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The last 24 hours has seen amazing Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, and they're still coming in thick and fast. Kicking things off today is this incredible offer from Clip Studio Paint. The successor to Manga Studio (Comic Studio), Clip Studio Paint is a great all-round digital art tool - and right now you can get it half price! The best Black Friday and Cyber Monday software deals Particularly suited to those developing manga art and comics, with this quality digital art software you can create full colour comics and cartoons, without the need for any other tools. Key Clip Studio Paint features include: Pencil and Ink Options - Create original sketches using your mouse or draw naturally with a Pen Tablet. Use scans of your existing paper artwork or import images or photos for use in your manga and comic creations. Powerful colour tools - Clip Studio Paint provides all the colour functions you need to create outstanding artwork. Simulate real world paint brushes - New dedicated air brush allows you to have multiple air brush effects. Use the tone brush to create a wider array of visual effects. You can also easily create and share your own brush pattern as well. 3D Options - New support for 3D objects and figures allows for reference and background materials. Manipulate 3D objects directly on the screen or use preset poses, and simply drag and drop other 3D objects on the canvas. Vector Toolkit - Speed up your workflow using the built-in vector tools. Get 50% off Clip Studio Paint Clip Studio Paint is available at 50% off wherever you are in the world, see below for the discount in your region. Offer ends 27 November at 17:00 (Japan Standard Time). View the full article

When you're busy working on your next creative masterpiece, it can be all too easy to forget that your files are clogging up your computer. And the last thing you need when you're sending files back and forth with clients is for your machine to alert you that it has no more room. That's why it's a good idea to invest in an external hard drive with lots more room to back up your work and ensure that you're never caught short again. The best Black Friday and Cyber Monday external hard drive deals 2018 If you're in the market for an external hard drive, we've got some good news! The Black Friday weekend has seen the price of leading external hard drives come crashing down, meaning that you can pick up more digital room for less. And remember, if you want to get involved with these deals early, it's worth signing up for a free Amazon Prime membership trial. Prime members get to access deals 30 minutes before everyone else, and what's more you can cancel your subscription with no strings attached. So, if any of these external hard drives look like the right product for you, be sure to buy it now. You never how long stocks last at this price, and these are the best deals you're going to find. Related articles: The best memory cards for your camera The best graphics cards in 2018 Black Friday deals: Save up to 50% on SanDisk memory cards View the full article

From Ford data security speculation to the VisionDirect data breach, the Threatpost editors talk about this week's biggest stories. View the full article

If you're familiar with Apple (who isn't), you'll know discounts and offers is something the company very rarely offers. But, not ones to be left behind, Apple is getting involved with Black Friday and Cyber Monday with its very own shopping event, offering gift cards up to $200/£160 with purchases on select products. The best Apple Black Friday deals in 2018 The offer doesn't knock any money off the product prices, which comes as no surprise, however, if you're in the market for a new Apple device, the gift card comes as a nice bonus - and one you're unlikely to see again in the near future. Here are the offers currently available: Get a $50/£40 Apple Store gift card with select iPhones iPhone 7: From $449/£449 iPhone 7 Plus: From $569/£569 iPhone 8: From $599/£599 iPhone 8 Plus: From $699/£699 Get a $100/£80 Apple gift card with select iPads 10.5-inch iPad Pro: From $649/£619 iPad 9.7-inch: From $329/£319 iPad Mini 4: From $399/£399 Get a $200/£160 Apple Store gift card with select Macs MacBook Pro: From $1299/£1249 Macbook: From $1299/£1249 MacBook Air: From $999/£949 iMac: From $1099/£1049 iMac Pro: From $4999/£4899 Mac Pro: From $2999/£2999 Want more Apple offers? Check out the Apple shopping event in full right here. View the full article

All digital artists and graphic designers will know how vital it is to have complete colour accuracy on your machine. The best monitor calibrators don't come cheap, which is why this Black Friday 2018 deal is such a great find. DataColour has slashed the prices of its Spyder5 range, and they're flying off the shelves. This deal is so popular that that Spyder5PRO has already sold out, but fear not: you can still grab a Spyder5ELITE with a whopping £97 (130€) off. This calibrator offers expert colour accuracy, with room light monitoring and unlimited settings for gamma, white point and advanced grey balancing enabling you to take complete control of your colour workflow. It work on laptops, desktops and projectors, too. Please note, the online store price is in Euros, so the GBP value may fluctuate slightly depending on the exchange rate. View the full article

It's no secret that Black Friday is a great time to pick up a bargain on tech. But it's also a top time to bag a bargain on trad art tools. Amazon in particular is a great place to pick up some top art supplies on the cheap - and we're talking 40% off or more. Here we've rounded up the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals we've found, so you can upgrade or stock up for less. Related articles: Black Friday sale: save up to 25% on Moleskine products The best Black Friday and Cyber Monday tablet deals Wacom Black Friday 2018: the best deals View the full article

