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Online campaigns and advertising can be hugely effective in tackling social and political issues. But finding a way to get your message across in a way that people actually want to pay attention to, without making your audience feel like they're being preached to, is incredibly difficult. Two creatives that have absolutely nailed it are designer Zeynep Orbay and writer Macie Soler-Sala. Both passionate about politics, the duo have created a range of standout side projects, as well as bringing social purpose to big-brand campaigns at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, where they've been based for the past two years. In late September, they'll be taking to the stage at nocturnal design conference Us By Night in Antwerp (find out more about the festival here) to reveal their advice for making a statement that people want to stop and listen to. In the meantime, let's take a behind-the-scenes look at some of their most effective projects with a purpose. 01. Spread the love US Vice President Mike Pence’s birthday falls at the start of June, which also happens to be Pride Month. In this personal project, Orbay and Soler-Sala decided to celebrate the two together. "We thought this would be a great opportunity to turn a day reserved for a man who has spread nothing but hate and intolerance towards the community into a day of love and support for it," says Orbay. The resulting video is an homage to Marylin Monroe's sultry rendition of ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ to JFK, but with a difference. "We recreated it with a 2019 twist," adds Orbay, "A group of drag queens dressed like the sex symbol herself, singing Pence their sexiest rendition of the song in a way that still feels genuine and full of love." To give the project extra clout, the pair partnered with six LGBTQIA+ organisations, and encouraged watchers to donate to them on Pence's behalf. 02. Find a new angle During his 2016 US presidential election campaign, Donald Trump developed a reputation for contradicting himself. "At the time, there were plenty of digital experiences about Trump, which ran the spectrum from fun and playful to mean-spirited," recalls Soler-Sala. "We wanted to create something entirely fact-based, which essentially used his own words against him in a way that was informative, undeniably true and serious in tone." In Stereotypical Trump, users are invited to don a pair of headphones and hear the President himself addressing a range of key topics, from the Iraq War to party affiliation, with one statement feeding their right ear and the opposite in their left. The response to the project was massive. Over just a few days, the site amassed over 750,000 audio plays, 36,000 page visits, with an average dwell time of 2 minutes 45 seconds. "While the big result we were hoping for obviously didn’t happen, here’s to hoping we don’t have to listen to Trump any more after 2020," adds Soler-Sala. 03. Tackle stereotypes This next project, for W+K, shows how big brands are increasingly using their reach to create positive social impact. This Is Us is a campaign for Nike Women in Turkey, where – as in many places around the world – women are constrained by traditional gender roles and expectations. "Female athletes in Turkey have always been committed to pursuing their love of sport and fitness while staying true to themselves, despite these barriers and society’s expectations of them as women," comments Orbay. "Our Nike campaign, celebrates the stories of elite and everyday athletes from across Turkey, encouraging women to push beyond their personal barriers and limitations others may place on them." The design takes stereotypically female scenarios and cleverly segues them into sporting scenes – flour on a woman's hands as she mixes ingredients for baking becomes chalk for weight-lifting, for example. It's a clear and effective way of breaking the barriers between expectation and possibility. 04. Be unignorable This final project is one that packs a real punch. The Fading News took on the issue of news censorship in Turkey. During the Gezi Park protests, a lack of information on TV meant people turned to the internet to stay informed. The Turkish government was about to pass a law that enabled authorities to erase any online content within four hours, without the need for even a court order. The duo decided to show the public exactly what the internet would look like under this new law. They partnered with Radikal, on of the biggest newspapers in Turkey. Over the course of three days, all political news stories on the paper's website faded out until visitors were left with a page of censorship. "It sparked an even larger movement where people started erasing their own content on social media," remembers Soler-Sala. "We reached over 32 million people with no media budget, but most importantly, the president revised the law to make the court order necessary to erase any content on the internet." What's on the cards at Us By Night? Us By Night runs from 26-28 September. This is not your typical design event: it's completely nocturnal, with talks starting at 5pm and ending at 11pm. "I’ve never spoken about my work at such a high-profile event before – to have this opportunity at a place like Us By Night is a huge, night sweat-inducing honour," says Soler-Sala. "I’ve been a very big fan of this festival for a long time and admire so many speakers that will be presenting this year." "It makes me very happy and excited to be a part of a festival which I’ve always admired, alongside with many great creatives," adds Orbay. The event will take place at Waagnatie in Antwerp, a city that – despite its relatively humble size – is known for its metropolitan mindset and appetite for innovation. This is the city that brought us Rubens, the Antwerp Six and Luc Tuymans, and it continues to attract creative talent today, with one in six Antwerp enterprises being in the creative sector. What better place for a design festival with a difference? Pick up a ticket here. Read more: 5 ad campaigns that changed the world Adverts that were so entertaining the message got lost 5 massive brands that are no longer with us View the full article

Eight vulnerabilities in the HTTP/2 server implementations were found in vendors Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Apache. View the full article

Up to 24 Apache Struts Security Advisories listed the wrong versions that were impacted by vulnerabilities, researchers warn. View the full article

Companies are falling over themselves to offer back to school discounts for students, and Adobe is getting fully involved with this fantastic offer. Students in North and South America, plus EMEA regions – that's people who live in Europe, the Middle East and Africa – are now able to get at least 60% off Adobe Creative Cloud. The price drop means users living in these countries can get an Adobe CC All apps subscription for $19.99 a month for the first year, as opposed to the full price of $52.99 per month. On top of that, when you pay upfront, you can get an additional two free months – that means a whole year will cost you just $199.88. And those in the UK are even luckier, as there's an additional 17% off the price, dropping the cost of a monthly subscription down from an already discounted £16.24 a month to £13.56. The yearly plan paid in advance costs £196.56. The price reduction applies to the entire Adobe Creative Cloud suite, which includes Adobe's 20+ applications, including photo editing favourite Photoshop and digital artists' go-to Illustrator. You'll also find video editing software Premiere Pro, web prototyping tool Adobe XD and motion effects creator After Effects among the impressive toolset. To be eligible for the deal, you need to be over 13 and enrolled in an accredited university or college, in full-time study at a primary or secondary school, or be homeschooled. If you're not a student, then don't despair. Those in EMEA regions are able to get 40% off Adobe's All Apps plan. This drops the price from £49.94/€59.99 to £30.34/€35.99 per month (note that prices in European countries vary slightly). There's also a discount on Adobe CC All Apps plus Adobe Stock, knocking the price from £78.52/€82.98 to £58.92/€59.98 (prices in Euros are approximate). If that's not enough to tempt you, also note that when you buy Adobe's full package you're also getting 100GB of cloud storage (with the option to upgrade to 10TB) and premium features like Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark. The programmes are fully integrated, so you can switch between them (and jump from one device to another) easily – whether you’re at home studying, in the library or out and about. Built-in templates help you jump-start your designs, and there are plenty of step-by-step tutorials available to help you get your head around the programmes. These deals are available for a limited time only, so if you want to save big on Adobe's entire suite of creative software, sign up now before it's too late. If you're not eligible, take a look at our guide to the best Adobe deals to see if there are any discount in your area. Make sure to bookmark the page too as we update it with Adobe deals once they go live. Read more: 61 top-class Photoshop tutorials to try The best digital art software in 2019 The 9 best alternatives to Photoshop View the full article

If the number of videos and amusing pictures on the internet are anything to go by, it looks like people love cats. But until the launch of a recent campaign for cat food brand Smalls, this fondness for felines hadn't been immortalised in font form. All that's changed though thanks to the launch of a new font created by Smalls' lead designer, Miles Barretto, in partnership with Good Type Foundry. By studying the movement and behaviour of cats, Baretto modified the upper case font Adieu to capture their distinctive essence. Unless you're more of a dog person, this set could easily rival some of the entries in our list of the best free fonts for designers in your affections. But how does the nature of a cat get translated into a typeset? Barretto explains: "I looked into the body language that cats make, and particularly got drawn to the tail." "There was a nice natural connection to translating the cat tail into letterforms - it was also a great learning experience as to how cats can communicate through body language." The result is a quirky, slinking font that will appear on the packaging of Smalls' freeze-dried cat food bags. Just take a look at how the apertures in the letters meander, and the way the terminals have a smooth kink in them. Looks pretty cat-y to us. This is making us purr For Barretto, one of the most interesting parts of the project was putting himself in the mindset of cats and their owners. "I think it’s fascinating to know that within cat owners there is a commonality of experiences in having a cat and trying to translate those unspoken facts through the design was a learning process that I have not really thought of until working with Smalls." The font was part of a broader effort to inject some "surprise and delight" into the brand. To top-off the project, Barretto also created Small Talk Magazine, a print accompaniment to the Small Talk blog. Related articles: 45 free retro fonts 33 perfect font pairings 4 steps to using variable fonts View the full article

