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At first glance, parallel processing sounds like an invitation to free lunch – being able to use multi-core CPUs more efficiently should give your code a tremendous speed boost. Practical experience shows that this is not always the case: some problems are impossible to parallelise. In addition to that, parallel execution leads to an entire family of new problems that are not seen on single-core machines. Parallel code can, in principle, be broken down into two groups of job. The first group is classic speed increase – if your program has to sift through 3000 images, splitting the job up means that more images can be processed at any one time. While definitely beneficial, this kind of task is rarely encountered in everyday web development. The more common form of parallelisation job works around long-running tasks which do not require much CPU time. A good example for this would be waiting for a download or some kind of device input: if this is done in a parallelised fashion, the rest of the GUI does not need to be blocked. Given that users tend to have issues understanding 'why the button doesn’t click', this can lead to increased user satisfaction even if actual speed does not increase. If you need some new resources to help you code smarter, check out our guide to the best web design tools of 2019. 01. Intervalled execution Let us start out with a small example based on a well-liked favourite: the setInterval function. It takes a function reference and a numeric value delineated in milliseconds. After that, the function is periodically fired up whenever the delays timer expires. 02. Setting up for a fall Using the sleep() function requires us to load the sleep module to a local npm project. It acts as an interface to the operating system’s sleep library – do not wonder if your workstation’s compiler is fired up during the deployment of the package. 03. Perils of multitasking When running this program, you will find yourself confronted with output similar to the one shown in the figure accompanying this step. It is obvious that our worker never gets invoked – something must be wrong with the setInterval function. 04. Perils of multitasking, part 2 Modern browsers equip each tab with one JavaScript thread. A careful look at our loop reveals that it is endless. This means that it will run forever, and will never yield control. Given that setInterval() works with a message, its payload never gets run as the message handler is blocked from running. 05. Focus on troublemakers Flavio Copes' blog, provides an extremely interesting bit of code illustrating the problem. When run, it yields the output shown in the figure due to the message queue being blocked until foo() relinquishes control of the main thread. 06. Introduce threading Given that the underlying operating system is able to perform preemptive multitasking, let us harness its capabilities by spawning threads via a dedicated API called WebWorkers, which enjoy wide-ranging support. The figure accompanying this step shows the current listing for the feature. 07. Create an extra file WebWorkers cannot kick off with a function payload. Instead, a new file is required which contains the code intended to run in the thread. In the case of our example, example7thread.js has the content shown accompanying this step. 08. Run the worker... Our worker is ready for prime-time. Specialities of the Node.JS runtime force us to include the worker threads module and pass in a relative path – problems not faced in the browser. Furthermore, do not wonder about the missing start() call – a web worker sets off when the instance comes online. 09. ...and understand its results Message delivery usually requires some kind of interaction between the runtime and the rest of the operating system. Sadly, our endless loop blocks this process – which means that only one of the messages pops up before 'the big stall'. 10. Add the mask Another experiment involves placing an empty loop after the two constructor invocations. In this case, the threads will never start working – the invocation message never arrives with the operating system. 11. Interprocess communication While workers running tight endless loops do have the problems exhibited above, routines can communicate with one another. This is done via a message passing interface – think of it as a facility which lets you pass a message object from a sender to a recipient across thread boundaries. 12. Why message-pass? In addition to the benefits of being able to coordinate threads efficiently (and reduced risk of 'collisions', also known as race conditions), message passing to the main thread is the only way to interact with the DOM, due to the difficulty of creating thread-safe GUI stacks. 13. Move to the browser Implementing message passing in Node.JS is tedious. Move the code to the web – start out by creating a HTML harness that loads examplempi.js. Be aware that this code can only be run from a localhost web server due to DOM origin restrictions. 14. Set up a mailbox... Each worker exposes an onmessage property which takes up a function reference that must be invoked whenever a message pops up from the other end. Incoming messages are simply forwarded to the console of the browser from the main thread. 15. ...and feed it from the worker Sending messages to a mailbox is accomplished by invoking the post Message function. Keep in mind that a worker can also implement an onmessage event, which could receive information from whoever 'owns' the worker instance object. 16. Kick it off... At this point in time, the code is ready to run. The developer console isn’t flooded with messages due to the high efficiency of the MPI interface, meaning data can travel around the system efficiently. 17. Async and await Microsoft’s addition of the async and await keywords modified the history of C# and VisualBasic.Net. In principle, a method marked async is run cooperatively with the rest of the program. Results can then be harvested via the await function. 18. Replace our sleeper Given that browsers are under severe limitations when it comes to accessing native functions, we cannot reuse the sleep function mentioned before. It, furthermore, is suboptimal in that it halted the entire Node.JS runtime. The snippet accompanying this step provides a more effective approach. 19. Understand the code... This code returns a promise object – it is another convenience class added to Java Script in an attempt to make multithreading easier. You will need to invoke its resolve method via a setTimeout, ensuring that the code has to 'sit out' quite a bit of time. 20. ...and deploy it somewhere Await calls are permitted only inside of async functions. This means that the worker is in need of a rewrite – start off by invoking an async bearer function. It handles the rest of the code interaction. 21. Harness the power of native! Developers working on Node.JS code should not forget that they can – usually – also create completely native modules if extremely high performance is needed. These can not only take advantage of the various operating system APIs, but can also be written in programming languages that compile to machine code. This article was originally published in issue 291 of creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 291. Read more: The best JavaScript libraries 25 of the best JavaScript APIs Really useful web design tutorials View the full article

GPUs were initially developed to manipulate the data in the computer’s frame buffer and present it as pixels on screen, a task that CPUs weren’t suited to. It required processors that could do lots of relatively simple calculations, but very quickly and all at the same time. The advent of polygonal 3D graphics led to programmable pixel and vertex shaders, which in turn led to the GPGPU – or general purpose graphics processing unit – which first began to appear in the early 2000s. Basically it means that the processors in a GPU can be called upon to take some of the heavy lifting away from the CPU. They’re ideal for repetitive tasks like raytracing a 3D render or performing complex simulations. The best Black Friday graphics cards deals in 2019 Today’s mighty graphics cards are rated in teraflops – the ability to calculate a trillion floating-point operations per second. Some high-end cards can perform at more than 100 teraflops – but that’s not to say any GPU will speed up your work in Photoshop or make sculpting in ZBrush any faster. Choosing a GPU depends on your workflow, the apps you use and, of course, your budget. Our roundup of the best graphics cards will help you with the latter, but first let's take a closer look at exactly what type of card is best suited to your creative needs. Mobile power At the very base level, you have affordable PC laptops that use an integrated GPU – one that’s actually built into the CPU. These are often weak in terms of performance, but are energy efficient, so you can work for hours without draining the battery. An integrated GPU will be enough to watch movies, surf the web and play casual games, but might struggle with creative projects. If you need more grunt, you should look for laptops with a discrete GPU: both Nvidia and AMD produce mobile variants of their desktop cards, which provide enough power for most creative tasks, short of 3D animation and rendering. Having said that, the more expensive (and bulkier) laptops can be equipped with top-end GPUs, like Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2080. You will pay a premium price for a setup like this, but if you need performance on the go, the laptop form factor is no longer a limitation. Just remember to pack a mains adapter. Desktop setup When it comes to desktop setups, your choice of GPU is vast. Not only because of the large number of models and options available, but also because there’s a vibrant second-hand market. High-end gamers will upgrade regularly, and so you can often find last-gen models cheaper online. While last year’s GPU might not cut it playing the latest Modern Warfare in 4K, you might find it’s ideal for your illustration, video or animation needs. For example, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (released in 2017) is a powerhouse of a card and available for less than £400 if you shop around. While it’s not the best idea to scrimp on budget, by the same token you don’t necessarily need to buy most expensive GPU you can find, either. It’s tempting to splurge on a sexy new card with lots VRAM – but unless you’re handling huge CAD files or doing 3D rendering, any more than 8GB is probably overkill. Similarly, why pay top dollar for one of Nvidia’s RTX GPUs if none of your apps support raytracing? Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is a powerhouse of a card One key question is: are your programmes GPU-accelerated? If your apps employ OpenCL, they’ll work with cards from both Nvidia and AMD, but if they’re CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) accelerated, you’ll need an Nvidia card. Additional GPUs provide more power in certain workflows, but with a typical setup – outside of intensive video work or 3D rendering – a single powerful GPU is often enough; you can add more but you probably won’t see enough benefit to justify the cost. You will do need to do a bit of homework to find the right balance of power and price for the tasks you do. Also take into account how many monitors you need and the resolution you work in; a lower priced card might struggle to drive two 4K monitors and handle complex video or effects work at the same time. With a typical setup – outside of intensive video work or 3D rendering – a single powerful GPU is often enough Nvidia currently dominates the high end with its RTX 2080 and 2070 cards (and their powerful Ti variants), although AMD struck back this summer with the Radeon VII, its first 7nm GPU with a healthy 16GB of VRAM. The card stands toe-to-toe with the GTX 2080 in most areas, although it is a bit power-hungry. For mid-range cards, you’re really spoiled for choice. Both vendors have a huge range of GPUs available, priced from £200 to around £500. Look out for ‘Super’ versions of existing Nvidia cards; the GeForce RTX 2070 Super offers RTX raytracing, with more CUDA cores and a higher clock frequency than its non-Super sibling for less than £500. Competing in the same space is AMD’s new RX 5700 XT – the first of its GPUs to use the ‘Navi’ architecture – which delivers RTX 2070-level performance for less than £400. 3D rendering We’ve split 3D rendering out because it’s a very specific case. The last few years have seen a huge shift away from CPU rendering to the GPU. There are loads of dedicated GPU-based apps such as Octane, Redshift and Cycles, while traditionally CPU-bound renderers like Arnold, V-Ray and Keyshot have recently added GPU acceleration. They all currently use Nvidia’s CUDA libraries to perform real-time ray tracing, and, naturally, require an Nvidia GPU (and as many as you can slot into your PC case). The newer RTX cards show real performance gains – up three times faster in Octane, for example. However, while Nvidia has owned this market for about five years now, AMD isn’t out of the running. It has its own software, called Pro Render, which operates using OpenCL and works on both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Also, the developers of Octane and Redshift have both committed to bringing their renderers to Apple’s Metal API, which is only supported by AMD cards. AMD is also working on its own implementation of hardware ray tracing, with its next-generation rDNA GPUs rumoured to be announced at CES in January 2020. At this moment, we can’t really argue against going Nvidia to make use of CUDA-accelerated renderers, but the battle for GPU rendering is far from over. Workstation cards Workstation GPUs are more expensive, with prices starting around £700 For workstation-class GPUs, Nvidia has its Quadro range while AMD’s are branded as Radeon Pro. At first glance, the specs of the cards will look similar or occasionally weaker than their consumer-level equivalents, but they’re designed for precision and robustness, more than out-and-out speed, like a gaming GPU. Workstation cards are aimed at engineers, designers, 3D animators… anyone visualising computer graphics. The drivers are certified for use with specific apps, and they’re also built to handle multi-million polygon scenes, so often come with large amounts of error-correcting (ECC) VRAM, usually a minimum of 8GB and as much as 48GB. One other reason to consider a Quadro or Radeon Pro card is if you want to work in 10-bit colour using a compatible monitor (typical GPUs only use 8-bit colour). Workstation-class cards produce more accurate colours and will let you work in high dynamic range (HDR). Having said that, a recent Studio driver update by Nividia has opened up 10-bit colour to its GeForce and Titan GPUs, making the argument for a Quadro card even less convincing. Workstation GPUs are more expensive – prices start around £700 and price tags in the thousands aren’t uncommon. But they should work faster in the apps they’re specified for, and operate stably and more reliably, especially where high precision is required. You can no doubt use a consumer-level card, but if your livelihood is reliant on producing accurate results, on time, every day, it might be a false economy. Conclusion The right GPU can offer real improvements to your workflow, but don’t get too hung up on the selection process. There are lots of cards that boast slender wins in specific benchmarks, but in truth, there aren’t that many applications where spending another £300 or £400 will get you any major advantage. Most cards within the same price range offer very similar performance (give or take a few percentage points), and it's only with things like CUDA acceleration and raytracing, that the benefits become clear. Nvidia and AMD continue to launch new cards on a regular – and somewhat bewildering – basis, each with marginally improved performance. With so much power in the latest GPUs, as long as you’ve done your research, you can’t really go that far wrong. Read more: The best computer for graphic design in 2019 Where to find cheap creative hardware and software The best internal hard drives of 2019 View the full article

