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If periods could ever be said to be having a 'moment', this must be it. A documentary about menstruation – Period. End of Sentence – has just won an Oscar, and the stigma surrounding periods is being challenged left right and centre, as advertisers shake things up with new types of period product ads, and issues such as period poverty are discussed in Parliament. New educational board game The Period Game aims to engage the next generation with menstruation, and it's currently well on the way to meeting its Kickstarter target. It's designed by Daniela Gilsanz and Ryan Murphy – two industrial designers who have spent years testing out the game at schools – and has already won a Red Dot Design award. The game is designed to teach players about puberty and the menstrual cycle, including topics such as PMS and different flows. There's pretty much no way you could play it without engaging with the topic, and the idea is not just to educate, but to make talking about the subject more natural. The best free graphic design software The centrepiece of the game is two giant ovaries, which the player has to twist to release a marble. This is probably the oddest part of the game, as we don't think anyone should be advocating twisting organs. Different coloured marbles denote whether the player has their period or not, and which card they get to play as they move round the four sections of the board – corresponding to a typical monthly cycle. The counters are also pretty cool, there's a pad, two tampons, menstrual cup and a pair of period pants, and we like the fact that it's not just all pads and tampons. The Period Game's bright and fun approach encourages players to 'go with the flow' Overall, this looks like a fun game to teach people about menstruation, and we applaud that. We also like the bold design and clear illustrations, despite the colour scheme being very pink and red, as products about periods are want to be (see our analysis of the problem with period product branding). We don't like the twisty ovaries, though. But if teenagers are playing this instead of 'guessing who likes them' by talking into a giant pink phone (we're talking about you, Dream Phone), that can't be a bad thing. And you never know, they might even learn something. You can back the project on Kickstarter here. Read more: Typography meets Tinder in this type dating game How to launch a successful Kickstarter 7 great examples of branded content View the full article

Top brands paring back their logos to their simplest, most iconic form has been a big trend in recent years. Ownership of a graphic shape can be a powerful visual shorthand that commands global brand recognition and transcends language – but it takes an extra layer of confidence to strip out your company name altogether. Pentagram recently took its already pared-back Mastercard rebrand a step further by dropping the wordmark and leaving only two overlapping circles to do the heavy lifting, and at first this seemed like a bold move. But it's just the latest in a string of household-name brands that are recognisable enough to get away with it. Pentagram recently dropped the company name from Mastercard's logo, leaving just two overlapping circles When a wordless symbol is familiar enough, it can help a global superbrand appear more personal and less corporate. Without a company name shouting its presence, a 'visual shorthand' logo design can also evoke a more immediate, impulsive reaction. Read on as we explore six more huge brands that, like Mastercard, made the decision to drop the company name from their logos... 01. Apple Apple's original logo featured the company name alongside Ronald Wayne's depiction of Isaac Newton Apple has proudly sported a wordless brand mark for decades – you have to go all the way back to 1984 to find its name anywhere near its logo. Ronald Wayne initially chose to represent Apple Computer Co with a woodcut-style illustration of renowned apple enthusiast Isaac Newton, sitting underneath the tree where he reportedly received his fruity inspiration for gravity. To say it didn't last long, in branding terms, would be an understatement – the following year, Rob Janoff's iconic bitten apple replaced it. The rainbow apple retained the wordmark until 1984 when it finally became wordless. While it has also since lost its rainbow stripes, that silhouette has remained constant through thick and thin. Now, it's almost unthinkable for this trailblazing champion of minimalist design to write its company name next to its logo. Why would it need to? 02. Starbucks A mermaid may be an unlikely association with coffee, but Starbucks established it firmly enough to drop its name Seattle's world-conquering coffee chain boasts a fascinating story behind its logo. The company was named after Captain Ahab's first mate in Moby Dick, so the original logo designer Terry Heckler decided to draw on a 16th-century Norse woodcut of a two-tailed mermaid for inspiration. Starbucks' siren has been re-crafted several times since the company was founded in 1971, but it wasn't until Lippincott's 2011 rebrand that she was trusted to shoulder the lion's share of the global chain's branding equity. Dropping 'coffee' from the name reflected diversification, but dropping 'Starbucks' entirely showed true confidence in the iconic mark's instant familiarity to coffee lovers around the world. 03. Shell A shell to represent Shell – what could make more sense? It's always going to take time for punters to link a two-tailed mermaid with a caffeinated beverage – but the fact that there's no logical link there gives Starbucks a distinctively ownable association to create from scratch. Sometimes, however, a brand's name lends itself perfectly to symbolic representation – making that visual shorthand much easier to establish. Apple is one example, and Shell is another. In fact, it's something of a trailblazer in the world of wordless logos: from 1900 until 1948, a realistically drawn black-and-white scallop shell did all the work. Shell's realistic scallop shell in 1900 (far left) became more stylised in future iterations in 1904, 1909 and 1930 The red-and-yellow colour scheme was gradually introduced into Shell's service stations – and was finally incorporated into the logo itself, alongside the company name, in 1948. The shell became increasingly bold and stylised, and by 1999 it had accumulated enough brand equity to stand alone once again. 04. McDonald's McDonald's distinctive Golden Arches once incorporated the company name – they now have the power to stand alone Once a prominent architectural feature of its restaurants, the Golden Arches first made their way into McDonald's logo in 1961 – before that point, the fast food chain's text-heavy logos incorporated taglines such as 'McDonald's famous barbecue' (1940) and 'McDonald's famous hamburgers... buy 'em by the bag' (1948). In 1968, the Golden Arches adopted their modern-day form – with the company name overlaid at the bottom. This approach was refined further in 1975 with the distinctive red background, and many other variants were introduced in different contexts. The tagline 'I'm lovin' it' made an appearance in 2003, and went on to replace the company name across many brand touchpoints. Decades of ubiquity had given the Golden Arches symbol all the brand equity, confidence and global recognition it needed to stand alone by 2006, without the company name, any accompanying slogans, or any graphic treatments to speak of – just a pared-back, flat-colour 'M' that is unmistakably McDonald's. 05. Target Target has experimented with various relationships between symbol and wordmark over the years Like Shell and Apple, Target has the good fortune to have visual shorthand baked right into its company name. In fact, the brand mark functioned without the company name as far back as 1968, when the US retailer refined and simplified its original six-ringed target, which had the company name overlaid across the centre, to the pure three-ringed symbol we know today. However, the company name was re-introduced in 1975, and while the distinctive target was retained, it was shrunk to a much less dominant scale and was scaled to match the height of a chunky black all-caps wordmark. The emphasis was reversed again in 2004, when the wordmark was scaled to match the diameter of a much larger target symbol which, since 2007, has been widely used in isolation, just as it was in 1968. In this case, the brand equity in the logo was there all the time – it just took the confidence to bring it back. 06. Nike Locked up with a wordmark until the mid-90s, the Swoosh now stands alone as one of the world's most iconic brand marks When design student Carolyn Davidson sketched the Nike Swoosh in 1971 for the princely sum of $35, little did she know it would go on to become one of the world's most instantly recognisable textless logos. Until the mid-90s, an italicised all-caps wordmark in chunky Futura Bold accompanied it, but the Swoosh ultimately became such an iconic mark in its own right that the need to state the brand it represents became redundant. Of course, the common factors that all of these examples share is a huge marketing budget and global ubiquity, so building layers of meaning and brand association into a textless graphic symbol may seem comparatively easy for them. But even the world's biggest brands had to start somewhere – and their success stories prove the long-term value of any brand investing equity in its mark. Related articles: Then and now: The evolution of 3 iconic logos Where to find logo design inspiration 6 huge logo trends for 2019 View the full article

