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A proof-of-concept from the University of Maryland can defeat the audio challenges that are offered as an option for people with disabilities. View the full article

A glitch allowed hackers to access contacts, photos and more on Android devices - simply by answering a Skype call. View the full article

Samsung has previewed a 75-inch version of its MicroLED TV at CES 2019 – introduced last year as The Wall. It’s notable not because it’s so big, but because it’s so small: MicroLED is made up of millions of inorganic red, green and blue microscopic LED chips that emit their own bright light to produce brilliant colours on screen – and this is the first time Samsung has manage to make them small enough to create a TV that would fit in your living room. The benefit of MicroLED is that the picture should be better than OLED, and without any of the drawbacks of using an organic compound. That means Samsung’s TV should be able to deliver perfect blacks, higher contrast and a very wide HDR colour palette – all the while giving the TV a longer lifespan than OLED too. But because MicroLED is modular, at some point in the near future Samsung says we’ll be able to order custom MicroLED TVs at any size or aspect ratio. On show here in Vegas, Samsung’s new 75-inch MicroLED TV is the smallest version so far that's achieved a 4K resolution. At the other end of the scale, the company is also displaying a monstrous 219-inch model, which it says will offer “something above 4K. Price, of course, remains to be seen. But MicroLED displays are incredibly tricky to produce at scale – if one RGB sub-pixel is bad, it could be game over for the whole display – and we’re likely looking at tens of thousands of dollars, at least. So is this the next big thing for TV tech? Samsung certainly thinks so. Time will tell… View the full article

At its heart, design is about solving communication problems for your clients. But for most creatives, this is not a closed-loop profession. Rather than just beavering away in the studio with the blinkers on, it's also about supporting, nurturing and giving back to the industry as a whole. It's a virtuous circle: established industry figureheads pass down their wisdom to nurture the emerging talent coming up, and creatives from all disciplines pool their expertise to collaborate on projects that are greater than the sum of their parts. Giving back benefits everyone: the design industry is stronger and richer for it, and on an individual level, such projects can aid your development as well as benefit your creative resume. Looking for inspiration? Read on for six great ways to give something back to the wider design community this year.... 01. Pass on your skills Jessica Hische produced this 13-part training course on drop-cap lettering for Skillshare As a creative, your skills are everything. If you've spent years honing your raw talent into something your clients want to buy, you should protect that at all costs, right? Well, actually giving something back to the next generation benefits everyone. Through teaching, you can learn a lot about yourself and your process – it keeps your mind sharp, and helps you avoid slipping into lazy habits. It can be hugely rewarding and satisfying. And if you do it well, you'll help enrich the talent pool with industry ready, curious minds. It's not entirely magnanimous, either – you can make some money on the side by lecturing at design colleges, producing an online course on a platform like Skillshare, or even giving an intensive workshop for an organisation like D&AD. Put yourself out there and find something that's a good fit for you. 02. Support good causes For this rebrand of charity initiative Life Kitchen, hat-trick invited a diverse array of creatives to design a plate Healthy budgets from big-name clients may be great for the bank balance, but are not always good for the soul. In 2019, why not find the time to invest in charity projects and use your design skills for good? There are countless ways to do so. Perhaps consider taking on a not-for-profit client – perhaps for a reduced fee, or pro bono if the circumstances are right and you can afford to do so. Create artworks to auction off for a good cause, or join forces with other creatives for a charity exhibition. Not only is this a commendable way to use your skills to support something worthwhile, but it can also boost your profile and lead to other work – or lay the groundwork for an exciting new commercial collaboration in the future. 03. Mentor a promising talent D&AD New Blood Festival – which takes place in July – is a great place to recruit promising talent Internships have a bad rap in some circles, mostly because some deplorable agencies take malleable young creatives for granted, and exploit them for little or no money. We're not advocating that kind of behaviour here – it ultimately erodes, rather than boosts, our industry. But done properly, taking a promising young designer under your wing to nurture their growth is hugely beneficial for all involved. Rather like teaching, you may find you learn just as much as they do in the process. As graduate show season approaches, make the time to attend the ones that interest you – such as D&AD New Blood – and make a genuine effort to engage with people who show potential. Find a rough diamond to bring into your agency and help them grow, and your whole team will be stronger for it. 04. Give a useful talk at a conference Take the time to develop a thought-provoking conference talk rather than just rattling off your work highlights The design festival circuit is filled with big-name designers giving rousing keynotes, or slightly lesser-known creatives walking through their portfolio highlights. These can be inspiring, sure – but if you have the opportunity to get on the stage yourself this year, why not consider planning something with a little more structure, substance and practical insight. The industry will thank you, as your audience will have some more concrete takeaways afterwards. Shed some light on your thought process in a way that has universal relevance and appeal, or use your work to illustrate a broader theme that the audience can engage with. It may take a little longer to prepare, but it'll be worth it in the long run as your talk will be more memorable, as well as more shareable on social media. 05. Do your bit for the planet In 2018, Carlsberg announced its innovative Snap Pack – which uses dots of glue to significantly reduce the plastic used Why stop at design? While you're in full altruism mode, consider giving something back to the whole global community by pledging to be more sustainable with all the design decisions you make. Sustainability is climbing up the agenda for brands across the board, and even small changes help make a difference on a cumulative basis. Consider using recycled (and recyclable) materials, more eco-friendly inks, and cutting right back on the big villain of the age: single-use plastic. Sustainable thinking can stretch to every aspect of your business, and don't be afraid to enlighten your clients (and your peers) on the possibilities too. 06. Promote diversity and inclusivity Organisations such as SheSays, D&AD and The Other Box are all fighting for a more diverse design industry Diversity has been a hot topic in design for some time now, and while there have been some commendable changes in some sectors, there's still a long way to go to dilute the predominantly white, male, able-bodied demographic. Initiatives such as D&AD Shift and organisations such as SheSays and The Other Box are all working hard to promote a more diverse, inclusive industry for all, but real change starts at home. Don't just decry the state of play and wait for someone else to do something about it. Look outside of the usual silos when hiring. Encourage an inclusive working environment that gives diverse talent a chance to thrive. Review your HR policies to promote equality, and provide the necessary support for disabled creatives, or anyone that needs it. Your agency, and the industry at large, will reap the benefits. Read more: Ethical branding: real revolution or fluffy fad? How to make a brand more human 4 huge design trends we'll be seeing more of in 2019 View the full article

All artists have their own unique workflow when creating 3D art in ZBrush. This workflow can mean a bunch of techniques or a hierarchy in which you achieve certain stages. The more time and experience you get with ZBrush, the more advanced a workflow you will create for yourself. ZBrush lets you take charge, create your own menu and organise the interface to best suit your needs. Try to take advantage of that and save out your own preferences. If there are brushes or buttons you often use, find a place and put them somewhere easily accessible, create a separate menu or assign a keyboard shortcut to them. The Custom User Interface (UI) is a great way of controlling your workflow and maintaining a familiar, comfortable work environment. 30 top examples of 3D art There are things we do automatically because they have become our routine, but there are also ways and techniques we might be forgetting or have never investigated. I have gathered some basic knowledge and created this simple ZBrush tutorial to remind you of those little things which, when incorporated into your workflow, can help you work much easier or quicker. 01. Use image planes PLines can help you identify the parts on the model/reference image you're working on These are incredibly useful for likeness sculpts. Say you have a front and side picture of a person you are trying to sculpt, or a blueprint you need to follow – the best thing you can do is set up the image plane. First, make sure your reference images are the same size and preferably square. Navigate to the Texture folder and import them in. Activate the floor grid (shift+P), go to the Draw menu, click on the Front-Back sub-palette and select your front and back images. Repeat accordingly with Left-Right view. An interesting feature you will probably notice is blue and red lines pointing from the brush icon towards corresponding areas of the reference images. These are called PLines. They help identify the parts on the model/reference image you work on. Notice that there are also a bunch of sliders that can control the opacity of the grid images as well as your model. If you already have a model you would like to use as a reference, you can turn it into a grid. Below the opacity sliders, you will find a Snapshot To Grid button. Pressing it will take your model and make it into a reference grid. You can save your new image plane file by pressing the Save button located above the Grid Elevation slider. 02. Utilise Scale Master Scale Master prevents scale issues that can creep in as you import and export Artists often experience a common problem working across multiple software – scale issues. Import and export can seriously affect the model's scale. It is useful to use GoZ when constantly switching between ZBrush and other software, because it holds up the bridge for smooth file transitions. If you do not use it but want to make sure your scale is correct, you have to change it manually in ZBrush using the Scale Master plugin. Scale Master calculates the size of the model, lets you choose the units you wish to work with, can generate a bounding box as a subtool, and finally, exports the selected tool as an OBJ file with generic units as the selected unit scale. 03. Work with Sculptris Pro With Sculptris Pro you can just get on with sculpting your model One of the most recent additions in ZBrush allows you to focus on sculpting instead of constantly worrying about the subdivision level. Sculptris Pro works fantastically with Clay brushes. The smaller the brush the more dense the tessellation, and the more detail support. Do not forget to switch off Sculptris Pro when smoothing out your model, because Smooth also works in this mode. This problem happened to me a lot when I tried to smooth out the mesh, increased brush size and it wiped my details, replacing them with bigger polygons. 04. Backface masking Backface Mask can be a lifesaver Working on a thin mesh can cause a little trouble when trying to move or sculpt on one side and the backfaces follow the brush. One of my favourite tools in ZBrush is Backface Mask. Hiding in Brush > Auto Masking, Backface Mask can be a real hero and save your day, or at least some stress. 05. Hard surface modelling Try ZModeler or Gizmo 3D for hard surface modelling ZModeler is a great tool that enables you to create hard-surface models in ZBrush. It is the most basic yet useful. Hover over the polygons or edges to see what options you have. For extra choice and more complex creations try Gizmo 3D. It provides a vast array of options enabling very precise tool manipulation. Spend a little time familiarising yourself with the cones and corresponding colours, and it will all come together. 06. Dynamic subdivision Dynamic subdivision can smooth out your mesh without adding extra polygons Use dynamic subdivision found in Tool > Geometry > Dynamic Subdiv to smooth out the mesh without adding extra polygons to it. Applying it generates three subdivision levels. It can be useful when working on a low-poly mesh or with ZModeler to view the model in higher polygonal density, but with the brush still operating on a lower-resolution base mesh. 07. Use the colour picker Press C to grab the colour your cursor's pointing at It may happen that at some point during polypainting you lose track of colour coordinates or you need to match the exact tones on a different tool. You don't have to write your RGBs down. Just hover over the desired colour anywhere on the screen and press C on the keyboard. It will pick up the colour your cursor is pointing at. 08. Subtool master Stop digging through menus to find the tool you need This plugin was designed to make your workflow a breeze, simplifying your operations. It is a quick access to tools like Low Res Vis, which sets the subtool to the lowest subdivision level. Instead of going through the menus in search for a single button, or remembering all the hotkeys, all you have to do is learn one hotkey that you then assign to the entire palette. 09. Remesh By Union Remesh By Union is a great alternative to DynaMesh When you have subtools you need to turn into one solid mesh, but for whatever reason you do not want to DynaMesh them, you could use Remesh By Union. This is an option available in Gizmo 3D. All you need to do is merge the tools, activate Gizmo 3D and hit Remesh By Union. ZBrush will do its best to stick the topology together with the least amount of changes. 10. Activate symmetry With Use Posable Symmetry you won't lose your centre of symmetry again If you lose your centre of symmetry at some point or you need to edit a model that has been transposed, do not despair, as you can easily find it again. Simply go to the Transform menu, activate Symmetry and turn on Use Posable Symmetry. This will allow ZBrush to locate the symmetrical centre and the corresponding points of the subtool, and you will be back on track in no time. 11. Compare with snapshot Use snapshots to easily compare versions of your model Do you ever wonder whether your model looks better with or without some detail, or which colour or pose works best, and you wish to compare them? Rather than constantly jumping back and forth between the model's history, or duplicating subtools to compare the models, try snapshotting it. Press Shift+S on the keyboard to snapshot the model and drag out another version next to it. Having them side by side is a much smoother way to compare your subtools and details. 12. Check silhouette A silhouette can help you find cool poses and spot errors in your model It is a good habit to work on a silhouette of your model and check how it's looking every now and then. It helps to get an interesting pose and quickly find any faults in your model. Just switch to a flat colour and look at it from different angles. 13. Lights and background In the Light and Render menus you'll find all you need for setting up lighting and shadows Even if you do not use ZBrush for its rendering properties, it is still useful to know how to set up simple lights and backgrounds for testing purposes. The Light menu provides everything you need for a straightforward setup of lights, shadows and the environment background. In the Render menu you will find more options for further shadow adjustments. 14. Utilise the turntable A turntable animation is a simple but effective way to show off your work Having a turntable animation can help showcase your work. There are many applications out there you can use to make it interactive on your website or social media. ZBrush offers a simple way to record a turntable, a timelapse or front and back history. It is all located in the Movie menu. You will find a great amount of options to choose from to suit your needs and vision. It is definitely worth experimenting with. This article was originally published in issue 239 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 239 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Related articles: ZBrush 2018 review Model a stormtrooper in Maya and ZBrush ZBrush at the movies View the full article

