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If you’re new to CGI, you may feel that there are far too many tools to choose from in a dizzying array of software. By breaking everything in CGI down, I want to arm artists with the knowledge of which tool is best. With this in mind, let's explore materials and shaders by looking at bump and displacement maps. But first, let's look at why these maps are different to normal maps.

What's the difference between bump maps and normal maps?

In a previous article I looked at normal maps, which are a type of image map used to add extra detail to your models.

There are other image map types for adding details and relief to your 3D art: bump and displacement maps. These both use black and white imagery to create relief data for a model, making bump and displacement imagery far easier to create and manipulate in any 2D painting application when compared to the complex three-colour arrangement of normal maps.

The differentiation between bump and displacement maps is in how they display the relief.

• 27 free 3D models

How does bump mapping work?

Bump maps are one of the oldest form of image map types (normal maps are derived from bump maps), and have been used for decades to add surface relief to models. Bump maps are not very resource-intensive, making them a popular choice for a wide range of relief work.

The catch with bump maps is that they cannot render corner or edge detail, which makes them problematic in certain situations, for example adding brick detail to a corner edge. Bump maps are by far the easiest type of relief image to manage as they work with practically any surface, no matter the geometry.

What does a displacement map do?

Displacement maps, although they can be derived from the same type of image as a bump map, are much more powerful. They can truly deform geometry up to and including edge detail, making them ideal for a much wider range of uses such as terrain creation (sometimes a displacement is called a height map for large-scale deformation) and detail modelling.

The reason that displacement maps are not as commonly used is that they can be computationally intensive and they tend to like high-resolution geometry to work with, which can make them less than ideal for some tasks.

Either way, understanding bump and displacement maps will enable any artist to add detail to their models more quickly and intuitively than through other image-based methods.

When to use a bump map

A bump map modifies the surface of a geometry

At its simplest, bump mapping only modifies the surface of a piece of geometry, whereas displacement mapping is actually altering the geometry. Bump maps are great at adding a lot of low-relief detail on low-polygon objects, so a one-polygon wall could show hundreds of bricks thanks to bump mapping.

It can be an issue when edge detail needs to be shown, as bump mapping does not work with side detail – it only shows the true underlying geometry.

When to use a displacement map

A displacement map alters the geometry itself

Displacement maps are a hugely powerful technique as they can intuitively allow model detail to be added with a simple greyscale image. A perfect example is when they are used as a simple method of creating the height data for a landscape.

As displacement maps (also sometimes known as height maps) are modifying the underlying geometry, they need higher-resolution meshes to work with than bump maps, which can make them slower to work with. But they can produce stunning results.

Combine maps

Combine both maps to add a true relief

Bump and displacement maps can be used in conjunction with one another. For example, when using displacement maps to add true relief to a landscape, a bump map can be used to add additional noise to the surface.

This takes some of the computational weight away from the displacement map, allowing faster performance for negligible image loss. Understanding the properties of when and where to use bump and displacement maps can radically improve models and scenes.

Height differences between maps

Be sure to double-check displacement maps brought in from external software

Both maps display height differently because of the underlying science behind each. However, this can also be true of the software being used. Displacement maps especially should be double-checked in the final render software when brought in from an external painting programme or other render software; there can be differences between how they are displayed, especially with different levels of geometry. Never assume anything until it has been tested for the specific scene or model required.

Create your own bump and displacement maps

Map colours help to denote height and depth

One of the best things about bump and displacement maps is that visually they make sense, with white areas usually denoting the highest areas, black the lowest and 50% grey equalling no change.

This means that while there are applications like Bitmap2Material that can make a good guess at creating relief, it is sometimes better to use a 2D image application. Using a high-pass filter can be an excellent way to get started in creating a relief map which can then be painted into using traditional 2D painting techniques.

This article was originally published in issue 238 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 241 or subscribe to 3D World here.

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There are many aspects to consider when tackling a painting, both technical and fundamental. What I don’t often hear about are the minor tactics that help elevate the art-making. In this workshop I’ll focus on techniques that aren’t emphasised, particularly ones pertaining to works made with acrylics and coloured pencil. Having an understanding of the basics is important, but it’s the tiny nuances that will distinguish your work.

I’ve been working professionally as a freelance artist for about a decade now, and I’d like to share with you the essential tidbits I’ve learned along the way, including how I capture the natural glow of skin with acrylic glazing and wax-based pencils. 

In addition to sharing my painting techniques, I’ll explain what to do once a painting has been completed. Finding suitable frames and scanners are key components in preserving your art for the years to come. Every artist has their personal art-making tactics that they develop over their years of experience, so keep making art, learn, grow, grow some more, share what you’ve learned, and keep the inspiration cycle going for others.

01. Focus on the outline

Try outlining in a colour other than black

A common mistake that people learning how to draw make is paying too much attention to the form within the lines of an object, rather than looking at the line itself. Edges are made of coloured lines and tend to be high in chroma. Instead of contouring objects with black lines, try using something with medium to high chroma. 

For skin, outline the figure with Terracotta and this will give it that natural shimmer. To give objects that are catching light – for example, a blue rooftop on a sunny day – trace its rim with a True blue coloured pencil. This is also a great way to establish your focal points. The vibrant outer edges help to advance the element to the foreground and draw the viewer’s eye.  

02. Create colour harmony

Tone your paper with light washes to achieve colour harmony

When working with an extensive colour palette, it’s easy to let it get out of hand, resulting in a gaudy painting full of dissonant colours. A great solution for this is to harmonise your palette by toning the paper with light washes of paint.

After I’ve transferred my drawing on to hot press watercolour paper, I make a mixture of Brilliant blue and Cadmium red paint, and apply a few thin washes of it. The paper is now a few shades darker with a purple tint to it. Subsequent layers of colour will react to these initial washes, and by sharing this commonality, will yield a more cohesive palette.

03. Capture organic shapes

Let edges bleed into each other for an organic look

Water-based paint such as acrylics are ideal for capturing organic shapes, including clouds, foliage and fabric. Objects that tend to have a lot of billowing texture can be intimidating, but you’ll come to learn that the water does most of the work for you. You just have to be fearless and let go of that innate control that lives in all of us. 

When rendering these shapes, allow the paint washes to find the forms for you. Be loose with the control of your brush and make strokes that are haphazard and unplanned. Let edges bleed into one another. The less control you have, the more organic the outcome will be.

04. Don't treat your brush like a pencil

Don't be too precise with your brush strokes

An old bad habit of mine was treating the brush like a .05 mechanical pencil. I would execute each paint stroke with precision and end up with static movement in my figures and their attire. 

To achieve fluid, organic shapes and gradients, hold your brush loosely and use the full motion of your wrist. Execute your paint strokes by turning the belly of the brush at extreme angles. Don’t dab unless necessary. You can also vary the softness of the paint stroke’s edge by doing this.

05. Use white paint sparingly

For some skintones, you can use the white of the paper instead of paint

Most of the whites in my paintings are made of the natural white of the paper. On occasions, I’ll use Titanium white to highlight, but it’s used sparingly. I find that white paint comes across dull: although it’s light on the value scale, it’s low in vibrancy.  

I recommend that you plan your painting ahead of time, determining the placement of the highlights. For example, the shine on the female’s cheekbone is kept untouched, along with the highlights on her nose and chin.

06. Get the right pencil for the job

Make sure you're using the right pencil for the right part of your work

I use two different types of coloured pencils, both wax-based. The Prismacolor Premier pencils are opaque in colour and possess a creamy texture. They have a soft core and will repel water, so are only used at the end of the painting process to fix mistakes and finalise solid shapes.  

The Prismacolor Verithins are made of a thinner, harder wax lead that are most suitable for clean lines and fine details. They tend to be water-soluble, and thus work well with acrylic washes. The Verithins are great for pushing dark values that
I find difficult to achieve with acrylic washes and sharpening lines, like the edge of an ear lobe.

For more advice on different types of pencil, see our post on the best pencils for colouring, drawing and sketching.

07. Transfer your sketches

Lighten your sketch to prepare it for transfer

There are different options available when transferring a sketch, either with a projector, light box or my personal favourite, a large-format printer. When transferring via projector and light box, I lose the dynamism that lives in the original sketch.

By printing the sketch directly on to the watercolour paper with archival pigments, you can preserve the spirit of the lines as well as saving yourself hours of work. To prep your sketch for transfer, make sure you lighten it so that it’s only barely visible – it’s meant to serve as a blueprint, after all. Afterwards, you can redefine the lines by tracing it with coloured pencil.

If you're not sure which printer to go for, see this post on the best printers.

08. Use iridescent embellishment

Add something extra with embellishments

To add an extra layer of dimension to your work, embellish it with an iridescent quality. Gold leaf and Pebeo Paints are a few ways to give it distinction, and collectors tend to gravitate towards these. Having that extra touch of authenticity is highly sought after. 

Before applying the embellishments, prep your painting by adding a layer of matte medium. This acts as an isolation layer and protects the painting. It also gives the surface a bit of tooth. For Pebeo Paints, which is an oil-based iridescent medium with an enamel texture, use a pipette to leave drops of shimmery gold to your finished painting. Make sure to let it dry for at least 48 hours, especially if the application is thick.

09. Add glazes

The wet-on-wet method was used to create the horse's texture

Rendering with acrylics is a slow process for me. I work from light to dark with diluted washes of paint, a technique called glazing. By overlaying layers on top of each other, value is darkened and form is created. A painting usually consists of 50-80 glazes, applied with different watercolour techniques. For broad areas where a soft edge is needed, like a horse’s muscular texture, use the wet-on-wet method. For finer details that need crisp edges, like a ribbon, use wet-on-dry.

10. Blend paint strokes

Blending is key to creating a smooth gradient

Paint strokes can generate a painting wonderful texture, but there are times when you might prefer to develop a smooth gradient in your artwork. To blend paint strokes, I recommend heavily diluting your paint with water and executing with a light touch. Don’t go heavy with the application and be patient as you build value on the paper. Overlaying glazes upon glazes of paint on top of each other will slowly smooth out the strokes, much like an iron set on a low heat. If the paint strokes are still unyielding, use a pencil in a neutralising colour to gradually blend them away.  

11. Treat acrylics like watercolour

You can achieve a lot of different techniques with acrylics

Acrylics are one of the most versatile water-based mediums. Because of this, I can treat them like watercolour, diluting and blending strokes. Unlike watercolour, there’s a higher level of permanence in the pigment so it doesn’t enable you to lift colour. I prefer this since I’m able to achieve a wide range of value changes. Like watercolour, you can tint certain areas to add slight colour changes. By mixing a few drops of Golden High-Flow acrylics with water, you can bring subtle hints of warmth to a figure’s cheeks.

12. Digitise your painting

A lot of young artists don’t prioritise the importance of digitising the finished painting for future usage. It’s key to have a high-resolution digital scan of the final so it can be used for promotional purposes, Giclée prints, licencing rights and more. 

For works in watercolour, I recommend using a Cruse scanner. Access to one can be difficult, but try calling your local fine art or large-scale printing company and you may be in luck. It scans the painting without touching the art and is able to capture the nuances of the paint strokes without grainy reflections. If you don’t have access to one, an  Epson 11000XL is a great second option.

13. Add a natural edge

A torn edge adds authenticity to your work

A great way to apply more authenticity to your original piece of work is giving it rough-cut, deckle edges. An easy way to do this is by using a straight-edge ruler to tear your watercolour paper edge as oppose to cutting it with an X-acto knife. It distinguishes the painting as an original piece of artwork and makes it available for unique framing options.

14. Frame the finished piece

Watercolour paintings work well in shadow box frames

Painting on watercolour paper has perks. Because it’s paper, you can frame it so that it’ll showcase its natural deckle edges. A wonderful way to frame artworks on paper is by top float-mounting it in a shadow box-like frame. The painting is adhered on top of archival foam board to make it appear as if it’s suspended in air, with space between all sides of the paper. In my example, I chose a white wooden frame with two-inch rabbet height. To have the painting float-mount like this, you’ll need ample depth for all of the different framing components including the glass, mat boards and backing.

This article originally appeared in issue 166 of ImagineFX, the world's leading magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 166 or subscribe.

