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We love a good creative challenge on social media, and right now there's one going on that presses all the right buttons. We're not entirely sure where or when the #ToonMe challenge originated. We were alerted to it by a tweet from our old friend Ben the Illustrator, and since then we've fallen down an online rabbit hole of people all over the world partly overpainting selfies with cartoon versions of themselves. 17 imaginative web comics to inspire you The rules seem to be nice and simple: just snap a selfie (try to make it an exciting and expressive one), take it into your favourite art app and paint over part of your portrait in your own particular cartoon style. (If you're stuck you can always follow our guide on how to draw manga, and check out our best iPad drawing apps for art app ideas.) Then post it on Twitter and Instagram with the #ToonMe and maybe #toonmechallenge hashtags attached. Sit back and watch the online adulation flood in. Many people are putting some kind of dividing line down the centre of their faces to enhance the look, and extending the toon-ified area to take in some of the background, but from our adventures scrolling through hundreds of #ToonMe posts today we can safely say that the best approach is to go with whatever looks right to you. If you need inspiration then there's an awful lot of it about; it's hard to keep up with the flood of #ToonMe posts right now, especially if you're viewing them on Twitter where it tends to crop the images and you have to click through for a better look. For a more relaxed viewing experience we'd recommend searching for the #ToonMe hashtag on Instagram, preferably on desktop. As with any online creative challenge, the end results can be a bit mixed. There's plenty of great work on show, but you'll also have to scroll through your fair share of examples where, well, they probably tried their best and that's what matters, right? To save you a bit of time, we've picked out some of our favourites from our online explorations: That all adds up to the teeniest #ToonMe amuse-bouche. For the full experience, hit up the hashtag on Twitter or Instagram. Join us in London for our unmissable event for 2D and 3D artists, featuring workshops from 20+ professional artists from film, video games, VFX and illustration. Book now: How to create a comic page 12 best free comic fonts of 2019 How to colour comics View the full article

The best Apple Watch apps help Apple's Watch become an essential companion in your everyday life. Tim Cook likes to position the Apple Watch as the world’s best wrist-worn fitness tracker, and it’s certainly very good when it comes to monitoring your health. But with the right Apple Watch apps, it’s also much more than that. That’s why we’ve rounded up the best Apple Watch apps available right now. Whether you want to track your day’s tasks, schedule a meeting with a client or enjoy your downtime, these are the apps that can help you do it all from your wrist. And while there are some fantastic Apple Watch apps that come with your Watch, here, we've listed the best third-party options, for those who are looking to explore something a bit different. If you're after a new Apple Watch, don't miss our Apple Watch deals roundup, and if it's apps you're after, you also might enjoy our lists of the best calendar apps and the best language learning apps. 01. Citymapper Citymapper’s UI packs in all your vital travel info in an easy-to-absorb way Price: Free Requires: iOS 10.3 and watchOS 3.0 or later Citymapper is the best free Apple Watch app, in our opinion. As designers, we all have plenty of meetings with clients, and it’s essential to avoid arriving late – or not at all. That’s why Citymapper’s Watch app is so good, as it is perfectly made to ensure you make it to your destination. The focus is on giving you information exactly when you need it – how many stops until you need to leave the bus, or how far to walk to your destination, for example. You’ll get buzzes on your wrist telling you when to leave and which train to catch, plus complications on the Apple Watch face. Right now, it works in 39 cities, all totally for free. 02. Fantastical 2 Organise your entire day from your wrist with the Fantastical 2 Apple Watch app Price: £4.99 Requires: iOS 11.0 and watchOS 4.0 or later Fantastical is already one of the best calendar and reminder apps on Mac and iPhone, so it’s no surprise that its Apple Watch app is our best Apple Watch app for organisation and productivity. It’s everything you need to keep your day organised when you’re on the go, combining powerful features with an easy-to-use interface. A good example is its set of complications. You can choose between various details to show on your Apple Watch face, in both large and small sizes. That way you see only what you need to without distractions. It understands natural language voice commands (in six different tongues), and uses helpful colour coding as a visual aid. 03. Spark Want to ensure you don’t miss a vital email? Spark’s smart sorting system does the trick Price: Free (offers in-app purchases) Requires: iOS 11.0 and watchOS 2.0 or later We all use email, but often it’s a painful experience. Not so with Spark, our best Apple Watch app for email, which uses smart inbox sorting to make sure your most important mail isn’t lost in the scrum. The app’s home screen features big buttons for each of these categories so you can easily bypass everything you don’t need to see. There are Messages-style quick replies, and you can ‘snooze’ a message so you get reminded of it when you’re back at your desk. It’s clear from these features and more that every element of Spark is designed for how people actually use the Apple Watch. 04. Streaks Streaks can help you not only get fit but give up smoking, read a book, make your appointments and more Price: £4.99 Requires: iOS 9.0 and watchOS 3.0 or later Streaks is the best Apple Watch app for health and fitness for a reason. It's all about forming lasting, positive habits that can improve your life. It’ll help you track anything from eating healthier food to cutting down on smoking, and is particularly useful if you want to improve your fitness. It’s so effective that it’s been recognised with an Apple Design Award – high praise indeed. With simple iconography and handy progress bars, the Streaks Apple Watch app clearly displays your progress so you know how far along your routine you are. You can mark your progress as you go, and everything syncs up with Apple’s Health app on your iPhone. 05. AutoSleep Make sure you get enough rest for that important client meeting using AutoSleep Price: £2.99 Requires: iOS 11.0 and watchOS 4.0 or later If you suspect you’re not sleeping properly after a hard day’s work, the best Apple Watch app for sleep, AutoSleep, could help. Wear your Watch to bed and the app can analyse your sleep quality, including the amount of time you slept, your restlessness, your heart rate and your time awake during the day. It’s designed to look like an Apple app, and if you’re used to tracking your fitness with Apple’s ring system then AutoSleep will feel instantly familiar. Pair it with your iPhone and you get a Today view to display all your metrics in one place, with sections dedicated to calculating your daily readiness, latest bedtime, whether you’re under- or oversleeping, plus much more. 06. Overcast We love Overcast’s intuitive design and unique features; there’s no better podcast app Price: Free (offers in-app purchases) Requires: iOS 13.0 and watchOS 5.2 or later The Apple Watch is at its best when it lets you perform quick tasks that don’t interrupt your workflow. Overcast is a great example of that. It's our best Apple Watch app for podcasts as it’s a well-thought-out app with a focus on unobtrusive design. You can adjust podcast volume using the Digital Crown (genius!), and swipe to quickly start a new podcast episode. The app features clever features to equalise volume levels and cut out dead air, and it’s beautifully designed both on your wrist and your phone. 07. Carrot Weather With Carrot Weather, getting drenched on the way to the office can actually be pretty funny Price: £4.99 Requires: iOS 12.0 and watchOS 4.0 or later Checking the weather on the way to the office isn’t often an hilarious experience, but that’s exactly what you get with the best Apple Watch app for the weather, Carrot Weather. It’s infused with a snarky, witty AI that revels in your misfortune as a blizzard bears down on your humble abode. It’s not just funny, though. Carrot Weather uses Dark Sky’s accurate data, and employs some clever design and colour coding to give you important info at a glance. There are numerous complications, notifications, weather maps and even a Siri watch face integration. 08. Hole19 Enjoy your downtime and improve your golf game from your wrist with Hole19 Price: Free (offers in-app purchases) Requires: iOS 11.0 and watchOS 3.0 or later Did you know that there was a best Apple Watch app for golf? Apple Watch is jam-packed with sensors, making it the perfect companion to analyse your golfing game on your days off. Add in Hole19 and you get all the data you need to improve your play and increase your handicap. The free version lets you track your score, see how far it is to the hole, and understand your game with stats on your accuracy, putting and more. Opt for the premium membership and you get club recommendations, shot distance tracking and much more, all without taking your phone out of your pocket. Read more: The 100 greatest Apple creations Is Apple ditching its 'i'? The best mindfulness apps in 2020 View the full article

The PS5 logo (above) has been one of this year's most controversial logos, even though on the face of it, it doesn't look particularly offensive. It's essentially the same as the PS4 logo, but with a different number. Since the marque for the PlayStation 5 was revealed at CES 2020, countless designers, gamers and logo-lovers have called out Sony for being lazy, with many suggesting that the electronics giant simply couldn't be bothered to come up with a new logo. And of course, where there is logo anger, there are also countless creatives who try and improve the logo with their own creations (if you want to give it a go, read our logo design guide first). We've seen various new takes on the PlayStation 5 logo, as well as a neat video speculating about how it came to be, but probably our favourite concept is the one by Bosslogic (below). Get a load of that shadowy '5' Bosslogic's concept takes the 'PlayStation' part of the logo, the intertwined 'P' and 'S' and riffs on it, adding a '5' as a sort of shadow, which echoes the shape of the 's' above. The beauty of this concept logo is that it gives people what they are looking for: a new PlayStation 5 logo that differentiates the console from previous iterations. It probably wouldn't be so effective for the PS4, for example, and that is no bad thing. The use of the red rather than sticking with stark black and white also adds a certain something. Bosslogic's concept logo got a lot of love on Instagram, with many suggesting that it is actually better than the original logo. Others praised it for its original and simple form, and then there were the usual arguments about whether or not the original logo was any good, and whether it needed to be changed at all. Overall, we don't think people should get too hung up on whether the original logo 'needs' changing or not. Concept logos are a great way for creatives to really consider what works and what doesn't about a logo, and then come up with their own take. It's all good practice for creative briefs. If, like us, you love a good concept design, check out these radical redesigns of famous logos or this minimalist concept for card game UNO. You can also see more concepts and art from Bosslogic on his Instagram page. Read more: The 10 best logos of all time 8 of the biggest logo redesigns of 2019 Disney Plus UK is launching sooner than we thought View the full article

