Looking for some cool online design tools? Thanks to an ongoing collaboration with Italian stylish and avant-garde looking magazine 7thFloor, I had recently put together for the Milan "Design week" a selection of cool design tools for seven types of designers, which was published on their newly re-designed April issue.

Photo credit: Krishnac

I have now taken that list and edited, expanded it and upgraded it to include quite a few more tools that, if you don't know yet about them, can really provide great support in simplifying certain complex and often expensive tasks.

I have selected these tools, not so much with the professional designers in mind, but thinking of you, the small and independent media publishers, who greatly enjoy the design side of things, visual communication and who love to have some extra tools with which to experiment and communicate more effectively.

Here, in a unique special edition, upgraded and expanded from the original set that went in print on the design issue of Italy's 7thFloor magazine 7thfloor.

Cool designer's tools for seven design roles:

Cool Tools For Seven Design Roles

Cool, rare designers tools for seven design applications.

1) Design Director

application: Visual image research
Discover visual gems in new and unexpected ways.

• Piclens


• Xcavator


• Oskope

2) Design Editor

application: Online Digital Image Editing
Web-based digital image editing tools to work anytime, anywhere

• Photoshop Express


• Piknik


• Pikipimp


• Fotocrib

3) Art Director

application: At-a-distance Design Collaboration and Review
Review collaboratively and in real-time with annotations and mark-up notes.

• Thinkature


• ConceptShare


• Vyew


• Octopz


• ProofHQ

4) Design Coder

application: Browser Compatibility Testing
Test new web page designs across all different browser, resolutions and OSes.

• Browsershots


• Browsercam


• Litmus

5) Usability Designer

application: Visual Web-Browsing Behavior Analysis
Visualize what readers actually watch and do on your web pages.

• RobotReplay


• CrazyEgg


• ClickHeat


• ClickDensity


• ClickTale


• Pagealizer


• YSlow


• Clicky


• Eyetracking

also interesting:

• Stompernet Scrutinizer

6) Marketing Designer

Application: Concept Presentations and Screencasting
Showcase your design by recording your screen and adding your own voice comment.

• Jing


• FreeScreenCast.com


• Screencast-o-Matic


• Utipu

7) Multimedia Designer

application: Prototyping and Presentations
Create memorable multimedia presentations.

• SlideRocket


• Scrapblog


• One True Media


• Kaltura

Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published as "Cool Designer's Tools: Digital Design Collection" on June 20th 2008