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You're reading Decluttering a Landing Page for Better Design and Higher Conversion Rates, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! When it comes to improving the metrics of a landing page campaign, there is no magical trick. There is definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach. However, with the right UX strategy, it’s significantly easier to set up landing pages for success. … View the full article

The city of Paris has revealed a new visual identity that celebrates the capital's welcoming spirit. Created by branding agency Carré Noir, the design overhaul includes a modern, single stroke logo that draws on the nautical nave historically associated with the city. Described by Carré Noir as an identity that sees Paris having a rendezvous with itself, the logo and accompanying branding represents the strength and benevolence of the place and its people. "Paris is proud, Paris is beautiful, Paris is plural," the design firm explains. The nave as it originally appeared, alongside the new rebrand For a city with so many famous cultural and historic associations, the decision to use the boat nave as the basis of the design might seem like a surprising one. However, when the City of Paris launched its call for potential identities, the nave was a mandatory part of the brief to designers. In its specifications, it outlined that the motif had to be preserved but evolved. Originally used by water merchants who brought considerable wealth into the city, the symbol has a long standing association with Paris. By reinterpreting it in this sleek logo design, Carré Noir has elegantly celebrated what made the city great, while also looking to the future. The single stroke logo can suit a range of colours With its tapered line work and measured weighting, the single stroke logo gives an impression of movement and stability, while also remaining instantly recognisable as the historical emblem. Officially set in a monochrome navy blue to give it a modern finish, the logo is also adaptable enough to fit a range of different domains and colour schemes. Accompanying the nave is a Paris logotype that seems to say 'bienvenue' thanks to the subtle curved crossbar in the letter 'A'. Carré Noir chose Montserrat as the identity's official font. Bespoke typography finishes off the identity Related articles: The story of the Tour de France logo New Banksy artworks discovered in Paris Then and now: The evolution of 3 iconic logos View the full article

Rendering an image, animation of a model or even a whole scene is an important step in art creation. Without this important stage, the end result will look unfinished. Whether it is for a portfolio or commercial purposes, being able to render your work is a valuable skill. Every artist has a favourite render engine to work with. KeyShot offers a wide range of tools and simple rendering solutions, enabling the user to have a beautiful and seamless creative experience. The easier the workflow, the better and quicker the results. Knowing your way around the software allows you to concentrate on the creative side of the process. It may seem like there is a lot to learn when using this particular software, but that is not the case at all. Here are some tips to help guide you through rendering your 3D art projects, from images to animated music videos. Be aware that some of these steps are exclusive and based on the newest version of the software, KeyShot 8 Pro, and are not available in KeyShot 7 or older. Pushed for time? We've compiled the best free 3D models to help get you started. Download the files for this tutorial. How to render realistic transparent surfaces 01. Try KeyShot cloud There are loads of useful resources in KeyShot cloud This is an online library of free textures, materials, environments and backplates – there is a great variety of resources to choose from. You can also upload your own materials to share with other KeyShot users. Great community effort. 02. Choose a UI theme Light or dark? It's up to you A quick process that can greatly assist with your learning is setting up your own interface layout. Putting relevant menus and tabs in strategic places can speed up your workflow and learning process. When you know where to find the things you need, you will feel more familiar with the software. KeyShot offers two colour themes: light and dark. To change the theme at any time go to Edit > Preferences > Interface, or select it from the Workspaces Startup ribbon dropdown. 03. Use Performance Mode Performance Mode takes the strain off your CPU Once you've added a lot of lights to your project and the scene becomes 'heavy', navigation performance will drop. Moving around the scene becomes difficult and laggy. The best solution is to activate Performance Mode. It will remove certain light settings (global illumination, ground shadows) from the active render and reduce the CPU usage pressure. You can also find it in Project > Lighting > Lighting Presets. 04. Link materials Link objects that use the same materials to make your life easier If you have a material you want to apply to multiple objects, there are a few things that can be done. First, you can save out the material to your library, then apply it to the selection of objects. Option two is to material link the objects so all receive the updated changes. To do this, select two or more items and press Link Materials. Alternatively, right-click on the selected objects and from the pop-up menu select Material > Link Materials. 05. Apply materials to labels Make your labels more interesting with materials, bumps and opacity Labels do not need to be plastic and boring. Once applied to a model, labels can take on any material, bump or opacity desired. It is literally as simple as drag and drop. To add a little wear and tear to a label, just find the right texture map and drop it in the Bump slot of the Labels tab. Select a procedural map from the drop-down menu, for example, noise. If you want to apply the same texture as the parent object's, select the From Parent option. Alternatively, navigate to the parent Texture tab, select the Bump tile and tick Apply Bump To Labels located below. It will project the same map on all labels applied. 06. Create depth of field You can adjust the depth of field and focus in the Camera tab Tired of adding depth of field in post-production, faking it in Photoshop? Try adding it to your active window and see the results before hitting the Render button. Depth of Field sits comfortably in the Camera tab, where it can be easily activated and manipulated with just a few sliders. You can also set the camera focus by clicking on the part of the model you want to drive attention to. KeyShot will apply the set amount of blur based on your chosen focus and distance. 07. Region rendering Save time by just rendering the area you want to inspect This is especially useful when working on a big project, in Performance mode – there's no need to render the entire thing just to see how a little piece will look rendered. Open the Render menu and choose the region you want to render. This will save you some serious time, and prevent your machine from overheating in the process. 08. Render gloss pass Create a gloss pass by adding a glossy black material and a pin light KeyShot does decent render passes based on the materials and lights used in the scene, but sometimes it is not enough and it would be useful to have additional renders of just clean specular and gloss. The best solution is to change the environment to plain black, and apply glossy black material to the model. In the material editor adjust reflections and roughness (gloss), then use a pin light to capture the right look. 09. Emboss logo Once you've added your logo to a label it's easy to emboss it Import your logo to a label and apply it to the model. Set the scale and position using the sliders. Hold Alt and drag and drop your diffuse material on the Bump slot to copy it. Scroll down to Label Texture > Bump and set it to, for example, -1. 10. Multi-materials Use the Material tab to try out variations of material and colour In this section you are able to create a new material, duplicate it, tweak it and link textures. It is useful when creating variations of material or colour, because it allows quick cycling through them all. You can locate it in the Project > Material tab. 11. HDRI three-point light Make your own three-point light setup in the HDRI editor Artists are usually very familiar with the three-point light term. It focuses on three sources of light, which are generally enough to beautifully light the scene. These are: key light, fill light and rim light. You can simply fake that effect with pins in the HDRI editor. 12. Edit your images KeyShot also features some basic post-production editing tools KeyShot is not just a render engine – it also offers some basic post-production editing tools. While your image is rendering, click the pencil icon in the active render window. The Show Effects panel enables you to tweak elements like exposure and colour, or add effects like bloom and vignette. When only these basics are required, there is no need to involve another application. 13. Utilise image pins Blend your model with its scene with image pins You can use image pins on top of your HDRI environment to successfully blend your model with the scene. Load the image you want to use as a light source and position it by moving the pin in the HDRI editor, or click on the model to point the projection at the right place. 14. Block HDRI hotspots Hotspots are easily eliminated with a bit of clever editing What if you've got that perfect HDRI but there is a nasty hotspot ruining the image? You can block it easily, just create a pin light, adjust the size and shape, change colour to grey (or any colour to blend with the HDRI), change type to alpha and place it on top of the hotspot. 15. Preview the map Too many maps? Simply isolate the one you want to edit If you are working in the material editor applying layers of changes and adding lots of maps to the mix, you may end up struggling to see the difference it makes to the final look. A bigger problem may appear if you need to edit a single map and you cannot see much through all the layers. Simply click on the texture and press C to preview the map and KeyShot will isolate it on the model for easier editing. 16. Work in Geometry View Geometry View is great for setting up scenes, cameras and lighting Sometimes it is easier to work in the Geometry View when setting up the scene. Hit (O) on the keyboard, or navigate to Window > Geometry View and a secondary viewer will open. Navigating in that mode is a lot quicker. It allows a much smoother camera, physical lights and model positioning, scene composition as well as viewing all camera paths. 17. Take screenshots Press (P) to grab a screenshot, or just use the Screenshot button The quickest way to screen grab your active window is to press (P) on the keyboard, or alternatively, press the Screenshot button located in the bottom-right corner. It will automatically save the JPEG or PNG in the Rendering folder. The file format can be changed in the Preferences > General > Screenshot tab. 18. Understand IOR Get a firm grasp of IOR if you want to recreate real materials The Index of Refraction is very important in the re-creation of real materials. KeyShot materials already have correct IOR, but if you create your own and want to avoid visible errors, find the accurate IOR value online and adjust it in the Project Material menu. 19. Camera animation setup KeyShot can help you execute all the camera techniques you might need Whether you want to animate the camera to zoom (dolly), tilt (pan), rotate (tumble) or orbit an object, KeyShot has a very simple step-by-step setup to help you along the way. You can also lock the camera's pivot to a model and create a turntable. 20. The Pattern tool The Pattern tool is great for creating instances of models This is a useful tool for creating instances of models. Right-click on the model in the scene hierarchy tree and choose Make Pattern from the list. Unlike duplicates, instances are speed and file size effective, but it does not mean they are material linked. 21. Presentation mode Presentation mode is a more elegant way to view your model in its current state As the name suggests, Presentation Mode (Shift+F) is made to showcase your WIP without the surrounding menus. It is a more elegant way to view your model in its current state. It allows you to view all Model Sets and Studios for easy comparison. 22. Liquid simplicity KeyShot takes the pain out of rendering glasses of water Remember how you had to split your glass model into three parts to render a realistic glass of water? Not any more! One of the many incredible new features in KeyShot 8 is that the software takes care of it for you. You just need to make sure that the liquid model intersects the glass to create a proper refraction effect. There cannot be any space left between the two parts, they must overlap. 23. Create bubbles Even glasses of fizzy drinks are easier to render There is an easy way to add bubbles to your materials. Navigate to your material, open the Material Graph, right-click to bring out the nodes list, and select Geometry > Bubbles. Double-click on the Bubbles node to open the editor on the right-hand side of the Material Graph menu. The options let you edit the size, volume and scattering of bubbles. 24. Cutaway See inside your models with a cutaway This new feature is a range of materials that will allow you to showcase what is hiding inside a multi-part model. Add a dummy geo to the scene, for example, a cube, and apply one of the cutaway materials. Position the cube so it intersects the model. You can colour or exclude certain parts from being affected. 25. Scattering medium Create all manner of materials with the scattering medium Another fantastic set of new materials that can be used in lots of different ways. With just a few small tweaks of the options available, you can create all sorts of spongy looks, fog, smoke, clouds and many more. 26. Render volumetrics Generate realistic clouds and smoke with volumetrics One of the newest (and coolest) features in KeyShot 8 is the ability to render volumetrics. Consider it as a volume box with all possible effects applied to it – clouds, fog, sponge-like materials. Look for free VDB files on the net to find new shapes of volumetric effects, from simple cigarette smoke effects and clouds, to heavy smoke or nebula. Upload it in the Texture slot of your volumetric material, and from there you can adjust its density and transparency. The final look will differ as you tweak the settings, so you really have to experiment in order to get the result you like. The volumetrics will also be affected by shadows and lights too. 27. Set up HDRI maps It's not too hard to make your own custom HDRI maps KeyShot comes with a large set of HDRI images to help you highlight your scene in no time. But what I like most is to set up my own HDRI map that will fit my needs. I usually try to keep things simple. I create a main source light first, and then a rim light (a light that comes from the sides to create a light effect on the side edges of the subject). A good trick is to put the secondary light opposite the main light source: bottom if the main light is top, left if the main light is positioned on the right. Then I use the Settings parameters to fine-tune my orientation and intensity. KeyShot will always give you great lighting results. 28. Materials Explore the Material Graph editor to roll your own exotic materials Another great asset in KeyShot is its preset material library, full of accurate shaders from classic plastics and metals to more complex offerings like car paints and skin shaders. But if you open up the Material Graph editor, a whole new world opens up to you. Editing in nodal mode takes a bit of practice at first, but it gets easier very quickly. My usual set of materials always relies heavily on the object's topography. I set up rules to paint one specific material at one part of the object, like holes and crevices, and another type of material on bigger surfaces. I like to blend my material together by using the Occlusion or the Curvature texture as a mask, sometimes both for more complex results. 29. Interior mode for rendering Interior Mode is ideal for accurate and realistic renders with smooth shadows and seamless gradients KeyShot is my favourite rendering tool. It is fast and accurate, can handle heavy scenes and it can render in very large resolution in no time. It is a perfect companion for my personal illustration workflow. Among the many rendering presets (you can find these in the Lighting section) I usually prefer the Interior Mode. This mode creates smooth shadows and seamless gradients, even at super high resolution, and I can get accurate and realistic renders. Note that the Interior Mode will require you to set up a rendering time limit, which will vary depending on the complexity of your scenes. 30. Set up passes Embed all the passes you need in your PSD for easier post-processing Another great rendering feature in KeyShot 8 is the ability to select the passes you want to have embedded in your PSD files. You have a vast choice of options, like pro renders for the cinema industry, from depth pass to clown pass, specular, normal maps and more. I find all of these passes super handy for my post-processing work. This article was originally published in issue 242 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 242 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Related articles: The best cities for 3D artists OctaneRender: A beginner's guide 3D art: 27 stunning examples to inspire you View the full article

