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JavaScript is an essential component in any web developer's toolkit. It's top of our list of web skills that pay, but it's a discipline that requires you to keep on learning. You might be au fait with basic JavaScript, but to really boost your career you need to be up to date with the popular JavaScript frameworks. For example, do you know what the best jQuery plugins are? The State of JavaScript 2018 tells you about the tools and technologies you need to know No-one wants to be saddled with a bunch of outdated JavaScript skills, but how do you keep tabs on what's hot in the JavaScript world right now? Luckily, someone's done the legwork for you in the form of the State of JavaScript 2018. It's a massive survey of over 20,000 JavaScript developers undertaken by Sacha Greif, Raphael Benitte and Michael Rambeau, and every year since 2016 they've been using it to uncover exactly what libraries, frameworks and languages the JavaScript pros are using right now, so you can make an informed choice about which areas of the massive JS ecosystem you should be targeting. React is still the most popular frontend framework around The good news is that if you were on the case with the hottest frameworks this time last year then you're almost certainly still good to go; React is still far and away the most popular frontend framework around, with both a high satisfaction ration and large user base, and Vue isn't far behind. And while Angular has almost as many users as React, they're nowhere near as happy with it; if you're concentrating on Angular then you might well want to explore other options. Most developers still prefer to code in ES6, but TypeScript seems to be catching up If you're a backend developer then there shouldn't be any big surprises lined up for you: Express is still the framework to rule them all, used and loved by 64.7 per cent of developers, with Next.js trailing far behind with just 8.6 per cent of users. When it comes to what the survey calls 'flavours' – that is, the various syntaxes and languages that can compile to JavaScript – the leader is still ES6, the default JS language. However TypeScript continues to rise in popularity; when the survey started in 2016, 20.8 per cent of users said that they had used it and would use again, while in 2018 this number has risen to 46.7 per cent. Are you earning enough? Salary breakdowns can help you calculate your value on the jobs market There's an awful lot to explore in the State of JavaScript 2018 results, and some really helpful information. If you drill down into the results you can find useful recommendations for what tools to use alongside your preferred technologies, and you'll also find salary breakdowns for each framework, flavour and tool covered in the survey. Perfect for your next pay negotiation. Basically if you're working in JavaScript then you need to read this; head straight to the State of JavaScript 2018 site to arm yourself for the future. Related articles: 25 game-changing JavaScript tools Is it okay to build sites that rely on JavaScript? Perfect JavaScript in 1,000 projects View the full article

