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Remember when branding used to be called 'corporate identity’? It spoke to one of the key branding rhetorics of the day: ‘you can trust me because I’m a big, global business.’ But last year’s damning research by Ipsos Connect revealed that 42 per cent of people claim to distrust big brands and 69 per cent distrust advertising. As a result, brands don’t always want to look big, corporate and powerful anymore. They want to look real and personable and reflect their true values and roots. Some attempts to do this can be very successful, building brand loyalty and bolstering beliefs in what a brand stands for. But equally, some attempts to appear more human can be met with massive scepticism and at worst, fury. So, how can brand designers successfully navigate this minefield? Apologise when necessary This brand apology was particularly memorable Success comes from telling the human story and getting the tone just right. An example of brilliant thinking when it comes to this was KFC’s response to the recent ‘chicken crisis’. In a genius print ad by Mother, the letters of the ‘KFC’ identity were playfully rearranged to read ‘FCK’. It expressed a genuine, human reaction to the issue with the brand holding its hands up and acknowledging its failings with a perfect, relevant tone of voice for the moment. Implicit in the art direction is the idea that KFC’s chicken is so good that it’s unsurprising supplies ran out. It’s one of the best brand apologies we've ever seen, and has since won awards. Make it obvious BrewDog was called out for its 'patronising' product aimed at women Other attempts to reflect a brand’s ‘human’ values through design do not always hit the mark. BrewDog recently created a ‘beer for girls’ to raise awareness of the gender pay gap, available a fifth cheaper for “those who identify as women” to make the point. Unfortunately, many viewed the pink packaging and ‘beer for girls’ slogan patronising and stereotypical. BrewDog explained the ‘Pink IPA’ product was a pun on its flagship product ‘Punk IPA’, and the branding was deliberately satirical and ironic. However, if you have to explain the rationale behind a creative ‘big idea’, it’s probably not the right idea. Don't patronise your audience Maclean's used clear messaging to address the gender pay gap The Canadian magazine, Maclean’s, had the same idea as BrewDog in addressing the gender pay gap, but it was executed without feeling at all patronising. It made the point clearly, without gimmicks that ran the risk of being misinterpreted. Another brand that didn’t quite hit the mark when addressing gender inequality is McDonald’s. It flipped its logo upside down for International Women’s Day, causing a backlash from people claiming the brand should spend more time addressing its own pay and equality issues, and less on creating symbolic gestures of ‘corporate feminism’. Make it personal Lacoste's range of polo shirts featured endangered species helped it build on its brand equity Showing that a brand cares about more than just its profits carries through to broader issues. Earlier this year, fashion brand Lacoste launched a range of polo shirts that replaced the iconic crocodile logo with various endangered species, to raise money for their protection as part of a three-year commitment. It’s a great creative execution. The shirts look good and build on the brand’s equity, but issues can arise if there is not complete transparency around the results or how much the initiative will actually make a difference. Consumers are now so cynical about brands with a ‘human purpose’ that they will question everything. Burberry got it right when it incorporated rainbow-hued stripes into its classic tartan to show solidarity with the LGBT community. It avoided being seen as a ‘big brand’ jumping on the bandwagon by making it about one individual, creative director Christopher Bailey, who designed the special edition tartan for his final collection for the brand. This made the story a human one. In parallel to announcing the rainbow tartan, it also announced donations to three LGBT charities. Discover what makes the brand human Design Bridge helped The National Archive of the Netherlands position itself as the nation's 'true north' It doesn’t always have to be about cause-related issues. Another approach is for brands to celebrate what it means to be human. At Design Bridge, our recent work for The National Archive of the Netherlands celebrates human connections. Once seen by many as an irrelevant institution, the new identity places the archive at the heart of the Dutch national identity. A compass logo, and supporting visual language, positions the archive as the nation’s ‘true north’, helping people discover where they’ve come from – as an individual, a family, and a nation. Some of the big digital players have also managed the human touch really well. YouTube’s recent rebranding shows an understanding of how to connect to consumers in a more human way: it’s turned the red play button that millions of people engage with everyday into its main visual asset. Ultimately, it’s all about discovering what makes you – as a brand – human, expressing this with clear creative execution that’s relevant to the people you’re trying to reach, and then backing it up with transparency about how you act and what you do as a brand. The era of distrust may not be set to change anytime soon, but brands have the power to make changes, big and small, to ensure they help keep people engaged. This article originally appeared in issue 282 of Computer Arts, the world's leading graphic design magazine. Buy issue 282 or subscribe here. Read more: 8 divisive ad campaigns (and what they teach us) Top brands of 2018 revealed How to choose the right typeface for a brand View the full article

Affinity Designer is a popular vector editing tool for Mac, Windows and now iPad. The app is cleverly broken down into three interchangeable personas: the Draw persona for vector editing, the Pixel persona, and lastly the Export persona. In this tutorial we’re going to briefly look into the Pixel persona, and how to use it in your vector art. While Affinity Designer is primarily for working with vectors, you can make use of a selection of raster editing tools within its Pixel persona. This is incredibly useful if you need to make quick retouches to images. Alternatively, if you illustrate with vectors and are also interested in digital painting, combining the two can yield some interesting results. Watch the video below for an overview of what you need to know, or read on for five essential tips to get you started. 01. Switch to the Pixel persona Select the Pixel persona with this icon When you fire up Affinity Designer, by default you'll be in the Draw persona. To switch to the Pixel persona, select the middle icon in the top left (as shown in the image above) – hovering over should confirm. As you switch to the Pixel persona you will see the toolbars will change to raster editing tools. 02. Raster selection tools This toolbar includes marquee tools, a pixel lasso tool and a selection brush The top set of tools on the left are for raster selection. These include marquee tools, a pixel lasso tool and a selection brush, which work much like other raster editing software would. Do note that they won't work on vectors unless you rasterise them. To rasterise a vector object, right/alt-click on the object in the Layer panel and scroll down to the Rasterise option. 03. Pixel editing tools These tools are useful for creating pixel art Below the raster selection tools on the left-hand toolbar you'll find some pixel editing tools. The Pixel tool enables you to change the colour of individual pixels to whatever colour you have currently selected. This is particularly useful for pixel art. You can also change the size of your brush. Next up is the Brush tool, which enables you to make use of all the raster brushes that come with Affinity Designer (these can be found in the Brushes panel to the right). Last up is the Flood Fill tool, which you can use to fill in sections of pixel layers only. Again, make sure you rasterise your layer before attempting this. 04. Retouch tools Affinity helpfully includes some retouching tools in Designer There are also a selection of retouch tools, which are useful to have if you are looking to make quick changes to imagery. Normally if you wanted to retouch a photo you would have to take it into a photo editing software. The fact that Affinity includes these tools in Designer streamlines the design process and saves time. 05. Combine vector and raster Try combining vector and raster elements in your designs It may seem counterintuitive but Affinity Designer makes it incredibly easy to combine vector and raster together. For example, you may illustrate a character or a scene in the Draw persona, then switch over to the Pixel persona to apply raster textures with the brush tool. This opens up a whole new world of creative possibilities. Read more: How to create a retro logo with Affinity Designer Key terms every graphic designer should know The 14 best iPad apps for designers View the full article

Conversions are often a clear driver of profit. It’s no surprise then that keen developers religiously test their websites and put together data visualisation reports to find the design that drives the most conversions. While the process may seem simple enough, the key to higher conversions is not always intuitive. Enter AI. Using the enormous power of artificial intelligence, it’s possible to test every idea a marketer could imagine, shedding light on the mysterious world of what makes people convert. Here are five counterintuitive findings uncovered by AI-powered conversion testing. 01. Be indirect Directional text improved HR GO plc's conversion rate Conversion experts always stress that specific, direct CTAs are paramount to driving conversions. However, using biometric tests, HR GO plc, a job placement firm, found that visitors felt stressed on its website and that urgent messages discouraged them. AI revealed that directional text like ‘Read more’ increased conversions far more than previous variations. These changes resulted in a 153 per cent conversion rate increase. 02. Expand your palette ABUV Media creates content-rich websites that help people make informed decisions about their future. It wanted to test hypotheses about its form that connects users to universities. Using AI, it found the best-performing form variant was a designer’s worst nightmare: a hot pink form widget whose fields contained green text. Nevertheless, this design increased conversion rates by 45 per cent. 03. Reorder your funnel Nexway found unique ways to shake up the purchasing funnel We’re all used to a shopping funnel: add item to cart, input your address, then your payment option and finally hit the order button. But Nexway, which provides full-service ecommerce and marketplace solutions, found that this formula was dated. It saw a 17 per cent conversion rate increase by simply reversing the payment and address fields in the checkout process, among a few other small changes. 04. Focus on the search bar Sometimes highlighting a feature like the search bar is just the extra push the customer needs in order to engage with it. One online tobacco company, for instance, outlined its search bar with a thick, dark border so it would be easier to find. This visual highlight increased the customer’s interaction with the search bar, so that they found exactly what they were looking for faster than when browsing generic categories. As a result, this company saw a 4.4 per cent conversion lift towards its goal of increasing online sales. 05. Defy colour convention Pink colours gave Cosabella's click-throughs more oomph We were surprised to find that when we tested pink buttons against the original black buttons on online lingerie retailer Cosabella’s website, the pink outperformed the black, betraying our intuition about Cosabella’s shoppers. Lingerie is usually thought of as sexy, sleek and sophisticated so black seemed like the perfect colour – except it wasn’t. With traditional A/B tests, these companies might have tested more conservative hypotheses because their testing volume is limited. With AI, however, they were able to test all of their ideas at once, leveraging the power of evolutionary algorithms to reveal the best performing variants quickly. This all goes to show that testing more and not being afraid to try new ideas can lead to massive improvements. This article was originally published in issue 309 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 309 here or subscribe here. Related articles: Will designers be replaced by robots? New skills in UX design 10 steps to great UX testing View the full article

