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Black Friday's still the best part of a month away, but retailers are starting to get itchy feet. With so much competition for your spending money, many stores have realised that they can't depend so much on making their traditionally massive sales over the Black Friday weekend, and they're shunting their deals out earlier and earlier to beat the rush. What that means is that the bargains are going to be arriving thick and fast over the next few weeks, and here's one that's hard to ignore if you're after the best Black Friday MacBook deals: up to 10 per cent off a brand new MacBook Air at Amazon, Currys and John Lewis. The best cheap Apple laptop deals in 2019 This is the shiny new 2019 model that's only just gone on sale, so being able to grab a deal this sweet is particularly unexpected. The best saving to be had is on the 13.3-inch model with a Core i5, 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD in Space Grey – that's currently available for £985, getting you 10 per cent off the usual retail price of £1,099. There are smaller discounts to be had on the Silver and Gold models, but unless you're especially dead set on a particular colour we reckon Space Grey's the way to go. If you need more storage, there are also discounts available on the 256GB SSD model; if you opt for the Gold version you can have it for £1,199, saving £100.33 – that's 8 per cent off the RRP of £1,299. If you want Space Grey you'll only save 5 per cent, and only at Amazon, while the Silver model can be had for £1,229 at all three stores. For anyone after a lightweight laptop that's perfect for most design jobs, the MacBook Air's a pretty good choice. It might not have the punch of the MacBook Pro, and with 8GB of RAM you're likely to see heavyweight apps struggle at times, but for day-to-day creative work it'll see you right, and it's wonderfully portable, weighing in at just 1.25kg, and 15.6mm thick. We're not sure how long these MacBook Air deals will last – Amazon was reporting limited numbers on the 256GB model in Gold last time we looked – so we'd advise snapping these up if you have a hankering for an early Apple bargain this year. And check below for other MacBook Air deals. Related articles: Why we're unexpectedly excited about Apple's AirPods Pro Surface Laptop 3: The MacBook Air killer? The 100 greatest Apple creations View the full article

PSD to 3D, the latest plugin released by e.d. films, aims to bypass the 3D modelling phase of production and help artists with little to no 3D experience turn their Photoshop CC sketches into mouldable, animation-ready scenes and characters. "An illustrated look is hard to replicate in 3D, even if you know the software," says Daniel Gies, art and tech director at e.d. films. "With PSD to 3D, every line and brush stroke is passed onto the 3D meshes, so artists can bring a unique look to their animations." The best 3D modelling software 2019 The tool was produced in-house at e.d. films' Montreal studio, an establishment that has actively avoided fully 3D productions and characters in favour of capturing an illustrative, handmade style. "As our projects became more ambitious, we found that After Effects could no longer support the style we were doing without slowing us down," Gies continues. As the studio began incorporating Maya and game engine technology into their work, they had to resist the urge to fully embrace 3D, doing so would increase their workload and necessitate a higher level of expertise than they had. "We found that, in many cases, it was faster just to paint a new 2D asset, bring it into Maya and deform it a little, than it was to make a fully 3D prop," adds Gies. PSD to 3D can convert a layered painting into a 3D landscape Although PSD to 3D's conversion technology is production-grade, it is designed to be simple enough for a novice to start converting Photoshop drawings and paintings into 3D art within mere minutes. "We've been working with Maya for over 15 years and recognise how daunting that program can be," says Gies. "We also see where other programs, like After Effects, have done a really good job at being accessible to Photoshop users by making the entry point really easy. This became an important reference point for us." e.d. films ultimately landed on a two-tier approach, one method was to automate the process, meaning a Photoshop artist could export their painting and have the whole thing modelled and textured in Maya within a few minutes. This approach, however, was deemed limiting for more advanced users. It can also turn flat characters into solid-looking 3D models "We added another export method that would enable a Photoshop artist to create the exact geometry they want," Gies explains, "by using the Pen tool they can draw a mesh in Photoshop that will then be regenerated in Maya, point for point." Not only have Gies and the team delivered a tool for quickly creating meshes for 3D geometry, they've presented users with a new way to learn Maya. "There is so much coming up at the studio in the next two years," says Gies, looking towards the future of e.d. films. First up is a short entitled Giant Bear, which premiered at Annecy 2019. "We're wrapping up another internal short film that is actually using PSD to 3D and a bunch of our store assets extensively," adds Gies. The studio also has a roadmap for the next PSD to 3D release, which will include OSX support, more robust mesh generation options, faster import, better texture management and interactive mesh tweaking that won't stretch UVs. PSD to 3D is available from the e.d. films shop in both Pro and Lite versions. This article was originally published in issue 134 of 3D Artist. Buy issue 134. Related articles: 9 of the best free 3D apps 3D art: 28 amazing examples to inspire you 10 ways to build better 3D world environments View the full article

There was a time when, if you wanted to do professional work on a Windows PC, then Adobe's design apps were the only game in town. In the 2010s, however, all that started to change, with rival software companies upping their game. But Adobe, in turn, hasn't taken this lying down; fighting back with both new features and brand new design apps. In this post, we select – in no particular order – what we consider the best design apps for Windows on the market today, and explain how to choose between them. 01. Adobe Photoshop CC Like it or not, Photoshop remains the industry standard First launched in February 1990, Photoshop is the grand old warhorse of the design industry. Although it was originally focused on image editing, it’s grown over the years into a sophisticated tool for graphic design in general. Now in 2019, its longevity is both a blessing and a curse. Dominating the profession for the last three decades, Photoshop is undeniably the go-to software for design studios, and you'll struggle get a job without knowing how to use it. If you’re a freelancer, of course, you have more scope for using other tools in your day to day, but it will probably be difficult to avoid it altogether. Beyond that, though, is it any good? Well, you don’t stay on top in an ever-expanding industry for nothing, and Adobe has made strident efforts to update its tool to keep it relevant over the years, recently adding powerful 3D modelling and 3D printing capabilities, for example. It’s also been made faster and more efficient in operation, and perhaps most significantly, the latest version contains small but important tweaks to speed up your workflow. To take one example, you are now able to undo multiple times simply by pressing Ctrl+Z, which might not sound revolutionary, but actually saves a lot of time in practice. The main reason to consider an alternative is price. Photoshop, like other Adobe tools including numbers 2 and 6 on our list, is now only available as part of a Creative Cloud subscription, and those monthly amounts can really add up. Having said that, there are discounts to be had (check out the latest deals here), and if you’re using multiple CC tools, then the interoperability between them, and other services like Adobe Fonts and Adobe Stock, can often make the extra cost worth it in terms of reducing work time and stress. 02. Adobe Illustrator CC Illustrator has been enhanced and improved across the decade in response to its rising rivals First launched in 1987, Illustrator has been the natural companion to Photoshop for generations of illustrators and graphic designers, and it’s long been considered the standard vector drawing tool for the industry. That dominance has started to fray quite a bit in recent years, though, with a rush of new rivals into the space. As with Photoshop, this has been largely about price, and for those whom money is less important than efficiency, Illustrator remains a hugely powerful and versatile tool, that Adobe is constantly making efforts to improve further. The latest version, for example, comes with a Freeform Gradients tool that makes it super-easy to create rich gradients, and a Global Editing feature that lets you simultaneously make changes across all instances of a similar object. There’s also a smart cropping tool that automatically suggests crops based on AI, and the ability to customise your toolbar. More broadly, the same issues that apply to Photoshop apply to Illustrator too. On the plus side, its industry ubiquity makes it a good tool to learn for your career, and the integration with the Creative Cloud as a whole can help make your workflow smooth and speedy. On the downside, well, there’s that monthly subscription. 03. Affinity Designer Cheap and subscription-free, Affinity Designer is giving Adobe a run for its money For most of Illustrator and Photoshop’s life, its rivals have been low-cost and low quality. For designers who didn’t need all that much power, and just wanted to do some simple tasks, there were many alternatives... but none ever came close to offering the breadth and depth of what Adobe’s software could offer. In the 2010s, however, that all changed. First, in 2010, came Sketch, a sophisticated vector graphics editor that wasn’t just cheaper, it was actually free. It was, however, purely aimed at digital design rather than print, and only available for Mac. Then in 2014 came Affinity Designer, a vector graphics tool that was fast, powerful and intuitive, and as useful for print design as it was digital. Just one problem: this one was also Mac-only. Finally, in November 2016, Affinity Designer was released for Windows. Now PC users at last had a decent alternative to Illustrator, which included a complete vector and pixel editing toolset, 10 million percent zoom, non-destructive effects and adjustment layers, and more. While some capabilities in Illustrator are missing, such as object warping, the majority of what you can do in Adobe’s tool, you can do in Affinity Designer. And to anyone who’s used Illustrator in the past, the Affinity Designer interface is similar enough that it’s easy to pick up and use intuitively. Coded for the latest chipsets, makers Serif claim that Affinity Designer runs faster than Adobe’s products, and many designers have told us that’s the case, although obviously this depends on the equipment you’re using. Affinity Designer is also staggeringly cheap, and you only pay once: there’s no subscription fee. That said, Illustrator remains the industry standard, and so there’s somewhat of a chicken-and-egg problem; most studios don’t want to use it until most studios are using it. Also, while Affinity Designer is interoperable with sister tools Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher (see below), there’s not yet anything approaching the complexity of the Creative Cloud ecosystem, with its endless number of tools, and integrated Adobe Fonts and Adobe Stock options. For freelancers who have more freedom to organise how they work, though, Affinity Designer certainly worth considering, especially as you can import and export .ai files when necessary. Read our review of Affinity Designer. 04. Affinity Photo Affinity Photo doesn't quite match Photoshop yet, but it's getting there Just as Affinity Designer rivals Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Photo provides an alternative to Photoshop. And it’s a pretty familiar experience. Brushes, layers, masks, for example are all treated in the same way as in Adobe’s tool. Affinity Photo is not, however, a carbon copy by any means. There are some big differences with the interface, and there are many tools and features you’ll find in Photoshop than are absent here. What that means in practice will depend on what you’d use Photoshop for in your day-to-day work, In this short video from Jigsaw 24, Simon walks through some of the different ways the two tools stack up against each other. His verdict is that it’s not quite as fully formed (yet) as Photoshop, and that seems to be the general consensus across the industry too. If you’re new to graphic design tools and have never used Photoshop in the first place, though, Affinity Photo's low price makes it a good choice. And even if you’re a regular Photoshop user, you may find Affinity Photo does all that you need: so why not take out a 10-day free trial to find out? 05. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019 CorelDRAW continues to chart a third way between Adobe and Affinity First launched in 1987, CorelDRAW is a vector-based illustration tool that’s mainly focused on Windows (although in 2019 it did finally launch on MacOS). It’s difficult to recommend it over Adobe Illustrator for features, while Affinity Designer easily beats it on value for money. But CorelDRAW continues to be popular amongst everyone from artists to graphic designers, so its makers are clearly doing something right. In recent years, its standout improvement has been the LiveSketch tool: an innovative line drawing solution for designers and illustrators who want to bypass producing thumbnails on paper and freely sketch-out vector art at the source; this is particularly useful on a drawing tablet. Other cool features in CorelDRAW include Colour Harmony, which lets you change the look of an object from one group of complementary colours to another; Pointiliser, which lets you create vector mosaics; and the way that every layer is represented with a thumbnail representation of the shape in question. 06. Adobe InDesign InDesign dominates print publishing, and has some nice digital publishing features too Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator were pioneers in their respective fields of image editing and vector graphics. But when InDesign arrived on the scene in 1999, it was somewhat late to the party. The market for desktop publishing software at that time was dominated by QuarkXpress. But InDesign quickly took over, largely because of its lower price. For two decades now, InDesign has been the undisputed king of print publishing, and has evolved over the years to include some pretty nifty digital publishing features too. The main recent innovations have been small but important ones, such as support for endnotes and better font filtering, as well as better integration with the Creative Cloud. But on the whole, Adobe has avoided too much radical change. Which is actually smart, because one of the biggest appeals of InDesign is its familiarity to designers who’ve been using it for years, if not their entire careers. 07. Affinity Publisher Affinity Publisher is the (very) new kid on the publishing block Launched last year, Affinity Publisher is a low-priced alternative to InDesign, and the sister app to Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo. This relatively young tool enables you to work with dynamic photo frames, tables, baseline grids and linked resources, all backed up with end-to-end CMYK, and headline features include advanced typography options, linked text frames, master pages, and facing page spreads. The focus is very much on print publishing, and this isn’t a particular useful for digital design, not yet anyway. Nor is it as powerful or feature-rich as InDesign. But it’s nicely integrated with the other two Affinity apps, it’s cheap, and it’s nicely intuitive and responsive in use. 08. Adobe XD Adobe's response to Sketch is free to download As we mentioned earlier, the launch of Sketch has been the biggest challenge to Adobe’s dominance in this decade, and it was inevitable that they would develop a competitor. That eventually became Adobe XD, which launched in 2016, and remains to this day delightfully free. Dedicated to making it easy for designers to prototype apps and websites, XD was a powerful tool on launch, and Adobe has continued to add newer and better features on a regular basis. Which is good news for Windows users, because not only has Sketch not developed a Windows version, it's specifically ruled out doing so. The next lot of improvements to XD will focus on co-editing capabilities, which means a whole team of designers will be able to work together on a document at the same time, and making it easier to create design systems. 09. Photoshop Elements Photoshop Elements is a lighter and cheaper version of the main Photoshop software Like Photoshop, but don’t need all the features and want to save some money? Photoshop Elements is a raster graphics editor for entry-level photographers, image editors and hobbyists which contains most of the features of the professional version but with fewer and simpler options. Photoshop Elements is still about twice as expensive as Affinity Photo, so we’d suggest you take out a free 10-day trial of the latter first before committing. But if you’re really familiar with the Photoshop interface and don’t want to mess around learning something new, it may well be worth the money. Read our review of Photoshop Elements. 10. Inkscape Inkscape is free, open source and surprisingly powerful If you’re in the market for a free graphic design tool for Windows, then don’t overlook Inkscape. This open source vector editor comes with a surprisingly advanced feature set, including complex path operations, node editing, bitmap tracing and path-based text. The main downside of Inkscape, and the reason you might prefer to pay for a more sophisticated tool instead, is the speed of its operation, which is relatively slow and clunky. As always, though, that depends on the equipment you have. If you’re using a super-speedy machine, you might find it’s not a problem, and the fact it’s free means it’s certainly worth giving it a go. Read more: The best video editing apps in 2019 9 of the best free 3D apps The best photo apps and photo editing software View the full article

