The best JavaScript libraries

The right JavaScript libraries can take a lot of stress out of web development. Lots of the everyday coding tasks you'll have to take on as a developer have already been tackled and made available as libraries, so why reinvent the wheel?

We've hunted down 15 of the most essential JavaScript libraries that'll help you solve commonly-faced coding issues and save you untold time and effort. While you're here, you might also want to check out our guide to the best JavaScript frameworks and JavaScript APIs.

1. Math.js

While the JavaScript language standard does contain quite a few mathematical functions, it — of course — is in no way complete. One feature which is commonly missed involves complex numbers.

Keep in mind that big number and its various classes are not a panacea cure for all digital problems. Fixed point arithmetic is known to be a lot slower than hardware-accelerated float maths —if you don't have a good reason to use higher accuracy, better make does without it.

2. Leaflet

If you manage to get your hands onto a tile source, you quickly find out that having map tiles is but half a month's rent. Leaflet provides a relatively comprehensive tile rendering infrastructure, which takes care of bringing them on-screen in a flexible fashion.

3. Anime.js

Anime.JS provides a comfortable-to-use implementation of the keyframe animation pattern. Specify the start state, the end state, and an easing function — library and browser will use CSS transform to ensure that your animations are run with optimal speed.

4. Hotkeys

Providing a keyboard-driven interface endears products to power users. Hotkeys take care of the often-fussy details of keyboard management, leaving you to focus on realizing the business logic. Getting started requires less than ten lines of code!

5. Easy Toggle State

Enabling and disabling GUI elements programmatically is an old, yet recurring task. Easy Toggle State provides a neat way around the never-ending task — group elements together, and switch them on and off without breaking a sweat.

6. AutoNumeric

Making numbers look good across locales is difficult. AutoNumeric is a library dedicated to the number of formats and currencies of the world. Simply pass in a numeric variable, and feast your eyes on a string. The library can also "monitor" text fields to make them look better.

7. D3.js

D3 creates data bindings between arbitrary DOM objects and elements stored in the code behind. This means that the look of the web site can be customized flexibly independence of stored data.

D3 differs from traditional diagramming libraries in that it does not provide any templates. If you, for example, seek to create a pie chart, better start out by bringing in rectangles and adding data bindings to compute height et al.

The library shines whenever extremely complex and/or animated visualizations are required and the setup time is not an issue. One popular example would be choropleth maps, commonly used in election reporting.

8. Element

JavaScript GUI stacks are dime a dozen. Element differs from the rest of the field by being sponsored by various large web companies based both in China and the US.

From a technical point of view, Element is — by and large — a well-supported collection of GUI widgets based on Vue 2.0. Import it to your web project, add the specific tabs and "hack away" like if it were jQuery UI.

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10 Brilliant jQuery plugins

There have been tens of thousands of jQuery plugins written for the jQuery library. Created in 2006 by John Resig, the jQuery library is now the most popular JavaScript library on the web. It's a fantastic resource for designing and developing user interactions quickly.

Whether it's an image gallery or form, content-revealing CSS animation or an explosion effect, the library provides the core building blocks to allow you rapid prototyping and to deliver a unique user interface with minimum code and effort.

1. RTO+P Video Player

Sure, it's easy to embed video from YouTube or wherever, but if you want a little more control over your video then RTO+P Video Player is a must. It makes it easy to build and customize your own video player that gets its video either from your own server or CDN or from a public Vimeo stream. Use the HTML5 video tag to make life easy, or for better performance, you can use the lazy load option.

2. Slick

Is this the last carousel you'll ever need? It certainly could be; Slick's a jQuery plugin that gives you fully responsive carousels of just about every kind you could wish for, with all sorts of options to play with including lazy loading, autoplay, callbacks and more.

3. Muuri

For the ultimate in flexible layouts, Niklas Rämö's Muuri is well worth a look. Its layout system enables you to position grid items of assorted sizes within a container in pretty much any way imaginable, and it's responsive, sortable, filterable and draggable. By default, it'll arrange everything in a 'fit first' manner, but you can add your own layout algorithm for a different layout style.