When you’re looking for high quality stock imagery at affordable prices, Adobe Stock is the obviously go-to for pro designers. Fully integrated into the Creative Cloud, and packed full of world-class photography, illustrations, graphics and video footage, Adobe Stock makes it easy to find the assets you need to make your design sing. But that doesn’t mean it's resting on its laurels. The creative world moves quickly and the kind of imagery that designers need to stay on-trend is ever-changing. So Adobe Stock is working hard to make sure that its libraries are continuously updated to meet new demand. As part of that effort, the platform often partners with other leading creative companies and professionals. In this article, we highlight five of the biggest recent collaborations, and how you can licence the resulting assets. Meanwhile, if you’re new to Adobe Stock, then here's a great offer. Try Adobe Stock free for a month and get 10 standard assets with your free 30-day trial! 01. Bex Day: International Trans Day of Visibility Part of the 'Fluid Self' series by Bex Day We hear a lot about diversity in stock imagery these days, but better representation isn’t just about race and gender. Adobe is committed to bringing greater diversity to its library in all areas, from age to disability. And a recent example can be seen in its partnership with photographer Bex Day. To mark International Trans Day of Visibility (31 March), Adobe Stock worked with Bex to capture a collection of images that celebrate the UK’s transgender community. Shunning outdated stereotypes, the Berlin-based photographer cast trans models from Shropshire to Essex to showcase the diversity of the community in the UK across different ages, nationalities and fashion styles. To license the imagery, check out Bex Day’s Adobe Stock Contributor profile. 02. Andy Smith: Portraits of London Portrait of woman holding umbrella by Andy Smith In an increasingly globalised society, our major cities are becoming multiethnic and multicultural patchworks of diverse relationships. So today's designers need to find images that will represent this new reality, in an authentic, cliche-free way that reflects life as it’s really lived. To help promote this idea, Adobe Stock teamed up with photographer Andy Smith to produce a series called ‘Portraits of London’, which features real people, rather than models. Through this special photoshoot, Andy set out to capture people in their natural element and document what they do on a daily basis, whether they’re a cab driver, barber, butcher, or a lollipop lady. To licence the imagery, check out the Portraits of London collection. 03. Pantone Color Institute & The Ocean Agency: Glowing Glowing Gone Fluorescing coral among bleached reef By The Ocean Agency One of the few issues that’s bigger than diversity right now is climate change. When it comes to raising awareness, a picture can be worth a thousand words, and so demand for beautiful and engaging imagery on this subject has never been greater. Adobe Stock has been playing a keen role in this area, and a prime example from 2019 has been its partnership with the Pantone Color Institute and nonprofit organisation The Ocean Agency, on a campaign to raise the awareness and support necessary to save coral reefs. Glowing Glowing Gone centres around a series of images, captured by The Ocean Agency, of a coral reef in New Caledonia “glowing” in vivid colours. This is an especially bitter-sweet phenomenon, as corals produce these brightly coloured chemicals in reaction to fatally high water temperatures and sun exposure. It’s essentially a final line of defence before the coral dies and bleaches to white. Using Adobe Color’s powerful colour engine, Adobe Stock extracted the specific fluorescing LAB values from The Ocean Agency’s images and converted them to RGB. In collaboration with Pantone, they then turned these digital values into Pantone Color Standards, and selected the custom palette that would become the signature colours for climate change protest: Living Coral, Glowing Yellow, Glowing Blue, and Glowing Purple. Adobe Stock has also curated a collection inspired by the Glowing Glowing Gone palette, and all of the proceeds from sales will go to supporting the foundation’s mission to protect the world’s oceans. 04. Design Crowd: Icons from around the World Illustrated Culture Icons of Scotland by Adam Adobe Stock doesn't just offer stock photography, but also provides other vital design resources, such as illustrations, graphics, templates and video. One of its most sought-after offerings is icons, and the platform recently partnered with Design Crowd to host an icon design contest, inspired by the diversity of cultures and customs around the world. The winning design focused on Scottish culture and traditions, and you can see all the winners here. 05. Rijksmuseum: The Beauty of Art in 3D Framed painting of a milkmaid by Rijksmuseum One of the world’s most famous art galleries, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam put over 125,000 high-resolution images from its collection available online in 2013, available to download for free and use under a Creative Commons licence. It was a bold move: but that was just for starters. Five years later, the museum partnered with Adobe Stock to transform some of its most prized physical objects into 3D models. A carefully curated selection of 28 models is available for free in this Adobe Stock gallery. Adobe Stock also have also worked with three talented artists to create breathtaking renders using these assets in Dimension CC. You can find links to these, and explanations of how they were made, in this blog post. Try Adobe Stock for free! In 2019, creatives at every level of the profession are harnessing the power of Adobe Stock to make imaginative and eye-catching designs. If you haven't started using Adobe Stock, then it's high time you got on board, and here's a great offer to help persuade you. Try Adobe Stock for free for one month and you'll get 10 standard assets with your free 30-day trial! You've nothing to lose, and everything to gain, in terms of making you more efficient, productive and creative. So don't delay, get started with Adobe Stock today! View the full article

