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Vulnerabilities in several PC gaming products offered by Nvidia can lead to escalation of privilege, denial of service and other malicious attacks. View the full article

You're reading React and CI/CD – From 0 to Released, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook! CI/CD has become the beating heart of any software team. A well-refined CI/CD process results in a frictionless path to live. In turn, this results in smaller, simpler releases that enable teams to test out experiments, react to bugs and … View the full article

Mission-critical systems can't just be switched off to apply security updates -- so patching can take weeks if not years. View the full article

After years of unsuccessfully battling malware and bad apps in the Google Play store and on more than 2.5 billion Android devices, Google is finally doing something about it. The tech giant this week unveiled an alliance with three companies with specific expertise in endpoint security to help prevent the spread of malware on its […] View the full article

Recently, the logos of the world’s biggest brands have opted to go character-less, rather than character-full. Pinterest, Google, Uber, eBay and Microsoft have all stripped back, simplified and lost their ooomph. Indistinctive, inoffensive and strictly no fun seems to be the order of the day. But it’s no longer just an issue with logo design (to avoid any issues with yours, see this handy logo design guide). It’s branding in general. Once brands get established, risk aversion seems to drive the once-fun, opinionated and loveable start-ups down a more serious path. So why do our most successful start-ups eventually feel the need to be safe and conform? Are we just biding our time until the likes of Oatly, Monzo and Habito opt for a more buttoned-up approach to attract a global audience? Does growing up mean you have to lose a lot of what made you great in the first place? Why do brands lose their fun? Will Oatly retain its light-hearted branding? When new brands are born they have the flexibility to play. They can take risks, be light-hearted, look different and divide opinion. They’ve got little to lose, so a fresh, alternative approach helps them stand out and engage with consumers. But as brands develop they often find it harder to be fun and show their personality. They worry that it may isolate and deter potential customers. They feel the need to be seen as a safe bet, becoming more serious. And naturally the fun tails off. It’s our role as designers to try and break this predictable pattern. Yes, there are times when we have to be more subtle, but what are we here for if we can’t have fun with our work and push our clients creatively? We need to reassure our clients that they’ve built a powerful brand with that approach – why change as soon as you become successful? The same goes for the more traditionally ‘serious’ sectors. Just because you’re working in financial services and law, for example, doesn’t mean you can’t strive to be different or have fun. Designers can bring back the fun & SMITH learned how to have fun with their design At & SMITH, we’re guilty of it too. Several years ago we partnered with a firm of solicitors on their new identity. We presented what we thought was the perfect brand for a legal team: quiet, trustworthy, reassuring, corporate. It was exactly what they didn’t want. The firm had built their reputation taking on challenging cases and doing things differently and wanted a brand to match. We tried again. And failed. And again. And failed. So, we decided to start from scratch, trying to unsee and unlearn all that we knew visually about the sector. It felt like designing a funeral director’s logo in Comic Sans. It didn’t sit quite right, but we knew we had to get out of our comfort zone and have some fun. We got there in the end. The job resulted in A1-sized screen prints with personalised logos for each member of staff. And although it was difficult to stomach at the time, we realised it was real turning point in & SMITH’s development and approach to branding in general. We learned that it’s possible to have fun in a serious sector. In fact, there are brands out there actively searching for it. When you look more closely there are some brilliant examples where mainstream brands have found joy in the everyday. Take the McCafé ‘Flat what?’ advert, for example. It’s a clever piece of advertising that highlights just how difficult the simple things in life have become (like ordering a cup of coffee) and makes a joke out of it. It’s playful, lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek, but still looks and feels like McDonald’s. Why should brands try to be different? Dr Martens' branding remains opinionated and strong Today, too many brands get drawn into adopting commercially led identities rather than those rich in character. And it’s too easy for designers and brand creators to follow trends with little originality or point of difference. The brands that rise head and shoulders above the competition are those that stand for something. Being decisive makes for compelling brands, but decisive doesn’t have to be dull. It’s our job to open our clients’ eyes to the possibilities of design. There are some great brands out there that have stuck to their guns going through growth and expansion but remaining opinionated, emotional, brave, fun and different. Brands like Marmite, Virgin, Channel 4, Dr Martens. Let’s hope in years to come these brands don’t become a rare species. This article was originally published in issue 296 of Computer Arts, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 296 or subscribe to Computer Arts. Read more: Are trends any good for branding? 8 brands that rule at social media Where to find logo design inspiration View the full article

Art terms are a fundamental part of creating art because they summarise complicated concepts succinctly. And given that the terminology is used by course instructors and educational books across the board, it’s a good idea to get yourself familiar with them if you want to further your skills. After all, even if you’ve picked up the best pencils for artists, they can only take you so far if you don’t know how to get the most out of them. To help you learn the lingo, we’ve compiled this handy glossary which makes important art terms easy to understand. These expressions are designed to be of practical assistance to creators, so if you feel like you’ve plateaued or you need to brush up on the basic theories behind drawing and painting, there’s a good chance they can help you out of a creative rut. For more guidance, see our how to draw tutorials. Abrasion A process whereby paint is removed to reveal layers beneath the surface. Usually done via friction or scratches. Can be accidental or deliberate. Accelerated perspective A deliberate exaggeration of perspective. It is often used to make a shallow surface appear deeper than it actually is. Acrylic paint A type of paint where the pigment is suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylics are a popular medium with artists thanks to their fast drying time, bold colours and flexibility when mixed with water. Get the most out of them with our acrylic painting tips. Ambient light Light that is already present in a scene. This can include either natural or artificial light. Axis lines A straight line, either implied of visible, that runs through an object in its dominant direction. It helps to give structure to an object or composition. Background An area of a painting that appears to be furthest from the viewer. Objects in the middle ground and foreground appear closer, as if they are placed on top. Balance The arrangement of elements in a piece of art that creates a sense of visual equilibrium. Binder A paint substance which holds together the pigment and ensures that it sticks to surfaces. Also gives the paint a uniform consistency. Blending A painting technique where the transition between colours and shades appears smooth or gradual. Blocking in Painting process where the artist roughly establishes the composition and structure of the subject. It’s a popular technique with portrait artists. Body colour An opaque paint that can completely obliterate an underlying colour. Brushwork The way in which an artist applies paint to a support with a brush. Used to refer to the characteristics of the artist in question. Canvas A closely woven cloth that acts as a support for paintings. Get started with them with our beginner's guide to canvas painting. Chiaroscuro From the Italian for ‘light-dark’. Used to refer to a strong contrast between light and dark in drawings and paintings. Often used to create a sense of volume. Cityscape An image where urban scenery and buildings are the main focus. Closed composition A piece of art where everything sits comfortably inside the borders of the image. Collage From the French verb coller, meaning ‘to glue’. Used to refer to the technique and resulting piece of art where materials are fixed to a supporting surface with glue or another substance. Here’s what to consider when creating a collage. Colour The perceived hue of an object or substance. Also used to refer to a dye, pigment, or paint that imparts a hue. Become a master of colours work with our guide to colour theory. Colour wheel A circular diagram of the spectrum of colours. Useful for artists because it shows how the relationships between primary, secondary and tertiary colours. Combine A painting that works various objects into the surface material. Complementary colours A pair of colours which cancel each other out when mixed together. They are situated opposite one another on the colour wheel. Composition The arrangement of visual elements as distinct from the subject in a piece of art. It means ‘putting together’ and can be used in visual arts as well as music, writing and photography. Contour From the French for ‘outline’, this refers to the technique where an artist draws a line that defines a form or edge. As its word origin suggests, it creates an outline of the subject. Convergence Refers to linear perspective in a drawing or painting. It’s the phenomena whereby all parallel lines converge together as they run along to a point at a person’s eye level. Cross-hatching A mark-making process where lines that run in different directions are layered on top of each other to provide the illusion of shade. Depth The apparent distance from the foreground to background, or near to far, in a work of art. Diptych A piece of art, usually a painting, made on two panels that are traditionally attached by a hinge. Doodle A loose, fun drawing that often has little regard for accuracy. Usually completed while the artist’s attention is elsewhere. Check out some of our favourite examples of doodle art. Elevation A drawing of the front, side and rear of a structure. Usually used in architecture and scale drawings. Figure drawing The depiction of the human body in art. Master how to draw the human body with this guide to figure drawing. Focal point The area of a piece of art that is designed to draw the viewer’s attention. Foreground Visual elements in a drawing or painting that are positioned nearest to the viewer in terms of depth. These elements appear on top of the middle ground and background. Foreshortening A technique used in perspective drawing to create the illusion that an object, usually parts of the human body, recede strongly into the distance or background. Frottage A technique where textures are obtained by rubbing pencils, chalk or charcoal over a granular or relieflike surface. Geometric A piece of art made out of geometric shapes. Gesture A quick drawing that captures the most basic elements of the subject. Gouache A water-soluble paint that appears opaque on the support. Dries quickly and can be reactivated when mixed with water. This guide teaches you how to paint with gouache. Hardboard A uniform and stable surface for painting. It doesn’t have a grain which makes it easier to prime. Hard-edge A painting technique where the transitions between colours are abrupt. The opposite of blending. Horizon line A horizontal line that runs across a page or canvas that represents the viewer’s eye-level, or to represent where the sky meets the ground. Hue The actual colour of something. Often referred to as a colour, but hue is more technically correct. Illusion When a piece of art tricks the eye into perceiving a particular effect. For some amazing examples, check out our collection of the best trompe l’oeil art. Impasto A painting technique where paints are laid down on the support in very thick layers. Often, brush marks or palette strokes are still visible. Landscape A piece of art that focuses on natural scenery such as mountains, forests and coasts. Line drawing A fundamental type of mark making made up of a stroke of a pencil, pen or a brush. Consists of straight or curved lines. Used to represent shape and form. Linear perspective A technique where the illusion of depth is created on a flat surface. Medium The materials that are used to create a piece of art. Middle ground The central elements of a painting in terms of depth. Sandwiched between the foreground and background. Mixed media A piece of art made up of multiple mediums. Monochrome A painting created using only one colour or hue. Negative space The empty space between objects and structures in a piece of art. Can be used by artists to more accurately define the form of the subject. See how these brilliant examples of negative space make an impact. Oil paint A paint where the pigment is held in a drying oil binder. Oil paint is usually slow to dry. Paint Coloured substance which is spread over a support with tools including a brush and palette. Made up of pigment and binder. Get the most out of paints by choosing the right brush. Palette A surface on which an artist mixes colours. Palette knife A blunt plastic or metal blade which is used to mix colours and spread them on a support. Pastel Solid art medium in the shape of a stick. Made up of pure powdered pigments and binder. Supplied in soft, pan and hard varieties. Artists can choose from oil and water-soluble pastels. This guide shows you how to get started with pastel art. Perspective A technique for creating the illusion of three dimensions on a two dimensional surface. A crucial method to master for drawing realistic pictures. Start learning perspective basics with this guide to one point perspective. Pigment The colouring component of art mediums such as paint and pastels, as opposed to the binding agent. Plane A flat surface within a painting, picture or sculpture. Also used to refer to the flat surface on which a picture is created. Portrait A piece of art where the facial features of the subject are the focus. Also used to refer to a vertical orientation, as opposed to a landscape picture. These simple steps show you how to draw a face. Pose The position of the subject in a piece of art. Often in reference to the stance of a human model. Profile A side view of a subject, usually the human head. Proportion The harmonious relationship of parts to each other or to the whole. Representation The visual interpretation of a subject. Scale The ratio between the size of the subject and its artistic representation. Sfumato From the Italian for ‘smoke’. A painting technique that softens the transition between two colours and tones in such a way that they appear to melt into one another. Shade In colour theory, shade is a pure colour with black added (and not white or grey). Sketch A rough or unfinished drawing or painting of a subject. Usually completed to aid the creation of a more thorough study. Make your mark with these sketching tips. Soft edge When the boundaries of a subject in a painting appear to fade into the background. The opposite of a hard edge. Still life An artistic study, either a drawing or painting, of either natural or man-made objects, or both. This guide shows you how to paint expressive still life images. Stylised The representation of a subject that conforms to the rules of a certain style, as opposed to a natural depiction. Subject The primary focus of a piece of art, such as a building, human or object. Tempera A paint in which the pigment is held in a water-soluble binder. Also used to refer to a painting completed in this medium. Tint When white is introduced to a colour to make it appear brighter. The opposite of shade. Tone The intensity and strength of colours in a piece of art. Triptych A painting completed on three separate panels, or three paintings on different supports that are thematically linked. Value The relative lightness or darkness of colour. The highest value will be white, and the lowest value will be black. Vantage point The position of the viewer in relation to the subject they are representing. Vanishing point A point of disappearance in perspective drawings. At this point, receding parallel lines appear to converge. Volume The representation of mass in a piece of art. Watercolour Art medium where the pigment is held in a water-soluble solution. Also used to refer to pictures completed with these substances. Read more: The best art easels in 2019 Should I go to art school? How to create pinup art View the full article