Though attending business school has its advantages in all professional fields, not all of us have the time and money to pursue a business degree. Fortunately, The Business Professional Master Class Bundle will have you on your way to becoming a leader in business in no time, all from the comfort of home. These courses would typically retail for $11,277, but are currently available for an unbelievable 99% per cent off at just $39. Strong professional skills set you apart from your colleagues, and they're likely to help you get promoted at the office. The Business Professional Master Class Bundle can teach you administration, financial management and human resources skills that will undoubtedly come in handy at some point in your career. With over 54 complete courses, you're sure to learn a thing (or twenty!) while navigating this IAOTS-certified bundle. Hoping to strike out on your own eventually? This course also covers vital entrepreneurship skills and schools you on how to operate a small business. You'll also learn how to become a better supervisor and manager, which will serve you well when you're running your successful company one day. Grab The Business Professional Master Class Bundle for $39 here. Related articles: 10 ways to be more business-savvy as a designer 30 life skills every designer should master How to make your creative business more profitable View the full article

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 users are being asked to upgrade their encryption support. View the full article

We've all heard the phrase 'personal brand', but what exactly does it mean? If you're working as a creative professional, it's imperative to have a good grasp on personal branding skills so that you can use them to your advantage. Personal Branding For Creative Professional With Dorie Clark aims to coach you through this interesting field. Though this course typically retails for $49, it's currently available for 69% off at just $14.99. If you're a creative professional building your own small business, your personal brand could make or break your livelihood. Let Dorie Clark – former presidential campaign spokeswoman and author of Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future – guide you through the steps to building an online and offline brand, presence and portfolio. Her course will have you positioning yourself in the right way to reach your career goals. These 20 videos lessons will teach you how to make the perfect first impression both online and in person, and how to make the most out of interviews and webinars. You'll also learn how to craft and convey the message you want to give others about your line of work, the right strategies for connecting with the right people and how to use your connections to grow your brand. Get lifetime access to Personal Branding For Creative Professionals With Dorie Clark for just $14.99 here. Related articles: Build a better personal brand Traditional branding is dead 21 outstanding uses of colour in branding View the full article