With the new iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max having what some might call an astronomical price tag, Apple’s latest flagship phone needs to be sensationally good. It doesn’t look particularly new or fancy from the front though. With its big screen and visible black border all the way around and a hefty notch, it’s got a virtually identical fascia to that of the iPhone X or iPhone Xs. Adding to that familiarity, all iPhones run the same operating system, iOS, so look identical on the inside. So why would you pick up an iPhone 11 Pro over an older model? The answer is simple – the camera. Apple has taken inspiration from Android phones and loaded up three cameras around the back of the iPhone 11 Pro models. It's also added a fantastic night mode to its imaging mix. In doing what Apple does best – refining tech introduced by other manufacturers, it has, in turn, created one of the best camera phones in the world today. But for the kind of money these phones cost, is that really enough? iPhone 11 Pro review: Design and screen The iPhone Pro 11's design alone isn't worth an upgrade If it’s design your after, these iPhones aren’t worth an upgrade. The iPhone 11 Pro-series delivers deja-vu in spades from the front. That said, around the back, Apple has shaken things up a bit by swapping out the iPhone Xs’s shiny rear panel for a frosted glass finish, and adding a squircle camera surround. Much like the Google Pixel 4, the new iPhones’ matte glass back repels fingerprints like a champ, and looks cleaner than high-gloss counterparts like the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus, which gets grubby after little more than a glance. The 11 Pro-series is also available in four colours, Space Grey, Silver, Midnight Green and Gold, and all of them look refined. Is this the best-looking phone money can buy? Probably not, but it is the best looking iPhone and for Apple fans, that’ll be enough Despite the fact the phones are water-resistant, so can handle a dunk and splash, Apple’s dropped the ball when it comes to the screen’s scratch-resistance, in our experience. Complaints about early iPhone displays scratching have been cropping up since the phone launched and we’ve experienced this first-hand. With this in mind, you might want to go for a screen protector even if you don’t decide to put your iPhone in a folio case. As for the screen quality, it’s beautiful. Punchy, vibrant, incredibly bright, deep, rich and with excellent viewing angles, the new Super Retina XDR panel ticks all the boxes. Talking specs, it delivers a 2,000,000,000:1 contrast ratio, so images, videos and illustrations look as good as they possibly can on a smartphone, and with support for HDR photos and HDR10 films, if you’re a content creator, the iPhone 11 Pro will showcase your creations to perfection. iPhone 11 Pro review: Camera The biggest reason to upgrade to the new iPhone 11 Pro-series is the camera experience. The primary camera is still 12MP resolution with an f/1.8 aperture and optical image stabilisation (OIS), but Apple’s opted for a new sensor. The second camera features a 2x zoom f/2.0 lens and also has OIS, while the third is an ultra-wide 0.5x zoom lens with a 120-degree field-of-view. To put it into context, that’s kind of like having a standard iPhone camera, a GoPro wide angle, and a 50mm portrait lens in your pocket. What’s special about Apple’s implementation of all three cameras is that they match colour balance, exposure and contrast levels well. This results in a seamless, intuitive photo-taking experience and images that look great almost every time. The iPhone 11 Pro is like having a standard iPhone camera, a GoPro wide angle, and a 50mm portrait lens in your pocket It isn’t just shots taken in good light that impress; dynamic range is excellent across lighting conditions, and Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro can shoot long-exposure night shots too. We were able to capture 30-second exposure times when we steadied our review sample on a surface, and while the results aren’t quite as mind-boggling as Google’s Astrophotography which can literally turn night into day, they weren’t far off. Handheld low-light photography also impresses, and in certain situations, outclasses the best of the rest, including the Pixel 4. The iPhone Pro 11's three cameras match colour balance, exposure and contrast levels to achieve the best looking photos The phones’ portrait mode is also one of the finest around, clearly and naturally separating background and foreground objects. This works across both the main and zoom cameras, and comes bundled with a host of portrait lighting effects. Speaking of portraits, the 8MP selfie camera also snaps blurry background, sharp foreground shots. That said, its photos are less impressive, especially when the lights drop. Alongside the Huawei P30 Pro, which has better zoom performance, the new iPhone is the best video cameras we’ve used too. Its image stabilisation can deal with hand shake, so footage has a premium stillness to it, and low light performance is seriously solid for a smartphone. With a maximum recording resolution of 4K combined with a super-smooth 60fps, it’s sharp and gives filmmakers scope to slow things down when editing. If you really want to stop time, they also capture 240fps slow motion video at 1080p resolution. iPhone 11 Pro review: Power and specs Flagship iPhones always have stacks of power, so it’s little wonder the new internals in the 11 Pros will keep everything from 4K video edits in iMovie (included on the phone), through to Adobe’s on-the-go applications ticking over like a dream. Storage capacities start at 64GB, just like the Pixel 4 and 4 XL, however, climb much higher, capping out at 512GB which is likely much more than most will ever need. Light users may be okay with 64GB, however, with that fantastic 4K video camera, we’d recommend creatives stump up the extra cash and go for the 256GB version. The new iPhones don’t just better the Pixels when it comes to storage options, they finally offer decent battery life too, especially the iPhone 11 Pro Max which should last in excess of a full day for most. Charging them up is convenient thanks to wired and wireless charging, though Apple has stuck with its Lightning port for wired charging, which is a shame. We would have loved a USB-C port instead, bringing the iPhone in line with the new MacBooks, the best drawing tablets and iPad Pros - one cable to rule them all, we can dream. On the plus, an 18W fast charger ships in the box with the phone, which wasn’t the case with older generation iPhones. Apple has stuck with its Lightning port for wired charging, which is a shame With Face ID, you can get into the iPhone 11 Pro in moments, though, we would have loved a fingerprint scanner in the screen too. Why? Because Face ID is still awkward when you want to get into your iPhone and it’s on a surface, or use Apple Pay when your phone doesn’t have line of sight with your face. Otherwise, the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max are top-tier from a performance point of view; thanks to iOS 13, they deliver comprehensive app experiences and with stereo speakers tuned by Dolby, sound better than almost all other smartphone on the market. iPhone 11 Pro review: Verdict The new iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max are both fantastic smartphones, but they’re also incredibly expensive. If you can make do with two cameras around the back instead of three and a good, not world-class display, then the vanilla iPhone 11 offers much better value for money. We would have loved to have seen some creative elements added, like Apple Pencil support, for example – similar to that offered by the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, but maybe that’s one for the iPhone 11s? Having said that, if all you want is the best looking, fastest iPhone around with a jaw-droppingly vibrant display and an excellent camera array, then even with their high asking prices, the iPhone 11 Pro is for you. Or the Max f you want something a bit bigger. View the full article