Whether you're an illustrator fresh out of university and raring to hawk your design portfolio around potential clients, or you're still striving towards a creative career while working in a different industry, getting noticed as an illustrator can seem impossible. There are ways into the world of illustration though. Plenty of people have made it happen, and we've rounded up top names in the field to share how aspirational artists can start making their mark. 01. Enter competitions From Blackrock sequence by Jim Butler, which won the AOI’s 2018 books professional category Andreea Dobrin Dinu, who won the AOI New Talent award for commissioned advertising, found that the accolade was a great confidence boost as someone relatively new to full-time illustration. She hadn’t entered the work – her designs for the Art Safari festival in Romania – into any other awards event as “I don’t have the time,” she says. “I had no expectations, so I’m still blown away by that recognition!” While a great Instagram feed, a jazzy website and a ton of enthusiastic emails to potential clients pay dividends, awards are a chance to guarantee that your work will be looked at by some of the biggest industry names. As Jim Butler, who won the AOI professional, un-commissioned book design category puts it, “it can be very hard to have your work noticed by people who might want to commission it. If you just send an email, you have no idea if people will actually see it. Awards are a good way of focusing you to get work together and an ideal opportunity to get your work seen,” he says. 02. Make social media work for you Esther Goh created this key visual as part of her art direction and illustration work for the Singapore Writers Festival 2016 Anyone who’s ever even glanced at social media understands how embarrassing the compulsive element is that comes when chasing likes – not to mention the vampiric attention and time-sucking it requires. The benefit of such platforms, however, partly lies in their forging of communities – creatives the world over can easily connect, and with visual inspiration. But there’s nothing worse than seeing artists aping others in pursuit of those little hearts and thumbs ups; the last thing we need is a Jon Burgerman copycat pitching at (and missing) those same notes. Brighton-based illustrator Paul Thurlby scooped the AOI site specific professional category win for his illustrations commissioned by John Lewis for use in its window and store displays themed around national treasures. He considers social media to be both a curse and a joy. “Things are different now to when I left university,” says Thurlby. “You can just get commissioned through Instagram now!” Dinu found the sheer volume of proliferating images on Instagram, Behance and the like intimidating when she was starting out. “There’s just so much output and so many creative people putting work online, it’s quite overwhelming,” she says. “You feel you don’t even have a chance of being visible.” For Esther Goh, winner of the AOI’s commissioned professional category, however, Behance proved invaluable as a tool for getting her work noticed by peers from around the world. “Design sites wrote about it; people shared it on Facebook and Twitter; others pinned my images on Pinterest,” she says. “A few projects were also selected by the Behance team and featured on their curated galleries. Over time it had a snowball effect – the more people followed, commented on and liked the work, the more it appeared on people’s feeds, and so on.” 03. Maintain a community From Blackrock sequence by Jim Butler For Butler, one of the most crucial things in embarking on a creative career is maintaining a sense of coterie – in the real world, as well as online – with other creators. At uni, you’re surrounded by other people making work by default, and it’s important in nurturing a sense of self-identity as a creative to foster that in the real world. That could be as simple as staying in touch with former classmates. But where physical proximity is lost when students move to disparate parts of the country, it’s worth seeking out collectives (Butler enthuses about his post-uni time at Hot Bed Press in Salford), or working on DIY exhibitions, zines and other projects. “It’s your peers that keep you going, and keep that sense of [making creative work] as being central to who you are,” says Butler. “That’s the most important thing, rather than how quickly you start getting commissions. If in a year after leaving uni you can say ‘I’m an illustrator or printmaker or artist,’ and you think that’s what you still do, there’s a good chance you’ll make it.” Even so, no one said making it as a full-time illustrator was going to be easy. “It was scary,” says Dinu, “but I had a gut feeling it was the right thing to do. I wasn’t 20 years-old, I was a bit older, and I understand that things don’t happen fast – I still very much consider this a career path in its beginning.” 04. Ease your way into the industry The 2D characters Thurlby used for the National Treasures campaign were intended to represent all kinds of people across the nation: pet-lovers to tea-drinkers and, of course, shoppers Making it as an illustrator is, of course, about much more than just great work. Goh advises having a backup plan, and enough savings to last you at least six months while you work on marketing yourself and building a solid portfolio. “Put up only your best work online,” she adds. “Learn how to write contracts, license your artwork, how much to charge and what factors you should consider when doing a quotation.” As with any other discipline, there’s no set pathway that neatly leads to an illustration career. Butler initially worked as an engineer before deciding later to do an illustration degree, and continued to work three days a week in engineering while making his first steps as a creative. Similarly, illustrator and picture book-maker Soo Kyung Cho majored in ceramic art for her BA at Hongik University in Seoul, before studying communication design for her MA at Kingston University. Dinu first studied business management before moving into graphic design, later moving from her native Romania to Hamburg in 2016 to set up her own studio, which now works predominantly in illustration with a some instances of graphic design. What unites the bunch is an enduring passion for drawing – whatever job they did to keep landlords at bay, they’d still be doodling. “Working a paying job and making interesting work aren’t mutually exclusive,” says Butler. Before she even had any clients, the first step for Dinu was to simply start making work for herself and putting it on Instagram and Facebook. From there, some small magazines got in touch and her first “proper” work began trickling in. She also emailed a lot of people, and participated in a few Instagram competitions. Her advice to others considering making the leap? “If you’re ok with a very minimal lifestyle, try it out, but I’d always suggest having a partial backup plan.” 05. Go freelance Detail from Paul Thurlby’s National Treasures project, a commission for John Lewis’ flagship London store A common route for some freelance illustrators is if they’ve previously worked full-time in an agency. London-based Guy Field, who studied graphic design at Falmouth, has been freelance since working at Studio Moross in-house for around six years. He landed that coveted job thanks to an upfront portfolio in the shape of his Give Me a Job zine. “When I was younger I thought being an illustrator as a career was like being a professional footballer – only the one per cent make it,” he says. “That’s why I went into graphic design, doing illustration on the side, as that seemed like the middle ground.” He was lucky to find work in an agency that combined both disciplines, and over the years took on freelance commissions during evenings and weekends, eventually deciding that the next logical step was going it alone. “It’s been good, and intense, so far,” he says. Most of his work now comes from word of mouth, “through knowing people in similar professions – animators, designers and people who work in agencies. People just email you because you’re someone’s friend, or someone recommended you, but you have to have the work to back up the recommendation.” 06. Find a way to stand out A mask by Soo Kyung Cho, who won the Children’s Books, uncommissioned, professional category at the AOI’s 2018 awards Clearly it’s not as simple as studying an illustration degree for three years, doggedly hauling a portfolio around town and showing your work to potential clients such as publishers and advertising or design agencies, as illustrators once did. Instead, you have to understand and make good use of social media, be savvy about the business side of things, and be canny in how you make work and show it to people. “When I started out, I made a point of going out to show my portfolio more, which I actually really liked,” says Thurlby. “I loved going to different buildings and showing my work, even if when I look back now I don’t think it’s that good. But I believed in it at the time, and that’s the main thing – to believe in your work and show that you’re passionate about it.” At the start of his career Thurlby frequently visited magazines and publishers he wanted to work with, garnering mixed results. “Once, I was showing my work to a publisher who was saying ‘it’s great, we’ll definitely be commissioning you.’ I looked up and he was looking out the window. I learned that some people say things for the sake of it.” 07. Be open to adaptation Imagery from Soo Kyung Cho’s children’s book Me and Me, which follows dual narratives of an adult and a child Then as now, persistence is key. Thurlby was keen to work for The Guardian – in particular, its sports section. He sent his portfolio over, only to be told the work wasn’t quite what they were after at the time. “So I adapted my work to fit what they were looking for,” he says. “I didn’t make it into a style that wasn’t me or that I didn’t like, but I made it more graphic.” It paid off; the paper called while he was at the barber’s to let him know they’d be commissioning him. So while, as Thurlby’s story proves, it’s worth having an eye on what commissioners are after, it’s equally important not to just ape other artists and lose sight of your own personality in a bid to win work. It’s sadly a rare occurrence to see not just influence, but plain ripping off in the illustration world; Malika Favre, Christoph Niemann, Thurlby himself and many more are frequently parodied to the point of warranting lawsuits (or at least threats of them). How then do you make work that’s indisputably yours, but irrefutably commissionable? Every creative dreams of having an ownable style that’s recognisably, distinctly their own. Yet in a world where we’re bombarded with visuals at every turn, it’s impossible to not unintentionally absorb certain external influences. That doesn’t mean it’s ok to merrily just copy. “At the very least try and create something from a different perspective, that has a unique flair to it, because really that’s one of the main reasons discerning clients will pick you over everyone else who are doing the same sort of work,” says Goh. “And these are the clients that you want to keep.” 08. Stay mindful of trends Me and Me is a good example of how we need to stay open to new perspectives Of course, illustration work that fits into a current trend is eminently sellable. But by their very nature, the style that dominates such trends is mutable, so don’t just fall into the trap of grooming yourself into that same one-trick pony. “In commercial illustration it’s best to be versatile in terms of the styles you offer,” says Goh. “You wouldn’t want to end up with something that looks obviously dated, though some trends tend to move in cycles or stay for quite a while.” Field points out that while all illustrators are osmotically informed by one another, it’s important to recognise when that influence plays out too much in your own work. “Stay true to your natural way of doing things. You just have to keep grinding away for ages,” he says. “It’s important to pay attention to trends so that you have an awareness, and as an illustrator you’re going to be interested in other people’s work. A lot of your own style comes down to your hand – the way you naturally do things other people don’t.” One of the keys to developing a unique approach as an illustrator is constant experimentation with processes, colours, scales, perspectives and materials. “For me, creating a style is also about flexibility – having a unique style that works across various themes is important,” says Cho. “It’s important to be able to read trends, but I don’t believe it’s important for your work to follow them.” 09. Stay curious Andreea Dobrin Dinu’s illustration for Romanian arts fair Art Safari, 2017, which won the commissioned advertising new talent 2018 AOI award Another invaluable piece of advice is to look outside of the illustration world. Interesting work, much like interesting people, comes from being tantalised and curious. “Take an interest in things you don’t usually notice,” Goh says. “It could be a certain texture, something out of ordinary – see if you can find ways to integrate it into your art. Figure out a system: for example, if you draw humans with tiny heads and large feet, then maybe your animals should look like this too? The key is to be consistent.” Just as music journalists, audio database Discogs and basically the whole internet love the easy categorisations that music genres offer, it might not always be helpful to make hard and fast distinctions between whether illustrators are respected artists or simply commercial creatives, slaves to the commissioning editor and the deadline. Many distinguish between illustrators and ‘proper artists’ in that the former work to an external brief, while the latter are simply creating without formalised boundaries. Cho, though, sees "no reason to separate fine art and illustration so strictly. Creativity and meeting a client’s need at the same time is required for them both." Butler, who works on a mixture of commissioned illustration projects and self-initiated prints and artists books (which he sells), views art and commercial illustration as a “broad continuum”, and he too thinks that it isn’t important to make a distinction between them. The only issue that he’s found is when exhibiting work in group shows dominated by practitioners firmly in the “fine art” camp. “Some people might become a bit sniff y when they find out you work in or studied illustration,” he says. “I’ve never had any problem with the idea of selling art, or that art is commercial. Unless you happen to be married to landed gentry, selling your work is the only way you can make the time to make work. Surely that’s the point, to be able to buy yourself out of other jobs to make more [art] work - it’s cyclical.” 10. Keep at it Artwork for a print workshop with Make Good Prints by Guy Field, who went freelance earlier this year after six years at Studio Moross As well as working on his own projects, Butler also gives lectures on illustration and book arts at Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University. Something he always tells his students is that “we’re not looking to start or end with the finished article in three years.” You might have 50 or 60 years of work ahead of you when you leave, and the way that tech-based creative tools will change in that time is unpredictable. “It’s not just about being au fait with technology. It’s about being able to adapt to the visual world and play with visual ideas,” he adds. "You’ll adapt to the medium according to your own interests.” Much of Butler’s own work deals in very physical, analogue processes: screen printing, collages, making rubbings (as in his AOI award-winning Blackrock Sequence book, a project in which he collaborated with a poet), etching and more. “I enjoy using my hands, and the physical nature of how certain inks sit on certain paper weights, and how things can happen accidentally. When on a computer that’s connected to the internet, I get distracted and can’t make decisions,” he says. In his teaching, Butler encourages students to learn multiple types of media – physical and digital. The one essential thing for students wanting to be a pro illustrator is how to draw. “You need to have a real feeling for drawing, and an understanding of drawing as an illustrator. You need to be able to handle the figure and narrative. You also have to understand that you need to put in a lot of work to open up ideas and make things better; have an openness to reinventing yourself, not just going for the first and easiest solution.” He adds: “Some people ‘make it’ quickly, and some take much longer than others. To me, ‘making it’ isn’t just about having an illustration published in The Guardian or The New York Times. If people are still making work, and that work is moving on, then they’re ‘making it.’” This article originally appeared in issue 284 of Computer Arts, the world's leading graphic design magazine. Buy issue 284 or subscribe here. Related articles: The best Christmas gifts for illustrators 75 best Adobe Illustrator tutorials 12 top learning resources for illustrators View the full article