Samsung has announced an exciting addition to its Galaxy Tab range. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e is a super-slim, super-light tablet, and sports a 10.5-inch screen. Read on to find out what we know so far. More details, including the price, are likely to be revealed at the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2019 event on Wednesday (20 Feb). The device will be available to preorder from March 2019, and we'll be keeping an eye out for the best Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e deals and updating this post when they become available. A smarter tablet Samsung promises 'vast' battery life (up to 14 and a half hours), and a design geared towards 'rich and immersive entertainment experiences'. Its metal body is just 5.5mm thick and weighs in at 400g. Users will be able to couple the tablet with the Samsung DeX and keyboard (sold separately) to create a desktop workstation. There's also a 16:10, 10.5-inch Super AMOLED display, with slimmed-down bezels and no visible home key. Samsung says it's geared towards immersive entertainment experiences, but it should pack plenty of appeal for designers, too. The Galaxy Tab S5e will be the first tablet to feature Samsung's new virtual assistant, Bixby, and has been optimised to offer a hub from which users can control their smart home devices. Finally, there are Quad Speakers with built-in auto-rotate stereo technology (it adapts depending on how you're holding your tablet), Dolby Atmos integration and sound by AKG. The best Galaxy Tab S5e deals This tablet isn't available to buy yet – but you can pre-register on the Samsung website. We'll be updating this post with the best Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e deals as and when they become available, so hold tight. We rated this tablet's predecessor, the S4, very highly in our roundup of the best tablets with a stylus – in fact, we thought it was the best Android tablet by a mile. Read our Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 review here, and take a look at the deals below if you think it's for you (and can't wait for the S5e). Read more: The best software for digital artists in 2019 74 best free fonts for designers View the full article

CSS must pass through a relatively complex pipeline, just like HTML and JavaScript. The browser must download the files from the server and then proceed to parsing and applying them to the DOM. Due to extreme levels of optimisation, this process is usually pretty fast – for smaller web projects not based on frameworks, CSS usually makes up just a small part of total resource consumption. Frameworks upset this equilibrium. Include a JavaScript GUI stack like jQuery UI, and watch CSS, JS and HTML sizes skyrocket. Often, developers usually feel the pinch last – when seated behind a powerful eight-core workstation with T3 internet, no one cares about speed. This changes as latencies or CPU-constrained devices come to play. 19 cool CSS animation examples to recreate Optimising CSS requires a multi-dimensional approach. While hand-written code can be slimmed down using various techniques, going over framework code by hand is inefficient. In these cases, using an automated minimiser yields better results. The following steps will take us on a journey through the world of CSS optimisation. Not every single one might be directly applicable to your project, but do keep them in mind. 01. Use shorthand Shorthand can make your CSS files much smaller The fastest CSS clause is one that never gets parsed. Using shorthand clauses, such as the margin declaration shown below, radically reduces the size of your CSS files. A lot of additional shorthand forms can be found by googling 'CSS Shorthand'. 02. Find and remove unused CSS If code's not doing anything, get rid of it Eliminating unneeded parts of your mark-up obviously causes immense speed gains. Google's Chrome browser has this functionality out of the box. Simply go to View > Developer > Developer Tools and open the Sources tab in a recent version, and open the Command Menu. After that, select Show Coverage and feast your eyes on the coverage analysis window highlighting unused code on the current webpage. 03. Do it in a more comfortable fashion Use Web Performance Audit to easily trim redundant code Navigating through the line-by-line analysis is not necessarily comfortable. Chrome's Web Performance Audit returns similar information – simply open it from the toolbar, View > Developer > Developer Tools > Audits and let it run. When done, a list of problematic elements will pop up. 04. Be aware of the problems Keep in mind that an automatised analysis of a CSS can always lead to errors. Perform a thorough test of the entire website after replacing your CSS files with the minified ones – one never knows what mistakes the optimiser caused. 05. Inline critical CSS Loading external stylesheets costs time due to latency – anyone remember the 'flash of unstyled content'? The most critical bits of code can therefore go into the header tag. Make sure not to overdo it, however. Keep in mind that the code must also be read by humans performing maintenance tasks. 06. Permit antiparallel parsing @import adds structure to your CSS code. Sadly, the benefits are not for free: as imports can nest, parsing them in parallel is not possible. A more parallelisable way uses a series of <link> tags, which the browser can fetch at once. 07. Replace images with CSS Years ago, a set of semi-transparent PNGs to create translucent effects on websites was commonplace. Nowadays, CSS filters provide a resource-saving alternative. As an example, the snippet accompanying this step ensures that the picture in question appears as a grayscale version of itself. 08. Use colour shortcuts Common wisdom teaches that six-digit colour descriptors are the most efficient way to express colours. This is not the case – in some cases, shorthand descriptions or colour names can be shorter. 09. Eliminate unneeded zeros and units CSS supports a wide variety of units and number formats. They are a thankful target for optimisation – both trailing and following zeros can be removed, as is demonstrated in the snippet below. Furthermore, keep in mind that a zero always is a zero, and that adding a dimension does not add value to the information contained. 10. Eliminate excessive semicolons This optimisation is somewhat critical, as it affects changes of code. CSS' specification lets you omit the last semicolon in a property group. As the savings achieved by this optimisation method are minimal, we mention this mainly for those who are working on an automated optimiser. 11. Use a texture atlas Loading multiple small sprites is inefficient due to protocol overheads. CSS sprites combine a series of small pictures into one big PNG file, which is then broken apart via CSS rules. Programs such as TexturePacker simplify the creation process greatly. 12. Chase down the px One neat way to increase performance uses a specialty of the CSS standard. Numeric values without a unit are assumed to be pixels – removing the px saves two bytes for each number. 13. Avoid expensive properties Analysis has shown some tags to be more expensive than others. The list accompanying this step is considered to be especially performance-hungry – avoid them when given the opportunity to do so. 14. Remove whitespace Whitespace – think tabs, carriage returns and spaces – makes code easier to read but serves little purpose from a parser's point of view. Eliminate them before shipping. An even better way involves delegating this job to a shell script or similar appliance. 15. Eliminate comments Comments also serve no purpose to the compiler. Create a custom parser to remove them before delivery. Not only does that save bandwidth but it also ensures that attackers and cloners have a harder time understanding the thinking behind the code at hand. 16. Use automatic compression Yahoo's user experience team created an application that handles many compression tasks. It ships as a JAR file, available here, and can be run with a JVM of choice. 17. Run it from NPM Should you prefer to integrate the product into Node.JS, visit npmjs.com/package/yuicompressor. The badly maintained repository contains a set of wrapper files and a JavaScript API. 18. Keep Sass et al in check Sass can get needlessly complex, so optimise it if you can While CSS selector performance is not nearly as critical as it was some years ago (see resource), frameworks such as Sass sometimes emit extremely complex code. Take a look at the output files from time to time and think about ways to optimise the results. What is Sass? 19. Set up caching An old adage claims that the fastest file is one that never gets sent across the wires. Making the browser cache requests achieves this efficiently. Sadly, the setup of the caching headers must take place on the server. Make good use of the two tools shown in the screenshots – they provide a swift way to analyse the results of your changes. 20. Bust the cache Designers often dislike caching due to fear of problems with upcoming changes. A neat way around the problem involves including tags with the file name. Sadly, the scheme outlined in the code accompanying this step does not work everywhere as some proxies refuse to cache files with 'dynamic' paths. 21. Don't forget the basics Optimising CSS is just part of the game. If your server does not use HTTP/2 and gzip compression, a lot of time is lost during data transmission. Fortunately, fixing these two problems is usually simple. Our example shows a few tweaks to the commonly used Apache server. Should you find yourself on a different system, simply consult the server documentation. This article was originally published in issue 282 of creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 282 here or subscribe to Web Designer here. Related articles: 10 amazing new CSS techniques Which is the best CSS preprocessor? An introduction to CSS custom properties View the full article

