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So, you want to download Instagram photos? Maybe you've accidentally deleted the original of the fantastic shot you uploaded to Instagram, or heaven forbid, lost your phone or camera. Maybe you used the in-app camera and didn’t save a copy, or perhaps you want to reference or repost an image from someone else’s feed and they can’t locate the original. Whatever the reason, here’s a complete guide to your options for getting content from Instagram onto your Mac, PC or phone. While it’s easy to post images to Instagram, it’s not quite so simple to download them. Here we’ll look at all the options, from downloading your entire history to finding the source code for individual images or using third party apps. Use the links on the right to jump to the section you're after. If you'd like to enhance your pictures before uploading them to Instagram, you'll need to know about the best photo editing apps. For more Insta tips, you can also see our guide to how to change the font in your Instagram bio. When downloading Instagram images, please respect image ownership and bear in mind that while some of these methods allow other users’ images to be downloaded, we recommend always seeking permission and giving credit where due. For more info on copyright on Instagram, see our article on how to repost on Instagram. Download Instagram photos to a PC or Mac Instagram offers no native method to download individual images from your feed, but it does allow you to download your account’s entire history, including all the photos and videos you’ve uploaded as posts or stories. This, the only “official” way to download your stuff, was introduced due to privacy concerns following controversies at parent company Facebook, and it provides you with a link to download your data. You can also request the file through the app: go to your profile, tap the menu icon in the upper right-hand corner and choose 'Settings'. Select 'Security', 'Download Data', type in your email and password, then tap 'Request Download'. Save a photo from Instagram to a PC or Mac using the source code If you don’t want the hassle of downloading your entire history and wading through perhaps better forgotten posts to find a specific photo, or if you need an image from someone else’s feed having received their permission, you can download individual images by turning to the code. Bookmark images on Instagram If you just want to be able to find an image again rather than use it elsewhere, you might find it’s enough to bookmark it. You can bookmark any image on Instagram, whether from an account you follow or not, and you can neatly organise bookmarked images into separate folders for ideas and inspirations, wish lists, dream holiday destinations or whatever you choose – don’t worry, no one else can see your bookmarks. Download images on Instagram with third-party options If you need the image off Instagram and the first options above sound too fiddly or time consuming, there’s a plethora of third party options offering workarounds to download your own images and others’. Bear in mind that some of these require access to your account data, while others rely on heavy advertising. If possible we’d advise using the previous solutions, but if you want the convenience, these are some of the most popular options. DownloadGram DownloadGram is one of the most attractive third party options in terms of security since it doesn’t require software installation, plus it can be used on both computers and mobiles. The downside is that you can only download one image at a time. On a mobile device: open the Instagram app and find the photo you want, tap the three dots icon and choose 'copy link', then do as above. Other options include FastSave for Instagram, which offers a faster app-based option for downloading individual images to an Android phone with no copying or pasting needed, but you need to allow the app to access your data and the ads can be annoying. Download multiple images If you want to download more than one image at a time, you’re limited to using third party software, with 4K Stogram and Save-o-gram being two of the most used. 4K Stogram 4K Stogram allows you to download in bulk 4K Stogram allows you to subscribe to a username, hashtag or even a location to download in bulk every public image it finds under that tag with no need to sign into instagram, but while it’s free to subscribe to a couple of feeds, you’ll need to pay $10 for a license for unlimited use and chances are you’ll find yourself downloading a ton of images that don’t interest you. Download and install 4K Stogram on your computer, open the program then type an Instagram username, hashtag, or location into the search bar. Click Subscribe, and the programme will search and automatically start downloading everything it finds - you’ll find the images piling up in the 4K Stogram folder in your computer in subfolders for each search you entered. Save-o-gram Save-o-gram lets you be more selective with your downloads If you need to be more selective, Save-o-gram allows images to be downloaded images all at once as a zip file or individually and charges a one-off $9 after a seven-day trial. Download Instagram Stories Instagram makes it much easier to download your own stories – the image or video plus any stickers or text you’ve overlaid. Just click on the three vertical dots at the bottom right of the story and choose 'Save photo'. You can find old stories by going to your profile, clicking on the menu icon and selecting 'Archive'. (See our guide to using Instagram Stories here.) If you want a Story from someone else’s account – and some photographers specifically share pictures for use as wallpaper by this means – you can save it by taking a screenshot. The trick to hold down one finger on the screen while you do so to remove the Instagram UI and get a clean shot. Just tap and hold anywhere on the screen so the overlay fades away, which also pauses the story giving you time to take the screenshot. With a little finger yoga, keep you finger held down while you take the screenshot, whether that’s by pressing volume up and lock on an iPhone X, the power and home buttons on a Samsung Galaxy, or power and volume down on a Google Pixel. Again bear in mind potential copyright issues if considering taking a screenshot of someone else’s work. Read more: 10 must-know Instagram tips for creatives 9 agencies to follow on Instagram 7 ways to make your studio more Instagram-friendly View the full article