It feels like we've spent a lot of time talking about the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie this year, and with good reason. Back in March we reported how fans were up in arms about the iconic video game character's new CG look (with the weirdest human-like face and set of teeth you just couldn't ignore). The backlash was so fierce from the leaked images that soon after, the film's director, Jeff Fowler, announced Sonic would be taken back to the drawing board. After that all Sonic chat fell silent, until last month when an improved 3D version of the computer game character did the rounds on social media. And now another leaked image (below) of the famous blue hedgehog has surfaced, with early indications suggesting it's the game-accurate character design fans have been waiting for. Gone are those human teeth, the weird eyes and sort of person-shaped body, the new design instead reinstating Sonic's trademark lopsided smirk, wide cartoon-like eyes and body proportioned back to that of the original character. The only major difference that remains is the new Sonic's arms are still blue, but taking the other improvements into account, that seems a manageable trade-off. The most recent leaked image initially came from Twitter user @SnideyMcCoolGuy, with @TailsChannel finding a wider version to add to the mix. While fans are struggling not to get excited by the latest reveal, it is worth remembering that this new image is not from a confirmed source, so whether this favoured new design comes to the big screen remains to be seen. However, if this isn't the work of Paramount, we strongly suggest its creative team speaks to whoever is behind it because if the reaction to it so far is anything to go by, they're on to a winning design. Read more: 27 top movie title sequences How to improve your character art The 10 best 3D movies of 2019 View the full article

Adobe Sneaks is where the company reveals its most cutting-edge experiments and innovations. These are the features that haven't found their way into products yet, but are pushing the boundaries of what's possible for creative tools. This year's show was hosted by Adobe's own Paul Trani, alongside Emmy Award-winning writer and comedian John Mulaney, and the brightest minds at Adobe. The 11 experiments we got a taster of were all truly mind-boggling. "You're getting a preview of what might be a future keynote, and eventually right in front of you," summed up Trani in the introduction. Read on for the Sneaks we're most excited about from this year's show. For the latest news and product announcements, check out our guide to Adobe MAX 2019. The best experiments from last year's Sneaks are now making their way into Adobe's tools – if you haven't subscribed yet, check out our guide to snagging the best Adobe Black Friday deals this year. Project About Face A tie-in with Adobe's newly announced Content Authenticity Initiative, Project About Face is a machine learning- and AI-based system that can analyse an image and tell you if and how it has been manipulated. Apply it to a photo, and it will provide you with a percentage chance that image alteration has taken place, and even provide you with a heatmap to indicate where the likely alterations have been made. Finally, and very impressively, it can approximate what the original photo may have looked like, pre-editing. Project Image Tango This experiment enables you to take the texture and pattern from one photo, and apply it to a different image in an intelligent way. In practice, the results are incredible. To demonstrate, the presenter took a very basic line drawing of a bird, and then applied the texture from a real-life photo of a different bird. The tech uses deep learning and AI to intelligently reshape and reform the feathers and colours from the real life bird and merge them into the form of the hand-drawn bird. The result is something entirely new, which does not exist anywhere else. The team also showed how you could ask the tool to generate a range of different options based on the same information, to use the tech as an inspiration tool. Project Fantastic Fonts This wasn't as flashy a demo, but this one could have huge implications for designers if and when it makes its way into a real-life tool. Project Fantastic Fonts opens up entirely new possibilities for manipulating typography in pretty much any way you want. The presenter showed how you could use it to go way beyond bold and italics to adjust any element of a font in a design, from the x-height to the horizontal weight. They even applied animations, and tilted the iPad the Sneak was being demoed on to control the direction of the animation. All this on real fonts, which are live and not outlined. Project Go Figure This experiment in After Effects enables you to transfer motion from a reference video and apply it to an illustrated character. This is all done without the need for mo-cap markers or body suits – all you'll need is a tripod and a camera (perhaps just on your camera phone). A feature called Body Tracker adds markers to the body and tracks them across different frames within the animation, then intelligently adds a mask around the body. You can then link those tracking points to the same point on a character design, and watch it instantly mimic the movement. Clever. Project Light Right This AI can alter the lighting within your pictures by enabling you to move the light source around. To use it, you need a few different images of a structure. The tool will analyse the photos, learn where the light source is and understand the geometry included in the scene. You can then shift the lighting in your chosen final image, and Project Light Right will show you how the structure or scene will look, intelligently casting shadows on the fly. The tool can also use video, or stock images as its input to build its 3D understanding of the scene. Project Sweet Talk This Sneak reimagines how we animate with just the voice. This animation tool requires just a single static, flat image, and an audio file. The tool predicts how the face will move to create the given audio. The results of the demo were mind-boggling – the presenter used it to bring to life a crude line drawing of a cat, and then moved on to apply it to historical artworks. Project Pronto This experiment lets you mock up design ideas by combining AR and video editing, using AR tracking to prototype effects using your device (e.g. an iPad) as a 3D controller. The tool will record and respond to the tilting of the device, and you can use it to mock up AR interactions. Read more: Illustrator on the iPad is on its way Photoshop Camera: Adobe unveils super-cool, AI-powered photo app Facebook's new logo is just about worth a Like View the full article

As the festive season approaches, that only means one thing. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are on their way and we're already seeing some exciting deals on all manner of laptops, including the nifty 14-inch HP laptop with a 10th generation Intel Core i5, which is currently reduced from $599 to $399 at Walmart. This laptop has a 256GB SSD plus 16GB Intel Optane memory, a 14-inch screen and 8GB of RAM. It's designed to be thin and light, with a 6.5mm micro-edge bezel display, making it ideal for working on the go. HP is also shouting about the battery life of this model, which goes from 0 to 50 per cent charge in just 45 minutes. For a complete roundup of what to expect on Black Friday, don't miss our Black Friday deals post, where we're collating all the best offers. If you're a Microsoft fan, you might also want to check out our Microsoft Black Friday deals or dedicated Surface Pro Black Friday deals posts. In the meantime, read more about HP deals at Walmart below. If you're not in the US, or are looking for a different laptop or workstation deal, check out the best HP laptop and 2-in-1 laptop deals with our dedicated price tool. View the full article