The 91st Academy Awards are just around the corner, which means that the biggest films of 2018 will be battling it out to find out who's best. And with this year's contenders including stories about legendary singers, complex characters and historical royalty, there's plenty of raw material for Shutterstock's designers to sink their teeth into. That's right, the stock photography company is celebrating this year's Best Picture nominees as part of its seventh annual Oscar Pop! poster series. For this campaign, Shutterstock's team of designers choose one of the shortlisted movies and create a new poster inspired by some of the world's most famous and iconic pop artists. 38 stunning poster designs to inspire you "This project is one that our designers look forward to each year because they get to showcase their talent, leveraging the incredible depth of our visual assets while drawing inspiration from their choice of pop artists who speak to them on a personal level," said Shutterstock’s VP of Creative, Mike McCabe. "This year's nominations allowed us to really stretch our creative limits. Each film has a strong protagonist that we illustrated by using design assets that reflect a specific artistic style or movement, elevating each character to the realm of fine art." So grab a bag of popcorn, dim the lights, and check out the posters in this year's series. How many of these films have you seen? Use the arrows to explore the gallery below. Related articles: The good, the bad and the ugly of movie posters A designer's guide to printing a poster 16 of the most imaginative movie wallpapers View the full article

Gordon Reid is a UK-based graphic designer and illustrator with an impressive portfolio. Reid set up his creative agency Middle Boop in 2009, and has since gone on to work for clients including Nike and Starbucks, to name a few. Probably best known for being one of the creative brains behind the Weird World Cup project, Reid is now celebrating a decade working in the design industry, embarking on a 10-year anniversary tour, with new projects and various design events in the pipeline. 2019 marks 10 years since Gordon Reid began working in the design industry And next up in Reid's busy schedule is taking to the stage at this year's Design Indaba conference in Cape Town. We caught up with him ahead of the event to find out a little bit more about the man himself and how his creative career has led him to the main stage. How did you creative career start? "I was working in a pub where I met two guys who were a few years older than me and they were doing a graphic design course. I saw their work and it was really rudimentary graphic design, but it was just one of the moments where I realised I wasn't particularly inspired by what I was currently doing. I saw their work and it was like a spark – I could do graphic design for a living. So everything happened pretty quickly after that. I quit studying English and media at college, went and did an art foundation degree. And from that moment I just knew it was what I wanted to do. I saw the work and it was like a spark – I could do graphic design for a living I knew I wanted to develop a style, but I couldn't draw and I wasn't particularly great with a computer then, but I found I was really inspired by collage artists. And that was something I could do. So I got bad grades at university for doing collage, but I didn't care as I knew I wanted to do that. "In the beginning, it was all traditional collage, so going to car boot sales and finding magazines to pull apart. But after uni, I started teaching myself properly how to create collages digitally and I started making connections with band labels and managers through a blog that I was running at the time called The Middle Boop magazine. Through that we were able to connect with designers who we were inspired by, and that's really how it all started." Tell us about the Weird World Cup beermat project "It literally came from one afternoon in the pub thinking how it would be great to do a project for the World Cup, and how it would be hilarious to try and convince an artist like Sagmeister to create artwork for a beermat that would then up in a crappy pub with someone resting their pint of Fosters on it, having no idea why there's artwork on this thing or who this guy is. I just thought there was something really funny about it. "So part of my talk at Design Indaba is how we went on to convince 20 leading illustrators and creatives to give their time to this project. And how it blew up unbelievably quickly, to the point where we ended up on TV and were selling them to people all over the globe." Illustrator Raj Dhunna depicts David Beckham's 1998 World cup red card as part of Gordon Reid's Weird World Cup project How do you go about finding new work? "Reputation goes a long way in work finding you, that's for sure. Get a good reputation in the industry and that will help massively. But I'm always doing something to come up with new self-initiated ideas that gain some traction. At the end of the day, the more I work I put out to a high quality, the more work I get. I'm always looking for new ways to push the way I present myself and work further too." Reid has worked with world-leading brands throughout a decade in the design industry What are your go-to apps to help keep you productive? Google calendar is pretty handy for making sure I don't double book meetings or forget I'm meant to be travelling somewhere. Apart from that, believe it or not, I use pen and paper and a whiteboard to keep track of all jobs and deadlines. For client-based work though, where they want to be kept updated on progress, we use project management app Trello. What skills do you think creatives need to succeed in the industry today? "Learning business skills is vital, but tricky, as no-one is really going to teach you. How you quote for a job, how you value yourself and your talent and how to not get ripped off are all things you have to learn the hard way if you have no business skills under your belt. But with a little of initiative and networking, you will be able to pull on the knowledge of fellow creatives, who can help you out and grow in confidence as to what to charge. Bring able to create a style that you're recognised for is a brilliant skill "Another important skill is marketing, and learning how to promote yourself properly. It's so easy to be able to get your work out there now with all the different social media platforms, but among a sea of others doing the same, it's even more important to know how best to market your work. There's definitely an art to being able to get yourself out there and promoted by the right people. "I think being able to create a style that you're recognised for, which is also versatile enough to be easily applied to multiple different formats and touch points is a brilliant skill to have. Not only does this open lots of doors, in terms of work, it also means people have the confidence and trust in knowing that you can manage the entire job." See Gordon Reid at Design Indaba 2019 If you want to see more from Gordon Reid, including all the takeaways from the Weird World Cup beermat project and almost certainly some hilarious cat GIFs, make sure to get your ticket to Design Indaba 2019. Kicking off in Cape Town on 27 February, this is one design event not to be missed! You can also follow all Reid's latest antics over on Instagram and Twitter. View the full article

Most 3D software is absolutely vast. These programmes provide a great number of tools, options and customisation, but that can make for a steep learning curve. With that in mind, the developers often create quick-access menus, which can be hugely beneficial, especially for tasks you do less frequently, where the mental muscle memory hasn’t been solidly created yet. Maxon has added a few of these to Cinema 4D and, although they are great for quickly finding a nested command, they also serve to allow users to create more working room for their viewports and managers. You could conceivably have an interface set up that has no buttons at all, and simply rely on keyboard shortcuts and a couple of really useful and powerful pop-up menus to navigate almost everything the software has to offer. Here are the two most important shortcuts within Cinema 4D. Once you've got to grips with them, check out our Cinema 4D tutorials for more tips and tricks. Get free admission to VERTEX 2019, the ultimate event for 2D and 3D artists 01. Open a text field Pressing Shift + C opens up a text field. Start typing the command you want and a list will appear for you to choose from, opening up the entire application. 02. Find the most useful menus Much of the time spent in Cinema 4D will be used making various selections, navigating between projects and working with plugins or snapping settings. If you hit the V key, a radial popup will open, with these common menu sets nested inside. These are the most useful menus. This article originally appeared in issue 242 of 3D World, the world's leading magazine for 3D artists. Buy issue 242 or subscribe here. Read more: How to model concept art in Cinema 4D 15 expert Cinema 4D tips The best 3D modelling software View the full article

Have you ever designed a logo, got approval from the client, then seen it in action and thought it looked unbalanced? This can happen to digital designers for a number of reasons. So, to help your logos look more rounded and cohesive, The Futur Academy recently shared a brief video packed with useful design tips as part of its logo therapy sessions. Hosted by Futur's founder, Chris Do, the short clip sees graphic designer Jelvin Base walk you through bitesized advice to keep in mind while refining your work. It's important to keep in mind, though, that these suggestions will help you to achieve an optically balanced logo design rather than a mathematically balanced one. There's no hard and fast formula for creating a balanced logo because designs vary so much. But while you won't necessarily be able to rely on the golden ratio to create a harmonious logo all the time, you will be able to use Base's insights to push your creations in the right direction. Check them out below. If this has whetted your appetite for more logo videos, head over to Futur's YouTube channel where you'll find clips covering hand lettering, basic principles, and even advice on how to price your logo design services. Related articles: Where to find logo design inspiration 5 logo design terms you should know 8 Insta feeds to follow for logo design inspiration View the full article

