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Monospace fonts allocate an equal amount of space to each character, so a letter 'i' will take up the same horizontal space as an 'o'. This creates unnatural spacing which makes a paragraph of flowing text harder to read, so for most applications, proportional fonts – which allow characters to take up the space they need – are usually preferable. But it’s a different story when you’re choosing a font for coding. Proportional spacing is great for word recognition but it’s much easier to read numbers and punctuation marks when they are evenly spaced. Indentation and vertical alignment is also important for code legibility and the monospace grid is good for achieving this. What follows is a list of monospace fonts designed specifically for coding. Some are paid for, and others are free fonts. In these monospace fonts, special care has been taken to make similar-looking glyphs more distinguishable, punctuation is larger than usual, and the fonts are designed to be easy to look at all day on a screen. Some are even customisable. Each one has its own personality and priorities, so your choice will come down to your individual preferences. If you want to make your coding life even easier, check out our posts on the best code editors and the best laptops for programming. 01. Fira Code A font designed for Mozilla with coding ligatures Fira Code is an extension of Fira Mono, a monospaced font designed for Mozilla to fit in with the character of Firefox OS. The code variant of Fira includes programming ligatures – these are special renderings of certain character combinations that are designed to make code easier to read and understand. So, for example, the == and != combinations are rendered as proper equality glyphs, which are supposedly easier for the brain to process than two separate characters that have their own individual meanings. How you feel about this of course depends on personal taste – if you’ve been reading normal code for years you might not want to make the change. But if this does appeal, Fira Code is a widely supported, popular programming font that makes code easy to read. It's also free and open source. The GitHub page has coding samples from a range of languages so you can see how things look. 02. Input Mono Read the creator's coding font philosophy in the Info section Input is a system of fonts designed specifically for coding by David Jonathan Ross that comes in both proportional and monospaced variants. As it has been designed with coding in mind, the proportional spacing is tailored to that application so it may be that you will consider it over the monospaced version. There’s a range of widths, weights and styles, each with serif, sans and monospaced variants, resulting in a total of 168 different styles. So you really can get exactly what you want with this font set. It is described as having generous spacing, large punctuation, and easily distinguishable characters, and the size and positioning of symbols frequently used in coding has been given great consideration. You can also customise the forms of certain key characters including the letters 'i', 'l', 'a' and 'g'. Input is free to use for private, unpublished usage in your personal coding app. If you want to publish text using something from the Input font family, you can see the prices here – prices start from $5. 03. Dank Mono Dank will add panache to any code editor Dank Mono by Phil Plückthun, bills itself as being "designed for aesthetes with code and Retina displays in mind". Like Fira Code, it has the programming ligatures, and there’s also a cursive italic variant that’s useful for distinguishing different types of text within your code. Overall this font has been created for coders who have an eye for design, and the unusual lowercase 'f' is known for being particularly beloved among Dank fans. Dank supports the Western, Eastern, Central and Southern European Latin character sets, and you can use it within CodePen. To get Dank, you'll need to pay – a personal licence is £40 and a commercial one is £100. But if you’re a type connoisseur and you’re smitten with that jaunty 'f' it might be worth treating yourself to some Dankness. 04. Gintronic Jovial font Gintronic is easy to stare at Creator Mark Frömberg describes Gintronic as "jovial" and "gentle", an antidote to what he sees as the overly technical and mechanical style of many programming fonts. Gintronic overall appears relaxed and easy to look at, with a few particular characters adding a special personality – check out the curly brackets, the question mark, the lower case ‘k’ and the numerals. Extra effort has been made to design glyphs that can be hard to tell apart – such as 'B' and '8', 'i'’ and 'l' and so on – in a way that makes them easy to distinguish at a glance. In total there are 1174 glyphs, so Gintronic has a massive character set that includes Latin, Cyrillic and Greek characters as well as a full range of mathematical and technical symbols. Gintronic is €50 for the single font, €100 for the Roman or Italic bundle and €150 for the complete family. 05. Monoid A compact, highly legible font that works with Font Awesome Andreas Larsen set out a list of priorities when he designed Monoid – he wanted it to be legible, compact (the more code you can fit on one screen, the better), and "pretty". To achieve these ends he compared three other programming fonts – Fira Mono, Source Code Pro and Pragmata Pro – and took note of features that he likes and doesn’t like from each to inform the design of Monoid. Like many programming fonts, Monoid has extra-large punctuation marks and operators; apertures are large to help make characters more distinguishable; and ascenders and descenders are kept short. Smart design decisions have been taken to make Monoid both compact and highly legible. It has programming ligatures, and there is also a special feature called Monoisome which enables you to see Font Awesome icons in your code. Monoid is free and open source, so you can even tweak it to your tastes if you like. 06. Hack Over 1500 glyphs that you can customise Among the fonts we’ve covered so far, there are some with huge character sets and several variants, so it’s likely you’ll find something that’s just right. But if you have very specific desires, Hack could be the one for you, as there’s a whole library of alternative glyphs made by users that you can add to if you like. Hack is therefore highly customisable – you can get right down into the detail of each glyph and edit it yourself if no one else has done it exactly as you want. Hack is free and open source. Head over to alt-hack, the alternative glyph library, to find out how to create your own custom version. If you're looking to learn the latest creative and practical skills to take your client work, career or agency to the next level, then join us at Generate CSS – our CSS-focused conference for web designers and developers. Find out more here. Use special offer code WEBDESIGNER2 for a 10% discount on tickets! Read more: 50 top typography tutorials 12 cheat sheets every designer needs Ethical hacking: all you need to know View the full article

Want more free time to spend on a side project, or just out having fun? There are many ways that Adobe Stock can save you hours, maybe even days, spent in front of your computer. So why not take advantage? Read on, as we outline five ways that Adobe Stock can help you get more work done in less time. 01. Find the right image in seconds Searching for the perfect pic? Adobe Stock has millions of royalty-free images on virtually every subject you could ever imagine. And thanks to its clever machine-learning software, you can use keywords and filters to find the exact image you’re looking for, in seconds. Alternatively, you can simply upload an image to find visually similar results, which will match the colour, tone, and composition of your original image. This intelligent and responsive search technology really comes in handy when you’re on deadline and your art ed is breathing down your neck, as the video above demonstrates in humorous fashion. (If you’d like to know how the image featured in it was created, there’s a more serious tutorial about it here). 02. Try out images within Creative Cloud apps Did we mention you don’t even have to open a separate tab to search for Adobe Stock images? Whether you’re working in Illustrator, Photoshop or any other Creative Cloud app, you can search for the right image directly within the app and import it with a single click. You’re then free to preview the image in your mockups, move it around and manipulate it to your heart’s content, and - only when you’re happy with your choice and how it’s working within your design, and have got signoff from your art ed or client - choose to licence it. This seamless integration into the Creative Cloud makes Adobe Stock the perfect tool for getting professional work completed quickly and to everyone’s satisfaction. And you don’t have to take our word for it: in the video above, freelance graphic designer Oliver Goodard explains exactly how Adobe Stock fits into his practice and makes his life a heck of a lot easier. 03. Save reinventing the wheel with Adobe Stock templates So far we’ve talked about images, but there’s another great way in which Adobe Stock can help speed up your design work: its Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign templates. These provide a professional looking ‘skeleton’ to common design types such as posters, templates and websites, saving you from reinventing the wheel, over and over again. And because they’re fully customisable, they allow you to spend more of your time being creative, choosing fonts, images, colours and so on, to create unique designs in less time. Again, because Adobe Stock is fully integrated into the CC apps, it’s super-easy and quick to use its templates directly within Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. To get a flavour of how Adobe Stock templates can save you time, check out the video above, and for a more detailed walkthrough, read our tutorial Design a poster in Photoshop CC with Adobe Stock templates. 04. Create video faster using motion templates Adobe Stock templates are not just for static design work. There are also a ton of excellent motion graphics templates available, many of which are free. Whether you’re using pro-level CC software like After Effects or Premiere Pro, or the new Premiere Rush, which is super-easy to use, Adobe Stock lets you add titles, credits, animations and more to bring your projects to life. In the video above, Amber and Stone from Stellar Image Studios explain how you can take a lower third from the Adobe Stock library and personalise it to the needs of a client. It’s a task that would normally take them around two to five hours, but with Adobe Stock takes around five minutes. Just think about that for a moment. If you can save that much time on just one task, think how much you could save over the course of year.... 05. Animate quickly using 3D assets 3D animation is probably the most time consuming of all tasks in the design world. So it’s an obvious place to look for ways that Adobe Stock can save you serious time. And yes, here too, Adobe Stock has you nicely covered. In the video above - the first of a three-part series - David Brodeur shows you how to quickly create an animation using a 3D asset from Adobe Stock, and how such assets can dramatically speed up your workflow. “We’re not going to waste a whole lot of time modelling a coffee mug," he explains. "Because today’s culture is all about: how do you keep pumping out a lot of work; how do you keep producing? We’re all short of time, and Adobe Stock can help us do that quickly and efficiently.” Conclusion You only have one life to life, so why spend it on mundane, time-consuming and repetitive tasks when Adobe Stock can help you get things done more quickly? Enabling you to find the right assets quickly and easily, and then work with them, seamlessly, within the Creative Cloud, Adobe Stock is perfectly positioned to help your design practice achieve its goals in the shortest time possible. So what are you waiting for? Get started with Adobe Stock today! View the full article

