Wednesday, October 21, 2009

100 notable multimedia professionals

You may not know it, but the multimedia field is filled with inspirational gurus. Last year I highlighted 40 of them, but after a year of scouring the Web and interacting with II readers, I felt the need to publish an updated list. Included are 100 notable data visualization specialists, graphics artists, videographers, photographers, interactive designers, programmers, storytellers, visual journalists and Web developers.

I made a conscious decision not to sub-divide this list by specialty because I strongly believe that it is important to be familiar with work done in all visual fields to truly succeed as a multimedia professional. If you are not included on this list, it could be because I have not stumbled across your work (well, that or I just had a momentary memory lapse!). If this is the case, please introduce yourself and your work so I can put you on my radar. In most cases I tried to use producers’ own words for descriptions. However, if there was no about page (shame!), I just wrote a quick synopsis.

NOTE: This is by no means a comprehensive list of all excellent multimedia producers. I have already noticed several names that I meant to include, but I really like the “100″ benchmark. Therefore, there is always room to grow and perhaps next year I will include more …

UPDATED THOUGHTS: I am happy to see the feedback and active dialogue about this list. I feel that there are several points I need to highlight to clarify some questions:

1) The students I included are considered “professionals” in my eyes because most, if not all, have side businesses and are actively taking on freelancing and consulting jobs.
2) This is NOT a “TOP 100″ list! There are big names in the field that are missing. There are lesser known individuals who have not met their potential but who have great talent. I intended for this to be a diverse list of all skill sets and all levels.
3) I am obviously biased, and this selection is based mainly on people I have studied with, worked with, or met along the way. That does NOT mean they are better than others out there who I have not yet had the chance to meet.
4) I made a deliberate decision to include people of all experience level (students, recent graduates, professors, professionals, gurus) as well highlight individuals from around the world.
5) If you are not included on the list, PLEASE do not think that this means I don’t value your work or your contribution to the multimedia field. I am already considering ideas of a user-submitted database of professionals so that everyone can be included. More on that later …

Adam Westbrook
“I’m Adam Westbrook, a freelance multimedia journalist based in London, UK. As well as producing multimedia content for all sorts of people, and lecturing at Kingston University, I also write a popular blog on online and broadcast journalism.”

Alberto Cairo
Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Andrew Devigal
“Since late-October of 2006, I’ve taken on the role as multimedia editor of The New York Times. Besides shaping our approach and presentation for multiple-media storytelling, I see this phase in my career as an opportunity to work daily with dedicated and talented journalists, designers, artists and technologists to push the multimedia envelope in our industry.”

Angela Grant
“I am a multimedia journalist who primarily shoots and edits video for the Web. I also collect and edit audio to produce photo slideshows and create multimedia packages using Adobe Flash. I enjoy using various online tools to create interactive graphics such as maps and quizzes.”

Ashley Zammitt
“Ashley Zammitt is a senior journalism major at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill specializing in multimedia and graphic design.”

Ben Fry
“Ben Fry is director of Seed Visualization and its Phyllotaxis Lab, a design laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts focused on understanding complex data. ”

Benjamin Chesterton
“Benjamin was the Country Director of the BBC World Service trust in Ethiopia.” Now runs DuckRabbit with David White.

Bob Sacha
“I’m multimedia producer at the Emmy and Webby Award winning production studio MediaStorm in NYC.”

Brenda Ann Kenneally
“Kenneally currently resides in Brooklyn, NY, where she works as a freelance photojournalist.”

Brent Foster
“Brent Foster is a freelance photojournalist, multimedia producer, and videographer based in New Delhi, India. Foster was a staff visual journalist for the Los Angeles Times before deciding to give freelancing a try.”

Brian Storm
“Brian Storm is president of MediaStorm, a multimedia production studio based in New York City. Prior to launching MediaStorm in 2005, Storm spent two years as vice president of News, Multimedia & Assignment Services for Corbis, a digital media agency founded and owned by Bill Gates.”

Bryan Perry
“I am a media designer, interactive art director, flash developer, web and print designer – occasional video editor, sound designer, programmer, writer of bad poetry, and one-man band – with over 12 years experience designing creative communications solutions.”