Many different factors can influence the search engine ranking of your website. The Complete SEO & Backlink Master Course will teach you all about the forces that are at play here, giving you the knowledge it takes to boost your site's ranking. You'll learn all the essential techniques of search engine optimisation (SEO), including keywords, backlinking, and more. You'll find out what links to include in website that will help it rank better, and you'll also learn about how email marketing can increase your reach. Try out The Complete SEO & Backlink Master Course for just $9.99 – that's 89 per cent off the regular price. Related articles: 5 ways to boost your website's SEO Climb the Google rankings: How to master SEO 10 must-know SEO tools for search success View the full article

You're reading Motion Design in Digital Experiences of the Future, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! When designers create products, they tell stories to users. Designers have a lot of tools to make a story more interesting. Motion design is one of the most powerful tools designers have. The true power of motion can be seen … View the full article

Should graphic designers know how to code? Learning coding is certainly near the top of many designers' professional development wish lists, and coding abilities will open up a raft of new opportunities, as well as making you much more versatile and employable across the board. But if you haven't found the time to learn coding skills yet, fear not. There are plenty of simple web design tools on the market that can give you a decent result, even as a coding novice. We're not talking about template-based tools such as Squarespace, Wix or WordPress here – although with a bit of custom coding know-how, tools such as these can yield impressive results. At the opposite end, we're steering clear of advanced text editors for programmers to build a website line-by-line. While they all have their limitations, the kind of web design tools that are available for non-coders are getting more powerful all the time. Read on for six of the best tools to use if your coding skills are still in progress... 01. Muse (RIP) Adobe Muse will be discontinued from March 2020, but remains an option until then If you have a Creative Cloud subscription, Adobe Muse is right there at your fingertips – for a couple more years at least. Adobe's solution for non-coding designers to create fixed, fluid and adaptive websites will be officially discontinued from March 2020, and had its last feature update back in March 2018. Adobe argues that more complex website and app solutions tend to be produced in partnership with third-party developers, and designers can still use Adobe XD to design and build prototypes – if not export web-ready code, as you can with Muse. At the simpler end, it draws attention to the proliferation of customisable template-based DIY sites – a space that Adobe Portfolio competes in. Meanwhile, one-page websites such as newsletters or landing pages can be created with Adobe Spark. So you still have options in your CC toolkit post-2020, but Muse remains a short-term option if you're already paying for a sub. If you'd rather not invest time learning something that's discontinued, try one of the following... 02. Sketch Combined with the Launchpad plugin, Sketch enables you to publish responsive sites with no coding required Presenting itself as a "design toolkit", Sketch is a front end design and mock-up tool that, in conjunction with the Launchpad for Sketch plugin, enables you to publish responsive websites with no coding required. As well as layouts and graphic elements, you can create simple animations and clickable prototypes to test out the UX quickly and easily. Using the Sketch Mirror tool, you can also preview designs immediately on a phone or tablet. Sketch has plenty of other flexible, time-saving functionality too, such as Symbols that can be repurposed and resized throughout a design, and shared with collaborators via cloud-based Libraries. Exclusively available for Mac, it will set you back $99/year for a single license, reducing incrementally for volume licensing, and bottoming out at $59/year for 50 or more devices. There's a free trial to test it out. 03. Webflow Despite its entirely visual drag-and-drop interface, Webflow generates surprisingly clean HTML/CSS code As it was created with the express goal of making web design accessible to those without any coding knowledge, cloud-based tool Webflow is a no-brainer for this list. It provides "the power to design, build, and launch responsive websites visually", using a crisp drag-and-drop interface. Unlike many WYSIWYG editors however, Webflow generates surprisingly clean HTML/CSS code – even if you select the 'I have no coding experience' option during setup. Features such as parallax scrolling effects, mouse-based motion and multi-step animations are all at your fingertips. Using its versatile CMS, you can build blogs, portfolios, ecommerce stores and more, pulling in data as required. Various training videos from 'Webflow University' help get you started, and rather than a time-limited free trial, you can create up to two projects for free with Webflow's Starter package – hosting not included. From that point on, prices start from $15/month. 04. Webydo With the compelling tagline "craft without code", Webydo is a cloud-based service that makes the transition from designing flat screens in Photoshop as smooth as possible, using a drag-and-drop interface to create "pixel-perfect, responsive websites without code". With full control over every element on the page, designs can be adapted easily to suit a variety of devices and screen sizes. Sites can be pushed live straight onto Webydo's hosting servers, and you can give clients access to the CMS to update their content. You can even bill them through the integrated dashboard. A week-long free trial is available, then prices escalate quickly – it's a full-service package, after all. An individual account is $90/month ($75/month billed annually), including hosting for 10 sites. A three-person team (30 sites) is $180/month ($150/month annually), or a 10-person agency (100 sites) is $480/$400. 05. Carrd We're ending with the simplest tool on the list: Carrd takes on Adobe Spark by offering an easy way to create simple, responsive one-page sites. Either starting with a blank page or one of the supplied templates, you can assemble and customise your ideal layout using pre-defined content elements. While one-pagers are Carrd's bread and butter, it's technically possible to break your site up into separate pages – or at least, to achieve a similar effect – using the Section Break tool. While this can be as simple as jumping to different areas of one long page, adding a section change animation will provide a smoother transition. Best of all: it's totally free for up to three sites, and costs just $9/year to upgrade. With a Pro account, you can attach a custom domain, add contact or sign-up forms, plug in Google Analytics, custom code or third-party widgets. Clearly the functionality is basic compared to a platform like Webydo, but the price reflects that, and this is a great option if you want to create something sleek and simple. Related articles: 5 simple logo design software alternatives 10 plugins to make your design process easier 5 great Instagram Stories templates for designers View the full article

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DesignStudio is the name behind some of the biggest branding stories of recent years, and is fast developing a reputation for turning startups into household names. Its work for Airbnb helped propel the company to dizzying heights. A similar case with Deliveroo. Speaking at Design Manchester's D(isrupt)M conference, studio co-founder Ben Wright shares some of the processes behind DesignStudio's success stories. 01. Don't over-strategise When DesignStudio first launched, it did so to try and find a happy middle ground between the big branding agencies (which put lots of thought into strategy, and tended to tag on the actual design process as a bit of an afterthought) and small, boutique agencies (which cared all about the craft, but neglected strategy somewhat). What they aim for now, is to do "just enough" strategy. There are three core principles guiding this: Make it useful, make it understandable, make it usable. Beyond that, each project is different. 02. Seek out clients with ambition Depop asked DesignStudio to help it build its first global brand campaign While many branding studios will specialise in a particular type of client, DesignStudio's co-founders never set out to focus on one specific industry. Instead, they sought out companies they found interesting. However, as the studio grew, certain themes emerged, and became a benchmark for the projects that would follow: Wright says DesignStudio now actively seeks out clients with drive and vision. "Do the clients, when they come and speak to us, have the ambition to do something big?" he elaborates. So while they're rightly proud of their work with the big-name brands, they're also very excited about the interesting companies, such as Depop, that fly a little more under the radar (for now, at least). 03. Get involved with your clients Designers followed Deliveroo drivers for an evening Many branding agencies will evangelise the power of working closely with your clients, but DesignStudio seems to take it a little further than most. With Deliveroo, that meant sending out designers to shadow the cycle couriers for a night. With Airbnb, it meant setting up a listing within their own studio space (although at $2000 a night, no one took up the offer of actually staying there). "Successful relationships create successful brands," says Wright. This means establishing a connection with the CEOs and management boards – these are the people that need to buy in to your idea, so it's important not to be scared of them. 04. … but retain some critical difference While getting hands-on is great, remember that outside design professionals are brought in to see things that those within the company might not; and to view the brand as a potential customer would. So while DesignStudio's creatives do immerse themselves in their client's culture, they also step away and design in their own offices, and take care not to get too swept up in the client's enthusiasm for itself. 05. Find the meaningful difference DesignStudio sought to emphasise that the Champions League is not all about the footballers "We make a point of trying to discover what makes a brand truly amazing," says Wright. "We call this the 'meaningful difference'." The branding schemes that follow then become all about amplifying this difference, in everything from the logo and tagline to the brand messaging around it. So for Airbnb, it was all about making people feel they could 'belong anywhere'. The brand symbol (dubbed the Belo) was designed to transcend language barriers, and the messaging and photography on the website became all about making the interface feel more human. Even the brand colours are named after early Airbnb listings. When it came to finding a new look for the UEFA Champions League, DesignStudio was lucky to enter the scene at a pivotal moment: Barclays' corporate sponsorship hadn't been renewed. "We had an amazing opportunity to give the brand its own voice," recalls Wright. The new look centres around the slogan 'we all make it'; the implication being that it isn't just about the superstar footballers, but everyone from the die-hard fans to the employees serving the drinks at half time that make the Champions League so great. 06. Stand by your rebrand The Belo drew unkind comparisons when it was revealed The launch of any significant rebrand these days comes with an inevitable social media storm. Everyone has an opinion, and often it's the scathing voices that get amplified. So how do branding studios deal with this? According to Wright, it's all about standing by your work, which in turn requires everyone at the company to be fully on board with the new branding scheme before it launches. He cites Gap's awkward back-track as an example of what not to do. Airbnb's new look received more than its fair share of negativity when it launched – the Belo in particular – but everyone there was confident it was right for the brand. It was just a case of standing strong, waiting for the drama to blow over, and for the new scheme to be given a chance to bed in. "Brands aren't just a logo. They need to live and breathe in the real world before you see what they're about," says Wright. Now the Belo seems to fit perfectly. Read more: 20 iconic brands – and why they work 5 big-brand logos that pass the silhouette test 5 rebranding hurdles designers face today View the full article