For 72 hours only, designers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa can get 19-20% off an Adobe Single App plan in this flash sale. The offer runs from today (9 Sept) until Wednesday 11 September, and is open to individual subscribers in EMEA regions. Not sure if this is the best offer for you? Take a look at our roundup of the best alternative Adobe Creative Cloud deals right now. While Adobe's Creative Cloud suite is incredibly powerful, not everyone needs all the apps in the package. This offer makes subscribing to just one app all the more appealing – right now you'll pay just £16.18 (around €19.19) a month rather than the usual £19.97. With that you get access to the app you need (Photoshop, Illustrator or Adobe XD), plus 100GB of cloud storage, Adobe Portfolio, Fonts and Spark thrown in for free. Adobe's annual creative conference is fast approaching, and we're expecting some exciting announcements on its flagship products, plus some new additions. Take a look at our predictions for Adobe MAX 2019. If you're not quite sure what you need, take a look at our Photoshop CC review or our Illustrator CC review for an idea of what each app offers. View the full article

Procreate 5 has been revealed, and it looks very exciting indeed. The latest version of the painting and drawing app has a new super-speedy graphics engine, named Valkyrie and there are also big changes afoot when it comes to using brushes and colours in the app, plus some more useful tools. For the first time, creatives can import their favourite brushes from Photoshop (see our favourite Photoshop brushes here) directly into Procreate. They can also combine brushes to make custom Dual Brushes, with over 150 brush settings. All these updated brush options are within Procreate 5's all-new Brush Studio, which is bigger – it can now be full-screen – and better – there's a new texture generator. These changes mean that when you're using Procreate 5 with Apple Pencil, you can set pressure and tilt to get hundreds of different brush variables. Seeing as Procreate is already one of our favourite iPad Pro apps, these improved features could take the app to dizzy new heights. Procreate is so popular, Adobe has even responded with its own painting app, Adobe Fresco, which is now available to preorder. But whether or not it can compete with Procreate's ever-updating app remains to be seen. Elsewhere in Procreate 5, there's now a floating Color Picker, to make it easier to play around with hues within the app, and improved Color Dynamics for easier transformation of colours, and perhaps best of all, you can now import CMYK and RGB ICC profiles. There's also a new Clone Tool so you can easily duplicate textures across your work. Animation is also set to become a lot easier with Animation Assist (above), which has features like onion skinning (which shows a faint outline of the previous layer) and instant playback. This builds on the introduction of animation in the app back in April, when the Text tool was also added. Procreate 5 was unveiled on Friday at LightBox Expo, and those at the festival were able to preview the new features. Many took to Twitter to express their excitement: Procreate also aimed squarely at subscription models (read, Adobe) with its 'Unsubscribe' campaign: Procreate 5 is still in development, with a release expected later in the year. An upgrade to the new version will be free for those who already have the app. Watch this space for more news, or get Procreate now for $10. Read more: The 13 best iPad apps for designers Harry Potter play rebrand stirs up rumours 25 stunning iOS app designs View the full article

Want to build a website? Well, WordPress.org is a great system to use. One of the giants of the web, WordPress powers around 32 per cent of the world’s websites, and for good reason. It’s been around for decades, it’s free and open source, and there’s a huge and active community around it. You’ll still have to pay for your domain name and hosting, but the WordPress.org software itself, which you’ll use to build your website, is free. So this is a potentially cheaper option than many other website builders. There's quite a bit of a learning curve, so you have to be prepared to put some work in. But WordPress really is a tried-and-tested method for building websites. And so here, we'll walk you through the basics in order to get you started. If these initial steps look intimidating, though, then don't worry: afterwards we'll introduce you to some alternatives that make it even quicker and easier to build a website, albeit at a price. 01. Buy a domain name and hosting We're using Hostgator, but other hosts are available... As we mentioned, WordPress.org’s software is free to download. But unless you own your own computer server, you’re still going to need to pay someone to host your website and make it available to anyone in the world, 24 hours a day. You also need to buy a domain name: the web address that allows people to access your site. (For example, the domain name of the site you’re looking at now is creativebloq.com.) Most hosting companies will sell you a package that includes both hosting and a domain name, which makes things a lot simpler. If you don’t know where to start in choosing a hosting company, then check out the best web hosting services. For the purposes of this article, though, we’ve randomly chosen Hostgator to create our dummy website. We’ll start by visiting the Hostgator website and choosing the cheapest pricing plan. (That's something we’d usually recommend for beginners, whatever the hosting company, as you’re unlikely to use any of the advanced features in the more expensive options.) Doing that takes us to the screen below, where we're asked to choose a domain name. Our chosen domain name, 99percentmedia.com, wasn't available, but 99percentmedia.net was This may take some time, as your favoured name may have been taken, but it’s worth taking your time over getting this right. Forbes has some good advice on choosing a domain name. In our case, we were lucky. While 99percentmedia.com wasn't available, 99percentmedia.net was. And that was good enough for us. You’re then asked to enter your personal and payment details, which is all pretty self-explanatory. In section 4 of the form, there are some extra services the company will try to sell you. These are all potentially useful, but for beginners we’d recommend unticking all these boxes to keep the overall cost down. In section 5, you get the chance to use a discount code to get money off. Don't pass this up. Do a quick Google search to see if you can find a valid code. Again, it’s worth taking a few minutes over this. Once you’ve reviewed everything and are happy with your purchase, click the box saying you agree with the Terms and Conditions, and proceed to checkout. 02. Install WordPress Having bought our hosting, we're off! After checking out, we get this screen (above) telling us that HostGator is setting up our account. After a couple of minutes, it’s replaced by this screen (below). Fairly obviously, you want the left-hand option here Clicking on the WordPress option brings us to the screen below. Click on Install WordPress, near the bottom of the right-hand column It’s not super-obvious, but from here, you need to click on Install WordPress under Control Panel. This brings you to the screen below, where you need to enter some details. (You'll prob want to ignore the bit at the bottom about ‘Let a pro do it for you’.) One more form to fill out, and we'll be done Blog title is self-explanatory: it’s the title that will appear on the homepage of your website. It can be the same as your domain name, but it doesn’t have to be. Admin user is basically your username for logging into WordPress. We’ve chosen ‘admin’ but it could be your name, your nickname, or anything else that’s memorable. Also add your first and last name, and your email address, tick Automatically create a new database, agree to the terms of service, and click the Install button. Yay! You’re now finally at your WordPress dashboard, where you can start building your site. Note: in future, you can come here at any time by entering your site’s URL and ‘/wp-admin’. In our case, that's http://99percentmedia.net/wp-admin/. 03. Start building your site Your WordPress Dashboard is where you'll build your website Now the real fun/work begins! But before we get into the juicy stuff, there’s a bit of boring admin. At the moment, your site’s internal page URLs are going to be long and confusing. So you need to tweak a few setting to make them shorter and simpler. In the left-hand pane, click on Settings and then choose Permalinks. Scroll down and you’ll see that Custom Structure is selected. Instead, select Post Name, above it, and then Save Changes. That's it! Change the Permalinks setting from Custom Structure to Post Name Okay, so want to see what your website looks like at the moment? Then hover over its name at the top of the page and click on Visit site. Right now, it will look something like this: This is what a WordPress site looks like at its most basic Pretty basic, right? So now it’s time to add some style. The most common way to do this is by using themes, which are basically templates with dummy images and text which you can then customise for your own purposes. 04. Choose a theme WordPress.org comes with a few preloaded themes, or you can find both free and paid third-party themes online. Check out, for instance, our lists of the best free WordPress themes and top-quality WordPress portfolio themes. Once you find a theme you like online, then first you need to download it as a zip file. Then in your dashboard, go to Appearance and click on Themes > Add New > Upload Theme. Navigate to the zip file on your computer, then click on Install, then Activate. 05. Start customising Our site with WordPress's Twenty Seventeen Theme As you can see above, we’ve opted to use WordPress’s own Twenty Seventeen theme. There’s a lot that we now need to do to personalise this, but most obviously, the default picture isn’t really relevant to our topic. So let’s change it. We click on Appearance > Customise > Header Media. Then we scroll down to Header Image, select Add New Image, and swap our hero image for a more suitable one from Adobe Stock. Add a nice stock image, and the homepage starts to come to life Instantly, this is starting to look less like a bland template and more like a bespoke website. Obviously this is just the start of building out our website within the Dashboard. We'll need to swap out the dummy text and the other images with our own. We'll also need to change its structure, its colour scheme, add things like footers, icons, and social media links. We may also want to import plugins to add extra functionality to our site (check out our list of the best WordPress plugins). But every journey starts with a single step, and we’re now on our way. To help you through the next steps, check out WordPress’s own lessons, as well as our list of top WordPress tutorials. Best of luck! Alternatives to WordPress WordPress is great, but it's not the simplest way to create a website. So if you want an easy option, or if you need to get a quick website live today or tomorrow, then, we’d recommend spending some extra cash and opting for one of the paid-for website building platforms, such as Wix, Squarespace or Shopify. Each of these has different pros and cons, check out our selection of the best website builders so you can see exactly what the various services have to offer and which one is likely to be the best fit for you. Don't want to spend any money? Then consider whether a website is actually what you need at all. For example, if you need a place to showcase your creative work online, then could a platform such as Dribbble or Behance, or perhaps just an Instagram or a Facebook business page do the job just as well? Also note that Adobe Portfolio is free if you’re already paying for the Creative Cloud. We can’t answer these questions, of course: only you can. But they’re certainly worth asking. Because in 2019 it’s not always the case that everyone absolutely has to have a website. If you do decide you need to build a website, though, then whatever system you use, make sure you bookmark our Web Design tag. Bringing you regular doses of inspiration, tips and tutorials, you'll find plenty to aid your website building efforts! Read more: How to design a favicon: the ultimate guide 7 web trends we'd be better off without 21 UI design secrets you need to know View the full article