If you're looking for a Christmas gift with a difference for your favourite creative, we might just have the answer. Creative Bloq is the online presence for leading creative magazines, ImagineFX, Computer Arts, 3D World and NET, and a subscription to one of these could be just what's needed under the tree of your nearest and dearest. Not sure which one is right for you? Well, if your intended is passionate about drawing and painting then ImagineFX is the perfect choice, Computer Arts will be welcomely received by any designer, CG artists will love 3D World and web designers/developers will learn loads from NET. Below, you'll find huge savings on all these amazing titles – and more information about each one to help you decide which is right for you. If you're not in the UK, don't worry! There are still great savings for you, just select the United States or Rest of the World option from the drop-down menu on the purchase page. Save up to 66% on a subscription to the world's best creative titles Need to know a bit more? Here's all you need to know about what you'll find in each mag and the festively-generous savings you can currently make on a subscription. Bring some Christmas creative cheer to your loved one, or treat yourself with one of these excellent reads. Read more: The best iPad Black Friday deals – updated live Adobe Black Friday Creative Cloud deal is LIVE: Get 40% off all apps The Christmas present everyone wants (even if they don't know it yet) View the full article

Looking to download Adobe Illustrator CC, but can’t work out how to do it? Well, you’re not alone. The different options can be a little confusing, but fret not: we're here to guide you through what's actually quite a simple process. In this post, we’ll explain all you need to know about both downloading Illustrator for free, and getting it as part of a subscription through the Adobe Creative Cloud. You’ll soon discover the best option for you, and what you action need to take next. And it’s worth taking the time, because Adobe’s drawing software is the industry standard, and widely used by artists, illustrators, designers, art directors and marketing professionals to create art, illustrations and scalable vector graphics. So read on, as we outline the best ways of getting Illustrator CC and download it to your Mac or PC. Can I download Illustrator for free? Yes, you can download a free version of Illustrator CC. Well, a free trial, at least. You’ll then have seven days to try out the full version of the drawing software and find out if it’s right for you. A free trial is the only legitimate way to download Illustrator CC for free. There are pirated versions to be found on the web of course, but that would mean breaking the law. You’d also be putting your devices and data at risk from viruses and malware, which could allow people to steal your identity, take money from your bank account, or worse. So we really wouldn’t recommend it. To take out a free trial to Illustrator CC, you’ll first need an Adobe ID, if you don’t have one already. These are quick to set one up and totally free. Next, you’ll need to enter your credit card details. Don’t be scared: as long as you cancel your account in good time, you won’t get charged. If you decide to keep subscribing, though, payments will be deducted automatically. How do I buy Illustrator CC? There’s only one way to buy Illustrator: as part of a Creative Cloud membership, for which you pay monthly or annually. However, there are two broad options. The first, and cheapest, is to subscribe to Illustrator only. The second is take out an All Apps subscription. This will cost you more, but provide access to all of the Creative Cloud apps, along with a range of other benefits. (If you’re not sure which CC apps you might like to have, read our Adobe software list). And right now, there's a great Black Friday discount available (see our Adobe Black Friday post) If the cost of the latter seems too high, don’t despair: Adobe often runs promotions that cut the cost further. And beyond that, there are always discounts for students and teachers, as well as separate pricing for businesses, schools and universities. So it’s always worth having a look to see what deals are available at any given time. What’s the price of Illustrator CC? Illustration by Karan Singh Your lowest cost option is to buy Illustrator CC through the Single App Illustrator plan, which which at time of writing costs £19.97 / $20.99 / AU$29.99 per month on an annual plan, and includes a subscription to Adobe Illustrator CC, plus 100GB of cloud storage, Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark. The alternative is to buy Illustrator CC through the Creative Cloud All Apps option, which gives you access to Illustrator as well as Adobe’s entire collection of creative desktop and mobile apps. There's currently 40 per cent off this plan for Black Friday, and so it costs £30.34 / $29.99 / AU$43.99 per month on an annual plan. Illustrator discounts for teachers and students If you’re a student or teacher, you can buy Illustrator as part of a discounted All Apps plan at a much lower rate. So right now, you can get the entire Creative Cloud suite of apps, along with 100GB cloud storage, Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark, for just $15.99 / £13.15 / AU$21.99 per month for the first year, and then $29.99 / £25.28 / AU$43.99 the following year. How can I get started with Illustrator? Typography by Lidia Lukianova Once you've downloaded Illustrator, check out our roundup of the best Illustrator tutorials to get started with the software, and boost your skills and knowledge, whatever your current level of expertise. Whether you want to design a complex illustration, or just a simple icon, this great selection of tutorials will teach you new tricks and help you to become more productive and creative in using the software. Also, if you'd like to save yourself time and effort using Illustrator, you can check out our roundup of the best illustrator plugins. And finally, if you’re looking for Illustrator brushes, we've found the best ones the internet has to offer, both free and premium. Illustrator CC: Key info you need to know First released in 1987, Illustrator is a sophisticated drawing programme based on vector graphics, which are infinitely scalable. That means your work can scale down for mobile screens and up to billboard size, and everywhere in-between, without losing resolution. IIllustrator CC is commonly used by professional illustrators, visual artists, graphic designers and web designers to create quality artwork. This includes simple shapes, backgrounds and icons; logos, emojis, social media graphics and infographics; cartoons, charts, diagrams, and graphs; and of course full-blown illustrations and digital art. As part of your CC subscription plan, you receive all Illustrator updates free. The latest version is Adobe Illustrator 2020. The headline feature of this release was accelerated performance and stability: files now launch, save and render significantly faster than before. There have also been improvements to the Path Simplification feature and spellcheck has been added too. You can read more about the latest features here. Adobe Illustrator: Android and iOS apps Illustrator is currently only available for Mac and PC desktop computers, Adobe has announced that it will be available for iPad sometime in 2020. There are, however, currently no signs of an Android version of Illustrator in sight. Check out 6 cool things you'll be able to do with the iPad version, and watch the preview at Adobe Max in the video below. Illustrator alternatives In our view, the best Illustrator alternative is Affinity Designer, which was launched in 2014 by Serif, the makers of Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer and available for Mac, Windows and iPad. These three, low-cost apps are interoperable, in a similar way to the Creative Cloud apps, although there’s no equivalent to services such as Adobe Fonts and Adobe Stock. Affinity Designer is available for a one-off fee and requires no subscription. Our favourite free Illustrator alternative, meanwhile, is Sketch, another vector graphics editor which has become the industry go-to for UI and UX designs since its release in 2010. Note that it is, however, only available for Mac. Read more: How to move from animation into illustration The illustrator hotlist 2019 Photoshop for iPad review View the full article

If you ever really want to spoil your day, simply do a little research into how much other people doing the same job as you get paid. Because unless you're exceptionally brilliant – or fortunate – you'll find that there are plenty of people earning a lot more than you for more or less the same work. Such is the way of the world. In that spirit, here's an infographic from Liberty Games that tots up the average wage for 50 assorted jobs across the creative industries, and which might have you heading for our design jobs page. Its UK creative wage chart covers jobs in everything from design through to marketing, TV and even the theatre, and ranks jobs from the highest earners – film and TV directors, coining it in at £57,589 – down to the lowest, who according to Liberty Games are fashion designers, bringing in an average of £20,716. Ever thought of becoming a news anchor? (Click the top right-hand corner to enlarge) Things aren't looking a lot better than that for graphic designers, who according to Liberty Games' numbers earn an average of £28,569. If you fancy earning a little more then maybe you should switch to illustration; the average illustrator earns £30,954. Meanwhile web designers are laughing all the way to the bank at £37,810, web developers are even better off at £39,825, while we imagine that art directors are diving, Scrooge McDuck-style, into their swimming pools full of money on their average £42,209. Liberty Games says that the average creative salary is £35,182; feeling a little under-valued? To be fair, having seen the assertion that journalists pull in an average of £34,667, we feel your pain. However, before you storm your boss's office and demand a pay rise (check out our salary negotiation tips first), bear in mind that averages don't always tell a reliable story. They're likely to cover a wide range of salaries, from ones much lower than yours to outlier rockstar roles offering silly money, so they're not generally a useful thing to measure your own salary against. You can get a closer look at Liberty Games' wage chart here. If you feel you're not earning enough and the infographic doesn't give you much hope of a pay rise, though, maybe you should think about refocusing your career. We're off to become drama teachers; those guys are rolling in it! Related articles: What are the best-paid creative jobs in 2019? Freelance finance: How to make more money 6 ways to save money as a freelancer View the full article

There's nothing worse than sharing a desk with a tea slurper. Or sitting next to someone on the train who won't stop sniffing. But that's where noise cancelling headphones come in. You can just pop them on and wave goodbye to unwelcome distractions. Today is a better day than ever before to grab yourself a pair of noise cancelling headphones as there are some incredible deals coming out across both sides of the Atlantic as part of the early Black Friday deals. Best Buy is offering Beats by Dr. Dre – Beats Studio3 wireless headphones for just $199.99,, that's a massive $150 off the normal price. In the UK, there's also £50 off these amazing Bose noise cancelling headphones via Amazon, taking them down to £299. And it doesn't end there, either, there's £19 off Bose's QuietComfort 35 Series II wireless headphones at Amazon, so they cost just £239.99 The Beats Studio3 headphones come in grey, crystal blue or desert sand (we prefer the grey, the other ones look like they might get dirty) and block all external noise. They're totally wireless, have a huge 22-hours of battery life and include speakers and on-ear controls so you can take calls, switch tracks and even activate Siri just by touching them. All that, and they're comfortable too. And as an added bonus to the already fantastic price, Best Buy is throwing in three months of free subscription to Apple Music (first time subscribers only). So you'll have all you need to listen to your favourite tunes while you work. Bose noise cancelling headphones are another leading brand in the headphone business. The noise cancelling headphones 700 offer is a really good one, and this is the lowest price we've ever seen for these beauties, which offer fantastic sound quality – 11 levels of noise cancellation, and easy to use touch controls. There's up to 20 hours of battery life too. The QuietComfort 35 Series II aren't quite as new, which is probably why they're that bit cheaper. They're still fantastically good quality, though. They've got three levels of noise cancellation, up to 20 hours of battery life and up to 40 hours of wired use. Want more great Black Friday deals? See our Apple Black Friday deals, Microsoft Black Friday deals or check out the best deals on headphones in your area below. View the full article

