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A lot has changed at Pixar Animation Studios. Technology and the deep-diving research that precedes it has allowed the studio to produce some of the most ground-breaking visual energy ever seen.
However, Pixar wasn't always the animation giant it is now. Back in 2004, a lot of the software the studio used was written by a very small team of artists. But it didn't take them long to make their mark, and 14 years later Pixar has gone from being a little start-up animation team to a huge part of the Walt Disney Corporation.
Breaking digital barriers
Since its first production, Pixar Animation Studios has continually created animated movies that have broken down barriers of digital possibilities. From the simulation of Sulley's fur in Monsters Inc. and beautiful water in Finding Nemo, to the creation of mouth-watering food in Ratatouille and new hair simulation software used on Brave's fiery red-haired character Merida.
Each film in Pixar’s animated timeline has set new standards and pushed the levels of technological development for future movies. So just how do they create such beautiful, seamless animations? What are the secrets to Pixar's success? Here we take a look at some of the techniques, technology and tools that have helped shape some of the company's best-loved 3D movies.
01. Global Illumination
The Pixar team harnessed the power of global illumination for the second instalment of the world of monsters
Point-based global illumination was perfected and brought into the game for Monsters University. Lush skin, highly textured surfaces and spectacular lighting effects join the arsenal of takeaways for the second instalment set in the world of monsters.
A group of algorithms calculate the way light bounces from surface to surface within an environment. It produces beautifully soft, natural-looking effects – but only if you’re prepared to wait for the effect to be added once the animation has been done. Animators can now produce the frames of their work while the lighters can give them all the gorgeous lumens they require. Real-time global illumination and USD is now being used in Pixar productions, and we can’t wait for Toy Story 4, coming in 2019.
02. Universal Scene Description (USD)
Universal Scene Description (USD) is an open-source project Pixar created as an emerging standard in the industry. This standard allows them to have immense complexity inside the scene itself. It also allows a large number of artists to be working on the same scene, asset or character simultaneously. The lighters can be working on the same character in the same shot, as the animators also work on this character.
“USD is gaining traction, even outside our industry, because it allows us to have a massive scale of complexity and the ability to work within that complexity, in multiple departments at the same time,” says Steve May, a senior member of the Pixar Technology Team. Apple recently announced at the WWDC that USD is the new PDF for augmented reality.
03. RenderMan
RenderMan enabled the team working on Finding Dory (2016) to fully embrace path-tracing for more complex lighting effects
“We’ve also gone through a transformation and push with RenderMan,” adds May. Pixar has created a new architecture for this long-established gold standard for how rendering is done in visual effects and animation. The algorithms have improved
and computational power has increased to such a point that it can now support path-tracing.“In the production of Finding Dory, the RenderMan software was at a stage to make it possible for the Pixar crew to fully embrace path-tracing, enabling much more complex lighting effects, with a lot less work from the artists. It grasps much more complex geometry more efficiently.”
So, Pixar has made this big push to move RenderMan to path-tracing. What does that mean exactly? May informs us that it is all about having RenderMan run interactively, and making it so that there is no delay between the time the artist makes the creative decision, and when the results appear.
04. Presto
Pixar’s proprietary animation system was first used on Brave, and has been used on every Pixar project since. “Presto is head and shoulders the best animation system in the world,” testifies May. “It’s really been showing how well it holds up in complex scenes within films such as Incredibles 2 and Coco.”
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It's been a tough year for the face of Toys R Us, Geoffrey the Giraffe. Last September, when the famous toy retailer filed for bankruptcy, it looked like the long necked mascot's days were numbered. However, in a controversial move, it looks like Geoffrey is back to work as part of the branding and logo design for Geoffrey's Toy Box.
Not familiar with Geoffrey's Toy Box? If the company looks and sounds like an exhumed Toys R Us, that's because it is. According to a statement issued yesterday, the company has been bought out by a group of investors led by Geoffrey, LLC. The acquisition includes intellectual property and data associated with Toy R Us, including the childhood favourite of many, Geoffrey the Giraffe.
In the world of the brand created by Per Barry though, Geoffrey's reappearance has been sold as his return from a vacation. In a tweet from Toys R Us he's even strolling back with a packed suitcase, downplaying any suggestion of his recent crisis. As for the logo of Geoffrey's Toy Box, Geoffrey's bursting out of a toy chest with the anxious expression of a giraffe on borrowed time.
Not everyone is happy to see Geoffrey the Giraffe return
This upbeat, 'everything's fine' attitude has provoked a backlash from former Toys R Us employees, plenty of whom are still waiting for severance pay. Many have seen it as a PR stunt to cash-in on the nostalgia associated with Geoffrey the Giraffe, one that adds insult to injury for employees loyal to the Toys R Us brand.
With the run up to the holidays already underway, the launch of Geoffrey's Toy Box is certainly a canny business move, which could see investors leverage the brand and help pay off Toys R Us' remaining debts. For ex-workers though, the use of the brand will feel like nothing more than exploitation.
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There have been numerous cross-platform mobile frameworks over the years, with steady improvements to developer experience and performance throughout. Google's Flutter is a new addition to the pack, and is particularly interesting because rather than using a JavaScript 'bridge' as many frameworks (such as React Native) do, it compiles to true native code.
You can find out a bit about how it works in the introductory video below, or read on for a step-by-step guide to getting started with Flutter. For more advice, take a look at our collection of tutorials explaining how to build an app.
In this tutorial, we'll look at how to set up Flutter and explore the basics of building apps using the framework, using macOS for our development. We'll assume that you've programmed before and know how to use the Bash shell, but might not have developed for mobile.
01. Get set up
You'll need to download and install a few things before you can make use of Flutter:
- Xcode for iOS support
- Android Studio for Android support
- Android SDK (download via Android Studio once you create a new project)
Once you have all of these, run Xcode and Android Studio, install the additional components they offer and create a new project to make sure they run.
Now you're ready to get started with Flutter. Download the Flutter SDK. Extract it to wherever you'd like it to be installed. We need to update our path so macOS can find Flutter wherever you invoke it. Open (or create) $HOME/.bash_profile:
Now add the flutter/bin directory to your $PATH:
Run a shell command to refresh the bash profile:
Now we can start using the Flutter CLI. The first thing to do is make sure you have the latest version:
02. Fix any problems
Once that's done, Flutter offers a handy diagnostic tool, which will check whether everything that you need is installed and set up correctly. It is really useful:
Take note of what the doctor tells you and respond to any issues that arise. You might have to run the doctor a couple of times to gain additional feedback and act on it.
Once the tool is happy with Flutter, Android Toolchain, iOS Toolchain and Android Studio, you are good to go. Don't worry about connected devices for now.
Xcode can require some extra steps at the shell to get it fully set up:
And Android Studio often needs the licence agreement accepting:
03. Find an IDE and start a new project
Now Flutter is set up, you'll want an IDE to work in. There are plugins available for Android Studio and IntelliJ. We're going to go with VS Code, which also has its own Flutter plugin.
Start up VS Code and click View > Command Palette. Type 'install' and select the Extensions: Install Extension action. Search for 'flutter' and install the Flutter plugin. Once done, restart VS Code.
We're now ready to begin developing. Start a new project through the Command Palette by selecting the Flutter: New Project option. Name your project, select where to save it and VS Code will invoke Flutter to generate the new project.
04. Set up virtual devices
To test our project, we'll want a device simulator to allow us on the desktop. In the bottom right-hand corner of VS Code (in the blue bar), you'll see something saying No Devices. If you've developed for mobile before, when you click this, you'll see your simulators available in the Command Palette.
If you have no simulators, run the following in the terminal to open the iOS simulator for the first time:
You should then see an iOS simulator available when you restart VS Code.
Android is more complex. Load Android Studio and within an Android project, click Tools > Android > AVD Manager. Select Create Virtual Device.
Select the device to emulate – for example a Google Pixel 2. Click Next and you can also choose a system image (i.e. OS version) to download. On the next page under Emulated Performance, select Hardware – GLES 2.0 to enable hardware graphics acceleration on the emulator. Finish the process.
Once you've created the virtual device in Android Studio, restart VS Code and you'll see your Android emulator appear alongside the iOS simulator in VS Code's device list.
Now, if you click No Devices, you can select an iOS or Android device and a virtual phone will fire up on your desktop. Try it out with an iPhone X simulator.
04. Test the starter app
Now the simulator is running, you can test out the starter app. Hit F5 or click Debug > Start Debugging. The app will load on the simulator and you can try interacting with it. Be patient if it doesn't happen immediately, as it can take some time to build.
Before we can do the same on Android, we need to install gradle dependencies for our project (a small nuance of Flutter right now). Navigate to the project root directory and run:
Then you can open an Android emulator and run the project in Debug mode as you did for iOS.
