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In this tutorial, I'll be guiding you through my process for creating a captivating fantasy portrait of an elven maiden. Her story is that she's a woman of wealth and sophistication who, by some happenstance, is travelling the mountainside. I created her for the cover of ImagineFX magazine. In this Photoshop tutorial, starting with my initial sketch, I’ll show you a variety of techniques that you can use in your own art process – from concise line work through to adding depth and colour to create a compelling fantasy portrait. You can watch this video to see my exact process, as well as following the steps below. For more art tips and tutorials, see our post on art techniques. 01. Collate ideas and sketch Create a rough sketch once you've got your main idea, and don't worry about the details at this point My first step is to brainstorm some ideas. Most of the time this involves me taking photographs or looking through atmospheric images online. Once I’ve formulated more of a narrative in my head, it’s time to start sketching! I open my canvas and draw up a striking lady, clad in fur. 02. Plan and work on lines Careful planning at this stage can save you time later on After receiving some feedback from the mag team and making a few adjustments to my sketch, I draw up my lines. I plan these out as thoroughly as I can so I don’t have to make up too many details when rendering later on. Planning these structural components save me time in the long run. 03. Establish layer masks Blocking in areas enables you to work in sections Here’s where I prepare my painting for the rendering ahead. I reduce the opacity of my lines at the top of my canvas. Underneath, I block in different areas of the artwork with a Hard brush so I can tackle it in pieces. I organise each of these blocked areas into separate layers, so I can click and select an area when I need to. 04. Work on values Before you add colour, think about the light and shadows you want to achieve I always begin rendering with a Soft brush. I won’t be adding colour just yet, because this stage is primarily about lighting and shadows. I start by working over large areas to establish my basic lighting, and as my values build up, I converge over smaller areas with a finer brush. 05. Add fur to the cloak Keep in mind the direction of the fur as you draw This is where my handy custom fur brush comes in and saves me extra time. I paint in segments of fur while keeping in mind the direction (or nap) of the hair. This will serve as a base texture for when I render and define the fur during the colouring stage. 06. Organise layers Organisation of layers is key when working in Photoshop Now that I’ve laid down my basic values for the piece, I’m almost ready to start adding colour. Before I do that, I get those layers in order by merging them down. I organise all of my block selections in a folder at the top of the Layers panel. 07. Add colour Airbrush your elven maiden in sections I begin by creating a new layer and setting it to Color mode in the Layers panel. I lightly airbrush over my character, working over one segment at a time. Once this is done, I bump up the contrast and intensity of my colours by painting on a new layer that’s set to Overlay. 08. Reshape facial features The next step is to make the character more 'elven' I want to enhance her elven attributes so I merge all of my character's layers together and open up the Liquify tool (in the Filter menu). Here I begin reshaping and emphasising parts of my character’s distinctive features. I lift her brows and cheekbones, and increase the size of her eyes for that classic delicate elven appearance. 09. Define and blend The best way to finish the hair is to use a streaky brush I keep working over her face until I’m happy with her features, and then move on to the hair (this part is best achieved with a streaky brush). I lightly paint following the direction of each segment of hair, keeping in mind the point where the light reflects. I also use a Soft brush to mask out the harsh edges of my character against the background. 10. Add texture Use your lines layer as a guide when building up texture From this point, I work with normal layers to gradually build up colour, occasionally turning my lines layer on as a guide. I use an assortment of textured brushes to add dimension to my work. Some of my favourites are from Kyle T Webster’s Megapack (these come free with Photoshop CC). I slowly work over my painting and sculpt various features as I go. 11. Define the background Keep your brushstrokes loose if you don't want your background to be in focus I’m envisioning vibrant hills, distant mountains and a late afternoon sun in this outdoor scene. I roughly paint ridges into the landscape, introducing softly lit hills and clusters of distant trees. I keep my brushstrokes loose during this stage because I don’t intend for my background to be in focus. 12. Work on details Features such as freckles can add an extra dimension to your work I want my character to stand out a bit more, so I decide to change her hair colour. Using the selective Color Adjustment layer, I settle on a nice auburn colour. To complement her new vibrant hair, I’ve decided freckles would be a perfect addition. These add a lovely texture and dimension to her skin. 13. Introduce extra embellishments The addition of jewellery tells us more about the character I want to enhance my character’s appearance with some more jewellery, so I paint a diadem to match her assorted trinkets. Because the sun is sitting behind my subject, I introduce some rim light to the edges of the fur around her. This also works to lift her from the background. 14. Apply final touches Boosting the colours and blurring the background helps to bring the picture together I copy and paste my own grain texture over the artwork and set this to Overlay at seven per cent. Now I’m ready for my final colour adjustments. I boost the reds and yellows in the artwork using the selective Color Adjustment layer. I also use a photo filter to warm the artwork a touch. Finally, I blur my background (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) for an out-of-focus look. And I’m finished – I hope you enjoyed the journey! This article was originally published in issue 166 of ImagineFX, the world's leading digital art magazine. Buy issue 166 or Subscribe here. Read more: How to design believable fantasy beasts 10 sci-fi and fantasy art painting tips How to create a fantasy costume design View the full article

0patch released the fix for the remote code execution vulnerability in Windows, which has a CVSS score of 7.8. View the full article

Want to become a graphic designer, content creator, or marketing expert? With Graphic Design Certification School, you'll learn three essential software skills that anyone in a creative field should have under their belt. This bundle teaches you how to use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Illustrator. Photoshop allows you to edit images so they look professional, polished, and engaging. InDesign allows you to design magazines, newsletters, brochures, and a whole lot more. Illustrator is a must-have tool for anyone who creates art on the computer with the help of some special effects and electronic magic. (Get access to all this software in Adobe Creative Cloud if you don't already have it.) Check out Graphic Design Certification School for only $39. Related articles: The best free graphic design software The best computer for graphic design in 2019 The best laptops for graphic design in 2019 View the full article

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Want to access hundreds of thousands of vector designs for one low price? Check out StockUnlimited Vector Plan: Lifetime Subscription. This all-vector graphics content store gives you access to high-quality vectors and clipart, and you don't have to worry about hidden fees, red tape or licences. The content is all royalty free, so you can rest assured that the content can be used legally for both commercial and personal purposes. Whether you're a business owner, graphic designer, or advertising expert, you'll get new designs every month – which means you'll never run out of options! Get StockUnlimited Vector Plan: Lifetime Subscription today for just $34.99. Related articles: 30 top vector art tutorials 24 eye-catching flyer designs The 23 best places to find free vector art online View the full article

If you like to block out the world around you and really listen to your music and nothing else, the Bose QuietComfort 20 headphones could be just what you're looking for. Ideal if you need to keep noisy distractions at bay and really tune into your songs or podcasts, these incredible earbuds are now on offer with a massive £120 slashed off their RRP. Thanks for their design and special noise cancelling technology, these in-ear headphones are great at blocking out sounds around you, they're also a dream to wear compared to obtrusive, over-ear alternatives. And when you don't want to block out everything, it's also easy to switch to Aware mode. One important thing to note though: this deal is on the iOS-compatible Bose QuietComfort 20 headphones only. The audio works okay when used with an Android device, however the buttons do not – something to keep in mind if you don't like to dig out your device every time a track ends. Not quite what you're looking for? Take a look at our buying guides for the best noise-cancelling headphones and the best wireless headphones for more great deals – including offers our readers outside of the UK can take advantage of. Related articles: The best Bluetooth speaker right now The ultimate guide to all Amazon devices The five best desks for your home office or studio View the full article

The patches are part of Adobe's second unscheduled update this month. View the full article

