Historically, part of this ritual includes installing a ton of apps. I add the requisite Adobe design tools, the Microsoft Office suite for productivity, and a host of other software. Apps for email, FTP, media conversion, and a local web server environment remain staples.

My current system is now a few years old, and I have dozens (hundreds?) of these apps. They still serve their purpose. But it recently dawned on me that most of what I use could be replaced by a web browser. That will likely mean fewer apps to install on my next computer.

These are words I never thought I’d utter. My web design career began before the first release of Netscape. As such, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with browsers. For every benefit, there have been limitations and quirks to deal with.

These days, you can do pretty much anything within your chosen browser. That got me thinking: are traditional design apps still relevant? Should we abandon them for browser-based tools? I’m not so sure, but let’s figure this out together.

Modern Web Apps Break Boundaries

It used to be that most browser-based apps were inferior to their desktop counterparts. Common workflows like text and media editing felt clunky and minimally useful. I used them in a pinch and usually came away frustrated.

Meanwhile, desktop powerhouses like Excel, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver were infinitely more flexible. They were built for those who care about quality and require high-level functionality. Such professional-grade tools have always been worth the cost.

That narrative has been turned on its head by a combination of more powerful web standards and server technologies. There are now online video editing platforms that can produce top-notch results. Design tools like Figma make it easy to create and share interactive mockups. Google’s suite of productivity tools offers all the bells and whistles without compromise. Even Photoshop has an online version these days.

Collaboration might be the biggest selling point of all. You can keep clients and colleagues in the loop with minimal effort. This improves efficiency and saves us from the never-ending email chains of yesteryear.

And the appeal of these apps goes beyond functionality and convenience. They’re also cross-platform and device-agnostic. It used to be that you’d need a desktop app built specifically for your operating system. Using a browser means it works on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, and more.

Then there are the hardware requirements. Granted, you should still have a system with plenty of memory and a modern graphics processor. However, having a massive hard drive isn’t necessary when storing files in the cloud.

The old boundaries of software have vanished. Doing all the things within a browser isn’t a chore like it used to be. And these apps may be enough for most web designers.

Trust and Content Ownership Are Concerns

Software is always an investment, regardless of how you access it. There are also privacy and security risks to consider. Browser-based tools often amplify those concerns.

Companies like Adobe and Microsoft have some level of tracking within their desktop apps. And they do connect to the internet. So, this is nothing new. But working in a browser opens up a different (or, at least, a bigger) can of worms.

For instance, cloud storage is quite convenient. But what happens if the provider gets sold or goes out of business? Will you lose access to your data? Are policies in place to maintain account security in the event of a breach or server crash? The answers aren’t always clear, and you may not find out until something bad happens.

Then there is the matter of artificial intelligence (AI). It seems like every tool on the planet has an AI integration of sorts. How are these features used on your content? Does the provider train their models with your work? Could your sensitive information become exposed online?

Working online also opens you up to third-party tracking. It may be something relatively innocent, like an analytics suite. But ad networks and similar companies could be watching you – and there is no guarantee they’ll abide by the rules.

These are important questions to answer when thinking about your (and your client’s) data. Again, desktop apps aren’t immune to these issues. But an online app that shows up overnight deserves an honest assessment. The risks could far outweigh the benefits.

Desktop Apps Are Still Relevant When Control Matters

It’s truly amazing to see how far web technologies have come in the past decade. You can see it in both commercial and open-source software. Functionality once reserved for powerful desktop devices can now exist in the palm of your hand (and with responsive design, for that matter).

I still believe there’s a tradeoff, however. The work-from-anywhere tools we use have plenty of benefits (provided you really do want to work from your lawn chair). But you lose a measure of control along the way.

There’s something to be said for storing files locally (with routine backups, of course). Not to mention the ability to customize an app’s layout or tool set to match your workflow. There’s a level of personalization you don’t seem to get in a browser.

The reality is that you don’t need desktop software for every purpose. There are plenty of online tools that will do the job. But there are scenarios where these old-school beasts make sense.

For example, I can’t imagine Disney making their next hit movie solely within a browser. And web designers who want full control of their workflow might want to keep a few items installed on their hard drives. I know I will.

here. He recently started a writing service for WordPress products: WP Product Writeup. He also has an opinion on just about every subject. You can follow his rants on Bluesky @karks.com.

Read more articles by Eric Karkovack

The post Are Browser-Based Apps Enough for Web Designers? appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

Ever since the commercialisation of the Graphical User Interface pioneered by systems like the Xerox Star and popularised by the original Apple Macintosh, software has relied heavily on point-and-click interactions. If you wanted to book a trip, buy a pair of shoes, or research a health symptom, you were expected to navigate a labyrinth of user interfaces. You click menus, adjust range sliders, fill out multi-step forms, deal with cookie pop-ups, and open dozens of browser tabs just to cross-reference basic information. We have become accustomed to spending more time managing the software rather than actually achieving our goals.

That contract is officially changing. Driven by advances in artificial intelligence and large language models, a new generation of web tools is pioneering a radical philosophy: Intent-Driven Design. Rather than expecting our users to learn complex menus and click through elaborate sales funnels, these platforms operate by capturing high-level human goals and silently executing the grunt work in the background.

This vision builds on long-standing HCI concepts like Golden Krishna’s “The Best Interface Is No Interface” and Don Norman’s principles of human-centered design.

The ultimate goal of modern web design is no longer to build prettier buttons or flashy animations; it is to eliminate the interface entirely.

Well, at least what we understand based on our current experience.

It is essential for UX designers to understand the changes we’re witnessing and even re-evaluate our role, shifting our focus from designing visible interfaces to guiding transparent, intent-driven AI experiences.

The Death Of The “10-click” Process

To understand where web design is going, we first have to look at the friction we have accepted as “normal” for decades.

Consider the traditional workflow of buying a flight online. The user experience is intentionally hyper-interactive:

1. Navigate to a travel aggregator or airline website.
2. Select “Round Trip” from a dropdown menu.
3. Type the origin city and wait for auto-complete.
4. Type the destination city and wait for auto-complete.
5. Click a calendar modal, toggle through months, and select departure and return dates.
6. Choose the number of passengers and cabin class.
7. Click “Search” and wait for the results page to load.
8. Filter by price, layover duration, departure time, and airline.
9. Sort the results and scan through dozens of individual options.
10. Click through a three-page checkout funnel dodging upsells for rental cars and travel insurance.

This is a classic point-and-click UI paradigm. The computer acts as a passive container of data, and the human acts as the orchestrator, manually inputting parameters, interpreting raw outputs, and executing each micro-step along the way.

Intent-driven design flips this dynamic entirely. Instead of forcing you to navigate the mechanical steps of how to find a flight, the interface asks a simple question: What are you trying to accomplish?

When you express a goal, such as “Find me a non-stop flight to Chicago next weekend under $300 that arrives before 5 PM”, the software reads your intent, executes the multi-step search query behind the scenes, compares the options, and presents a single actionable resolution. The ten clicks dissolve into one clear intent outcome.

Three Web Platform Examples Replacing Buttons With Intent

This shift isn’t a theoretical vision of the distant future. Some of the world’s most accessible websites allow you to experience intent-capturing systems already.

1. Perplexity AI: Search Without The Open Tabs

Traditional search engines like Google were built as directories. You typed a keyword, and the interface rewarded you with ten blue links. The actual work of opening five tabs, skimming long articles, dodging ads, and manually assembling an answer was left to you. Although this is now changing, with AI content appearing first when you search on Google.

Perplexity AI allows anyone to perform instant intent-based searches. Instead of forcing you to click into multiple tabs, the interface synthesises the perfect result for your context.

• The interaction: You ask a complex question in plain English: “Compare the top three budget laptops for a computer science student, focusing on battery life and keyboard quality.”
• The invisible work: In under two seconds, the platform searches the web, reads dozens of articles, evaluates hardware specifications, and cross-references user reviews.

• The result: (See screen above) Instead of throwing web pages at you, Perplexity dynamically generates a single custom answer complete with formatted comparison tables, pros and cons lists, and concise inline citations. You get the outcome of thirty clicks in just one.

2. Vercel v0: Web Design Without Dragging And Dropping

For years, creating a website meant using visual builders like Figma or drag-and-drop web editors. As designers, we spent hours manually drawing rectangles, picking hexadecimal colour codes, adjusting padding values, and sometimes writing CSS code.

Vercel v0 lets anyone test its generative interface builder right from the home page without signing in.

• The Interaction: A user types a descriptive goal into the input prompt: “Create a modern dark-mode dashboard for a subscription SaaS app showing monthly revenue, active users, and a customer churn chart.”
• The invisible work: The underlying AI understands layout principles, accessibility guidelines, UI component libraries, and responsiveness. It writes clean HTML, Tailwind CSS, and React code in real time.
• The result: Rather than spending an afternoon manipulating elements, the user receives a fully functional, pixel-perfect user interface in seconds! The traditional visual design tool disappears, replaced by raw human intent.

3. Goblin.tools: Breaking Down Overwhelming Tasks

Many traditional productivity tools require you to manually construct task lists, drag items across Kanban boards, and assign micro-deadlines. Goblin.tools is a free, single-page suite of single-task AI tools designed specifically for neurodivergent users or anyone feeling overwhelmed, requiring zero sign-ups or configuration.

• The interaction: You enter a vague, intimidating goal into the Magic Todo tool, such as “Prepare for a job interview”.
• The invisible work: Instead of forcing you to plan every step, the system analyses the cognitive load of the goal and automatically breaks it down into small, actionable sub-tasks adjusted to your preferred level of detail.
• The result: The interface eliminates the stressful task-planning phase and presents a clean checklist tailored to your exact goal.

The Core Pillars Of Intent-driven Web Design

When you remove traditional menus, sidebars, and forms, how do you keep a website usable? Designers pioneering this space rely on three core pillars:

1. High-level Goals

An invisible interface doesn’t always wait for you to type a command — it leverages context to anticipate user needs. Guided by industry standards like Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines on Contextual & Ambient Design, modern systems read environmental metadata, such as device state, location, and past interaction patterns, to trigger proactive actions.