Despite the remarkable choice of mobile phones out there (or, indeed, because of the range) it remains a tricky task to balance high quality with a reasonable cost. No phone feature more demonstrates this than a smartphone’s camera. Which is why we’ve written this guide to the best camera phone you can buy on a budget. Even defining 'budget camera phones' is difficult. One person's 'affordable' is another's "how much!?". So although you won't find any iPhone XS or Galaxy Note 9s on this list, you will still find the best budget camera phones from the likes of Apple and Samsung costing up to around $400/£400. The 10 best point-and-shoot cameras Best cameras for beginners and all budgets Still sounding a bit on the pricey side? No worries...there's a number of great Black Friday deals to be had, plus we've also recommended smartphones that are much cheaper than that without compromising too much on camera quality. With the cheapest on this list coming in at less than $200/£200. With the key specs and our clear reasons why we've included each entrant on our list, by the time you get to the bottom of our best budget camera phones guide you'll be in no doubt which model to buy. The best budget camera phones you can buy When Samsung releases new phones, the old flagship models don't get forgotten about - they just become fantastic affordable phones. That's exactly what has happened to 2017's Samsung Galaxy S8. First and foremost, the consistency of the quick automatic main camera never ceases to be impressive. Point and click was never so easy. But above and beyond the normal, Samsung brought in a remarkable host of features and settings to the S8, including a brilliant selfie mode. And, not to be underestimated, the Galaxy S8 is the ideal shape and size in the hand to use for photography. Considering how little you have to pay for the Wileyfox Swift 2 Plus, it's scarcely believable how good the main camera on it is. The troubled Wileyfox brand may not be a household name, but this handset gives you a 16MP camera and a 3L8 sensor courtesy of a manufacturer that you just might have heard of - Samsung. That means that you can forget the grainy, washed out snaps that you may expect from a phone of this price and look forward to rich colours and fine detail. Even the autofocus holds its own. Of course it isn't jam-packed with features and it's a bokeh-free zone. But...well did you see the price? Look around the web and you'll see the Moto G6 crop up again and again at the top of best budget smartphone lists. Combining excellent quality across the board (display, battery, design), it's easy to see why. And the cameras are a big contributory factor, too. It starts things off with a dual main camera set-up on the rear. The 12MP and 5MP sensors team up to enable the auto mode to take consistently attractive snaps. The portrait mode is surprisingly effective and even the 8MP selfie snapper on the front isn't bad. So while we just about prefer the main camera on the Wileyfox, the Moto G6 is the one to go for if you have a bit of extra cash and want a better phone on the whole. Yes, you can buy an iPhone on a budget. It's true. You just have to look back through the annuls of their releases to find one cheap enough. The iPhone 6S was one of the very best cameras on the market when it hit the shelves in 2015, and that included the camera. It introduced Live Photo, made more of the then-innovative 3D Touch and raised the megapixel count on the main snapper to 12MP - resulting in the most detailed images any iPhone had captured at the time. Want to save some more pennies? Then the iPhone 6 camera isn't that much worse, although the megapixel count goes down. Sony has a notable dynasty in photography and so it's no surprise to see it coming up with the goods on the wallet-friendly Sony Xperia XA1. On specs alone, the rear camera has a similar look to dedicated standalone compact cameras with a 23MP sensor of 1/2.3-inch size. On a day-to-day basis that means generally fabulous looking photos. It even succeeds in darker climes, with Sony's brightening smarts achieving excellent quality. Things start getting a bit rough around the edges on extreme close ups, but this is a cracker of a snapper for the price. Honor is increasingly staking a claim as the posterboy for how to build smartphones on a budget. The Honor 9 Lite is a fine example. Mobiles don't come much more affordable and yet you still get dual rear-facing cameras and dual front-facing cameras packed into a design that's based on the former flagship Honor 9. So if you just need a device that's going to deliver passable photos in good conditions (don't expect too much in low-light), then you can't get much more affordable than the 9 Lite. The camera in Sony's XZ Premium had already won us over, and then they went and put it in its 2017 flagship Xperia XZ1. So that means super defined 4K video shooting from what we can now call a budget handset - practically unheard of. There may not be the same resolution in the 5.2-inch display, but you can still enjoy most of the splendour of your footage in HDR-supported quality. And 4K isn't the only trick up the XZ1's sleeve, as we also really admire the super slow-mo smarts that captures 960fps. You really can achieve a lot with this Sony smartphone. 2018 was such a break out year for Huawei that we know that it's now a name well set in the public consciousness. And it wasn't just at the very top end of the market that it impressed, with the Huawei Mate 20 Lite showing what can be achieved with a $300/£300 phone. With a 6.3-inch screen, it's larger than most of the other smartphones on this list (you've entered phablet territory, really). And check out the specs of the cameras - there's a reliable 20MP and 2MP set-up on the rear for photos that pop with color, and 24MP and 2MP on the front for excellent selfies that even let you achieve that sought after bokeh effect. Related articles: Or check out our pick of the very best camera phones Our top tips for taking better photos 9 ways to smash UX on a budget View the full article

Today's the day eagle-eyed shoppers have been waiting for: Black Friday! As we're sure you're aware, this is the day you can pick up unbelievable bargains on a range of creative and design products. We've already curated the best offers you need to know about on our Black Friday deals page, but we thought these Wacom Cintiq discounts deserved extra special attention. Wacom Black Friday 2018: the best deals As any digital artist will tell you, working with a mouse just doesn't cut it when it comes to creating images on a device. That's where Wacom Cintiq tablets come in. Thanks to their incredibly sensitive pens and displays, Wacom Cintiq devices are able to replicate the feel of using traditional tools. Once it's out of the box and calibrated, Wacom Cintiq pen displays deliver a high-performance digital drawing experience. Complete with high-resolution LED displays that can render millions of colours, your imagination's the limit when it comes to whipping up a masterpiece on these tablets. What's more, each one comes supplied with its own pen so you can start working right away. Shoppers in both the US and UK can pick up juicy discounts on Cintiq pen displays right now. With $200/£200 sliced off each tablet, these appealing tools just got even more attractive. Check out their specifications with our deal links below. Related articles: The best drawing tablet for kids 2018 The best drawing tablet: our pick of the best graphics tablets in 2018 The best Huion drawing tablet of 2018 View the full article

New research on an old problem reveals despite efforts, the InfoSec professionals still have a way to go when it comes to securing printers. View the full article

Thanksgiving's over, you've digested all your turkey and now you know what time it is: it's Black Friday and there's a whole universe of bargains out there waiting for you to grab them. We know this because while you've been sleeping off all that pumpkin pie, we've been scouring the internet for the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals known to man. Fact is that there are almost too many deals out there, of unprecedented levels of hotness, and they may be simply too much for your mortal mind to take in all at once. So that's why we've gone to the trouble of picking out 10 of our absolute favourite Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals that are available for you to buy right now, and listed them below so you can snap them up in seconds and then return to the important business of finishing off that leftover turkey. Happy shopping! 10 Black Friday gems Related articles: The best cheap Walmart tablet deals in 2018 Wacom Black Friday 2018: the best deals Black Friday and Cyber Monday monitor deals 2018 View the full article