Big G, aka Google, provides developers a plethora of tools intended to make web design easy. In this article, we go through some of the best Google tools out there, and show you how to use them in your web design and development workflow. We're covering a range of different web design tools here, so we've split the content into pages to make it easier to navigate. Use the dropdown menu above to jump to the section you're interested in. As long as websites are unminified, their content can be viewed by anyone. Chrome’s DevTools make this simple – on this page, we show you how to view and change HTML, CSS and JavaScript. On page 2, we take a closer look at how to use Google's debugger to fix coding errors quickly and easily. Page 3 puts the spotlight on Google's Device Mode, which you can use to test the mobile versions of your pages via your desktop machine. On page 4 we introduce the basics you need to be aware to start implementing Material Design principles in your designs. Finally, page 5 looks at Progressive Web Apps, the latest big thing in the web design industry. View and change HTML, CSS & JS As long as a website's code hasn't been minified, it can be viewed by anyone using Chrome’s developer tools. First of all, check the version of Chrome – the following steps work on version 70.0.3538.67 running on a 64-bit Ubuntu workstation. Next, open the hamburger menu and click More Tools > Developer Tools. Launch the Developer Tools and you should see a screen similar to this [click the icon in the top right to enlarge] The browser responds by opening a pane on the left-hand side of your screen. It should be resized in the first step – by default, the browser doesn’t assign enough screen real estate. When done, the screen looks similar to the one shown in the image above. By default, Developer Tools starts up with the Console tab loaded. It contains the output emitted by invocations of the console-logging function. Rendering errors also show up there – if you find red lines, something is amiss in the markup or the code of your page. A click on the little ‘URL’ on the right-hand side brings you to the line, which caused the message to show up. Inspect the markup If your interest focuses on markup, use the Elements tab shown in the figure. It shows the markup the browser currently renders. You can expand and compact it in a fashion similar to a tree view – hide unneeded elements to prevent sensory overload. The raison d’etre of the tab is the display of the CSS structure. Widgets ‘collect’ CSS from various sources, which are displayed neatly and next to one another. In the case of the example shown in the figure, we see that styles were provided from both the ‘div’ tag and the ‘main’ markup of the page. Chrome lets you edit most attributes on the fly. Double-click any of the black texts to transform the label into an editor, then enter the newly desired value and press the Return key. The renderer picks up these changes and applies them to the DOM on the fly. This is especially useful when trying to optimise colours or placement issues; having to reload a page to preview changes becomes tiresome. A yellow background indicates the window's contents is subject to filtering [click the icon in the top right to enlarge] Finally, take a look at the text box on top of the pane. It enables you to filter the markup items shown: for example, enter ‘mdc’ to limit the view to all styles inherited from the Material Design library used later in this article. When a filter is active, a yellow background shows up in a fashion similar to the one shown above. Perform a detailed analysis In modern web browsers, the DOM is not limited to ‘statical’ presentation issues. It also governs event flow and placement. Switch to the Computed tab to reveal a list of ‘dimensional’ properties. This is incredibly useful when arranging widgets on the screen in an exact fashion. Moving to the Event Listeners tab provides an overview of event flows. Use this feature to quickly weed out problems related to user interaction: if an event does not trigger, start out by checking the event handler connections. Finally, the Properties window lets you take a look at the attributes stored inside the individual DOM nodes. If you’ve ever spent a lot of time hunting down DOM-manipulating code, the value is clear. Next page: How to use Google's Debugger In the good old days, developers debugged by emitting messages to the command line. The introduction of dedicated debuggers accelerated the error-finding process. Debugger work centres around breakpoints. They act as an entry point into the debugging session – if code hits them, its execution pauses. The easiest way to add a breakpoint involves the Sources tab, where you click the margin to add a blue rhomboid. This breakpoint takes a conditional string – Chrome will evaluate it before deciding whether to pause program execution [click the icon in the top right to enlarge] When the relevant line is hit, a yellow insert pops up over the rendered view. Furthermore, the debugger window populates with various bits of information about the current ‘context’. Moving your mouse over any variable opens a pop-up window similar to the one shown in the figure. If the element in question is an object, a tree view will appear instead. It enables you to drill down into the individual variables. Global variables show up in the Scope node. Click it and be prepared to wait for a second or two. Its population cannot be accomplished instantaneously due to the number of elements, using the Filter textbox at the top of the screen is highly recommended for usability. As populating the entire state tree is slow, some fields get shown as (…) instead. Double-click any one of these attributes to load its value on the fly. Finally, use the call tree to find out where you are. It lists the methods called to arrive at the execution position. Advanced execution Placing breakpoints all over the place is inefficient. Analyse the flow of a variable by clicking the three step-over buttons next to the blue Play button. They enable you to run a single line or return from a function while keeping the debugger active during the process. This is helpful when hunting down value changes as an algorithm does its work. Another neat trick involves the use of conditional breakpoints. Chrome supports half a dozen of them, the table below describes them. Chrome’s debugger provides ‘thinking’ breakpoints [click the icon in the top right to enlarge] Setting these is done outside of the debugger. In the case of the DOM tree, for example, a node must be selected in the Element view. You can then specify that a debugging session must launch whenever the content of this node changes. Letting your mouse pointer rest over a variable reveals its contents in a small pop-up window [click the icon in the top right to enlarge] Just like with modern oscilloscopes, providing an overview of all trigger modes would require a book of its own. Let us, thus, end this little trip with a reference to developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/javascript/breakpoints – it provides an excellent overview of the possibilities. Resources 14 JavaScript debugging tips you probably didn't know Finding errors in code is both an art and a science. The folks at RayGun have compiled a set of methods, tools and approaches intended to help you find hard-to-track issues in JavaScript applications. Create scrollable elements which have defined regions that should snap into view. Those larger than the viewport are handled automatically. Debugging javascript cheat card Like most other scientific endeavours, a few ‘best practices’ have arisen over time. The reference card from dzone.com might have an extremely annoying layout, but it does provide an overview of interesting aspects. Chrome DevTools reference Chrome’s debugger contains dozens of additional features that we don’t have room to cover in this tutorial. Seasoned web developers are advised to take a look at Google’s official documentation – some of the functionality tends to be a real timesaver. WebStorm Sometimes, Chrome’s developer tools simply don’t offer what you might be looking for. If that is the case, you can give a dedicated product like WebStorm a chance. Its debuggers tend to analyse the entire project structure, leading to even more advanced analytical capabilities. Next page: Working with Device Mode While complete emulation of mobile devices on Chrome is impossible, Device Mode does make your life easier. First of all, click the little smartphone pictogram shown in the top-left corner of the Developer Tools screen. Chrome will adapt the view in a fashion similar to the one shown in the figure. The combo boxes at the top of the screen enable you to pick various commonly used devices ranging from the old Samsung Galaxy S5 to more recent products such as the iPhone X. Bear in mind that this feature does not switch the actual rendering engine. The browser does its magic purely by adjusting viewport co-ordinates. This limitation also applies to screen rotation, which you enable via the Rotate pictogram in the toolbar. Mobile apps usually use sensor data. Chrome can emulate these – open the Developer Tools hamburger menu. Next, select More Tools > Sensors. The Console window takes up an additional pane with sensor settings. They provide access to geolocation, accelerometer and advanced touch input. For completeness sake, let us reiterate that desktop tests can’t replace ‘acceptance runs’ on a handset. Mobile applications live and die by their haptics, which are completely different from those found on a PC. As of this writing, Google has not ‘unified’ the various aspects of device mode. The various functions (described in detail here) might get a new user interface in the future – stay tuned for small changes in this regard. What is console? Simply sending out logging information via console.log reeks of the 1990s. Why not use some advanced features instead? One of the defining features of Android is LogCat – developers can emit logging messages with various levels of severity. Chrome also supports this feature. Simply use one of the following methods: Chrome’s console is not limited to displaying information. You can also interact with the content of your website in a fashion not dissimilar to PowerShell