freelance resources

Whether you’re a freelancer or working at an agency, consulting in the design industry can be a tricky career path to navigation. That’s why it’s our goal to provide the resources and support you need to be successful while pursuing your creative passion.

We’ve compiled some of our readers’ favorite articles from the Shopify Web Design and Development Blog, into a single post. Now you can spend less time searching for useful content, and more time growing your business. Enjoy!

Tools and Resources

5 of the Best Prototyping Tools to Test Out Your Web and Mobile Designs

Prototyping has risen in popularity as a key stage in the design process of most web professionals. But with so many tools available for designers, it can be tough choosing the right one for your needs. Luckily, we’ve pulled together a list of our favorites, and reviewed them to help make the decision a little easier.

Building themes for your clients? Learn more about Shopify metafields.

The Ultimate List of Online Color Palette Generators for Web Design

Selecting the perfect color palette can take a significant amount of time and research. Many designers and developers rely on palette generators to help them speed up the creative brainstorming process. This article lists out the best color palette generators on the web, in hopes that you’ll be able to discover the perfect palette for your next project.

15 Funny Lorem Ipsum Generators to Shake Up Your Design Mockups

No mockup would be complete without some placeholder text, yet constantly using the same bland Latin-based lorem ipsum can become mundane. That’s why we’ve gathered 15 of the more creative, and hilarious, lorem ipsum generators to help you shake up your next design mockup.

5 Tools for Headache-Free Freelancer Invoicing

Invoicing as a freelancer can be painful if you aren’t sure where to start. Luckily, there are tons of invoicing tools out there that can help you take control of your project billing. We’ve reviewed several invoicing softwares, and shared our thoughts on which may be best for your business.

9 Tools for Website Accessibility Testing

Accessibility has become an important topic in the world of web design and development. It’s now more important than ever that your designs are accessible to all users — regardless of any impairment. Here are nine tools that you can use to evaluate your websites against a variety of accessibility criteria.

12 Incredible Resources for Downloading Icon Packs

Icons can be a great way to effectively communicate with your site visitors, highlight important content, and enhance your overall design. While you can spend time designing your own icon sets, there are countless websites that offer premium and free packs for download. Here’s a great list of resources, where you can find and download icon packs for your next design.

6 of the Best Time Tracking Apps for Designers, Developers, and Agencies

Time tracking is the bane of every freelancer or agency designer’s existence. It can be extremely time-consuming and tedious, at the best of times. Luckily, tons of apps exist that can transform the painful process of tracking billable hours, into a simple part of your workflow. This article rounds up our favorite time tracking apps currently on the market.

7 Handy Websites for Free Stock Videos

Video has become an essential design element for every website. Its ability to convey brand messaging, and engage customers, makes it the perfect choice for communicating with ecommerce customers. However, many designers lack the technical skill required for creating their own video footage. That’s why we’ve pulled together seven of the best websites for finding free, high-quality stock videos.

10 Web Design Tools to Discover Beautiful Fonts for Your Next Project

Typography is a crucial part of every design. The visual appearance of your copy is almost as important as the copy itself. But with thousands of fonts available at the click of a button, how do you choose which to use in your projects? We’ve compiled our favorite font finding resources to help you discover the perfect typography for your next project.

10 Bookmark-Worthy Websites for Free Stock Photography

With so many low-quality images online, finding the right photography for a site, or a mockup, can be a painful process. This article lists ten bookmark-worthy websites for stock photos to help you differentiate the good from the bad, and the bad from the plain ugly.

Working with Shopify

The Essential List of Resources for Shopify Theme Developers

If you’re looking to design your own theme for Shopify, then look no further. We’ve compiled all the best theme development resources, articles, and tutorials into a single article so you can jump start your Shopify projects.

An Overview of Liquid: Shopify’s Templating Language

If you’ve ever tried to build or customize a Shopify theme, then you’ve probably come across Liquid. Liquid — the templating language used on all Shopify stores (and many other web applications) — can appear daunting at first glance, but in reality is quite simple to learn. This article will teach you the basics of Liquid, so that you have the foundation needed to take your theme development to the next level.

3 Simple Steps for Setting Up a Local Shopify Theme Development Environment

By default, Shopify does not allow local development for its third-party developers. While this feature is not natively supported, there are some ways to work around this workflow challenge. In this article, we outline how you can set up a local Shopify theme development environment of your own.

How to Design a Wholesale Solution for an Ecommerce Store

Designing an ecommerce website can be tough at times, but creating a wholesale version of the same site comes with a whole slew of new challenges. To help you overcome them, we’ve put together this brief tutorial that showcases one way you can build a wholesale solution with Shopify.

How to Generate a Shopify API Token

If you are trying to develop a Shopify App, or are trying to offer an existing client extra functionality, you’ll need to start by getting access to Shopify’s API. This tutorial walks you through the simple process of creating a Shopify API Token, so you can start developing immediately.

Project management 101

Starting Your Own Web Design Company: How to Freelance, Find Clients, and Grow Your Business

Deciding to go launch your own web design or development company is a big undertaking. From finding clients to balancing your finances, running your own business can be challenging for first-time creative entrepreneurs. We’ve collected tons of advice for taking on that challenge, and have compiled them into a single article to help you with your transition.

A Web Designer’s Guide to Project Schedules

Planning can make or break your next web design project. Without a solid plan in place, you run the risk of increased scope, missed deadlines, and unhappy clients. This article will teach you the ins and outs of project scheduling, and how you can leverage these strategic documents to keep your team on track while delighting clients.