Chad Stevens
“In the past five years, Chad A. Stevens has been a faculty member in the photojournalism program at Western Kentucky University and the International Center of Photography, a master’s degree candidate in the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University, a nomadic photographer and multimedia producer in Africa, a multimedia producer at MediaStorm, and is now a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while working on a documentary about energy in Appalachia.”

Chip Oglesby
“Chip is an award winning photojournalist who’s now working as an online producer for The State Media Company in Columbia, S.C.”

Chris Carmichael
“Chris Carmichael is a multimedia storyteller based in Chapel Hill, N.C. He recently finished his master’s thesis project at the University of North Carolina, where he was awarded a Roy H. Park fellowship in 2006.”

Chris Kirkman
Senior multimedia developer at Swarm Interactive.

Chris Sinclair
“Based in Asia, I develop multimedia packages for the web. I got my start in newspaper photography, and after three lengthy internships and a run at a personal documentary project in Asia, I moved into video.”

Colin Ware
“Colin Ware is Director of the Data Visualization Research Lab which is part of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire.”

Dave Gray
“Dave Gray is the founder and CEO of XPLANE, the visual thinking company. Before founding XPLANE, Dave worked as an infographer for the Los Angeles Daily News, the Los Angeles herald-Examiner, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.”

David White
“David was a contributing editor of Marie Claire. Now works at DuckRabbit with Benjamin Chesterton.”

Desiree Perry
“Senior Online Designer at The St. Petersburg Times.”

Don Wittekind
“Don Wittekind is an assistant professor in the visual communication sequence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before making the move to teaching, he spent 10 years as informational graphics director at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, where he led the creation of the first newspaper-based multimedia graphics department.”

Ehrin Macksey
“A scientist by training and a lover of photography, Ehrin started studying photography after coming to Asia and being influenced by his experiences there.”

Eileen Mignoni
“Eileen Mignoni is a multimedia journalist. She grew up on a farm in Michigan and graduated from Brown with a degree in Classics. She lives in Santiago, Chile. She received her master’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May of 2009.”

Emily Ingram
“Now a senior news-editorial and advertising major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Ingram has worked for print, Web and broadcast news outlets over the past four years.”

Emily Merwin
“Emily Merwin is a visual journalist and artist.”

Eric Ulken
“Former Interactive Editor at LATimes.”

Erica Smith
“I’m a journalist, a designer, a novice programmer … and I eat M&Ms in Roy G Biv order.”

Feilding Cage
“Feilding Cage is a 20-something new media journalist based in New York City and works at TIME.”

Fernanda b. Viégas
“Fernanda B. Viégas is a research scientist and computational designer whose work focuses on the social, collaborative, and artistic aspects of information visualization.”

Grace Koerber
“Grace is currently temping as an interactive designer at Time.com where she is designing and coding custom flash components (AS 3.0), as well as producing interactive graphics.”

Greg Linch
“I’m a storyteller who uses several platforms. With a background in writing and reporting, I’m as comfortable composing a 1,000-word in-depth story for print as I am shooting and editing a three-minute video for the Web. Or harnessing the power of social media.”

Henrik Kastenskov
“Co-founder of Bombay Flying Club.”

Ian Boyle
“Freelance Art Director at Euro RSCG.”

Jacky Myint
“Six Star Studio is home to a selection of work by Jacky Myint, a NYC based interactive designer working at MediaStorm.”

Jason Cooper
“Jason is a New Media Designer and Animation Specialist with an extensive background in web and multimedia development as well as print, brand and identity design and marketing.”

Jesse Foltz
” Jesse Foltz is the producer of Washington Post’s TimeSpace.”

Joe Weiss
“Joe has worked as a photojournalist, multimedia reporter, designer, programmer, producer and editor in print and online media since 1996. He is currently a freelance interactive producer and the developer of Soundslides, a multimedia authoring application.”

John W. Adkisson
“John Adkisson is a freelance documentary photographer currently based in Chapel Hill, N.C.”

John Grimwade
“John Grimwade is the Director of Information Graphics at Conde Nast’s Traveler and Portfolio magazines.”

John Poole
“John W. Poole is a video producer for NPR. In his 10 years as a documentary filmmaker and multimedia journalist, John has covered stories of local, national and international importance.”