Black Friday 2018 is here! We're curating the very best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for designers, artists and creatives right here, so if you're in the mood to make some savings, you've come to the right place. This year, a number of major global retailers got in on the action early and have been sharing deals all week, so you might already have picked up a bargain. However, traditionally all the big players save their best offers for the day itself. So whether you’re after a new laptop, tablet, mobile phone, creative software or more (whiskey deals, anyone?), we’ll point you towards the right products, at the cheapest prices, from the most reputable retailers. The best plan right now? If you’re looking for a specific product, make sure you have a budget in mind. When you spot one below one with the right specs at the right price, get it in your shopping basket – the best Black Friday deals don't stick around long. Black Friday deals: quick links US: Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail links: Amazon | eBay | Newegg | Jet Black | Microsoft | Dell | Walmart | B&H Photo | GameStop | Toys R Us UK: Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail links: Amazon | eBay | Microsoft | Dell | Very.co.uk | John Lewis | Currys | Argos | Tesco | AO.com | Carphone Warehouse | Mobiles.co.uk | ASOS Back to top US: Desktop, tablet and laptop Black Friday deals Jump straight to: UK desktop, tablet and laptop Black Friday deals Back to top UK: Desktop, tablet and laptop Black Friday deals Back to top US: Graphics tablet Black Friday deals Jump straight to: UK graphics tablet Black Friday deals UK: Graphics tablet Black Friday deals Back to top Jump straight to: UK mobile phone Black Friday deals UK: Mobile phone Black Friday deals Back to top US: Camera Black Friday deals Jump straight to: UK camera deals Back to top UK: Camera Black Friday deals US: Wearables and accessories deals UK: Wearables and accessories deals Back to top When is Black Friday 2018? This year, Black Friday falls on 23 November 2018. Always held the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday marks the unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Traditionally Black Friday was a one-day brick-and-mortar juggernaut of sales, with Cyber Monday later conceived by savvy marketeers to extend the sales period online. These days, Black Friday is of course a huge online event as well. In the last few years, the spending bonanza has morphed into a 'Black November', with many major retailers leaking decent money-saving deals throughout the month. Amazon, for example, officially opened its Black Friday Deals Store on the 17 November in 2017, a week before Black Friday started. We also saw plenty of deals creeping through before that – and a lot of rock-bottom deals in the days after Cyber Monday, too. When is Cyber Monday 2018? Cyber Monday falls on 26 November this year, three days after Black Friday on the 23 November. While Black Friday is a frenzied cacophony of high street and online deals, Cyber Monday was originally conceived by savvy marketers as a way to sell more of their wares online, back when online shopping wasn’t as prevalent as it is today. According to those in the know, Cyber Monday sees a wider range of deals across individual retailers. It's less about one-off discounts, and more about lower prices generally. Of course, if stores need to shift stock they’ll follow-up Black Friday discounts with further reductions on Cyber Monday – so expect one-off deals too. What we learned from Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year Last year, we saw some fantastic savings on creative hardware, software and resources. We brought you all the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for designers and artists here on Creative Bloq, and while doing so, here’s what we found: Amazon and eBay offered the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on Apple products and Wacom drawing tablets Unsurprisingly, superseded products saw serious discounts. Amazon cut over $1,000 off its Surface Book stock, following the launch of the Surface Book 2 The Microsoft Store was ripe with large discounts across its Surface family Dell hosted some huge tech bargains directly on its website, too Adobe did Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It slashed its Creative Cloud software by 20% Other creative software makers also offered competitive discounts, so it's worth waiting for November if you can before investing Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018: where to find the biggest savings So where to look for real bargains this year? Well, apart from here, the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on creative hardware and software tend to come from third-party retailers – rather than directly from manufacturers like Apple or Wacom. That said, Microsoft slashed the cost of its Surface family of tablets for Black Friday 2017, and we saw big tech bargains on the Dell website too. Some of the biggest savings last year across the board, however, came from Amazon and eBay. Certainly this is where you need to be if you're in the market for a new drawing tablet – and there were fantastic bargains to be found on desktops, laptops, 4K monitors, computer mice, keyboards and more. Whether you’re interested in perusing Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday discounts directly on the websites of the most reputable retailers, sign-up for early Black Friday alerts or do some early product research, here are the links you need… Back to top US: Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail links Amazon | eBay | Newegg | Jet Black | Microsoft | Dell | Walmart | B&H Photo | GameStop | Toys R Us UK: Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail links Amazon | eBay | Microsoft | Dell | Very.co.uk | John Lewis | Currys | Argos | Tesco | AO.com | Carphone Warehouse | Mobiles.co.uk | ASOS Where to find the best Microsoft Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals Microsoft has upped its game in recent years, with its Surface product range providing serious alternatives to Apple products. But like a lot of the best creative kit, it doesn't come cheap, which is is why it's worth making the most of any Black Friday Microsoft deals that do crop up. So, if you are on the hunt for any Microsoft products, including the Surface range, be sure to bookmark this dedicated Black Friday Microsoft deals page, which we'll keep regularly updated with all the latest offers. Where to find the best Black Friday Wacom deals It's not often you see Wacom drop its prices, but we're hoping the company will make an exception soon and present some great Black Friday deals. The premiere drawing tablets have made a name for themselves thanks to their market-leading precision and impressive screen sizes, but a premium product comes with a premium price tag, so if there are any reductions, we don't expect them to hang around for long. For the digital artists among you, these are going to be some of the most hotly anticipated deals so make sure you stay up to date with all the best offers via this dedicated Wacom Black Friday deals page. How to get the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in 2018 We’ll be curating the very best Black Friday deals for creatives right here again this year, so bookmark this page and keep checking back in November. But there are some other pro tips you can follow for bagging big Black Friday bargains, too. 01. Do your research The best way to avoid getting a bad deal is to do your research first. You need to be knowledgeable about the product – and its normal retail price. Draw up a list of items you might like to purchase over Black Friday, read the reviews, research the best manufacturers, and make sure you know the difference between a good and bad version of that product. 02. Compare prices It’s always a good idea to compare prices, so use price-comparison internet shopping sites like PriceGrabber.com for insight where you’re looking at product prices. 03. Check the extras And make sure you check the specs: are you looking at a low or high-specced product for this price? Does it come with accessories? What about post and packaging charges? 04. Consider payment options Another tip is to think about how you’re paying. While we don’t suggest racking up huge credit cards bills with big interest rates, many credit cards do offer benefits like free warranties, return protection and sale price protection – which are worth bearing in mind. 05. Get an Amazon Prime subscription Prime users (including all those on a free trial) are offered an exclusive 30-minute early access period to all Amazon Lightning Deals. If you don't already have one, an Amazon Prime subscription will set you back £79/$99 per year. 06. Know the best days to buy Adobe has crunched the numbers to put together a handy guide revealing the best days to buy different products, and also which products are more likely to run out on which days. Apparently, Thanksgiving is the best time to grab a bargain on computers – you’re likely to save 16 per cent, on average – but it’s also the day popular tablets and televisions are most likely to be out of stock. Black Friday, meanwhile, is the best day to save on tablets and televisions (on average 24 per cent), with computers most likely to be out of stock. Want more advice on how to bag the best Black Friday deals? Here's 10 top tips for making the most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Can't hang on until Black Friday to pick up a hot deal? No problem. There are plenty of fantastic bargains to be found on creative hardware, software and resources right now. We're tracking the months' best deals in the following articles, and you can scroll down for the day's best deals on our favourite creative products... The best Macbook and Macbook Pro deals The best Microsoft Surface deals The best Dell XPS deals The best cheap laptop deals The best Wacom tablet deals The best Adobe deals 30 books every graphic designer should read Back to top Related articles: The best laptop deals for designers The best Macbook and MacBook Pro deals The best Wacom tablet deals View the full article

We've seen some amazing price-cuts already this Black Friday, but this discount on Sony's Alpha A7 II ranks up there as one of the best. Usually this full frame and mirrorless camera would set you back something in the region of $1,739.33, but with Amazon's amazing offer you can now grab it for less than $1k. The best camera phones in 2018: take better photos on the move This means you can save a whopping $741.33 on a superb camera that has all the benefits of a full-frame sensor but without the bulk. Put simply, if you're a photographer on the look out for an affordable full-frame camera, this is the best deal we've seen this Black Friday so far. On top of being able to pick up an incredible camera with a 28-70mm lens, this deal also includes a free three-month complimentary Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan membership. As is the case with Amazon discounts, this deal is open to everyone. However, if you want to get to the front of the queue, remember that if you are an Amazon Prime member you can access them 30 minutes before non-members. Be sure to sign up to a free 30-day Amazon Prime membership trial to take advantage of deals early, and don't forget that you can cancel your trial afterwards with no strings attached. Sony Alpha A7IIK features It's not often that you get to pick up a full-frame and mirrorless camera for less than $1k, but thanks to Black Friday that dream is now a reality. If you've always wanted to step up to this type of camera, there really has been no better time. The Sony Alpha A7II is the first full-frame camera to offer 5-axis in-body image stabilisation, plus is can capture images with crisp 24.3MP resolution. And thanks to fast hybrid autofocus with phase-detection, you can capture images 30% faster than Sony's A7 model. Speaking of which, while the A7 is a really impressive model that has also been marked down this Black Friday (see below), the Sony Alpha A7 II is a great upgrade that you don't want to miss - especially seeing as its price has now come down so much. Shoppers in the UK don't need to feel left out, either. The Sony Alpha A7 has also had its price slashed by Amazon and can be yours for just £509. Delivering high image quality in a trim frame, this camera is a fantastic choice for photographers who are eager to up their game. Related articles: The best compact cameras in 2018 The best camera bags and cases in 2018 Save up to 25% on Panasonic cameras with these amazing Black Friday deals View the full article