Read more:

• A beginner's guide to watercolour brush techniques
• How to create glazes with watercolour
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When it comes to failed new year's resolutions, learning a new language is up there with attending the gym regularly and staying sober in January. To keep multi-linguists in the making coming back for more, freemium language-learning platform Duolingo has mastered the art of emotional manipulation with Duo, the green owl mascot who has a reputation for keeping users in check.

Duo, along with the rest of the tool's layout and design, has been given a refresh for 2019 that aims to make the website and app more consistent and engaging. With the likes of Instagram and Twitter offering easy distractions from language study, Duolingo has also borrowed heavily from the gamification playbook.

The new Duolingo mascot goes back to a symmetrical design

The redesign – including the new logo design – was created by Duolingo's in-house team, and is the biggest update to the tool in five years. Duo's design has been simplified to make it easier to animate and the entire interface has been given a more cartoony refresh.

Regular and intermittent users of Duolingo will already know that it relies on gamification. Heart bars encourage you to get an answer right and maintain a winning streak, while the Duo mascot helps to build a more personal attachment thanks to his reactions to user activity. Practise regularly and Duo will be overjoyed, skip a few sessions and he'll soon whip out the waterworks.

The refreshed platform includes updated mascots and icons

For its latest iteration, Duo has been brought to life with more positions and animations to get the most out of his connection with audiences. A closely cropped profile of his beaky face has also been used for the Duolingo app icon to really cement the connection with mobile games.

Speaking to The Verge, Duolingo's head of design, Tyler Murphy, explains why Duo is being preened into the platform's version of a gaming mascot. "Games have this unique ability where you get really attached to their character. That’s why they can keep releasing new games with that same character, and people will rush out to buy them."

The new Duolingo app icon is designed to resemble a game

For a mascot that has gone on to inspire memes, it's fitting that Duo started out as an act of trolling. He's an owl because the bird is associated with knowledge, however his distinctive green plumage was a joke aimed at Duolingo co-founder Severin Hacker.

After Hacker specified that anything was fair game for the mascot except the colour green, the creative team found the bait too hard to resist and made Duo green as a joke. It's a choice that seems to have paid off though. The green colouring makes Duo stand out, and it helps to make the platform feel even more like a computer game than an educational tool.

The Duolingo team refreshed the tool's various screens so they look more consistent

Duolingo currently has roughly 300 million registered users and offers 81 different language courses. Some users saw the updated app and mascot roll out at the tail end of 2018, while everyone else can expect to see the spruced up platform very soon.

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If you've ever wondered how people make a living from YouTube, and wish you could do the same, you're in luck. You can get started with the Ultimate YouTube Master Class Bundle. With 28 hours of training, you'll learn how to steadily build your brand and a career on one of today's most popular online platforms.

Find out how to start a channel, how to monetise it, and how to gain a loyal following. You'll also learn important shooting, editing, and marketing techniques that will ensure high production value and lots of eyeballs!

Get Ultimate YouTube Master Class Bundle while it's on sale for just $29 – that's 97 per cent off the regular price.

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You’ve shot some quality video footage and so now it’s time for the fun part, the part where you get to fully unleash your creativity: video editing. However, if you’ve never tackled it before, editing video can be a daunting task. But never fear, creating quality videos is easier than you might think. 

Whether you’re new to the world of video, a creator of social videos, a professional video editor or a prosumer who needs easy-to-use video effects, Filmora9 is a video editor designed for all types of creators and skill levels. Feature-rich, including full 4K support and endless video effects, Filmora9 will enable you to create professional-looking video with speed and ease.

Here are five essential video editing techniques to help you get started:

Match Cut

A match cut is very similar to a standard cut (when you cut from one clip to another without any transition), the difference being when you cut between clips,  the subject matter in both match. It’s an editing technique which, done correctly, can really elevate a production. Watch the above video to see how effective a match cut can be.

J or L cut

Two common but powerful video editing techniques are J and L cuts. The J cut is when the viewer watching clip A hears the audio from clip B before seeing clip B. This audio transition is a great way of playing with the viewers senses before they see any visuals. 

Contra to the J cut is the L cut, which works on the same principle, only mirrored. With an L cut, the audio from a preceding scene continues to play over footage from the following scene. 

Discover how both J and L cut works in the demonstration above.

Montage

A montage is a video editing technique that signifies the passage of time, a flashback or an artistic compilation of imagery, often underscored with music. The above ‘Emotions’ video montage by Lindsay McCutcheon is a great example of how powerful this simple but effective editing technique can be.

Whip Pan

A whip pan is actually a camera technique, whereby the camera literally whips from one direction to another, causing a blurred shot to be created. This type of shot can then be used as an unbroken means of transitioning between two clips. Whip pan transitions are a great way to indicate the passage of time or create an atmosphere of frenzy and disturbance, as demonstrated perfectly in the above scene, again from Hot Fuzz. 

Sam Kolder transitions

Sam Kolder is a travel influencer and a filmmaker and he’s known for his epic travel videos. He’s also known for his unique signature style, like zoom transitions. Filmora9’s toolset includes a variety of transitions to choose from, including ones inspired by Sam Kolder himself. Find out how they work, and how you can create them in your own projects in the video above. 

Now we’ve covered some essential video editing techniques, you can get started on your own video projects. Need some extra help? The Filmora YouTube channel has lots more video editing tips and tricks to guide you in the right direction.

Filmora9 is available for Mac and Windows and is priced at $59.99 for a lifetime license or $39.99 for one year. Find more information and sign up here. 

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If you're at all tapped into the world of comics and superheroes on social media, the chances are you've seen some weird and wonderful Spider-Man inspired fan art fill up your timeline lately. But why have fans of the famous Marvel hero started sharing art with #Spidersona? What exactly is a Spidersona? And how can you get involved?

Well, it's all to do with the latest Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. For those who haven't seen the film (and you really should, after you've finished reading this article, of course), the story sees a range of alternative Spider-Men and -Women from parallel dimensions come together to defeat the villainous Kingpin.

• 14 imaginative web comics to inspire you

Thanks to its funny script, tight plotting and stunning animated visuals, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse has gone down a storm with fans and critics alike. However, the film has also sparked the imagination of digital artists due to its alternate takes on the Spider-Man costume. In the film we see a film noir variant, an anime inspired design, and, well, Spider-Pig.

It's these variations that illustrators are having fun with in their fan art. Taking the idea of parallel universes and running with it, artists are conjuring up their own Spider-Man personas, or Spidersonas, and creating imaginative character designs for them.

Shared with the hashtag #Spidersona, these superhero creations can be split into two groups. The first one sees the artist imagine what they themselves would look like as the webbed wonder. Meanwhile the second camp take things further by imagining a completely new spin on the Marvel hero.

Top artists have weighed in with their takes on #Spidersona, and the creativity on display is well worth checking out over on Twitter. Here are some of our favourites, starting with one of the earliest creations that predates the hashtag itself.

Want to get involved? Just create your own Spidersona and don't forget to tag it #Spidersona on social media.

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One of the hardest parts of being a freelancer is the money side of things. If you've had regular pay cheque your whole life, living with no guaranteed income can be daunting. Some months you'll be working non-stop, others will be ominously quiet. The easiest way to stay out of trouble – especially when you're first starting out – is by being thrifty with your money. We asked leading freelance artists, designers and photographers for their top tips on being smart with money.

Before we kick things off, here's a bonus tip: there are plenty of helpful resources online that won't cost you a penny – if you know where to find them. Take a look at our pick of the best free fonts, free iPhone apps for creatives and free graphic design software just for starters.

01. Hunt out free entertainment

Entertainment and inspiration can come for free

The Finish illustrator Annu Kilpeläinen, who now lives in London, says starting out as a freelancer doesn't mean putting an end to your social life. You just might have to spend a little less on going out. Kilpeläinen takes advantage of cheap or, better, completely free stuff in her local area. 

"If you live in a city like London there are plenty of exhibitions that are free," she points out. But Kilpeläinen has another favourite, budget-friendly pastime, something you can normally do no matter where you live: "Bingo! And you stand a change of winning money, so what's better?" 

If even bingo's currently out of your price range, you could always ask for a little bit of extra money: "Lots of smaller jobs have fixed fees but its always clever to try to negotiate your fees up. That £50 extra can get you many nights out at the bingo hall."

02. Buy a good printer

Illustrator Valentina Remenar has saved over time by investing in a home printer

The illustrator and concept artist Valentina Remenar says the big money-saver in her career as a freelancer has been owning a professional-quality printer. They're not cheap, so it meant spending quite a lot of money in the beginning. But she's made it all back and then some – and if your specialism means you need to do a lot of printing, you might find the same. 

"Over time I was happy to have it since I didn't have to throw huge amounts of money at professional photo prints whenever I went to conventions or sent them to other people. So, choosing a good big format printer with bigger cartridges was definitely a choice that I didn't regret." Here's our guide to the best printers around (at the best prices) to help get you started.

03. Work out what you need to live on

Before she started freelancing, the typographer Nicole Phillips made a bare-bones list of household expenses – not a single luxury among them. This way she knew exactly how much money she needed to make each month to break even.

"This was critical," she says, "so I didn’t spend money I didn’t really have." That doesn't mean you blow everything over the break-even point. Phillips puts a bit of money aside for her tax bill and to upgrade her tech and software when needs be. "I usually do both the tax and tech fund based on a percentage of my income for the quarter so I don’t get caught short with unexpected expenses."

04. Don't upgrade just for the sake of it

Check it'll improve your work before shelling out for all the latest gadgets

Jaime Zuverza says newest isn't always best. The Austin-based designer and musician says too often people upgrade gadgets and software just for the sake of it. 

"You probably don't need the latest greatest programs and technology if you're an illustrator," Zuverza says. "I use a nine-year-old version of Adobe CS and an eight-year-old laptop."

If something's working for you, don't feel you have to upgrade just because everybody else is. Make sure there's going to be a real benefit to your work before you get your wallet out – chances are owning the iPhone one model up from yours isn't going to have a huge impact on your career. Is a slightly lighter laptop with a slighter bigger screen going to win you more commissions?

That said, don't plough on with tools or software that's holding you back. Do your research into what the most cost-effective solution is for your personal needs. We have a range of buying guides on everything from the best laptops to the best drawing tablets to help you make sure you don't waste your money on features you don't need – and our automatic price-checker means you'll see the best offers around.

05. Be wary of headhunters

Justin Gignac is co-founder and CEO of creative talent network Working Not Working. He says one of the best way to be a thrifty freelancer is by not working with headhunters, who will mark up your day rate. 

"Some headhunters and staffing companies," Gignac says, "charge anywhere from 15-20 per cent commission for placing you in a freelance gig, meaning you’re worth more than you’re charging and should be getting paid more." 

His solution is simple: if a headhunter brings you a job you desperately want, then take it. But ask them to be honest about their fees so you know your true day rate and can negotiate that price in future. "You don’t have to stress as much about saving when you’re actually getting paid what you deserve."

06. Be mindful of the price-effort balance

Pascal Campion points out that the highest-paying jobs don't always mean the best hourly rate

The artist Pascal Campion says all freelancers should be thrifty with their time: "Too often freelancers ask for too little and put in way more hours than they need into a job and don't even dare to charge these to the employer." 

Let's say you've a got a couple of jobs offer: one pays £100, the other £1,000. The higher fee isn't necessarily the better of the two. You need to know how much work, time and effort, will go into each, then you can work out which really pays better. 

"If more freelancers just ask for what they are really worth – and I am not meaning what they feel they are worth but what rationally they know they are worth – they could relax a little, focus on the job at hand and not have to scramble with 15,000 jobs to pay the rent and buy medication to keep them calm."

07. Only buy what you really, really need

Worried about quitting your job to go freelance? Take some advice from Armand Serrano. The Filipino artist and animator recently went freelance after packing in his job… at Disney! Being an independent artist takes discipline, says Serrano. But "buying smart" is a discipline of its own. You need to master it. Before you buy, no matter how discounted those trainers are, no matter how good the reviews are at that new taco place, you need to ask a couple of key questions. "Whether it's for work or personal use, before I make a purchase, I always ask myself: Do I need it? Or do I want it? Always works for me."

08. Get the right insurance

Illustrator Emmeline Pidgen recommends getting your professional insurance via a creative organisation

For freelancers who need public and products liability insurance (which cover your business against injury you cause to a third party during business activities) or professional indemnity insurance (for claims arising out of an actual or alleged breach of your professional duty), illustrator Emmeline Pidgen recommends UK freelancers join the a-n organisation. A £38 yearly membership includes £5m PPL insurance and £5m PI insurance. "It works out far cheaper than a lot of insurance quotes on their own – plus you get access to a great creative network!" says Pidgen.