Images, and therefore image file formats, are a big part of many creatives' lives. As a designer, one of the most common questions I get asked is, 'what file format do you want?' closely followed by, 'will this do?' With such a diverse array of options, and names that would have Scrabble champions reaching for the dictionary, it’s no wonder that the world of image file formats can be a little overwhelming. Learning the standard file formats is essential if you want the highest quality images at the smallest file sizes – using the wrong one can be disastrous, even if you've got one of the best cameras. What you're ultimately going to use the image for will largely determine the choice of file format – ask yourself what quality you need, whether the image will be resized, how quickly you or others will need to upload/open it, and how much space you have to work with. This article explains the need-to-know basics and lists 10 of the most common formats you’re likely to come across. But first, we'll take a look at the differences between raster and vector images. Raster vs vector images The vector circle on the left has clean, sharp edges, while the raster circle on the right has jagged edges when scaled up Broadly speaking you can separate image files into two major types – raster and vector. Both can be produced on computers (see our best computers for graphic design if you need an upgrade) and are equally useful in the right situations, but there are some big differences between the two. Raster images (sometimes referred to as bitmap) are pixel-based, meaning the image is composed of a grid of pixels, collectively forming a larger image. You can observe this by magnifying any photographic image in print or digital – you will see lots of coloured squares (RGB in digital and CMYK in print). Raster images are used for complex images that have smooth gradients of colour and undefined edges, such as photographs. The downside is that they are dependent on resolution, suffering from image degradation and loss of detail when scaled up. Raster images can be described as lossy or lossless, terms that refer to the compression they use. Lossy compression removes pixels to produce a close match to the image, while lossless uses exact reproductions of the original image. Common raster file formats include JPEG, PSD, PNG and TIFF. If you want to learn more about resolution and resizing raster graphics, read our piece on how to resize images in Photoshop. Vector images are mathematical calculations, rendered in the form of geometric paths, created purely on a computer. Because their form is defined by a set of mathematical parameters, they can be scaled up and down without any loss of quality. As a consequence you will often find these being used for logos, icons and fonts, which are expected to be flexible given any situation. Examples of vector file formats are AI, EPS and SVG. The 10 most common image formats 01. JPEG USED FOR: Taking photos in camera, uploading to the web, sharing on social media. Can be used for printing, so long as it’s in the final stage and no further editing is required. PROS: Widely used and compatible with most software. Low file size, so saves space on memory cards. Offers some control over the amount of compression. CONS: Lossy compression. Suffers from generational degradation, where an image is repeatedly edited and saved. Layers are flattened, so cannot go back and edit. Does not save transparency. Because JPEGs produce such low file sizes, you can fit more photos on your memory card (so long as you don't plan on any heavy editing afterwards) JPEGs are the ‘sliced white’ of the image world, being the most common and widespread format, both in all kinds of cameras (see our best camera phones here) and across the web. They use ‘lossy compression’ to remove unwanted pixels and achieve smaller file sizes. JPG and JPEG are both acceptable and interchangeable file extensions – an artefact of the ongoing Windows vs Mac rivalry. (Not to be confused with JPEG 2000, an updated but rarely used format). 02. TIFF USED FOR: High quality graphics – popular in the publishing industry and for graphic artists. Also useful for photo editing and archiving images. PROS: Lossless format. A variety of compression options. Can have multiple pages and retains layers. Supported by lots of apps. Can save images with transparency. CONS: Very large file sizes, larger than RAW and JPEG. Not all applications support multi-page TIFFs. TIFF is a lossless graphics container, meaning it does not compress images or lose any information (unless specifically required to). This produces high-quality images with the drawback of larger file sizes. 03. PNG USED FOR: Most popular for use on the web. Optimised for screen, so not ideal for print. PROS: Supports more colours than GIF. Compresses without losing quality. Can save images with transparency. CONS: Larger file sizes than jpgs. Limited to RGB colour space. PNGs retain transparency when saved, but work better on digital rather than print Initially designed to replace GIFs (see below), PNG is another format designed for lossless image compression, which makes it good for photographs and text documents. 04. GIF USED FOR: Web images, especially animated banners and memes. PROS: Quick loading. Can be animated. Lossless. Small file size. Can save images with transparency. CONS: Limited colour palette (maximum of 256). Does not support CMYK. For a long time was not patent-free, but is now. GIF (pronounced jif, apparently) was used on early internet due to its ability to compress images into very small file sizes. It has subsequently been overtaken by JPEGs, but has found its niche in banner ads and social media memes. 05. PSD USED FOR: Creating print or digital Photoshop projects. Photo editing. These days a lot of printers will accept PSDs. PROS: Supports transparencies. Saves any edits or adjustments. Can work with vector and raster images. CONS: Not good support for web or printers. Can quickly grow into large file sizes. PSD files are perfect for Photoshop projects that require multiple layers and complex editing. A multi-layered image format that literally stands for Photoshop Document. PSDs are extremely versatile and allow editing to be saved and returned to later on. For more on using Photoshop, don't miss our Photoshop tutorials. 06. RAW USED FOR: Professional photography, where the photographers want to perform their own edits. PROS: Very good for photo editing as retains all information at high quality. CONS: Large file sizes, so fills up memory card quicker than other image file formats. Not compatible with all photo editing software, may need converting first. Many printers will not accept RAW. Digital cameras offer this as the closest alternative to film quality. RAW is uncompressed and untouched by the camera, meaning minimal loss of information. Each camera make has their own version of RAW (such as CR2, NEF, DNG) and they are all similar, despite using different file extensions. 07. EPS USED FOR: Vector artwork, illustrations, logos, icons. PROS: Can be used at any size. Largely universal format, so can be viewed in many applications. Can be easily converted into raster graphics. CONS: Can only be edited in certain illustration apps. Some printers may have issues with eps files. Can often contain a raster image, disguised as a vector file. No longer in development. EPS is a legacy vector graphic standard, supported by most illustration apps. Can contain vector graphics, raster images or text. 08. SVG USED FOR: Good for responsive website designs. Import into 3D software. PROS: Allows vector, raster and text. Can be interactive and include animation. Remains crisp when resized, so can optimise file size. Can be added directly to HTML without image link and styled with CSS. Search indexed and compressed easily. CONS: Not good for images with high colour depth. Not optimised for print. SVGs are handy for importing graphics from 2D illustration apps to 3D modelling software such as Blender XML-based vector image for 2D graphics and web publishing. SVGs are also handy for importing graphics from 2D illustration apps to 3D modelling software such as Blender (see our best 3D modelling software roundup). 09. PDF USED FOR: Documents. Often preferred by printers. PROS: Can display vector graphics, raster and text. Can be exported from many applications. Can contain multiple pages and interactive elements. CONS: Limited to Windows and Mac OS. Difficult to edit. Often not integrated for viewing on web pages. PDF is the almost universal standard for documents and graphics. 10. BMP USED FOR: Largely outdated, used in Windows OS. PROS: No compression. Supported by almost every system. CONS: Relatively large file size. Does not support CMYK. Can’t be compressed. BMP is an old raster file format, developed by Microsoft, to store files in a device-independent format. It's not to be confused with the more general term bitmap, which describes a map of pixels (of which .bmp is included). Read more: How to compress images: a web designer's guide 9 tools to help you work remotely as a freelancer How to prepare a file for print View the full article

Ask any digital artist and most will confirm the rendering stage to be the most complex, time consuming and often costly of a 3D pipeline. Until now. Introducing RebusFarm, a high-quality, affordable rendering service that integrates directly with leading 3D applications including Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Blender and Modo. In operation for over 13 years, the RebusFarm team have been developing its software since 2006 to deliver a simple-to-use, highly efficient and cost-effective rendering solution to artists and designers all over the globe. And now the arrival of RebusFarm 3.0 makes the rendering experience even easier and more accessible than ever before. The newly updated software both simplifies and enhances your 3D workflow via a number of key features: Farminizer The Farminizer plugin, which connects your chosen 3D software to the render farm, has been given a complete overhaul and now boasts new control elements, an intuitive design and workflow improvements: New batch render/takes - Uploading a scene just to change the camera is now a thing of the past. Simply send the render job with multiple cameras and get different renderings for all selected cameras at once. New render cost estimation – avoid additional costs with RebusFarm’s new precise cost estimation tool. New Design – An all-new design, the Farminizer plugin now adopts the feel of your 3D software, embedding itself seamlessly as well as adding new interactive elements to help aid workflow Pre-Upload – Send your assets upfront to reduce upload time by up to 90%. Enhanced workflow – Farminizer has been optimised in terms of finding and auto correcting errors, significantly reducing user warnings. RebusDrop The administrator behind all render jobs submitted by the Farminizer plugin, RebusDrop automatically uploads jobs and downloads rendered images to a local folder on your PC. RebusFarm 3.0 sees RebusDrop highly optimised in terms of both speed and stability: Faster up-and downloads – RebusDrop automatically optimises transfer protocols and uses the best fitting mode according to your internet access for fastest file up and downloads. Highest stability - Highly robust and optimised performance, RebusDrop will always perform, even with unstable internet connection. ControlCenter A web-based management interface, the RebusFarm ControlCenter allows you to manage and monitor rendering jobs via real-time updates and reports, even when you’re out and about. RebusFarm 3.0 introduces a number of improvements and functions to enhance that experience, including: New Playback – The new preview of the ControlCenter makes viewing and managing every layer of a render job a cinch. See finished frames in your preview window immediately and the complete animation by moving your cursor across the preview window. New Resubmission – Gone are the days when you need to re-render a scene due to slight changes. Now you are able to re-render without having to upload the entire job again. Resubmission is just one click away in the new ControlCenter and your modified job will start to render again. Find your local files – Open the directory to your local files from your automatically downloaded renderings with just one click. Responsiveness – The design of the entire ControlCenter is responsive, so you can manage your jobs directly from your smartphone. Available to all You’d be forgiven for thinking all of these impressive features come at a huge cost, but RebusFarm’s prices offer an option for everyone. Starting at a very affordable 1.06p per GHz hour, RebusFarm also offers discounts of up to 60 per cent via its RenderPoints scheme, making it accessible to all.. Check out the video below to see some of the new features in action, and visit the RebusFarm website for more information on the all-new RebusFarm 3.0, available now. View the full article

