Free Web Development Tools for Designers (No Code)
Getting your designs out off Figma into the real world does require a bit of coding magic, circling back to the question:
Should designers code?
Here are three free and awesome tools that will help you implement your designs, support your developers or simply help you get a website live without any development knowledge.
CSS3 Maker by Toptal
The CSS3 Maker is the tool we have been looking for for ages. There’s a difference between designing a feature in Figma or Sketch and actually implementing it in CSS. With the CSS3 Maker, designers can easily test & adjust their design ideas and turn them into developer-ready CSS in seconds.
The team at Toptal made it easy to fiddle with the complex settings of CSS, while at the same time keeping all the options possible. The preview is a bit limited and could offer more than just a simple Div card, but maybe in a next version?
The best part is probably the CSS gallery – giving us a head start (or inspiration) for new styles to discover and play around with.
https://www.toptal.com/developers/css3maker
Email Signature Generator by Hubspot
Designing and developing email signatures that work is a nightmare. To properly make them work, you’d have to get Herbert from the retirement home, the last web developer to properly know HTML 3.1 with its <font>-tags. Thanks for nothing, Outlook.
The good folks at Hubspot however solved this problem for us: Giving us the Email Signature Generator that just works. Just select the template, prefill the information and Copy + Paste the information into your Email client.
Sorry for not calling anymore, Herbert.
https://www.hubspot.com/email-signature-generator
Website Builder by Mailchimp
This video is sponsored by Square… oh wait, stop. Creating cool web sites is our core business – but for small startups without a budget, we usually recommend a website builder to get started.
While Wix and Squarespace are kind of powerful, complex tools, the website builder from Mailchimp is kind of a hidden champion. Optimised for simple, conversion-driven websites, it holds a few proven templates and allows users to create a simple website in no time.
If you don’t expect anything crazy or too orginal, you can get started with a pretty solid website in mere minutes.