WordPress 5.0 is slated to bring the biggest change to the CMS in a long time. With the rollout of Gutenberg, a block-based content editor, WordPress is taking a huge step towards bringing easy, responsive layouts into content editing. It’s the first step in a three-stage plan to revolutionise content, templates and eventually WordPress site-building as a whole. WordPress 5.0 introduces an all-new Twenty-Nineteen theme and updates to the previous WordPress themes. Suffice to say, the WordPress landscape is going to change massively in the next few years. In this article, we take a closer look at Gutenberg, and the other updates set to change the way we build WordPress websites. 01. New, block-based content editor Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image The main change with WP 5.0 is the introduction of Gutenberg, a new-look content editor based around responsive blocks. For an in-depth guide, read our introduction to the WordPress Gutenberg editor. In essence, content is split up into different types (paragraphs, lists, images, quotes and so on), and editors can insert, move, remove and swap blocks of content around the post or page. It is also possible to create reusable blocks, which can be saved and used anywhere, with updates being rolled out automatically across all instances of that block. 02. Twenty Nineteen theme Embodying the whitespace, the new Twenty Nineteen theme is a type-driven layout and fully supports Gutenberg. It showcases what the new editor has to offer, embracing block layouts. The styles between editor and page are almost exact, so you can see what your page will look like as you edit. It’s designed to work for a variety of cases, from bloggers to small businesses, and has a minimalist menu and fullscreen featured image area (like the Twenty Seventeen theme). It has a two-column widget area in the footer and no sidebar. The theme comes with the option to change the primary colour for buttons and links etc. and the option to filter the featured images using the chosen primary colour. The inline menu is bold and minimalist, with the logo, title, tagline, menu and social menu sat together at the top. The theme adapts well to tablet and mobile sizes, although content in multiple columns looks a little cramped on medium-sized screens before it breaks down and stacks on smaller screens. 03. ClassicPress ClassicPress is a pre-Gutenberg spin-off of WordPress 4.8.9 aimed at business websites that want to maintain the original editing experience. The founders of ClassicPress fear that Gutenberg will disrupt the power and popularity of WordPress and launched the push-back initiative after the announcement that Gutenberg would become part of WordPress core. It’s a community led project and so no new features are added without the vote of the community. The casual admin bar greeting ‘Howdy’ and other colloquialisms have been stripped in favour of formal language better suited to more serious websites. This open-source fork is gaining traction and could actually be a valid resource for WordPress users looking for a more ‘business-style’ version of WordPress. 04. Keyboard shortcuts Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image Keyboard savants will find the new Gutenberg editor to be a haven of time-saving shortcuts. An entire post can potentially be written without the use of the mouse. The WordPress team have been working hard to make the editor accessible for everybody. Inserting blocks, swapping between blocks and editing block settings can all be done with keyboard shortcuts. Use Tab and Shift+Tab to skip up and down the page options, and use enter to select. To open the block type chooser, start a line with / or select any of the + icons with Tab. You can swap between page sections with ctrl+’ or cmd+’ and see all the OS-native keyboard shortcuts with Shift+alt+H. 05. Content structure and block navigation Gutenberg comes with some handy tools for content information and navigation. In the top left, the ‘Content Structure’ icon shows you the wordcount of your content, and how many headings, paragraphs and blocks it’s split up into. The block navigation (Shift + Alt + O) gives a table of contents for easily skipping to blocks without having to scroll up and down looking. This is particularly helpful for keyboard-only users, who won’t need to tab through every block to get to the end of their content. The only downside is you can’t currently name blocks, so there’s some guesswork involved when you have a lot of blocks of the same type. 06. Editor views Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image The new editor has a few different views to cater to every editor’s preferred writing environment. By opening the options in the top right, it enables you to choose between the visual editor and the code editor (ctrl + Shift + alt + M). The code view will display the block syntax denoted by HTML comment tags (i.e. <!-- wp:example -->). Be careful when editing the syntax – broken tags will trigger your blocks to be changed into the ‘classic’ block. Each editor can choose one or more view options; ‘Top Toolbar’ (move all the block options to the sticky top menu), ‘Spotlight Mode’ (grey out the blocks you’re not working on) and ‘Fullscreen Mode’ (hide the rest of the site options). 07. REST API updates The REST API caused a hubbub at its conception but until recently has not been used extensively in WordPress core. Now, with Gutenberg relying on the API to fetch and save content, the REST API is starting to be used more heavily, as it was intended. Many updates have been made to the REST API for 5.0, and importantly the same hooks have been used for saving and retrieving content with the API as were used in the original editor, to maintain integrity across plugins that work with the editor. The Gutenberg editor’s seamless editing experience is powered by the REST API, saving and publishing without having to reload the page. What happens to old content? When you upgrade to WordPress 5.0, your old content will not be lost or broken. When you go to edit the page, it will be displayed as the full article without blocks in the ‘Classic’ block type. You have the option to use the ‘Convert to Blocks’ tool to automatically update your old content into the new blocks format, or manually create blocks if the tool doesn’t act as expected. There are even ‘Shortcode’ blocks to handle your old shortcodes if that plugin does not yet support blocks. Or you can leave your content as it is; the ‘Classic’ block editor gives you the option to create and manage content with the familiar TinyMCE format. Can I still use TinyMCE? TinyMCE – the current tool for editing rich text in WordPress – is not being replaced. Instead blocks will use TinyMCE for editing their rich text with boundaries, such as limiting formatting to bold, italics and links. Most of the TinyMCE options will be extracted into their own unique block types. Formatting like paragraphs, lists, media, blockquotes, code and headings etc. will be split up into block types and inserted into content as self-contained sections. The original editing experience will still exist, however. The Classic block will be very familiar to WordPress users, acting exactly like the current WordPress editor and adding a fallback for users who are not sure where to find the format type they are looking for within the myriad of new blocks. If Gutenberg or blocks really aren’t for you, the Classic Editor is available as a plugin to completely replace the new editor or to be there as an optional alternative, and will be supported by WordPress until 2022. Is WordPress 5.0 better than its predecessors? With such a drastic change to the beloved content editor, Gutenberg has encountered resistance and negative feedback, so opinion on whether it’s an improvement or not is highly contested by certain factions. However, the future of web design is dependent on change, and as Matt Mullenweg said, “It’s worth a little discomfort to change the world.” WordPress 5.0 is a huge step towards improving content creation for the layman, as well as enabling developers to maintain content unity. It makes it easy for editors to create content in different layouts without giving designers a headache, and is likely to be a boon for developers who have had trouble in the past adapting user content to fit nicely into their themes. The difficulty arises with the initial release; most if not all themes will need to be updated to utilise the new Gutenberg block styles. Overall, opinions may be mixed in the early stages, but WordPress 5.0 should pave the way for a more flexible and user-friendly experience all round. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 283 or subscribe. Read more: Use WordPress as a headless CMS Top tips for building a WordPress theme How to start a blog: 11 pro tips View the full article

Bookworms, listen up! Imagine having access to an unlimited number of books every month, but paying one very reasonable monthly price. If you're ready to devour hundreds of books (plus per-use countless magazines and newspapers) this year-long Scribd subscription can be yours for just $80. That works out at around $6.66 a month – less than the cost of most paperbacks. Be the envy of your book club with instant access to new releases, bestsellers and the classics. This year-long subscription instantly puts over a million books at your fingertips, ready for you to access any time and anywhere. Want to escape to an alternate universe during your morning commute or at home to unwind after a long day? Just use the Scribd app to get access on your smartphone, or pull up Scribd on a web browser. And if you're hoping to give your eyes a rest, just pop in your headphones and relax while listening to one of thousands of audiobooks. There's even a vast collection of sheet music if you're so moved by your latest read that you feel like making music. And you can personalise your library by saving your favourites, creating collections and bookmarking titles for later. Snag a year's Scribd subscription for $80 here. Related articles: The 10 best drawing books How to self-publish a book 11 books that changed designers' lives View the full article

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Gutenberg is a block-based content editor that is being introduced with the WordPress 5.0 update. Gutenberg is going to reinvent the way we write and display content on the web, bringing powerful tools to the hands of all WordPress users, from editor to developer With the rollout of Gutenberg, WordPress is taking a huge step towards bringing easy, responsive layouts into content editing. In this article, we take a look at the game-changing new tool, and what it means for those building WordPress websites. Top WordPress tutorials for designers What is the Gutenberg editor? Gutenberg enables users to form their content out of responsive blocks – similar to website builder tools like Squarespace – to create posts and pages that mould easily with their theme to any screen size. Theme editors can style block types to match their templates, and non code-savvy users will find it easy to add elements like columns, cover images and social media embeds without the need for unwieldy WordPress plugins. It’s even possible to embed widgets in posts and pages. Gutenberg aims to negate the need for shortcodes and custom fields by standardising the content creation process. It makes publishing faster and more powerful, giving editors all-new tools to write and publish more efficiently than before. You can even write your content in other editors like Google Docs or Microsoft Word and paste into the Gutenberg editor, and it will translate your content into blocks automatically. How does Gutenberg work? Blocks are the foundation of the new Gutenberg editor. By splitting content up into different types – such as paragraphs, lists, images, quotes and more – blocks enable editors to insert, drag and drop, remove and swap parts of the post or page with ease. Compared to the previous TinyMCE editor, it may be somewhat alien to users who have never seen a block-based editor or page builder before, but after a little practice the benefits far outweigh the learning curve. So don’t lose heart if it seems daunting at first. The default blocks are split into different sections, including inline elements and common blocks The default blocks are split into a few different sections; inline elements, common blocks, formatting, layout elements, widgets, embeds and reusable blocks. There’s even a ‘Classic’ block, if you miss TinyMCE, with the option to convert it later into Gutenberg blocks. Plugins can add blocks too, making integration of new blocks easy and streamlined, and reducing the amount of clutter on the editor where you have multiple plugins weighing in. Updating code will no longer require any update to content, because developers can target surrounding block behaviour Theme and plugin developers will have some work to do to bring their code up to date to make full use of the new update, but it should be worth it to see users creating content that is not only easy on the eye, UI-friendly and theme-matching, but composed of valid code too. Page-breaking user code will be a thing of the past. Writing with blocks is a breeze, with new keyboard shortcuts to help you tab between existing blocks, insert, duplicate, move and delete blocks on the fly. Blocks also include a wide variety of default embed blocks, living up to the WordPress.org Gutenberg promise that content editing will support multimedia and content side by side. With such a comprehensive set of blocks right out of the box, Gutenberg is ready to tackle content of all flavours. Blocks are going to standardise the way content is put together. Plugins, custom post types, meta boxes and shortcodes will be able to utilise the same UI, making the process of putting it all together seamless for every user. It also means code and content is finally completely separate. Updating code will no longer require any update to content, because developers can target the surrounding block behaviour. Reusable blocks Reusable blocks are a new integral function that enables you to save a block and reuse it in any content. When a reusable block is edited, it updates automatically wherever it has been used, without the need to manually edit every page where it appears. Reusable blocks can be updated inline or from their own administration panel by clicking the ‘Options’ button in the top right of any content editor and going to ‘Manage All Reusable Blocks’. Creating a reusable block can be done from there, or by clicking the ‘Options’ button on any block menu and clicking ‘Add to Reusable Blocks’. You can also save multiple blocks into one reusable block by highlighting content, clicking the ‘Options’ button that appears in the top left of your selection and selecting ‘Add to Reusable Blocks’. Blocks for text formatting Heading block The heading block (#1) formats headings from H1 through to H6. Inserting a heading block into the content will by default select H2, which is ideal for steering content editors into maintaining the content’s waterfall heading structure and avoiding multiple H1s on a page. Twenty Nineteen’s default settings enables editors to change heading alignment (left, centre or right-aligned) and add a HTML anchor for linking directly to a section on the page. Paragraph block The paragraph block (#2) will make up most of your content, it is the ‘building block of all narrative’. Each paragraph has its own block, and Twenty Nineteen comes with the default text settings for text size, drop caps, background and text colour. It can be transformed easily into a quote, heading, list or verse. As you’re writing, pressing enter will create a new block, ready for the next paragraph. Text formatting is limited to inline styles like bold, italic, links and strikethrough. Lists Lists (#3) are separate blocks to paragraphs, which can cause some confusion at first because you could mistakenly look under ‘paragraph’ instead. List blocks by default have simple options, such as ordered (numbered) and unordered (bullet-point) lists, as well as a tool to nest lists underneath other list items. Basic text formatting, like the paragraph block, includes bold, italic and links. Quote blocks Quote blocks (#4) format blockquotes with the option to add an easy citation. This used to be difficult for the non tech-savvy in the classic TinyMCE editor, as adding a citation would require additional coding in HTML view. Default options include quote text alignment, as well as regular or large quote styles. There is a separate Pullquote block option for featuring quotes in left or right-floating blocks, or full width spreads. Swapping between the two is easy and can be done with a single click. Other formatting options Other default formatting options (#5) include ‘Classic’, code, pre-formatted, table and custom HTML blocks. There should be a block for every occasion, even with just the default block types in 5.0, while the addition of the custom HTML block along with the original TinyMCE Editor-like ‘Classic’ block should cover most of the edge-cases. Blocks in columns Perhaps one of the most powerful new blocks for content layout is the column block type, enabling users to create up to six columns and insert paragraphs, lists, images and more in a responsive format. With the option to make the column block full width, the page’s space is well-utilised and content can flow as the user likes. There’s a bit of a knack to find the column settings again once you’ve created and edited the block, but using Tab and Shift+Tab will help if it’s proving difficult to bring up the options menu with the mouse hover. Beware, reducing the number of columns after filling them up will delete the content in the removed columns, so make sure to move your blocks out of the column structure before editing the column block. As long as the theme supports it, the columns will stack on smaller screen sizes, maintaining responsive design. Why should I use the Gutenberg editor? 01. It’s easier than it looks New things can be daunting, but Gutenberg is surprisingly easy to pick up. Within a few minutes of using the new content editor, you’ll be creating content quicker than ever. 02. It encourages new types of content With all-new block types and support for things you never knew you needed, Gutenberg will encourage editors to create content that breaks out of the mould and discover new ways to display content and engage with viewers. 03. It brings developers and users closer together Because blocks standardise the way content is crafted, developers can get a better handle on what editors might be creating and predict how their themes and styles might be utilised to avoid disastrous user code clashes. 04. WYSIWYG is really WYSIWYG Going forward, with a little dedication from developers and their styling, Gutenberg will more accurately represent what really appears in the published post. Editors can build their content in real time without having to rely on the preview. 05. It's the future The world of web content is changing fast, and what better way to keep up than to ride on the wave of new technology? Gutenberg is paving the way for exciting things to come. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 283 or subscribe. Read more: Use WordPress as a headless CMS 8 essential WordPress security secrets 25 top-quality WordPress portfolio themes View the full article