Social media logos are tricky. When hundreds of millions use your app on a daily basis, you risk upsetting an awful lot of people if they don't like it, as we've seen this week with the rebrand of Snapchat. Throw in all the other issues that social media platforms are failing to deal with, from fake news to online abuse, and the notion you have the time to mess around with changing your logo can seem like a slap in the face to the public. Yet despite the fact that most social platforms haven't been around for long, many of them have already been through several iterations of their logos (see our guide to logo design if you'd like to know more about what makes a successful logo). So what's driving these changes, how successful have they been, and what do they tell us about the art of logo design, and the latest logo trends? 01. Facebook The original Facebook logo, launched in 2005 We'll start with Facebook, as an example of how to do it right. Facebook began as a Harvard University networking site originally called 'Facemash' and then 'Thefacebook'. Once it had been renamed 'Facebook', founder Mark Zuckerberg hired Mike Buzzard of Cuban Council to design a professional looking identity. His logo design, shown above, was a modification of the typeface Klavika, which was designed by Eric Olson. Buzzard oversaw the project, and type and graphic designer Joe Kral completed the type modifications and final wordmark. The distinctive hue was chosen due to the fact that Zuckerberg has a form of colour-blindness called deuteranopia, which means that blue is the only colour he can distinguish easily. The updated version of the logo, launched in 2015 The wordmark was clean, clear, distinct and scalable. By getting it right first time, Facebook was able to keep the same logo intact for the next decade. And this proved invaluable, as the platform expanded its scope across the world at exponential pace. Since then, Facebook has only had to make major changes to its logo once, in 2015 (shown above). And even then, most users probably didn't spot the alterations. A collaboration behind Facebook's in-house team and Eric Olsen, the 2015 version involved subtle but important tweaks, to give the logo a more friendly and up-to-date look, including the change to a single-deck 'a' and a stem on the letter 'b'. Facebook updated its app logo in 2019, with a new circular icon (right) replacing the dark blue block of old Of course, as the public has moved from computers to smartphones, the app icon has become more important than its workmark. Earlier this year, then, it was no surprise to see this logo redesigned too. This new design, shown above, saw the older square background being replaced with a more approachable circular one, and a switch from Facebook's traditional blue to the more vibrant gradient of its Messenger icon. In summary, when it comes to its logos, Facebook has done everything right. It brought in professionals at the outset, and trusted them to do a good job. It then held back from any changes at all for a decade, and made only minor tweaks, again in concert with the pros. As a result, Facebook has been able to grow to the global behemoth that strides the planet today, while maintaining near-total design consistency over time. Lesson learned: Invest in getting your logo right first time, and you'll be set for decades. While it's tempting to dash off something quick and dirty when you're in 'startup mode', getting the professionals to do a proper job will pay off in the long term. 02. Twitter The original Twitter wordmark from 2006 Compared with Facebook, Twitter has taken a much more varied approach to its logo design. This perhaps reflects a lack of clear business vision for the platform. (Although it's been around since 2006, Twitter was only able to turn a profit in 2018, and since then has started to see a worrying decline in users.) Twitter's original logo, shown above, was the creation of Swedish graphic designer Linda Gavin, who was given just one day to develop the design. It spelled out the company name in fun, child-like letters, which evoked an image of friendliness and inclusivity. Twitter's second logo featured the first iteration of its bird icon A second logo in 2006, shown above, saw the debut of the well-known bird icon. Over the next few years saw further variants of said bird, released in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2012, including one drawn by the company's co-founder, Biz Stone. Each featured a similar shade of blue, but each was quite different. And things started to get a little bit cluttered and confused as a result, because whenever you saw a link to Twitter on someone's website, you didn't know which of them it would be, or if the site owner had just drawn their own version entirely. Twitter got it right with its 2012 bird icon Things got a bit more orderly in 2012, with the introduction of the now-familiar simplified and streamlined silhouette, shown above, which has become the consistent icon for Twitter ever since. Based on a mountain bluebird, the wings are made up of three overlapping circles, and it's this innate sense of geometric balance that has made this Twitter icon, created by in-house designer Doug Bowman, so beloved and successful. In 2019, Biz Stone released this screengrab of a prototype with blue square in place of the logo So what on earth was Twitter thinking when, earlier this year, they announced a new prototype version featuring a simple blue square as its new 'logo'? "The bird flew away from the app icon representing: Simplicity," tweeted Biz Stone. "Blue sky thinking. We’re re-working. Not there yet; hence, no logo. Bold and a little weird." Before anyone panicked too much, we were reassured that this was NOT the new Twitter logo, but some kind of experiment. But suffice to say, no one was impressed, and it just seemed to heighten the sense that Twitter has no clear way forward. Lesson learned: The first and most important step in designing a successful logo is to understand the fundamental goals of the business and the strategies aimed at achieving them. Conversely, a visual identity that's all over the place suggests that maybe the underlying business is, too. 03. Instagram The original Instagram logo didn't really relate to the service it was offering In terms of user enthusiasm, global reach and profitability, Instagram has been the social media success story of the decade. And its sense of clarity and purpose has been clearly reflected in the thoughtful evolution of its logo design. Launched in 2010, Instagram's first logo was a wordmark, which itself has been through a number of iterations over the years. But for a platform that's always been centred around the smartphone, it's the icon that's been most important to its branding identity. CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom designed the original icon, shown above. It looks like an old-style Polaroid camera, which he later admitted had nothing to do with what Instagram was actually offering as a service. The next logo was simpler but still skeuomorphic Shortly afterwards, then, he enlisted help from Cole Rise, a professional designer and photographer, and one of the app's beta testers, to craft a new design. After a number of iterations over a six-month period, they finally settled on Rise's camera icon (shown above). The 2016 design stripped everything down to the bare essentials This stayed in place until 2016, when Instagram released a new, dramatically minimalist design (above), which had been created in-house over a nine-month period. As mentioned previously, social media users don't like change, particularly when it's this dramatic. And unsurprisingly, a lot of people went berserk, leading the New York Times to dub the event The Great Instagram Logo Freakout of 2016. But looking back now, it seems like a necessary move. Skeuomorphism is now firmly out of favour in the logo world, and with almost every other web service simplifying their logo design, Instagram would have looked pretty old-hat if it had kept its detailed, 3D camera icon. Especially considering that the camera itself, as a separate device, is rapidly becoming irrelevant in the eyes of high-end smartphone users (see our best smartphones if you're looking to upgrade yours). Lesson learned: The broad current trend is to simplify and minimise your logo design over time. It's safest to do this gradually, but if you have a strong product and passionate following, you might get away with ripping off the Band-Aid in one go. 04. Pinterest Pinterest's original logo, with its friendly script lettering Pinterest is another social media platform that's only made one, relatively subtle change to its logo over the years. Launched in 2010, Pinterest soon found a lucrative niche in acting as a virtual pinboard for people's favourite images. And its 'P' icon – which transforms the first letter of its name into a pin – was perfectly designed to convey the essence of its offering. Combined with the phrase 'Pin it', this clever design (shown above) makes it instantly clear what the platform is about, and how to use it. The 2017 redesign made the lettering more business-like but left the 'pin' icon intact So when Pinterest eventually redesigned their logo in 2017, it was a smart move to leave the icon entirely untouched. Instead, the focus was solely on the wordmark, which was redesigned using a modified version of Neue Haas Grotesk, to look cleaner and more business-like. Lesson learned: A logo doesn't always have to explain or illustrate your service... but if you can find a way to do so visually, then you're on to a winner. 05. YouTube The original logo conveyed the purpose of the service beautifully YouTube's logo evolution over the years is another example of how a beloved logo can be imperceptibly improved, by streamlining and simplifying it over time. It's difficult to remember a time when no one knew what YouTube was, but when the service, created by former PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karimon, launched on Valentine's Day 2005, that was exactly the situation. And so the original logo, shown above, helped people get there quicker by placing the word "Tube" inside a red rounded rectangle, representing a television. By 2011, a flatter rectangle made sense both functionally and symbolically This logo, designed using Alternate Gothic number two, remained unchanged until 2011, when a new design with a flatter rectangle (shown above) was introduced, in a darker shade of red. In a world where the bulky CRT televisions of older were rapidly being replaced by sleek flatscreens, the removal of the 3D gradient was a sensible move, keeping the logo looking fresh and modern without requiring radical change. The 2017 logo could more easily be broken up into separate icon and wordmark The logo was refreshed once more, but with only minor changes, in 2013 and 2015. In 2017, though, the original 2005 logo received its first major overhaul. This design, created in house, finally dropped the TV shape surrounding 'Tube' and moving it to one side, providing space for a cleaner and clearer wordmark. The new logo (shown above) was created specifically to be a more flexible design that works better across a variety of devices, including tiny screens. As YouTube explained in a blog post: "When room is limited (say on a smartphone) you can use the brightened up Icon as an abbreviated Logo, which will be seen more easily and read more clearly." It also featured a new bespoke typeface, and the new rectangle was coloured in #FF0000, “a really pure red that goes to the RGB of video”. In short, YouTube's logo has seen a natural, restrained and well thought-through evolution over time. And it's perhaps significant that none of its updates have led to the usual kind of online gnashing and wailing that others on this list have provoked. Lesson learned: It's good to update and refine your logo over time – and if you do it slowly, subtly and for good reasons, users are more likely to stay on side. 06. Medium The original Medium logo beatifully conveyed the theme of writing If you want to see a contrast with the natural and often imperceptible evolution of YouTube's logo, just check out the uncomfortable steps back and forth made by Medium. Medium was launched in 2012 by Evan Williams, previously co-founder of Blogger and Twitter. He initially saw it as a way for people to publish writings and documents longer than Twitter's 140-character (now 280-character) maximum. On launch, it sported a logo based around a monochrome, slab-serif M, using the Stag typeface (shown above). As a platform aimed at writers, this simple, uncluttered serif, reminiscent of typewriters and print, made a clear and bold statement. The 2015 do-over now looks like the product of overthinking In 2015, however, Medium's then art director Erich Nagler, said in a blog post that this design had not proved particularly extensible. "It served us well through our first few years, but as Medium has grown and evolved, the logo has begun to feel flat, impenetrable, blunt, and not to be toyed with," he explained. "It is also not particularly distinctive, either. In short, our M no longer captured or conveyed what Medium has become." Medium worked with type designer Rod Cavazos of PSY/OPS to develop a new concept: "that our logo could be made of a series of interconnected ideas or shapes that, when joined together, form a new thought. A logo that flows, unfurls, and builds like a great and memorable conversation... The result is a custom set of letters that beautifully picks up on the angles and spirit of the logo, without becoming too harsh or overly geometric." There may have been some logic to this lengthy explanation (you can read the full post here). But the resulting logo, shown above, was not enthusiastically received, to say the least. The mint colour – more associated with financial apps than anything else – was baffling. The folded paper imagery looked clunky and awkward. The clear visual link with writing was gone. Even the kerning was questionable. Today's Medium logo is an obvious callback to the original So it's perhaps not surprising that a mere two years later, Medium took a sharp right turn and released another new logo (shown above), which looked strikingly similar to the original. A collaboration between Manual and Medium's in-house team, this elegant and mature design looks very much like a direct evolution from the original, almost if the 2015 identity had never happened. Less a redesign, perhaps, than an 'undesign'. Lesson learned: If you're going to abandon all your brand equity and introduce a completely new logo, you'd better make darn sure you get it right. And if the explanation of your new designs sounds complicated and overwrought, it's a good sign that you probably haven't. 07. Snapchat Company founder Evan Spiegel designed the original Snapchat logo in his bedroom We'll end this article as we started: with a social media logo that was pretty much nailed at the outset, and has thus only needed two evolutionary tweaks since. The genius of Snapchat, launched in 2011, was to allow users to send photos or videos that disappear after a certain amount of time. And so the idea of a logo based around a ghost (shown above) was a slam dunk. Company founder Evan Spiegel drew it on his computer in his dorm bedroom, before the company even had a name. A rap fan, he was inspired by the Wu-Tang Clan rapper Ghostface Killah, and the logo is now known internally at the company by the nickname Ghostface Chillah. Spiegel picked yellow because it was a colour no other popular app seemed to be using. His simple design was easy to identify, even on tiny screens, and overall the design has proved a great example of the maxim 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'. The latest logo (right) compared to the 2013 update (left) In fact, until very recently, there had been only major update. In 2013, the year Snapcat debuted Stories, it launched the redesigned logo shown above (left). Removing the cartoon face helped to streamline the logo and make it work better at small sizes. Snapchat also changed the colour to Pantone 100% Yellow, which can't fail to be spotted at great distance and fits the young demographic of its core audience perfectly. In 2019, Snapchat upset many by updating its ghost icon, outlining it more than previously with a thicker black line. This makes total sense from an accessibility point of view, the icon is now easier to see. But that didn't stop people getting angry. Lesson learned: Start with a strong concept that ties in with the core appeal of your app, and you stand a good chance of creating a logo design that will last the course. Although of course, if you do change it, expect outrage (on social media, naturally). Read more: How to become a YouTube sensation Social media for artists: a lifeline or a curse? Famous fonts: the typefaces behind the biggest logos View the full article