So you’ve got an iPad, and filled it up with some lovely apps, now all you need is an Apple Pencil. You might think you can live without one, but we're here to tell you why you'd be missing out without one. Before you starting looking for an Apple Pencil, especially if you're looking to nab an Apple Pencil Black Friday deal ahead of the big day, you need to make sure that your iPad is compatible. There are two styluses on the market, imaginatively titled the Apple Pencil 1 and Apple Pencil 2. If you own an iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation) or iPad Pro 11-inch then its the Apple Pencil 2 for you. If you own any other iPad, the Apple Pencil 1 is what you need. So how much do they cost? The original Apple Pencil (released in November 2015) from the Apple Store has an RRP of $99/£89, while the Apple Pencil 2 (released in November 2018) will cost you $129/£119. So what can the best iPad apps and the slim white design beauty do for you? Here are four reasons why you should get one. 01. It's the perfect partner for drawing If you’re an artist or illustrator, then the Apple Pencil is for you. It offers a smooth natural experience that recreates the smooth flow of a brush or pencil. The low latency means that there is no lag between the movement of the pencil and what appears on screen. Plus, the pressure sensitive tip gives greater control on how strokes appear on screen. You can create realistic, subtle shading and produce a wide range of smart-looking artistic effects. There's no need for a rubber, simply experiment, practise and play with your styles and tools. Quickly switch tools with a double tap and delete whatever you don’t like with the eraser. And you won't waste any paper. 02. It's much more precise than a finger The fine point of the Apple Pencil gives you greater control over all your interactions with the UI. Sometimes a finger is just a little too big to accurately tap or select what you want on screen. Who wants to zoom in every time you need to pinpoint what you need? The Pencil is great for highlighting text in an article, something that is really frustrating with a finger. It also enables you to get fine control over sliders in the settings of your favourite app and navigate more precisely on the web, meaning you're less likely to miss links or buttons. 03. Get more from design apps The right apps make the the Apple Pencil even more powerful and useful. There is a plethora of apps that complement the stylus and give it a real purpose. See our best iPad apps for designers that make the most of the Apple Pencil for a full list. For example, if you want to turn your iPad into a graphics tablet, you could try the Astropad app. If you’re an artist, designer or illustrator, you can get your hands on Affinity Designer for iPad, the ever-popular Procreate software and as you would expect a host of Adobe tools, including the new Adobe Fresco (read our Adobe Fresco review here). If you're looking to build 3D models then try Shapr 3D or even uMake for more casual 3D design. 04. Write, sign and annotate documents The Apple Pencil is not all about the creative, it has plenty to offer on the business side of things. Imagine you are sitting in a meeting and need to take notes and create drafts. You can quickly scribble down notes, highlight keys areas and circle critical information, and all without killing a forest. If you need to sign a digital document then the Apple Pencil is also useful. You can add an extra level of security to a digital signature by recreating your unique signature just like when you sign with pen and paper. Got a document that needs more information? It might be time to call upon the Pencil to quickly add annotations and markup ready to share with your colleagues. If you're convinced you need an Apple Pencil, see today's best deals on an Apple Pencil 1 and 2 below. View the full article