09. Reuse your work

Sculptor Romain Van den Bogaer has only been freelancing for three years. Saving money isn't his goal just yet – any profit goes straight back into new equipment and software. But he's still got one eye on the future. He always looks ahead at least six months to ensure he has money coming in. That means planning for conventions where he can sell pieces and scheduling workshops where he can teach. 

But his best tip for being thrifty is about making your work work for you: "I try to create artworks for multiple purposes at one time. A demo piece for an educational workshop can be finished later at my studio and be part of my next resin casts releases, then the original piece can be displayed and sold in a gallery."

10. Don't live in the most expensive cities

Thanks to remote working possibilities, you don't need to live in the main creative hubs any more

Where you live can make a huge difference to your cost of living, and today, it's possible to have clients from around the world, wherever you're based. Photographer Maciek Nabrdalik used to live in the US. He's now back in his home country Poland, where living costs are considerably cheaper. He has few overheads and tries to work with international clients who generally pay more than domestic ones. If he travels for work, he'll often extend his stay by a few days and get some personal work out of the visit. And, vice versa, if he wants to go somewhere to take pictures, he'll get an assignment that sends him to that particular place so he saves on flight fares, hotels, and expenses.

Read more:

• 6 ways to save money as a freelancer
• 5 ways to get more freelance work in 2019
• 10 good reasons for turning down work

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You're reading A Look Back at 2018. Our Plans for 2019., originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+!

A year in review is a great way to compile everything and appreciate how much we have accomplished in the previous year. In this post, we’ll take a look back at 2018 and share our plans for 2019.

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Many of us now have some kind of voice assistant around the home, whether it be an Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod or a Google Home. It seems that voice is going to have a huge impact on the way we go about our daily lives, and as web developers we need to ask ourselves, what are the ways we can improve user experience by implementing voice into our websites and web applications?

In this tutorial, we are going to be building a simple Alexa skill that updates the news content on a website. The category type will depend on the voice input by the user. It would help if you have some experience with AWS already, but there is a lot of documentation out there to help you out if you get in a pickle.

• 10 steps to an engaging user experience

What will I need?

First, find the files for this tutorial on GitHub.

You will also need to register for an Amazon Developer account and an AWS account.

Firebase will be used to store our user input, so make sure you sign up for a Firebase account. We will also be using the News API to get the latest news stories, so get yourself a free API key at newsapi.org.

Intents, utterances and slots

Here are the utterances we have setup inside the Alexa Developer Console for our skill. Feel free to add more

Once you are set up, navigate to developer.amazon.com/alexa/console/ask and click on Create Skill. The first thing we need to do is set up Intents, Utterances and Slot Types inside the Alexa Developer Console. An intent is what the user of the skill is trying to achieve. Utterances are specific phrases that users will say when talking to Alexa, for example: 'What day is it?'. A slot is a variable that relates to an utterance, for example: 'What time is it in {place}?'. This would make {place} the custom slot.

Select Intents from the left-hand side of the dashboard and click Add Intent. Make sure Create Custom Intent is selected and type ContentUpdate in the text box: this will now become our function name later on.

We now move on to utterances, which is where we are going to need to take the category of the news that the user wants to update to. We will be using category as our slot name and then set up the following utterances:

Finally, we need to create a slot type, where we will write out a couple of inputs that we expect to get from the user. From the left-hand side of the dashboard, click Add next to Slot Types. Type in 'NewsType' and click the 'Create custom slot type' button. Under Slot Values, you will need to add in some news categories. We will use Sport, Business, Technology and Politics. Once you are finished, make sure you have selected NewsType from the dropdown as the slot type for category.

AWS Lambda function

We will now head over to Lambda inside AWS. Select Create Function and then select the Blueprints radio box. Make sure you select the alexa-skill-kit-sdk-factskill from the list and click Configure. Give your function a name and then create a new role. When finished, click Create Function at the bottom of the page. You will need to select Alexa Skills Kit as a trigger for your function, then we can move onto the function itself. We won't be using the built-in code editor for this project; instead we will be writing out the functions locally and then uploading a zip file. Make sure you copy the contents of the index.js file inside the Lambda editor, as we will paste this inside our local project.

Create a local project

We will start by creating a new Node project locally. Inside our own index.js file, we will paste the contents we just took from Lambda. We need to import Firebase and the Alexa SDK using NPM.

Make sure you include the references at the top of your index.js file.

You should have some default code already there, one of which is called 'LaunchRequest'. This is used to welcome the user to the skill. All you need to do here is change the welcome message to 'Welcome to website update'.

If you use the :tell command then Alexa will end the skill after the message, whereas if you use :ask then Alexa will listen for eight seconds for the next prompt. We will be using :ask, so that Alexa is ready to listen for our update prompt.

Firebase configuration

Next, we need to add our Firebase configuration details at the top of the index.js file.

ContentUpdate function

The Alexa simulator is a great way of testing your skill on your machine without needing an Amazon Echo device

Earlier in the tutorial, we created an intent called 'ContentUpdate'. This means we need to create a ContentUpdate function, where we will respond to the user input based on the Utterances we created. So, if the user said 'Update to sport', then this function would be called. We begin by creating a variable called categoryType, which takes the voice input of the user. We then store the category type inside the Firebase database and get Alexa to tell us the name of the category we updated to.

After you save your index.js file, you will need to zip up the project. Navigate to the project folder from the command line and type the following command.

Head back to your function inside Lambda and scroll down to the Function Code section. From the drop-down box for code entry type, select 'Upload a .zip file'. You will now be able to upload your zip file.

Before you test your project inside the Alexa simulator, take the ARN on the top right of the Lambda page and input this inside the Endpoint section of the Alexa console. To test your skill, all you need to say is 'Open web update' and Alexa will respond with 'Welcome to web update'. If you now say 'Update to sport', Alexa should say 'you updated to sport'. The word 'sport' should also appear under preference inside your Firebase database.

News page

Here is what the final HTML page will look like. It will display the category that you requested through Alexa

Finally, download the news page I created (index.html) from the Alexa Project – HTML folder on GitHub.

Open up the main.js file and enter in your own Firebase configuration details on lines 1-8, like we did earlier in the tutorial.

You will also need to enter your News API key from newsapi.org on line 11 of the main.js file.

If you now open the index.html file, it should load in some news stories from your chosen category. Every time you tell Alexa to update with a new category (sport, technology, business or politics), the news story category on the page will change.

Alexa, onwards!

This is only a small example of what you could achieve with Alexa and hopefully gives you a good foundation for any future voice projects. You could always add in more slot values to get more categories from the API or even update the project so that it pulls in your own website news/posts. I can't wait to see how web and app developers will include Alexa in their projects. 

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.

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Packaging is something we're bombarded with on a daily basis. Creating an eye-catching packaging design that suits the product, stands out on crowded shelves, and doesn't cost a fortune to produce is a real challenge. 

In this post, we've rounded up standout examples of packaging designs to guide your efforts. For more inspiration, jump to page 4 where you'll find a list of handy free online packaging design resources.

Now more than ever, packaging design matters. A economic struggles and rising concern for environmental issues have added new challenges for packaging designers. Read on to explore the design trends shaping the packaging landscape right now.

01. Manos de Cacao

Anagrama made a range of stains by hand, using different tools, for this unique packaging

Premium bean-to-bar chocolate brand Manos de Cacao wanted packaging that felt simultaneously timeless and eye-catching. Inspired by the company’s local production process, Mexico-based studio Anagrama combined messy handmade textures with a vibrant colour palette and clean layouts. The result is a new visual system for the brand that places sophistication at the forefront and evokes an appropriately organic undertone. 

“Making a ton of stains by hand with different tools and choosing the right ones for each box was challenging,” says David Gutiérrez, partner and creative director at Anagrama. “However, this was also the most fun part of the process.”

02. Hardy

The packaging for this premium smoked salmon is made from raw micro-corrugated cardboard printed in UV colour

“Third-generation family business Hardy specialises in smoked salmon. The company turned to Portugal-based studio This is Pacifica to design stationery, packaging and a website that would communicate the premium quality of its product. “It’s a long-lasting process that can’t be rushed. From salting to smoking, each stage is executed to perfection. So we created the idea of ​​Hardy ‘Smoked Masterpieces’,” explains creative director Pedro Mesquita.

The identity combines two main elements: an abstract salmon symbol, and a fun, sharp wordmark that could have been cut by a knife. “The packaging was treated as an extension of the brand,” says Mesquita, “and is entirely made of raw micro-corrugated cardboard printed in UV colour.”

03. Thomas Kosmala

Concrete kept things abstract to suit the conservative Middle Eastern market for this perfume

Looking to break into European and global markets, emerging perfume brand Thomas Kosmala tasked Toronto-based agency Concrete with a complete brand overhaul. The new packaging marries classic with contemporary, unexpectedly wrapping a sophisticated custom typeface around the edges of the perfume box and over a subtle emboss.

“The brand needed to appeal to both Middle Eastern and Western audiences,” explains chief creative officer Diti Katona. “Sensuous, provocative and sometimes raw photography conveys the depth and richness of the scents, but is abstracted in the packaging to comply with the conservative sensibilities of the Middle Eastern market. A more explicit use of the imagery is employed in digital media, and it’s more subtle in print experiences,” Katona adds.

04. Wild Island Sacred Tree

Thirst created a juicy colour palette using watercolour

After designing the bottle for Wild Island Gin, drinks branding studio Thirst was tasked with designing a second edition, Wild Island Sacred Tree. Inspired by the gin itself – which is infused with hand-gathered botanicals from the small Scottish island of Colonsay – the studio looked to the island’s ripe bramble vine to create a deliciously juicy colour palette using watercolour. 

“The brief was to capture the essence of autumn on the island, and the wonderful bounty of berries and botanicals it produces,” explains creative director Matt Burns. 

Thirst paired the autumnal colour palette with a simple wordmark that gives a nod to the island’s Viking heritage. When it came to applying the fluid watercolour design to the bottle, the texture was printed on both sides of the transfer, enabling it to be viewed through the distortion of glass and liquid. “This allows the watercolour to take on new life, constantly changing as the bottle is rotated,” adds Burns.

05. Halo

Underline Studio went for an energetic, slightly rebellious look for this brewery packaging

Halo is an adventurous brewery that takes the traditional recipes of rare styles of beer and experiments with the ingredients. With a taproom and bottle shop that welcome inquisitive visitors, the brewery needed an approachable brand that matched its unconventional sensibilities.

“We created a logo, labels and packaging that use geometric patterns in unexpected colours, resulting in a look that’s energetic, modern and a bit rebellious,” explains Claire Dawson, creative director at Underline Studio, the studio behind the project. “This direction was very intentionally chosen as a way for Halo to stand apart visually in the craft beer space.”

Dawson admits it was a challenge to keep each label unique while still being recognisable as part of a larger system. “But finding abstract ways to graphically represent each of the beers was our favourite part of the project,” she adds.

06. Juice Society

This juice branding balances scientific iconography with a touch of whimsy

Third-year design student Ryan Hicks was tasked with revamping the visual identity of Austin-based juice bar Juice Society as it expanded into the wholesale market. “They felt that their previous identity was too rustic and gave an outdated reflection of their upbeat spirit,” explains Hicks, adding that the company has a philosophy of promoting realistic balance when it comes to wellness.

“I decided to convey this playful attitude through an ecosystem of whimsical, somewhat scientific iconography that hinted at the juice’s benefits, but provided some element of optimism,” he says. “I also wanted to convey the brand’s unconventional approach to the health realm, so to stand out on refrigerator shelves and catch shoppers’ eyes, I chose to design the labels to be as minimal as possible.”

07. Stefano Sauces

Each sauce has a unique typographic treatment

Montreal-based agency lg2 took an original approach to its branding of the first ready-to-eat products from well-known chef Stefano Faita and his partner Michele Forgione. Featuring a jovial, energetic caricature of Faita, the identity gives each sauce a unique typographic treatment – with nutritional and legal information presented in an unusual vertical fashion outside the shape.

“It was a major challenge to differentiate the brand in this type of category, where all brands merge into one,” says David Kessous, creative director at lg2. “The concept’s originality produced a real, appealing identity and packaging that leaps out.”