In many ways, working in web design in 2019 has never been more challenging. But on the positive side, there have never been so many free resources out there to help you. There are tons of free design assets on the web you can use to speed up the process of building websites, including free UI kits, free icon sets and free fonts. Plus if you need to learn new skills or improve your existing ones, there are some great books that have been made absolutely free to read. In this post, we round up some of our favourite freebies for web designers. So we’d recommend you bookmark this page, as you never know when they might come in handy! On this page you'll find UI kits, followed by free icons, free fonts, and free ebooks. Use the drop-down above to jump straight to a particular section. UI kits When it comes to building websites in 2019, there’s absolutely no point in reinventing the wheel again and again. Web designers across the world have been kind enough to share the assets they’ve created for their own projects to make yours easier. So why not take advantage, and save yourself time and energy. Here are some of the best free UI kits to come to our attention recently… 01. Shards Shards is a lightweight UI kit that's built for performance Created by DesignRevision, Shards is a free responsive UI toolkit based on Bootstrap 4. Built with performance in mind, it features a modern design system with every component designed from scratch and enhanced with smooth micro-interactions, as well as two pre-built landing pages. It supports both Material and Font Awesome icon packs, and the developers have included the original Sketch and SCSS files in case you want to customise the kit to meet your particular needs. 02. A not so brutalist webkit Add a bit of brutalism to your designs Brutalist web design may have had its day as a movement, but many of its notable elements have swiftly become absorbed into mainstream web design. A bit of a brutalist touch is a great way to give a site a modern edge; this brutalist webkit, consisting of 70 free artboards, will help you get the look. 03. UI Components A great set of charts, graphs and other components This free UI kit contains a selection of 3D charts, graphs and other UI components created by Balraj Chana. All these components are vector-based and fully editable, so you can easily plug them into your dashboards or mobile app designs. 04. Landing A set of Sketch and Photoshop components to help you build sites faster Landing is a free UI kit from LStore Graphics. It’s packed with handcrafted UI components to speed up your website building, for Sketch and Photoshop. 14 fabulous tutorials to improve your logo design 05. Visage This free kit contains more than 70 components for Photoshop across seven categories Visage is a free UI kit for Adobe Photoshop from Bostan Florin that contains 70+ UI components for building websites. It presents these in seven categories: Blog, E-Commerce, Media, Admin, Forms, Headers and Footers. 06. Chat Build a chat app with this bespoke UI kit Chat is a free cross-platform UI kit from InVision app, designed to help you create an elegant chat app. It includes 60 templates, 12 categories and 80 UI components for web, tablet, and mobile. 07. Browser UI Kit A kit designed to help you create screenshots with a blank browser UI As the name suggests, Browser UI Kit is a vector UI kit allowing you to easily create website screenshots with a default blank browser UI. Designed by Keir Ansell, it includes Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Edge. 08. Basiliq Create beautiful mockups with these hand-crafted vector shapes Here’s something a little different: Basiliq is a UI kit containing more than 300 hand-crafted vector shapes for Photoshop, which you can use to create beautiful looking mockups. Watch the video on their homepage to see how they all fit together. 09. Prometheus Create any kind of website with this clean and simple kit Prometheus is a clean and simple UI kit for creating any type of website, including blogs, online shops, and personal pages. The work of Vid Kraljic Radulovic, it includes more than 150 vector-based design elements in 10 categories. 10. Overlap UI A minimalist, component-based UI kit built on Bootstrap Overlap is a modern, minimalist, component-based UI kit that’s aimed at helping you create a clean and stylish website. Built on a 12-column Bootstrap grid system by Vlad Cristea and Raul Taciu, it comes in two file formats: PSD and AI. 11. Flat UI Free A variety of flat components to build a sleek looking website Based on Bootstrap 3, Flat UI Free is a free UI kit containing such components as buttons, inputs, button groups, selects, checkboxes, radio-buttons, tags, menus, progress bars and sliders, navigation elements and more. 12. Mac OS UI kit A UI kit for macOS, designed exclusively for Sketch Another free download from Keir Ansell, this is a comprehensive and precisely designed macOS UI kit, designed exclusively for Sketch. Each primary UI element is a Sketch Symbol (using the Symbol Override features) to allow for easy editing and reuse. Next page: 12 free icon sets Everyone loves a good icon, and it can be a lot of fun designing your own. But sometimes you just don’t have the time or budget to do so. Luckily, the web is full of free icon sets to help you out and speed things up. Here are some of our favourites... 13. Social Materia Grab 34 flat social media icons for free These free icons from IcoJam are beautifully flat and cover pretty much all the social media platforms you can think of, in all the sizes and file types you're likely to need. If you want even more icons in the same style, the full Materia set, consisting of 3,120 vector icons, is available for just $42. 14. Icons8 iCon8 has 91,000 free icons waiting for you For a vast set of visually-consistent icons, take a look at the Icons8 collection. It has 91,000 free icons available to download or embed, in PNG and editable SVG format. Most of its icon packs are created in-house so they'll work together nicely, whichever style you need. 15. UXPin icon set More than 80 icons for web and mobile design From the makers of UX design platform UXPin comes a diverse and attractive suite of 80+ icons for web and mobile UI design. In addition to PDF and Adobe Illustrators files, there are SVGs, PSDs and PNGs in the mix. 16. Aganè Icons 100 icons themed around signage and wayfinding Aganè Icons is a free set of 100 icons themed around signage systems and urban graphic systems. This set was created by Danilo de Marco and Giulia Gambino to accompany the Aganè font (see 30). 17. CSS Icon These icons are pure CSS CSS Icon is a free icon set made with pure CSS, with no dependencies. There are 152 "grab and go" icons, all created by Wenting Zhang. You can learn more about the project in the video below. 18. Collecticons A cool collection of crisp and fresh icons Collecticons is an ever-growing collection of crisp icons (141 at time of writing), which are all free to download. The work of Development Seed, some of the icons were designed/built on top of libraries such as icoMoon by Keyamoon, and others that were made in-house. 19. Mex-icons This free set contains a selection of bright and colourful Mexican themed icons These bright and colourful Mexican themed icons are available as .png, .eps & ai files, in both colour and outline format. They’re the work of Texas-based Inkbyte Studios, and free to download for your web design projects. 20. 30 Isometric Icon Set 30 flat isometric icons in various PNG sizes This free collection includes 30 flat isometric icons in various PNG sizes. Created by Iconshock, they’re all fully editable and customisable in Illustrator. 21. Socialoha! Icons A whopping bundle of 756 social medial icons This multi-style set of 756 social media icons comes from Iconshock. These free icons are available as editable Illustrator .ai files, web-ready .svg files, and transparent pngs in several sizes. Note that these icons are free for personal use only. 22. Flat Line UX and Ecommerce icons Two icons sets covering user experience and ecommerce Here, Smashing Magazine has brought together two free icon sets crafted by the design team at Ecommerce Website Design. The Flat Line User Experience Icon Set contain 45 icons with a retro discreet feel, while the E-Commerce Linear Icon Set features 38 linear icons depicting the likes of signs, shops, clothes, barcodes and currencies. 23. Animated flat emojis A diverse set of animated emoji icons This free icon set features 28 animated emojis that are fully vector-based and can be easily scaled, but can also be used as pre-made GIF-animations in 3 sizes: 32x32, 64x64 and 100x100. 24. Bank and money icons Free icons themed on business and finance This free set features 36 flat-style bank and money icons. Created by Vecteezy.com, they include a range of finance-themed pictograms, from credit card to piggy banks. Next page: 10 free fonts When it comes to typography, it’s usually a false economy to try to save money on fonts; you’re really better off paying for a professionally-designed font that’s going to make your site sing. Having said that, there are some free fonts out there that are as good as the paid-for ones, so discount a font just because it’s free. Here are some of the most interesting free fonts to have grabbed our attention recently... 25. Merriweather Merriweather's a great-looking serif designed for readability Designed to be read comfortably on screens, Merriweather is a font family with a large x height, slightly condensed letterforms, a mild diagonal stress and sturdy serifs. Available in plenty of weights, it's an open-source project led by Massachusetts foundry, Sorkin Type; there's also a sans-serif version, Merriweather Sans. 26. Work Sans Work Sans is inspired by early Grotesques Designed by Wei Huang, Work Sans is a type family that's loosely based on early Grotesque fonts, optimised for screen resolutions with simplified features and larger diacritics. It's available in all the weights you'll need from Thin through to a super-heavy Black; there's also a desktop version available at the project's Github page. 27. Cornera A unique font for eye-catching designs Cornera is a unique font that can be used in eye catching designs, logos and short bursts of text. Created by Gatis Vilaks of Wild One Design, it’s free for both personal and commercial use. 28. Hamurz Get the hipster look with Hamurz Hamurz is a hipster-style retro typeface with rough edges and rounded shapes. Created by Bagus Budiyanto, it’s free for both personal and commercial use. 29. Fina A thin, fine, modern font Fina is a thin, fine, modern font that’s free for personal and commercial use. It was designed by Yai Salinas exclusively for DesignHooks and is free for both personal and commercial use. 30. Fibon Sans A sans-serif that’s well suited for any display and text use Fibon Sans is a transitional sans-serif type family in six weights. It’s a balanced, low contrast, geometric, highly legible typeface that’s very well suited for any display and text use. Created by Valerio Dell'Edera, it’s free for personal and commercial use. 31. L-7 Stencil Fragmented lettering makes this stencil font really stand out This sans-serif, stencil-style font uses fragmented lettering and rounded terminals to make real impact. Created by Luis Calzadilla, L-7 Stencil is free for personal and commercial use. 32. Shkoder 1989 A 1990s-inspired font for both print and digital Shkoder 1989 is a techy and sporty font, inspired by the 1990s. Combining two weights, it was designed by Julian Hoxhaj and Ana Hoxha and is free for both personal and commercial use. 33. Norwester This geometric font would look great in header designs This condensed geometric sans serif comes with uppercase and small caps, and would look great in header designs. Created by Jamie Wilson, Norwester is free for both personal and commercial use. 34. Aganè A geometric sans that’s optimised for web use Designed by Danilo De Marco, Aganè is a free font that’s ideal for use in the production of user interfaces. The available weights are light, regular, bold and extra bold, and it’s free for personal and commercial use. Next page: 8 free ebooks When it comes to learning web design, there’s nothing better than sitting back with a good book. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to invest in the physical printed edition. There are a ton of great books available online to read for free; here are some of our top picks. 35. A Guide to HTML5 and CSS3 Learn the basics of web development with this free book Authored by technical writer, web developer and programmer Ashley Menhennett, this free book covers the basics of web development and it’s a good starting point whether you wish to build websites, HTML5 mobile apps or games. 36. Speaking JavaScript This free book offers a way to learn JavaScript quickly and properly This book has been written for programmers by a programmer, one Dr. Axel Rauschmayer. Speaking JavaScript is ideal for those who want to learn JavaScript quickly and properly, as well as JavaScript programmers who want to deepen their skills and/or look up specific topics. 37. Pocket Guide to Writing SVG Get started with SVG by reading this free book This guide provides designers and developers with the basic knowledge needed to get started with SVG. It will help you better understand its overall syntax and behaviour through clear examples, and quick descriptions of properties and attributes. 38. PHP: The right way An easy-to-read reference for PHP coding standards Written by Phil Sturgeon and Josh Lockhart, PHP: The Right Way is a regularly updated, easy-to-read, quick reference for popular PHP coding standards, links to authoritative tutorials around the web, and what the contributors consider to be best practices at the present time. 39. Web Design for the Human Eye A practical guide to UI and visual design Get to grips with UI design with this free ebook from the team at UXPin. It distills topics including UI design, interaction design and visual design into practical design advice. 40. Pixel Precision Handbook UsTwo share their advice on digital design This 214-page guide to digital design comes from leading web design studio studio UsTwo. Currently on volume 3, this latest version includes advice on how to get both sides working together more effectively, plus design techniques to ease the transition from pixels to code. 41. Web Design Trends 2019 This free book showcases the best web design techniques This recent release by the makers of UXPin looks at the very latest trends in web design, and includes plenty of examples showcasing the best web design techniques, dozens of visual case studies, and best practices from the top tech companies. 42. Resilient Web Design Leading web designer Jeremy Keith looks back into the history of web design Web designers are mostly occupied by the here and now. But this free book by Jeremy Keith instead takes a look back, in an attempt to combine the most resilient ideas from the history of web design into an approach for building the websites of the future, In short, then, less a handbook and more a history book. View the full article