The 2020 Security Plan PPT template helps security professionals engage their organization's decision-makers and gets their backing for critical security decisions. View the full article

Going freelance is simultaneously exciting and terrifying, and worrying about freelance finances is a big part of that. It pays to be prepared – largely because once you start freelancing, a single company will no longer be regularly paying you. We asked those who've made the leap for their advice on how to make it work, and their advice ranged from everything from being organised, whether or not you really need to learn how to network to getting to grips with tax. Here's what they said: 01. Set realistic expectations "You must think of your new business like a startup: savings are a 'runway' to transition you from the stability of a monthly salary," suggests strategist Christopher Murphy. It's therefore a good idea to build up at least three (preferably six) months of living expenses prior to going freelance. Also, have a plan to step back if things don't work out. "I told my wife we needed at least six months to discover whether my freelancing would work," recalls creative director, designer and developer Shane Mielke. "And if I wasn't successful, I'd immediately apply to whatever agency would have me, so we wouldn't cut deep into our savings." While that might sound negative, Mielke argues freelancing is anything but – as long as you're organised and know how to network. "I made a single tweet, received my first project, and haven't looked back since," he says. "Although people sometimes think freelancers sacrifice money for freedom, that's not necessarily the case – it can be very profitable and I've consistently made more money than when I worked as a salaried employee." How to be a thrifty freelancer 02. Manage your overheads Mielke's point about organisation is crucial. As Clearleft founder Andy Budd notes, a major challenge of freelancing is the uneven nature of income: "Even if you're lucky enough to immediately land a long-term contract, you'll probably work for a month before you can invoice. And many companies pay on 60- or 90-day cycles: miss a payment window and you'll have to wait until the next one." Even with smaller companies, you may find yourself chasing payments, hence why graphic and web designer Colm McCarthy recommends "mandating a 50-to-60 per cent deposit from new clients, with the remaining balance arriving in staged payments upon delivery of agreed work". Naturally, get this written into a contract. Income is at least broadly understood among most people considering freelancing. Outgoings… less so. When you've worked in a salaried environment, it's easy to forget what you're spending and then fritter money away. "You must track exactly what you need to be using in your business," recommends brand designer Rachel Shillcock. "I work with a lot of online tools and renewal bills quickly mount up. So I do an audit every quarter to ensure I cancel anything I'm not using." Murphy notes that such tracking should extend to everything: "Software. Pens and paper. Sticky notes. It all needs accounting for. When you're salaried, someone else pays for these things. As a freelancer, you cover it yourself. So log receipts and at the year's end you'll know how much ancillaries are costing. This can then be factored into invoices." 03. Be ready for the tax man Don't get caught out by unexpected tax demands Dealing with 'the man' may also be a shock to the system. "There's that fear of the unknown," says Mielke. "If you've never dealt with taxes, health insurance or forming an LLC, you can worry yourself to death and never make the move." He initially paid an accountant to navigate the process; on understanding about using a separate credit card to isolate expenses and setting aside money for tax and insurance, worries soon faded. Health insurance in particular is a cost to be mindful of in the US. Mielke notes it initially "feels like a huge additional burden," until you realise it was previously "automatically deducted by your employer". Since it's part of running a business, you may be able to write it off. Also, be aware in regions with a national health service rather than mandated private insurance that you may still be liable for some costs (such as national insurance contributions in the UK). Again, consult an accountant if unsure. One thing you can be sure about is tax. "It's almost always more than you'd expect, so don't get to the end of the year with a bill you can't pay," urges Budd. A smart idea, thinks Murphy, is to routinely set aside a percentage of income into a savings account. Budd advises this can also work in 'reverse': "Rather than seeing your income as a pool of money to dip into whenever you like, treat your bank account like a business and pay yourself a set monthly fee." This ensures you're covered for payments – and any troughs that come along. 04. Get the word out The inconsistent nature of work can affect any business but will be especially stressful to a freelancer looking at gaps in a calendar. Ideally, you'll hit the ground running, winning jobs before leaving salaried employment. The trick, though, is to keep that ball rolling rather than forgetting about it when waist-deep in deadlines. Too many people rely on recommendations and have no plan when the phone stops ringing Paul Boag Even having a shared office space can be helpful. "They're good value, sociable and a place to pick up work just by being there," says McCarthy. But direct action tends to be more fruitful. "You really need a proactive sales and marketing strategy," says digital strategy and user experience design expert Paul Boag. "Too many people rely on recommendations and have no plan when the phone stops ringing." For Mielke, "fear is a great motivator" and this drives his marketing strategy to get ahead and stay ahead. He does small things throughout the year to stay in clients' minds, rather than waiting until things get slow. "I do this by continually striving to create high-level work that gets me noticed, submitting personal projects for awards, keeping my portfolio updated and maintaining real friendships with people I've worked with," he explains. "It's a constant hustle and the ebb and flow of projects is ultimately out of your control. But when you're an expert in your area and at the top of the list of people that do certain types of projects, you'll get first pick of what's available." Shillcock admits this is something she's struggled with – not doing enough marketing during busy periods. "But you have to remind yourself during such times that you don't want to end up with a quiet season once it's all done," she says. Again, maintaining a financial reserve can help but she adds that it's often easier to retain clients than find new ones and so you should also consider introducing retainers. "This allows you to continue working on a long-term basis with clients once an initial project is finished," she says. It's rare the work is done once the last of the code is compiled: there's a whole host of ongoing maintenance work that needs to be carried out that can add up to a very meaningful revenue stream. "You can sell maintenance packages to agency customers, thereby generating a recurring revenue stream," Fabio Torlini, MD EMEA of WP Engine. "This will often include a hosting component but also assistance with plug-in updates, reports, responding to alerts and other tasks relating to operating a properly maintained website." This probably sounds like a lot of busywork. But although these things aren't wholly passive, they can be a win-win –high-margin for the freelancer and a weight off of a client's mind, knowing their site will be well looked after. 05. Take time off Don't forget to take a holiday – but warn your clients But no matter how carefully you plan your future workflow, you can't be active all the time and this means addressing time off – effectively a self-inflicted trough. We often hear of freelancers spending holidays bathed in the light of a screen. This isn't what you should aim for. "Taking time off isn't easy for freelancers but it is doable," says Boag. "Give clients as much notice as possible and remind them often. Also, realise you don't need to treat them all equally. When I go away, I disable email notifications and set an 'out of office' reply. But I tell my most important clients I've enabled notifications for their email addresses and will respond in a timely manner." 06. Have a backup plan Another way to deal with troughs is to ensure you're not reliant on a single income stream. "Diversify your offering," says Boag. "I run a lot of training and offer consultancy alongside my UX design services. When one goes quiet, I push the others." Effectively, focusing your energy in several different areas means it's easier to ensure you have some way of making hay while your other field lays fallow. "For years, I've told my students about the importance of developing a portfolio career," says Murphy. "I work half-time as a lecturer and half-time as a consultant. Those are two distinct income streams and they both help me to stay afloat." Even taking work on piecemeal can help fill the gaps during quieter times. "Freelancing in-house for design studios has been a big win for me," says McCarthy. "I can help out when someone goes on leave and the pay is pretty good." The key thing, says Mielke, is to challenge the notion that you should only be one thing. People within the industry have built up experience and skills in many areas and should use them. "Depending on the project, I work on UI design, front-end development, animation and even photography," he explains. "Sometimes I'm hired for one and other times for multiple skills and to handle an entire project. But my range of skills allows me to become involved in more projects, control my creative destiny, have more fun and ultimately make more money." 07. Develop your sidelines Got some wisdom to share? Why not write and self-publish a book And with time, many people find that this diversification can lead to very valuable additional revenue streams in their own right. For example, Mielke has written a book, the income from which is putting his daughters through college, and knows others in the industry who do very well selling things like illustrations, fonts, posters, stickers and all sorts of digital and physical products alongside client projects they're hired for. This is an avenue Shillcock has found success in. One reason she went freelance was due to having a chronic illness that causes pain and fatigue. But she began overworking and running herself into the ground – to the point she burned out twice in two years and found herself hospitalised. She then began looking for alternative ways to make money online. "Being freelance isn't always about trading time for money," she says. "Since those days of overwork, I've released online courses and self-published books and I'm currently creating digital products to make my branding methods more accessible to people that can't afford to work with me on a one-to-one basis." She has found this a rewarding and fun way of making money, which is why she urges talented designers to think more widely: "Write books! Create worksheets, online courses, apps and guides!" Should you want a guide to doing so, Murphy recommends Rachel Andrew's 'Profitable Side Project Handbook', which is "filled with useful advice – and is itself a good example of a profitable side project". However, while it's tempting to want to wear every hat you can get your hands on, it's worth remembering that launching a whole new side hustle can often take as much effort as launching your original career. "Everyone dreams of launching an app or selling a course but in truth it's a fantasy because you must still market the product and provide customer support, let alone develop it in the first place," offers Boag as a useful dose of reality. He reckons that unless you have the time to fully invest in such ventures, you're better off trying to push up the market and increase rates as you go, in order to ride out peaks and troughs. 08. Get your prices right The bread and butter of your freelancing will remain design and development work and so it's vital to get your rates right. The general consensus is to price at what the market will absorb. If you find the local market has "low fee expectations", Budd recommends you look to build a more national and international audience. When setting an initial baseline, Boag warns you should be mindful of various factors. "Too often people undercharge because they think they can charge out all of their time," he says. In truth, it's more like half when you consider weekends, public holidays and admin. And whatever rate you decide on should also be more guideline than fixed position. "If you're swamped, increase your rate," he says. "If you don't like the job, increase your price to a number that makes you willing to do it." Experience should also be a factor, as should where you're expected to work. "I charge more for stressful projects that might need speciality work like immersive WebGL development or unique UI design than I do for basic front end development or UX design," says Mielke. "If a project has an extreme deadline, needs me on-site or requires my exclusive attention, my prices increase." 09. Charge differently It's also worth considering moving away from traditional rates. "Charge by the hour and clients will try to beat you down, arguing different tasks will take less time," says Murphy. "To avoid a slippery slope of being paid less than I should be, I use a value-driven pricing model based on the client's budget and what they hope to achieve." Shillcock has a more controversial take. "I believe in pricing on value, but know those I usually work with have very specific needs. So I've created packages to give them items I'm continually asked about." The notion of fixed-pricing is anathema to some in the industry, but Shillcock says it's a good bet if you can make it work. "It made it so much easier for my ideal clients to get an idea of what I would charge, and increased my bookings." Again, remain flexible. Shillcock still offers custom pricing and retainers that don't fit into specific packages. But she doesn't regret 'packaging' work, nor think it devalues output. "If anything, it creates more value for people I want to work with and builds a huge amount of trust between myself and potential clients." Whatever your approach, Torlini says the goal should always be to deliver value to customers. "Anchor pricing relative to the benefit you deliver and you can better position the value of your services, escape the trap of being treated like a commodity and earn the right to demand higher fees." Offering value. Being creative. A decent income. That seems like the freelance dream right there. This article was originally published in issue 322 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 322 here or subscribe here. Related articles: Survey reveals how much freelancers are really charging How to balance money and happiness as a designer 9 tools to help you work remotely as a freelancer View the full article