CSS Houdini gets its name from the world-famous Harry Houdini. Why? A group of developers – from well-known organisations such as Apple and Google, and the CSS Working Group – wanted to demystify the magic of CSS and get better control of website rendering. So they formed the CSS Houdini Task Force. But what exactly is CSS Houdini? It is a set of low-level APIs that gives developers the power to extend CSS by taking control of the styling and layout processes inside a browser. It gives direct access to the CSS Object Model (a set of APIs allowing the manipulation of CSS from JavaScript) and allows users to read and modify CSS style dynamically, ie. with JavaScript. Houdini is only partially supported at present, so is at the very early stage of adoption. While you wait for more support, why not try this collection of CSS animation techniques that will definitely work. Why you need CSS Houdini Browsers are very good at abstracting complex styling tasks away from developers. It will split paragraphs of text on to separate lines without needing to be told. Elements can be sized and placed next to each other automatically by using a couple of properties and letting the rendering engine handle the rest. Each time the page updates, the browser will take the HTML, CSS and JavaScript and convert them into pixels on screen in a process known as the 'rendering pipeline'. Firstly, the browser reads through the content and builds a structure known as a render tree, which is then used to calculate where things should appear on the page in a layout step. From there, it turns those into pixels in a step called painting. With all the elements painted, it sticks them together into one page in a process called compositing. To improve the performance of a website, we should always focus on optimising the critical render path. If we want a visual effect on a site that the browser does not support natively we instead need to add JavaScript and HTML with polyfills. This makes repetitive changes near the start of the pipeline, which results in poor performance. The aim of Houdini is to open up CSS and allow developers to apply these polyfills further along the pipeline and speed things up. They also open up new opportunities to create effects not previously possible. While not every website will use these new APIs directly, they allow frameworks and libraries the opportunity to level out browser inconsistencies. Support for CSS Houdini The APIs have been worked on for the past few years, with each one being jointly developed by all members of the Houdini task force. All the APIs follow the strict W3C standardisation process. If enough of a consensus is reached, an initial draft specification known as a 'working draft' is created. From there, it gets refined further before reaching 'candidate recommendation' level. A specification marked as a candidate recommendation can start to gather feedback from implementors — in this case browser vendors. This is where we start to see wider browser support. From here, it goes to 'proposed recommendation' and then 'W3C recommendation', where it starts to achieve full browser support. Currently, the forerunner is the Paint API which is 
at candidate recommendation level. The Chromium-based browsers Chrome, Opera and Samsung Internet all support it, with Firefox and Safari working on their implementation. Typed OM is closely related and as a result these same browsers support this as well. Chrome is leading the way with the other APIs. To play around with the Layout API, animation worklets or the Properties and Values API, you need to use Chrome Canary with 'Experimental Web Platform features' flag enabled. These are still under active development and can change at any point. Check out the website to see the current state of Houdini. What is the Paint API? The penultimate step in the rendering pipeline is the painting phase. At this point, the browser knows exactly the content to show but not how it appears. The rendering engine will look at the styles applied to each element and adjust its instructions accordingly. While some styles are fairly straightforward, others allow functions to run that decide their appearance. For example background can take many functions, which include url() for images, rgb() for colours and linear-gradient() for a gradient effect. The Paint API allows us to define our own painting function, which works in much the same way. All functions create an image that the engine can make use of depending on the property it’s used against. The only requirement inside a paint worklet is a single paint method. Here we provide a set of instructions that a browser can follow whenever it needs to repaint the element. It is called with a few arguments that give the method some useful info. The first argument is a context, which provides a space we can draw upon. It works similar to the context used when drawing onto <canvas> elements, by using instructions such as moveTo and fillRect to start building up the image that CSS can make use of. There are some differences between this context and that used for <canvas> elements. For example, there are no image data or text methods available for security and performance reasons, but it is possible they will appear in later revisions to the specification. The second argument contains the dimensions of the paintable area it needs to create. Typically, this is the width and height of the target element including padding. We can use this information to make sure we are drawing onto the context in the right place. We can also ask for a set of other style properties. For example, we could want to change the colour of the background to complement the text colour. This is done through a getter within the worklet. The inputProperties value is an array of all properties the worklet is interested in. This can include custom properties that supply some further customisation. These values are passed in as the third argument to the paint method as style objects from the Properties and Values API. There is a fourth argument that can be used to access arguments supplied to the paint function in CSS. This allows for configuration at the point of definition, such as the colours to use in a gradient. This is working its way through the specification process and is not ready for use just yet. The worklet needs to be registered with the browser for it to be picked up in CSS. The registerPaint method takes the name we use to reference it and the worklet itself. 
 Finally, in order to link the JavaScript to the CSS, the browser needs to download the worklet. By supplying the path, the browser handles the rest of the process for us. What does Typed OM do? The CSS Object Model (CSSOM) has been part of JavaScript for a long time. It allows us to extract the computed style of an element reading its style property or by using getComputedStyle. The former returns styles applied directly to that element, while the latter includes all styles including inherited ones. The value they return is always a string regardless of what was supplied originally. This makes adjusting these values buggy and inefficient for us as well as the browser as it needs to constantly convert back and forth between a number and a string. The Typed OM works similar to the CSSOM but also provides types for the values. There are two new ways of accessing them — the attributeStyleMap works like the style property, with computedStyleMap like getComputedStyle. These both return a CSSUnitValue object, which contains the value and the unit as separate properties ready to be read and updated. These objects can also be created and used directly to calculate values, much like the CSS calc() function does. The Typed OM is capable of plenty more, such as type conversion and value clamping. Check out Google's 'Working with the new CSS Typed Object Model' and the official W3C spec for more information. Properties and Values API: Add types to custom properties CSS custom properties — also known as CSS Variables — allow us to define a value in one place and use it elsewhere. For example, we could create custom properties to hold theme colours that elements further down the page could make use of. The problem with custom properties becomes apparent when we try to animate between them. As the property could refer to anything, the browser falls back to treating it as a string. As there is no way it knows how to animate between strings, it ends up jumping from one to the other. The Properties and Values API helps by providing types to custom properties. We can use JavaScript to register a property with the browser, which then takes care of the rest. The registerProperty method is a new property on the CSS global object. Here we define a few characteristics about the property such as its name, an initial value if it is not specified and whether or not it inherits from elements higher up. The important attribute is syntax, which describes the type of the property. CSS already knows how to deal with different types of data including numbers, angles and URLs. By specifying the type, we can save the browser work and let it know what our values are. Improve performance with the Layout API All browsers have layout algorithms in place to help position content. By default, all elements will be in flow layout. In Latin scripts such as English, any elements set as inline will flow left to right in the inline direction and any elements set as block will flow top to bottom in the block direction. While they work well, they make most websites look the same. To make a site stand out, we would need to use properties such as position: absolute and calculate offsets manually. A site such as Pinterest uses this approach to make its masonry-style layout, but it can cause performance issues on larger pages. The Layout API aims to avoid this problem by handing this logic to a worklet. It knows the desired dimensions of the parent and its children and can instruct the renderer exactly where it wants them. Each worklet requires a layout method, which runs each time it needs to recalculate the layout. It also needs to be asynchronous as laying out the content inside can be paused or moved to a separate thread at any time. The first argument is an array of children with the styles that are applied to them. The second contains border, padding and scrollbar size known as the element’s edges. The third defines the rest of the usable space called the constraints. The final argument details the properties being requested from inputProperties similar to the Paint API. All this information is used to generate positioning instructions called fragments. The layoutNextFragment method takes information about the child, such as its desired inline and block size and the renderer takes care of the rest. The result is a set of fragments ready for the browser to paint. On the CSS side, the layout is defined like any other. The layout function takes the name supplied when registering the worklet. While the option is open to everyone, it’s unlikely most would need to create layout worklets for every site. Worklets can be shared and included on a site without knowing about the underlying algorithm. This API is more likely to be used as a way to polyfill future layout systems. Want to learn more about web design. The subscribe to net magazine today Join us in April at generateJS and discover the secrets of becoming a JavaScript ninja 8 HTML tags you need to be using (and 5 to avoid) 6 steps to writing better CSS 13 of the best JavaScript frameworks to try View the full article

Citrix has issued the first of several updates fixing a critical vulnerability in various versions of its Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Citrix Gateway products. View the full article

Does learning HTML or JavaScript scare you? We may have a solution. With UX-App: Interaction & UI Design Software, you'll be able to create fully-functional mockups for HTML, mobile, websites, and so much more – all without any coding experience. Elevate your designs and provide clients with great mockups, with this easy-to-use yet mighty tool. And if you need some shiny new web design tools to help you, check out our pick of the very best ones out there. The best laptops for programming in 2020 A designer's job never ends when it comes to learning new programs, tricks and techniques to progress their business. With the UX-App, you'll be able to easily create clickable, fully interactive web and mobile prototypes with real HTML components and absolutely no coding required. The full-featured product planning tool allows you to build complex UIs with ease by combining more than 100 pre-built UI components with impressive touch-enabled mobile UI abilities. A powerful drag-and-drop event editor, as well as a packed suite of real, working elements, allows for the effortless execution of a functional prototype, no matter the size of the project. Unlimited usage allows you to keep coming back, whenever a new project comes through the pipeline or when you need to access and present the work that you already created. The interactive tool allows you to stay organised by separating your projects within the app and using easily accessible layers and artboards. Desktop and mobile-friendly, this tool comes with automatic updates to the software, allowing you to enjoy the latest and greatest version of the UX-App. Access to this UX-App: Interaction & UI Design Software is valued at $1,500. For a limited time, this bundle is price-dropped to only $29, that's a saving of 98%. With all the content available 24/7, you'll be able to effortlessly finesse your UX/UI skills and bring easy to follow mockups to every project in 2020. Read more: 6 huge web design trends for 2020 8 steps to inclusive web design 19 really useful responsive web design tutorials View the full article

CVE-2020-0674 is a critical flaw for most Internet Explorer versions, allowing remote code execution and complete takeover. View the full article

Gucci caused a stir with a new look last week. The temporary new logo and accompanying promotional materials form part of a campaign to launch the fashion house's Fall/Winter 2020 Men’s Collection, and drew attention for its use of a bizarre font that looked just like a child had written it (read our original story on the new Gucci logo here). A little digging revealed the scrappy-looking branding was designed to evoke children's birthday parties – other promo materials feature the tagline 'Rave like you are five'. The unusual handwriting font was designed to mimic the style typically used by French children. Gucci certainly took a risk by adopting such an unpolished new look – but has it paid off? Now the dust has settled, let's take a look at what the design community thought. Explore our roundup of the best branding books for 2020 Amidst all the scathing commentary, strong arguments started to arise in favour of the naive new look. Some designers applauded Gucci's confidence in making a statement with the campaign, and argued it ties in well with the collection it's promoting. "Sure, why not? It feels authentic and it does the one job of all high art/fashion well, which is to elicit an emotional reaction. I can dig it," wrote Valark on Under Consideration. On the same site, JustJoeDesign drew attention to the unusual aesthetic choice: "In a day and age where penmanship is becoming a lost skill I think this is a great move for a campaign to stand out." The comment sparked a discussion about whether it would have been better to use traditionally 'good' calligraphy, which was rebuffed Corey Ken, commenting: "But then it would be just another ad with nice execution. This is conceptual." Another strong argument in favour of the Gucci's design choice is that it offers a refreshing break from the current wave of bland rebrands. "It’s unashamedly odd, and apparently blithely unaware of the accepted wisdom that a logo is a brand’s sacred symbol. And isn’t that what we want from the fashion industry? It’s meant to be weird and unexpected and rebellious," wrote Emma Tucker for Creative Review. Others agreed with her: However, there are many that remain unconvinced of the move. Plenty are cynical about Gucci's motives, suggesting it's just a stunt to get attention... although that's sort of the point of brand campaigns, so on that level at least it's a success. And there's still just as many people happy to tear a strip off the high-end fashion house for its 'lazy' effort. So now that we've had time absorb the new look, what's our take? Well first up, while is certainly looks like it's been scrawled out in less than a minute, we imagine plenty of thought and effort will have gone into creating this campaign – even ensuring the messaging is legible is a challenge. Second, anything that's revolutionary enough to make us look twice in the world of branding – and especially high-end fashion branding – is worth a certain amount of respect. And as it's a temporary campaign anyway, why shouldn't Gucci throw out the rulebook and do something radically different? Read more: 5 times brands had a dig at competitors – and won Has branding become boring? Are these OTT brand guidelines as ridiculous as they seem? View the full article