08. Fierce & Noble

Halo wanted brand packaging that would jump out from the shelf

Bristol studio Halo was approached to create a strategy, name, brand identity and packaging for a new craft brewery in St Werburghs, Bristol. The name – Fierce & Noble – represents the brewery team’s fierce independence and respect for the heritage of the craft, while the bold creative, custom type and bespoke patterns reflect the local vibrancy of its location.

“The product needed to jump out on bar and shelf,” explains Halo design director Andy German. “And what with the brewery being in a creative vibrant area of Bristol with other craft breweries in it, it made sense for the building to stand out and be seen. The main pattern for the brand was based around the ampersand we made – my eyes went a bit fuzzy creating this one.”

09. Colors

Music fans can customise their own record sleeve by moving around the coloured transparencies

Musician Beck’s latest album Colors sports a customisable record sleeve created by designers Jimmy Turrell and Steve Stacey. Formed from layers of different die-cut coloured transparencies, the cover can be assembled into a bespoke sleeve by listeners.    

“We decided on a route of colour and shape – simple and strong,” explains Turrell, who was art director and video director on the project. “We tried not to set too many restrictions on where we went with this in the initial stages. We started looking at a whole range of things for inspiration – childhood games like Ludo and Connect 4, old VHS and cassette packaging, all the way through to artists like Bridget Riley and Piet Mondrian, and Beck was really open to us experimenting. Seeing it all out there – and the positive feedback it’s been getting – is really satisfying.” 

10. Artisan

lg2 wanted to up Boréale's credibility in the microbrewery space

When Québec-based microbrewery Boréale launched a new series of beer, Artisan, it tasked creative agency lg2 with designing the new identity. “The client’s main objective was to restore the brand’s credibility among fans of microbrews,” explains graphic designer Marie-Pier Gilbert. “We had to establish Boréale in a niche segment without detracting from its mass appeal.”

lg2 worked hand-in-hand with the master brewer. For some products, the recipe influenced the artistic direction; in other cases, the reverse happened. “For example, for the Pilsner des Mers, the name and design were developed first, which then inspired the master brewer to give the recipe a salty note,” says Gilbert. “Flexibility and listening were a big part of the teamwork.”

11. Moses Lake Cellars

These labels were designed to work together as a collection [click the icon to enlarge]

Thirst is a design agency specialising in the craft drinks industry, and it's currently exploring new techniques and executions in packaging design as part of its Studio Series. This range of bottle labels for luxury wine brand Moses Lake Cellars was designed to work as a collective on a dinner table.

"We wanted to explore typographic lettering techniques that were bold and youthful, yet still carry the luxurious qualities associated with wine," says Thirst. To give an extra touch of luxury, the studio used heavy paper stock, and each label is double folded, white onto gold.

12. CS light bulbs

These clever boxes pair light bulbs with insect illustrations

Everyday products such as light bulbs tend to lend themselves to fairly utilitarian packaging, but these, produced by Belarus electrical company CS, boast beautiful boxes that turn the product into an important part of the packaging design.

Designed by Angelina Pischikova, with line illustrations by Anna Orlovskaya, this amazing packaging uses detailed drawings of insects, and the bulbs themselves are paired with certain bugs depending on their shape and size. Long, thin bulbs are stored in dragonfly boxes, while the coiled stripes of an energy saving bulb become the abdomen of a bumble bee.

13. Dolce 

Dolce's packaging uses imagery from Alice in Wonderland

Located in the heart of Belgrade, Serbia, Dolce is a cake shop that combines traditional techniques with a modern approach. Independent design studio Metaklinika was tasked with creating a range of packaging for the brand. The whimsical result takes inspiration from Baroque aesthetics, and uses iconography based around the theme of Alice in Wonderland.

14. Leafs by Snoop

Pentagram's designs for Snoop are dope as heck

With cannabis slowly becoming less and less illegal in the USA, cannabis branding is increasingly becoming a thing, complete with packaging to match. Snoop Dogg brought in none other than Pentagram to design the brand identity and packaging for his line of cannabis products: Leafs by Snoop. 

Stepping far away from the idea of furtively buying a grubby little bag of greenery, Pentagram's designs include a distinctive leaf-based logo (including an animated version), luxurious weed boxes and a range of edibles including six chocolate bars and cannabis sweets called, of course, 'Dogg Treats'.

15. Colour me Blind 

Graduate Alexandra Burling's designs for milk, cornflakes and tinned tomatoes are aimed at visually impaired customers

For her graduation project at , graphic design student Alexandra Burling wanted to see if it was possible to create an aesthetically appealing packaging design for the visually impaired. Following her research period, she decided to focus on groceries. 

“I wanted to give blind people the liberty of doing something so obvious as going down to the supermarket and buying milk,” explains Burling. "The aim was to provoke discussion and pave the way for innovative thinking about how packaging design can appeal to more senses than sight."

Next page: 15 more innovative packaging designs

16. The Lovely Clinic

SomeOne used this painterly design to represent transformation

London-based creative agency SomeOne created this tactile packaging as part of its branding scheme The Lovely Clinic. Faced with the challenge of branding a beauty client, SomeOne decided it was time to challenge the industry norms. “The beauty sector is awash with images of impossibly beautiful women, who hint that if it wasn't for a particular brand, they would resemble the back of an elephant rather than a glowing example of perfection,” it points out on its website. 

“We centred on the visual theme of paint – globally recognised as a way of either enhancing the existing – or a way of working with basic elements to create something astonishing,” adds senior designer Tom Myers.

17. Brandless

Brandless trademarked the white space on its designs

US company Brandless has taken minimalism to the extreme by trademarking white space in its range of food and home items. Co-designed with Brooklyn agency Red Antler, each product is made up of a single colour with the white box design dropped on top. The text in the boxes is effectively negative space, and is readable thanks to the colour underneath peeking through. 

Interestingly, the lack of identity means that the range can dodge a fee known as Brand Tax, which means Brandless is able to sell all the products at a standard price of $3. Read more about the range here.

18. Chandon

Butterfly Canon has created some brilliant limited edition branding

After the huge success of its American Summer limited edition bottles, sparkling wine brand Chandon approached London-based agency Butterfly Canon to create a new series of limited edition branding. The sleek design retains the elegance and playfulness of the original concept whilst replacing the 'Americana' approach with a more globally recognised nautical theme. This way, European and other non-American customers will further relate to the brand.

19. Nike Air

It's certainly inventive but does it beat the classic shoe box design?

Nike Air is arguably one of the most popular sneaker designs ever released. Not content with a regular old shoebox, Berlin-based agency Scholz & Friends came up with a brand new, reimagined packaging design for its favourite trainers.

Very much taking the 'Air' aspect into account, the team placed the sneakers in an air-tight plastic bag to give the illusion of floating trainers. Highlighting the Air cushioning of the brand, this design also reduces the risk of damage when shipping.

20. Nail packaging

A clever pack helps prevent any painful incidents

Designer Melissa Archer 's project manages to make a boring set of nails look sexy – getting the thumbs up from us. The simple but clever packaging hangs from the user's belt loop, providing easy access without reaching into a box, bag or pocket and being stabbed. The materials and typography used for the design adds a touch of sophistication and desirability to what would usually be thought of as a pretty mundane object.

21. McDonald's Fries

Ben Frost puts a graphic design twist on the iconic fries packaging

How about a side of art with your burger? McDonald's packaging is as recognisable as packaging comes but artist Ben Frost decided to mix things up by drawing some famous faces as well as some pop-culture icons onto the red and yellow box.

22. Phantom Cigar

Old naval symbols really bring out this packaging design

Here, designer Alex Pabian uses old naval symbols and a minimal design to reinvent the packaging for an exclusive brand of cigars. Alex is a Polish/South African graphic designer and art director, currently based in Miami, Florida. This project involved the redesign of the case, labels and tubes, with a vintage look and feel.

23. Onuma Honey

This is a truly bee-autiful piece of packaging design

This offering from Japanese studio Akaoni Design is a bee-utiful example of 'less is more' when it comes to packaging. It consists of a small jar, simple stickers and classic brown paper, with an array of sweet coloured stamps to finish it all off. Art direction and design was taken care of by Motoki Koitabashi and it's clear he knows what's he doing when it comes to making a striking impact in the aisle.

24. Spine Vodka

This vodka brand gets down to the bare bones of packaging

German designer Johannes Schulz created this inspirational packaging for Spine Vodka. "It was a private project I started after my graduation of an international communication design school in Hamburg, Germany," he explains. "Spine is a high quality product just like the design, reduced and simple with a consciously 'twist' in his message and a memorable name fitting to the project."

Integrated the spine with the ribcage to communicate a product with a 'backbone', the uniqe 3D design approach sets it aside from its 2D counterparts. "The transparent glass material stands for a product that doesn't have to hide something," Schulz concludes.

25. Allsorts Black and White

A new look for an old-school sweet

Back in 2014, Liquorice Allsorts had a mini facelift from Bond Creative Agency for Cloetta – a leading confectionary company in the Nordic region. The new packaging used the traditional sweets' distinctive shapes and colours and used them as the basis for a more modern design.

The agency's recent update for Cloetta's Black and White edition follows the same theme, but with the colour stripped away. "The silver print and matt finishing give a tasty touch to the functional cardboard box," says Bond.

26. Karamelleriet

A sweet packaging style for these caramels

Copenhagen design studio Bessermachen created this frankly beautiful branding and packaging design to reflect the handmade aesthetic of the caramel producing Karamelleriet. Creating an entirely new visual identity that contains everything from the logo to packaging to display and flyers, Bessermachen has achieved an expression that is caramel production worthy.

27. Cervecería Sagrada

This packaging captures the colourful spirit of Mexican wrestlers

While Corona is probably the most recognisable beer exported from Mexico, Cervecería Sagrada is a Mexican craft beer that captures the country's colourful history and spirit in its label. Designer José Guízar was inspired by Lucha Libre wrestlers, who wear bright masks and have equally colourful personalities.

During the 1950s Lucha Libre were considered folk heroes and starred not only in the wrestling ring, but also in comic books and movies in Mexico. Guízar’s labels recreate the masks of some of the most famous and recognisable wrestlers.

28. REN Skincare

 Kangan Arora is a London-based designer with a particular flair for bold textiles and vivid prints. Global skincare brand REN brought Arora in to create Christmas gift packaging to go with the theme ‘little boxes of joy’. The studio created seven different abstract patterns inspired by traditional festive products such as wrapping paper, fairy lights and cosy textiles.  

29. Stranger & Stranger Spirit No. 13

Stranger & Stranger No 13 comes boxed and bagged in retro newspaper

Beverage bottle branding guru Stranger & Stranger designed this limited edition holiday give-away liquor that features one of the most detailed labels you will ever see. The Spirit No 13 label just screams vintage and consists of over 500 words. To top it all off, the bottle is presented wrapped in a specially printed piece of newspaper that gives it what they call a 'moonshine' feel.

30. TIQLD 

TIQLD's packaging visualises the story that accompanies the spice blend

When planning the packaging design for spice blend range TIQLD, Alphabet used humorous illustrations to convey a playful, confident brand identity. The pouches each feature a split design capturing an unexpected combination of objects.  

“We wanted to bring the idea of making meals more bold and adventurous into the brand imagery. The structure of the illustrations combines the base ingredient that the spice works with (either meat, fish or veggies) and juxtaposes this with an unexpected abstract element that visualises the story that accompanies the spice blend,” explains Alphabet. “The stories not only represent the bold personality of the brand but also the bold flavours that they create.”

Next page: More innovative packaging designs

31. Topography of America State Magnets

This design was inspired by a jigsaw

This stunning example of packaging design was created through a collaboration between Mette Hornung of Bureau of Betterment and Greg Jones of Fifty-Four Forty. The packaging design was inspired by the jigsaw used to assemble each state, with a piece of charcoal coloured chipboard sandwiched between layers of thick cardboard.

To highlight each state's unique attributes, a small pamphlet with state facts was created with images and notable geographic landmarks.

32. Poilu paintbrushes

Some paintbrushes have been dyed to create a 'beard'

This excellent example of packaging design comes from Simon Laliberté and offers the function of assembling two paintbrushes together with only one cardboard piece, which is printed on both sides.

The natural hairs of some paintbrushes have been dyed to give the illusion of the moustache and beard combos. The font at the top of the handle is also noteworthy.