A great feature of Flutter is that it supports 'hot reloading' – that is, you can modify your source and see the changes reflected in the simulator right away. In main.dart, let's make a couple of changes to the MyApp class while the iPhone X simulator runs:
You should see the changes take effect as soon as you save.
06. Explore Flutter's widget system
What we haven't yet talked about is the Dart programming language that Flutter uses. Dart is an object-oriented language with C-style syntax, developed by Google and all Flutter development uses it. If you've already got some experience of web or mobile development, then it shouldn't be totally alien to you.
Everything in Flutter is based on widgets, which are the building blocks of an app. If you've used React before, Flutter's approach is very similar and widgets are analogous to components. Essentially your entire app can be decomposed into a hierarchy of widgets.
This is easily seen within the MyApp class. MyApp is a StatelessWidget (this means it's immutable). The build() method we are overriding tells Flutter how the widget should be rendered. This is similar to React's render() function.
The method returns a MaterialApp widget, which represents an app that uses Google's Material Design. This in turn has several properties, which are themselves widgets: ThemeData defines the visual style to be used and MyHomePage is a custom widget defined further down the main.dart file that contains the body of the app.
07. Edit your content
Unlike the stateless MyApp, MyHomePage is a stateful widget. This means its behaviour is defined by the _MyHomePageState class, enabling it to store information and change accordingly, such as when you press the button on the app.
You can see it's currently using many built-in widgets Flutter provides to handle common things like layout, buttons and text display. Let's make some changes to that class to modify what our app presents.
We've disposed of the existing content and replaced it with a brown Container widget but we also need to create a custom widget, RecipeWidget, that will be put in the container.
08. Load some assets
Next, let's load some assets with the app so we can add them to the ListView widget within RecipeWidget. Static assets for an app are specified in pubspec.yaml under the 'flutter' section:
We'll also create a simple data structure in main.dart, pairing images with strings to act as a thumbnail and summary for recipes.
09. Finish up
Finally, let's update RecipeWidget to build a list of widgets displaying the recipes. We use Image.asset to load the static assets we included in pubspec.yaml.
Hopefully you're starting to get a feel for how Flutter uses widgets to construct apps. Try using the simulator to rotate the device. The Flutter layout automatically accommodates the changes. For comparison, try the app on the Android emulator.
This article was originally published in net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 310 or subscribe.
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Coding is undoubtedly one of today's most valuable skills. And, even if you're not set on being a hardcore app developer or programmer, having a working knowledge of today's coding staples can help you stand out on the job hunt or net some decent income on the side. The Complete Learn to Code Masterclass Bundle features nine beginner-friendly courses on today's top languages, like C++, JavaScript, and Python, and it's on sale for $39 today.
Spanning more than 70 hours of professional instruction, this collection is designed to take you from beginner to expert with several coding staples. You'll explore development tools, like HTML, CSS, PHP, and Bootstrap. Plus, you'll even get concrete experience as you follow along an e-commerce project and build a fully optimised webpage from scratch.
While the Complete Learn to Code Masterclass Bundle usually retails for $1,370, you can get it on sale today for only $39, saving 97 per cent off the usual price.
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You're reading Sans Forgetica – Makes Sure You Don’t Forget, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+!
It seems like sci-fi, but it is a true story. Apparently, Australian researchers developed an amazing solution for all students around the globe. They have created a font which will improve students capacity to remember certain information. RMIT University from …
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Have you heard of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel? For many people the name doesn't ring a bell, but the American artist, collector and scholar is an important figure in the history of colour theory. And while her prominent book on the subject, Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color, has languished in antiquity for years, a new Kickstarter looks set to put Vanderpoel's name back on the map.
Published in 1901, Color Problems provides a tantalising look at the core principles of colour theory and analysis as they were understood at the time. With the benefit of hindsight it can also be argued that with her book, Vanderpole broaches the design movements such as minimalism decades before her more famous successors.
Within its pages, Color Problems analyses the proportions of colours found on objects in Vanderpoel's collection. These studies include meticulous and inventive grids of colour that predate similar work by the likes of Josef Albers. As historian and science blogger John Ptak puts it, Vanderpoel "sought not so much to analyse the components of colour itself, but rather to quantify the overall interpretative effect of colour on the imagination."
Thanks to this Kickstarter, the work of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel will reach the audience it deserves
Yes despite the importance of her studies, Color Problems has been neglected by history, relegated to being traded around niche book markets for prohibitive sums – in the past people could expect to fork out upwards of $500 for a copy.
All this is about to change thanks to a Kickstarter by The Circadian Press with Sacred Bones which will restore the manual to its former glory. Having gone to great lengths to reproduce the book as closely as possible with digital printing methods, this project will come as a relief to academics who have had to put up with PDF copies that were bafflingly printed in black and white.
The new edition comes complete with an introduction by design scholar and Vanderpole researcher Alan P. Bruton. Having smashed its Kickstarter pledge by hundreds of thousands of dollars, you can preorder it now for delivery this month on the campaign page. And while the generous amount of funds raised means an extended print run, we'd recommend ordering as soon as possible to prevent this amazing book slipping through your fingers again.
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It’s rapidly approaching that time of year again where people start to get dressed up, go wandering around clutching goodie bags and looking for treats, then have a massive party. Of course, I’m talking about Adobe MAX 2018, probably the biggest event in the creative calendar, where the latest and greatest versions of the Creative Cloud apps are revealed.
The mists that shroud Adobe's secrets are thick, so in order for us to predict what might be revealed at MAX 2018 we have to first look at past events. Two years ago in San Diego, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen unveiled Sensei, Adobe's AI (artificial intelligence) machine-learning and deep-learning technology framework, and promised that AI would amplify our creativity by accelerating content creation and removing or smoothing out the tedious tasks.
Since then, AI-assisted features have popped up in a number of places – some obvious ('Select Subject' in Photoshop) and others that are a little more 'under the hood', but still make tasks easier (Essential Sound in Premiere). You don’t need to be clairvoyant to see that the development of Sensei is to continue in the next and subsequent releases, and this is a really good thing when we’re under pressure to create more, in less time.
Wait! The shroud has cleared for a moment and we've caught a fleeting glimpse of some new powers you shall soon be gifted. Here are our predictions for the changes to your favourite Adobe tools that will be revealed at MAX 2018...
01. Supercharged Photoshop
You will meet a tall, dark stranger that seems familiar but is also somehow different. They may well be standing in a field next to a pony or in a swimming pool somewhere, but they are trying to tell you of new Content-Aware Fill capabilities in Photoshop.
Often we have heard shouts of 'Content Aware FAIL' (harsh) but those cries may well be silenced as the future holds a new menu item, dedicated workspace, masks and controls to tame the savage beast of pixel-patchery.
02. Tooled-up Illustrator
Through the turbulent ether we see Illustrator, but it looks somehow changed – it’s the toolbar! A mystical power will be granted to users, who will be able to add and remove tools at will to suit their workflows. Also another revelation – or perhaps revolution would be a better word – will take place for those wanting to make gradients. We predict that new methods will surface that will open up new design possibilities. Such marvels to behold (and at any size, because they’re vectors).
03. AI-assisted InDesign
Content-Aware Fit? Surely a typo from a marketing minion copy-pasting feature lists? But, no – for we have witnessed it with our own eyes. That AI-assisted voodoo we spoke of earlier will soon be able to detect the subject of images, position them appropriately in frames, and will become available as a fitting option in the Control Strip.
There’s more – how about importing marked-up PDFs and tracking feedback without having to leave InDesign? This will surely save time and frustration when working with colleagues and clients.
04. Slick-looking Adobe XD
The one-stop-design-prototyping-and-collaboration-shop looks set to get a new-look welcome screen. It will be slick and most importantly, visual. But the most jaw-dropping announcements will probably relate to the host of new plugins we predict will become available.
I sense something at the back of the room... do you know of something called Google Sheets? You do? The message is hazy, but it seems to be to do with mapping XD elements to sheet content. Does that mean something to you? I bet it will.
05. Responsive After Effects
Responsive design? Have once again the ethereal wires of prophecy become twisted and entangled? Such terms are usually confined to the web industry, but today's multiscreen world demands more from us and we, in turn demand more from our applications. Soon, After Effects will deliver much-needed responsive design features. There's more coming besides, including depth-effects and new puppet tools, as well as new ways to work with data files.
06. Magical Character Animator
The tea leaves don’t lie. At first we thought they were showing us Project Puppetron again, a project that was revealed in the MAX Sneaks last year. But there’s something in the water that suggests more magic is coming to this incredible app. We see an image of Van Gogh telling us something about magnets and squashy physics. We're not sure what was in that tea?
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I created my original painting around this time last year, having been inspired by the vast fantasy landscapes by artists like Dongbiao Lu and Ruxing Gao. It was my first stylised environment artwork.
