10 best new web design tools in September

Making e-commerce work well on mobile is a headache, so this month we're intrigued by Relay, a new API from Stripe. It enables you to put 'Buy' buttons with instant purchase functionality in lots of interesting places, including tweets! People can then buy things quickly without using shopping carts or getting pushed to another site.

There are also tools for enhancing the functionality of Slack, exploring unusual fonts and a couple of utilities for working with colour.

01. Amazon Web Services in plain English

A great guide to the jargon of AWS

A great guide to the jargon of AWS

AWS is known for its non-standard nomenclature, so this handy guide has been put together to help you get to grips with things more easily. It starts with the basics and explains what all the jargon means and what each thing would have probably been called if it was part of any other service. A nice cheat sheet to get you going.

02. Write SVG

Write SVGs directly in CSS

Write SVGs directly in CSS

Developer Sara Soueidan was singing the praises of this PostCSS plugin that enables you to write SVGs directly in CSS. In her tweet, Soueidan appeals for someone to make an equivalent for Sass.

03. Awesome

Boost Slack's power with this handy tool

Boost Slack's power with this handy tool

Modestly titled Awesome is a 'sidekick' for Slack that adds loads of extra functionality such as conversation summaries, private groups, statuses, scheduled messages and more. It’s in private alpha at the moment, but you can put your name down to get an invitation.

04. Flowchart.js

A simple way to draw flowcharts with code

A simple way to draw flowcharts with code

Like flowcharts? Like JavaScript? Then you will probably like this. Enter simple text instructions and it will draw SVG flowchart diagrams based on those instructions. It depends on Raphaël, a small library that helps you to work with vector graphics.

05. Relay

Convenient for developers and customers

Convenient for developers and customers

The Relay API from Stripe aims to solve the problem of shopping carts on mobile being tedious to use. It provides a way for shops to enable instant purchases from within other people’s apps; Twitter, for example, is using Relay to allow people to sell things from within tweets via a 'Buy' button.

06. color

Build a palette with color

Build a palette with color

This fun colour picker lets you explore colours by moving your mouse around the screen; left to right for hue, up and down for lightness and scroll for saturation. Click to keep your colour as a bar on the side, and keep on clicking to build up your palette.

07. rucksack

Speed up your CSS coding

Speed up your CSS coding

rucksack adds handy features to CSS that remove lots of hassle. There's responsive typography (just do font-size: responsive;), legacy fallbacks, automatic prefixing, hex RGBA shortcuts and many other interesting things. It's built on PostCSS.

08. Web Field Manual

A round-up of web design resources

A round-up of web design resources

Everything you need to immerse yourself in the plethora of online resources for web designers is contained within this beautifully designed site, along with inspirational quotes from great designers. Even if you stay up to date with the latest resources you’re bound to discover a new gem on here.

09. HTML Color Codes

Everything you need to know about HTML colour codes

Everything you need to know about HTML colour codes

This comprehensive guide to HTML colour codes will help you create palettes especially for Material Design and flat design, and has tutorials and other useful colour-related resources. There's also the web safe colour chart which helps you to choose colours that will be displayed consistently across all browser.

10. Use & Modify

Weird fonts you can tinker with

Weird fonts you can tinker with

If you're looking for an unusual typeface this could be a good starting point. The site bills itself as "a personal selection of beautiful, classy, punk, professional, incomplete, weird typefaces", and they're all open source so you can use and modify them, as the name suggests.

Words: Tanya Combrinck

Tanya Combrinck has been writing about the web for over four years, and the internet is actually her preferred method of interacting with humanity. You can find her on Twitter at @tanyacombrinck.

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The Creative Bloq team is made up of a group of design fans, and has changed and evolved since Creative Bloq began back in 2012. The current website team consists of eight full-time members of staff: Editor Georgia Coggan, Deputy Editor Rosie Hilder, Deals Editor Beren Neale, Senior News Editor Daniel Piper, Digital Arts and Design Editor Ian Dean, Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur Einarsson and Ecommerce Writer Beth Nicholls and Staff Writer Natalie Fear, as well as a roster of freelancers from around the world. The 3D World and ImagineFX magazine teams also pitch in, ensuring that content from 3D World and ImagineFX is represented on Creative Bloq.