Making CSS art can be intimidating, but it's easy once you break graphics down into simple parts. If you peruse websites like CodePen, DevArt and Dribbble, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed by the incredible things that developers and designers make, especially when you’re just starting out. I made my first piece of CSS art after lurking on these sites for years and eventually mustered up the courage to try and do it. Now, a few years and over 100 experiments later, it’s one of my favourite hobbies. Making CSS art is interesting and fun. It teaches you nuances of CSS that you might not normally work with, helps you see graphics (and problems in general) modularly and improves your speed when writing CSS. It’s also a great way for designers and developers to get on the same page when working on a user interface together. As you practise and refine your skills making CSS art, you’ll see an improvement in your day-to-day work (and you might even enjoy it more, too). 19 cool CSS animation examples to recreate In this article, we’re going to be making a cute ice cream bar graphic in CSS. I’ll talk through and give you the code to follow, so that you can customise it and make it your own. Let’s get started! 01. Set up your document Before we write any CSS, we have to actually have something to style. You can use a preprocessor like HAML or Pug, or just straight HTML. I’ll stick with pure HTML and CSS in our examples, but you’re free to use what you’re most comfortable with. Pull up a blank Pen on CodePen or an HTML document, and include the following for the ice cream bar in the <body>. 02. Settle on colours and sizes Normally when you have a graphic in front of you to make, you will need the dimensions and colours of that graphic. In this particular case, I’ll be providing you with those dimensions and colours. When you don’t have me around though, I recommend getting yourself a colour picker tool (I personally use Digital Color Meter on Mac and ColorPic on Windows), and a screenshot tool to figure out your dimensions (the native ones for your operating systems work just fine). Let’s add those dimensions and colours now to our document. 03. Add positioning and transforms Right now, our image is all blocky and in the corner. Before we shape everything better, let’s add some positioning and transforms. Personally, my favourite positioning techniques (generally) are absolute positioning containers, and using flexbox for everything else. If you prefer using absolute and relative positioning for everything, or even CSS Grid, go for it! Now, we have to position the container in the middle of the page (I’ll be using absolute positioning and a translate transform), and make sure the contents of the main container are centred and rotated as needed. You might notice that I also added a couple of dimensions for the '.face' and '.eyes' classes – that’s for handling the spacing within that container. Go ahead and add these changes in yourself to each class: 04. Choose your pseudo-elements Our little ice cream bar is looking pretty good, if I do say so myself! One last concept that is incredibly helpful for making CSS art is pseudo-elements. Every single element on a page can actually be three elements: the main element, ::before, and ::after. You can style ::before and ::after as if they’re separate <div>s within any element. For example, I could have changed the .eyes container to have no .eye <div>s at all, and just style a ::before and ::after for each eye. That would have been cool, but that would make styling the glare on each eye impossible. That being said, for the final missing glare on those eyes, let’s add a ::before pseudo-element to make that possible. The key things to add to a pseudo-element are a display value and content: ‘’. Check it out, and with that, we’re done! You're an artist! We made something really fun together today. If you’d like to check out my final result, you can find it on my CodePen profile (above). Making CSS art is really just a matter of applying the concepts we talked about in interesting and fun ways. You can take these techniques and run with them, and even add your own animations with keyframes and transitions. All this being said, I hope you learned something new, and this motivated you to try your hand at making something beautiful. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 282 or subscribe. Related articles: Create cool UI animations with CSS 34 web design tools to help you work smarter in 2019 Which is the best CSS preprocessor? View the full article

In celebration of the up-and-coming Wix Design Playground, starting June 2019, some of the programme's alumni recently met to discuss their experiences from last summer. The students mention an invigorating, creative energy that kept them motivated throughout the entire three-month summer program, as well as long after it came to an end. “It was such a stimulating environment, where a group of talented people were encouraged to unlock their creativity and pour it into every project,” says Ariel Sun, digital designer, illustrator and recent graduate of the programme. “The Wix Design Playground has definitely placed me right in the epicentre of the design community in New York. I’m really grateful for the community that the program has cultivated for us, and for the connections that we now have with so many talented luminaries of the design field.” Stellar speakers The luminaries that Ariel is referring to are the many speakers that popped by the program over the summer, including award-winning designers such as Jessica Walsh, Debbie Millman, Adam J. Kurtz, and Alexandra Zsigmond, to name a few. These talks were accompanied by everything a designer can dream of, from workshops making paper masks, zines and more, to visiting design studios and museums around Manhattan. The students also took part in three main projects, spanning a month each. While they varied in brief and objective, they had one thing in common: they were all real-life projects, made for real clients. “As a leading high-tech company,” explains Vuong Tong, head of the Wix Design Playground, “It was important for us that our academy reflected the design industry, in both its high standards and tight timetables. "As a direct result, we knew that we wanted our students to work with real clients.” The message they were hoping to convey, says Tong, is that the client can be your ally and share your goals, rather than being your enemy. The Wix Playground space Reigniting creativity through play The 35 students who attended last summer’s program all come from different walks of life and design disciplines. Some were still students at the time, while others, like Ariel, were practising designers. “I wasn’t sure whether I needed to go through a programme to learn more and improve my design skills,” says Sun, who had to cut down on her then full-time position in order to attend the programme. “But in the end, I’m so glad that I did. The Wix Design Playground helped me realise that I can define my own career path as a creative, and gave me the confidence to do so.” Whether the students were busy creating a website for a temporary tattoo company, rebranding a non-profit or revamping their own portfolio, it was the Playground’s mission to provide a well-rounded set of skills, rather than simply technical expertise. The Wix Design Playground helped me realise that I can define my own career path Ariel Sun “A designer doesn’t need much more than a laptop,” comments Yotam Kellner, one of the programme mentors, “Which makes the conceptual, abstract tools of the trade so much more crucial than the technical ones. Only through experimentation can you step out of your comfort zone and brave into new techniques and skills. This way, you may become versatile, so that no platform, medium, or technique will be out of your reach.” As an example, Kellner refers to fashion designer, illustrator and Playground graduate Ivy Chen, whose experimentation led her to truly unique and interesting results. “Ivy used to shy away from the digital medium,” says Kellner, “But I’m so proud of the Wix website that she designed. It’s beautiful, poetic, and employs a deep understanding of graphic design principles.” The final outcome combines Ivy’s two passions – fashion design and illustration. With a sophisticated application of scrolling effects, Ivy was able to fuse the two seemingly unrelated fields into one cohesive visual language. “When she put the two worlds together,” says Yotam, “She created a third one that’s just hers, and is an accurate representation of who Ivy is as a creative.” And it’s this spirit of refining one’s creative voice through play and ingenuity that the Wix Playground is all about. The 2019 Wix Design Playground is currently accepting applications. The tuition-free program will be in Manhattan starting June 2019. Ready to embark on your own creative journey? Apply today for the design experience of a lifetime! View the full article

The creative industries are famously fast moving, and none more so than in the world of web design. Trends and tools change so quickly it can feel like a whirlwind. To help you not only keep up but get ahead of the curve, UXPin has created a comprehensive guide to the trends that will shape web design this year. And you can download it completely free using the link below. > Download Web Design Trends 2019 for free These are the movements we're just starting to see signs of, and the ones you need to know if you want to design websites and apps that stand out. This free ebook comes from the same people who brought you UXPin – the code-based digital product design tool that changed the way we approach prototyping. So it's safe to say they have a solid understanding of what's going on right at the cutting edge of web design. The ebook kicks off with a look at the coolest colour themes around, including gradients, colour overlays and animated colour effects. Next, there's a look at the new ways we're approaching branding and logo design, followed by one of the more experimental design trends around: split-screen design. A guide to effective data visualisation and a closer look at how to layer different types of interactivity round off this invaluable ebook. Inside, you'll also find: Inspiring examples of 2019's biggest trends in action Top tools to help you achieve these effects Insight from industry experts Advice for how to incorporate the trends into your projects Download UXPin's Web Design Trends 2019 ebook for free now, to start using the industry's coolest themes in your projects. View the full article