A year later I was interested to see how I could improve the piece. There was something very successful about it that was most likely a happy accident at the time, but had continued to evade my understanding until now.
Looking back at it, I started to notice errors in the art techniques used, including the lighting, design work, composition and shape design. My challenge was to try and preserve what had worked then, while fixing the composition to make a better painting.
01. Create a stronger foundation
Reworking the image involves emulating a fish-eye lens
The lighting in the original scene is inconsistent, which makes it difficult to understand how the objects occupy the space they’re in. This is particularly noticeable on the mountains and so I start to paint over these first. I choose a light source – the sun coming from the top left – and some rough camera settings. To encapsulate the expanse of the environment, I attempt to emulate a fish-eye lens effect by having the base of the mountains converge at the bottom and then adding a slight curve to their trajectory upwards.
02. Tackle the big shapes
Elements such as clouds can have a dramatic effect on a painting
The clouds follow a curve that helps convey their scale and position. I keep the shape design consistent with the mountain range because it creates an interesting repetition between the ground and sky. I then redesign the monastery as a stylised dragon’s head, which fits the whimsical fantasy mood I’m trying to achieve.
Simplifying clouds into large, rounded forms is great for selling their scale, but it starts to make them appear like solid, hard-surfaced objects. To bring back the softer feel I break up the hard edges with smooth gradients and smaller brush strokes, some of them overlapping to indicate translucency. This finer detailing was also present in the original and explains a lot of why it remains a decent image, despite some technical flaws.
03. Adjust the focus
I want to keep the focus on the environment, so I paint the characters with an almost graphical approach. The folds in their clothing are represented with flat-coloured shapes rather than detailed, high-contrast shadows. This made them feel more like a continuation of the dragon’s patterning rather than entirely separate objects.
04. Redesign elements
Ensuring your design elements all fit together is crucial
The dragon was the most interesting design in my original painting. I tried to update this design, but found it didn’t fit the Asian theme influencing the rest of the image. It also took up a lot of the space, making the environment feel cramped. So I switched it out for a traditional Chinese dragon, but kept some of its Western features.
To merge the sharp triangles in the rooftops with the rounded shapes present in the environment, I give their outer edge a slight curve and emphasise the size of the decorative ornaments at the roof tips. This removes the hard, architectural feel and enables the buildings to sit in the organic forms of the mountain more comfortably.
05. Add elements to create balance
The finished painting contains two dragons
Adding the second dragon completes the composition by creating a pleasing triangle of interest with the larger dragon and the buildings. It also reinforces the direction in which the dragons are heading, helping to convey the distance between the three objects.
This article originally appeared in ImagineFX 163. Buy issue 163 or subscribe here.
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You're reading A Comprehensive Guide for the Gutenberg WordPress Editor, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+!
Gutenberg is the new editor in WordPress, which is going to provide ease and a new and easy editing experience for WordPress websites. In this post, you’ll learn a few hands-on tricks to create media-rich posts and pages especially if …
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Start creating your best-ever life drawing figures with the latest issue of ImagineFX magazine, which is on sale in the UK today. Inside issue 167, artist Patrick J Jones explores the pitfalls to avoid when drawing figures from reference material in the first part of an epic in-depth series of tutorials. So if working from photos leaves your drawings looking flat and lifeless, this cover feature could be the solution you've been hunting for.
Buy issue 167 of ImagineFX here
Another good way to improve your art is to study the experts. That's just what Gavin O'Donnell explores in his Procreate workshop as he looks at the work of the Old Masters. Meanwhile, keyframe artist Ricardo Guimaraes takes to Photoshop to reveal how to create strong colour contrasts in your character designs. As well as these artistic insights, there's all the news, reviews and training you've come to expect from ImagineFX - you won't want to miss it!
Never miss an issue: Subscribe to ImagineFX here
Explore what's on offer by taking a peek at the lead features, below.
Learn new skills with online art schools
You can take these classes from the comfort of your home
Gone are the days where art students had to stump up huge tuition fees to learn from the experts. Thanks to online courses, artists can pick up new skills without weighing themselves down with debt. We take a look at 15 of the best online art school you can attend from the comfort of your own home.
Visit the world of Shaun Tan
Discover how Shaun Tan uses picture books to tell uniquely strange stories
Oscar-winning storyteller Shaun Tan shares his creative journey as we talk to him about his latest book. From humble beginnings in Western Australia, to working with the likes of Pixar, Tan's glittering career has gone on to inspire readers around the world, although he hasn't let it go to his head: "I'm kind of an artistic downer!"
How to draw the female form with reference photos
This new series covers all the figure drawing essentials
Artist Patrick J Jones kicks off his eight-part life drawing series with an instalment dedicated to drawing the female form from reference photos. Exploring the common pitfalls to avoid when drawing from reference imagery, Patrick's tutorials will also look at how to develop your own style.
Create a 3D game-ready character
Learn how to turn a 2D concept into a fully realised creature
Last month, Warhammer concept artist Rinehart Appiah showed us how to concept a deadly war beast, and this issue Baj Singh is here to explain how to turn 2D creations into 3D characters.
Give your paintings a sense of scale
Veteran concept artist Wayne Haag shares his environment art insights
Those familiar with Wayne Haag's work will have been blown away by the sense of scale he packs into his art. In this tutorial, the sci-fi environment artist shares the fundamentals that will help you to communicate a sense of size in your own work.
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You're reading 3 Reasons to Use a Page Builder Tool – WP Page Builder, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+!
Have you ever needed to build a website quickly? Or needed a design element that you just couldn’t make work on your own? How did you solve these problems? For WordPress users a page builder tool can be a lifesaver …
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Sometimes the campaigns with the most substance – which tackle important, thorny topics with drive and passion – attract love and hate in equal measure. After all, to provoke a strong reaction, you need to have a strong opinion.
In recent years, people have come to expect brands to engage with social and political issues – to join the conversation. But taking a firm stand, especially on a divisive topic, is a clear risk. Not everyone will agree with you, and in some cases, it can actively turn people away from your brand.
But if your message is delivered with authority, clarity and authenticity, the people who stay – or are attracted to your brand – as a result will feel a much closer affinity, and are likely to be more loyal as a result. Some brands have found the sweet spot here. Others have tried and catastrophically failed.
Read on to discover eight controversial campaigns that split public opinion down the middle, or were met with universal derision – and what we can learn from them...
01. Nike kneels with Kaepernick
Splashed all over the news in recent weeks, Nike's bold, defiant stance in support of outcast American football player Colin Kaepernick is the perfect example of a brand adopting a political stance that's totally on-message.
It's not the first time Nike has been associated with a controversial sporting star – it also continued to run ads featuring Lance Armstrong after his doping scandal, Maria Sharapova following a failed drugs test, and Tiger Woods in the midst of his sex scandal and alleged drug-driving.
Making Kaepernick the face of a global campaign has proved the brand's most divisive move yet, however. Since his refusal to stand for the national anthem in 2016 – a protest against racial injustice and police brutality in the US, which drew the very public vitriol of President Trump – the former San Francisco 49ers star has been effectively exiled from the league.
Nike's inspired tagline 'Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything' is a clear call to arms for standing passionately behind an issue, and its impact was swift. Protesters furiously destroyed their Nike-branded goods (prompting a witty reposte from the brand instructing people 'how to burn our products safely'), and its share price dropped – but support and admiration for the stance was just as strong.
Nike was brave enough to take a stand, and the short-term negative effect is offset by some truly savvy, long-term brand-building. One thing's for sure: no one will forget that campaign for a very long time.
02. Airbnb embraces refugees
In another case of a brand seemingly baiting President Trump with a directly defiant stance, Airbnb launched its #WeAccept campaign at the 2017 Super Bowl, shortly after Trump announced his travel ban for citizens of particular countries.
Proudly championing all types of diversity, the campaign makes a powerful statement: "No matter who you are, where you're from, who you love, or who you worship, we all belong. The world is more beautiful the more you accept."
It's a simple, universal message – but the timing was everything. On the most public of stages – the Super Bowl – Airbnb effectively squared up to the President, without ever explicitly mentioning the policy.
The brand put its money where its mouth is, too, pledging to provide short-term housing for 100,000 people in need – including refugees, disaster survivors, relief workers and other displaced individuals – over the next five years. It's a stance that passionate Trump supporters are unlikely to be backing anytime soon, but it made a significant impact around the world.
03. Barnado's breaks the cycle of abuse
Sometimes a campaign's controversy comes more with the nature of the delivery, rather than the stance itself. BBH's 2008 multi-award-winning spot for Barnardo’s set out to raise awareness of child abuse, and break the destructive cycle – not a stance that many would challenge.
But the stark, brutal and depiction of domestic violence, drug abuse and crime attracted around 500 complaints – most of which focused on the distress and offence the ad caused, while others questioned the timing of the transmission. The ASA refused to ban the ad, arguing that the importance of its message merited the shock factor it delivered.