Reality Capture is a great way of making your own 3D scans. All you need is your camera and you can scan a range of objects to make your own assets – in this case, to use in game or animation backgrounds. This saves you creating your own models. In this tutorial we’ll be doing some 3D scanning out in nature using any digital camera – see our best camera phones if you're in need of an upgrade – and the Reality Capture software. You can quickly build up a large collection of models to use in various projects or for one big job. We’ll start with techniques for taking the pictures, then move on to Reality Capture where the pictures are loaded in, then aligned and turned into a point cloud in 3D space. Next we’ll look at merging the point cloud into a polygonal model with different levels of detail. See our roundup of 3D art for some modelling inspiration. When you’re satisfied with the model, we’ll look at a couple of different ways to add colour texture (get your free textures here). Finally, we’ll export the model and load it into 3D-Coat, where you can do some quick retopology and bake the textures and normal maps to a lower-resolution model so it can be used in your animation or game. Download the files you need here This article originally appeared in issue 133 of 3D Artist. Buy issue 133 or subscribe here. Read more: The best VR headsets Character sheets for 3D modellers: 15 top tips The best digital art software right now View the full article

Thanks to the wonder of the internet, we live in a more connected world than ever before. Chances are notifications from your favourite sites pop up every now and then to keep you updated with news headlines and your friends’ social media statuses. But for artists looking to connect with the creative community, live streaming offers a unique way to get involved with like-minded people in real-time. Streaming sites aren’t anything particularly new. Just take live streaming video platform Twitch. The site, which focuses on video game content, has amassed a huge audience of engaged users over recent years because it’s tapped into the needs of its target audience and hit them hard with entertaining content. Another factor at the heart of streaming’s success is that people can either sit back and enjoy the videos, or they can host them. But it’s not just gamers who get to indulge in some live streaming fun, there are plenty of informative and amusing videos for artists to watch elsewhere online. Your digital art will take off online with a little help from Picarto This is sure to be welcome news for creatives, because sometimes working as an artist can feel like a lonely pursuit. Not only do you have to put the hours in to hone your craft, you also need to keep topping up your skills and somehow get your masterpieces out into the world. If you want to make it big, there’s also a tremendous amount of networking involved. Don’t fret though, because live streaming platform Picarto is here to connect digital artists and animators in order to help them share their passions. Created in 2013, Picarto is the first live streaming platform to put its emphasis on creativity. It covers all sorts of creative interests, including popular topics such as comics, anime, and character design. As long as it’s connected to creativity, artists are free to watch and share videos on Picarto. Picarto’s creativity focused live streaming is a godsend if you want to learn a new technique and build your audience. By watching artists whip up an illustration or an animation, viewers can get a greater understanding of what went into making their work. And for the creators hosting the streaming videos, it’s an opportunity to establish a fanbase and make a name for yourself. One of the biggest lures when it comes to live streaming sites is that all you need is a piece of recording equipment like a webcam and you can become a streamer yourself. With no need to edit your footage, you can begin broadcasting to your audience quickly and easily. Chuck in the opportunity to earn commissions from your work, and Picarto could even help you to make money from your art. Create the art you love with Picarto livestreams And with so many streams available on Picarto, visitors are sure to find a video that caters to their needs. What’s more, if you’ve found a creator who you think deserves a little more attention, you can help them grow by setting up a themed duo-stream session with a similar artist. Alternatively there are multi-streams which can support up to four artists, making them an invaluable way for presenters and community members to swap notes. Artists have always worked as members of a community, whether it’s the Pop art movement or the Post-Impressionists. And if artistic communities are good enough for the likes of Andy Warhol and Toulouse-Lautrec, they must be useful. So just think of live streaming and Picarto as a community that unites artists from all over the world. Once you get involved you might learn a new skill, meet new people, or even create your own fanbase. To explore everything Picarto has to offer, either as an audience member or as a potential streamer, visit the site here. View the full article

Large portions of APT3's remote code-execution package were likely reverse-engineered from prior attack artifacts. View the full article

Anyone working in web development will often feel like they deserve a medal. Trying to achieve the impossible against overly-optimistic deadlines, with clients and management breathing down their necks, errors that defy all efforts to fix them and having to deal with the fallout from user testing, who wouldn't want a little recognition for their efforts? Every career has its own rites of passage, those classic career achievements that everyone racks up along the line. If you were playing a video game, these would be the points at which you'd hear some sort of chime and get an on-screen notification that you'd earned an achievement, trophy or badge, depending on what platform you're playing on. And CSS-Tricks' Chris Coyier has been wondering exactly what these achievements might be for web developers. He kicked things off the other day with a tweet asking, "What are some classic dev career achievements or rites of passage?". 50 awesome new tools for developers in 2019 He already had a few ideas lined up, including 'Changed a DNS record and everything worked just fine', 'Refactored a large portion of CSS and didn't break anything', and 'Accidentally created own CMS', but he needed more, and the dev community stepped up in their droves. Some suggestions are those little everyday victories racked up at the code face; Eric Meyer came up with a few, including, 'Edited .htaccess without causing 500 errors', 'Used flexbox in production', and 'Launched a responsive site'. Get 25% off tickets with the code CSS25! Click the image to find out more (offer expires 6pm Friday 6 September) Christina Workman had an old-school suggestion: 'Found the missing semi-colon', something that modern developer might not ever have to deal with thanks to code linting, while Lucy Beer came up with the classic: 'Migrated a database...and it worked'. Cool story. Other ideas are more concerned with some of the realities that anyone connected with creative industries will have come across at one point or another. Steve Gardner came up with the frankly outlandish 'successfully quoted the correct amount of time for some work', while @indextwo offered the similarly unlikely 'Got paid first time, on time without prompting'. What about those ultra-rare achievements, though? The ludicrous ones that you normally only collect after months of diligent practice or thanks to sheer dumb luck. We have a winner, courtesy of Mike Price: 'Pushed to production on a Friday and didn't have to roll it back over the weekend'. Come off it, mate. Never happened. Want to discover more dev career achievements or suggest your own? Hit up Chris Coyier's Twitter thread. Related articles: How to set up a local development environment Agile development: How to use it in your web workflow How to succeed as a freelance developer View the full article