Running a single-person web-development agency is hard, especially in the world of ecommerce, where I work. As a lot of agencies know, there are projects that turn a decent profit and others that seem to drag on into eternity. As a one-man/woman company, it’s even more important to make this process as smooth as possible – both for yourself and your client. It’s vital to keep your eye on profitability when developing ecommerce websites. As the solo developer, it’s all too easy to get sucked into a problem and end up losing out financially. During my career as a senior web developer, I’ve seen the best and worst of what our industry has to offer. After parting ways with my company and travelling the world for a year, I decided to go it alone upon my return. Here I set out some of the best advice I’ve gleaned from my experiences, my contacts in the industry and the people who inspired me to take the plunge. 01. Get your pricing right Can a one-man band charge the same as a large agency? Yes and no. Obviously your own overheads should be nowhere near that of an agency and the client will know this. What you want to do is price your projects solely on the quality of your work. If you’re a top-class developer, you might even charge a premium for your services. In many cases, undercutting the market rate by a small margin and delivering high-quality projects will lead to more business for you in the long run. Read more: 7 pricing models, and which one you should choose 02. Be prepared Ecommerce requires multiple elements working together, and information gathering at the start will lead to a smoother and faster process. This is case for a lot of different types of projects. The last thing you want is a website being held up because the client didn’t know they had to sign up for a payment gateway, write a privacy policy and input their product information. A delayed website means a delayed payment and an urgent re-shifting of projects to hit your own monthly targets. 03. Set honest lead times You want to build a pipeline with honest estimates for starting and completing the project. If you fail because you double-booked yourself, you may just lose out on an entire project, which can be very costly. Always plan two to three months in advance; in my experience a typical WooCommerce or Magento website should take between four and eight weeks to complete. Have the next project lined up and ready to go, or supplement your lack of large projects with smaller items from within your network of contacts. 04. Outsource your hosting Hosting can be profitable but also time-consuming. If you’re a wizard with servers and don’t mind taking the blame when things go wrong, then you can definitely make money here. However, there are partnerships to be struck in the UK where servers are bought and paid for by your clients and a generous monthly referral fee is given back to you from the web hosting company. This is a stress-free, worry-free income stream that can build up to big numbers over time. 05. Strike up partnerships I work with over six separate agencies on all manner of projects. Not only does this improve my skill set but it also opens doors. A successful partnership is never a one-way street: although it may start out as a helping hand hiding behind the curtain of another agency, eventually it will lead to bigger and better things. I’ve picked up maintenance contracts, small one-off projects and even full website builds through these channels. 06. Charge for maintenance Ecommerce is a different challenge compared to your run-of-the-mill 'brochure' websites; it’s not often a client will take their finished online store and disappear without a backward glance. Clients who sell online are always seeking an edge over the competition, which invariably leads to website maintenance, updates and improvements. Build this in at the start of the process and it will lead to an ongoing and mutually beneficial relationship. Non-ecommerce websites will also likely need maintenance so make sure you charge for this too. 07. Charge for training It is incredible how often this is overlooked. Build in the charge for training your client because I guarantee you that if the client is untrained on the system, you will spend many unpaid hours teaching them when you could be doing what you do best – developing websites! This article was originally published in issue 311 of net, the world's leading magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 311 or subscribe here. How to make your creative business more profitable 7 hot web trends for 2019 29 web design tools to speed up your workflow View the full article

Nobody gets into the creative game for the joy of the admin, and yet most of us end up spending more time wrangling email than actually doing any creative work – or at least, that's how it feels. There are, though, some easy techniques for taming your inbox especially for those of us working in the creative industries, all designed to let you spend less time in Mail, Outlook or Gmail and more time in Illustrator CC, Photoshop CC and Maya. Get Adobe Creative Cloud now We're not here to wag fingers or peddle some ideological time-management bullshit from a book, and nor, since we assume you've been successfully sending and receiving email for some years, are our suggestions the 'always use a meaningful subject line' pap that fills so many email management how-to guides; these are pragmatic, practical tips informed by years of working both in-house and freelance. 01. It's okay to let email pile up You don't need to reply to them all... we promise The secret to managing email is that sometimes it's okay not to manage it. Seriously: one of the most liberating things you can do is banish the mounting sense of nagging guilt most of us feel as the unread count on your inbox soars. Sod it. Trust your instincts; if you thought it was safe to ignore when you saw it arrive, it probably was – and if it wasn't, chances are someone will follow-up again. Your job is design, not correspondence. (And while we're about it, many of us would do well to turn off the unread badge on computers and smartphones; unless you're super on top of email, the number is pretty meaningless.) You have our permission – our blessing – not to reply to every email you receive. 02. Don't check your emails first thing The habit of checking emails when you first sit down at your desk, groggily sloshing a bucket of caffeine over your metabolism as you get up to speed for the day, is as fatal to your productivity as it is completely understandable. By definition, instead of cracking on with some real work and finishing what on your to-do list you failed to check off yesterday, you'll just be given a whole load of other tasks to add to that to-do list, and you'll probably get sidetracked by them before the day even begins. Replace that email check with another ritual that provides that gentle on-ramp for the day – checking Behance, a half hour of directionless doodling, or might we modestly suggest seeing what's new on Creative Bloq – and then do a solid couple of hours' creative work before you even open your email client. 03. Don't use your email as a to-do list Reminders may be more useful than a starred email It's easy to use techniques such as flagging emails or marking them as unread to denote 'I must deal with that later' but if we're honest we know that the relentless torrent of new emails will push those marked messages off your screen soon enough and then you'll just forget about it. Get into the habit instead of transferring tasks that arrive in your inbox to an actual to-do list. If Post-its stuck to your Mac work for you, knock yourself out, but do investigate apps too – popular ones include Wunderlist, Todoist and OmniFocus, as well as built-in options such as Reminders on OS X/iOS – since these can help prioritise your jobs, show you when deadlines are approaching, and importantly prompt you to do jobs at particular times or places. 04. Colour-code your emails Inject some colour into your emails We're visual people, us creatives, so one tip that's likely to resonate is colour-coding. Outlook, Mail and pretty much every mail client under the sun can do this, and the process is basically the same whichever you use. Basically, you define some rules for incoming mail, so that, for example, emails from a particular client are highlighted in blue, while those containing a particular word in the subject line become orange. This is especially handy for agencies or freelancer juggling dozens of clients; it makes your inbox glanceable. 05. Use filtering and the like Another thing you can use rules for is to filter email into different folders. Now, some people go nuts with this, defining intricate and subtle rules to ensure basically nothing arrives into the main inbox, but you don't need to go that far. Consider just a handful to route some of the most egregious emailers into particular folders, to make it easier to manage. A good example is if you work with a system such as issue tracking software that automatically spits out an email whenever a task is assigned to you, routing these notifications to a particular folder not only means you get them out of your inbox (making it easier to browse), but means you specifically have to set aside time to go and parse what's there. Gmail uses Labels rather than folders – and you can apply more than one to each message – but the effect is the same. Note too that some clients such as Mail on OS X let you define so-called smart mailboxes; these are dynamically updating folders based on criteria you set, so instead of messages actually being moved to a folder, a smart folder just gives you a different temporary view or grouping of your email. You can link them too, so you might create a smart folder for each client, define a smart folder called Clients which shows all mail from any of your client smart folders, and another smart folder called Client Assets whose rule is 'Message is in Mailbox: Clients' and 'Contains attachments' – all this makes it easier to root stuff out. 06. Use signatures as standard emails You probably send similar emails frequently – a covering note with an invoice, a cold pitch to a new commissioning editor, or instructions for clients on how to submit to your FTP site, say – and you can save yourself hours or retyping with preset emails. The nicely hacky way of doing this, which will work in pretty much any email client, is to paste these boilerplate emails into different signatures (complete with your usual signature as well, of course). Now, whenever you compose an email, whether it's a fresh conversation or in reply to a query, you can just select the appropriate 'signature' to have the email repopulated, then tweak it to suit. Recently, Gmail also added a feature where it suggests possible responses, named Smart Reply. You could also experiment with this, though make sure you properly read its suggested responses and don't just blindly click them. 07. Use out of hours time to triage email If you're self-employed or at a managerial level in a company, the temptation to check your email out of office hours is immense. And you know what? We're not going to tell you not to do it – that's your call, and we understand. But you should consider, as a way of balancing work and life, using these impulsive checks only as a way of triaging email. What we mean by this is: while your partner might, we're not going to beat you up for glancing at your phone when you're watching telly at home, but do so with one goal in mind: to make your morning easier when you actually get to work tomorrow. If you must check your email out of office hours, use that time to swipe and delete irrelevant crap, reroute queries that aren't for you, and keep yourself abreast of what fires you're going to have to put out tomorrow. Crucially, however, unless it unequivocally cannot wait, don't actually put them out now; wait till you're at work. 08. New email notifications aren't evil Similarly, most email management articles will tell you to turn off new email notifications, and sure, we get the point they're making. But if, and only if, your email client's notifications are actionable – that is, the notifications themselves let you do something with the new email – and you're self-disciplined enough not to use them as an excuse to procrastinate, they can be a great triage tool. Being able to trash incoming junk as it arrives just from a notification in the corner of your screen (without having to switch away from Photoshop) means you don't have to wade through rubbish when you finally do switch to email, and firing off a quick reply to a question immediately means both that projects can progress faster and that your inbox doesn't get clogged with lots of bitty correspondence. 09. Know when to switch email off The corollary, however, is that if you're truly in the zone – the words are flowing, the design building beautifully, the melodies singing – then shut yourself away from anything that can break that flow. Honestly, we suspect that many creatives need the novelty and stimulation of distractions to put their minds in a place where they can come up with creative solutions to problems, but once you're there, once everything's clicked, quit everything, maybe even use an app such as Focus to prevent you sneakily checking Facebook, lock the door and let the muse take you. 10. Embrace the two-minute rule Okay, so we promised no life-hack book bullshit, but one of the central tenets of the seminal Getting Things Done philosophy applies here, hard: if a job takes less than two minutes to do, do it now. Basically, while this doesn't absolve you from dealing with the big, difficult emails, you'll feel much less swamped if you zip quick replies back to easy emails either as soon as they arrive or in little bursts of productivity. 11. Consider migrating away from email Think about what you use email for – and think if in fact you can dispense with it or at least dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend using it. It might still be a necessary evil for dealing with the outside world, but if 80 per cent of your email traffic is dealing with people inside your company or a few select colleagues, you'd do well to investigate other options such as Slack, which can be better-suited to modern communication than email – and then you'll spend even less time in front of your email client. We think adopting these techniques will have you back doing the stuff you love in double-quick time. Read more: 10 time-sucks for creatives and how to minimise them 7 times you should turn a design job down A guide to the best email provider of 2018 View the full article

