The busy season is in full swing, with numerous projects heating up. That means you will likely need great tools to manage workflows and keep your design world running smoothly. This roundup is full of fun hidden gems as well to keep you motivated along the way.
Here’s what’s new for designers.
Smart Keys is a Mac-based tool that can help you improve your writing with keyboard shortcuts to fix grammar, translate, shift tone, and get coding help. Create custom shortcuts to keep your workflow going smoothly without the need for copying and pasting into ChatGPT. Some examples of how you can use Smart Keys include removing comments from code, summarizing a text block, adding an emoji, and polishing text by making it more polite.
Does your website or app work as intended? UX Audit Now is a comprehensive UX audit platform designed for businesses of all sizes and industries. The methodology behind the tool is built on more than 12,000 hours of usability testing and UX research, leading to a science-backed approach to identifying and solving UX issues. Use it to get real feedback on your products, benchmark versus competitors, and optimize the online experience at any stage of your website design.
Jo makes user research a little easier with a tool that you can add to your website design to get feedback from real users. Just drop your URL in Jo and it learns about your content, then share the unique link so users can cat directly with Jo. The tool will gather content and feedback so that you can dissect it later. You’ll have valuable user feedback that you can use right away to improve digital projects.
It seems like almost everyone has a podcast these days and if you have hopped on that trend, CreateWise can help improve your audio. With the power of AI, it automatically removes filler words and long silences, generates show notes and highlights, and creates social-ready clips — all in one click. You can create any complementary asset you need for a podcast with this tool.
What would your website look like in the 1990s? The Geocities generator allows you to take a trip back in time and see pretty much any website in the style of a Geocities page. Just type or paste in a URL and watch the transformation.
Scroll Buddy is a fun little widget that turns your scroll bar into a walking stick figure that moves with mouse action. This tool is brand new and in beta and will soon include more actions than just walking, such as rowing, skiing, and diving.
Notion users have been waiting for this – Wonder Sites allows you to use Notion as a CMS to create websites. You can create almost any type of site, from a blog to the directory to a marketplace, and get it launched quickly. The tool allows to you create an unlimited number of sites and includes an AI-based design tool to bring your idea to life. You can try the tool free for 7 days and it will even allow you to migrate a website from WordPress. For designers, the best part is that no technical coding skills are required.
Social media managers and designers will love the accurate social media simulations with Synthetiq. The platform allows you to see how content performs before you post it. Rapidly A/B test in a simulated environment to optimize content.
Start with a prompt in Figma and the Text to Design AI UI Copilot turns it into a real design. The coolest thing about this Figma plugin is that you can watch the results in real-time!
Adobe has moved on from Spark to Express. The user-friendly app has an all-in-one editor that allows you to design almost anything quickly, from social media posts to videos to flyers. It is designed to compete with Canva as an easy option when you don’t need full-fledged software to complete design tasks and includes generative AI features. There’s even a basic free plan for individuals.
Another bonus from Adobe this month. Adobe Fonts has added more than 1,500 typefaces to the collection, including some long-time favorites such as Helvetica, Avenir, and Gotham. Adobe says the update is the largest expansion in five years and includes some of the most popular fonts of all time from Monotype. This is a huge upgrade for those regularly using this tool.
Thoboleh Regular is a condensed sans serif with high readability and some interesting character features. It works nicely as an all caps option for display purposes.
Throneguard Display is a strong slab serif that’s great for large text display. It has a Gothic style and includes 219 characters and 216 glyphs.
Lumined Condensed Display Font is a condensed display typeface that blends futuristic aesthetics with a retro-modern vibe. Its tall, narrow letterforms and geometric structure give it a clean, bold presence—perfect for editorial headlines, posters, album covers, modern branding, and creative projects that demand attention.
Aeroko evokes confidence, this is a typeface that actively encourages you to be courageous and daring. With varying shapes and styles, this is a great option for branding or energetic display usage.
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