The MacBook Pro Touch Bar is a wonderful and versatile thing that's ideal for making any designer's life easier by providing instant, easily-identifiable shortcuts for all of your creative apps. But when you're not using it for Photoshop CC shortcuts, don't you ever wish that you could turn it into the home for a virtual pet? One that you can feed and nurture and cherish and then forget about for a few days then find that it's died? If you ever had a Tamagotchi and you miss the incessant demands of a virtual charge that depends on you for its continued existence, then you're in luck, as you can now get your very own virtual pet for your Touch Bar. It's the perfect excuse for adding a Touch Bar to your criteria when hunting for the best Black Friday MacBook deals. The 12 best creative Mac apps with Touch Bar support Touchbar Pet is the work of Grace Avery, and while it's a work-in-progress that's getting updated every few days, it's available to download and install right now. Currently on version 0.5, Touchbar Pet already has some of the key features that helped make Tamagotchi a global phenomenon back in the 1990s. Your pet starts as a baby and grows through a childhood stage into an adult, and requires regular care and attention: you'll need to feed it (but not too much), clean up after it and pet it (although it'll get grumpy if you pet it while it's having a nap). Why walk around with one of these in your pocket when you can just put one in your Touch Bar? Touchbar Pet runs on MacOS 10.14 or higher and it's notarised by Apple, so once you've downloaded it, you should be able to simply double-click the file to make your own pet appear in the Touch Bar. There's a display that keeps you informed of your pet's health and hunger levels; if you want to feed it, just tap anywhere in the Touch Bar to drop some food. Similarly you can pet your adorable little bundle of pixels by tapping on it, and you can probably guess how to clean up the inevitable droppings. If your pet gets sick you can nurse it back to health by giving it food and letting it have plenty of uninterrupted naps. There's not much to get the hang of, really, but keep checking back for updates as Avery plans to add more features in future versions. Ready to adopt your own Touchbar Pet? You can download it here, or find it on GitHub. And if you need the MacBook to go with the tamagotchi, check out today's best deals below: Related articles: 18 creative MacBook decals The best MacBook Pro alternatives for designers New 16" MacBook Pro leaves previous model in the dust View the full article

Having one of the best internal hard drives in your PC or laptop is necessary. This is especially true for creative professionals whose work heavily relies on dealing with large files and keeping those files as secure as possible. But, as the market is saturated with them, we handpicked the best internal hard drives for you to make your hunt for one a little easier. After an external hard drive? See our best external hard drives post instead. What is an internal hard drive? If you’re unfamiliar with computer terminology, a hard drive or HDD is a computer’s storage device. That means that its primary function is to store all your computer files, from Word documents and Excel sheets to images, videos and designs. It also stores a computer’s operating system as well as the applications that run on it. An internal hard drive is simply a hard drive that exists inside of a computer or laptop, and it acts as its primary storage – unless you specify otherwise. Like their external counterparts, internal hard drives come in many different storage capacities, ranging from as little as 128GB to 8TB – although there are bigger storage capacity ones on hand. They also vary in read and write speeds. A hard drive contains a spinning disk whose job is to store and read your data. The speed in which a hard drive’s disk spins determines how fast a hard drive is when reading and writing your data. Naturally, internal hard drives differ in price tags as well. Typically, the more storage space and the faster the speed, the pricier an internal hard drive is. If you're also after a new computer, don't forget to check out our best laptops for graphic design or get a bargain over at our Microsoft Black Friday or Apple Black Friday deals hubs. What should you look for in an internal hard drive? As we mentioned earlier, the best internal hard drives come in a variety of shapes, sizes and price. They also differ in read/write speeds and connector types. Before you click that buy button, consider these factors when deciding the one that’s best for your needs. First and foremost, think about the actual space you’ll need. As a creative professional, you might opt for 2TB to 4TB of space, as you deal with very large files. Though if you’re using the internal hard drive as your temporary storage for when you’re in the field or traveling and you’ve got a higher capacity drive at home that serves as your primary storage, a 250GB to 500GB should suffice. Consider also how fast you need that hard drive to be for your workflow. Especially if you’re a video editor, you’ll want faster read/write speeds as well as a speedy connection. The SATA III connection currently offers the fastest transfer speed. You can always opt for a pricey internal hard drive with lots of storage space, but if you have limited funds, your options might be restricted if you want a reliable and fast storage device. Luckily, you can count on Seagate’s BarraCuda line to come to your rescue. The 1TB and 2TB models’ platters top at 7,200 rpm, which is faster than many of its rivals on the market. And, that’s for a fraction of the cost of those drives. Impressed so far? Well, it’s also easy to install and durable. With care, this hard drive will last a long while. If you’re looking for an affordable option, this hard drive will undoubtedly go a long way. Unfortunately, the 3TB and larger models are much slower at 5,400 rpm, so only get those if you don’t need that much space. If you do, then the Seagate BarraCuda Pro with Data Recovery might be a better option for you. It’s a bit more expensive, but you can go up to 12TB without sacrificing speed. If speed isn’t as much of a priority as the amount of storage space, then Western Digital’s Blue 4TB PC hard drive is the large capacity option for you. This internal hard drive may not be the fastest, with only 5,400 rpm and a limited cache of 64MB. Yet it still beats competitors with the amount of space it offers for the price. Budget-minded users will appreciate its affordability. Of course, for such things as video editing, where you mustn’t compromise on speed, you might want to look elsewhere. However, if you deal with a lot of large files like high-resolution images in your day to day, this one’s a winner. It’s also easy to install and surprisingly quiet, so rest assured that noise levels won’t get in the way of your creative workflow. And, since it's a Western Digital drive, it comes with free access to the WD Acronic True Image software, which allows you to effortlessly copy all your old data onto your new drive – a bonus if you’re using this as your backup drive. Seagate has combined the best of both hard disk drives and solid-state drives in one with FireCuda, and it’s considered by many as among the best hard drives in 2019. That’s not surprising, given that this hybrid drive takes the speed of SSDs and puts it in the affordable body of an HDD. Designed with gamers in mind, the Seagate FireCuda 2TB touts the latest NAND flash technology so it’s up to 5x faster than its traditional hard drive rivals. That means that it’s also ideal for video editors and designers. The limited 2TB storage capacity may not be enough for some, so expect to eventually run out of space if you handle a lot of massive files – medium format shooters, you’ve been warned! But for most, it should be enough. And, if power consumption is a concern, you’ll be happy to know that this one draws less power, reducing its overall power consumption and the heat it generates. If you’re running a business with a small creative team that share project data on a daily basis, then you’ll need a network attached storage (NAS) system. This enables all authorised users in your network to share and access the same data, which makes your team’s project workflow faster and more seamless. Enter the Toshiba N300 14TB NAS internal hard drive, whose 10TB to 14TB storage capacity should be plenty to share among your team members. Yet, the best part is that you essentially have centralising data storage, forgoing the need to constantly ask a teammate to send this Illustrator design or that Premiere project. With a cache size of up to 256 MB and 7,200 rpm speed, this won’t slow down even with multiple users accessing it. And, because it is your business, this NAS system comes with features to help safeguard your data, making it one of the best internal hard drives if security is a priority. Small businesses with limited budgets will be happy to know that they won’t have to spend the big bucks for their NAS device. The Seagate Exos X16 delivers just as excellent a performance and as fast a speed as its rivals – not to mention, just as much storage space – but at a much lower cost. Plus it comes with a much longer warranty than the more popular NAS drives. This internal hard drive has SAS models, which are faster and more reliable, but its hyperscale SATA model has also been tuned for speedy large data transfers. For added protection, Seagate gave its next-generation helium side-sealing, which should protect it from leaks and hard bumps. For added data security, on the other hand, it comes with Seagate’s Secure encryption technology. That’s a lot of features for less. Read more The best laptops for programming The best memory cards for your camera The best computer for graphic design View the full article

Cybercriminals are tapping in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers with an array of scams and malware - including domain impersonation, social media giveaway scams, and a malicious Chrome extension. View the full article