33. TeaPee

Tear away the pattern to reveal your teabag

Canadian art director Sophie Pépin drew inspiration from the roots of the Native American nomadic lifestyle for this tea packaging design she calls North American Teapee. The Native American patterns that are placed around the packaging are cleverly torn away to reveal the teabags themselves.

34. Mighty Nuts

Maija Rozenfelde focused on user experience and function

This incredible pistachio packaging design was created by student Maija Rozenfelde, when she was still completing her degree in packaging design at Pratt Institute. 

She says of the design: "A crucial part of the thought process was to focus on user experience and second function of the package. The main intention was to create graphics that depict the crunchiness of pistachios, that’s where the hand-made type treatment comes in."

35. Helvetimart

Switzerland's regional flags provided the inspiration for these food packaging designs

Helvetimart is a Swiss shop that sells specialty food products. For its packaging design, branding heavyweight Anagrama took inspiration from the regional flags of the country's 26 sovereign states.

"We simplified these flags to create a homogeneous language, using representative elements and colours to develop the labels for the brand’s products and the signage within the store to ease its navigation," the agency explains.

36. The Great Bonza

This packaging design is as eccentric as the wine brand itself

When designing the packaging for this Australian wine, Swedish advertising agency United Power wanted to create something cheerful and retro, that also related to the product's heritage.

"We thought: since the wine is powerful in flavour, and The Great Bonza is a quirky name for a wine – why not use a quirky Australian circus?" says the agency. "The design is playful with a nod to the classic image of the boxing kangaroo. We chose happy and bright colours that are perhaps a little unexpected in the context." 

37. Utopick Chocolates

Origami is the theme running throughout this chocolate packaging

Based in Valencia, Spain, Lavernia & Cienfuegos is a multidisciplinary design studio specialising in graphic, product and packaging design. When master chocolatier Paco Llopis required a new design and packaging for his products, the team pulled out all the stops. Llopis already had an icon: a ship, to represent the spirit of adventure and hint at the long journey cocoa pods must make to reach the chocolatier.

Lavernia & Cienfuegos opted for an origami version of the ship, a decision that led the theme for the rest of the packaging design. "Utopick package their batches by hand so we created a unique way of folding the paper to wrap the bars," explains the team. "The paper folds to create two triangles on the front of the design, each with their own colour and texture, personalising every bar."

38. Görtz 17: Shoelace Box

Reinventing the shopping bag

Claiming to be the first recyclable shoe bag, which is also 100 per cent biodegradable, this bag from design agency thjink screams innovation. This Görtz bag changes the idea of the shopping bag by getting rid of the awkward plastic handle, introducing tough and stylish shoelaces and replicating the colours of Görtz 17 converse shoes. Best of all, you get a pair of free laces.

Next page: 18 top packaging design resources

The web is a wonderful thing, brimming with resources and inspiration for people interested in packaging design. But, sometimes, too much choice can be confusing, so we've picked out the top online packaging design resources to help you really get to grips with it.

01. Packaging of the World

There are hundreds of packaging designs to inspire you on Packaging of the World

Packaging of the World is an extensive gallery showcasing the most interesting and creative packaging designs from around the world. This site is really well organised; you can choose to search for projects by category, country, product type, most popular, and so on, to narrow down what you're looking for. A brilliant resource in the area of packaging design, and updated regularly with new examples. 

02. The Dieline

Find the latest packaging designs and news from around the world

If it's information and inspiration on packaging design that you're after then The Dieline is a fantastic place to start. Founded in 2007, the site aims to define and promote the world's best packaging design. As well as news and opinion pieces, this site features a jobs board and a library of packaging designers and suppliers. 

03. Designspiration

Find and share awe-inspiring packaging designs with Designspiration

All sorts of creative goodness comes together at Designspiration. Created by Shelby White, Designspiration is a hub for collecting and sharing ideas, including a whole host of interesting and innovative packaging designs. The frustrating thing about this site is that there's nothing in the way of commentary; just images – and often there are no links to the creator of the packaging to enable you to explore further. However, for purely visual inspiration, it's great.

04. BXP

For all things packaging design related, check out this brilliant blog

Formerly Package Design, Brand Experience – or BXP for short – is a fantastic resource for all things packaging design. The site features work from designers all around globe, the latest industry news, upcoming talent in the field, a resources section and much more. You can also narrow articles by material, to find exactly what your looking for.

05. Pinterest

With hundreds of images to browse through, you're sure to find some package design inspiration on Pinterest

With hundreds of thousands of inspirational images in its archives, and more being added every day, we couldn't not include Pinterest on this list. Simply type 'package design' into the keyword search and watch the work appear. A popular subject on the social networking site, you'll find yourself scrolling down on what seems like a never-ending page of packaging design projects.

06. Brand New

Brand New focuses solely on corporate and brand identity work

A division of design firm Under Consideration, Brand New focuses solely on corporate and brand identity work, and features a vast library of inspirational packaging designs. But this is not just a showcase site; as well as all the beautiful imagery featured, many of the designs here are reviewed in detail, with experts giving their opinion on if, how and why each concept works.

07. BP&O

Freelance designer Richard Baird shares his thoughts on new branding work on this blog

BP&O is a blog run by British freelance designer and former writer for The Dieline, Richard Baird, who specialises in the development of branding and packaging. Baird picks recently developed designs, provides a short background and shares his thoughts and opinions on each. A great site for finding new work from around the globe.

08. Dezeen

Dezeen offers news on experimental packaging

Dezeen primarily explores architecture and interiors, but also offers interesting articles on product design and packaging. The resource is great for staying up to date with the more on the cutting-edge, experimental and innovative news in packaging design, including explorations into environmentally friendly packaging. 

09. Retail Design Blog

This site is paywalled, but there's plenty of great insight on offer

Retail Design Blog (as you might expect) covers everything to do with retail design – so alongside the sections on materials and branding, there's also dedicated pages for store design and visual merchandising. You won't get too far without hitting the paywall though – if this site looks like it covers what you need, you'll need to shell out €10 a month to read everything (try it out with a free 30-day trial).

10. Ambalaj

Check out designer Kristina de Verdier's blog for inspirational examples of packaging design

Ambalaj is actually the personal site of packaging designer Kristina de Verdier, but offers some interesting insights. The site is split into Insight, Design and Technology sections, with plenty of interesting news and inspiring examples to dig through.

11. Packaging World

Packaging World is updated daily with articles about packaging inspiration and materials

Packaging World Magazine’s website is a great resource for professionals in packaging and manufacturing automation. It's not the best looking site, but it is updated daily with articles about packaging inspiration, equipment and materials, and provides a great way to stay up to date with the latest news about packaging.

12. Packaging UQAM

French site Packaging UQAM is an excellent showcase of innovative packaging research

French site Packaging UQAM collects together amazing packaging that might have flown under your radar. If your French is not up to scratch, don't worry – there are English translations included. Here you'll find creative solutions for storing trowels, golf tees, wishbones and plenty more unusual products. It's the place to go if you're looking to shake up your research and discover original ideas.

13. Behance

There's an awesome collection of packaging design work to inspire you on Behance

If you're a designer, you'll know Behance – but it's worth including here in case you'd overlooked it. The online portfolio community features all manner of packaging design projects, created by artists of all skill levels, in everything from shoe and pharmaceutical design to alcohol and electrical product designs. And of course, there are new additions being added pretty much constantly.

14. Lovely Package

Lovely Package doesn't look like it's being updated any more

If, like us, you can't resist a lovely package, then you should definitely check out this cool blog. Lovely Package showcases some leading design work in the packaging world, covering everything from wine and beer bottles to toothpaste and kitchenware. At time of writing, the last update was in March 2018, so it might be the case that the site isn't being updated any more. Lovely Package features an archive of work from professionals and students alike, and with over hundreds pages of projects to browse through, you're still sure to find inspiration here. 

Related articles:

• 14 controversial moments in logo and brand design
• Online packaging archive is a design delight
• 5 mesmerising uses of illustration in branding

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This is a hands on review of the Wacom Cintiq 16 to give you the chance to see what the new pen display is all about as soon as possible. We'll be expanding and upgrading this review shortly with more information and a score.

The Wacom Cintiq 16 is Wacom’s most affordable pen display tablet ever. Aimed at students, enthusiasts graduating from the Intuos line, and jobbing creatives who can’t justify the price of a Cintiq Pro, the new Wacom Cintiq 16 - which was launched at CES 2019 – offers a cheaper way for artists to master Wacom’s industry-standard drawing tools.

Grabbing the headlines is the price: the Cintiq 16 is less than half the cost of the pro version. But it comes with the same super-responsive pro-grade pen: the Wacom Pro Pen 2, with 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity, tilt recognition and customisable buttons. 

As you’d expect, there have been some trade-offs to get the pen display down to that entry-level price. It’s 2K, for a start; and has a lower colour gamut than the Cintiq Pro. So how good is it?

We had the chance to have a quick play with the Wacom Cintiq 16 here at CES. We’ll be publishing a full review on the site soon - in the meantime, here are our first impressions.

• The best drawing tablet in 2019

Wacom Cintiq 16: price and availability 

Sitting between the Intuos Pro and Cintiq Pro 13, the new Cintiq 16 costs $649.95 / £529 / €599.90. That’s significantly cheaper than the same-sized Cintiq Pro 16, which will set you back $1,499.96 / £1,399 / €1,599. 

It’s also cheaper than the iPad Pro, which costs $799 / £769 and doesn’t run pro creative programs (yet). And it comes bundled with the Wacom Pro Pen 2 - whereas you have to shell out another $99 / £89 for the Apple Pencil.

Clearly, Wacom is looking to take on the growing market of cheaper Wacom alternatives that has developed over the last few years: Huion, XP-Pen and so on. These companies are producing excellent pen display and graphic tablets, and have found a loyal fanbase thanks to their much cheaper price points. 

Wacom still doesn’t win on price with the Cintiq 16, but it’s dramatically closed the gap - and still has the excellent Pro Pen 2 stylus up its sleeve. Most competitor pens top out at 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity compared to its 8,192.

Wacom's new Cintiq 16 is less than half the cost of the pro version

Wacom Cintiq 16: display and drawing experience

The new Wacom Cintiq has a 15.6-inch display with full HD resolution (1,920 x 1,080), rather than the 4K display of the Pro version. It can produce 72 per cent of the NTSC colour palette - versus the Cintiq Pro’s 94% Adobe RGB colour gamut - which means less colour accuracy, but not enough to hinder most aspiring artists. If you do photo or image-editing at a pro level, though, you’ll need the pro version. 

Certainly in our short time with the Cintiq 16, the screen appeared bright with vibrant colours. The bezels are wide enough to rest your plan while drawing, and while there isn’t multitouch control - so you can’t zoom or pan, or activate touch buttons with your fingers - it does mean you won’t accidentally invoke touch screen actions while you’re working. 

We liked the antiglare film coating, which felt like working on paper, and minimised reflection well; and we enjoyed the drawing experience: there are no cut corners here. The pen felt comfortable and responsive, and we didn’t notice any lag. 

We also didn’t notice any parallax – Wacom says it’s “reduced” - but there is a bit of space between the pixels and where the pen touches the screen, so we’ll test this fully, along with colour accuracy, in our longer review.  

Finally, bear in mind that the bezels don’t house any express keys. But Wacom’s Express Key Remote works with the Cintiq 16, so if you need programme buttons, you can buy a remote separately. 

Wacom Cintiq 16: features

Compatible with Mac and Windows, the Cintiq 16 comes with a 3-in-1 adapter cable, which plugs into the power port on the back of the display and has both HDMI and USB plugs.

As well as a set of high-grip rubber feet, the pen tablet features two foldable legs that can be used flat or at a 19-degree angle, and click into place when fully extended. They’re non adjustable, but an optional stand is available - and there are screw holes in the back panel that will fit different types of mounting system.

Happily, the Cintiq 16 uses Wacom’s wireless electromagnetic resonance stylus technology. This means that – like the Pro line – the Cintiq 16 doesn’t need a battery and never has to be recharged.

There’s also a handy fabric pen loop for storing the pen when you’re not using it, which you can snap onto the side of the display on whichever side you prefer. And inside the holder, you’ll find some spare Pro Pen 2 nibs and a removal tool. 