A campaign from the Home Office that aims to tackle knife crime with messages on fried chicken boxes has sparked a furore online. The government initiative, which sees more than 321,000 #knifefree boxes distributed to over 210 outlets in England and Wales, has been branded "offensive" and "racist" on social media. The boxes in question have replaced the standard packaging of retailers such as Chicken Cottage, Dixy Chicken, and Morley's. Real-life stories from young people who have chosen to follow positive activities instead of carrying a knife are printed inside each box. The boxes, which are one of the most controversial pieces of packaging design we've seen, were unveiled in a tweet from the Home Office, yesterday. As well as the #knifefree boxes, many of the fried chicken outlets will also use digital screens to raise awareness of the campaign. In a press release for the campaign, policing minister Kit Malthouse said: "These chicken boxes will bring home to thousands of young people the tragic consequences of carrying a knife and challenge the idea that it makes you safer." Despite its intentions, the campaign has been met with a negative reaction. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott slammed the plan in a tweet where she said: "Instead of investing in a public health approach to violent crime, the Home Office have opted for yet another crude, offensive and probably expensive campaign." Abbott's comment is indicative of the overwhelming backlash the campaign has received. In the replies to the original tweet from the Home Office, users were quick to point out that supporting charities and issuing government policies would be a better way to address the issues surrounding knife crime. Usually when we report on divisive campaigns we try to find a middle ground between the designer's intentions and the angry reactions. But on this occasion we just don't know where to start. The biggest issue with this campaign is its problematic undertones. Given that fried chicken has been associated with racist stereotypes, it's unsurprising that people have called out the Home Office. Outraged Labour MP David Lammy took to Twitter to question the thought process behind the government's campaign. Twitter user Ken Wynn summed up the issues behind the campaign elegantly when he posted: "Kinda sounds like you're saying you think there's a demographic overlap between knife crime and fried chicken". This isn't the first time chicken boxes have been used to tackle crime, either. Earlier this year, 35 branches of Morley's in South London used #knifefree boxes to address violence. This was in response to the fatal stabbing of 15 year-old Jay Hughes outside a Morley's branch in Bellingham. The #knifefree chicken boxes are the latest in a series of government initiatives to tackle serious violence. Recently the government announced it will recruit 20,000 new police officers, and confirmed that all 43 police forces across England and Wales can use enhanced stop and search powers. Related articles: 3 times big brands tried to be woke and failed miserably 7 fantastic design fails – and what we can learn from them The North Face tries to "hack" Wikipedia, fails spectacularly View the full article

A strong brand can feel like an immortal entity; something that will be with us forever. When you think of brands such as McDonald's, Apple or Coca-Cola, it feels inconceivable that they should ever fail. They're simply too big, too all-encompassing to ever go the way of lesser competitors. The reality of the matter, though, is that even the biggest brands, the most recognisable household names, can fall. Sometimes an apparently unassailable name is concealing an overstretched and mismanaged business that's teetering on the brink of collapse, sometimes market forces or the march of progress simply drive a powerful brand into the ground, and there's nothing that the greatest logo design or most brilliant brand strategy can do about it. Some brands basically come to the end of their relevance. And as a salutary memento mori, here are five that were once thought immortal, but which are now no more. How the world's biggest brands got their names 01. Pan Am Pan Am's 'meatball' logo is a design classic When Stanley Kubrick was making his film of 2001: A Space Odyssey and needed a recognisable name to attach to commercial space flights, there was only one choice: Pan Am. Pan American World Airways dominated air travel for much of the 20th century, its iconic blue 'meatball' logo recognisable wherever it flew – which was pretty much everywhere. Its innovative advertising campaigns helped sell air travel to the masses, and in the 1960s it even started accepting deposits for flights to the moon, expecting its first departures to be around 2000. No wonder then that the spaceplanes in 2001 sport Pan Am livery; Pan Am adverts also show up in its sequel, 2010, and also in Blade Runner. However, Pan Am never even made it to the year 2001; after a terrible few years that saw it beset by troubles including the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and the first Gulf War, Pan Am filed for bankruptcy in 1991. Its only surviving division is the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Florida. 02. Thames Television As a leading part of the ITV network from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, Thames Television had one of the most recognisable idents in British TV, designed by Minale Tattersfield, consisting of a vignette of London landmarks rising out of the middle of the screen, its reflection below, and accompanied by an eight-note fanfare entitled Salute to Thames. There was no getting away from that Thames ident; it preceded many of the top TV programmes of that era. You'd see it before shows such as The Sweeney, The Avengers and Minder, and it even showed up once on the BBC, at the start of an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Despite its strong brand identity, Thames lost its broadcasting franchise in 1991, and while it still exists as an entertainment label of Fremantle media, the name no longer has the weight that it carried in its golden age. 03. Woolworths Woolies' no-nonsense logo matched the contents of its stores Woolworths used to be one of the biggest names in UK retail. Anywhere you went you could count on there being a branch of Woolworths, complete with its functional white-on-red logo, selling all manner of items at reasonable prices. Its blockbuster Christmas ads were a staple of festive television throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It was the place to go for 80's kids in search of seven-inch singles and 'pick-n-mix' sweets, and it was also known for its own Winfield brand of household goods as well as its Ladybird range of children's clothes. While it was never remotely cool or on-trend, it was one of those dependable high street fixtures that you expected to always be around. However as one of the country's top music retailers, it was hit hard by the rise of digital formats, and the decline of the high street in favour of online shopping and out-of-town locations did Woolworths no favours. It took the 2008 financial crisis to finish Woolworths off; its last stores closed at the beginning of 2009. 04. Commodore This was the tech logo that mattered in the 1980s We're all accustomed to having multiple computing devices in the home, not to mention our pockets, these days, but back in the 1970s and 1980s the idea of having your own computer was only just starting to take off, thanks to a handful of pioneering companies, most of which are now long gone. Everyone knows Apple, which was there at the start of the home computer age, but arguably the biggest name in the early days of home computer was Commodore. It introduced the PET, the first mass-market home computer, in January 1977 – six months before the Apple II went on sale – and went on to dominate the market in 1980s, firstly with the VIC-20, followed by the hugely successfully Commodore 64, a heavyweight beast of a machine with a whole 64 kilobytes of memory, which sold somewhere between 10 and 17 million units over its lifetime. While Commodore's next machine, the Amiga, proved almost as popular as the C64, Commodore was unable to survive the rise of games consoles and ever-cheaper IBM PC-compatible machines, and it went out of business in 1994. 05. Blockbuster It used to be a blockbuster, now it's just bust Another victim of the relentless march of technology, Blockbuster is one of those brands that you couldn't imagine ever going under back in the 1990s. Video rental was a massive market back then, and Blockbuster was its undisputed champion, with over 9,000 stores worldwide at its peak. The idea of going into a store and renting a film on videocassette for a couple of nights might seem weird and alien now (although given the retro revival of vinyl and tapes we wouldn't be the tiniest bit surprised to see VHS make a nostalgic comeback), but back then that was how you watched the latest films at home, at least if you didn't want to fill all your shelves with chunky shop-bought videotapes. Blockbuster managed to weather the shift to DVD and Blu-Ray, but failed to anticipate just how quickly streaming would take over, and while it took a late run at its own streaming service, it was a half-hearted effort that didn't last long. Today Blockbuster is all but dead, with just one remaining store in Bend, Oregon. Related articles: 3 huge branding trends that might have had their day 18 controversial moments in logo design and branding 5 brands that hit nostalgia hard View the full article