This week, the Harry Potter play – Harry Potter and The Cursed Child – got a brand new look, and it's prompted a whole lot of excitement, as well as speculation. It all started when the play's signage at theatres in New York, London, and Melbourne was quietly changed. If you're thinking that this logo looks familiar, you'd be right. The typography is now in line with the Harry Potter film franchise, which is based on the original illustrations for the books, created by Mary GrandPré. The redesign also included a brand new poster (see more inspirational poster designs here). Compare the new look (above) to the old one (below). It seems the boy within the snitch is no more. Plus, JK Rowling's name has been added, and the 'parts one and two' disclaimer removed. Bye-bye snitch? So why has a typography change caused so much speculation? First of all, there are rumours that Warner Bros, which owns the rights to the films and the Wizarding World, has bought the rights to the play. This has in turn sparked more rumours that the play could be made into a film (or two, or three). Back in 2017, JK Rowling said that there was "NO TRUTH" in the rumours about a Cursed Child trilogy. Pottermore, "the digital heart of the Wizarding World", retweeted this tweet yesterday, adding that "there is something exciting coming later on from @CursedChildNYC, but it's not a movie." JK Rowling also prompted more speculation with her first tweet in several months, which showed a rather ominous image of the Dark Mark, and the tagline: 'Sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places'. Last night saw a Harry Potter 'takeover' in New York's Times Square, which could explain the above tweets. Pottermore has today explained that JK Rowling's words, written by her as the original tagline to the play, are now the play's official tagline. Pottermore says the new designs and tagline mark "a new chapter for Cursed Child". The play is soon to open in San Francisco, Toronto and Hamburg. Pottermore doesn't mention Warner Bros, but the new poster (below) contains the Wizarding World logo. The new poster... spot the Wizarding World logo It's also unlikely to be a coincidence that's there a new book on the making of the play coming out soon, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: The Journey. And of course, the book features the same Harry Potter logo. So what's this all about? Is it just about getting the branding for the separate Potter elements in line, ready to become one huge magical (corporate) world? Is a Harry Potter and the Cursed Child film coming soon? Muggle Net reports the following from an official statement from Cursed Child NYC: "Cursed Child continues to be produced by Sonia Friedman, Colin Callender and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions in London, Broadway and all around the world, and there are no plans whatsoever for a movie. WB has always been a valued partner of Cursed Child since it’s [sic] ‪inception‬. Their role has not changed." So that's the 'official' line. It also reports that some of the employees of the New York play have now become official WB/AT&T employees, suggesting that Warner Bros has purchased a controlling right in the production. For now, we'll just go back to looking at JK Rowling's Twitter feed. Read more: Graphic design in film: the ultimate guide Is this the most blatant logo theft ever? This angle meme is making designers' eyes hurt View the full article

CSS Grid is quite simply the biggest story in web design right now. Giving developers the tools to build complex layouts with relatively little code, it represents a revolutionary step forward in providing control over layout behaviour, in a responsive world (see our responsive web design tutorials). There is, of course, a learning curve involved. Which is why we had to have Michelle Barker as one of the key speakers at our forthcoming Generate CSS conference (on 26 September in Shoreditch, London). A Mozilla Tech Speaker, author of the CSS {In Real Life} blog and passionate advocate for CSS Grid, Barker’s talk will identify the most common issues designers face in adopting it and how to overcome them. Read on, as she reveals how she fell in love with CSS, discusses her work at Mud and Ordoo and shares her predictions for how web design will evolve in the 2020s. Tell us more about what you do I’m a creative frontend developer with strong UX leanings and a background in design and illustration that informs much of the work I do. For my day job I’m a frontend developer at Ordoo, a mobile ordering startup. My main passion is CSS and I love experimenting and writing articles for my blog, CSS {In Real Life}. I’ve always loved writing and my blog gives me the perfect excuse to combine all of my passions in one place. Where does this passion come from? Ever since learning web development, I’ve been interested in CSS layout – it was so different from print. A few years ago I attended a workshop by Rachel Andrew and that’s where I first learnt about CSS Grid. I’ve been hooked ever since and have made it my mission to get other people as excited by it as I am. I’m really excited about how fast CSS is moving at the moment – it’s becoming more powerful by the day and there are even more exciting specifications just around the corner! Why do you like speaking at events? I’m a Mozilla Tech Speaker and speak about CSS Grid at conferences and meetups. Attending meetups is a great way to meet new friends, make contacts and get involved in the web community. I’d really recommend speaking at meetups as, in my experience, the community is warm, welcoming and great at giving constructive feedback. Working up the courage to do it for the first time is quite nerve-racking but it’s 100 per cent worth it. Speaking has opened so many doors for me. In 2016, you started working at Mud full-time. Can you tell us about the work for Warner Bros you did there? The website for Warner Bros Studios Leavesden was one of the biggest projects that I worked on at Mud. The design was by Blast and we at Mud were responsible for the development. My role was writing most of the HTML and CSS. The design presented some interesting layout challenges and was the perfect opportunity to use CSS Grid for the first time. So many of the layouts wouldn’t have been possible without Grid or would have been extremely challenging to implement responsively in ways that enabled the content creators sufficient freedom. We needed to allow for content of indeterminate length, images that could be any aspect ratio and still have the layout look good. There weren’t many CSS Grid tutorials and examples out in the wild at the time, other than Rachel Andrew’s excellent Grid By Example site. One key challenge was constructing a flexible grid that would allow some elements to align to a 24-column central grid, while also allowing others to bleed out to the edge of the viewport. Through experimentation and trial-and-error, I managed to figure out ways to solve these challenges. Several articles on CSS {In Real Life} have been directly informed by things I discovered on that project. How important is CSS Grid to the future of web design? There’s a misconception that certain CSS features shouldn’t be used until browser support is 100 per cent. It’s likely that will never be the case – there will always be older browsers to cater for and we should make sure those users get an acceptable experience. Progressive enhancement is your friend here! There are different strategies for supporting (or not supporting) Grid in older browsers: IE10 and IE11 actually support Grid’s older syntax, so that is one possible solution. The perceived training time and cost can also be a barrier for some. Like any new technology, there is an amount of learning involved and, sadly, I don’t see too many companies shouting about how they love to invest in CSS skills. It often plays second fiddle to JavaScript. Having said that, I believe Grid is going to be integral to the future of web design. Jen Simmons coined the term “Intrinsic Web Design” to describe the next evolutionary age of web layout that we’re entering into and we’re only just starting to see some of the creative possibilities emerge. I hope there will be a turning point soon, when enough people stop thinking of web design as an extension of print and start embracing it as its own medium. Within a few years, Grid will become the natural tool to reach for [when it comes to] web layout. What else is exciting in the world of CSS? There’s so much! Custom properties are pretty amazing and are starting to capture people’s imaginations. Support for subgrid, part of the CSS Grid Level 2 specification, has recently landed in Firefox Nightly and is slated for the next Firefox general release. I can’t wait to play around with it some more and figure out the creative possibilities! I’m also looking forward to experimenting a lot more with variable fonts. Mandy Michael and Jason Pamental are doing some great work creating demonstrations and talking about these. How do you see the role of frontend developer evolving in the 2020s? The role of a frontend developer has grown to encompass so much and it’s rare that you find someone equally strong at every aspect. I think it’s inevitable that we’ll end up seeing a split in roles between UI developers who write HTML, CSS and JavaScript for interactions and those who fall more into the ‘engineer’ category. It’s interesting: I feel like the ‘should designers code?’ question gets asked a lot less often these days because frontend code has become much more complex. Just starting a project can feel like a huge challenge, with a whole suite of build tools to configure before you can even begin. That’s why I decided to try and build my personal site with just HTML, CSS and nothing else – to see whether that was too unrealistic in 2019. But it’s a completely valid way to build a simple site. The way CSS is growing right now, those skills are soon going to become extremely valuable. What will you be speaking about at Generate CSS? If you’re interested in CSS Grid but are yet to start using it in production, this one’s for you. I’ve helped enough people get started with Grid to identify some common issues that many of them run up against. My talk will help people identify what might be causing them problems with their layout and how to debug these. I hope there will be something to learn, whatever your level of Grid experience. I love that we’re now seeing CSS-focused events like Generate CSS popping up. Often CSS is lumped in with frontend in general and you might go along to a frontend conference but only see one talk on CSS! This article was originally published in issue 324 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 324 or subscribe to net. Discover more about CSS Grid at Generate CSS In her talk at Generate CSS, the focused CSS conference for web designers taking place on 26 September 2019 at Rich Mix, London, Michelle Barker will explore how Grid works in harmony with (and not against!) other layout methods to build the robust, flexible web of the future. If you want to catch this and other great talks, make sure you buy your ticket now! Related articles: A comprehensive guide to using CSS Grid Create a responsive layout with CSS Grid 5 cool CSS Grid generators View the full article