1. Bowl; 2. Stem; 3. Counter; 4. Arm; 5. Ligature; 6. Terminal; 7. Spine; 8. Ascender; 9. Apex; 10. Serif; 11. Ear; 12. Descender; 13. Crossbar; 14. Finial; 15. Ascender height; 16. Cap height; 17. X-height; 18. Baseline; 19. Descender line Typography is, in essence, the art and technique of arranging type. It's central to the skills of a designer and is about much more than making the words legible. Your choice of typeface and how you it works with your layout, grid, colour scheme and so on will make the difference between a good, bad and great design. There's a lot of jargon in the discipline of typography – covering everything from the correct names for the different parts of your letterforms to the terms relating to how you arrange them within a design. In this article, we present a comprehensive glossary of typography terms. Jump to page 2 to take a look. On this page, we'll cover the basics you need to know to get started working with type. Can't find what you're looking for? Explore our roundup of great typography tutorials. 01. Font selection There is a vast selection of typefaces for you to choose from Font design is a long and involved process. Typefaces are created by craftspeople over a substantial period of time, using talent honed over many years. The best, professionally designed fonts come with various weights and styles to form a complete family, plus carefully considered kerning pairs, multi-language support with international characters and expressive alternate glyphs to add character and variety to typesetting. So while there's an astonishing array of free fonts to choose from online, you'll need to check the one you choose includes all the options you need to create a great design. Even within the paid-for options, so much choice can be overwhelming. It can be tempting to stick to the classics. If you want to branch out and are in need of some inspiration, take a look at these inspired alternatives to Helvetica, or explore these perfect font pairings. 02. Size All typefaces are not created equal. Some are fat and wide; some are thin and narrow. So words set in different typefaces can take up a very different amount of space on the page. The height of each character is known as its 'x-height' (quite simply because it's based on the 'x' character). When pairing different typefaces, it's generally wise to use those that share a similar x-height. The width of each character is known as the 'set width'. This spans the body of the letter, plus the space that acts as a buffer between one letterform and the next. The most common method used to measure type is the point system, which dates back to the 18th century. One point is 1/72 inch. 12 points make one pica, a unit used to measure column widths. Type sizes can also be measured in inches, millimetres, or pixels. 03. Leading Leading describes the vertical space between each line of type. It's so named because, in the days of metal typesetting, strips of lead were used to separate lines of type. For legible body text that's comfortable to read, a general rule is that your leading value should be anything between 1.25 and 1.5 times greater than the font size. 04. Tracking and kerning Kerning is the process of adjusting the space between characters to create a harmonious pairing. For example, where an uppercase 'A' meets an uppercase 'V', their diagonal strokes are usually kerned so that the top left of the 'V' sits above the bottom right of the 'A'. Kerning is similar to tracking, but they are not the same thing. Tracking is the process of adjusting the spacing of all characters in a word, and is applied evenly. 05. Measure The term 'measure' describes the width of a text block. If you're seeking to achieve the optimum reading experience, it's clearly an important consideration. If your lines are too long, your reader can easily get lost, while a too-short measure breaks up the reading experience unnecessarily. There are a number of theories to help you define the ideal measure for your typography. One rule of thumb is that your lines should be 2-3 alphabets in length (so 52-78 characters, including spaces). 06. Hierarchy and scale If all the type within a layout looks the same, it's difficult to know which is the most important information. Size is one key way in which typographers create hierarchy and guide their readers. Headings are usually large, sub-headings are smaller, and body type is smaller still. Size is not the only way to define hierarchy – it can also be achieved with colour, spacing and weight. Next page: Glossary of typographic terms Aesc Pronouced 'ash', this is a ligature of two letters – 'a' and 'e'. The aesc derives from Old English, where it represented a diphthong vowel, and has successfully migrated to other alphabets including Danish and Icelandic. Aperture The constricted opening of a glyph, as seen in the letter 'e'. Varying the size of the aperture has a direct effect on the legibility of a letterform and, ultimately, readability. Apertures can be 'closed' (shown in orange here) or 'open' (green). Apex The point at the top of a character where the left and right strokes meet. The example might be the top point of an uppercase 'A'. Arm A horizontal stroke that does not connect to a stroke or stem at one or both ends – such as the top of the capital T. Ascender The part of a lowercase letterform that projects above the x-height of the font. Ascenders are important for ease of prolonged reading, though the combination of too much ascender-height and not enough x-height can cause problems. Baseline The baseline is where the feet of your capital letters sit. Below this line are descenders and loops. Bowl A bowl refers to the shapely, enclosed parts of letterforms. They appear in both lowercase (b) and uppercase (B) characters. Beak The curved terminal at the top of letters such as 'a', 'c', 'f' and 'r'. So named because they look a bit like a bird's beak. Bicameral Bicameral refers to alphabets that have upper- and lowercase letterforms. For example, Roman and Cyrillic alphabets are bicameral. Hebrew and Arabic do not have lowercase and uppercase letters, so they are referred to as unicameral. Bracket A wedge-like shape that joins a serif to the stem of a font in some typefaces. Shown in orange in the image above. Cap height The height of a capital letter above the baseline. Copyfitting The job of adjusting point size and letter spacing in a bid to make text occupy its allotted space in a harmonious fashion. Counter The enclosed – or partially enclosed – portion of letterforms such as 'c', the lower part of 'e' and 'g'. Shown in orange above. Be careful not to mix up counters and bowls. Crossbar The crossbar connects two strokes, as in 'H'. Not to be confused with the cross-stroke, which cuts through the stem of letterforms such as 't'. Cursive These are typefaces that imitate handwriting. Take a look at our roundup of the best free cursive fonts for some examples. Descender The part of the letterform that falls below the baseline. In lowercase terms, this means 'p', 'y' and 'q', and sometimes applies to uppercase 'J' and 'Q'. Diacritical Is it so critical that you might die? No. Diacriticals refer to accents applied to letterforms in languages including French, Czech and German in a bid to enhance the function of the glyph. Dingbat Once known as printer's flowers, dingbats are decorative elements. They can vary from simple bullets to delicate fauna and flora, and are often collected into themed sets. Display font Any typeface intended to be used in short bursts – rather than for blocks of text – can be defined as a display font. Display fonts are often created just for use at large point sizes, as with headlines and titles. Drop cap An oversized letter, typically used at the start of a paragraph. It 'drops' into two or more lines of text, but can also climb upwards. The above example is taken from Jessica Hische's Daily Drop Cap series. Ear A small stroke extending from the upper-right side of the bowl of lowercase g, as shown in the example. It can also appear in a lowercase 'r'. Ethel A ligature of the letters 'o' and 'e'. Em dash Em is a long horizontal dash (—), equal to the current point size of text. Sometimes referred to as 'Mutton' to distinguish it from the very similar-sounding En. It's the width of a letter 'm'. En dash 'Nut' to its friends, the En (–) is a horizontal dash one half the size of an Em (—). It's the width of a letter 'n'. Eye The eye is similar to a counter, but instead refers specifically to the enclosed part of the letter 'e'. Finial A tapered or curved end, which appears on letters such as 'e' and 'c'. Fleuron A subcategory of, or the precursor to, the dingbat. Fleurons are floral marks dreamed up by printers of the past to help decorate text. <font-face> The HTML5 tag that brings typography to the internet with typefaces directly embedded in web pages. For more information, take a look at our guide to web typography. Glyph Any singular mark that makes part of a font, whether a letter, number, punctuation mark or even a dingbat. Glyphs are the building blocks of typography. Grapheme Very similar to glyph, but possibly a bit broader. A grapheme is a fundamental unit of language, such as a Chinese pictogram, an exclamation mark or a letterform. Gutter The spaces between facing pages of a book or magazine, or the vertical gap between two columns of text. Justified In a paragraph of justified text, the words are spaced so there is no white space at the end of a line – each begins flush left and finishes flush right. This means the spacing between words will vary depending on how many are in that line. Kerning The art of adjusting the proximity of adjacent letters to optimise the overall visual appeal and readability. Kerning will depend on the shapes of the letterforms within each pair. In the example above, the top pairs of letters have not been kerned. In the lower pairs, the spacing between the letters has been narrowed to suit the shapes of the characters. For more info, take a look at our 10 top tips for kerning type. Leading Leading describes the vertical space between each line of type. In olden times actual strips of lead were used to separate lines of text vertically; the naming convention persists. Legibility The ease with which one letterform can be distinguished from the next. It feeds into, but is not the same as, readability. Loop / lobe The lower part of the letter 'g' is known as its loop or lobe. It can be open (above right) or closed (left). It's also sometimes called the tail – a term that also takes in the lower portion of letter 'y'. Logotype The lettered part of any marque or identity. The logotype can be taken separately from its graphic companion. Ligature Ligatures pull two forms together to produce a new glyph. Manicule A pointing hand symbol ☞. Also known as the bishop's fist (stop sniggering at the back), or an early emoji. Monospace Monospaced type is distributed evenly Fonts in which every letterform occupies the same horizontal space. OpenType Designed by Microsoft and Adobe, OpenType is a font format. It supplanted and improved upon TrueType and PostScript fonts. Oblique or sloped roman To be distinguished from italics, in which the letterforms are purposefully drawn to be different to their upright cousins. Oblique letters are merely slanted versions of the standard roman form, often arrived at by mechanical means. Orphan The first line of a new paragraph stranded at the bottom of a page. This is presumably considered to be as bad as abandoning a child. Pica One sixth of an inch in length, the pica is associated with line-length and column width. There are 12 points or 16 pixels in one pica. Pilcrow The paragraph symbol (¶). It now marks the presence of a carriage return but at one time is thought to have denoted a change of theme in flowing text. Point A standard typographical measurement equal to 1/12 of a pica or 1/72 of an inch. Readability Readability refers to the ease with which a block of text can be scanned by eye. Serif A flare or terminating flourish at the end of a letterform's strokes, believed to originate from the Roman tendency to paint letters onto marble before chiselling them out. The serifs are circled in the left hand text in the image above. On the right you can see a sans-serif font. Serif fonts are typically used for printed matter, while sans serifs are more suited for screen-based type. Sidebearing The horizontal space to either side of a letterform, separating it from other letters. Spine The main curved stroke of a lowercase or capital 'S'. Squoosh This is the inadvisable process of squashing or expanding a typeface digitally either to fit a space or for visual effect. If you do it, make sure you keep it to yourself. Spur A small projection from the curve of a letterform, sometimes known as a beak or a beard. G provides a good example. Stem A vertical, full-length stroke in upright characters. TDC The Type Directors Club is a typography organisation based in New York. Tittle The brilliantly suggestive name for the dot above letters 'i' and 'j'. Terminal A type of curve at the end of a stroke that isn't a serif. Examples include the teardrop shapes in: 'finial', 'ball', 'beak' and 'lachrymal'. x-height The height of the lowercase x in any given typeface. This delimits the size of the glyph's detail and therefore also of its ascenders and descenders. Read more: The best free web fonts Great places to download fonts for free 20 typography terms you might not know View the full article