4. AnchorScroll.js

There's nothing like a bit of ultra-smooth scrolling to help your site stand out from the crowd, and AnchorScroll is a lightweight and easy-to-use jQuery plugin for doing just that. It gives you smooth scrolling to anchor targets, with added classes and callbacks to elements on scroll events, and on top of that there's the option to add a blur effect to the body while scrolling, as well as a bounce effect that'll take you back to where you came from after scrolling to an anchor element.

5. Timeline.js

This jQuery plugin offers a twist on the carousel component: Timeline.js provides you with everything you need to create a carousel timeline (i.e. a slider that progresses based on chronological points). It includes plenty of visual and functional customization options.

6. Tilted page scroll

This plugin from Pete R. is an excellent way to grab people's attention and add a little extra depth to your site. With it installed, items will tilt into view as they scroll up the page, and tilt again as they scroll out of the top of the page. It's a great-looking effect that's nice and easy to implement.

7. Focus point

The great thing about responsive web design is being able to create a single page that'll look good on any device. However, if your site's automatically cropping images to fit certain viewports, it can often lose the focal point. With Focuspoint, you can make sure your image looks great in any container by specifying a focal point for each image, and the plugin will crop out unwanted parts before the important bits.

8. SVGMagic

Using SVG images is a good idea because they will look sharp at any size, and this plugin helps you to do that without having to worry about browsers that don't support them. It searches for SVG images and replaces them with PNG versions if SVG isn't supported.

9. Face Detection

Detect and get the coordinates of human faces in images, videos, and canvases with this plugin, which was written by Jay Salvat and uses Liu Liu's face detection algorithm.

10. Round Slider

This circular slider enables the user to select a range of values by mousing over the circle. The full slider is the default setup, but you can also use it to get quarter-circle, half-circle, and pie shapes. There are CSS styles you can adjust to theme it in various ways, for example, to look like a speedometer. No images are involved; it's all made with CSS and JavaScript.

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7 FREE Portfolio hosting options for Designers

Having a good-looking portfolio website is one of the basic things you need to take care of as a designer. But if you're just starting out, or even if you're simply cost-conscious, you might be reluctant to spring for a paid portfolio hosting option.

Finding a free home for your design portfolio isn't easy – there are usually restrictions to the level of service that you won't get with a paid plan. But it's still possible to find a free hosting option for your portfolio that doesn't involve too much compromise; we've found seven of the best services.

1. Portfoliobox

Billed as offering everything you need to create a professional portfolio website, Portfoliobox is specifically geared towards creatives and offers a stack of ready-made templates and layouts that you can edit in the browser through a drag-and-drop interface.

The free version gives you a portfolio with room for 30 images and 10 pages, plus a zero-commission e-commerce platform; the pro version removes the Portfoliobox branding and also gives you a free domain and 24/7 support.

2. Behance

Behance might not be your first choice when it comes to finding some portfolio hosting, but as a hugely popular creative network, it's the perfect place to show your work. Even if you have your main portfolio elsewhere, it makes sense to have a presence on Behance and to keep it updated with your latest projects.

It's not particularly sophisticated in terms of options, but its straightforward interface makes it easy to design basic pages on which to share your work, and as a free service it's hard to beat, especially once you start picking up followers.

3. Adobe Portfolio

Another Adobe offering, Portfolio isn't strictly free – you need a Creative Cloud account to take advantage of it. But unless you're a staunch Adobe refusenik, always looking for the best Photoshop alternatives, you probably have a CC account, in which case Portfolio is definitely worth investigating.

It has plenty of themes to choose from, all of which can be easily customized – there are loads of examples on the Portfolio site to demonstrate just what the platform's capable of – and naturally it features Behance integration, as well as Adobe Fonts and the option to import photos from Lightroom. All of Portfolio's themes are fully responsive, and once your site's ready to share you can use your own domain name.