Disney fans, rejoice! If you're in certain countries in Western Europe then you'll be able to get your hands on Disney Plus a whole week earlier than expected. The streaming service, which is already going down an absolute storm in the US, is now set to launch on 24 March (instead of 31 March as initially expected) in the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy and Germany. The new Disney+ launch date may be only a week earlier, but when there are delights such as Baby Yoda in The Mandalorian to look forward to, who wouldn't be happy to have the service for an extra seven days? We're even considering upgrading to one of the best 4K monitors for the occasion. Just some of the exclusive goodies on offer The other good news is that the pricing of Disney+ has also been announced, and for what you get for your money, it's going to be much better value than Netflix. In the UK, Disney+ will cost £5.99 per month or £59.99 per year. Users will be able to stream 4K content on four devices at once, and there are no hidden extras. They'll also be able to download their favourite shows or films, to watch offline. To compare, Netflix also costs £5.99 per month, but you have to pay more (either £8.99 or £11.99) if you want ultra-HD content, or to be able to stream on one more than screen at a time. And with Netflix UK having recently won the rights to Studio Ghibli's content, it seems competition between the two streaming giants is really heating up, and that's before Disney+ has even fully launched. Disney Plus' available shows and films will include much-loved classics from Disney, Pixar, Marvel and National Geographic, and there's also previously unseen content, including the aforementioned The Mandalorian, and the catchily named High School Musical, The Musical, The Series. You can sign up now on the Disney Plus website for more updates. Read more: Aaron Blaise reveals why he quit his dream job at Disney Is this Chinese city logo a blatant Disney copy? Understand Disney's 12 principles of animation View the full article

2019 was another year of rapid technological innovation, bringing us everything from camera-laden smartphones that can outperform laptops in terms of sheer processing power, to a zillion new smart home devices, and then some. But what was the standout tech for creative professionals in 2019, and what can we look forward to over the next 12 months? Whether you want to turbo-charge your laptop's graphics power with an eGPU, or take your creativity in a new direction entirely with a powerful new workstation, keep reading to find out what's got us hyped in 2020. For more options, see our guide to the best graphic design tools for 2020. 01. Apple Mac Pro Mac's latest powerhouse will make short work of even the most demanding creative tasks Apple admitted that its previous 'trash can' Mac Pro design of 2013 had painted it into a thermal corner. Upgrade options suffered as a result, so the company went back to the drawing board to rethink its approach. Apple talked up its redesigned Mac Pro for two years before finally launching it in December 2019, and most prosumers would agree that, despite the eye-watering entry price, the new high-throughput tower Mac delivers on its promise of offering blistering performance that can make short work of even the most demanding creative tasks. The much-mocked 'cheese grater' lattice pattern design harks back to the tower Mac Pro of old, but the internals are positively futuristic. The machine uses workstation-class Xeon processors with up to 28 cores with 64 PCI Express lanes, up to 1.5TB of high performance memory, eight PCIe expansion slots, and at the high-end, dual Radeon Pro Vega II Duo GPUs. That should be more than enough to speed up your email and web browsing. Jokes aside, the new Mac Pro starts at $5,999, so this machine is only for the most serious professional users. Indeed, if you max out a tower Mac on Apple's website, the most expensive setup costs $53,799. (It also recently released the rack mountable version, starting from $6,499.) 02. MSI Creator 17 Laptop with Mini LED Display Groundbreaking Mini LED technology promises improved display accuracy MSI used the Consumer Electronics Show 2020 to unveil the Creator 17, which it claims is the "world's very first" laptop to feature a Mini LED display. Sounds neat in theory, but what does it mean in practice? By adopting much smaller 2mm LEDs for the backlight, the laptop's 17-inch 4K display offers a lot more accuracy than LCD displays that use a traditional LED backlight. For creatives, that's a boon for viewing rich visual content. The tech promises high contrast and HDR using 240 local dimming zones, so that it can dim the backlight behind areas of the screen that are displaying black while keeping the bright parts of the screen bright. According to MSI, the Creator 17 is also capable of displaying 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut at 1,000 nits brightness, which is the standard benchmark for displaying HDR in all its glory. We might not yet know the internal specs or the price of the machine, but this announcement was all about the Mini LED tech, which could do for laptops what OLED screens did for smartphones. Excitingly, there's also speculation that Apple's 2020 MacBook and iPad Pros could feature the same game-changing display tech. 03. Apple 16-inch MacBook Pro Apple's latest MacBook is tailored especially towards creatives Apple's latest MacBook Pro arrived late in 2019 and is being considered by many as a blueprint for MacBooks to come over at least the next year or two. On the surface, little appears to have changed, but take a closer look and you'll notice that certain key features have been considerably improved with creative professionals in mind. First off, Apple has slimmed down the bezels to fit a larger screen into the same laptop dimensions, so you get a 16-inch Retina display with 500 nits of brightness and a P3 wide colour gamut. It's also swapped out the controversial butterfly keyboard that dogged previous models and replaced it with a much more reliable scissor switch key mechanism. As for the internal specs, even the basic option is a bit of a beast. Apple promises up to double the performance of the older 15-inch model, thanks to a 6-core ninth-generation Intel Core i7 processor and a Radeon Pro 5300M graphics card. It's not cheap though, with the base 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD costing a cool $2,399 (£2,399). See the best prices right now in the widget below, or, if you don't have your heart set on this model, explore our roundup of the best Apple laptop deals. 04. Microsoft Surface Neo Will this dual-screen tablet change the game for mobile productivity? Microsoft unveiled the Surface Neo at an October 2019 press event, but we're still waiting for the dual-screen laptop to get a full launch sometime in the spring. That's only made us even more excited about the Neo, which will run Windows 10X, the tech giant's new operating system optimised for dual-screen devices. Microsoft claims the the book-like foldable will deliver the "ultimate in mobile productivity", thanks to its two 9-inch screens and 360-degree hinge, which enables it to be turned inside out with the opposing screen acting as a stand. The Neo will come with a pen and detachable keyboard, both of which magnetically attach to the device. The keyboard sits on top of the lower screen, taking up just over half of its width. That leaves space above the keys for a 'Wonder Bar' (think MacBook Pro Touch Bar) that can be used as a trackpad and will also support Microsoft Ink. From a digital creative's perspective, the Neo's dual-screen mobile working space could be a boon, allowing artists to work on their project on the main display and access brushes and other virtual toolsets on the Wonder Bar below. 05. Wacom One The newest, cheapest member of the Wacom family is aimed at beginners This year's annual CES saw Wacom launch a new 13-inch creative pen display called the Wacom One (not to be confused with the older One by Wacom). It has been created with "creative beginners, social content creators and visual thinkers" in mind, who want to sketch, draw, paint or edit photos at a desk or on the move. At $399, this the company's most inexpensive tablet yet (see our guide to the best cheap Wacom tablet deals to put that price in context), and offers an unlikely feature for aspiring creatives and entry-level artists who can't afford a laptop but own an Android device. The Wacom has an active area that is almost a foot wide, offering plenty of space for your creations, and a full HD display on which to view and work on them, but it's not hefty by any means, weighing in at just 2 pounds. Meanwhile the pressure-sensitive pen can mimic a range of pens and brushes – it doesn't need batteries either, so it's lightweight, too. It comes with three ports providing power, HDMI and USB connectivity, the latter of which comes with support for Android devices. That means if you draw on your smartphone or tablet, you can mirror your work to the Wacom One and continue to fine-hone your project on the larger screen. 06. Apple Pro Display XDR It's (very) expensive, but no competitor products can even touch this display Apple stopped making displays after the Apple Thunderbolt Display, which it discontinued in 2016, but late last year the company returned to the monitor market with the Apple Pro Display XDR, which starts at an eye-watering $4,999 – and that doesn't even include the optional $999 Pro Stand! The price shouldn't surprise – it is meant to be a companion for Apple's new high-end Mac Pro – but creative professionals with reference display requirements are unlikely to find anything else that even begins to approach the build quality and the amount of research and engineering that Apple has poured into this hardware. The Pro Display XDR has a 32-inch 6K Retina screen with a 6016 x 3384 resolution that packs in more than 20 million pixels, which combined offer a viewing experience that's 40 percent bigger than the Retina 5K display on a 27-inch iMac. It also features 10-bit and P3 wide color support, 1,600 nits of peak brightness and a sustained 1,000 nits of brightness. Not only that, the monitor's aluminum enclosure features the same advanced thermal system seen on the new Mac Pro, which it connects to using a single Thunderbolt 3 cable. 07. Sketchboard Pro for iPad artists Inspired by the classic illustration sketch boards traditionally used in art school, the Sketchboard Pro is a form-fitted magnetic cradle for an iPad that creates a smooth, flat drawing surface around the screen, offering more comfort and support while drawing. It can be used flat on a drawing table or propped against a desk, while the legs fold out to provide a more comfortable 20-degree incline on any flat surface in landscape or portrait orientation. The idea is that with your iPad nestled into the frame, you can make the most of the entire canvas of the screen when drawing, rather than having to rest your hand on other areas of the display. Not only does it promise to give you a fuller view of your art, the makers believe it also has the potential to enhance its quality through fuller use of your arm while drawing, resulting in more flowing lines. The Sketchboard Pro began life as a crowdfunded project, but it quickly received full backing and is now due to ship in March, retailing at $100 (£77). Find out more on the Sketchboard Pro website. 08. Microsoft Surface Studio 3 How will the upcoming Surface Studio 3 compare to the Studio 2? Microsoft hasn't announced the Surface Studio 3 yet, but the lineup appears to be following a two-year upgrade cycle, and there have been some impressive advances in mobile CPU and graphics technology since the Surface Studio 2 was released in 2018 (see the best Surface Studio 2 deals here). It's too early to say which processor the Microsoft's next all-in-one PC will feature, but the very latest Intel H-series processors wouldn't go amiss. We'd also argue that it's about time Microsoft bit the bullet and embraced Thunderbolt 3 for the next Studio, given that everyone else in the tech world is doing so, otherwise it risks looking long in the tooth the moment it's released. With its innovative Gravity Hinge and radical puck input device, no one would argue that creating art on the Studio 2's 4,500 x 3,000 PixelSense touch display is an experience not offered by any other company. However, those internals need seriously beefing up if Microsoft plans on continuing the device, especially if it plans on charging anything like the $3,499 that the Studio 2 costs. So how about it, Microsoft? 09. Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel This notebook boasts a hinge that allows the screen to swivel in five different angles Acer takes its ConceptD PC lineup to the next level in 2020 with 7 Ezel, a convertible notebook with impressive graphics power and a hinge that allows the screen to swivel and rotate in any of five different angles. The notebook will support the forthcoming 10th generation Intel Core H-series processor, with custom spec options to include NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics, up to 32GB of DDR4 memory, and up to 2TB of NVMe PCIe solid-state storage. It comes with two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and SD card slot, and a glass touchpad. Of course, the Ezel also includes a Wacom EMR digital pen and a 4K IPS touchscreen display, making it ideally suited for professionals creating 2D and 3D work. The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel launches this year in the US and Europe, starting at $2,699 and €2,499 respectively. 10. OWC Akitio Node Titan eGPU A good eGPU can turn the thinnest laptop into a graphical powerhouse External GPU enclosures, or eGPUs for short, have surged in popularity in recent years, largely thanks to the graphics throughput provided by Thunderbolt interfaces and strong driver support from chip makers like AMD and Nvidia. With a decent eGPU connected, even the thinnest laptop can become a graphical powerhouse, making them appealing to gamers and content creators alike. OWC's just-announced Akitio Node Titan eGPU is one such example. Its 650W power supply means the box can accommodate power-hungry cards like the Radeon RX Vega 64 and deliver their processing speed to notebooks via Thunderbolt 3, vastly reducing video edit and render times. The Akitio's spacious design means even large double-width graphics cards can be comfortably housed inside, and you can even daisy-chain multiple boxes for demanding workloads. The Akitio has a retractable carrying handle for easy transport, and provides tool-less access for easy card installation. It's even able to output 85W of power to charge your notebook while you work. The OWC AKiTiO Node Titan should be available in the first quarter of 2020, but we're still waiting information on pricing. Read more: The best cheap Hydro Flask deals in 2020 Chill out with our pick of the top mindfulness apps The best camera phones in 2020 View the full article