It’s been an interesting few months for new graphic design tools. Apple hogged the headlines in September with the announcement of its three new iPhones; and this month we’re on the verge of seeing a new iPad. But if you’re not tied into the iOS creative ecosystem, fear not. There are plenty of other new and noteworthy tools for graphic designers this month too. From idea-inspiring books to brushes and a new app, here are this month’s most exciting new tools for graphic designers. Apple unveiled three new iPhones in September – iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and the cheaper iPhone XR – and our reviews will be on the site soon. A new sensor in the iPhone XS noticeably enhances the images it takes, while a bigger screen, generous storage and a power bump courtesy of the A12 Bionic chip show that Apple’s taking competition from the likes of the Huawei P20 Pro seriously, and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with smartphone photography. Of course, if you’ve got more cash to spend, you’ll get an even better phone in the iPhone XS Max; but the most interesting release is the iPhone XR, thanks to its cheaper price point. New desktop publishing app Affinity Publisher was released in beta recently – and you can test it for free on either Mac or Windows (an iPad version will follow soon). The much anticipated app from Serif offers advanced typography options, linked text frames, master pages, dynamic photo frames and more. Plus, it’s completely stripped of bloat, and integrates fully with the company’s popular existing creative apps: Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo. Given that it’s a Beta release, the app will likely have a few bugs at this stage. But overall, this move takes Serif one step closer to providing a powerful, credible non-subscription-based InDesign alternative that – if the final version is as good as Affinity’s other two apps – promises to free designers from Adobe’s CC subscription system. And while it won’t help anyone whose clients and collaborators are invested in a CC workflow right now, Affinity Publisher is potentially great news for anyone who doesn’t have a boss to pay their CC subscription. There are 52 exercises and activities to jump-start your creative juices in A Few Minutes of Design, a colourful card deck from author Emily Campbell. Designed to free you from creative block, help start a new project or finish an existing one, it also comes with a glowing recommendation from design legend and Pentagram partner Michael Beirut, who calls it: “A marvellous invitation to anyone with an interest in creativity, invention, and design.” Each exercise offers insight into the countless small decisions involved in design, such as how to establish a pattern or continue a series; how to say it without words; how to name a project; what fits, and what doesn’t. The deceptively simple and fun exercises are equally beneficial for new or established designers, and take around 15 minutes. Quickly add texture and depth to your illustrations, sketches and photos with these 34 Grunge Toolbox Procreate brushes from creative MiksKS. There are three categories of tool in the set: pressure sensitive brushes, for add detail or shading; texture stamps, to cover large areas at once; and border stamps, for adding a grunge border to your images. Need to quickly add rock or meteor textures to your work? Introducing the Rock, Stone and Meteor Photoshop brush pack – 76 high-res Photoshop brushes from Creative Graphics that, all being well, mean you’ll never lose time searching for the perfect stone texture ever again. Happily, they’re compatible with Photoshop CS2 upwards, and you can own all 76 for $10. Several thousand people might work on Apple's campus in Cupertino, California, but only a handful sit at the drawing board. Creative Selection offers a look inside Apple’s creative process through the eyes of highly respected software engineer Ken Kocienda, who worked in the final years of the Steve Jobs era, the Golden Age of Apple. Kocienda pioneered the iPhone keyboard. For 15 years, he was directly responsible for experimenting with novel user interface concepts and writing powerful, easy-to-use software for everything from the iPad to Safari. In this book, he reveals the real secret of Steve Jobs's leadership and Apple's magic – pushing people to think for themselves – while recounting moments of struggle and success, crisis and collaboration, and highlighting each with lessons learned during his Apple career. If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to work on the cutting-edge of technology at one of the world's most admired companies, Creative Selection is one to read. Read more: 20 tools that make freelancing easier The best laptops for graphic design The best camera phones in 2018 View the full article

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No one really likes the traditional line-of-business applications – neither the end-users nor the developers. The reason behind that is called ‘fixed screens’. Think about the user experience when you do simple things like booking a meeting within a traditional fixed-screen application today – you have to input the names of all attendees, choose a room, select start and end time, etc. Ask yourself how natural it feels to go through all these steps? Probably the interaction with the computer isn’t very natural because the UI defines its flow and it feels like a compromised user experience that we are all now used to. At the same time, developers have to spend a lot of time building every single one of those ‘fixed screens’ and then update them to reflect the constantly changing business requirements. Intelligent chatbots are changing that. Now we can interact with computers in a close-to-human way that enables the UI to follow the conversation. Vesko Kolev The increased availability of data and cognitive machine learning capabilities are enabling the intelligent chatbots to bring the interaction between humans and computers to a whole new level that hasn’t been possible before. Now we can interact with computers in a close-to-human way that enables the UI to follow the conversation. So what does this mean in reality for developers and end users? For consumers, they are going to see a far more enjoyable, seamless and natural interaction with chatbots. Rather than having to ask exact questions or follow a fixed path, they will be able to speak naturally and jump around with their requests in much the same way they would if talking to another human. If you look at science fiction, the desire for computers that resembles a human has always been popular, and now we are seeing the first bits in action. Everything from booking a flight to receiving banking advice is achievable through the use of intelligent chatbots, with the cognitive element offering a far more sophisticated level of personalised advice to the consumer. For businesses deploying chatbots, the increased interaction with consumers will give them more data and therefore insights into their behaviour. We are already seeing a lot of businesses building bots for channels like Viber and Facebook Messenger. At the same time a lot more chatbots are expected to be built into their own web, desktop and mobile applications in order to improve the employees’ performance and the customer experience. Out-of-the-box tools like NativeChat are making chatbots more accessible For developers, the benefits of cognitive chatbots are great. The availability of out-of-the-box tools, such as Progress’ NativeChat and Telerik and Kendo UI Conversational UI components, means that it’s never been easier for developers to start building cognitive chatbot applications capable of being deployed at scale. If you look at how applications are built today, especially from the front end, you have to build a series of windows with different properties. But, when you look at how cognitive chatbots function, the concept of a screen disappears, allowing you to redefine the UI to follow the natural conversation rather the other way around. Cognitive chatbots offer a means to automate a number of processes of the application development lifecycle. Vesko Kolev Another benefit for developers is using them to automate some of their own processes. Cognitive chatbots offer a means to automate a number of processes of the application development lifecycle and integrate them with the team’s Slack channel for example. The rise of cognitive chatbots is inevitable. What’s most exciting is that as more companies introduce them, allowing them to gain and access more and more data, the smarter and more helpful they will become. Developers will not be required to constantly update as they will in many ways update themselves, learning at their own rate. At the same time, developers would need to work on the UI far less because the UI will be almost auto-generated based on the flow of the conversation, allowing for more time to address the next business problems. Get on board before the chatbots start to build themselves! What are the key chatbot benefits for businesses? The key benefits are time, money and improved user experience. Developers can iterate multiple orders of magnitude faster on defining and improving a chatbot compared to the traditional way of building applications, thus being truly agile and able to get feedback from actual users almost in real-time. Chatbots also get smarter over time and the UI is in many cases being generated automatically, requiring less human intervention. Finally, if you have powerful front-end tooling, then you are able to have cognitive chatbots in all your channels. What accessibility issues do chatbots create? I can’t think of an accessibility issue that the conversational UI creates. Actually, it is quite the opposite. One of the most exciting features of cognitive chatbots is that they will allow for a far more enjoyable experience for those with visual defects. Up to now, unless the application has been specifically developed for visually impaired people, it is practically not accessible for them. With the voice recognition technology, intelligent chatbots allow visually impaired people to get an experience that almost equals the experience of everyone else. How advanced will chatbots be in 5 years? The tipping point will be when enough organisations start to use them in their daily operations. If they begin to experiment with cognitive chatbots then they will see their power. As more data is generated and fed in, the more they will offer the business from a competitive edge perspective. Heightened user personalisation, increased productivity, sophisticated advice, will become available to apps that have this technology. The beauty of where we will be is that so much is dependent on how the cognitive chatbots teach themselves! This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 277 or subscribe. Related articles: Create slick UI animations The pro's guide to UI design Add UI animations to your site View the full article

