The Best Design Resources for Indie Hackers, according to Indie Hackers

In a previous post, I asked IndieHackers what I should do as an Engineer who sucks at design.

I'll go over strategy first, and then resources.

Here's what I learned from the 40 different responses I got:

Learning vs. Outsourcing

Everything comes with an opportunity cost.

How essential is "becoming a design expert" for you and your business? Becoming great at design will take months/years of practice.

IndieHackers will have to wear many hats though, so learning the basics (to the point where you can easily hand it off to a professional designer) might be a great compromise without getting too deep into the weeds.

You need to draw your own line.

Best methods to Learn

Lots of courses and books were mentioned, which I'll list down below.

But the most common answer I got was to learn by copying. Pick a site you like, then copy it 1:1 on Figma. Similar to how a novice musician would begin playing other peoples' songs to get the hang of it.

Humans learn incredibly quickly through repetition, so this makes sense!

Resources

Books

Refactoring UI - for the basics of design

Javascript UI Libraries

shadcn/ui - Free, open source UI Kit for React

Mantine - Free, open source component library for React

Preline UI - Free, open source Tailwind-based component library for React, Vue, and any HTML

Flowbite - Tailwind-based component library for a bunch of frameworks (React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, etc). Both free and paid components.

Tools

Tailwind - Tailwind is Tailwind (and no, not Google's new AI project that happens to share the same name).

Figma - Figma is Figma

Design Template Sites

UI8 - Design template marketplace for all kinds of apps

Flowbase - Components & Templates for Webflow sites

Design Inspiration Boards

Dribbble - Portfolio showcase for designers

Landingfolio - Huge collection of design inspiration. I really love this.

No-code tools

Webflow - Webflow is webflow. I love it, it's a drag-and-drop website builder that relies heavily on CSS. If you're familiar with CSS, you'll feel at home here.

Versoly - No code website builder. Helps you create a fast, visually-appealing landing page with ease. Advanced coding functionality is also included, it looks like.

Are we missing anything?

Feel free to include more in the comments for everyone to learn!