Hoping to transition into a new career in 2019? If you've been dreaming of upping your income and working as an engineer, this online course bundle will have you on your way to becoming a front end engineer in no time. The Ultimate Front End Development Bundle typically retails for $1016, but is currently 96% off at just $39. Engineers are more in-demand than ever before. Now is the perfect time to switch gears and tap into this booming industry. Let the Ultimate Front End Development Bundle get you ready for this new career from the comfort of your couch. Tune into the eight courses whenever you want, allowing you to work at your own pace. The 48 hours of online instruction will school you in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. And there's no need for prior experience, as it's geared towards all levels of learning — including beginners – with courses like The Complete HTML & CSS Course: From Novice to Professional and The Complete jQuery Course: From Beginner To Advanced. Get access to these courses and be on your way to a new career for just $39 today. Want your products featured in The Creative Bloq Shop? Learn more about how to sell your products online! Related articles: The future of web design How to make it in the web design industry 5 articles to improve your web design career View the full article

Whether you're trying to persuade your boss to give you a pay rise or fleshing out the details of a potential job offer, it's absolutely vital to do your homework on pay beforehand – forewarned really is forearmed. "The most important thing to do before deciding whether to negotiate is to conduct background research," says Diane Domeyer, executive director of The Creative Group. "Review salary guides and speak to recruiters," adds Domeyer. "Try to find out if the company is growing or has recently reduced its staff, as these events can help to inform your bargaining power." Once you've armed yourself with the facts, use these five top tips to help negotiate a new salary. 01. Quit playing games
 When sending out your graphic design portfolio and applying for better-paying jobs, be honest about your situation. Domeyer says it's vital to avoid playing games. "Tactics such as misleading a prospective employer about your current salary or other job offers in an effort to obtain higher pay almost always backfire," she says. 02. Don't draw lines
 Always keep your options open when negotiating a contract. Whether you're negotiating with your current employer or a potential new one, Domeyer says it's a mistake to give ultimatums too early on in the contractual process. "Look for common ground and avoid an adversarial stance. You want to start off on the right foot." 03. The time is now
 Start looking around ahead of time rather than waiting until you're thoroughly fed up. "Often, by the time people ask for more money they're quite disgruntled about what they're currently on," says Be Kaler of recruiters Futureheads. "Try to have the conversation before you get to that stage." 04. Know your bottom line 
"Always have a 'Below This I Walk number' in mind when going into a meeting," 
says recruitment consultant Ted Leonhardt. "If you don't go in with one, in a weak moment you can find yourself agreeing to something you later regret. Our brains flick between emotional and rational responses – the rational mind is the slowest part." 05. If not now, try later
 Be aware that pay rises don't have to come instantly. If you can't negotiate more money now, try asking for a delayed or conditional pay bump to be written into your contract. Kaler suggests asking employers to consider writing a pay rise into your contract. "They might say: okay, we can pay that when you've delivered X, Y or Z." This article originally appeared in Computer Arts, the world's leading design magazine. Subscribe here. Read more: Let's talk about money How to make money on Instagram as a creative Learn the art of negotiation View the full article

Looking to extend your skillset in 2019? Maybe you want to learn how to start a blog or discover how to draw? Upskilling can help you skip to the front of the design opportunities queue. But what should you learn, and how? For some creative inspiration, read our for six pro tips from designers who've successfully upskilled. 01. Build your confidence "Have the ambition, confidence and drive to go beyond the area you're working in," advises Terry Stephens, creative director at Studio Nomad. "Look for inspiration that you can apply to your work in a way that's relevant to you." 02. Set broad horizons "Read something new, watch something different, or visit someplace and get lost," urges art director and experimental typographer Craig Ward. "If you're going to develop as a designer, you need to develop as a person." You might, for example, decide to improve your photography skills or learn how to draw better. 03. Be fearless "Flawless design bores me; 'ugly' design gets my attention," declares Jenny Theolin, educator and creative director at Studio Theolin. "I'd rather see you experimenting with the tools you have than considering your next software purchase." 04. Stay adaptable "Adapt to your environment," says Ben Christie, creative partner at Magpie Studio. "You should always be looking and learning, sucking up as much of the world as you can." 05. Work on your problem-solving For Stuart Radford, creative director at Superunion, it's all about developing your capacity to think creatively and solve problems. "The ability to come up with original and unexpected ideas is more valuable than anything," he insists. 06. Be passionate "Be true to who you are," concludes James Hurst, executive strategic creative director at DesignStudio. "If you can keep the spirit alive of doing shit you love, you won't fall into the trap of trying to be the same as everyone else." The full version of this article first appeared in Computer Arts magazine; subscribe here. Illustration: Flavio Montiel Related articles: The expert guide to working from home 30 life skills every designer should master 5 ways to improve your digital art skills View the full article

Asus has announced a new 15-inch workstation-class laptop for content-creation professionals at CES 2019 – and it looks exciting. The new Asus StudioBook S (W700) squeezes Intel Xeon processors, Nvidia Quadro P3200 graphics, up to 64GB of RAM and 4TB of SSD storage behind a 17-inch Full HD display, fit in a 15-inch chassis. (That’s thanks to 5.3mm bezels and a 97 per cent screen-to-body ratio.) Said display sports a 16:10 aspect ratio with a 178-degree wide-view panel with anti-glare. Asus claims it offers 97 per cent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage and Delta E<2 colour accuracy, all of which will appeal to 4K video and film editors, CAD designers and creatives on the move. Plus it’s Pantone Validated to ensure the colours seen on the screen are accurate, too. Speaking of portability, the Asus StudioBook S is also fairly light at 5.27pounds / 2.39kg. It’s slim, too, at just 0.72inches / 18.29mm) thick. The idea is that you can take this new breed of workstation with you, so you can work anywhere. It’s small enough to be stored in a carry-on, but – says Asus – it offers military grade durability. One feature we particularly like is the trackpad, which has a built-in number pad for when you need it. Connectivity options include dual-band Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, and the Asus StudioBook S comes with the following ports: a USB-C port with Thunderbolt 3, three USB-A 3.1 ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, an SD card reader and headphone jack. Asus StudioBook S: price There’s no definite word on pricing and availability yet. All we know is that this information will be provided in the "coming months". But it’s safe to say this sleek portable workstation won’t come cheap. Also read: CES 2019: everything you need to know LG to reveal two ‘ultra’ monitors at CES 2019 View the full article