04. Equinox shrugs off breastfeeding taboos
Sometimes a touch of controversy is needed to challenge a taboo that shouldn't be there in the first place. And the issue doesn't necessarily need to be relevant to that particular brand for it to be addressed.
In the case of Equinox Fitness, its 2016 campaign tagline – 'Commit to something' – had a broad range of potential applications, some more controversial or tongue-in-cheek than others. These includes joining a cult, making stacks of money, and collecting sexual partners. But the image that attracted the most attention was of model and heiress Lydia Hearst breastfeeding twins in an upmarket restaurant.
From the perspective of the campaign, these images are intended to convey commitment – a relatively abstract idea that theoretically applies as much to sticking with a gym membership as it does to breastfeeding in public. But of course, it was the image, not the campaign strategy, that sparked the debate.
It received comments in the thousands on Equinox's Facebook page – some applauding its unapologetic depiction of nursing, some critiquing its realism, others overtly disapproving of public breastfeeding in general. It may not have been the purpose of the campaign, but Equinox took a stance nonetheless.
05. McDonald's tackles childhood bereavement
There's really not much to say about this one. Childhood bereavement is a devastating, harrowing topic to broach by any standards – so using it as the context to flog a Filet-o-Fish was never going to go down well.
The ad featured a young boy struggling to find common ground with his recently deceased father. He finds it in the most unlikely place: a fondness for a certain fish sandwich. In the face of almost unanimous derision, McDonald's made a public apology and pulled the ad.
06. Benetton match-makes world leaders
Benetton is well-known for its commendable, at times controversial attempts to champion the whole 'united colours' of humanity in its ads – becoming a tongue-in-cheek short-hand for ticking all the diversity boxes.
Its 2012 UnHate campaign caused a stir by digitally manipulating images of prominent world leaders to show them locking lips with an ideologically-opposed counterpart. These included China's Hu Jintao with Barack Obama, and Pope Benedict XVI with Egypt's Imam Ahmed el Tayyeb.
The message of setting hatred aside to find common ground is simple enough, but the delivery – particularly where leaders of countries with rather less liberal views on homosexuality were concerned – certainly ruffled some feathers around the world.
Brands must be wary, as sometimes in tackling one contentious topic head-on, a campaign can cross into another – and the notion of using homosexuality as a clear shock tactic also attracted its fair share of criticism.
07. American Apparel champions fair labour
Maks had worked as a merchandiser at American Apparel for four years when she appeared in one of its brand – topless, and sporting an (unbuttoned) pair of the brand's high waist jeans.
According to the copy beneath, Maks "unreservedly embraced" the photoshoot and the empowerment it represented – she had moved as a young child from Bangladesh to California with her traditional Muslim family, but distanced herself from the faith as a teenager to forge her own identity.
Positioned across Maks' chest, the tagline 'Made in Bangladesh' clearly refers to her origins, which the copy explains in more detail, but it also makes a bold counter-statement about 'sweat shop' culture in the fashion industry in general, balanced by AA's 'Made in USA–Sweatshop Free' claim.
The ad attracted debate and controversy on multiple levels – Maks's being topless in an ad that discusses her devout Muslim background being one, another being the way in which American Apparel chooses to address the deeper, very real issue of sweatshops in Bangladesh by presenting an 'empowered', US-based woman, with her poor, underpaid, overworked counterparts staying invisible.
08. Pepsi jumps on an inappropriate bandwagon
We're ending with another catastrophic failure to engage with a thorny topic, which. like McDonald's, was met with almost universal criticism. But while McDonald's error was of totally inappropriate context, Pepsi made a much more cynical, overt attempt to apply corporate gloss to deep-rooted political issues.
Against the backdrop of hugely turbulent period of protests, from the Black Lives Matter movement to anti-Trump marches and more, Pepsi's ad, fronted by Kendall Jenner, was heavy-handed and trite – and the backlash was swift.
Handing a Pepsi to a riot gear-clad cop to diffuse a pretty anodyne, commercialised ‘protest’ is far too literal a metaphor, and as industry commentators reported in unison at the time, is spectacularly tone-deaf in terms of how the brand tried to position itself as a catalyst for unity and harmony. The ad was duly pulled.
All the above examples show that taking a firm standpoint on a contentious issue can attract lovers and haters in equal measure. Sometimes addressing the issue alone can ruffle feathers, particularly if shock tactics are employed. However, if the sentiment comes from the right place, and is expressed coherently, it can give a brand both substance and authority. Miss the mark, and the burn can be deep.
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Researchers say a medium severity bug should now be rated critical because of a new hack technique that allows for remote code execution on MikroTik edge and consumer routers.
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You're reading Jumpstart Your Marketing Efforts with Placeit, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+!
Design mockups are an incredible tool to help you showcase projects, from startup websites to t-shirt designs. The problem is that they can be rather complicated files native to Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, and not everyone has the tools (or …
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D-Link has released the beta version of the controller which addresses the reported vulnerabilities.
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Earlier this year, students up and down the country were gripped in a frenzy of degree show prep, tirelessly curating design portfolios and displays of their work to show the public – often in a bid to attract the attention of design magazines, creative studios or digital agencies on the hunt for the next big thing.
Instagram has been awash with colourful illustration and design emerging from degree shows and it’s encouraging to see how engaged students are with self-promotion. Of course, ‘likes’ does not a career make, and for many the stark reality of what comes next can be daunting.
Back in 2005, my degree show was just the beginning of an unorthodox career journey that saw me side-step into a variety of professions. For reasons I can’t fathom, professional practice wasn’t taught back then, and other than a vague meeting with the careers department, I left university with no more than a heavy A3 portfolio, a hideous overdraft and little idea of what to do next.
Thankfully, degree courses have changed considerably over the last 13 years, with a growing emphasis on entrepreneurship, studio visits and visiting lecturers on hand to deliver a taste of what is to come. Today’s grads are a lot more informed than they used to be, and for an industry that is constantly in flux this can only be a positive. But is it enough?
Thankfully degree courses have changed considerably over the last 13 years, with a growing emphasis on entrepreneurship
Lisa HassellA report by creative branding agency Michon released in April 2018 sought to highlight some of these issues, detailing concerns among the design community that recent graduates are leaving higher education with insufficient real-world skills. So where does the responsibility for this lie? Should studios take a more active role in further education? Or do universities need to engage with studios in a more collaborative way to make their classes relevant?
According to the Michon report, the creative industries contributed a record £92 billion to the economy in 2017 and this upward trend is only set to continue. The report also states that as part of the Creative Industries Clusters programme, the UK Government has pledged £80 million to help businesses and universities work more closely together, promoting collaborative research and creating highly skilled jobs.
This is an encouraging move, but there is still a great deal to be done to address the disparity between education and industry in order to equip students with the attitude and mindset they need to succeed. Is it time for an industry wide rethink?
Experience vs education
Tensions often arise from employers wanting real-world experience and undervaluing the important fundamentals that a practice-led art education is often structured around, observes Manchester-based designer Craig Oldham.
"I think education can make students more aware of certain practicalities of working life, but to nail it down would be misplaced time. They’d be better placed focusing on creative thinking and expressing that using their skills, [as] opposed to getting laboured down in bureaucratic practicality.
"For me I think there’s often an over-reliance from the industry on people being able to do these things, and I think we can often lose sight of the fact that we sell creativity as an industry – so that’s of primary importance to me."
For Craig Oldham, education and academia aren't separate, and both have a part to play in progressing the industry
Producing design work for film, TV, retail, publishing, sports and entertainment, Oldham’s work has been recognised nationally and internationally by D&AD, the Creative Review Annual, Art Directors Club, New York Festivals, Design Week, Benchmark Awards, Big Chip Awards, Fresh, and The Drum Awards to name just a few. Oldham has also been named by his peers in the creative industry as one of the most influential designers working in the UK.
"I hate the bun fight that happens between education and industry, with both sides blaming one another," states Oldham. "It's pointless and futile, and each has to bear responsibility and engage in a meaningful dialogue and relationship. We are crippled now by numerous problems in both education and industry – gender, pay, race, class – and both sides have to take an active role in addressing them."
A page spread from Craig oldham’s book, Oh Shit What Now? honest advice for graphic designers, published by Laurence King
Building stronger partnerships between creative agencies and institutions from the off could be one route to structured training opportunities that benefit businesses, students and universities, but whose responsibility is it to bring in these changes?
Fuelling the debate, course leader at Ravensbourne University, Derek Yates, is frustrated with how some institutions are failing to tackle the issue. "Education has been a bit lazy in the way it works with industry," states Yates. "We need to develop our relationships more strategically. I've done a lot of industry projects over the years and the ones that work are where both parties get something out of it. Both parties have to benefit for the relationship to work."