4. Crevado

Like Portfoliobox, Crevado offers a free portfolio hosting service alongside paid plans that offer more capacity and features. And while you might find the free plan a little restrictive – it gives you a maximum of five galleries and can hold 30 images, and doesn't provide a contact form – it's a good starting point that you can build upon later if you want to use a custom domain or sell your work online.

Crevado prides itself on taking care of all the technical issues so that you can simply create a fully responsive portfolio with minimum effort.

5. Coroflot

Portfolio hosting is just part of the deal with Coroflot; it's a serious online community created by designers for designers, aimed at helping creative professionals and hiring companies to connect with each other. So if you're looking for more work, having a portfolio on Coroflot is a must, assuming you get accepted.

That's the tricky bit; you can't simply sign up and get your portfolio space. Instead, you need to submit an application that demonstrates the quality of your work, and you'll only be accepted if it meets Coroflot's standards. Thankfully it's also provided a guide to getting your application right; make sure you read it before hitting Send on your application.

6. Dribbble

Dribbble, like Behance, isn't necessarily the place to host your main portfolio, but as a hugely popular design community it's definitely a place to show your work and also works in progress, and hopefully, get seen by potential employers and clients.

As a busy social network for designers, it's also a great platform for getting feedback from other designers and also for seeing what other creatives are working on. And our favorite feature? Dribbble automatically generates palettes based on each hosted shot, so if you see a color scheme you like the look of you can download it instantly.

7. Wix

It's hard not to be aware of Wix as it's made a name for itself with as an easy-to-use website builder with a generous free package. And while you might not think of it as the place to build a portfolio website, it's well worth a look. Among its vast assortment of customizable ready-made templates you'll find a good few options for building a good-looking portfolio.

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The best new UX Books of 2019

UX is a profession that never stands still, but the latest theories, practices, and sub-disciplines can take quite a bit of explaining, and can't just be summed up in a quick tweet or Facebook post.

To keep your UX skills up to date, then, new and up-to-date books can be invaluable. And this year there have been a lot of excellent and important releases.

Here, we’ve selected seven books on user experience, all written by experts in the field and published in 2019, which have been making waves. Whether you’re a UX designer, a manager or just someone who needs to stay informed, they’re all well worth checking out.

1. Loops

In 2019, launching a new digital product is a careful balancing act between speed and quality. When budgets are limited and time is tight, how do you ensure you create a product that gets to market quickly but is also fit for purpose?

The founder and president of Nine Labs, J Cornelius has been building digital products since 1996 and shares the benefit of his experience in this superb new publication.

2. Strategic Writing for UX

When it comes to UX, visual design is usually the area that gets discussed the most, but getting the words right is just as important for the success of a website or app. And yet it’s a subject that’s often overlooked. This book sets out to fill that gap.

Author Torrey Podmajersky has written UX content for Google, OfferUp, Xbox, and Microsoft, and teaches at Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts (SVC), so she has some great advice to offer in this area. In Strategic Writing for UX, she explains how UX text patterns work with different voices, and how to produce text that’s purposeful, concise, conversational, and clear.

3. Building Design Systems

Design systems have been probably the most discussed topic among UX professionals in 2019. Essentially, they allow a design team builds a framework that meets their needs by bringing together all of the critical design components, including style guides, pattern and UI libraries, CSS frameworks and other resources, in one place.

Written by two leaders in the field, Sarrah Vesselov, and Taurie Davis, this book guides you through the process of defining a design language that can be understood across teams and explains how to sell it to key stakeholders and other contributors.

4. Design for How People Think

UX design is ultimately about user behavior, but how much do we really know about how people really think and act? This book aims to delve deeper into brain psychology to provide some practical answers.