There's no single right way to do it when it comes to presenting your graphic design portfolio. Every designer has their own priorities for their portfolio; some want to hit visitors straight away with the all-important work, others prefer to introduce themselves and their practice in a more gentle and thoughtful way, and yet more would rather go for their own unique, attention-grabbing approach. However you do it, a strong portfolio is one of the best ways to drum up work (although don't forget the importance of knowing how to network), and if you're stuck for an angle for showcasing your own projects, we've got some helpful inspiration for you. Here are six of this year's best design portfolios, each with their own different approaches and unique touches; take a look through them, see what appeals to you and use what you think works best when you're crafting a portfolio that reflects your own work. 7 free portfolio hosting options for designers 01. &Walsh &Walsh: big and bold with a strong ampersand game It would be remiss of us to talk about 2019's best graphic design portfolios without covering one of this year's biggest pieces of agency news: Jessica Walsh parting company with Stefan Sagmeister and launching her own operation, &Walsh. Notable for being part of just 0.1 per cent of creative agencies founded by women – and for its hard-working collection of 50 custom ampersands - &Walsh has a portfolio site that's big and bold, showcasing a selection of colourful client work as well as its own headline-grabbing branding. 02. Sawdust Sawdust's minimal site puts imagery front and centre While it's essential to provide information about your process in your portfolio, it's the imagery that hooks people in; it's good to lead with that, and then follow up with all the relevant case study information. That's the approach that Sawdust has taken with its minimal portfolio site; the award-winning London studio prides itself on creating work that's both explorative and beautifully crafted, and each page focuses on the images, presenting you with an image-only slideshow with plenty of details on display, until you click through to the last slide where you'll find some project details. 03. Julie Bonnemoy Who can resist a virtual lava lamp? A freelance designer based in Amsterdam and Paris, Julie Bonnemoy creates brand identities, websites, packaging, retail concepts, illustrations and everything in-between. Her portfolio site provides an irresistible window on her work, using assorted scrolling and parallax effects to bring images into view, as well as a stunning ripple transition as you scroll through the headings on her main project page. What we really love, though, is the opener: a virtual lava lamp, with big gradient-shaded vector blobs floating and morphing around the welcome text, which is guaranteed to get you scrolling down to find out more. 04. Rand Naohiro Kamiya's bubbly portfolio shows off his work brilliantly Rand is the Nagoya-based studio of art director and graphic designer Naohiro Kamiya, and if you enjoyed the blobbiness of Julie Bonnemoy's portfolio then you're just as likely to get a kick out of his portfolio website. Full of gentle movement, the main index page invites you to scroll or drag through a selection of projects encased in gently morphing bubbles that ripple as you click on them before expanding into more detailed project pages. While the dedicate portfolio page is a big field of bubbles that you drag your way around, clicking on interesting-looking items for more information. A joy to navigate, Kamiya's portfolio is a fine exercise in providing plenty of visual interest while never losing sight of the work. 05. Jo Mor Jo Mor doesn't mince his words A Montreal-based designer specialising in web and identity design, Jo Mor has a site that ticks all the right boxes when it comes to in-your-face typography, parallax and split-screen effects, but what we really love about it is Jo's sense of humour that runs all the way through the site. When he's talking about his identity work for a chiropractor and opens with the opinion that chiropractors are new-age charlatans, you know you're on to someone interesting, and this tone's a great way to keep you clicking through all his projects. Humour's a tricky thing to get right; try too hard or hit the wrong notes and you're likely to put people off, but Mor pretty much nails it. Mostly. 06. David McGillivray The perfect site for anyone scared of hiring a designer Hiring a designer can be a daunting prospect for many clients, so we're sure that David McGillivray's innovative approach to his design portfolio must be a welcome sight for many visitors. Rather than lead with the imagery – which is always enticing but doesn't actually tell a client much about the process of working with a designer – McGillivray lays everything on the line in a text-based opener that details who he is, what he does, how he works and, crucially, what he's likely to charge. It's a refreshingly open attitude, and thankfully it doesn't skimp on the imagery either; simply mouse over the entries in the right-hand index column and the text is replaced by project images, and clicking through takes you to more detailed case studies that give you an insight into McGillivray's work. Related articles: The biggest portfolio trends for 2020 The wrong way to build a portfolio 4 portfolio tips that junior designers need to know View the full article

Black Friday is well underway now, even though the official date isn't until 29 November. And we've just spotted one of our favourite ever art supplies has had a whopping reduction courtesy of Amazon. This set of 72 Copic markers is down from £397 to just £301. That's almost £100 off the entire set! Copic markers are stationery like you've never seen it before. They give you complete control to help you create your next stunning illustration. They're refillable, and have replaceable nibs, meaning that you never need to buy a Copic marker more than once. This set of 72 has dual nibs – one medium broad and one super brush – and will last a lifetime. It's one of Amazon's Lightning Deals, meaning there are only 12 hours to snap it up. So get it while you can! For more fantastic deals, see our dedicated Black Friday deals hub, or our hot iPad offers in our iPad Black Friday deals post. Not quite what you're looking for? See more deals on Copic markers below. View the full article

Design MCR is an annual celebration of design and creativity. Two weeks of gallery exhibitions, screenings and panels held around the city culminates in a one-day conference, with a diverse lineup of speakers. This year's conference – the seventh for the not-for-profit festival – was dubbed 'Smart', and kicked off with a sobering talk from Extinction Rebellion, a nonviolent protest group dedicated to taking action against the climate change crisis. Design has a rich history of activism; of starting change Charlie Waterhouse, Extinction Rebellion While it seems like an unusual choice for a creativity event, Charlie Waterhouse – a designer working with XR – pointed out that the design profession is tied up intrinsically with our consumerist society, which means we have some responsibility in the matter. “We create the ads, the fads, the products, the tweets, the brands,” he reminded us. However, with this responsibility comes some exciting opportunities. “Design has a rich history of activism, of starting change,” continued Waterhouse, citing William Morris and the Bauhaus School as classic examples. Designers have influence, now's the time to use it. Extinction Rebellion's Clive Russell and Charlie Waterhouse rallied designers to action The impact that designers have historically had, and continue to have, on culture and society, was a theme that cropped up repeatedly during the day. Harris Elliott is a creative director, curator and stylist whose uses his work to comment on society, and isn’t afraid to get political. A project he’s particularly proud of was his Return of the Rudeboy exhibition at Somerset House. The show was the first of its kind for the gallery and required the team there to take a risk on something new – get a taste of what it included in the video below. Elliott spoke about embracing your culture and identity and using your work to comment on it and take that story further. Design can also influence our day-to-day interactions. Neil Hubbard is a partner at Heatherwick Studio, which uses architectural design to open the doors that are being closed by technology. “We’re digitally and virtually connected to people, but physically we’re alone,” he said. The studio’s aim is to create creating ‘hyper-real’ spaces that “draw people out of their homes and away from their devices.” Its designs encourage people to bump into each other, and promote incidental meetings. “Celebrating nooks and crannies is part of our job,” he smiled. “It’s almost the best compliment when someone doesn’t notice your project, it just becomes part of their city.” Technology for us was like paint Daljit Singh Creative director Daljit Singh spoke about using all the tools at your disposal to make a real statement. He recalls working in a world when we were first starting to make big technological advancements, such as Flash, and how exciting it was: “Technology for us was like paint,” he said. Very quickly, though, a ‘flatness’ set in. Singh argues that given the possibilities opened up for us by tech we should be making incredible and diverse things, and instead we’re making bland, homogenous things. The antidote? Passion projects. You need to be able to physically put these new experimental ideas in front of clients in order for them to see the possibilities and take a chance on something new, he explained. The iconic Paula Scher closed out the conference Legendary designer Paula Scher closed out the day with a look back on her 50-plus years in design so far. She is well known for her branding work on New York’s not-for-profit Public Theatre, but her scheme for the 1995 season didn't go quite to plan. Scher's Bring In Da Noise Bring In Da Funk posters were so popular they became a full-blown design trend, synonymous with New York City itself. “It’s a terrible thing, to design a style and have a city eat it,” smiled Scher. Check out the Design Manchester website for a look at the full, and varied, programme of events from the 2019 festival. Read more: Tesla’s futuristic Cybertruck design mocked by designers Apple Black Friday deals – new LIVE offers just added! The best drawing tablet: Our pick of the best graphics tablets in 2019 View the full article

Black Friday is here, and the Adobe Black Friday sale has arrived. If you want to pick up a bargain subscription on the industry-leading suite of creative software, now is the time. Adobe is known for making its offers region-specific, but this time it's treats all round: you can get 40% or more off a CC subscription wherever you are in the world. For more deals and advice, take a look at our guide to nailing Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2019, or explore our roundup of all the Adobe Black Friday deals. The price reduction applies to the complete Adobe Creative Cloud suite, which encompasses over 20 different apps. That includes all the big players – photo editing favourite Photoshop, digital artists' go-to Illustrator, video editing software Premiere Pro, web prototyping tool Adobe XD and motion effects creator After Effects. You'll also be able to explore the new additions to the Adobe family, tablet-based art app Adobe Fresco, and Photoshop on iPad. If you need any extra encouragement, remember that when you buy Adobe's full All Apps package you're also getting 100GB of cloud storage (with the option to upgrade to 10TB) and premium features like Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark. Created on Illustrator by Karan Singh The programmes are fully integrated, so you can switch between them (and jump from one device to another) seamlessly – whether you’re out and about or in the studio. Built-in templates help you jump-start your designs, while step-by-step tutorials will help you sharpen your skills and get up to speed quickly. This deal will be available until 29 November 2019, so if you want to save big on Adobe's entire suite of creative software, grab it now. Related articles: Top-class Photoshop tutorials to hone your skills The best Apple Black Friday deals The best web hosting services for designers View the full article

