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Love can mean more than just romance, roses and Hallmark poetry. These artists and illustrators have all captured the theme of love in new and thought-provoking ways. The illustrations here are part of the Month of Love, a project launched by artist Kristina Carroll back in 2013. Each week in February, Carroll sets challenges loosely based around the theme of love, and the artists taking part interpret them in their own way. This Valentine's Day, if you're musing on how to draw a romantic image that is a little more meaningful, take a look at these impressive artworks for inspiration. Keeping it traditional? Here's a step by step guide to how to draw a rose. Click on the icon in the top right of each image to enlarge it 01. Angela Rizza Angela Rizza has been participating in the Month of Love project for a few years, and likes to use the challenges to try out new directions and techniques. In this piece, she focused on playing with positive and negative space, mixing highly detailed areas with areas of empty space. "For the Beauty challenge, I immediately thought of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty," says Rizza. "I imagined her birth as something maybe more natural than her rising from the ocean, and ended up liking the composition of her in the foetal position among seaweed in the receding tide." 02. Jessica Shirley This drawing by illustrator Jessica Shirley focuses on the theme of 'lies', and is based on a quote from Dorothy Allison: 'Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.' "The quote has such intriguing imagery. It was a good summary of how many moral tales about lying turn out," she explains. Shirley incorporated animal symbolism into her piece, noting how ravens and crows are often used to represent trickery and deceit. "I wanted to show a person coming apart when their lies were discovered," she continues. "Also, the feeling of wanting to flee or be invisible in that moment when you have been exposed." 03. Shannon Knight Shannon Knight's piece exploring the theme of 'beauty' plays on the traditional mirror image style found on a playing card. "I wanted to paint a face card that represented both the king and queen as one entity, showing both genders blooming from the same body," she says. "To me, this celebrates the beauty and the natural inevitability of gender fluidity and transgenderism, something that should be celebrated more." 04. Qistina Khalidah "The 'Lies' artwork that I made was about feeling manipulated by the person you hold in very high regard," says artist Qistina Khalidah. "I always like to put a fantasy facade on it to sell the story. For this, I wanted the give the feeling of a queen being controlled by someone she holds very close to her, like an advisor." 05. Janaina Freelance illustrator Janaina created this illustration based on the theme of 'beauty'. "I have been fascinated by mythology and fairytales since I was a child, so I searched memory for myths, legends and tales that were romantic and had something related to beauty. The story of Psyche and Eros was one of the first that came into my mind," she explains. In the tale, Aphrodite sets Psyche four tasks that she must complete in order to get her husband back. For the last task, she must bring the Persephone's box of beauty to Aphrodite. However, inside the box is nothing other than the sleep of Hades. When Psyche opens the lid, she falls into a deep sleep. Eros escapes from his prison, flies to Psyche, and wipes the sleep from her. "As I'd never drawn this couple before, I decided I would do it now," continues Janaina. "I think this is a good story to illustrate in the Month of Love; a myth about a couple overcoming great challenges to be together." 06. Julia Griffin Julia Griffin decided to draw a friend of hers as a representation of 'beauty'. "I wanted to show her personality and vibrance, and also illustrate the beauty of the natural world through the Luna moth she is conjuring," she says. Griffin drew the design in charcoal on paper, before scanning it in and adding colour digitally. 07. Kelly KcKernan Kelly McKernan decided to challenge herself by working on a crescent moon-shaped painting panel. "In that composition, I found an underwater scene with these bright, two-dimensional fish surrounding a woman glowing with promise," she explains. "In my work, I think fish represent possibility and change, and in this piece, their presence is a positive one." Read more: 14 quick ways to improve your art in 2019 The best pencils for colouring, drawing and sketching Add digital colours to pencil drawings View the full article

VR and AR have been around a while now, and we're at the point where brands are really starting to embrace these tools. But that doesn't mean the experimental design stage is over – in fact, interaction design is heading in ever more weird, wonderful and mind-melting directions. It was a hot topic of discussion at the recent Digital Design Days in Geneva. We caught up with one of the key speakers, a leading experience design expert, to hear their predictions for where the worlds of VR and AR might be heading next. 10 amazing examples of experimental design 01. Social VR will get much bigger Social VR and AR – platforms where you can enter a virtual world and socialise with others, via their avatars – is about to become a big deal. "It's soon going to become like one big internet where we just go into this space together," says the speaker. "I think why people do that will be defined more and more. Instead of just hanging out in a room alone, we'll have a goal, like: this business meeting, or Skyping with someone you care about." 