p5.js is the most recent JavaScript implementation of the famous desktop creative coding environment Processing. It takes much of the power and ease of use of Processing and puts it into your browser. It helps you draw in canvas but also integrates with your web page, allowing your 'sketch' to respond to and manipulate the DOM. p5.js takes away a lot of the headaches of animation and data visualisation on the web and makes it super-simple to get up and running with animation using two simple functions: setup() and draw(). But don't assume this simplicity is limiting, as you can take Processing a long way by creating your own functions and extend it with many of the community-created libraries. 6 ways to get into creative coding Why use data to drive animation? Creating design and animation 'systems' means defining a set of rules, parameters and variable ranges into which you can feed different data. The ability to play with the parameters of a system and input different data means you can create limitless output variations with the consistency of a systematic approach. Different data can create totally diverse visual outputs and a great source of fast moving, richly textured data is audio. That is exactly what we are going to use in our animation. Data-driven vs data visualisation As an example of what p5.js can do; here the Reasons.to logo has been distorted by audio data into a wonderfully dotty arrangement Is a data-driven animation a data visualisation? Yes and no. Your animation will be a visual representation of the data just like a visualisation but the purpose is different to that of a traditional visualisation. Data visualisation is used to give the viewer an insight into the data, so the graphic is at the service of the communication of the data. However, we will be using data as a creative seed to enable us to generate interesting and textural graphical variations, therefore the data is at the service of the graphic. Of course, one discipline is interconnected and cross-pollinates with the other but it is good to recognise your own intent when using data. What are we going to make? Concentric arcs, emerging from the centre of the screen, scaled by audio amplitude p5.js gives us quick and easy access to the data that comes from analysing a sound file (like an MP3). We'll be using p5.fft to analyse different frequencies (bass and treble) within the audio as it plays back and visualise the 'energy' or amplitude of that frequency. In order for us to be able to see the 'shape' of the sound as it plays, we don't just want to show the current amplitude of the sound but capture a 'buffer' of data points. This will enable us to show a moving history of values. To show our data points, we'll create a series of concentric arcs from the centre to the outer edge of the screen. The length of the arc will represent the amplitude of the data. We'll also use other visual encodings for our data, such as line weight and colour. What will we learn? Working through the code, we'll cover: Setting up a new p5 sketch Loading and analysing sound Mapping data values to visual elements like size, shape and colour Using classes to draw, maintain the state of our animation and data and make our code reusable. Where are the files? The files for the animation are hosted on OpenProcessing, a great platform for sharing, discovering and forking other people's sketches. It's a great place for you to code, too. As we'll be using audio data, you'll need an MP3 file to drag into the sketch. We'll set up a new sketch on OpenProcessing; this is how your sketch will look once we've loaded audio, got the data and drawn a simple 'data shape': And this is how the completed sketch will look: Alternatively, you could also use the p5.js online editor or just include the library in your own project via download or CDN. 01. Start a new sketch Set up a free OpenProcessing account to get started Get a free OpenProcessing account and, from your profile page, click Create A Sketch. This will then create the most basic of sketches containing two of p5.js's built-in functions: setup() – This runs only once, and is used to set up a new canvas draw() – Here is where you put code that you want to run every frame You'll notice that background() is only called once in the set up. This clears the screen, so if you want to clear the screen every frame, include this at the start of the draw() function too. Have a play with some code here, using a few of the examples you can find on the p5.js site. Book your tickets to Generate CSS now to save £50 02. Create first sketch using audio data Create basic setup() and draw() functions in your first OpenProcessing sketch Go to my example starter sketch. Hit the play button and you'll see some text asking you to drop an MP3 file onto the canvas. Wait a few seconds for it to finish the upload and then click the canvas to begin the playback. You should see an ellipse, following your mouse, which is scaling and changing colour along with the bass amplitude in the music that you uploaded. Much of the code is commented but let's look at a few key elements: Right at the beginning of the sketch, ahead of setup(), we have created some global variables. Within setup() we have a couple of important lines: colorMode() enables you to set p5.js to work within different colour spaces like RGB and HSB, as well as configure the scale you use to navigate the channels. Here we've set HSB ranges to values you may be more familiar with from Photoshop rather than the default setting (0 to 255). This super helpful p5.js function enables us to listen for any file drop events on our canvas. When we get a file drop event, we call gotFile() to check if it's the correct type and start analysing the sound. Here we are turning our dropped file data into a SoundFile. When we have the sound file, we use the following code: initSound() to set up a new FFT instance (to analyse the sound) analyseSound() to analyse the current block of sound every frame getNewSoundDataValue() to use fft.getEnergy() every frame to give us the current amplitude of the sound. This is converted from its default range of 0 to 255 to 0 to 1. Tip: It's helpful to convert your data to a range of 0 to 1 because you can use it more easily when mapping the data to visual parameters such as scale, speed and colour. Let's look in the draw() function. This line requests the current amplitude (between 0 and 1) of the bass frequency and assigns it the variable myDataVal. In a few steps you can build an audio reactive ellipse, with scale and colour driven by audio data We call our custom getDataHSBColor() function that maps our data value separately to the Hue, Saturation and Brightness and returns us a colour. The higher the data, the further the colour moves across the hue spectrum and the brighter and more saturated the colour. Before we can draw our ellipse we need to give it a size, by multiplying 200 (px) by our data value. So the higher the value, the bigger the ellipse. 03. Use audio data as a paintbrush Change just one line of code – removing the background() call – and you can paint with audio data For a bit of fun, comment out the background() call in the draw() function and you can use your sound reactive ellipse to paint with! 05. Complete your sketch This is the completed sketch we will build Drawing one data ellipse for one frequency is great but now we'll create a series of data arcs for both bass and treble. We'll also draw a buffer of previous values to help us better see the shape of the sound. Visit this finished version of the sketch, run it and then drop an MP3 on it. You'll now see a series of arcs emerging out from the centre of the screen. The horizontal arcs are visualisations of the bass and the vertical ones pick out the treble of the MP3. Looking at the code, you'll see much of the set up, loading, analysing and getting the data is the same as the last sketch, so we can ignore that. There's quite a bit of code here so, as before, let's just pick out a few key points. Instead of drawing the arcs directly in draw(), we are actually creating some custom classes: class RadialArc{} holds the individual arc's data value and draws the arc class RadialArcs{} manages our collection of 'RadialArc' instances Each class definition has a constructor in which we are setting some key values and also passing in parameters that enable us change the class's behaviour. Let's have a closer look at them now. The RadialArc{} class: This is the class that holds a single data value and draws a pair of symmetrical arcs. setValue() and getValue() enable us to get the data in and out of an arc and push the data through our arc's array as the data updates. redrawFromData() is called to recalculate and redraw the arc. drawArc() is where we call the handy p5.js function arc(). Arc() is quicker than doing the trigonometry ourselves but we do need to pass it a few values like position, size and, crucially, a start and end angle for our arc. That angle is measured in 'radians' rather than degrees. Radians are like degrees but on a different scale: 360° is the same as 2 x pi radians. P5.js has useful built-in constants for PI, HALF_PI and QUARTER_PI etc. The RadialArcs{} class: This is a management class that creates an array of our RadialArc{} classes and keeps them up to date by moving the data in and out of each and calling the arc's redrawFromData() function. To initialise the RadialArcs() classes for treble and bass, have a look in setup(). You can see that we are creating two RadialArcs() instances and also passing in our custom parameters. Those parameters are: number of arcs, sizes of the inner and outermost arcs, the starting angle, the max line weight and the hue range of the colour. By creating these custom classes, it enables us to reuse our code but also make each instance individual by passing them these parameters. Once the arc objects are initialised, every frame will call updateRadialArcs() and drawRadialArcs() within the main p5 draw() function, which is how the animation updates and moves. 06. Take it further The completed sketch, visualising the bass and treble in your audio file We've covered a lot of code here but fundamentally I hope you can see how we are taking data and applying it to visual elements like size, position, length, weight and colour. To go further, play around with the number of arcs, groups and angles. Change the colour ranges and create new classes to draw different shapes. In this example we used data that is constantly flowing and, coupled with a fast frame rate, it creates the illusion of animation. However, not all data is like that and can update more slowly. For slower data, you can still create smooth animation by 'tweening' the animation of your shapes between their current and their target dimensions. Good luck with your next data-driven animation! This article was originally published in issue 320 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 320 here or subscribe here. Related articles: How to add animation to SVG with CSS The data trend set to revolutionise app design 12 great CSS animation resources View the full article