For example:

• Time and location: A food delivery web app prioritising your saved home address and dinner items automatically at 6:30 PM on a weekday.
• Cross-app history: A calendar application noticing an email about an upcoming appointment and surfacing a one-click “Add to Schedule” card without forcing you to copy and paste event details manually.

2. Generative UI

In traditional web design, every user sees the exact same layout. An e-commerce store shows the same navigation bar whether you are a first-time visitor looking for customer support or a returning customer tracking a package.

As highlighted in the Nielsen Norman Group’s analysis on AI as a new UX paradigm, computing is shifting from command-based interaction to outcome-specification. This enables Generative UI, where interfaces are rendered dynamically on the fly based on what you are trying to do in that exact moment. For example, platforms like Vercel v0 demonstrate how raw intent can instantly render functional code components without manual layout building. If you express a desire to compute complex financial data, the interface generates a dynamic calculator widget on demand, receding once your goal is completed.

3. Execution by AI Agents

Traditional interfaces are obsessed with prevention, constantly peppering users with confirmation pop-ups (“Are you sure you want to delete this file?”).

Intent-driven interfaces adapt Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics on User Control and Error Recovery by shifting the safety net from prevention to easy reversibility. Because autonomous agents take actions on your behalf, products prioritise frictionless rollback mechanisms. A prominent “Undo” button, simple revision prompts (“Make this summary shorter”), and transparent audit logs replace intrusive warning modals.

The Hidden Risks

While removing interface friction is liberating, stripping away visual controls introduces significant product design challenges. When software acts on inferred intent rather than direct point-and-click commands, designers must navigate critical ethical and technical pitfalls.

The Illusion Of Control

When a website makes decisions for you, it can quickly feel patronising or invasive. As explored by the Stanford Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Group, automation must maintain clear boundaries to prevent user frustration. Furthermore, ethical frameworks from the Center for Humane Technology emphasise that product designers must guard against manipulative defaults.

Designers must strike a delicate balance: automate routine execution, but explicitly prompt the user for high-stakes confirmations (such as financial transactions, publishing public content, or altering privacy settings).

The Black Box Problem

In a traditional UI, if you get an unexpected result, you can usually diagnose the issue — perhaps you checked the wrong filter box or selected an incorrect date.

With an intent-driven interface, troubleshooting becomes harder. To address this “black box” challenge, the Google PAIR (People + AI Research) Guidebook advocates for transparent feedback loops. The system must explicitly state its interpretation (“Searching for non-stop flights to Chicago under $300…”) so users can calibrate trust and correct misinterpretations instantly.

From A UX Perspective

As a UX designer, always being curious to understand how our design approach is changing in the world of AI, I find it essential that we re-evaluate the foundational elements of our craft.

Rather than designing static buttons and rigid forms, we need to learn to map and present dynamic, generative UI components that adapt on the fly to user intent.

By mastering these evolving patterns, like ambient feedback, inline prompts, and transparent AI status indicators, we can ensure that screenless, agent-driven tools remain intuitive, ethical, and deeply human-centered.

Conclusion

The ultimate goal: The best design is no design.

For decades, the digital industry has evaluated software success through engagement metrics like time spent in app, click-through rates, and page views per session. Websites were deliberately engineered to maximise visual engagement and interaction volume.

The philosophy behind Golden Krishna’s seminal book The Best Interface Is No Interface, aligned with the broader Center for Humane Technology’s Time Well Spent movement, turns these metrics on their head. The ultimate test of a modern digital product is no longer how visually captivating its buttons are, but rather: How effectively did this software solve the problem and get out of the user’s way?,

We are entering an era where web applications will no longer be measured by the beauty of their interfaces, but by their ability to render those complex interfaces completely obsolete. The future of the web isn’t more interaction — it is seamless, invisible completion.

(ah, yk)

The post The Death Of The Button: Why The Best Interface Is No Interface appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

Designers, photographers, illustrators, and other creative professionals also have practical requirements. Staging makes it possible to test layout changes privately. Automatic backups protect client work, while collaboration tools can help freelancers and agencies manage several websites. Good support is also valuable when a technical problem interrupts a project or affects a live site.

This collection compares WordPress hosts based on the features that matter most to creatives. These include performance, media handling, storage, theme and plugin support, staging, backups, client management, and long term cost.

Some options are suited to a single portfolio, while others provide the tools needed to manage client websites or run a creative agency. The best choice depends on the type of work being presented and how much control the website owner needs.

Quick Recommendations

Each of these hosts suits a different type of creative website. WordPress.com offers the simplest overall package, while Kinsta and Pressable provide stronger tools for studios and client work. Cloudways gives experienced users more control, and Rocket.net is a good match for image heavy portfolios.

WordPress.com is the best choice for creatives who want managed hosting with little technical maintenance. Kinsta is better suited to established studios that place greater value on performance, staging, and developer tools. Pressable is worth considering when several client websites need to be built, tested, and managed from one account.

Cloudways offers more flexibility but requires greater technical confidence. Rocket.net offers managed performance and a built in CDN for visual websites with an international audience. SiteGround and Hostinger cost less at the start, although their renewal prices are considerably higher.

Prices shown are monthly equivalents based on the billing terms displayed by each provider.

What Creatives Should Look for in WordPress Hosting

Creative websites often contain large images, complex layouts, video, animation, and interactive features. These elements can place more pressure on hosting than a basic blog or small business website.

• Image and media performance: Look for server caching, CDN access, and enough storage for a growing media library. Image compression and support for WebP or AVIF can also help portfolio pages load faster.
• Theme and design tool support: The host should support custom themes and third party plugins. Designers using page builders, animation plugins, or Advanced Custom Fields may also benefit from higher PHP memory and stronger server resources.
• Staging and development tools: Staging allows design changes, theme updates, and new layouts to be tested privately. SFTP, SSH, WP CLI, Git, database access, and PHP controls are also useful for custom and client websites.
• Client and team management: Freelancers and agencies may need collaborator accounts, separate permissions, site cloning, and a central dashboard for managing several projects. Site transfer and billing handover tools can also simplify client delivery.
• Backups and site recovery: Automatic backups provide protection when an update, code change, or plugin conflict causes a problem. Check how often backups are created, how long they are stored, and whether the website can be restored with a single click.
• Pricing and renewal costs: Check the regular renewal rate rather than relying on the introductory price. Storage, traffic, staging, backups, email, and additional websites may depend on the plan, so the cheapest option is not always the best value.

Top WordPress Hosts for Designers & Creatives

1. Best Overall for Creatives: WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a good choice for creatives who want managed hosting without spending much time on server maintenance. Updates, security, backups, caching, and performance tools are handled for you, leaving designers to manage their website through a familiar WordPress dashboard.

The Business plan is the best fit for a professional portfolio or creative business. It includes 50GB of storage, a global CDN, staging, real time backups, and 250GB of separate VideoPress storage. Custom themes and third party plugins are supported, so designers are not limited to the themes and tools supplied. SFTP, SSH, WP CLI, Git commands, and GitHub deployments are also available for more advanced projects.

The main drawback is cost. Each website requires its own plan, which may not suit freelancers or agencies managing a large number of client sites. However, it remains a practical option for individual designers, photographers, illustrators, and creative businesses that want strong performance without dealing with the technical side of hosting.

• Recommended plan: Business.
• Best for: Professional portfolios and creative business websites.
• Key strength: Managed hosting with strong media and development tools.
• Main drawback: A separate plan is required for each website.

Read moreThe joy of art

Further Information:

2. Best for Creative Studios: Kinsta

Kinsta is well suited to established designers and creative studios that need dependable managed hosting for a professional portfolio, company website, or online store. Its platform handles caching, security, backups, and server maintenance, while the MyKinsta dashboard provides access to staging, analytics, redirects, and other WordPress tools.

Every plan includes a global CDN, automatic daily backups, free migrations, application performance monitoring, and malware removal. Designers can create a staging copy before changing a layout, installing a new plugin, or updating a custom theme. Site transfer and user access controls are also useful when a studio works with outside developers or needs to hand a project over to a client.

The main limitation for visual websites is storage. The entry plan includes 10GB, which may be restrictive for a large photography or video portfolio. Visitor, bandwidth, storage, and CDN limits can also lead to additional charges. Kinsta costs more than shared hosting, but its performance and management tools make it a strong option when the website supports an established creative business.

• Recommended plan: Single 20GB
• Best for: Established creative studios and professional portfolios
• Key strength: Managed performance and development tools
• Main drawback: Limited storage on the entry plan

Further Information:

3. Best for Freelance Designers: Cloudways

Cloudways is a good option for freelance designers who want more control than a typical managed WordPress plan provides. Websites run on cloud servers, with Cloudways supplying the dashboard, security tools, caching, backups, staging, and technical support.

The Flexible Micro plan includes 2GB of RAM, one virtual CPU, 50GB of storage, and 2TB of transfer bandwidth. It can host multiple WordPress installations, although every site shares the same server resources. Designers can create staging sites, clone existing projects, change the PHP version, and access files through SFTP or SSH. Monthly and hourly billing also make it possible to increase server resources as client work grows.

Cloudways requires more technical knowledge than WordPress.com or Kinsta. The dashboard includes server settings that may be unfamiliar to less experienced users. Cloudflare Enterprise is a paid addition on Flexible plans, while offsite backup storage is charged separately. Business email is not included. These extra costs need to be considered, but the flexible setup remains useful for freelancers managing several client websites.

• Recommended plan: Flexible Micro
• Best for: Freelance designers managing several websites
• Key strength: Flexible cloud resources and server controls
• Main drawback: More technical than fully managed alternatives

Further Information:

4. Best for Managing Client Websites: Pressable

Pressable is designed for WordPress professionals who build and maintain websites for clients. Its dashboard provides access to production, staging, and sandbox environments, giving designers separate spaces for development, testing, and client review.

The Signature plans include automatic backups, a global CDN, edge caching, free migrations, malware monitoring, and WordPress support. Granular collaborator permissions allow developers, designers, and clients to receive different levels of access. Pressable also provides site templates through DupliKits, which can save time when several projects use the same plugins, theme, or starting configuration.

The Signature 1 plan is suitable for a single client website, while higher plans support several installations. Storage and monthly visits are limited, and additional usage can result in extra charges. Pressable is also more expensive than placing several sites on one shared hosting account. However, its staging, sandbox, cloning, and collaboration tools make it a practical choice for designers who include hosting and maintenance in their client services.