Whether it was a sneaky doodle or busted out when creating poster designs, there was a time when everyone loved bubble writing. And although you may no longer be in primary school, if you want to create a condensed 'S' shape, then a child's tip may be just the thing. Lettering artist Ian Barnard has tweeted a super-short video demonstration of how to create a condensed 'S', saying that the tip came from his daughter. Barnard's condensed 'S' is sharper than standard bubble writing. It's got a cool urban edge to it, similar to the ones we see in our favourite graffiti fonts. Check it out below. The condensed 'S' has evoked warm memories for people commenting on the Twitter thread. Bonez Designz remembers it as the 'Superman S': Whereas Erica Rodriguez speaks for the crowd that made some small adjustments to make it a dollar sign: In fact, according to YouTuber LEMMINO in a video about the 'Universal S' (below), the condensed 'S' has been spotted as far back as 1890, in a book called Mechanical Graphics, so it's clearly a popular choice. But it's a tricky one to master due to the letter's awkward geometry. So next time you need to draw yourself a geometrically perfect, well-balanced 'S' just get yourself one of the best sketchbooks available, and follow the advice from Barnard's daughter. Read more: The best free handwriting fonts Free retro fonts Best graffiti fonts View the full article

Chinese microblogging giant Weibu has withdrawn its new Instagram-style app after it became apparent that its logo plagiarised a 2015 design by a Korean design studio. The new app, called Oasis – or Lüzhou in Chinese – launched on 3 September and quickly became the most popular app on Apple's Chinese app store, but was swiftly withdrawn a few hours later after a user pointed out on Weibo's online forums that the logo design had been lifted wholesale from Studio fnt's designs for the 2015 Ulju Mountain Film Festival. How can designers deal with plagiarism? Studio fnt's original design from its UMFF project Anyone who's been around the design world for any length of time knows that you can't go too long without someone claiming that a brand new logo design is a rip-off of another one. It's one of those occupational hazards of design life; after all, on the whole, nobody sets out to copy another piece of work for their new branding project. But in logo design, where you're often working with simple and minimal shapes, it's inevitable that occasionally you'll create something that looks a little – or even a lot – like an existing design. And here's the Oasis logo. Breathtaking Unfortunately for Weibo, that argument doesn't hold any water in this case. The logo, depicting stylised mountains and a sun drawn in a distinctive line art style is a straight copy of a business card design created as part of fnt's UMFF project. It even steals the visual effect of the foil printing used on fnt's business cards, but in this case achieves a near-identical look with a colour gradient. The app has already been removed from the Chinese App Store In fairness to Weibo, it took the app down as soon as it became aware of the blatant plagiarism, and posted an apology soon after in which it admitted that in the past its designers had borrowed elements from online materials. Oasis further states that it has initiated an internal review of its design process and has been contacting relevant design parties to resolve any copyright issues. Related articles: Stolen design work: the ugly truth 10 iconic logos with hidden meanings 10 of the best logos ever View the full article

Hoping to secure a top Black Friday Microsoft deal in 2019? In the run-up to the main event, we've gathered all our intel from past years to make some predictions for the offers we're going to see from Microsoft in late November. Looking for something different? Take a look at our general guide to Black Friday 2019. Of course, you'll need to wait until 29 November for Black Friday 2019, with Cyber Monday on the 2 Dec. However, retailers have been getting in on the action earlier and earlier each year, which means it's worth getting organised ahead of time if you're hoping to snag a top Black Friday Microsoft deals. The good news is that we're constantly scouring the web and will update you with any genuinely good Black Friday Microsoft deals in this article, as soon as they go live. But we're a little too early for anything right now, so in the meantime we'll take a look at what we saw last year – the products that got discounted and how big the price drops were – to give you an idea of how 2019's event might look. Bookmark this page and check back to make sure you know what to expect and you can jump on any hot deals before they sell out. Microsoft Black Friday Surface deals The range everyone's interested in right now is Microsoft Surface, and retailers have been happy to oblige with impressive surface deals at various sales events. Last year's Black Friday saw particularly impressive offers on the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2. At time of writing, there had been no new models of most of Microsoft's flagship lines since Black Friday 2018. However, there are rumours that the Microsoft event on 2 Oct will bring with it some exciting hardware news – if that's the announcement or release of the Surface Pro 7, Surface Book 3 or Surface Laptop 2, that could shake things up in terms of this year's Microsoft Black Friday deals. It's likely there will be some top Black Friday Surface deals heading your way in November. Read on for the best prices available right now, plus our pick of last year's top offers, on different Surface products. Surface Pro 6 deals The Surface Pro 6 was released in October 2018, just in time for Black Friday 2018. While we usually wouldn't expect to see discounts on brand new products, in a surprising move a number of retailers knocked down the price of the Surface Pro 6 in 2018, and we saw more impressive discounts on Amazon Prime Day in 2019 (in the UK Amazon knocked a £280 off). We're not yet sure when the Surface Pro 7 is going to drop, but it's likely to be late 2019 at the earliest. Taking that out of the equation for Black Friday 2019, and the spotlight will once again be on the Surface Pro 6. Read our Surface Pro review, check out the cheapest prices right now, or scroll down for the best offers from Black Friday 2018. Surface Book 2 deals In 2018 there were plenty of big discounts on the Surface Book 2, Microsoft's powerful laptop. There's a lot to recommend this device – take a look at our Surface Book 2 review for our thoughts (we awarded it 4.5 stars). So far, there's no news as to when the Surface Book 3 will appear. In our original Surface Book review we awarded the device 5 stars, so if you don't mind an older model it might be worth keeping an eye out for any hot deals over Black Friday 2019. Surface Go deals The Surface Go, Microsoft's reasonably priced 10-inch tablet also got some good discounts last year. Take a look at our sister site TechRadar's review for more on this device, then browse the best current prices below or read on for 2018's cheapest offers. Surface laptop deals The Surface Laptop 2 launched in October 2018. Just like the Surface Pro 6, we saw some unexpected Black Friday discounts on the then-new device last year. We don't yet know when the Surface Laptop 3 will appear. Chances are the current model will be the one to get the discounts again, although there might be some original Surface Laptop discounts if you don't mind an older model. TechRadar awarded the Surface Laptop 2 a nearly-perfect four and a half stars, saying "it ultimately achieves the most pure Windows 10 experience on a laptop" (read the review). See the best prices right now below, or read on for the top deals from 2019. Xbox deals Games consoles traditionally get some mega discounts over Black Friday, and in 2018 Microsoft's Xbox One S and Xbox One X got some big price drops. We saw a lot of bundle deals, with Microsoft games consoles being packaged in with games from Playerunknown's Battlegrounds to Fallout 76 and Minecraft at a range of retailers. If it's a game you actually want, these can be great buys – if not you're looking at a whole lot of false economy. In 2018 we also saw a couple of great console-only deals on the Xbox One X in the US, both in the run-up to the event (from Walmart) and on the day itself (from Amazon). While we predict the best bargains will be appearing on Black Friday itself (and some deals to be had on Cyber Monday, there were bundles cropping up in early Black Friday offers last year, so keep your eyes peeled. The widget below pulls in the best current prices in your territory, including any offers. Microsoft Office deals Microsoft Office has never been cheap, but we do see some Microsoft Black Friday deals to take the sting out of shelling out for Word, Excel and the like. The widget below will pull in the best current prices (including any offers), or read on for the best deals of last year. How to get the best Black Friday Microsoft deals To start with, bookmark this page. We'll be updating this article with all the best Black Friday Microsoft 2019 deals as soon as we hear about them, so make sure you check back. As well as the Microsoft Store itself, other major retailers are in on the action with some strong offers of their own. And while there'll undoubtedly be plenty of action on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, those aren't the only days you'll be able to snag a deal. We've seen eager retailers rolling out their deals earlier and earlier each year. In 2018, there were competitive deals appearing from early November. To make the most of the offers, it's worth checking for add-ons or gift cards that will make your deal even better. It's also worth considering refurbished models. The very best Black Friday Microsoft deals won't stick around forever (many will sell out on the day). If you're reading this post that means you're already ahead of the game – make the most of the run-up period to figure out which Microsoft products are right for you, so you know what to look out for and don't end up panic-buying the wrong thing. View the full article