Black Friday is upon us and there are plenty of deals going live over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018 weekend. A lot of these deals are on high-value items such as laptops, monitors or cameras, but what if you're after something smaller? If – like us – you have a penchant for notebooks and stationery, even if you don't necessarily use them as much as you used to, then you're in luck. Moleskine is having a Black Friday sale, and they're offering 20% off in the UK, and 25% off in the US. The US offer is site-wide, so there's a huge selection of products to choose from, while the UK site is limited to a selection of products. To save you trawling the whole site, we've picked our best deals below (jump to US deals here). UK Moleskine Black Friday deals US Moleskine Black Friday deals Read more: Black Friday flash sale: huge savings on Wacom tablets This Sony A7 camera and lens kit is ridiculously cheap 10 of the best notebooks for designers View the full article

Guess what? It's only Black Friday, isn't it! And in case you haven't noticed, we've been busy hunting down all the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, so that you can save yourself some serious readies. In fact we've been so punctilious in our bargain hunting that you might be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of deals, not to mention the staggering hotness of them. So that's why we've gone back into our extensive deal archives and picked out 10 of our very favourite Black Friday UK bargains that we're certain you won't want to miss. Whether you're after a better laptop, some vital creative gear or maybe a flash new phone, there's bound to be something to tickle your fancy here. Read on for the deals! 10 Black Friday gems Related articles: The best Apple Black Friday deals in 2018 Wacom Black Friday 2018: the best deals Black Friday and Cyber Monday monitor deals 2018 View the full article

Few things are more frustrating for creatives than when their phone, device or camera runs out of memory. The last thing you want is to stop working just because your equipment can't keep up with the pace, but thanks to these SanDisk memory cards you'll have plenty of digital room to spare. And now that it's Black Friday, you can pick up more memory for less. That's because Amazon has been slashing the prices of a range of SanDisk memory cards, with the biggest reductions pushing 50%! At these prices stocks are sure to vanish fast, so don't hang around - if it's the right product at the right price, buy it! Black Friday deals: see all the best early offers right here. The best Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in 2018 Below we've rounded up the biggest memory card discounts that have caught our eye. Remember, throughout Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Prime members can access deals like these as soon as they're available, however non-members have to wait 30 minutes before they can cash in. To be sure you don't miss out, sign up for a free 30-day Amazon Prime trial and grab the discounts as soon as they go live. Related articles: The best memory cards for your camera The best graphics cards in 2018 The best USB flash storage for creatives View the full article