One of the most fun things about web design is that no matter how many intricately-defined standards there are, you can never be sure that whatever you create is going to look the same in all browsers. Even the very latest versions of the most popular browsers have different ways of handling assorted web technologies, which can affect the way your site renders; that's why cross-platform testing is so important, especially if you're relying on cutting-edge CSS animation. While inconsistencies between browsers can be infuriating, every now and then they can throw up something utterly delightful, and here's one fantastic example: the pure CSS art of Diana Smith. She creates beautiful browser-based art inspired by classic paintings, using only hand-written HTML and CSS; her latest creation, Lace (in the style of Flemish and Baroque works) is a stunning piece. 8 state-of-the-art CSS features (and how to use them) This is incredible work, if you look at it on a recent version of Chrome At least, it is as long as you're looking at it in an up-to-date version of Chrome. CSS is one of those things that never quite works the same way across various browsers, and with an image like Lace that depends on certain CSS properties behaving in the way they do in Smith's browser, you can quickly spot the differences. Firefox Quantum makes a decent fist of it, but with some rough anti-aliasing and a lack of texture to the irises, while Safari loses the plot completely, layering stuff in the wrong order and ending up with a surrealistic nightmare vision, as seen above. It's exactly the sort of thing that makes us want to deliberately feed Lace into older browsers to see just how they mess it up; thankfully Andy Baio has saved us the trouble. Having already tried Smith's previous work, Francine, in older browsers – we particularly love the almost Mondrian-like abstract effort by Internet Explorer 5.1.7 for Mac - he's given Lace the older browser treatment, with similarly fabulous results. Don't mess with Safari 10.01 It's hard to beat the spectacular ruination that Safari has bestowed upon Lace; the weird thing is that if you go back a few versions to Safari 10.1 the results are a lot less random. However there's something weird going on with the shading, making the subject look severely bruised and beaten. "My theory is that Safari 10.01 tripped down some stairs, and two versions later, Safari 13 is feeling embarrassed about it," says Baio. We adore the naive flatness of this effort Going back to an old version of Chrome – in this case Chrome 45 from 2015 – yields excellent amusement, with the subject looking like a face painted onto a balloon. But the real joy's to be had from Internet Explorer 8, which renders Lace as a glorious piece of 8-bit neo-Cubism and loses every bit of detail, but still retains a certain degree of character and expression. Internet Explorer 8's attempt is simply magnificent in its hopelessness If you fancy trying out Lace in your own collection of ancient browsers, you can find it here. And to see more of Andy Baio's mistreatment of it, head to his blog post. Related articles: 10 best CSS frameworks in 2019 How to design with CSS shapes: An introduction 3 shiny new CSS properties for you to try today View the full article

What makes a good logo design can be subjective. But there's no doubt a good logo should be instantly recognisable, even if it's for a brand that you don't identify with. But how easy is it to identify the concept logos from the ones designed for clients? Reddit user u/Amtsag1980 has posted 20 logos (below) to test just that. The 'real logos' might not be for big brands but then that's what makes the whole scenario more intriguing, and there's been plenty of love for them. If you want to compare these logos to the best ones to ever come from a designer's hand, then check out our best logos post. 20 logos, but how many are for clients? Reddit user TheRudKing picked out the logo for Sunkids as a favourite, saying, "That sunkids one is absolutely perfect." theunbranded reinforced this choice with, "The sunkids logo is extremely well executed! My personal favourite." But Buenarf was showing the love for a couple of different choices, "R visualisation and vortex are my favourites. Simple, clever, and recognisable." All good choices, though should a logo tell us what the product or service is meant to be? The text and graphic combine well in the ORMASH logo, instantly suggesting something to do with sun. And Wavy Motion is a smart bringing together of text and graphic. So how many are for real clients? Five definites, plus two more depending on how you look at it. The three logos that have Hebrew letters in them, as well as CARMIT and Evergreen are the real deal. The ORMASH logo was a redesign for a real company but it's not in use. And then there's the AM logo, which u/Amtsag1980 says they, "designed for a friend who's an industrial designer." How did you do? See the original post on Reddit here. Read more: IKEA's latest logo tweak is "amazing" Logo memory challenge befuddles participants 6 of the most iconic drinks logos View the full article

Any day now, Apple will begin selling its much-vaunted and long-overdue Mac Pro. And designers and artists all over the globe will no doubt want to upgrade to the shiny new hardware. Macs have long been a popular choice among creatives, with everything from iMacs and iMac Pros, to iPads and MacBooks being used to create incredible 2D and 3D art. But a recent surge in new creative-focused hardware and developing operating systems has opened up a lot of new options you might not previously have considered. Windows, in particular, is not the operating system it was a few decades ago and – running buttery smooth on popular devices such as the Surface Pro and HP ZBook – is seeing more creatives make the switch from macOS to Windows. If you find yourself frustrated by your current Apple-centric set-up, maybe it's time to try something new. Maybe it's time to make the switch to Windows – here are six reasons it's worth considering. 01. Making the switch is easy Windows 10: doesn’t look that scary, does it? One of the biggest reasons for sticking with Macs is macOS. We won't try and argue which one is best, as everyone has their own specific requirements. macOS is certainly secure and very easy to use – but it also has limitations in terms of flexibility, and Windows isn't the OS you knew from the ’90s. The days of endless updates, missing drivers and malware may not have gone entirely, but it’s much improved. You can easily add apps to make Windows 10 look and act just like macOS, and once you’re your working in your app of choice, there’s very little visual difference. Making the switch isn’t as painful as you might imagine. 02. Catalina cuts too deep Apple’s latest OS, named Catalina, takes away more than it adds As well as being one of the buggiest OS launches from Apple, macOS Catalina also makes some pretty sweeping cuts. Gone is support for 32-bit apps, so you can bid sayonara to any old programs you had lying around that are no longer supported. If an app hasn’t been updated to 64-bit status it simply won't work, so a lot of artists who rely on older programs are forced to stick with Mojave for the time being. OpenCL and OpenGL have also been deprecated, which feels like an app-bricking time bomb waiting to go off at some point – just ask the guys who code Blender. PCs happily support the majority of open standards and software. 03. Metal is no CUDA TurbulenceFD is a fluid dynamics plugin for Cinema4D. It runs up to 12x faster under CUDA, but most Mac users are limited to using the CPU Apple is replacing OpenCL and OpenGL with a single API called Metal. An unwanted side-effect of that is the continuing spat between Apple and Nvidia, which means no Nvidia cards are shipped in Macs, no Nvidia drivers have been signed off since macOS High Sierra, and Mac users don’t have access to CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), Nvidia’s popular GPU-acceleration API. Some of the bigger developers – Adobe, Maxon, OTOY – have agreed to port their code over to Metal, but a lot of smaller devs just don’t have the resources to do so, and are caught between spending additional time on a separate codebase or abandoning the Mac platform altogether. If you use apps that are CUDA-accelerated, you need to move to a PC. 04. PCs are flexible Nvidia’s Titan RTX is a colossus of a GPU, but the chances of seeing one in a Mac are practically non-existent The new Mac Pro is the first Apple hardware for a decade that can use off-the-shelf PCIe cards, while iMacs, MacBooks and Mac minis regularly come with last-gen GPUs and CPUs. And despite the constant drive to faster silicon, Apple is notorious for not updating its hardware for many months – and, in some cases, even years. Creatives need power to do what they do – whether it’s high-res multi-layered illustrations, billion-poly visual effects or compiling code for multiple devices. Buying a PC enables you to spec the very latest components, at a budget you can afford, with the power to deliver your vision without unnecessary compromise. 05. The majority of apps are coded for PC first Affinity Photo is one of the few apps developed initially for macOS, but popular demand saw it ported to it PC anyway This is a really old argument but it’s still relevant. Apart from a handful of Mac-specific programs and the occasional oddity, like Serif’s Affinity suite, apps are written for the PC and ported to the Mac later. Mac users often have to wait months for a native macOS version – which may well be feature-limited in some way – and with the increasing restrictions implemented by Apple, there might not be a Mac version at all. Working on PC gives you options. 06. You can take baby steps So if Windows isn’t such a hurdle any more, the hardware is cheaper and more powerful, you can use all your favourite old apps, GPU-acceleration is easy and you can use as many PCIe cards as you can afford, AND you can play all the latest games in your down time… what’s stopping you from simply adding an affordable PC to your arsenal and seeing how you get on? A second computer is always useful, and you never know, you might just like it. Read more: The best MacBook Pro alternatives for designers The 8 best external hard drives and SSDs for Mac and PC users Affinity Designer 1.7 review View the full article