It’s always been tough to make money from art. But for big-city artists and curators, the cost of real estate for galleries and studio space has made it even tougher to build a sustainable practice. The growing popularity of art fairs has also had an effect, by creating destination experiences that might be great for bringing people in, but not necessarily for actually selling art. But artists willing to embrace digital technology and take charge of their own destinies have never had it so good. Social media, online platforms, transactional ecommerce platforms and mobile apps have made it possible to reach global audiences, build personal brands, and sell art on more favourable terms than ever before. In this article, we take a look at the art apps that are shaking things up for creatives. Selling art online The artist’s digital journey often starts on social media, with artists using tools like Instagram to promote work and build an audience. Now there are also digital platforms to monetise creativity, and a new breed of digital-first players are building unique connections between artists and collectors, creating markets that simply didn’t exist in the pre-digital age. 16 great places to sell your design work online Alongside this is an explosion of new channels to reach art lovers, whether it’s using Snapchat to provide behind-the-scenes looks into the creative process, or engaging with storytellers on podcasts to help spread the word (check out this playlist of great art podcasts). With the global online art market worth around $4.22 billion in 2017, up 12 per cent from the previous year, these new digital tools and platforms are already revolutionising the world of fine art for artists and art-lovers. Here are five apps and platforms that are leading that revolution, creating new ways to make fine art profitable. 01. Artsy The art on sale on Artsy ranges from design items such as ceramics to sculpture to photography Artsy has a vision to transform the art world through technology, and it’s executed on that vision from day one, delivering an online platform that connects art lovers to galleries and artists in a global community. Its library encompasses a dizzying breadth of art, from Old Masters to contemporary artists. Under the hood, Artsy has built relationships with galleries and art fairs, combining their understanding of art markets with its deep technological expertise to provide gallerists and curators with tools and data to promote the artists they represent. 02. Patreon Get direct support for your work using Patreon Patreon is rethinking how artists and creators can finance their work, by enabling direct funding appeals to patrons and supporters. A digital spin on an age-old model, the San Francisco-based platform gives emerging artists control over their careers, without them being beholden to the existing gatekeepers of the art world. Patreon enables artists to garner financial support for their work directly from the people who love it the most. The platform enables both the discovery of new artists and support for established artists, while leveraging learnings from ecommerce and crowdfunding to help artists make direct appeals to support their creative efforts. 03. Artfare Artfare connects potential patrons to artists Launched in February 2019, Artfare puts a new spin on the art fair model, using a mobile app, in-house curators and local pop-up shows and fairs to create connections between artists and collectors in local art scenes, starting with New York. Artfare promotes vibrant local art scenes by bringing artists and collectors together through messaging, studio visits and sales of art works. Using Artfare’s listings, artists can promote works for sale on social platforms such as Instagram (where they’ve often built big followings). In addition they can monetise them through online sales using the Artfare app – it gives them more control and effectively tilts the economics of art-buying in their favour. 04. Paddle 8 Paddle 8 is a bit like eBay for art Paddle 8 is a curated auction platform that enables a global community of buyers to discover and bid for art in real time. By digitally enabling the auction mechanic, it helps to promote artists’ work and drive sales, creating a global, digital spin on a market dynamic that was previously often limited to those with privilege and access. 05. Uprise Art You can talk to one of Uprise Art's personal art advisors if you're not sure what you're looking for This one isn't an app, but a platform. The team at Uprise Art are driven by a mission to enable a new generation of digitally savvy collectors to discover and buy art from emerging artists. Uprise Art is effectively a digital gallery, working online and via pop-ups, collaborations and booths at art fairs to showcase the work of a roster of talented artists. By creating a digital-first gallery experience and constantly innovating the model – connecting with high-flying tech start-ups to provide art for their offices or working directly with interior designers – Uprise Art gives emerging artists new opportunities to have their work discovered and purchased. Read more: The 10 best drawing books How to succeed as a designer-maker The best online art classes View the full article

Passionate about a topic? Maybe it's time to start your own podcast! With the podcast industry booming, now is a great time to delve into this new frontier. And if you're unsure where to start, we've got the perfect solution – The Beginner's Podcasting Bundle. These courses are currently available for just $39 – an astounding 95 per cent off the usual price. The Beginner's Podcasting Bundle arms you with everything you need to succeed in the podcasting industry – all you need to add is your voice! You'll learn how to create, brand and grow your podcast from the ground up thanks to these five useful courses. First up, The Podcast Master Class: A Complete Guide to Podcasting, which is geared towards getting you up and running. Learn how to start, record, edit, publish, grow and monetise your podcast over five hours of instruction. From there you'll get some tips on talking and getting your point across thanks to the courses Mind Mapping For Smart Speaking and Persuasion Master Class: How To Powerfully Influence Anyone. Finally, the bundle includes courses on how to market yourself with Branding You: How To Build Your Multimedia Internet Empire and The Online Personal Branding Hacking Guide. Get your podcast up and running with The Beginner's Podcasting Bundle, currently available for just $39 here. Related articles: 10 amazing podcasts for digital artists 18 great web design podcasts The 10 best graphic design podcasts View the full article

Threatpost talks to HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos on the EU's funding of open source bug bounty programs, how a company can start a program, and the next generation of bounty hunters. View the full article

From password manager vulnerabilities to 19-year-old flaws, the Threatpost team broke down this week's biggest news stories. View the full article

We’re delighted to announce that Generate New York, the unmissable event for web designers and developers, is back in 2019. Generate returns to the Big Apple between April 24-25 and promises to be bigger and better than even before. Held at the TKP New York Conference Center, the two day conference will feature a packed day of practical workshops followed by an inspirational single-track conference. Here's a preview of some of the world-class names that’ll be speaking at Generate New York 2019 – and we'll be updating you with even more conference speakers in the coming days. Stellar conference lineup Confirmed conference speakers include the founder of Big Medium, Josh Clark, who will deliver the day's keynote: AI is your new design material. Josh's lively and inspiring talk will explore the technologies and practical techniques that you can use right now. Learn to use machine-generated content, insight, and interaction as design material in your everyday work. The challenges and opportunities of AI and machine learning are plenty; Clark's insight will help you discover your own influential role, and learn to handle this powerful new design material with care and respect. Miriam Suzanne is an author, performer, musician, designer, and web developer working with OddBird, Teacup Gorilla, Grapefruit Lab, and CSS Tricks. Suzanne's inspirational conference talk, Dynamic CSS: Layouts & Beyond, will cover Basics for understanding Custom Properties & Calc(); practical examples and use-cases for data-infused design and integrating with CSS Grids to build layouts on the fly. Suzanne is also the author of Riding SideSaddle* and The Post-Obsolete Book, co-author of Jump Start Sass(Sitepoint), and creator of the Susy and True open source tools. Sam Richard, better known as Snugug throughout the Internet, is currently working at Google to help companies build and deliver their applications for Chrome and Chrome OS. Richard's talk Design System Magic with Houdini will focus on a handful of key browser specifications being developed under the CSS Houdini Task Force umbrella, with key interest given to features that can start to be leveraged today in design systems. Richard will cover what CSS Houdini is and describe these key technologies in relation to common design system problems and patterns, and how Houdini can greatly improve the flexibility, power, performance and maintainability of these patterns. Get 25% off tickets – offer ends 28 February 2019 We’ve put together an early bird offer that will give you 25% off your ticket. Be quick though – this special offer runs out on 28 February 2019 and tickets will go quickly. What are you waiting for? Head to the Generate website now to book your seat at 2019’s biggest and best web design and development event – just click through to book tickets and you'll see the early bird options. Related articles: The 7 web design lessons you need to know 21 ways to optimise your CSS and speed up your site 3 shiny new CSS properties for you to try today View the full article