The excellent Pro Pen 2 stylus has 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivty

Wacom Cintiq 16: early verdict

Wacom has focused on creative professionals for over three decades. If you wanted to experiment with a Wacom pen display, you needed to fork out at a pro-level price point. But the new Wacom Cintiq 16 changes that. 

It isn’t a Cintiq Pro: you don’t get the UHD resolution, multitouch control or as many connectivity options. It isn’t as portable as a Surface Pro or iPad Pro either.

But build quality appears similar, and for less than half the price of the 16-inch pro version you get what looks to be a very capable pen display. Importantly, you also get access to Wacom’s industry-standard drawing tools: these are the displays you find in most animation and special effects studios. If you’re a student or cash-strapped creative pro, we think you’re going to like the new Wacom Cintiq 16. Full review coming soon. 

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A remote attacker could exploit the vulnerability simply by sending an email.

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Despite fewer plugins being added to Wordpress last year, the CMS saw an astounding tripling of vulnerabilities in its platform in 2018.

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Overall, the chip giant patched five vulnerabilities across an array of its products.

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Update: Adobe MAX 2019: what to expect

Adobe MAX 2018 is in full swing, and boy, the software giant is certainly making an impression. Day one, waking into the South Hall of the LA convention centre, it’s hard to describe the scale of Adobe Max 2018. Approximately 15,000 seats, all filled with expectant creatives waiting to hear exactly what Adobe has been working on for the past 12 months is quite a sight.

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To start proceedings, a truly jaw-dropping keynote session, where Adobe leads took to the stage to reveal all. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen got the party going, telling an almost 20,000-strong audience: “Design has never been more important and we’re living a golden age of creativity.”

The reigns were then handed over to Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky, who shared the stage with Adobe product leads and special guests, including Phil Schillier and Lilly Singh, to reveal all the latest Adobe innovation. 

We'll be updating this post with all the Adobe Max 2018 announcements as they happen, so don't forget to check back throughout the day to find out the latest – or follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Read on for all the Adobe Max 2018 news, straight out of LA.

The latest news from Adobe MAX 2018

Photoshop CC comes to the iPad 

Photoshop CC will soon be coming to the iPad, meaning that users will be able to make all the edits they’re used to on desktop on the go. The new Photoshop will have all the core tools of Photoshop CC, but will be optimised for touch devices, making the most of gestures, and the Pencil, with a new user interface designed especially for the iPad. It will also sync across devices, so you’ll be able to switch between working on desktop/iPad with ease. At the moment we don’t know exactly when Photoshop for iPad will take off, so watch this space for more news.

Project Aero

And the award for presentation that blows our minds went to... Project Aero. Adobe has been working on its AR software for a while now, but today the company took augmented reality to a new level, wowing the audience with some truly jaw-dropping demonstrations. 

"AR is the next breakthrough medium for creative storytelling," said Adobe senior product manager Zorana Gee, as she walked through Project Aero's capabilities. We weren't surprised when the Adobe Max 2018 crowd went wild for Project Aero, but it's something you really have to see to believe, so we'll leave this just here... 

Project Gemini: Adobe announces new digital art app

Kyle Webster takes to the stage to showcase Adobe's new painting and drawing app Project Gemini

Project Gemini is a dedicated painting and drawing app for the iPad that makes full use of Photoshop's powerful painting engine. Packed with intuitive features that capture the feeling of working with traditional art tools, Project Gemini allows users to mix paints just like in real life, experiment with exclusive brushes, and make the most of a multi-screen mode. 

Digital artists can also sync Project Gemini with Photoshop on the desktop, allowing for a seamless transfer of files. Adobe has put Project Gemini through rigorous testing with professional artists to ensure that the drawing and painting tools are as true to life as possible.

Voice prototyping added to Adobe XD 

Adobe XD has become the first and only UX/UI platform to enable designers to create prototypes for voice-activated devices. New voice trigger and speech playback capabilities enable designers to move seamlessly between voice and screen prototyping: users can now add voice triggers that launch particular interactions (in the same way a tap or click would), while speech playback unlocks a powerful text-to-speech engine. As voice starts to play an increasingly important role in our digital experiences, XD now offers a way for users to design and share prototypes that extend beyond the screen.

Adobe launches Premiere Rush CC

Adobe's long-awaited video editing app, dubbed Project Rush, has finally been released. The newly christened Premiere Rush CC promises an intuitive, all-in-one experience that will make it easier than ever to create professional-looking video content (even if you're not a video expert yourself). It's currently only available on iOS, though.

Photoshop CC gets the Sensei treatment

Alongside some long-awaited minor updates, Photoshop CC sees the addition of some seriously impressive new tools, Adobe Sensei selection tool being one of them.  In just one click, this tool automatically detects the object you want to select and does all the hard work for you. If this works as well as today's demonstration showed, this really could be a game-changer for Photoshop users. 

Keynote speakers

Day two of Adobe MAX 2018 saw some of the world's creative leaders take to the main stage. In an almost two-hour session, comic artist Nicola Scott, American percussionist Questlove, YouTuber Lilly Singh and world-renowned director Ron Howard shared their stories to creative success. Here's what they had to say...

Nicola Scott

First to the main stage was inspirational Australian comic book artist Nicola Scott, who quickly warmed up the audience with an all-too-familiar story of how creative success did not come easy. Having first wanted to be an actor, and that not working out, Scott decided to see how her other creative talents could serve her. 

"It was one Sunday morning, when I reformed the question, that it hit me," she said. "Instead of asking what can I do with drawing, I asked what do I want to draw. And that's when I thought, oh my god, I want to draw Wonder Woman and that could be my job! Twenty minutes later, I was in a comic book store and that started my education."

Scott went to do many illustration projects, slowly building a body of work, always with the goal that one day DC comics - home of Wonder Woman - would come calling. Having never previously had a plan or strategy when it came to her career, Scott was determined to make DC her goal, and, by reworking her strategy after every project with DC in mind, she finally got that call and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Albert Watson

Named one of the 20 most influential photographers in the world, Albert Watson followed Nicola Scott with one of the most enthralling, engaging and funny talks we've seen so far. Watson took time to cover some of his truly fascinating 50-year career, including how he found Alfred Hitchcock 'beyond fabulous' and what it was like to photograph some of the most famous people in the world. 

Watson also went on to offer young photographers some expert advice. "A common weakness among young photographers is lack of planning, and being reliant on Photoshop to fix their images at a later date," he said. "The soul of the picture has to be when you press the button. It's absolutely essential that the creative force is piled on to what you want that image to be, so you should always have the idea first."

Questlove and Lilly Singh

Following Nicola Scott was American percussionist Questlove and YouTuber Lilly Sigh, interviewed by Adobe principal worldwide evangelist Jason Levine. In the short time they had on stage, both offered two super-useful pieces of advice to creatives.

"The most important part of creativity is boredom," Questlove claims. "Allow yourself to have silence and be bored. Take at least two days off a month, sit in your pyjamas with no phone and let boredom hit you so inspiration can come."

"Dwanye (The Rock) Johnson is the perfect example of breaking barriers and creating a path," Lilly Singh added. "He said 'When I was wrestling, everyone said, you can’t act'. He taught me you have to buck tradition. If I you want to be the girl who goes from YouTube to movies, then I can do that."

Ron Howard

The crowd erupted when legendary Hollywood director Ron Howard came on to the stage for the last half hour. A truly humble man, Howard explained his love for storytelling and fascination for true stories, before going on to share stories on what it was like working in the film industry for the past 60 years. 

Our favourite anecdote has got to be when he explained how when working with a 70-something Bette Davis as a 24-year-old director, having the confidence to actual direct his leading lady was quite intimidating, especially when she wouldn't call him by his first name. "I'll call you Ron when I've decided I like you," he said she told him. It was only after he asked her to rework a scene that turned out better that she did, indeed, call him - and gave him a cheeky slap on the ass.  “The greats outwork everybody - and they don’t stop work at age 75,” Howard said.

But the best piece of advice from the morning came from Howard as he said to the audience: "Someone has to help you understand early on that your creativity has value. You're not wasting your time dreaming." 

Read more:

• 7 insane tech sneaks from Adobe MAX
• Adobe XD and Adobe Dimension launched at Adobe MAX
• How to use Adobe Capture CC

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When it comes to CMSs, we live in complicated times. Which system do you choose and what do you want to achieve? If your goal is simply to build an 'editable website', then you might need to rethink your goals. You should be aiming to create the beating heart of your digital ecosystem. 

WordPress is a very popular choice – and there are plenty of great WordPress websites around that make it clear why. However, it's by no means the only option when it comes to CMSs. 

So what exactly needs to be considered when making the toughest choice in digital? Here are a few questions you should be asking yourself when selecting the right CMS for your site.

01. What is your aim?

A CMS should be designed to support all of the critical interactions and functions your business needs. I hear now more than I have ever done: ‘We have invested all this money in a website but it’s not delivering what we expected.’ Establishing real KPIs for the site will help you make the right decision.

02. How will success be measured?

If you create KPIs for a site’s success, match them with the right level of insight. In my view, you can never have enough data around website usage. The greatest amount of time should be given to this aspect of the CMS strategy. If you can’t integrate an adequate level of analytics into the considered CMS, walk away. 

Also consider the rest of the ecosystem: ensure you have measurement in place to track the impact of changes across your digital real estate. 

03. How will the site be managed?

A website is like a living, breathing thing: it needs to be fed. Up-front, think about your organisation’s ability to manage it moving forward. If you are a team of one or two and are targeting a content-hungry website, you will be battling competing demands so ensure you consider how you will feed it. Sites that have been designed with high content demands will suffer far worse in the hands of small teams than those with more modest content needs. 

04. How will the site be maintained?

Before you get in bed with one particular CMS, consider what will happen further down the line. Digital changes constantly. Things will break. Code will need updating. This is where careful consideration should be given to choosing between a bespoke, an open-source or a proprietary CMS.

With a bespoke CMS, you get the functionality you need. Your budget has paid for what you are going to use and not for things you won’t use. However, its biggest asset is its greatest limitation. In most cases, a bespoke CMS is developed by a single developer or a team. Their approach to development can sometimes make it very hard for another developer to take over. A bespoke CMS will need constant updates, so consider the real cost of a relationship with those developers breaking down. 

Open source is free to use. This can be all someone needs to hear to make it the weapon of choice. But, as with all open source, nobody really owns it. Yes, there are more developers out there who can develop for that platform, making it easier and cheaper to recruit. But, without the defined development roadmap of the proprietary CMS, you are somewhat at the mercy of the masses. The subscription fee that comes with the proprietary CMS guarantees not only a defined roadmap but also accountability and a support network moving forward.

05. How much personalisation will you need?

Beware the lure of personalisation. This is some advice based on experience. True personalisation is very hard to achieve: it will require a great deal of investment. Managing and creating specific journeys for individual personas requires time. 

As with all decisions when choosing a CMS, consider the reality of living day-to-day with your chosen platform. Consider using as many automated approaches to content personalisation as possible. The flexibility of a CMS is reflected in the experience a user has. If you can’t put in, visitors will get out. 

These are just some of the considerations when choosing a CMS, and every option will come with its positives and negatives. As long as you are clear with what you need it to do up front, you will always reduce the risk of making the wrong choice. 

This article was originally published in net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 313 or subscribe.

Read more:

• Use WordPress as a headless CMS
• 18 great HTML APIs – and how to use them
• 10 amazing new CSS techniques

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As the largest living land mammal on earth, elephants have quite the undeniable presence. At birth, elephants already weigh up to 200 pounds (roughly 90 kg), and in the case of a mature African Elephant, they carry the huge body mass of around 12,000 pounds (or 5,443 kg) everywhere they go, which explains why they have such bulky, sturdy structures and wide column-like legs. 

Elephants seem like an animal that would be fairly easy to draw just by constructing several big shapes together, but in order to realistically illustrate an African elephant, it's worth understanding their fascinating features, like the trunk, feet, and bone structure. By doing so, you'll start to notice subtle details that can be applied to capture a realistic drawing of an elephant. 

• Pencil drawing techniques: 7 tips to improve your skills

In this step-by-step tutorial, I'll be showing you how I approach a drawing of an African elephant's profile view. I'll demonstrate how to block in simple shapes and cover very basic anatomy structure to understand what lies under the skin. Then we'll carve out the mass and form of the body before diving into the details of the skin. The elephant's wrinkles and crevices are also important features we can't forget. 

