Rss Bot

In this Illustrator tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a calculator app icon in Adobe Illustrator CC. We’ll use different shape tools, pen tool, along with the 3D features of Illustrator. Hopefully you will learn few handy tips along the way. You will also need to download a couple of free fonts for this tutorial: DS-Digital and Bebas Neue. If you don't already have it, you can get Adobe Creative Cloud here. But first, let’s have a look at the final result: 01. Open a document Click image to enlarge Create a new document in Illustrator with 600px width and 450px height. 02. Create the background Click image to enlarge Select the Rectangle Tool (M) and pick #44484D fill color to draw a rectangle covering the canvas as the background. 03. Make the base Click image to enlarge We’ll start by creating the icon’s base. So select the Rectangle Tool (M) and click the canvas to view options window. Enter 280px width, 265px height and hit OK to draw a rectangle as shown below. Pick #E7DED0 as the fill color. Next, we’ll convert it into a rounded rectangle. Select this rectangle with the help of Selection Tool (V) orby clicking the ring-shaped target present at right side of respective layer. And go to Effect > Stylize > Round Corners. Enter 50px for the radius and hit OK. Click image to enlarge 04. Set effect Click image to enlarge Select this rectangle and go to Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Apply given settings here. 05. Apply a gradient Click image to enlarge To apply subtle gradient over the base, draw a rectangle covering the entire 3d shape using any fill color. Now convert it into a rounded rectangle with 50px corner radius. Now replace its fill with a Black-White-Black gradient using Gradient Tool (G). Change its blending mode to Color Burn with 20% opacity in the Transparency Panel (Shift + Ctrl+F10). Click image to enlarge 06. Create another rectangle Click image to enlarge Next, draw another rectangle with 280px width and 178px height using #E9E3D9 fill color and white color stroke. Choose 1pt stroke weight from top control bar. Now convert it into a rounded rectangle by 40px radius. Click image to enlarge After that, apply following gradient on it and change its blending mode to Multiply with 50% opacity in the Transparency Panel (Shift + Ctrl+F10). Click image to enlarge 07. Make rounded rectangle Click image to enlarge Draw another rectangle of 230px with and 35px height using #BCBA95 fill color and for stroke apply light to dark grey gradient as shown below. Select 3pt stroke weight from top control bar. Convert this rectangle into a rounded rectangle by 10px corner radius. Click image to enlarge 08. Make a glow effect Click image to enlarge Next, select this new rectangle and go to Window > Appearance to view the Appearance Panel or press Shift + F6. Now select the fill attribute and click the icon of Duplicate Selected Item at the bottom of Appearance Panel to duplicate the fill. And replace this new fill with Black & White gradient at 90 degrees as shown above. Keep this rectangle selected and go to Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow. Apply given settings here. Once you are done, change gradient fill blending mode to Multiply with 30% opacity. Click image to enlarge 09. Copy rectangle Click image to enlarge Select this new rectangle and press Ctrl+ C to copy and press Ctrl+ B to paste in back. Drag this copy 1-2 steps downwards. Now remove its fill attributes by dragging them to Delete icon at the bottom of Appearance Panel and give it 3pt stroke of #D1D2D4 colour. 10. Add text Click image to enlarge Next, we’ll add some text over the screen. Pick the Type Tool (T) to type the text using #404041 fill colour. I have used DS-Digital font here. Now press Ctrl+ C to copy and press Ctrl+ B to paste in back. Drag the copied text 1-2 steps downwards and change its fill colour to #808284. Click image to enlarge 11. Make the base Click image to enlarge Next, we’ll create button’s base. Select the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle with following dimensions using #847D72 fill color and same light to dark grey gradient on the stroke as used in step 7. However, choose 1pt stroke weight here. And convert it into a rounded rectangle by 25px radius. Click image to enlarge After that, duplicate its fill attribute in the Appearance Panel and apply Black & White gradient at 90 degrees. Change its blending mode to Multiply with 50% opacity. Click image to enlarge Next page: The final steps to creating an icon app in Illustrator... 12. Add depth Click image to enlarge Now we’ll give some depth to the button’s base. So, select the shape, press Ctrl+ C to copy and press Ctrl+ B to paste in back. Drag the copy 2-3 steps upwards. Keep the copy selected and change its stroke color to #E2E2E1 with 2pt stroke weight and fill color to #DDD9D3 in the Appearance Panel as shown above. 