• Recommended plan: Signature 1
• Best for: Designers building and maintaining client websites
• Key strength: Staging, sandbox, and collaboration tools
• Main drawback: Additional charges for storage and visitor overages

Further Information:

5. Best for Small Creative Studios: SiteGround

SiteGround is a practical choice for designers and small creative studios that need to host several websites without paying for each installation separately. Its custom Site Tools dashboard provides access to domains, email, backups, caching, security, and development tools.

The GrowBig plan supports unlimited websites and includes 50GB of storage, a CDN, daily backups, on demand backups, collaborators, and WordPress staging. Designers can test theme and layout changes before publishing them, while collaborator accounts allow clients or team members to access individual websites. Email hosting is included, which can reduce the need for another paid service.

The introductory price is low, but the renewal rate is much higher. SiteGround also uses shared hosting, so demanding WooCommerce sites or portfolios with heavy media libraries may require a more powerful plan. Even so, GrowBig offers a useful balance of storage, development tools, and multiple site support for small studios. Agencies needing Git, white label access, and priority support should consider the GoGeek plan.

• Recommended plan: GrowBig
• Best for: Small creative studios hosting several websites
• Key strength: Multiple websites with staging and collaboration tools
• Main drawback: A large price increase at renewal

Further Information:

6. Best for Portfolio Performance: Rocket.net

Rocket.net is a managed WordPress host built around Cloudflare Enterprise. Its global CDN caches website content closer to visitors, which can improve the delivery of portfolio images, fonts, scripts, and other visual assets to an international audience.

The Starter plan includes one WordPress website, unmetered visitors, 10GB of storage, 50GB of bandwidth, unlimited PHP workers, and a 99.99% uptime guarantee. Security features include a web application firewall, malware protection, and automatic updates. Daily backups are retained for 30 days, while free migrations are available for existing websites.

The 10GB storage allowance is the main concern for photographers and other creatives with large media libraries. Storage overages cost $2 per GB, so images should be resized and compressed before being uploaded. Video should usually be hosted through a separate video platform. Rocket.net is not the cheapest option for a single website, but its CDN, managed security, and straightforward pricing make it a strong choice when portfolio performance matters more than storage capacity.

• Recommended plan: Starter
• Best for: Portfolios serving visitors in several countries
• Key strength: Cloudflare Enterprise CDN included with every plan
• Main drawback: Only 10GB of storage on the Starter plan

Further Information:

7. Best Budget Option: Hostinger

Hostinger offers low cost managed WordPress hosting for designers creating a first portfolio, personal website, or small creative business site. Its custom dashboard handles WordPress installation, updates, backups, domains, email, and other common hosting tasks.

The Unlimited plan is the better choice for creative work. It includes 50GB of NVMe storage, daily backups, a CDN, and support for unlimited websites. One click staging allows designers to test theme updates and layout changes before publishing them. Email accounts, ecommerce support, and AI tools are also included, although some features are only available during the initial contract period.

The advertised monthly price requires payment for 48 months in advance. The plan renews at a much higher rate, so the full contract cost should be considered before signing up. Unlimited website claims are also governed by a fair usage policy, which means the account still has resource limits. Hostinger does not provide the same level of server control or advanced management tools found as other hosts, but it offers useful features for creatives working with a smaller budget.

• Recommended plan: Unlimited
• Best for: New portfolios and budget conscious creative businesses
• Key strength: Generous storage and multiple website support
• Main drawback: The lowest price requires a four year commitment

Further Information:

Performance Tips for Creative WordPress Websites

Good hosting can only do so much if images, video, fonts, and animation are not properly managed. The following steps can help keep a visual WordPress website responsive.

• Resize images to match the largest dimensions at which they will be displayed.
• Use WebP or AVIF files where browser support and image quality allow.
• Compress portfolio images before uploading them to WordPress.
• Use lazy loading so images outside the visible area are not loaded immediately.
• Serve images, scripts, and stylesheets through a CDN.
• Host long or high resolution videos through a dedicated video platform.
• Limit unnecessary font files, background videos, and complex animations.
• Test important portfolio pages on mobile devices and slower connections.
• Monitor storage and bandwidth use as the media library grows.

How the Hosts Were Assessed

Each host was assessed using its published plan details, feature documentation, pricing, and suitability for creative WordPress websites. The recommendations place particular weight on the following factors:

• Performance when serving images and other visual content.
• Storage, bandwidth, and visitor limits.
• Support for custom themes, plugins, and design tools.
• Staging, backups, site cloning, and recovery options.
• Developer access through SFTP, SSH, WP CLI, or Git.
• Tools for managing team members and client websites.
• Introductory pricing, renewal rates, and additional charges.

The final rankings reflect how useful each hosting service is for designers, photographers, freelancers, and creative studios. Pricing and plan limits were checked against the information published by each provider while this article was being prepared.

Final Verdict

WordPress.com is the best overall choice for designers and creatives who want managed hosting with strong media support. The Business plan includes 50GB of storage, separate VideoPress storage, staging, backups, a CDN, and developer tools. It is particularly well suited to professional portfolios and creative business websites.

Kinsta is a stronger option for established studios that value managed performance and detailed site controls. Pressable provides useful staging, sandbox, cloning, and collaboration features for designers maintaining client websites. Cloudways offers more server control and flexible resources, although it requires greater technical confidence.

SiteGround works well for small studios that want to host several websites from one account. Rocket.net is suited to portfolios with an international audience, but its storage limits need careful management. Hostinger is the most affordable option at the start and provides enough storage for a new portfolio, though its long contract and higher renewal rate should be considered.

Read more articles by Paul Andrew

The post Best WordPress Hosts for Designers & Creatives in 2026 appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

The WordPress project is slowly but surely inching toward responsive block settings. Version 6.9 introduced the Block Visibility feature, allowing you to temporarily disable a block without deleting it from a post. WordPress 7.0 took it a step further by adding options to hide a block based on device.

Perhaps it’s a niche feature. But it’s also quite handy for targeting mobile or desktop users with specific blocks. And it’s also a gateway to more responsive controls landing in WordPress 7.1.

Today’s tip will show you how easy it is to show or hide a block based on a user’s device. Here we go!

Sample Project: Simplify a Hero Area for Mobile Users

Here’s a common scenario: Your website has a large hero area, complete with a high-resolution image, text, and a call to action (CTA). It looks great on a desktop device but is clunky on a phone. The image is too big, and there’s too much text for users to digest. What to do?

The responsive Block Visibility controls will make this a piece of cake. We’ll create two hero areas – one for desktop and another optimized for mobile. The result will be a better user experience for everyone.

Step 1: Create Desktop and Mobile Hero Areas

The first step is to create the two hero areas for our page. We’ll grab one from the WordPress Block Pattern library and see what we can do with it.

Our desktop hero area is beautiful on the big screen! It should also work well on tablets, such as an iPad. However, it may be overwhelming for mobile users.

Let’s simplify. We duplicated the desktop hero and made a few changes:

• We replaced the image with a cropped version that is optimized for smaller screens.
• We centered the text and CTA.
• We replaced the three columns of text with one, shorter passage.
• Finally, we tightened up the spacing to reduce scrolling.

The mobile hero offers the same immersive look without the extra bulk.

Step 2: Assign Hero Areas to Their Respective Devices

As of now, our page has two hero areas, each contained within a Group block. The next step is to set one of them to display on desktop/tablet devices, and the other on mobile. We’ll use the Block Visibility feature to make it happen.

Desktop/Tablet Devices:

• Click on the Desktop Hero block we created.
• Click on the Options menu (⋮) and select Hide Block.
• Choose the Hide on Mobile option.
• Click the Apply button and save the page.

Mobile Devices:

• Click on the Mobile Hero block we created.
• Click on the Options menu (⋮) and select Hide Block.
• We’ll choose two options this time: Hide on Desktop, Hide on Tablet
• Click the Apply button and save the page.

You may notice that the mobile hero no longer displays on the Block Editor canvas. That’s the desired result, as it won’t be in the way when working in Desktop preview mode.

Switch to Mobile preview mode, and you’ll see the opposite effect. The desktop hero is hidden, allowing the mobile version to take over. You can edit these blocks when in the appropriate preview mode.

Note that you can also view and edit these blocks using the Document Overview (List View) feature (Shift+Alt+O). Select the block, click on the Options menu (⋮), and select Show from the menu. You can hide it again once you’re finished editing.

Oh, and be sure to test on different devices! It’s not enough to shrink your desktop’s browser window. You can use your browser’s dev tools to emulate a mobile device if you don’t have one handy.

Use Different WordPress Blocks on Different Devices

It’s often the little extras that make the biggest difference. Targeting different devices via the Block Visibility feature is a prime example. Its release didn’t draw much fanfare. However, it makes WordPress more flexible for designers.

Before WordPress 7.0, we’d have to work around this limitation. That could mean installing a specialized plugin or writing custom CSS rules in a theme. Now, we’re only a few clicks away from choosing which blocks display on a given device.

The feature saves us time, improves the user experience, and won’t hog server resources. Most of all, it’s a sign of things to come for WordPress.

here. He recently started a writing service for WordPress products: WP Product Writeup. He also has an opinion on just about every subject. You can follow his rants on Bluesky @karks.com.

Read more articles by Eric Karkovack

The post How to Hide WordPress Blocks Based on Device appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

That tendency fades as you build your business. You move on to the bigger fish in the pond in an effort to make more money and expand your reach. Any small fish left in your portfolio could potentially hold you back from leveling up.

Even so, you’ll still hear from potential clients who want you to take on their small project. Or you might be asked to undercut a competitor’s price on a large WordPress site. Either way, it may lead to mixed feelings. How should you respond?

Established agencies don’t need to take every project. It’s worth considering where you draw the line, however. How small is too small? Does a lower upfront cost mean there’s no potential for future profit? And, is it ever worth taking on a large project for a bargain price?

These are important questions to ask as your business evolves. Let’s explore the pros and cons of “going low”. We’ll also share some tips for determining the minimum requirements for accepting a project.

Does the Project Offer Any Additional Benefits?