When you need a stock image for your graphic or web design, Adobe Stock is the place to turn. Integrated seamlessly into the Creative Cloud, it provides you with access to millions of high quality photographs and illustrations, not to mention templates, vectors, video footage and more. But even if you're already using Adobe Stock on a regular basis, you may well be missing a trick or two, that could save you a serious amount of time and energy. Read on as we highlight some of the less-obvious uses for Adobe Stock that you may not have considered... 01. Visual inspiration Adobe Stock is a stride ahead Google Images when it comes to visual inspiration Right at the start of a project, when you’re still thinking loosely about concepts and ideas, it’s natural to go looking for inspiration. And for most people, Google Images is often the default. But think about it: the images you’ll find there are going to vary hugely in quality, while on Adobe Stock there are millions of consistently high quality, professionally created photos, illustrations and videos to inspire you and give you fresh visual ideas. So you’re far better off using the sophisticated search filters provided by Adobe Stock, and seeking out visual inspiration there instead! 02. Website mockups and wireframes The main aim of a digital mockup or wireframe is to get the functionality right, and make sure that the site or app can fulfil the needs of the user in a fast and efficient manner. For this reason, they’re often created as “bare bones” designs, with zero imagery, and that approach can be appropriate when you’re just working on things in-house. But once you get to getting sign-off from stakeholders and clients, it can be worth using some of the high quality stock photography or illustrations available on Adobe Stock to make it look a little nicer and more approachable. Because however much you ask people to “see past” the lack of visuals, it’s often a psychological hurdle that non-designers find difficult to navigate. And the best news is, if you don’t want to spend any money, you don’t have to. You can use watermarked versions of any Adobe Stock image in your designs, and you only have to pay once you’ve got sign-off. If you don't use them, you don't pay: simple! More ways to use Adobe Stock images for free 03. Social media campaigns Adobe Stock saves you time by letting you search for pics of a certain shape (in this case, square) From Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and Snapchat, there’s so much noise on social media these days that attracting people’s attention with a brand campaign is a tough ask. But one thing’s for sure: the brain processes pictures far more quickly than words, and so powerful and eye-catching images are key to attracting those eyeballs. A small investment in the high quality photography and illustrations that Adobe Stock can provide, then, will pay off handsomely when it comes to clicks and likes. And not only are you free to crop the images you license to whatever shape and size you need, but you can even save yourself time by, for example, searching for only square, horizontal, vertical or panoramic images. 04. Moodboards The moodboard is a time-honoured tool in conveying the mood and spirit of a proposed campaign, and getting approval from clients and stakeholders before you head too far down the wrong path. To create one, many people often just scrape images from Google, because while this is technically copyright infringement, in practical terms they’re unlikely to ever get sued for it. However, legal issues aside, it’s worth considering using images from Adobe Stock instead. After all, they’re available in high resolution, so will look much better blown up at size. Plus the millions of high quality images available, in combination with sophisticated search filters, means that you’ll be much more likely to find the right images to bring your moodboard to life. 05. Email newsletters UK flag, EU flag and St. Paul Cathedral by erika8213 The email newsletter seen a massive resurgence in recent years. Perhaps as a reaction to the amount of noise on social media, people seem to like like the idea of a regular, curated and above all, short summary of what they need to know about a certain subject. In some cases, they’re even willing to pay for this service, and some people now make their living entirely based on producing a must-read email newsletter. Whether your newsletter is paid-for or free, though, success isn’t guaranteed, though. You have to produce one kick-ass newsletter if you’re going to succeed in this busy marketplace. And so here again is an arena where the right images can play a key role. Liven up your email newsletter with some high quality imagery from Adobe Stock, and - as long as the content is equally high quality - your sign-ups and open rates should soon start to climb. 06. Your blog If you’re writing a personal blog or the official blog for your design studio, imagery is again a great way to lure people in. Most of the time you’ll probably want to use killer images from your latest design work, but that may not always be possible. The client may not have given permission, for example. Or perhaps there aren’t great visuals from the work to show (if your work was in the field of strategy, or web development, for example). In such cases, don’t just leave a blank, or post an uninspiring image. Think outside the box, and search Adobe Stock for images that represent the theme of the story instead. For example, if you’ve has been invited to sit on a government panel to discuss how the creative industry should respond to Brexit, you might want to use the image above to highlight your news. 07. A/B testing Want variations on this pic? Click the image to visit Adobe Stock, then scroll down to 'More from this series' A/B testing is about serving up two versions of a web page, Facebook ad, etc, to your audience and seeing which one leads to the most conversions. Given the importance of imagery, it’s often useful to test different lead images, to see which one leads to the best results. The good thing about Adobe Stock is that there are often images from the same photoshoot, which means you can choose between small variations on the same image. This makes Adobe Stock ideal for when you really want to nail down the perfect image to help your website conversion rate. 08. Your personal videos Most video professionals will know about Adobe Stock’s motion design templates, which allow you to add cool effects, titles, transitions and more to your projects with very little effort. But they’re so simple to use that anyone can use them for their own personal videos too. Especially as many of them are free! To see how easy it is to use Adobe Stock's motion design templates without any training, check out our tutorial on how to add wow to your holiday videos. 09. Your wedding stationery Watercolor and Foil Wedding Invitation 1 By The Wedding Shop Planning a wedding? Adobe Stock can help here, too! It has an amazing range of top quality templates for your wedding designs that are fully customisable within Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC and InDesign CC. From designing your invitations and ‘save the date’ cards through to menu designs and thank-you notes, Adobe Stock has you covered: find out more in our article 5 ways Adobe stock templates can help with your wedding planning. 10. Your Christmas cards Finally, Christmas is approaching, you're a designer so why not design your own bespoke Christmas cards? It’s a great way to delight a client or potential client, and make sure they remember you. Or alternatively, you might just want to put a smile on the face of a friend or family member. To find out how Adobe Stock can make this quick and easy, check out our tutorial on How to Design a Christmas card with Adobe Stock and InDesign CC. View the full article