What's the best pen for an artist? It's a difficult to answer, because pens are used for so many different things. So in this post, we've gathered the opinions of artists, designers and other creatives to find out which pens should be in your desk drawer. Read on and you'll find out which are the best pens for drawing, of course, but also the best pen for writing, the best pen for sketching, the best pen for calligraphy and so on. In short, whatever you need a pen for, you'll find the right one for you in this list. If you're sorting out your full pencil case, take a look at our guide to the best pencils, too. Picking the best pen for drawing was a close-run competition, but ultimately we had to opt for the Copic 1.0 mm Multiliner, which is a truly premium quality pen in all respects. The ink is densely pigmented, holds well on paper, and creates crisp, clean lines. Copic sells its Multiliners in a range of thicknesses, so you can pick the option that suits your artistic style best. Artists report they're comfortable to use, and not scratchy – even in the finer sizes. Finally, the range is good value for money, and refillable. Ben O’Brien, aka Ben the Illustrator, started using Copic pens a couple of years ago for the Inktober challenge. While he used a range of different nib options, his preference was for the 1.0 pen (although he also noted Copic's Multiliner brush pen is "brilliant"). "I find thinner pens too scratchy, but the 1.0 has a luscious feel to it. I use it for 'good drawings', usually on textured watercolour paper.” “Copic fine liners are great for drawing,” agrees interactive designer Sush Kelly. “I mainly use them for inking sketches; I wouldn't waste these bad boys on notes and so on. I love the super-fine, refillable nibs; I tend to use a 0.05, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 and 0.8.” With its hardwearing synthetic bristles, sturdy, precise tip and waterproof, fade-resistant ink, the Pentel Brush Pen runs a close second for our favourite all-round pen for drawing. The artists we spoke to commented that these pens are great for creating a variety of different line types – although the delicate nib does take some getting used to. The deep black pigment scans very well; ideal if you want to finish your artwork digitally. You'll need to be careful transporting them though – the ink can leak or clump if the lid isn't on tight. Illustrator Ailish Sullivan has fond memories of receiving her first Pentel Brush Pen. “A guy on my illustration course gave me one and I was blown away," she recalls. "I think I drew everything for the rest of my course with it, because it added character and a personal touch to every stroke. I have now dated this guy for 10 years... a love story started by a brush pen! “I love the variety of lines you can get from the pen. If you want to get really expressive, the individual hairs create a great texture when you really sweep it across the page. When you want something really precise it can also perform well, with practice. When you want to add a feeling of weight, you can increase the pressure ever so slightly and get a bolder finish. “It does take a lot of practice because it's so delicate,” she cautions. “I've tried the Kuretake Sumi brush pen and Pentel Sign pen alternatives and they are much easier to use, but have less potential.” The Pilot V7 Rollerball is essentially a hybrid between a fountain pen and a ballpoint, and our favourite pen for writing. Comfortable to hold, it produces a clean, consistent line with no smudging, and there’s a transparent ink reservoir window so you can be sure of getting hold of extra refills in time. Sush Kelly uses the 0.7mm version for everything from scribbling to-do lists to creating quick wireframes. “It has such a great feel,” he enthuses. “It possibly wouldn't be so good for really accurate drawing, as the flow is quite quick for a rollerball. But otherwise, this is my go-to pen." If you’re looking for the best ballpoint pen, we’d recommend the Pilot BPS GP Fine. This smooth, stick ballpoint with triangular rubber grip is comfortable to hold, cheap to buy, and beautifully functional in use. However, like most ballpoint pens, ink clots can form on the tip, which will smear if they end up on your paper. This ballpoint pen includes 0.7mm, 1.0mm, 1.2mm and 1.6mm options. Most people use them for writing of course, but it’s not unheard of to use them for drawing too. Illustrator Gaia Brodicchia sometimes uses the Pilot for black and white interior illustrations. “Shading with it produces darker drawings than working with graphite, but the process is identical; it only requires a lighter hand,” she explains. “The Pilot Fine tip works well even on smaller details, which are usually an issue with other brands of ballpoint pen. It gives a really good tonal range. I actually keep one that's a bit spent for the lighter areas, and a new one for the darker parts of the illustrations.” Maybe it’s because we’re Japanophiles, but Muju’s MoMa pen with its unusual 0.38mm tip is our clear favourite for the best gel pen. These produce a thin line and consistent flow, and the ink won't run when wet. You can also buy refills. And art director, designer and illustrator Savanna Rawson uses them for the linework in her illustrations. “Originally I was most interested in using this pen for my quite tiny handwriting, but in the last few years have I been using them for drawing as well,” she says. “I find it great for the line work in my illustrations, which I then complete with watercolour washes. The ink doesn't reactivate with the water, which is perfect." If calligraphy is your thing, the best pen for you is the Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen. You might assume that the best calligraphy pens cost a lot of money. But actually, our recommendation is a brand that’s both made in Japan and delivers excellent results, yet is surprisingly affordable. Coming as a set, with one soft type and one hard type, these light pens are very easy to use, with a flexible nib that’s perfect for the nuanced lines and curves needed for crafting beautiful Japanese script. “I recently got a proper calligraphy set with nibs and inks and all that,” says brand and marketing guru Aleksandra Tambor. “But my Tombow brush pens are still the best for quick calligraphy and lettering.” Specifically looking for a pen for sketching? Then we recommend the Platinum carbon fountain pen, with its ultra-fine nib. Unlike most fountain pens, the nib isn't rounded off, so you can use it to create thick or thin lines. Your expressive linework won't run with water either, thanks to the carbon ink. It's also great value for money. Like some other pens on this list, there's a learning curve on this one, as it can feel scratchy to start with. Wil Freeborn, an illustrator and watercolour artist based in Glasgow, describes it as: “The closest I’ve found to using a dip pen on the go. Using it literally changed how I draw.” Freeborn uses this pen mainly for sketching. “It gives a really naturalistic expressive line, great for drawing in cafes," he enthuses. "I use it with a Pentel Brush Pen, which pretty covers most of what I need. It needs quite a smooth paper to work, so wouldn’t really be suited with a rough watercolour paper." It was a very close-run thing, but we’ve plumped for the Sakura Pigma Graphic 1 as our runner-up for best sketching pen. This pen, which combines water-based and pigment-based inks, is a seriously fine model, delivering a bold, consistent line and superb colour transferal. Illustrator Anna Rose uses it for quick sketchbook studies, and finds it works particularly well for buildings, objects, food and lettering (although less so for people and animals). “The consistency of the ink and the way the pen tip glides mean I can get expressive lines and marks down immediately,” she says. "I also love the width of the line. With fineliners I get too precious about lines. But the Graphic lays down a bold line, so it sort of forces me to be bold and really commit to the lines." The Sakura Pigma Micron is our pick for the best pen for lettering and line art. They create a pleasingly dark line that bleeds very little, is archival safe, and won't smudge when washed or erased over. The tips are fine but not too delicate, and they're also odour-free. With a little practice, you can also use them to create a variety of line types – although if you're wanting a lot of line variation, you're better off with a brush pen. You'll also want to add a marker to your pen set if you need to fill in large areas of shadow. Any downsides? Well, the nibs can sometimes spit a little ink, and the line can crack if used with some types of paper. Cartoonist Aaron Uglum uses a Sakura Micron 08 for the majority of his line art and lettering, with a 01 for details such as eyes and mouths. He started out using a traditional dip pen with India Ink, but didn't like the setup and clean-up time it required. “Eventually I moved to the 08 as my pen of choice," he explains. "I liked being able to just pick up a pen and start inking. No worries about spilling the India Ink. And I could stop inking whenever and just walk away. No cleaning pen nibs. Very convenient. And it was still good ink." Concept artist Courtland Winslow is also an admirer of the Pigma Micron line, and regularly makes use of the 0.2mm version (the 005) in combination with a Copic Y19 Napoli Yellow (see number 13). Of the Micron, he says: “I needed a liner that wouldn't run when washed or erased over. A good feeling tip that was both as thin as possible and sturdy, because I don't have a very light hand.” PaperMate's Flair Original felt tips are ideal for adding a splash of colour to your pen work. If you're sick of look back on your notes, only to be faced with an inchoate mass of scribbles, these are the felt-tip pens for you. The colours are vibrant and bold, and won't smudge or bleed. They flow smoothly across paper and the nibs won't fray. If you're thinking of using these for illustration, be aware they're better suited to outlines – you'll want something chunkier for colouring in large areas. Ross Middleham, content lead at the Met Office, uses them for scribbling, storyboarding and general note-taking. “I love making notes in multiple colours as it simply livens up the day. My fave is the hot pink, which really zings on a white page," he says. “You can be confident that the stroke you want will be the stroke it makes." Looking to draw living things? Check out the Kuretake Sumi brush pen. It offers a wide variation in line width to give your sketches an organic, dynamic feel that's well suited to portraits, animals and plants. “It's refillable and fits a Platinum converter, which is very helpful because the ink that comes with it isn't anything special or waterproof,” comments Anna Rose. “It would be nice if Kuretake supplied a waterproof ink themselves, though; I do worry that the Platinum may clog it up eventually." Short on cash, but still want a decent pen? Our budget choice is Berol’s Colour Fine range, which has a fine tip that’s suitable for detailed colouring and drawing. The perennial classroom favourite, these felt-tipped pens are available in a variety of colours (if you don't want the full set, you can buy these individually), and are strong, sturdy and reliable. “I have used Berol colour fineliners all my life, in all different colours. The bolder colours – especially the orange and light blue – have got a really good tone to them,” says Ben O'Brien. "I have black ones littered around my desk, bag and house for writing lists and notes, and the colour ones I usually use for more experimental sketchbook work, or bringing a little colour to observational line drawings when I travel." For colour fills and shading, you can't beat Copic Sketch markers. The lines blend together seamlessly for block shading, and if you leave them to dry, they won't bleed into each other much. The feature one brush tip and one wedge tip, meaning you can also use them for fine details. The full range includes a whopping 358 colours (buy the full set here, if you're feeling flush), so you're bound to find the shade you want. Concept artist Courtland Winslow is a loyal user of the Copic Y19 Napoli Yellow, which he uses in conjunction with the Micron 005 (see number 9, above). The Pentel XGFKP/FP10-A Brush Pen is specifically designed for oriental artwork, cartoons and calligraphy. This light pen has a soft, flexible nib that's great for both fine detail and graceful, sweeping lines. As such, fashion, beauty, food and lifestyle illustrator Niki Groom, aka Miss Magpie, typically uses it at to add finishing touches to the end of any artwork. “I call this my desert island pen,” she says. “I use it to add names for live illustration work, and to make areas even more black if I’m not happy with the depth of colour.” View the full article