13. Create 3D button Click image to enlarge Next, I’ll show you how to create a 3d button. Pick the Rounded Rectangle Tool (M) to draw a 60 x 38px rectangle using #C5BCB4 fill color. Select it and make its corners rounded by 12px. Select the button and go to Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow. Apply given settings here. And apply Black & White gradient on it with Multiply blending mode and 40% opacity as we did in step 11. Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge 14. Extrude and bevel Click image to enlarge Select the button and go to Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Apply given settings here. 15. Make the button's shadow Click image to enlarge We’ll create button’s shadow now. To do so, duplicate the button. Select the bottom copy and remove all the effects in the Appearance Panel. Now change its fill colour to black and hit the down arrow twice to move it down. Duplicate it and change fill colour of the copy to white. Hit the down arrow on your keyboard 6-7 times downwards as shown above. Select both the black and white shapes and go to Object > Blend > Blend Options. Choose Specified Steps with the value of 20 and hit OK. Once again, go to Object > Blend > Make to blend them. Once you are done, change blended shape mode to Multiply with 60% opacity in the Transparency Panel. Click image to enlarge Select the shadow and go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Apply 8px Gaussian blur effect on it. Click image to enlarge 16. Apply the symbol Click image to enlarge To apply symbol over the button, draw a small rectangle with #56524C fill color. Select it and go to Object > Transform > Rotate. And rotate it at 90 degrees and hit Copy option to make the + symbol. Make its copy, turn the backside copy white and drag it 1-2 steps upwards. 17. Make more buttons Click image to enlarge You can make as many buttons as you want by using the same technique. And make the shadow of icon the same way as explained in step 15. 18. Fill in colour Click image to enlarge Now pick the Rounded Rectangle Tool, click the canvas to view options window and enter 210px width and 8px height here. Give it #404041 fill colour and #F1F1F2 colour stroke (Stroke weight: 1pt). 19. Make the paper Click image to enlarge To make the paper, draw a rectangle with following dimensions and #F7F5E8 fill color. Pick the Pen Tool (P) to draw a small line using any colour as a stroke. Select it and go to “Effect”> “Distort & Transform”> “Zigzag”. Apply given settings here to make the path wavy. Now draw a rectangular shape by clicking one end of the wavy path using Pen Tool (P) and close it on the other end. And give any fill colour to the resulting shape. Click image to enlarge Now place this shape over the top edge of paper, select both shapes and hit “Minus Front” in the Pathfinder Panel (Shift+ Ctrl+F9). Click image to enlarge 20. Apply gradient to paper Click image to enlarge Select the paper, duplicate its fill attribute in the Appearance Panel and apply given gradient on the copied fill. Change gradient fill blending mode to “Multiply” with 40% opacity. Click image to enlarge 21. Add text Click image to enlarge I’ve used “Bebas Neue” Font to type some text over the paper with given settings. To make dashed line, draw a straight path using Pen Tool (P) with no fill color and #404041 color stroke (Stroke weight: 1pt). Now apply given settings below in the Stroke Panel at the top control bar. Click image to enlarge To make paper shadow, draw a rectangle as shown below with black fill. Apply 8px Gaussian blur effect on it and change its blending mode to “Multiply” with 30% opacity. Click image to enlarge 22. Draw a knob Click image to enlarge Next, we’ll draw a knob. Draw the following path using Pen Tool (P) and give it #DF7F5E color fill with no stroke. Select the shape and go to “Effect”> “3D”> “Revolve”. Apply given settings below. Click image to enlarge 23. Place the knob Click image to enlarge To place the knob parallel to the calculator we have to rasterize it first. Select the knob and go to “Object”> “Rasterize”. Apply given settings above. After that, rotate the knob at 90 degrees and hit “OK”. To reflect it you have to rotate it at 180 degrees and hit “Copy”. Click image to enlarge Now position both knobs as shown below. Click image to enlarge Related articles: 75 best Adobe Illustrator tutorials How to make an app The 17 best Adobe Illustrator plugins View the full article