Jonathan Jarvis
“Jonathan is an Intereaction and Media Designer interested in examining complex situations and designing new ways of accessing them that are simplier, clearer, and more provocative.”

Jonathan Torgovnik
“Jonathan Torgovnik has been a contract photographer for Newsweek Magazine since 2005, and is on the faculty of the International Center of Photography School in New York.”

Josh Meltzer
“In August 2009, Josh begins work as a professional-in-residence at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY, where he will teach photojournalism and multimedia and help run the Mountain Workshops and Appalachian Cultural Projects there.”

Julia Robinson
“I am an award-winning photojournalist and multimedia producer based in Austin and San Antonio, Texas. I have worked for the Oakland (CA) Tribune, the Daily (IL) Herald, and the Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune.”

Julie Turkewitz
“I’m a versatile journalist who mixes visuals, writing and audio to tell stories and report the news.”

Kat Keene Hogue
“Kat currently lives in New York City and is freelancing as a shooter, editor, and documentary filmmaker.”

Katy Newton
“In 2004, after working in San Francisco’s documentary film and commercial industry for several years, I began producing multimedia stories for a Bay Area newspaper website.”

Keith Jenkins
“Supervising Senior Producer for Multimedia, National Public Radio.”

Kenny Irby
“Kenny is Poynter’s Visual Journalism Group Leader and Director of Diversity. He is an integral figure in visual journalism education, known for his insightful knowledge of photographic storytelling, innovative management ideas, and steadfast ethical thinking.”

Kimberley Porteous
“My roles run the gamut from reporting, editing video and audio, photo editing, working in Flash media and XML and overall project management.” Currently Multimedia Editor at Sydney Morning Herald.

Kristen Novak
“Kristen Novak is a Web Design Developer at USA Today, where she works with new media technologies to design and develop online graphics and data-driven applications.”

Krysten Chambrot
“I’m an editor, designer, multimedia journalist and interactive-graphic maker. My background is in print journalism, and I just finished my master’s degree in Convergence Journalism.”

Laura Lo Forti
“I am a journalist and multimedia producer. I facilitate Digital Storytelling workshops for at risk youth, women in homeless shelters, and whomever has a personal story to tell and to be heard.”

Laura Ruel
“Laura Ruel is an assistant professor in visual communication and multimedia production in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.”

Lisa Pickoff-White
“Currently, I’m a multimedia producer for California Watch, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting. I completed my master’s at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2009.”

Mark S. Luckie
“Mark has produced multimedia and interactive projects for Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times and Contra Costa Times (Ca.). Mark is an alum of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where he studied multimedia journalism.”

McKenna Ewen
“McKenna Ewen, a student at the University of Minnesota, recently founded [Ewen Media] to produce purpose-driven journalism that explores the world in its current state and the world that it could become.”

Megan Taylor
“I am a web/multimedia journalist. I just finished an internship at Stream57, a webcasting and online communications company where I did Flash and Web site branding for clients ranging from small production companies to Fortune 100 corporations.”

Michal Migurski
“I am the technology head at Stamen, a San Francisco design and development studio focused on data visualization and map-making.”

Michelle Langston
“I’m a graduate student in Information Science. In addition to coursework, I am using this time to improve upon my skills in PHP and Adobe Flash (especially with ActionScript 3.0).”

Mike Pletch
“Mike is currently the Manager of Creative Design in the digital media group at The Globe and Mail. He has worked in online media for more than 10 years and he has held several positions including web developer, web designer and information architect.”

Monica Ulmanu
“Ulmanu moved to Chapel Hill from Bucharest, Romania, in the summer of 2008 to pursue a master’s degree in visual communication. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in journalism from the University of Bucharest and has worked as a self-employed Web designer and content provider. She is passionate about information visualization, user interfaces, use of color and type, principles of design and usability.”

Nacho Corbella
“Nacho Corbella is a hard-working and dedicated award winning Multimedia Producer with 5 years of teaching experience and 7 years of content gathering and editing for Multimedia, Print and Television productions.”

Nathan Yao
“I’m a PhD candidate in statistics. I live and breathe data. I also have a background in computer science and design. I do some freelancing from time to time, but mostly I’m just trying to work on my dissertation.”

Nelson Hsu
“Senior Interactive Designer at NPR.”