What's the best pen for an artist? It's a difficult to answer, because pens are used for so many different things. So in this post, we've gathered the opinions of artists, designers and other creatives to find out which pens should be in your desk drawer. Read on and you'll find out which are the best pens for drawing, of course, but also the best pen for writing, the best pen for sketching, the best pen for calligraphy and so on. In short, whatever you need a pen for, you'll find the right one for you in this list. If you're sorting out your full pencil case, take a look at our guide to the best pencils, too. Picking the best pen for drawing was a close-run competition, but ultimately we had to opt for the Copic 1.0 mm Multiliner, which is a truly premium quality pen in all respects. The ink is densely pigmented, holds well on paper, and creates crisp, clean lines. Copic sells its Multiliners in a range of thicknesses, so you can pick the option that suits your artistic style best. Artists report they're comfortable to use, and not scratchy – even in the finer sizes. Finally, the range is good value for money, and refillable. Ben O’Brien, aka Ben the Illustrator, started using Copic pens a couple of years ago for the Inktober challenge. While he used a range of different nib options, his preference was for the 1.0 pen (although he also noted Copic's Multiliner brush pen is "brilliant"). "I find thinner pens too scratchy, but the 1.0 has a luscious feel to it. I use it for 'good drawings', usually on textured watercolour paper.” “Copic fine liners are great for drawing,” agrees interactive designer Sush Kelly. “I mainly use them for inking sketches; I wouldn't waste these bad boys on notes and so on. I love the super-fine, refillable nibs; I tend to use a 0.05, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 and 0.8.” With its hardwearing synthetic bristles, sturdy, precise tip and waterproof, fade-resistant ink, the Pentel Brush Pen runs a close second for our favourite all-round pen for drawing. The artists we spoke to commented that these pens are great for creating a variety of different line types – although the delicate nib does take some getting used to. The deep black pigment scans very well; ideal if you want to finish your artwork digitally. You'll need to be careful transporting them though – the ink can leak or clump if the lid isn't on tight. Illustrator Ailish Sullivan has fond memories of receiving her first Pentel Brush Pen. “A guy on my illustration course gave me one and I was blown away," she recalls. "I think I drew everything for the rest of my course with it, because it added character and a personal touch to every stroke. I have now dated this guy for 10 years... a love story started by a brush pen! “I love the variety of lines you can get from the pen. If you want to get really expressive, the individual hairs create a great texture when you really sweep it across the page. When you want something really precise it can also perform well, with practice. When you want to add a feeling of weight, you can increase the pressure ever so slightly and get a bolder finish. “It does take a lot of practice because it's so delicate,” she cautions. “I've tried the Kuretake Sumi brush pen and Pentel Sign pen alternatives and they are much easier to use, but have less potential.” The Pilot V7 Rollerball is essentially a hybrid between a fountain pen and a ballpoint, and our favourite pen for writing. Comfortable to hold, it produces a clean, consistent line with no smudging, and there’s a transparent ink reservoir window so you can be sure of getting hold of extra refills in time. Sush Kelly uses the 0.7mm version for everything from scribbling to-do lists to creating quick wireframes. “It has such a great feel,” he enthuses. “It possibly wouldn't be so good for really accurate drawing, as the flow is quite quick for a rollerball. But otherwise, this is my go-to pen." If you’re looking for the best ballpoint pen, we’d recommend the Pilot BPS GP Fine. This smooth, stick ballpoint with triangular rubber grip is comfortable to hold, cheap to buy, and beautifully functional in use. However, like most ballpoint pens, ink clots can form on the tip, which will smear if they end up on your paper. This ballpoint pen includes 0.7mm, 1.0mm, 1.2mm and 1.6mm options. Most people use them for writing of course, but it’s not unheard of to use them for drawing too. Illustrator Gaia Brodicchia sometimes uses the Pilot for black and white interior illustrations. “Shading with it produces darker drawings than working with graphite, but the process is identical; it only requires a lighter hand,” she explains. “The Pilot Fine tip works well even on smaller details, which are usually an issue with other brands of ballpoint pen. It gives a really good tonal range. I actually keep one that's a bit spent for the lighter areas, and a new one for the darker parts of the illustrations.” Maybe it’s because we’re Japanophiles, but Muju’s MoMa pen with its unusual 0.38mm tip is our clear favourite for the best gel pen. These produce a thin line and consistent flow, and the ink won't run when wet. You can also buy refills. And art director, designer and illustrator Savanna Rawson uses them for the linework in her illustrations. “Originally I was most interested in using this pen for my quite tiny handwriting, but in the last few years have I been using them for drawing as well,” she says. “I find it great for the line work in my illustrations, which I then complete with watercolour washes. The ink doesn't reactivate with the water, which is perfect." If calligraphy is your thing, the best pen for you is the Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen. You might assume that the best calligraphy pens cost a lot of money. But actually, our recommendation is a brand that’s both made in Japan and delivers excellent results, yet is surprisingly affordable. Coming as a set, with one soft type and one hard type, these light pens are very easy to use, with a flexible nib that’s perfect for the nuanced lines and curves needed for crafting beautiful Japanese script. “I recently got a proper calligraphy set with nibs and inks and all that,” says brand and marketing guru Aleksandra Tambor. “But my Tombow brush pens are still the best for quick calligraphy and lettering.” Specifically looking for a pen for sketching? Then we recommend the Platinum carbon fountain pen, with its ultra-fine nib. Unlike most fountain pens, the nib isn't rounded off, so you can use it to create thick or thin lines. Your expressive linework won't run with water either, thanks to the carbon ink. It's also great value for money. Like some other pens on this list, there's a learning curve on this one, as it can feel scratchy to start with. Wil Freeborn, an illustrator and watercolour artist based in Glasgow, describes it as: “The closest I’ve found to using a dip pen on the go. Using it literally changed how I draw.” Freeborn uses this pen mainly for sketching. “It gives a really naturalistic expressive line, great for drawing in cafes," he enthuses. "I use it with a Pentel Brush Pen, which pretty covers most of what I need. It needs quite a smooth paper to work, so wouldn’t really be suited with a rough watercolour paper." It was a very close-run thing, but we’ve plumped for the Sakura Pigma Graphic 1 as our runner-up for best sketching pen. This pen, which combines water-based and pigment-based inks, is a seriously fine model, delivering a bold, consistent line and superb colour transferal. Illustrator Anna Rose uses it for quick sketchbook studies, and finds it works particularly well for buildings, objects, food and lettering (although less so for people and animals). “The consistency of the ink and the way the pen tip glides mean I can get expressive lines and marks down immediately,” she says. "I also love the width of the line. With fineliners I get too precious about lines. But the Graphic lays down a bold line, so it sort of forces me to be bold and really commit to the lines." The Sakura Pigma Micron is our pick for the best pen for lettering and line art. They create a pleasingly dark line that bleeds very little, is archival safe, and won't smudge when washed or erased over. The tips are fine but not too delicate, and they're also odour-free. With a little practice, you can also use them to create a variety of line types – although if you're wanting a lot of line variation, you're better off with a brush pen. You'll also want to add a marker to your pen set if you need to fill in large areas of shadow. Any downsides? Well, the nibs can sometimes spit a little ink, and the line can crack if used with some types of paper. Cartoonist Aaron Uglum uses a Sakura Micron 08 for the majority of his line art and lettering, with a 01 for details such as eyes and mouths. He started out using a traditional dip pen with India Ink, but didn't like the setup and clean-up time it required. “Eventually I moved to the 08 as my pen of choice," he explains. "I liked being able to just pick up a pen and start inking. No worries about spilling the India Ink. And I could stop inking whenever and just walk away. No cleaning pen nibs. Very convenient. And it was still good ink." Concept artist Courtland Winslow is also an admirer of the Pigma Micron line, and regularly makes use of the 0.2mm version (the 005) in combination with a Copic Y19 Napoli Yellow (see number 13). Of the Micron, he says: “I needed a liner that wouldn't run when washed or erased over. A good feeling tip that was both as thin as possible and sturdy, because I don't have a very light hand.” PaperMate's Flair Original felt tips are ideal for adding a splash of colour to your pen work. If you're sick of look back on your notes, only to be faced with an inchoate mass of scribbles, these are the felt-tip pens for you. The colours are vibrant and bold, and won't smudge or bleed. They flow smoothly across paper and the nibs won't fray. If you're thinking of using these for illustration, be aware they're better suited to outlines – you'll want something chunkier for colouring in large areas. Ross Middleham, content lead at the Met Office, uses them for scribbling, storyboarding and general note-taking. “I love making notes in multiple colours as it simply livens up the day. My fave is the hot pink, which really zings on a white page," he says. “You can be confident that the stroke you want will be the stroke it makes." Looking to draw living things? Check out the Kuretake Sumi brush pen. It offers a wide variation in line width to give your sketches an organic, dynamic feel that's well suited to portraits, animals and plants. “It's refillable and fits a Platinum converter, which is very helpful because the ink that comes with it isn't anything special or waterproof,” comments Anna Rose. “It would be nice if Kuretake supplied a waterproof ink themselves, though; I do worry that the Platinum may clog it up eventually." Short on cash, but still want a decent pen? Our budget choice is Berol’s Colour Fine range, which has a fine tip that’s suitable for detailed colouring and drawing. The perennial classroom favourite, these felt-tipped pens are available in a variety of colours (if you don't want the full set, you can buy these individually), and are strong, sturdy and reliable. “I have used Berol colour fineliners all my life, in all different colours. The bolder colours – especially the orange and light blue – have got a really good tone to them,” says Ben O'Brien. "I have black ones littered around my desk, bag and house for writing lists and notes, and the colour ones I usually use for more experimental sketchbook work, or bringing a little colour to observational line drawings when I travel." For colour fills and shading, you can't beat Copic Sketch markers. The lines blend together seamlessly for block shading, and if you leave them to dry, they won't bleed into each other much. The feature one brush tip and one wedge tip, meaning you can also use them for fine details. The full range includes a whopping 358 colours (buy the full set here, if you're feeling flush), so you're bound to find the shade you want. Concept artist Courtland Winslow is a loyal user of the Copic Y19 Napoli Yellow, which he uses in conjunction with the Micron 005 (see number 9, above). The Pentel XGFKP/FP10-A Brush Pen is specifically designed for oriental artwork, cartoons and calligraphy. This light pen has a soft, flexible nib that's great for both fine detail and graceful, sweeping lines. As such, fashion, beauty, food and lifestyle illustrator Niki Groom, aka Miss Magpie, typically uses it at to add finishing touches to the end of any artwork. “I call this my desert island pen,” she says. “I use it to add names for live illustration work, and to make areas even more black if I’m not happy with the depth of colour.” View the full article