CES 2019 is upon us – and Creative Bloq is here in Vegas to bring you all the latest news, highlights and hands-on reviews from one of the world’s largest consumer tech shows. We’ll be focusing on the most exciting new innovations for designers, artists and creatives – from laptops to foldable phones and 8K cameras – so stay tuned throughout the week. You’ll find all the latest news right here. What is CES? The Consumer Electronics Show is an exhilarating glimpse into the future of tech, with the latest and greatest names in the business (apart from Apple) showcasing their new innovations. The annual trade show covers everything from drones and driverless cars to cryptocurrency, smart homes and beyond – and it’s massive. This year, more than 4,500 exhibiting companies are spread out over 11 venues with over 180,000 attendees from 150 countries expected, plus 6,500 media. It isn’t open to the public, though; only industry and journalists. When is CES 2019? The Consumer Electronics Show 2019 officially starts on Tuesday 8 Jan and will run until 11 January. However, Monday is packed with press events so expect exciting news and announcements. Confirmed press conferences include Intel, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony, with LG due to present the first presentation on the 7 January. CES 2019: news and highlights for creatives so far We’ve already seen some exciting new tech at CES 2019. And although the show hasn’t yet officially started, a number of companies have made some exciting early announcements – not just today but in the recent run up to the show. Here's what we've got so far... LG to reveal two ‘ultra’ monitors at CES 2019 Back in December, LG announced that it will be showcasing two new 'ultra' monitors. One, a whopping 49-inch ultrawide monitor, will be aimed at business professionals; while the other – a 38-inch gaming monitor – will have a curved 4K display, and be of most interest to creatives. Here's what you need to know. Also read: View the full article

Update: we're now just a few hours away from LG's press conferences at CES 2019, here in Vegas. Full news to follow as soon as it's announced. LG will be showcasing two new ‘ultra’ monitors at CES 2019 in January. That’s according to a press release from the company in December, which announced a new 49-inch display for business professionals and a 38-inch display for gamers and creatives. The new 49-inch LG UltraWide Monitor (model 49WL95) will sport a 32:9 aspect ratio screen – that’s the equivalent of two 16:9 screens – and a 5120 x 1440 resolution with 108 pixels per inch. It’s been designed to boost productivity by making it easier to multitask, and is aimed primarily at people working in finance, IT, digital design and architecture. At CES, LG will showcase its latest range of 'ultra' monitors However, it’s the new 38-inch LG UltraGear Gaming Monitor (38GL950G) that’s of most interest for creatives. A curved 4K monitor, it promises vivid images and accurate colour reproduction, covering 98 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. LG says it’ll also have a 144Hz refresh rate, response time of 2m/s – great news for gamers and video editors – and LG's Sphere Lighting technology. The latter displays ambient light from the back of the monitor to reduce eye fatigue. "With a wide choice of models that prioritize productivity, picture quality and out-of-this-world gaming, more and more consumers are seeing LG as a innovation leader in monitors,” said Jang Ik-hwan, head of LG's IT division of the Home Entertainment Company. We’ll be reporting live from CES 2019, so tune in from Monday 7 Jan 2019 for all the latest news for creatives from the world’s biggest tech show. Also read: The best 4K monitors for designers The best ultrawide monitors right now The best 5K and 8K monitors View the full article

Buy the Osprey Farpoint 70 for $160 / £111 at Amazon Buy the Ospry Fairview 70 for $126 / £108 at Amazon So you’re going travelling for a bit. Maybe you’re one of an increasing number of young professionals swapping the office for a digital nomad lifestyle. Perhaps you’re visiting some of the world’s creative hotspots or most inspiring design cities on vacation. Whatever your motivation, if you’re hitting the road soon, you’ll need the right bag to carry everything you need. The former is exactly the situation we found ourselves in recently, when part of the Creative Bloq team travelled to Mexico to work remotely for two months. Why? Because we could. But we needed a bag. Wheeled suitcases were no good – outside office hours we’d be exploring mountains, desserts, beaches and jungle; places where wheels don’t always go. Top-loading backpacks were out too: we wanted to be able to access our things quickly and easily at all times, even if they’d been haphazardly packed. But above all else, we needed our work equipment to be safe from wandering hands. (After all, no work: no play. And we were ready to play.) After many hours of research into travel bags and backpacks, we settled on Osprey’s Farpoint / Fairview series. Designed to be “carried like a backpack but packed like a suitcase” – and billed as the Colorado-based company’s lightest travel backpack yet – on paper it was perfect. But was it any good in real life? Osprey Farpoint / Fairview: sizing First, the name. The Farpoint / Fairview series of travel backpacks have the same features; the only difference is the Fairview has a female-specific fit. The series covers a range of capacities: 40L, 55L, 70L and 80L. The 55L and 70L options include a “zip and clip” day pack that attaches to the main bag; while the 40L and 80L versions come as one big backpack. For this trip, we needed enough room for our work tech – laptop, mouse, DSLR, chargers and so on – plus clothes for a variety of climates. So we opted for the 70L version. Both the Farpoint and Fairview are available in two colourways – grey or red; and grey or green respectively – with the Farpoint offering two sizes to choose from: S/M and M/L. The Fairview comes only in WS/M, but the straps and frame offer a lot of adjustment options, and it fit us perfectly. Osprey Farpoint / Fairview 70: design and features We’ll say it straight away: we loved the design of the Farpoint/Fairview travel backpacks. The main compartment opens like a suitcase thanks to a large, zippered and padlockable opening that runs three-quarters of the way around the main compartment. Inside, there are two compression straps to secure your belongings, and a large mesh pocket attached to the zipper flap. You can open the Osprey Fairview and Farpoint travel backpacks like a suitcase Outside, two cushioned handles on the top and side let you carry the bag like a suitcase or easily pull it off a carousel. On the back, meanwhile, an ergonomically shaped hip belt transfers the weight from your shoulders to your hips, and a die-cut spacer mesh harness (with an adjustable chest strap and load-lifter straps) makes it super-easy to customise your bag for your body shape. The best bit? The hip belt and harness pack can be quickly zipped away behind a small panel when you’re checking your bag in for a flight. When you want the harness out, you can tuck the panel away inside a small pocket at the base Finally, it comes with a 13L daypack that can be either zipped onto the back of the main bag, or clipped kangaroo-style onto the harness straps on your front – useful if it’s carrying your laptop or passport, say, and you need them to hand. (Yes, we tried this. And yes we felt ridiculously touristy – but didn’t it just spread the weight nicely!) The daypack comes with a smaller front-facing stash pocket for your sunglasses or phone, two meshed side pockets, and a laptop sleeve and meshed tablet sleeve inside the body. Osprey Farpoint / Fairview 70: what we liked The Osprey Farpoint / Fairview 70 is ridiculously comfortable. We overpacked (yeah, yeah, it’s been a while since we went travelling) but could still carry our stuff for miles and miles in comfort, with the hip belt taking the weight. (Er, this feature became even more valuable after we smashed our camera phone and lost Google Maps.) Even better, the arched spacer-mesh harness meant our backs didn’t turn into pools of sweat. In terms of portability and comfort, the Osprey Farpoint / Fairview 70 gets full marks from the Creative Bloq team. It was also ridiculously easy to access what we needed from inside the main compartment, at all times – we can’t overstate this aspect. And we liked the lockable zippers, which can be tucked out of sight underneath the zip casing to deter opportunist thieves. Speaking of safety measures, we also appreciated how secure the detachable daypack is when it’s zipped onto the main pack. There’s a hidden strap that doubly locks it into place for extra peace of mind. The external handles, too, proved remarkably useful for grabbing the bag from a carousel or bus and ferry-dump situations. Osprey Farpoint / Fairview 70: what we didn’t like We wish the detachable daypack had a hip belt as well. It’s only 13L, but on hikes or long airport transfers we often found ourselves wishing we could take the strain off our shoulders. (Although positive point: yes, it’s the right size for airline carry on.) Speaking of 13L, we also found it tough to fit in everything we wanted for our day trips. It’s doable, certainly – we used it for two months – but a squeeze. We’d like the daypack to be just a little bigger. The side pockets on the daypack could be a little bigger Failing this, more generous side pockets would help: on a good day you can just about force in a 750ml water bottle – but you can’t do it one-handed (while you’re walking, for example; you have to take the bag off your shoulders) and if your bag is full, forget it. The side pockets are next to useless. And if we were being really picky, we’d like a few more pockets or compartments on the inside. That’s what Osprey's packing cubes are for, of course. Osprey Farpoint / Fairview 70: should you buy it? Overall, we loved the Osprey Fairview 70. The capacity was more than enough for two months’ travelling around a country where temperatures varied from 0-35 degrees (and if you can pack for two months, you can travel forever). Yet, it was also compact enough to be super portable. We had no problem fitting it into hostel lockers, overhead compartments and crammed colectivos. Most importantly, the carry system customisation made it fit like a (non sweaty) glove. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Osprey Fairview 70 to anyone considering either long-term travel or a short-term break to non-wheel-friendly terrain. And if you’re better packers than us, or not heading to multiple climates, we think the 55L version would be a great choice too. Buy the Osprey Farpoint 70 for $160 / £111 at Amazon Buy the Ospry Fairview 70 for $126 / £108 at Amazon Read more: 10 inspirational design cities The best design hotels in the world When, where and how to shoot the northern lights View the full article

Have you been sitting on a million dollar idea for a movie or TV show? WriterDuet Pro will not only help you craft your amazing project, it will ensure that it's in the industry standard format. And a lifetime subscription to this helpful software is currently just $99.99. WriterDuet is designed by established screenwriters for fellow screenwriters. Because of that, it's intuitive and knows what tools are needed to get your play, TV show or movie down on paper. Writing with a colleague? Working with a whole team on a script? The software allows you to work collaboratively in real time, letting you outline ideas on a collaborative corkboard and see changes filtered by who made them. Unsure exactly how to format your work? WriterDuet has industry standard formatting, so once you're done, everyone who sees your work will take it seriously. And you can easily import or export your projects to Final Draft, Fountain, Word and more writing platforms when needed. Though a lifetime subscription to WriterDuet Pro typically retails for $239, it's currently available at 58% off for $99.99 here. Want your products featured in The Creative Bloq Shop? Learn more about how to sell your products online! Related articles: 5 top tips for creating a productive workspace 5 outrageous product placements in movies 8 simple productivity tools for designers View the full article

