I recently had someone get in touch with me asking for some advice on getting started in web development. This got me thinking about how I undertake projects and build websites.

As a freelance web developer, I usually build sites using WordPress as the CMS and build a custom theme for each project so that every web development project is fully bespoke and adaptable.

However, alongside this, there are a few web development libraries that I tend to use a lot.

Slick Slider

Slick Slider is essential for me in building customisable, reliable carousels. Throughout many web design trends, there always seems to be a carousel of some kind, so this tool is always useful. Slick, like all the libraries I use, is responsive and work on all main web browsers and devices.

Magnific PopUp

For overlays I always use Magnific Popup. It can be used to display all kinds of content from photo galleries to videos in an overlay, which gives the user a great user experience.

Hamburgers.css

This is a library from Jon Suh, a web designer in the US. Hamburgers.css is lightweight, reliable and looks great for mobile menu animation. I used this as the main menu animation on The Lemonade Press project.

Animate.css

Animate is a great library for straightforward animations on a website. I often use the FadeInUp animation for content to enable a smooth transition when the content comes into view on the page.

Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)

ACF, for me, is essential. It provides the ability to build blocks of content in WordPress which are easy to edit and update by the user. This means that once the project is handed over to the client they can manage all of the content from within WordPress, with little input from me, saving them time and money.