A few years ago, the over-zealous overpainting of a Spanish fresco left Jesus looking less than saintly. Now, another restoration effort has caught the attention of the general public – and this time the painting is a lot more famous. And while the results aren't as outright horrifying as that poor Spanish Jesus, this renewed artwork is unsettling to say the least (perhaps the creator would have benefitted from our how to draw tutorial roundup?). The Ghent Altarpiece was painted by brothers Jan and Hubert Van Eyck in the 15th century, and has become one of the most celebrated artworks of its time. Sadly, over the centuries it has become yellowed and marred by touchup efforts, leading to an ambitious four-year restoration project. Four of the 12 panels that make up the monumental altarpiece have been reworked so far, and it's the newly unveiled central 'Adoration of the Mystic Lamb' scene that's got people talking. This was the lamb before restoration. The mystic lamb pre-restoration Admittedly, he's not looking his best self. Below you can see him with his war paint on and ready to hit the barnyard disco. The restored lamb The issue people are taking is that the lamb's face is so human-looking. It's important to note here that this isn't an error on the part of the retoucher – this is genuinely what the Van Eycks painted. The more naturalistic effort was the result of a later paintover. Here's a roundup of our favourite comments on the restoration. In the brothers' defence, this was the 15th century and artists were still learning how to paint things realistically back then. It would almost have been more surprising if the lamb hadn't come out looking a little funky. Case in point: If you think you could do better, or you'd like to have a go at creating your own masterpiece, then don't miss our post on oil painting tips and techniques. Read more: Netflix wins rights to Studio Ghibli films The best art easels in 2020 Essential art supplies for painting: everything you need to get started View the full article

So you’ve got the job and the budget’s been agreed, it's time to start exploring themes and colour palettes. But hold up. Asking a few simple questions before you begin can save endless rounds of revisions before sign off. Successful design starts with understanding a clients’ needs, but also their expectations and tastes. Taking a moment to ask the right questions can not only kickstart the brainstorming process, but also build rapport and make the client feel more involved. This means quicker sign-off and satisfied customers who want to come back. Questions can be submitted as an online questionnaire or pdf or asked in person. Here are six of the most important that you need to put to your client before putting pen to paper, whether you're building a new website layout or a revised logo design. 01. What do you want the project to achieve? Clarify scope and goals from the off A client might simply feel that their logo looks old and tired and needs a refresh, but it’s worth asking what exactly they want the change to achieve. They may want to make the company look more contemporary, but rebranding too radically can be risky. Do they want to appeal to a different demographic? Do they want to communicate different values? Every change needs to be justified and have a reason behind it that will have an outcome on business performance. Before working with a client, make sure they themselves have a clear vision of how the look and feel they seek will improve their business. There's a chance these are things they haven't asked them themselves and you doing so can help them have a clearer idea of their goals. While it may seem obvious, also ascertain the scope of the project, or a logo redesign can quickly evolve into an all-out rebranding. Confirm the exact medium, location, sizing and use for all finished products. For print material, depending on the production technique, you may need to limit your colours depending on what the client will pay for printing. 02. Who is the target audience? Make sure you know who the company is aiming at Following on from the previous question, you also need to know who you’re designing for. There’s no point designing to appeal to millennials if it turns out the client's main aim is retirees. Who is the brand’s target customer? How old are they? Are they male or female? Where do they live? What do they do? What do they like? The more information you can get on the primary demographic your client wants to connect with, the better you can hone your design to make it effective in appealing to that audience. You can do your own research, but never assume anything. 03. Who makes the decisions? Find out who’s in charge It's not the most obvious first question, but it can save a lot of time if you clarify from the outset who makes the decisions, particularly when working for a large organisation. This way you know you’re speaking to the right people when discussing feedback, and you can be sure your work is reaching the people who have the authority to sign it off. Things can always get held up at the review and sign-off process, and this can be made worse if you discover late on that you’ve been talking to people who seemed to like your direction but turn out to have no power to approve your design, only for a final decision maker to step in later in the process with a completely different opinion. Many people within an organisation may have opinions on your work, but it's usually the main decision-maker who needs to be happy. Also check how your client wants to communicate. How frequently do they want updates, and who needs to be copied in? Some clients will be happy for a designer to disappear and come back on deadline, while others will get nervous if they don’t receive regular updates as reassurance that work is progressing on time. 04. What do you want to keep? Ask before you bin anything Before you set about designing a radical new look for your client, bringing their brand into the 20th century by ditching their old logo in favour of a sleek minimalist design, take a moment to ask them what they like about their existing materials and what they want to keep. Ask for copies of previous marketing materials to see their development and make sure that your design is coherent with them. It pays to know what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t, especially for rebranding, so ask how previous changes were received. Poor reception of several major rebrands in recent years mean that companies have become more conservative about changing what they have and there are many examples of rebrands being rejected for being too radical. There’s no point in throwing out elements that work, or which the client and audience hold dear. 05. What do you like? Get a sense of your clients’ personal tastes More generally, you also need to know about what your client likes, which inevitably mean the subjective tastes of several people involved in the decision making process and signing off your work. Your design might make perfect sense for the business and go down with customers, but could be rejected if the person in charge just doesn't like it. Ask them what kind of art they like, and what other brands they admire. While you don’t want to copy a competitor’s style, there is a good chance that if a company is pursuing a change in their visual identity, it may at least partly be inspired by a healthy jealousy of something that a competitor is doing. Knowing what they admire in other businesses’ materials is a good way to gauge what they expect from the project. Just remember, clients may lack the vocabulary to express what they like, so phrase things in layman’s terms rather than using design jargon. Showing examples may also help guide the process. These questions will help you narrow down your choice of creative resources. 06. What makes you different? Challenge your client to define what makes them different Don’t be afraid to be direct. Challenge your client outright to define what sets them apart from the likely hundreds of other businesses offering the same product or service. If you’re going to make their branding and visual identity stand out from the competition, you need to know how they differentiate themselves and find a way to communicate that visually. Ask them who their main competitors are and what they do that their competitors don’t. Ask them what problems they solve, and how their values and attributes compare to those of their competitors, and this can help guide the way to finding a visual identity that also stands out. Read more: How to reawaken a brand's heritage Has branding become boring? Branding quotes: The good, the bad and the ugly View the full article