There are plenty of great JavaScript APIs around right now. Here we've picked five for you to explore in your web projects. Combine them with our pick of the best HTML APIs to help enhance your sites' user experience. 01. Intersection Observer Status: Working draft Read more: W3C summary This JavaScript API can be used to understand the visibility and position of DOM elements (known as 'targets') relative to a containing element (the 'root'). Use it to fire a callback whenever an element enters and exits a certain area. This API is best for lazy loading or infinite scroll effects. 02. Reporting Observer Read more: W3C summary Part of the Reporting API, Reporting Observers observe some types of reports from JavaScript. Use them to get notified when the browser has to intervene – for example, if it has to provide a fallback for a slow-loading font. 03. OffscreenCanvas Read more: Google Developers summary Drawing to a <canvas> is an expensive task for a browser. This new API enables you to render graphics off the main thread, without hitting the DOM. 04. Internationalisation API Read more: MDN web docs Known by the namespace Intl, the ECMAScript Internationalization API provides language-sensitive string comparison, number formatting, and date and time formatting. Use it to avoid sending heavy libraries and show dates, numbers and strings in a format that makes sense in the user’s location. 05. CSS Paint API Read more: Google Developers summary The CSS Paint API – also known as CSS Custom Paint – enables you to programmatically generate an image whenever a CSS property expects one. Use JavaScript to generate dynamic backgrounds, borders and image masks and apply them in CSS without a heavy performance hit. This API is about to be enabled by default in Chrome Stable. This article originally appeared in Web Designer magazine. Buy issue 280, or subscribe now. Read more: A coder's guide to APIs Get started with the Web Audio API 7 hot web trends for 2019 View the full article

Money. What is it? Nobody knows; all anyone's really sure of is that they'd probably like more of it, please. And chances are that, whether you're a junior designer or an art director, you're feeling the post-Christmas pinch, making now the perfect time to have a look around at what better-paying creative jobs are out there. 10 steps to go freelance this year The good news according to PayScale is that a good few creative jobs are in high demand right now, meaning that if you play your cards right you could score yourself a new job with a healthy pay increase. The creative industries haven't seen massive wage growth in the past year, but there's still money to be made While there haven't been any massive increases in pay across the art and design sector in 2018 – according to PayScale's research, salaries are up just 1.1 per cent year on year – PayScale's worker survey data has revealed the most in-demand creative jobs, the ones you should be aiming for if you're angling for a healthier income. It turns out that the most in-demand design job right now is lead graphic designer, with a 234 per cent growth in 2017, and a median salary of $47,900 – bear in mind that's not the average salary, rather it's the halfway point along the salary scale. For a step up the pay scale, a motion graphics designer is looking at a median salary of $57,200, while for a data visualisation specialist it's more like $69,000. Top of the design jobs, though, is senior product designer, with a median salary of $121,000. The hottest jobs in 2018; the dark blue ones are the ones to look at (unless you fancy being a truck driver) If you're working more on the web side of things, there are a couple of interesting jobs that have seen serious growth. Senior mobile developers are much in demand, with a 194 per cent increase in jobs since 2017 and a median salary of $110,000, so if mobile's your thing then now would be a good time to polish up your CV. Top of the list of in-demand jobs right now, though, is full stack developer, as we've previously mentioned in our run-down of the top 10 web skills that pay. While the median pay isn't as high as that for mobile developers – PayScale suggests $70,900 – bear in mind that your value as a full stack is dependent upon how much expertise you can bring to the job, so there's plenty of potential for top-end pay. Want to make plenty of green? Get in on the cannabis trend Looking ahead, PayScale also has some interesting thoughts on what the in-demand job areas are likely to be in 2019. Some are heavyweight tech areas such as cloud computing and AI, but it also foresees demand in virtual and augmented reality, big data and digital marketing. And while it's more applicable in the US and Canada than anywhere else right now, there's also likely to be an upswing in the cannabis industry; now's the time to be pitching fresh cannabis branding to US companies! Related articles: How to raise your prices 5 ways to use your design skills to earn extra income How to succeed as a freelance developer View the full article

An unscheduled patch fixed two critical flaws that could enable arbitrary code execution. View the full article

Pioneering '90s rock band Nirvana are suing fashion designer Marc Jacobs over the use of its zonked out smiley face logo. The iconic logo, which has been traced back to a flyer for a gig in 1991, has been slightly altered for its inclusion in a new Marc Jacobs clothing line called Redux Grunge. This isn't the first time the design has been used by other brands. However, the band's lawyers have decided to take action on the basis that Marc Jacobs apparently did not obtain permission to use the imagery. With its bold yellow and black colour scheme, scribbly line work and accompanying Onyx font, the Nirvana smiley face has become one of the most recognisable band logos in the world. For the Redux Grunge collection, the logo's original crosses for eyes have been replaced by the designer's initials, MJ, with the name Nirvana swapped out for Heaven. A behind the scenes look at the Redux Grunge line from the brand itself reveals that Marc Jacobs wanted the collection to channel the spirit of grunge, namely 'the ironic and the perverse, the celebration of the everyday and the extraordinary.' It's an irony apparently lost on Marc Jacobs, whose celebration of an authentic, underground, DIY band will cost shoppers upwards of £110. The grunge-inspired Marc Jacobs t shirt will set you back £110 A statement issued by Nirvana's legal team accuses Marc Jacobs of using the logo and associated typeface to give the collection an air of authenticity. "The logo has come to symbolise the goodwill associated with Nirvana to a significant portion of the public, which assumes that all goods or services that bear the logo are endorsed by or associated with Nirvana. "Such expansive usage of Nirvana's Smiley Face logo and various other brand-identifying elements is an 'intentional' effort by Marc Jacobs to 'evoke Nirvana in the minds of [consumers],' per Nirvana and to 'associate the entire 'Bootleg Redux Grunge' collection with Nirvana, one of the founders of the 'Grunge' musical genre, so as to make the 'Grunge' association with the collection more authentic." The lawsuit also claims that the Redux Grunge items "have caused Nirvana to suffer irreparable injuries" and "threaten to dilute the value of Nirvana's licenses with its licensees for clothing products". Nirvana's legal team have asked for all clothing featuring the MJ logo to be discontinued. The reverse of the Marc Jacobs t shirt also mimics Nirvana clothing The collision of high fashion and underground music is nothing new. Even back in 1993 Marc Jacobs captured the essence of the age with a flannel-infused range of clothing, much to the amused derision of those at the centre of the scene at the time. There's an extra level of irony when you consider the anti-design origins of the Nirvana brand. Grant Alden, the typesetter at Pacific Northwest biweekly newspaper called The Rocket, conjured up the blocky yet flowing lettering mostly by accident when he wrote out the band's name with whatever was already installed in the company's machine. Designers who want to know how to price logo design services might be dismayed to learn that Alden charged a mere fifteen bucks for his troubles. As for the smiley face logo itself, details are less concrete. Nirvana guitarist and frontman Kurt Cobain didn't include drafts of the design in his journals, which is odd as he would iterate the look of his music videos and album covers. However, Nirvana aficionados have long speculated that the musician took his inspiration from a similar cross-eyed smiley face that appeared on the front of a Seattle strip club, The Lusty Lady. Related articles: 6 huge logo trends for 2019 17 controversial moments in logo and brand design 6 great logo ideas that break the mould View the full article

With new, unpredictable design trends constantly knocking the previous craze off the top spot, it’s only by shaking things up that creatives stand a chance of making an impact in today’s creative industries. How to be disruptive in a productive, meaningful way is the main theme of this month’s issue of Computer Arts, in which lead designers weigh in on the benefits of thinking about creativity differently. Reflecting this theme, Joshua Davis has designed the cover of Computer Arts 288, and there are eight stunning variations to choose from. Buy Computer Arts issue 288 now We run down the first half of design's 15 game changers The new issue also runs through the first half of today’s top 15 graphic design game changers – the talented people consistently proving their ability to operate at the cutting edge. Such boundary-pushing practices don’t happen overnight, so Computer Arts digs deep to discover the ethos behind their major projects. Leading creatives reveal the benefits of breaking new ground Save up to 60% on a Computer Arts subscription Elsewhere, advertising agent turned prop maker Victoria Bee reveals her approach to making larger than life, surrealistic paper objects, and how she’s constantly trying to make her clients be more daring. Meanwhile, Interbrand CEO Christian Purser highlights why subscription-based business models beats ownership every time, and design studio HUSH talks us through how it designed a series of installations intended to communicate the net zero status of a company’s new HQ. Take a closer look at what’s inside by scrolling left to right through the gallery below. Computer Arts is the world's best-selling design magazine, bursting at the seams with insight, inspiration, interviews and all the best new design projects. For all this delivered direct to your door each month, subscribe to Computer Arts. Right now you can save up to 60%, and receive a free Computer Arts tote bag when you subscribe. Related articles: 5 mistakes designers must make to succeed Where design meets food 4 huge visual trends for 2019 View the full article

All of the vulnerabilities arise from improper input validations. View the full article

Password-manager Blur and role-playing game Town of Salem both disclosed data breaches this week that impacted a combined 10 million. View the full article