Why use a circle in your logo? There are many potential reasons. A satisfyingly pure and simple geometric shape, circles are found everywhere in nature and in our skies, from the moon to the sun, and can often convey a sense of calm, harmony and trustworthy. They can also be used to echo the physical properties of a product, in a minimal, 2D way. Or they can be a great framing device for letters, text or icons. In this post, we point to some famous examples of circular logos, and explain how they came into being. 01. Pepsi The 2008 redesign of the Pepsi logo gave the stripes an upward flow, resembling a smile Coke may be the world's number one soft drink, but Pepsi has done pretty well over the years too. And its simple, classic, circular logo is nothing short of iconic. First launched in 1893 as "Brad's Drink", in 1903 the beverage - originally marketed as a digestive aid - became Pepsi-Cola. Its logo was initially based on script lettering, but then in 1940, the CEO decided to put this wordmark on top of the bottle cap, along with distinctive red, white and blue colouring. By adding wavy stripes that resembled a flag, to show support for the troops in the Second World War, he unwittingly created what would become the default Pepsi logo. A picture of the bottle cap itself was incorporated in the logo design in 1972, which then morphed into a pure geometric circle in the 1973 version. The Pepsi logo has remained pretty consistent ever since, most recently being redesigned in 2008 to give it a "smiley" appearance, as shown above. 02. LG LG incorporates a (sort of) hidden smiley in its logo When Lak Hui (pronounced 'Lucky') Chemical Industrial Corp merged with Goldstar Electronics in 1983, the Korean conglomerate Lucky-Goldstar, aka LG, was born. Created in 1995, its circular logo punches well about its weight to this day. Combining the letters LG - both the name of the company and the abbreviation of its slogan "Life's Good" - in a way that resembles a winking, happy face, the design also feels like a button you might expect to see on an electronic devices. That's a lot of different boxes to tick, and overly clever logos like this can often be off-putting. But somehow, in the case of LG's logo, it all works together in perfect harmony. Few things in life more likely to generate an emotional reaction than a smiling face, even if you don't subconsciously register it. So it's not surprising this sleek logo has stood the test of time. 03. HP HP's logo is instantly recognisably, warmly familiar, and nicely scalable Another electronics company making great use of a circular logo, HP Inc. was founded when the personal computer and printer arm of Hewlett-Packard split off in 2015 to form a separate company. HP's circular logo dates back to 1946, when it was first created to represent Hewlett-Packard as a simple line drawing. In later redesigns (1979 and 1999), the circle was enclosed in a rectangular box with curved corners, before returning to a purely circular design in 2008. HP Inc. also released a radically minimalist logo in 2016 for its premium products only. But although it's a nice gimmick, we can't ever see this logo taking over the main one, because the traditional circular logo just seems so warm and familiar, not to mention infinitely scalable, whatever your screen size. 04. Nivea The circular nature of the Nivea logo provokes a sense of nostalgia for its iconic tins Founded in 1882 by the pharmacist Carl Paul Beiersdorf, NIVEA is a global skin- and body-care brand based in Germany. Its best-known product, Nivea Crème, was first packaged in the distinctive blue tin in 1925, and since a 2013 redesign, the logo has been encircled a circle that reflects the shape of these iconic tins. It turned out to be a very smart move: the circular logo both looks great and evokes a sense of nostalgia in people who've been using Nivea throughout their lives. 05. USA Today Wolff Olins's rebrand of USA Today's logo causes much controversy Wolff Olins caused controversy with its 2012 rebrand of USA Today, by stepping away from the traditional approach to newspaper design. The core of rebrand was based around a large, flat-colour blue circle; a super-minimal rendition of the previous globe graphic. This was well in keeping with the app-driven trend throughout the 2010s to flatten, simplify and minimalise logos and visual identities. But at the time, the new look drew tremendous ire from readers more accustomed to fussy and ornate typographical treatments in their newspaper mastheads. In retrospect, though, the circular logo holds up well seven years on. As well as making the brand look modern and up-to-date, it's also versatile, with the circle acting as a container device for content, and appearing in different colours to identify various sections of the paper. 06. Target The US retailer's logo is right on target If simplicity is the goal in logo design, then you can't get a much more successful circular logo than Target's. The US retail brand's name is reflected perfectly in the bullseye-style graphic, and it tells a subconscious story to consumers too; that this store is perfectly targeted towards your shopping needs. This deceptively sophisticated logo was first created in 1962, streamlined in 2006 and is now one of the most recognised symbols in North America, whether it appears with or without its accompanying wordmark. 07. BMW No, it's not an airplane propeller, but it's still very cool Just as the Pepsi logo was inspired by bottle caps, and Nivea's by its tins, the famed BMW logo is said to have been inspired by an aeroplane propeller. That's because the car company began life as an aircraft engine manufacturer, which produced aircraft engines for the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe. It's a lovely story, but as we revealed in this post, it's sadly not true. The fact that the circle is divided into quarters is to reflect the Bavarian flag. That doesn't stop it being one of the world's most recognisable and loved logos, of course. So much so, we could ultimately see the brand dropping the letters altogether, as it would still be easily recognisable. 08. Pinterest Pinterest's icon shows exactly what the platform is about Launched in 2010, Pinterest became one of the internet's biggest brands, by serving as a virtual pinboard for people's favourite images. It wasn't the easiest concept to convey visually, so the platform struck gold with their logo, based around a 'P' icon – which transforms the first letter of its name into a pin. Combined with the phrase 'Pin it', this emblem makes it instantly clear what it is you're supposed to do, and it's not surprising it's remained largely unchanged since. (The 2017 redesign made the lettering more business-like but left the emblem well alone.) 09. Starbucks The Starbucks logo is instantly recognisable ever Founded in Seattle in 1971, Starbuck's went on to populate the world with its high-priced coffee shops. Why would people agree to pay above the odds for a drink they could get cheaper elsewhere? There are a lot of factors, but one of them is branding, and the logo is an important part of that. Because the company was named after Captain Ahab's first mate in Moby Dick, the original logo design was based a 16th-century Norse woodcut of a two-tailed mermaid. The design has been through many changes since then, but its essence remains, and it's become so recognisable that the need for words like 'Starbucks' and 'coffee' has melted away; nowadays the emblem alone can do all that work and more. 10. Beats by Dr Dre The Beats by Dr Dre logo contains a hidden symbol The world’s hippest headphone brand, the logo for Beats by Dr Dre is the most modern on our list, and yet another example of how circles can be used to signify the product itself. Produced in collaboration with California's Ammunition, the logo encases the 'b' inside a circle, creating a "hidden symbol": the head of a person (the red circle) wearing one of the headphones (the white ‘b’). If you notice the trick, then it makes you smile. If you don't, you haven't lose anything; it still works as a great logo all the same. View the full article

Ahead of the upcoming Day of the Dead celebrations, the streets of a neighbourhood in Mexico City have been disrupted by giant skeleton sculptures that appear to be emerging from the tarmac. Photos of the impressive sculptures, which have sprung up in Tláhuac, quickly went viral on social media due to their striking appearance. Thanks to the rubble surrounding their limbs they really look like they're bursting out of the ground. And while they're not quite as convincing as our roundup of mind-bending trompe l'oeil illusions, they'll certainly turn the heads of passers by. We particularly like how the sculptures, which were built by a group of local artists, are made out of cardboard and rocks salvaged from a construction site. The Day of the Dead festivities begin on 31 October and end on 2 November, and traditionally the event is an opportunity for Mexicans to celebrate the lives of the departed. As well as these impressive sculptures, people have also been getting ready for the occasion by dressing up as La Calavera Catrina. This elegant skeleton woman was originally drawn by Mexican cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada in 1912 and has come to personify the Day of the Dead. Related articles: 13 fearsome free fonts for Halloween Halloween doodles: the best spooky Google Doodles 10 creepy Halloween wallpapers View the full article

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just weeks away now, the major retail event is very much on the minds of both buyers and sellers alike. Knowing the best way to approach Black Friday, from either perspective can be tricky, but looking back previous years' consumer online shopping trends can offer some invaluable insight. Today Adobe has released its Black Friday and Christmas spending predictions. The information the report contains was gathered by leveraging Adobe Sensei, its AI and machine learning technology, to identify retail insights from one trillion visits to US retail sites, and by using Adobe Analytics data to measure transactions at 80 of the top 100 retailers in the US. The 41-page report is packed full of must-know holiday shopping insight that both consumers and retailers can use to their advantage. Here we break down the report to reveal even more ways to help you make the most of the upcoming holiday shopping season. And don't forget we've also got a number of dedicated articles to help you find the deal you're looking for, including the best Adobe Black Friday, Apple Black Friday and Surface Pro Black Friday. 01. Shorter holiday season means earlier deals The 2019 holiday shopping season is the shortest ever, with just 22 days between Cyber Monday and Christmas. While only six days fewer than last year, the difference equates to a massive one billion dollars in lost revenue. Retailers are obviously keen to make that up, and will do so by starting the deal season earlier than ever before. Long gone are the days when Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals were just seen over one dedicated weekend. This year the whole of November will almost certainly see Black Friday deals, which is worth remembering if you're on the hunt for a specific offer. This is also great news for sellers, with much more time to make sales and less likelihood of alienating consumers with talk of deals early on. “The compressed shopping cycle will see retailers launching offers far earlier than ever before,” said John Copeland, head of Marketing and Customer Insights at Adobe. “With fewer days to spend, Adobe Analytics predicts that BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store) will be more popular than ever before, with revenue from this delivery method doubling in the week before Christmas as shoppers rush to complete their gift lists.” 02. 2019 is all about Cyber Monday If Adobe's predictions are accurate (and based on the amount of data gathered and the tech used to do so, we've no reason to think they aren't), 2019 is all about Cyber Monday. Adobe's report suggests 51 per cent of consumers prefer to shop on the main days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with the latter coming out on top this year with a predicted 18.9% rise in revenue over last year, set to make it the first $9B day in ecommerce revenue. There's no doubt about it, Black Friday is the day that takes the most focus, but if Adobe's data is anything to go by, shifting that gaze to the following Monday might make a lot of business sense for buyers and sellers alike. 03. Don't miss the 'golden hours' Adobe has drilled down Cyber Monday even further, reporting the hours 7PM and 11PM PST were the most profitable in 2018, with over 30 per cent of Cyber Monday revenue generated during that time. According to the report, conversions nearly doubled during these 'golden hours' as people worried they might miss out. Something for sellers all over the globe to bare in mind. 04. Smartphone shopping is the way forward This year it's predicted that people in America will spend an average of $14.08 more on their smartphones during the holiday shopping period than in 2018. Add that up and it means over half the increase in spending this year will come from smartphone shopping. If ever there was a time to optimise your online store for mobile, it's now. 05. Small brands need to focus on messaging Analytics from Adobe's report found that, much like larger retailers, smaller brands see a boost in traffic and trading during the holiday season, however, not to quite to the same impressive degree. For small brands, the conversion rate increases by 23% and bounce rate decreases by just 2 per cent, opposed to 32 per cent and 4 per cent respectively for that of their larger counterparts, which suggests some work is needed from smaller brands when it comes to specific holiday messaging. If you're an independent, smaller business looking to get in on the peak trading action, pay close attention to your marketing strategy in the lead up to the event to help maximise your conversion rates and decrease bounce rates. 06. Discover the best day for the best deals Based on activity from last year, Adobe has predicted what day will be the best to get the deal you want. For more information, take a look at this post, which highlights when the best time is to make the biggest savings on a number of different products. Want to know more? You can read the full Adobe 2019 holiday shopping report here. Read more: The best Apple Black Friday deals in 2019 10 top tips for making the most of Black Friday Black Friday history: what it's all about and why creatives should care View the full article

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2019 are fast approaching, which is great if you're holding out for some new creative stash. But with the holiday shopping season shorter than ever this year, retailers are kicking things off early, which can make choosing the best time to buy seem almost impossible. Until now. Today Adobe released a report, which is based on Adobe Analytics data that measures transactions from 80 of the top 100 retailers on the web in the US. And the results, which might just surprise you, have been able to identify the best days to make the biggest savings on certain types of products. The best days to buy revealed According to the in-depth report, the best time to buy a computer is on the Saturday directly after Black Friday itself. So if you want to save a pretty penny on a new PC, the 30 November is your best bet for doing so. If it's a new tablet, or any other electronic device you're after, Adobe's findings suggest ignoring the Black Friday weekend altogether and to opt instead for 27 December, where savings of up to 27 per cent are expected. If you're after a new tablet, the 27 December is your best bet for the biggest savings For appliances and sporting goods discounts, Black Friday (29 Nov) is the one to aim for, with toys on the Saturday (30 Nov) and furniture and home improvements on Giving Tuesday (1 Dec). What the report fails to list is the best time to save on Adobe Creative Cloud, but we've got that covered with the best Adobe Black Friday deals. Here's a quick list of days and products for easy reference: 29 November (Black Friday): Appliances and sporting goods 30 November: Computers and toys 2 December (Cyber Monday): TVs 3 December (Giving Tuesday): Furniture and bedding and tools and home improvement 27 December: Electronics Having such specific insider insight has the potential to not only save you huge amounts of cash, but time spent searching for the best deals. All you need to do now is bookmark our dedicated Black Friday article, or more specifically our best Apple Black Friday and Surface Pro Black Friday deals pages, and check back on the days suggested here that you'll make the greatest savings. It's worth noting, however, despite this reliable and informative source, that the holiday shopping season can be unpredictable as retailers respond to high demands, so it pays to be flexible in your approach. Above all you need to be cash-savvy, deciding ahead of time what you can afford and when offer that fits your budget lands, snap it up before it's gone. Want to know more? Read the full Adobe 2019 holiday shopping predictions report here. Read more: Black Friday product discount predictions revealed Black Friday history: what it's all about and why creatives should care 10 top tips for making the most of Black Friday View the full article

