LittleSnapper is a handy screenshot program I recently found through Jeremy Harrington.
LittleSnapper is great because it helps you do two things very well that, as a designer, are essential to your profession.
Keep a designers scrapbook: People in creative professions, from writers to artists, keep an inspiration journal for ideas and snippets of what inspires you. Most of the time I use my trusty Moleskine for this. I take it to museums, work, wherever I might see something cool. But, that only gets me so far: since most of my work is done on the web, I need something that can grab snippets off the screen, too.
Document your finished work copiously: I’m serious about this one. When I started freelancing, I let this one slide, since it’s a chore. Screenshots of a full-length website are a pain, especially when you’re trying to capture dynamic elements like Javascript. Organizing those screenshots is an even bigger pain. I missed being able to show a good chunk of my work to potential clients because I initially didn’t make the effort. Don’t make this mistake. As a designer, your past work is the only thing your potential clients have to go on. Document everything: every major screen, every UI detail. This goes for re-designs of your sites, too. You can’t have too many screenshots of your work, but you sure as heck can have to few. Snapping everything lets you cull out the real winners later, and gives you a wide pool of images to draw on.
My LittleSnapper Favorite Features
Organization doesn’t suck: So you’ve got all these screenshots floating around on your hard drive now. What do you do with them? I’ve found manually organizing everything into folders to be tedious and not easily re-discoverable. LittleSnapper lets you tag your images. Nice.
Gorgeous UI: Every designer appreciates when an app just feels right. This app feels great. Slick little details abound. It’s a pleasure to use.
DOM Snapper: A built-in webkit browser lets you take screenshots of individual DOM elements. You don’t know how handy this is until you have it.
Push to the cloud: FTP and Flickr Integration: LittleSnapper makes it a breeze to backup and share your collection. After giving it your FTP or Flickr credentials, you can publish an image (or huge batches of images) to the web with the click of a cute little cloud button. Update: You can also push to LittleSnapper’s image sharing service, QuickSnapper.
Like it? You can have it.
Getting started in your design career? Start a good habit early. I’ve got an extra license key for LittleSnapper. The first person to leave a comment can have it for free. Just let me know how you plan to use it so I can feel warm and happy inside.