or BASH. When working on code, be careful to look at the combo box at the top of the screen. It let’s you select where JavaScript will run – many types of content live in their own iframe. They cannot be reached by code entered into the top execution context. Once the right execution area is selected, changing the content of elements is as easy as entering a single command: Chrome’s console tends to flood once projects get complex. This is addressed by collating similar messages. Click a button five times, and emit the same message each time – it will show up once. Disable this by opening Settings > General. Then, check the Show Timestamps option. Alternatively, introduce tags and use the Filter feature. Advanced analysis Finding coding errors is but part of the game. As applications become more complex, memory, performance and network consumption problems arise. Chrome assists you in addressing these problems, thanks to a complete set of advanced analysis features for tracking down performance problems. The browser provides analysers not dissimilar to profilers found in embedded operating systems. For example, the memory analyser provides an overview of which part of your code allocates memory. This information enables targeted optimisations; ‘hacking away’ at code tends to be unproductive. Opening the Performance tab lets you slow down both Network and CPU – this way, your workstation simulates slower computers. Combine this with the time-consumption analysis shown in the figure accompanying this step to get a 360-degree view of application performance. There's plenty more to learn about this subject, and this overview provides an excellent introduction to advanced debugging functionalities. Next page: Get started with Material Design Google’s Material Design was initially seen as another tiresome redesign of the GUI stack. But, as time went by, users started to embrace the typography-centric design approach. Technologies like Progressive Web Apps required the presence of a JavaScript version. Given that JavaScript GUI stacks are pretty common, Google did not face a difficult task. The favourite way to include Material Design components involves npm. It’s not easy, though, which is why we’re starting out with a simple example. 01. Get started Test framework functionality by adding a button to the body of the page: Material Design components behave like most other JavaScript GUI stacks. Developers add widgets to the page, CSS classes ensure the decoration gets deployed. Finally, a JavaScript invocation enforces the attachment of event handlers. 02. Go full frame Experienced developers only need one look at mdc.ripple.MDCRipple to see the source of the problem. The JavaScript and CSS files we included come out of a complex project. The sanest way involves loading the entire framework to your machine. First of all, obtain the toolchain and deploy it into a Node project: The actual deployment of our modules takes place via WebPack. Open Package.json and add the following markup to set up the workflow: WebPack controls itself via a file called webpack.config.js. Create it in the folder containing package.json – a full installation managing all features looks like this: WebPack compile processes fail if missing input resources are detected [click the icon in the top right to enlarge] WebPack transforms code by chasing it through a sequence of processors, each of which can take one or more parameters. In our case, both CSS and JavaScript items are to be processed. In theory, the WebPack stack is ready to run at this point – sadly, the compile process will fail due to missing input resources, as shown in the image above. 03. Add components Now the main workflow is set up, we can add the individual components needed to create our app. We want to build a small resistor calculator, which requires the loading of a group of widgets: Google ‘beautifies’ the situation by breaking the framework into hundreds of packages. In the case of our text box, for example, multiple sub-elements need to be present. Sadly, the documentation does not tell you about this (see image below). Click the icon in the top right to enlarge In the next step, create the two ‘containers’, which act as inputs to the WebPack stack outlined above: Finally, a dry run can take place. WebPack should now report that the compile process worked out: 04. Add widgets WebPack eliminates ‘unneeded’ parts from the compiled output. Adding widgets starts out in app.scss, which must now look like this: In principle, we need one include for each component our program plans to load. As both textbox and button come with a few colleagues, we need a total of four lines worth of includes. The ripple effect used before is even more complex – we will omit it for now. Next, touch a file named index.html. It acts as the main entry point and must load the various script files emitted by the WebPack process: Finally, create a file called app.js. At this point, re-enter npm run to verify that the configuration still works. WebPack emits an URL similar to http://localhost:8080. The packaged results can be downloaded via a server living in npm. Don’t forget, though, to restart the server after changing files, since WebPack does not pick up changes. 05. Create widgets Now the server is running, return to index.html and replace the Hello World message with a bit of markup: Just like in the case of our button, a text box also consists of a group of attributes. One of them displays a hint with information about what to enter, while the other one supports animation. However, getting animations to work requires a change in app.js: This snippet of code is interesting since it targets all three text boxes in one swipe – Google designed the API to sweep over entire CSS selectors in one go. At this point, our program is ready to run – it will present itself like the figure. Finalising our little resistor calculator requires you to add JavaScript event listeners. After all, MDC components are but fancy HTML5 ones… Our widgets are ready to receive input [click the icon in the top right to enlarge] Integrating Material Design widgets into your application definitely takes a bit of work. But, the rewards are substantial and definitely worth the time. This is only the beginning. Be sure to check out the Material Design site for more tutorials, repos and information on what is available, as well as what can be done. Material Design tools and resources Material Theme Editor Should you find yourself working on a Mac, take Theme Editor for a spin. This small but nifty program creates customised colour palettes, which you can use to change the look and feel of various Material Design-based systems. Icons Material Design differs from Metro in that it also allows for the use of small symbols. Google provides developers with ample choice – simply visit the URL to pick icons until your heart’s content. Color Tool This tool allows users to create, share, and apply colour palettes to a UI. Plus, it measures the accessibility level of any colour combination that you decide to put together. Next page: Get to grips with Progressive Web Apps The web design industry moves in cycles. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are big news. Here are a few resources to guide you through them. The PWA checklist Load ‘smoothly’ Native apps were lauded for their swift and nimble response to user input. Use single-page applications and status bars to replicate this experience on your PWA. Provide metadata Users can (and should) add PWAs to their devices’ start screens. This requires the presence of a metadata file, whose contents regulate the presentation of content. Allow deep links PWAs differ from native apps due to their more expanded ‘social’ features. One neat aspect involves ‘deep links’, which enable users to share parts of the application with friends and colleagues. Analyse with LightHouse Space constraints prevent us from providing a complete list of all PWA to-do items. LightHouse automates the checklists for you. It happily runs from the shell, from Node.js or from the Chrome Developer Tools. Use HTTPs Ideally pwas must be served over HTTPS. This prevents annoying man-in-the- middle attacks, which happen frequently on public Wi-Fi networks. What about AMP? AMPs – short for Accelerated Mobile Pages – is a completely different technology with a similar set of goals. While PWAs create rich user experiences, an AMP is a snippet of JavaScript-based content intended to show up in search results. In principle, AMPs live off a subset of HTML, which contains expansions intended to accelerate rendering. For example, an AMP image contains additional properties. They let the rendering process complete before the actual image file is available. JavaScript is run by a dedicated library enforcing multithreading in a fashion not dissimilar to the one seen on the Metro platform. Finally, an optional CDN caching system by Google ensures that content gets delivered with minimal delay. Implementing AMPs does bring benefits in mobile search rankings – if your site is SEO-dependant, investing some effort might pay off. What is Firebase? While providing storage, initially, is not a problem, fast website growth usually leads to scaling problems. Fortunately, deploying Google’s Firebase storage service is a quick way to work around the problem. In addition, Google also provides market-leading authentication, cloud messaging and real-time data management solutions. Deploying Google’s authentication service is beneficial in that it unburdens end users: instead of having to remember multiple user accounts for each site, a Google or Facebook account can be used in a cross-service fashion. Google can also take care of phone number verification and similar problems for a modest fee. The well-known cloud messaging feature should not be new to Android-experienced developers: the API can also be accessed from the web, thereby providing a degree of feature parity to PWAs. Getting started with Firebase in JavaScript is not difficult – this article shows you how to add Firebase to your JS project. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 281 or subscribe. Read more: Google launches free drawing app 17 top tools in Google Analytics Build cross-platform mobile apps with Google's Flutter View the full article