Photoshop's an amazing tool with just about limitless possibilities for working with images, but there's one aspect of it that seems to never get much faster or better. As any designer or artworker will know, creating razor-sharp selections still comes down to painstakingly clicking around your subject with the polygonal lasso tool. However, Adobe's just released a sneak peek at a Photoshop CC tool that, at the very least, could save you some time with the lasso. Revealed on its YouTube channel, the Object Selection tool is designed to instantly draw selections around any objects that you point it at. Here it is in action: (And if you're looking for more time-saving Photoshop tricks, check out our Photoshop plugins roundup). Get Adobe Creative Cloud Photoshop product manager Meredith Payne Stotzner describes it as, "using Adobe Sensei machine learning magic to determine the subject," and on first inspection it looks pretty cool. It's a natural evolution of the Subject Selection tool in current versions of Photoshop; while that will attempt to identify the main subject of an image and draw a selection around it, this object selection tool's a lot more versatile. You can either drag out a marquee over a section of the image or lasso a freehand selection, and the object selection tool will identify any objects within that area and select them. You can also use it as a quick masking tool. From the video, you can see that it works pretty well; however commenters have already accused it of being a rigged demonstration. "All your selections strongly contrast with the background. I can already select those fairly easily," says one. "If you want to impress me, take that last pic with the blonde girl and the dog and select the girl's hair. It's right in front of grasses that almost match her hair colour. That's the sort of thing I need help with selecting!" As you can see, the Object Selection tool's good but you'll still have to zoom in and fine-tune It's a fair point, and from taking a close look at the results in the video you can see that while objects that contrast strongly with the background are selected accurately, where there's less contrast – the hard-to-select edges of hair are always a great example – things get a lot less precise. So while this is a welcome addition that'll definitely do the main chunk of the grunt work when it comes to selections, we're certain that for professional results you're going to have to go in and spend time refining by hand. It's not the magic you might have been hoping for, but it'll definitely save you a little time on each job. Adobe says that the Object Selection tool will be coming to Photoshop CC 'soon'. Watch this space. Related articles: The 10 best alternatives to Photoshop How to resize an image in Photoshop The 5 best laptops for Photoshop in 2019 View the full article

Adobe Fresco is a great new drawing app, which mimics some of the best elements of other fine art programs (we're looking at you, Procreate) for iPad. However, there's no doubt the app is marred by its pricing and subscription model, and is slightly underwhelming when compared to other established desktop software. It falls particularly shot in its most talked about selling point, the much-hyped ‘Live Brushes’. For those new to art apps and programs, Fresco’s new ‘living’ brushes will seem wondrous and an exciting party piece as they aim to replicate real world mediums. However, there are a number of other, more professional programs available for tablets that do the job better, and therefore whether Fresco gets a spot in our best apps for iPad still remains to be seen. At £10 a month, Adobe Fresco is unfortunately a high price for hobby artists and non-Adobe users in a busy and established market where one off app payments are the norm. But for Creative Cloud subscribers, it’s another fine tool alongside its Adobe app family. Adobe Fresco review: Interface Fresco’s interface is simple and intuitive Fresco’s interface is simple and intuitive, making it easy enough for beginners to get cracking on the canvas quickly, yet offers enough controls for pros to feel this is attempting to be a serious program for them too. There's no doubt Fresco is geared towards Creative Cloud users, with Cloud documents seamlessly bridging computers through to Fresco, integrating its workflow with Photoshop and Illustrator by mixing both raster and vector brushes. The Home screen is simple, if a little stark, but everything is easily laid out meaning you can get to work swiftly. Recent work, an online gallery of other Fresco community users, tutorials and options to create new or import/open other files are all clearly written out and not hidden behind odd icons as many programs do. Once you have a new canvas open, the simplicity continues with all elements being quite self-explanatory and shouldn’t be daunting for new doodlers and feel second nature for photoshop users. The UI is customisable to your workflow, including full-screen mode, which clears the screen so it’s just you and your masterpiece. All brush panels can be grabbed and docked where you need them, again to aid in setting up your space just as you like it so as not to detract from your creative experience. Adobe Fresco review: Live Brushes Oil painting and watercolours are a tactile, messy pastime and effuse memories of classroom mishaps and the pungent whiff of turps. They are hands on, visceral and at times an absolute swine to control. It is this malleable evocative danger that makes them so appealing to artists and why most digital art programs miss the mark widely by being too synthetic or not blending colours well with paint sitting flatly in layers. I have been using digital painting programs for five or six years now as a portrait illustrator, and whilst Fresco is a great start (the watercolour brushes are particularly good), it does feel a little underbaked. First-time users and onlookers will no doubt watch on in awe as the paint mix and watercolour bleed into one another on their iPad screens for the first time. However, if you're experienced with the best digital art software, it will feel much like a polished but basic option. The live brushes were the main selling point of Adobe Fresco, but they're being done better elsewhere Despite Fresco’s fun and easy-to-use nature, when one delves deeper it’s clear these brushes need more work and options to truly make them living like other apps such as ArtRage and the watercolours dripping with life in Expresii and Rebelle as they blend, spread and interact with textures and the tilting and wetness of paper in a far more believable and unharnessed manner. The Adobe oil brushes lack depth, sheen, lighting and texture and, as such, produce artwork that seems a little dead or fake next to it’s real life counterparts. There is only one option for canvas texture, which can be togelled on or off. The lack of paper textures, which should affect the paints flow and drag, result in a uniformity that is more digital than (Edgar) Degas. Flow is determined by pressure alone and not by how much paint is on the brush, subsequently the paint strokes never run out unless you lift the stylus off the screen, meaning those beautiful mistakes and thick splodges of real oils etc can’t be achieved. There is no palette knife (as can be found in Artrage) to cut into the chunky paint and imitate the visceral strokes of Francis Bacon or German expressionists etc. Maybe we were expecting too much from a fledging app and should be more patient to wait for future updates? However the live brushes were the main selling point of Fresco and, in truth, these features have been already done better elsewhere. Adobe Fresco review: Pixel Brushes Adobe Fresco has a fantastic selection of pixel brushes Although normal raster brushes are seen as a staple of any art app, this is where Adobe Fresco has made the best start. The brush collection out of the box is wide and varied for all drawing and illustration styles, from comic and inking, through to chalk and painting. Each brush feels well thought out and works very well with a plethora of options, including smoothing, hardness, shape dynamics, scattering and blending. Each can be tweaked to suit most styles and the ability to import Photoshop brushes makes this area of Fresco exciting and shows a clear path for future development which could perhaps, in time, rival Procreate. That said, the lack of text and animation options means, for many creatives, Fresco will still have to buddy up with other programs to finish the job. Adobe Fresco: Raster, Live Brushes and Vector in one illustration The option to blend vector, live and pixel brushes is excellent, and the way Fresco automatically picks a new layer when doing so is very welcome for artists who tend to get into the flow of the piece and forget to do anything with layers until it’s too late. This feature will no doubt be very popular with artists who have to switch between apps continuously. This pixel/vector trick isn’t a new one and has been seen in Affinity art programs, but the addition of the Live brushes does set Fresco apart. If Adobe can build on this feature and add more depth to the live brushes along with more vector controls and brushes it could truly start to become a daily driver for creatives. Adobe Fresco review: Touch Shortcut The touch shortcut button is a new handy feature from Adobe The touch shortcut button is a new handy feature from Adobe, which when held down temporarily changes the action of the tool in use. When used with the Pixel Brush, it erases using the current brush selection, with the Live Brushes it paints with clear colour and alters many more options with selections and layers. The button can be pushed around the screen to suit your preference and works well, though can feel a little alien and jarring to more traditional artists who want all the creativity to come working with one hand. The actions can be learned in the handy help area signposted by the question mark in the top right, which offers simple instructions to learn the new gestures and tools on offer – great for new users. Adobe Fresco review: Brush Preview and recent colour palette Fresco not only offers a window in which you can see the changes you make to the brush Making changes to default brushes can be daunting, especially as so many programs don’t offer a preview of what your stroke will look like when used. Fresco not only offers a fantastic window in which you can see the changes to the brush as you tweak the parameters, but you can also have a quick doodle in the window to test it out for yourself without having to apply direct to your artwork. Fresco also displays your recent colour choices from a drop-down tab in the colour wheel. For artists who tend to neglect an illustrations overarching colour palette until they've got started and felt their way around the painting, this tool is invaluable. No more trying to eyedrop tiny flecks of colour already used. More programs need these kind of time-saving features. Adobe Fresco review: Editing and pro level tools As you’d expect on any self-respecting art new program, the usual suspects of draggable layers, masking, selection tools and blending options are all here. As a more traditional thinking artist, I don’t have too much use for many of these apart from the layer rejigging and blending options, but all worked well when tested. Adobe Fresco review: Saving and exporting your masterpiece So you’ve finished your illustration, but what next? Pushing the Publish and export button at top of the screen opens up various options to suit all needs. Users can quickly export their work as a snapshot jpg (this can be changed to suit your most frequently used file type), which can then be saved or shared swiftly. For more formal saving of your work hit the Publish and Export button and select export as to choose from various levels of quality PNG, JPG, PSD and PDF files. Your artwork can also be exported direct to Behance. Every stroke of your art is recorded in Fresco and this too can be exported from this area and works fantastically well, again drawing parallels with Procreate but falls slightly short in missing choice of replay length. Adobe Fresco review: Should you buy it? There's no software that currently emulates watercolours as well as Adobe Fresco If Fresco was a one-off payment of £6.99, we would not be having the discussion about buying it or not, it would be a no-brainer. A fine, fun tool to have, which could be invaluable for many and handy for others. However, with the £10-a-month subscription model, this is too much for most when a creative may only need one killer brush or feature within it. This will obviously change as Adobe develops Fresco but right now it's just awesome for CC users, rather than an invaluable one-stop tool for all. The features and presentation of Fresco are all well executed and bode well for future evolution, and as previously mentioned, there's no software that currently emulates watercolours as well. However, there are a plethora of desktop applications which do the living paint trick far better and with more professional results. This leads us to wonder who is Fresco for? It lacks the depth and options in its current iteration to fully satisfy all professional illustrators but many hobbyists will find it works just fine for them. With Procreate 5 on the horizon, Fresco needs to ramp up the features swiftly to bring on board animators, concept artists and oil portrait artists as currently, as a non-Creative Cloud subscriber, there just isn’t enough in there to draw me away from Artrage on Surface Pro and Procreate on my iPad. All the right elements are there for Adobe to develop upon and creative a powerful tool, which can appeal to all so although its currently a little underwhelming in certain areas, it's exciting to think what the future holds for Fresco and its growing community. View the full article