The best USB-C monitors don’t just make it easier to connect your USB-C laptop and gain a second display. They also let you charge your laptop at the same time, with the same cable – effectively giving you a USB hub for your other peripherals, plus battery charging through the same port. The benefits on their own are overwhelming for creatives. But now that the latest MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models only sport USB-C – and the port is becoming increasing common on Windows 10 machines – there’s a growing argument for switching to a USB-C monitor. So which are the best monitors with a USB-C port out there? There are a lot to choose from, so to help you decide we’ve put together our favourites here in this guide. Whether you’re looking for the best 4K USB-C monitor for your MacBook, or a USB-C monitor from a major player like Dell or LG, we’ve got you covered… When it comes to choosing the best 4K USB-C monitor out there, the 27-inch LG 27UD88-W takes the crown for us. It’s designed for gaming - which means it’s also great for creatives - and it’s the lower-res sibling to the 5K USB-C monitor at number XX in this list, offering a brilliant balance of features and functionality at a much more affordable price. You’ll get 4K resolution and FreeSync anti-tearing processing, plus three gaming presets, two custom presets, and two calibration presets. And as with all the USB-C options here, it’ll power your laptop while acting as a display. If you’ve got a larger budget (and desk) to play with, we’d recommend the big and beautiful Dell U3818DW USB-C monitor. The curved 38-inch InfinityEdge screen is stunning and give you a ridiculous amount of screen real estate, so if you’re prone to working with a lot of windows open this one is worth considering. It’s built for professional work - and aimed in particular at creatives, or anyone who needs the highest colour accuracy possible, and it’s great for gaming too. Contrast could be a little better, but colour accuracy is excellent and images are sharp. Best of all, you get a three-year warranty. (Got even more cash? Try the Asus ProArt PA32UC, at number 07 on this list). The Acer H277HU is a more affordable budget USB-C monitor for anyone with less cash to spend. This isn’t a 4K USB-C monitor - and you’re missing the higher-end specs for video editing and graphic design - but it’s an excellent option if you need a display for casual gaming and film-watching, and comes with an HDMI port and a DisplayPort too. (Looking for the best budget USB-C monitor for gaming? Take a look at the Asus ProArt PA32UC, at number 09.) Another more affordable option is the HP Envy 27 – a stunning 4K USB-C monitor with sleek aesthetics, thanks to its micro-thin bezels. It delivers rich colours and excellent image detail, although colour accuracy could be a little better straight out of the box. But if you’re searching for a reasonably priced 4K UHD monitor with wide viewing angles – and that looks great on your desk – it’s worth a look. The LG UltraFine 5K USB-C monitor sits in the high-end monitor market. Pushed by Apple as its MacBook Pro companion of choice, this superb monitor boasts an incredible 14.7 million pixels across its 27-inch screen. Photos and videos are breathtakingly rich in detail, vibrant and lifelike, with 218 pixels per inch and a 60Hz refresh rate. It’s aimed at Mac-users, with four Thunderbolt 3/USB Type-C ports on the back, and absolutely nothing else, save a plug for the power cord. If you don't mind the lack of other ports, this is fabulous option for photographers, designers and videographers. Designed for professional video editors, animators, filmmakers, 3D modellers and CAD designers, the BenQ PV3200PT offers rich, very accurate colours and fantastic grayscale reproduction. It covers 100 per cent of the Rec.709 (HDTV) colour gamut as well as 100 per cent of the sRGB colour space, and will even remind you when it's due to be calibrated. Flipping into portrait mode is quick and simple thanks to a spring-loaded rotation mechanism; the only feature it’s missing is blue-light settings. If you work with high-definition video in particular, this is a top performer. The premium Asus ProArt PA32UC is the most expensive USB-C monitor on our list - and it’s in a different league. Aimed at creative professionals, it boasts a 4K resolution with HDR imaging capabilities, and comes in a sophisticated, USB-C and Thunderbolt 3-equipped package with nearly every feature a creative could want for SDR and HDR work. You get a 100% sRGB color space coverage, 99.5% Adobe RGB and 95% DCI-P3; plus pro-grade calibration features and a hardware calibration tool in the box. You can do sRGB-accurate work, wide gamut-accurate work, and HDR work with the PA32UC. This isn’t a USB-C monitor aimed at gamers, though - the refresh rate is disappointing; we’d recommend the Acer XR382CQK at number 08 in this list instead. But with strong gamma tracking and colour consistency, but if you’re a professional creative working in anything form film to graphics, this is a mean screen that reproduces content exactly as it’s meant to look. This enormous 38-inch USB-C monitor offers AMD’s FreeSync technology and 75Hz, plus an ergonomic stand with height, tilt and swivel, and premium build quality. The curve radius is a gentle 2300mm, which offers an immersive wrap-around effect without image distortion. Colour reproduction is fantastic, while black levels are impressive. And as for gaming - well, it’s wonderful. This is one of the best USB-C monitors for gaming you can get. With 1ms motion blur reduction, FreeSync technology and Dynamic Action sync, the 34-inch LG 34UM69G-B is packed with game-friendly features, making it one of the best budget USB-C monitors for gaming you can get right now. Housed in a bezel-free black cabinet, there are three customisable gaming modes: two first-person shooter modes and one pre-set RTS mode. Meanwhile, out-of-the-box colour accuracy is good, with strong grayscale performance. This is a brilliant budget USB-C monitor for the price. Also read: The best 4K monitors for creatives The best cheap 4K monitor deals The best ultrawide monitor View the full article

Whether you’re at the start of your career, or transitioning from one discipline to another, everyone makes mistakes. And that can really sting: embarrassing you in front of your boss and co-workers, and giving your confidence a massive knock. But it needn’t, and it shouldn’t. After all, no professional designer has ever strolled through their career without making a few awful errors. Indeed, if they hadn't, you would you be able to truly trust them? Why do you think so many job interviewers ask: ‘What’s been your biggest mistake, and what did you learn from it?'. In fact, if you think about it, you actually need to make mistakes, otherwise how are you going to learn, and what are you going to talk about in your next interview? In short, making mistakes, owning up to them, and moving forward is a vital element in the development of your career as a designer. You could even include some of those mistakes and how you fixed them in your next graphic design portfolio. Don't believe us? We chatted to successful creatives about their own mistakes, and share some of the main takeaways below. 01. Doing insufficient research Mike Brondbjerg has carved out a successful career working in data visualisation, information and generative design. But it hasn’t all been plain sailing. “I once designed a logo using simple and clever geometry,” he recalls. “The client was a snowboard brand, but I accidentally recreated the logo of a less well-known right-wing organisation... oops! “There’s nothing wrong with being edgy, but that was the wrong kind of edgy,” he adds. “This was a clear failure to do proper research. I think just a Google Image Search might have helped me in this case.” Mike Brondbjerg, aka Kultur Design, learned an important lesson early in his career How to learn from it: Even if you spend your whole career without accidentally promoting fascism, it’s inevitable that at some point, you’ll miss something vital in your research that will bite you on the backside later. When that happens, use the experience to double-down on your research in future projects, especially if you're feeling pressure from clients or bosses to hurry it. Also, analyse your research methods and ask yourself why you missed the important fact. Was it merely down to sloppiness, or is there something fundamental in your research methodology that needs refining? Only by being forensic in your analysis will you uncover how to prevent the mistake reoccurring in future. 02. Overloading your portfolio “Having too many items in your portfolio or on your reel has to be the biggest mistake you can make,” believes award-winning illustrator, creative director and copywriter Michele Paccione. “This really hit home to me when a friend of mine was having a hard time getting hired. Then he cut half the work from his portfolio and got a job very quickly.... even though he was showing the same work, just less of it. That really convinced me of the power of editing.” Designer and illustrator Michele Paccione's portfolio site shows just a few carefully curated pieces How to learn from it: We’re all too close to our work, and so it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll put too much on display, and dilute your appeal. When that happens, take positive action, right away, and don’t be afraid to get brutal. Cut the number of examples of work in your portfolio by half (at least) and this alone will usually improve it. If you’re still not convinced, then canvass others’ opinions: they may have a very different view. Then later, when you’re reviewing your work in job interviews, pay close attention to what recruiters spend time on, and what they skip over. Then go back afterwards and edit accordingly. 03. Giving clients too many options “One mistake we made previously as a company was giving the client too many logo options upfront, in the concept phase,” recalls Rory Berry, creative director at Superrb. “Doing this not only takes more design time, but it can often make things harder if the client wants to take elements from a few ideas and mash them together.” Having gone through that experience, he’d now generally recommend selecting the three options you believe to be the best solution. “These should vary in style so you can get a clear steer from the client on what they do and don’t like,” he recommends. Superrb Studio learned an early lesson in client management How to learn from it: At some point in your career, you’ll almost certainly present your client with an overabundance of options. At the time, it’ll seem like you’re serving the client well. But in reality, they’ll perceive it as a sign you’re not sure what you’re doing. When that happens, promise yourself that in future, you’ll do things differently. Primarily, at the concept phase you’ll need to spend more time on research, so you can be sure you’re creating options with the brand in mind. This will also mean you can explain your design decisions better when it comes to presenting them. 04. Spelling mistakes We hear it time and time again. From CVs and portfolios to client mockups and even finished work, spelling mistakes just keep getting through and ruining everything. A few examples from our sister magazine Computer Arts, which will remain anonymous here… “I accidentally wrote PUBIC AUCTION instead of 'Public auction', on a real estate sign,” groans one designer. “The typo, in 120mm high lettering, was missed by everyone for three weeks.” Another confesses: “I spelled graphic design as 'graphic deign'. I was applying to be a graphic designer.” A third admits making an error on his personal website - “Leaving Lorum Ipsum in the page header on the opening page” – and he's certainly not the first to do so. Similarly, one animator admits to: “Spelling the word fluids wrong in my shot breakdown; not once, but three times. I spelled it 'fulids', and had sent my reel to four companies before noticing it.” We could go on, but you get the picture. Colorful or colourful? The correct spelling depends on where in the world your intended audience is How to learn from it: Take it from us as working writers; spelling mistakes are tough to spot. And so there’s no getting away from it: at some point, you will let through an absolute howler. When you do, though, don’t be disheartened. Just make sure you learn everything you can from the experience. Did you use Spellcheck? If not, make sure that never gets left off the checklist again. But even if you did, Spellcheck doesn’t always catch everything. Things like incorrect use of ‘your’ versus ‘you’re’, and ‘it’s’ versus ‘its’, for example, will only ever get picked up by a human. So start to put a rigorous system of editorial checks in place, involving as many colleagues as possible. A spelling error can cost you dearly, so get as many eyes as possible on your work! 05. Putting too much trust in consumer research Troy Wade, co-founder of Brown & Co, has had a long and illustrious career in design, but even he has made the odd mistake over the years. “On rare occasions, I haven’t fought hard enough with clients in order to produce brave work,” he admits. And one of the reasons for that has been putting too much trust in consumer research. “Consumer research in design is fraught with problems,” he maintains. “This is largely because consumers, in my experience, often don’t have the vision to see what you're aiming to achieve with a brand, even when you explain it to them; that is why they are not designers.” In contrast, Wade believes, “work that allows designers to use their gut instinct based on some some deep human insight almost always eclipses work that has been overly reliant on the consideration of consumers’ opinions”. In short, it’s all about being a leader, rather than a follower. “Being distinctive in a relevant way is fundamental to a brand’s long-term success, and requires having an unwavering belief in doing things your own way – in spite of what competitors may be doing, even successfully. You may have to break some eggs to make an omelette.” Troy Wade of Brown & Co has learned not to take consumer research too literally How to learn from it: Consumer research is often full of useful insights, but at some point you’ll put too much trust in it, and end up with egg on your face. When that happens, don’t go to the opposite extreme and dismiss future consumer research entirely. Instead, double-down on reading through research thoroughly, analysing it carefully, and challenging it where appropriate. For example: is the sample size wide enough to present meaningful results? Did the researchers ask leading questions, or the wrong questions entirely? And beyond that, even if the research is valid on its own terms, that doesn’t mean you should blindly follow it. As famed automotive pioneer Henry Ford reportedly told people: “If I’d asked people what they’d wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Related articles: The 8 biggest typography mistakes designers here 6 fantastic design fails – and what we can learn from them 11 books that changed designers' lives View the full article