Nick Scott
“Scott has worked as a multimedia journalist for two metro newspapers, the Winston-Salem Journal and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”

Omid Memarian
“Memarian works as a freelance writer for the IPS News Agency (Inter Press Service) Rooz Online and regularly blogs for the Huffington Post.”

Pamela Chen
“Emmy award-winning producer Pamela Chen manages photography and multimedia for the Open Society Institute, where she is part of the team leading the development of the foundation’s interactive communications and advocacy strategy.”

Pat Davison
“Patrick Davison has been a photographer for two decades. He has held staff positions at major U.S. newspapers and freelanced for dozens of magazines. Davison is now a professor at the University of North Carolina where he combines teaching with photography and multimedia projects.”

Phil Daquila
“Daquila is a mobile journalist/documentary photographer/videographer/producer/writer and visual ethnographer engaged in multi-platform feature reporting.”

Phil Zepeda
“Phil Zepeda is now an interactive producer at MSNBC.com in New York, NY. At NewsU, Zepeda was the 2006-07 Interactive Learning Fellow at News University.”

Poul Madsen
“I am a Danish photojournalist working with news, portrait and feature photography. I am also a multimedia producer and founder of Bombay Flying Club.”

Robert Browman
“Robert Browman is an Emmy Award-winning, freelance multimedia journalist based in Miami, Florida. He is currently working on stories for online, print and radio publication.”

Ron Coddington
“Ron Coddington is a visual journalist whose career spans several major U.S. newspapers, including USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the San Jose Mercury News.”

Rich Beckman
“Rich Beckman is the Knight Chair of Visual Journalism at the School of Communication at the University of Miami and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes in Santiago, Chile.”

Richard Cornish
“I’m a Web designer from the Chicago area who believes in creating clean, usable and accessible Web sites.”

Richard Koci Hernandez
“Richard Koci Hernandez is a national Emmy award winning video and multimedia producer and worked as a photographer at the San Jose Mercury News for 15 years.”

Scott Morgan
“Over the past 10 years, I have designed, developed, and project managed over 300 web sites, e-learning projects, and rich internet applications for many large-scale clients including Yahoo!, Rolex, Dell, Home Depot, Hyatt, Cadbury, Trident, Labatt, General Motors, Microsoft, and DaimlerChrysler.”

Sean Connelley
“I am currently the Senior Multimedia Editor for the Oakland Tribune newspaper in Oakland, CA.”

Seth Gitner
“Seth M. Gitner has been interested in multimedia journalism since 1998 when he first learned about pairing recorded audio with still photographs.”

Shan Carter
“Interactive Graphics Editor at New York Times.”

Sophia Dengo
“Multimedia designer and flash developer currently working at CNN.com.”

Stephen M. Katz
“Stephen M. Katz was named Newspaper Photographer of the Year by POY International in March 2008. He is currently a staff photographer for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, where he has worked since 2004.”

Steve Button
“This is the production & portfolio site of Steve Button. I’m a producer of interactive media and specialize in the integration of media delivery systems.”

Steve Saldivar
Assistant at Knight Digital Media Center “Guided fellows in understanding multimedia tools and social networking for journalists. Assisted staff with setting up software and hardware necessary for training workshops.”

Steven T. King
“Steven King is currently the editor of innovations for washingtonpost.com where he and a team of developers and editors work to produce new and creative ways to tell stories.”

Thad Allender
“I am a photographer and multimedia producer based in Washington, D.C. who embraces the evolution of media and wants to help shape the future of visual journalism.”

Tom Kennedy
“Tom Kennedy is a pioneer in the multimedia industry, doing work that has earned worldwide recognition, awards and peer respect. His vision and creativity have shaped projects that earned the Pulitzer Prize, as well as EMMY, Peabody, and Edward R. Murrow awards while in positions as Managing Editor/Multimedia at The Washington Post Company, Directory of Photography at National Geographic Magazine, and Deputy Graphics Editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer.”

Tim Bradbury
“Introspective. Creative. Perfectionist. Explorer. These are a few words that people use to describe me. As a Thinker, I analyze motive and attempt to find what’s really real without sacrificing integrity to save face. As a Creator, I thrive on building things, mainly websites, that people will enjoy. As a Perfectionist, I strive for perfection and treat each client as if they are my only client. As an Explorer, I love to set foot on new ground and experience new things. My web designs reflect these attributes. ”

Tim Klimowicz
“Interactive producer at MediaStorm.”