The biggest shop event of the year is well and truly underway. Black Friday offers creatives of all disciplines the opportunity to get hold of some brilliant deals. It's an excellent time to get hold of tools and services we want, for a fraction of the normal cost. In this post, we'll be looking at 32 of the best web tools and services for web designers and developers. You'll find a mixture of both pro tools and more basic services for anyone just starting out in the industry. So whatever stage your web career is at, there's some top Black Friday deals to help you along the way. 01. Hotjar Hotjar is probably the best solution on the market that will help you see how your visitors are really using your site. It’s everything your team needs in one place. The script is used with great success by all kind of companies, from small ones to very large corporations like Microsoft or Nintendo. It works excellent with all the platforms on the market: WordPress, Magento, Google Tag Manager, Joomla, Shopify, and many others. Hotjar is packed with tons of features and options. With heatmaps, you will quickly understand what users want, care about, and do on your site by visually representing their clicks, taps, and scrolling behaviour. Recordings will help you identify usability issues by watching recordings of real visitors on your site as they click, tap, move their cursor and navigate across pages. Using the Conversions funnel, you will find the biggest opportunities for improvement and testing by identifying on which page and at which step most visitors are leaving your site. There are many other features that will help you improve your website, check them on their website. Get started with Hotjar today, a free trial is offered and you don’t need a credit card. 02. Freelance Invoice Empowering more than 100,000 freelancers like designers, developers, writers, photographers, videographers and different types of consultants, Bonsai is the smartest and most complete invoicing platform on the market. Bonsai is an all-in-one invoicing platform that you can use in your daily tasks, being packed with lots of professionals and useful features. Creating and fully customising invoices takes seconds, or you can quickly generate them automatically from any proposal, contract or time sheet. No need to have any special knowledge, the friendly interface will guide you every step. With Bonsai you will get paid fast, it tells you when the client interacts with your invoice and when they plan to pay. You can even automate the reminders for your customers, stop wasting time for the payment follow-up. Get started for free. 03. Tailor Brands Creating a successful logo is no easy feat. If you're just getting started with logo design, Tailor Brands provides a helpful service using AI to automate the logo-making process, creating the perfect first building block for your branding. In under five minutes, Tailor Brands' logo creator will learn what kind of design speaks to you and make a sleek and professional logo design according to your preferences. For as low as $3.99 a month, you can create and customise your logo, and you can utilise products like their master design tool and EPS/vector file for just $9.99. Their premium plan (at $15.99) gives you an entire branding toolbox, including social media analytics and an automatic post scheduler. Today, Tailor is offering an exclusive Black Friday promotion to CreativeBloq readers! Apply promo code {blackfribrand50} at checkout and make a logo for an additional 60 per cent off. 04. BrowseEmAll When it comes to manual and automated cross-browser testing BrowseEmAll is the tool for you! This on-premise tool makes it possible to test your web project in all major desktop and mobile browsers. It supports everything from manual to automated testing featuring great things like live testing, automated layout comparison, responsive testing, and test record & playback. And the best part? Everything runs fast and smooth directly on your Windows, macOS or Linux machine. Get the free trial today and save 30 per cent with the coupon code 'BLACKFRIDAY' on every purchase until the end of the year! 05. Pageproofer PageProofer is designed to be the easiest way to leave feedback and track issues during website development. They took the simplicity of a sticky note and applied it to bug tracking. With PageProofer anyone can leave feedback and report issues. You decide who can see PageProofer on your website. It only takes a few seconds to add it to your website. Point, click and leave feedback. Screenshots and browser info are added to each note. Notifications can be sent to alert your development team. Everything learned over 20 years of working with creative agencies and development teams they have applied to make PageProofer the feedback tool you would love to use. More importantly, it's something your team and clients will love too. Pricing: plans start at $20/month. Use promo code BLACKFRI18 to save 25%. 06. Codester Codester is one of the best marketplaces for web designers and developers where they can quickly buy and sell premium PHP scripts, app templates, themes, plugins, website themes and all kind of apps. It is hugely growing every day, browse it and pick what you need for your projects. They have even a special section where hugely discounted items are being sold. 07. Format Format is a creative, clean and modern, free website template that you can use for your next portfolio project. If you need a template as a designer, freelancer, agency, web studio, Format is perfect for you! It features pop up video, smooth overlay for portfolio, and animation upon scrolling. 08. WeGraphics Design WeGraphics is a huge cooperative community where lots of great things can be found. They are covering extremely good the following fields: mockups, graphics, templates, themes, icons, and fonts. It’s the web designer’s paradise for any project he may have. For a single $20 membership fee you can get complete and unrestricted access to the entire library of resources that includes not only works uploaded by other designers but also exclusive graphics commissioned and created custom by the WeGraphics team. 09. Meridianthemes.net MeridianThemes is having excellent themes which have a pixel-perfect design. All of them are beautiful, fully functional and lightning fast. Browse their collection to have a better idea. Be sure to check the Deals section, where hugely discounted items can be found. Use the coupon code "bf2018" and you will get 30 per cent off (valid from Nov 23 to 30). 10. Landingi Landingi allows you to build landing pages faster than ever. No programming skills required - simply choose your template, adapt it to your needs and hit “publish” - in less than an hour. 200+ landing page templates, an easy to use builder, 800 fonts and 5000 stock images included as well as an A/B testing tool, analytics and dozens of seamless integrations! Check out this year's Black Friday deal and save up to $912 on an annual subscription! 11. Design Hooks DesignHooks is one of the best free resource websites dedicated to web designers and developers. It is packed with thousands of premium, yet free PSD mockups, Sketch, HTML templates, WordPress themes and much more. Everything is handpicked, you will be amazed by the quality of the products. 12. Paper Sizes PaperSizes is the best resource for international paper sizes, dimensions and formats. All possible formats and types are there. Extremely useful for designers. 13. WordPress Business themes Grow your business with a powerful, clean and professional set of WordPress business themes that will definitely make your business stand out. Each Tesla Theme is pixel perfect, eye-catching WordPress themes for businesses, e-commerce sites, videographers, and more. Easily modify your site design with the included page builder. 14. WordPress Event Themes Stunning premium WordPress event themes that give you the most inclusive, all in one solution, for an engaging, interactive and streamlined event. Awesome events around the world use ShowThemes, so if you need something reliable, and tested for years by some of the top events, look no further. 15. WordPress Gallery Plugin The popular WordPress gallery plugin, NextGEN Gallery, offers a complete gallery management system with the ability to upload in bulk, with metadata retained, sort photos, edit thumbnails, group galleries into albums, and much more. With NextGEN Pro you can proof, sell and protect your images as no others can. 16. WordPress Photography Themes Photocrati is an epic WordPress photography theme, made by photographers. The highly customizable and easy to use theme is packed with over 60 preset designs, built-in galleries, e-commerce and limitless capabilities. It’s used thousands of photographers around the world, so if you need simple and flexible, look no further. 17. Freelance Time Tracking Bonsai is the best time tracking solution for freelancers. It’s the first-time tracker fully integrated with your workflow. Available on web, macOS, and iOS, this solution is a dedicated tool for any kind of freelancer – web designers, developers, consultants and pretty much anybody else. 18. 48HoursLogo 48HoursLogo is the best logo design platform to use whenever you quickly need a helping hand with your logo designs but are on a budget. Try it, the results might just surprise you. 19. WrapKit Builder With WrapKit Builder, anybody can build gorgeous websites and landing pages with only a few clicks. You can start from beautifully designed ready-made demos or you can take it from scratch with drag-and-drop sections. The interface is extremely friendly and intuitive, try it. 20. MyThemeShop At MyThemeShop, everybody can find the best WordPress theme for his project. The website is literally packed with tons of gorgeous and fully functional themes. You can get any premium theme or plugin for just $19 and extended membership for just $87. 21. Logaster Logaster is a powerful logo design platform that is super-simple to use, pocket-friendly and which is delivering outstanding results. Create your logo easily with Logaster and download small-size logos for free and full-size logo from $20. 22. WorkExaminer WorkExaminer is a powerful internet monitoring software which you can use for employee monitoring. It can also be used for freelancers or in remote-teams. It is super simple to use and it is packed with lots of powerful features. You can have website tracking, screenshots capture, web filtering, and even PC tracking. Everything you need is there. 23. Total Multipurpose WordPress Theme Total is a modern and responsive WordPress theme that combines the power of the WordPress Customizer and the Visual Composer page builder to allow you to create a website for virtually anything. The theme was created with many different niches and professions in mind – corporations, small business, online stores, lawyers, agencies, wedding planners, hosting companies, non-profits, bloggers and more. 24. Chic Blog & WooCommerce WordPress theme Chic is a premium WordPress blogging and WooCommerce shop theme with a super clean, modern, fast and well-coded design. Launch your blog and store today. 25. Fashionista WordPress theme Fashionista is a super minimal fashion style masonry blog WordPress theme which also provides full support for the popular WooCommerce plugin so you can easily set up your own online blog and shop (shop is 100% optional). 26. Selenium Academy Automated Testing From Start To Finish. This course covers everything from Selenium Basics all the way to maintainable tests. Use the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY50 and you will get a 50 per cent discount until the end of the year. 27. InstantLogoDesign Exactly as the name says, with this great web tool you will help you on your way to a gorgeous logo design. It is super simple to use and keeps costs to a minimum. 28. GoodieWebsite Jump online before the 2018 ends. Launch your website with Goodiewebsite.com. This unique platform allows you to work directly with a developer who will code your design within a few days and at the affordable price. At Goodiewebsite "Black Friday" last all year long as you can get a "design to code" conversion for $999. 29. InvoiceBerry InvoiceBerry is a powerful invoicing platform that you can use in your daily tasks. Creating and fully customizing a professional invoice takes less than 60 seconds and the platform is packed with tons of features and options. 30. MediaLoot Fonts Stand out from the crowd and look beyond Google Fonts - for as little as $14 you can get complete and unlimited access to 80+ custom, unique, and stunning fonts suitable for web or print. The collection includes workhorse serif/sans-serif fonts as well as gorgeous extras like script fonts, rustic fonts, neon and art deco styles, and many more. As a huge bonus, buying access to the font library is a part of the overall Medialoot package that includes thousands of other graphics like icons, templates, and mockups. All of this for just $14? Now that's a huge deal. 31. What Font Is Using a database of 450k fonts (commercial and free) and font finder AI, for every image uploaded they show you over 60 similar free or 60 commercial fonts. Some use the system to find a specific font missing from the sent sources or by the client or just because they see a nice font and want to know what font is. Enjoy the best font detector on the market. 32. TemplateMonster Black Friday is one of the best chances to grab marvellous ready-made solutions for half a price. Get ready to buy all possible themes from TemplateMonster with 50 per cent off. Take a pen right now and mark these very days - November, 19-29. Do not lose your chance to get the most amazing digital products at the best prices! View the full article

A Christmas film made by indie filmmaker Phil Beastall for a mere £50 has gone viral. The tear-jerker short shows a man counting down the days to Christmas. But instead of waiting for mulled wine, mince pies and presents under the tree – or indeed to give someone else a present as John Lewis' 2011 advert showed – he is waiting to listen to his Walkman. Yes, that's right, he sits down and puts in an actual cassette tape into a Walkman, though there is a reasonable explanation – he does so to hear a message from his mother, which she recorded before she died. The film ends with three lines: 'Love is a gift, that lasts forever, Merry Christmas.' This heartwarming tale was originally created in 2014, but Beastall reposted it this year in response to John Lewis' advert featuring Elton John, which reportedly cost around £7 million to make. People are now calling for the department store to hire Beastall for next year's advert. Beastall has already done work for big-name clients such as Adobe, and we don't know yet whether John Lewis will consider this option. However, the amount of publicity generated from this campaign just goes to show that a) side projects matter, and can lead to paid work eventually b) if you can connect with people in the right way, your work will go far and c) everyone loves a good Christmas ad. If all these tear-jerking ads are a bit too much for you, check out Lidl's more light-hearted response to the John Lewis ad, below. Read more: Aldi trolls Coca-Cola with copycat Christmas van Iceland Christmas ad banned due to political message The ultimate Christmas gift guide for freelancers View the full article