If you're a creative professional who loves to relax with a bit of Lego, you're in luck. Argos is kicking its Black Friday deals off early by reducing all of its Lego sets by 10 per cent. That might not seem like the best offer, but when you add it to Argos' already existing Lego discounts, there's some impressive savings to be had. One of the biggest savings is on a Lego Technic Crane, already reduced from £200 to £132, the extra saving knocks the price down to £118.80, that's a huge saving of over £80! There's also a Lego City Space Rocket, originally £90, reduced to £55, which today you can get for £49.50. As well as Lego Technic and City sets you'll find everything from Harry Potter (see our recent Knight Bus Lego review), Star Wars and Jurassic Park models, to Lego Creator and Mindstorms sets too. With 300 reduced Lego items, you're sure to find something to suit. If these offers are making you consider starting your Christmas shopping, don't hang around. This Lego deal ends at midnight (BST) tonight, with no sign of it returning any time soon. Not sure what you want to build? Our round up of the best Lego art is sure to inspire you. Read more: Stranger Things Lego set available now – and it's EPIC! Lego's stunning new ads are a creative force for good Black Friday product discount predictions revealed View the full article

Apple has just announced a top-end addition to its AirPods range, and we've got mixed feelings about them. See, we've always been a little bemused by the runaway global success of AirPods. They might be top of your list when you're looking for Apple Black Friday deals, but we haven't previously been so keen. Everything about them seems awful: the hard plastic case, the stupid arms that dangle out of your ears, the need to charge them after a few hours of playback, the fact that you can only get them in white because that's the way Apple's done things since the original iPod. We're deeply suspicious of their sound quality; partly because they don't have snug-fitting silicone ear tips, and partly because every single pair of Apple earphones that we've had bundled with our assorted iDevices over the years have sounded terrible. We've long given up even trying them out; they go straight into a drawer, unlikely to ever be seen again. The best Apple AirPods deals in October 2019 AirPods Pro seem just a little less showy than the standard Airpods And yet these new AirPods Pro (the name's annoying the hell out of us but we'll come back to that in a bit) have, quite unexpectedly, piqued our curiosity, because they appear to have addressed our every prejudice against Apple earphones. The headline feature is active noise cancelling, using the AirPods' external microphones to detect noise and then generating equal anti-noise to cancel it out. The AirPods Pro feature an Apple H1 chip with 10 audio cores, enabling them to do a lot of sophisticated realtime audio processing such as this. There's also a transparency mode – the complete opposite of noise cancelling – that enables you to hear what's happening in the outside world as well as whatever you're listening to, plus an adaptive EQ that, says Apple, automatically tunes low and mid frequencies to the shape of your ear. There's lots of science going on in there to make things sound good Apple's going big on audio quality here – it mentions a high dynamic range amplifier driving a high-excursion, low-distortion speaker – and while the announcement's a little light on actual audio data, the promise that the driver can deliver bass down to 20Hz definitely sounds good to us. And crucially, the AirPods Pro feature actual silicone ear tips rather than expecting you to jam a piece of hard plastic into your ear. This has always been a deal-breaker for us; silicone tips mean a better fit and great seal to help shut out unwanted noise, and they also mean that your expensive wireless earphones are a lot less likely to fall out. We're also pleased to see that the Pro arms look shorter (and a little chunkier) than the ones on the standard AirPods, making them a little less ostentatious than the cheaper models. Now, we know full well that AirPods have become a definite look – leading to the hilarious emergence of fake AirPods as fashion accessory – but we'd feel a lot more comfortable with these less attention-seeking protuberances. Just look at the adorable little AirPods in their snuggly nest The amount of time you're going to spend charging them is still a little greater than we'd like in an ideal world. Thanks to all the dynamic sound processing going on, you only get four-and-a-half hours listening time off a single charge, rather than five hours with the standard AirPods. Apple points out, however, that if you disable the active noise cancelling and transparency more you'll get the full five, and it also claims that five minutes in the charging case will get you about an hour of listening time. We'd also like to point out that in their charging case, the AirPods Pro look like adorable little baby robot dinosaur aliens snuggled up in their nest. Unlike the normal models, the AirPods Pro actually come with the wireless charging case as standard, which makes the asking price look a lot less horrifying. At $249/£249, it's only 50 units of your preferred currency more than what you'd pay if you wanted standard AirPods with a charging case. And while it still seems a bit steep, it's only a quarter of a Pro Stand. We wish they actually came in this transparent case rather than white We're definitely keen; in fact, the only thing we really hate about them (apart from the fact that you can only get them in white, but hey, that's Apple) is the name. AirPods Pro looks and feels plain wrong. We realise that it's grammatically correct, but no. You wouldn't say MacBooks Pro or iPads Pro, so why AirPods Pro? And yes, we get that AirPod Pros looks equally wrong written down, but it feels a lot nicer to say. We feel that Apple's painted itself into a bit of a linguistic corner here; we're tempted to head to the local Apple Store when they go on sale tomorrow, just to see the sales staff twitch when they're forced to say 'AirPods Pro' over and over again. If you need to know more, head to Apple's AirPods Pro page. Related articles: The 10 most beautiful Apple products (and the 5 ugliest) The best wireless headphones in 2019 The 100 greatest Apple creations View the full article