If a network-connected smoke detector starts communicating with the mail server, you know you have a problem. View the full article

Hackers took advantage of an unpatched Drupal vulnerability in the organization's website to launch a cryptojacking attack. View the full article

There are plenty of awesome Black Friday 2018 deals flying around at the moment, but we're calling it: this is the best of the bunch. Onestream is offering unlimited broadband for just £9.99 a month, which is absolutely the cheapest broadband deal we've seen. Ever. We're still days away from Black Friday, but if you're after a broadband bargain, this deal isn't going to be bettered. Because it's so stupidly good, Onestream is limiting this offer to just the first 500 customers, so hurry if you want to claim. Once those 500 are gone, the price will revert back to the usual £13.99 a month (still mega-cheap, but around £50 more than deal price over the course of the year). It will cost you £9.99 for the first year of the contract, and then £24.99 thereafter if you want to stay with the provider. But the contract ends in 12 months, so come Black Friday 2019, you'll be perfectly free to shop around for a new bargain. Read to the bottom for more details. In the interest of variety, BT is also offering some top deals this Black Friday season – although nothing anywhere near as cheap as the Onestream offer. While you'll be shelling out at least £20 a month more, BT has sweetened the deal by throwing in a £120+ reward card (essentially a prepaid Mastercard) for anyone who signs up before midnight on Cyber Monday (26 Nov). Take a look at the details below. Related articles: Black Friday UK sale: Don't miss this unbelievable Samsung Galaxy S9 deal The best 4K TVs at Walmart The best Microsoft Black Friday deals View the full article

For artists and designers, having a trusted way to record an idea when inspiration strikes is vital. Nowadays, for many creatives, that comes in the form of a smart device, with a camera and note-taking services. But these devices don't come cheap, which is why we were really excited to see this early Black Friday deal, which offers one of the best camera phones on the market at the lowest price we've ever seen in the UK. In an exclusive deal with our sister site Techradar, today Mobiles.co.uk is offering the Samsung Galaxy S9 for as little as £23 per month, with a one-off upfront fee of £69.99, which Techradar reports as 'THE best Galaxy S9 deal you'll see this Black Friday'. The Galaxy S9 screen delivers phenomenal image quality But why should you choose a Galaxy S9 over other leading smartphones, we hear you ask? Like anything, phone choice is a very personal thing, and being a (usually loyal) Android or Apple user will obviously have an influence. But if you are a die-hard Android fan, or thinking of making the switch, this is the deal for you. Not only is the Galaxy S9 is the most powerful Android phone available, it has a plethora of features just waiting to help you unleash your creativity. The camera being one, another being the Galaxy S9's flawless screen, which utilises Super AMOLED technology, enabling it to deliver phenomenal image quality. The unbelievable discount comes after the upfront price was dropped from £110, to just under £90, which was already a huge saving. But add the voucher code OMD15 at the checkout and it brings the fee down to a jaw-dropping £69.99. This is the cheapest deal on Samsung's flagship phone we've seen so far and we don't expect it to be beaten, so if you're in the market for a new smartphone, now's the time to buy. But hurry, we don't expect this deal to hang around for long! Read more: Black Friday flash sale: Save almost £400 on a new Surface Pro 6! This Xbox One X deal is the cheapest we've seen The best Black Friday and Cyber Monday laptop deals View the full article

If you're looking for a brilliant 4K TV, then Walmart is an excellent place to check, as it has a huge range of ultra high definition televisions at very competitive prices. The best 4K TVs at Walmart cover a wide range of sizes, from 32-inch TVs that are great for guest rooms, to 55-inch 4K TVs for the lounge, or even monster 65-inch and 75-inch displays for truly immersive entertainment to rival your local movie theater. The best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals 2018 There are a lot of things you need to consider when buying a 4K TV from Walmart. Screen size is the obvious one, as you don't want to buy a TV that will swap the room it's intended for (unless that's what you're going for). You should also think about the number of ports the TV has, especially HDMI. The best 4K TVs offer a wide range of ports for you to plug all your devices into. Take a look for HDR (high dynamic range) support as well. This is technology that brings improved contrast and colors to 4K footage, and can make all the difference to image quality. Budget 4K TVs will often not have this feature, in order to keep the price down. Because of the wide range of 4K TVs on offer at Walmart, it can be tricky to pick the best one that suits your needs. And that's where this guide comes in. We've hand-picked the best 4K TVs currently on sale at Walmart, and we'll clearly explain why each TV should be worthy of your consideration. The TCL 55R617 is our pick of the best overall 4K TV at Walmart. It offers some excellent features and very good image quality, while also not being too expensive at all. The TCL 6-Series is the best TV you can possibly get in this price range. Its performance-per-dollar is unmatched, and the picture quality – despite a few minor flaws – will truly impress you. It features Dolby Vision and Roku TV for streaming media (two features you'd expect to find only on far more expensive TVs), and also boasts HDR, something many budget 4K TVs don't have. For the price, this is a very impressive 4K TV. If you've got a bigger budget, then the Samsung QN65Q9FN is our pick of the best 4K TV you can buy from Walmart. Sure, it's expensive, but you are getting a large 65-inch 4K TV with exceptional image quality, thanks to Samsung’s QLED technology. It makes images even brighter and more colorful than previous Samsung TVs, and features Full Array Local Dimming rather than edge-lit LED lighting for seriously impressive images. It also supports HDR10+ and Q HDR EliteMax – what Samsung bills as its maximum High Dynamic Range experience that’s exclusive to the Q9FN series – making it the best choice for 4K TV if you can afford it. The Samsung UN55NU8000 is a brilliant mid-range TV that strikes a good balance between price and performance. It's not too expensive, but it offers bright, beautiful colors and a HDR+ mode. It features the latest version of Samsung's TV OS, which is found on much more expensive TVs (like the Samsung QN65Q9FN above), and it handles gaming really well thanks to its low input lag. This is definitely a 4K TV that punches above its weight considering its mid-range price. If you're after a 4K TV for a rock bottom price, and you don't mind missing out on features such as Smart TV apps and HDR, then the RCA RTU4300 is is a real steal. For under that magic price of $200, you get a 43-inch 4K TV that might not give you the most impressive home cinema experience, but does a fine job as a second TV to place in a bedroom. As long as you keep your expectations in check with this ultra-cheap 4K TV, you won't be disappointed. If you're looking for a 55-inch 4K TV, then this is a very good choice from Walmart. The UN55NU6900 comes with the build quality we've come to expect from Samsung, while also keeping the price low. Picture quality is good considering the price, and it supports local dimming and a high contrast ratio that helps images look good. HDR support is also included, which is a nice plus at this price point, though it's not as impressive as more expensive TVs, and viewing angles are narrow. Gamers will also appreciate the low input lag. The best all-round 4K TV at 65-inches is this brilliant LG 65SK8000PUA. When you're buying a screen this big, you want to make sure that it has the image quality to do the size justice, and this TV manages that without being prohibitively expensive. It can't compete with 65-inch sets costing $2,000 and above, but it doesn't set out to. This is a very capable, large-screen ultra high definition TV with plenty of features. It doesn't go as bright as some other sets, but for most people that won't be an issue. Yet another Samsung on our list of the best 4K TVs from Walmart, but what can we say? We really like the Korean company's TVs. If you're looking for a large (and we mean very large) 4K TV, then this 75-inch beast is our pick. The Samsung QN75Q6FN offers brilliant image quality, a gorgeous, thin bezel design and plenty of HMDI inputs. It also has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi built in, and it offers a variable refresh rate as well thanks to FreeSync support. Vizio is a brand known for cheap TVs that offer features and image quality that can rival more expensive models. Walmart has a wide range from this brand, but in our opinion the best Vizio 4K TV on sale at Walmart is the Vizio D55x-G1. This is a 55-inch mid-range 4K TV that offers some excellent features for a very tempting price. It has three HDMI ports, so you can plug in plenty of devices. It also has Chromecast built in, allowing you to install various apps such as Netflix and Spotify. Sony produces some exceptional 4K TVs, though they are often quite expensive. The Sony Bravia XBR55A9F is our pick for the best Sony 4K TV at Walmart – but it comes at quite a high price. If you can afford it, then you'll be blown away by the image quality on display here. This is a TV that has been carefully engineered to provide best-in-class image quality and supports HDR, Dolby Vision, IMAX Enhanced and other impressive technology. It also works with Google Home and Amazon Alexa voice assistants. Read more: 10 boxsets every designer should watch The best 4K monitors for designers in 2018 View the full article