Done well, CSS animation can breathe life into your site and engage your users without the bloat of additional libraries. Delivering thoughtful, fluid animations that contribute meaningful depth to your site doesn’t have to be difficult – modern CSS properties now hand you nearly all of the tools you’ll need to create memorable experiences for your users. In this article, we'll run through some top tips for how to unleash the full capabilities of interactive CSS animation. While you're here, you might also want to check out our round up of amazing CSS animation examples. Many of these tips refer to Disney's animation principles – and indeed any decent article on creating animations would be remiss to not make mention these. Check out our dedicated article on Disney’s 12 basic principles of animation for a full guide. These were featured in Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston’s seminal book The Illusion Of Life, and form a great starting point for animation novices. 01. Stick to the core four properties CSS animation provides a relatively simple way to smoothly transition a large swath of properties. Good solid animated interfaces are dependent on a smooth, fluid experience, and to that end this is best delivered at 60+ FPS (frames per second). To maintain performance in our animation timelines we’ll want to try our best to limit our animated properties to a core four: Scale – transform:scale(2) Position – transform:translateX(50rem) Rotation – transform:rotate(180deg) Opacity – opacity: 0.5 Animating properties such as border radius, heights/widths or margins will affect browser layout methods, and animation of backgrounds, colours or box shadows will affect browser paint methods and drop your FPS considerably. Animating these properties can yield some interesting effects, but they should be used sparingly to maintain performance. 02. Introduce velocity One of Disney’s core principles of animation is squash and stretch. While this might sound a bit too playful for a clean, modern website, squash and stretch are principles that instill perceived performance, that is, we are able to instill a sense of page performance that might not exactly line up with our technical metrics. By squashing or stretching elements in motion, we give them an illusion of greater (or lesser) velocity, again lending a sense of genuine fluidity to our page. 03. Get the timing right No matter what library or stack you choose to leverage, the timing and easing of your animations are crucial to providing a fluid experience that feels natural and intuitive for your users. Fortunately, we have many excellent options baked right in to CSS to help deliver a more organic feel. CSS spec offers us some pretty great native easing functions, the most natural being ease-in-out, which allows animation timing to gain and shed velocity as the animation begins and ends. But deeper customisation is possible and sometimes necessary – and additional JS libraries aren’t always the answer. Enter cubic-bezier. It helps to think of your animation timing as following a vertical curve, as if you were to roll a ball up or down a hill, noting how velocity shifts with the each change to degree of incline. Using the cubic-bezier function, we’re able to effectively map our animation or transition to these curves, even allowing for both anticipation – the effective wind-up or introductory frames of our animation – and follow-through, which is the final frames of animation. With access to these properties we’re able to give our animation more realistic physics such as elasticity. For a great visual indicator of how these functions might work (and to test them yourself), visit the excellent easings.net by Andrey Sitnik. If you have any familiarity with the curves and handles of vector drawing you will instantly recognise how cubic-bezier works. Since CSS animation keyframes generally contain multiple segments, rarely directly moving from 1 to 100%, it’s important that you should keep in mind that any timing function other than linear will execute from beginning to end of the motion curve for each segment. Example: animation keyframes range from 0% – 25% – 75% – 100%, and use ease-in-out as the timing function. This means the animation will effectively ease itself in and out on three occasions. With that in mind, animation timing functions can also be changed within the keyframe chains themselves if needed. As capable as cubic-bezier is, sometimes it’s best suited for CSS transitions. Check the CodePen below. 04. Stop and start with animation-play-state Using the animation-play-state property, you can easily start or pause your animations. For example, you may well want to halt an animation on hover. To do this, use animation-play-state: paused. This option will offer your users a greater degree of interactivity, and in tandem with comma-separated chained animation properties or a few short lines of JavaScript we can define exactly when an animation should be active. 05. Think about accessibility When working on enhancing our user experience with animation we’re often not thinking about accessibility. Not everyone can enjoy motion on the web. For some users – such as those prone to seizures – it could potentially cause serious health issues. Fortunately, there’s an increasingly well-supported media query we can use: prefers-reduced-motion. This query works in tandem with a user’s OS preferences, allowing us to limit our animations as necessary. For example, imagine we are employing a particularly frenetic animation used to convey a sense of urgency and draw the user to a call to action. Using prefers-reduced-motion we can keep this element static. A few important things to keep in mind: if animated elements are utilising an animation fill mode that defines an ending state, be sure elements are loaded at that end state when targeting motion-sensitive users. If an element relies on animation to move it into viewport position, we'll want to be sure it changes position via a two-frame stepped animation or with an 0s transition. 06. Chain your animations for impact One of the most overlooked capabilities of CSS animation is the option to chain your animations. That is, we can define each animation separately via comma separation, yet run them in tandem. For instance, we can create one animation to rotate our element, a secondary animation to scale its background size, and a tertiary to adjust its opacity to fade in and out. What’s more, we can apply further properties to these animations, such as comma-separated values to control delays, timing functions, durations or even play states. While chained animations can take a good amount of tweaking to sync up all properties in motion, they also offer us a great deal of granular control over how we choose to time and ease each animated property, creating complex motion with far fewer total lines of CSS (or necessary DOM elements). 07. Use will-change to boost performance One excellent property that belongs in every single CSS animator’s toolkit is the little-known but very useful will-change. There used to be a number of hacky methods you could employ to trick the browser into hardware accelerating our animated or transitioned properties – and they kinda, sorta worked. Now, however, we have a dedicated property to tap into; and will-change can lend a needed boost to your animation performance. While there are some generalised default values for will-change out there, typically we will want to define just which property will be updated on which element – such as will-change:transform or, where chaining is necessary, will-change:border-radius, opacity. Simply put, the will-change property tells our browser that these elements – surprise – will change. As a result, performance of these elements will generally be prioritised and hardware accelerated. Let’s will-change all the things! No, no, no – overuse of this property, or prioritising all of your animated or transitioned elements, will place more strain on the hardware than it will offset. So remember, used sparingly and only for animations or transitions that are crucial to the experience you’re building, will-change can provide the boost you need. 08. Animate type with variable fonts Typography has always been tricky to properly animate. Sure, we can animate font size (a property better handled by animating scale) and colour, but with the introduction of variable fonts, we now have a whole new set of animatable options in our toolkit. For the uninitiated, variable fonts contain multiple font variations in a single font file, with potential variations in weight, angles, decorations and more. What’s more, these variations are all animatable in CSS using font-variation-settings. Using this, we are now able to smoothly transition from normal to italic, light to bold, or swashes to swash-less, all with the feel of a morphing SVG – because in many ways that’s exactly what’s happening here. 09. Use variables to keep things consistent A great way to maintain consistency is to use CSS variables or preprocessor variables to define your animation timing. Setting a baseline animation or transition duration without defining a unit (seconds or milliseconds) affords us the flexibility to call this duration within a calc() function. While the duration may vary from our base CSS variable, it will always be a simple modification of this number and maintain a consistent experience. 10. Keep things natural with an arc Again returning to Disney’s 12 Principles of Animation, we see mention of the arc. The arc in question refers to the inherently circular motion in which most natural movements occur. Very rarely in daily life do we observe motion in a straight line. And while it’s easier, and requires fewer keyframes, to animate strictly left-to-right or top-to-bottom, we can offer our users a more relatable experience by keeping this arc in mind while acknowledging that some layouts will ultimately prohibit us from animating our elements around curved paths (often creating interference with other elements). 11. Play it back Sometimes the best way to truly get a feel for how your interface animations are shaping up is to create a screen recording. Seeing how something works is obviously a great way to make sure that your animations are working as you want. So how does the author of this article make sure he is getting what he wants? As a terminal oversharer of CodePen demos, he loves to create screencap GIFs of his animations. Dialing in these GIFs and getting them to loop nicely actually serves another purpose. It allows him to review the animations and diagnose any issues with timing or easing. 12. Think about staggering When working with looping geometric or pattern-based CSS animations, it can often be helpful to stagger our animations using animation delays. This can become problematic if the element has entered the viewport but we’re asking the user to wait for the animation to begin. We can achieve the same type of animation offset using negative delays ensuring the animation timeline is started immediately on page load, with no wait times for the user. This article originally appeared in Web Designer magazine. Explore all of our web design articles here. Read more: The best mindfulness apps to try 6 steps to writing better CSS The best web browsers in 2020 View the full article

Plenty of WordPress themes claim to be easy to use, and for the most part justifiably so. What’s at least as important, and over the long term much more so is how good they are at streamlining your workflow to …View the full article

Creatives all have that long list of things they'd like to work on or achieve. These courses will help you to start 2020 off on the right track and get a head start on your creative objectives for the year. Continue learning, or start a new career and refine your design skills with these comprehensive course bundles. Feeling inspired? To learn more Adobe skills, check out our lists of the best Photoshop tutorials or Illustrator tutorials. 01. The complete 2020 Adobe CC certification bundle RRP: $1800 Buy Now: $39 (97% OFF) With over 60 hours of lectures and 200 tutorials, the new and improved 2020 Complete Adobe CC Training Bundle is the perfect way to get more out of the Adobe CC programs you already use. The nine courses are geared towards all levels of experience, bringing tutorials from beginner to advanced into the mix. Brush up on Photoshop, Lightroom, After Effects, and more with this complete bundle. 02. The ultimate UX/UI designer bundle RRP: $1592 Buy Now: $29 (98% OFF) If designing a responsive and user-friendly website is at the top of your list for 2020, this bundle is for you. With over 35 hours of lectures and more than 200 tutorials, this set of courses is a great way to finesse your web design expertise and create functional websites. The eight-course training focuses on tutorials for frontend development, HTML5 Canvas, and so much more. 03. Pay what you want: Drawing fundamentals bundle RRP: $1496 Buy Now: Pay What You Want (up to 99% OFF) Learn how to draw from professionals without enrolling in art school. This nine-course bundle will walk you through exercises and show you techniques like using coloured ballpoint pens, coloured pencils, pastels, and more. Geared at levels from beginner to advanced, you'll learn how to digitally draw and paint a variety of fantasy art elements with step-by-step instructions. With over 200 lessons, you can come back and visit each tutorial whenever inspiration strikes. 04. The ultimate graphic design bootcamp certification bundle RRP: $925 Buy Now: $29 (96% OFF) Help fast-track your way into a career in graphic design with this comprehensive 150 lesson training bundle. Five courses cover essential techniques for both print and web, and lead you through programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. You'll learn design theory essentials, web design fundamentals, and how to sell your designs as a freelance designer. Get up to speed with the latest tools and create unique logos, graphics, and more. 05. Master SVG animation Using HTML & CSS: Build 8 project RRP: $199 Buy Now: $10 (94% OFF) SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) programming is a top tool needed to code two-dimensional graphics. With 55 lectures and 24/7 access, you'll learn the ins and outs of SVG and gain the ability to design your logos, images, and complex animation. Taught by Kunal Asudani, a seasoned web developer, this lifetime course also includes a certification of completion once the course is finished. 06. The mighty Maya design mastery bundle RRP: $399 Buy Now: $29.99 (92% OFF) Dreaming of starting a career in 3D modeling? Master character modeling, rigging, interior modeling, and more with The mighty Maya design bundle. With 16 courses, this lifetime bundle covers basic to advanced Maya skills, and helps the learner comprehensively grasp the techniques and methods. You'll soon be creating beautiful 3D assets that pop for all kinds of industries. 07. The complete 2020 learn to design certification bundle RRP: $2000 Buy Now: $39 (98% OFF) Learning how to become a designer doesn't have to be extremely expensive or an impossible feat. Learn all things digital design and dive into courses on JavaScript, HTML5, Photoshop, CSS, and more. The 10-course bundle will provide guided instructions on how to use each program and includes hands-on tutorials to put your newly learned skills to the test. You'll even get the opportunity to connect with your instructors and fellow students in course specific online groups. 08. Photoshop master: From beginner to Photoshop pro RRP: $200 Buy Now: $11.99 (94% OFF) If you're specifically interested in developing your Photoshop skills further, this 41-lecture training course is for you. With tutorials straight from the minds of creative professionals, you'll learn the ins and outs of Photoshop, and tips and tricks on using all the tools in the software. You'll dive into a Photoshop portrait retouching course and learn skills such as removing redeye, retouching and more. 09. The ultimate AutoCAD training bundle RRP: $199 Buy Now: $19.99 (89% OFF) Developed for 2D and 3D designing, AutoCAD is quickly becoming a popular software for design and drafting. With access to over 10 hours of content available 24/7, you'll start with the basics and quickly move on to the tools and techniques needed to create innovative 2D and 3D structures. Perfect for all levels of proficiency, you will soon learn how to use AutoCAD effectively to create projects that stand out. 10. Learn photorealistic lighting and editing bundle RRP: $600 Buy Now: $19 (96% OFF) If you're working with imagery from a recent photoshoot but need a bit more guidance on improving the lighting, this bundle will help you edit with ease. With 16 lessons and eight hours of content, you'll gain access to photorealism courses and learn techniques such as lighting an interior daylight photo with V-Ray and tweaking shaders realistically and beautifully. Read more: The best travel laptops right now The top design trends for 2020 The best alternatives to Photoshop View the full article