Streamlining your workflow might not be the sexiest of tasks, but it could make a big difference to your working life. When your bank balance isn’t looking as healthy as it should be, the tendency is to scrutinise your fee structure or focus on attracting more work. And while both of these things absolutely warrant your attention, it’s also worth looking internally at your workflow. It’s easy to forget that in business your time is worth money. Finding the most efficient workflow will help you widen your margins in the long run. For this article, we asked web professionals for tips on how to make sure you’re investing your time in the right places and advice on cutting the fat from your workflow. Their tips range from rethinking your tools (also see our list of web design tools), to switching the way you have meetings and do paperwork. Read on to discover 19 ways you can streamline your workflow. 01. Turn off (almost) all your notifications Push notifications can quickly derail a workflow. Think about the things you genuinely need to know about immediately and turn off all other notifications. Web designer Taylor Dunham has hers whittled down to meeting reminders and phone calls – and she’s not averse to turning even those off if she needs to get some serious work done. “Do-Not-Disturb mode on Mac and iOS is a wonderful feature,” she says. 02. Talk rather than email If you’re working within a team, make sure you’ve found a way to communicate efficiently. While it can seem easiest to ping someone an email or Slack message, sometimes it’s better to bite the bullet and actually talk to them – whether that’s via a call or in person. This can also help bypass costly miscommunications further down the line. “Sometimes things are hard to communicate over text,” says Ida Aalen, who is CPO and co-founder of video chat tool Confrere and specialises in user research, UX and content strategy. “We encourage everyone to just jump on video calls when they need to discuss something with a colleague. We can see from Slack that these calls often only last for three or four minutes, but we’re having [fewer] misunderstandings.” 03. First do it, then do it better When it comes to integrating new tools into your workflow, front end developer Louis Lazaris points to some sage advice from Google engineer Addy Osmani: “First do it, then do it right, then do it better” (read more about what he means here). “That alone is great advice because it encourages you to start small and keep things practical rather than adding tools just because ‘all the cool kids are using them,” explains Lazaris. 04. Use design systems Working with design systems forces you to consider the bigger picture and ensures you don’t waste time getting bogged down with unimportant elements. “The golden rule is learning what the requirements are right from the start and mapping out the product accordingly. This allows designers to fully understand the product at macro-level, while developing rules at micro or atomic level,” says creative director Ana Nicolau. “There’s always a risk of spending too much time on a particular element, without considering how it’ll affect other elements or the product as a whole. Keeping an eye on the bigger picture and staying true to the product vision is key.” 05. Streamline your code reviews Any tool that helps spot mistakes before they hit the codebase is going to save time – and money – later down the line,” points out web developer Matt Crouch. He finds that tools like Prettier and VS Code extensions such as its GitHub integration have greatly sped up code reviews. 06. Establish the client's priorities Before you dive head-first into a new project, establish what’s important to the client and what is less so. This can help ensure you’re investing your time – and the client’s money –into the right things. “At the start of each project I talk about design options with my clients and ways we can streamline processes and budgets,” says UI/UX designer Mike Hince. For example, if they aren’t fussed about unique icons, a predesigned set will save you time for other things. This approach can also help if they’re trying for a lower fee. 07. Standardise your paperwork Most projects require a degree of paperwork and there are certain types of documents you’ll use over and over again – statements of work, contractual agreements, pitching documents and so on. While you’ll often need to tweak these to suit each new project, there is absolutely no need to start from scratch each time, points out strategist Christopher Murphy . Get organised, set up template documents and watch your workflow speed forward. 08. Focus on one thing at a time Mentally toggling between tasks will slow you down. Dunham suggests blocking in chunks of time to dedicate to each job and staying focused during that period. It’s especially important for admin tasks (such as email) that can bleed into everything. Dunham takes care of admin first thing in the morning, leaving the rest of the day for creative work. Prone to procrastination? Set a timer or use a time-tracking app. Dunham recommends Toggl. “There are no unnecessary bells and whistles, which makes it easy to incorporate into my flow (and makes me less likely to avoid using it),” she explains. 09. Use tools that link design and development It hasn’t always been the case but creators of web design software are increasingly savvy to the danger of design elements getting lost in translation when it comes to handing over to developers. There is now a range of tools with features specifically designed to make the process as smooth as possible. “I use prototyping apps such as InVision to bring design, feedback and developer handoff under on roof,” says Hince. “Communication is so important and having comments on individual screens is a blessing.” See more cross-over apps and software with our list of wireframing tools. 10. Don't start from scratch As a consultant and educator, I’m always alarmed at the number of people I see working in a completely ad hoc manner, wasting time because they start from scratch per project in an improvised manner,” says Murphy. In the early stages of projects, there are processes you need to go through – creating a project onboarding slidedeck, building an element collage, user research and so on. “We initiate web design projects with a site starter, a system that we use (and can modify) to save repeating parts of the early design process,” explains Murphy. 11. Don't dodge in-depth tasks We all know the joy of striking a load of tasks off a checklist – but make sure you’re not avoiding the big tasks. “Getting a bunch of little tasks done can give me a skewed sense of accomplishment, when really I’m just avoiding the hard work,” says Dunham. “Be careful not to chase false productivity while sacrificing time for the real work.” 12. Use Slack bots We have a few bots for Slack developed in-house to provide visibility of issues to the wider engineering team,” explains Crouch. “As everyone can deploy updates to the site, a recent addition has been a bot that reminds those users with underplayed changes to get them deployed. This reduces backlog and helps the product grow at a steady rate.” Find out more about how to make your own custom Slack bot here. 13. Don't chase all the shiny new tools Even Lazaris, who runs Web Tools Weekly, a weekly newsletter focused on tools for developers, prescribes a degree of restraint when it comes to adopting new tools. “I’m as immersed in the web tools industry as anyone but my advice for developers wishing to streamline their workflow for profitability is [reflected partly in a quote from] Paul Graham, who tweeted: ‘Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was, in retrospect, a minute wasted’,” he says. “While some tools might save you time, if you’re wasting time in other areas, you’re going to lose any edge the tools are supposed to give.” 14. Try switching to video meetings Aalen and her team at Confrere have cut their daily standups down to just five-ten minutes Aalen says swapping face-to-face meetings for video calls has been a significant time-saver. In her ten-person studio, it has cut daily standups to between five and ten minutes and the weekly roadmap meeting down to an impressively speedy 15 minutes. “For productive video calls, it’s essential that everyone is on their own computer,” Aalen advises. “If there are like five people in the same meeting room and just a couple of people on video, they will feel left out.” 15. Collaborate on shared documents When working with others in his role as a consultant, Murphy ensures that he sets up a shared repository of documents on Dropbox. “This shared ‘single source of truth’ enables everyone to get on the same page quickly and easily. It also allows all the different project participants (strategists, designers, developers etc) to work collaboratively, saving time merging documents later,” he says. “Think of this as a design system for your studio paperwork, ensuring everything is efficient and consistent.” 16. Identify the time-sucks When starting to streamline workflows, be prepared for things to take a little more time at first,” warns Dunham. In order to make the kinds of changes that are going to have an impact on your margins, she suggests that you force yourself to take a step back and identify where the biggest opportunities for improvement are. “Look for the things you’re doing over and over and prioritise those as the first processes to automate, streamline or create templates for,” she says. 17. Automate email It’s easy to get in the habit of starting all emails from scratch, despite that niggling feeling you’ve written it all before but a little effort will save your sanity as well as time. “I used to write the same emails over and over. I now have a Google Doc of email templates that I reuse,” says Dunham. There are multiple ways for you to automate part of the email process. If going down the Google Doc route doesn’t suit you, there are lots of tools, features within bigger project management tools and browser extensions that have been built specifically for this purpose. Gmail Snippets, for example, enable you to set up text shortcuts for common phrases. 18. Get organised from the offset Try to avoid potential bottlenecks by getting as much information as you can ahead of time. “Discussing brand guidelines, access to images, demo logins and any competitors [clients] may have, early on, helps me get in the right space before the project has really started,” suggests Hince. 19. Stay in touch Finally, to make sure you’re not veering off track and wasting time, keep in regular contact with your client. “Regular video calls help me keep the project momentum going,” says Hince. “It’s easier to work a day and get feedback, than work for a week and get it wrong.” This article originally appeared in net magazine. Buy issue 322 or subscribe to net here. Read more: The best web browsers in 2019 Calls to action: how to create successful CTAs 10 CodePen tricks you never knew you needed View the full article

Dublin's creative festival, OFFSET, is always guaranteed to inspire, and tickets for next year's event are now on sale. OFFSET 2020 is taking place on 3-5 April and for the next few days only, you can get an Early Bird ticket for a whopping €85 off, saving 35 per cent. That means a pass will cost you just €150 – which includes entry to the conference for the full weekend, a goodie bag, on-site workshops and entry to the Delegate party on Friday night. This year's OFFSET will take place in the Bord Gáis Energy theatre. Last year the festival celebrated 10 years of OFFSET, and was in a different venue to normal, so this year will be a triumphant return to the festival's home. Last year's OFFSET saw talks from the likes of the legendary Lance Wyman, political illustrator Edel Rodriguez and filmmaker Anna Ginsburg. Attendees learned about a wealth of topics, including tips from Victo Ngai on how you can boost your illustration skills and panels on how to grow your design business. This year's speakers have yet to be announced, but we're sure the bill won't disappoint. To get your hands on an Early Bird ticket before they sell out (they're available until 31 October), go to OFFSET's website. You can also watch the video below to see a preview of the venue and get a feel for what's in store this year. Read more: How to network successfully 11 inspirational creative co-working spaces 15 fun fonts to liven up your design projects View the full article

Using free graphic design templates isn't ever going to be the first choice for working designers; you're always going to want to create your own designs from scratch. Sometimes, though, the pressure of deadlines can become a bit much, and you need a template to at least take care of the heavy lifting and get everything in place before you apply your own magic in Photoshop CC. Even if you're not planning to use them, having a library of templates to browse through can be a good way to focus your thinking if you're having trouble getting to grips with a commission. There are lots of places where you can find free graphic design templates; here's our pick of the best. 10 on-trend portfolio templates 01. Template.net Template.net has loads of free designs alongside its paid options Template.net has a vast library of over 100,000 ready-made designs, documents and templates for just about every imaginable situation, which you can access for a $9 per month subscription. It does, however, provide a much smaller selection of free templates with a wide range of applications; you'll need to sign up for a free account to download them, and a quick scan through what's on offer should tell you whether it's worth the effort. 02. StockLayouts StockLayouts' free templates are all about quality rather than quantity Another company supplying premium graphic design templates for all occasions, StockLayouts' templates can be bought as one-offs and there are also subscription options available. And to give you a taste of its work, it has a small collection of free templates – 38 to be precise – to download. Whether you're after a brochure, a restaurant menu, a business card or something else entirely, you're likely to find something available to download and customise. 03. PSDgraphics Come to PSDgraphics if you don't mind a leisurely hunt through random stuff The collection of free templates at PSDGraphics isn't the place to go to if you need something in a hurry; it's all organised rather haphazardly, and you'll probably have to scroll through lots of pages before finding something that suits a specific need. However it's great for browsing through and looking for stuff that you might find useful at a later date; there are all manner of weird and wonderful templates on show, all of them free for personal use. If you want to use anything commercially there's a thoroughly reasonable $4 charge per item. 04. PNGtree PNGtree is surprisingly well-stocked with PSDs Don't be put off by the name; there's more to PNGtree than PNG files. While it does indeed have a whole stack of PNGs to download, it also boasts a healthy collection of graphic design templates in PSD format, ready to download and customise. There are thousands of flyer and poster templates available, not to mention templates for brochures, certificates and invitations; with so much on offer you'd do well to use its search function to narrow things down a bit before you start scrolling through what's on offer. 05. FreePSDfiles FrePSDfiles has a whole load of its own creations on offer The library of free graphic design templates at FreePSDfiles isn't vast, but it creates most of its own resources – as well as linking out to other resources that it likes – and the quality's generally pretty great. Among its free templates you'll find brochures, resumés and business cards that are all free for both personal and commercial use, and they're provided as layered PSD files that you can easily customise. And as well as the templates, you'll also find a good selection of ready made mock-ups, graphics, icons and more. 06. BestBusinessCard.net For business card templates you'll be well served here There are plenty of places online to download free business card templates; you stand a pretty good chance of finding something to suit your needs at BestBusinessCard.net, though. It has a fine-looking selection of templates in all manner of styles, from straight-edged minimal designs through to stunning floral and watercolour creations; make sure you read the instructions before you download, because it password-protects its files. 07. Pixeden There aren't many free templates at Pixeden but they're all worth a look Pixeden's selection of free graphic design templates is a small but perfectly formed collection of print-focused designs. There are 22 on offer, covering resumés, flyers, business cards and more, and they're all formatted in print-ready CMYK at 300 DPI. They're royalty free for use in personal and commercial projects. 08. Canva Canva's packed with templates to customise online Finally, Canva's a little different as it's an online design tool rather than a library, but its basic version is free to use – premium pricing starts at $9.95 per month – and gives you access to a library of over 8,000 templates that you can customise and build into your own designs. Whatever job you have lined up, you're bound to find a template to fit the bill, and Canva's tools make it easy to transform it into something that fits your creative vision. Related articles: 30 eye-catching flyer templates The 10 best HTML5 template designs 26 top brochure templates for designers View the full article

Bad kerning can have the ability to fill even the calmest of designers with rage. Kerning's a fundamental part of typography design, so there's simply no excuse for disproportionate space between characters in a font. Until now. Hellvetica is a new project from designer Zach Roif that makes us want to both laugh, gouge our eyes out and immediately revisit some typography tutorials at the same time. It's described by Roif as being "Like Helvetica, but with like, much shittier kerning for Halloween." He's not lying. However, despite defying every principle of good kerning, designers across the globe have fully embraced the fun side of Hellvetica. And the responses to it on Twitter are nothing short of brilliant. The rage-inducing-but-also-hilarious free font design (see more free fonts here) has already been downloaded by hundreds of creatives, who have used it for everything including sending emails to other poor unsuspecting individuals, setting it as their system font and applying it to some of the world's most recognisable logos and signage. While Hellvetica is obviously tongue-in-cheek, Twitter user Adam Tenhouse was quick to point out its potential, saying: "Slap this on a horror movie poster, absolutely no photography, just pure typographic threat, truly you'd go places." We think he's got a point. We have no idea what motivated Roif to creative Hellvetica, much like we have no idea why we love it so much. But we do. Check it out here. Looking for more spooky designs? Take a look at our pick of the best free Halloween fonts available now. Read more: Finally! A logotype that people actually like 78 best free fonts for designers Font licensing: A designer's complete guide View the full article