Collaborate to drive change
At Ravensbourne University, Yates has developed approaches to working with the industry. In 2012, he initiated and chaired Alt/Shift, a platform to promote meaningful dialogue and constructive collaboration between the creative industries and design education.
Over the next 12 months, Alt/Shift facilitated a conversation between creative practitioners and educators from across the UK online via a blog and website, on Twitter and as part of two discussion events hosted by leading digital agencies.
Heading up the BA Hons Advertising & Brand Design course, a major part of his role involves facilitating partnerships between education and contemporary creative practice, and over the last 10 years he has instigated projects with internationally recognised organisations such as the O2, Eye Magazine, LBi, Moving Brands, Mother, National Air Traffic Control, De La Rue and ustwo. Earlier this year he broke new ground with Untitled – a one-day networking event delivered in collaboration with Lecture in Progress.
Ravensbourne University hosts events like Untitled to provide advice for the next generation of creative talent
"Our aim is to empower emerging talent with information and first-hand accounts that demystify the day-to-day workings of the creative world," says Will Hudson, who ran a series of workshops with Ravensbourne students. "By focusing on the people, projects and places that make the industry thrive, we want to deliver greater visibility to how work unfolds, where it happens and the breadth of roles that exist."
Putting it to the students to define what they thought a conference could look like, Hudson and Yates worked closely with the group to brainstorm different ideas, and gradually a set of criteria emerged. "They didn't want a conference that was just lectures, they didn't want a conference that was delivered by white, middle-class men, and they didn't want a conference delivered by people over 30," reveals Yates. "And also, they were interested in unorthodox journeys."
Co-curating a one-day creative conference, Ravensbourne students set up an inspiring day of talks delivered by diverse up-and-coming creatives, followed by group discussions. "We ended up with eight amazing speakers all with incredible stories," says Yates proudly. "It felt like we tapped into really fertile ground."
Esrael Alem, director at AMVBBDO during panel discussions with Ravensbourne
The branding and marketing of the Untitled conference was created by second-year students on the Advertising and Branding course at Ravensbourne, who pitched ideas to Hudson. The winning team (Tayo Onabule, Michael Bailey and Charlie Baker) implemented a strategy across multiple media channels and social media platforms.
Lecture in Progress is now in the process of building relationships with a number of universities across the country, recognising the need to build visibility up and down the UK. In the last year it has been to Winchester School of Art, University of Brighton, UCA Epsom, Edinburgh College of Art, Nottingham Trent and Plymouth College of Art. "One of the things that's really important when on campus is to understand from both the tutors and the students about the university experience," Yates adds.
Having observed that recent developments in higher education has led to environments where students are not trusted with the freedom to shape their own learning, Yates believes students need to be active participants in the way their education develops.
Derek Yates joined on-stage by ustwo co-founder Matt ‘Mills’ Miller, on his right.
"There's an equally important conversation to be had between students and educators. If you give students more responsibility and ask them what they think they can quickly show you what you can do better. They need to question and discover for themselves and we need to incorporate what they are learning into how their course design develops year on year. We need to trust our students more."
"Working as part of an established institution has made me aware of the challenges that they face in terms of being agile," observes lecturer Alec Dudson. "It tends to mean that for the large part, further education is reactive rather than proactive, but at the end of the day, these are all now run as businesses. As such, the market will dictate how they evolve and if student intake drops, there'll be an industry-wide rethink."
I think all practitioners have a responsibility to teach, to give back
Craig OldhamDesigner and educator Oldham feels the industry has a responsibility to safeguard its future. Believing that education needs to be more diverse in who it teaches and for what purposes, Oldham suggests that the industry needs to continue to educate once people are working.
"I think all practitioners have a responsibility to teach, to give back, to expose those not in their position what it takes and undertakes," he says. "And I think students have a responsibility to engage themselves, set and answer questions and goals that they have thoroughly investigated."
University degree alternatives
Shillington ensures it is relevant to the creative industry by hiring only practising designers who are personable, eager to mentor and share their knowledge with the next generation. "Their expertise guides our curriculum, and their experience allows us to cultivate an authentic 'studio' classroom," explains UK Director Sarah McHugh. "Intensive courses are definitely shaking up education, and we're proud to be one of the original pioneers."
Eleanor Robertson parted from a career in marketing and publicity to pursue her passion for design, enrolling on the full-time course at Shillington. Within a few months of graduating she secured a junior designer role at branding agency Paul Belford Ltd and hasn’t looked back.
Shillington’s innovative approach to design education leads to students turning around industry standard briefs in a seriously short amount of time
"One of the things that I enjoyed most about the course was the diversity of the students and the variety of their backgrounds, from fine art and furniture making to law and nutrition," Robertson reveals. "These different experiences meant that people's responses to the same brief were wildly different, which was very inspiring."
In today's fast-paced world, it's entirely possible that university and intensive courses can actually work really well together, as McHugh attests: "many of our students have already completed degrees and/or worked in a wide variety of industries. Their previous experience and skills can actually benefit them at Shillington to up-skill or completely change their careers."
Different experiences meant that people's responses to the same brief were wildly different
Eleanor RobertsonWhile not necessarily a comparable alternative to a university degree, Shillington has popularised short courses and industry training for those looking to enter the design industry, and it's an interesting avenue worthy of further exploration. "Shillington serves a different market, offers an interesting alternative and has a pretty damn impressive record when it comes to its graduates getting employed as full-time professional designers," says Dudson.
“University has a lot to offer, but obviously it's a huge financial commitment. As long as universities aren't complacent and are mindful of the evolving needs of their students, I don't think they'll become redundant, though."
Creating opportunities for students
Launching Intern with the goal of making the creative industries more diverse, representative and inclusive, Dudson is passionate about providing opportunities to the next generation of creatives.
"I started the project to provide a place where an open dialogue about creative careers could happen, as I was seeing far too many people either trapped in a cycle of unpaid internships, or locked out of potential careers because they simply couldn’t afford to keep working for free."
Campaign for Stanley Kubrick’s retrospective at the BFI designed by Eleanor Robertson during her time at Shillington
Joining the teaching staff at Leeds Arts University last year, Dudson was tasked with refreshing the professional practice module for the final year graphic design students. "Broadly speaking, my aim is to make students understand that there is no substitute for real client work and building genuine, exciting, multidisciplinary networks," he says.
"I see a lot of positive, energetic and innovative approaches to ensuring that students are industry relevant, but this isn't something you can ever be content with as an institution."
Responding to a brief to redesign an album cover using handmade methods, Robertson chose Aerial by Kate bush, taking inspiration from an anecdote about the singer
Dudson has plans for a series of after-school or summer school programmes under the Intern brand, which focus on the professional practice element of the creative skillset.
"There's a huge ecosystem of jobs in the creative industries around the assumed core of graphic design, photography and illustration. We absolutely should be encouraging students to explore these roles; universities and industry need to have a clear, transparent dialogue about the less glamorous roles," he says.
Valuing creative ideas
Nick Young heads up the Creative Advertising course at Leeds Arts University, focusing on the fundamentals of advertising. "We talk to them about the roles there are in an agency and let them find their own way. Most of them decide to be art directors or copywriters. Some become designers and some even go into strategy or client services. The ethos of our course is 'Ideas that work'."
Third year students at Leeds, Ryan Morgan and Charlotte Bailey, secured a work placement at McCann Manchester. "We were thrown onto an ALDI brief immediately and quickly got a taste of what it was really like to work for a large, well respected agency," says Bailey.
Technical skills are easy to pick up. But thinking of ideas is hard.
Nick Young"At one point we ended up working our weekend on placement, which gave us insight into the reality of this industry," adds Morgan. "Everyone is so driven and committed and their priority is nailing the brief for the client, not because they're forced to but because they love it. It was really inspiring to be part of an environment full of talented and motivated people."
Organised visits to agencies such as Mother, Ogilvy and Wieden+Kennedy are vital to the success of the course. "The best part about these visits is that you get to see inside a real agency and the hustle and bustle of it all," enthuses Bailey. "It inspires us to strive for opportunities; it's now our ultimate dream to work in New York."
Riding high at the top of the Guardian League Table, Leeds Arts University has a reputation for delivering industry-savvy graduates, with an emphasis on studio visits, placements, industry speakers and live briefs. "We teach them how to think creatively," says Young. "Technical skills are easy to pick up. But thinking of ideas is hard. If you can come up with good ideas on demand, you will always be useful."
Nurturing the next generation
"Agencies need to understand with real sincerity the level of the person they are looking to engage with, what responsibilities they can delegate, and be realistic about how that fits into their working schedule," argues Oldham.
"It's no use if they just want someone to come in and be a dogsbody, and then whinge because they require more investment in time than another experienced designer may – what do they expect?! Equally on the other side, the person coming in needs to understand they have to learn, they have to be patient, they have to be committed."