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Texture is often what blurs the lines between traditional and digital artwork. Often it’s easy to tell the difference between the two if your digital artwork doesn’t have any kind of canvas behind it, but by applying your own textures in Photoshop, you can help to give your artwork a little more realism. In this Photoshop tutorial, we’re going to be applying a simple noise and canvas texture, which will look and feel a bit like paper. We’ve created a simply chalk and charcoal drawing to use it on so that we can see it clearly, and it’s going to help add a little more shape and tone to the image. This is why texture is great; without some kind of texture behind this picture, it looks rather obviously digitally drawn. Get Adobe Creative Cloud It’s not just paper textures that you can add to your artwork. You may want the illusion of a film texture for more realistic pieces, or even a wall of some sort for a street art effect in your urban sci-fi composition. There are plenty of pre-made and even free textures online that you can insert into your work and change the blend mode of. Okay, let’s see how much of a difference a texture makes… 01. Add noise as the basis of your texture Creating a new layer over your painting means that we can apply the effect to blend it with the layer below Start by setting your foreground and background swatches as black and white by hitting D. Create a new layer then go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Choose an amount of 400 per cent, check the Monochromatic box and make sure you choose Gaussian, before you hit OK. We're using black and white as it makes a subtle grey colour from a distance; this means that altering the blend mode will display the texture cleanly. However if you wish to add a colourful tint to your texture, create a new layer, fill with colour and alt/opt-click to clip it to your texture. 02. Adjust the Blend mode of the texture Experiment with different Blend modes Because we want to blend our noise texture in a little with the digital artwork that’s sitting on a layer beneath it, this is the stage where we’re going to change the Blend mode. Set the Blend mode to Linear Light in this case, and reduce the Opacity to around 40 per cent. You don’t have to use Linear Light; experiment with Color Dodge for a more dramatic effect, or Overlay and Soft Light for a more subtle look. Reducing the Opacity can also help to lessen the effect slightly without taking away from the actual noise. Press 4 to set the layer at 40 per cent Opacity. You can also drag horizontally where it says Opacity in the Layers palette, to change the Opacity. You can tweak your custom texture by clipping adjustments to it using clipping masks. You may wish to edit the tone, brightness or exposure of the texture. 03. Blur the texture layer Applying a blur smooths things out Now we’re going to apply a blur to the noise to just smooth it out a little. Go to Filter >Blur > Gaussian Blur to apply your blur, and choose a radius of around 3-5px before hitting OK. You can see in the preview dialog how it will affect your work before you apply it. Photoshop will show you how the blur looks when applied over your actual picture, as well as in the preview. You can use the slider to alter the blur, or simply enter a value, and use the Magnifying glass icons to zoom either in or out of your image as a whole, to see the blur in action. 04. Set up a canvas texture A canvas texture gives a more believable base Next up we’re going to use a canvas texture, just to give this image a more believable base. Go to Filter > Filter Gallery and choose Texture, then Texturizer. Choose a Scaling value of 200 per cent and a relief setting of 10, with light in the image coming from the top, before you apply. Also note that there are other canvases are available from the drop-down menu, including brick. You can use the Invert option to display a reverse of what you’re applying. Hold cmd/ctrl to bring up the Default button, below the OK button. Clicking this will revert your changes back to the values that were originally set. 05. Sharpen and smooth your texture Sharpening the texture can make your image look crisper Finally, duplicate this texture layer and go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Set your value as 5px and click OK, before setting the layer to Overlay. Merge this with the layer below, set to Linear Light again and then go to Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise to further smooth out the texture. Choose a strength of 5 and leave all other options free to smooth out the texture a little after you’ve sharpened it up slightly. If the texture now looks too prominent, reduce the Opacity a little further. By sharpening and smoothing the texture, you’re blending it further into the picture, while making sure it looks crisp. This article originally appeared in ImagineFX, the world's leading magazine for digital artists. Subscribe here. Read more: How to remove a background in Photoshop 5 best laptops for Photoshop The 38 best Photoshop plugins View the full article

It's been a busy week for fans of Adobe. Over in LA, announcements from Adobe MAX have been coming thick and fast, with the launch of Photoshop CC for iPad and Premiere Rush CC, and voice prototyping added to Adobe XD to name but a few. These announcements are sure to be music to the ears of graphic designers and artists who have been waiting years for some of these releases. And while snazzy updates and game-changing systems are always welcome, you can always benefit from brushing up on the basics of Photoshop CC to make your life easier. Take this infographic from Jamie Spencer, the founder of Make A Website Hub. In it, Spencer breaks down the various keyboard shortcuts that are ready and waiting to be used in your work. This infographic is an updated version of a similar cheat sheet released in 2015, only now it covers more tools, including Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, Fireworks, Flash, Premiere Pro, After Effects and Lightroom. Check out this whopping infographic in detail by clicking on the image below and start saving time in your upcoming creative projects. Click to see the full size cheat sheet Related articles: The best keyboards for designers 63 free Photoshop actions How to manage colours in Photoshop View the full article

This article was originally published in 2017. Over the years, many highly successful advertising campaigns have either surfed the wave of popular culture, or in some cases, managed to subvert the status quo and garner a cult following all of their own. A great ad can be an artform in its own right, boosting a brand’s credibility by combining a killer idea with skilful execution and top production values. At the other end of the scale are ads that don’t aspire to brand-inflating greatness. Their purpose is to sell based on simple facts, or price points, or some other quantitative hook. They might not win awards, but they can be effective. 66 brilliant print adverts Where it goes spectacularly wrong, as it did for Pepsi’s hastily pulled Kendal Jenner vehicle, is when an ad aims for the stars, but shoots itself straight in the foot instead. This can be particularly cringeworthy when brands attempt to engage with, or appropriate, counter-culture movements – not often a happy bedfellow with adland. Here are some examples that came short of the mark… 01. Pepsi tries to bring people together An impressively unconvincing protest march provided the backdrop to Pepsi's now-pulled ad Unless you were under a stone last year, you’ve heard about this one. And it’s perhaps most grating for Pepsi that comparisons with its bitter rival Coca-Cola, and particularly its iconic 1971 ‘Hilltop’ spot, are all too easy. Hilltop will be familiar to Mad Men fans. After going off the radar and embracing a New Age lifestyle, Don Draper is meditating on a hilltop when a knowing smile comes over his face, and it cuts to the iconic ad – implying that his own personal experience with counter-culture translated onto the screen as one of the most iconic ads of all time. There's a twist of ambiguity, however: did Draper have an epiphany about cross-cultural unity, or just shrewdly appropriate the hippy zeitgeist that he’d witnessed just to shift some cola? In reality, McCann Erickson’s Bill Backer got the inspiration when he was stranded at an airport and spotted a group of his fellow passengers laughing and bonding over bottles of Coke. It was a simple observation about how the brand could bring people together, expressed at a time when protests against the Vietnam War were coming to a head in the States, promoting unity and peace over division and war. Crucially, however, it was an abstract message, told through song, sentiment and simple but beautiful filmmaking. Over 45 years later, Pepsi's in-house ad was both heavy-handed and trite against the backdrop of another hugely turbulent period of political protests, from the Black Lives Matter movement to anti-Trump marches and more. Handing a Pepsi to a riot gear-clad cop to diffuse a pretty anodyne, corporate-feeling ‘protest’ is far too literal a metaphor, and as industry commentators have reported in unison, is spectacularly tone-deaf in terms of how the brand tried to position itself as a catalyst for unity and harmony – especially when compared to that Coca-Cola spot. It even had the dubious honour of being ripped into by Saturday Night Live: 02. Sony attempts to tap into graffiti culture Pepsi received plenty of flak for its ad, but it’s far from alone in missing the mark when it comes to tackling counter-culture references. Another global corporate behemoth that tried to take its marketing to the streets in a different way was Sony. In an attempt to engage with the urban youth market for its PSP handheld console back in 2005, the Japanese tech giant decided to pay graffiti artists in key cities to spray its message on selected buildings. Sony paid graffiti artists to stealthily spray its message onto buildings It was a direct assault on rival Nintendo’s grip on the handheld gaming market, and made use of original commissioned artwork, depicting kids treating PSPs like skateboards, ice creams, rocking horses and more – without Sony or PSP branding anywhere. Unfortunately, the public quickly recognised the ads for what they were But the urban youth market was too savvy to be fooled and many of the images were subsequently vandalised, directly calling the scheme out as "advertising directed at your counter culture”, thus neutralising any stealth marketing value they may have had. 03. Reebok risks glorifying gun violence So far we’ve had street protests and street art. But sportswear brand Reebok went the whole hog, and decided to take on street shootings. Brand association with hip-hop culture is nothing new, and there have been plenty of notable successes, but this particularly gritty choice of content backfired in Reebok's infamous 50 Cent-fronted ad. Part of Reebok's global ‘I am what I am’ campaign, the spot focused mostly on how the rapper had been shot nine times, and even used the phrase ’Who do you plan to massacre next?’ (albeit in the context of 50 Cent's next album release). 50 Cent's association with gun violence played a key role in this campaign The ad was pulled after attracting widespread criticism for portraying gun violence as edgy and cool with a view to selling trainers; another example of how an attempt to align with counter-culture can backfire very expensively for a brand if it’s not pitched carefully. 04. Rappers refuse to sell out for McDonald's Controversial or not, at least 50 Cent agreed to the Reebok spot in the first place. This cringeworthy attempt at stealth marketing didn’t even get off the ground, but unfortunately the backlash happened anyway. McDonald's' attempt at a stealth campaign never got off the ground Marketing firm Maven Strategies attempted to replicate its success in getting product placement for Seagram's Gin worked into the lyrics of top rappers such as Kanye West and Petey Pablo with another, rather less edgy client: McDonald’s. Various big-name rappers were approached to name-check the Big Mac in their tracks, and would be paid for every play. But details of the stealth marketing plan made their way onto the internet beforehand, and not a single high-profile rapper would touch the offer with a bargepole. The campaign imploded before it started. The lesson here, similar to the Sony example, is that attempting to infiltrate the counter-culture space through the back door is rarely a good idea, as people will be all too ready to call BS the first chance they get. Read more: 40 must-see examples of billboard advertising 10 killer examples of illustrated ad campaigns 8 divisive ad campaigns (and what they teach us) View the full article