Before you start the tutorial, don't forget to pull up your own reference as you follow along. And if you enjoy learning how to draw an elephant, make sure to check out our other brilliant how to draw tutorials. 

01. Draw the torso 

The two bumps on the back are equal in height

Draw a big circle and divide it in half. Take half the width of the circle to measure out the torso to the left. Form a bean like shape and make sure the belly side slopes down to the right. 

02. Attach the legs

The column like legs support and balance the heavy body

Take the middle of the torso and duplicate the height of the bean to measure the distance to the ground. Divide the torso into three parts; the shoulder, stomach and hip. Block in long rectangular legs tapering in towards the bulging foot like a tall glass shape. The back legs will look more like an hour glass with the middle taped in.

03. Connect the neck and trunk

The trunk has a subtle S curve and the tip curls to avoid touching the ground

Draw a rhomboid shape for the head that's as wide as the shoulder width. Divide it into quarters and draw the trunk starting from the middle of the head. The trunk comes out touching the tip of the head and droops down to the ground. 

04. Attach the trunk, eye, ear and tail 

The tusk's length is determined by their age; the older they are, the longer the tusk

Fill in a circle for the eye a little lower and left off the centre of the head. Right below the eye, follow the centre guideline to draw the long curved tusk. The skin will overlap right at the bottom of the head shape. The ear will look like big butterfly wing-shapes that covers the entire neck and droops down past the chin, and tucks right up to the centre of the head. The tail will hang down past halfway to the ground.

05. Skeletal structure: Torso

The spine protrudes out, which gives it the pronounced bumps

The spine runs flat along the back to support all their weight and bears the massive ribcage that takes up majority of the torso. The scapula wraps around the rib cage and comes up as high as the spine.

06. Skeletal structure: Front legs

Padded cushions in an elephant's feet help take pressure off their joints

The shoulders attach at the bottom of the scapula and anchors to the elbow joints. From there the bone drops straight down to the big wrist. Look at an elephant's foot, they only walk on the tip of their toes. The round disc like feet are in fact stuffed with very thick padding behind the toes. The wide surface area helps to balance and support their weight. 

07. Skeletal structure: Hind legs

The knee placement should be a little lower than the elbow joint

The hip bone attaches to the back of the spine and sits very close to the ribcage. The legs connect from the bottom of the hip and come down to the knee joint, right where the torso attaches to the legs. The back feet are a very similar shape to the front feet, only the back will have a heel sticking out.

08. Skull structure

The jaw is not visible from the front view since the base of the tusk is wide enough to cover them

African Elephant's signature tusks are equivalent to our front incisor teeth and their nasal structure is located right above the eyes. The cheek bones protrudes out so much, the dip in the side of the head becomes very visible and gives them the sunken cheek look as the skin wraps around the jaw.

09. Build the form of the trunk

The tusk and trunk are joined together to act as the top lip

Start with a flat head with a strong break for the forehead. Right over the nasal cavity, draw a subtle bump as it reaches the eye. The nose should then bump out again with a stronger arch. The nose will be a tube-like shape that tapers in as it get close to the tip. The trunk wraps around the tusk where the skin folds overlap. 

10. Shape the mouth and ear

Drawing lines to wrap around the form will help understand the structure of the head

The corner of the mouth forms right where the tusk ends, and the bottom lips tucks under. The cheek bones have a strong plane change which makes the side of their jaw and head look sunken in. The base of the ear should feel like there's volume to it, whereas the rest should look like a thin sheet.

11. Expand the body's form

To contrast the belly, the spine protrudes out forming a sharp arch

Expand the middle torso as a big bulbous belly. Make the legs look like big columns, but show the bulgy joints. For the elephant to have mobility in its legs, there needs to be enough loose skin between the torso and the legs. Draw the tail, and the legs covered in the back.

12. Locate the wrinkles

Concentrate the wrinkle formation at the joints; elbow, wrist, ankle, knee, tail, and even around the face

Just like your finger joints or elbows, you will see the elephant's skin is similarly wrinkled and bunched up at the joints. The trunk is like an accordion where it has the freedom to move, bend and curl. It has rings of deep crevasses that fold into each other, and kind of resembles a slinky.

13. Detail the wrinkles and form 

Areas that need a plane change can be implied by etching in multiple lines that follow the form

When you draw the wrinkles, remember to add a variety of length and thicknesses. Try to vary up the distance from each other, depending on how tight the wrinkles fold into each other. 

14. Incorporate the other features

Cross-hatched wrinkles will also give an elephant's skin more texture

Draw the hair coming out from the end of the tail from two sides, and make sure to draw the ears as big thin sheets with veins running along them. The fingernails shaped like a crescent will sit flat against the feet.

15. Fill the light and shadows

 The values will help define the volume and form of each body part

If you want to push the drawing a bit further, emphasise the elephant's shapes by filling in the light and shadow. Areas that sticks out like the spine and cheek bone will catch more light, while other areas such as the jaw and belly will hide in the shadow.

Read more:

• How to draw a lion
• How to draw a bird
• How to draw a wolf

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It's normal to make mistakes when writing, even if you're one of the best writers out there. For a writing assistant that's always there for you, try out WhiteSmoke Writing Assistant: Lifetime Premium Subscription.

This advanced technology works overtime to check your grammar, spelling and style – ensuring you'll never have to go through the experience of sending an email to your boss or a client, only to realise too late that it's riddled with embarrassing typos. This software is easy to use, works seamlessly on mobile and desktop, and can even translate into 50 different languages.

Proofread emails, check for plagiarism, and ensure all your writing is typo-free. Get WhiteSmoke Writing Assistant: Lifetime Premium Subscription for just $79 – that's 80 per cent off the regular price.

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Maxon’s Cinema 4D has a vibrant and well-supported plugin ecosystem, providing all manner of extensions for the app – from filling holes in its toolset to streamlining the workflow. And because of the way that Cinema 4D is structured, not only are these plugins nicely integrated into the app (often seamlessly at times), they all play well together.

So you can find Cinema 4D tutorials that mix third-party Modifiers and Effectors with native tools, use Turbulence FD to convect X-particles and then visualise them with the Hair shader, shatter meshes with Nitroblast and then animate them with Signal... the combinations are endlessly creative.

In this feature we’ve rounded up a few of our favourite plugins (although not all of them by any measure!). There’s something for everyone here.

01. X-Particles

X-Particles includes support for MoGraph Effectors

• Price: £540

This amazing particle and VFX system has a host of useful features. You can create stimulations for cloth, smoke, fire and fluids, for example, and it integrates seamlessly into Cinema 4D. If you can use C4D, you can use X-Particles.

02. TurbulenceFD

This heavy sim was rendered at 2560 x 1600. The default settings took 46 seconds; by tweaking the settings we got it down to just 13

• Price: £369/ $469

TurbulenceFD is a voxel-based fluid dynamics simulation system for making fire and smoke. TFD is used in movies, TV shows and video game promos, and you only need to use the plugin and see the end results to agree it’s pretty special.

03. Light Kit Pro 3.0

Light Kit Pro 3.0 has a collection of photography style lights and stands

• Price: $249/£190

The latest update to Light Kit Pro provides a complete and fully customisable lighting solution –  providing a variety of realistic lights, panels and softboxes with which to really hone your lighting. It's easy to use, includes 120 studio presents and has built-in support for renderers Octane, Arnold and Redshift. 

04. Nitroblast

Nitroblast can be applied to animated characters

• Price: €65

Lazaros, aka ‘NitroMan’, has created many useful plugins, but Nitroblast is probably his best. This great little tool automatically shatters objects and enables you to blow them to pieces using C4D’s dynamics.

05. Scroll Roll Deformer

The Scroll Roll Deformer can be used for more than just rolling out the red carpet

• Price: $18.75/ £12.90

Scroll Roll Deformer was designed to help create rolling paper and carpet-like effects, says Daniel Fitzgerald, developer at Curious Animal, but he found it was also a fun way to create sprouting animations. Scroll Roll also turned out to be perfect for growing sprouting objects and growing feathers.

By scaling these objects up from nothing as they unroll he was able to transition them on smoothly, but in a much more interesting way than a simple scale.

06. Motion Stretch Deformer

Models can be animated with and without the Stretch Deformer applied

• Price: $36/£25

The second entry from Curious Animal, aka developer Daniel Fitzgerald, is Motion Stretch Deformer. When applied to a mesh, Motion Stretch Deformer – as you might guess – stretches the geometry according to its movement, creating things like motion trails.

07. Signal

The Signal plugin allows easy procedural animation for any parameter inside C4D without using the timeline

• Price: $129

Signal is a GSG plugin that’s aimed at automating the animation process. It’s applied as a tag to an object or deformer and you simply drag any animatable value into it (including colours). It’s then a matter of setting some values and letting Signal do its thing, generating random, noise- based animations and seamless loops.

08. SplinePatch 3.0

This image is an example of a Solid Extrusion to a SplinePatch on a transparent material

• Price: $71.48

As its name suggests, SplinePatch 3.0 brings spline patching to C4D, which enables you to create smooth, curved surfaces from intersecting splines. This is ideal for creating complex forms that remain editable and animatable, such as cars, clothing, characters, packaging or other convoluted shapes.

09. Forester

A selection of Forester rocks with the various texture maps applied

• Price: £287

Forester is a procedural vegetation creation plugin that makes an endless variety of grass, trees and plants, and that also comes with a rock generator and a scattering function, called the Multicloner. Its latest update also integrates with C4D's Variation shader, so you can colour your leaves randomly.

10. Transform

Transform works really well with objects shattered using Nitroblast

• Price: $199

GSG’s Transform is a neat plugin for generating animation without the need for keyframes. It provides a set of over 65 presets for various animation sequences, which can then be tweaked to suit. It works well on text, clone arrays or fractured objects made using Nitroblast.

11. Unfolder

With some clever workarounds, you can cache Unfolder’s animation ready for other effects to be applied

• Price: €24.99

This tool by César Vonc unwraps an object as strips of connected polygons, like peeling a banana. It’s a very cool effect with plenty of options to alter the way it unfolds and disappears. However, Vonc explains that you can’t easily cache the effect as Unfolder changes the point and polygon count by default, and the PLA cache needs them to be the same.

12. Difference Map

Here we’ve used the Difference Map with Curious Animal’s Impact deformer to generate a layer mask in the colour channel.

The Difference Map is a handy plugin that enables you to layer effects on
top of your deformation by creating a vertex map describing the effect of the deformer on each point in your model. So, if using Impact deformer to create ripples, you could use the Difference Map tab to create a vertex map that you reference in a material to give those ripples a different colour to the rest of the object.

This article was originally published in 3D World magazine, and has since been updated. Subscribe to 3D World here.

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The Dell XPS 13 has been updated for 2019 with some key changes that make one of the best laptops even better. Launched here at CES 2019, the Dell XPS 13 (2019) is faster and more powerful than ever, thanks to new eighth generation Intel Whiskey Lake CPUs. 

Crucially, Dell has addressed last year’s biggest complaint and ditched the ‘nose cam’,  moving the webcam up above the display, instead of sitting on the bottom bezel. But by-and-large, much about the Dell XPS 13 remains the same – and that’s a good thing.

Dell XPS 13: Price and availability

Two of the different Dell XPS 13 (2019) colour options: black-and-silver; and artic white and rose gold 

So far, we only have US pricing for the base model Dell XPS 13. For $899, you’ll get an 8th-generation Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD and a 1920 x 1080 non-touch display. At the very top of the range, you’ll get an 8th generation quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, a 2TB SSD and a 4K touchscreen – but we don’t have pricing for this yet. 

The new Dell XPS 13 (2019) is available from today, 8 January, with more colour options becoming available later in the year.

Dell XPS 13: Design

The biggest visible change to the Dell XPS 13 is the webcam has been moved from bottom of the display – where it became dubbed ‘nose cam’ – to above the display. To do this, Dell’s re-engineered the webcam, shrinking the housing from 7mm down to just 2.25mm, and making this Dell’s smallest-ever webcam. It uses a 720p widescreen sensor with four far-field microphones, and has temporal noise reduction to help make images clear.

The hinge mechanics have also been improved, making the Dell XPS 13 easier to open with one hand. And a new colour has been added to the collection: frost silver joins the existing rose gold and artic white, and black and silver options.

