get to where it got? Oh yeah. Why are you showing me something barely remotely related to what I typed in? And so I assume it just doesn’t have what I need anyway. And Envato. Envato. Envato. Elements. Elements. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We have a subscription to it, Envato Elements, which I, I mean, I used it yesterday. It’s, yeah, me too. It’s got great graphics in there. It’s got icons in there.

Yeah. It’s got, you know, it’s got photos too. [00:25:00] They’re pretty stocky. Yeah, I have some videos though that you can use as background videos. Some texture stuff, video, like background texture, which I’m a fan of. , That’s great. As far as like. I guess since we’re on that, noun project is an icon, deal that we pay for, I think it’s like $49 a year, but it’s just a, it’s an app ton of icons in there, like more than you could ever want, but it’s very, it has a very good search.

I use that, I use that on the smart team. Are they vectors or are they code that you type? Is it like a fun, awesome thing? They fact they’re SVGs or Okay p and g or whatever, , jpeg you can, you have some choices there. , But for example, in this mockup yesterday there was, a testimonial slider and so I just grabbed two carrots from noun project, well, one, and then flipped it.

But yeah. Anyway, I have a folder on my laptop called Unsplash. I used to go to Unsplash almost every week and just scroll through the front page and just download stuff I thought was cool. Oh, nice. , There’s 2026 photos that I’ve downloaded from Unsplash and [00:26:00] you gotta put those somewhere where you can.

Search through ’em or something. And then I have one for iStock that’s got 227. So iStock photo, we still use that. Um, I used to use that. Yeah. Uh, there’s one, I dunno why I switched. There used to be, I don’t know if you remember this, but there used to be like photo packs that you could buy.

, There was like an agency pack that I bought that was just a bunch of, 50 photos of a web design agency and people working and Oh, a gal with headphones on, with coat coding and like, it would. It was like, oh, dope. So , I have some packs like that. And then for a while Shopify had this thing called Burst by Shopify, which is free stock photos.

And they’re pretty good. I used some of those in this mockup, yesterday. Colors. There’s a couple places I go, coolers.co and color hunt.co. You can check them out, but they’re like, . Color palette generators, and here’s the trend.

Yes, I usually go straight to the trending, the trends. Me too. I use, again, I’m an Adobe junkie apparently, but I use [00:27:00] color adobe.com. Yep. Mm-hmm. Same thing. I go to the trends. It’s kind of nice, especially when those, when you get those crappy logos, , or they just have like. Uh, color. For example, I had , a client recently.

They had, Husker red and black. And so I, I took that into color Adobe, just to generate some other color options like. Secondary colors to mm-hmm. Go along with, so I don’t just have to use black and red. It’s good for that kind of stuff. , One cool one I found is one called, , web gradients.com and it’s just a bunch of cool gradients in colors that you normally wouldn’t think about.

And then, I guess fonts would be the other thing. Fonts? Yeah, pretty. You know, I try to use Google fonts as much as possible. Me too. Because using Adobe Fonts is fine, but with the platform that we use Divi, it’s a little bit of a pain to use.

Adobe fonts with Divi there so much. Yes, but it requires a little bit of coding and, and some CSS work. But I’ll, I’ll do it when it’s worth it. Like when, if there’s, [00:28:00] I won’t do a buy there. I just use the M mime type. I just use the mime type plugin.

It makes it good. Oh, I need to check this plugin out. It just allows you to upload, ’cause typically D doesn’t allow you to upload font files. So yeah, it just allows you to do that. And then it works fine, but it’s still a pain. It’s still another step, but yeah. Got you. So I, I will literally hunt down, like I will look at Google fonts, trying to find one.

Pretty dang. I mean, I realize there’s a bajillion fonts, but. You know, a serif a serif. That’s not true. Pretend I didn’t say that. But like, I don’t know how many Google fonts there are, but I mean thousands. , Is it, there’s a lot. Fair to say, th thousands, if not.

Close to, but you can find something dang similar to a font and then you know it’s gonna work well . I’ll pick that all day over. Uploading some wonky ass font my client found . Yeah. , We have this PDF that gets outdated, like pretty regularly from type Wolf, and it’s basically like, Hey, here’s all these fonts that your clients are probably gonna ask you for, and [00:29:00] here’s the closest Google font alternative.

Oh. I need that. That would be useful. Well, and I also use, like a reverse font lookup, like what the font or like font squirrel’s got, there’s different services that you can upload a logo to find out what the font is.

But I feel like those are very biased and they’ll only tell you like paid fonts. I wish there was a version of that you could upload and find the closest Google font or something. But I have not found such a tool. But maybe, maybe we should make that. Well, the last maybe it exists, the last kind of non application tool I’ll mention, and this has kind of been a secret weapon for me the last year, year and a half.

It’s this website called You work for them.com and it’s fricking. Dope. The fonts they have on here, the graphics they have on here, they have Photoshop actions on here that you can buy and do stuff to your photos that just take it to the next level. If you go there, check out the fonts.

They have the graphics. It’s just like this is, it’s always modern. It’s just dope. Dope stuff , that [00:30:00] I love. , They’re fonts. I will use for like a heading. I’m like, that’s gotta be it. That’s so sweet.

I’m gonna use that. Especially for a lot of band stuff. And some of the Photoshop. Actions, actions, like there’s just one action with that., It’ll put like rippled glass over your photo. So you could have just part of your photo be rippled glass and the rest is regular.