If you're interested in gaming, you'll know that there are plenty of Xbox Black Friday bundle deals around. However, if the game isn't what you're after, these can be a bit of a false economy. Much rarer is the standalone console offer, but Walmart has stepped up this year with a great Xbox One X deal. Right now you can pick up an Xbox One X console for just under $400 rather than the usual $499.99 in this awesome Microsoft Black Friday 2018 deal. Microsoft's Xbox One X offers 4K HDR gaming – which means games look stunning. It also promises 40% more power than any other console, making it the most premium gaming experience you can find. Take a look at our sister website TechRadar's Xbox One X review for more information. Want to make sure there isn't a better bundle deal for you? Walmart has knocked $70.99 off a range of game-plus-console packages. So for an extra $30 you could get multiplayer action role-playing game Fallout 76 or basketball simulation game NBA 2K19 bundled in. There's also an option to include battle royale shooter Playerunknown's Battlegrounds, but that's only $17 at Walmart at the moment, so you're better buying the game and console separately. Take a look at our roundup of amazing Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018 deals for more top savings. Read more: The best Christmas gifts for graphic designers 14 fun fonts to put a smile on your face Save almost 40% on Adobe Creative Cloud View the full article

There are certain Black Friday deals you expect to see every year, and others you think you won't see in a million years - an almost £400 price drop on a new Microsoft Surface Pro 6 being one of them. Yes, you read that right. As of this minute, you can get hold of a brand new Surface Pro 6 12.3" two-in-one laptop with platinum keyboard cover 2018 for just £749 - that's £380 off the retail price! The best Microsoft Black Friday 2018 deals So what do you get for your money? All the performance of a powerful laptop with the versatility of a tablet, that's what. This spec Surface Pro 6 boasts an impressive 13.5 hours of battery life, houses a 128GB solid state drive, 8th generation Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB RAM and, if that wasn't enough, a stylish platinum keyboard cover is thrown in for the price too. Being one of the best tablets currently on the market, we don't expect this deal to hang around for long, so if you're in the market for one, now's the time to buy. Read more: Surface Pro 6 review View the full article

Digital artists on the look out for a discount pen display or drawing tablet are in luck: these XP-Pen Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals slash up to 30% off the popular XP-Pen graphic drawing tablets. Bargain. If you're not familiar with XP-Pen, the Japanese graphics tablet company has been developing pro drawing products since 2005. The company offers a decent budget alternative to more expensive Wacom options. With these discounts, there's no better time to pick up an XP-Pen device. Listed below are the offers that really caught our eye, but there are plenty more digital art discounts over on Amazon already. But remember: the devices we've listed below are reduced for today only, from 06:20 BST, so if you want to cash in on these lightning deals, make sure you do before 12:20 BST. And you might want to hurry, with up to 29% knocked off, we don't expect stocks to last long. Top tip: Prime members can access these deals the second they become available, but non-members will have to wait an extra 30 minutes before they can cash in. Don't want to miss out? Sign up for a free 30-day Amazon Prime trial and get every deal as soon as it's available. (You can cancel your trial afterwards with no strings attached.) Related articles: Review: XP-Pen Artist 15.6 graphics tablet The best drawing tablet: our pick of the best graphics tablets in 2018 The best Black Friday and Cyber Monday tablet deals View the full article

The "Kitten of Doom" denial-of-service attack is easy to carry out. View the full article

Adobe has slashed the price of its full Creative Suite of apps by almost half in an unbelievable Adobe Black Friday deal. The software company is offering a 40% discount on its All Apps package. That means you can now pick up Adobe’s entire collection of 20-plus creative desktop and mobile apps, and more, for just £30.34/€36.29/$22.99/month, instead of £49.94/€60.49/$52.99/month – a rare deal indeed. Unfortunately, the offer isn’t open to everyone worldwide. But if you’re based in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Brazil or Japan, you can claim the 40% discount. Save up to 40% on Creative Cloud now Students and teachers get lucky too, with an additional 20-25% discount – that's on top of the 60% discount already offered. The offers are all valid until 24 November, so if you’re interested, you'll need to sign up by then… What’s included in the Creative Cloud All Apps plan? Adobe's Creative Cloud All Apps plan includes: The entire collection of 20+ creative desktop and mobile apps, including Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, and Adobe XD CC 100GB of cloud storage Adobe Portfolio Adobe Fonts Adobe Spark with premium features The option of up to 10TB of cloud storage The programs are fully integrated, so you can work between them (and different devices) seamlessly – whether you’re out and about or in the studio. Built-in templates help you jump-start your designs, while step-by-step tutorials will help you sharpen your skills and get up to speed quickly. This deal expires on 24 November 2018. Related articles: The best Adobe Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals 60 top-class Photoshop tutorials The best 4K monitors for designers 2018 View the full article

The privilege-escalation vulnerability would allow an attacker to inject malware, place ads and load custom code on an impacted website. View the full article

The flaw in a high-end phones and up-and-coming handsets made by top OEMs allows hackers to bypass handset lock screens in seconds. View the full article

Agencies and website owners can be slow to adapt to changes in technology, often because the latest fad can fall out of favour as fast as it emerges. We have a tendency to rely on more tried-and-tested solutions, which aren’t always the fastest and therefore don’t always deliver the best user experience. So if you've ended up in a rut with your web design processes, here are some top web design tools and techniques that could help you speed up your sites and apps, and improve UX. 01. Use a JavaScript framework Using a JavaScript framework is one way to improve the speed of your web apps. This approach has risen in popularity over the last few years in particular and wider industry support exists for most packages. Using a JavaScript framework will often enable you to build the site as a single-page application (SPA), which loads only the minimum content required to your browser. A word of caution: this will improve speed but (unless you're willing to add a lot of customisation and server work) isn't that SEO-friendly. So keep it to web apps rather than websites. 02. Try progressive web apps Progressive web apps (PWAs) adapt websites or web apps to make them functional offline when added to mobile home screens. They typically use web browser features to store data offline – perfect for patchy internet connections. If you want users to return to your application often, consider a PWA. You can prompt mobile users to add these sites to their home screens for quick access and immediate loading. 03. Explore AMP A Google-led working group released AMP in February 2016 to load pages submitted in the correct format instantly from Google’s global network. The technology, like Facebook’s Instant Articles, requires businesses to maintain additional codebases and gives access to fewer design features but offers better search engine visibility and usability. It’s particularly good for media producers with topical content. 04. Consider a CDN Content delivery networks (CDNs) aren’t new, but plenty of websites still don’t use them. CDNs let you move the job of delivering a website and its assets from the server itself to a global distribution network, which is faster. CDNs enable sites to run much quicker, as the user isn’t waiting for the end server to do all the work. They’re especially helpful for sites built for design over functionality. 05. Add a caching plugin Caching plugins are offered with many CMSs, but are often ignored. WordPress, for example, offers many. Within the software, your server will store snapshots of pages rather than compiling a new page for every request. This means end users get the same speed impact as if you were serving them a static website. Businesses can couple caching with CDNs to improve site speed significantly. This article was originally published in net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 311 or subscribe. Read more: 5 tips for super-fast CSS 35 brilliant 404 error pages The 6 pillars of great UX View the full article