Neil Bennett, strategy director at LOVE, recognises that there are many benefits to the gig economy if you are a creative; "Variety, lifestyle control, chance to work on personal projects and if you are very good it can be lucrative."
Inside the studio of branding and ad agency LOVE Manchester, located in the heart of the city’s thriving creative quarter
Bennett's role is about "connecting the dots between a client's business challenges, culture, and consumer insight; to help inspire and support the creation of the very best and effective creative work. But to make it work you need a combination of experience and something unique in your armoury – often this is a distinct style or craft."
Education and industry are two separate things; nobody graduates from a degree in medicine and goes into surgery on day one.
Will HudsonHudson agrees, offering reassurance that nobody is expecting grads to be the finished article straight out of school. "I strongly believe the role of a studio is to help develop emerging talent. Education and industry are two separate things; nobody graduates from a degree in medicine and goes into surgery on day one."
Employing a team of 31 full-time staff across It's Nice That, Anyways and Lecture in Progress, the HudsonBec Group offers a number of entry-level 10-week roles across editorial and creative, but admits it had to make changes. "We drew the line about five years ago where we changed the language around internship to junior freelance," says Hudson.
Initially offered at National Minimum Wage, these roles are now paid at London Living Wage, which has led to a number of freelance roles joining the team full time, with around six of the current full-time staff coming through this process. "It has given us the opportunity to bring in a number of people over the years, often right at the start of their careers," reflects Hudson.
"There is obviously a baseline skill level and competency relevant to any role, but we have always maintained we are looking for passionate young people, willing to learn, contribute to conversations, aware of the industry and world around them."
For the lucky few that secure design jobs straight off the bat, there are hundreds who don't. Weeks can quickly turn into months as the job hunt labours on, and the pressure to earn money can weigh heavily on the shoulders of many. With the number of grads outnumbering demand from the industry year on year, taking a seemingly unrelated job could still work to your advantage in the short term.
No matter your job, whether it's a career or stop-gap role, Craig Oldham argues that there's always something to learn from it
"With every project, job, client, experience, there is always something of value to take from it," says Oldham. "I think it's important for every person to evaluate as much as they can on the outset of undertaking anything – what they want to get from it as an aim, and what they will definitely get from it as a reality."
Having an idea of what you are doing something for, and why, beyond earning money can save a lot of pain down the line, or equally adds to the joy when things turn out better. "There can always be something you can take from any situation, be that a shit one or a great one", says Oldham.
"My partner used to work in a shop while looking for work – but she saw this as an opportunity to write, get her new ideas out and her existing ideas developed. I'm not saying it's not hard – it is – but I feel there's always a hope and it's that which you've got to hang on to and work towards. But make it your own 'hope' not someone else's."Designing courses fit for the future
Created by Jenny Theolin of Studio Theolin and illustrator Jessica Eriksson of Persikamy, Agency Dogs celebrates the office pooches of Stockholm’s creative agencies
Designer and educator Jenny Theolin creates and delivers learning experiences for individuals, schools and businesses within areas such as technology, design thinking, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Previously a teacher at Shillington and programme leader for Hyper Island’s MA in Digital Management in London and Stockholm, she now designs courses, programmes and workshops for Hyper Island Business, Berghs School of Communication as well as her own studio clients, helping individuals and organisations learn, grow and lead in a changing world.
Designing a course called The Studio for the Digital Media Creative Programme at Hyper Island, Theolin teaches client relations, building teams and project management.
“During six weeks the 50-plus students get to build their own studios and are assigned two real clients per studio to deliver on. Right in the middle, they have to drop everything and enter a 72-hour hack."
The industry is very small, and it is much better to create long-lasting friendships than short-term dates.
Jenny TheolinLike Yates, Theolin recognises the value of aligning courses with industry, to ensure students develop the flexibility and empathy needed to work with people. "Graphic design is a people's business," she continues, "you need to learn people skills and build relationships. The industry is very small, and it is much better to create long-lasting friendships than short-term dates."
Using research to develop
Building connections with studios such as ustwo, Sennep and Moving Brands, all of whom have set up research initiatives to ensure their commercial work is constantly evolving, Ravensbourne is able to feed insights from this into the development of its courses.
“ustwo has a games division and a ventures floor, Sennep is also developing games and has an experimental lab creating Sennep Seeds, and Moving Brands has set up Gobi and Moving World," reveals Yates. "If you look at what they're doing, it's research. They are looking for ways to unearth new knowledge. Research is a necessary part of how our industry is developing."
Yates suggests this could drive new opportunities for research related specifically to the creative disciplines. "I've always felt education needs to respond to its context," concludes Yates. "It needs to change and keep changing, because the world around it keeps on changing."
This article was originally published in Computer Arts, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 281 or subscribe.
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Yesterday's report from Interbrand detailed the 100 Best Global Brands, with Apple and Google taking first and second place for the sixth year running. And while it's hardly surprising that these tech giants nabbed the top spots, what does the list tell us about what makes a good brand?
We've pulled out some key takeaways from Interbrand's report, including the five key elements that make a good brand, and what smaller brands can do to emulate brand giants.
01. Be useful, and positive
Spotify's personalised, shareable content, such as its users top songs, helps cement its place in users' lives
The buzz-phrase here is 'positive utility' (yes, apparently 'buzz-phrase' is now a buzzword). This is a fancy way of saying that brands need to be both positive and useful for consumers to pay attention. The report says:
"Leading brands are driven by their desire to be useful, to create products, tools and services that actually solve customer problems, and lead by serving and not just selling. They are driven by a clear sense of purpose, which is focused on making meaningful improvements in the world. And importantly, they do this on a day-to-day basis, constantly being at-hand and intertwined in their customers' lives."
After all, if your product is useful, then people will interact with it on a day-to-day basis. Can you find a way to make your brand a part of your target audience's lives? Is what you're offering useful enough that this will feel natural, and not forced? If not, can you make it so?
02. Have a subscription mindset
Adobe's switch to a subscription-only service in 2012 helped improve its brand value
This year, 29 per cent of the total value of the top 100 brands is in subscriptions. Compare this to 18 per cent in 2009, and you'll see we have a growing trend. These days, it seems, access is more important than ownership.
"Brands are winning by offering the most frictionless ways to leverage their products and services based on the personalised needs of their customers," says the report. And brands that weren't originally based on subscriptions are changing their business model to incorporate them.
The obvious example is Netflix, which was this year's second fastest growing brand (after Amazon). Adobe has also ensured its place in the table (number 51, up 19 per cent on last year) by switching from one-off purchases to a subscription model in 2012. Its brand value has increased around 14 per cent annually ever since.
A subs-first model might not work for all brands, but there is a lesson here. Think about how you can ensure your customers remain loyal. How can you engage your followers on social media? What's the best way to reward your loyal clients or customers?
03. Adapt to stay relevant
Hermès' collaboration with Apple ensures it stays relevant
The brands that experienced most stable growth over the last decade were those that scored highly on Interbrand's scales of relevance and responsiveness. These are the brands that put their customers' needs at the heart of their business, invest in "future-forward customer exploration" and "can flex and change to ensure that the brand constantly stays relevant".
For example, to stay relevant, Hermès (32nd place on the list) has launched new products across multiple new categories, including perfume, food and even lighting, and collaborated with Apple to create an Apple Watch Hermès collection.
What can creatives learn from this? Diversifying your revenue streams may be the way forward – if you can afford to experiment a little. Might it be worth trying something new? The best way to find out is, of course, to ask your followers or customers what they would like to see. Listen to what they say, and adapt.
04. Learn from luxury
Samsung is providing Apple with competition with its luxury models
Luxury was this year's best performing category, having grown 42 per cent. Luxury products involve a sense of "exclusiveness that comes from a unique or personalised service", and the category also includes premium experiences that deliver "emotional reward at every touchpoint and exceed customer expectations".
According to the report, this sector has grown because of its responsiveness and willingness to adapt (do you see a trend here?). For example, Gucci (39 on the list) has tapped into a new market by implementing a "shadow committee of millennial employees".
Luxury ideals have also seeped into the tech sector, with Samsung (number 6) shifting its model to include phones with designs and price points to match Apple. Its Samsung W2018 models costs more than $2,000, and buyers received perks such as concierge assistance and access to a VIP hotline.
What can we learn from this? Every customer likes to feel special, so think about how you can create a sense of exclusivity and uniqueness in what you do, even if your products don't have a luxury price tag. This could be as simple as creating signed or personalised copies of your work – but not handing them out to everyone.
05. Make the brand key
Nissan's focus on its core idea has paid off
When what you're selling is similar to a lot of others, it's the brand that counts. "Brands that have worked to make their brands matter more than other customer decision criteria have seen substantial long term growth," says the report, giving the example of Starbucks (57 on the list), which has made it acceptable to pay more than $5 for a coffee, just because of its brand.
