They say imitation is the best form of flattery and, quite honestly, how many of us come up with a brand new innovative idea? As web designers we tend to take note of other websites and take other sites as inspiration when we put forward designs for our new homepage. This happens at every company. They look around at various sites, gain inspiration, take a bit here, a bit from there and then collate these design ideas to create their own site. The end result is something that looks fairly independent, but not a departure from what's already available across the Internet.

LittleSnapper 1.0.2 is a handy Mac-based commercial tool that you can use to grab websites as you browse the Internet. It simply grabs an image or thumbnail of each site or page and then enables you to store for references purposes, so you can go back later and re-examine. Of course, if you're just an individual, you could use LittleSnapper as an elaborate and well-designed visual bookmarks manager.

LittleSnapper link.

For some reason, the Mac is blessed with excellent web design software. We're big fans of Coda, which we used to design and develop the Downloads newsletter. This tool is designed for web professionals who want to get dirty with their web code can want a tool that will enable them to code, test, evaluate and then upload their pages within the same application.

Espresso 1.0 is a brand new commercial web design tool for the Mac from the developers of the popular CSSEdit software (another tool we use on our Mac). It's very different from other web design applications and will take some getting used to. It offers you everything you need to get started developing your code, will handle your CSS and then will publish (or transfer) your files to your homepage, or server, when you want to go live.

Espresso link.

Designing your own professional website isn't too difficult if you want a simple navigation menu, contact info, a blog and other information. However, making it stand out isn't easy. The most obvious idea is to ask a professional web designer to create a site on your behalf, but in the current climate, this might not be feasible. The alternative is to do it yourself. On the Mac there are a range of web design tools that enable you to select a pre-designed template, drop in your components and publish directly to your server.

Xara Web Designer 5 is a brand new commercial tool designed to offer you the facility to design, build and publish your own site. Start from scratch or choose from one of the many different templates. Next, drop in the text, images and other components and then tweak and test in your web browser. Once finished, simply upload directly to your server and view live.

Xara Web Designer link.

If you aren't particularly experienced in using illustration applications, it can be difficult using a computer to get ideas on screen. For a designer, there's nothing quite like pen and paper for quickly developing ideas and sketches and computers can affect the spontaneity of exploring ideas. One option is to scan in your hand drawn images, but raster images can't be used with popular CAD programs.  

RasterVect 14.4 is a useful application that enables users to convert raster drawings into a more versatile vector format. You can scan hand drawn images, convert them as well as open and edit them in almost any CAD application. The program has four different conversion methods and includes a selection of viewing tools.

RasterVect 14.4 link.

If you develop web code, you'll want to set up a system to manage your code more effectively. Using a text editor doesn't offer enough and requires you to use other apps to preview your code and then upload to your server. Powerful suites such as Dreamweaver are often overkill for many old-school developers who just like to write code simply and quickly. Once you've finalised a web page, you'll want to preview it live, on the fly, before you commit the page. You might need to share web components with other developers, such as style sheets and more.

Espresso 1.0 is a public beta preview of the latest web editing technology for the Mac. It enables you to edit and open multiple code, manage your assets, preview as you develop and even upload to a remote server. You can merge with other code and synchronise files so that you always have the latest version.

We do wonder why these superbly designed web development tools are Mac orientated? The Mac already has Coda, RapidWeaver, CSSEdit and many others.

Espresso link.

There are a number of tools available you can use to paint and create original works with, from basic freeware utilities to expensive, professional applications. Although these applications enable you to paint, they tend to be geared around graphic design and image manipulation rather than helping you to create more artistic pieces. If you are a more creative artist you may find it difficult finding an application that suits a more expressive style, but there are applications worth investigating.  

Artweaver 0.5.6 is an application designed for users who prefer working with a mouse or directly on a tablet. The program offers a number of realistic tools such as pencils, charcoal, chalk and numerous other brush styles. You can import a range of image formats as well as use existing images and photos to create sketches from.

Artweaver 0.5.6 link. 

If you're planning major renovation work on your home, it's advised that you turn to a professional architect or building surveyor to make sure you draft plans that meet building requirements and so the building team do not spend additional time trying to figure your plans. However, the key problem is trying to let your architect know how you want your design to appear when you only have an outline in your head. One solution is to draft your design on paper. The other is to use a specialist home design tool.

Sweet Home 3D 1.4 is a free home design tool that enables you to draft up the outline of your plan (new kitchen, home extension, loft conversion) and then drop in various objects which have been designed by other users - for example, where you want your electric sockets and units to be placed.

Sweet Home link.

Although the majority of our day-to-day work is produced via the Windows operating system, some tasks are simply easier to complete using OS X. Web design is a good example. If you're a novice user, you can use a template-driven web design tool such as Rapidweaver to quickly produce a professional homepage. However, if you know how to code or edit web pages, there are other alternatives that offer you more control over the pages in your site.

Coda 1.5 is a commercial web design tool aimed at the professional market. It enables you to setup and control various sites, edit the pages that make up your site, preview the pages live and then publish to your remote server. The latest Coda 1.5 supports versioning, so more than one person can work on the site and revert back to a previous published page if required.

We used Coda to develop the vnunet.com Downloads Newsletter. It's a well designed application and enables you to quickly make changes to your code and then preview those changes, before you 'make live' your work.

Coda 1.5 link.

These days there's a fine line between shareware and commercial software. What defines commercial software if you can purchase both on the Internet? The clear difference between the two is that commercial software often ships in a box and is available through retail. However, shareware authors can give the impression that their software is available commercially by designing a box image.

True BoxShot 1.7 is a tool that will enable you to create your own 3D box image from either a plain 2D image or from a collection of images, logos and other graphics. It's that easy. If you have your own logo and a stock photo, you're more than half way to creating your own box. This 5-star rated product is worth the small investment if you're going to create one or more box images.

BitFontMaker is a handy online font editor that allows you to build and download your own fonts. Once created, they can then be transported into typical word processing apps the same way you would for any font you’ve downloaded in the past. You can choose to build your own font from scratch, or simply customise a generic template to your liking. The results themselves are surprisingly impressive, although don’t expect to be giving Letraset and the like any worries with your finished product just yet.

Editor and downloads here.