Award-winning designer and illustrator, and founder of London studio Brand Nu, Radim Malinic is also a successful author. Volumes 1 and 2 of his Book of Ideas offer indispensable advice on making it in the creative industries, and have been huge hits both critically and commercially. Getting the cover of any book right is vitally important; it's essentially your main "sales window" for attracting and tempting the buyer. And when you're a renowned designer, and the book is aimed at your fellow professionals, the pressure to get it right is even greater. So it may surprise some that for his latest volume - as with the first book - Malinic turned to Adobe Stock to create his cover design. But it certainly shouldn't. Because in this day and age, Adobe Stock - with its smooth integration into the Creative Cloud - as is being used by top professionals across multiple disciplines to help them become more creative and efficient. In the video below, Malinic discusses in detail his creative background, his approach to creative tasks, and his process for creating the cover using Adobe Stock from start to finish. (*Note: If you'd rather jump straight to the latter, then the click on the second video instead.) Watch the full video... .... OR straight jump to the cover discussion Why Adobe Stock? So why would you use Adobe Stock to create your book cover? In Malinic's case, it's partly a question of efficiency. "The reason why I use Adobe Stock is because I work really fast," he explains. Working for multiple clients at the same time as side projects like his books means he simply can't afford to waste any time. "I wish I had time to just to sit down and make my own sort of elements, but stock imagery exists for a reason," he says. "So I just wanted to kind of speed up my workflow and see what I can do." Radim Malinic draws on Adobe Stock to make his process more efficient That said, he's got no intention of just downloading a stock asset and plonking into a design: it's more a starting point for creativity. As he points out, there's a big trend in digital illustration right now that involves manipulating objects - "bending things and multi layering things in exciting ways" - you just have to find your own style and way of doing things. "It's a little like when different musicians write different pop songs with the same chord structure," he explains. This beautiful cover design was created using Adobe Stock in tandem with Photoshop In the case of the Book of Ideas Vol 2, Malinic's starting point was shapes, but not the ones you might expect: his base objects were actually nail varnishes found in Adobe Stock! And that's the great thing about using Adobe Stock: not only are there millions of assets to choose from, but the sophisticated search tools, powered by AI, mean it's easy to find the perfect image for your project, quickly. From that initial inspiration, Malinic built up a cover design using multiple assets that he then smoothed out using the Oil Paint filter in Photoshop. "I wanted to use Photoshop in the most paint-like way," he explains. The smooth integration between Photoshop and Adobe Stock made the whole process nicely streamlined. And Malinic took advantage of Photoshop's Warp tool, colour control features and non-destructive editing capabilities to produce a striking and stunning looking cover design. To learn more, watch the video above, which was produced as part of Adobe's Creative Collab series of livestreams. To see further Adobe livestreams, check out this YouTube playlist. Try Adobe Stock for free! In 2019, designers like Radim Malinic, at every level of the profession, are harnessing the power of Adobe Stock to make imaginative and eye-catching designs. If you haven't started using Adobe Stock, then it's high time you got on board, and here's a great offer to help persuade you. Try Adobe Stock for free for one month and you'll get 10 standard assets with your free 30-day trial! You've nothing to lose, and everything to gain, in terms of making you more efficient, productive and creative. So don't delay, get started with Adobe Stock today! View the full article

In the search for the best web browser, many of us will look for performance, security, interface, feature-set and customisability, but today the main players are all strong in all those departments, so how do you choose between them? Aside from testing out how each browser views web pages (why not try them out on our favourite landing pages?), our take on this is that your choice is likely to be part ideological. It comes down to how you feel about the ethos behind the browser – as well as some features that you especially like or that are suited to your particular situation. This article therefore focuses on the values and nature of the organisations behind each of the main browsers, plus particular features of interest. We have covered Firefox, Chrome and Opera, as well as the less well-known Brave, which offers an interesting alternative. We haven't looked at Internet Explorer as it has been discontinued, and we have also left out Microsoft Edge as the original Edge is being scrapped in favour of a new re-built version that's currently in beta. Aside from this, there's also the ultra-customisable browser Vivaldi that you build yourself to suit your preferences – it's more of a niche thing than the others, but definitely check it out if that sounds good to you. Before we dive in to our top four, we'll take a quick look at the inner workings of web browsers. Inner workings of web browsers An interesting thing to know about web browsers is that today most of them are based on Chromium, which is an open source project by Google – most of the source code of Google Chrome is from Chromium, and anyone can make their own version of a Chromium browser. Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, the new Microsoft Edge – and of course Chrome – are all based on Chromium. Opera and Edge used to have their own browser engines but they made the switch. Firefox is different: it has its own browser engine (and also a huge extension ecosystem). A big consideration for you is that Chrome extensions usually work on Chromium-based browsers, so they all benefit from that massive ecosystem. You can read about why browser engine diversity is a good thing for the future of the web here. Another difference between Firefox and the rest is that it is made by a non-profit organisation, Mozilla – you may be more comfortable using software made by people who have less incentive to make money out of you. Brave is made by a very "values-driven" company co-founded by one of the co-founders of Mozilla. Opera was bought out by a Chinese consortium in 2016, and became a public company in 2018. Vivaldi is made by a company founded by the co-founder and former CEO of Opera Software. With this background information in mind, we now look at each browser in more detail. 01. Firefox Quantum Firefox Quantum is the overhauled version of Firefox A few years ago Firefox was becoming known as a bit of a memory hog but that's all changed since Mozilla unveiled Firefox Quantum in 2017, a new version with an overhauled browser engine that's twice as fast as the old one. The new Firefox is leaner and quicker than ever, using around 30 per cent less RAM than Chrome in Mozilla's tests. User privacy is a central concern for Mozilla – it's the first feature-set mentioned on the Firefox website and it doesn't appear at all on the Chrome homepage, which gives you some insight into the relative priorities of these two browser makers. Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection massively reduces the number of cookies that accumulate as you browse the web, and, like Brave (below), the new Firefox reduces data usage by not downloading content from tracking domains, which in turn improves page load times. You can read about this here. Cookie control in Firefox vs Chrome Since cookies are used for both good and evil – that is, sometimes they do things that are useful for you, other times they are used to track you – you're always going to be doing a balancing act between convenience and protecting your privacy. Firefox gives you a good deal of control over this. You can take its default settings that balance privacy and performance, or you can choose strong cookie blocking and do the work of manually unblocking any sites that are broken by this. Chrome always wins brownie points for its minimal interface, but if you're prepared to do some tweaking you can customise Firefox to similar effect. Like Chrome, Firefox will also let you synchronise settings, passwords and bookmarks across devices with a Firefox account. Overall, Firefox is comparable to Chrome in terms of performance and features, so if you like the idea of a browser made by a non-profit organisation with a privacy-oriented ethos, this is your pick. Also see our favourite Firefox add-ons. 02. Google Chrome Google Chrome is the most widely-used browser Google Chrome is the world's most widely used browser with up to two thirds of the market share according to most estimates; Safari is around 10-15 per cent and the rest are all in the single figures. This dominance sometimes results in certain benefits and conveniences for the end user – in recent years we've started to see "works best in Chrome" messages appearing around the web, even on large sites, and sometimes you'll encounter things that require Chrome to work. When a website's user base is so dominated by one browser it's likely that it will be prioritised to some extent by the engineers working on that site, so there may be lots of little features around the web – and especially in Google products such as Gmail – that run a bit more smoothly on Chrome. Sometimes people release Chrome extensions and follow up with the Firefox one later, so early adopters may lean towards using Chrome for this reason. Omnibox and performance in Chrome vs other browsers If you're a fan of minimal interfaces you'll like Chrome's approach – a single 'omnibox' is for entering both URLs and search terms, and in general all interface elements are as pared down as possible. There's quite an emphasis on reducing the number of clicks or keystrokes to achieve something – when you type in the address bar, answers to your query from Google Search appear as you type, and you can translate an entire foreign language site in a single click. Chrome works in harmony with Gmail and Google Drive – typing in the address bar automatically searches your Drive as well, so you can get straight into things from that omnibar. Chrome enables you to synchronise your settings, history, bookmarks, passwords and so on across devices, so that everything is just as you like it whether you're using your laptop, mobile device or desktop machine. In terms of performance, it's not always easy to say that one browser is better than another because it depends on your operating system, which sites you're visiting, what extensions you have installed and other factors. And it changes over time – run the same tests a few months apart and you get different results. Mozilla has some impressive test results on the Firefox Quantum website, but these independent, fairly recent benchmarks from PC World put Chrome ahead of Firefox overall in performance terms. However these kinds of tests can't tell you for sure which browser is going to run best for you – the most reliable way is to try out different browsers with the extensions you use installed. In summary, Chrome's market dominance means that developers tend to prioritise making sure things work perfectly on Chrome. It's fast and secure. It's really good at syncing across devices, and it works in harmony with your Google Account, so you may find that Chrome is the most convenient browser for you. Also see our favourite Chrome extensions. 03. Opera Opera's special features set it apart from the others Opera has a bunch of fantastic features that the other browsers don't even try to compete with, so the fact that many non-techie people haven't even heard of it – even though it has been around since the mid-nineties – is something of a mystery. The first thing that might excite you is that there is a free, unlimited VPN built into the browser. At first glance this sounds amazing, but Opera's VPN known for being slow. That said, this is a fairly new feature so it may well improve over the coming years, and it's terrific that a browser is making the move to build this right into the software. (A VPN enhances privacy and security by putting a kind of barrier between you and the rest of the internet – it replaces your IP with a virtual one so websites can't identify you. It's particularly good for shielding your browsing when you're on a public network. See our post on the best VPN service.) The next special and unique feature is Opera Turbo. When you turn this on, web pages go through Opera's servers where they're compressed – so you receive the same content but download a fraction of the data. This means the data limit on your mobile device goes much further and you can speed up browsing on busy WiFi networks. Opera has a social sidebar that works with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp so you can keep your conversations going without switching tabs while browsing. There's a built-in ad-blocker, a dark mode that makes websites dark for night-time browsing, and a battery saver mode that reduces activity in background tabs and pauses plugins to save power. We also love the Flow feature which solves the disconnect between your phone, tablet and computer – instead of emailing yourself links, you can use Flow to make a connection between mobile devices and your desktop machine. Like other browsers on this list, there is a sync feature that works across devices for bookmarks, history and passwords, and Opera's sync works for open tabs, too. Opera performance While it's true that a lot of these things can be achieved in other browsers via extensions, Opera has made some very smart decisions about which features ought to be built into the browser – all of this great stuff is ready to go with Opera without any need to research and mess around with extensions. That said, if there are particular add-ons that you like, this is a Chromium browser so they likely will work here and can be installed from the Chrome Web Store. On top of all this, Opera came out best in those performance tests we mentioned earlier. Opera has a really thoughtful and also trailblazing feature set that will make a big difference for some people. If you have to deal with a data limit or busy wifi network, Turbo could change your world – and the battery saver mode could also be a big deal for you. If you do a lot of Facebook or WhatsApp chatting, you might choose Opera just for the social sidebar. There's no real downside to picking Opera over Chrome or Firefox, so if the interesting features appeal to you it's an easy decision. 04. Brave Brave proposes a new revenue model that rewards creators while protecting your privacy Brave is a very different proposition to most browsers in that it seeks to change our approach to online revenue-generation and privacy. By default, Brave blocks adverts and trackers, and plugins are turned off. Most browsers download a lot of data that doesn't benefit the user at all, and leaving all of this behind makes Brave faster and more secure – on mobile, it can be up to eight times faster than other browsers. All this ad-blocking is great for the end user but websites need a way to make money, so users are encouraged to support the sites they visit via the Brave Rewards system, an ad exchange platform based on the cryptocurrency Ethereum. There are two ways to get BAT (Basic Attention Token - the rewards currency) in your Brave Wallet: by transferring cryptocurrency (in the future you will be able to use a credit card) or by allowing some non-intrusive adverts. These so-called ‘Private ads' appear as notifications within Brave, separately from the websites you're looking at, and are targeted based on data stored locally on your computer so no information about you is collected. Once there's BAT in your wallet, either accrued via Private ads or transferred directly, rewards are allocated automatically according to time spent on the sites you visit, and you can remove sites that you don't want to support. Read more here. This financial model rewards creators without invading the privacy of users or eating up mobile data allowance with adverts, and the people behind Brave are aiming to make the per-user rewards greater under this system than the current advertising model. Since Brave is based on Chromium almost all browser extensions that work with Chromium will work on Brave, and you install them from the Chrome Web Store – so you're not going to miss out on the extensions ecosystem by switching to Brave. Unlike other browsers on this list, the sync feature is currently in beta and only syncs your bookmarks across devices. If you're a web lover who's disillusioned with how things have turned out and still have hope for the utopian ideals of the web's founders, Brave could be the one for you. It's fast, it's secure, and it's making a daring yet realistic proposition for an ethical and efficient online revenue model for creators. Read more: The 7 best old-school web design tools 8 steps to inclusive web design The best smart home devices for creative professionals View the full article