How much the brand is a deciding factor does depend on the sector. For example, with cars, brand can matter around 30 per cent for mass market brands, and as much as 60 per cent at the luxury end. Nissan (number 40 on the list) has capitalised on this by focusing on communicating its core idea, and the overall Nissan customer experience.
The best way for smaller brands to copy this idea is to make sure that all touchpoints convey the same, core idea. This makes the brand message loud and clear, and ensures that if customers are torn between your brand and another one, they'll choose you.
Overall, if you want to create a successful brand, be clear, bold, and flexible to change. But don't change so much that your initial vision becomes lost.
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I started using Cinema 4D a few months after getting my VR headset a year ago. Up until then I'd been using Marmoset Toolbag for setting up my VR scenes, lighting them, adding atmosphere and so on. Pretty quickly I felt like I reached the limit of what Marmoset could do, as great a program as it is. I needed a program to handle animation, scene setup, advanced lighting, atmospherics and particles.
My eyes quickly fell on Cinema 4D, a tool that I saw people praise for its ease of use and versatility. I'd been toying around with Octane standalone, and wanted to see how Octane and Cinema 4D would work with my VR sculpts.
For those of you who don't know Octane already, it's a very fast renderer that gives you almost instant feedback on the changes you make to your scene. It's GPU-based and works with NVIDIA GPUs only. I have a NVIDIA 1080 Ti card that performs very well with Octane.
In this Cinema 4D tutorial I'll take one of my VR sculpts and combine it with a VR 'drawing' from Quill, in Cinema 4D. I'll take you through how to set up a material that uses the colour information from your VR scene, and talk a bit about the various techniques I use to improve the VR output. None of the VR programs do rendering at the moment, so you'll have to look to external programs for that.
The first part of the tutorial will very briefly describe the process of exporting and importing your models. The main focus of the tutorial will be on the work in Cinema 4D and OctaneRender.
01. Export and prepare the first model
Keep your model as low-res as possible for easier UV'ing
First I import the character I'll be using in my scene. I made a knight in Oculus Medium and exported the model at full resolution as a FBX file to retain layers. I import that FBX to ZBrush. In ZBrush, I make a low-res version of the model using a combination of Decimation Master and ZRemesher. I try to go as low-res as possible, for an easier time UV'ing. I then add UVs using UV Master. Remember to break your model up into polygroups in order to give UV Master an easier time.
Once everything is UV'ed, I export a low-res version of the model, and a high-res for the texture-baking process.
02. Textures or Vertex paint?
I could bypass the process in Step 1 by painting the model in Medium and then use the vertex colour information in Cinema 4D along with the high-res version of the mesh. I decided to do a proper texture pass though, for the higher fidelity it gives and for the added performance you get from using a low-poly mesh with normal maps. I use the Vertex Color workflow for the backdrop for the knight, and I'll go over that later in the tutorial.
03. Move to Substance Painter
I import the low-res knight model to Substance Painter, bake maps using the high-res mesh and paint the model. The important thing here when exporting to Cinema 4D and OctaneRender is to select the PBR metallic export settings. That will export a Base Color map, Roughness Map, Metallic map and a Normal map.
04. Set up knight in C4D
Import your model and activate the Live View
I'll set up the knight in Cinema 4D first, save him and then set up the environment. I do the character and backdrop as separate pieces first, to get better overall performance while testing out material properties.
In the File menu I choose Merge and import the low-poly FBX file. The layers of the FBX file appear in the Object Manager window in the upper-right corner of C4D. I rename layers if needed, select them all, right-click and group to keep things manageable. I open the Octane Live Viewer window through the Octane > Live Viewer Window menu item at the top of the C4D window. In the Live Viewer window, I click the small Octane logo in the top-left corner to activate the live view.
05. Let there be light!
Add a light source to get a better view of your materials
To better see the materials, I have to add a light source to the scene. There's several types to choose from in the Live Viewer window under Objects > Lights. I choose a daylight. This adds a Octane Daylight object in our Object Manager. I select this, and reposition the sun using the rotate tool in the main viewport. I also add a plane object from the command groups in the upper portion of C4D. I reposition the plane to match the feet of the knight.
06. Set up materials
Once you've set up one material, the rest will be easy
I'll go over setting up only one of the materials, since each will be the same process. I start with the shield and shoulder pads material.
To set up a material from Substance Painter in OctaneRender, the easiest way is to open LiveDB under Materials in the Live Viewer. In here you'll find a large collection of preset materials and template materials like the ones for Substance Painter. The Substance template is under Materials > Misc > Substance PBR. There are a few materials that are named the same; pick the one that has some texture on it. Choosing this will give us a template with materials in the right slots, which means we can just replace those with our own. Easy!
I right-click and select Download, and the material appears in the Materials tab under the main viewport. This actually consists of three materials: a Mix material, a Dielectric part and a Metallic part.
07. Use the node editor
I double-click the Mix material, then click the Node Editor button. I open the folder I saved my textures in, and locate the ones for the shoulder pads and shield. Since I have five material sets, I use the search bar in the Explorer window to speed things up. Then it's just a matter of dragging the Base Color, Roughness, Metallic and Normal maps from the Explorer folder, directly into the Node Editor.
08. Replace materials
This might look complicated, but you'll get the hang of it, probably
I click the Base Color map I just imported, and copy its path from the Properties panel to the right in the Node Editor. Then I select the Albedo maps in the original Substance material, and paste the new path there.
I do the same for the Roughness, Metallic and Normal maps. Once that's done, I can drag the Mix material from the Material Manager to the shoulder pads. I can drag it either to the object in the main viewport, or to the object in the Object Manager. The node layout is actually a lot less complicated than it looks. It's just a matter of replacing some file paths basically. I hope the process gets even simpler in future versions of Octane.
09. Inspect the result
After setting up all of the materials and applying them to their objects, it's time to inspect the model. I use the Live Viewer for this and play around with the lights to see what the materials look like under different lighting conditions. Once I'm happy with the result, I save the scene.
10. Add rocks
I make some rocks in Oculus Medium, and take them through ZBrush for low-res/high-res and then through Substance Painter for textures. The workflow is exactly the same as that of the knight.
11. Save and import the backdrop
With Quill you can make a backdrop like this in a couple of hours or so
I make a new scene for the backdrop. I've exported the Quill file as an FBX file, which retains the layers and colours. Here's what the background looks like in Quill with flat, unlit colours.
Quill is an amazing tool once you get comfortable with it. It's a very quick way to work, and this backdrop took roughly two hours to do and maybe an extra hour for the fairy character. Everything was made from scratch here. If you use the program a lot for nature scenes for example, you can make a library of plants and elements you could then reuse to make even quicker scenes. I recommend you check out Goro Fujita's Quill videos for more in-depth info on how Quill works.
I choose Merge again from the File menu, and import my scene.
12. Organise Quill scene
Nothing to see here, move along
As you can see in the scene hierarchy, all layers from Quill are retained, and each layer has a symbol next to it with nine small dots. This is a Vertex Color Tag and indicates that the object contains vertex colour data. In the scene I've made I have a lot of layers, and I'd have to do a unique material for each to use the respective object's vertex information.
Since most of the layers will have the same material properties, I merge them by selecting all leaves and grass in the hierarchy, right-clicking and selecting Connect Objects + Delete. This will also merge the vertex paint data, and I'll only have to make one material for each group. I then merge all three stems, all layers of the fairy (except the wings which will have a unique material) and so on. By doing this I end up with much fewer vertex colour materials than I'd have if I made one for each Quill layer.
Now it's time to open the Live Viewer window and start it by pressing the Octane logo. Without lights or materials the scene doesn't look like much.
13. Position lighting
Use the Live Viewer to work out the best lighting setup
I add a daylight through the Objects > Lights menu in the Live Viewer. I reposition the light using the rotate tool. The Live Viewer gives me instant feedback on what my edits look like. I'm aiming for a sunrise mood in my scene, so I position the sun low on the horizon to the right, just beneath the branches of the tree with the skull.
Once I'm satisfied with the position, it's time to add vertex colour to the elements of the scene.
14. Make a vertex colour material
You can quickly add new materials in the Live Viewer
In the Octane Live Viewer window, I select Materials > Diffuse Material. This will add a new material to the Material tab under the main viewport. I double-click this material and open the Node Editor. In here, there's a 'material box' that represents the new material.
In the search bar above the node window, I type 'vertex' to filter out material types I don't need. I then drag out the Vertex Map box into the node window. I drag a node connection between the yellow dot in the corner of the vertex map and the empty circle next to diffuse.
To get the vertex colours from the object to show up in the material, drag the Vertex Tag next to the object in the Object Manager, over to the Vertex Map slot in the material editor.