The Samsung Galaxy S10 is one of the most hotly anticipated smartphone releases this year, and we're now just days away from seeing Samsung's new flagship handset hit the shelves. Set to launch on Wednesday 20 February, speculation surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S10 will come to an end as the new device is unveiled at 'Galaxy Unpacked' media events in London and San Francisco. While no-one apart from the South Korean tech giant really knows anything solid about the new device, if you've already decided the new S10 is going to be the best camera phone for you in 2019, preorders are available in the US via the Samsung website. In fact, the company is offering an early Samsung S10 deal: reserve a handset today and save up to $550 when you trade in an eligible device. Galaxy S10 preorders for anyone outside of the US have yet to be confirmed, but they're expected to open up to UK consumers on Thursday 21 February. So what exactly do we know about Samsung's latest flagship smartphone? What does it look like, what features will most benefit artists and designers, and where can you find the best price? Here's everything we know about the new device, plus where to find the best Samsung Galaxy S10 deals. Where to find the best Samsung Galaxy S10 deals The cheapest way to purchase a new handset is normally to buy the device outright – but the price of the S10 will be steep: this is Samsung's latest flagship model, after all. If that isn't an option, you're likely to be looking at a two-year contract. So where will you get the best Samsung Galaxy S10 deal? According to our sister site TechRadar, O2 may come up trumps in the UK with the most competitive offers. However, it's also worth keeping an eye on EE and Vodafone, Techradar predicts: "EE was the network with some of the most attractive tariffs when the S9 was launched in March 2018 and the same with the Note 9, but we're expecting O2 to come out on top when the new handset is released. O2 has been really competitive recently for smaller data deals and especially on flagship Android devices. Vodafone also stands a good chance of throwing in some great offers but we've placed our bets with O2 for now." Here's what TechRadar thinks an O2 deal might look like: What Samsung Galaxy S10 models will be announced? The S10 is rumoured to be coming in three sizes. Credit: GSMArena / MobileFun We're expecting to see three shiny new versions of the Samsung Galaxy S10 – a standard model, a smaller S10 Lite and inevitably a S10 Plus model sporting the largest screen of them all. The display is rumoured to be super-crisp, boasting a resolution of 1440 x 3040 and a 19:9 aspect ratio, with hardly anything in the way of bezels eating in to it – perfect for seeing art and design work in all its glory. Samsung Galaxy S10: key features for creatives When it comes to the best smartphones for creatives, there are many considerations, but two of the most important are power and camera capabilities. So is the Samsung Galaxy S10 likely to have everything you need when it comes to both? The short answer is yes. The camera quality looks like it won't disappoint, with the standard model rumoured to have a dual-lens camera and the Plus packing a triple lens, with a 12MP wide-angle f/1.5-f/2.4 lens, a 16MP super wide-angle f/1.9 lens and a 13MP telephoto lens with an f/2.4 aperture. Add all that together and you've got some serious photographic power in your pocket. And Samsung hasn't forgotten about the front-facing camera either, by all accounts, with the Lite model rumoured to be a single-lens model, and the standard and Plus versions with a pair of cameras. There's also been whisperings of a 3D sensor for augmented reality content. Portable powerhouse Dependent on where you are in the world, the device's processor itself is almost certainly going to be a Snapdragon 855 chipset, which right now, with 5G support, with theoretical download speeds of up to 2Gbps and a chip solely dedicated to processing videos and photos, is the mobile chipset to beat. Outside the of the US, the S10 is expected to feature Samsung's eight-core Exynos 9820 chipset, which is just as impressive, providing support for 8K video recording, a dedicated neural processing unit to deal with AI-related tasks laser fast and 40% better power efficiency over the previous generation. In terms of memory, the S10 is expected to feature eight, possibly even 12GB of RAM and a bucket-load of onboard storage, making it ridiculously quick. The best Samsung Galaxy S10 deals right here We'll be keeping you up-to-date with all the action as it happens on 20 February: we'll be posting the best Samsung Galaxy S10 deals as and when they drop, so make sure to bookmark this page and check back on Wednesday. It's also worth noting that the release of the S10 will almost certainly mean there will soon be some brilliant deals to be had on its older but still super sibling, the Samsung Galaxy S9. If you don't mind not having the very latest device, the S9 is still an excellent buy – and it's just about to become a whole lot more affordable. Here are the best Samsung Galaxy S9 deals available right now... View the full article

Threat-hunters say the breached data from the massive Equifax incident is nowhere to be found, indicating a spy job. View the full article

Data-exposure "lowlights" for the week ending Feb. 15, 2019. View the full article

Recording 4k footage has never been easier, but editing it later on still requires using high-end equipment and expensive software. VideoProc Video Processor & Editor does away with all of that and makes processing ultra HD videos a breeze. You can get it today for $19.99. VideoProc is your one-stop shop to editing, converting, resizing, and adjusting 4K UHD videos, DVDs, and music at lightning fast speeds. It employs Level-3 Hardware Acceleration to allow for smooth video editing and transcoding, without compromising on quality. With this powerful software, you can convert clips up to 47 times faster, and it's filled to the brim with streamlined features such as adding subtitles, stabilising video, fixing fisheye, removing noise, and so much more. Get lifetime access to VideoProc Video Processor & Editor today for $19.99 — 74 percent off the usual cost. Related articles: The best computers for video editing in 2019 The best video editing software in 2019 The best online video editing courses View the full article

Where is design heading? Our guess is that the broad societal trend towards a web and app-based lifestyle mean that strong currents will continue to encourage a standardisation and simplification of design, both online and off. And that’s partly a good thing, because design is primarily about solving a problem, and the fewer obstacles we can put it people’s way – visual, cognitive or otherwise – the better our work will be. But at the same time, no one wants to end up in a cookie-cutter world where every single piece of design looks and feels the same. So it’s the job of creatives everywhere to manage that pressure thoughtfully, harness our imaginations and passions, and find new and inventive ways to use design to solve problems in a way that’s both functional and inspirational. Why you should embrace design thinking No one’s saying it’s easy, but that’s the challenge that ultimately makes design work fulfilling. And to see where it will take us, we caught up with five industry leading creators to hear their thoughts. 01. A 2D comeback Territory created stylised 2D cel animations for the Sky Super League titles "In motion, I think 2D will have a renaissance," says Nils Kloth, creative director at Territory. "For the past few years, there was a huge drive for 3D design to be at the forefront, but there seems to be a shift happening." 02. Integration of the physical with digital “We’re seeing an exciting move towards the seamless integration of the physical and digital within retail, exhibitions and brand experiences,” says Tino Schaedler, chief design officer at Optimist Inc. Los Angeles. “But as an industry, we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to these immersive or ‘connected’ spaces.” 03. Colour ownership Mailchimp's latest rebrand by COLLINS uses a prominent yellow, is it aiming to 'own' yellow? The aspiration of brands ‘owning’ a single colour seems to be making a comeback, notes Luke Woodhouse, creative director at Ragged Edge. “With MailChimp adopting yellow and Coca-Cola going back to its iconic red roots on cans, it may be we’ll see more brands going back to basics and really owning colour as a tool for brand recognition in an increasingly busy and fast-paced world.” 21 outstanding uses of colour in branding 04. Human-centred motion “The use of animation as a way to improve the user experience of a site or app has become very well established online,” says Laura Walters, designer at The Tin. “The next step will be to translate brand personality into motion principles. A brand that defines itself as ‘human centred’ may choose to animate elements in a way that’s not quite perfect; objects may not land perfectly and may have a slight wobble.” 05. Greater brand transparency Clear type and design helps to deliver brand transparency “Straightforward copy, clean type and images, and motion with fewer visual alterations will be the new norm going forward,” says Jared Tomlinson of Standard Black. “The trend is all about transparency: brands that show you who they are and don’t tell you what you should be; pulling back on retouching; amplifying user-generated content; and having an inclusive tone of voice. This will permeate all forms of communication, from photography, video, social and copy, all the way through graphic design and identities.” This article originally appeared in Computer Arts, the world's leading design magazine. Buy issue 287 or subscribe here. Related articles: 6 of the biggest graphic design trends for 2019 6 huge logo trends for 2019 4 creative career tips you didn't know you needed View the full article