Art supplies don’t make the artist, but they help. Buy the best materials you can afford on your budget. It's tempting to cut corners financially, but bargain basement equipment will give poor results and cheap paints will look lifeless and chalky when dry. If you're going to spend that precious time developing your art, don’t sell yourself short with inferior tools. Although it’s an investment to begin with, the amount of paint you use on a daily basis compared to the cost is little. The art materials market can be a minefield for the uninitiated, the sheer number of choices available can be overwhelming to say the least. This essential art supplies guide is designed to relieve the stress of kitting yourself out and help you choose the best equipment first time. If you fancy some new pencils to use alongside the shiny new art supplies featured here, check out our guide to the best pencils around right now. Michael Harding started making his own oil paints in 1982 when he was studying fine art. Inspired by recreating the glorious colours in his favourite Rembrandt painting at the National Gallery, London, Michael went on to become a colour-master suppling oil paint across the world. His Michael Harding Oil Colour paints come in a comprehensive range of colours and a high pigment content, and less filler, means his paints retain vivid colour and are more light resistant. All this quality comes at a price, but it’s a false economy to try and save money on cheap paints that yield poor results when dry. Your art is worth that little extra. Choosing your first set of brushes can be a daunting task. Confronted with a myriad of manufacturers, different brush shapes, handle lengths and brush sizes can be overwhelming to say the least. A great place to start can be a pre-selected brush set from one of the best known names. This Winsor & Newton Series 7 brush set consists of two round brush in sizes 3 and 6, two filbert brushes in 3 and 6 and two flat brushes in 10 and 14. Synthetic brushes have come on a long way in the past 20 years and are a great mid point between traditional qualities of hog and sable bristles. We’ve all forgotten a paint brush from time-to-time and found it the next day dried and contorted. When your brushes are top-quality Rosemary & Co brushes this can be disastrous! Fear not tough, there is a miracle saviour available that, although expensive to buy, will soon pay for itself many times over. After cleaning my brushes in Bartoline Clean Spirit. I then use the Masters Brush Cleaner & Preserver soap to clear any remaining pigment from the bristles and reshape into it’s original form. Keeping your brushes clean and in good order is vital for successful results and for saving you a ton of money. The beauty of the metal brush washers such as this Academy JAS : Large Brush Washer Metal Deluxe is the perforated insert that allows you clean the bristles of the brush without swilling up the bottom of the pot. This allows the pigment to sink to the bottom and helps keep the spirit cleaner for longer. The clean spirit can be decanted and any sediment dredged from the bottom and disposed of correctly. The sturdy design stops it toppling over and the handy brush holder allows you to soak brushes without them becoming misshapen. There are many types of easels available on the market and each style is designed for a different use. Some are designed to be portable for plein-air painting and others are collapsable and best suited for limited space. Here I’m looking at a studio easel that’s designed to not get packed away and not leave the studio. Italian-made, Mabef easels, such as this Basic Studio Easel, are designed for quality and longevity. I have personally owned a number of Mabef designs for over 25 years and they’re all still going strong. Made from stain-resistant oiled beech wood, the finishing on these easels is beautiful, well worth the investment. It’s good to spend a lot of time identifying and analysing colour when mixing, so you don’t want to waste all that precious time allowing your mixes to dry out. In my studio I have airtight catering containers that are turned upside down and lined with glass so the lid becomes the mixing surface. Another, and perhaps easier, method is to invest in an airtight palette from Mijello. These cool little paint-savers allow you to keep mixes workable for weeks, which can be especially handy if you’re fitting painting in around a busy schedule. When you’ve invested in top-quality paint you don’t want to add inferior mediums to spoil it. Artist quality mediums can seem overly expensive next to their hardware cousins but the difference can be vast. Cold pressed linseed oil is produced specifically so the oil is of a higher quality and more suited for use with oil paints. As 99 per cent of artist's oil paints on the market use linseed oil as their binder, linseed oil such as this one from Winsor & Newton is a popular medium. Although alternatives like Safflower oil can help increase the drying time. You can save a lot of money by buying in bulk volume. One of the best qualities of oil paint, over acrylics or watercolours, is its slow drying time which gives you more time to push paint around. That said there are always instances where it would be advantageous for a layer of paint to be dry the next day and that’s where Liquin Original comes in. Liquin Original is designed to speed up the drying time of paint without affecting its body or colour. This drying medium is also available in a thicker Liquin Impasto for Impressionistic styles and a thinner Liquin Fine Detail for more camera-like techniques. Painting with palette knives can give some very expressive results but its not a technique for the faint-hearted painter. Equally, a great set of palette knives such as this one from MEEDEN will serve you well while mixing your colours, although look out for metal tools scratching your glass-topped palette. The most important thing is the knife’s construction. There is a tendency, even with the top manufacturers, to go for the cheaper process of welding the blade onto the arm of the knife. In my experience these welds nearly always snap so try and get the superior style where the blade and arm are made from a single piece of metal. Oil painting outside, or en plein air, can require you lugging around a lot of equipment. Watercolours can be a more portable choice for painting reference studies and colour examinations outside, and also a fun change of gear for an artist. This complete field set from Winsor & Newton includes 12 half-pans of Artist quality watercolour paint, a pocket brush, sponge, water bottle, water container and two small mixing palettes. I’d advise taking an additional larger palette strapped to your watercolour sketchbook and a few additional pocket-brushes, but otherwise you’ve got a complete Polly-esque painting kit that’s small enough to fit in your pocket. Read more: How to find your art style 20 sketching tips to help you make your first marks Acrylic painting techniques: expert tips for artists View the full article

Flaw in National Security Agency's Ghidra reverse-engineering tools allows hackers to execute code in vulnerable systems. View the full article

Users of Dreams on PS4 can create anything, from art and movies to music or games. The video game/game creation system Dreams is from the makers of hit game LittleBigPlanet which was a big sandbox for budding game creators and creative souls. The scope of that game was limited to the visual style set by the team, a problem that Dreams seeks to overcome. Dreams, by Media Molecule, is a young platform which is currently in early access. Your export options are limited to video and photos, but the developers have promised more options in this regard once the program launches for real. PSVR support is also planned for release. This tutorial will give you some hints and tips for using Dreams on PS4. Or for more 3D art-based learning, you can check out our pick of the best Blender tutorials on the web. This article was originally published in issue 133 of 3D Artist. Buy issue 133. Read more: Amazing free 3D models 3D sculpting: how to sculpt with style 10 ways to improve your 3D anatomy View the full article

Adobe has announced a brand-new update to Photoshop CC, and we think it's pretty great. The Content-Aware fill tool is about to be much improved, with oodles of user-control, and we've got the low-down right here. In case you haven't played with it before, the Content-Aware fill tool can digitally erase an area of your image and replace it with a sample from another part of the picture. It's what you might use to get rid of that hilarious photobombing joker in the background. It's been an integral part of Photoshop's arsenal for a while now, and it's about to get a lot better. Content-Aware fill is pretty convincing as it is, but it does have a frustrating issue when trying to deal with cluttered images, becoming confused when markedly different image elements are too close to each other. As Photoshop product manager Meredith Payne Stotzner explains in the above video, Adobe has listened to its users' requests for more control over the process and has added 'Auto' and 'Custom' options to the tool. Get Creative Cloud here 'Custom' does exactly what it says on the tin. It allows you to physically draw in the exact pixel sample to replicate. Clicking 'Auto' will ask Photoshop to perform its magic, and using Adobe's Sensei technology it will auto-find the pixel selection it thinks would best suit your fill. All in all it's like waving a custom-made magic wand to turn unwanted image elements invisible. This is a welcome update that solves an annoying problem with Content-Aware fill, and we think it will make a pleasing difference to the workflow of creatives using the software. We don't know when it'll be out yet but watch this space. Read more: The 23 best Photoshop plugins The 10 best alternatives to Photoshop How to resize an image in Photoshop View the full article