Money is an important part of any project (we all need to keep the lights on and the AI tokens flowing). However, there are other potential benefits. That may be enough to make a small or heavily-discounted project worthwhile.

For example, consider working with a charity or other non-profit organization. These clients are often bootstrapped and have a limited budget. As such, the project is more about doing good than making a big profit. This is both a source of pride and something you can use in your marketing efforts.

Likewise, some projects can open the door to a specific industry or clientele level. If you don’t have experience in the enterprise WordPress space, offering a discount could increase your chances of booking the gig. You exchange a bit of money for prestige in your portfolio. Proving your worth to one such client could make others take notice.

This won’t be the case for every project. There will always be clients looking to cut costs however they can. Others won’t have the resources to work with your agency. Still, some opportunities are beneficial beyond money.

Consider the Potential for Future Profit

Just because a project starts with a smaller profit doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. There is usually a path to increasing your revenue in the long term.

Maintenance packages are a great vehicle for keeping clients in the loop while creating dependable income. WordPress requires routine software updates, security monitoring, and hosting. Clients may also want to add new features as their website evolves. These are all things you can and should charge for.

Such recurring revenue is important for every agency and freelancer. New projects are harder to come by, and budget-conscious clients may be wary of spending big on redesigns. Maintenance and related subscription services improve your business’s sustainability.

This strategy also mirrors what we see in other industries. Clients are acquired with a lower starting cost, while the “real” money comes in the form of future services.

Book enough of these arrangements and you won’t be as susceptible to the boom/bust cycle of new design and development projects. Note that this is part of a bigger plan, rather than something to do on a one-off basis. So, think about how it fits into your business before making a decision.

Find the Price Point of Diminishing Returns

Every agency should have a minimum project price. This helps you avoid losing money and gives you more room to focus on your goals. But how do you determine that number?

You could come up with an arbitrary amount. Some agencies won’t touch a project for under $5,000, for example. It sounds reasonable. However, you still risk losing money on the proposition. It’s better to study your workflow and resources before setting a minimum.

The first consideration is the cost of taking a project from start to finish. Time spent on design and development is a part of the equation. But don’t forget about client communication, the revision process, and testing. Commercial theme and plugin licenses can also be a factor.

If your agency has employees, think about who will do the work. Their salary counts toward the ultimate cost. You might also consider where else they could be spending their time. For instance, will a small project take them away from a bigger one?

The same thing applies to solo freelancers. Lesser projects don’t always mean less work. They can overwhelm your calendar and take time away from your top clients.

Don’t leave it to guesswork! Set a minimum price based on facts. The result should be a profit margin you’re comfortable with.

Accept WordPress Projects That Are Worth Your While

Experience will help you determine which projects to accept and which ones to turn down. Yet, there’s value in digging deeper before deciding. There could be more to the story than you think.

Some projects offer long-term benefits that are easy to miss. You may find opportunities to stabilize your agency via recurring revenue. They might also be a gateway to establishing a new niche. In some cases, it’s worth taking a leap of faith.

Understanding the time and resources involved is key to the decision-making process. This will put you in a position to say “yes” or “no” with confidence. You’re also less likely to experience regret after the decision!

Take time to figure out what makes the most sense for your business. That will free you to move onward and upward.

here. He recently started a writing service for WordPress products: WP Product Writeup. He also has an opinion on just about every subject. You can follow his rants on Bluesky @karks.com.

Read more articles by Eric Karkovack

The post How Low Will You Go for a WordPress Project? appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

Perhaps it’s because these features are still incredibly convenient. Smart usage creates a pleasing aesthetic and can save space. And better coding practices lessen those previous concerns. This doesn’t mean a slider or carousel is always appropriate. However, there are still plenty of use cases when they make sense.

Even better, there are so many options, particularly for WordPress websites. You’ll find plugins that offer everything from basic image movement to full-on dynamic content presentations. Odds are, there’s a slider or carousel plugin that will match your needs.

With that in mind, we’ve rounded up a collection of the best free responsive slider and carousel plugins for WordPress. Let’s go!

portfolios or to spotlight sponsors. GS Logo Slider was designed specifically for this niche, giving you a quick way to create a logo presentation.

You’ll find multiple layout options, drag-and-drop ordering, tooltips, hover controls, and the ability to display images in grayscale. You can display your slider via a custom shortcode or by using the included Gutenberg block.

MetaSlider offers a simple workflow for creating responsive slideshows. Drag your images onto the canvas and set captions, links, and SEO data. There are also settings to help you optimize sliders for mobile devices. Also included are multiple themes, transition/animation effects, and accessibility options.

Create stunning sliders in no time with Smart Slider 3’s slide library feature. The plugin offers premade slides ready for your custom content. The included slider templates will also come in handy for integrating popular styles with minimal effort.

Want to showcase your content? There’s also a dynamic slide feature that will fetch your site’s latest posts. It’s a good choice for those who want great looks without the extra work.

There’s a lot to like about fetching reviews from third-party websites like Google. New reviews are added automatically, and there’s no manual labor involved. WP Google Review Slider will download your company’s reviews and serve them locally – great for performance.

The plugin integrates with the Google Places API to grab new reviews daily. There’s also an option to display reviews in a static grid format – no slider necessary.

The beauty of Carousel Slider Block is that it’s a block-first solution. It supports all Gutenberg blocks, meaning you can add any type of content imaginable into a carousel.

This design also means you can preview your creations directly in the Block Editor. You’ll also find plenty of controls to personalize your presentation.

Accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought when building a slider or carousel. Accessible Carousel outputs keyboard-navigable and screen reader-friendly presentations. It also features a graceful fallback when JavaScript isn’t enabled.

The plugin includes a hero carousel, card scroller, and premade block patterns. You can also turn off autoplay to put users in control.

Depicter helps you build interactive sliders and beyond. The included template library will get your project off to a fast start, while an array of visual effects will grab user attention. You also get tools to build carousels, notification bars, and popups. The plugin is a jack-of-all-trades for interactivity.

Here’s a plugin that lets you create compelling sliders without weighing you down. Super Block Slider uses a 5KB JavaScript file to power your slideshows – great for even slow connections. Sliders are responsive and allow you to set different backgrounds for mobile devices.

There are also settings for custom overlays, parallax effects, animations, and navigation styles.

Slideshows can be a great way to show off your WooCommerce products. Woo Product Slider offers a quick setup via templates and the ability to display new and featured products. No worries if your store has hidden products, as you can choose to add them to your slider.

There are also options for displaying product details and an add-to-cart button.

Sticking with e-commerce, Product Gallery Slider for WooCommerce adds interactivity to your product pages. It improves on the standard Woo product gallery with a responsive slider that can handle all your product images.

It’s perfect for displaying product variations, such as colors or styles. Other features include a lightbox, caption, and image zoom toggles.

WordPress Slider Plugins at a Glance

Slide On In

This collection of free responsive WordPress slider plugins covers just about every use case. Whether you’re looking to showcase your site’s content, social media uploads, or enhance your e-commerce shop, you’ll find a tool that can help you achieve your goals.

here. He recently started a writing service for WordPress products: WP Product Writeup. He also has an opinion on just about every subject. You can follow his rants on Bluesky @karks.com.

Read more articles by Eric Karkovack

The post 10 Best Free Responsive Slider & Carousel WordPress Plugins appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

For years, WordPress users have relied on traditional page builders to create websites without writing code. While these builders made web design more accessible, many still come with familiar compromises — rigid layouts, reliance on multiple third-party plugins, bloated code, and performance trade-offs that can slow down your site.

Kirki takes a different approach. Instead of building on the conventions of older page builders, it reimagines the website creation experience with a freeform infinite canvas, an integrated CMS, and a comprehensive set of built-in features. The result is a streamlined workflow that gives you greater creative freedom while producing cleaner, faster websites.

Whether you’re a designer seeking pixel-perfect control, a developer looking for cleaner output, or a business owner who simply wants to build a professional website without unnecessary complexity, Kirki aims to remove many of the limitations that have long been associated with WordPress page builders.

In this review, we’ll compare Kirki with traditional WordPress builders across the factors that matter most when choosing a website builder, including:

• Pricing and overall value,
• Impact on website performance,
• Ease of use versus design flexibility,
• Built-in features and functionality,
• Theme compatibility and layout customization.

By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of where Kirki stands and whether it’s the right choice for your next WordPress project.

A Closer Looks At Kirki

Kirki is a no-code visual website builder for WordPress, designed to bridge the gap where other page builders fall short.

Unlike other page builders, Kirki is an all-in-one solution that aims to provide everything you need to build websites without any third-party dependencies, shifting from the norm in WordPress!

And the best part? It’s all included in your subscription, so you won’t be hit with surprise upgrades.

The Most Feature-Packed Free WordPress Builder

Before anything else, Kirki has a free version, and it’s genuinely powerful.

You can download Kirki for free directly from WordPress.org and start building right away. The free version is not a watered-down teaser. It’s a heavily feature-packed builder that lets you design modern websites on an infinite canvas without spending a cent.

Scale Without Limits With the Pro Plan

For those who want to unlock the full Kirki experience, the Pro plans are surprisingly affordable for the value they deliver.

The Starter plan is just $59/year for one site and includes all premium features. Compare that with Elementor Pro’s Essential plan, which starts at $60/year and still keeps several essentials behind paywalls. With Kirki, what you see is what you get, everything included from day one.

Kirki also offers a Lifetime plan for a one-time payment of $499, giving you unlimited use forever. No renewals, no upcharges, no surprises.

While most page builders upsell critical features or require multiple add-ons to function properly, Kirki keeps it simple. One platform, all features, no hidden costs. Dynamic content, pop-up builder, form builder, submission manager, the entire growing template library — all included from the start across every plan.

Explore Kirki pricing.

Website Performance Comparison

Performance directly impacts user experience, SEO, and conversion rates. So, to get a clear picture of how different page builders impact performance, we put Kirki and Elementor to the test under identical conditions to see how each builder stacks up.

We installed both on a clean WordPress setup using the default Twenty Twenty-Five theme to ensure a fair comparison. Then, we created identical layouts using comparable design elements and ran Lighthouse performance audits to measure load time, responsiveness, and Core Web Vitals.

Test Conditions:

• Clean WordPress installation,
• Same theme: Twenty Twenty-Five,
• Same layout structure and design elements,
• Lighthouse is used for performance scoring.