John Whalen has a background as a psychology professor and now works as a strategic product/service researcher and designer, so he's the perfect person to write it. In the book, he shows you how anyone on your team, without any specialized training in psychology, can conduct what he calls "contextual interviews" to unlock insights into customer behavior.

5. Ruined by Design

Most books about UX are relentlessly positive and upbeat, and that can sometimes get a bit wearing. So here’s the perfect antidote, in the form of ever-controversial web designer Mike Monteiro.

As a starting point, he points out sardonically that “The world is working exactly as we designed it”. For example, “Facebook’s privacy settings, which have outed gay teens to their conservative parents, are working exactly as designed. Their ‘real names’ initiative, which makes it easier for stalkers to re-find their victims, is working exactly as designed.

6. Emotionally Intelligent Design

Another publication probing the moral and ethical issues of UX design, this book explores new research about emotion and examines how design can help promote emotional well-being.

To help you do so, author Pamela Pavliscak, a design researcher and advisor to Fortune 500, examines new technology that engages emotion, and new emotional design practices. In the process, she draws on both her own research and the latest thinking in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics.

7. Think Like a UX Researcher

People are unpredictable, and so second-guessing how users are likely to behave in using your website or app is the road to failure. Instead, research is vital, but what’s the best way to go about it?

This book takes a deep dive into the theory and practice of UX research and offers practical advice on how to plan and conduct it, analyze data, and persuade people to take action based on the results.

Written by researchers David Travis and Philip Hodgson, who have 55 years experience between them, as well as each holding a PhD in Experimental Psychology, this book would be useful to UX researchers, designers, project managers, scrum masters, business analysts, and marketing managers.

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How connectivity is driving the Future of the Car?

While the automation is knocking on our doors, it is expected to transform the cars parked in our garages soon. The automotive industry is currently going through a radical transformation with artificial intelligence and other technologies.

This transformation will use artificial intelligence to change the way you drive and experience the drive through a connected car. And not only revitalize the experience but also ensure the safety and security of passengers as well. So, buckle up your seatbelts and be ready to drive to the future.

Self-Driving Cars

Technology had taken leaps when they designed the first self-driving car. And you can expect the future to be even better at it. The driver wouldn’t even need, and the car will drive itself. So imagine yourself sitting on your couch enjoying all the entertainment, doing your work and reaching the destination at the same time without hiring any chauffeur. And when we talk about the entertainment, we mean from music to lighting you can adjust anything as per your mood.

Smart Sensors

Innovation in sensors is continued for a long time now. These sensors will drive the driverless car. The technology will use the sensors to determine the surroundings and let the car perform based on it. And other sensors like LiDAR, radar, cameras and ultrasonic also help in managing the safety and security of the vehicle. 

Recently, Raven has developed a Raven dash camera that sets on the dashboard and gives information about your car, including car problems, speed, fuel level, and much more to ensure your safety.

Communicating Cars

The cars are expected to build a real connection with other cars and the traffic lights with the help of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) technology using the satellite. This can be helpful in preventing major accidents from happening by adjusting the vehicle speed and distance based on the situations and also ease the traffic congestion.

Safety can be improved even better with V2P “Vehicle to Pedestrian” technology which senses information about its environment and communicates it to other vehicles, infrastructure, and personal mobile devices. You can communicate with the outer world using the care assistants to schedule meetings, navigate to the desired location, or send text messages with voice commands, especially when your car doesn’t drive itself.

Telematics

Telematics is an essential tool for assessing the behavior of drivers for a variety of purposes. You can use telematics to determine the insurance premium of a driver based on the driving pattern. And automotive companies can use telematics to monitor the maintenance service and vehicle diagnosis.
Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet has entered our world and majorly impacted our lifestyles and now is the time it will enter in our car. Many companies have already started working on a car with access to the internet and the cloud.
Technologies like the GPS navigation system, keyless ignitions, and camera systems are expected to improve by connecting them to the internet. This will improve the overall experience of passengers. Another technology V2C “Vehicle to Cloud” exchanges information about the vehicle with a cloud system and connects with industries like energy, transportation, and smart homes to make use of IoT.