Buy KeyShot 8 now for £765/ $995 (HD version)/ £1,534/ $1,995 (Pro version) We’ve watched with interest how KeyShot has evolved since first looking at version 3 back in 2012. Version 8 represents one of the biggest updates in the software's history, bringing a range of new tools, materials and shaders to make your renders more varied and more realistic than ever. KeyShot 8: New nodes The key feature for 3D generalists will be the new geometry node types, which add Displacement, Flakes and Bubbles. Displacement works similarly to most renderers, using a greyscale texture to generate surface detail that would be difficult to model or sculpt. 27 free 3D models KeyShot’s implementation is excellent, producing really fine levels of displacement. It’s not instant – there’s a bit of calculation time while KeyShot generates the necessary geometry, but once done, there’s seemingly no real hit on navigation or render times. To use the Flakes node, ideally you should duplicate your mesh then apply the geometry node to one, and a transparent material to the other. This lets you create glass or plastics with sparkling metal flakes or spherical beads inside. The Bubbles node works with a single material to add realistic bubbles, which is ideal for making fizzy drinks, clear gels, that kind of thing. You can, of course, use these nodes on their own for strange and dramatic results, such as a mesh made entirely of flakes or tiny spheres. The geometry nodes can be used to create things like metallic flakes or bubbles within an existing mesh Another important addition is the Scattering Medium, which can be used for rendering smoke and fog, and works nicely with the new Spotlight to create visible light rays. You can render OpenVDB files or simply apply it to a mesh for more abstract imagery. The end results are terrific, but the Scattering Medium can be one of the slowest elements to render, so use it with caution (or a lot of CPU cores). It’s also one of the things that make us think KeyShot would benefit from a de-noising solution, especially with some of its new materials being such render hogs. The app always gets you to 90-95% of the final image very quickly, but there’s usually a wait for certain effects to resolve. A de-noising function or adaptive sampling would reduce that final waiting time. KeyShot 8: Cutaway feature KeyShot’s handy new Cutaway feature uses a Boolean function to remove sections of a mesh, revealing the details within. You simply apply the Cutaway material to an object, such as a cube or sphere, and have it intersect with your mesh. The sliced edges are shaded to highlight the effect, and you can exclude specific objects, enabling you to cut through a casing, for example, and leave the gearing inside intact. Overall, it’s dead easy to apply and the results are very clean. There are a few caveats, in that it doesn’t work well with glass, and objects need to be solid, but it’s a really useful function and one that product designers and engineers will love. (And it can also be used as a last-minute modelling tool, if you need to remove part of a model or maybe add some details.) By applying the Cutaway material to a mesh, you can remove parts of your object and, in true engineering style, have the sliced edges painted red for clarity KeyShot 8: Workflow improvements Among the numerous workflow improvements, you now get built-in image-editing tools, with curves, tone mapping and colour adjustments. This is a simple but hugely convenient feature, which enables you to refine the look of your image – as it renders – without endless round-trips to an image editor. There’s also new multi-layered optics, if realistic glass is your thing, support for hex colour codes, gITF/GLB export, and improvements to KeyShot’s Studios and Configurator. All in all, KeyShot 8 is a really impressive update. Some things – such as displacement mapping – are a bit overdue, but they’re here now and very nicely implemented, with tweaks and enhancements already queued up for version 8.1. It’s a shame that KeyShot’s high cost and reputation as a niche renderer prevents broader adoption, because once you try it, there’s no going back. KeyShot’s not just for product shots any more. The addition of mesh displacement opens up a world of opportunities Its ability to deal with multi-million-polygon scenes, and the sheer ease with which you can experiment with materials and lighting, make it a joy to use – and actually rather addictive. It also helps that the end results are usually pretty gorgeous, too. If you’re lucky enough to use KeyShot for a living, then your job’s about to get a whole lot easier. KeyShot 8 is a huge update, bringing something for everyone. It’s still primarily a product visualisation tool, but these new features see it creep ever further into the realms of illustration, architecture and even VFX. It’s still expensive – especially if you want the ‘Pro’ features – but for current owners this update is definitely worth it. Buy KeyShot 8 now for £765/ $995 (HD version)/ £1,534/ $1,995 (Pro version) Read more: The best 3D modelling software View the full article

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If you're an avid gamer, chances are you've dreamed of creating your very own game. The Unity Game Development Bundle will have you on your way to becoming an expert developer of both 2D and 3D games. For a limited time, this bundle is available for a pay what you want price. Just pay what you're willing — if it's less than the average price you'll still take something home, but if you beat the average price you'll take home the entire bundle. The Unity Game Development Bundle includes fives courses with over 37 hours of instruction. Brand new to this exciting world? No problem! Start with Master Unity Game Development: Ultimate Beginner's Bootcamp, the perfect introduction for game developing newbies. Learn C# and Unity while gaining the knowledge necessary to build a 3D multi-level platformer game. Once you've got Unity and C# under your belt, Learn Unity AI By Making A Tank Game will have you incorporating artificial intelligence into your games to help make more lifelike characters. Courses like The Complete HTML5 Mobile Game Development Course, Augmented Reality Game Development and Learn To Code By Building 6 Games In The Unreal Engine will amp up your game development abilities. These courses include such practical, employable skills that you could be on your way to a new career with this bundle. Just pay what you want for The Unity Game Development Bundle here and start building! Related articles: How to create a video game character in ZBrush Convert Flash games to HTML5 Create an atmospheric game environment View the full article

Learn how to become a better manga artist with the latest issue of ImagineFX magazine, which goes on sale today. Inside issue 172, you'll learn how give your character art energy and a distinctive personality all of its own. So if you've always wanted to give your manga a recognisable flair, be sure to pick up this issue and put its lessons into practice! Buy issue 172 of ImagineFX here Elsewhere in issue 172, artist Patrick J Jones continues his comprehensive figure drawing series by showing you how to realise realistic hands and arms. Covering everything from the bones through to the proportions and muscles, this workshop will help you nail one of the most difficult body parts. On top of that, we take a look into the sketchbooks of Martin Abel and Guille Rancel shares how to design creatures with a strong personality. There's also all the news, reviews and reader art you've come to expect from ImagineFX magazine, so don't miss it, grab yours today! Never miss an issue: Subscribe to ImagineFX here Explore what's on offer by taking a peek at the lead features, below. Develop your individual art style Leading artists reveal how they honed their style Is style something that you can learn, or is it the result of work, work and more work? We catch up with industry leading artists to hear how they stayed true to their creative outlook and made work that reflects their vision – and what you need to keep in mind if you want to do the same. The roller-coaster career of Sachin Teng Sachin Teng reveals her work and life story so far Could you make it as an artist in just two years after graduation? That was the challenge set by Sachin Teng's mum after she dropped out of art school. With rent to pay and work to make, Sachin set to work on forging her career as a commercial artist. We catch up with her to discover how she's making it work. Learn how to paint a fantasy manga portrait Discover how to create this colourful manga character Put away your inks and maker pens, you won't be needing them for this digital art manga tutorial. Instead you'll discover how Photoshop can create brush-like effects and soft colours that emulate traditional manga methods. With advice on shading, textures and more, this workshop is full of skills that can be transferred to your next project. Anime composition insights How's that for a street view? If you've already got a good understanding of basic perspective concepts, this tutorial by Tan Hui Tian will show you how to give your street scenes an anime twist. With her advice, you'll be able to create backgrounds that are loaded with cohesive colours, characterful details and immaculate vanishing points. Create a Neon Genesis Evangelion character This workshop will show you how to create a beloved character Concept artist and illustrator Paul Kwon has worked for Riot Games and Blizzard Entertainment, so he knows a thing or two about creating character art. In this workshop, the man himself shares how he gives Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion an anime twist in Procreate. Related articles: How to make it as a manga artist How to draw manga characters 15 tips for better manga characters View the full article

Adobe has opened up its massive Creative Cloud deals to UK and US audiences, meaning that users in these territories can now save between 25% and 40% on its full Creative Suite of apps. The offers, which were previously limited to a select group of countries, see the price of Adobe’s entire collection drop to £30.34/ $39.99/ €36.29 from £49.94/ $52.99/ €60.49. Creators in the UK join the long list of European and African countries that have already been able to claim the huge 40% saving. Meanwhile, American users can grab 25% off the usual price of a Creative Cloud Individual plan. Save up to 40% on Adobe Creative Cloud now The full list of countries that can save now are: US, UK, South Africa, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Switzerland, CIS, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, MENA, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine. These offers are valid in all territories until 1 March. So if you’ve been on the fence about signing up to Creative Cloud, there’s really never been a better time to join. The biggest Creative Cloud deals right now What's included? Adobe's Creative Cloud All Apps plan includes: The entire collection of 20+ creative desktop and mobile apps, including Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, and Adobe XD CC 100GB of cloud storage Adobe Portfolio Adobe Fonts Adobe Spark with premium features The option of up to 10TB of cloud storage The programmes are fully integrated, so you can work between them (and different devices) seamlessly – whether you’re out and about or in the studio. Built-in templates help you jump-start your designs, while step-by-step tutorials will help you sharpen your skills and get up to speed quickly. These deals expire on Friday 1 March 2019. Related articles: The best Adobe deals in 2019 60 top-class Photoshop tutorials The best 4K monitors for designers View the full article

Adobe has issued yet another patch for a critical vulnerability in its Acrobat Reader - a week after the original fix. View the full article

Observational drawing from the human figure is a classic skill, and one that can take a lifetime to perfect. With this in mind, we've rounded up the best figure drawing books available right now to help you on your way to figure drawing finesse. Like trying out different teachers before you find the one that suits, you may need to experiment with different styles of books before you find the one for you. To speed up this process, we've reviewed each book and teaching style below, so you can find the figure drawing book for you. Take a look at our guide to the best drawing books for more classic titles. And if you'd like to do at least some of your figure drawing learning online, then don't miss our list of how to draw tutorials, which includes sections on people, animals and landscapes. 01. Figures From Life: Drawing with Style Overlapping forms and shifting perspective are covered by Patrick in his section on foreshortening Artist and teacher Patrick J Jones began honing his creative skills at just 17, and now, over 30 years later, he shares his experience and knowledge in this tutorial-style book: Figures From Life: Drawing With Style. Its luxurious-to-the-touch cover, with its raised typography for the title and a striking sketch of a woman kneeling, provides an early glimpse of the glory held inside. Jones' artistry and advice is spread across 160 pages, and contained within six wonderfully in-depth chapters. Each of the topics under scrutiny – gestures, long and short poses, artist’s studio, rhythm of life and “love devotion surrender” – open with a detailed step-by-step guide on how to draw a certain pose, each stage accompanied by a large photograph for reference. It’s here and in the following pages, which feature the most intricate and impressive drawings of the male and female form, where you get your money’s worth. Not only does each chapter spell out how to draw a specific pose, but also also includes a number of invaluable artistic tips. Common mistakes and problem areas are noted too, as well as the occasional elaboration for tackling certain trickier areas of the body, such as the head, hand, arm and leg. Figures From Life is surprisingly light to carry around At A4 size, this book would easily fit in most standard-sized bags, and while it’s fairly thick and the quality clear, it’s surprisingly light to carry around. One slight downside is the size of the body copy, which is a little too small when you consider the word count. But then this allows for larger images, so it’s all about balance. The image-to-word ratio will work for some and not for others. Either way, it takes nothing away from the book’s brilliant content. There’s a strong sense of authority surrounding Figures from Life: Drawing With Style. The fact that art legend Julie Bell has written the book’s foreword should tell you all you need to know about Patrick’s talents as an artist. And if that doesn’t, the expertise and passion for art that oozes out of the other 159 pages certainly will. 02. Figure Drawing for Artists: Making Every Mark Count Figure Drawing For Artists includes chapters on drawing different parts of the body Despite some grand claims on the back-cover blurb, Figure Drawing for Artists doesn't quite offer the revolutionary approach to figure drawing that it suggests. However, it's still an authoritative and useful book with a range of expert tips, pointers and advice that will help improve your figure drawing, all written by a well-known and popular artist and instructor, Steve Huston. The first half of the book addresses the basic elements of drawing, with chapters on structure, gesture, perspective and light. The second half offers an overview of basic forms, plus chapters on drawing the head, torso, arms, hands, legs and feet. There's also a final chapter on finishing details (light and shadows). This book is a great introduction to drawing figures At the end of each chapter, Huston reviews a master work by a classic artist, such as Michelangelo and Raphael, and explains how it relates to the lessons. A lot of ground gets covered, but with its airy layout this book never feels cluttered or academic. This is a fine introduction to drawing, and would make a good supplement to other of the other guides listed here. 03. Human Figure Drawing Human Figure Drawing is full of exercises for you to complete This book takes the view that learning to draw anatomy is like starting to talk or to play an instrument. So rather than spend too much time on theory, Daniela Brambilla instead sets a series of exercises and encourages you to learn by doing – while learning from your mistakes. This large-format, 260-page hardback covers almost every area of human figure drawing. It begins with the basics: gestures, contours and understanding position, proportions and lines of force. Then it's on to more advanced topics such as expanding your imagination and capturing "the movements of the soul", as Brambilla rather evocatively puts it. With plenty of examples, and exercises that encourage you to get scribbling, it feels like a relaxed evening class held by the best teacher in town. 04. The Anatomy of Style: Figure Drawing Techniques Learning about anatomy is key to improving your figure drawings Here's another great book from Patrick J Jones. In The Anatomy of Style: Figure Drawing Techniques, Jones explains how to draw anatomically accurate figures. The illustrator offers practical tips on things like art supplies and, step by step, body part by body part, explains how to apply the principles of anatomy to your life drawing. He begins with short poses, progresses to the long pose, then extends those principles to creating human figures from imagination. The first five chapters apply mainly to drawing, the sixth addresses painting, the final features timed life drawings, showcasing the techniques outlined in the book. Detailed notes deconstruct every illustration. 05. Figure Drawing Masterclass This easy-to-use book shows you how to emulate great artists When you're trying to emulate the great masters of art, it makes total sense to look at... well, the great masters. This book by respected artist Dan Gheno does just that, by dissecting the work of the likes of Raphael and Rembrandt, and showing you how you can use these techniques in your own artwork. Other lessons include how to draw heads and hands – two elements many artists struggle with – and key concepts of figure drawing, including how to convey emotion with posture. This informative book includes many of Gheno's own drawings, and is suitable for beginners as well as those looking to take their figure drawing a step further. Parts of this article originally appeared in ImagineFX magazine. Subscribe here. Read more: How to begin a figure drawing How to draw a cat The best online art classes right now View the full article