When it comes to creative play, you can't get better than LEGO. What started out as a humble little wooden brick in the 1930s, has since grown in to one of the world's most popular and sought-after toys, for kids and adults alike. And now, with Black Friday just around the corner, there's no better time to get your hands on some of LEGO's most impressive sets. Today Amazon has knocked up to a whopping 40 per cent off various LEGO sets, but you'll need to hurry. These deals are only on today and we don't expect stocks to last long. The best Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in 2018 Below you'll find some sets now on offer, but there's plenty more where they came from over on Amazon. Prime members can access these deals as soon as they're available, however non-members will have to wait 30 minutes before they too can benefit from any discounts. Don't want t miss out? Sign up for a free 30-day Amazon Prime trial and get every deal as soon as it's available. Read more: The best creative Christmas gifts for kids Wacom Black Friday 2018: the best deals Lego art: 40 designs that will blow your mind View the full article

Amazon is fully gearing up for next weekend, with some seriously impressive Black Friday deals set to drop. But for those of you in the US, the wait is over, with the retailer kicking things off earlier than planned, releasing some huge savings ahead of the big shopping event. The best Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in 2018 So if you've been thinking about investing in an Amazon Fire Tablet, you're in luck. Starting from tomorrow, and in the days leading up to Black Friday, Amazon US is slashing prices on its very own tablet range, information on which you can find below. Been wanting to get kit your office out with a virtual assistant, or after some new TV channels? Then you're in luck too, with Amazon also offering impressive discounts on its hands-free, voice-controlled Echo devices, and best-selling Fire TV stick, details of which you can also find right here... Amazon Fire tablet deals Amazon Echo deals Amazon Fire TV deals View the full article

"Our advice is to stop using this watch" as mitigations are not available, researchers told Threatpost. View the full article

Finding the best email provider isn't a top concern for many designers. It's not something you tend to think about much; most people just use the personal email address you get from your ISPs, with maybe a Gmail account on the side and probably a work account too, and that generally works just fine. If you're running a creative business, though, at some point you'll need to think a lot harder about email accounts, especially if you need to send large files or set up new addresses for employees. If you've set up web hosting for your company then it almost certainly comes with enough email addresses for your needs, but is the entire package going be enough for your needs? In this article we'll explore some different options, to help you find the best email service for you. 8 steps to inbox zero A badly set-up email service can be worse than none at all, especially if it has inadequate spam filters, won't let you organise your inbox, or if you can't access it using your preferred email client. And if you're running a business and you can't get your email service to work with your company's domain then it's not going to give a great impression when you're contacting clients. With all this and more in mind, here's our rundown of the best email providers around. Choose wisely. The best email providers of 2018 There are plenty of reasons why you might want to use Gmail for your business. The most compelling of which is that you're probably using it already, so why waste time getting to know a completely new email setup? There's plenty to recommend Gmail as your business email service; its clean, clutter-free interface makes it easy to organise your messages, with emails arranged into conversations and automatic filtering of messages into tabbed categories that mean you can focus on the stuff that matters. Its heavyweight spam filtering does an admirable job of keeping your inbox junk-free (although sometimes it's a little over-zealous – you'll need to take a regular look in there to make sure it hasn't squirreled any important messages away). And if you have accounts on other services, in most cases you'll be able to manage them from within the Gmail interface. With 15GB of storage shared across all your Google products you're unlikely to run out of space quickly, but if you need more power then there are some great options to be had from Google's paid G Suite product; with the Basic plan for $5/£3.60 per month you get 30GB, plus unlimited group email addresses, 99.9% guaranteed uptime and 24/7 support. It costs a little more than other companies' email-only deals, but it's worth it for the additional features. You also get custom email addresses and migration tools to help you import old messages from other services. Best of all, you won't see any more adverts. Gmail's appeal is partly down to the fact that it's grown from an email package into an entire productivity suite that links up seamlessly. Microsoft has had the office stuff nailed for years, so hooking its email offering into that is a no-brainer. If you're already using Office 365 then you can easily switch your email over to Outlook at no extra cost. The paid version of Outlook with Office 365 is an attractive prospect; with it you'll get an ad-free inbox, plus 50GB of mail storage that you don't have to share with other Office apps as there's also 1TB of OneDrive storage thrown in as well, so you're unlikely to find yourself low on space. You'll also get file recovery from malware attacks, offline working, professional formatting tools and phone- or chat-based support. Prices start at $7/£5 per month for the personal plan. Even if you don't take up the paid version there's plenty to recommend Outlook. Like Gmail it gives you 15GB of storage as well as the ability to attach files from cloud services such as OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive and Box, making it simple to send files to clients. The web interface will be pleasingly familiar to anyone who uses the desktop version of Outlook, with a focused inbox that'll show you only the most important messages, and the option to automatically add scheduled events to your calendar. The only real downside is that you don't get quite as much control over settings as you do with something like Gmail. But if you're happy with Outlook's default options then you should get on just fine with it. It's been a very long time since Yahoo was one of the biggest names on the internet, and the intervening years haven't been kind to it. So it might be a bit of a surprise to discover that its Yahoo Mail service is a strong, professional offering that's well worth checking out. Perhaps its most appealing feature from a creative point of view is the amount of storage it gives you: with 1TB you're going to be hard pushed to fill it up, even if you're slinging huge files around regularly. On top of that you get a well-designed interface complete with custom folders and one-click filters to help you organise common messages and content, as well as Facebook integration and the ability to send text messages as well as emails. If you'd rather use your own email client then it's pretty straightforward to set that up too. Step up to Yahoo Mail's business plan and you'll get more options, including the all-important ability to use a custom domain that'll be auto-renewed for as long as your subscription is active. You'll also get the ability to import contacts from Facebook, Gmail, Outlook and more, plus an assortment of productivity tools and as many mailboxes as you choose to pay for. Prices start at $3.19 (£2.30) per mailbox per month, with the price coming down as you add more mailboxes – perfect for an expanding company. Let's be clear about this: if you're a creative then you're likely to run up against the restrictive side of ProtonMail pretty quickly. It only gives you 500MB of online storage, something you could easily burn through in a few days, and it only allows you to send 150 messages per day. On top of that, its online client is severely lacking in options that you'll get from most other email providers, such as folders, labels and smart filters, and you can't set it up to work with your existing email client. So why would you bother? Basically, ProtonMail's aimed at anyone who takes their privacy seriously, and if you're working on confidential projects then you might find it useful as an additional email service working alongside your primary address. You can sign up anonymously, it provides end-to-end encryption on all the emails you send, and it won't log your IP address. Thanks to address verification you can be certain that the people you're talking to are who they say they are, and it also supports PGP encryption. If you need more from it then there's a Plus plan for $5/month that gives you 5GB storage, 1,000 messages per day, custom domains and folders, labels and filters, and there's also a Business plan with even more options. If security matters to you then it's worth investigating, but it's almost certainly overkill for most creatives. Running a creative business with irregular payments can often mean that funds are short, so any service that won't cost you much – or indeed anything at all – can be well worth investigating, and Zoho Workplace is just that. It's a business-oriented email service that also gives you collaborative tools, document management, an online office suite and other extras for free. You'll get support for up to 25 users with 5GB of storage each, as well as the use of one custom domain, and a web-only email client with a strong set of features such as folders, tags, filters, smart searches, and more. As a free offering, it's brilliant, but if you choose to pay some actual money then it gets even better. From $3 per user per month (paid annually) you'll get the ability to use your own mail client, as well as 30GB storage and a 30MB attachment limit, plus plenty of other features such as multiple domain hosting and domain aliases. And if you need more than that there's a Professional plan that give you 100GB storage per user and 40MB attachments, plus video conferencing and more besides. Related articles: 17 top email newsletters 19 tips for great email newsletter design 10 best email newsletter tools An indispensable guide to email management for creatives View the full article