If you're making a big purchase, Black Friday is definitely the time to do it. One of the best Black Friday deals on Amazon gets you £154 off a Panasonic LUMIX G80 compact camera, reducing the price from £629 to £474.99. The LUMIX G7 is available for a similar discount: £449.99 instead of £599.99, which is a saving of £150. The best compact cameras in 2018 The G80 is a great choice for capturing fantastic images in fast-paced, challenging environments. Dual Image Stabilisation technology helps to correct and compensate your shots to avoid blurry images when shooting on the move, and the camera is rugged enough that you can use it in any weather. The body and lens kit are splash and dust-proof to keep out moisture and grime, so you don't have to stop shooting when things get messy. The Panasonic Lumix G80 has a 3-inch LCD display On top of this, there are some really cool features such as Post Focus which lets you take a photo and then touch the area you want to be in focus after the fact. A similar feature, Focus Stacking, lets you select several focus points in the same image - so you can take more time over important decisions. The G80 shoots 4K video, and it enables you to capture the perfect shot in a fast-moving situation by letting you to select frames from video sequences and saving them as images. If filming video is as important to you as taking photos, the LUMIX G7 might be the right choice. It shoots 4K video at 30 frames per second and has Panasonic's Depth from Defocus Auto Focus technology which helps with maintaining focus while filming. It also has the Post Focus features and ability to pull out individual frames from video sequences just like the G80. Whichever one you choose, you're set to make an excellent saving of around £150 if you buy it from Amazon this weekend: deal ends on Monday! View the full article

This unbelievable Black Friday deal sees the price of Sony’s original A7 camera and FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS lens kit cut by a staggering amount. The Sony A7 was the first full-frame compact system camera on the market, and although it’s been superseded twice now, the fact that Sony has kept it available should speak volumes as to just how relevant it remains. The best camera phones in 2018: take better photos on the move And at this incredible price it's an opportunity not to be missed if you're looking to buy your first full-frame camera. Right now, this Sony A7 and lens kit is the cheapest it has ever been, reduced on Amazon UK from £875.24 to £659. But the savings don't stop there, you can also claim £150 cashback from Sony on a purchase, taking the actual price you pay down to a staggering £509. That's insanely cheap for a full-frame kit, which is more than we saw the A7 reduced by on Amazon Prime Day. The sale is open everybody, but Amazon Prime members will benefit from a 30-minute early access period to the deal. Don't want to miss out? Sign up to a free 30-day Amazon Prime trial and get access to all deals as and when they become available. (You can cancel your trial afterwards with no strings attached.) Sony Alpha A7 key features The Sony Alpha A7 (also known as the Sony ILCE7KB) was the company’s first foray into the world of full-frame photography. Inside its compact body the A7 boasts a 24MP sensor that's capable of capturing Full HD videos to 60p. A tilting LCD and high-resolution electronic viewfinder help you compose images and videos with precision, while Fast Hybrid AF and Eye AF are also on the specs list – as is Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity. And as you’d expect, image quality is fantastic. The A7 represents a fantastic (and now ridiculously affordable) entry-point into full-frame photography for anyone who’s been thinking about stepping up to the next level. View the full article

Whether you're a mountain biker wanting to record your latest daring ride or a commuter cyclist looking for a way to hold motorists to account, this excellent Black Friday GoPro bundle deal has you covered. It's got everything you need to capture all your adventures, but the main thing in the box is the HERO5 black camera, which records impressive 4K video, has a 2-inch touch display, and also handy features such as voice control for when your hands are engaged with more pressing matters. The best GoPro Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals 2018 No doubt you will be using your GoPro to capture shaky action footage, so the HERO5 has built-in technology that helps to stabilise your video. It comes with a 16GB memory card, but if you get a GoPro Plus subscription the camera will automatically upload your video to the cloud so it's always safe. The Casey case keeps all your GoPro accessories organised and safe from any roughhousing If you like to share your exploits while you're on the go, the QuikStories features saves you the fuss of trying to edit video from a forest or mountain peak - footage is sent to your phone and edited for you into something shareable. For your underwater adventures, the camera is waterproof to 10m. The great thing about this bundle is all the most useful accessories are included. There's the Shorty mini extension pole and tripod for when you want to do some more sedate filming, a rechargeable battery, flat and curved mounts, mounting buckle, USB-C cable and a Casey case to keep it all organised. No matter your action recording needs, this great Black Friday deal covers all bases and you can get it today for a special price of £259 instead of the usual £329. View the full article

Digital artists and graphic designers have been spoilt for choice with 2018's Black Friday deals, and these Wacom tablets are the latest discounts to grab our attention. Courtesy of Amazon, you can now save over 30% on medium Wacom Intuos Pen tablets in a choice of two colours. This means that you can now pick up one of these devices for just £109.99. At these prices we don't expect stocks to last long, so don't hang around - if you like the look of it, order it! The Intuos Pen Tablet is a new device from Wacom that enables digital creatives to sketch, retouch photos, and share your work with colleagues and clients. And seeing as it comes supplied with either Corel Painter Essentials 6, Clip Studio Paint Pro or Corel Aftershot 3, you'll be armed with everything you need to start bringing your art to life. Also included in this deal is a 4K battery-free Wacom pen. When paired with the tablet's 2,540 lpi resolution, the stylus' 4,096 pressure levels allow artists to work with incredible accuracy. Equipped with Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity, the Wacom Intuos Pen Tablet is compatible with Windows 7 or higher and anything above an OS X 10.11. If you're interested, bear in mind that you've only got today to snap up the Wacom Intuos Pen tablet at this amazing price. If you're looking for your first 'proper' pen tablet, you can't go wrong with these models. Popular with digital creatives thanks to their slimline design and sturdy build, the Wacom Intuos Pen tablets are intuitive to use and save you worrying about battery life. And at this knock-down price, you can't go wrong. Still not certain if this is the Wacom device for you? Fret not. We've rounded up a whole range of Wacom Black Friday deals to help you find the perfect drawing tablet. Related articles: The best drawing tablet for kids 2018 The best drawing tablet: our pick of the best graphics tablets in 2018 The best tablets with a stylus for drawing and note-taking View the full article

So the biggest shopping event of the year is upon us, which is great for designers in need of a new laptop or monitor. But what you might not know is that there's also some great Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals to be had on creative software. Yes, it's not just the prices of hardware that have been slashed this weekend, there are also top deals on everything from photo editing apps to productivity software, and everything inbetween. Here are the best creative software deals for artists and designers available right now. Best Black Friday Adobe deals Best Black Friday Corel deals Best Black Friday productivity software deals Best Black Friday animation software deals View the full article