An anaglyph effect is the proper name for the classic 3D style where you have to wear red and blue glasses to appreciate the content. Here, you'll learn how to achieve the classic 3D effect using base images, shading and textures. Before you start, get yourself some free textures to make your design just the way you want it. The Bride’, created in this tutorial, is an original piece that I created using a reference image as the base and employing the anaglyph effect. I often use this effect in my work to explore themes of duality, and also to pay homage to B-movies of the ’50s and ’60s. For more tutorials, see our Photoshop tutorials post. 01. Create the colour palette In order to achieve the effect, I need to use shades of blue and red. It can work with other colours as well, but these are the most traditional. Colour has been a challenge for me, especially in the digital medium, where literally any colour you can think of is at your disposal. This colour palette was taken from a vintage 3D poster that I found at an antiques store. I took a photo of it and sampled the colours in Photoshop to create the palette. I’ve made some tweaks to it since, but I find it works great with the 3D glasses which I always send out with my print orders. Get Adobe Creative Cloud here 02. Get the right reference image The original advertising image used as a reference Vintage advertising illustrations and photography give me endless inspiration. I love the idealised, dream-like and hopeful world in which these images take place. For me, finding the right reference image is key: I look for overall composition and facial expression. The reference image is important, but I always do a fair amount of editing in my sketches as I go. Most of the time I start seeing what will be happening in the under-layer as I start to block in the drawing of the upper layer. 03. Draw the upper layer Draw over – but don't slavishly trace – the original image to create the upper layer’s ink I block out the reference image to get the basic composition. I find that it is really important not to directly trace over the top of the image – direct traces can sometimes feel stilted and emotionless. Working this way allows me to give the drawing some movement. Once the image is blocked in, I move a small copy of the reference image to the corner of my canvas where I can see it easily. 04. Introduce linework Add a layer mask in red Next I digitally ‘ink’ the drawing. Typically, all of my linework is done in one go. Working in black and white helps ensure that I get the lines I want. I could, at this step, draw in a layer mask or ink in red, but that tends to slow me down. 05. Add a layer mask Set the opacity to around 20 per cent To colour the linework, I like to create a solid colour layer (red). Then I make a layer mask where I will paste my linework. At this point I’ll set it to Multiply and turn the opacity to around 20 per cent, just enough to see the red layer. 07. Sketch the under-layer Creating the under-layer is my favourite part of my process – this is where the piece really gets interesting. I usually try several different ideas and compositions. The skeleton is something I’ve drawn loads of times, so I feel pretty confident drawing it freehand. I will use the faint upper layer as a guide. For the crows and snakes, I use reference images the same way I did for the upper layer drawing (see step 03). I ink them before moving on to the skeleton. That way I can move things around if the composition isn’t working. 08. Define the figure’s ink Once I’m happy with the composition, I ink the remaining sketch and paste it into a mask, just as I did before. 09. Add shade and texture Add halftones and texture, but make it subtle Now that I have my red and blue layers where I want them, it’s time to add some shade and texture. I used to create my own custom brushes and textures for years, painstakingly scanning ink splatters and grainy textures. Then I discovered True Grit Texture Supply and haven’t looked back. True Grit has some of the best print-quality, high-resolution Photoshop brushes on the market. 10. Shade one layer at a time Shade the red layer with a half-tone brush. While shading, I like to focus on one layer at a time. This way I know that each layer is solid on its own. On the red layer I’m using one of True Grit’s half-tone shader brushes with 45-degree dots. I love how I can immediately achieve a vintage halftone texture. On the blue layer I use a 90-degree line half-tone brush, also from True Grit (I promise they aren’t paying me…). All of this takes place on the layer mask. 11. Add grit and texture When the shading values are looking great, it’s time to add some grit and texture. My goal is to create a worn-in and rugged appearance that mimics weather damage. I want the piece to feel like it has been forgotten about or lost to time. However, it’s important that I don’t go overboard on this step and that the distressing on both layers complement each other. The opacity of the layers has been played with a lot at this point, so I want to make sure things look random and not too planned-out. This article was originally published in issue 296 of Computer Arts, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 296 now or subscribe to Computer Arts. Read more: 54 free Photoshop actions All the best free Photoshop brushes 3D art: 28 amazing examples to inspire you View the full article

A big part of getting one of the best record players and collecting vinyl’s appeal lies in the collecting and displaying of your favourite albums in big, physical form, but the real reason you should give records (another) spin is for the warmer, richer, downright better sound they offer. Of course, if you want to do more than just look at your records, you’re going to need a record player – and choosing one is no easy task. Records are a technical, tweaky format that need to be handled and played with care, so while it might be tempting to buy one of those trendy suitcase style turntables, doing so won’t only massively undersell your vinyl, it could even ruin it entirely. So not a good look for your studio or home office (if you are wanting to kit out your studio, also see our post on the best office chair. The good news is that there are lots of great record players out there. Before buying one you should decide how involved you want to get. Many turntables are fiddly to set up and most require that you physically lower the stylus into the groove to begin a record and lift it at the end. For a lot of people, this is very much part of the charm, but for plenty of others this is a complete turn off. There are now turntables out there for those who don’t have a degree in audio engineering but do still care about sound quality. If you're looking to improve the sound quality of your life overall, you might want to also check the best noise cancelling headphones. What to look for in a record player So what should you look for when selecting the best record player for you? If it’s an easy life you’re after, look for a turntable that arrives as pre-assembled as possible – you’ll almost always need to place the platter and attach a belt, but for some the effort stops there, while for others it’s the tip of a tweaky iceberg. And if you don’t want to feel like a slave to your record player, it’s worth looking for an automatic or semi-automatic model: the latter will lift the stylus from your record at the end (a real godsend if you enjoying a an audio-infused siesta), while the former will also place the stylus at the start of a record for you. The other big consideration is the phono stage (also known as a phono amp). This is a component that amplifies the tiny signal from a turntable to a level that a traditional hi-fi amplifier can deal with. Every system with a turntable needs a phono stage, but sometimes they’re integrated into the turntable itself, while some stereo amps have one built-in. Standalone phono amps are available, too, and using one almost always results in better sound, but perhaps you’re someone who doesn’t want any more components than is strictly necessary. You’ll be pleased to hear that below we’ve listed the five best record players that you can buy right now, and every approach is covered. There’s a traditional turntable that sounds incredible but requires a fair amount of effort and plenty of other quality kit in order to shine, there’s a device that looks like a record player but is actually a complete system that includes Bluetooth, and there’s a high-tech deck that’s easy to use and will rip your records to digital files that you can take anywhere. Simply scroll down to find the perfect record player for you. If you really want to do vinyl properly, there isn’t a turntable in the world better suited to the task than this Rega Planar 3 Elys 2. Confused about the name? The record player itself is called the Planar 3, but it’s available with a number of different cartridges (the bit at the end of the tonearm that contains the stylus, or needle) and the Elys 2 is the one we’d recommend. The Planar 3 is available in white, red and black, and it combines traditional turntable design and elegance in exemplary fashion. This is a quality piece of modern classic hi-fi that’s a pleasure to look at. It’s also a pleasure to listen to, with a sound that no turntable costing under a thousand pounds can match. But this is also a turntable that only the dedicated vinyl fan should consider. Its operation is entirely manual, it doesn’t have a built-in phono stage and you’ll only make the most of it if the rest of your hi-fi is also excellent. As long as you’re entirely committed, this is more or less the only record player you should consider – and it may well be the last one you ever need to buy. This might look like a simple record player, but the Pro-Ject Juke Box E is actually a complete hi-fi in an old-school chassis. A combination of a traditional turntable, full stereo amplifier and Bluetooth receiver means all you need to add is a pair of standard stereo speakers – and many retailers will even sell you a package that includes those. True, the operation is manual, so you’ll need to place the stylus into the groove of your record and gently lift it at the end, but the Juke Box E also lets you send tunes from your phone via Bluetooth, making it a truly charming amalgam of analogue and digital. What’s more, it actually sounds like real hi-fi, rather than two wasps fighting over the last drops of sugary syrup at the bottom of a Coke can – which is what you’ll get if you buy that suitcase turntable on Amazon. If the Rega is a bit too traditional for your liking and the Pro-Ject a touch too all-inclusive, the Sony is an amazing option. It looks like a proper hi-fi turntable and it sounds like a proper hi-fi turntable, but it’s got the added convenience of an integrated phono stage and it will even rip your records to your computer via USB, so you can take that lovely, warm, analogue audio with you wherever you go. True, it’s not exactly extravagant in the styling department, but there’s a certain amount of workmanlike charm to the squared, matte black design, and a pleasure to be gleaned from this stealthy, wolf-in-sheeps clothing-like record player. It really does sound good. Believe it or not, this record player is actually considered 'entry-level' by Technics. That’s because the company is best known these days for its £3000 SL-1210 and the utterly incredible, very expensive SL-1000R. As you can probably tell from the way the thing looks, this is a thoroughly modern turntable that boasts direct drive (no belt to faff with), a built-in cartridge and integrated phono stage. It’s semi-automatic, too, so will lift the stylus at the end of the record - although you do need to place it in the groove at the start. It’s a delight to live with and use, then, but it also sounds absolutely fantastic. It’s almost digital in the way it digs up detail and performs so precisely, but it still has that lovely analogue warmth to the sound. In other words, it’s brilliant. If you can afford it and take vinyl seriously, you should buy it. If you’re looking to ease your way (back) into with a really simple, really affordable record player, the Lenco L-85 is the one to buy. Sure, it looks and feels a bit cheap, but that’s because it is cheap - exceptionally so. It comes in some funky colours, too. We’re particularly keen on the grey and red finishes. This is a semi-automatic, belt-driven turntable with a built-in phono stage and the ability to record via USB. in other words, it’s as plug-and-play as vinyl gets. It even comes with the cables you need to hook it straight up to your existing hi-fi. It even sounds good. Of course you’ll get better sound by spending more, but the Lenco comfortably outperforms its very low price tag. Read more: The best smart home devices for creative professionals The best art easels Animated music videos: 28 examples View the full article