We're in the middle of the biggest change in UI design tools since the beginning of design tools in the 70s. Code-based design tools are picking up traction and getting ready to take over a market dominated by old school illustration tools. So should you consider adding a code-based tool to your design workflow? Well, if you're working on interfaces and you're only using image-based tools, you're limiting how expressive you can be in the digital world. Also, you're probably unwillingly creating tension between design and engineering specialists on your team. Read on for five key reasons to consider the switch. Or, for a quick history lesson on the creative tooling landscape, scroll to the bottom. 01. Advanced prototyping Image-based tools, as you now know, were originally meant to introduce illustration work to the world of computing. This paradigm was never meant to serve highly complex, interactive user interface design. No wonder image-based tools are highly limited when it comes to designing interactivity. Modern image-based tools enable you to link static artboards together. Some will even animate the changes between artboards. That may be enough for simple landing pages, but if you try to design an interactive form with validation, a sortable table, or in fact, any advanced pattern, you'll run into significant difficulties. Image-based tools don't support text-fields, states of components, conditional interactions, variables, and so on. One could argue that they don't support anything that we really need to design interactive interfaces. If you're designing dynamic interfaces, code-based tools are for you. Above, you can see a credit card form designed entirely in UXPin. 02. Realistic fidelity Text with the exact same spec rendered in an image-based tool Sketch (left) and code-based tool UXPin (right) – the text in UXPin will look exactly the same in the final product rendered in the browser Image-based design tools will render of all the elements on screen, based on proprietary rendering engines. Code-based tools use browser rendering engines. This technicality has a massive impact on the design and development process. When designed in an image-based tool, text, colours, gradients and so on will look very different once an engineer codes them into the final version of the product. Those differences tend to lead to misunderstandings between design and engineering and slow down product development. Code-based tools render all the design elements exactly like the browser does. The design will be identical to the final product. 03. Interactive, reusable components All modern design tools enable you to save reusable components (symbols). Image-based tools, however, save static representations of elements represented on the canvas – no states or interactions are saved to be reused. However, with code-based tools you can save full interactive components in shared libraries. Just imagine how much time you and your team could save, if you weren't forced to recreate all the interactions every single time. Here you can see an interactive component (a password with advanced validation) designed entirely in UXPin and saved in a shared design systems library. 04. Common constraints Image-based tools allow for completely unrestricted creativity. Designers can create designs that are difficult (or completely impossible) to recreate in code. While that's fine for illustration work, it's unacceptable for user interface design. After all, our designs have to be coded as final products. Code-based design tools exist within exactly the same set of constraints as the engineering environment. If something can be created in a code-based tool, it can be created in code. 05. New possibilities The closeness between design and code, and the browser rendering engine mean that interface designs powered by code-based tools can exceed anything created in image-based tools, and give rise to some truly amazing designs. Code-based tools are able to understand code, and hence, render it! UXPin's Merge technology (currently in alpha) is able to bring production-ready React.js components to the design editor. Advanced components such as datepickers are completely impossible to recreate in an image-based design tool. In a tool like Merge, they appear in an interactive form right inside the code-based editor, within seconds. Technologies like this may well be the final nail in the coffin for image-based tools. No vector image can even get close to this. Where do design tools come from? If all this has made you wonder why you're still using image-based tools, don't feel too embarrassed – 40 years of image-based tools have kept us all hostage. Only in the last year have designers globally started to ditch image tools for code-based solutions. The history of design tools still has an enormous impact on the market today. Let's take a look at the origins of today's tools. The first design software was conceived at Xerox Parc in the 70s. Xerox Alto OS, and later Xerox Star, came equipped with the very first illustration software. The Xerox team dreamt of a personal computer that could be used for creative work. It sounded very bold in the days where computers could display nothing but text. Interestingly enough, Xerox's early implementation of design tooling introduced a lot of patterns used by design tools today. Selection of elements, editing of the stroke, pencil drawing, colour selection… all of these features are almost identical today to how they worked in the 70s. This is clearly visible in the first mass-adopted design tool: MacPaint, introduced with the first Apple Macintosh