The ecommerce is big business, but despite the fact that the industry is still relatively new, our sites are already starting to look oddly similar. Many brands are also stubbornly focused on their physical stores, while their digital platforms remain comparatively uninspired. So says Daan Klaver, the man behind Dutch studio Build in Amsterdam, a multi-award-winning ecommerce powerhouse. At Digital Design Days in Geneva, Klaver presented his hard-earned advice for creating standout ecommerce websites that "attract, engage and convert in an infinite loop", and we caught up with him afterwards to find out more. In this article, you'll find advice for creating ecommerce websites that offer your visitors a standout shopping experience. Not working specifically with ecommerce clients? There's plenty to learn here anyway. "Every brand has something to sell. So in our mind every brand is ecommerce," says Klaver. DON'T settle for best practice Build in Amsterdam's ecommerce site for Mendo was designed to replicate a experience of browsing in a real bookstore "We're working in such a young industry, we have to push the envelope. We can't just look at best practice and just settle for that," urges Klaver. We've got to the point where we have certain established patterns in ecommerce that we know work – but we're relying on these and innovation in the industry is suffering because of it. Most brands still see their 'flagship store' as a bricks-and-mortar shop, and it's here they focus on creating wonderful customer experiences. Klaver thinks this is the wrong approach. "Your ecommerce site is the biggest flagship store you have. It's open 24/7, worldwide," he says. DO make 'snackable' content Social media now plays a huge role in selling online. "Social media is where almost all the communication is happening now from brands," Klaver explains. That means the types of content that are popular on social media should also be informing your ecommerce strategy. "Consumers nowadays don't want to read a lot. They just want the visuals, they want 'snackable', short stories. So I think we'll see that social thinking coming into ecommerce." For its latest project, Build In Amsterdam has been creating this kind of 'snackable content' for a brand, making sure the stories the brand communicates on its Instagram can be directly applied to its main site. DON'T think in journeys Build developed a new kind of scrolling experience for Studio Job We tend to design for ecommerce in journeys, imagining there's a static route to channel customers through to reach the point of conversion. That way of thinking is obsolete. Thanks largely to the key role social media now plays in ecommerce, you can no longer predict where a customer will land on your site – more people will land on a detail page than your homepage. So it's time to stop thinking of your designs as separate pages. DO use a headless CMS There have been a lot of shifts in the CMSs that dominate in the ecommerce landscape, but what Klaver is seeing now is that the newer sites are using a headless CMS – an approach Build in Amsterdam has embraced for a while. This means you can use a CMS you like, and you have complete freedom over templating. Klaver is fully behind the trend. "It's a really good thing, because hopefully then not all web shops will look alike," he smiles. Use WordPress as a headless CMS DON'T expect loyalty Earlier in the festival, designer and entrepreneur Chris Do said that: "Having an audience is greater than having customers... You have to pay customers to get their attention (that's advertising). An audience will give your their time willingly." We ask Klaver if he agrees. "Partially I agree. But I believe people are not loyal to brands so it's always about winning new souls, if you want to grow." He points out that while nowadays brands are expected to have a more honest and relatable message than they used to, that still that doesn't mean you can rely on customer loyalty. "People hop brands very easily," he explains. "It's great if you've built an audience, because then you have a core and you should never let that go, but as a brand I would always hunt for new audiences." DO know your strategy A shoppable online community for Open Wear The biggest and most common mistake designers make is to not pay enough attention to strategy. "They design things, very often, just from pure instinct," says Klaver. "Sometimes that leads to good design, but I believe that every decision you make during the design process should lead back to the strategy, and should have a good rationale behind it." You don't want to end up in a conversation with your client where they ask why you've done something, and your only response is that you thought it looked beautiful, because if they disagree you have nothing to come back with. In Klaver's opinion, everything from the UX concept to the typeface and colour scheme should relate back to the overall strategy. DO design mobile-first There has been a focus on building apparently 'mobile-first' for a while now, but Klaver thinks many brands are still directing too much attention to their desktop solution. He points out that most brands now attract around 70 per cent of their visitors on mobile, and that figure is only going to rise. Only now are we starting to focus on mobile design, and implementing that thinking into the desktop versions. DO get inspired by apps Build pushed boundaries with its award-winning platform for Fans Hals Museum Short of inspiration? Take a look at shopping apps. "I think we can learn a lot from apps," says Klaver. "They're trying to innovate and trying to push the limits. They're much more innovative than the ecommerce websites, even from the bigger brands. It's exciting to see." Read more: 34 web design tools to help you work smarter in 2019 10 web skills that pay Choose the perfect colour palette for your website View the full article

Welcome to the new issue of 3D Artist. Issue 129 of the magazine contains over 40 pages of step-by-step guides covering a range of styles and 3D software. And with every issue you can download great resources, including free models, textures and more, via our FileSilo. This issue it includes UV test maps and models from RenderHub, premium CGAxis models, textures from 3DTotal and more. Our masterclasses this month include an in-depth tutorial to recreate our sci-fi cover figure, Eve – follow Jonathan Ching’s step-by-step training to recreate Eve, and discover new workflows to help streamline your ZBrush and KeyShot art. Subscribe to 3D Artist And there’s another step-by-step tutorial showing you how to create a stylised portrait in real time. We also have two Blender tutorials this issue, one focusing on mastering arch viz, the other is on creating 3D fractals using Blender’s new real-time renderer Eevee. And, if abstract art is what you seek to achieve, you’ll love our tips and tricks feature that’ll show you what you need to do to create your own compelling artwork. Also in the issue, we take a peek behind the scenes at Weta Digital to discover the challenges of making a photo-real character for the manga-inspired sci-fi movie, Alita: Battle Angel. And we also talk to the producer, Jon Landau and the director, Robert Rodriquez on the aesthetic choices in Alita. Using the Unreal engine and Unity to create real-time VFX for film production is the hot topic in a special feature, where ILM’s Rob Bredow says he believes that the world’s first real-time VFX blockbuster “isn’t years away anymore…” There’s all this and loads more besides. 3D Artist issue 129 is available to buy now from all good newsagents. You can also buy it online, or through the Apple Newsstand (simply search for ‘3D Artist’). Read more: Free textures: 40 top textures to download today The best cities for 3D artists Become a better 3D artist View the full article