It's safe to say that Baby Yoda is something of an A-list celeb at the moment. The internet has gone wild over how cute the concept art is for the The Mandalorian, and we think he might be the most adorable creature in the galaxy. But there's been a new birth to celebrate – Baby Thanos has entered the world of concept art. Will Baby Yoda have to share the red carpet? (See our tips to great character design if you want to get on there too). In case you haven't encountered Thanos before, he's a villain (or antihero, to some) who inhabits the Marvel universe. Ian Joyner (a regular Marvel concept artist) created this official, unused Baby Thanos concept art, and it might be one of the most confusing things we have ever seen. The artwork itself is stunning, it's not that, but we can't work what it's instilling in us. It's certainly not a straightforward cute-factor situation, like the one Baby Yoda elicited. First, the chubby baby cheeks. Definitely melt-worthy and you do want to give them a little squeeze, for sure. And the shape of Baby Thanos' head makes you want to lean in and smell that baby smell. But then your eyes rest on his eyes and you realise: SOMETHING ISN'T RIGHT HERE. Aptly, for a being who wants to eliminate half the universe, there's a look shining out of those peepers that is not cuddly and warm. Now we wouldn't want to judge the intentions of a baby, but we can see the power in his expression, and we're not quite comfortable with it. The eyes aren't quite as intense from this angle and it definitely changes how we feel about Baby Thanos Baby Thanos is a stunning piece of concept art and it makes us kind of sad that he won't be used in the actual movie. According to the recent MCU book, which has an 'Unused Concepts' section, Marvel edited out a Thanos backstory from Infinity Wars. It would have shown Thanos' life journey right from the beginning. That would have meant a glimpse of, not just Baby Thanos, but Toddler Thanos and Teenage Thanos, too. Unsurprisingly, it can't all be about the cuteness factor here. Thanos is a complex character and Baby Thanos throws up a lot of questions about his life. It does show that he was malformed from birth, and it makes us wonder if he was actually born with villain-like tendencies or if we are just imagining that look in his eyes. We hope this concept art inspires some fan renditions, like this creepy Joker, as we'd love to see more baby character art in the future. Read more: 9 character designers you need to know Push your character designs further with this workout How to draw a face View the full article

Amazon Black Friday is officially under way, with the retail giant today kicking the event off with some of the most impressive deals we've seen to date. But the best one so far has got to be this unbelievable lightning deal, which knocks the price of this 10.5-inch iPad Pro, 256GB, Space Grey iPad Pro down to just £448.99 – that's a whopping 42% discount on the popular Apple device! And that's not all. Today Amazon has knocked £50 off the brand new 10.2-inch iPad, taking it down to just £298.99. The iPad and iPad Pro have become a popular tool among artists and designer in recent years. Almost, if not as powerful as some laptops, the iPad Pro combines a whole lot of horsepower with some of the most creative apps around. Oh, and don't forget support for the excellent Apple Pencil too. But like a lot of Apple products, the iPads are far from cheap, until today, that is. As part of the Amazon Black Friday sale, various iPad and iPad Pro models have been reduced by a staggering amount. So if the iPad's price tag was previously an issue, right now could be the best time to buy. Looking for an iPad or iPad Pro model with different specs? Take a look at our best iPad Black Friday and Apple Black Friday posts, which we will update with all the latest deals, from every retailer, as they arrive. Here are the best Amazon Black Friday iPad and iPad Pro deals available right now... Looking for an iPad Pro deal in the US? Here's the best offer currently available on the 10.5-inch model. See below for even more great iPad deals: View the full article

When it comes to creating the perfect portfolio, the most important thing is to get the fundamentals right. That is, include only your best work, provide suitable context and background detail, update it regularly, and above all, proofread everything thoroughly. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn't take note of the latest portfolio trends, and take inspiration from them, where appropriate, to make your portfolio even better. We're not talking blindly copy them, of course, but there’s no harm in seeing what other creatives have done with their portfolio sites (see these amazing design portfolios for inspiration), and see what it sparks in your own imagination. In this article, we look at some of the biggest portfolio trends of 2019, which seem sure to influence portfolio design throughout 2020 and beyond. (Note that the last three on the list are highly technical, and we wouldn't suggest they're vital additions to any portfolio by any means... but they sure are fun, at least.) 01. Pushing the boundaries of type Creative director Nicholas Jackon takes an original and inventive approach to typography on his portfolio site The sea of sameness when it comes to web and app design in general seems to have created a backlash when it comes to designers’ portfolio sites. In 2019, we’ve been seeing a lot more art direction and attempts to break out of the straitjacket of the standard portfolio site layout. Most strikingly, there’s been a lot more innovation and imagination shown when it comes to typography. For digital and UX designers, there’s been a virtual arms race to come up with the most boundary-pushing type effects. Especially eye-catching examples include the mesmerising undulating type of Italian creative developer Francesco Michelini’s site; the wild font distortions on the portfolio of French front-end developer Martin Laxenaire; and the beautifully unexpected ways the main headline moves on scrolling through the site of French interactive developer Vincent Saïsset. But it’s not just about clever uses of coding. More broadly, we’re seeing a renaissance of inventive and original typography across the board when it comes to portfolios. This is evidenced, for instance, on the portfolio sites of Greg Hirshland , a UI/UX designer from California; Thibaud Allie, an independent art director and digital designer based in Paris; Caleb Barclay, a consultant product designer in Arizona; Nicholas Jackson, a creative director in New York; and Davide Perozzi, a creative developer based in Germany. 02. A sense of fun Creative frontend developer Iuri de Paula's portfolio is filled with colourful cartoon characters For many, the portfolio remains a serious and business-like proposition, but in 2019 we’ve been seeing an increasing number of creatives bringing a sense of fun to their sites. That might appear in the form of humorous microcopy, such as the ever-changing, tongue-in-cheek headings representing French digital brand strategist Alban Mezino, a supremely silly loading screen, such as on the portfolio of Italian artist and designer Dino Balliana, or colourful cartoon stylings, such as those of Iuri de Paula, a creative frontend developer, designer and illustrator based in Berlin. It may be just a single element, such as the incogruous looking, wavy pencil line on the portfolio of Dutch designer Dennis Snellenberg, or the comically stretching cursor on the site of New York-based art director Igor Mahr. Conversely, some portfolio sites are comedic from start to finish, from the Windows OS parody of Brazilian web developer Leandro Gabriel and the retro-gaming themed portfolio of Petero Ravec, a front-end developer based in Slovakia. A note of caution, though. Everybody likes a bit of fun, but as a tool for your business, humour should be treated especially carefully. In all honestly, splash of comedy is as likely to put off a prospective client or collaborator as it is to attract them… unless it’s done really REALLY well, of course. 03. A strong personal pitch Graphic designer Bill Chien puts his personal pitch front and centre on his portfolio site There’s never been more competition for the best design roles. And perhaps in reflection of that, in 2019 we’re seeing creatives raising their game when it comes to selling their services on their portfolio site. Gone are the days when a lazy ‘About me’ description such as “I make things” would suffice. Nowadays, the portfolio site is becoming less an online business card, and more a full-blooded pitch for why you should hire its creator. Fitting this mould perfectly are creative UI developer Priya Tyagi, multimedia graphic designer Bill Chien, product designer Patryk Kopec and designer and front-end developer Juraj Molnár, to name but a few. Each of these portfolios harnesses a generous use of white space and a simple colour palette, to better focus attention on their finely honed personal pitch. 04. Crazy tricks with animated cursors Play with the 3D lettering on deveioper Romain Avalle's homepage via the animated cursor We have to admit, we’re not entirely sure why this has become such a big deal. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the animated cursor has been a huge trend in digital designers’ portfolio sites in 2019. As far as we’re concerned, though, there’s no practical or useful reason to include this device, it’s purely about showing off your coding skills. Keeping that in mind, here some impressive examples... The animated cursor of Orlando-based product designer Jesus Sandrea casts fiery red trails, while Danish front-end developer Jacob Frederiksen’s can be used to distort his homepage’s main image to entertaining effect. Ukranian web designer Vladimir Gruev’s lets you spin a cube, and Paris-based developer Romain Avalle’s allows you to manipulate 3D type. Then of course, there’s the spotlight effect, of which cool examples can be spotted on the portfolio sites of London-based UI/UK designer Joseph Berry, Japanese web designer Muramoto Meguru and interactive art director Martin Ehrlich. These animated cursors are all great fun, but again, we’d stress that from a functionality point of view, we don’t really see the point... other than showcasing that you can create the effect itself. So if creating animated cursors is something that floats your boat, then knock yourself out, but otherwise we don’t see this as a trend most of us need to follow in 2020. 05. CNN-style rolling text Interactive developer Antonin Riviere's skills and stats roll along the bottom of his website like it's a 24-news channel Here’s another popular trend that’s arguably more about fun than functionality: in 2019, we’ve seen countless portfolio sites employ the kind of rolling text you associate with 24-hour news channels. Why? Because, just as moving images attract the eye much more powerfully than non-moving ones, the same principle applies to animated versus static text. This device might be used to detail your personal stats and skills, as on the portfolio sites of French interactive developer Antonin Riviere, London-nased UX/UI designer Joseph Berry and Paris-based motion designer Alex Thery. Alternatively, it might contain the main project headline, as on the site of creative developer Pierre Mouchan. Another variation on this style is revolving circular text, as seen on the portfolios of French art director Matt VBRG and Ecuadorian designer JayWrkr. While probably the most effective use of the device we’ve seen is to convey one simple message (“Looking for roles in Copenhagen”) at the bottom of Guardian designer Zef Cherry's homepage. Are we being curmudgeonly when we say we think this fad, while entertaining, is probably going to be a short-lived one? Perhaps. But as with animated cursors, we do feel that this is one trend most of us can live without in 2020. 06. Eye-catching image transitions The image transitions on graphic and web designer Lukas Jardin's portfolio site need to be seen to be believed In this day and age, many UX designers have a problem. Their skills are in huge demand to create user-focused, commercially successful websites and apps, but often by necessity, the screenshots from these services can be a little... well... boring looking. To add some visual panache, then, many are experimenting with cool visual tricks to bring dull static images to life. These include, for example, undulating effects on hover, on the portfolio site of Hadrien Mongouachon, a creative freelance developer based in France; and beautifully grotesque distortions when switching between pages on the site of German graphic and web designer Lukas Jardin. We can also enjoy subliminal flashes when hovering over the project titles on Russian frontend developer Georgii's portfolio; clockface-style slideshow transitions courtesy of Paris-based digital designer Camille Pawlack; and the bizarrely eyecatching headshot transitions on scroll created by Italy-based developer Francesco Michelini. View the full article