in 1984. This raster graphics illustration tool proved that Xerox Parc's dream was very close to reality. Computers could be used for creative work. It was a true revolution. Apple MacPaint (1984) Following Apple's success, design tools started to emerge in all parts of the market. Just a year after its launch, MacPaint had a competitor from Microsoft (Microsoft Paint, 1985) and Electronic Arts (Deluxe Paint, 1985). Professional vector illustration tools followed suit in the following years, with Xfig, Illustrator and Corel Draw rapidly taking illustration to the next level. On the desktop publishing end, things also accelerated with emergence of Aldus PageMaker and Corel Ventura in 1986, and Quark XPress the following year. Books, brochures and other print materials were easier to design and prepare for production than ever. Finally, photo editing tools joined the party in 1989 with the launch of Photoshop. What all these tools had in common was that they were never meant to be used to design software. All these tools dealt with static creativity and were optimised for creating and editing images that, more often than not, were supposed to be printed. No wonder the majority of design work in the 80s and very early 90s was all about print. Interfaces were mostly left to be designed by people who could code them (Creative Selection by Ken Koncienda is a great reference for those who want to learn about early software design at Apple). Design tools in the 80s and their modern counterparts (click the icon in the top right to enlarge) Then, suddenly, the design market changed completely. The internet exploded in the mid-90s and generated a massive need for web design. To answer the call, two groups came to the market: webmasters (coding designers of the early web) and graphic designers from the print world. Though their processes were very different, both actually used the same tools; the tools that were generating images of the interfaces (Photoshop quickly dominated the market). Why? First of all, there were no other tools but those image-based solutions. Secondly, early web design needed exported image layers from design tools to create visually rich interfaces. Until CSS3 (first support for border-radius property started with Firefox 2 in 2006, but we had to wait until 2009-2010 for full browser support) it wasn't even possible to create rounded corners of elements without images placed on the background. Early web design needed all those layers from Photoshop. Today, the situation is quite different. To create a website or web application, we're only using images as illustrations, icons or photographs. No one needs layers from an image-based design tool to create elements of the user interface. Despite that dramatic change, the old tools survived in the design workflow. While raster editors were replaced by vector tools (Sketch, Figma, Studio, XD and so on), the basic principles did not change. All the vector tools outputted vector graphics, exactly like the tools in the 80s. And these historic ties had a massive negative impact on modern design process. Two paradigms of design tools (click the icon in the top right to enlarge) Due to the significant limitations of the image-based design tools, a new paradigm of design tools emerged on the market. Code-based design tools use browser rendering engines to render a designer's intent on screen and thus, without requiring any coding expertise, bring designers to the world of web developers. On the surface, image-based and code-based tools may look similar. They all provide a pretty much identical drawing capabilities. The key differences are well visible in any interactive work. Modern image-based tools can only provide limited interactivity (typically linking static artboards with some animations of changes). On the flip side, code-based tools provide a fully interactive environment that allows for fast prototyping of realistic interfaces. This is possible because code-based tools render elements visible on the screen with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Designers may not be aware of it, but the same technology used in the final product is used to design it. View the full article

Adobe has slashed the price of its full Creative Suite of apps by almost half in an unbelievable Adobe Cyber Monday deal. The software company is offering an almost 40% discount on its All Apps package. That means you can now pick up Adobe’s entire collection of 20-plus creative desktop and mobile apps, and more, for just £30.34/€36.29/$22.99/month, instead of £49.94/€60.49/$52.99/month – a rare deal indeed. Unfortunately, the offer isn’t open to everyone worldwide. But if you’re based in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Brazil or Japan, you can claim the 39% discount. Save almost 40% on Creative Cloud now If you’re based in the Americas (apart from Brazil) or the Asia-Pacific region (Australia, China, India and more), however, Adobe is offering a comparatively more modest 25% discount on Creative Cloud. That’s still a quarter off the normal price though, which is a sizeable discount. Students and teachers get lucky too, with an additional 20-25% discount – that's on top of the 60% discount already offered. The offers are valid until 28 November, so if you’re interested, you'll need to sign up by then… What’s included in the Creative Cloud All Apps plan? 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 Wednesday 28 November 2018. Related articles: The best Adobe Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals 60 top-class Photoshop tutorials The best 4K monitors for designers 2018 View the full article