Tory Hargro
“I am a visual journalist and multimedia producer currently working as a” multimedia producer at USA Today.

Travis Fox
“Travis Fox is an Emmy Award-winning video producer for The Washington Post. His distinctive web video and multimedia stories have been instrumental in establishing a new form of multimedia storytelling on the Internet.”

Whitney Shefte
Multimedia producer at Washington Post

Will Sullivan
“I’m Will Sullivan, the Interactive Director at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in St. Louis, Missouri and the dude behind Journerdism.com.”

William Couch
“William Couch is a 24-year-old interactive designer and photographer, living in the Washington, D.C. Metro area. He now creates interactive graphics for usatoday.com, alongside collaborating on design and strategy for emerging platforms such as iPhone, Android and social networks.”

Víctor Sanvicente
“He started working professionally in the Internet field seven years ago, at the company Difernet with responsibilities including Flash design and programming. He joined the Terra interactive team in May, 2003 as technical manager. Since 2006, he is the Head of Interactive Applications at Marca.com.”

Vu Nguyen
“I now live in Seattle and work as an interactive editor at msnbc.com. I produce interactive graphics and multimedia features for the site.”

Xaquín González Veira
Assistant Art Director at Newsweek, former Director of online Infographics at elmundo.es

Zach Wise
“Zach Wise is currently a multimedia producer for the New York Times. Before coming to the Times, Wise was the senior multimedia producer for the Las Vegas Sun.”

50 Air Apps and Browser Addons for Web Designers and Developers

As web designers and developers, we’re all aware that some of the simplest of tools can make a huge impact on our day to day workflow and productivity. Using a simple browser plugin or lightweight Adobe AIR application to automate or simplify basic tasks that would otherwise be unnecessarily time consuming and redundant can reduce tasks to a split second click or drag and drop action.

Using Adobe AIR apps and browser add-ons or plugins, you’ll be able to tackle everything from image editing and color scheme management to batch processing images, wireframing, debugging and browser testing.

We’ve selected and listed 50 fantastic Adobe AIR applications, Firefox add-ons and Safari plugins for simplifying tasks and boosting productivity for web designers and developers.

Splashup Light

Splashup Light

[AIR] Splashup Light

Splashup Light brings the online image editor to the desktop for quick image editing. It’s great for low power systems like tablet PC’s, netbooks or laptops but is also quite useful in regular desktop workflows.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: Splashup Light

Livebrush

Livebrush

[AIR] Livebrush

Livebrush is a motion-based drawing app which allows exporting your creations as vector files to be used in other applications. With a plethora of options and tools, you’ll be able to create some pretty great graphics with this app.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: Livebrush

Fractal4D

Fractal4D

[AIR] Fractal4D

With Fractal4D you can create 3D fractals and export them to an application like Adobe Illustrator. You can manipulate the 3D fractal’s movement, intensity, color and many more options.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR
Link: Fractal4D

RichFLV

RichFLV

[AIR] RichFLV

With RichFLV you can edit flv files’ metadata, cuepoints, sound and more. Convert them to swf or mp3. It’s a lightweight application for quick, basic editing.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: RichFLV

e2vector

e2vector

[AIR] e2vector

e2vector is an illustration application capable of layers, masks, and many other powerful tools. You can import and export SVG’s, splice paths, combine shapes and much, much more.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: e2vector

ImageSizer

ImageSizer

[AIR] ImageSizer

Quickly resize, rotate, optimize and rename a batch of images. You can then output the batch as a single zip file. Drag and drop the images you want to edit, customize the settings and you’re done.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: ImageSizer

JustResizeIt!

JustResizeIt!

[AIR] JustResizeIt!