The internet can be a dark place. Even within the relatively friendly world of design, sometimes it feels as if all anyone is doing is saying mean things about other people's work. Just look at the roasting the Paris 2024 logo got if you don't believe us (and yes, we're fully aware that we're complicit too). That's why it's even more heartwarming when we stumble across something that draws mostly positive attention, such as this logotype using the word 'table' shared by Reddit user r/logopaul (aka Paulius Kairevicius). What makes this design so appealing is that it uses the form of a picnic table to create the 'A' – this small touch is a good example of how simplicity can lead to effective design, as we discuss in our logo design guide. The design, which is presumably a concept and not for a real company, has been overall well received by the people of r/design. One user comments it was "sturdy," another says "this is beautiful!" while Lamenameuser (who is getting namechecked for well... their great name) says: "Clever. I see what you did there." r/rickcubs points out that the design is similar to that of Texas State Parks, and we can't really argue with that. Check out the Texas State Parks branding as seen on its website below: This Texas State Parks branding was also analysed on the forum. "I like how they didn't go overboard and make all three As into table," says r/sprogger. "It works especially well since it's in the dead centre of the logo. Really well designed," adds r/jagoman. This, people is what design forums should be for. No one has raged at r/logopaul for creating (or sharing) something similar to someone else, no one has talked about how much they hate an idea or how anyone needs to revert to an old logo (it helps that there isn't one). This just a bunch of nice constructive and helpful comments from a group of people who really care about design. The sort of thing that happens in design studios the world over, but doesn't always quite translate once you people create a username, password and online persona. And that's why we think this design is the nicest thing you'll see today. You can check out the Reddit thread here. And cross your fingers that things haven't got all negative by the time you read this post. Read more: New NASA logo celebrates women on the moon HP pokes fun at witty clients in nightmare campaign 15 fun fonts to put a smile on your face View the full article

White-hat hackers will now have the chance to win $20,000 for sniffing out remote code-execution flaws in industrial control systems. View the full article

CVE-2019-11043 is trivial to exploit -- and a proof of concept is available. View the full article

A Magecart skimmer, discovered on the site of First Aid Beauty, was only just removed after being in place for five months. View the full article

You're reading The Best Time to Send Email Newsletters for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook! Black Friday and Cyber Monday are marked with red ink on every retailer’s calendar. Combined, these dates offer an excellent opportunity to increase revenue. They are peak volume days when potential clients are eager to wander around digital stores. Use … View the full article

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just around the corner, retailers around the globe are kicking things off early with some brilliant savings. And this amazing iPad deal from Walmart is no exception. Up there with one of the best Black Friday iPad deals we've seen so far, this brand new Apple iPad (6th Gen) is reduced by a whopping $130 to just $299.99! Apple discounts are a rare find, so if you've been wanting a new iPad, now's the time to buy. But if a new tablet isn't what you're after, never fear, we'll have details of discounted Pencils, laptops and accessories in our best Apple Black Friday deals pos too. Below you'll find all the details of today's epic iPad deal at Walmart. Hurry though, we expect these to fly off the shelves. If you're not in the US, you don't have to miss out, here are the best iPad deals in your region: View the full article

Almost every piece of creative work – whether it's a TV ad, side project or street mural – requires some sort of creative collaboration. But working alongside other creatives is about so much more than just following a meticulous design style guide. The old saying that two heads are better than one has never been truer than when it comes to creative work. So what makes for a successful collaboration? How do you forge relationships that you’ll want to celebrate, rather than banish from your inbox? How can you choose a partner who will bring out the best in you, and you in them? Is there a ‘collab formula’ or certain traits you need to look out for? Or is it simply a case of the right chemistry? To find out, we speak to leading creatives from around the globe about some fantastically creative collaborative projects, and discover the secrets of a successful collaboration in the process. 01. Make sure your skills complement each other The best collaborators don’t just have complementary skillsets, they also bring out the best in each other. “Jon makes me better – it’s as simple as that really,” says co-founder of design studio Non Format Kjell Ekhorn. “I tend to get tired of my own head and visual expressions, so having Jon there to mix and remix projects with is a blessing.” 02. Use a time difference to your advantage “We tend to either tag-team a project, or divide up the tasks,” explains other Non Format co-founder Jon Forss. “Some projects require certain skills that one or other of us tends to prefer or is more suited to.” Being 4,000 miles and seven time zones apart, one of the pair will work on it during the day and then hand it over to be continued by the other. “We never get tired of starting a new day and seeing that some real progress has been made overnight,” says Forss. 03. Forget competitiveness Like many collaborations, a key part of the success of Non-Format’s relationship is mutual respect, and a non-competitive spirit. “Everything we do together is Non-Format’s work, not our own. If either one of us isn’t happy with the way a project is going we quickly accept that it has to change to make it better,” says Forss. “We’re both constantly open to ways that things can be developed and improved, rather than merely defending our own position as individuals.” 04. Agree at the concept stage The team at Non-Format also puts an emphasis on the “chatting and brainstorming” stage, meaning that any disagreements surface early on. “Perhaps one clue to our success is that both of us like to invest plenty of time on concepts and ideas both before and during the execution of a visual direction, which means that the result is never based solely on design style; design thinking is equally important,” says Ekhorn. 05. Don’t be afraid to scrap projects The Non Format duo are also both open to shelving ideas altogether. “If we think something isn’t working, even if it took a long time to get to that point, we’re not afraid to voice our objections and to scrap it and shift to something else,” explains Forss. “Experimenting always leaves us open to the very real possibility of failure, so we’re used to sometimes making something that just doesn’t work out.” 06. Don’t micro-manage As a freelance art director, SooJin Buzelli is careful to guide artists, rather than solve problems for them. “When I receive sketches that are not quite on the mark, I communicate why it’s not working, not how to fix it,” she says. “I’m collaborating with the artist so the concept can be solved from their unique perspective.” 07. Remember your goals “Chris Buzelli told me not to ‘fight’ with my clients but to ‘dance’ with them early on in my career,” says illustrator Victo Ngai. “It took me years to understand what he meant – remember you and your clients share the same objectives when negotiating the disagreements.” 08. Don’t rely just on phonecalls “Face-to-face meetings are important,” says Alice Goss, business development manager at Design Bridge. “We usually get a lot more out of half an hour in the same room than we would do on the phone.” 09. Share work constantly “Share work in progress and ideas super-often,” says Tom Sharp of The Poetry Says It All. “Don’t treat it as a client project where you need a polished presentation of work. Bounce ideas backwards and forwards. Don’t be afraid to be foolish.” “Keep in touch,” adds Superunion’s Katherina Tudball. “Don’t just go away and do ‘your thing’. Talk about concepts and meaning before you get anywhere near execution.” This article was originally published in issue 295 of Computer Arts, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 295 or subscribe to Computer Arts today. Read more: Streamline your workflow and collaborate better How to become a master of creative collaboration Starbucks' style guide reveals subtle brand refresh View the full article