Chrome extensions are small software programs that enhance or add new functionality to your browser. You can install extensions to customize your browsing experience, improve productivity, and use tools like password managers, note-taking aids, grammar checkers, and more.
For designers, the Google Chrome browser is extremely useful for searching for colors, fonts, layouts, inspiration, and references. Chrome extensions make all of this easier and can save hours every week. They help improve your workflow, boost creativity, and make your daily tasks smoother.
In this blog, we will talk about the best Chrome extensions you should use in 2025.
CATEGORY 1: Color & Palette Tools
1. Eye Dropper
Every designer deals with colors — copying, matching, adjusting, and experimenting. Many times, you see a color you want to use, but you don’t know the exact color code or hex value. In this case, Eye Dropper helps a lot. It works just like Photoshop’s eye dropper tool and shows you the exact color instantly.
Eye Dropper makes the process simple. You can pick any color from any website, and it will instantly give you the HEX or RGB code. It also saves your color history, which is very useful when you’re collecting color ideas for a project.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Simple and clean interface
- Quick color picking
- Saves recent colours for later use
If you want to create a clean, consistent, and visually appealing look in your design, branding, or artwork, a palette creator can be extremely helpful. It provides a curated group of colors that work well together and supports you in setting the right mood, building a strong brand identity, and maintaining harmony throughout your project. These tools also help guide user attention in digital interfaces and ensure that contrast and consistency are maintained.
In simple terms, a palette creator helps you make intentional and effective color choices. These choices influence emotion, guide the viewer’s eye, and make your overall design stronger and more impactful.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Create palette directly from images
- Perfect for branding and color research
- Helps build themed designs quickly
3. WCAG Color contrast checker
Above, we talked about extensions that help you pick colors and create color palettes. Now, we should also understand contrast. Contrast means a noticeable difference between two or more elements, or comparing them to highlight that difference. In design, contrast usually refers to differences in color, lightness, or visual weight.
For example, the contrast between a bright white background and dark text improves readability on a screen. Good contrast makes content easier to read, helps guide the viewer’s eye, and improves overall accessibility.
This is where a WCAG color contrast checker becomes useful. It helps you check the difference between two colors and tells you whether they meet accessibility standards. This ensures your design is readable, user-friendly, and visually balanced.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Ensures your text and UI colors meet WCAG 2.2 standards automatically, even when opacity or RGBA values are used.
- Lets you simulate color blindness to see how real users experience your design.
- Offers manual color input, a color picker, and auto-refreshes with page changes—saving time and improving accessibility.
CATEGORY 2: Typography & Font Tools
4. WhatFont
Typography can completely change a design, and sometimes it’s difficult to decide which font to choose. Often, we see a great font somewhere and want to use it, but don’t know its name. WhatFont solves this problem by helping you identify fonts on any website just by hovering over the text. Whether you’re exploring modern fonts for a landing page or studying how brands use typography, WhatFont gives you instant answers. It identifies the font family, size, color, and more, making it an easy-to-use tool for designers, developers, marketers, or anyone who wants to quickly check the typography used on a site.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Fast, accurate font identification
- Shows family, weight, size, and more
- Helpful for type-inspired design research
5. Fonts Ninja
If you want more than just identifying fonts and need more than the basics, Fonts Ninja goes deeper. It doesn’t just tell you what a font is—it lets you test fonts, preview text, and even find download or purchase links. This makes experimenting with typography quicker and much more practical.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Advanced typography tool
- Try fonts before using them
- Discover font sources easily
CATEGORY 3: Layout, UI Inspection & Measurement Tools
6. Hoverify
Hoverify is one of the most powerful yet underrated design tools. It allows you to inspect CSS, spacing, fonts, and assets directly from the browser. You can also check responsive previews and even download images or SVGs from websites.
For designers studying UI layouts or rebuilding sections for clients, it’s a game-changer.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Inspect CSS visually
- Download images, icons, and assets
- Responsive preview built-in
- Replaces multiple extensions
PixGrid Ruler works like a virtual ruler that you can drag across any webpage to measure elements accurately. It helps designers and developers check layouts, spacing, and alignment with precision. The tool offers features like a draggable ruler, the ability to select and measure any element, and handy keyboard shortcuts for a faster workflow.
Pixel-perfect design is still important, especially in web and UI design. With PixGrid Ruler, you can measure any area on a webpage—its width, height, and exact position. This makes it easier to analyze structure, recreate spacing, and ensure everything aligns correctly.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Measure pixel dimensions instantly
- Useful for UI audits
- Helpful when matching layouts
8. VisBug
VisBug is a visual prototyping extension that lets designers and developers tweak live webpages without writing any code. It provides an intuitive toolbar—similar to graphic design software—so you can move elements, edit text, change colors, adjust spacing, and experiment with typography directly on the page. VisBug essentially turns your browser into a mini design tool, allowing you to see how changes look and behave in real time.
UI/UX designers especially love it because it lets them quickly test layout ideas and visual tweaks without needing to open Figma or any other design tool.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Live visual editing
- Adjust spacing and layout
- Perfect for experimenting with UI ideas
CATEGORY 4: Inspiration, Creativity & Workflow Boosters
9. Muzli
Sometimes we run out of ideas and need some inspiration—whether it’s color patterns, UI ideas, typography, mockups, branding concepts, or more. Muzli gives you a daily feed of fresh design inspiration from top platforms. It’s a quick and easy way to stay updated with modern trends.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Fresh inspiration every day
- Helps spark new ideas
- Useful for moodboards, trend research
10. FireShot
FireShot is a powerful browser extension that lets you capture, edit, and save entire webpages as images or PDFs. You can screenshot a full page, a selected area, or just the visible section, and then use built-in annotation tools, file conversion options, and upload features.
Whether you’re saving reference designs, documenting ideas, or sending layout screenshots to clients, FireShot makes the process quick and simple. It’s especially useful for designers who need clean full-page captures and easy exporting in PDF or image formats.
Why it’s great for designers:
- Full page screenshots
- Save references instantly
- Create design documentation easily
These 10 Chrome extensions help you explore fonts, pick colors, understand layouts, analyze UI, collect inspiration, measure spacing, and improve your entire workflow
The best part is that all these tools are lightweight, free, and easy to use. Whether you’re a beginner graphic designer, a UI/UX designer, or someone who wants to sharpen their creative process, these extensions will make your daily work smoother and more efficient.