If you're a content creator, you probably have a whole host of tools in your arsenal to help you with creative tasks. What if you could have just one to cover them all? That's what you get for just $39.99 with piZap Pro: Lifetime Subscription. With the Pro Plan, you get access to countless fonts, royalty free stock photos, filters, collage layouts, and a whole lot more. You can also use the photo editing features and emoji-making tool to bring your creations up another notch. The interface is easy to use, and you can save an unlimited number of photos straight to the cloud. Best of all, you get to use this program for life, for the low price of just $39.99 – that's 77 per cent off the regular price. Related articles: 8 tools for creating better social graphics 18 top stock photo libraries The 13 best photography websites View the full article

If you're feeling retro, we have a real old-skool treat for you today. Adidas has always had a keen eye for design, not only with its sneaker designs but also in its promotional work, and its latest effort is no exception. Adidas mural celebrates young football legend To promote the latest additions to its '90s-inspired Yung series, the company has gone full retro and unleashed a site that's steeped in the questionable aesthetic of all those GeoCities websites from the exuberant youth of the World Wide Web, and which also hooks hard into the current trend for Brutalist websites. Needless to say, we absolutely love it. A slider lets you view the evolution of these sneakers, with plenty of glitches The new Yung Series website gleefully raids the old GeoCities dressing-up box and flings everything it finds at the screen, to retina-searing effect. You name it, it has it, from flagrant abuse of animated GIFs through to rampant colour cycling, horrible tiled backgrounds, awful 3D renders, system fonts and the obligatory 'UNDER CONSTRUCTION' banners. The only thing missing, as far as we can see, is an invitation to join an Adidas webring, but there is at least an appalling animated button imploring you to join the Adidas mailing list. The Yung Rappa game is unashamedly retro fun Other cool stuff includes Yung Rappa, an actual game you can play in your web browser – it's a Dance Dance Revolution-style rhythm action game set to some banging hip-hop – as well as some splendidly glitchy video and a variety of tasteful desktop wallpaper that you can download in all the sizes, from a sensible '90s 640x480 to an unthinkable 1920x1080. How big a monitor would you need for that? Video on a web site? Good luck with that on your 56k modem Perhaps the best thing about it from a web design perspective, though, is that despite its over-excited use of literally all the visual tropes from the dark days of the early web, it's actually an incredibly slick responsive site that delivers all its crimes against design in a bang up-to-date style. It might look like it's made of GIFs, tables and RealVideo, but if you take a closer look you'll discover that it's made with JavaScript, using loads of clever SVG and CSS animation tricks as well as Flexbox, Canvas and WebGL, to do its thing. Don't take our word for it though; head straight to the Adidas Yung Series site to experience this ludicrous web nostalgia fest for yourself. Related articles: Rebuild a 2004 Flash website for 2018 Famous internet logos get a retro makeover 20 iconic brands – and why they work View the full article

You're reading How to Import Custom HTML Email Template from Postcards to Intercom (YouTube Tutorial), originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! In this video, I will show you how to import a custom email template created in Postcards directly to Intercom. Open the Postcards App and let’s prepare our template for Intercom. First, insert all of the required tags into your … View the full article

I first heard about the headless CMS approach in a talk I watched from Twin Cities Drupal. I liked the idea of a separation of concerns between authoring content and viewing it. I had already experienced how easily one server can go down, taking out all of the sites on it, leading to minutes or hours of heart-stopping panic (there were 24 on mine). I had also seen how a monolithic CMS-based site could suffer a security compromise and take a lot of effort to repair (that took me more than two days of unpaid work). 23 great examples of WordPress websites I'd seen the benefits of CDNs (content delivery networks) that can store your image, audio and video files on servers optimised for fast delivery and can duplicate those files across the world for speedy delivery to those regions if needed. What if your entire website could benefit from this approach? Getting started WordPress comes out of the box with the REST API and that is what we're going to use to query your data. So we don't really need anything else! Our display site is totally separate from our content site, so we won't need WordPress themes or any other customisation outside a few (optional) plugins. Although of course you can add these if you want to. The exception is if you need custom meta fields for extra content areas. You're probably using Advanced Custom Fields to do so; you can add that data to the WordPress API by installing this plugin. Use a static site generator The Gatsby default starter screen Now that we have our content source, let's fetch the data and display it using a static site generator. My weapon of choice in this realm is Gatsby, an excellent static site generator that's built with JavaScript. If you're looking for a good way to build on your JavaScript skills and learn React by getting stuck into some code, I highly recommend trying Gatsby to do so. I've learned a lot myself by playing with it. First, let's install a command-line tool that allows us to create Gatsby sites: Now, navigate to the folder where you want to keep your site and run this command: This will create a new folder called 'blog' and install Gatsby and its dependencies to this folder. Open this folder in your favourite text editor. There might seem to be a lot of files there. Don't worry, we'll only be directly editing the gatsby-config.js, gatsby-node.js files, and the src folder, which is where our templates live. Getting our content The first step we want to take is to fetch our content from the WordPress site's API. To do that, we're going to install gatsby-source-wordpress, a prewritten plugin for WordPress. This illustrates one of the main reasons I love Gatsby – you can get your data from a variety of different sources. A lot of static site generators are restricted to using Markdown files but Gatsby is very flexible. Gatsby's plugin ecosystem is very mature. There are loads of prewritten ways of getting your data and lots of other clever functionality that comes in useful too. To install the plugin, first change directory into your new Gatsby site by using this command: cd blog. Now run this command: npm install --save gatsbysource-wordpress. Once that's done, it's time to open up the gatsby-config.js file. You'll see that there is already some basic setup in place that Gatsby gives us by default. We're going to build on that to configure our plugin here: Did it work? You can check by opening your terminal, typing gatsby develop and watch what happens. Be warned! Even if you got your settings correct, you will get some warnings anyway – this may be Gatsby looking for content that you haven't written yet. You are now able to view gatsby-starter-default in the browser. View GraphiQL, an in-browser IDE, to explore your site's data and schema. Note that the development build is not optimised. To create a production build, use gatsby build. If the Gatsby default starer (right) isn't what you're getting, check your WordPress site isn't on a subdomain, that it's definitely using HTTPS or HTTP and that you have the same in your settings. Now we can go to http://localhost:8000/ and see our Gatsby site! Can we query our data? You may have noticed that there is no WordPress content here. This is because we haven't told Gatsby what to do with it yet. Before we do that, let's just check we have actually got our content available to Gatsby. To do that, visit this url: This built-in tool is called GraphiQL and is another secret power of Gatsby. GraphQL is similar to REST: it's a way to query data. But with GraphQL, you can interact with your data much more easily. GraphiQL (a visual IDE for GraphQL) can show us some of these tricks. On the left panel, try typing the following: This might look a bit like JSON but it's not. It's a new query language that I think one day will largely replace REST as a way of communicating with APIs. What did you get when you pressed ctrl + enter in GraphiQL? You hopefully will have seen your WordPress posts and page on the right-hand side of the screen. We are actually going to use this query in our next step, so keep it handy! You might want to see what other data you can get with GraphiQL while you're here. If you want to do that, try moving the cursor around and typing either ctrl + space and / or ctrl + enter. That will reveal other groups of content. So, we now have content in Gatsby. Next, we need to display it. Display our posts Gatsby development 404 page showing all of our WordPress posts For this next step we're going to be making use of the gatsby-node.js file. gatsby-node.js is a file you can use to interact with Gatsby's "Node API". Here you can control how your site is generated and create pages, posts and more. We're going to write some instructions here to tell Gatsby what to do with our data: This code creates pages from our GraphQL query and for each page it'll use a template we've defined (/src/templates/post.js). So next, we need to create that file! Create post template Inside the /src/ folder, create a folder called templates and a file inside that's called post.js. Add to it this code: This uses a different GraphQL query to get data about the specific post it's been fed by the gatsbynode.js file, then uses React to render that out into the browser. If you want to quickly see a list of all your posts, you can type http://localhost:8000/a into your browser's address bar. This will take you to a development 404 page, which lists all of your posts. Click on one to visit it! Next steps We've scratched the surface of how to use WordPress as a headless CMS and I hope I've introduced you to some interesting concepts and tools that you might be able to use and experiment with in the future. There's a lot more to this story and my colleagues and I have blogged about it extensively at Indigo Tree. I've also written more on my personal blog, Delicious Reverie. Please keep in touch with me via those channels and on Twitter to hear more exciting developments in the world of headless CMS! This article was originally published in issue 308 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 308 here or subscribe here. Related articles: 40 brilliant WordPress tutorials 6 top tips for CRO success in WordPress 10 great WordPress plugins for designers View the full article