The best mindfulness apps can help with all manner of mental and physical health problems, and improve overall life quality. In our culture of information overload, many people find they need to make an active effort to manage their stress levels in order to help prevent burnout. From eating enough leafy greens to getting more shut-eye, there are plenty of tactics you can use to keep creative burnout at bay. Mindfulness – a proven method of helping to train your mind to more effectively manage anxiety and stress – is one of several strategies you can use to make yourself more resistant to burnout. And you don't have to go on a course or yoga class in order to benefit from mindfulness, you can get mindfulness apps on your iPad (also check out our iPad apps for designers for apps to help channel your creativity). 7 signs of burnout Studies have shown that as little as 10 minutes of meditation a day can help reduce anxiety and stress, meaning that whether you slot yoga into your lunch break or realign your chakras on your commute home, small bitesize chunks of meditation could help significantly reduce your stress levels. And while your smartphone might be partially to blame for your soaring cortisol to begin with, there are plenty of mindfulness apps available to help you hone your brain waves and keep you cool as a cucumber, no matter what life throws your way. Keep your creative mojo on point by taking steps to manage stress and burnout with these six mindfulness apps. Other apps you might want to check out include the best language learning apps, as well as the 8 most disruptive apps of all time. 01. Waking Up Waking Up aims to help you understand your mind Platform: Android/iOS Price: From free Waking Up is a mindfulness app created by neuroscientist, philosopher, and New York Times best-selling author, Sam Harris. As well as having short practice meditation sessions, where you can learn to sharpen your mind, it also has a section on theory. The theory sessions consist of Harris' rational and insightful musings on topics such as why meditation is useful, gratitude and free will. His soothing tones and logical and rational explanations are ideal for those who are interested in discovering more about their minds, or learning more about how mindfulness can help them. The app is currently free for the first month, and there is then a yearly subscription fee (although Ferris emphasises that those who truly cannot afford it can get a free account). 02. Headspace This design-centric guided meditation app could help you better manage the stresses of daily life Platform: Android/iOS Price: From free This self-proclaimed ‘gym membership for the mind’ is the go-to mindfulness app for creatives and non-creatives alike. A pocket-sized personal meditation coach, Headspace’s commitment to making meditation simple has won it millions of users worldwide. Created by sports-scientist-turned-monk-turned-entrepreneur, Andy Puddicombe, this iconic app makes meditation a breeze with fun, easy-to-digest videos. Dip your toe in the water with the free version or commit for the long-haul with the subscription version. Featuring short, simple meditations in a cute, whimsical style, this iconic, UX-centric app, is a must-try if you want to integrate mindfulness into your day. 03. Calm Pairing picturesque landscapes with tranquil sounds, Calm creates exactly that Platform: Android/iOS Price: From free With a focus on the natural world, Calm is a sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of working life. Chosen as Apple’s App of the Year in 2017, Calm’s serene soundtracks and beautiful location snapshots will help you conjure up a mental ‘safe space’. Featuring music, meditations, masterclasses and sleep-centric exercises, this app is a more nature-focused alternative to Headspace. According to a study by the Center for Humane Technology, Calm is actually the app that leaves users the happiest when rated against other popular downloads. So, take a deep breath, listen to the pitter-patter of rainfall and picture a beautiful sunset in your mind’s eye with the help of Calm. 04. Personal Zen Want to up your inner zen? There’s an app for that Platform: iOS only Price: From free Simple and quirky, Personal Zen is a gamified version of Attention Bias Modification Training (ABMT), which has been shown to help the brain disengage from negative stimuli. Supported by clinical studies, this nifty app redirects your attention towards the positive. Simply trace the path of the friendly sprite through the grass quickly and smoothly – making sure not to let the grumpy sprite divert your focus. If you’re prone to seeing the glass as half empty, this sweet, if somewhat low-fi, app is a breath of fresh air. 05. MindFi Short and sweet, MindFi is meditation for those who struggle to sit still Platform: Android/iOS Price: From free MindFi Founder Bjorn Lee is on a mission to make us more productive. A self-confessed struggling meditator, the app is designed with fidgeters in mind. Whether you want to slot meditation in on your break, commute, or at a meal, this app, which is designed specifically for ‘busy humans’, aims to make it easy to find time for meditation in your hectic schedule. These short exercises, covering everything from deadline blues to mindful typing, will help you find a moment to breathe. 06. Buddhify Platform: Android/iOS Price: From £2.99 Whether you want to get a taste of mindfulness with Meditation 101 or can’t sleep and are looking for some exercises to help you drift off, Buddhify’s colourful meditation wheel makes it simple to pick and choose exercises to suit the situation. Championing people over profit, this husband and wife business has strong values at its heart. Avoiding the subscription model, Buddhify has a one-off cost, meaning it can work out significantly cheaper than some of its subscription-based competitors. If you think of meditation as a bike, then Buddhify is your stabilisers – and the app’s ultimate aim is to make you an app-free independent meditator. Look, no hands! Related articles: 6 ways to get out of your creative rut 6 ways for designers to stay healthy How to protect your mental health at work View the full article

There are plenty of design books out there, such as the classics Don’t Make Me Think or Design of Everyday Things. And there are so many more books that are helpful and insightful for product designers and UX designers alike. …View the full article

Pepsi has given the world some standout advertising moments, with starring roles from everyone from One Direction to Beyoncé. And the classic glossy can with its red and white logo has been centre-stage for all of them. But for this health-conscious era, Pepsi's Zero Sugar has been redesigned and is now prepped to take the spotlight with a brand new can. (For more packaging design wins, see our pick of the best.) The old can (left) was glossy and had extra detail whereas the new design (right) is scaled back Pepsi has ditched the glossy finish usually found on beverage cans, and replaced it with a sleek matte texture. A black rather than a silver tab sits on top of the can (you can glimpse this addition in the product advert below). The font is now bolder, there's no circle in between the 'zero' and 'sugar', and the 'max taste' strapline has been removed from above the logo. Pepsi-lovers in the US will be jumping for joy (perhaps literally, as Pepsi Zero Sugar contains double the caffeine of normal Pepsi) as they can find the new design on shelves near them, right now. The new product design was released alongside a smart advertising campaign that promised US Superbowl fans a free Pepsi Zero Sugar if either team ended up with a score that ended in zero. The move should put the product in the minds of around 100 million viewers come 2 February – at a cost of about 250 million dollars to Pepsi, if everyone takes up the offer. We should add a disclaimer that it's only the US audience that will be able to sample the results of this rebrand. In the UK we are still enjoying Pepsi's no sugar option as Pepsi MAX, which remains housed in its usual shiny black can. According to Todd Kaplan, vice president of marketing at Pepsi, the brand is going "all in" on Pepsi Zero Sugar this year, which is no surprise given the revolt against high-sugar food and drink that seems to be increasing each year. “At Pepsi, we are always looking for new ways to meet the evolving preferences of our consumers, and we know that people increasingly are looking for sugar-free options,” says Kaplan. "We've learned that once people discover the great taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar, they can’t get enough of it and keep going back for more," he continues. "We... have created a bold, unapologetic new look to match its great taste, with a new matte black can and a black tab that will stand out anywhere." We're not quite sure what an "unapologetic look" is, but we like the look of the the new can, which is super-minimalistic, and we bet it has a great hand-feel with the matte texture. Rebrands have been trending towards the minimalistic lately, and it's also not the first time matte black has been embraced this year, with designers going wild for this UNO concept design. We wonder which brands will be next to scale things back. Read more: Can you identify the brand from these ultra-minimalist logos? 10 best logos of all time Are trends any good for branding? View the full article

