Five super-useful Chrome extensions for web designers

There’s a variety of free extensions you can get for the Google Chrome browser. I’d like to show you the ones I most frequently use in this post. Also, if you’re a Webflow user, there is one extension there specifically for you.

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Loom

Loom is an extension which allows you to do a screen recording of well, your screen and yourself via your computer’s webcam. I use it, as well as the accompanying desktop app for recording training videos for clients, as well as instructional videos whenever I help out other designers with any Webflow issues they might have. The tool is free and lets you record videos with or without audio quickly. After you’ve finished recording and you’re happy with the result, you can either link to the video online or download the video to your own computer. The basic version of Loom is free, but you’ll have to pay a small monthly fee for additional features.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/loom-video-recorder-scree/liecbddmkiiihnedobmlmillhodjkdmb

CSS Peeper

CSS Peeper is a very useful plugin if you often need to use other sites on the web as a reference and gather assets from other sites. The free tool lets you grab HEX colour values and gather info such as type name and size used. You can also export/download assets such as logos or photos. While you can achieve many of these tasks via the Chrome Developer Tools, CSS Peeper helps you accomplish this way faster and with less digging around in the code. If you’re a designer who likes to re-create other sites for practice purposes, or if you want to find out which typeface was used on a particular site you love, this extension is for you!

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/css-peeper/mbnbehikldjhnfehhnaidhjhoofhpehk

Save to Pocket

Save to Pocket lets you easily save articles, blog posts and other media for consumption at a later point in time. This saves you having to shove every interesting article that you don’t have time to read right now into your bookmark list. Save to Pocket makes your articles then available on all your devices, so anything saved on your desktop computer can be accessed on your mobile phone and vice versa. It also allows you to read your saved articles in a distraction-free environment without advertisements. Be sure to give it a go!

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/save-to-pocket/niloccemoadcdkdjlinkgdfekeahmflj

Full Page Screen Capture

This handy extension lets you take a screenshot of any website you’ve opened in your Chrome browser. The tool saves a screenshot of the whole page, not just of the section that is visible in your browser window. You can either download the screenshot as a jpg, png or pdf.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/full-page-screen-capture/fdpohaocaechififmbbbbbknoalclacl

Webflow Chrome Extension

This little tool does just one thing. It lets you use the colour picker inside the Webflow user interface to sample a colour used in one of your Webflow projects (similar to the same feature in Photoshop or Illustrator). Maybe sometime in the future this feature will be integrated in Webflow without the need of an extension, but for now this solution works quite well! Haven't heard of Webflow before? You can check it out and sign up for an account here (yes, that's an affiliate link).

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Have got any other Chrome extensions you enjoy? Let me know!