So we've all had the weekend to calm down from the excitement of the Tesla Cybertruck launch. After the windows shattered from the metal balls lobbed at them (thrown both hard and softly, just FYI), the Tesla Armour glass has now been swept up and opinions about the eccentric design are rolling in. What do people really think of the design that's straight out of a retro-futuristic piece of artwork (like the ones in our pixel art post)? Well, it's a divisive issue. There has been accusations of copycat design and an avalanche of mocking, but more importantly, there have been over 200,000 preorders (according to Elon Musk on Twitter). At $100 per deposit, that's a tidy $20 million in the bank already for Tesla. Clearly there are a lot of people not overly worried about being shot at with giant metal balls. Who remembers the Aston Martin Bulldog? We went all out in describing the Tesla's branding as '90s retro, but now that the car itself has been unveiled, it's been pointed out that it actually belongs in the almost-'80s. In 1979, Aston Martin released the car above: The Bulldog. Only one concept vehicle was ever made, although 25 were planned. It was obviously too out there for anyone to take seriously. Until now. Reddit user FriesWithThat made the comparison and people are all over it. FriesWithThat launched their post by pondering, "What are the odds Aston Martin predicted exactly what the future would look like?" Some responses are critical of Tesla. "They should sue Tesla" asserted JohnnTheBackFist, and others have come out in support of Tesla like onduty. "It seems like so many critics are placing this onus on Tesla, as if the cars they release have to be completely new and never before seen designs", onduty said. "What is wrong with a car that looks cool and people like? This is a production model of a cyberpunk car that people only dreamed about thirty years ago." "The future looks the way it does because some creative people created designs that looked out of their time", pointed out nish_c, making this profound point about design in general. "Then other ambitious/creative people who grew up thinking that that's what future held, built that future. Like a self fulfilling prophecy." Introducing Homer Simspon as Elon Musk The mocking has been pretty relentless, though. Elon Musk as Homer Simpson is one of the most creative angles we've seen. And the window-smashing launch was like something straight out of The Simpsons. And Reddit user Grizzleyt thinks that Homer even had a little more design/business-nous than Musk. "I mean they’re opposite design processes. Homer was the user designing the car and it was a failure because the team took his ideas at face value rather than interpreting them into needs-to-be-solved. "Whereas the Cybertruck appears to be Musk making whatever the f*** he wants without concern for what others think." Over on Twitter there have been some equally as creative takes on the design, some of which look like a dystopian future like those predicted in Black Mirror. And there have been more popular culture references. It seems similar designs have shown up in a number of futuristic films from the last few decades, for example in Total Recall: Users of popular car enthusiast website, Gear Junkie, have also come up with some pretty hilarious alternative names for the Cybertruck, too. Offers include 'Starship Pooper', 'The Millennial Falcon' and – our favourite – 'Musk Ox'. Another view of the controversial design But will we really be watching the electric truck speed past us on the M4 though? Some are wondering if the design is even for real. With questions being asked over the truck's fitness for roads, it's possible there will have to be alterations before the thing is actually sold. The Cybertruck has split opinion right down the middle, much like these controversial moments in branding. We look forward to finding out what the future has in store for the Cybertruck, and we'll certainly be checking our rearview mirrors hoping to catch a glimpse of it on the motorway. Read more: Monstrous hand statue sparks controversy The best retro gaming consoles Free retro fonts View the full article

Huawei's MatePad Pro has been officially announced and this uber-sleek tablet appears to be Huawei's answer to the iPad Pro. With Huawei already taking on Apple and creating some of the world's best camera phones, could this MatePad Pro launch be the next step in its disruption of Apple's reign? But of course, the MatePad Pro isn't exactly like the iPad Pro. The MatePad Pro has a punch-hole cutout corner, which we kind of like as a nod to our analogue filing days. It also means that the 10.5-inch screen (2K) takes up 90 per cent of the body of the tablet. That's a lot of screen. It might just make it into our best drawing tablets roundup. That little cutout houses an 8MP selfie camera, and round the back there's a 14MP main camera. The pixel resolution is 2,560 x 1,600 and the aspect ratio is 16:9. The MatePad Pro comes with either 6/8GB RAM and 128/256GB storage, and like the iPad, it comes in either Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi and cellular options. It runs on a Kirin 990 chip (the same as you'll find in the Huawei Mate 30 Pro) and has a 7,250mAh battery, wireless charging and even reverse wireless charging – so you can use it to charge other devices (a pretty cool feature, we think). There are also four speakers. The best iPad Black Friday deals Huawei's tablet comes with an M-Pencil, which has 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity – the same as the Apple Pencil. And like the latest Apple Pencil, you can charge the M-Pencil on the top of the frame, where it attaches magnetically. One of the neat things about the new MatePad Pro is how it works with other Huawei devices. For example, you can mirror your Huawei smartphone's screen on your tablet, which is pretty cool. Although we're not 100 per cent sure how useful that is in practice. One compatibility problem is, however, that it doesn't play nice with Google Play and other Google apps, although it runs EMUI 10, which is based on Android 10. More usefully, there's also a laptop mode, where you can have multiple windows open at once. The MatePad Pro will be available in white, black, green and orange, and will cost $470 for the basic 6GB RAM/128GB SSD WiFi model. The models with Cellular start at $540, and the top-specced version with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD will cost $640. There's also talk of launching a 5G version in the future. Pre-orders begin today, with the official release coming on 12 December. However, as yet, the MatePad Pro will only be available in China. And with the Huawei ban still ongoing, it's not clear when, or if, it'll launch elsewhere. So it looks like Apple can rest easy for a little longer. And if you were hoping to add this one to your Christmas list, you may have to wait till next year. If you can't wait till then, see our amazing iPad Pro Black Friday deals (such as the one below) or scroll down for more deals in your area using our price checker. Read more: The best drawing tablet: This year's best graphics tablet Huawei squares up to Apple with new MateBook laptop This iPad Pro is ridiculously cheap View the full article

Lego is a brilliant tool for designers, and with Lego Black Friday upon us, there's never been a better time to invest. Today, Lego launched its pre Black Friday Lego deals, and there's some unmissable offers to be had. So whether you can use Lego to help you prototype, build 3D models or simply want to immerse yourself in themed set, there's a Lego set on offer to suit. Just a few days ago we reported that John Lewis had reduced the Ultimate Lego Millennium Falcon set to its lowest price ever. And this morning Lego has followed suit, releasing a number of brilliant deals ahead of the big day on Friday. There's a select number of sets reduced by a whopping 30%, which translates to £45 off a couple of items. There's a variety of themes and topics on offer today, so no matter what you're into, you're sure to find a set to suit. The main Lego Black Friday sale starts on Thursday 28 November, and we'll bring you details of all the best offers as they arrive. Walmart and Amazon are also getting in on the Lego action, offering some impressive discounts across the board on Lego sets. From Lego Star Wars, Frozen, Lego City, Brick Headz, Lego Minecraft, Lego Ideas and everything in between, there's a set here for everyone. View the full article