02. We'll defy the laws of physics The fact is, we can do pretty much whatever we want in a VR space – but at the moment we're still we're working within the laws of physics. Soon, we're going to start to throw these laws out of the window, and stop seeing VR and AR as a kind of 'skin' on top of the real world. "I think we're going to move away from the physicality and embrace [the possibilities] digital spaces bring for us. It's going to be things like gravity, or being able to place objects 'up there'," they explain, gesturing up into the sky, "things that a digital space will allow us and afford us to do." The phenomenon relates to the way we used skeuomorphic design when touchscreen devices first became popular. Our speaker points out that designers often use skeuomorphic design when working with new technologies, because it's an easy way to get people on board and help the new medium feel more familiar. While on touchscreens, skeuomorphism gave way to flat design, in VR and AR the shift has the potential to be much more exciting. 03. Eye tracking will become commonplace One big trend the speaker sees on the horizon is that there will be a lot of more sensors around eye tracking. "Eye tracking is going to be something that we will explore, and that is a sensor that we'll come into contact with in our everyday interactions in VR and AR." 04. We'll establish VR etiquette Just as the rules for interacting online are different to those we use in real life, we will develop new conventions for sensor-based interaction. Think about how we deal with those we don't like in a traditional online space: we are able to block or delete them. But doing that in, for example, a social VR space, is a very different prospect. "In general, adding and deleting is controversial, because you're defining what is reality," says the speaker. Imagine you were to be able to remove everyone at a conference who wasn't a designer. Or, to extend that, if you were able to remove everyone of a certain race or gender. The fact is, we're copying from other platforms at the moment, but there are a number of patterns that, when translated into VR, offer a very different prospect. We'll need to find new ways to deal with those challenges. 05. We'll redefine human rights Further to the point about etiquette comes something even more serious: the rights of human avatars in VR. "What is a human right, in this space? I think that's really interesting to explore," says our expert. The answer, they think, is so complex that it shouldn't be left to the designers at companies such as Facebook to figure out. "We should sketch that out together, like as a global team! We should be sketching these notions of how we deal with harassment. It's hard. I think it's something that needs to be collective thinking." 06. We'll start designing for the other senses VR and AR do incredible things in the field of vision. But what about the other senses? We're seeing people starting to explore brand new areas of interaction design, working with haptics, smell, food and flavours. "I personally think food is a really interesting area, because we all eat food and affects us highly," they enthuse. "Another area people are exploring is toxins. The ability to sense a toxin, and notify or learn about if something [around us] is toxic. There are a lot of invisible things in this space, and toxins are one we can create sensors around, and that's fascinating." 07. Phones will become the main AR tool While much of the focus thus far has been on VR headsets, it looks like the good ol' smartphone is going to become the main tool for AR experiences. "I see ubiquitous hardware, like phones, becoming a big leap into the world of AR because everybody has the hardware," says our expert. Head-mounted displays have impressive capabilities, but they're typically expensive, which limits access. Making smartphones the main tool widens the audience for AR experiences massively. Read more: The best camera phones right now How to hack the Instagram algorithm 5 top AR tools to try today View the full article

It's not often (ever) that you'll find us listening to The Chainsmokers – once described in Esquire as 'the Nickelback of EDM'. But we've just made an exception to that rule after learning the story behind the animated video for The 'smokers new song, a typically tuneful and thought-provoking number entitled Who Do You Love?. The video's a very clever take on the traditional lyric video, and it's the work of Belgian illustrator Musketon, who decided to take a different approach to animating The Chainsmokers' words of wisdom. Despite only having 30 days to produce the finished video, Musketon decided that he was going to paint the animation on a wall, frame by frame. Starting in After Effects CC, where he mapped out the words to figure out the timing of the song, Musketon then moved to Procreate on the iPad Pro to actually draw and animate all 373 words. "I wanted every single word to be hand-drawn," he tells us. "No fonts! I wanted every single word to be drawn from scratch, so no tracings! Every single word was time-lapsed in Procreate." The 25 greatest animated music videos Working with two other Belgian artists, Lennert Gavel and Gert Van Goethem, Musketon created a digital version of the animation in about a week, which then had to go the the Chainsmokers for approval. "I sent it over to the guys and anxiously waited for feedback," says Musketon. "If they didn't like to style we had a problem, since we didn't have any time to come up with a plan B due to the very short deadline." Thankfully the band loved it; all that remained to do was actually create the finished version, and they hadn't yet found a wall. "Not everyone is waiting for a few guys to come and spray 1,000 layers of graffiti on their wall," notes Musketon. But with just a few days to go until shooting was scheduled to begin, they found the perfect wall and rushed out to get the necessary supplies. "We went out to the Montane Shop in Brussels and bought 250 spray cans to start with and started painting," says Musketon; in the end they