It can't be easy, being Facebook. One minute you're the cool social network that everyone's signing up for, the next everyone's cross at you for avoiding tax, undermining democracy, playing fast and loose with users' data and even copying other company's logos. It's so unfair! But we all know what can change that, right? You got it, a shiny new rebrand is just the thing to turn around perceptions of your beleaguered multi-billion-dollar megacorporation, and that's exactly what Facebook's just unveiled. Let's be clear, here; the logo you see on Facebook itself isn't about to change; this new logo design is a corporate identity that, says Facebook, is, "designed to help us better represent the diversity of products we build, establish distinction from the Facebook app and communicate our purpose in the world." 8 brands that rule at social media It's all-caps! With colours and everything! So it's a bit like that time Google became Alphabet; obviously Alphabet's still there (or at least it was last time we checked), but nobody really paid that much attention and as far as most of the world is concerned, Google is still Google. The new Facebook logo is designed as an umbrella brand to unify its various brands such as the Facebook app, Instagram, WhatsApp and so on, and you're only likely to really notice it if you go looking for it. The apps themselves will retain their current branding, with the new logo tucked away further down. Like just about every other big name rebrand over the last couple of years, Facebook has plumped for an all-caps logotype for its design. And like all those other corporate rebrands, it looks fine. You'd have to work really hard to be at all offended by it, or to have any strong feelings about it whatsoever. In Facebook terms, it gets a Like; that's to say that we acknowledge that this thing exists but don't care enough about it to click on the heart or the cross face or whatever. Got to love a curved diagonal and a bit of horizontal emphasis Of course, Facebook itself has all the feels about it. "We designed the new company wordmark with clarity and openness in mind," it says, which we particularly love given Facebook's general lack of clarity and openness in the way it operates. But hey, maybe that means it's on a self-improvement trip from now on! Well, it's nice to hope. Facebook's particularly excited about the new logo's colour palette; rather than using a single colour, the wordmark's designed to take on the colour of individual brands, so if you see it in the Instagram app it'll be in that warm red gradient, and on WhatsApp it'll be green. It's also really proud of the curved diagonals on the 'A' and 'K' of the logo – to our minds the 'A' looks like it's been printed on the side of a balloon – and how it uses motion, opening the workmark up through tracking and fading. The new logo also reduces to handy monogram, so that's a thing It's not a bad logo, but however much Facebook tries to talk it up by going on about clarity and empathy and the hope that the branding can help it communicate the progress it's making, nobody's getting very excited about it. This is the bit where we'd normally embed some furious tweets, but the most on-point one we can find is from US Senator Elizabeth Warren, who rightly looks past the design and focuses instead on Facebook's size and power: It's hard to argue with that. From a design point of view, though, there's not a lot to get worked up about. We're kind of hoping that we've reached peak minimal logotype now; wouldn't it be nice to swing swing back towards ludicrously over-designed logos with far too much ornamentation? Related articles: 7 logos by famous designers and why they work How the world's biggest brands got their names 10 iconic logos with hidden meanings View the full article

If you're looking at buying an iPad for drawing, designing, photo editing or anything else artistic, you'll surely be thinking of getting an Apple Pencil to pair with it. Apple's styluses are among the best sketching options out there, especially for drawing directly onto a display. In fact, we rate them so highly, the latest model made the top spot, along with the iPad Pro, in our round-up of the best tablets with a stylus. The thing is, there are two versions of the Apple Pencil. The original Apple Pencil 1st Gen was released in 2015, and is still on-sale today. The Apple Pencil 2 was released in late 2018, and is the most up-to-date model in this small line-up. So which one should you go for? That's what our Apple Pencil vs Apple Pencil 2 article will help you determine. Once you've decided, be sure to head over to our best Apple Pencil Black Friday deals post for the lowest prices. Apple Pencil vs Apple Pencil 2: Price and compatibility There’s a good chunk of difference when you look at the price of the Apple Pencil vs Apple Pencil 2, though that’s just the start of the price gap overall. The Apple Pencil 1st gen costs £89/$99. The Apple Pencil 2 costs £119/$129. However, when we talk about choosing between which Apple Pencil you’ll go for, what we’re ultimately discussing is which iPad you’ll go for, because each iPad model supports only one of the two Pencil options. And that obviously affects the overall price hugely. The original Apple Pencil is supported by the iPad 10.2-inch (2019), iPad mini (2019) and iPad Air (2019) from the current line-up. It was also supported by previous iPads, including the iPad 9.7-inch (2018), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2017), iPad Pro 10.5-inch (2017), iPad Pro 9.7-inch (2016), and iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2015). The Apple Pencil 2 is currently only supported by the iPad Pro 11-inch (2018) and iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2018) – the most recent iPad Pros, basically. This gives the original Apple Pencil the broadest range of options for different screen sizes and budgets. The cheapest you can buy a new iPad plus Apple Pencil is £438/$428 – that’s the 10.2-inch iPad plus Apple Pencil 1st gen. To get an Apple Pencil 2, you’re looking at a minimum of £888/$928 – that’s for the 11-inch iPad Pro plus Apple Pencil 2nd gen. Of course, you get a much more powerful device for that extra cost, with vastly improved screen quality, and a USB Type-C port for attaching external storage or a 4K display easily. But our point here is still that the cost consideration goes beyond the price of the stylus. Here’s our verdicts on the various iPads, to help you choose which will work best for you: Apple iPad Pro (2018) review Apple iPad Air (2019) review Apple iPad mini (2019) review Apple Pencil vs Apple Pencil 2: Design & ergonomics The two Apple Pencil models are very similar overall in design, but with a few tweaks worth knowing about. They’re both 8.9mm in diameter, though the original Apple Pencil is totally circular, while the Apple Pencil 2 has a flat edge. The flat edge obviously helps to avoid it rolling away. The original Apple Pencil actually had some weighting in it stop it rolling off, but it wasn’t a foolproof system – naturally, a flat edge does it better. The first Apple Pencil has a glossy plastic finish, much like the case of AirPods. And like other glossy plastics, it tends to pick up grease and fingerprints pretty strongly, which can affect the quality of your grip. The Apple Pencil 2 has a matte finish that feels a lot like a wooden Pencil – it’s nicer in the hand, and is easier to keep a good hold of even without a tight grip. The 8.9mm size of both is good for ergonomics, especially compared to the smaller stylus you get with Samsung’s tablets, for example. They’re easy to hold comfortably for fairly long periods, especially since they both weigh 20.7g. They feel, really, just like any other pencil. We know some may prefer the thicker units on offer from the likes of Wacom, though there are sleeves you can buy to convert the Apple Pencil to feel thicker, such as this affordable silicone grip holder. One small extra thing in the Apple Pencil 2’s favour: you can get it engraved for free if you order online. Apple Pencil vs Apple Pencil 2: Performance The good news about both Apple Pencil models when it comes to drawing performance is that they’re identical, so you don’t miss out on drawing capability whichever one you go for. Apple hasn’t confirmed the level of pressure sensitivity in either Pencil model, which is a little frustrating, but neither has ever felt lacking for finessed and nuanced artwork, so we can live with a bit of ambiguity. They both support tilt and rotation detection while drawing, and when combined with the good pressure detection, they’re very versatile for different brush strokes and applications. When it comes to drawing performance, both Apple Pencil models are identical They also sample at the same rate, meaning they both have the same low-latency performance… except you do actually get guaranteed lower latency from the time you move your hand to the time you see the results on-screen when using Apple Pencil 2 with a compatible iPad Pro. But that’s because of the iPad Pro’s 120Hz screen (meaning that it refreshes the display 120 times per second), not because of anything the Apple Pencil does. Every other iPad currently sold by Apple has a 60Hz screen. The 2017 iPad Pro models also had 120Hz screens, and worked with the original Apple Pencil, so they also offer this lower latency, but they’re not on sale anymore. If you’re buying an iPad today, every iPad that supports the original Apple Pencil will have marginally higher latency due to their screens, while the iPad Pros offer the best possible drawing experience due to this advantage alone. The Apple Pencil 2 does actually have one technical advantage, but it’s not directly to do with drawing: it has a button. It’s not a physical button, but rather you can double-tap the flat edge with your finger. You can choose what this does by default: switch between current tool and eraser; switch between current tool and the last-used tool; show the colour palette; or nothing, if you prefer. That’s the default, as we said, though individual apps can give you different options within the app: art studio ProCreate and audio editor Ferrite both offer other handy functions you can apply there instead, that apply only within the app (see our round-up of the best iPad Pro apps for more). The original Apple Pencil has no equivalent option. Apple Pencil vs Apple Pencil 2: Storage and charging The Apple Pencil 2 has a huge edge when it comes to storage. It attaches magnetically to the side of the iPad Pro, and connecting it this way also charges it wirelessly. It’s hard to overstate how much more usable this makes the Apple Pencil 2 than its predecessor purely from a usability point of view. Not only is it always to hand – if you’ve got your iPad within reach, you’ve got your Pencil within reach – but it’s been topping up its charge while it’s there, ready to go at a moment’s notice. It’s so seamless, and reduces friction, helping you get straight into being creative and productive before you lose your thread. For the Apple Pencil 1st gen, there’s no official storage solution directly on devices. It will attach magnetically to some covers, but not with a very strong grip. Apple made some iPad sleeves that include a storage section for the Pencil, which work well enough, but were very large and unwieldy overall. There are third party cases and folios too, of course, but you’ll have to see if there are any that suit you. The original Apple Pencil is also more annoying to keep charged. It has a male Lightning connector on the end (covered with a cap that can get lost, though it stays on fairly well), which can be plugged into your iPad’s Lightning port to charge (this is also how you pair it with the iPad). The strange, long shape this forms is the very definition of inelegance, and also leaves the Pencil prone to getting knocked and snapping its connector. However, it can charge quite quickly: about 15 seconds of charge time can get your around 30 minutes of use. The Pencil 1st gen does come with a charging adapter in the box, though: a converter, so that you can use a normal Lightning cable to charge the Pencil. As long you’re diligent about plugging it in regularly, this would be a much better way to go about it. Apple doesn’t give battery quotes for the Pencil models, but talked of the 1st-gen version offering around 12 hours. That model has also proven to hold its charge well when not in use, which is important, since it doesn’t get charged as easily. The 2nd-gen Apple Pencil hasn’t had any problems lasting for long drawing sessions for us, but its battery life is also less important, because it can be more easily topped up during the day simply by popping it back on the edge when you respond to emails or stop for a break. Apple Pencil vs Apple Pencil 2: Tips Both Apple Pencil models use the same kind of tip, which is fairly hard, and taps firmly against the glass of the iPad. Depending on what kind of stylus you’re used to, you may find this a bit of an adjustment: it’s distinctly harder and louder. It’s not a problem in any way, but the difference from softer plastic tips or drawing surfaces is quite noticeable. You’d have to try one in an Apple Store to see if you majorly dislike it, but we doubt it would be a dealbreaker. This hardness does make the tips highly durable. Don’t expect to see much, if any, sign of wear within a year or so, unless you’re trying to use it to make fire. The 1st-gen Apple Pencil comes with a replacement tip in the box, further guaranteeing longevity from a single purchase. The Apple Pencil 2 does not come with a replacement tip, which seems a bit cheap of Apple, but then you won’t be needing one for a long time, as we mentioned. You can buy a replacement pack of tips from Apple: four for £19/$19. Apple Pencil vs Apple Pencil 2: Which should you buy? When it comes down to it, the answer as to which stylus is better is simple: it's the Apple Pencil 2. The matte finish is better suited to being handled by sweaty hands than the original, the extra 'button' is useful, and the magnetic attachment with wireless charging is massively superior to the plugged charging of the 1st-gen version. However, because the actual drawing performance is on a par between them, and because of the major budget considerations around having to buy the most expensive iPad models to be able to use Apple Pencil 2, it's not such a clear-cut choice in practice. As is the case with any professional tool, the real answer is to buy the best one that you can afford. If you can justify the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil 2 combination, you absolutely should go for it. But any of the other iPad models is an excellent drawing instrument too, and though the original Apple Pencil is more unwieldy to charge, it'll still help you produce your best work, and that's what it's there for. Made your decision? Here are the best Apple Pencil and Apple Pencil 2 prices in your area: View the full article