Sample Layout:

Kirki’s Performance:

Elementor’s Performance:

Kirki’s Code Output:

Elementor’s Code Output:

The difference was immediately clear. Kirki generated a much cleaner DOM with significantly fewer <div>s and no unnecessary wrappers, resulting in faster load times and higher scores across all boards.

Elementor, on the other hand, added heavily nested markup and extra scripts, even on this simple layout, which dragged down its performance.

If clean code, fast loading, and technical efficiency are priorities for you, Kirki clearly comes out ahead.

Exploring The Features

Now that we’ve seen how Kirki outperforms the competition and does so at a highly competitive price, let’s dive into the features to see what makes it such a powerful all-in-one builder.

Freeform Infinite Canvas For True Design Freedom

What makes Kirki different from the existing page builders is its infinite canvas.

With Kirki, you finally get the layout flexibility modern design demands, and no longer need to place elements into rigid structures.

Design on an infinite canvas where you can pan freely, zoom in and out, place elements exactly where you want, overlap sections, layer backgrounds, and build complex interactions, all visually.

Every element’s layout behavior is editable on canvas, giving you pixel-level control without touching code.

The editor supports both light and dark modes for a more comfortable, focused workspace.

If you’ve used Figma or Webflow, you’ll feel instantly at home. If you haven’t, this is the most natural way to design websites you’ve ever tried.

Concurrent Editing Across All Responsive Views

With Kirki’s infinite canvas, all your responsive views, Desktop, Tablet, Landscape, and Mobile, are visible side by side simultaneously. You don’t switch modes. You work across all of them at once, in real time, on the same canvas.

This means you can spot a layout issue on mobile while designing the desktop version, fix it instantly, and move on without ever breaking your flow. No back and forth.

And because Kirki uses a cascading system, changes made at larger breakpoints automatically flow down to smaller ones, so you’re never starting from scratch at every screen size. You only step in where you need to, making adjustments where the design requires it and letting the rest handle itself.

Instant Figma to Kirki Handoff

Talking about Figma, if you have a design ready in Figma, you can instantly import it into Kirki to create a functional website with no need to rebuild from scratch.

Your imported design comes in fully responsive by default, adapting to all screen sizes, including any custom breakpoints you define.

And it supports unlimited breakpoints, too. You can define layout behavior exactly how you want it, and styles will cascade intelligently across smaller screens.

No Third-Party Plugins Needed for Dynamic Content

In traditional WordPress, handling dynamic content means installing the ACF or other third-party plugins.

But with Kirki, all of that is natively integrated. It comes with a powerful Dynamic Content Manager that lets you:

• Create custom content types and fields.
• Use reference and multi-reference relationships.
• Build dynamic templates visually.
• Add dynamic SEO to template pages.
• Apply advanced filtering to Collection elements.

All without writing a single line of code or relying on external plugins.

Reusable Styling With Class-Based Editing

Kirki also has an efficient way to manage design at scale without repetitive work.

It uses a class-based styling system that brings structure and scalability to your design process. When you style an element, those styles are automatically saved as reusable CSS classes.

Here’s what that means for you:

• You can create global classes for common components like buttons, cards, or headings.
• Reuse those styles across pages and projects with consistency.
• Update a class once, and every instance updates instantly.
• You can also create subclasses to make slight variations, like secondary buttons, while still inheriting styles from the parent.

CSS Variables for Global Styling

Kirki takes styling even further with Global Variables, allowing you to define design tokens like colors, fonts, spacing, and sizing that can be reused across your entire site.

You can pair these global variables with your class-based structure to:

• Maintain visual consistency.
• Update values globally with a single change.
• Easily manage themes like switching between light and dark modes with one click.

And while Kirki offers a fully visual experience, it doesn’t limit advanced users. You can write custom CSS for any class or element, and even inject JavaScript at the page or element level when needed.

Build Complex Interactions and Animations Visually

When it comes to modern animations and interactive design, Kirki leaves traditional WordPress page builders far behind.

Its fully visual interaction builder lets you create dynamic, immersive experiences.

You can build scroll-based animations, hover and click effects, interactive sections that respond across devices, and control visibility, motion, and behavior all within a visual interface.

For advanced users, Kirki includes a timeline-based editor where you can:

• Create multi-step animations.
• Fine-tune transitions with precise timing, easing, delays, and sequencing.

Even text animations get special attention.

You can animate text by character, word, or full element. Choose custom triggers (scroll, hover, load, etc.) and select from various transition styles or create your own.

Kirki no-code website builder truly helps you move past generic and create unique animations and complex interactions.

Seamless Integration Management with Kirki Apps

Kirki takes the hassle out of connecting third-party tools with its intuitive Kirki Apps system. You can install and manage essential integrations such as analytics, CRMs, email marketing platforms, support widgets, and more, all from within the Kirki editor itself.

This centralized approach means you never have to leave your workspace. The clean, user-friendly interface guides you through the connection process visually, making setup fast and straightforward even if you’re not a technical expert.

Kirki brings the first real multi-user co-editing experience to WordPress. Multiple team members can work on the same page, at the same time, seeing each other’s changes unfold live on the canvas.

You see your teammates’ cursors moving in real time. You watch edits happen as they happen. Every change is color-coded and attributed, so the entire team stays oriented without ever having to ask.

Your team can also leave comments directly on the canvas, pinned exactly where the change needs to happen. For agencies, freelancers working with clients, and in-house teams juggling multiple contributors, this makes a huge of a difference.

Before you publish your site, Kirki helps ensure your site is technically sound with its built-in Page Audit tool.

It automatically scans your layout for:

• Missing alt text on images,
• Broken links,
• Unassigned or duplicate classes,
• Accessibility issues,
• And more.

So you’re not just building beautiful pages — you’re shipping fast, accessible, SEO-ready websites with confidence.

Theme & Layout Options

Kirki has a growing library of high-quality templates and modular layout options, so you’re never out of options.

Template Kits: Full Website Packs

Kirki’s Template Kits include complete multi-page website designs for every industry. Pick a template, update the content, and you’re ready to launch.

New template kits are added regularly, so you’re always equipped with the latest design trends. And the best part? At no additional cost. You get access to the finest designs without ever paying extra.

Pre-Designed Pages

Need just a landing page or a pricing page? Kirki also offers standalone pre-designed pages you can drop into your project and customize instantly.

Pre-Made Sections

Prefer to build from scratch but don’t want to start with a blank canvas? It also has ready-made sections like hero banners, testimonials, pricing blocks, and FAQs. You can visually assemble your layout in minutes using these.

How Easy Is Kirki To Use?

Kirki has come a long way in terms of accessibility.

The interface has been refined, the workflow is more intuitive, and a growing library of pre-made blocks, sections, pages, and full templates means you’re rarely starting from a blank canvas unless you want to.

That said, if you want something dead simple just to build a basic five-page site fast, there are lighter options out there like Elementor. But they come at the cost of power, performance, design control, and long-term flexibility.

Kirki is built for people who care about what they’re building. If you want pixel-level control, clean code output, truly responsive layouts, dynamic content, advanced interactions, and a site that scales without breaking, Kirki delivers all of that, and it’s more accessible than ever to get there.

To help you get up to speed quickly, Kirki includes:

• A refined, intuitive interface that’s easier to navigate than ever;
• An extensive and growing library of templates, pages, pre-built sections, UI components, and wireframes to kickstart any project instantly;
• Guided onboarding to walk you through the essentials;
• An AI generator that can scaffold entire pages and layouts in seconds.

The bottom line is that Kirki rewards the time you put into learning it. And with everything that’s been added recently, that time is shorter than ever.

What Users Are Saying

For many users, Kirki is more than just a builder. It’s the all-in-one tool WordPress has been waiting for. They are calling it the future of WordPress, a truly great alternative to tools like Framer and Webflow.

Why Kirki Outshines Traditional Website Builders

Building a professional WordPress website shouldn’t mean compromising on speed, flexibility, or performance. Kirki is designed to give designers, developers, and businesses a modern visual building experience that goes beyond the limitations of traditional page builders.

Modern Freeform Visual Builder

Design without being restricted by rigid rows or predefined layouts. Kirki’s intuitive freeform canvas lets you place, arrange, and customize elements exactly where you want them, giving you complete creative freedom.

Real-Time Responsive Editing

Perfect your website for every screen size with side-by-side responsive editing. Instantly preview and fine-tune your desktop, tablet, and mobile layouts simultaneously, eliminating the guesswork from responsive design.

Everything You Need in One Builder

Forget installing multiple add-ons and third-party extensions. Kirki includes the essential tools, widgets, and features you need in a single, integrated platform, reducing complexity while improving reliability.

Performance-Optimized Code Output

Great websites don’t just look good—they load fast. Kirki generates clean, lightweight, and optimized code that helps improve page speed, user experience, and search engine performance.

Seamless Figma to WordPress Workflow

Transform your Figma designs into fully functional WordPress pages with minimal effort. Reduce development time and maintain design accuracy from concept to launch.

Create dynamic websites with data-driven content, engaging animations, sophisticated interactions, and global styling controls that keep your branding consistent across every page.

A Powerful Free Version To Get Your Site Ready

Start building immediately with a feature-rich free version that includes everything you need to create a polished, professional website before deciding to upgrade.

After putting Kirki through its paces, the answer is a clear yes. Kirki not only matches traditional WordPress page builders where it counts, but it surpasses them in nearly every critical area.

From its cleaner, faster code output and outstanding performance to its unparalleled design freedom and powerful built-in features, Kirki solves many of the pain points that users have accepted for years.

Its all-in-one approach eliminates the need for multiple plugins, saving time, money, and technical headaches. If you’re serious about building high-quality, scalable, and visually stunning websites, Kirki isn’t just an alternative; it’s the future of WordPress site building.

Ready to experience the difference yourself? Try Kirki today and start building faster, cleaner, and smarter.

(yk)

The post Meet Kirki: WordPress’s First Visual Builder With An Infinite Canvas appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

Geometric fonts are modern, simple, and elegant. Their clean lines and minimalist shapes make them ideal for logo, poster, website, and branding design. Their simplicity and precision make them perfect for contemporary design projects.