Service Workers can be used to improve loading times and offline support for your sites and web apps. In this tutorial we're going to show you how to progressively enhance a web app with a Service Worker. First we'll cover what is a Service Worker and how its lifecycle works, then we'll show you how to use then to speed up your site (this page) and offer offline content (page 2). Then we'll show you how to how to build an app with Service Workers. You'll learn how to set up a bare-bones Worker that will cache and serve static assets (delivering a huge performance boost on subsequent loads), then how to cache dynamic API responses and give our demo app full offline support. First, let's look at what exactly Service Workers are, and how they function. What is a Service Worker? So what is a Service Worker? It's a script, written in JavaScript, that your browser runs in the background. It doesn't affect the main thread (where JavaScript usually runs on a web page), and won't conflict with your app code or affect the runtime performance. A Service Worker doesn't have direct access to the DOM or events and user interaction happening in the web page itself. Think of it as a layer that sits between the web page and the network, allowing it to intercept and manipulate network requests (e.g. Ajax requests) made by your page. This makes it ideal for managing caches and supporting offline usage. The Service Worker lifecycle The life of a Service Worker follows a simple flow, but it can be a bit confusing when you're used to JS scripts just working immediately: Installing > Waiting (installed) > Activating > Activated > Redundant When your page is first loaded, the registration code we added to index.html starts the installation of the Service Worker. When there is no existing Worker the new Service Worker will be activated immediately after installation. A web page can only have one Service Worker active at a time. If a Worker is already installed, the new Service Worker will be installed and then sit at the waiting step until the page is fully closed and then reloaded. Simply refreshing is not enough because you might have other tabs open. You need to ensure all instances of the page are closed otherwise the new Worker won't activate. You don't have to close the tabs, you can just navigate away to another site and return. Both install and activate events will only occur once per worker. Once activated, the Service Worker will then have control of the page and can start handling events such as fetch to manipulate requests. Finally a Service Worker will become redundant if the browser detects that the worker file itself has been updated or if the install or activation fail. The browser will look for a byte difference to determine if a worker script has been updated. It's important to note you should never change (or rev) the name of your Service Worker. Nor should you cache the worker file itself on the server, as you won't be able to update it easily, though browsers are now smart enough to ignore caching headers. 01. Clone the demo app Okay, let's get started learning how to build a web app with help from Service Workers. For this tutorial, you're going to need recent versions of Node.js and npm installed on your computer. We've knocked up a demo app that we will use as the basis for this tutorial (clone the demo app here). The app is a fun little project that fetches the five-day weather forecast based on the user's location. It'll then check if rain is forecast before the end of the day and update the UI accordingly. It has been built inefficiently (intentionally) using large, unnecessary libraries such as jQuery and Bootstrap, with big unoptimised images to demonstrate the difference in performance when using a Service Worker. It currently weighs in at a ridiculous 4.1MB. 02. Get your API key In order to fetch the weather data from the API you will need to get yourself a free API key from OpenWeatherMap: Once you've got your key, open up index.html and look for the window.API_KEY variable in the <head>. Paste your key into the value: 03. Start the development server Now we're ready to start working on the project. First of all let's install the dependencies by running: There are two tasks for the build tool. Run npm start to start the development server on port 3000. Run npm run build to prepare the 'production' version. Bear in mind that this is only a demo, so isn't really a production version – there's no minification or anything – the files just get 'revved'. An algorithm is used to create a hash, such as 9c616053e5, from the file's contents. The algorithm will always output the same hash for the same contents, meaning that as long as you don't modify the file, the hash won't change. The hash is then appended to the filename, so for example styles.css might become styles-9c616053e5.css. The hash represents the file's revision – hence 'revved'. You can safely cache each revision of the file on your server without ever having to invalidate your cache, which is expensive, or worry about some other third-party cache serving up the incorrect version. 04. Introduce your Service Worker Now let's get started with our Service Worker. Create a file called sw.js in the root of the src directory. Then add these two event listeners to log the install and activate events: The self variable here represents the Service Worker's global read-only scope. It's a bit like the window object in a web page. Next we need to update our index.html file and add the commands to install the Service Worker. Add this script just before the closing </body> tag. It will register our worker and log its current status. Start your development server by running npm start and open the page in a modern browser. We'd recommend using Google Chrome as it has good service-worker support in its DevTools, which we'll be referring to throughout this tutorial. You should see three things logged to your Console; two from the Service Worker for the install and activate events, and the other will be the message from the registration. 05. Activate the Worker We're going to tell our worker to skip the waiting step and activate now. Open the sw.js file and add this line anywhere inside the install event listener: Now, when we update the Worker script, it will take control of the page immediately after installation. It's worth bearing in mind that this can mean the new Worker will be taking control of a page that may have been loaded by a previous version of your Worker – if that is going to cause problems, don't use this option in your app. You can confirm this by navigating away from the page and then returning. You should see the install and activate events fire again when the new Worker has been installed. Chrome DevTools has a helpful option that means you can update your Worker just by reloading. Open DevTools and go to the Application tab, then choose Service Worker from the left column. At the top of the panel is a tick box labelled Update on reload, tick it. Your updated Worker will now be installed and activated on refresh. 06. Confirm changes Let's confirm this by adding console.log('foo') call in either of the event listeners and refreshing the page. This caught us out because we were expecting to see the log in the console when we refreshed, but all we were seeing was the 'SW activated' message. It turns out Chrome refreshes the page twice when the Update on reload option is ticked. You can confirm this by ticking the Preserve log tick box in the Console settings panel and refreshing again. You should see the install and activate events logged, along with 'foo', followed by 'Navigated to http://localhost:3000/' to indicate that the page was reloaded and then then final 'SW activated' message. 07. Track the fetch event Time to add another listener. This time we'll track the fetch event that is fired every time the page loads a resource, such as a CSS file, image or even API response. We'll open a cache, return the request response to the page and then – in the background – cache the response. First off let's add the listener and refresh so you can see what happens. In the console you should see many FetchEvent logs. Our serve mode uses BrowserSync, which adds its own script to the page and makes websocket requests. You'll see the FetchEvents for these too, but we want to ignore these. We also only want to cache GET requests from our own domain. So let's add a few things to ignore unwanted requests, including explicitly ignoring the / index path: Now the logs should be much cleaner and it is safe to start caching. 08. Cache the assets Now we can start caching these responses. First we need to give our cache a name. Let's call ours v1-assets. Add this line to the top of the sw.js file: Then we need to hijack the FetchEvents so we can control what is returned to the page. We can do that using the event's respondWith method. This method accepts a Promise so we can add this code, replacing the console.log: This will forward the request on to the network then store the response in the cache, before sending the original response back to the page. It is worth noting here that this approach won't actually cache the responses until the second time the user loads the page. The first time will install and activate the worker, but by the time the fetch listener is ready, everything will have already been requested. Refresh a couple of times and check the cache in the DevTools > Application tab. Expand the Cache Storage tree in the left column and you should see your cache with all the stored responses. 