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I’ve long felt Australia punches well above its weight when it comes to developer tools. From HotDog back in the early days of the Web, to Sublime (you didn’t know Sublime is developed in Australia? Well now you do), and even to be less than 100% humble Style Master, the CSS editor that I developed for many years.

In recent years we’ve seen Linc, BuildKite, Calibre, and other great Australian developer tooling focussed companies, and last year we showcased a number of these at Web Directions Summit.

But it’s not just developer tooling where Australia is doing well. In the design tools and tooling arena, Easee (web animation tooling) and Trunk (‘Github for designers’) have both been acquired by Invision, and Interplay and Modulz (both with strong Australian connections) are sophisticated design applications in closed beta.

Showcasing Australia’s Design Tooling

So, just as we showcased a number of developer tooling companies at Summit last year, at Design we’ll be showcasing a few up and coming design tools companies with a strong Australian connection.

• Interplay is “Fast prototyping that combines the power of design systems, production code components and live collaboration”. It’s a very sophisticated web application, and has a lot of designers like Jina Anne (speaking on Design Systems at Design) really enthused.

• Modulz is a visual code editor, where you “Design, build, test, document and deploy your design system—without writing code”. “Modulz is specifically designed to produce robust, accessible, production-grade components and interfaces”

• Three blind men and an elephant are a bit earlier stage than Interplay and Modulz, but I’ve been impressed with what they are working on, and we’re keen to give this young team some exposure to potential customers, partners and users.

We’re excited to be showcasing these emerging companies and tools so if you’re attending Design (and if not, why not?) make sure you say hi!