Typography plays a vital role in graphic design, but it doesn't always get the recognition that it deserves. It's one of those elements that, when done well, doesn't really get noticed. Poor typographic execution, on the other hand, can ruin an otherwise excellent layout and make you with that the designers had paid a bit more attention to typography tutorials. Now Monotype has stepped forward to put typography in the spotlight with a new awards programme. Judged by top names in the design business, the Type Champions Award aims to recognise and celebrate brands that emphasise typography in developing and maintaining their brand identities, and Monotype wants the creative community to help identify the brands and agencies that should be included. The ultimate typography cheat sheet "Type plays a critical role in brand identity, and some brands are using type in their creative campaigns in a way that stands out as strategic, thought-provoking and innovative," says Monotype creative director, James Fooks-Bale. "This award program will recognise the companies that use type to stand out among their peers, and create authentic, consistent and relevant brand identities." Monotype's certainly hitting the ground running with this new programme. It plans to announce the first winners at Adobe MAX in Los Angeles, which is only a few weeks away, and the deadline for nominations is next week, on 8 October. So if you want to nominate your agency or brand for consideration, you'd better get a move on. For nominations, Monotype is looking for brands that can demonstrate a focus on type in building their brand messages, marketing and advertising efforts and overall customer experience. For example, it wants to see type consistency across brands, creative approaches to advertising and an emphasis on future-proofing brands through type selection. If you want to submit a nomination, you are allowed to enter a brand that you've worked with, although Monotype emphasises that a relationship isn't required. So if you've simply seen some stunning used of typography in a campaign this year that you think needs recognition, you're welcome to nominate that for an award. Also, Monotype notes that it prefers nominations with supporting examples included. To find out more about this year's awards and its selection criteria, and to submit your own nomination, head for Monotype's Type Champions Award page. Related articles: 8 invaluable online typography tools 15 top typography resources The 8 biggest typography mistakes designers make View the full article

A fix has been issued for a critical Exim flaw that could lead to servers crashing or remote code execution attacks being launched. View the full article

Apple AirPods have become the absolute must-have accessory for iPhone, iPad and iPod since their launch in 2016. They have a lot of brilliant tech packed into them, and although they looked a bit weird when they first came out, it's now impossible to walk down the street without passing loads of people with those telltale AirPod arms hanging out of their ears. AirPods aren't without their drawbacks, though. For starters, they're expensive; even if you search out the best Apple AirPod deals, you're talking over £150 for a pair, and that's before you've factored in the essential wireless charging case. That's a lot to pay for something that you're more likely to lose than you are a traditional pair of wired earphones. Apple Black Friday deals: What to expect in 2019 And of course, you need an Apple device to go with them; no AirPods for you, Android owners. Amazon's just announced its own Echo Buds, which appear to be a strong AirPod alternative with many similar features at a less hefty price, but do they look as cool as actual AirPods? 'Cool' is very much a subjective thing, but we feel that many would think that no, they do not. From a distance, who's going to know? However, if you want that distinctive, "Hey, look at me, I've got some AirPods!" look, here's ASOS with a solution that'll give you instant street cred at a tiny fraction of the price. It's launched its own fake AirPods – that's ASOS DESIGN faux headphone ear piece in silver tone to you – and they're absolutely ideal for looking like you're wearing AirPods. At least from a distance. Like real AirPods, they're not quite perfect. For one thing, they're not that unmistakable AirPod white. Instead they're 100 per cent zinc with a silver-tone finish, which isn't likely to fool anyone, but you could always claim that you have a cousin who works at Apple who gave you a secret silver pair that isn't even going to be out until next year. Definitely worth a shot. No, they don't work. And yeah, you only get one. Oh, and for another thing, they don't actually work. All they're for is making it look a bit like you're wearing AirPods. You may laugh, but we're absolutely certain there's a market for this. Admittedly, though, if being able to listen to music or podcasts is a deal-breaker for you then you might want to pass on these. And for a third and final thing, we think you only get one faux headphone ear piece. So if you want to achieve the full effect then you'll probably have to order two of them. But at £6 a shot you're not exactly going to break the bank; you could buy at least 25 of them for what you'd pay for some actual functional AirPods! ASOS, we salute your chutzpah. Please send us some. Related articles: The 10 most beautiful Apple products (and the 5 ugliest) Apple shares how AirPod users personalise their cases – and they look amazing! The 100 greatest Apple creations View the full article

Finding the right tools for your latest creative endeavours can, at times, seem overwhelming if you're on a tight budget. Quality should never be compromised just because you don't own the newest version of Photoshop or Illustrator. Conquer your goals and create amazing visuals with these bundles – with savings of up to 95% off. 01. Youzgin Design App Easily create and design stunning Facebook Ads and covers, banners, video graphics, Kindle covers, infographics, memes, and so much more without the hefty price tag of expensive design programs such as Photoshop or Canva. With access to over 1.7 million free images and almost 2,000 high-definition templates, this graphic design suite allows you to produce stunning visuals efficiently. Get a lifetime subscription today for $39 (91% off $468). 02. Super Vectorizer 2 for Mac Serving as a fantastic Illustrator alternative, Super Vectorizer 2 helps you create stunning vector art for your web design needs. Automatically convert bitmap images like JPEG, GIF, and PNG to clean, scalable vector graphics like AI, SVG, DXF, and PDF. This tool comes complete with a newly equipped image-quantisation algorithm tool, allowing for treatments such as tracing colour, skeletonisation, line vectors, and much more. Get a lifetime license today for $19 (68% off $60). 03. Viddyoze Animation Templates With video quickly becoming the number one digital medium, access to stunning animation content is being requested more and more. Viddyoze allows you to create animated video assets with just a few clicks, even if you have no experience in animation. This cloud-based platform will enable you to browse through a vast selection of eye-catching logos, call to action templates, 3D animations, and much more to create your masterpiece. Get a lifetime subscription today for $89 (95% off $2,000). 04. Stencil Unlimited If you're looking to create unique visuals for all your marketing needs, Stencil Unlimited is for you. Content for social media, blogs, presentations, and more can be created with over 2,200,000 stunning royalty-free images, and 37 universal image sizing presets. You can even schedule your content straight through this tool and share your images instantly. Get a 1-year subscription today for $49 (65% off $144). 05. Fotor Online Pro Make photo editing easier with Fotor, an all-in-one visual solution that helps you edit photos, create collages, and more. Easily crop, retouch, and add creative elements to your images with this easy to use drag and drop tool. With access to a wealth of unique templates and impressive HDR technology (that allows for a more extensive range of lighting), your images and designs are bound to pop. Get a lifetime subscription today for $69.99 (87% off $539.4). Related articles: The 10 best alternatives to Photoshop Find Adobe alternatives with this helpful graphic 6 amazing free Adobe CC alternatives View the full article

XD is Adobe's dedicated prototyping tool, and there are some truly exciting updates on their way. There will be more details released at Adobe MAX in November – Creative Bloq will be there are updating you with all the news as we hear it – but in the meantime we've had a few exciting titbits confirmed. Looking to boost your XD workflow? Explore our pick of the best Adobe XD plugins and check out our guide to the XD shortcuts you should know. This year Adobe has been investing into making it simpler for product design teams to work together on projects. As a result, co-editing capabilities are coming to XD. That means a whole team of designers will be able to work together on a document at the same time. Designers can have the document open on their own device, and any updates will appear in real time for all co-editors. This could be a real game-changer for product designers. Take a look at the best Adobe Creative Cloud deals right now What if not all the stakeholders have access to XD? Well, Adobe is promising to extend real-time collaboration beyond XD on desktop, to ensure everyone who needs to can access the documents, contribute ideas, and stay in the loop with project progress. It's one of a few XD updates announced in an Adobe blog post, which also details improved integration with tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Sketch, and more information about XD's design systems features (watch the video above for more on that). Another update aimed at simplifying things for designers is versioning support. If you've ever worked on a complex project with lots of revisions and design options, you'll know the pain of keeping track of which document is the most up to date one, and the fear of updating a design and not being able to revert your changes if it turns out to be the wrong approach. Soon, you'll be able to work with the confidence that all previous versions of your design will be easily accessible directly in XD. Exciting news all round. We'll keep you updated you with more info as soon as we have it – on XD as well as Adobe's other flagship tools. In the meantime, for an idea of what might be on the cards, take a look at our unofficial predictions for MAX 2019. Read more: How to build prototypes with Adobe XD New Apple iPad arrives in stores – and we can't believe how cheap it is! QUIZ: Which typeface are you, really? View the full article

Lawsuit alleges Dunkin' Donuts failed to act fast enough to notify and protect customers and is in violation of New York State data breach notification laws. View the full article

In total, Microsoft has now blocked 142 file extensions that it deems as at risk or that are typically sent as malicious attachments in emails. View the full article