Whether you're just starting out in graphic design or a seasoned pro, there's always something new to learn if you want to stay ahead of the game. Graphic design's such a vast discipline covering so many different areas that it's hard to know it all, so learning some new skills is always time well spent. We've scoured the web for some of the latest and greatest graphic design tutorials, covering everything from basic techniques through to 3D art and logo design. Read on to level up your skills. 6 of the best free online graphic design courses 01. How to make icons Icons are tiny; how hard can they be to make? Icons seem like they ought to be easy to create – they're tiny, after all – but their minuscule size means that they need to work hard to stand out on a crowded. This tutorial on how to make icons starts with the very basics of what icons are and what purposes they serve, and goes on to cover everything you need to know about creating a pixel-perfect icon that does its job brilliantly. 02. How to solve a tricky brief Learn how to tackle the most challenging briefs One of the toughest challenges for a graphic designer is likely to crop up before you even sit down at your desk. Some briefs are a joy to work with, while others can leave you utterly confused and unsure about how in the hell you're supposed to deliver. That's why we spoke to some top designers at Jack Renwick Studio to get their pro tips on how to solve a tricky brief; if a brief's ever left you thinking about giving it all up to work in a bank, this will set you straight. 03. Create a gradient logo in Illustrator Adobe Illustrator is best known for its vector abilities, but you can also do amazing things with its gradient tools, transforming line-based graphics into colourful and beautifully shaded imagery. This tutorial by Dansky teaches you how to harness these tools to create a gradient logo in Illustrator; it's a perfect introduction to gradients and also provides some essential insight into making a professional-looking logo. 04. How to resize an image in Photoshop There's a lot more to resizing than you might realise On the surface, resizing an image in Photoshop is an easy and straightforward job, but if you're just starting out in design then you might not be aware of the many options it has to offer for resizing images, some of which may suit an individual task better than the standard resize tool. This tutorial on how to resize an image in Photoshop takes you through all the possibilities, plus the dangers involved and methods that can help you deal with them. 05. How to create line patterns in Illustrator Build beautiful patterns from repeated elements If you want to create a great-looking repeat pattern to use in your designs, Illustrator is the perfect tool to help you do it. In this beginner-level tutorial you'll learn how to create line patterns in Illustrator, starting with a few basic shape and building them up into intricate, colourful patterns that you can export as swatches and use in any design. 06. How to make a brochure Brochures are bread and butter for many designers People keep claiming that print is dead, but it's still hard to beat a good old-fashioned brochure as a marketing technique, and most designers will find themselves making a lot of brochures over the course of their careers. While it's not the most glamorous job in the world, a beautifully designed brochure can be a boon to a client and lead to more commissions down the line, so it pays to go the extra mile. This tutorial will show you how to make a brochure that meets your client's need and grabs customers' attention. 07. How to use the new isometric drawing tools in Affinity Designer 1.7 Illustrator's still the go-to vector package for designers, but Serif's Affinity Designer is giving it a run for its money with a strong set of tools and a friendly price point. If you're intrigued by this plucky young challenger, this tutorial from Envato is worth a look; it demonstrates how to use Affinity Designer's new isometric drawing tools to create fantastically on-trend designs in isometric 3D. You can also read our Affinity Designer 1.7 review. 08. Create a stack of 3D characters in Photoshop Get to grips with Photoshop's 3D toolkit Photoshop's 3D tools may not be a match for professional 3D packages, but you can still use them to add impressive-looking 3D elements to your designs, and this tutorial from Spoon Graphics demonstrates one way to do just that. Starting with some flat text and using Photoshop's 3D extrusion tools, it walks you through creating a set of long, extruded character shapes of different lengths, then adding life to them with realistic perspective, shading and lighting. Related articles: 61 top-class Photoshop tutorials to try The best free graphic design software 31 books every graphic designer should read View the full article

The right JavaScript libraries can take a lot of stress out of web development. Lots of the everyday coding tasks you'll have to take on as a developer have already been tackled and made available as libraries, so why reinvent the wheel? We've hunted down 15 of the most essential JavaScript libraries that'll help you solve commonly-faced coding issues and save you untold time and effort. These will help While you're here, you might also want to check out our guide to the best JavaScript frameworks and JavaScript APIs. Read on expand your collection of web design tools, make your life easier and become more productive at the same time. Web design tools to help you work smarter Get 25% off tickets with the code CSS25! Click the image to find out more (offer expires 6pm Friday 6 September) 01. Math.js Pump up JavaScript's maths skills While the JavaScript language standard does contain quite a few mathematical functions, it — of course — is in no way complete. One feature which is commonly missed involves complex numbers. Math.JS provides a relatively easy-to-use API whose basic usage looks like this: Floating number accuracy is another topic in JavaScript runtimes. Math.JS solves this problem by providing a fixed-point floating number implementation — simply set the desired precision, and raise your decimal number: Keep in mind that BigNumber and its various classes are not a panacea cure for all digital problems. Fixed point arithmetic is known to be a lot slower than hardware-accelerated float maths —if you don't have a good reason to use higher accuracy, better make do without it. 02. Leaflet Quickly make interactive maps If you manage to get your hands onto a tile source, you quickly find out that having map tiles is but half a month's rent. Leaflet provides a relatively comprehensive tile rendering infrastructure, which takes care of bringing them on-screen in a flexible fashion. 03. Anime.js A lightweight JavaScript animation library Anime.JS provides a comfortable-to-use implementation of the keyframe animation pattern. Specify the start state, the end state and an easing function — library and browser will use CSS transforms to ensure that your animations are run with optimal speed. 04. Hotkeys A simple way to capture keyboard input Providing a keyboard-driven interface endears products to power users. Hotkeys takes care of the often-fussy details of keyboard management, leaving you to focus on realising the business logic. Getting started requires less than ten lines of code! 05. Easy Toggle State Toggle the state of any HTML element Enabling and disabling GUI elements programmatically is an old, yet recurring task. Easy Toggle State provides a neat way around the never-ending task — group elements together, and switch them on and off without breaking a sweat. 06. AutoNumeric Ensure that numbers and currencies look good worldwide Making numbers look good across locales is difficult. AutoNumeric is a library dedicated to the number formats and currencies of the world. Simply pass in a numeric variable, and feast your eyes on a string. The library can also "monitor" text fields to make them look better. 07. D3.js A fab library for building diagrams and visualisations D3 creates data bindings between arbitrary DOM objects and elements stored in the code behind. This means that the look of the web site can be customised flexibly in dependence of stored data. D3 differs from traditional diagramming libraries in that it does not provide any templates. If you, for example, seek to create a pie chart, better start out by bringing in rectangles and adding data bindings to compute height et al. The library shines whenever extremely complex and/or animated visualisations are required and the setup time is not an issue. One popular example would be choropleth maps, commonly used in election reporting. This, of course, is a tiny overview — further tutorials can be found here. 08. Element Element features a stack of ready-made GUI widgets JavaScript GUI stacks are dime a dozen. Element differs from the rest of the field by being sponsored by various large web companies based both in China and the US. From a technical point of view, Element is — by and large — a well-supported collection of GUI widgets based on Vue 2.0. Import it to your web project, add the specific tabs and "hack away" like if it were jQuery UI. One area where the product really shines involves displaying date and time pickers. The following snippet creates a set of controls which let the user specify a span of months: Sadly, getting started with Element requires a bit of handiwork. The most comfortable way involves downloading the starter kit and running it inside of a Node.JS environment. 09. HighCharts Top of the charts While open-source JavaScript diagram libraries are commonly available, some jobs demand the additional "customer support security" given by commercial software. In this case, HighCharts is a safe bet. The product, which has been on the market for ages, has long been diversified to include visualisation solutions for Android, mapping and the stock exchange market. Firing off a HighCharts diagram is simple. Invoke the chart() function, along with a <div> tag and an object containing further descriptions: Highcharts differs from its competition by being able to obtain its data from various sources. One neat example is the following, which uses a CSV file hosted on a third-party server: 10. Underscore.js Underscore provides loads of ready-made, lightweight functions While libraries such as jQuery are popular, they do add significant amounts of code to your product. Underscore.js provides a small and well-curated selection of APIs, making it an ideal choice for web projects where space is at a premium. 11. Hammer.js You know what time it is Recognising touch gestures can be a tedious process. Hammer.js simplifies this chore — specify areas which are to be touched, and wait for events to drop into your listener functions. 12. Finance.js Tackle tricky financial calculations with this library Programming depreciation and similar financial-mathematic processes is not difficult, but annoying. Finance.JS adds a maths object to your browser — it provides convenient access to various commonly-used financial calculations. 13. Rivets Rivets is a great data binding solution Connecting controls to data stored in models usually requires the use of some kind of framework. Rivets works around this problem — if you don't feel like running complex code, definitely give the product a chance. 14. Radio Radio's a popular library for creating simple event-driven systems Ted Faison's work introduced developers to event-driven programming. If you find yourself looking for a simple event system, feel free to use Radio. While its maker has gone bankrupt, the well-liked library is going strong. 15. Bideo.js An easy way to add full-screen video backgrounds Purists might see a full-screen video as the most decadent and useless of backgrounds. Some designs, however, do benefit greatly from it – in that case, use Bideo.js to take the stress out of video handling. This article was originally published in issue 289 of creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 289 here or subscribe to Web Designer here. Related articles: 15 essential JavaScript tools you should be using How to code faster, lighter JavaScript 12 common JavaScript questions answered View the full article