Amazon Black Friday is in full swing now, even though there are still a few days to go until the big day. We're seeing some massive reductions on some of Wacom's most popular tablets, including some of the top-end models, and we suggest you act quickly if you want one of them, as these are Amazon's Deal of the Day, so as the name suggests, they're only live today! Right now the hugely popular Wacom Cintiq Pro 16 is £238 less than normal, costing just £1,100 at Amazon. Across the pond, Best Buy is offering some really fantastic deals overall (and these aren't just for today), including $100 off the Wacom Cintiq 16. Wacom tablets are well-known for being ideal for creatives, and some of the world's most exciting art and design has been created with a Wacom. The best thing? You usually get a stylus thrown in as part of the package, and some of the tablets on offer also include a couple of months' of Creative Cloud subscriptions thrown in to the bargain (see our Adobe Black Friday deals post for more top CC offers). Keep up to date with all the Wacom offers as they roll in by bookmarking our best Wacom Black Friday deals post. See below for more top Wacom deals in your area. View the full article

Black Friday is here, and the Adobe Black Friday sale has arrived. If you want to pick up a bargain subscription on the industry-leading suite of creative software, now is the time. Adobe is known for making its offers region-specific, but this time it's treats all round: you can get 40% or more off a CC subscription wherever you are in the world. For more deals and advice, take a look at our guide to nailing Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2019, or explore our roundup of all the Adobe Black Friday deals. The price reduction applies to the complete Adobe Creative Cloud suite, which encompasses over 20 different apps. That includes all the big players – photo editing favourite Photoshop, digital artists' go-to Illustrator, video editing software Premiere Pro, web prototyping tool Adobe XD and motion effects creator After Effects. You'll also be able to explore the new additions to the Adobe family, tablet-based art app Adobe Fresco, and Photoshop on iPad. If you need any extra encouragement, remember that when you buy Adobe's full All Apps package you're also getting 100GB of cloud storage (with the option to upgrade to 10TB) and premium features like Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark. Created on Illustrator by Karan Singh The programmes are fully integrated, so you can switch between them (and jump from one device to another) seamlessly – whether you’re out and about or in the studio. Built-in templates help you jump-start your designs, while step-by-step tutorials will help you sharpen your skills and get up to speed quickly. This deal will be available until 29 November 2019, so if you want to save big on Adobe's entire suite of creative software, grab it now. Related articles: Top-class Photoshop tutorials to hone your skills The best Apple Black Friday deals The best web hosting services for designers View the full article

The Surface Pro Black Friday deals are arriving, and this is one of the best offers we've seen to date. Walmart is offering an incredible Surface Pro 6 deal, which includes the Surface Type Cover and Office 365 Personal (for one year), all for the bargain price of just $799.99. That's a huge $268 saving against Walmart's regular retail price! The Surface Pro 6 has recently been superseded by the all-new Surface Pro 7 (check out our Surface Pro Black Friday post for all the best deals), however the Pro 6 is still a highly sought-after device. A firm listing in our round up of the best tablets with a stylus, the Surface Pro 6 is a popular choice among creatives. And with features like being able to run full-fat desktop software (think Adobe CC) without compromising on features or performance, and support for Microsoft's excellent Surface Pen, it's not hard to see why. Outside of this deal we looked to see how much it would cost to buy all three elements separately in comparison. The cheapest we could find the same spec (8GB, 128GB SSD) Surface Pro 6, Type Cover and Office 365 was $689, $89 and $69.99 respectively. That's a total of $847.99 for the trio, so whichever way you look at it, this Walmart Black Friday deal is a cracker. Find full details below, plus some other excellent Black Friday Surface Pro savings. If you're after a different device in the Surface range, here are the best prices on Microsoft's most popular products: View the full article

The Lego Black Friday deals are in full swing, so if you're on the hunt for a new set, there's never been a better time to buy. Lego is arguably the world's most creative tool, whether you use it for prototyping or simply as a way to switch off, the humble little brick's possibilities are endless. The tactile nature of Lego combined with intricately detailed sets has made Lego hugely popular among adults and children alike in recent years. One of the most popular set themes is Lego Star Wars, with many fans placing the epic Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon set at the top of their wishlists. However the 7,000+ piece set is far from cheap, which is why we were super-excited to see it as part of a Lego Black Friday deal at John Lewis. The retailer has reduced the mega set by 15%, dropping it down to £548.67 – the lowest price we've ever seen! If Star Wars isn't your thing, never fear, there are plenty more amazing Lego Black Friday deals just waiting to be snapped up. Maybe you prefer Harry Potter... There are plenty more amazing Lego Black Friday deals around if neither of the above take your fancy. Walmart has Lego Black Friday discounts of 20% or more on right now so you're sure to find a set to suit. Read more: Introducing Lego, as you've never seen it before The Knight Bus Lego review Stranger Things Lego set available now – and it's EPIC! View the full article

Paula Scher is one of the living legends of graphic design. 50 plus years into her career, and she's still making some of the most talked-about and celebrated branding schemes around. Fittingly, Design Manchester's picked Scher to wrap up its SMART design conference. She rounded off the day with a talk packed with insights into her creative life so far, from her career at Pentagram (which she joined in 1991) and before. Taken from her talk, these are seven insights to help you create a brand that stands out from the crowd and sticks in the memory. You'll find more inspiration and advice in our roundup of logo design tips, and stunning poster designs. Alternatively, explore more about Design Manchester's incredible programme of events. iPad Black Friday deals - The best offers, updated live 01. Harness the power of type Scher's typographical experiment for The New School paid off Scher's speciality is typography, and recently she has been working on branding projects that make a statement with using alphabets and visual language. “It’s a fantastic time for typography,” she insists. Some of her most successful recent projects use such distinctive type schemes that mean you can recognise the brand even without the logo – for example, the celebrated rebrands of Parsons (shown above) and Expedia, with its highly distinctive ‘E’s. 02. Simplify your logos “All things are memorable in repetition, but if a logo is too busy it tends to get in its own way,” Scher explained. “The trick is to keep it simple because it’s got to do complicated things.” That logo needs to be able to appear on everything from signage to stationery to packaging, so your design needs to go with a broad range of things. Still want to keep things interesting? Find a different way – as explained in tip #1, Scher's a master of using a brand's type choices to make an exciting identity. 03. Get flexible Three very different (but still recognisable) logo versions for TDC In a project for The Type Directors Club, Scher picked a colour and and character style, then created a whole range of new and different versions of the organisation’s initials. The aim was to see how far your could push things and still remain recognisable as the same brand. Turns out, further than you might expect. That scheme was used for the TDC book and show that year. 04. Consider where people will see it Scher is well known for her work on New York’s not-for-profit Public Theatre - she has created various identity schemes for the theatre’s show programmes over the years. The first year she created a range of posters using wood type, with the idea that they would appear all over the streets of New York, the residents would come to recognise the typography and it would build brand awareness. In reality, the theatre didn’t have enough money to be putting up posters everywhere, and no one saw the concept unless they were actually seeing a show there. The posters were celebrated by the design community, but weren’t seen by your average New Yorker – not so good for the Public Theatre. 05. Don’t let a city eat your style The style of these posters came to represent New York itself Scher’s scheme for the 1995 Public Theatre season Bring In Da Noise Bring In Da Funk was much more successful. Sort of. People loved the style so much they started copying it. It became a full-blown trend, but no one associated it with the Theatre any more – it came to represent New York itself. “It’s a terrible thing, to design a style and have a city eat it,” said Scher. 06. Keep it in the family Nowadays, Scher uses the same style and typography to promote all the shows in the season The approach that finally worked for the Public Theatre was to create a flexible style that could be applied to all the posters in a particular season. “I thought, what if I take the poster and turn it into a design manual?” says Scher. Her approach is to create a new identity every year, but to create some continuity and familiarity, it uses the same family of fonts. This repetition means New Yorkers now finally recognise the Public Theatre brand. 07. Make the most of your pro bono work A small project for TDC inspired this one for Philadelphia Museum of Art Scher balances big, commercial projects with pro bono work or interesting, less well paid clients. “I use free projects very often to get me to grow and stretch my vocabulary as a designer,” she explains. But just because a job isn’t so well paid doesn’t mean it can’t be useful – a small project for TDC (number #3) laid the foundation for two much more high-profile branding projects: Jazz at Lincoln Centre and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And experimental projects are often where the real magic happens. Scher spoke about how important 'accidents' are in having breakthroughs in your work. In big, corporate projects with big budgets and lots of stakeholders, it’s very difficult to have accidents. With small projects you have more freedom. “You do it and you’re not sure if it’s going to work or not. And sometimes things all fall apart, but the doing of it is really an adventure," she smiles. Read more: Adobe Creative Cloud sale: get a mega 40% off 78 best free fonts for designers LEGO Millennium Falcon drops to lowest price ever View the full article