Brain to Vehicle Technology

Technology can also read a human’s brain to judge their decisions. AI can analyze and anticipate the decisions of a human brain and warn them if their decision is not appropriate. This technology helps in preventing major accidents and warns about unfair driving practices. It works with a headset dotted with electrodes that press directly against the scalp of your body.

Now, that we have discussed the expected technologies let’s see the timeline of the implementation of these technologies in our lives. We expect it to happen in a phased manner. The stages of achieving the ultimate connected autonomous car will be as follows:

Stage 1: Connecting the car

The first step towards the future begins with connecting the car with the internet and other concierge services. Also connecting the car with Bluetooth will help drivers make and receive hands-free calls. Many car manufacturers have already achieved this stage with existing cars.

Stage 2: Infotainment

The next stage is to work on the infotainment system of cars. Smartphone and other mobile apps have special designs to suit the most entertaining infotainment system. And considering the recent developments in technology, a well-advanced infotainment system has become a requirement for most of the cars. A good infotainment system connects with most of the apps and provides the best entertainment you could expect.

Stage 3: Software and Data Management

The development in this stage is a lot left. In this step, car technology takes a leap forward by implementing all the software updates. And to update your car, you don’t need to visit any service center you could do that just sitting in your car through the internet. This whole process is conducted over the air (OTA) without facing any inconvenience at all.

Stage 4: Autonomous Cars

The last and final step towards the ultimate connected car is to get it autonomous operational. The most predictable future today lies in a car that drives without any human interference, provides a great infotainment system and connects to the internet. With the introduction of artificial intelligence, new transportation models, and enhanced user experience, the automotive industry is going through a radical transformation.

That’s all that we could think about how connectivity will drive the future of the car. And when it comes to predicting the future, there is no full stop to your imagination. And how exactly will you be driving your car in the next few years we really don’t know, but we really know where it is leading.

Summing Up

In conclusion, vehicle connectivity is essential to most of the major automotive technological advancements over the last 1-2 decades and will continue to impact the way people feel transportation going forward.

Day by day, we are moving closer to the ultimate car experience with the support of artificial intelligence, connected to the internet and the car driving itself. We know that no matter what changes happen the overall experience of traveling in a car will only get better from what it is now. So we hope you enjoy this untravelled, unseen road towards the future while connectivity drives it for you.

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6 Websites that use Illustration Brilliantly

If you want your website to be on-trend, bringing in some illustration is the perfect way to keep things looking bang up-to-date. It pays to do things properly, though, and software development to remember that illustration's more than just decoration.

The best use of illustration online can be seen when the designers have clearly put a lot of thought into how it can work with – and even enhance – the site's content or a brand's message. Here are six recent examples that have wowed us with their effective use of illustration.

1. Otis Studios

Otis Studios makes music – for adverts, films, games, and dance floors – and also specializes in sound design. The studio prides itself on writing, recording and re-recording until everybody's stoked, and its passion for music and sound comes across in the very first thing you see when you hit its site.

Created by Feral, it opens with an illustrated splash screen stating in rough brush strokes that UX-UI, accompanied by scratchy ink sketches of music gear that we're not going to even attempt to name. The real kicker is how the elements in the composition are arranged in 3D and move in response to the mouse, bringing the page to life and making it near-impossible not to scroll down to find out more.

2. The Food Dispensary

Canberra's Food Dispensary produces a tiny range of ready-made meals that are a cut above the rest. It describes itself as a kitchen of real people working with real ingredients and goes to great pains to point out that everything it produces is handmade, from its pasta to its ricotta and pancetta.

The Food Dispensary's site, built by Swell, reflects that handmade ethos; a swish parallax site peppered with mouth-watering photography, it's grounded with simple pencil sketches of ingredients on a background reminiscent of rough, recycled paper.