Today Netflix announced that it has acquired the exclusive rights to 21 Studio Ghibli films. From next month, a range of classics from the iconic Japanese animation studio will become available to stream, in all regions except for the US, Canada and Japan. The catalogue of films joining Netflix includes much-loved classics such as Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro and Howl’s Moving Castle. It's huge news for Ghibli fans in the UK and Europe. In the US, it has been announced that HBO Max has the streaming rights to the Studio Ghibli catalogue – but you'll need to wait until May 2020 for the service to go live. If that doesn't appeal, or you're in one of the other regions excluded from the additions, you might want to take look at our roundup of the best VPNs, which will help you access foreign Netflix catalogues. These are the Ghibli movies coming to Netflix from 1 March 1: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) Princess Mononoke (1997) My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999) Spirited Away (2001) The Cat Returns (2002) Arrietty (2010) The Tale of The Princess Kaguya (2013) From 1 April, the following will be added to the collection: Pom Poko (1994) Whisper of the Heart (1995) Howl's Moving Castle (2004) Ponyo (2008) From Up on Poppy Hill (2011) The Wind Rises (2013) When Marnie Was There (2014) The announcement marks a shift in approach from Studio Ghibli. Until recently, it refused to offer its films in any digital format. That changed last month when the studio started selling downloadable copies, shortly before the announcement that HBO Max would be offering Ghibli movies to US fans. For more inspirational binging, explore our pick of the best Netflix documentaries for designers. Read more: 10 boxsets every designer should watch Hilarious parody posters reveal the truth behind Oscar-nominated movies The best pencils for colouring, drawing and sketching View the full article

Blue Monday is said to be the most depressing day of the year. The combination of the gloom of winter and the post-Christmas lull means that many find this day particularly difficult. However, your mental health is something that you need to look after throughout the entire year. Work stress is one thing that can lead to feeling low around Blue Monday, or in general. And if you're not careful, feeling stressed at work can easily escalate into something worse. Work and stress can lead to depression, anxiety and a host of mental and physical illnesses. Sometimes, we get so caught up trying to build the perfect website layout, create the ideal design portfolio or try out all the latest web design tools that we forget to take a step back and consider the impact all those extra hours working might have on our wellbeing. And even if all the hype around Blue Monday irritates you, then remember that if you can use this day as a catalyst to check in with yourself and think about how you're doing, then that can only be a good thing. Three years ago, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, and stress may well have been one of the contributing factors. After being in and out of hospital while trying to establish my career, I have learnt some painful lessons on how to manage stress. Here's my advice for 10 things you can do to protect your health and wellbeing at work. 01. Open up First of all, the best thing to do is start talking. If you’re comfortable doing so, open up to your family, friends and colleagues. These are likely to be the people you spend most of your time with, so it’ll be helpful for them to understand what you’re going through. My partner and I talked about my illness regularly and it helped us get through it together. It may feel difficult to talk about (even with people you're close to), but remember you're not alone – in many cases there will be many, many others suffering from the same thing you are. 02. Prioritise sleep Don't sacrifice sleep for work Exhaustion is one of the main issues affecting professionals in the creative industries. While the occasional midnight flurry of coding isn’t going to kill you, don’t make it a habit. Always think: What’s the worst that’s going to happen while I have a few hours of sleep? Your health is more important than an extra line of code. 03. Rethink your downtime Ensure you take some time to unwind. And by that, I don't mean just on your phone or in front of the TV (we’re all guilty of spending a bit too much time doing these things). Getting a good night’s sleep not only helps keep you healthy and well rested, it can also help you deal with stress. Simple tasks like keeping on top of bills, mowing the grass or fixing that leaking tap can also improve your wellbeing. 04. Focus on one thing at a time Don’t feel like you have to tackle everything in one go; prioritise items that will make a difference to your life and your career. It’s better to do half of your tasks and do them well than to half-complete everything. Personally, I have been focusing on finding medication to keep my disease under control. Now I’m on something that works, I can turn my attention to my career. 05. Remember you’re not invincible Discuss your illness with the person or team that deals with your welfare at work. If you need time off for your mental or physical health, then take it. There’s no shame in illness. Returning to work after an illness could mean that you encourage positive policy changes within your company. It also places you in a position to help establish new support networks and create a safe place for health-related discussions. 06. Take a break Get outside on your lunch break if you can Often in our industry, going the extra mile all the time is seen as important. It isn’t. Most of the time, putting in more hours causes more problems than it solves. Instead of working flat out, learn a new skill, take a stroll around your local park during your lunch break or help someone else. This will improve your creativity, productivity and help you get your tasks done more efficiently. If you find that you're sitting at your desk for hours on end, you could also try these desk exercises. 07. Calm down your commute Whether it's because of ridiculous traffic or delayed public transport, getting to work can often be quite stressful. But it doesn’t have to be. Often there’s no avoiding a commute, so make the time yours by listening to a playlist of your favourite songs, a podcast that inspires you, or reading a book you love. Use the time to prepare yourself for the day ahead or unwind as you travel home. You could also try a mindfulness app. 08. Monitor your stress levels Take a note of the situations that cause stress and how you react to them. Some people recommend keeping a stress diary, but not everybody has the time or commitment to do that. The main thing is to just be aware of what makes you stressed and how to turn the negative into something more manageable. Self-awareness is key. 09. Don't let illnesses define you One of the toughest things for me was understanding that my illness is for life. When I was first told about it, I didn’t understand what the consequences were and how much of an impact it would have. Now I have taken a new view on my colitis: it won’t change me. I decided that my colitis won’t prevent me from achieving my goals and it won’t limit my ambitions. The only restrictions my illness gives me are the ones I put upon myself. 10. Don't neglect your wellbeing If you focus on your health first, your career will follow. If you don’t feel well, your work isn’t going to be on top form either. Putting in ridiculous hours or working every weekend isn’t critical to success. The key is to prioritise your illness and focus on things that will positively impact you and your career. This is an edited version of an article originally published in net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Subscribe to net. Read more: The best standing desks in 2019 Discover the unknown stories behind everyday icons How web design can affect your health (and what to do about it) View the full article

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Are publicly-released PoC exploits good or bad? Why is the Joker malware giving Google a headache? The Threatpost team discusses all this and more in this week's news wrap. View the full article

Government regulations in the UK mean that websites and apps in the public sector must now be accessible to everyone. In the digital age, mobile apps have become a widely popular platform for businesses to connect with their customers. Whether this is via a business, educational or entertainment app, the platform allows a more convenient, on-the-go approach in comparison to the likes of a website. Check out our free accessibility tool post for some quick and easy solutions. Making your app accessible means you must consider the range of challenges a customer may face, ensuring that as many people as possible can use it. This includes those with impaired vision, motor difficulties, cognitive or learning difficulties, as well as deafness or impaired hearing. Designing an accessible app means much more than simply making the design clearer. You must design an app that is adaptable to those throughout the spectrum and support those who need the app’s extra, accessible functions. Here we will be discussing six factors organisations need to consider when designing an app, making sure it can be accessed by everyone. 01. Create a simple, clear layout The initial step is to ensure you have a simple layout. A cluttered design may overwhelm a user who then might give up on your app before they have even properly begun to explore it. Elements must be visible to those who may need to magnify the screen, so your design must be responsive and adapt to various screen sizes. Text and call-to-action buttons must also appear at an appropriate size, with the option to enlarge. 02. Design a consistent navigation You must design an easy-to-follow app with clear indicators. Navigation should have short task flows and be easy to find, as well as consistent throughout the different stages of using the app. Again, this is especially important with your call-to-action buttons. They must be clearly labelled, to smoothly guide users through your app’s goal conversion. Navigation pointers – for instance, menu bars and search boxes – should also be consistently positioned in a similar format throughout your app. This will enable users to quickly and easily explore your app in a logical order with no confusion. 03. Consider your text formatting Text is another element that must be carefully thought out. Dyslexia can affect a person’s accuracy of reading, so you must really think about the structure of copy used on your app. Uneven spacing, long sentences or paragraphs, italic fonts and the colour of text are just some design features you need to consider. Over-formatted text can be difficult for dyslexic users to read, as well as those with impaired vision, so make sure you keep your formatting simple and consistent throughout your design. Adding accessibility ensures that everyone can use your website or app 04. Make audio and video accessible Creating an app that is interactive as well as accessible can be seen as a challenge, though creating a tick list of things you must consider will mean you can include media communications, for instance video and audio, where appropriate. When incorporating these elements, users should be able to pause or stop, adjust volume and turn captions on and off. You may also need to consider adding audio description for users with visual impairments and subtitles and sign language for those who may be deaf. If relevant, video and audio has the ability to transform any app, though if you feel it may cause accessibility concerns or be an added but unneeded extra, be sure to explore other creative options that can also add an interactive element. 05. Give careful consideration to colour Colour palettes are a top priority when designing any app, as most businesses associate certain colours with their branding. To make your app accessible to colour-blind users, it’s important to not fall in the design trap of solely relying on colour to communicate your message. This doesn’t mean avoiding using colour at all. As already mentioned, colour can reflect a brand, so you just need to make sure that elements of your app are not purely identified based on colour. Your palette should also be carefully selected so that users can fully interpret the information displayed. 06. Don't forget to test Following accessibility guidelines is always a good starting point but treating the development as a tick box challenge will not guarantee success. There are many methods to approach the testing phase, for instance engaging with real users at random and asking them to test elements of your app or using digital tools that can offer detailed assistance on screen reading. Designing an app is a great opportunity for creative minds to develop a strong platform for any business. Making it accessible should not be a constraint; it will enable you to create a positive brand image that can associate with everyone. This article was originally published in issue 325 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 325 or subscribe to net. Join us in April 2020 with our lineup of JavaScript superstars at GenerateJS – the conference helping you build better JavaScript. Book now at Read more: 10 best design apps for Windows 20 best drawing apps for iPad How to create accessible web forms View the full article