Emojis are the perfect way to grease the wheels of a conversation. The comical faces, gestures and objects help to take the edge off a written message, or communicate feelings that just can't be put into words. And while emojis have come along way since starting out as pixel art, sometimes they don't sum up exactly how we feel. Enter Emoji Builder. Created by Stripe designer Philipp Antoni, Emoji Builder is a fun tool for graphic designers – or anyone in fact – that enables you to customise your own emoji based on Apple assets. While it might not be the first emoji design platform, Emoji Builder stands apart from the rest thanks to the level of customisation it offers. Check it out in action with the video Antoni tweeted below. To start building your own emoji, simply click on the element you want to use and play around with the customisation fields until it's looking just right. These fields let you change the placement, height and scale of an element, meaning that you craft your ideal emoji. Once it's perfect, you can save it for future use. Send it to clients, use it on social media, whatever you like (though you might be wise to exercise caution, depending on what you come up with!). Alternatively, emoji can be generated randomly, resulting in some truly bizarre expressions. We're not sure when you'd need to use a surprised lying face with a wavy mouth, but it's there if you need it. The batch of assets users can play with are limited to facial expressions, although the drunken wavy mouth that disturbed social media when it made its debut earlier this month is in there, so the selection is pretty up to date. If the Emoji Builder takes off, maybe we can expect to see more icons added to its asset bank in the future? *Makes begging face* Related articles: Discover the origins of everyday emoji What's wrong with Google's burger emoji? Logo design: everything you need to know View the full article

You're reading Best Free Sketch Plugins for UX/UI Designers in 2018, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! When it comes to professional design tools, the first thing that comes to mind is products by Adobe such as Photoshop or Illustrator. However, the situation is changing. Newer solutions such as Sketch App are growing in popularity. There are … View the full article

Time and time again I get asked what’s my process as a concept artist. Truth be told, I don’t have just one process. Instead, I use a tool box that’s full of art techniques. It helps to save time and create a smooth flow of ideas. Generally, no two assignments are the same. They’re not cookie-cutter tasks. They require different moods, design, creativity, touch and feeling. After a while you figure that out and you pick the best tools for the job. So, for this article, I'm sharing several tools from my creative box. I’ll show you how I use them individually and in tandem with others. Sometimes one technique works well for something, while other times you’ll need the whole arsenal of tools and tricks to make the image sing and hit the deadlines. Okay, let’s begin! 01. Paint fast sketches for fun This stunning picture took only 30 minutes to make I spend about an hour on each one of these guys. Fun, simple sketches like these can be cranked out and help to fill out a portfolio. Try and take some time out of a day or evening, and do a quick colour sketch now and then. You may not always be happy with the final piece, but there’s a good chance that you’ll have learned something new during the image creation process – and you may even produce a decent portfolio piece out of it to boot. 02. Promote yourself online Stand out from the crowd with social media As well as having experimental, high-energy pieces interspersed throughout your portfolio, you can use them as a handy calling card for a spot of self-promotion. After you’ve produced a piece that you’re happy with, add it to your online portfolio. Then roll up your sleeves and get busy on social media. Hit all the outlets: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and more. Remind people that you’re still making art. Artists can’t always show off their client work because of NDAs. Personal pieces go a long way towards maintaining your online presence. 03. Flesh out a variety of styles and content Experimental pieces can help you find new work Here’s another reason to produce some quick sketches. Perhaps you’ve heard from a friend that a project’s coming up and you’d like to show you’re capable of working in that genre or style. Do a sketch to show that you’d be a good fit. It doesn’t need to be on the nose as far as content is concerned – just something that looks like it would fit in that particular world. There’s a chance the art director will see it and think that you’re a good match. If not, no matter – you still have another quality promotional piece to use as you see fit. 04. Learn to become a good storyteller A story can emerge when you play around with composition One good thing that these quick sketches force you to do is think about storytelling. For this piece, I didn’t know what I was going to paint before I started. And I’m sure I spent the first 10 minutes going back and forth on what the subject matter was going to be. But eventually I started to illustrate a corridor and some shapes in the background. Because I was working so fast and loose I began to think about smaller facets of the story. For example, how I do I express these ideas in a very simple visual language? Here, the two characters outside are clearly together, while the character in the foreground is alone. The foreground character represents the viewer and the background figures are the mystery and the action. As the viewer, you’re forced to walk into that microcosm of mystery. It’s the drama and mystery that really sells this piece. All of this was conceived while I was working. It’s pretty fun and adds a whole other layer to a piece that would otherwise have been pretty generic. 05. Use little design illusions Large shapes are quickly blocked in to establish a scene... Previously, I’ve described how I approach my sketch work. Here, I’ve broken down my sketching process into two steps. I kick things off with a basic block-in. I might have a prepared textural background that I pre-paint or I’ll just paint it during this step. Then I add the larger shapes and start to work out the composition and the story in the scene. The textures that I paint give the illusion of more detail present in the image then there really is. Some stuff like the figures are just scribbled blobs at this point. Now that I have my story planned out, I begin to fully realise it…. or realise it just enough so that it’s clear to the viewer. I add some lighting breaking through the tree foliage. Well, foliage that you really don’t see. You only have the light hitting the ship and the small little clump of tree foliage in the foreground to inform the viewer of the space that’s outside the picture frame. ...before being built up with lighting illusions Little design tricks such as this add scope to something that, on the surface, is pretty simple. The viewer’s mind then works to fill in those gaps with the little hints and bread crumbs that I leave for them. I let the viewer’s own imagination do some of the heavy lifting. As a result, they also feels more committed to the image and the story that it’s trying to tell. 06. Start with a strong silhouette This towering mech is not what it appears This image of a mech seen at an imposing angle may look like it was modelled and rendered in a 3D program, but it was actually photobashed together. I began by getting hold of a large collection of photographs of mechanical objects – some that I had taken myself. Then I fired up Photoshop CC and sketched out the silhouette of the mech. Only when I was happy with the general shape and design direction did I reach for the stack of photos. After that, I transformed and colour-matched elements from my photos to fit what I wanted. This image took between three and four hours to create. 07. Use photobashing to create illustrative art Believe it or not, this is not a fully painted piece Although it may not look it, there’s a ton of photobash work here – about 80 per cent, I’d say. But it’s heavily painted on. I start by laying in images almost immediately… almost designing with them. While I’m laying in images and bashing them together, I’m also selecting light and dark areas, and painting into them. I’m after the detail and texture: I leave out what I don’t need and push the shapes that support the composition. For some parts I want lots of detail; elsewhere, I’ll blow out the light values. This image contains dozens of elements from photos. You can see them on close inspection, but at first glance most people think it’s a fully painted piece. I often use photobashing to a lesser degree in my art, towards the end of the painting process. It’s an effective way of introducing a layer of texture to a scene. This method works for me because I know the basics of painting. Photobashing enables me to expand on my core art skills – it’s not a shortcut to becoming a good artist. It takes a lot of practice to use photos this way. 08. Depict hard surfaces in 3D 3D tools are perfect for a clean look For spaceships, vehicles, mech designs or in fact anything mechanical, I tend to use 3D tools. They enable me to design from multiple angles, and ensure that the finished work has a clean look. The art will be more precise, with sharper edges compared to the painterly results from using standard 2D tools. In addition, I can design the object from multiple angles, knowing that nothing will end up being fudged. It’s going to be accurate. I like to see that in mechanical designs. 09. Use a repetitive architecture workflow Plotting in 3D is a great way to save time Similar-looking buildings or architecture from dramatic angles is another reason for using 3D tools. Even if I’m going to end up painting on the art, it’ll save me time if I model instead of drafting and plotting everything in 2D. Examples include rows of columns in interiors or building blocks in a street scene. 3D tools will boost your workflow in these assignments. 10. Create reusable assets Get an asset right once and you'll save yourself work in the future Another reason for using 3D is if an asset is going to be used in a range of images. I spent a week or so designing this racing mech in 3D. I began with some rough 2D sketches, modelled the design, asked for feedback from friends and did multiple revisions. I was happy to spend this time up front because I knew I was going to use this asset across multiple images, and that having a fully formed design at the start would save me time later on. For example, take the reflections on the mech and the decals on the design. Achieving that look with just 2D would be a challenge. 11. Use 3D assets to create key frames With pre-designed assets, this image was made very quickly Thanks to the pre-designed mech asset, it took me just under a day to put this scene together. This is one of six key frames that I developed featuring the mech. In the end, it speeds up the creative process – important when it’s your IP and you have to do everything in your own time! 12. Model complex scenes in 3D 3D tools are ideal for mechanical scenes This design was going to be pretty complicated with all the pipes and gears in a 3D space. To help save me time I modelled the scene in 3D and even lit and rendered it. All those pipes and railing would have been a pain to replicate in 2D, as well as taking time. But using 3D tools helped me to complete the scene quickly. The room is largely symmetrical so I could just mirror the geometry, and the rest is a lot of duplicated pipes. 13. Experiment with framing and focal points This image is carefully composed to make the viewer's eye travel Here, I wanted to do some fan art from a sci-fi children’s show. I knew I didn’t want to spend more than a day on it. The piece I had in mind was pretty epic, so I had to think how I could effectively develop the frame. First, I did a quick sketch that conveyed the energy, the basic story premise, all the big elements and the overall composition. Then I got some photos and began taking out bits and pieces, comping them in while painting and editing the piece. After that I looked at the big mech and Kaiju battling in the background, which was still pretty sketchy. Because it was the focal point I felt I could get a lot of bang for my buck if I modelled the mech. I didn’t spend too much time modelling: it was all blocks and cylinders. Then I photographed the actual toy of the mech and overlayed that photo on to the front of my model. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked fine for me. I posed it quickly and then rendered it. I must have spent no more than and hour or so on the mech. I decided that the kaiju could be painted up a little more than the sketch I did at the beginning. I was about to call it quits, but then felt the chaos of the foreground elements was fighting with the flow of the image and distracting from the focal point. So I decided to add the bird fighter flying into the image, which I quickly modelled in my 3D package. I added it to the frame and painted the blue energy thrust. The fighter helped with the flow, directed the viewer into the focal point and framed the action – all at the same time! 14. Leave room for interaction First things first: establish a focal point I lay down a fast and quick background, mostly to establish the palette and the general directions I want to go. This step prompts me to ask questions, such as what do I want to accomplish with this piece, and identifying the story I want to tell. Now I begin to answer the question of story. I choose my focal point and begin to build the scene. Adding details is where the fun begins I start to think about how people will interact in this world and begin to add smaller details to help define objects in the scene. This is definitely the fun part! You can bring in all kinds of little story moments to help enrich the composition. Refine the details for a satisfying picture Now I just finish up the piece and begin to add more details and make sure that the image has a clean read. The viewer’s experience is key! 15. Go light on photos Photos are ideal for adding the illusion of texture This piece was done primarily in 3D in the early stages. I then painted some values and some other large-scale details. But for the finer details and texture, I used photos. You can’t really see them, but they’re there. This was done more to add texture, creating the illusion that there’s more detail than there is. This article was originally published in issue 164 of ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 164 here or subscribe to ImagineFX here. Related articles: Improve your concept art skills in Photoshop How to break into movie concept art How to model concept art in Cinema 4D View the full article