With JustResizeIt! you can drag and drop images to quickly resize them. Use it to create widgets for specific uses like e-mail, web galleries, web designs, templates and lots more.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: JustResizeIt!

kuler desktop

kuler desktop

[AIR] kuler desktop

kuler desktop brings Adobe’s fantastic color scheme creation and management application Kuler, to the desktop. It integrates wonderfully with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign for easy color scheme management and more.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: kuler desktop

colorbrowser

colorbrowser

[AIR] colorbrowser

Store and manage sets of color palettes with colorbrowser. Open or drag and drop ASE files from Kuler or ColourLovers into colorbrowser to add the color palettes to your collection.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR
Link: colorbrowser

COLOURlovers

COLOURlovers

[AIR] COLOURlovers Desktop Color Finder

Search the COLOURlovers entire database from your desktop to find fantastic new color creations and collections. It’s a basic app but very useful when you’re looking for new and creative color schemes for designs and other ideas.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: COLOURlovers Desktop Color Finder

ColorZilla

ColorZilla

[Add-on] ColorZilla

ColorZilla is an advanced eyedropper or colorpicker for Firefox to quickly find RGB color values. It also includes several other features such as full page zoom integration in Firefox 3.5+, viewing, bookmarking and sharing color palettes and much more.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 1.5 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: ColorZilla

Contrast-A

Contrast-A

[AIR] Contrast-A

Interact with a 3-dimensional RGB color space, experiment with color combinations and check the contrast according to WCAG 1.0 and 2.0. Create custom color palettes, print, save and more with Contrast-A.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: Contrast-A

Flickr Desktop Search

Flickr Desktop Search

[AIR] Flickr Desktop Search

One of the best resources available for free images from around the web is Flickr. Flickr Desktop Search brings fast searching capabilities to your desktop. If you search for images on Flickr frequently, this could be a quite helpful app.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: Flickr Desktop Search

Picasa Image Browser

Picasa Image Browser

[AIR] Picasa Image Browser

Like Flickr Desktop Search, Picasa Image Browser lets you browse public images from Picasa Web, also via username, and then download images to your computer.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: Picasa Image Browser

Websnapshot

Websnapshot

[AIR] Websnapshot

Although taking snapshots of websites isn’t very difficult, it does become a painfully redundant task. Websnapshot makes it fast and super easy to save a thumbnail, browser size or full page screenshot in an instant. Customize the default settings and enter the URL or drag it from your browser.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: Websnapshot

FireShot

FireShot

[Add-on] FireShot

FireShot is a web page screenshot add-on but, oh–so much more. FireShot includes editing and annotation tools to modify screenshots with text and graphics. You can even upload the final image to free public screenshot hosting or sent to your external editor of choice.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 2.0 – 3.6b1pre (Windows Only)
Firefox Add-ons: FireShot

Screengrab

Screengrab

[Add-on] Screengrab

Save the browser window, full website, a selection of the website as or just a particular frame as an image. You can optionally copy the image data to the clipboard instead of saving a file.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 3.0 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: Screengrab

Snippely

snippely

[AIR] Snippely

Save lots of text files of snippets like code, quick notes, to-do’s, etc. all over your computer? I know I used to. Snippely takes care of that by providing a quick place to drop and retrieve those snippets. It offers organization, syntax highlighting and more.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR
Link: Snippely

Snippage

Snippage

[AIR] Snippage

With Snippage you can create widgets from parts of websites, which are basically just mini web browsers cropped down called “snips”. If you frequently monitor sections of websites, this would be a great way make them easily accessible without the viewing the full site.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR
Link: Snippage

Pixus

Pixus

[AIR] Pixus

Measure screen objects in pixels with both keyboard and mouse control with Pixus. You can also preview your design with other skins, use the app on multi-screen setups, use quick guides and more.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: Pixus

PixelWindow

PixelWindow

[AIR] PixelWindow

PixelWindow is a very simple application focused on measuring things on your screen. Drag and resize the transparent windows with pixel measurements in the middle. You can adjust opacity, open multiple rulers and much more.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR
Link: PixelWindow

MeasureIt

MeasureIt

[Add-on] MeasureIt

Quickly measure website elements in pixels with the MeasureIt rulers. Use keyboard shortcuts to move the rulers for pixel perfect measurements, change measurement units, measure multiple elements at once, snap to page objects and much more.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 1.0 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: MeasureIt