03. USELESS

Judicious use of illustration can really help get your message across quickly, and USELESS, built by Nice and Serious, does an excellent job in that regard. It uses illustration to highlight the problem of single-use plastic, opening with a torrent of plastic cups, bottles and carrier bags that pile up at the bottom of the page (and that you can try to shift with your cursor), accompanied by horrifying stats on the amount of disposable plastic thrown away in the UK every year.

04. A Map of Myth, Legend & Folklore

In an online world where it's all too easy to just bang in a boring Google map, we love this beautiful illustrated map of myth, legend, and folklore from English Heritage.

It's an engrossing guide to some of England's historic sites and the fascinating stories behind them, showcasing a small sample of the 400 sites in English Heritage's care, and also featuring local myths and legends as well as upcoming events across the country.

5. Sparky

Sparky is a marketing agency that promises to provide a fresh set of eyes for powerful brands to help them maximise moments, elevate experiences and ignite innovation, and its new site by Angle2 uses illustration to really drive that point home.

The opening page is scattered with pairs of adorable cartoon eyes in various styles that animate when you mouse over them; a neat gimmick that doesn't feel forced, and which should encourage visitors to scroll down and discover how Sparky can help their brands.

6. Finding ctrl

With the World Wide Web having celebrated its 30th birthday in March, and the internet itself coming up for its 50th in October, Nesta has put together Finding ctrl:, an 'online visions' book for the European Commission's Next Generation Internet initiative.

It's a weighty subject, and it's made more inviting thanks to a site built by ToyFight that brings in illustrations and particle-based 3D objects to set the tone for each article and provide visual interest.

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8 Amazing new Graphic Design tutorials

Whether you're just starting out in graphic design or a seasoned pro, there's always something new to learn if you want to stay ahead of the game. Graphic design's such a vast discipline covering so many different areas that it's hard to know it all, so learning some new skills is always time well spent.

We've scoured the web for some of the latest and greatest graphic design tutorials, covering everything from basic techniques through to 3D art and logo design. Read on to level up your skills.

1. How to make icons

Icons seem like they ought to be easy to create – they're tiny, after all – but their minuscule size means that they need to work hard to stand out on a crowded.

This tutorial on how to make icons starts with the very basics of what icons are and what purposes they serve and goes on to cover everything you need to know about creating a pixel-perfect icon that does its job brilliantly.

2. How to solve a tricky brief

One of the toughest challenges for a graphic designer is likely to crop up before you even sit down at your desk. Some briefs are a joy to work with, while others can leave you utterly confused and unsure about how in the hell you're supposed to deliver.

That's why we spoke to some top designers at Jack Renwick Studio to get their pro tips on how to solve a tricky brief; if a brief's ever left you thinking about giving it all up to work in a bank, this will set you straight.

3. Create a gradient logo in Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is best known for its vector abilities, but you can also do amazing things with its gradient tools, transforming line-based graphics into colorful and beautifully shaded imagery.

This tutorial by Dansky teaches you how to harness these tools to create a gradient logo in Illustrator; it's a perfect introduction to gradients and also provides some essential insight into making a professional-looking logo.

4. How to resize an image in Photoshop

On the surface, resizing an image in Photoshop is an easy and straightforward job, but if you're just starting out in design then you might not be aware of the many options it has to offer for resizing images, some of which may suit an individual task better than the standard resize tool.

5. How to create line patterns in Illustrator

If you want to create a great-looking repeat pattern to use in your designs, Illustrator is the perfect tool to help you do it.

In this beginner-level tutorial you'll learn how to create line patterns in Illustrator, starting with a few basic shape and building them up into intricate, colourful patterns that you can export as swatches and use in any design.

6. How to make a brochure

People keep claiming that print is dead, but it's still hard to beat a good old-fashioned brochure as a marketing technique, and most designers will find themselves making a lot of brochures over the course of their careers.

While it's not the most glamorous job in the world, a beautifully designed brochure can be a boon to a client and lead to more commissions down the line, so it pays to go the extra mile.