Reposting on Instagram should be easy, right? You just go within the app and click 'repost', just like you'd retweet on Twitter or share on Facebook? Well... not quite. Instagram doesn't allow you to repost other people's content within its app, but there are ways to do it. Reposting other people's content is a great way to mix up your feed as well as take the pressure off you to come up with original posts. It can also be a fantastic way to show you appreciate the work of other creatives. However, from a legal perspective, reposting other people's content is a grey area, and you need to be sure you have the right permission before you repost. After a different Insta trick? Here's how to change the font in your Instagram bio. Do I need permission to repost on Instagram? According to Instagram's Community Guidelines, "The best way to help make sure that the content you post to Instagram doesn’t violate copyright law is to only post content that you’ve created yourself." However, Instagram also says, "You might also be able to use someone else’s content on Instagram if you’ve gotten permission (for example, a license), or if your use is covered by fair use or some other exception to copyright." The guidelines then get a little vague. "It’s generally a good idea to get permission before posting content, and to get that permission in writing." How that written permission might be sought isn't outlined. And without proper guidelines, it seems the most practical solution is to simply ask the poster in a comment or DM. For example, "Hey, I love this post. Would it be okay if I repost?" Also bear in mind that the person posting the content may not actually own it. If you do get permission to repost, you should always make sure that you post an image credit as simply tagging someone in a post will not do. How to repost on Instagram So you've got permission and you're ready to repost, but how do you actually go about it? If you type in repost for Instagram on the app store you get a lot of different versions of basically the same thing. Some of them are better to use than others, and we've had problems in the past with reposting apps occasionally going on the blink. Our current favourite for iOS is Repost: for Instagram because it allows you to repost posts with more than one image, and for Android, we like Repost for Instagram. 01. Copy post link in Instagram Choose 'copy link' on the photo or video you want to repost How does the process work, though? All of these apps work in basically the same way. You start in Instagram, where you tap the three dots at the top of the post you want to share, then select 'copy link' or 'copy share URL'. You should get a little message that says 'link copied to clipboard'. 02. Open Instagram reposting app Reposting apps are all slightly different, but include variations of the interface shown here (Repost: For Instagram) You then open up your Instagram reposting app of choice, where the post you've saved should appear. You will then be able to choose where the attribution mark goes (top left-hand corner, bottom right, and so on), or sometimes remove it. You will also be given the option to copy the original caption. Repost: for Instagram does this for you automatically. 03. Add your own caption in Instagram You can add your own caption above the pasted original caption You then go back into Instagram – the app should make this straightforward – where you can decide whether to repost in your feed or as an Instagram Story (see our guide to Instagram Stories for more Insta Stories advice). You can also make any adjustments to the image – although we don't recommend editing the work of other people. If you want to use the original caption, click 'Paste' and it will copy over (on some apps you can choose for it to automatically copy in the reposting app). The pasted over caption will usually contain the name of the reposting app as well as the Instagram handle of the person whose work you're reposting. We recommend leaving this in. You can then choose to add your own caption above the original caption. If you're struggling to do this it may be because the original caption was already at Instagram's character limit (2,200 characters). Don't forget to check that the photo credit is included, and you should be good to go. Other Instagram reposting options Alternatively, you could choose to take a screenshot and then post to your own account, but as this doesn't display any sort of tag to show that your post is reposted, we don't recommend this. Social media managers such as Buffer also include reposting features, although you'll have to pay. Read more: Instagram and WhatsApp get a rebrand This easy Instagram hack could revolutionise your feed The 5 best Instagram font generators View the full article

Visual interfaces are already being usurped by voice control, but if Amazon gets its way perhaps we'll be waving goodbye to interfaces altogether. The New York Post reports that the retail giant is testing a new biometric payment system that will let shoppers at Whole Foods pay for their orders by simply waving their hand over a scanner. That's some Star Wars sh*t right there. The project, code named Orville, is still at user testing stage right now. Reports suggests Amazon's New York office employees are acting as guinea-pigs for the system, using modified vending machines to pay for snacks via the new system. The proposed end game, however, is to enable shoppers to saunter into a Whole Foods store armed with nothing but a smile and (presumably) a reusable shopping bag. The scanning system will identify the customer and charge the purchase to the card on their file. Amazon is known for pushing the envelope when it comes to tech (see our guide to Amazon devices for a taster), but this feels like breaking new ground entirely. Fast Company reports that the tech will work without the consumer having to actually place their hand on the scanner. Thanks for computer vision and depth geometry, the system will be able to identify the shopper by just a wave of the hand in the scanner's direction. Face scanning was perhaps vetoed for being too creepy. Whole Foods was acquired by Amazon in 2017 There's no doubt the finance industries are in a period of change up at the moment, with young upstarts such as Monzo shaking up traditional payment models, coupled with the rising popularity of non-card payment systems like Apple Pay. Ecommerce websites are increasingly immersive and impressive, and counties like China already have some biometric checkout systems. What does this mean for branding and UX in the finance sector? Perhaps Apple has made a mistake with its Apple Card and its ridiculous care instructions, and shoppers are looking for something altogether more 'organic'. Or perhaps the idea of giving Amazon your handprint data is one step too far. No need to worry just yet – all of this is very much unconfirmed by Amazon. A spokesperson told the NY Post: "We don’t comment on rumors or speculation." Does seem plausible though, doesn't it? Supermarket chain Whole Foods was acquired by Amazon in 2017. The vast majority of stores are in the US, but recent years have seen expansion into Canada and the UK. Read more via the New York Post article or the Fast Company report. Related articles: Can the Halifax rebrand humanise banking? There’s a new super laptop in town (and it’s not from Apple) Amazon releases Echo Wall Clock, and it's pointless View the full article

IFA, the annual trade show for consumer tech, is underway in Berlin, and not ones to waste any time, Asus has already pulled out all the stops, revealing its ProArt StudioBook range of laptops and claiming it's ProArt StudioBook One is the "most graphically-powerful laptop in the world." Aimed specifically at digital creatives and professionals, the 15-inch 4K laptop boasts an Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000 graphics card and Intel Core i9 processor, which promises the ability to tap into the power of a high-end desktop PC, without being constrained to a desk. Also among the range is the the ProArt StudioBook Pro X, which is the first Quadro-powered laptop to have a second display built-in, with its ScreenPad 2.0 replacing the traditional touchpad found in other laptops. With these specs, it's hard to argue that these devices look to be some of the most powerful laptops currently on the market. “The ASUS ProArt StudioBook One is the first laptop to offer the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 in a mobile solution, delivering the world’s fastest performance so users can run complex workloads wherever they go,” said Samson Hu, co-CEO at ASUS. “Our customers can quickly render animations, edit 8K videos in real time or run data analytics more smoothly and efficiently than before.” The Asus ProArt StudioBook Pro X features a built-in second screen where traditional touchpads are usually found We've yet to get our hands on any of these seemingly powerful new devices, but early indications suggest the ASUS ProArt StudioBook One could be set to take the number one spot in our round up of the best laptops for graphic design. If Asus' claims are correct and the ProArt StudioBook range really is offering portable devices powered by workstation-grade GPUs, these devices could open up a whole lot of opportunity and creative freedom to artists and designers all over the globe. That said, we expect the high specs to be matched with a high price tag, so if you're interested, you might want to start saving now. From the looks of it through, Asus is trying to meet the demands and budget of everyone, promising a range of devices all at different specs and costs. Pricing is to be confirmed when the Asus ProArt StudioBook series laptops are released in October 2019. Don't want to miss any news from IFA 2019? Our friends over at techradar are in Berlin and reporting live from the event. And if you can't wait to get your hands on a super-powerful laptop, here are the best devices money can buy right now: View the full article

The zero-day vulnerability could enable privilege escalation, and is not part of Google's Android September security update. View the full article