You're reading How to Import HTML Email Template from Postcards to Convertkit (YouTube Tutorial), originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Welcome to a new video tutorial where we’ll learn about how to upload a customized email newsletter to Convertkit. In this tutorial, we’ll use Postcards to build a customized email template and Convertkit to send an email to subscribers. View the full article

If you're an artist or illustrator knee-deep in client work, it's common to dream of that magical day when you'll have the time and energy to just draw for fun again. But funnily enough, when that day swings around, it's equally common to be faced with a blank sheet of paper and no clue what to actually draw. To help you out with some drawing ideas, we spoke to a professional artists and illustrators, and asked them what they draw to relax, to practise and to stretch their creative muscles. We hope their suggestions will inspire you to forge your own drawing rituals, and reboot your creative mojo. But if none of the suggestions here spark your creativity, be sure to check out our inspirational list of how to draw tutorials. Right, sketchbooks at the ready! 01. Eyes Chris McFall likes to draw eyes as a way of warming up When artist and animator Chris McFall wants to get his creative juices flowing, he has a go-to drawing idea: eyes. Lots of eyes. "Then swirly bits. Then more eyes," he explains. "Essentially I’m just warming up, and getting used to the pen and paper’s absorbency, or the computer brush’s qualities. It’s a mark-making exercise, like a singer doing scales." But why eyes specifically? "They’re just very expressive, and can be drawn in many styles, so you can employ lots of techniques," he reasons. "Also, they sit well at the centre of a mass of swirls cross hatches and scribbles." It’s a ritual he’s employed successfully throughout his creative career. “I used to draw on the back of till receipts when I worked in Tesco,” he recalls, “so maybe it’s a habit from then.” Want to follow McFall's lead? Take a look at this expert video tutorial on how to draw eyes. 02. Geometric blocks Drawing geometric blocks is like "yoga for the mind", says James OConnell “I love drawing geometric blocks, stacked in numerous ways and perspectives,” says creative director James Oconnell. “It might sound strange, but it tends to stop me thinking about everything I've seen over the past few hours and allows me to think fresh thoughts when approaching new briefs.” The idea came to him a year ago, he says. “I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed with workload and needed something to drive my attention elsewhere. I sat at an empty pad and started drawing shape after shape, ultimately ending with cubes. 20 sketching tips to help you make your first marks “The process managed to eradicate the busy feeling and make me think more clearly,” he continues. “And the best part is, I can decide how much time I want to give it. It's like yoga for the mind. “I always have a pen and pad at hand so can draw anywhere; both analogue and on the iPad. I always stumble across previous scribbles in my pad and they're a nice reminder to take personal time every now and again.” 03. Faces Olly Lawson likes to challenge himself by drawing a range of faces Concept artist and illustrator Olly Lawson shares the same drawing idea as many other artists, which is sketching faces. “It's usually heads of different physiognomies,” says Lawson, who typically works on his iPad using Procreate. “I try to think of interesting variations, rather than drawing the same faces too often. This feels like a practice that has endless possibilities and fascination for me, especially when drawing faces from characters in a story I'm reading.” He usually draws from reference. “So it's a case of finding or shooting references that look interesting and different to the generic head I might otherwise draw,” he explains. “Saying that, I do try to use the reference only vaguely; taking a chin from here, a nose from there. The fun for me is always in the challenge, so I never like to draw things I'm too comfortable with already.” The key to drawing faces, he believes lies in “understanding the underlying skeleton and how it can vary, and knowing how the muscles build upon that. Without that solid foundation underneath, your faces or figures can quickly become ‘uncanny’. You can learn this through good figure drawing textbooks like Drawing Heads and Hands by Andrew Loomis, or the Anatomy4Sculptors books.” 04. Diner still-life James Gurney takes advantage of the time he spends waiting for his food "When you're eating out, the time you spend waiting for your food is a great opportunity to get creative," says artist and best-selling author James Gurney. “Diner still life is my favourite thing to draw to get my mojo on,” he says. “With the variety of surfaces, such as chrome, glass and paper, it has all sorts of reflective and refractive qualities, which transfer to my imaginative work. Plus I'm working with a time limit, as it only takes them 15 minutes to bring the scrambled eggs.” This involves a combination of drawing and painting in a Pentalic watercolour sketchbook. “I start with water-soluble coloured pencils, and add washes of watercolour and gouache, often with a limited palette. I generally add final accents and written notes with a fountain pen filled with brown ink, and sometimes I come back into it with the coloured pencils, or even chalk. “With the matte surface of gouache, you can draw over it and get the best of all worlds,” he continues. “This combination of tools allows the linear marks that the pencils can provide, as well as the accurate values and light effects that you can get with paint. Also, unlike oils, this technique is unobtrusive, has no odour, is small enough to fit on a diner table, and is fast.” 05. Flowers and grass Nature lover Kate Farley finds fun in sketching flowers and grass Printmaker and pattern designer Kate Farley likes to unwind by drawing flowers and grass. “It keeps the hand and eyes ticking over, with no pressure to use the drawings commercially if I don't want to,” she explains. “Plus it’s an excuse to buy myself flowers! “I think of myself as a nature-lover and gardener so it’s a subject I relate to,” she continues. “I’ll use a variety of pencils, in terms of both hardness and size.” And her advice for anyone with the same drawing ideas as her is as follows. “Think of drawing as getting to know someone," she recommends. "Ask polite, broad questions first to get to know them; quick sketches. Over time you get more involved and know it more so you can get more detail: longer complex studies.” 06. Passers-by Each time you walk down the street, you’re presented with dozens of potential drawing ideas. So why not take advantage? That’s just what art director and illustrator Mademoiselle Camille does. “Sometimes I see people whose face or clothing style I’d like to remember, so I draw them,” she explains. “I have a real fascination for portraits and smiling people, which is visible in my work. And so sketching them is a way for me both to practise my art skills, and to draw on the people as an inspiration for later. “I have a good memory, so it’s pretty easy,” continues Camille, who sketches with pencils, colour pencils, and sometimes a ballpoint pen and coloured paper. “I pay a lot of attention to detail, although sometimes in a drawing you don’t need everything to be precisely detailed: just an accessory or object can be enough.” 07. Life models Judith Mayer loves the challenge of life drawing Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned professional, nothing beats a good session of life drawing to reinvigorate your understanding of the fundamentals and reboot your love of art. “When I have time, there are several drop-in figure drawing sessions here in Chicago,” says lettering artist and illustrator Judith Mayer. “Grotesque Burlesque is a good one I have attended. For $15-20, you get several hours with a live model in timed poses, from two minutes to 45 minutes. It takes me right back to figure drawing classes in college. “I love drawing likenesses and figures for the challenge of it,” she explains. “You know right away if a person isn't recognisable or the proportion is off, and then you have to figure out how to make it right. And drawing in a group, either in a room or online, changes the solitary experience of being an artist into a more social one.” 08. Red carpet looks Niki Groom's sketch of Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh wearing Versace and Ralph & Rosso at the Golden Globes When fashion, beauty, food and lifestyle illustrator Niki Groom (aka Miss Magpie) wants to draw for fun, she has a very specific go-to drawing idea. “I LOVE to do quick response fashion illustrations of red carpet looks,” she enthuses. “I rarely get commissioned for this type of work but I enjoy it, and it’s a great warm-up. I see them on Instagram and then illustrate them, either immediately or within a couple of days.” The media she uses will depend mostly on what client work she’s currently immersed in. “If I’ve done loads of detailed pen work, as I have done recently, then I’ll use a paintbrush and ink. If I’ve been doing lots of painting then I’ll use marker pens.” She’ll usually spend anything from 10 minutes to 45 minutes on these sketches. “I just do it because I almost need to get it out of my system,” she stresses. “There’s no strategy behind it, it’s just a love of clothing and fashion. It’s a scratch I have to itch, and a good way of having a rest from what’s been my day-to-day. I’d recommend to others to do work that they are passionate about, rather than doing something for a social media high.” 09. Fan art Zelda fan art by Genzoman Gonzalo Ordoñez (aka Genzoman) is an artist working for the games industry on big-name titles. But a constant diet of corporate work isn’t ideal, so he likes to break things up with fan art. “Between projects, I usually take a break to draw my own things,” he explains. “One of my favourite subjects is a character from a movie, video game or comic, or whatever has captured my attention; either by design (because I like the universe) or simply because I like the character. “Many people see fan art as a waste of time,” he says. “But it helps me to practise my style, helping me to understand how to adapt it to other IPs, or to find an unusual twist on it, such as if a character is technological, retro-steampunk, or so on.” 10. Community suggestions A sampling of the faces Judith Mayer drew for a 30-day challenge set by Sktchy Still stuck for drawing ideas? Why not exploit the collective imagination of the numerous creative groups across the web? “If I can't think of what to draw. I'll head to a prompt list online,” says Judith Mayer. “There's the popular #inktober list every October, for example. “#Folktaleweek is another online challenge. Plus this year the illustration collective I'm in, @CrushIllustration, decided we wanted to create our own October prompt list, and shared it on Instagram as #crushtober. Having everyone draw along with you is fun and motivational. “Because I like to draw likenesses," she adds, "I've also used the free app Sktchy on my iPhone, where people upload photos of themselves hoping an artist will draw them. It’s great for practising portrait drawing. They offer inexpensive classes for daily drawing too.” Concept artist Jourdan Tuffan takes a similar approach in leaning on the web to provide inspiration. "If I'm at a loss of what to draw, I usually resort to browsing Pinterest," he says. "The assortment of different subject matters and cool ideas usually give me enough fuel to spark an idea in my brain." Given the nature of his work, architecture is the subject matter he usually defaults to. "But I have been doing quite a lot of face studies in a bid to improve on my anatomy skills," he adds. "It's good to keep a 'To Draw' and a 'To Learn' list handy as well, to serve as a helpful reminder of what to do next, and spend less time thinking, and more time drawing." Read more: Drawing games: 15 apps to help spark your creativity The best pencils for colouring, drawing and sketching Pencil drawing techniques: 7 tips to improve your skills View the full article

Adobe Illustrator has had a good run of basically owning the vector market, but increasingly it's having to fight its corner against newcomers that offer equally strong tools at more attractive prices. Affinity Designer delivered that vital first shot across Illustrator's bows, and now there's a new contender that could become the go-to choice for anyone wanting to create impressive vector art – at least, as long as they have a Mac. Amadine is the latest vector app to have a pop at Illustrator Amadine is a new graphic design tool from Ukraine-based developer BeLight Software. The app is aimed both at design professionals and creative amateurs, and features a set of vector drawing tools put together with user-friendliness and quality results in mind. Affinity Designer for iPad review If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the volume of tools on offer in other vector apps, Amadine is likely to be a welcome alternative; BeLight has created its tool set to give you essential functionality without anything superfluous getting in the way. It features a high-end Pen tool for creating smooth, precise curves, with multiple stroke effects and plenty of modifiers to help you get each line looking exactly the way you want it, as well as a Draw tool that combines the best of a brush and freehand pencil tool. BeLight has designed Amadine to provide plenty of functionality without a steep learning curve Amadine's Width tool enables you to draw with an intuitive variable stroke without the need to define its width manually, and when it comes to colouring your work it has fills and overlapping gradients with loads of hue options. It also has a set of text tools for that all-important lettering and typography, and for those final touches there are plenty of effects for stylising your work, so you can bring everything to life with inner and outer glows, shadows and blurs. The beta version of Amadine is available to download now If we've piqued your interest, the good news is that you can give Amadine a test drive right now for free. The beta version was released for Mac last week; BeLight says that it's also working on an iOS version, so keep an eye out for that. Related articles: 5 huge illustration trends for 2019 30 top vector art tutorials The 23 best places to find free vector art online View the full article