7. How to use the new isometric drawing tools in Affinity Designer 1.7

Illustrator's still the go-to vector package for designers, but Serif's Affinity Designer is giving it a run for its money with a strong set of tools and a friendly price point.

If you're intrigued by this plucky young challenger, this tutorial from Envato is worth a look; it demonstrates how to use Affinity Designer's new isometric drawing tools to create fantastically on-trend designs in isometric 3D.

8. Create a stack of 3D characters in Photoshop

Photoshop's 3D tools may not be a match for professional 3D packages, but you can still use them to add impressive-looking 3D elements to your designs.

Starting with some flat text and using Photoshop's 3D extrusion tools, it walks you through creating a set of long, extruded character shapes of different lengths, then adding life to them with a realistic perspective, shading, and lighting.

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Top 7 best iPad apps for Designers

The iPad apps for designers that work best enable creatives to work just as well as they would on a laptop. But knowing which apps you should add to make your life as a creative professional better is key, which is why we've put together this list of suggestions.

Of course, there's a lot to be said for having the best drawing apps for iPad, but as you know, there's plenty more to the life of a creative pro than dreaming up ideas on a sketchpad.

So although we do have a small number of drawing apps on our list, these really are the best iPad apps for designers to take care of all aspects of the job.

01. Affinity Designer

• Requirements: iOS 11.1 or later
• Price: $19.99/£19.99

Affinity Designer is one of the most ambitious creative apps for the iPad. Taking all of the power and precision that the desktop version is known for and migrating it to the iPad, this iteration of Affinity Designer has been specially upgraded to fit the device. Affinity Designer is perfect for any part of the workflow and boasts over 100 brushes.

02. Pixelmator

• Requirements: iOS 9.1 or later
• Price: $4.99/£4.99

Packed with image editing and enhancement tools, Pixelmator contains everything you need for adjusting assets on the go. Thanks to Drag and Drop support, users can move images and graphics between iPad and other apps easily. 

Alternatively, you can store images in the iCloud Drive and access them anywhere. By taking advantage of the latest iOS 12 technologies, Pixelmator offers best-in-class Photoshop file support, precision drawing and painting with the Apple Pencil, plus much more.

03. Trello

• Requirements: iOS 11.0 or later
• Price: Free (IAPs)

Whether you're coordinating a big design project or just trying to organize a cleaning rota, Trello is a great tool for getting stuff done and staying organized. It makes it easy to invite people to collaborate on projects, and you can create custom boards for whatever you're working on. The iPad app is optimized for iPad Pro with plenty of tweaks to take advantage of its larger screen, and if you absolutely need project updates wherever you are, there are also apps for Apple Watch and even iMessage.

04. Procreate

• Requirements: iOS 12 or later
• $9.99/£9.49

Procreate is a truly wonderful natural media app, and it's very fast – especially on more recent iPads where it can take advantage of their huge power. What's more, it's optimized for the iPad Pro, with massive, ultra-hi-definition canvases, and will work with the Apple Pencil too. Procreate has also recently had an upgrade, and now includes the much-anticipated Text tool.

05. Parallels Access

• Requirements: iOS 9.0 or later
• Price: Free (IAPs)

However good an iPad app is, sometimes you just really need to use one of your full-fat desktop packages. And while there are plenty of remote desktop apps such as TeamViewer that you can use to get to your actual desktop from your iPad, they're heavy on bandwidth and there's something not quite right about wrangling a mouse-driven interface on a touchscreen.

Parallels Access does things a bit differently, giving you full access to your desktop and using its special 'Application' technology to render your desktop apps as native apps, making them much easier to use on the go and also ensuring you can work without a fast internet connection.