Pixel Perfect

Pixel Perfect

[Add-on] Pixel Perfect

With Pixel Perfect you can overlay a web composition over the developed HTML/CSS website to ensure quality and accuracy in the final product. This is also a great tool for checking your development progress to make sure you’re on the right track or if you need to make adjustments.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 3.0 – 3.5.*, Firebug
Firefox Add-ons: Pixel Perfect

Em Calculator

Em Calculator

[AIR] Em Calculator

Use Em Calculator to get all the correct values converted from pixels to ems and calculate the correct vertical rhythm for your designs. It’s a simple but effective and useful tool.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR
Link: Em Calculator

Random Pattern

Random Pattern

[AIR] Random Pattern

Render patterns based on specified settings that can be used for a multitude of purposes. Save presets, save output image(s) as SVG and more. Random Pattern is a great app for generating creative patterns fast and easy.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: Random Pattern

Icon Generator

Icon Generator

[AIR] Icon Generator

It’s a simple application but it’s very useful. Icon Generator makes it super easy to create CS3 or web 2.0 style icons. Pick a color, enter your text and save it. It can generate four sizes ranging from 16×16 px to 128×128 px.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: Icon Generator

Flair Builder

Flair Builder

[AIR] FlairBuilder

With FlairBuilder you can prototype and wireframe websites and even implement interactive components. It uses a drag and drop interface and includes a full set of elements and tools for every aspect of your website.

Price: Free 14 day trial or $99 to purchase
Requires: Adobe AIR
Link: FlairBuilder

Boks

Boks

[AIR] Boks

Boks is a visual editor for the Blueprint CSS framework. With it you can easily configure the grid, baseline rythm, CSS, grid.png export HTML layout and a lot more. If you haven’t taken the time to get familiar with a framework like Blueprint CSS, this is a great place to get started.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Link: Boks

GridFox

GridFox

[Add-on] GridFox

GridFox makes it possible to draw a grid on top of a website you’re viewing. It’s great for checking grid-based designs to find the number of columns, column widths and more.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 3.0 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: GridFox

Font Finder

Font Finder

[Add-on] Font Finder

Font Finder lets you quickly pull the CSS styles of text you select in web pages making it super easy to discover new font styling. A simple but very helpful tool for web designers and developers.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 1.5 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: Font Finder

Firebug

Firebug

[Add-on] Firebug

Firebug is arguably the most popular and feature filled web development add-on for Firefox with a fantastic collection of tools and capabilities. Edit, debug and monitor CSS, HTML, JavaScript and more in any web page as well as performance testing and more.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 3.0 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: Firebug

Web Developer

Web Developer

[Add-on] Web Developer Toolbar

The Web Developer toolbar brings a wide array of web design and development functions and tools to Firefox for everything from CSS and HTML to JavaScript, cache, validation and much, much more.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 1.0 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: Web Developer Toolbar

YSlow

YSlow

[Add-on] YSlow

YSlow analyzes web pages and ranks them based on Yahoo!’s rules for high performance web sites. It also includes Yahoo!’s Smush.it service for optimizing and reducing image size for the web. This is a great add-on for designers and developers to improve performance and optimize their website images.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 2.0 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: YSlow

FireFTP

FireFTP

[Add-on] FireFTP

FireFTP gives Firefox more than just web browsing powers, making it a super powered browser with a cross-platform full FTP client. FireFTP is commonly used as a complete replacement for a standalone FTP client since it offers just about everything you need.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 3.5 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: FireFTP

HTML Validator

HTML Validator

[Add-on] HTML Validator

Quickly check website validation from within Firefox with the HTML Validator add-on. You can also check the number of errors and warnings, all in an unobtrusive manner.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 1.0 – 3.5.* (Windows Only)
Firefox Add-ons: HTML Validator

Safari Tidy

Safari Tidy

[Plugin] Safari Tidy

Safari Tidy validates web pages as you browse with Tidy and W3C validator. The error and warning results are displayed in the bottom right corner of the browser window. Clicking them will open the Tidy and W3C result pages.

Price: Free
Requires: Safari 3+
Link: Safari Tidy

jsBeautifier

jsBeautifier

[AIR] jsBeautifier

jsBeautifier is a very basic app that formats your JavaScript properly for easy reading and editing.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR 1.5
Adobe AIR Marketplace: jsBeautifier

DownThemAll!

DownThemAll!