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Arachnophobes, you might want to look away now. That's because we've found a computer mouse supplier whose tools come with built-in creepy crawlies, including the infamous eight-legged terrors. And we're not talking about plastic toys here, we mean real (but dead) creatures encased in the transparent chassis of a mouse. Depending on how you feel around bugs, this tool either deserves a place in our guide to the best tools for graphic designers, or deserves to be exterminated like the bugs themselves. The company behind this nightmarish creation, Realbug, doesn't stop the scares there though. When you switch off the lights, you'll see that this mouse glows in the dark, meaning that there's no escape from this icky input device. If, for some bizarre reason, this isn't the mouse for you, why not check out our list of the best mice for designers. We've also got buying guides for the best left-handed mouse and the best stylus for iPad. Perhaps you'd prefer a beetle to a spider? Realbug also has plenty of non-spider related options, such as scorpions, centipedes, beetles and butterflies. We can see these being popular in the build up to Halloween, or ordered as a practical joke to scare a squeamish colleague. Either way, these bug mice won't leave you out of pocket as they're all priced under $20. Related articles: The best mouse for Mac in 2019 The best USB-C mouse in 2019 The best keyboards for designers right now View the full article

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The big Snapchat story this week may be the angry user reaction to the new Snapchat icon, but right now Snap Inc. is more focused on something entirely different: the brand new version of its weird sunglasses/camera combo. The first two versions of Snap's Spectacles – why on earth couldn't they call them Snaptacles? – haven't exactly set the world on fire. But the latest iteration, Spectacles 3 – or Snaptacl3s as any right-thinking company would have called them – could be the ones to change all that. The best video editing apps Spectacles 3 are the new high-fashion, high-price of Snap's not-really AR glasses Coming in at twice the price of Spectacles 2 (Snap2cles, obviously), the big selling point of Spectacles 3 is that they feature not one but two HD cameras, one mounted on the corner of each lens. And that means you can use them to take 3D photos and shoot 3D video. By tapping either of the Spectacles' buttons you can shoot up to 60 seconds of video at a time, or by pressing and holding a button you'll take a still photo. The Spectacles also feature a four-microphone array to provide high-fidelity audio for your videos. Once you've taken your shot you can transfer it wirelessly to your phone and add 3D effects within Snapchat before uploading to your Snapchat account (you can also export straight to your phone's camera roll). And if you want to see your photos and videos in full 3D, Spectacles 3 also come with a Google Cardboard-like 3D viewer that enables you to do just that. These are by far the coolest-looking version of Spectacles yet; they feature a striking stainless steel frame with circular lenses, and they come in two colour options. There's Carbon – black with a semi-matte finish and high-gloss details, and Mineral, a lighter tone with just a hint of gold. Spectacles 3 magically charge in their special carrying case Spectacles 3 come with 4GB of storage,enough to hold up to 100 videos or 1,200 photos, but you'll need to recharge before you hit that limit. Snap says that one charge will be enough for shooting 70 videos or around 200 photos, and once you're out of juice, simply put your Spectacles in their charging case, which will rejuvenate them in about 75 minutes. They're available to pre-order now, with delivery promised for the autumn. Whether Snap has got it right this time around remains to be seen; Spectacles 3 certainly look good, and the ability to create 3D video and imagery definitely feels like a bonus, but at $380/£330 for what still feels like something of a gimmicky wearable, this is quite a tough sell. Colour us intrigued, but not intrigued enough to stump up that much money. If course if they'd called them Snaptacl3s it might be a different matter, but you just can't tell some people. Find out more about Spectacles 3 here. Related articles: The best camera phones in 2019 15 ways to improve your photography skills Street photography: 11 expert tips View the full article

To celebrate 10 years of serving coffee, McCafé US has given its branding a refresh. The coffee chain, which is owned by McDonald's, is set to get a bright new identity this month, and it's one of the subtlest logo changes we've ever seen. This is probably a wise move on McCafé's part. In our guide to logo design we look at how it's important to tweak and refine a logo's typography to add personality, and that's exactly what McCafé has done. The subtle changes see the wordmark's lettering (above) ever so slightly rounded out. Meanwhile the removal of the underline stroke creates a bold and minimalist brand identity that's more in line with the rest of McDonald's products and promotional material, such as its recent set of French fry-themed billboard ads. See how it compares to the old McCafé logo, below. The previous McCafé logo made its debut in 2006 Other changes to the McCafé brand include the introduction of bright gold cups, which McDonald's modestly claims in a press release will "match our gold standard for quality coffee". The new look will also appear across pastry bags and other items of packaging. Let's just hope it doesn't lead to a viral gaffe like McDonald's accidentally smutty cups. Topping off the rebrand is the tagline 'good is brewing', which is inspired by the concept that "good is always brewing with McCafé because good people deserve good coffee." Seems like McCafé wants to be associated with "good". If you're already a fan of McCafé, rest assured that the taste of its coffee will remain the same. And for extra peace of mind, all of its hot beverage cups will remain FSC-Certified. The new branding will start rolling this month "Over the years, we’ve been focused on elevating the McCafé experience – from adding more choices, evolving the in-restaurant experience and broadening accessibility to this important brand," said McDonald's Vice President of Menu Innovation, Linda VanGosen. "This latest update is a natural evolution of the steps we’ve taken to modernise the brand experience and deliver growth. We remain excited about coffee, and will continue to prioritise making McCafé a go-to coffee destination for customers." Related articles: Snapchat updated its icon and everything's ruined World's smallest McDonald's opens for bees – and it's amazing! McDonald's proves its brand strength with blurry ads View the full article

Whether you use the Adobe Creative Cloud programs or something comparable for your graphic design needs, there always seems to be more to know and more tricks to learn. After all, part of being a creative is consistently trying new mediums, new tools, and new projects. For those of you that live by that sentiment, this Graphic Design + Adobe CC Certification School bundle may be just what you need to fuel your growth as a creative. The bundle includes courses in the big three Adobe CC programs, and it’s currently available for over 95% off at $39. Get Adobe Creative Cloud Featuring three courses and over 300 lessons, this training bundle will teach you the basics, even if you've been using a different creative software or none at all. On top of that it also introduces you to the more advanced elements of Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. In the first course, you’ll learn how to produce pro-level artwork in Illustrator with instructions that walk you through everything from image sizing and editing to layering and colour management. Next, you’ll learn how to use Adobe InDesign in order to craft everything from composite documents to manuals via lessons that teach you about templates, formatting, and style configuration. Finally, your Adobe Photoshop training will teach you how to professionally edit photos and correct things like lighting and exposure - all through hands-on instruction that utilises real-world examples. Make your work look as good as can be with the best laptops for Photoshop. When you’ve completed each course, you’ll earn a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) certification that you can use in order to showcase your skills on your résumé. And since you’ll have lifetime access to the content, you’ll be the first to receive any updates as soon as they become available. Further your career in graphic design or expand into new mediums with the Graphic Design + Adobe CC Certification School bundle, available for just $39 for a limited time. Related articles: Get started with Adobe Dimension CC Adobe MAX 2019: News, rumours and predictions Adobe updates XD with design systems View the full article