It’s obvious that marketing campaigns for the same movie are going to vary across different parts of the world. And the history of movie poster designs has thrown up some dramatic examples. The official Hollywood versions aren't always as good as they should be (in fact, last year we asked if movie posters were in a design crisis), so you might not be all that surprised to find that some foreign posters for Hollywood movies manage to improve on the original. However, for every great example is another that shows a little less care, or misses the point. And there are some movie posters that are just plain ugly. Here, we take a lot at some of the best examples of movie posters worldwide, and a few of the worst. Click the icon in the top-right of each poster to enlarge it. The good Historically, local distributors have been given free reign to promote Hollywood movies in national markets however they see fit. Here are some of the most artful and compelling examples from the last five decades of movie history. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962): Cuba Half a century on, this Cuban poster was celebrated in a recent exhibition Following the story of an ageing former actress who holds her paraplegic ex-movie star sister captive, 1962’s 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?' attracted most attention in the States for bringing together two actresses who were bitter rivals: Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. The US movie poster, understandably, focused on this controversy. But in Cuba, cinema-goers were less interested in the gossip than the film itself, and so poster designer René Azcuy got to create something very different. This beautiful design was recently on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, as part of an exhibition titled From Hollywood to Havana: Five Decades of Cuban Posters Promoting U.S. Films. The Godfather (1972): Cuba This Cuban poster for The Godfather cleverly combines the main themes of the Mafia movie Another Cuban design that’s still feted and collected decades on, this movie poster for Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia classic beautifully combines its themes of tradition, family, religion and deadly violence. It was the creation of graphic designer Antonio Pérez González Ñiko, who was also broadly instrumental in the creation of Cuban revolutionary posters in the 1960s and 1970s. Jaws (1975): Czechoslovakia This minimalist interpretation of Jaws uses pointillism to great effect Back in the days of the Cold War, the modern day Czech Republic and Slovakia were one nation under Communist rule. With every aspect of life under strict government control, local artists were tasked with creating promotional posters for movie screenings in a way that complied with Soviet art, often without actually seeing the film in question. Many of the posters they produced were laughingly bad, but history records a few real gems, such as this pointillism-inspired take on Spielberg’s classic 1975 shark tale, Jaws. We love the cool minimalism of the graphic, and the subtle use of typography to suggest the passage of the deadly creature through the water. Star Wars (1977): Russia This Russian Star Wars poster presents a unique interpretation of the main villain Another Communist-era movie poster, this Russian poster for the first Star Wars movie, by Yuri Bokser and Alexander Chantsev, bears very little relation to the actual film. But at the same time, it’s a stunningly beautiful and eye-catching piece of surrealism that certainly conveys the sinister feel of the main villain, even if it’s way off base representationally (spoiler alert: Darth Vader is not a cat). Carrie (1976): Spain The Spanish poster for Carrie takes a subtle and artful approach 1976’s Carrie was a groundbreaking horror based on a Stephen King novel that beautifully translated teenage angst into supernatural gore and violence. While the US movie poster aimed to shock and sensationalise, this design for the Spanish market takes a subtler, and thus much more engaging approach. Beautifully composed, and with an original and eye-catching colour palette, this design was created by acclaimed French poster artist Jouineau Bourduge. The Terminator (1984): Poland The clash between stark black-and-white and colourful surrealism works well here The so-called 'Polish School' of movie posters during the 1950s-1980s was responsible for some incredible artwork, but typically they were way over the top and bore little relation to the film itself. This classic design by Jakub Erol, however, is an exception. Its combination of stark monochrome simplicity, neo-futurist font and a splash of colourful surrealism all adds up to an evocative design that brilliantly conveys the atmosphere of the first Terminator movie. Short Circuit 2 (1988): Poland The Polish poster for Short Circuit 2 is defiantly European in style Short Circuit 2 is a delightfully cheesy 1980s romp about a man and his robot, but in retrospect the official US movie poster looks a little shabbily put-together. Much more to our tastes is this gorgeous creation by Jakub Erol, which takes the vibrant energy of the kids’ movie and puts it through an Eastern European art filter. Okay, the end result is slightly bonkers but hey, the film is too. The Sixth Sense (1999): Japan This poster for The Sixth Sense evokes the sinister atmosphere of J-Horror Japanese movie fans continually complain that the domestic versions of American movie posters are clunkily done, with too much text, and often missing the point of the movie, or trying to sell it in a way that its content doesn’t justify. Here’s a rare exception, though, in the movie poster to promote M Night Shyamalan's spooky 1990s classic. It arguably improves on the US version, by combining the main graphic with a fuzzy, black and white image and a creepy countdown device in a way that (much like the film itself) summons the tropes of the Japanese horror tradition. Sex and the City (2008): Poland The Polish poster for Sex and the City takes a very different approach than the original marketing One of the biggest TV hits of the 1990s, US sitcom Sex and the City moved to the big screen in the 2000s, and the movie was promoted in suitably glamorous, glitzy and over-the-top style. Poster designer Andrzej Krajewski, however, stripped all that back for the Polish audience, creating this bawdy design, infused with a subtle echo of Cubism, which has since become a collectors’ item. Ant-Man (2015): Russia Ant-Man is shown shrinking in a subtle but effective way, in this Russian movie poster Following a man who can shrink down to molecular size, Ant-Man is challenging to explain to the uninitiated in a single visual shot. This Russian poster takes an original approach, featuring successive shrinking versions of Ant-Man in a way that echoes the tradition of the matryoshka (Russian stacking dolls). It combines this with monochrome background images of the other main characters, and overall the design manages to pack in a huge amount of detail within a simple, geometric whole. Kong: Skull Island (2017): Japan The Japanese poster for Kong: Skull Island is gloriously OTT When you go to see a movie like Kong: Skull Island, the latest reboot of the King Kong franchise, you’re looking for one thing: to disengage your brain and enjoy a couple of hours of fast-paced, breathless action. While the original US movie posters were quite muted and restrained, this hand-drawn Japanese design goes all-out and packs in as much explosive monster mayhem as you could ever expect in one image. In the wrong hands, this could have ended up a chaotic mess, but legendary Japanese artist Yuji Kaida has fused all the elements together into a perfect whole that’s fizzing with kinetic energy; a truly OTT masterpiece. The bad At Creative Bloq, we're all about celebrating good design, and not generally in the habit of slagging off fellow creatives. That said, though, there are couple of examples of bad movie posters we couldn't help but include in our list... Ghostbusters (1984): Czechoslovakia Incredibly, this is actually a poster for the lovable 1980s comedy A true 1980s classic, Ghostbusters was a fun comedy about a group of New Yorkers who fight ghosts like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia, art director Petr Poš presumably didn’t get a chance to see it before creating this hauntingly surreal, sinisterly kitsch poster, which looks absolutely zero per cent like the film it’s supposed to represent. 12 Years a Slave (2013): Italy From this poster, you'd think that Brad Pitt was the main character in 12 Years a Slave 12 Years a Slave is an adaptation of the 1853 slave narrative memoir by Solomon Northup. The main character, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, appears in almost every scene. But you wouldn’t be able to tell that from the Italian poster, which minimises him in favour of a giant picture of Brad Pitt, whose role in the film is minor. This poster, and a similar one featuring Michael Fassbender, attracted a storm of controversy online; another of the actors, Lupita Nyong’o, boycotted the Italian premiere in protest; and the Italian distributors quickly apologised and withdrew the offending marketing material. It’s not the only foreign movie poster to attract complaints about so-called ‘whitewashing’: the Chinese poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens generated similar controversy for minimising black actor John Boyega. The ugly However good the film is, some promotional material is just offensive to the eyes. We'll round off our list of global movie posters with a couple of the most egregious examples. American Werewolf in London (1981): Japan This Japanese poster for American Werewolf in London is just offensively bad An American Werewolf in London was a horror comedy by John Landis about two US students, David and Jack, who are attacked by a werewolf while on a backpacking holiday in England. It’s a classic movie that received critical acclaim across the board, and is considered a milestone in the comedy horror genre for its innovative makeup and effects. It deserved much better, in short, than this Japanese poster, with its crazed, cartoon stylings that are more suggestive of the basest forms of manga porn. Muppet Movie (1979): Poland Youngsters probably ran a mile at the sight of this poster by Waldemar Swierzy "Mummy! The monster is scaring me! Make it stop! Make it STOP!!!" Related articles: 26 top movie title sequences 16 most imaginative movie wallpapers The 10 best stamp designs inspired by TV and movies View the full article