Finally, you get two Thunderbolt 3 ports, one USB-C 3.1 port, a microSD card slot for expanding the memory and a 3.5mm headphone jack, plus a wedge lock slot for securing your laptop.

Dell XPS 13: Display

The XPS 13 (2019) is the first Dell laptop with Dolby Vision

The Dell XPS 13 (2019) has retained its slim Infinity Edge bezels, and still gives you the choice of a 4K (3,840 x 2,160) with 100 colour gamut or FHD display (1,920 x 1,080). 

What’s new this year is a touchscreen option for the FHD model - before this was only available on the 4K version. There’s also support for Dolby Vision, which Dell says can make highlights in images 40 times brighter and blacks 10 times darker, compared to a standard picture. 

Dell XPS 13: Performance

Armed with new options for eighth generation Intel Whiskey Lake CPUs, plus a dual-core i3 model to start, the Dell XPS 13 has more power for multitasking, and should keep you going for a few years. Memory options range from 4GB to 16GB, and SSD storage from 128GB to up to 2TB. 

The company claims a massive 21 hours of battery life for the Full HD display and Core i5 version, and up to 12 hours for the 4K with Core i7 model. Is that too good to be true? We’ll test how well they hold up when we do our full review.

Dell XPS 13: Early verdict

The Dell XPS 13 was already an excellent laptop. The biggest change on the new Dell XPS 13 (2019) is the repositioned webcam, but the addition of Intel Whiskey Lake only reinforces its best-in-class reputation.   

Bear in mind that the XPS 13 doesn’t have the graphics performance of the larger Dell XPS 15. This isn’t a laptop for serious video editors or gamers. But if you’re a photo editor or a creative specifically looking for something lighter, more mobile, with a better battery life and still promising great colour accuracy, the Dell XPS 13 (2019) initially looks stunning. We’ll bring your our full review soon.

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Bad actors are imitating high-level executives in the shipping industry to launch BEC attacks that could lead to credential theft or worse - system compromise.

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Microsoft January Patch Tuesday roundup includes four critical patches for its Edge browser.

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When it comes to tech trends, there are few better places to get a glimpse of the future than at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. On Monday, before CES 2019 officially opened its doors, we had a preview of the biggest tech trends to watch in 2019 and beyond, courtesy of Steve Koenig from the Consumer Technology Association. 

We’ve highlighted the most exciting tech trends for designers below – all of which can be seen on the CES show floor this week. Much of this tech has been talked about before, but what’s new in 2019 is we’re finally seeing its first commercial deployment: think 5G, 8K TVs, self-driving cars. 

“We’re seeing a lot for the innovations we’ve been talking about for years becoming reality,” Koenig told the assembled media in the Las Vegas Convention Centre. “So what direction are these trends and technology pointing to? The answer is that we are fast approaching a new era of consumer tech: the ‘data age’.”

• How to build trust in emerging tech

According to Koenig, we’re transitioning from the ‘connected age’ of consumer tech, where we’ve been focusing on connecting people, into the ‘data age’ – where we’ll now concentrate on connecting things.

“5G will become the central nervous system of the data age. It isn’t like flipping a switch though,” he cautioned. “The build out of the 5G network is like a toddler learning to walk: we’ll see the networks expand in the coming years. In two or three years we’ll see the majority of these 5G networks up and running around the world.” 

Here are the biggest 2019 tech trends on show at CES this week that designers need to know… 

01. Embedded AI

Intel launched its Xeon Scalable CPUs featuring robust AI and memory capabilities at CES this week

AI is gathering serious momentum in households around the world. The McKinsey Global Institute likened the global impact of AI to the steam locomotive in a late 2018 report, and that analysis certainly chimes true at CES. 

The likes of Nvidia and AMD are showcasing their latest processors devoted to machine learning and AI. They’re designed for end devices like TVs and smartphones – why? To improve the UX. 

Embedded AI means our TVs will always display the best picture quality, and our camera phones will always take the best photos. “Embedded AI is a major device trend to look for,” Koenig confirmed.

02. The rise of the digital assistant 

Digital assistants sit at the most visible part of the AI spectrum. “There are more smart speakers, smart displays – digital assistants are quickly becoming omnipresent,” said Koenig, adding that right now there are over 20,000 compatible devices with Amazon Alexa. Even the Church of England has an Amazon Echo app. 

“Services, business – everyone is supporting these digital assistants," he continued. "Why? Because consumers are starting to expect it.” 

03. Voice will be a paradigm shift

With the rise of digital assistants comes voice design – as we've talked about before. Voice isn’t universal as an interface yet, but in certain cases we’re increasingly pivoting towards it: to ask questions; check the weather and so on. (Things we’d normally open an app for.) 

With digital assistants, we’re speaking to more brands and services. And with every conversation, the AI becomes better trained.  

“This activity is showing us we’re on the cusp of a major shift in consumer behaviour. This will multiply as we move into the data age,” predicted Koenig. “Voice will become established as a go-to digital option. Digital assistants will be our digital co-pilots.”

• 8 tips for designing voice interfaces

04. There are limits to automation

“We’re beginning to understand the limits of automation, where AI doesn’t really fit,“ said Koenig. “The things we ascribe to AI are solving really hard problems, but when we pass physical tasks to robotics, they struggle. There has to be training. Also, there are a lot of cases where the tech worked fine but it failed because we need that human element.”

Koenig says that we can expect more human-machine partnerships in the data age. But he believes that the outright automation of different job tasks won’t mean mass job displacement for people. “These systems will take over tasks that aren’t safe for humans, like search and rescue,” he pointed out. “Ai is all about perfecting processes, freeing us up to do other things. Job displacement will be the real outlier. And we’ll come up with other things – we always do.” 

05. AR has quietly overtaken VR

Zara has introduced augmented reality displays into its stores – expect more of this in 2019

“VR surged at front at first, but AR has quietly pulled forward,” says Koenig. “We’re seeing a lot of innovation in AR.”

From wearables and fashion to tourism and education, there’s an abundance of AR hardware and software at CES this year. Smart mirrors – where consumers can see what they look like in different garments without physically wearing them – could revolutionise fashion retail; while the tourism and education sectors are already amplifying experiences with AR.

“The forecast for VR headsets is fairly flat,” he added. “There will be more experimentation over the next few years; the headsets will get better. But on the S-curve of adoption, we’re still at the bottom of the curve  – in the middle of the next decade we’ll see the inflection.”

“That said, VR is the perfect fit for brands – look at what Audi did with its Enter Sandbox demo. It’s a great way to communicate brand experiences.”  

06. 8K TVs are here 

CES is writing another chapter in display innovation this year, with 8K TVs out in force. Do we really need them? Yes, says Koenig. Here’s why. 

”Screen sizes keep getting bigger and bigger,” he explained, ”because consumers demand them. It’s a global thing. In this sense, 8K is right on time. The average screen size shipping this year is almost 50-inches.”

The super-big TV segment is the fastest growing in the sector – and it makes sense. But if you’ve only just invested in 4K, don’t worry. There isn’t much 8K native content yet. It’s coming, sure. But these are just the first steps.

07. The rise of resilient tech

Genny makes water out of air...yes, really

“Resilient tech is emerging in the context of smart cites,” said Koenig. Without resilience these cities can be fragile, he added, highlighting areas of cyber resilience, 'emergency preparedness' and anti-terrorism as areas of growth. 

Take the Genny, an atmospheric water generator that literally makes water out of air. The small home and office device can generate 25 to 30 litres per day, needs only electric infrastructure to operate and can be installed anywhere. It won a CES 2019 Best of Innovation Award – and there are plenty more examples of this growing tech trend across the CES show floor.

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For the first time since 2015, Wizards of the Coast has released an annual Core Set of cards for Magic: The Gathering. The 2019 set is available now and it’s bedding in with players as they get to grips with some very in-your-face creatures and spells. It also contains some exciting imagery and a selection of work from new artists to keep the fantasy card game’s main themes as fresh as ever.

Over the past few years, M:TG sets such as Amonkhet, Ixalan and Dominaria have focused on settings and narratives based around historical and mythological themes. There have been pirate and dinosaur invasions, Egyptian-style gods and vampiric hints of horror. Core Set 2019 gets back to basics in many respects. 

We caught up with some of the illustrators to find out more about the art techniques and thought processes that went into making the new set.

Click the icons in the top right of the images to enlarge them

That means dragons

“We went into M19 with a goal of evoking classic fantasy that a variety of people know and love, regardless of whether they’re long-time players, or are just picking up their first Magic cards,” says senior art director Cynthia Sheppard.

In addition to the planeswalker Nicol Bolas – as seen in the game’s hero art by Magali Villeneuve – four elder dragons come to the table including the impressive Chromium, The Mutable as illustrated by Chase Stone, and an array of lesser ones like Lathliss, Dragon Queen by Alex Konstad.

Alex Konstad's Dragon Queen Lathliss

However, you never know where the best artwork is going to turn up in a new set. Something as simple as Rustwing Falcon, a white card costing one mana, has an eye-catching silhouette as it’s dropped by a player on their first turn. The artwork was painted by British artist Paul Scott Canavan who’s new to the extensive Magic universe.

“Getting Magic briefs is my favourite part of the job,” says Canavan, “because they’re always descriptive but flavourful, with lots of scope to tackle them in your own way. The brief for Rustwing Falcon was all about the light and colour, selling the idea of a beautiful bird soaring about the grasslands, flecks of rich gold in its feathers.”

Rustwing Falcon by Paul Scott Canavan – of the new Magic artists

Planeswalker cards are a major focus for players because they’re so powerful. Core Set 2019 sees the return of old favourites, including Ajani, leader of the cat warriors, and Liliana the necromancer. The latter was painted by another new magic artist, Livia Prima, who as well as creating the necromancer and a gorgon for the black series, also painted Angel of the Dawn for the white section of the release.

“Angels, necromancers and gorgons complement each other in a fantasy world. It’s such a pleasure to paint different moods and characters one after the other,” says Prima.

Livia Prima painted this Angel of the Dawn for the white section of the release

One new planeswalker was introduced to the set in the form of Vivien Reid, who is aligned with the game’s green manna and who can summon creatures and direct them to attack using a magic bow. The card was painted by Austrian artist Anna Steinbauer.

Dark and violent

Visually, the Core Set has a darker and more ominous feel to it than the previous release, Dominaria, which had a light and dreamlike tone. Core Set 2019 takes players back to the planes first introduced in the 1990s. In play, creatures’ powers can be built up quickly and although many intricate control strategies can be developed, it perhaps facilitates a more aggressive gameplay style. 

Slawomir Maniak caputres Ajani's last stand

For the artists, however, each brief contains four main goals. “Firstly, it needs to say something about what the card does. Does the creature fly? Does the spell draw other cards? Our creative team is responsible for distilling down the card rules and mechanics to visuals that we then give to the artists to bring to life,” says Sheppard.

Cards also need to connect with the overarching themes of the set. As Sheppard explains, “That’s what helps a goblin or a burn spell, for example, look different from set to set. 

“Thirdly, it needs to be illustrated with care and good craftsmanship. Much of that is on the artist and their abilities, but we will sometimes push.”

“Finally, it needs to look different from other cards on the table. Art is remarkably important for quickly identifying what cards are being played by opponents during a game.”

Fresh blood

Naturally, Core Set 2019 contains the work of some of Magic’s legendary artists, including Chris Rahn, Magali Villeneuve and Svetlin Velinov. But with each new magic release the art directors at Wizards of the Coast bring in new blood. While some of the more experienced painters are able to develop a knack for painting iconic card artwork, sometimes it’s work by new names that players gravitate to.

Svetlin Velinov's Fraying Omnipotence

When Dominaria came out in 2018, it saw the debut of Tyler Walpole. One of his commissions was a Knight Token, a sort of fodder card that’s usually summoned by a more powerful creature or spell. However, with a unique stained glass style to it, his knight became a card of choice for just about everyone playing a white deck. For artists, making a card desirable among players is a trick of the trade.

“The biggest piece of advice I give new artists is ‘be yourself’,” says Sheppard. “Sometimes there’s an unspoken pressure on artists to try and make their work look different, or like a generic average of everyone else in the game – and that goes for all clients, not just Magic. But the truth is that if we want to work with you, we think you have something special to bring to the game, beyond just an ability to paint.”

This article was originally published in ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 166 or subscribe.

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