We all like to get comfortable with our preferred design tools; once you've learned a way of doing things and have been doing it for ages, you're going to be at least a little resistant to learning new tricks. This means, though, that it's easy to miss out on new tools and techniques that, actually, you might find really useful. If you've been using Photoshop CC for a few years and carried on doing things the same way as when you started out on CS6 or earlier, you've probably not noticed some developments that could make your life a lot easier. A 2020 update to Photoshop has just been announced, but you may not even be aware of the improvements to the previous version. Here are six new features from PS 2019 that might have passed you by, but which you'll be really grateful for. The 5 best laptops for Photoshop in 2019 01. Multiple Undo No more angrily stabbing at the History panel Traditionally, one of Photoshop's most irritating features has been its stubborn refusal to make Undo work in the same way as you'll find in just about every other app on the planet. In most apps, hitting Ctrl/Cmd+X undoes your previous action, hitting it again undoes the one before that and so on. Do that in Photoshop, though, and you find that the second go undoes your first undo, and if you want to step back through your work you need to go to the History panel to do it. You're probably so used to its non-standard way of handling Undo that you haven't noticed that as of Photoshop CC 2019, Adobe's fixed this. So if you're Photoshop's up to date, you can hit that Undo shortcut as many times as you like and step back to where it all went wrong. 02. Double-click to edit text Working with text is now approximately 76 per cent less of a nuisance Working with text in Photoshop can be fiddly, particularly when you're trying to move, style and edit your text at the same time to get it looking its best. You're constantly having to swap between the Type tool and the Move tool, and you never seem to have the one you need selected at any particular time. It's an annoyance that Adobe has addressed in Photoshop CC 2019; now if you simply double-click a type layer with the Move tool, you can instantly start editing the text in that layer without switching tools. It's a small fix, but one that should make most designers' day-to-day Photoshop life a little but less infuriating. 03. Transform proportionally Another weird legacy feature of Photoshop that everyone's simply got used to is the default setting of its Transform tool. Most of the time when you're using the Transform tool you want it to scale proportionally, but Photoshop defaults to non-proportional transform, so you spend a lot of time with a finger jammed down on the Shift key. Now, though, proportional transform is the default, something that annoyed a lot of users when they realised it had happened. People just don't like change, especially when it goes against deeply ingrained muscle memory. The new version makes a lot more sense (although the fact that Photoshop still defaults to non-proportional transformation for vectors and paths is potentially confusing), but if you're determined to do things the old way then Adobe has provided instructions on how to change it back. 04. Live blend mode preview A quick way to remind yourself what all the blend modes do Blend modes are a wonderful way to create impressive visual effects by stacking layers on top of each other, but it's not always easy to remember which mode does what. You generally know when you might want Multiply or Screen and you always avoid Dissolve, but beyond that it can all get a little vague, and you tend to end up cycling through all of them to find the one that looks best. It's not an ideal way of working, but Adobe's made things easier by adding a live blend mode preview in Photoshop CC 2019. Select your layer then click on the blend mode button, and a list of blend modes appears that you can mouse up and down, and as you do so you'll get an instant preview of how each blend mode will look. It's a great time-saver, especially when you think you want one of the weirder ones in the bottom half of the list but you can't remember which. 05. Symmetry mode Turn rough and ready scrawls into beautiful patterns Feeling low on inspiration? Here's a great way to conjure ideas out of nowhere: another recent addition to Photoshop CC is a Symmetry mode that works with the Paint Brush, Mixer Brush, Pencil and Eraser tools. Just click the butterfly icon in the Options bar and you can paint or draw with your strokes reflected live across various lines of symmetry, making it easy to quickly create detailed symmetrical patterns out of random scrawls. There are 10 types of symmetry to choose from – Vertical, Horizontal, Dual Axis, Diagonal, Wavy, Circle, Spiral, Parallel Lines, Radial and Mandala – giving you plenty of ways to fire your imagination. 06. Increase UI size Try this before you make an optician's appointment Moving up from an HD display to 4K or even bigger is a lovely feeling until you find that the UI on your favourite apps wasn't made to cope with massive screen resolutions. Photoshop's ready for your enormous new monitor, though, thanks to an option to scale the UI to match its font size. So once you've plugged in that fancy 5K panel, be sure to set the font size to large and tick the box to scale the UI to the font, and there'll be no need to squint. Related articles: The 23 best Photoshop plugins 61 top-class Photoshop tutorials to try The 10 best alternatives to Photoshop View the full article

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner, which means not long to go until you can grab a creative bargain. Right now, retailers all over the globe are busy getting ready for the big day, and Amazon is no exception. A one-stop-shop for almost anything you could ever want, Amazon's Black Friday 2019 bonanza looks set to be bigger and better than ever before. So what deals can we expect to see from Amazon UK? We know the main event kicks off on 29 November and culminates on the 2nd December with Cyber Monday, but we can now get even more specific with what to look out for on Amazon. Amazon’s UK Black Friday Sale will run for eight days from 00:01 on Friday 22 November until 23:59 on Friday 29 November. That's a whole lot of time to get a good deal, right? Let's take a closer look what type of Black Friday deals will be on offer. Amazon Black Friday deals Amazon will be running three types of deals during the course of the event. First, the Lightning Deals. These are usually heavily discounted items that are on offer for a super-short amount of time – often just a few hours. Then before you know it, it'll be gone. So it will pay to have your finger on the pulse for these. This year a press release from Amazon states: "New lightning deals will becoming available as often as every five minutes." Secondly, the Deals of the Day: a promotion that will last for 24 hours. These are slightly less frantic but still be prepared to be fast because products may sell out quickly. And lastly, the Best Deals. They do what they say on the tin, they're Amazon's pick of the best deals on the site, and will be included on Amazon's UK deals page. If all of this sounds exciting but like a lot of hard work, don't despair. We don't want you to have to spend your weekend glued to your laptop, waiting for the perfect deals to go live. Instead, why not bookmark our Black Friday hubs that will give you all the info on where to get the best deals around? We've got dedicated deals articles on a number of product and brands, including the best Apple Black Friday, Surface Pro Black Friday, Adobe Black Friday and Apple Pencil Black Friday deals. We'll be updating all these hubs with the best and latest deals as they go live. And one thing we've learned from previous events is not to hang around if you see what you want at the right price. These deals are likely to sell out fast, so you'll need to be quick to avoid missing out. See below for a range of deals currently available on products for creatives. Read more: How to win at Black Friday: Must-know insight for buyers and sellers Black Friday weekend: discover the best day to get the deal you want Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2019: how to make huge savings this year View the full article