Copic Markers appeared on my radar almost two years ago and I haven’t looked back since. It was around the time I started my Instagram page, and my followers could see how the collection of five markers was growing slowly and how much could be achieved with just a few pens. For my ink drawings, I often limit my usage of markers; a few colours can create refreshing works, while using too many can have the opposite effect. I’m proud and happy to be able to inspire over 600,000 followers with my daily drawings. Working in the office and studying during the day, I know how hard it is to find the energy and motivation to draw after work or school, but I try to tell everyone to never give up their passions. I started out by spending a few minutes every evening on sketching, but the joy that finished image brings me is so strong that these days I can spend the whole night drawing without noticing! Each colour is featured in no more than three elements. This adds rhythm and harmony to the painting. Asia Ladowska For this workshop I challenged myself to come up with a simple character design, mostly to focus on and demonstrate how I use Copic Markers, but don’t be deceived! The character and the pose may be simple, but I equipped this girl with accessories and details that add to her personality. At the first glance she may look innocent and harmless, but then you notice a faint smile and one lifted eyebrow complemented by a little patch on her jaw, a sabre cat skull design on her top and claw-like earrings. Then you realise that she’s up to no good. Blue colours calm the painting and pink glasses add to a dreamlike atmosphere. The palette is limited to three main colours: blue, black and pink. If you look closely, they not only work well together, but they’re also composed in harmony wherever I’ve added them to the paper. Each colour is featured in no more than three elements: blue (hair, blouse and rose); pink (glasses, sleeves and material at the bottom of the page); black (her top and the two ribbons tying her twin ponytails). This adds rhythm and harmony to the painting. In addition to the step-by-step breakdown, my video for this workshop (above) also reveals some tips on how I achieve my smooth marker blends. Be sure to check it out! 01. Experiment with sketches Make the time to experiment with sketches It’s okay to spend time developing ideas – sketching them out for a while before developing a final drawing. On a good day, it can take five minutes to draw what I want, when hours of labour won’t bring the same fresh and satisfying result. Take your time and keep sketches loose. 02. Incorporate different media Play around with the image to iron out errors Hello Photoshop! At this stage I’d usually choose my favourite messy sketch, scan and open it in Photoshop CC. Here, I change the image to black and white and make use of the Liquify tool. Flipping it horizontally reveals some mistakes in the drawing. 03. Size matters! Time to supersize your image My sketches are tiny because it’s easier to control the character’s proportions. It also stops me from adding a lot of details at the beginning of the process. I scale the design to A4 size and print out to then transfer to a smooth watercolour paper using a light box. 04. Create first layer of ink Illustrating in Sepia is a safe choice Before inking, I make some tweaks and add details with pencil, and then put down a thin line mostly with the Sepia Copic Multiliner. Sepia is a safe choice because almost all other colours can cover it in the second stage of inking. Note that ink fades when used with markers, so there’s no need to overwork the line art at this stage. 05. Build colour Start from light colours and work down to darker shades Alcohol markers tend to pick up ink that’s already on the paper, so it’s best to start from the lightest parts of the composition and build up darker colours gradually. The tip will always find a chance to pick up dark ink and create smudges. Bearing this in mind, I start colouring the skin first. 06. Decide on the colour palette Pick and choose your colour scheme with Photoshop Photoshop comes in handy again! Digital software makes it easy for me to try out a range of possibilities and colour combinations, to the degree where I almost decide to use the colours I don’t have as markers! When I’m working out a colour palette, I try digital colouring first or draw little five-minute thumbnails on paper and colour them in traditionally. In the end I settle on the blue–pink–black palette. 07. Colour the character's hair Blend your colours before they dry I love using vibrant gradient colours to paint hair! Copic markers can blend seamlessly and to achieve this I regularly switch between markers, using a lighter colour to create smooth blends. It takes some patience, but it’s worth it. I would recommend blending your markers while the ink is still wet. 08. Use the magic of Copic blending A broad nib is great for creating a fabric texture I’m using the same colours for both the hair and the blouse tied around her waist. I use the side with a brush nib for her hair, which enables me to blend softly. For the blouse I use the broad nib of the markers to create a realistic material look. Using markers with different tips makes it possible to create a range of textures. 09. Design accessories Accessories help to bring the composition together This is the fun part of the process. Her top shows a cute sabre-toothed cat’s skull with cat ears. Adding a flower makes the cat look cute and complements my colour composition, which was missing a blue accent. Her glasses, earrings, patch on her jaw and bows all come together to create a dangerously sweet character! 10. Add second layer of ink A second layer can help bring back buried line work Now I apply a second layer of line work, using various colours of multiliners. Varying the line thickness keeps things interesting. The first layer has already faded with the amount of alcohol and ink involved. Time to bring it back! 11. Add final touches Coloured pencils are perfect for subtle finishing touches I use coloured pencils to make barely noticeable changes to the drawing, such as deepening the shadows and adding a blush to the character’s cheeks. Coloured pencils complement markers well and can cover small imperfections and uneven blending. This article originally appeared in issue 163 of ImagineFX, the world's leading magazine for digital artists. Subscribe here. Related articles: How to draw a character in pen and ink 9 top tips for drawing in black and white 17 stunning examples of ink drawings View the full article

The VR Awards has announced the winners of its second ever awards ceremony. On 16 October a host of the biggest names in virtual reality gathered at 8 Northumberland Avenue for a glamorous evening organised by VR Bound, celebrating phenomenal accomplishments in the industry. 3D Artist was invited along to the ceremony, which was hosted by comedian Phil Wang. The long list of esteemed guests included Oculus, HTC, Bethesda, Google, Jaunt VR, Framestore, Neurogaming Limited, AWE and REWIND. Over 400 nominations were received internationally; 105 finalists then underwent a rigorous judging process from a panel of 40 industry experts. The evening’s events saw the following 12 winners take to the stage – celebrating work including an eerie experience from Flight School and cutting-edge film from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. VR Headset of the Year: HTC Vive Pro VR Game of the Year: The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone by Cloudhead Games Ltd VR Experience of the Year: Manifest 99 by Flight School VR Film of the Year: CARNE y ARENA by ILMxLAB VR Marketing of the Year: Coco VR by Magnopus Rising VR Company of the Year: Neurogaming Limited Innovative VR Company of the Year: Ultrahaptics VR Education of the Year: HoloLAB Champions by Schell Games VR Healthcare of the Year: Virti Out-of-home VR Entertainment of the Year: Star Wars™: Secrets of the Empire by ILMxLAB and The VOID VR Social Impact Award: Window to our World by VISYON & The Cornerstone Partnership VR Architecture and Real Estate of the Year: Bostoen – Creating your dream house before it’s even built by Nanopixel Red carpet highlights, backstage interviews with the winners, clips of the nominated projects, and images from the night are all available at awards.vrbound.com. Read more: How to bring a 2D character to life in VR The best VR headsets for 2018 Level up your VR art View the full article

Even when we finish school, we should never stop learning. The continuation of your professional development is what eduCBA Professional Training: Lifetime Membership is all about. This collection offers more than 900 courses on all different subjects, from entrepreneurship to marketing to sales. No matter what field you're in, you can enhance your knowledge and further your skills with this extensive video library. New content gets added all the time, and having a lifetime membership means you'll have access to all the new content that shows up on the platform. When you finish courses, you'll earn certificates of completion to help you track your progress. For just $49, get eduCBA Professional Training: Lifetime Membership. Related articles: Take your freelance career to the next level 12 tips to turbocharge your design career 5 articles to improve your web design career View the full article