Or some of the print displacement stuff or, there was one today that I almost bought that I was just like, I love that it is like a printer photo effect that I could totally see. Using on some band stuff, and possibly some client work. But I have used some fonts from the site on client work.

’cause I’m just like, that font’s perfect. That’s the one. Sweet. But then instead of using the mind plugin, I’ll go in , and add the line of code to the Yeah. Functions file or whatever. Upload it quick and then take it. Yeah. Which I don’t understand why they just don’t open that up. I don’t either.

I don’t either. Okay. So then lastly, the actual like creation tools that we use. I have some, , obviously Photoshop is the OG. , , for me [00:31:00] I still use Photoshop ’cause I’m OG Web designasaur I’m probably fastest in Photoshop just because I know everything so well. I know the tools.

Yeah. I’m not designing in Photoshop, but you still do mockups. I don’t do mockups, right? I, yep. You still mockups? I did mockups. I did mockups in Photoshop up until about a year ago. I still was using Photoshop. Okay. ’cause I was just so fast at it and just could just Yeah.

You know? , I used Figma now for mockups only because, I had to learn Figma. For the tech startup. Because what Figma does is it gives you interactive, right? Walkthroughs you could show people on your phone, which is,, which is, I don’t know. I see more cons to that than pros, but Oh heck yeah.

But I get it for client. I would never do it for client. I would not send a client. But , since it’s an app that I’m creating, right? , I like to show people and they think it’s real. They think that it’s a right, right. Well, let’s just use this. Let’s just. Then, and then what I’ll do, like in Figma, they have variables.

So you can set a color one time and [00:32:00] then just use that color, and then if you Yeah. But, I never do that. Like I set it all up. I didn’t either because I’m ooc D but then I don’t ever end up changing the color. And so it’s like, I don’t mind that Photoshop doesn’t have this color variable feature.

Right. Because I’m now, I’m sure designers on design teams, that’s like a must have. That’s a big Yeah. Or font variables. Like I just found out that the Google font I’m using in Figma shows up a little different on the web. And so , there’s some interesting things there.

But a couple small tools that I use every day. There’s this one tool called Pixel Snap. , It’s a measuring tool. I use that thing. John is a padding spacing Nazi, and so that’s what he uses that for. In case you’re curious. It’s the best.

I can’t remember if it was, a 19 buck, whatever it was the best money that I ever spent let’s see, a $39 gift. I just, well, I just eyeball it. This, this Pixel snap it’s in setup now too.

Setup is a collection of apps you can pay your ING for Mac [00:33:00] only, sorry, windows people. , And Pixel Snap , is a Mac only app, but , I use it all the time. I can’t say enough good things about Pixel Snap. And then the other one that I have here is called Dev Swatch. It’s a color picker for Mac that is so fast

at any time, I could just sample a color. Like even from this zoom recording, I can hit the shortcut and sample it. And it gives me the hex code on the clipboard I use, I think constantly. Nice. Yeah. What about you outside of Photoshop? Well, uh, I mean we design and Divi obviously there’s that.

Yeah. I just design and yeah, truly, and I don’t use those types of tools. I’m just, I’m, oh gee. I just do it in Divi and I eyeball most of it. I have never in my life used a pixel counter. I’m just like, I call myself a good enougher. It’s good enough.

I’m sure I’m a pixel off. But, but it’s okay. It’s okay for me. Well, what, , the two younger designers we have at artillery, since they don’t really know Photoshop, and they build, they design in Divi. And [00:34:00] so for graphics, they, if they need to make graphics, they make ’em in Canva.

Oh yeah. Okay. That’s what I was curious. That seems to be what, that’s the new, and, and I just feel like. Mm-hmm. I’m saying is it really doing that good of a job? Like is it compressing correctly? Is it, I don’t know. I, I just, I will for, it’s always, it’s not, I can tell you that exactly. I will forever and always use Photoshop’s freaking legacy, legacy safe feature that they’ve had for like, what 20 years.

We’re, we’re legacy. We’re legacy. You use it, don’t you? Oh, I do. I can’t. I It’s because it’s so fast. It’s just like, and it works. It’s so fast and it, and you can, you can basically adjust it so that it, it ends up the size Exactly. You want it. Like, I, I haven’t seen another, I’m sure there are others, but I continue to use that until it no longer exists.

’cause it’s there. Yeah. But the first time that you ever saw the, the safer. Oh yeah. Save for web and then in, and then in [00:35:00] parentheses, legacy. Legacy. So it has said legacy for a very long time, but when I first saw that the very first time I saw them put the Legacy on that. Yeah. I was like, please do not take this away.

Don’t get rid of it. Don’t get rid of it. Do not, yeah. Take this away. Like you can’t, you can’t do that. Yeah. I was so stuck on that. Are there any other design tools that you can think of? No, I, uh, I, I keep it simple. I knew you would have plenty and, you said a few that I am absolutely gonna check out today, so I’m looking forward to that.

Dope, dope, dope, dope. All right, y’all. Thanks for tuning in and joining us today on the Web Design Empire. Be sure to check out breakinto web.com. Learn how you can break away from your daily grind. Become a freelance web designer like us, create the empire you’ve been dreaming of. We’ll see you in the next episode.

Cheers, y’all

[00:36:00] party. Oh man. Seriously. How long has Photoshop said Legacy? I mean, it’s at, it’s gotta be like eight years at this point. It has been forever don’t they realize that’s all someone like me even does in there?