How to Write a Freelance Contract 101

Contracts are a freelancer’s best friend. They help outline project flows, manage client expectations, and protect you from exploitation. This in-depth article will show you how to create a freelance contract that accomplishes all of these things.

9 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Post-Mortem Meetings

Post-mortems, or debriefs, are an essential part of every project’s workflow. They offer you a chance to review your current progress, as well as share and receive feedback on the quality of your project. This review process can be extremely valuable, so long as you run the meeting right. Here are nine essential tips to make sure you get the most out of your post-mortem meetings.

How to Write a Design Brief to Keep Your Web Design Projects on Track

The design brief is an essential part of every web designer’s toolkit. This project management document can be used to capture vital information from your client about their challenges, and translate that info into actionable insight to drive your design. This article will teach you how to create your own design brief that will help keep your projects on track.

A Web Designer’s Guide to Pricing Strategies

The way you price out your design or development projects can be the deciding factor between a web design business, and one that’s profitable. For many first time consultants, it can be a challenge to decide on the best pricing model for their business. This article walks through three of the most common strategies used by design freelancers, and outlines their individual benefits and weaknesses.

3 Organizational Strategies to Prevent Scope Creep

We’ve all dealt with clients who beg for increases in technical scope, without allocating an appropriate increase in budget or timeline. This can have serious implications on the success of your project, and you business as a whole. But don’t fear, you can safeguard yourself from scope creep if you regularly implement these three strategies in your projects.

5 Questions You Should Ask Your Clients Before Every Web Design Project

Landing new clients brings a rush of excitement for any design team, however projects can quickly run astray if your team isn’t armed with the appropriate information from the start. To avoid this common pitfall, we’ve compiled five essential questions you must ask any new client before starting your next project.

How to Create a Client Intake Process That Saves You Time and Headaches

The way in which you onboard new clients is equally important to how you find them in the first place. That’s why it’s important to build a system that helps you differentiate the good projects from the bad ones, while smoothly bringing new clients up to speed with your organizational process. This in-depth article shows you how to create a client intake system that will make your life as a freelancer, or agency employee, much easier.

How A/B Testing Will Make You a Better Web Designer

Building and launching an ecommerce store is just the start. For you to really provide value to your clients, you need to offer them post-launch optimization to help boost conversion rates. This brief article will introduce you to the world of A/B testing, and will show you why it makes you a better web designer.

Design and inspiration

Font Pairing for Designers 101, Plus 10 Free Font Pairing Tools

Pairing fonts that complement one another requires a little more work than most work believe. Two fonts can look beautiful on their own, but disastrous when paired together. Luckily, we've pulled together this font pairing overview so you can have an easier time picking out the perfect typographic combination for your next design.

10 Beautiful Ecommerce Website Color Schemes

Color schemes play an integral role in every website, but have a unique influence when used in ecommerce. We’ve compiled a few of our favorite ecommerce websites with beautiful color schemes to help inspire your next design.

99 Beautiful Ecommerce Website Designs

Sometimes you just need a little inspiration to get your creative juices flowing — and what better place to look than existing designs? We’ve compiled 99 of the most creative and visually stunning ecommerce websites on the web, in one place, to help you when planning your next design.

6 Tools to Create Beautifully Designed Mood Boards

Mood boarding is a creative brainstorming process that allows you to capture and communicate any initial concepts or ideas surrounding a specific project. These six tools will help you arrange your visual inspiration into unified, beautiful mood boards.

12 Beautiful Portfolio Websites to Inspire Your Own Design

Your portfolio site says a lot about you as a designer. While prospective clients will often research your existing and previous client roster, they will also assess your skill as a designer, based on the appearance of your own website. We’ve collected twelve of the most beautiful and functional portfolio websites out there to help inspire you to rethink your own design.

15 Web Design Podcasts You Need to Listen to in 2016

Podcasts have made a major comeback in the past few years. Their auditory format make them a great way to entertain yourself, or learn something new when you’re on the go. Here are our 15 favorite web design podcasts that you should listen to in 2016, and beyond.

5 Killer Web Design Trends to Watch in 2016

Web design is one of the most rapidly evolving spaces in the creative industry. Every year new design patterns, schools of thought, and technologies emerge that allow designers and developers alike to challenge the status quo. This article features five of the most prominent web design trends from the start of 2016.

10 Places to Find Design Inspiration Online

Inspiration is a critical part of any web designer’s creative process. While we all find inspiration in our own ways, there are a few resources online that any designer would find useful. We’ve compiled our ten favorites into this article to help you find your own inspiration.

10 Stylish Ecommerce Website Design from the Fashion World

Nothing is more chic and polished than the world of fashion. To help inspire your next design, we’ve compiled a collection of some stylish ecommerce websites from the world of fashion and apparel.

How to Create a Compelling Web Design Portfolio

Every web designer needs a great web design portfolio site. Your portfolio is your platform to show off your best work, and communicate your value as a design consultant. To make sure you get the most out of your portfolio, here are some important tips to keep in mind when designing it.

What is Markdown Syntax?

Markdown is a formatting syntax that has become increasingly more popular in the past few years. In this article, we examine the role of markdown, some basic syntax, and how you can use it in your daily development workflow.

Looking for other resources not listed here? Let us know in the comments below.

Simon Heaton