09. Serve from the cache Everything is cached but we're not actually using the cache to serve any files just yet. Let's hook that up now. First we'll look for a match for the request in the cache and if it exists we'll serve that. If it doesn't exist, we'll use the network and then cache the response. Save the file and refresh. Check DevTools > Network tab and you should see (from ServiceWorker) listed in the Size column for each of the static assets. Phew, we're done. For such a small amount of code, there's a lot to understand. You should see that refreshing the page once all assets are cached is quite snappy but let's do a quick (unscientific) check of load times on a throttled connection (DevTools > Network tab). Without the Service Worker, loading over a simulated fast 3G network takes almost 30 seconds for everything to load. With the Service Worker, with the same throttled connection but loading from the cache, it takes just under a second. Check the Offline box and refresh and you'll also see that the page loads without a connection, although we can't get the forecast data from the API. On page 2 we'll return to this and learn how to cache the API response too. Next page: use Service Worker to offer online access 10. Cache dynamic responses Now we're going to further enhance our worker to cache the dynamic API response, learn about caching strategies and give our app full offline support. As it stands we're only caching static assets, such as image and JS libraries. Service Workers enable us to cache dynamic responses, such as API responses, but we need to put some thought into it first. And if we want to give our app offline support, we'll also need to cache the 'index.html' file, too. We've got a few options to choose from for our caching strategy: Cache only Network only Network first, falling back to cache Cache first, falling back to network Cache then network Each has its pros and cons. There is an excellent Google article in the Further Reading section that explains each approach and how to implement it. The code we added above for the static assets uses the cache first, then falls back to the network approach. We can safely do this because our static assets are 'revved'. We need to decide what's best for our dynamic API response, though. The answer depends on the data returned by the server, how critical fresh data is to your users and how frequently you call the endpoint. If the data is likely to change frequently or if it is critical that is it up-to-date then we don't want to be serving stale data from our cache by default. However if you are going to be polling the endpoint every 10 seconds, say, then perhaps cache-first is more suitable and you can update the cache in the background in preparation for the next request. 11. Consider user-specific responses The other consideration with caching API responses is user-specific responses. If your app enables users to login then you need to remember that multiple users may use the same computer. You don't want to be serving a cached user profile to a different user! In our scenario we can assume that the response from the API will be changing frequently. For a start it is responding with the forecast for the next 120 hours (five days), in three hour chunks, meaning if we call it again in three hours' time we will get a different response than we get now. And, of course, this is weather forecast data so at least here in the UK it will be changing all the time. For that reason let's go for network first, then fall back to cache. The user will get the cached response only if the network request fails, perhaps because they are offline. 12. Cache the index This is also a safe approach for our 'index.html' file so we'll include that in the cache, too. Remember you don't want to end up with users stuck on a stale version of your app (in their cache) because you've cached everything too aggressively. Another option here is to change the cache name, that is 'v1-assets' becomes 'v2-assets', with each new release but this approach has additional overhead because you need to add code to manually clean up the old caches. For the purposes of this tutorial we'll take the simpler option! 13. Add another fetch listener Currently our existing fetch listener looks for a match for a request in all caches but it always follows the cache-first approach. We could modify this to switch modes but we'd end up with an unwieldy listener. Instead, just as you can with normal JS, we'll simply add another fetch listener. One will handle the assets cache and the other will handle the dynamic cache. We need to include some of the same checks to filter out unwanted requests, then we want to allow certain requests to be cached. Add this new listener below your existing fetch listener: 14. Store responses in a dynamic cache We're going to store these responses in a different cache, although this isn't strictly necessary. We'll call this one 'v1-dynamic'. Add this at the top of the 'sw.js' file: We don't need to create this cache when the Worker installs because it only caches responses reactively – that is, after the browser has made the request. Instead we can do all the work in the fetch listener. Let's add the network first logic inside our if (allow) statement. This code opens the cache, makes the network request, caches the network's response and then returns the response to the page. Open up the app. Reload the page to get the latest version of the Worker. Now click through until you see the result page meaning a request has been made to the API. Once that has happened check in DevTools again and you should see the two caches and the cached API response and index route in the dynamic cache. 15. Tell the Worker what to do when offline So we've got our cached response, but if we go offline again you'll see that the app still fails to load. Why is this? Well, we've not told the Worker what to do when the network request fails. We can correct this by adding a catch method to the end of the fetch(event.request) promise chain. Now save and try this again in offline mode. Hopefully you'll now see the app working as if it were online! Pretty cool. 16. Manage user expectations Right, so we've got a fully functioning offline-capable app – but it isn't going to magically work all the time. The data we get from the API is time-sensitive so we could end up in a situation where the cached response is served up but it is out of date and none of the data is relevant. It's worth noting that cached data doesn't expire automatically – it has to be manually removed or replaced – so we can't set an expiry date like we can with a cookie. The question our app asks is 'Will it rain today?', yet we get five days' worth of data in the API's response so, in theory, the cached version will be valid for five days even though the forecast will become less accurate as times goes by. We should consider these two scenarios to manage the user's expectations: User is offline and has been served an old, almost out-of-date cache. User is offline and the cached data is out-of-date. We can detect the user's network status in the page but on a mobile, non-WiFi connection it's possible that connection was lost momentarily just as the API request was being made. So rather than displaying a 'You are offline' message for a brief flicker it would be better to determine that the response received by the page is from the cache rather than the network. Fortunately, because our data already contains date/time information, we can determine if the data is from the cache by checking if the first date is in the past. If this wasn't the case we'd probably be able to modify the body of the response in the Worker before caching it to include a timestamp. 17. Flag up old data Time to open up the app's 'main.js' file. On line 172 you'll see that we are already creating an array called inDateItems that filters the full array so that it only contains forecast items for today's date. Then below this we check if the array has any items. If it is empty we show an error message to the user informing them that the data is out-of-date, so this already covers one of the scenarios. But what about when the data is old but not fully out of date? We could do this by checking the date of the first item in the array and comparing it to now to see if it exceeds a certain threshold. You can add these constants just inside the inDateItems.length check: Now we have a Boolean to flag if our data is stale or not, but what should we do with it? Well, here's a little something we made earlier… add this below the lines you've just added: This pre-prepared method will display a message to the user that tells them the data is stale – It's not easy to simulate stale data so call showStale() without the dataIsStale check to manually show the UI. In addition it provides a button which will allow them to refresh the data and a warning message if they are currently offline. When offline, the button is disabled. This is easily achieved by listening to the online and offline events that are emitted on the window, but we also need to check the initial state because the events are only emitted when the status changes. Our new Service Worker allows the page to be loaded even when there is no connection so we also can't assume we have a connection when the page renders. Check the code in 'main.js' to see how this is implemented. 18. Head to DevTools Once a request has been made to the API, check in DevTools again and you should see the two caches, with the cached API response and index route in the dynamic cache Now this is when development starts to get tricky. We're making changes to files that are cached by our Service Worker, but because we're in dev mode the file names aren't revved. Changes to the Worker itself are automatically picked up and handled because we ticked the 'Update on reload' option in DevTools but the cached assets aren't reloaded because we're using a cache-first approach – meaning we don't get to see our changes to the app's code. Once again DevTools comes to the rescue. Next to the 'Update on reload' option is an option called 'Bypass for network'. This slightly obscure name doesn't make it obvious (at least not to me!) what it actually does. But if you tick this option then all requests will come from the network, rather than the Service Worker. It doesn't disable the Worker entirely so you will still be able to install and activate the Worker but you can be sure that everything comes from the network. 19. Remove the stale cache So we know we've got a stale response in the cache but how do we rectify this? In this scenario we don't really need to do anything because once the user has reconnected to the internet they can run the request again and the cache will be updated in the background – just one of the benefits of a network-first approach. However, for the purposes of this tutorial, we wanted to demonstrate how you can clean up stale items in your cache. As it stands the Worker is manipulating the cache but only the page is aware that the data is out of date. How can the page tell the Worker to update the cache? Well, we don't have to. The page can access the cache directly itself. There is a click handler for the refresh data button ($btnStale) ready to be populated on line 395 (approx). Just as in the Worker, we need to open the cache using its name first. We named our API cache v1-dynamic so we have to use the same name here. Once open we can request that the cache deletes the item matching the request URL. Add the following inside the click handler to do the magic: In production you'd need to check the browser has support for the cache API before implementing this. 20. Finish up Done. In the first part of this tutorial, we reduced our subsequent load time from around 30 seconds to less than one second. Now we've made the app fully offline compatible. Hopefully, that'll give you a good grounding in how to set up a simple Service Worker and show you some of the things you need to be aware of. You can most definitely use this in production today. Good luck! This article originally appeared in net magazine issues 311 and 312. Buy back issues or subscribe now. Read more: 9 amazing PWA secrets 18 great HTML APIs – and how to use them Build cross-platform apps with React Native View the full article