06. Noteshelf

• Requirements: iOS 12.0 or later
• Price: $9.99/£9.99

If what you want is the digital equivalent of a sketchbook, rather than a canvas – somewhere to write stuff down, doodle out a few ideas, take notes in a meeting – get Noteshelf. Its ability to mix typed, audio and handwritten notes – with beautiful ink effects – annotate documents and images, and even define custom paper designs to make it easy to create, say, iPhone wireframes for sketching app designs makes it an extremely handy iPad app for designers. It pairs with a range of third-party styluses too, for pressure sensitivity and wrist rejection.

07. Adobe Comp CC

• Requirements: iOS 9.0 or later
• Price: Free

Adobe makes loads of apps for iOS, but this one is especially great on the iPad. With it, you can quickly and easily create mockups and wireframes for designs for web design, print and more, and you can export them to Creative Cloud stablemates InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop to work them up further. It's a great way to make productive use of commute time, say – though of course just staring blankly out of the window can be just as effective!

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8 Free design Resources to bookmark

Whatever area of design you work in, it's always useful to have some free design resources within easy reach. You might have a sizeable collection of all the design assets you need, but access to plenty of great stuff for free can be welcome if an exciting commission comes along that's a little out of your comfort zone, or if you're in the mood to try out some new visual styles or some experimental design.

We've picked out 10 brilliant free design resources online, where you can find all manner of useful assets such as fonts, icons, backgrounds and more. You might not need them right now, but it would pay to bookmark them today so you can quickly find them again when the need arises.

01. Paaatterns

For a quick and good-looking fix when you're in need of a background for a website, a design for a business card or abstract graphics for any other design projects, Paaatterns from LStore could be a lifesaver. It's a free collection of beautiful patterns, consisting of 22 carefully-crafted designs, ready to customize and edit in Sketch, Figma, Adobe XD or Illustrator. If you like what you see, be sure to check out LS's other design tools.

02. DesignBundles

DesignBundles offers great deals on all manner of design elements, including graphic packs, illustrations, icons, fonts and templates, and as well as its assorted design bargains it also has a huge collection of free design elements to download. You'll need to register for a free account to get your hands on them, but it's worth the effort as not only are these elements available for free, most of them are also licensed for commercial use.

03. Ionicons

It's always good to have a decent set of icons to hand, and Ionicons, created by the Ionic Framework team, is a particularly useful one to have around. It consists of a sizeable collection of app icons plus a good helping of logos to go with them, in both Material and iOS styles, for web, Android, iOS and desktop apps. They're completely open-source and MIT licensed, and come in SVG format so you can be sure they'll scale nicely.

04. Humaaans

Flat and funky illustrated figures are a current design trend that's not going away, and the perfect way to liven up all manner of designs. And while you could draw your own, find stock art or commission a custom set of illustrations, here's a much easier solution. Pablo Stanley's Humaaans is a ready-made collection of illustrated figures that comes complete with a design library, so you can mix and match them, and rotate and position their elements any way you like.

05. BeFonts

There is any number of places to find free fonts online, but here's the one you might not have seen before. BeFonts features a stack of great-looking fonts for all applications, from basic serifs and sans-serifs through to more decorative display and script fonts, as well as far-out symbols, bitmap, and retro fonts. They're all free for personal use, and some can be used on commercial projects too.

06. TheHungryJPEG

Another general design resource with loads of fonts, graphics, and templates to download, TheHungryJPEG also has an extensive collection of free resources available. You'll find plenty of background graphics, fonts, clipart and more, and much of it comes with a commercial license too.

07. FreeDesignResources

This one does exactly what it says on the tin. FreeDesignResources is just that, an online collection of free design resources including icons, fonts, templates, and even UI kits. Most appear to be for personal use only, but if you hunt around you'll find a few free goodies that can be put to commercial use.

08. HueSnap

A good palette can be hard to find, but here's a free resource that makes it easy to discover color combinations that are easy on the eye. HueSnap lets you create your own palettes either using a color picker or by uploading an image and selecting shades from that, and it also features a never-ending collection of user-created palettes that you can scroll through until you find the perfect one for your latest project.

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