Last month, Adobe held it's annual Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles. And what an event it was. Across a creativity-filled three days, the Adobe team wowed audiences with some seriously impressive innovations, not least with announcements on the next generation of its Creative Cloud apps. An almost 15,000-strong audience sat in awe as Adobe project leads revealed major updates to the company's flagship titles, including Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Premiere Pro CC and Adobe XD. And even more excitement filled the room when Premiere Rush CC, Adobe's first all-in-one, easy-to-use video editing app, was introduced, swiftly followed by the preview of two new apps, Photoshop for iPad and Project Gemini, a new drawing app driven by Adobe's new AI Sensei technology. The magic of MAX To celebrate the innovation unveiled at Adobe MAX 2018 and the upcoming CC release, Adobe is hosting an exclusive event in London on 28 November, which will bring together some of the most creative minds in the UK. And you can be there too via Adobe's live stream. Attendees will get to spend the evening being inspired by TED-style talks from luminary speakers, among them, Patricia Bright, one of the fastest-growing lifestyle YouTubers in the UK with a following of over three million spanning the globe. Multi-award-winning Bright is a self-made entrepreneur, having launched a hugely popular beauty product with MAC Cosmetics. Completing the impressive line-up is MinaLima, the graphic design duo of the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts film series, and Rufus Deuchler, Principal Manager of Creative Cloud Evangelism at Adobe, who will demonstrate how you can use Adobe’s next generation of Creative Cloud tools in your next creative project. Trust us when we say this will be an evening of inspiration you won't want to miss. So mark 1900 (GMT) on the 28 November in your diary, bookmark the live stream and join us and some of the UK's brightest minds at the Adobe Creative Meetup, right here on 28 November. View the full article

Skyhooks and stripy paint. Literally making something out of nothing. Sounds like a classic agency swindle doesn’t it? Only it’s not. It’s a very real and highly critical emerging issue that everyone in our sector needs to address, now. It may well be the future of the entire industry. What was once the stuff of Minority Report is happening in our living rooms. Amazon is close to releasing drones that will make haulage vanish from the street, with factories of invisible workers who will never need to commute, alongside the invisible drivers of autonomous vehicles. And the landscape of channels in which brands can communicate has transformed too. Traditional branding, with systems anchored in visual mediums and static logo design, is over. Even supposedly ‘cross-platform’ or ‘tech-ready’ versions are almost obsolete. We now communicate with brands on levels that go beyond words and pictures Over the past few years, we have all been communicating with brands on a much deeper level that goes far beyond words and pictures – Visa’s slick haptic and sonic devices, the dulcet tones of Alexa and Siri, and the olfactory experience present in Emirates’ first-class cabins. Brands now have intelligent identities that reach all the senses and stimulate new kinds of conversation. It’s exciting, but why does all of this sometimes result in brands that feel ordinary, dull even? It’s all about mindset. Relentless optimisation Tech has made life easier. It cuts out the nonsense, delivering a phenomenal number of benefits that are much needed. But by smoothing out the bumps, and relentlessly optimising, it can cloak life’s tough – and important – bits. It makes the real complexity of our journeys less visible. If we import that thinking into brand building, it leads us to weird territory. When our lives are frictionless and seamless, we lose the unpredictability. This gives us less of the good stuff that happens by accident. Less surprise, less delight. When our lives are frictionless we lose the unpredictability... Less surprise, less delight There’s much to be learned from the incremental sprint mentality of engineers, but there’s more to creating a meaningful brand than simply getting to a minimum viable product. Just because a product works doesn’t mean its brand automatically does too. The creative process benefits from leaps of faith. The Windows Metro interface risked cheesing people off at launch but, years later, the logic of blending laptop and tablet interfaces makes total sense – so much so that it now feels prescient. The recent, divisive Lush Spy Cops campaign and the launch of Dirty Lemon, an order-by-text-only soft drink, has got everyone talking. All this is to say that when taken, leaps of ambition can pay off exponentially. Highly considered incremental gains can work brilliantly well for testing product but, for brand, they can push us toward the lowest common denominator, until eventually everything can start to look, feel and behave the same. Customers order bottles of Dirty Lemon by text only The Dropbox and eBay refreshes appeared at the same time as each other, and at times felt interchangeable. Flat gradient graphics might look better on smartphone screens, but we need more. Good design makes the world a more beautiful place, and if it’s driven by a clear brand purpose and built on a kick-ass product or service, it makes the world more interesting to boot. When these things come together, they express uniqueness and provide a powerful reason for being. IBM’s Watson – a question-answering computer system – is a masterclass in all of the pieces working in concert. Headspace is another example. Far from being a one-dimensional voiceover, it’s a rich world of illustration and motion that’s brimming with character and confidence. Brand alchemy So, who is responsible for making this alchemy happen? Product teams, marketing teams, brand teams, agencies? I’d say all and none. Brand-led thinking should criss-cross the fabric of an organisation, and everyone should put thought into how it influences design and product, from the frontline staff, all the way up to the CEO. Tesla achieves this. With its Easter eggs built into product, launch theatre and gloriously flippant tone of voice it becomes way more than an electric car manufacturer. It is one of one. Putting a car in space may not have had any practical uses (for now, anyway), but this wasn’t just a stunt. It was a true manifestation of intent, and a spectacle in its own right. It’s pure brand that is innovative and gets people talking. If we were feeling especially brave, internal brand teams would be disbanded immediately As a rule of thumb, companies often still stick ‘brand’ in a silo, headed up by a marketing lead, rather than framing it as a cross-functional discipline. If we were feeling especially brave, internal brand teams would be disbanded immediately. They would be replaced by an adaptable task force who can have a genuine impact on the things that matter, at source. It might appear basic to suggest that organisations need to talk to each other more, but the amount of fragmentation I have seen, personally, is staggering. The irony in all this is that technology is infinitely capable of making brands more vibrant, exciting, joyful, beautiful and human. By using the power, reach and intelligence of the technology we have at our disposal in an unfettered way, us creative types can make future years a golden era for branding. Tesla's approach is innovative and gets people talking The mind-bending madness of teams like Boston Dynamics proves we are on the cusp of big things – but we need to continuing being brave where possible. We need to embrace radical invention and harness our glorious naivety to make things the world never knew it needed. We also need to ask ourselves tougher questions. In a world of #MeToo, why must a voice assistant sound like a breathless movie star? How can we make machine learning inspire the design process, even if jobs are lost? What happens if we go against A/B testing, just because the result might be cooler? The things we create should not only offer answers, they should get the world asking even more questions. To get the most out of any technology, we must push it to breaking point and beyond, because the things at the edge have a higher chance of staying the course. The rules of this new era are yet to be written, and the truly brave designers will make sure they never are. This article was originally published in Computer Arts, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 284 or subscribe. Read more: 4 huge design trends we'll be seeing more of in 2019 How to make a brand more human 4 ads that tried to be cool, but failed View the full article