Despite being free, the fonts in this collection have all been designed by professionals and are perfect for designers and creatives wanting to add a sophisticated touch to their work. These free geometric fonts are ready for your next design project!

Palmera is a contemporary slab serif font. Its well-defined characters and geometric shapes make it an excellent addition to any designer’s toolbox. With multiple weights and styles, Palmera offers consistency and a modern aesthetic.

Free to Download

Subjectivity is an experimental free display font that draws inspiration from geometric shapes. The small tails in the letters A, J, Y, and T add a hand-drawn touch to the font.

Horas is a geometric sans-serif font with well-balanced characters, making it a practical option for various design projects. With multiple weights and styles, this font offers both flexibility and readability.

Free to Download

Barracuda is a free sans-serif typeface with geometric flair intertwined with unusual character widths. This new take on type design makes Barracuda unique and balanced.

Franie is a modern typeface with clean lines and geometric characters. It is an excellent choice for various design applications, and its different weights and styles give you plenty of flexibility.

Free to Download

Nexa is a geometric sans-serif family that offers plenty of options to make your next design stand out. Even though it’s bold, it’s perfectly legible in smaller sizes, making it an excellent fit for the web, too. You’ll get nine weights and 36 fonts.

Free to Download

Drawing inspiration from minimalism, Metropolis is geometric, modern, and highly legible. It offers nine weights (each with matching italics), uppercase and lowercase characters, special characters with accents, numerals, and punctuation.

Free to Download

Condensed, bold, and beautiful, Norwester is a sans-serif typeface your design toolbox needs. It is geometric and draws inspiration from traditional sans-serif design while adding boldness. It is an all-caps font with alternates, numerals, and punctuation.

Free to Download

This sans font family is simple and effective. The Kelson family offers nine free fonts (from Sans Bold to Russian Light and everything in between) with numerals, punctuation, and multilingual support. It’s perfect for readable web copy and headlines!

Free to Download

Rhyder is a geometric sans-serif font perfect for display and text. Every character has been meticulously designed, and accents, numerals, and punctuation are also included.

Free to Download

League Gothic is an open-source geometric font with bold characters. Its versatility and readability make it a dependable choice for designers who want to show professionalism and sophistication in their projects.

Free to Download

Object Sans is a contemporary geometric font family with sharp lines. It is suitable for various design projects and a valuable addition to any designer’s font collection. Explore its different weights and styles to create engaging and visually appealing typography for your next project.

Free to Download

Available on Google Fonts, DM Sans offers a versatile and contemporary option for your design needs. With its clean, readable characters and variety of weights, it adapts effortlessly to various design projects.

Free to Download

Franie is a free geometric font family that will give any design project a contemporary and professional look and feel. Its readability and minimalist aesthetics make it ideal for designers wanting an elegant and engaging typography solution without compromising clarity.

Free to Download

Variera is a modern geometric typeface. Its readability and elegance make it perfect for web design, branding, or print material. Thin and Light are available with the free download.

Free to Download

The popular geometric font Poppins is versatile and contemporary, with clean, well-defined characters. It comes in multiple weights and styles, making it perfect for designing websites, marketing materials, or business presentations. Poppins is available from Google Fonts.

Free to Download

League Spartan’s uppercase characters project strength and sophistication, making it ideal for headings, logos, and branding. Its sharp, clean design ensures readability.

Free to Download

Manrope is a versatile, stylish font with clean, geometric lines and a modern aesthetic. With multiple weights and styles available, this free geometric font offers flexibility and readability, making it a sensible choice for web, logo, and print design.

Free to Download

Arodora is an elegant geometric typeface that focuses on readability and minimalist aesthetics. Its simplicity and clarity make it an excellent choice for professional and engaging typography.

Free to Download

What are Geometric Fonts?

Geometric fonts are known for their distinct characteristics and rich history in design. They are defined by their use of geometric shapes and precise, uniform lines to create letterforms. They often use clean, minimalist aesthetics, with perfect circles, triangles, and rectangles forming the basis of their design.

Geometric fonts gained prominence in the Bauhaus and modernist movements. Over the years, they have evolved, with designers adding their twists and refinements while maintaining the core geometric principles.

Bauhaus 93 Type by the URW Type Foundry

Geometric fonts are a favorite among designers because of their versatility and timeless aesthetic. They are widely used in various design applications where their clean and modern look presents a sense of professionalism and sophistication.

More Free Fonts

Read more articles by Paul Andrew

The post 20+ Best Free Geometric Fonts for Designers appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

Building for the web in 2026 means juggling two pressures at once: clients want AI baked in somewhere, and most of them want to sell something online.

The seven picks below are shaped around that reality: AI-powered builders, flexible WordPress themes, and WooCommerce setups that get you to a working storefront without burning a month on customization.

• AI-powered no-code website builder: Mobirise AI
• Multipurpose WordPress theme with starter sites: Blocksy
• Multipurpose WooCommerce theme: WoodMart
• Slider, carousel, and hero builder: Slider Revolution
• AI-powered Elementor theme: Crafto
• High-end WooCommerce theme: Uncode
• Conversion-focused WooCommerce theme: XStore

• Best for: Prototyping, personal and small business websites, marketing campaigns, landing pages, and portfolios.
• Key Strength: Every prompt provides four different super-engaging and highly converting versions to select from.
• Why designers like it: Chat AI provides an easy way to make changes.

Mobirise AI lets users generate websites or sections of a website with a single prompt, select from the four most recent versions, and make changes using AI Chat.

• For Beginners, Freelancers and Small Business Owners: Mobirise AI users can describe what they want, choose from four AI-generated versions, and customize using AI chat.
• Publishing: Mobirise AI offers AI publishing and hosting, or users can use their own domains. Three free website-building opportunities are available each month.
• AI-generated text and Images: Website text and images can be generated through the use of ideas or instructions and prompts.
• Marketing Presentations: Agencies and marketers can make use of the four-versions-per-prompt feature to present a multiplicity of concepts to their clients.

Check out Mobirise AI

• User Review: “The community gallery is an underrated gold mine – I browse the AI Community generations whenever I need inspiration. Found a nonprofit site template someone made, hit regenerate with my own details, made a few edits with prompts, and had our charity’s new site live within an hour. The fact that you can build on other people’s creations is brilliant”.

• Best for: Blocksy’s WooCommerce integration and easy customization features make it ideal for creating all types and sizes of WooCommerce stores.
• Key Strength: Optimized performance out of the box – fast loading times without needing heavy optimization.
• What Designers Like: They like smooth customization workflows where changes feel consistent and predictable, making the building process efficient.

Blocksy offers an impressive array of prebuilt websites. The Growly Starter Site example offers a ready-to-customize layout for businesses that offer marketing services and are looking to establish a professional online presence. Simply swap in your own content, and you will have a polished starter site up and ready in no time.

• Deep WooCommerce Integration: Launch a lightning-fast SEO-ready store that features cart, checkout, and product pages.
• Seamless Integration with Page Builders: Blocksy works perfectly with Gutenberg, Brizy, and Elementor, each of which offers maximum flexibility and ensures smooth editing.
• Starter Sites: Blocksy starter sites load quickly, rank high in search engines, and offer visitors a smooth browsing experience.

Check Out Blocksy

• Client Average Rating: 5/5.
• User Review: “This is a great quality theme, with an impressive amount of features and yet a really clean customization interface. The ability of detecting custom post types to offer specific page settings is just perfect. Thank you so much for the amazing work!”

• Best for: Creating online stores noted for their fast performance, optimized shop features, and custom layouts.
• Key Strength: WoodMart’s custom WooCommerce layout builderfunctionality allows you to create custom layouts with the WPBakery or the Elementor page builder.
• What Designers Like: They like the large selection of demos and the ability to design their online stores without the need for plugins.

WoodMart’s prebuilt website library examples are easy to customize. Take the Marketplace 2 demo’s online store layout for example. Simply swap in your content, and you’ll have a page that engages your site’s visitors in no time.

• Prebuilt Websites & Templates: With a single click, you can import one of 100 fast, responsive, and beautiful prebuilt WooCommerce-oriented websites or any of the 400+ page templates.
• Gutenberg, Elementor, and WPBakery: You can use the Elementor free version without a Pro license.
• WoodMart Slider Functionality: Allows the creation of simple sliders that are easy to configure and enhance your website’s performance.

Check Out WoodMart

• Client Average Rating: 4.91.
• User Review: “Best WooCommerce website theme ever built. It’s that easy. It gives you the most control over your theme with most paid features already built-in, so you save a lot on things like abandoned cart plugins, wait-list plugins, countdown plugins, etc. 100% the best!”

• Best for: Creating animation and special effects for high-impact presentations.
• Key Strength: The Quick Start Generator that instantly generates a module to initiate the design effort.
• What Designers Like: Choices – the ability to start with a blank canvas, choose a professionally designed template, or use the Quick Start Generator.

Slider Revolution offers its users a library of prebuilt, ready-to-customize sliders. The Mode Board Infinite Filmstrip Media Gallery template delivers beautifully designed content with jaw-dropping animations in which you can insert content featuring your subject of choice.

Demo Releases/Updates: New templates are published every month.

• Quick Start Generator: The Quick Start Generator design alternatives give you a real first draft instead of having to start with a blank page or search for a suitable template.
• AI features: The built-in AI features include AI text generation powered by ChatGPT AI, AI image generation using FLUX 1 and FLUX 2, and AI image background removal.
• Project Types: Slider Revolution excels in hero sections, sliders, carousels, one-page websites, dynamic content modules, product showcases, campaign landing pages, media galleries, and visually rich brand storytelling sections

Check Out Slider Revolution

• User Review: “The people who build Slider Revolution’s templates are masters. They’ve figured out ways to create really cool effects”.

• Best for: Designing websites of all types featuring design layouts designed to reflect your brand and captivate your audience.
• Key Strength: The Theme Builder that empowers you to design and customize every key area of your website with precision.
• What Designers Like: Designers like the built-in performance manager features, together with the many options available to optimize website loading speeds.

Crafto theme features an excellent library of prebuilt, easily customized websites. The Scattered Portfolio pre-built website has a lively and scrollable portfolio layout that has loads of possibilities just waiting for you to incorporate your own content.