needed 400 cans to complete the job. "We had 14 actual shoot days to transfer all those words on that wall. Since we are based in Belgium it was crazy cold outside. The wall we found was inside, but the location wasn't heated. So we had fun for the first two days. The 10 remaining days of shooting were just awful... The freezing temperatures made handling the spray cans very uncomfortable since they were frozen. Working with actual frozen hands was very hard." Musketon explains the hellish process for getting the job done: "We started with a white wall. Started painting the first words and repainted the wall to paint the following lyrics. This was repeated until the end of the song. Since we used transitions to animate the words in and out we had to paint a lot of frames in between to make this possible. This took a lot of time." As well as the relentless painting, the team had to remember to shoot all 1,900 frames of animation and make sure they looked good, too. "We were using a basic Sony camera I had laying around at home, but that was decent enough to take 4K pictures. Every time we finished one frame, we snapped a photo via the laptop that was connected to the camera and repeated this process 1,900 times. Every time we took a shot we had to make sure the chair we used to paint the top of the wall wasn't in the frame, the cans we put on the wall were out of frame, the sunlight wasn't beaming on the wall too much... anyway we had to stay sharp to avoid mistakes. If we forgot one photo we had a big problem. Both timing and paint-wise." It sounds like an impossible task but they managed it, and once the shoot was complete Musketon had just two days of post-production before sending the final render off to the Chainsmokers; it was released just a few days later, on 7 February. Since then it's racked up nearly six million views, and Musketon is delighted with the feedback he's received. That's a lot of spray cans "We know those views are basically because of people coming for the song, but it's super nice to see a lot of super-positive reactions in the comment section," he tells us. "People questioning if this was really shot frame by frame. People saying it must be greenscreen and the animation was edited in post-production. We also think it's exciting to get our work out in the open and get so much reach due to their reach." Related articles: Street art: 43 incredible examples to inspire you 5 key animation patterns and how to use them Top animation tools for digital artists View the full article

The flaw is only one of many romance-related security issues as bad actors take advantage of Valentine's Day. View the full article

If you're hoping to leverage your programming skills in the job market, one of the best ways to do just that is by learning full stack development. With the Complete Full Stack Web Development Master Class Bundle, you'll gain mastery in the hottest web frameworks and technologies to become the most sought after coder out there. You'll begin with learning the basics like HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL before moving into more advanced concepts like React and Redux, Angular 7, NodeJS, and Angular. Across all the courses, you'll get to put your new skills to the test and build a bevy of projects from scratch. By the time you finish, you'll have the knowledge and resources to develop beautiful and dynamic applications. The Complete Full Stack Web Development Master Class Bundle usually retails for $693, but you can get it today for just $29. Read more: The best laptops for programming right now The future of web design Web design tools to help you work smarter View the full article

When handing over a creative project, most agencies or freelancers include a document known as a style guide. This not only adds an additional air of professionalism to the work and helps guide the client in using your design, it also rationalises the creative choices you made. It shows the client that it was absolutely worth paying you to give them a new look or identity, and it also means that they have some guidelines for using your designs in the future. After all, most designs are not static but evolve over time, just like a good style guide. Hitting the right tone with your style guide can be tricky, you want to be informative and clear, and be as comprehensive as possible without being preachy. Here are 25 tips for ensuring your style guide is up to scratch. 01. Avoid pomposity Clarity and lots of white space make The Barbican's style guide a joy to read We creatives are a sensitive bunch, haunted by nightmares about clients screwing up our (much laboured upon) designs. There's a tendency to become over protective, preachy and, dare I say, a little mouthy when it comes to rolling these out to the folk who pay for them. A style guide that's overly bombastic or pompous in tone will only end up stifling its creative application. 02. Allow for some slack Many style guides read like the work of control freaks. They shouldn't. They should serve as a guide to any other agency, freelancer or licensing company who is working with the brand you initially helped develop. They should allow for the brand to develop, whilst establishing an overall framework. 03. Don't wait for perfection We'd all love to spend time and energy crafting the perfect design style guide for each project. But in the real world, that's not always possible. If you're up against a tight deadline and not able to create a style guide with lots of bells and whistles (and examples), be sure to include the most pertinent and helpful information about the brand or piece of work you've created in the time you do have. 04. Include essential elements Start off with: A written overview of the company it's for A rationale for the work carried out Information about logos, font usage, colour palette and tone of voice Photographic guides Collateral information If you have enough time, it's worth adding some examples of logo and typographic usage, as well as links to master artwork or brand collateral templates, and helpful contacts within your agency or company. 