OFFF Barcelona is back. The 19th edition of OFFF Barcelona will kick off on Thursday 25 April and finish on Saturday 27 April. It's being hosted at the Museu del Disseny (The Design Museum of Barcelona) on Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes. Early bird tickets are all sold out, but the regular passes are very reasonable: a three-day ticket will set you back just under €200 (buy OFFF Barcelona 2019 tickets here). Organisers are still releasing details, but what we have confirmed so far sounds exactly as excellent as we'd expect from the long-running design festival. Bienal is the studio behind OFFF Barcelona's visual campaign Mexican branding and communications studio Bienal has been charged with creating OFFF Barcelona 2019's visual campaign. This year, the theme is 'the OFFFTERLIFE' – because, after OFFF, nothing is the same. The campaign will explore the battle between technology and human connection. Read on for four exciting things that await you in the OFFFTERLIFE... 01. Awesome speakers Learn how Conrad Roset and Nomada Studio created the most beautiful video game ever There are still plenty of surprises to follow, but there are some speaker details we're very excited about (full details here). Conrad Roset and Nomada Studio will be talking about how they created the beautiful, record-breaking video game GRIS; James Victore will return to OFFF to share insights from his new book Feck Perfuction; and Google's top senior product designer and UX engineers will be lifting the lid on the search giant's design secrets. There will also be a brand new documentary on legendary designer Dieter Rams premiering at the event, which asks why, at 86 years old, does he now regret being a designer? 02. The very best opening titles OFFF is known for putting a lot of effort to create jaw-droppingly good opening and closing titles – if you're after proof, check out Future Deluxe's OFFF London 2017 titles above. At OFFF Barcelona 2019, award-winning visual effects and content creation studio The Mill’s creative offering Mill+ is in the driving seat, putting together the official film with director Ilya Abulkhanov. We can't wait to see what they come up with. 03. Workshops to boost your skills To really make the most of the OFFF experience, it's worth taking a look at the workshops that will be running alongside the main talks. The year there are three on offer: a curated networking event aimed at 'drinkers with a drawing problem'; an in-depth look at how to create an original audio project; and techniques for creating a papercraft masterpiece. These workshops cost extra, but they offer a great chance to network and pick up new skills at the same time. 04. A closer look at OFFF's new-look branding This festival will be the first to use OFFF's new-look branding, created by CROWD studio and released after the 2018 event. The designers behind the scheme will be sharing insights into the project in Barcelona, but in the meantime you can get a taster by watching the video above or checking out the Behance case study. Read more: 76 best free fonts for designers What does OFFF really mean? 15 essential tools for graphic designers in 2019 View the full article

To celebrate the debut of Conan O'Brien's new 30-minute late-night show on TBS, the Pantone Color Institute has worked with Team Coco (a brand name owned by Conan O'Brien's production company) to create a unique colour that defines the legendary comedian, writer and television host. But how do you capture the essence of one of America's longest-working late-night talk show hosts – the comedic genius who has worked on Saturday Night Live, and wrote the monorail song in The Simpsons? Naturally, there's only one colour that could sum him up. Team Coco Orange is described as an "affable, warm-hearted orange tone", one that "encourages conviviality and social interaction". As you may have also noticed, it's a pretty close colour match to the comedian's famous hair as well. How to master colour theory Check out how Team Coco worked with Pantone Color Institute in the video below, where Conan O'Brien explains with his typical deadpan wit the secret ingredients that went into making the distinctive orange colour (spoiler: it involves banana peel). Team Coco Orange is set to appear in artistic displays in New York up until 22 January. These displays include street art installations, buses decked out in the unmissable colour, and illuminated billboard advertisements for the new series. It will also be the foundation colour for Team Coco's branding going forward. Related articles: If celebrities were Pantone colours Discover your 2019 Pantone with this quiz Pantone announces its Color of the Year 2019 View the full article

A great online portfolio is crucial for creatives of all skill levels. If you’re just starting out in the industry or a student, you can’t afford to put your portfolio off; you need to be ready to leverage crucial opportunities. And if you’re already an established designer, it’s just as important to maintain a fresh online presence. Trouble is, setting up and maintaining an online portfolio can be a daunting and time-consuming task. But it doesn’t have to be, and you don’t need to be a coding expert either. Format is a portfolio platform designed specifically to help creatives set up a professional online presence in minutes. An easy-to-use website builder, Format will make setting your portfolio up a cinch, showcasing your work in all its glory with one of its beautiful themes. And if that wasn’t enough, Format is also armed with integrated business features, including commerce, client proofing, marketing, and blogging tools, to help support you at every stage of your creative career. Read on for how to create a professional, easy-to-navigate online portfolio in five simple steps. Step 01. Choose a theme The first thing you need to decide when creating your online portfolio is how you want it to look. Format has a variety of carefully-crafted themes to cater to your specific needs and design discipline. Layouts include: Horizontal scrolling Fullscreen slideshow Thumbnails Vertical scrolling Slideshow And remember, nothing is forever. If you decide at a later date that you don’t like the theme you’ve picked, you can easily choose another. Simply select your theme of choice, go to the dashboard and here’s where the fun starts: customising your portfolio. Step 02. Pick a colour, any colour And a font too while you’re there. Now you’ve decided on a theme, it’s time to get creative with your design elements. Use the ‘Design’ tab to experiment with the look of your site, tweaking the overall theme, for example. The ‘General’ tab is where you can really inject some personality into your portfolio design. Fonts, colours, images, logos, you can customise them all, making for a truly personalised portfolio. Step 03. Add a gallery The purpose of a portfolio is to showcase your best work, and what better way to greet people than with a gallery that has it all. Think of it as a showreel for visitors to your site, a way to grab their attention and immediately give them the right impression about who you are as an individual and an artist. The hardest part of this step is choosing what work to include. Setting it up with Format is the easy bit; simply choose ‘Gallery’ from the ‘Create New’ tab, upload your images and add captions (if you choose) and voila! Step 04. Create an 'About' page Aside from showcasing your work, the ‘About’ section is the second most important page in your portfolio. Once you’ve impressed with your creative talents, the next thing visitors will want to know is who you are and how to get hold of you. You’d be surprised by how many opportunities are lost due to portfolios missing vital information. Don’t be the one who loses out – under ‘Create New, select ‘Custom Pages’ and pick/customise one of the About page templates at your disposal. Here you can take some time to add some information about who you are, what you do and the best way for people to get in touch with you. Add your favourite mugshot too, it can go a long way to making things more personal. You could even be brave and lead with a super-sized eye-catching image to introduce yourself, as demonstrated by Anton and Irene above. Step 05. Sync with social media Love it or hate it, social media provides a number of handy platforms to help get your work seen and build an online following. With Format, you can add up to five icons linking visitors to your social media accounts. Located under the ‘Social’ tab, simply select the platforms you wish to use, be that a Facebook page, Instagram account or Twitter feed so visitors to your site can access them quickly and easily. And that’s it, one professional portfolio set up and ready to go! Want to get started on your own portfolio? Sign up to Format here for a 14-day, no obligation free trial. View the full article