• Website Demos & Template Library: Select among more than 56 full website demos as well as combine and customize blocks to create professional-looking websites in minutes.
• Crafto Theme Builder: This intuitive theme builder empowers you to design, customize, and manage all areas of your website from a single intuitive platform.
• Crafto AI: Generate engaging content or stunning images in seconds. Enter a topic, and let AI craft engaging, well-structured content.
• AI Chatbox: The AI chatbot delivers instant responses to support inquiries in addition to its ability to generate high-quality and engaging content.

Check Out Crafto

• Client Average Rating: 4.83.
• User Review: Very good theme: design, code quality, theme flexibility. We recommend it without hesitation”.

• Best for: Designing high-end websites that feature impressive layouts and content, and technically advanced elements.
• Key Strength: Uncode’s wealth and depth of options together with the solidity of its framework.
• What Designers Like: They like the fact that everything they need is built right in, along with the multiple website building options Uncode’s visual builder provides.

Among Uncode’s large selection of customizable prebuilt websites, the Shop AJAX Filters example offers a straightforward layout in which you can easily insert your own content or product line.

• Content Block Feature: Allows you to reuse sections and dynamic templates that you can readily integrate into your web pages.
• Menu Block Mode– Lets you display everything from simple Menu lists to complex responsive column layouts and can transform into accordions for both mobile and desktop.
• Megamenu System: The Megamenu feature gives you unlimited creative control with Content Blocks that can include images, videos, text, buttons, and custom layouts.
• Wireframes Plugin that Includes 800+ Pre-made Sections: These enable you to quickly build pages or prototypes if you are trying to shorten design workflow time.

Check Out Uncode

• Client Average Rating: 4.89.
• User Review: “Amazing theme with amazing support! I highly recommend this template”.

• Best for: Creating conversion-focused WooCommerce stores.
• Key Strength: This theme’s key strength is the fast and responsive feel of its drag-and-drop editing.
• What Designers Like: Designers like how both Elementor and Gutenberg function so effortlessly with XStore, its Full Site Builder, and its deep WooCommerce integration.

XStore’s prebuilt websites are easy to customize visually. The Yoga Accessories demo offers a well-structured one-page layout for a modern yoga shop, allowing you to seamlessly add your products and content and launch a polished one-pager in no time.

• Full Site Builder – The Full Site Builder, in combination with deep WooCommerce integration, is XStore’s most frequently praised feature.
• Product Filters & Cart & Checkout Layouts: Filters make product browsing quick and easy for users. Advanced cart & checkout layouts give users a faster checkout experience, with less interruption.
• Smart Image Lazy Loading: Load images super-fast with built-in lazy loading and adaptive image functionality.
• XStore White Label Custom Branding: Transform XStore into your own in a few clicks. Perfect for agencies and web developers.
• Advanced Mobile Panel – allows you to customize your website’s mobile panel in various ways to suit your needs and for a better user experience.

Check Out XStore

• Client Average Rating: 4.88.
• User Review: “This is one of the best themes to build an e-commerce store on WordPress with lots of built-in features”.

The Web Design Tools & Resources in a Nutshell

FAQ

• Which of these tools gets me to a working site fastest?
  For a traditional WordPress build, Blocksy is hard to beat; its starter sites are well-organized, the customizer is fast, and the free tier goes further than most. If you’d rather skip WordPress entirely and let AI do the structural work, Mobirise AI generates a complete layout from a prompt and lets you refine it visually. Different paths, similar outcome: a publishable site in a day or less.
• Do I need a dedicated animation tool like Slider Revolution?
  Most modern themes cover basic sliders and entry animations on their own. You’d reach for Slider Revolution when the design calls for something the theme can’t do, layered hero sections, scroll-triggered sequences, or interactive elements that need fine-grained control. For marketing sites and landing pages where the hero is the pitch, it earns its keep. For straightforward content sites, your theme is probably enough.
• Which theme should I pick for a client’s online store?
  It depends on the store. WoodMart is the safe default for most WooCommerce builds – broad demo library, solid performance, conversion features built in. XStore leans hardest into conversion mechanics (checkout, upsells, urgency cues) and suits stores where revenue per visitor matters more than visual ambition. Uncode is the pick when the brand needs to feel high-end, fashion-forward, premium, or design-led, and you’d otherwise be tempted to build a custom theme from scratch.
• Where does AI actually help in the design workflow?
  The honest answer in 2026: it shortens the blank-page phase. Mobirise AI can generate a full site structure from a description, which beats picking a template and editing it backward into what you want. Slider Revolution and Crafto use AI to draft sections, hero blocks, and feature grids that you then customize. None of these replaces design judgment. They just collapse the time between “client briefed me” and “I have something concrete to push back against”.

Read more articles by Speckyboy

The post 7 Essential Design Tools & Resources for High-Quality Web Builds in 2026 Sponsored appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

There are also opportunities to build professional relationships. We hire each other for coding tasks, marketing, support, or even business consulting. It’s a way to expand our capabilities and boost revenue, not to mention the new products and services that were launched as a result of these relationships.

Like everything else in our industry, artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to impact these professional bonds. We’re experimenting with this technology, looking for ways to make us leaner and more productive. Perhaps we’re in the early stages. But it’s reasonable to assume that there will be a human cost to adopting AI.

Let’s look at the potential benefits and drawbacks of going all-in on AI and its impact on our relationships.

Greater Productivity and Expanded Capabilities

If there’s one thing we’ve discovered about AI, it’s the relative ease with which it writes code. It can spin up a new WordPress plugin (or a framework for one) within a few minutes. It can also troubleshoot a code snippet in the blink of an eye.

These tasks used to take hours, days, or weeks to complete. AI has saved me from countless searches of support forums and blog posts. In some cases, I might have broadcast my pain points on social media, hoping for a kind soul to offer advice.

These days, AI generally points me in the right direction. There are several positive aspects to this arrangement.

For one, I feel more self-sufficient when working with code. Perhaps that’s ironic, as the machine is writing the code for me. Still, there’s something to be said about not placing my burden on anyone else.

AI also improves my productivity and expands my capabilities. Those client requests that used to drive me crazy aren’t as stressful these days. It’s not always easy, but I’m still producing solutions faster than ever.

What’s the downside? An individual working this way might not have a big impact. The problem arises when we use AI for all the things at scale.

Web Developers Working in Silos

The cumulative effect of “doing it ourselves” with AI is less collaboration. For example, why would I send a task to a fellow freelancer if I can perform it with AI? I’m saving time and money.

Agencies that rely on contractors will do the same thing. They’ll have less incentive to outsource all or some of a project because AI is cheaper and easier. Never mind that it potentially adds more to an employee’s plate.

This will result in fewer gigs for some of us. There will be an economic impact, as we’ll lose some of the recurring revenue we depend on. It will also require a shift to building our own things, rather than building for others.

The other potential side effect is becoming more insulated from the community around us. We might find ourselves interacting more with bots than people (it’s already the case for me). We could be less likely to share what we’re doing or explore what others have done.

If we’re not careful, it might also lead to less in-person interaction. AI won’t make conferences and WordCamps irrelevant. However, some may feel less desire to learn from other humans. Again, why travel and sit through a session when AI will do whatever I want?

Sharing knowledge is such a big part of what web professionals do. Once we’re past the experimentation phase of AI, we might have fewer tips to share – not to mention fewer people willing to listen.

Let’s Keep the Human Element in Web Design

For all the amazing things AI can do, it shouldn’t replace what makes the web design industry so unique. We are a community of thinkers and doers. We’re at our best when working together.

Just think, the open-source movement wouldn’t be where it is today without collaboration. People built the foundation of this work. Technologies like AI can contribute, but only humans can be the thinking and breathing stewards of such projects.

I hope we don’t lose sight of what we’ve accomplished. In the rush to use AI for this and that, we shouldn’t leave our traditions behind. If anything, we should use technology to create more time for human interaction.

Less time working, more time getting together. That sounds like a better future to me!

here. He recently started a writing service for WordPress products: WP Product Writeup. He also has an opinion on just about every subject. You can follow his rants on Bluesky @karks.com.

Read more articles by Eric Karkovack

The post How AI Could Change Collaboration for Web Designers & Developers appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

This collection includes free sans-serif fonts for web design, branding, and UI projects. Some are built for headlines, others for body text or UI work. The styles vary from minimal to bold, so there’s something here for most design needs.

You will find fonts perfect for headlines, body text, or UI design. These fonts aren’t just beautiful, they’re versatile and can be used across various design contexts, from print to digital.

For freelancers, hobbyists, or professionals, this collection provides sans-serif fonts that can improve any design project. Whether you’re designing a logo, website, mobile app, presentation, or social media post, font choice is essential.

Confine is a bold sans-serif font with strong characters. Step outside the ordinary and use this sans-serif in your next brand design project.

Free to Download

The Kelson family offers nine free fonts with numerals, punctuation, and multilingual support. It works well for readable web copy and headlines.

Free to Download

Bourbon Grotesque has a retro feel with a touch of modernity. As a free, all-caps font, it has a distinctive vintage aesthetic that is perfect for branding and logo design.

Rosity is a sans-serif typeface that blends clean and crisp lines with sophistication. It uses simple shapes and even spacing, which makes it a good fit for headings and brand work.

Free to Download

Airone’s free, extra-bold sans-serif style adds a bold statement to any design. It is ideal for larger titles and headlines.

JUST Sans’s clean and simple design makes it an excellent fit for a wide range of projects. This font deserves a spot in everyone’s font collection.

Rostack is a bold and condensed font with solid strokes and compact letterforms. It works well for headlines, titles, or any design that needs a bold, consolidated style.

Free to Download

Nexa is a geometric sans-serif typeface family that offers plenty of variations to make your typography stand out. Even though it’s bold, it’s perfectly legible, so it’s a good fit for the web, too.

Free to Download

IBM champions innovation and cosmopolitanism, so it’s no surprise that its official font, IBM Plex, reflects those values. This font family offers extensive multilingual support, including Arabic and Hebrew.

Free to Download

Designed for the French Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Faune is a font family that offers both sans-serif (Faune Text) and script (Faune Display) variations. Both fonts are incredibly versatile and well-suited to a wide range of design projects.

Free to Download

Fira Sans was designed for screen use. It includes multiple weights, italics, and strong language support.

