As a designer, you want and need the best tools available. There are a ton of options out there for both beginners and experienced designers. We combed through the Internet to bring you this mix of free tools to add to your toolkit. Enjoy!

Brackets

This open source program was developed by Adobe to help designers edit code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It’s great because it has a very clean look by not cluttering your workspace with a variety of buttons. Instead, it focuses on using shortcuts and live previews to help you throughout. There are a bunch of extensions as well, so it has become pretty useful for beginning and experienced designers alike.

OpenBEXI

The most unique feature of this WYSIWYG HTML editor is that it lets you drag and drop different elements. It’s really useful if you want to have a quick visual of what you are creating. This editor lets you edit CSS and add scripts as well. Not stopping there, it has an FTP client that will upload everything for you when you have finished your design.

GIMP

GIMP is a great free image editor. It has a variety of powerful tools you would find in paid solutions. For example, it provides great color editing tools, tons of special effects, photo retouching, and much more! Honestly, you will be surprised by how many features this free program has.

Firebug

This FireFox extension is one of the most useful tools I have come across for designers, developers, and anyone managing a company website. It lets you view the CSS and HTML of any page, while displaying tweaks in real time. You need to use an actual editor to change the code, but this is useful for playing around with layouts without accidentally making a mistake.