The jobs are moving. The people aren't. As migration restrictions hit more socially polarised nations, it's getting harder for talented artists to chase the work around the world. Furthermore, they want to work from home – not uproot families and navigate challenging circumstances to live in the most expensive cities of the world, where you'll often find a concentration of the most desirable jobs. The benefits of working remotely This issue isn't specific to the post-production industry, of course, but it's where I have the most first-hand experience, having gained it from founding VFX Legion and turning it into a global institution with a remote workforce located from one end of the globe to the other. Having a global workforce has enabled us to give artists the work-life balance they desire, but it has also pinpointed challenges around efficient global creativity. Here's how we've solved them. 01. Listen One of the biggest challenges inherent in global creativity is the need to drive a business and operate under singular goals from a central location, all while working with artists spread far and wide. If you do not take into consideration the needs of the artist or workforce, you will inevitably experience problems at some point down the line and things will quickly fall apart. Give your artists a voice and listen to constructive feedback about what could make things smoother. At VFX Legion we had a global workforce right out of the gate – right from year zero. When we received feedback about how we could communicate more effectively and launch workflows more smoothly, we adapted, and it made the whole process so much more efficient. 02. See A remote workforce is by definition remote, but it still relies on a face-to-face connection. We want to see people and have those human interactions. Technology is now at a point where this is possible on a daily basis. We use Zoom Conference tools for video, screen sharing and screen control to communicate daily with our artists. A phone call is all well and good, but communication is always clearer when you fully understand the emotions of the person you're speaking with – and for that you need to see who you're talking to. 03. Speak Being a good manager and leader is about communicating and letting your team know you exist and that you're part of the team. Efficiency is based on being collaborative, and that doesn't mean staying mute in the background. We have a Discord server at Legion with chat rooms for each project we're working on, as well as a general chat room. We can send images, links, humour or creative ideas around very quickly. I make sure I'm always in there talking with the team and both giving and receiving updates – along with sending the occasional funny GIF. It makes everyone feel so much more a part of the team. 04. Ease Communicating the constant information updates around a show or a project can be relentless. Having a central repository of information like a wiki – or in our case a 'portal' – can solve this. It gives everyone on the team a central information repository, that they can easily go to and receive up-to-the-minute information about tools being used or specifics on a show. There should never be a moment where a team member is sitting at their desk, not knowing what they're doing. We launched VFX Legion thinking about this from day one, and we've become so smooth in our operations that, by the time an artist has the paperwork done and has come onto a project, they have enough information to start working. At this point, we've cut down our start time by nearly a day from when the company started. This is a huge saving – both in time and money. 05. Pay Img credit: RawPixel Artists may be remote, but they still expect to be paid fairly for their services. We've made it easy for artists to get paid for the work they do for VFX Legion. As part of our web platform, we use a 'portal' that gives artists visibility over their work – they can check out their approved shots and automatically create invoices. The whole process shocks a lot of artists that have worked for other remote-style companies – they usually don't get that level of oversight. But it's important. At the end of the day, people do this for passion, but they also need their paycheck. We want our artists all over the world to concentrate on creativity, not bookkeeping, so it's up to us to ensure they don't need to question or worry about where the next bank balance update is coming. 06. Feedback Keeping an artist in the loop and providing quality feedback is a challenge we face every day. Visual content is an abstract thing, and notes can be complex and challenging to translate. That's why we use tools like cineSync to keep things collaborative and optical. Our supervisors will also often write up extremely detailed notes and strategies for achieving a look or a quality that is needed in any particular effect. This keeps the process moving and provides the artist with the insight into the sum total of what they are working on. Just make sure that you're doing this every day, all the time. Keep talking. Keep updating. Keep everyone on the same page. 07. Be happy One of the biggest challenges of visual effects is that it can have long hours, many notes, and requests from people who don't understand what they're asking for. Despite that, a 'can-do' attitude will take you a long way. This is a client service industry and we're here to service clients, first and foremost. This comes in the form of communication around projects, and that communication must always be positive and aimed at completing something great. Visual effects can sometimes be a 'grumbling' industry. We've all been in that situation where deadlines are close and final versions are not. At the end of the day, though, how we communicate and how we handle that stress is a key to our success. I try to live this every day and run my company with honesty, integrity and humour – because that is who I am, and that is what VFX Legion is about. Five years on, we're still learning and growing at Legion. We're creating both local and remote teams to tackle all kinds of VFX work. By following the principles above, I truly believe that Legion has become something of a gold standard for our workforce. Other industries would do well to grow like this, and to find good people, wherever they may be around the globe. This article was originally published in issue 238 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 238 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Lead image credit: Slava Bowman Related articles: How to build a VFX studio Pixar Animation Studios: 4 secrets to success How to launch a creative business View the full article