Free to Download

Alegreya Sans HT blends humanist typography with modern readability. The bundle includes 28 fonts, including extra bold and extra bold italic, and comprehensive multilingual support. It’s the complete package for any design project.

Free to Download

Peace Sans is a friendly, approachable font. Its curves ensure readability on both small and large displays.

Free to Download

Mohave, initially an all-caps sans-serif typeface, has evolved into a complete font family. It now includes four weights (light, regular, medium, and bold) each with matching italics. Its neutral character shapes make Mohave ideal for branding materials and web displays.

Free to Download

Neris is a sans-serif font designed for display and shorter paragraphs. It breaks away from the traditional sans-serif fonts with slanted lines and unique curvature.

Free to Download

Try Dense for improved legibility and a streamlined design. This sans-serif typeface offers three weights: thin, regular, and bold. Bold excels on large displays, while thin and regular are work well for web copy.

Free to Download

The elegant Canter sans-serif font combines bold lines and sharp turns, offering six display styles, including 3D, shadow, and outline. It’s ideal for headlines, posters, and branding materials.

Free to Download

Contemporary and bold, Sabado is a sans-serif font family that works well for display design. It offers two styles: Sabado regular and Sabado italic. This font will add a unique touch to your projects.

Free to Download

Geometry is perfection, and Rhyder captures this with its nature-inspired design. This geometric sans-serif font works well for both display and text.

Free to Download

Langdon is a bold sans-serif designed to make an impact. Its strong lines and dramatic style are perfect for headlines and posters. It includes numerals, punctuation, and various special characters.

Free to Download

Myra proves that sans-serifs can be just as striking as scripts. It has thin lines, rounded corners, and exaggerated swashes. It works well for web, print, apparel, and more!

Free to Download

Adam Pro is a sharp, clean sans-serif typeface inspired by the Futura font family. It’s an all-caps font with numerals and various weights.

Free to Download

Aileron blends futurism and humanism, creating a balanced sans-serif influenced by the Neo-Grotesque design movement. With 16 weight combinations, including italics and bold variants, Aileron is excellent for contemporary display and print design.

Free to Download

Big John and Slim Joe are two sides of the same coin. Big John is bold and beautiful, while Slim Joe is thin and modern. Both fonts are all-caps sans serifs, and they play off each other beautifully.

Free to Download

Moon is a rounded sans-serif typeface with three weights. It includes uppercase and lowercase, numerals, and special characters for multiple languages.

Free to Download

Source Sans Pro is Adobe’s first open-source typeface. Drawing inspiration from the best sans-serif typefaces, it provides twelve weights, extensive language support, and special characters. Source Sans Pro is ideal for user interface (UI) design.

Free to Download

Maven Modern builds on the original Maven typeface, adding three light fonts, including an ultra-thin hairline. It’s an excellent choice for web display, headlines, and label design.

Free to Download

Intro is a sans-serif collection consisting of 72 fonts. You can download four of the fonts for free. This sans serif is playful yet modern. It’s perfect for text and UI design.

Free to Download

Ostrich has a distinctive inline style and special characters for various languages. With options ranging from dashed to heavy weights, this sans-serif offers excellent versatility.

Free to Download

Cabin is a free sans-serif font with a wide range of weights and both Roman and italic styles. Its perfectly rounded elements will add a distinct personality to your designs.

Free to Download

HK Grotesk is a sans-serif inspired by traditional Grotesque typography, making it great for bold messaging. It includes uppercase and lowercase letters, numerals, punctuation, and a variety of special characters.

Free to Download

Qanelas Soft has a rounded design that creates a friendly, inviting look. This sans-serif includes 20 weights. It is ideal for UI design and body copy.

Moderne Sans

Free to Download

Moderne plays with curvature and sharp lines to create a clean sans-serif typeface for your next project. Inspired by the Roaring 20s era typography, Moderne was adapted to contemporary font trends.

Free to Download

Blogger is a well-rounded sans-serif typeface with plenty of options. It comes in four weights, with matching italics, alternates, and stylistic sets for different alphabets (e.g., Cyrillic).

Free to Download

Katahdin is a rounded, modern sans-serif typeface that works equally well in print and on the web. Its round corners make it friendly, and its multilingual support makes it the whole package.

Free to Download

Created for the Rubik’s Cube Exhibition in Jersey City, Rubik has been expanded to include multilingual support (including Cyrillic and Hebrew characters). Today, it’s a free, well-rounded sans-serif font suitable for a wide range of projects. You’ll get five font weights with matching italics for personalization.

Free to Download

Inspired by Art Deco, Relancer is an all-caps, sans-serif font with numerals and some punctuation options. It combines perfect geometry and a clean look for elegant designs.

Free to Download

Overpass is an open-source font designed for UI projects. It offers eight weights, including italics, and a monospace option for a retro touch. It’s perfectly legible, making it a great option for your next project.

Free to Download

Coves is a lively sans-serif font with a full range of characters, including uppercase and lowercase letters, special symbols, and accents. Its rounded edges and slanted lines create a lively feel, making it a popular option for modern brands.

Free to Download

Raleway, initially designed as a single thin font, has grown into a versatile sans-serif family. It now includes nine weights, including a variable version. Raleway is an elegant option for web design.

What are Sans-Serif Fonts?

Sans-serif fonts do not have the small strokes found on serif fonts. This gives them a clean and simple look.

They are easy to read on screens, which makes them a common choice for websites and apps. They also work well in print and pair easily with other font styles.

They work well in various design projects, from web and logo design to print materials. Their simplistic design makes them easy to pair with other font styles.

How to Install Fonts

Installing Fonts on Windows

1. Download the Font: Download the font you want to install. Fonts are typically downloaded as compressed files (ZIP or RAR).
2. Extract the Font: If the font file is compressed, extract it using built-in Windows tools or a tool like 7-Zip.
3. Install the Font: Once extracted, right-click on the font file (usually with a .ttf or .otf extension) and select Install. Your new font is now ready to use.

Installing Fonts on Mac

1. Download & Extract the Font: If the font is compressed, double-click the file to extract it. Mac’s Archive Utility will handle the extraction.
2. Install the Font: Double-click the font file. A preview window will appear with an Install Font button. Click the button to install it, and then you can use your new font.

Conclusion

The right sans-serif font depends on how it will be used. Some work better for headlines, while others are built for long-form text or UI.

A good font choice makes content easier to read and helps shape the overall design. Testing a few options is often the best way to decide. Keep a small set of reliable fonts on hand and build from there.

More Free Fonts

Read more articles by Paul Andrew

The post 40+ Best Free Sans-Serif Fonts for Modern Design appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.

These projects didn’t do much for my bank account. However, I learned a lot about web development and building professional relationships. It was a time and place to experiment and find what worked (and what didn’t).

Starting small seemed like a rite of passage for new designers and students. It was a way to get our feet wet in a growing industry. The goal was to “graduate” to something more lucrative and sustainable.

This is now a market targeted by artificial intelligence (AI) applications. We’re seeing new build tools that generate websites from a prompt. AI agents are now helping users navigate their content management system (CMS) and make changes. We’re at the beginning of a new era.

So, where does that leave the bottom portion of the web design market? Will AI destroy opportunities for new designers? Let’s try to make sense of what’s happening and what it means.

Is the Low End a Dead End?

Web technology has evolved over the past two decades. This means that even the simplest modern website is more complex than we could have dreamed of back in the day. For instance, old-school sites rarely required databases or languages beyond HTML. Now, we’re building brochure websites with PHP and various JavaScript flavors.

Client expectations have also trended upwards. The web is a mature platform, and features like e-commerce and automation are now commonplace. The costs of adding them have gone down considerably. As such, website owners across all market segments expect this sort of functionality.

Meanwhile, DIY website-building tools are becoming more capable. They’re now easier to use and more powerful than earlier versions. Perhaps the results aren’t at a professional level, but that’s good enough for a sizeable portion of the market.

This was becoming the case before AI entered the picture. The landscape was already flooded with web designers trying to undercut each other on price. AI site generators have accelerated the diminishing returns in this race to the bottom.

In that way, AI is yet another competitor that makes it harder to build a business on the lowest rungs of the ladder. Even so, new freelance designers have to start somewhere. So, what’s the alternative?

Identify Ways To Use AI to Your Advantage

Perhaps the answer lies in making the most out of these newfangled AI tools. After all, the results they produce are only as good as the person writing the prompts.

AI may reduce some technological barriers, but it’s not yet capable of reading your mind. It’s also unlikely to “think” of every need and niche use case. These tools work best when the user has a strong foundational knowledge. In other words, the more you know about building websites, the better the outcome.

In addition, web professionals don’t have to settle for what AI produces. We can take those initial results and expand on them. This scenario employs AI as a starting point – not the sole decision maker. And that’s where the potential lies for designers.

Your knowledge still holds value. Clients should still be informed about the consequences of using specific tools and technologies. They also need an expert to guide them on topics such as website performance and accessibility. Putting their business on autopilot is risky.

There’s an opportunity to help others get the most out of AI and other site-building tools. Thus, it’s worth experimenting with these apps, rather than dismissing them outright. They may help you serve the next generation of clients.

This also underlines the importance of learning (and continuing to learn) the fundamentals of web design and development. They will continue to serve as your advantage, no matter which tools you use.

New Web Designers Can Still Start Small

Yes, things are quite different from when I started my web design business. Everything seems to be on an accelerated pace these days. It’s enough to sow the seeds of doubt in your mind.

The positive of this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it landscape is that you’re forced to adapt. You’ll need that skill to survive in this industry. You may as well get used to it early in the game!

There are still opportunities to get your feet wet building websites for clients. As ever, it’s all about learning everything you can and applying it to your work. AI is just another stepping stone in your journey. Make it a point to experiment and become an authority.

The goal isn’t to stay at the bottom of the pricing scale forever. So, the more experience you gain, the faster you’ll move up the ladder.

That last part hasn’t changed a bit.

here. He recently started a writing service for WordPress products: WP Product Writeup. He also has an opinion on just about every subject. You can follow his rants on Bluesky @karks.com.

Read more articles by Eric Karkovack

The post How Will AI Impact the Bottom of the Web Design Market? appeared first on The NOKIA Blog.