We now design in a world with an abundance of tools that can fit almost every design process and meet your creative requirements. There truly is a solution out there for everyone and the possibilities are incredible. It's such a great time to explore new tools and see what's available to design and showcase your projects. The big challenge is which ones should you use? Over the last few years, the combination of Sketch and InVision has been a popular choice for many designers, but other tools have offered competitive features and options. There has never been a better selection of prototyping and wireframe tools out there, so we thought it was a good time to have a closer look at some of the best. Top UI trends for 2019 Wireframing 01. MockFlow MockFlow enables you to build basic layouts quickly MockFlow is a suite of applications that are very helpful for a number of tasks in the typical project process. Primarily, the WireframePro app is a good alternative prototyping tool for you to use, especially if you're testing out some new ideas. If you just need to create wireframes, then take a look at MockFlow. It's great for working on initial ideas and enables you to build basic layouts quickly, which is sometimes all you need to get thoughts into a presentable form. 02. Balsamiq Balsamiq's drag-and-drop elements make life easier If rapid wireframing is what you're looking for, then Balsamiq is a strong suggestion. You can quickly develop structure and layouts for your projects with ease. The drag-and-drop elements make life easier and you can link buttons to other pages. This means you can quickly start to plan your interfaces and then share them with your team or clients. 03. Axure Axure's a great tool got more complex projects Axure has always been one of the best wireframing tools on the market and is great for more complex projects that require dynamic data. With Axure, you can really focus on mocking up projects that are more technical and require extra attention when it comes to structure and data. 04. Adobe Comp If you want to wireframe on the go then Comp is a must Adobe Comp is a nice addition for those that find themselves creating and conceptualising on the go. Got a tablet with a smart pencil? This will be worth the download just in case inspiration strikes for developing a new concept for a layout when you are away from your main workspace. Get Adobe Creative Cloud UI design and prototyping 05. Sketch Sketch is the go-to choice for loads of designers Sketch is a very popular tool within the design community that enables you to create hi-fi interfaces and prototypes. One of the great features is Symbols, where you can design UI assets and elements for reuse. This helps create design systems and keep your interfaces consistent. From there, you can easily export your design into a clickable prototype. If you are an InVision user, make sure you check out the Craft plugin. 06. InVision Studio With InVision Studio you can create a responsive design on a single artboard Many UI designers' dreams are about to come true with InVision Studio. Still in its early release, this tool will help you create beautiful interactive interfaces with a bucket load of features. You can create custom animations and transitions from a number of gestures and interactions. To top that, you can stop thinking about creating numerous artboards for multiple devices because responsive design can be achieved within a single artboard. This saves loads of time, so you can think of more ideas. 07. Proto.io Proto.io can take you from rough sketch to lifelike prototype Proto.io is an incredible contender for creating lifelike prototypes from rough ideas right through to fully fledged designs. The tool also provides a lot of possibilities for your projects, including detailed animations and custom vector animations too. You can start by developing initial ideas with a hand-drawn style, then work them into wireframes and finish off with a high-fidelity prototype. The Sketch and Photoshop plugins really help if you want to design using other tools but Proto.io does handle the end-to-end design process well. Other features like user testing will also help validate your designs. This is an all-in-one place solution with a great number of trusted brands already using it. 08. Adobe XD XD's a good option if you're locked into an Adobe workflow Adobe XD offers the best environment for digital projects under the Adobe Creative Cloud collection of design tools. If you're a keen Adobe user and new to XD, you may not find the interface very Adobe-like to begin with – it is a jump if you've been designing in Photoshop for a while. But it does stack up to the other leading tools out there, and is worth it if you are a big Adobe fan. 09. Marvel Building pages with Marvel is sublimely straightforward Marvel is another prototyping tool that's a great choice when it comes to producing quick ideas and refining an interface. As with many of the other applications of this type, Marvel offers a really neat way of building pages and enables you to simulate your design through a prototype. There are some wonderful integrations with Marvel, which means you can insert your designs into your project workflow. 10. Figma Figma enables you to quickly compose and design interfaces. The Figma platform prides itself on being a collaborative design tool whereby multiple users can work simultaneously on a project – this is very effective when you have multiple stakeholders in a project that are involved in shaping the outcome. This is the kind of tool that would be ideal if you have a live project where a developer, copywriter and designer, for example, need to work on something at the same time. 11. Framer X If you're using React, then Framer X works brilliantly alongside it Framer X is a really exciting new design tool that is certainly worth a look for experienced UI designers who want more from their tools. Prototyping and creating interactions is really easy. If you're a big React fan, then look no further as you can design and code in sync. Besides being a great tool, there's a strong community of designers behind Framer X offering UI assets and kits. 12. Flinto Flinto is a nice and simple design tool that enables you to create unique interactions within your designs. You can utilise a number of gestures and create easy transitions by designing the before and after states. Flinto simply works out the differences and then animates for you. 13. Principle Principle is perfect for building great-looking animated interactions Interaction design is what Principle excels at, especially when it comes to mobile applications. Tweaking and getting animated interactions just right is a breeze with Principle. You can look at individual assets and how they independently animate, right down to timings and easing. 14. Atomic Atomic is another interactive design tool but what sets it apart is the ability to create form elements that you can actually type into. There is also a useful feature that enables you to import data and populate your designs. This really saves some time! 15. UXPin For larger projects and design systems, UXPin's a top solution Described as the 'end-to-end' UX platform, UXPin is essentially another design tool but with a powerful ability to create design systems. UXPin serves larger design teams that need to work off the same styles and guides, saving time with product development when collaboration plays a large part. 16. ProtoPie This tool enables you to create quite complex interactions and get pretty close to how you would want your design to work. Perhaps the most standout feature is the ability to control the sensors of smart devices in your prototype, such as tilt, sound, compass and 3D Touch sensors. Depending on your project, this is a great tool for encompassing native app features. It's easy as pie with no code required. 17. Justinmind Justinmind integrates nicely with Photoshop and Sketch This tool helps with prototyping and integrating with other tools like Sketch and Photoshop. You can choose your interactions and gestures to help put your prototype together. It also contains UI kits, enabling you to put together screens quickly. 18. Origami Studio Origami's packed with useful features such as custom rules and logic for interactions Given Origami Studio is built and used by designers at Facebook, you might assume this must be a great tool. And you'd be right. There's a wonderful amount of features with Origami, including adding rules and logic to your interactions. How many times have you wanted a button to display or behave differently because of something else? There's an opportunity to create a true-to-form prototype with Origami, but it is very technical and requires some learning. This tool is perfect for developers and designers working together. 19. Fluid Fluid's good and intuitive, and comes with some excellent UI assets Fluid is an intuitive tool to build rapid prototypes and work up designs. It packs some nice assets out of the box to get you going with rapid prototypes and, once you've upgraded, it's easy to assemble your own symbols with your preferred UI assets. Hand-offs 20. Zeplin Zeplin is not necessarily a prototyping tool, but it very much fits in that post-design and pre-development stage alongside prototyping. It enables you to take your design and prototypes, hand them over to developers and make sure that your ideas are executed well. You can upload your Sketch, Photoshop, XD and Figma files to Zeplin and it will create an environment for developers and designers to hand over the project, without the tedious task of creating guidelines. However, it's worth making sure that you need it first. This article was originally published in issue 313 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 313 here or subscribe here. Related articles: 6 trends that are changing the face of mobile UI design The pro's guide to UI design Create slick UI animations View the full article

Presentations are something a lot of us will have to give at some point or another. Whether you're presenting a project for school, pitching an idea to executives, or reporting on quarterly earnings, presentations are always better when they include engaging graphics and insightful images. Try out Slideshop: Lifetime Subscription to build presentations more effectively and more efficiently. Thanks to thousands of template slides, you'll easily captivate your audience with stunning infographics and modern designs. Slideshop: Lifetime Subscription is yours for only $29.99 – 98 per cent off the regular price. Related articles: How to be a better speaker: presenting and pitching tips 5 inspired self-promo ideas for design agencies 9 tips for breaking onto the speaker circuit View the full article

When embarking on a design career, you're full of ambition and expectation. But once the humdrum of daily deadlines sets in, it's easy to forget why you decided to be one in the first place, let alone appreciate all the upsides of the job. We're here to set that straight by reminding you of 10 reasons you should be happy to be a designer. It doesn't matter whether you specialise in print or web design; whether you make apps or physical products: these universal truths about the life and career of a designer will remind you of all the good things about your job. So the next time you've got an impossible deadline, or you overhear someone saying their nephew can design a website or create one of the world's best logos for a fiver, keep these in mind. Your job rocks, and you should be happy about it! 01. You get paid for being creative The most obvious reason to be happy you're a designer is that you get paid for being creative. Although sometimes design can be a procedural discipline, it does allow you to flex your creativity on an ongoing, daily basis. 02. You work in a constantly changing field One of the very best things about the design world in general is that it's constantly evolving and redefining itself. Not only does the discipline itself mature, in terms of the media you'll find yourself working with, but you'll also see shifts in aesthetic approach and fashion over time. This constant reinvention and willingness to try new ideas means designers are exciting people to be around. So lap it up! And if you're not sure exactly what's happening in the field right now, then don't miss our post on graphic design trends for 2019 or the typographic trends of 2019. 03. You influence the bottom line Dyson's designs genuinely revolutionised the vacuum cleaner As a designer you're often tasked with producing work that acts as the interface between a company and its customers. So whether you're working on a layout for a magazine, crafting a website or work in industrial design, you're the person who controls the user's experience. This can have a substantial effect on a company's performance – think in terms of Jonny Ive at Apple, or the Dyson range of vacuum cleaners. It's an important and incredibly rewarding position to be in. 04. You can pick your projects and clients (well, eventually) In the beginning, you have to accept every scrap of work that comes along. But once you have some experience under your belt, you should be able to manoeuvre yourself a position where you can start to pick and choose both your clients and projects. This is an empowering and affirming place to find yourself, so if you're not there yet, it's something to look forward to. And if you are, be happy – you've made it! If you're not quite getting the freelance clients you're after, then see our piece on 6 things to know about getting freelance clients. 05. Every day is different A lot of jobs are 'Groundhog Day' treadmills that make you feel that every day is the same. For design, not so. In the main, every day brings new challenges, problems to solve and projects to get creative with. This constant supply of fresh requirements makes for an interesting and stimulating job. And if you do feel you're stuck in a rut, then check out our tips on ways to transform your creative thinking. 06. You can make a positive difference to the world There are several organisations that champion diversity in the design industry, why not join one of them? Your role as a designer doesn't need to be a purely commercial one. Your skills can also be directed towards altruistic ends, and have a dramatic impact on the world.A great example of this is the (RED) project, which donates money raised from branded products to HIV/AIDS programmes in Africa. As a designer, you're well placed to be able to contribute meaningfully. For more on how you can make a difference, and not just through your work, see our post on 6 ways you can give back to the design community. 07. You get to see people interact with your work As a designer you get to observe people interacting with your work regularly. And whether it's seeing someone lap up a book you typeset, or enjoy a website you designed, seeing your work in action on a daily basis can be both gratifying and motivating. 08. You can work flexible hours Whether you prefer to work in the morning or the evening, you'll probably find your design career can fit around your schedule This one mainly applies to freelance designers, but if you work for yourself, or even sometimes when you work on contract, you're able to choose when and where to work. This offers an excellent opportunity to strike a work-life balance that suits your circumstances and needs. And it also means that if you're a night owl and can work more effectively at 11pm than at 11am, you can incorporate this into your working routine. 09. You can create your own specialism Regardless of the field of design you work in, there's always scope to develop and specialise within your area of expertise. Some designers focus on a particular style or technical approach to work – by using specific materials, a vernacular approach or a limited palette. Others will look at specific skills such as typographical engineering or working with paper in 3D. As a designer there's no limit to your ability to use your creativity to find your own unique style, approach and specialism. 10. You can find inspiration everywhere Is there inspiration lurking in your local supermarket or department store? Designers can find inspiration and ideas all around them. Whether it's a walk in the woods or a trip to the supermarket, you can find shapes, colours, type and imagery to inspire you everywhere you go. This ability to experience the world and draw it into your work is phenomenally rewarding, and also means you can justifiably claim that you're working while browsing Creative Bloq... Related articles: How to balance life and work How to balance money and happiness as a designer Build a better personal brand View the full article