A USB-C mouse is an ideal alternative for those who are sick of the trackpad. In this buying guide, we've taken a look at the different options available, and rounded up the best USB-C mice on the market right now. The good news is, plenty of new USB-C mice have hit the market in recent years, so there are some great products to choose from. We reckon the best USB-C mouse is the Jelly Comb 2.4G Rechargeable Type-C Optical Mouse. It’s got great wireless connectivity and lots of useful extra features, all for a seriously competitive price. If you can't see what you're after in this list, take a look at our general guide to the best mouse for 2019. What do I need to know? When shopping for the best USB-C mouse you’ll likely encounter a term you've heard before, but not in this context: DPI. We're not talking about image resolution here – DPI is a measure of how sensitive a mouse is. The higher a mouse’s DPI, the further the cursor will travel along the screen when it is moved. While it’s worth being aware of DPI rates, you needn’t get bogged down in them – it only really matters for applications like professional gaming, where every millisecond counts. As long as a mouse has a DPI of more than about 1,000 then it’ll be more than adequate for creative work. Let’s get to the list! Buy Jelly Comb 2.4G on Amazon For our money, the The Jelly Comb Type-C Optical Mouse is the best USB-C mouse you can buy right now, as well as the best wireless mouse. It boasts a powerful 2.4GHz wireless connection, which will work at distances of up to 15m. The wireless receiver slots neatly into the underside of the mouse when not in use, meaning you won’t lose it easily. While battery life could perhaps be a little better (the manufacturers report 15 days, though this will of course depend on how heavily you use the mouse) it’s simple enough to plug in and charge up. The adjustable DPI allows you to pick your preferred level of sensitivity, and it’ll work with whichever operating system you’re using. The best part, as well, is that the competitive price means this is also among the most affordable USB-C mice on the market. Buy Logilink ID0160 on Amazon LogiLink’s ID0160 USB-C mouse has an ergonomic, ambidextrous design, with a soft covering on its sides and back for a comfortable hold. Its strong wireless connection is set up via the USB-C receiver, and it’s powered via a single AA battery (one of these comes packed in the box, so you can get started straight away). The DPI of 1200, while not the highest, should be more than fine for most applications creatives are going to be using the mouse for, and the fact that the LogiLink ID0160 is nice and portable makes it a good option if you want a mouse to take on the go. Buy Seenda Wireless Mouse on Amazon Pay only a little more than you would for the other mice on this list, and you could have your hands on this lovely wireless mouse from Seenda. Powered by an AA battery, this mouse features four adjustable DPI levels, all the way up to a hefty 2400. It's compatible with both USB-C and USB-equipped computers thanks to its dual adapters, which is useful if you're working across multiple devices. The smooth, silent buttons make the Seenda mouse a pleasure to use, and extra features like battery-saving automatic switch-off round out an already impressive package. Well worth the slightly premium price, especially if you also plan to use the mouse for gaming and could use the extra sensitivity. Buy Jelly Comb Ergonomic USB-C Mouse on Amazon: Right handed / left handed If you’re someone who spends most of their working day using a mouse, then it’s worth thinking about getting hold of an ergonomic USB-C wireless mouse. The Jelly Comb Ergonomic USB-C mouse bears a vertical design to ease the pressure on the user’s wrist and be comfortable to use for long periods. It comes in both left- and right-handed versions, though left-handed people might be understandably miffed that they’re asked to pay very slightly more. While the mouse works on both Windows and Mac, some of its function buttons will only work on Windows, so if you’re a Mac user you may want to review before taking the plunge. Buy AURTEC Type C Wireless Mouse on Amazon This straightforward wireless USB-C mouse from Aurtec is powered by widely available AAA batteries, but there are none provided, so you’ll need to remember to pick some up before you can start using it. Compatible with Windows and Mac systems, this mouse is designed with comfort in mind, and its DPI settings can be changed by simply holding the left button and using the scroll wheel. The wireless connection is a powerful 2.4GHz type, and like many others on this list it works at ranges of up to 10m, in case you ever find yourself using your mouse while 10m away from your computer (hey, it could happen). Buy Macally UCTURBO on Amazon Though the Macally UCTURBO 3 mouse is clearly and unambiguously designed to be used with Macs, it is also perfectly compatible with Windows systems – in both cases, simply plug in and play. Of course, that white design just screams ‘Apple’, and Mac users who plug it into their Thunderbolt 3 port will find it a responsive and comfortable mouse to use, though not as precise as some others on this list. The generous length of the cable means the lack of wireless functionality is no great loss, with the UCTURBO mouse just as useful for a desktop computer as a laptop. Tiny and remarkable, Trust’s USB-C mouse is perfect for throwing in your day bag or even your pocket and heading on your way. The USB cable retracts when not in use, meaning it won’t get in the way, and the ergonomic design works well for both left- and right-handers. Compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems, this is a great choice for the creative who tends to work on the move – and it’s available at a pretty attractive price, too. Can’t say fairer than that. Also read: The best USB-C monitors in 2019 The best keyboards for designers in 2019 The best laptops for graphic design in 2019 View the full article

Adobe has cut the price of its full Creative Suite of apps by a whopping 40% in an amazing Creative Cloud deal. That means you can now pick up Adobe's entire collection of more than 20 creative desktop and mobile apps, and more for just €36.29 a month instead of €60.49. Unfortunately, this deal isn't open to everyone worldwide. However, if you live in parts of Europe and Africa, you can claim this huge 40% saving. Save 40% on Adobe Creative Cloud now The full list of countries that can grab this deal include: South Africa, Austria. Belgium, Bulgaria, Switzerland, CIS, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, MENA, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine. This offer is valid until 1 March, so if you've been debating signing up to Creative Cloud, there's really no better time. What's included? Adobe's Creative Cloud All Apps plan includes: The entire collection of 20+ creative desktop and mobile apps, including Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, and Adobe XD CC 100GB of cloud storage Adobe Portfolio Adobe Fonts Adobe Spark with premium features The option of up to 10TB of cloud storage The programs are fully integrated, so you can work between them (and different devices) seamlessly – whether you’re out and about or in the studio. Built-in templates help you jump-start your designs, while step-by-step tutorials will help you sharpen your skills and get up to speed quickly. This deal expires on Friday 1 March 2019. Related articles: The best Adobe deals in 2019 60 top-class Photoshop tutorials The best 4K monitors for designers View the full article

Choosing a laptop as a creative can be all about compromise. Find one with good enough RAM and power to run your graphic design software, and it’ll weigh too much to conveniently bring into the office. Pixel density and vibrant colours often mean a three-hour battery life max. Want a screen size larger than 13”? Get ready to shell out the big bucks. The fact is, designer's shouldn’t need to compromise on the device their livelihood depends on. You need something that can handle Adobe Premiere Pro and a full gamut of colours without fail; won’t run out of juice during a vital pitch to a client; and won’t feel as if you’re lugging around an actual canvas every day. So, don’t compromise! LG’s new gram 17 is tailor-made for creative professionals, with LG having somehow managing to stick a 17-inch LCD screen onto a 15.6-inch body laptop that weighs less than 3 pounds. It’s the world’s lightest 17-inch laptop, and most of its 17-inch peers weigh more than double that amount. Those 17 inches give you a spacious 2,560 x 1,600 high resolution display and 16:10 aspect ratio. Graphic designers who need reliable colour fidelity for their projects will fully appreciate the bright, wide range of colours. Most computers and displays use a 16:9 ratio because it’s more affordable to make screens that match the ratio of TV screens. But that doesn’t mean you should just settle for the mainstream option. The extra bit of workspace will work wonders when you’re using photo and video editor applications that require a lot of vertical real estate. Of course, even 17 inches may not be enough for your needs. That’s likely why LG maintained a Thunderbolt 3 port into the 2019 gram, which enables 40Gbps data and high-bandwidth video, including 4K support to two screens or 5K to one. You won’t have any problem editing 4K content across the gram and a connected display. Only 0.7” thick and shockingly light, the gram 17 hasn’t compromised on performance to achieve its 2.95 lb. weight. It boasts an 8th generation i7 Intel core processor with integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics, 512GB or storage and 16GB RAM - power enough to do all the heavy lifting with industry standard creative software with speed and ease. Plus, creatives that can’t bear to delete their old work can use the second SSD slot to add more storage space for new projects. With such dependable hardware squeezed into such a slender frame, you might assume LG would have run out of room for a decent battery, but you’d be mistaken: its 72wh battery can reach a max of 19.5 hours on a full charge. It’s convenient to know that even if you forget your charger at home and run your most intensive creative software all day, you’ll still probably make it through your 9-5 without a problem. #ScaleUpQuiz campaign If you want to get your hands on a new LG gram 17, be sure to take part in the #ScaleUpIdea photo contest. You need to add a photo to your Instagram feed that creatively shows your thoughts on the gram 17’s large screen size, lightweight frame or long-lasting battery. Add the right hashtags, #ScaleUpScreen, #ScaleUpLightweight and #ScaleUpBattery, and you could win one of three 17-inch LG laptops, so long as you post before 7 March. See here for full terms and conditions For more information on the LG gram 17, check out the #ScaleUpQuiz campaign coming up on LG’s YouTube and Instagram channels, running from 14 – 27 February. Simply watch a video on each platform and answer the question included (related to LG gram’s key features) as a comment, and you could win a $30 Amazon gift card. View the full article