In a broad arena like illustration, which stretches across national borders and multiple media (from packaging design to posters, newsprint to digital, boxes and billboards, print ads and beyond), identifying trends accurately is a bit of a minefield. But with that said, looking back on 2018, we still believe it's possible to pull out some broad themes about what kind of illustration has been in demand from clients. (Whether you approve of them or not, well that's a different story.) So in this post, we point to five big trends in the world of illustration that have both dominated the past year and look likely to influence the next one, too. We're not saying you need to follow these trends yourself, but it's certainly handy to know that they exist... 01. Bright colours and simple shapes Packaging designs for pasta brand Barilla by Olimpia Zagnoli When it comes to branding, advertising and packaging, the overwhelming trend in graphic design this year has been for simplification and reduction. So it’s not surprising that that spirit has carried over to the world of illustration as well. “The most notable trend I’ve seen in packaging design this year is a move towards cleaner and more iconic packs,” says Patrice O’Shea, design director at Design Bridge London. Step Design’s packaging for A Piece of Lovely Cake "With the rise of niche, start-up challenger brands that are seen as more ethical, the big corporate brands are having to re-think their marketing and creative strategies to respond to the consumer need for greater transparency," he continues. "Brands are removing unnecessary claims in a bid to be more single minded, simultaneously making them work more effectively on shelf and in ecommerce.” While that doesn’t necessarily mean ruling out an illustrated approach, it does mean that where illustration is used, it’s often based around bold, simple shapes and strong colours. Meroo Seth’s packaging designs for Rico Chico chocolate Italian illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli’s work for pasta brand Barilla is a clear example, as is Illume's revamp of Target’s fragrance aisle; the packaging for puff pastry brand A Piece of Lovely Cake by Chinese agency Step Design; the limited edition Coke can, themed on a Big Mac, by Brazilian agency DPZ&T; and Meroo Seth’s packaging designs for Rico Chico chocolate. This trend is sure to continue and strengthen in 2019, but O’Shea urges caution. “Sometimes, the stripped-back aesthetic can end up becoming overly simplified,” he warns. “In a world saturated with own label and copycat brands, you still need to establish a distinctive and ownable visual brand language that emotionally connects with consumers to ensure that you stand out from the crowd.” 02. Organic and handmade Poster by Rebecca Sutherland for Heathrow Express While colourful, geometric, 2D vector art still dominates the landscape, there’s been somewhat of a counter-trend, in the form of illustration that's organic, hand-drawn and hand-crafted (or at least feels that way, even if it was created digitally). “We live in a super-digital world, which means there are tons of designs that are super-clean, sharp and sleek,” says Andrea Stan, aka Mky, a graphic designer and lettering artist. “But there is just such beauty in a hand-drawn piece, with all of its imperfections. And in 2018 I've noticed a repeating pattern in style preferences from clients, in that they seem to be attracted to things that look organic and human made." Animal Spirit by Maxim Shkret It’s a trend that can be seen in the book cover art of Charlotte Edey , which is imbued with an earthy sense of the hand-drawn; the editorial illustrations of Maëlle Doliveuxand, beautifully constructed out of layers of colour paper; the striking work of Maxim Shkret, whose animal illustrations are modelled in CG but look like intricate paper art; and even corporate designs such as Rebecca Sutherland’s posters for Heathrow Express, featuring illustrations physically constructed from upcycled train rubbish. Illustrated by Charlotte Edey, The Spirit Almanac is published by Penguin Random House “Hair, trees, skyline and clouds are all elements that can add an organic playfulness to your designs,” notes Gerard Keely, the freelance illustrator also know as Spoon Lancer. “Wobbly shapes are used to frame illustrations, and look great especially when placed beside text.” 03. Quirky and abstract Universal Sketch Support designed by Jan Vu Nam for Avocode As another reaction to the dominance of bright, shiny 2D vector art, could we be seeing a return for abstract illustration in 2019? “Right now, more and more illustrators are mixing images, textures, shapes and lines to create fun abstract designs,” says Keely. “It’s a style where anything goes and abstraction is king; it looks great as long as you get the balance right.” The trend can be seen in packaging, such as Thirst’s organic visuals for Commonwealth Brewing Co, or Gander’s trippy illustrations for Misfit Juicery. But it’s perhaps most significant arena for growth is in interface design, where consumers may well be tiring of identikit vector graphics everywhere. Intercom's website is dominated by abstract illustrations While ‘don’t trip up the user’ is still the go-to guideline for app and web developers, some brave brands are starting to experiment with something more visually interersting. Take Janis Andzans' illustrations for Avocode, or Intercom's website, which is plastered with dramatically abstract illustrations. Website illustrations for Adobe's Creative Cloud And most significantly, Adobe's Creative Cloud has taken a much more abstract approach to their website illustration (shown above), which really show it pushing the envelope visually beyond the same old vector icons we're all getting bored of looking at. Now the tech giant behind Photoshop and Illustrator has shown the way, we're putting money on the fact that other digital platforms will follow suit in 2019. 04. Playful and fun Postcard by Design Lad to celebrate World Vegan Day Since the tumultuous world events of 2016, there’s been an observable trend for dystopian and depressing themes in many illustrators’ work. But in 2018 there were signs that some people are getting tired of all that, and that a sense of playful fun might be back on the menu. 3D illustrator Design Lad’s hiliarious postcards to celebrate World Vegan Day (above) were a case in point, as was Andrea Johansson’s illustrated homage to our guilty food pleasures (below). Andrea Johansson pays homage to our love of steak There was fun to be had, too, in the quirky characters of Stina Jones, the comic-book stylings of Seb Agresti and the pop culture energy of Dennis de Groot, aka Punchdouble. Bar for Monicker Art Fair by Egle Zvirblyte Not to mention the childlike glee of Sam Hinton, the multicoloured creations of Richard Keeling, and the wonderfully zany and OTT world of Egle Zvirblyte. In 2019, will it be finally time when we can kick back and have a little fun again, in illustration as well as life in general? We certainly hope so... 05. '90s style Illustration by Lauren Carney for Happy Socks "As an illustrator attracted to vintage and retro-style I couldn't help noticing that one of the biggest trends of 2018 has been a roaring sprout of 1980s and 1990s inspired illustrations," says Italian designer Massimiliano Emili. Fashion has been leading this trend, with 1980s style references abounding everywhere from streetwear to high fashion for the last few years. And more recently, that influence has bled into illustration and graphic design in general, in the form of what Emili describes as "wild use of bright and loud colour combinations, often including neons, light blue, teal, pink, peach and light orange. This trend is also evident in the use of solid lines and solid colours, as well as camcorder VHS glitch effects in web design illustrations." Shin Morae's illustrations are strongly inspired by '90s anime However, Emili believes that that right now, 1980s-inspired illustration is rapidly giving way to 1990s illustration. "A large part of both designers and design targets were kids or teenagers in the '90s," he points out. "And this revival speaks directly to their hearts, hitting their emotional chords and winning their interest, as it does with me, a guy born and raised in the 1980s." Pop Girl by Dutch illustrator Xaviera Altena Georgian designer and artist Nikta Savinov agrees. “Nineties, early 2000s, brutalism, rave and web 1.0 aesthetics are in style now across both illustration and design," she says. "Colour palettes are limited; monochromatic and single-colour designs are on top of the game. You can see lots of typographic and geometric compositions, from minimalistic to super overloaded; patterns made from simple geometric figures or repeating texts (logos or slogans); patterns from abstract, irregular shapes and forms." Read more: 6 huge logo design trends for 2019 Typography trends in 2019 to look out for The best Christmas gifts for illustrators View the full article