The Fallout EK has added the latest Flash vulnerability to its bad of tricks, among other tune-ups. View the full article

A default configuration allows full admin access to unauthenticated attackers. View the full article

For version 6 of Boris FX’s planar tracker, roto-masking and visual effects tool, there’s a new naming convention (named by the year) signalling future major releases will be annual. The first thing you’ll notice about Mocha Pro 2019 is the redesigned interface and addition of four workspaces. Designed for newcomers, the default Essentials workspace presents a simplified layout that’s streamlined to focus on the bread-and-butter tasks of tracking and roto. Buy Mocha Pro 2019 from Boris FX Existing users will be at home with the Classic workspace. There’s also Roto and Big Picture workspaces, so you can pick the one that suits your 3D art workflow. Sadly there’s no option to create your own custom workspaces. The interface has been tweaked, becoming darker and a lot sharper as Mocha Pro has got better at taking advantage of high-DPI resolution screens, including Retina displays. New spline tools have been added that you’ll soon come to rely on To expedite roto work, new spline tools have been added that you’ll soon come to rely on. For quick garbage mattes, the Freehand spline tool is a useful timesaver. It lets you click-drag draw a loose shape that’s converted to an X-spline on completion. To increase or decrease the amount of tangents generated, there’s a Detail parameter. Similar to Photoshop’s Magnetic Lasso tool is the new Magnetic Spline tool. It reduces the amount of clicks needed as you simply trace an outline around the edge of the area you want to roto. Should the magnetism get confused when tackling difficult areas such as blurred edges, simply click to manually add anchor points until you get back on track or you can click-drag to temporarily switch to the freehand tool. Generally speaking the resulting X-spline tangent handles will need a fine-tune. Ellipse and Rectangle roto shapes have also been added. Mocha’s Remove Module, which is used to track and remove objects from shots, is now enabled for Open CL-based GPU acceleration to give a significant rendering speed boost compared to using only processing power. With this release, Mocha VR is no longer available as a unique product, instead the upgrade to Mocha VR is now Mocha Pro 2019 During reviewing, the speed increase is obvious and Boris FX has benchmarked rendering speeds that can be up to four to five times quicker, depending on hardware. VR artists can also take advantage of the GPU-accelerated Remove module and new roto tools as Mocha VR (Boris FX’s toolkit for spherical 360/VR video post-production) has been merged into Mocha Pro as a standard feature. The focus on faster and more efficient working – specifically with Mocha’s core tools, coupled with the addition of Mocha VR without a price increase makes this release excellent value. Buy Mocha Pro 2019 from Boris FX Get free admission to VERTEX 2019, the ultimate event for 2D and 3D artists This article was originally published in 3D Artist magazine. Read more: The best new 3D tools for 2019. View the full article

If you've ever tried to explain the intricacies of a design to a colleague or client, chances are you'll have found that sometimes words can fall short of the mark when it comes to specifying what you're talking about. That's where some wonderfully bizarre terminology comes in, and the field of typography boasts plenty. The varied and obscure vocabulary surrounding typography might seem pernickety on the surface. But when you know the anatomy of your letter shapes, you'll not only have more authority when working with others, you'll also be able to diagnose problems with your type more easily. That's the thinking behind this infographic of 20 lesser-known typography anatomy terms put together by Toptal, a marketing place for visual interaction designers. Like all the best infographics, this one makes its data immediately understandable. Clear illustrations by Micah Bowers pinpoint a collection of letter parts that every designer should know, but which can often fly under the radar. How many do you know? Click the image to see the full size infographic Have you memorised them all? Why not test out your knowledge by examining the anatomy of the best free fonts online? Related articles: Typography trends in 2019 to look out for The 8 biggest typography mistakes designers make 10 typography tricks every designer should know View the full article

You're reading Free Essentials for Designers: Textures, Patterns, Shapes and Backgrounds, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! We are living in an era where everything is digital and artificial. However, there’s still room for old-time crafting tools. CSS-based illustrations, SVG icons and images, WebGL-powered pieces and dynamic effects of all types and kinds are the most popular … View the full article

Many logos cause controversy when first unleashed into the world, but that doesn't mean they won't be remembered fondly. But what is it about certain logos that mean they'll last forever? With this in mind, we asked five designers to share the logo design they most admire, and tell us what it is about that logo that inspires them. Some picked classic logos, while others went for more recent work. If this post gets you thinking, feel free to share your favourite logo with us on social media. 01. Mozilla Mozilla's rebrand was created by Johnson Banks, with the help of the internet "One recent logo design I really admire is the new Mozilla branding done by brand agency Johnson Banks," says Mimi Van Helfteren, designer at Coley Porter Bell. "Not only does it have a real smile-in-the-mind idea within the mark (the ‘ill’ of Mozilla is made out of URL characters), it was also created in a really forward-thinking way, asking the general public for input." Where to find logo design inspiration "The idea itself puts Mozilla at the heart of the internet, and is simple enough that it conveys their internet ethos of being open and free for everyone; while the typestyle is reminiscent of coding. Using the general public as a sounding board throughout the design process also ties into Mozilla’s values of transparency and participation that lets people all over the world have the creativity and freedom to publish opinions and ideas, and to collaborate without the restrictions of location. It feels well-rounded in both design and process, and true to the brand.” 02. CBBC CBBC's brand was refreshed by Red Bee agency "Like many social media users, I was initially a little skeptical when the BBC unveiled its new logo for the CBBC channel," says Matt Smith, art editor at Mac|Life magazine. "Its previous incumbent had become tired, dated and inappropriate for a modern digital age, so a refresh was definitely on the cards. However the new direction had strong overtones of corporate design and was admonished by the CBBC Controller herself for 'not screaming children's TV'. "While some of the criticisms had merit, I love the bold, colourful, playful approach, with the innovative placement of the 'B's. The abstract shapes also expanded the potential for fun idents and creative video transitions, which would appeal to a broader audience. "Do kids really care about logos? Possibly not, but I love this logo. Viewed as a whole I think the redesign was smart and classy, and will hopefully be fondly remembered. After all, time is a great healer; how many classic logos were universally loved when they were first conceived?" 03. Led Zeppelin The symbols here each represent one of Led Zeppelin's band members "The logo I admire the most is a combination of the original 1973 band logo for Led Zeppelin and the Led Zeppelin IV emblem with the four occult symbols, from the band’s nameless fourth album," says Ashley Milligan, art director of FINE. "The letterwork, wordmark and the system of four symbols are iconic: one symbol for each member of the band steeped in their own personal mythology. Both the band’s wordmark, as well as the Led Zeppelin IV logo, have a simple black and white colour scheme that has stood the test of time. Maybe the symbols you see and love in your formative years stay with you in a way no other marks do, but I scrolled and doodled this logo on countless notebooks in school, proud to wear the mark on merch while sharing the secret of the symbols with others. One instantly feels cool surrounded by these iconic marks, and no other logo does that.” For more music-related logos, see our post on beautiful band logos. 04. Empress Litho Print company Empress Litho's current identity was created by Supple Studio in early 2019 "Which logo design do I admire most? The energy of the Nike Swoosh? The iconic colouring of Coca-Cola? The simplicity of Apple? These are classics all worthy of the top spot, sure. I allow my number one, though, to be ever-changing as brands are created and identities refreshed. So what’s caught my eye lately? It’s the rebrand of Empress Litho," says Ross Middleham, content lead at the Met Office. "It does the basics right – it's legible, clear and versatile. The black and white use of negative space strikes a perfect balance between modern and traditional. The combination mark – with the two elements of graphic and type – allows for great flexibility. The crown, derived from a rotated ‘E’, gives the name importance and acts like a stamp of quality. "It looks gorgeous on vehicle wraps, stationery and clothing, but translates just as effortlessly into the digital world. The simple shapes and angles can be broken apart to create dynamic animations for social or used to reflect precision and accuracy in print. It’s a winner for me because those elements help unify its appearance across everything – from a huge banner right down to the tiniest social avatar." 05. I heart NY Milton Glaser's classic logo has a fantastic story behind it "For me it has to be the ‘I heart NY’ logo by Milton Glaser, which shows that the emoji phenomenon is not a new concept, and has a great story behind it," says Jade Trott, art director at OLIVER. "In 1976, the American graphic designer originally designed a different version of this logo. And just as the designs were being printed, he hailed a cab to go home. And then he noticed something: little graffiti love hearts everywhere. The graffiti in New York never said the actual word ‘love’. There was only ever a love heart and a couple of initials either side. And then it dawned on him: the essence of New York was shortening all words into symbols. The kids in New York didn’t have any time for words. "He drew ‘I heart NY’ on the back of an envelope, which is now on display in the MoMA, New York. And he raced back to the printers, stopped the press and changed it to the design we all know and love today. It’s timeless.” A shorter version of this article was originally published in issue 286 of Computer Arts, the world's leading graphic design magazine. Buy issue 286 or subscribe here. Read more: 6 huge logo trends for 2019 5 logo design terms you should know Discover the hidden flaws in 6 world-famous logos View the full article