Gavin Campbell is a freelance illustrator, graphic designer and videographer who's spent the last 14 years working with global brands in fashion, lifestyle, editorials, advertising, conceptual, digital, portrait, branding and character development. His long list of clients include the likes of Pharrell Williams, Kravitz, Sony Music and RCA Records, as well as companies like Sky, McDonalds, Ferrari and Arsenal FC. Jealous, much? Us too. So wouldn’t it be great if we could see exactly how Gavin goes about creating his art, in real time, and learn some of his secrets? Well, the good news is, we can. In the video below, Gavin races against the clock to transform Adobe Stock imagery into an original work of art, using Photoshop CC, in just one hour. Throughout this time, Gavin chats through his creative process, explaining what he’s doing at every stage, right down to the specific shortcuts he’s using, as well as sharing his tips for creating unique pieces using stock imagery, and answering questions about his career success to date. Greater speed with Adobe Stock To create this stunning artwork in under an hour, Gavin naturally turns to Adobe Stock, which is smoothly integrated into the Creative Cloud, making the entire process quick and simple. “Obviously you can go to the web and use Adobe Stock from there,” he says. “But what I normally do is I go to the Libraries tab and I just do a quick search for whatever I need. It's a lot quicker." For this particular project, he first wanted to find an image of a female from a side view, so he simply typed “woman's side view” into the search box. Then, once he'd found the one he was looking for, he licensed it and saved it to a folder he'd created titled ‘Assets’. The first Adobe Stock image Gavin chooses to based his artwork around Handily, the whole process takes place in the blink of an eye. “I can just double click on that licensee and it goes straight into the folder, so it's really, really handy and saves a lot of time,” Gavin enthuses. By saving to the Creative Cloud Library, that image is now available to him wherever he goes and whatever device he uses. Plus if he’s collaborating with somebody else, he can also share that library folder as well. Gavin proceeds to create his artwork in Photoshop by combining his portrait of a woman with multiple dynamic background images from Adobe Stock, and it’s fascinating to see the range of powerful and eye-catching visuals that he unearths. As he works, Gavin takes in great depth about how he approaches each stage of his creative process, including how he tackles masking (6 min 30), how he creates a double exposure effect (8 min 30), his use of the Magic Wand tool (13 min 50), and more. Watch as Gavin Campbell creates this stunning artwork, and explains each step in real time While he’s working, Gavin also gives the benefit of his advice to young designers on developing their careers, including the importance of promoting yourself online (12 min) and the best equipment to use (39 min). He also chats openly about some of the highlights of his own glittering career, from meeting A-listers at Cannes (35 mins) to designing the Gladiators logo (42 mins 50). To discover how Gavin uses Adobe Stock and Photoshop to make phenomenal art watch the video above, which was produced as part of Adobe's Creative Collab series of livestreams. To see further Adobe livestreams, check out this YouTube playlist. Try Adobe Stock for free! In 2019, illustrators, designers and videographers like Gavin Campbell, 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

It's hard to believe its been 30 whole years since our Saturday evenings started with that trademark slow-mo run and Jimi Jamison's 'I'm Always Here' theme tune. Yes, Baywatch first aired three decades ago, and to celebrate the iconic '90s show, producers Fremantle and Pantone have teamed up to officially commemorate the anniversary. And what better way to do so than with that trademark bathing suit red. Enter: Baywatch Red. Pantone's newest addition to its colour library. Fearless, bold and eye-catching, the colour certainly plays to all we know about colour theory. It used to adorn the bodies of the high-energy lifeguards, reinforcing the dramatic nature of the action, and has resurfaced to bring its high energy to us in an official capacity. To prove just how visually impactful the colour is, and how iconic it proved to be for the show, Fremantle created this account (above) of how the red swimsuits came to be. Sorry to ruin the illusion, but Fremantle doctored these scenes, frame-by-frame to create this false history of the lifeguard's uniforms. Watching the blue swimsuits bounce (sorry) across the sand just doesn't have the same effect, does it? Laurie Pressman, vice president of Pantone Colour Institute says: “As a longtime Baywatch fan and lover of the emboldening red swimsuits and shorts, we were excited and honoured to participate in the creation of this special Pantone colour, Baywatch Red." She goes on to reinforce the importance of the bright red hue, pointing out that the red symbolises, "the passion and courage displayed by these brave and heroic life savers, the powerfully energising Baywatch Red instantly expresses a message of immediate action and fierce determination.” We're looking forward to finding out Pantone's colour of the year, and wonder if it'll be something so in-your-face. The colour of 2019 – Living Coral – had a more serious vibe than the Baywatch Red offering. Warm and nourishing, it was a reaction to the digital onslaught of modern life. However, Pantone has form in engaging with pop culture. 2018's colour of choice was Ultra Violet – a purple hue that represented icons such as David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix, it symbolised individuality. We think Santa has found his shade for Christmas 2019 (we can't wait to stay up to see him come down the chimney in Baywatch Red), but which Pantone colour matches your personality? You can try this fun quiz to find out. Read more: The best pencils for colouring, drawing and sketching Pantone launches a whopping 294 'trend relevant' colours How to use colour to shape UX View the full article

More exciting news from Adobe MAX 2019: in today's keynote, Adobe unveiled Photoshop Camera, an intelligent photo app that "brings the magic of photoshop directly to the point of capture". The impressive early preview showed how the app could be used to quickly create incredible photos – both realistic and imaginative – using the power of AI. The app is available now as a preview for iOS and Android device users, with general release slated for 2020. Photoshop Camera uses Sensei – Adobe's AI programme – to automatically enhance your images. It can be used to do something simple and realistic, like adjusting the tone and colour balance to liven up a dull photo or something more dramatic – such as turning day to night in a landscape photo. Alternatively, you can apply wild photo effects to transform your image completely. See it in action in the video below. There's an expansive library of different lenses and effects for Photoshop Camera, created by leading artists and influencers. Creatives will be able to get involved personally too, by designing and sharing their own filters. In his presentation, Adobe's Adhay Parasnis touched on how developments in the best cameraphones have fundamentally changed the way we we create and share our work. However, while we have some strong photo apps, there's still room to push things further on the software side of things. "We believe the world is ready for the next chapter, where it’s not just about more mega-pixels, but how you can tell your story in a unique way," he explained. "Leveraging Adobe Sensei intelligence, [Photoshop Camera] can instantly recognise the subject in your photo and provide recommendations, and automatically apply sophisticated, unique features at the moment of capture." Sign up for early access here, or read more about Photoshop Camera on the Adobe blog. Read more: Photoshop on iPad is finally here Lightroom vs Photoshop: What's the difference? Adobe Fresco is now available on Windows Illustrator is coming to iPad! View the full article

The network configuration management utility has two unpatched critical remote code execution vulnerabilities. View the full article

Adobe launched Fresco, its dedicated tablet art app, earlier this year. The first release was for iPad users only, but at Adobe MAX 2019, it has been revealed that a Windows version is now available. At the moment it’s for users of Microsoft Surface Pro X devices and Wacom MobileStudio Pro hardware (read on for a full rundown of supported devices), but Adobe is working to add other devices to the list. Fresco is a versatile digital art tool that enables users to work with raster, vector and Live brushes – which are powered by Adobe Sensei to offer an impressively realistic digital art experience. Users can also sync in their favourite Photoshop brushes. Read our Adobe Fresco review for more details. The move is welcome – while iPads remain extremely popular for creatives, the Microsoft Surface is snapping at Apple’s heels (explore our guides to the best Surface Black Friday deals or iPad Black Friday deals if you’ve been convinced to pick one up). It’s about time we had more art apps that made the most of the Surface’s capabilities. The announcement marks part of a renewed focus on mobile creativity for Adobe. At MAX 2019, the company also launched Photoshop on the iPad, and announced that Illustrator on the iPad is also on its way. What’s included in Fresco for Windows? As we hoped, Adobe says that Fresco for Windows will match the experience offered on the iPad. It will similarly offer vector and raster tools, and Adobe has worked closely with Microsoft and Intel to optimise the Photoshop brushes so they perform as well as possible. The features list is not yet complete compared to the iOS version, but Adobe is working on getting the missing features added to Fresco for Windows as quickly as possible. Fresco also saves documents in Adobe’s new Cloud Documents format, which means designers and digital artists will be able to open and edit their Fresco documents in multiple different applications (including Photoshop and Illustrator). Artwork created on Fresco for Windows by Jessica Wong Which devices support Fresco for Windows? Support is currently for just 10 devices. They are: Microsoft Surface Pro 4, 5, 6 Microsoft Surface Book 1, 2 Microsoft Surface Studio 1, 2 Microsoft Surface Go Wacom MobileStudio Pro 13", 16" Adobe is working on expanding that list as it works with more Windows hardware partners. You can find more details on the official Adobe blog. Read more: 10 best design apps for Windows The 21 best iPhone apps for designers The best Adobe Black Friday deals in 2019 View the full article