If you were to describe yourself as a typeface, which one would you choose? Are you a traditional, straight-down-the-middle sort of person, like Helvetica? Or are you a bit of a people-pleaser, like Johnston 100? Given that there are nearly 80 styles in our guide to the best free fonts for designers, there are certainly plenty of options to choose from. To help you find out which typeface best represents your personality, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) has created a fun little quiz. The institute, whose recent design census found out that illustrators are the poorest but the happiest in the industry, created this short typeface test for its Eye on Design magazine, and you can take it right now. With just six probing questions to answer, including 'you're getting ready for work. What's your go-to look?' and the old favourite 'which, if any, of these star signs are you' it won't take you very long. It asks all those hard-hitting questions Once you've whizzed through the questions you'll be given your result and a useful bit of contextual info. Thanks to our interest in film soundtracks and Aquarian leanings, we got allocated Galapagos, a fairly goofy font designed by Felix Salut in collaboration with Dinamo in 2016. Go figure. And like the best online quizzes, you can easily retake the test if you're not satisfied with the result. But given that the answers are difficult to second guess, it might be harder than you think to rig the test to get your favourite font. Take the quiz here. Fingers crossed you don't get Comic Sans... Related articles: 50 top typography tutorials The ultimate typography cheat sheet 8 invaluable online typography tools View the full article

Fileless threat leverages widely used Node.js framework and WinDivert packet-capture utility to turn infected machines into proxies for malicious behavior. View the full article

Whether you’ve been gifted one of the best camera phones around or make use of your own, having a mobile at work is an essential for many of us. And that goes for designers who work all hours, just as much as those who clock off when the clock strikes five. With big changes taking place in the mobile industry, you could be working more efficiently and getting back more time to spend with friends and family. Do you wish you had a better handset? Or maybe that yours could adopt the technology to control smart appliances in your home or studio? Just how tech-savvy is your workplace? Share your opinion on the future of mobile phones in the workplace in our survey, which will take no more than five minutes to complete, and as a thank you for taking part, we'll automatically enter you into a prize draw to win a £250 Amazon voucher. The the only question left for the lucky winner will be what to spend it on. Take the Creative Bloq mobile phones for work survey here Be sure to enter the survey before the deadline on 14 October 2019. T&Cs apply, over-18s, UK readers only. Find full details on the prize draw here. View the full article

A new patent filing from Apple suggests that it's working on ways to make the logo on your device change colour and even surface texture. And while there's no way this is going to take effect in time for this year's Apple Black Friday deals – or even next year or the year after that – it could eventually change the way we look at Apple devices. While Apple's never likely to mess with the iconic shape of Rob Janoff's 1977 logo design, it's made plenty of adjustments to its colour and texture over the years, from the original rainbow design, through shiny glass and metal iterations, through to the flat version used today. The 100 greatest Apple creations Apple's also happy to roll out temporary imaginative takes on its logo for its various events and conferences, as most recently seen at the iPhone launch event with its multicoloured and multi-layered translucent logo. In the future, the Apple logo could be a lot more colourful than your iPhone's case The new patent filing, however, suggests that it has even bigger plans for the logo, and that in future devices it could change its appearance in response to various events. So it might blink when you have a new message, or change to a pulsing red tone to warn you that your iPhone or MacBook needs charging, or even switch to a simple mirrored surface when nothing's going on. The application goes on to state that the logo could be adjusted for aesthetic reasons, suggesting that you could set up your device to have the logo in any colour you like, or to flash to alert you of the some hot Black Friday MacBook deals. Patent applications make for terribly dry reading as they're made for patent lawyers to understand, not mere mortals like us, but the basics of it are this: Apple's talking about adding an 'adjustable decoration' to devices, which would include adjustable opacity, tint, haze and mirror layers that could be affect by user input, sensor input (including light, temperature, sound and geographic location) or events such as incoming calls. That suggests plenty of ways to alter the appearance of the logo. We're not talking about a simple LED lighting effect here; the adjustable mirror effect alone seems worth the price of entry, and there seems to be a lot of potential for all manner of visual effects that you'd associate more with print design than visual displays. It's all done with layers, as (sort of) shown in the patent filing How Apple's going to do all this – or indeed when, or even if – is another matter. Deep in the patent application it discusses the technologies that could be used, such as nanoparticles for the tint layer and a cholesteric liquid crystal device (your guess is as good as ours) for the mirror layer, but it doesn't go into great detail. After all, it's not about to give away any technical secrets if it doesn't have to. Apple files a lot of patent applications, and this one could come to nothing, so don't get too excited about it right now. But we're keen to see if Apple can carry this one off; watch this space. Related articles: 4 things we love about the new iPhone 11 Is Apple about to bring back its rainbow logo? Apple shares how AirPod users personalise their cases – and they look amazing! View the full article

Ahead of this year's TwitchCon, video streaming platform Twitch has revealed a bold rebrand that aims to celebrate the vibrant energy of its creators and communities. As its accompanying slogan proclaims: "you're already one of us." The new look has been a year in the making, and is the first major rebrand for Twitch since it was established back in 2011. Whipped up by Collins in collaboration with Twitch's in-house design team the overhaul includes a new colour palette, a blocky letterform, a polished version of the Glitch mascot, and a Moog synthesiser-inspired typeface that's up there with the best retro fonts we've seen. If you're familiar with Twitch, you'll be relieved to see that the fundamental elements of the brand are still in place, they've just been given a bit of a polish. Take the colour scheme, which still retains Twitch's signature colour, purple. "Purple is the only colour alive enough to represent our collective creativity, mischievousness, and energy," the company revealed in press release. "Our new purple is brighter and more vibrant to match that energy." And to help users express themselves, the Creator Color tool will allow them to set a specific colour to their channel. Purple remains the foundation of the Twitch logo design Accompanying the heavy-lifting purple is a lineup of over two dozen new colours that all take their names from iconic games and pop culture characters. So expect to see hues such as Mudkip blue and Red Alert... red appear everywhere from the Twitch site, to its advertising and apps. Sitting alongside these colours is a modified version of the Roobert typeface, which ticked all of Twitch's boxes thanks to its clean, modern design that also comes with a pinch of quirkiness. "It’s also modelled off the retro Moog synthesiser logotype, which we thought added a few cool points." As for the updated wordmark, it's carried over the DNA of the old logo. The blocky letterforms are still there, but they've been straightened out and enhanced by retro arcade game aesthetics. Just look at those lurid gradients. A customised version of Roobert will appear across all touchpoints The Twitch icon, known as Glitch, has also been given a facelift. However the design team wisely decided to play it safe with this update. Twitch added: "Any brand should worry about retaining some recognisability when updating, but, like, this is Glitch. It’s tattooed on people. We couldn’t change it too much." It's not all change though, as Twitch's emotes remain the same. Given that its community gave these characters meaning, leaving them untouched is a good way to remind users that they're at the heart of the rebrand. Although Twitch says that it will be putting Emotes out into the world more often. "We’re in a unique position because we have this deep, weird lore to pull from that others simply don’t, and it seemed nuts to try to make emotes less weird. So we didn't." The rebrand includes an edge-to-edge screen Given that Twitch continues to dominate the streaming landscape, with a recent report revealing that it far outstrips the likes of YouTube and Facebook Gaming, it makes sense for the platform to up its game (no pun intended) when it comes to its branding. "We’re lucky to be able to support such a vibrant, passionate community of creators, viewers, and everyone in-between. These changes are all about putting you front and center and equipped to shine as you reinvent what entertainment is and can be. We can’t wait to see what you do with them." And with more changes on the way, including new product experiences, it looks like Twitch has more treats in store for its users. Related articles: Join the online art community with creative live streaming The best video editing software in 2019 The best monitors for video editing View the full article