I rename the material in the Material Manager to 'foliage', and drag the material onto the corresponding object in the scene hierarchy. In the Live Viewer window, I now see my scene come to life material by material. I repeat the vertex colour material process for each element.
15. Create an emissive material
Don't be afraid of the spooky glowing skull
For the magic glow coming from the skull in the tree, I want an emissive material to emit a red magic effect. So in the Live Viewer window, I choose Materials > Diffuse Material. I then open the new material from the Materials tab and click the Emissive category.
Here I select Blackbody Emission which will make the material emit light. I then open the Texture tab, and set Power to around 2 and Temperature in the warm side of the spectrum, which is to the left on the Temp slider. While doing this I constantly check in the Live Viewer window in order to see if the result is as I expect.
16. Add distant mountains
Add mountains as basic geometry rather than drawing them in Quill
I felt like the scene needed some more depth, so I decided to add some mountains in the far distance. Instead of drawing those in Quill, I just add some quick geometry using the basic object function that you'll find in the top part of the C4D interface. I choose the Landscape function, which gives me a basic mountain that I can tweak and move into place using the position and scale tool. I duplicate this basic mountain multiple times, until I get the landscape I'm looking for.
In the Object Properties for the landscape element, you can change the seed number for each mountain to make them unique.
If you want the Live Viewer to use a fixed camera angle, to make sure your composition looks good while moving elements around, go to the Live Viewer, and under Options, uncheck Check Camera.
17. Include clouds
The VDB Clouds Pack is a great way to add clouds
To add some mood and depth to my scene, I decide to add some clouds. They will also help me separate the planes of the background elements. For this, I use the Objects > Octane VDB volume. VDB volumes are a way of storing volumetric data such as clouds or fire. I use a set of cloud VDBs called VDB Clouds Pack.
The Octane VDB object appears in the Object Manager. In its properties, I choose a suiting VDB cloud in the file path. In this scene, the VDB volume is very small, so I have to scale it quite a lot for it to be seen. I make several copies and scale them between 300 and 1,000x in the object coord. settings.
In the Medium settings in the object properties, I play around with the density of the VDB volume until I get a result I like – in this case, around 20.
18. Add the character
Merge the knight with your scene; all the materials will be carried over
Now that I'm happy with the overall look and mood of the scene, I import my knight model by choosing File > Merge and selecting the C4D scene I saved earlier. All the materials we set up for the knight will be imported along with him.
The pivot point of the character is offset a bit, but that's easy to change in C4D. I press the Enable Axis button in the left toolbar and drag the pivot point to the middle of the knight.
I use the transform tools to move him into place. I place him by the edge of the small forest, and I have him looking directly at the ominous burning skull. At the moment, the knight is totally unaware of the fairy who's looking at him from her hiding place behind a big rock.
19. Set up a camera
To begin playing with camera settings and post-processing, I have to make a dedicated Octane camera for my scene. To do this, I click the Objects > Octane Camera menu item. This adds a camera to our Object Manager. Notice the little open white square with a cross in the middle next to the camera name? To activate the Octane camera, you need to press this symbol. Otherwise you won't see the changes you make in the camera settings.
If you press the camera name, you'll see the standard C4D camera options. The only ones here that I use are the focal length, sensor width and focus object settings. The rest of the changes I'll be doing are under the Octane Camera Tag. Before going into detail about that process, I feel like the scene could use a bit more light.
20. Add more lights
I'd like to have a rim light around the knight to make him stand out more from the background. In the Live Viewer I click Objects > Lights > Octane Area Light and position the light behind the knight. I tweak the size of the light-emitting plane by pulling on the small orange dots at the top/bottom/sides. I make sure the light source is large enough for the light to 'wrap around' the character.
I tweak the power of the light and the temperature until I get a result I like. I also add a light that shines on the road, one that adds more red light around the skull, and a blue light that illuminates the fairy's wings and surroundings.
To hide the light emitter planes in the render, I go to Visibility under the Octane Light Tag and deselect Camera Visibility.
21. Post-process
You can do all of your post-processing in Octane Camera Tag
Post-processing can be performed in either the Octane Camera Tag, or in OctaneRender settings. I always do it in the Camera Tag since it's easier to access. If you had multiple cameras and were switching between those, it would perhaps make sense to do it through OctaneRender settings.
I click the Octane Camera Tag next to my camera, and tweak the settings under Camera Imager and Post Processing. In Camera Imager I add a vignette effect, and in Post Processing I add bloom and glare to get a lens flare effect.
22. Render and final tweaks
Go to Render > Edit Render Settings in the C4D top menu. In here I switch from Standard renderer to Octane Renderer. In the Output submenu, I choose the final render size. In the Octane Live Viewer window I switch from Chn: DL (direct lighting) to Chn: PT (path tracing), which takes longer to render but gives a better result. I hit Render > Render To Picture Viewer in the C4D top menu.
Lastly, I take the final render through Photoshop and tweak curves, add a stronger blue glow to the fairy and tweak the overall appearance of the image.
This article was originally published in issue 237 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Subscribe to 3D World here.
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Between them, the experts came up with 15 key trends that have shaped 2018 so far. Ranked in order of importance, this list covers chatbots, VR integration, video content and more. Which ones will continue into 2019? Only time will tell. Check out the infographic below.
Click the infographic to read advice from the experts
Do you agree with the experts? Or have they missed a crucial web design trend? If you're after extra information on each of these trends, the experts have shared more detailed insights over on the Market Inspector site.
Breaking down each topic one by one, the minds behind the infographic give a reasoned look at why each trend was included. Bold colours and gradients appear to be the standout trend to take note of, while custom images and mobile designs continue to be important factors to consider. Virtual Reality is low on the list, but it's still worth taking note of. A lot can change in 12 months so who knows, perhaps it will be on the up in 2019.
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Humans are visual creatures, and that's why strong visuals are important for helping the viewers of your website or readers of your blog stay engaged. If you don't have the time or know-how to create your own visual content, why not use ones that are ready made?
The DesignShock Banner Template Bundle offers over 3,000 banners, giving you the ability to bring your website up a notch, without having to figure out how to use Photoshop. Each banner can be tailored to fit your needs, as the images, buttons, and text can all be edited. If you do know how to use Photoshop, you can tinker with the banner to further edit and customise the visuals.
Try out the DesignShock Banner Template Bundle for just $14.
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This article was originally published in 2017.
Who doesn't want to go freelance? You get to set your own schedule, enjoy working from home in the comfort of your pyjamas, and possibly make more money than you would in conventional employment. What's more, you'll be able to complete those personal projects you've been putting off, right? Yeah, about that...
Turns out the freelance life isn't the fast track to personal creative satisfaction that you might think it is. In this brilliant comic from Norwegian illustrator Cathrine Luzette, the circle of productivity despair many freelancers encounter is beautifully brought to life.
One minute freelancers are punching the air because they've finished their commission, the next they're in a panic as they try to score their next gig. It's a struggle we're sure lots of freelancers can relate to, but it's not often we see it illustrated so wonderfully as in Luzette's comic. Check it out below.
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Five out of six name brand routers, such as Linksys, NETGEAR and D-Link, contain known open-source vulnerabilities.
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Ever read a passage of text only to realise that you didn't take it in? It's a problem that affects a lot of readers, especially students cramming in exam season. To give text more traction and make it easier to remember, Melbourne-based researchers at RMIT University have created a fun font that makes reading harder.
The appropriately named Sans Forgetica does this by taking advantage of "desirable difficulty". This line of thought argues that a small obstruction aids the learning process by forcing a person to create a memory trace.
To make reading legible but also difficult, the Sans Forgetica typeface has been riddled with gaps and given a seven degree back slant. The result is a jarring font that requires an extra bit of effort on the reader's part. It only takes a fraction of a second longer to read, but Sans Forgetica already appears to be making a difference.
Sans Forgetica co-creator Stephen Banham advises you read the typeface in small bursts
As part of a study by the university, students noticed a small increase in memory retention when reading text in Sans Forgetica compared to Arial. The 400 participants were found to remember 57 per cent of Sans Fogetica text, and only 50 per cent when reading Arial.
Despite the promising statistics, Sans Forgetica has limitations. Typography lecturer and Sans Forgetica co-creator Stephen Banham told The Guardian that the typeface is best suited to short passages. "You wouldn’t want novels printed in it, it would probably induce a headache."
Sans Forgetica took six months to develop and went through three different iterations. With a promising study behind it, it's hoped that the typeface could also be used to aid proofreading. You can download this free font here.
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Threatpost: New Ninth-Gen Intel CPUs Shield Against Some Spectre, Meltdown Variants
in Ειδήσεις από τον χώρο του Design και Hosting
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New Intel Coffee Lake CPUs offer hardware-based protections against some -but not all- Spectre and Meltdown variants.
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