At the heart of any creative project is communication and storytelling. Whether that’s something as intangible as a wordless comic strip, a single illustrated figure conveying an emotion, a TV ad telling us to buy something, or a government campaign poster advising us how best not to get run over, characters can be a powerful tool to bring that story to life. Today, we’re more familiar with – and bombarded by – character design than ever. We've even got a collection of cracking character design tips for you to enjoy. All of this means that the Jolly Green Giants and SpongeBobs of yesteryear are no longer the preserve of big ad agencies or professional image-makers, thanks to the democratisation of software and proliferation of free tools. Lars Denicke and Peter Thaler have been running the Pictoplasma festival for character design for the past 15 years, and over that time Denicke says he’s seen a huge change in the way illustration and character design have become a "stronger voice" in our wider visual landscape. According to Denicke, part of the reason for starting Pictoplasma Character Face-Off contest was in reaction to the "terrible, vulgar" animation style of the time, as he puts it. "Now, as a genre, character design is everywhere: gaming culture is huge, and editorial illustration has changed so much. The image is not just there to illustrate an article; people like Christoph Niemann, Jean Jullien and Laura Callaghan are telling the story just through an image. That’s changed the way they’re pitching and how they’re briefed, too." Each year Pictoplasma runs contests. These are some of the entries from 2017's Character Face-Off competition The festival’s focus has naturally shifted as technology has rapidly evolved. "When we started we were looking for very graphical and reduced – almost typographic – work without too much detail," he says. "Digital media was so slow at the time. It was still the era of dialling into a modem, so there was no room for photography, moving images and so on. Instead it was things like pixel graphics, simple graphics… maybe flash animation." Style-wise, Denicke says things have shifted from a time in the early 2000s when "everyone wanted to be a street artist"; to a time around seven years ago where animation was popularised by the increasing affordability of software; to today, which he describes as "anything goes." Denicke explains: "We’re a bit post-digital now. Even if you’re working in oil painting, digital informs what everyone does, whether you’re using it 20 per cent or 100 per cent of the time." Use your personality to stand out Promo splash from the Pictoplasma website Digital in 2019 is a part of life that’s so pervasive that it’s unremarkable. The impact that’s had on character design is not to be underestimated. "The divide between us and the object was far stronger 15 years ago," says Denicke. "Now, the lines are blurred. Characters still function as a way to take us by the hand as the reality of the virtual has become more normal for us. Not as directly as Clippy in Microsoft, for instance, but we’re used to interactivity with characters. These days, you can take a character into any context and the audience doesn’t ask ‘why’, or question the reality or the function." The flipside of our widespread acceptance of, and familiarity with, characters is the pressure placed on the designer. It’s all the more imperative that they create something which is unique, smart and striking. "I like to believe that when one loves what they do and one pursues that constantly, it shows and stands out automatically," says animator Elenor Kopka. Of course, passion and a sense of creative authenticity are all well and good, but these attributes alone don’t make for a successful, impactful piece of design. There has to be personality, too and to a certain degree, a mastery of your medium. This can be complex commercial digital art programs, free open-source software, monochrome GIFs or decidedly analogue processes such as collage and crochet. We spoke to some of our favourite practitioners about how they work, the importance of having an ownable style, when you know you’ve hit on the perfect character and more; and garnered some practical tips on how they do what they do. Find your designator Julian advises you to keep your characters simple and save a lot The work of Julian Glander is instantly recognisable: pastel hues, cute, strange, occasionally blobby character designs that are entirely his own. For him, a signature style is crucial. "It’s important to have something that’s a designator, whether that’s the visual style, the sense of humour, or the way they play with the forms or mediums they’re working with. There are artists who reinvent themselves and do something new with every project, but being a chameleon is a style, too. Having a continuity online is nice, so that people know it’s you. Having a signature visual style means I can focus on the writing, and what’s happening to my characters, not just what they look like." For Glander, the beauty of using Blender to work in 3D is that once you’ve made the models, you can work pretty quickly. "You can get the characters in as many angles and poses as you like without redrawing them. I have a whole pipeline figured out that’s very specific: part of my focus and practice is making that [process] really quick, so I’m always looking for shortcuts." Muscleman is a prime example of Glander's distinctive style So what makes an effective character artist today, in a world of characters and images? Glander recommends that to make things stand out, "a big face is good: the classic baby stuff like big eyes or a simple silhouette." He adds: "I don’t want to sound like an expert in character design as I’m very instinctive. I think about what they have to have: so if someone is going to pick something up, I’ll give them hands; if they’re walking, they’ll have feet. Otherwise they might just be a floating head." "I know I’ve hit on something good when a bell goes off in my head. I might put a triangle on a character’s head, and that doesn’t work; then I put a square there instead and it does. I follow my instincts. I’m just completely goofing around. I have no proper experience." Trust your instincts and learn to let go This still comes from Kopka's unofficial video for Timber Timbre Elenor Kopka has carved a highly unusual, very original approach to animation and illustration, using grainy textures and shades of black, white and grey to delineate characters that are both simple and incredibly expressive. Kopka’s distinctive style isn’t something she says she does "on purpose or tactically," although the artist reckons it makes life easier when working with commercial clients, because "it certainly makes them trust you a bit more, when they see what they can expect of you. It makes people reach out to you, that already like what you do so they know right away that it will go well with whatever mission they have in mind," Kopka says. "Nobody ever contacts me when they look for an animator who does neon-coloured vector-based infographics, and that’s great because I would be terrible at that." Her process, while technically adept, is largely based on instinct. Her characters are deceptively complex: how else could something like, say, an egg with a line for a mouth and two inky black dots for eyes feel so alive? "Sometimes I get a character right on the first sketch, sometimes it takes ages for me to feel happy," Kopka says. This still comes from an MTV ident "It’s hard to tell exactly why it works when it works, but I believe that I need to feel some connection to the character. It might feel alive or like it’s coming from a ‘real’ place. When it finally feels right, it’s undeniable and I know that I don’t want to change it any more." A few years back, Kopka founded computer games studio Ghostbutter with her brother Konstantin. She’s learned a lot from gaming for her multidisciplinary approach: "Things have to be thought through in literally all directions [in gaming]. There can’t be any gaps or holes in the systems because the player will find them all," she says. "You can’t get too attached to pretty visuals – if something doesn’t work in the gameplay, it just gets thrown out again." "So overall I learned how to let go of a bit of control about how my graphics look once they’re in the game. Then I started to really enjoy the surprises that can occur, once all graphics are implemented and suddenly get combined in an unexpected way." Think of characters as brands This character design was created for EyeBuyDirect While much of the character design world is dominated by those working on editorial projects or self-initiated designs (albeit those that likely lead on to commercial commissions), certain branding projects often benefit hugely from the addition of a character-based approach. Last year, design and motion studio ManvsMachine worked on a campaign for prescription glasses retailer EyeBuyDirect, with one half based on lifestyle-leaning photography, and the other on a character that was used to discuss the specific benefits of the service. According to Michaeljohn Day, associate creative director at ManvsMachine, a character works for brands that "don’t take themselves too seriously," and which appeal to a "switched-on, modern and youthful audience." Day reckons that the use of characters has changed with the proliferation of images we all now encounter every day. Audiences outside the world of design and illustration are just as likely to encounter character design, for instance, and as such, mascot or brand personification feels far less jarring or cartoonish that it might once have. "We’re used to seeing more content, and not just curated by ad agencies and companies – everyone has access to Instagram, for example," Day says. Keep things simple The ManvsMachine characters appeared in four commercials and a series of animations The designs for EyeBuyDirect aimed to feel "designed, not cartoony," Day adds. "It’s simplified and reductive. Do they need arms and legs, for instance? That simplification keeps it premium and makes sure it’s fed into the whole style of the campaign, which is a contemporary campaign for a fashion brand." The project was created entirely in Cinema4D, and Day recommends with any such project that you create a "set of rules you use to define the world you’re working in. Then you always have something to refer to, so you know what’s working and what’s not. Those parameters might be something like, ‘we wanted the designs to be like sculptures or ornaments,’ and that guides the way you design a character." Day adds: "Keeping this simple was really good for us. We’d never done characters before, so we’d never worked with things like rigging, so we animated almost in a stop-motion fashion, which turned out to be a lot more interesting. Don’t feel like you have to know everything about character design when you use Cinema4D: you can approach things in lots of different ways. There’s often 10 ways of doing the same thing, and I think that’s helpful for developing a style." Stay true to your story This still comes from Jeron Braxton's short film, Octane Jeron Braxton is entirely self-taught in the world of animation and visual arts, yet at just 24 years old he’s already made a name for himself through work that’s both nonlinear yet somehow familiar. At last year’s Sundance Film Festival, he took home the Short Film Jury Award for Animation for his brilliant short Glucose: an occasionally surreal, always powerful exploration of police violence, our relationship with the digital world, and internet culture and the loneliness it can engender. Braxton got into animation as a teenager when he wanted to make videos for the music he was making. "I was always drawing for as long as I could remember and I sort of stuck with it," he says. "Not to say I was a good drawer, but I was always drawing comic books. I’d create these robust worlds with all these characters." He decided against going to art school, taking one semester as he was already "five years deep" into creating animation. "[Art schools] turn their noses up at anything commercial or palatable, but I’m not about to get penalised for making the art that I wanna make," he says. Tell the stories you want to tell that are important to you Jordan Braxton Where Braxton’s work is often so compelling is in his explorations of big, difficult issues: things like the Black American experience through more accessibly playful, colourful, dynamic animations. "With Glucose, I wanted to make something that was sweet on the surface, but with dark undertones," he says. "For a lot of people some of these themes are a hard pill to swallow, so the animation and style makes it more palatable. If you’re captivated by the design and by the movement, you’re more receptive to the message. Even though my work has a political message, I think back to the happy-go-lucky 2D stuff I like." Braxton’s advice to people getting into animation is to "tell the stories you want to tell that are important to you. You need to stay inspired to be creative and if you’re not then you probably shouldn’t do it. You’ll have to invest a lot of time: it doesn’t matter if people are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the story. If you wanna tell it, tell it." Escape the uncanny valley This still comes from Jeron's short film, Glucose Braxton learned all he knows about his choice of software, Blender, through internet tutorials on sites like instructables. His advice for those using digital tools for character design is to "get out of the uncanny valley," he says. "If you’re making stuff that feels creepy and you have some skill in drawing you should use image tracing: you take an image and 3D model around that to get a more stylised look." Braxton adds that it’s crucial not to fall into the trap of believing that as an artist, you should constantly be on to the next thing. "I feel like at times, we creatives think that once we produce one idea, we have to move on and do something new, especially with 3D modelling where you feel like once you make a character, it’s locked in." "But if you create something and it’s not quite there, or your skill evolves, it’s okay to revisit it. What’s not okay is to settle and get stuck. You can always revise things, which means you continue to explore and evolve your style." Explore handmade mediums A collection of characters from My Cardboard Life Philippa Rice works across an impressive range of media, from comics, illustration and animation, to model-making and crochet. As such, her style isn’t dependent on her tools, but a more innate commonality in her work that runs through all her work, from her stop-motion crochet character shorts to her books that draw on real-life relationships. Rice studied animation as a degree, and used the skills she learned to start creating her collage-based webcomic My Cardboard Life about a year after graduating, moving on to creating animated GIFs and longer animations. Currently, she’s particularly enjoying the crochet side of her practice: "Even though it takes a long time, the final result is always worth it," she says. "I love completing a real, 3D object that I can hold in my hands!" Her work often appears incredibly tactile, something she favours for its "immediacy and sense of realness: it gives you a feeling of connection to the work." Rice adds: "I find comics more rewarding than fun, because it’s a chance to share a story." The unusual techniques she uses are both clearly something she enjoys, but also a smart way of making her work stand out. "I think a signature style can develop naturally by making the things that interest you, using the tools you enjoy, and telling the stories you want to tell," she says. "Your signature style is already within you, but you have to make the work first to see it." This is one of the title pages from Rice's web comic, We're Out Rice knows when she’s hit on a good character when it begins to naturally take on a life or personality of its own. However, many of her comics are partly autobiographical, or about her family, partner and daughter. "For fictional characters and situations I often base them on real life too," she says. "With fictional characters I often make them rude or obnoxious, or any other bad personality traits that I feel like I’m not allowed to have in real life myself." Rice continues: "I think you just need to get across a feeling of realness that people can relate to. Maybe not directly, but if we believe that a character can have real thoughts and feelings, then I think that makes it a successful design." This article was originally published in issue 293 of Computer Arts, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 293 or subscribe to Computer Arts. Related articles: Insider advice from a master film character designer Are trends any good for branding? 5 key trends in character design View the full article