If you're an entrepreneur, you'll know how difficult it can be to get your website and online presence up and running. The difference between being seen and being lost in cyberspace is a thin line that can be difficult to cross. Luckily, these five SEO tools and courses are here to help launch your career and get you quality clients that will come back again and again. 01. SERPstash Premium Break down the SEO hustle into simple steps and help push your site to Google's front page with SERPstash Premium. This platform gives you access to 21 tools that help you boost your site's ranking and analyse keywords that are related to your industry. The lifetime subscription will teach you best practices to improve your site's speed and get your site's current ranking up on crucial platforms like Google and Bing. Get lifetime access to SERPstash Premium for just $24 (95% off $500). 02. RankTools Pro SEO Tool If you're looking to optimise your site's search rankings by outsmarting your competitors, this is the SEO tool for you. RankTools Pro SEO Tool keeps track of your top competitors and analyses metrics such as Alexa data, social media data, search engine index, Google page rank, IP analysis, malware check, and much more. This all-encompassing SEO suite ensures that you don't miss out on traffic when people are looking for content like yours. Get lifetime access to RankTools Pro SEO Tool for just $29.99 (97% off $1,199.4). 03. The Complete SEO & Digital Mega Marketing Bundle Build your brand's digital marketing presence with 15 comprehensive courses and 900+ lessons of digital marketing tutorials. Straight from the minds of the experts, this bundle teaches you best practices in copywriting, SEO, social media, email marketing, and much more. Easy to follow instructions allow you to build your brand's digital footprint to its full potential and reach through essential digital outlets. Get access to The Complete SEO & Digital Mega Marketing Bundle for just $49 (97% off $2,330). 04. Google Image SEO: Image Search & Higher Website Page Ranking Perfect for all levels of expertise, this 12-course bundle will guide you through the ins and outs of Google image SEO search, page rankings, and image rendering. This straightforward bundle, taught by 3-time best selling Amazon author Alex Genadinik, will show you new ways to bring quality traffic to your website. Learn how to make your site's web ranking rise quickly and effectively. Get lifetime access to Google Image SEO: Image Search & Higher Website Page Ranking for just $12.99 (93% off $200). 05. The Complete SEO & Backlink Master Course From keywords to backlinks, there's a whole range of factors that influence the ranking of your site. Improve your site's visibility with 15.5 hours of SEO courses and learn how to integrate quality links into your website. Taught by online marketing guru Zach Miller, this course will dive deep into all the elements that matter when you're trying to grow your site. Get lifetime access to The Complete SEO & Backlink Master Course for just $19.99 (79% off $97). Related articles: 5 ways to boost your website's SEO Climb the Google rankings: How to master SEO 10 must-know SEO tools for search success View the full article

Shapr3D is a great tool for kitbashing. It helps to literally bash out ideas and produce useful pieces of kit. It’s fast, clean and its interface is very intuitive; this is definitely the direction I see the 3D industry moving to – not larger, more powerful machines, but more accessible, more usable software, available in VR and AR, and on mobile and tablet devices. Kitbashing is nothing new, but making perfectly usable, pipeline-friendly kitbash pieces on an iPad is new. In this tutorial you will learn how to make three kitbash pieces in Shapr3D on the iPad Pro (see our best Black Friday iPad deals ahead of the big day). The first part will cover the creation of kitbash pieces on the iPad, and the second section will show how to use those pieces to create vast skyscrapers and cityscapes in a matter of hours. For some 3D inspiration, check out our roundup of the best 3D art out there. Download tutorial files Kitbash Piece 1: Girder Kitbash piece 2: Piston 03. Kitbash piece 3: Balljoint This article was originally published in issue 249 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 249 or subscribe to 3D World. Read more: These 3D portraits are unbelievably realistic How to create 3D grass 20 Cinema 4D tutorials to sharpen your 3D skills View the full article

Brand voice can be a synonym for design-speak. If you open a set of brand guidelines and find the ‘brand voice’ or 'tone of voice' section (if there is one), chances are, you’re looking at one or two pages of broad, abstract principles – things like, 'We are HUMAN, STRAIGHTFORWARD, OPTIMISTIC and AUTHORITATIVE'. Each principle probably has a brief explanation. There may be some ‘We are/We are not’ lists. Perhaps even a few short examples of ‘correct’ copy. And usually, that’s about it. (If you want to see how it's done properly, then make sure to check our favourite style guides.) Now – do you have what you need to apply that tone of voice? Is it clear what sort of ‘HUMAN’ we mean? How to capture ‘OPTIMISTIC’ in words? Probably not. Because ‘tone of voice’ or 'brand voice' is still treated in a pretty cursory way in most guidelines. Too often, ‘brand voice’ basically boils down to ‘less corporate/more friendly.’ That’s useful as far as it goes. But it’s a bit like buying a MacBook to play Solitaire. It does the job, but you’re leaving a vast well of potential untapped. Why you need a strong brand voice Happily, things are changing fast. Today, many brands are making smart use of language to create a competitive edge. (Think Monzo, Bulb, Slack, Spotify.) So how do you get your own brand voice to work harder? A good start is not calling it ‘tone of voice’. Tone – how you speak – is only half the story. What you say is just as important – if not more so. When you consider both sides together, you’re on the way to a genuinely transformative brand language. At Reed Words, we tend to use the term ‘verbal identity’. And if that verbal identity is going to work, it has to be practical. Everyone who creates or manages copy for your brand needs to understand the specific elements of language that work for your brand. Otherwise, decisions are just subjective – the route to a fragmented and confusing brand. Here's how to build your own unique and strong brand voice. Bear these five points in mind and you'll be laughing. 01. Be crystal clear on your message Every brand has a long list of things it could say. And many fall into the trap of trying to say everything, all the time. You need a crystal-clear sense of the message at the heart of your brand – your proposition – and how that gets expressed to the world. For example, a bank might be able to claim 150 years of heritage, three million customers, a 98 per cent TrustPilot rating, and carbon neutrality. But which of those should it focus on – if any? Without a messaging strategy, it can’t answer that. Decisions become short-term, subjective and swayed by trends. Our fictional bank ends up running a half-cocked campaign about ‘relationships’, because dating and Love Island are hot topics. Then it crowbars in heritage and sustainability, because it can’t bear to leave them out. We’ve all seen ads like this. If you’re clear on your message, you can stay focused. You can set about building a distinctive, persuasive idea of your brand, over the long term. (Think Nike. Think Apple.) 02. (Truly) understand your audience If brand strategy drives your messaging, your audience guides it. To connect with them, you have to understand them – and shape your language to that understanding. Often, this is where tone steps back in. Look at & Other Stories and Monki – two womenswear brands owned by H&M. Both have a young female market, but their voices are totally different. Look how each tackles the same simple message. First up, is & Other Stories: And then we have Monki: Of course, brands have multiple audiences, and many ways to reach them. That’s why a strong verbal identity often includes a ‘messaging matrix’ – a diagrammatic guide to what a brand should be saying, to whom, and how. 03. Keep an eye on the competition ‘Know your competitors’ sounds like basic advice, but how often do you see brands in the same space saying much the same things? An effective verbal identity helps lift your brand above the fray, by finding fresh ways to address the audience. Spotify, for example, takes on the mighty Apple by talking about music entirely differently. Apple sticks firmly to its positioning as the super-simple, monolithic power behind music (below). Spotify can’t compete with that – and would be mad to try. Instead, it stays true to its message of socially-driven, people-powered music. ‘We’re one of you,’ it tells music fans – throwing Apple’s cold aloofness into sharp relief. 04. Get specific about brand personality Spotify is a great example of a distinctive message, delivered in a distinctive tone. That tone is born out of the brand personality – which you’ll no doubt find on another page of those guidelines we’re pretending you’re looking at. But again, it’s not enough just to describe that personality. You need to explain what sort of language will capture it. Monzo’s guidelines do a good job of this. Monzo describe themselves as 'ambitious and positive' – and then give specifics on what that means: A useful set of verbal identity guidelines will also include plenty of examples. And not just the big sexy ones. 05. Consider all touchpoints Strong brands sound the same wherever you find them. Not just on billboards, homepages or TV, but in emails, error messages, and tweets. When you get this right, the audience has the reassuring sense that they’re hearing the same voice every time. Their sense of the brand grows a little more. Basically, every word you put out is a marketing message – and should be treated like one. Clothing brand Spoke have pretty much nailed this in their email newsletters. They even make jokes about copywriting: On the flip side, neglecting these interactions, letting them slip into blandly corporate language (or worse), just undermines all the hard work you’re doing elsewhere. Here’s a recent email from Ryanair, for instance. It conveys good news in such a confused, complicated way, you end up feeling worse about the brand, not better. So that’s the recipe for a powerful verbal identity. Clearly defined messaging and tone, along with practical specifics about language. People need big ideas – but they also need the tools to put them into action. Read more: Are trends any good for branding? 8 brands that rule at social media 8 of the most controversial magazine covers ever View the full article

After someone dropped a zero-day exploit on Securelist this week, the platform rushed out a fix -- time to apply it. View the full article