The AK-EM 800 software from Danfoss centralizes alarm management, automatic data collection and food-quality reporting. View the full article

Exploit broker Zerodium has implemented a $2.5 million price tag for a zero-click 0-day in Android. View the full article

There are several reasons to learn how to make a photo collage in Photoshop. Where individual photos capture only single moments in time, collages can be used to illustrate a whole story, celebrating anything from a partner’s birthday to archiving a treasured family holiday. Collating one is also a good way to test your composition skills. There are a great many collage maker apps out there for assembling images (including the new auto-collate function in Photoshop Elements), but none of them will give you the same degree of control as Photoshop CC, which allows you to complete the whole process using just one app, including any image adjustments. Photoshop is one of the most commonly used apps for this type of work. If you’re not already signed up, get Adobe Creative Cloud to access an impressive range of creative software. In this Photoshop tutorial you will learn how to import images into Photoshop, lay them out onto a single page and border them with coloured frames. 01. Choose your images You can use a photo organiser to make your job easier, but previewing them in Finder will work just as well. First up, pick your images. It’s impossible to condense a whole photo collection down onto one single page, so you need to be selective, sticking to a maximum of 5-8 pictures. Image choice is important if you want to retain the interest of the viewer – collages aren’t just spreads of random images, but represent a flowing narrative, displaying a diverse range of angles, shapes and styles. Try to use images that suit different frames sizes, picking only your best and most appropriate images. Theming the collage along the lines of one consistent colour or common element can bring the whole thing together, while contrasting images create tension and tend to draw the eye. Every image should be well-exposed and in focus. If you aren’t sure what looks good, check out some magazine layouts for inspiration. Using a library organiser, like Lightroom or Bridge, streamlines the process, making it easier to sort through multiple photos at once, although Finder works just as well. Use this stage to make any necessary adjustments to your images before bringing them together. My collage will feature a photoshoot of a Porsche 964 Carrera, so I have included wide, action shots as well as close-up details of the interior, showing the car off from every angle. 02. Create the document The New Document window provides a choice of pre-loaded templates, which are a good starting point for any project When you create your document, the size of the canvas will depend on the intended output of your collage, namely whether it’s for digital or print (most collages look better in landscape format). Photoshop’s New Document window presents a range of ‘document presets’ to make this choice easier, whether it’s page sizes for print or standard digital sizes for web and mobile. If you want a custom size, there are also options to change the width, height, resolution and colour mode. You can edit this later in Image > Canvas Size. I have used a document size of 1920px x 1080px, RGB, a standard HD screen. 03. Import images You can drag all of your images into Photoshop, straight in from the Finder window. Holding the Alt key down will add them as linked layers There are various methods for gathering images into one file. Perhaps the simplest is dragging and dropping images from Finder, directly onto the canvas, which imports them as smart objects. The benefit of doing this is that you can reposition and resize them without any loss of quality. Alternatively you can embed the images as linked layers, which means they will appear on the canvas as low-res versions, while linking back to the original files on your computer, avoiding slow rendering times. Do this by holding the Alt key down when dragging and dropping your images into the file. Another technique is to open all the images in separate Photoshop windows, selecting each with Cmd + A, copying with Cmd + C, then pasting into the master document with Cmd + V. You can also change your window arrangement to show two files at once, then literally drag and drop layers from one to the other. 04. Roughly position images Use the Free Transform tool to resize layers on your canvas, trying different positions for greatest visual appeal Before spending too much time refining the collage, you need to have the right images in the right positions. Move the images around the canvas, using the Selection tool, until they all seem to roughly fit the page. You can turn layers on and off using the eye icon to the left of each layer, in the Layers panel. Scale and rotate layers using the Free Transform tool (Cmd + T), grabbing the handles of the transform frame. Holding the Shift key will maintain the proportions, while holding the Alt key will scale out from the centre. You can find further options for transforming under Edit > Transform. 05. Draw borders You can change the colour of shapes in the Fill window, where you can also add new swatches and create gradients Add a single border using either the Pen tool (with Stroke applied) or the Rectangle tool, to break up the images. I drew a long white rectangle across the canvas, duplicated it with Cmd + J, moved and rotated it with Free Transform, then repeated the process until I had all my borders laid down, including one around the outer edge as a frame. If you’re struggling to line up your images, you can drag guides out from the rulers (turn these on with Cmd + R or under View > Rulers). You can also select multiple layers and use Layer > Align to straighten them up. 06. Mask the spare image Use masks to hide unwanted areas rather than deleting them outright, since masks can be edited later if you change your mind With the borders now placed, it will be obvious that some of your photos are overlapping. Use the Marquee Tool to select unwanted areas on each layer, inverse this selection by right-clicking and selecting ‘select inverse’, then press the mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel (this looks like a circle in a box). You can edit your masks later, if you change your mind, by painting black and white into the mask area. Repeat this step for each layer until they’re all sitting flush against the border lines. If you imported your images as Smart Objects, you can simply delete the unwanted areas instead of masking them, since you won't be losing any of the original image. If you then want to move the image inside the frame, double click on the layer to open the smart object window and move it there. 07. Add text and export Photoshop CC has plenty of options in the Character tab, including live text which changes the typeface of your copy as you scroll down the list When you are happy with the layout of your collage, you may wish to add a title or a message. Select the Type tool from the toolbar and draw a text box onto your canvas, preferably over an area that is either very dark or light. Select a typeface and colour from the Character tab, then insert your text. If the text is unreadable, you might need to draw a solid box behind, then soften it by reducing the opacity or changing its blending mode. I also added an underline stroke, using eyedropper to pick the yellow from the image. Save your image as a .psd file, so you can edit it later on, then export in whatever format you need. Read more: The best free Photoshop actions The 10 best alternatives to Photoshop The best laptops for Photoshop right now View the full article

Finding the perfect image for your project and figuring how and when you can use it can be hugely time consuming. Luckily, there are many online services that can help make you find the right asset hassle-free. An all-vector graphics content store, the StockUnlimited Vector Plan, is the ideal destination for any project in need of eye-catching imagery. The lifetime subscription provides you with an endless amount of quality stock vector graphics and unlimited clipart. With thousands of designs added monthly and boundless file downloads, StockUnlimited is a mecca for continually growing your royalty free vector library, and now costs just $34.99 If you're working with the web, a lifetime subscription to Visualmodo WordPress Themes can help take your Wordpress project to the next level, and now costs just $39. Featuring a collection of themes for all different types of objectives and plans, Visualmodo lets you complete beautiful WordPress sites efficiently and effectively. Auto updating lets you implement fixes in real-time, while cross-browser compatibility allows for stress-free design testing. The fast installation process enables you to customise themes and get them live fast and helping to meet all your deadlines. Get Adobe Creative Cloud While all-access passes to design bundles can cost up to $5,000, these lifetime subscriptions are currently price-dropped by up to 99%! Grow your design element collection or elevate the design assets you already possess and save time and money doing it. Read more: How to make a photo collage in Photoshop CC Logo design: everything you need to know 12 cheat sheets every designer needs View the full article

Apple's Apple might be getting a change up, if recent reports are to be believed. A series of leaks ahead of Apple's upcoming event on 10 September suggest the iconic logo will be getting a makeover on the new iPhone 11. Hugely well known around the world, and frequently ranked amongst the best logos of our time, Apple's logo is so iconic, it's no surprise that even slight adjustments cause a stir amongst Apple fans. The 21 best iPhone apps for designers So what's changing? Well, visualise the back of an iPhone. Where does the logo sit? Halfway up, right? Wrong. Although it might appear central, every iteration of the iPhone so far has had the Apple logo placed closer to the top of the phone than the bottom. To jog your memory, here's what the logo usually looks like: How the Apple logo has appeared on the back of iPhones But leaked photos of the newest handset suggest it'll be shifting to a vertically central position, and the 'iPhone' branding at the bottom will be removed. The below image was tweeted by tech writer Ben Geskin. What the iPhone 11 might look like The sneaks also reveal a new-look three-lens camera, and an understated matte finish. For those of us used to the current logo placement, this all looks a bit... weird. Theories are flying freely as to the thinking behind the move. Some argue that the stripped-back design will help place more emphasis on the camera, where Apple is investing a lot of its time and money in a bid to become the very best camera phone around. Others have speculated that it's to do with a new reserve wireless charging feature that will enable users to charge up their AirPods on the back of their iPhone handset. Read our sister website TechRadar's iPhone 11 report for more on the new phone. Read more: The 100 greatest Apple creations Is Apple ditching its 'i'? 11 creative free iPhone apps for designers View the full article