Walmart has plenty of TVs for sale. If you're looking for a cheap TV that won't break the bank but you're not where to start, you've come to the right place. Here, we've found the best cheap TVs on sale at Walmart right now. Even better, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018 just a few weeks away, we're about to see a swell of Walmart Black Friday deals on TVs – and our cutting-edge price comparison will pull the best Walmart TV deals in below, so you can be sure you're getting the lowest price. But, why Walmart? Well, Walmart is one of the biggest retailers in the world, and that means it has a huge selection of TVs to choose from. Because of its size, it also means it can aggressively price cheap TVs , which makes it one of the best places to shop for a cheap TV. When buying a cheap TV from Walmart, or any store, there are a few things you should consider. First of all, you'll want to think about resolution. The vast majority of cheap TVs are 1080p, and for most people that will be enough. TV shows, Netflix streaming, console games and Blu-rays all take advantage of this resolution (also known as Full High Definition), and the technology has been around long enough now that you can get a very good 1080p TV for cheap. Some cheap TVs may offer less resolution, such as 1080i or 720p. These will be labelled as High Definition, HD or HD Ready. These will be even cheaper, and while they might seem like a steal, we'd recommend caution, as they won't give you as good a viewing experience as a 1080p Full HD TV. Cheap 4K TVs are also becoming increasingly common. While there are some good deals to be had, in some cases cheap 4K TVs cut a few too many corners, and you're better off getting a better 1080p set for your money. Also, if you don't have a 4K Netflix subscription, 4K-capable games console or Blu-ray player, then you'll not see the benefit of 4K. However, getting a cheap 4K TV now does at least mean you're future-proof for when 4K content becomes more readily available. Vizio has been making a name for itself as a manufacturer who specialises in budget TVs that offer good image quality and features despite their low price. The hard work has paid off, as the Vizio D50-F1 is our pick for the best cheap TV from Walmart. It delivers high-quality streaming via a built-in Chromecast and supports 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi, which helps reduce buffering times. Even better, Walmart has dramatically reduced its price tag from its original list price. Samsung is a brilliant brand when it comes to TVs - especially 4K TVs - and while its products are a bit more pricey than its competitors, if you have the budget to spend a bit more, then it's well worth it. Take the Samsung UN55NU7200. This is a great 55-inch 4K TV with HDR (High Dynamic Range), which makes colors even more impressive and vibrant. You get some excellent features that don't often appear on cheap TVs, making this a worthwhile purchase. If you have no interest in 4K content, and you don't want a huge room-filling TV, then the TCL FHD 40S305 Smart TV is a great choice for a brilliant price. At 40-inches it's enough for smaller rooms, and the 1080p display means you're not paying for a resolution you won't use. The price is extremely tempting, and it has a built-in Roku device, allowing you to stream online content direct to the TV. If you want the absolute cheapest TV Walmart has to offer (while also offering decent image quality and screen size), then the Sceptre 43-inch 1080P LED TV X435BV-F is a great choice. Not only is it incredibly cheap, but it offers good enough image quality to keep you happy. It doesn't come with smart TV features, but it's a good cheap choice for a second (or third) TV to put in a bedroom or spare room. At 43-inches, it's not a large TV, but neither is it too small either. For many people, this size will be just right. Smart TVs offer built-in apps for streaming TV shows and movies via services such as Hulu and Netflix, as well as games, news websites and more. Smart TVs don't have to be expensive either, as the Sony KDL40W650D proves. Sony has built a brilliant smart TV platform that allows you to easily access a large number of apps and services, with an attractive interface. This TV has a brilliant build quality that Sony is well known for, it's just a shame that at 40-inches it's a bit on the small size. If you're looking for the best large screen cheap TV at Walmart, then the Sharp LC-55Q7030U is the TV to get. It features a hefty 55-inch screen, as well as 4K resolution and HDR. For screens of this size, 4K resolution really is worthwhile, and the HDR support is a great touch. Best of all, despite its large size and high resolution, it's still an impressively cheap TV from Walmart. For the price you're getting a large TV that is future-proof for the next few years thanks to its 4K and HDR support. The RCA RLDEDV3289 is the best small cheap TV at Walmart. While 32-inches might not seem that small, compared to many modern TVs that have screens well above 40-inches, it seems positively tiny. This small TV not only saves space thanks to its small screen, it also has a built-in DVD player, which means this is the perfect TV for places where you don't have a lot of room, such as camper vans and mobile homes. Of course, it's also nice and cheap as well. Also read: The best cheap Walmart laptops in 2018 The best camera for photography The 10 top fictional brands from film and TV View the full article

Welcome to our pick of the best cameras on sale at Walmart in 2018. In this guide we're not only look at your standard digital cameras, but also Polaroid instant cameras, security cameras for your home or office, and dash cameras for placing in your car. And the good news? With Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018 so close, we're expecting hundreds of Walmart Black Friday deals on cameras soon. As soon as they drop, our price tracking tool will pull them in below, so you can be sure you're getting the cheapest price possible on your new Walmart camera. Walmart is one of the biggest retailers in the world, and that means it has a brilliant range of products on offer – and at very competitive prices. So, if you're thinking of buying the best waterproof camera for your holidays, or an affordable, cheap DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) for taking snaps of the family, then this guide will be for you. Buying the best camera for your needs doesn't have to be an expensive or confusing ordeal. Here are the best cameras you can buy at Walmart right now... The Nikon D7500 is our pick for the best DSLR camera at Walmart overall. It offers a brilliant balance of features and affordability. Sure, there's more accomplished DSLRs at Walmart, but they are a lot more expensive. The Nikon D7500 packs in an excellent 20.9MP sensor into a compact and affordable body. Despite its relatively inexpensive price, the D7500 still offers a wide range of features, such as 4K video capture, tilt-angle touchscreen and 8fps burst shooting for high-speed action shots. If you're looking for the ultimate DSLR at Walmart, then the Nikon D850 is the one you'll want. This is our pick for the very best high-end DSLR camera at Walmart, which means it's more expensive than the Nikon D7500, but for serious photographers the extra cash is well worth it. It comes with a massive 45.4MP sensor that delivers incredible images that are rich with details, and offers exceptional noise performance even at high ISOs. This is a DSLR camera that comes with more features than we can list here, and a robust build quality that allows it to cope with even the most demanding of locations. OK, so this list has started off pretty Nikon-heavy, but we can't argue with the Japanese company's brilliant products. Not only does it offer the best all-round and high-end DSLR cameras at Walmart, with the D3400 it also offers the best cheap DSLR at Walmart. It comes with a brilliantly sharp 24MP APS-C sensor and a very good retracting kit lens. Overall it offers superb value for money, with features and performance that put some of its more expensive rivals to shame. Its simple button layout, along with its cheap price, means the D3400 is perfect for beginners. Fujifilm's X-T3 is our pick for the best mirrorless camera at Walmart. It improves on its predecessor in pretty much every single way, with a new 26.1MP X-Trans sensor benefiting from a higher resolution and better noise control. With 2.16-million phase detect AF pixels, X-T3 tracks focus smoothly as well. Add in touchscreen control, 4K video and 11fps burst mode, as well as a stylishly-designed body, and you've got one of the best cameras on sale at Walmart in 2018. If you're looking for the best waterproof camera Walmart has to offer, than the FinePix XP130 is for you. It's the perfect choice for family holidays at the beach, with a robust, waterproof casing and some nice features, such as a variety of fun filters to liven up your snaps and Wi-Fi connectivity for easy uploading and sharing to social media sites. It's not the most rugged of waterproof cameras, and the simple-to-use button layout might frustrate more experienced photographers, but if you want a simple point and shoot compact camera for the beach, this is a brilliant choice. The Netgear Arlo Pro 2 is the best security camera at Walmart. It's a high-end set-up that offers a professional-quality security system for your home or business. The Arlo Pro 2 comes with a hub and two cameras. The cameras are capable of recording crystal-clear 1080p HD video, and can work either indoors or outdoors, thanks to their IP65 waterproof rating and strong magnetic mounts. It also features an 8x digital zoom, a 'smart siren' and a powerful Night Vision mode, giving you peace of mind when away from home. You can view the cameras through a smartphone app or web interface. If you're looking for an instant camera with a huge dose of retro charm, then the Polaroid OneStep 2 is definitely for you. With a design based on the original 1970 OneStep, this updated camera is just as easy to use as Polaroid's original. As soon as you press the button, it prints out your photo on the classic square file (Polaroid I-Type). The film is a bit more expensive than its instant camera rivals, but for pure nostalgia and excellent photo quality, the OneStep 2 is definitely worth buying from Walmart. Garmin is a well known brand for action cameras and fitness trackers, and its applied its experience to the Dash Cam 55, creating a feature-packed dash camera with brilliant image quality. It's by far the best dash camera for your car at Walmart, and thanks to its 1440p video capture at 30 frames per second, video footage is brilliant, and the 122 degree viewing angle is also decent, giving you a wide view of the road. It has a built-in GPS unit, so all footage is stamped with time and location, which can save a lot of time and effort if you are involved in an accident. Also read: The best camera for creatives in 2018 The 10 best point-and-shoot cameras in 2018 The best camera phones in 2018 View the full article