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to create a glitch text effect. Special effects and animations can help websites stand out, creating an immediate impact on the user before they've had a chance to get into reading the main content. If your homepage needs to wow visitors, you can create tons of different effects using just CSS. Our process for creating glitch text here is actually pretty similar to working with animation software. We'll place keyframes at specific points, and use these to control the action. The difference with the keyframes in CSS is that they are written as percentages for the timeline of animation in the code. This isn't anywhere near as daunting as it sounds – once you try it, it's relatively straightforward to achieve good results. There will be a small amount of JavaScript used in the tutorial – to remove the loading screen once the images load onto the page – but the main focus here is on CSS animation. We'll also use CSS Grid to position elements on the screen. Download the tutorial files from FileSilo (free, login required) 01. Get set up To get started, open the start folder from the project files inside your code editor. Open the index.html page, which contains just a barebones skeleton HTML page. In the head section, the fonts need linking up so that the design displays correctly. Add the style link for the fonts. 02. Link the CSS The basic layout in CSS has been started in the site.css file, but all of the important parts relating to the glitch effect are going to be added later. In the head section of the document link up the CSS so that the basic design of the page is in place. 03. Set up a loading screen This screen will display while the page loads Now move to the body section of the page. This contains all the visible elements of the page that show up in the browser. Here add in a div that will hold the 'preloader screen' until everything on the page has loaded. This will display a logo in the centre of the page. 04. Add a header bar The basic elements of the design, before the glitch text effect is added Along the top of the screen will be a small header containing an SVG logo for the site on the left with a text heading. Then on the right-hand side of the screen, an inline menu will be in place for easy navigation. The structure of the code here adds those elements onto the page. 05. Add images Now the section that follows contains several versions of the same image in the glitchit class. What this will do is have different parts of these images turned on and off at different times in order to give a glitch effect. Following this is the text that will sit over the top of the images. 06. Trigger the glitch text effect At the end of the body content the JavaScript tags are placed. All this does is check that the page has loaded and then removes the loading screen, which in turn triggers the glitch effect animation to start by adding a class to the body to affect the relevant glitch sections. 07. Set up CSS Variables Save the page now and move over to the site.css file in the CSS folder. There is already code here, but right above any other code add in the variables shown below. These CSS Variables will hold colours and sizes that will be used later on in the design. 08. Experiment with Variable settings As you will see, these Variables are assigned to the body tag so they can be used by any tag on the page inside the body, which is essentially all the visible page. Here the transparency and blending modes are set up for the different images. There are five images and you can experiment with these settings to get different results. 09. Fill the screen with images To keep the code neatly together, scroll down to the comment that mark steps 9 to 13 in the CSS file, adding in this code. Here the glitch code positions the div containing all images to fill the full screen and be positioned absolutely in the top left of the screen. Note it gets its width and height from the CSS Variables. 10. Adjust image positioning The glitch effect uses repositioned copies of the same image As the glitch effect is made up out of copies of the same image, this code positions each div in the page and makes it slightly larger than the screen. It positions it off the top and left to account for it being bigger, and the image is then placed in the background to fill the image. 11. Select images The code here selects every image except the first image. This is because the first image stays on the page, while the others turn on and off over the top with the keyframe animation. These top images are hidden until they are needed with the opacity set to zero. 12. Adjust images two and three The second and third image are set to animate in this code. They are given the respective blend and colour modes so that they show up differently. The biggest difference here is that they are given different keyframe animations to follow to mix. 13. Adjust images four and five This time the next two images are set up quite close to the others, but again this time there is different blending modes and animations for these images to show up. The keyframes have not yet been created for some of these animations and that will come next. 14. Add the first set of keyframes The keyframes work by grabbing different sections of the image and clipping it down so only that will be visible. The opacity is turned on and off at different times so that parts of the image are visible at different times to the other animations and thus creates the glitch effect. The image is moved slightly on the x-axis. 15. Use the clip-path The clip path is taking a rectangle so the first two numbers are top left, then top right. This is followed by bottom right and bottom left. By moving these numbers different parts of the image become visible at different points. 16. Speed up the movement By moving the clip path so quickly over a number of the keyframes, the effect builds up and different parts of the image appear to flash around in an erratic fashion. Add that more layers of images are also doing this and the effect works very well at what it does. 17. Finish up the image glitches After 22% the image is turned off until the animation plays back again. This completes the glitch-1 effect with glitch-2 and glitch-3 already being supplied in the code. The next section will glitch the text that is over the top of the image as well. 18. How to create glitch text The text is only clipped briefly, to ensure it's still readable This code works extremely similarly to the previous code except that it flips the text upside down and then clips it, to give a jumping effect that is moved dramatically. Following that the clip path is revealing only smaller sections, with the fast movement through the keyframes. 19. More clipping The effect continues in this section of code by rapidly changing the shape of the clipping path. The clip-path also comes with the -webkit- prefix but for brevity this has not been shown in any of the code here. At time of writing, Clip Path is currently not supported in IE, Edge or Opera Mini, but is in all other browsers. 20. Flip the text back In the final text glitch animation the text flips back to its original position and waits for the keyframes to come around again. As you can see all of the animation takes place in 10 per cent while it stays dormant for 90 per cent of the time, giving the text the right amount of distress and allowing it to be readable. 21. Create a quick flash The glitch effect runs every few seconds to give a distressed look The final step is that one image is given the glitch-flash animation, and this series of keyframes just place the image on the screen with a 20 per cent opacity for a short period just to give an offset of the original. Save the CSS file now and the effect should start playing once the content loads in the browser. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 281 or subscribe. Read more: Add a glitch effect to your website 10 amazing new CSS techniques Create collage effects in the browser with CSS View the full article

Copywriting is an art form. It can make or break sales when it comes to marketing a product. So why not make sure you're at the top of your game with Modern Copywriting: Writing Copy That Sells in 2019? It's on sale for 94 per cent off the $199 MSRP at just $10.99 today. From crafting the perfect headline to learning exact formulas that will help prevent writer's block, Modern Copywriting: Writing Copy That Sell in 2019 will set you up as a copywriting pro. This online course includes seven hours of training that you can access at any time. That's right, you can improve your copywriting game from the comfort of your couch whenever you feel like it. Beginners are welcome, as this course covers copywriting basics, persuasion tactics and hitting the right tones among many other essential copywriting skills. Whether you're hoping to up your copywriting game for your website, email or social media, the intricacies and differences of every type of copywriting are also covered within these 66 lectures. Get lifetime access to this vital info for just $10.99 here. Want your products featured in The Creative Bloq Shop? Learn more about how to sell your products online! Related articles: How to write the perfect brief How to write engaging case studies for your portfolio How to write a great headline View the full article