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Poor old millennials: maligned for their #shamelessselfies, their avocado toast, their general persistence in existing and need to rapidly tweet about it. But one thing that unites this generation of glossy-haired do-gooders is a trait that surely none of us can vilify: they – for the most part – actively want to buy and consume more ethically. The idea of ethical branding might have once upon a time conjured up little more than images of hemp sandals and compost toilets, but the ethical brands of 2018 are far slicker, less patchouli-scented beasts, whether we’re looking at fashion, food, homeware or even toilet paper. 6 of the biggest graphic design trends for 2019 Such ethics are centred around a few basic tenets: how good (or bad) the brand’s production is for the environment; how that production affects people (from those on the production line or factory floor, to the consumers themselves); and, more abstractly, how moral the brand is in its actions. Ethical brands are those with integrity and honesty Ethical brands are those with integrity and honesty. They’re inherently transparent in their goals and actions, and are accountable for them. But now that brands are savvy to consumers’ increasing concerns around such issues, they’re loudly shouting about their apparent ethical credentials – often, however, with rather opaque and occasionally shaky foundations. Brands pushing ethics for sales alone, of course, isn’t truly ethical. James Cartwright is a writer and the editor of Weapons of Reason, a magazine from design agency Human After All which looks at global issues including food, power and megacities. According to Cartwright, a truly ethical brand is one “committed to sustainability” through all points in its supply chain – from product sourcing to distribution, “not using a ridiculous air freight system that has a massive carbon footprint,” and with all those involved being paid and treated with the same rights. In short, “making sure it’s not having an impact on the planet, ecosystem or the people creating it.” James Cartwright is editor of Weapons of reason What becomes tricky is when we start to cut through ethical as buzzword, rather than ethical as, well, true ethics. “A lot of people are saying they’re ethical or sustainable, but they commit to things in very abstract terms,” says Cartwright. “Not many people are doing it in a way that’s meaningful.” The biggest changes he’s seen are on an individual, not brand level, such as the concerted move away from using plastic straws, catalysed by shocking images of waste plastic seen by many in the BBC’s David Attenborough-narrated Blue Planet II. “There’s a lot going on that needs to be addressed,” he says. “There’s a lot more awareness around these issues now, and brands are exploiting that, but I don’t know how much of it goes into the heart of what they do rather than just using sustainability as a buzzword.” There’s no one fit for every brand Roberta Lee Roberta Lee is a stylist who found sifting through ethical claims in fashion brands so arduous, that just over a year ago she set up the Ethical Brand Directory, which meticulously vets brands and offers advice on issues such as sustainability before listing them on her site. “We ask what they’re doing and what they’re not doing. If we don’t have enough information on their view on ethical trading, their sourcing or their production, I’ll speak to them in person and make recommendations,” says Lee. “There’s no one fit for every brand. Some people are forming ethical brands from their kitchen tables, others have loads of funding, so we have to take into consideration what they’re working with and advise on what steps to take next.” Dressing to impress Like many of those interviewed for this piece, Cartwright points to clothing brand Patagonia as the “benchmark” when it comes to ethics. That’s thanks not only to the way they produce their clothes, but how they engage with them even after they’re sold. Customers can take back worn items to be repaired, free of charge, and gain extensive guidance on how to mend clothes to better ensure they last as long as possible. Additionally, through its Worn Wear programme, Patagonia buys back gently used clothing from its customers and resells them on its accompanying website. The brand also commits to a programme in which employees can take time off, unpaid, to work on ecological projects near where they live. Patagonia’s Worn Wear programme recycles garments beyond repair The recent wave of ethical start-up brands is also leading to some innovative new business models. Lingerie brand and social enterprise AmaElla was founded by best friends Julie Kervadec and Lara Miller in 2016 to champion slow fashion – a term coined by Kate Fletcher, an ecological design consultant, in 2007. The phrase aligns ethical fashion with the slow food movement, which “links pleasure with awareness and responsibility”, says Fletcher. As such, AmaElla works only with ethical fashion manufacturers and 100 per cent organic cotton. Perhaps unsurprisingly, its customer base is skewed towards those already aligned with such concepts as organic food, yoga and mindfulness. AmaElla founders Julie Kervadec and Lara Miller believe their lingerie brand benefits from taking a “slow fashion” approach In summer 2018 AmaElla began selling using an on-demand model: consumers buy products at a discount before they’re made, then those preorders are pooled and produced in batches. Sure, orders take longer to arrive, but this bold approach means there’s never waste or unsold products. “We want to be the opposite of fast fashion,” says Miller. “It doesn’t make sense to our sustainable and ethical ethos to produce things if we don’t know whether they’re going to sell. Obviously it’s quite a different business model. People will need time to get used to it, compared to the instant gratification of next day delivery.” Getting better all the time At the rather high end of things, Stella McCartney (like the rest of her family), has long been an advocate for environmental issues. The brand recently launched its new Loop sneakers, designed with the aim of reducing the use of glue in fashion. It’s in-keeping with the idea of circular product design by using hooks and special stitching to replace conventional gluing methods. This means each shoe can be fully dismantled, and all its components are fully recyclable. A company with a similar outlook is Nashville-based clothing studio Elizabeth Suzann, whose founder Elizabeth Pape published a comprehensive blog post entitled Money Talk that details through words, numbers and charts exactly why and how her garments are priced (for context, sweaters retail at around $285, tees at $145 and trousers at around $245). In the piece, she discusses how, in recent years, low-cost retailers like H&M and Primark have shifted what consumers view as a fair price for an item; though while prices have dropped, the costs of producing clothes has not. Stella McCartney’s Loop sneakers use clips, not glue, for a detachable sole Pape writes that $10 jeans and $1.90 camisoles can only exist through such shortcuts as “cheap fabrics produced in mills with dangerous conditions; the use of harmful, toxic synthetics; the mishandling of chemical waste and utter disregard for regulations; the rampant exploitation of labour and weak auditing systems in garment factories – both overseas and domestic; unspeakable working conditions; unlivable wages; child labor; health hazards and a general disregard for human life.” What this all boils down to is the concept of value: what we see as valuable, and what price we place on that value. Few of us could likely afford to buy her clothes all the time, but we probably could consider buying less, and thinking more about what we do buy. Cost doesn’t predicate the enjoyment we receive from an item, or indeed indicate that said item will last longer. Pape has also cannily tapped in to a new drive for brands to be genuinely transparent. In the fake news era, it makes sense that we want to seek out simplicity and transparency where we can. Reduce, reuse and repurpose Of course, Stella McCartney and Elizabeth Suzann come at the pricier end of ethical fashion, but those looking to engage with fashion on a slightly smaller budget are in luck – it’s not that hard. Just buying second-hand from charity shops makes a difference, as does mending clothes rather than buying more. It’s also worth doing a little research on brands before you buy, which apps can help with. Good on You, for instance, is an ethical shopping app that offers ratings on ethics, sustainability and fairness for brands. One fashion name that comes high on the list of both ethics and originality is Laura Zabo, a brand that creates footwear, belts, bags, dog collars and more from recycled tyres. This dress is just one of the popular clothing styles sold by Elizabeth Suzann Its eponymous founder was inspired to do so in Tanzania, having spotted some bright handmade sandals at a Maasai market that were made entirely out of repurposed car tyres. Zabo’s processes are all eco-friendly (no toxic glues here); her inspirational packaging is all repurposed (i.e. used boxes); her materials are all vegan and almost entirely recycled. When she has to buy new parts, such as buckles, she’s conscious to source them locally and responsibly. Zabo still undertakes a large part of the fabrication herself with a small team in east London, and also runs upcycling workshops. “I want to inspire people to start crafting and enjoy creation,” she says. “That helps to change people’s lifestyles. I hope that people will slowly realise they don’t have to go to H&M – they can make something themselves. I love showing what we can make from waste, especially since few people wear tyres for fashion!” The brand set up by Elizabeth Pape promotes sustainably sourced and crafted materials Speaking to the ebullient Zabo, it’s clear this isn’t just about making accessories – she’s a woman on a mission. “With social media, we’re finally seeing all the damage we’ve caused. People are registering it more now.” She aligns this increasing awareness with the rapidly growing number of people going vegan (2018 Vegan Society research showed a whopping 350 per cent increase in people “identifying as vegans” in the UK compared to a decade ago). While it could be argued that this is largely down to factors such as the wellness trend and toned Instagram influencers grinning over meticulously arranged acai bowls, it’s likely that a considerable number of those now avoiding animal products in their diets would also like to avoid them in their fashion and beauty products, too. Blue ocean strategy Another brand born of a somewhat exotically sited revelation is CanO Water, which was founded a couple of years ago as an alternative to plastic bottles “after a trip to a remote island opened the eyes of three close friends,” according to the the brand. As the name suggests, this is literally just water in a can, but it’s claimed that “the aluminium can is the only package that more than covers its recycling costs, helping to finance the collection and recycling of other materials such as glass and plastic.” That sounds a lot more palatable that using plastic, for sure: approximately 8m tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year, according to stats provided by CanO Water. A trip to Tanzania inspired Laura Zabo to develop a line of eco- friendly accessories Their green credentials – and likely, the slick, monochrome branding created by co-founder Perry Alexander – have certainly served the brand well. The designs are minimal: black for sparkling, white for still, with a simple serif font arranged both vertically and horizontally against a teardrop device for the typographic mark. The typefaces are Myriad and Myriad Pro Light, again chosen for their simplicity and neutrality. CanO Water has gone on to sponsor London Fashion Week and supply glitzy events like the Oscars and Vanity Fair parties. One drinks is an ethical drinks company that gifts funds to charity with every bottle purchase A less cool, but arguably more wide-reaching H20 prospect, is One Drinks, an ethical beverage brand that uses its profits to fund sustainable water projects around the world. Thus far, it claims to have raised ¢G17.4m for sustainable water projects and provided clean, safe water to more than 3.3m people in the world’s poorest communities. At the other end of the water works, as it were, Who Gives a Crap is a toilet paper brand created entirely with environmentally friendly materials that donates 50 per cent of its profits to help build toilets for those in need. To date, it’s donated more than $1.2m to charity. The Greenwashing problem From couture to crap, it’s clear that brands from across the board are now more than ever aligning themselves with ethical promises. Even McDonald’s – often seen as the red-haired, grinning face of corporate greed – is phasing out the use of plastic straws. Certain policies, however, are about as transparent as our poor polluted oceans. Greenwashing is a term used to describe companies that make concessions to certain environmental or ethical ideas but without any real clout. “We’re definitely entering a space which is harder for consumers to know who’s telling the truth,” says Lee. “A lot of brands have realised they’re missing out on the ethical consumer market, so there’s a lot of greenwashing going on.” A large clothing brand, for instance, might introduce a single organic or conscious range, as “that’s cheaper than addressing the whole line and changing their suppliers,” says Lee. “It makes it really difficult for smaller independent brands to compete, as they don’t have the same big marketing budgets, and so, can’t reach as far.” CanO water is a sustainable alternative to single use plastic bottles. Zabo is understandably excited at the recent proliferation of smaller ethical brands emerging, but echoes that it’s up to big brands to step up and seriously reconsider their sustainability efforts. “They’re still the leaders, so they need to make big changes. My audience is obviously much smaller, and I hope to inspire change, but I just can’t reach as many people as a brand like Adidas. The biggest shift we’re going to have to see is when they start to create more ethically – not to drum up good PR, but because they see the wider good in doing so.” Cartwright’s advice for anyone to start buying and consuming more ethically? “Take time to do your research,” he says. “The difficulty about being ethical in the way you shop or consume is that it’s not made easy. People don’t openly put information about their supply chain out there, so if you’re really concerned, it takes time to do the groundwork. That can get old quick, and it makes shopping more laborious.” A good place to start is looking out for Fairtrade stickers. The Fairtrade foundation works directly with businesses, consumers and campaigners to “make trade deliver for farmers and workers,” and the Fairtrade mark is a registered label for items sourced from producers in developing countries that are certified in accordance with Fairtrade standards. Who Gives a Crap aims to combat the 2.3bn currently without a toilet. But Cartwright warns that while it’s a great start, Fairtrade can be seen as a “little limited in its commitment. It’s like a baseline”. Even better is to look for B Corporation certification, which denotes products that “meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.” Those listed include Innocent Drinks, Patagonia, organic body care, food brand Dr. Bronner’s and Portland-based Grand Central Bakery. The B Corporation website has a handy searchable directory, too. “If you care about it, read around it,” says Cartwright. Then, it’s easy to make different decisions, but it’s also easy to be sucked in by brands who want you to think that they’re doing things better than they actually are.” It’s not all doom and gloom though – if we’re to take a leaf out of Zabo’s book, that is. Zabo’s clothes are mainly recycled using tyres “If I can create fashionable items from tyres – such an ugly piece of rubber – it proves that you can make beautiful things from any form of waste. It gives you a totally different, eco-conscious perspective, and makes you think twice about what you throw away and how you create. “It’s really just about finding a new way of thinking in terms of what to buy, how to buy and how we view our waste.” This article was originally published in Computer Arts, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 285 or subscribe. Related articles: Traditional branding is dead The problem with period product branding How to make a brand more human View the full article