[Add-on] DownThemAll!

This is a download manager and accelerator for Firefox to maximize download speeds and manage bulk file downloads. It adds many more advanced capabilities to Firefox such as customizable download criteria and downloading all links or images in a webpage.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 3.0 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: DownThemAll!

View Dependencies

View Dependencies

[Addon] View Dependencies

The View Dependencies add-on adds a new tab to the Page Info window and lists all the files loaded to show the current web page. View the files in order of server, type, size and more. Then quickly open any file in a new tab, window or copy to the clipboard.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 1.0 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: View Dependencies

JSView

JSView

[Add-on] JSView

JSView gives you a quick way to view external files linked in a website such as CSS and JavaScript without the need to dig through the site source code. Quickly access these linked files directly from the context menu, toolbar, view menu or status bar.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 2.0 – 3.6a1pre
Firefox Add-ons: JSView

IE Tab

IE Tab

[Add-on] IE Tab

IE Tab makes it possible to render web pages within Firefox how they would be seen in Internet Explorer. This is a great add-on for browser testing without the need to ever leave Firefox.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 3.0 – 3.6a1pre (Windows Only)
Firefox Add-ons: IE Tab

OperaView

OperaView

[Add-on] OperaView

This is another basic add-on for quickly opening links or current pages being viewed in Opera for browser testing and other web development purposes.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 1.0 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: OperaView

FirePHP

FirePHP

[Add-on] FirePHP

With FirePHP you can log to your Firebug console using a PHP method call. It’s a great add-on for AJAX development but has several other fantastic uses as well.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 3.0 – 3.5.*, Firebug, a PHP library
Firefox Add-ons: FirePHP

Live HTTP Headers

Live HTTP Headers

[Add-on] Live HTTP Headers

Although this is a very basic add-on, it’s quite helpful for developers. With Live HTTP Headers you can view the HTTP headers of the pages you’re browsing, quickly and easily.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 0.8 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: Live HTTP Headers

Saft

Saft

[Plugin] Saft

Saft adds a staggering number of features to Safari including ad and animation blocking, undo close tab(s), Growl support, full screen browsing, Kiosk mode, Google safe browsing and much, much more.

Price: $15
Requires: Safari 3.1+
Link: Saft

SafariStand

SafariStand

[Plugin] SafariStand

SafariStand implements many great improvements for Safari including a bookmark shelf for saving and resuming browsing sessions, site alteration for customizing site specific settings, syntax coloring in source view and much, much more.

Price: Free
Requires: Safari 3.1+
Link: SafariStand

SafariSource

SafariSource

[Plugin] SafariSource

Safari’s default source view does not include syntax coloring which is where SafariSource comes in. It solves this issue and adds syntax coloring for easy reading. You can customize the plugin preferences (fonts, colors, etc.) in Safari’s preferences pane.

Price: Free
Requires: Safari 3.0 (4.0?)
Link: SafariSource

Window Resizer

Window Resizer

[Add-on] Window Resizer

Browser window size testing is important but an often overlooked task. The Browser Window Resizer Firefox add-on makes it a breeze to quickly test all the major resolutions.

Price: Free
Requires: Firefox 1.5 – 3.5.*
Firefox Add-ons: Window Resizer

Polaris

Polaris

[AIR] Polaris for Google Analytics

Monitor your Google Analytics account straight from your desktop with a simplified and very attractive interface. View all your Google Analytics information easily with maps, charts and graphs.

Price: Free – $15/year
Requires: Adobe AIR
Link: Polaris

Klok

Klok

[AIR] Klok

Klok is a time tracking application that makes it very easy to visualize how your time is being used. View graphs and other visual aides from your time tracking information and easily keep track of every minute you spend working or not to maximize your time and efficiency.

Price: Free
Requires: Adobe AIR
Link: Klok

Conclusion

Although several of these tools only do basic tasks, they’re quite useful and surprisingly helpful in optimizing your workflow and productivity. Whether you’re a web designer or web developer (or both), the apps and browser additions listed above are bound to help in some way and are well worth trying out if you haven’t already. The great thing about many of the tools listed above, is that they require little to no additional computer resources!

Have some more great AIR applications or browser additions you find useful that we didn’t list? Post a comment below and let us know.

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