Great design is often invisible to people. And that’s not surprising. Unlike art, which aims to grab attention and provoke people’s imaginations, design is primarily about serving a function and solving problems. If you do this perfectly, then by definition, it's likely that no one will notice. Or to quote God in Futurama: "If you do things right, people won't know you've done anything at all." In this post, we look at eight designs that we truly consider game-changers, and pay tribute to the conceptual design thinking and superior execution behind them. And just to emphasise their genius, we've also included a few examples of how NOT to do the same thing... 01. Graphic design: London Tube map Best idea: The London Underground Map The London Tube Map was originally created by London Underground electrical draughtsman Harry Beck in 1931, whose revolutionary idea was to abandon geographical accuracy in favour of geometric simplicity. Inspired by the electrical circuit diagrams he drew during his day job, the map represented London's complex and sprawling network as a simple system of coloured, criss-crossing lines. This approach was initially rejected by his employers too radical, but a test run was hugely popular with the public, and so they quickly did an about-face. And although it's been updated periodically since, as more lines and stations have been added, the basic design remains intact. There is a downside, of course: the map does make it less easy for visitors to work out how far places are from each other. Transport for London has consequently had to post signs at key stations, advising tourists that it may be quicker to walk between them. But overall, that’s a sacrifice worth making, because the design really has become the gold standard around the world for clarity and usefulness. (Though it doesn't mean people haven't created concept tube map redesigns over the years.) From New York to Shanghai, subway maps have followed its basic template of colour-coded circles and lines, and it’s even been used for other purposes, visualising everything from US National Parks to the solar system. And the wider lesson for designers is clear: making something simpler is usually the path to making it better... even if that might mean sacrificing some accuracy along the way. Worst idea: Lots of other transit maps Worst idea: The County Transit Bus Map for Josephine, Oregon If you’re a lifelong Londoner, you probably take the Tube Map for granted. And yet, when you compare it with those featured in the Transit Map Hall of Shame, such as the example above, its artistry soon becomes apparent. 02. Digital design: What3Words Best idea: What3Words divides the whole world into 3m squares These days, geolocation technologies allow anyone with a mobile device to identify their exact location. But annoyingly, sharing that location with others is not that easy. Yes, you could give someone a complex, 18-digit long series of coordinates and in theory they could find you, or use Share My Location on your phone. But if you're one of the millions in the developing world without a proper street address, good luck trying that with your local pizza delivery firm, or your neighbourhood mail carrier. Enter What3Words, a more user-friendly geocoding system that divides the entire world into three-metre squares, and identifies each using just three words (random example: 'belly rises indeed'). This might sound weird, but it's both easy to remember and easy to convey to others. Plus if an error is made, it’s immediately apparent: a misheard word will almost certainly point to a place in another country, alerting both parties to instantly realise a mistake has been made. Best idea: The system is allowing Mongolian nomads to offer their tents on Airbnb It’s already been adopted as an address standard by the postal serves of Nigeria, Kiribati, Mongolia, Sint-Maarten, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Tonga, and Solomon Islands. "In Mongolia you can get a pizza, you can get a taxi, you can open a bank account, all with a three-word address,” CMO Giles Rhys Jones told our sister site Tech Radar. Travel companies have also been keen to use the system, including Go Fjords, who say: "In the past we’ve had tourists book our tours and then miss their entire trip because they couldn’t find the meet up point, so we decided to add three-word addresses for all departure points." It’s now included as a standard feature in the navigation system of all new Mercedes-Benz cars. And the list goes on. In the UK, What3Words is also being used by many of the emergency services, and has been instrumental in, for example, the police rescue of an abducted women in Humberside, a man who fell down a railway embankment in Sheffield, and a woman who crashed her car into a ditch near Bristol. As with many game-changing designs, the secret to What3Words lies in its simplicity. In fact, a day will problem soon come when a new generation is so used to it, they won’t even consider it ever needed designing. 03. Packaging design: Smart sunscreen Best idea: Blue Lizard sunscreen bottles change colour in UV light Nowadays most of us know about the importance of sunscreen in protecting our skin. But we’re often a bit muddled about how much of what factor to use, and when. So Australian sunscreen maker Blue Lizard has pioneered a simple but brutally effective solution: bottles that change colour in UV light. Its 30+ Baby Sunscreen , for example, turns from blue to bright pink, which is particularly useful on cloudy days when you may not have realised the sun protection was needed. It’s significantly more expensive than other sunscreens, but could potentially save your children from significant pain and suffering. In a way, it’s reminiscent of Dulux’s Magic Paint, which goes on pink and dries white, thus helping you notice if you’ve missed any spots. Both are great examples of how thoughtful design can make life easier for the customer. And that’s an excellent principle to apply to any design work, whether you're crafting an app interface or laying out a brochure. 04. Print design: The tourist picture dictionary Best idea: When words fail you, a picture dictionary is a great backup When you’re stuck in a country where you can’t speak your language, and no one speaks yours, Google Translate can be a lifesaver. But when your phone is out of battery, or there’s no available internet, then you might need to fall back on more traditional, printed means. However, if you’re travelling around a lot of different countries, or a country where multiple languages are spoken, then you don’t want to be lugging around a ton of phrase books. So a more elegant solution can be a picture dictionary like the Tourist Picture Dictionary. Need to find a toilet? Point to the picture of a toilet. Simple! Okay, it’s quite a niche product, and ideally one you hope you'll never need. But it’s a great fallback for when all other attempts at communication break down. And another example of a design idea that’s so simple, it’s brilliant. 05. Font design: Dyslexie font Best idea: A font set that makes letters more distinct from each other has been a winner for dyslexic people When it comes to choosing a font, readability is always an issue. But what if the reader is dyslexic? To answer this question, Christian Boer has developed a special typeface, Dyslexie, to overcome some of the problems that people with dyslexia, including himself, can have when reading. His aim was to develop the kind of typeface that he wished existed when he was a child. Its design is all about making it easier to distinguish different letters from each other. For example, the openings of the letters are enlarged to make them look less alike and easier to recognise by their shape. Punctuation marks and capital letters are bold, emphasising the breaks, endings and beginnings of phrases. And the distance between individual letters and words is enlarged, which makes reading more convenient and avoids the 'crowding effect'. The font has been downloaded more than 300,000 times, and the lesson is clear. If good design is about solving a problem, then the best person to solve it is often someone who it’s affected most of all, on a personal level. If that's you, then great! If not, it's worth getting in touch with the relevant people and doing some serious research before you start designing. Best free fonts for designers Worst idea: Ink-saving font Worst idea: Ecofont Vera Sans aimed to save ink, but other regular fonts use less Dyslexie is not the only font design that's aimed to change the world. Another recent trend has been the design of fonts that save printer ink. It's a great idea, but as ever, the key is in the execution, and some type makers have been seemingly caught out on this score. A study by the University of Wisconsin, for example, looked at Ecofont, a system which adds holes to existing font families in order to reduce ink use. And yet it found that some Ecofont fonts, such as Ecofont Vera Sans, actually used more ink than regular fonts, such as Century Gothic. 06. Interior design: the toilet-sink combo If you live in Japan, it may perplex you to know that in other countries, bathrooms separate their toilet and sink. Because the standard toilet model here is based on a much more elegant and efficient system. Quite simply, your toilet incorporates an in-built sink (note that this design doesn't above washing your hands in the toilet, but above it), and so the water for washing your hands is then recycled for flushing. This design originally came about in the 1950s as a space saver, because apartments in Japan are on the smaller side. But with the rising importance of environmental issues, we’re sure it will start become more widely adopted across the world. This device doesn’t just present an important way to conserve water, it also offers a broader lesson in not taking everyday designs for granted. If we continually ask, 'Could this be put together differently?', who knows what game-changing ideas we could come up with. 07. Industrial design: Cat’s eyes Best idea: the cat's eye lights your way by reflecting back from your own headlamps Here’s another brilliant design that some take for granted, but which is unknown in many countries around the world. The cat’s eye is a type of road marker that uses a retroreflector to illuminate your night-time journeys via your own headlights. Its key features are a flexible rubber dome which can withstand the passage of traffic if driven across. It’s also self-cleaning, thanks to a build in rainwater reservoir; resistant to snow ploughs; and proves particularly useful in fog. The original design was the work of Percy Shaw of Halifax, England in the 1930s. His inspiration came from the tramlines that reflected his headlights, helping him to see at night. One night, though, the tramlines were shrouded in heavy fog and he was completely blindsided... until suddenly he saw light reflecting from the eyes of a cat. While there are many reasons that Britain has one of the best road safety records in the world, this clever design, which its used on the vast majority of its roads, has certainly made a big contribution. And its success offers an important lesson to designers everywhere. Namely, if you find something useful by accident (in this case, shiny tramlines and wandering felines), why not design something that does the same thing, on purpose? 08. Product design: Ride-on suitcases Best idea: navigating airports can be a challenge for kids, but this product makes it fun Product design student Rob Law was 21 when he came up with the idea for taking a suitcase and turning it into a ride-on vehicle for kids. And anyone who’s had to put up with an overtired and cranky child in a long-haul airport will appreciate what a fantastic idea this was. However, putting into production was a long slog for Law. He was turned down by both luggage companies (who said they weren’t interested in toys) and toy companies (who said they weren’t interested in luggage). He also failed to get investment on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den, the equivalent to Shark Tank in the US. Law finally got funding from The Prince’s Trust enterprise fund and launched the Trunki in May 2006. Within 10 years he'd sold over three million suitcases in over 100 countries, and won over 100 design awards. There are two lessons here. Firstly, a good idea is not always enough; you often need bucketloads of patience and perseverance to convince people of your vision. And secondly, new product designs don’t have to involve radical new materials, processes or technologies. Sometimes just combining two things that already exist can be the game-changer everyone is looking for. Worst idea: 3D TVs Worst idea: Designing TVs that could show 3D movies turned out to be an expensive waste of time Of course, it's important to remember that just bringing two popular things together doesn't always add up to a good idea. Sometimes it can lead to truly terrible ones. An example from the recent past is when tech companies decided to capitalise on the popularity of 3D movies such as Avatar and spend millions developing 3D TVs. In fact, while people were happy to wear clunky 3D glasses in a darkened cinema, far fewer were keen on doing so in their (more sociable) living rooms, where in any case the smaller size of the screen made the effect far less awe-inspiring. Only a few years later, no company is manufacturing 3D sets, and broadcasters like Sky have closed their 3D channels. It seems that in the rush to design a revolutionary new product, everyone forgot to ask if people actually wanted it (also see, Amazon's latest smart clock). Read more: 3 times brands tried to be woke and failed 10 innovations that changed the world of CG How to create work that could change the world View the full article