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A CSS methodology is a set of guidelines for writing modular, reusable and scalable code. Although CSS is an easy language to write, without an agreed-upon convention the code gets messy almost as fast as it is written. Since each CSS declaration is defined on its own line, files get huge quickly, making them a nightmare to maintain. To solve this and other CSS implementation issues (for a further explanation, jump to Why do we need CSS methodologies?), groups of coders around the world have developed different CSS methodologies, or sets of standard practices. Each comes with its own focus, advantages and disadvantages. Cool CSS animation examples They are not frameworks or libraries, rather rules for writing CSS code that encourage developers to stick to conventions that make code easier to write and maintain, saving hours of development time. These methodologies are not mutually exclusive and can be used together in a way that best suits developers. In this article we will take a look at the pros and cons of a few of the most popular CSS methodologies: object-oriented CSS, Atomic CSS (related to atomic design), BEM and SMACSS. Use the boxout opposite to jump to a particular methodology. Alternatively, hop to page 2 to see how they can be combined together in a custom methodology. Object-Oriented CSS In a nutshell: Divide layout into objects, then abstract their CSS into modules OOCSS involves identifying objects on a page and separating their structural and visual CSS styles into two declaration blocks. These blocks can then be reused by different elements, and changes need only be made in one place, leading to better consistency. Declaration blocks are applied to elements using single-class selectors to avoid specificity issues. This technique also separates content from container, so objects look the same wherever they appear. Classes also decouple mark-up from CSS. Using .title instead of h2 for heading <h2 class="title"> allows it to be changed to <h3 class="title"> without changing the CSS. To further separate HTML and CSS, class names should not include property values. A class 'blue' would require renaming in HTML and CSS if the colour changed. Using OOCSS a button's CSS and markup can be defined as: OOCSS introduces many useful concepts, but its lack of rules leads to variations in interpretation that can result in inconsistencies. It has, however, been used as inspiration for stricter methodologies. Atomic CSS In a nutshell: Create a class selector for every repeating CSS declaration ACSS encourages developers to define single-purpose class selectors for every reusable declaration. Unlike OOCSS, which discourages CSS property values in class names, ACSS welcomes it. Using ACSS styles can be defined and applied to elements as: There are programmatic approaches to ACSS that automatically generate CSS based on classes or attributes that users add to the HTML. Atomizer is one such tool, allowing the previous HTML to be redefined as: This would automatically generate the following CSS upon build: The main benefit of ACSS is the ease of maintaining consistent code and not having to invent classes for components requiring a single CSS rule. However, ACSS used on its own can lead to an unmanageable number of classes and bloated HTML files. It is therefore common to only use ACSS principles to create helper classes that define consistent, reusable declaration blocks. Block Element Modifier In a nutshell: Use a standard naming convention for classes BEM encourages developers to divide layouts into blocks and nested elements. Variations from the average appearance of a block or element should also be identified and applied using modifiers. CSS declarations are applied using a single class name of format block-name for blocks and block-name__element-name for elements, with two underscores in between. Modifier names are appended to classes, prefixed with an underscore or two hyphens for better clarity, for example block-name__element-name_modifer-name or block-name__element-name--modifer-name. An object is a block if it can exist without ancestors, otherwise it's an element. Blocks can have nested blocks and elements, but elements cannot. Modifiers must be used alongside block and element classes, not instead of them. BEM can be applied to a list, where list-block--inline and list-block__item--active display lists horizontally and highlight items respectively: BEM is a highly effective naming convention that creates predictably behaving CSS that is easy to manage, maintain and scale. BEM does have downsides, however, including the difficulty in inventing class names for deeply nested objects, the ridiculously long class names and bloated HTML that may sometimes result, and also the lack of consistency that is caused by the inability to share CSS between objects. Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS In a nutshell: Split CSS code across multiple files for better performance and organisation SMACSS works by dividing CSS into five categories – base, layout, module, state and theme – commonly split into separate files. Base styles override the default styles and are mainly applied using element selectors: Layout styles are for major objects like headers and sidebars. They are applied using IDs or classes with generic helper declarations optionally prefixed with l-: Module styles are for smaller, reusable objects like buttons and lists, each commonly with its own file. They are applied using classes, with nested items classes commonly prefixed with the ancestor class: State styles are for changeable states, like hidden or disabled. They are commonly applied with class names prefixed with is- or has- and chained to other selectors: Theme styles are optionally used for changing the visual scheme. SMACSS provides well-organised CSS code split logically across multiple files. Using SMACSS does, however, introduce specificity traps by allowing IDs and relying on selector chaining for state and some layout declarations. Next page: Learn how to combine different methodologies to create your own As you have probably gathered from this article, each CSS methodology comes with its own benefits and drawbacks. It is, however, possible to combine aspects of multiple methodologies together to create your own custom one that's specifically suited to your needs. Let's look at one way of combining the four methodologies discussed on page 1, for a site with a homepage and a button component, using Sass as a preprocessor. Applying SMACSS principles, we can divide our code across multiple Sass partials as shown in the image below. Click the icon in the top right to enlarge Then import them into styles.scss that will be converted to styles.css by Sass, as follows: Next we can add any styles that override the browser defaults to _base.scss, allowing mainly element selectors and their pseudo-classes: Selector chains are sometimes required to override unwanted styles applied by external frameworks. For example, the Materialize.css framework applies padding to grid columns using a two-class selector chain .row .col, making it impossible to override with a single-class BEM selector. Such overrides should also be added to _base.scss, for example .row .col {padding: 16px}. For this to work make sure external libraries are sourced in the HTML before styles.css. Using ACSS ideas we can create helper classes that apply consistent styles to any element, eliminating the need to create a new class name and component file for elements requiring a single CSS declaration. Instead we can apply the helper class directly to the HTML. For example, we can create a responsive, top margin helper class in _helpers.scss: For each component we will have a separate file in the components directory and use a BEM methdology. We will allow BEM formatted single-class selectors, their pseudo-elements and an infinite number of chained pseudo-classes. For example, the CSS of buttons can be defined in _button.scss as following, with modifier button--is-disabled greying out the button and showing a tooltip with the message disabled on hover: Finally, we can add page-specific overrides to a corresponding file in the pages directory. To ensure that these overrides are always applied to our elements and those from external libraries with potentially multi-class selectors, we will give each page a unique ID. For example, we can hide disabled buttons on the homepage by adding the following to _home.scss: As you can see, combining methodologies is easy and can lead to a personalised, consistent approach to CSS development that scales effortlessly and is easily maintained. The custom methodology detailed above is just a suggestion, and my advice is for you to develop your own. Combine aspects you like from as many methodologies as you can find, adapting them to your liking, and stick to them. There is little point in creating a methodology if you constantly deviate from it. If you find yourself doing so, then incorporate these deviations into your methodology in a way that is consistent and easy to understand. Why do we need CSS methodologies? CSS preprocessors such as Sass, Less and Compass, have done wonders to mitigate this problem by allowing selectors to be nested and blocks of code to be replaced with single-line 'mixin' declarations (take a look at What is Sass? for more on this). While this helps, large projects can still require thousands of lines of code. Fortunately, preprocessors also allow CSS to be split across smaller files, or 'partials'. But what to include in each partial and how they are named must be agreed upon by a team, otherwise their use can do more harm than good. Another potential problem experienced with complex projects is managing specificity. CSS assigns a weight to each style rule, so when multiple rules are used on the same element, the highest weighted rule is considered more specific and is therefore applied. When multiple, equal-weight rules are used the lowest one wins. Specificity is calculated using four number groups represented as 0-0-0-0, where numbers do not overflow from one group to another, so 0-12-21-5 is valid. Each element or pseudo-element in a selector increments the right-most group, e.g. h1 is 0-0-0-1 and div::before is 0-0-0-2. Each class, attribute or pseudo-class increments the next group, e.g. .some-class.another-class is 0-0-2-0 and section.some-class .another-class:hover is 0-0-3-1. IDs increment the next group, e.g. #some-id#another-id is 0-2-0-0 and ul#some-id img.some-class:active is 0-1-2-2. Inline styles applied using HTML style attributes increment the leftmost group and are therefore the most specific selectors. The higher the overall number, the more specific the selector. So if one developer uses div.some-class to apply styles to an element, it is not possible to override them lower down the code using .some-class on its own. It is therefore common practice to use only single-class selectors when possible. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 282 or subscribe. Read more: Create cool UI animations with CSS The best JavaScript frameworks 21 ways to optimise your CSS and speed up your site View the full article