There have been a few great GoPro deals this Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, but this is the cheapest price we've seen for a 2018 GoPro. Don't be confused: GoPro released its original Hero a few years ago, but this is the revamped 2018 version. Usually it'll set you back $199.99 (already great value for what you get), but in its Cyber Monday sale Best Buy has dropped the price by $70 to just $129.99. A top GoPro Cyber Monday deal if ever we saw one. For that, you get waterproofing up to 33ft, a 2-inch touchscreen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for easy file transfers, and smooth 60fps performance at 1080p. There's also a curved adhesive mount, flat adhesive mount and mounting buckle thrown in. It gets an average of 4.6* (from 254 reviews) on Best Buy. This GoPro is a great-value travel companion, and top entry point for action filming. Not what you're looking for? Take a look at our mega-roundup of all the best Cyber Monday deals. View the full article

if you've been holding off buying your tech until Cyber Monday, your patience has been rewarded. Jet has kicked off its Cyber Monday sale with some particularly strong offers on devices – including some amazing iMac and MacBook deals. Jet has dropped the price of a range of MacBooks by $200-$250, but the top saving is on a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (core i7, 512GB), which has been discounted by a massive $300. Read on for more details. The best Jet MacBook savings Read on to discover where the biggest savings can be had. Not quite what you're looking for? Take a look at our roundup of all the biggest Cyber Monday deals, across the board, or explore all of Jet's Cyber Monday deals (if you need to buy for children this Christmas, there are some pretty awesome toy deals in the mix). View the full article

It's day three of the biggest shopping weekend of the year and the deals are still rolling in. Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018 show no signs of slowing down, with some of the best deals we seen still being announced. And these discounts on keyboard and mice are no exception. So while you might think you've bagged yourself the best Microsoft Black Friday deal already, these PC accessories may prove otherwise. Let's take a look at what's on offer... Read more: Black Friday deals: save up to 53% on creative software The best Black Friday laptop deals The best drawing tablet: our pick of the best graphics tablets in 2018 View the full article

Black Friday might have been yesterday – but it seems nobody's told the retailers. We've just spotted a brilliant series of Black Friday deals on the excellent Nikon D3500, a camera widely thought to be the best entry-level DSLR in the world right now. Available at Adorama, these Black Friday weekend deals are valid today only, though. So if you've been thinking about getting into photography, or know someone who wants to, now's your chance. In the UK? Get the Nikon D3500 with AF-P 18-55mm VR lens for just £349 (was £399) So what have we found? Well, the cheapest deal sees the D3500 bundled with an AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens, for just $396.95. That’s a fantastic $100 discount on a DSLR that was already great value for money. You’ll make the biggest saving with Adorama’s middle-tier offer, though. If you can find another $100, you'll be able to take home the Nikon D3500 with two great lenses for only $496.95 – down from $846.95. This is the option we'd recommend, if you can stretch your budget that far. With two lenses, you've got a lot of flexibility straight out of the box. The D3500 is a refreshed version of Nikon’s ever-popular Nikon D3400. It delivers ultra-sharp photos and videos, and faster continuous shooting than its rival, the Canon EOS 750D/Rebel T6i. And it’s perfect for beginners, offering a lightweight, responsive and extremely easy-to-use way into DSLR photography. With $100 knocked off the usual price, this bundle offers brilliant value for money, and would make for a cracking Christmas present. Save an incredible £590 on this MacBook Pro with Touch Bar This Xbox One X deal is the cheapest we've seen The best Black Friday and Cyber Monday laptop deals View the full article

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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