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Despite the best efforts of many within it, the design industry is still very much a predominantly white, male and middle-class edifice, and one that needs to check its privilege. And a new online campaign has been launched that wants to help the design community to become more inclusive. It's called Design Can and it's been set up with the aim of disrupting the design industry status quo and making it more representative of the world it serves. It's the brainchild of a group of designers, editors and activists including Priya Khanchandani, editor of Icon magazine, and Ella Ritchie, co-founder of Intoart, a South London studio that works inclusively with people with learning disabilities. Join the fight for gender equality in design Fix inclusivity? Yes design can! The Design Can site, which launched on Monday, is an online tool that maps out in its manifesto what steps the design industry needs to take in order to better represent everyone, and how everyone involved in design can do their bit for equality and diversity. "We're calling on designers, curators, editors, writers, filmmakers, event organisers – everyone who influences the design industry – to be allies," it says. "It's time for the design community to confront its prejudices and eliminate discrimination." Design Can also provides a ten-step guide for anyone wanting to join its campaign and help change design for the better. Its practical tips include recognising your own privilege and educating yourself, becoming an ally, driving recognition for unsung creatives and standing aside from a project where a person from an underrepresented background would be better suited. The campaign manifesto is clear about how the design industry can do better "The design world can be significantly improved by celebrating - and representing - the rich diversity that exists in the real world," says Khanchandani, "We need to see people of all backgrounds authoring design books, curating design weeks and standing at the helm of design institutions." The site also features a comprehensive resources section packed with useful articles, videos and podcasts devoted to equality, diversity and inclusivity. There are also links to relevant events and social accounts, and if you've seen something online that deserves sharing through Design Can there's a page where you can submit resources. The Design Can site was designed and build by recent Central Saint Martins graduates Not Flat 3, and its founding team hopes that the site will become a diversity-focused community where uses can share useful resources and celebrate designers deserving recognition. There are plenty of links to helpful reading, listening and viewing "Design is a powerful tool and I believe it can change the world but we need to switch it up massively, and bring in some new tastemakers from diverse backgrounds," says co-founder Yinka Ilori, "It's important because it gives people the opportunity to have their voice heard and tell their own story." To find out more and to get involved in improving diversity in the design world, head straight to Design Can. Related articles: How accessible are your designs? 8 steps to inclusive web design Do these provocative ads go too far? View the full article

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You might think that a meal isn't complete unless it's doused in a healthy dollop of Heinz Ketchup, but you're probably not as big a fan of the sauce as Ed Sheeran. The music megastar likes the red stuff so much that he even has a tattoo of the brand's label on his arm. And it's proven to be a piece of inspirational tattoo art as Heinz has used it on a new range of limited edition bottles (above). The collaboration between Sheeran and Heinz was announced on the musician's Instagram account yesterday. Only 150 of the themed bottles have been made, in a nod the ketchup company's 150th anniversary this year. As well as featuring Sheeran's tattoo of the Heinz Ketchup label, the bottles designed by creative agency DAVID will also feature other design elements associated with the singer, such as colourful jigsaw pieces and a red rose. This isn't a shameless cash-in on Sheeran's love of the sauce, though. Money raised from the sales of the bottles will go towards nonprofits Rise Against Hunger and East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices. It also isn't the first time Ed Sheeran and Heinz have worked together either. Earlier this year the pair made a commercial that was inspired by a DM that the singer sent to the ketchup company. If you want to be in with a chance of picking up one of the Ed Sheeran-themed bottles, check out this giveaway which sees 104 of them up for grabs. Meanwhile three other bottles will be sold at auction house Christie's, while the rest will be displayed in museums or handed out to superfans. Could you bring yourself to crack the bottle open if you got one? Related articles: Online packaging archive is a design delight 6 times brands temporarily changed their packaging 20 packaging concepts we wish were real View the full article