05. Give the client options Name your design style guide something like 'Styleguide_lite_v0.1' and explain to your client that this is the “lite” guide to working with the brand, which is suitable for everyday creative use. Should they wish for an additional, more thorough version, this can be classed as a separate project – with a separate budget. 06. Hit the right tone If you're creating a style guide for, say, a cartoon show, then make it as fun, colourful and wacky as the series. If it's for an asset management company, make it as clean and straight-down-the-line as the company's thinking and brand equity is. This shows the client you understand the brand or television property you've been working on. Plus, it'll instantly put that tone in the mind of the designer who's been given the style guide to use. 07. Guide, don't preach Remember you are producing a guide – which, when applied successfully, will produce a common system of elements that work together, reinforce brand values and embrace successful interpretation of that guide. A wagging finger approach will instantly put the person who uses the guide in school mode. “Don't do this; don't do that” is a surefire way to drive someone nuts and make them not want to use the guide successfully. In terms of tone, you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar: encourage innovation by allowing the possibility for interpretation and innovation. 08. Think of it like a cook book Look on a style guide as being similar to a cook book. It's full of brand recipes and ingredients that work well together, and create a successful blend of flavours and tastes. It should allow for experimentation, but clearly explain where too much of the wrong type of ingredient will spoil the brand broth. 09. Concentrate on the visible Bristol City Council's style guide section on colour tells you exactly when to use each colour Look around your workplace and you'll (probably) see colleagues who look presentable and are nicely dressed. Quite possibly a large percentage of these people do not have matching pants and socks or bras and knickers. But who cares? You (hopefully) don't get to see them. Similarly, in your style guide, concentrate on the visible and the relevant. Try not to deep dive into creating colour palettes that then have sub colour palettes and then further sub, sub colour palettes, which might never be used or seen. 10. Less is more Ask yourself if every 'rule' you add to your design style guide is absolutely necessary. By giving too much information you might just end up confusing designers, or overwhelming them with so much information they can't possibly remember all of it. 11. Be helpful and specific Audi's style guide tells you exactly how to use the brand's rings Try to give out helpful and practical advice to the creative reading your guide. If you're using a particular type of overlapping text (see the image above) or a certain type of Photoshop treatment, then think about adding a page to your style guide that explains exactly how to do this. 12. Think creatively Your style guide is an extension and expression of your creativity. It should have its own guidelines applied to it, and communicate the brand simply and effectively. There's no rule that says it has to be in PDF format (although admittedly a lot are) – you could have the whole thing online. Think creatively, but don't over complicate. Five clicks to a logo download are just annoying. Keep it simple. 13. Work with a copywriter Big, bold words help energise and communicate brand values in an effective, visual way Work with a copywriter to energise and communicate the brand. This style guide will potentially be used client-side by the in-house creative team or sent out to other agencies to be applied in future work. For your guide to be applied successfully, it's essential to communicate effectively in written form: the brand spirit; the reason behind the work; what the guide is there for; and what the brand goals are – all things that the creative using the guide should be mindful of. 14. Add a section on tone Mailchimp's style guide has an informative section on voice and tone Peculiarly, 'tone of voice' is sometimes forgotten in style guides. A tone of voice section includes a guide to copy tone, appropriate style and how messaging is communicated to an audience. It works hand-in-hand with the creative vision. If you think about a brand such as Virgin, its tone of voice is quite irreverent and perfectly matches the visuals. A style guide should include these details, as it helps to communicate who the brand's audience are, as well as the spoken vision, which is aligned to the visual one. Hand in hand, these both effectively communicate the brand. 15. Proofread your work Proofread your guide before sending it out. Typos and bad grammar make you look awfully silly when you're sending out a 'best practice' guide to your work. If at all possible, have someone else read the guide for you and ask them to flag up anything that isn't clear, and whether any parts need further explanation. 16. Show elements on a page Don't just say. Do. The best way to have someone get to grips with the creative vision shown in the guide is to pack it full of examples of what you're going on about. So for example, if an element is to be positioned on a grid, just so, then show it in situ. 17. Master artwork and templates Your guide will be severely lacking if it doesn't include the artwork mentioned in it. Create a repository online for all brand materials, and index these by category so they make sense. One great big list of brand asset download links is of no real help to anyone. Create categories relevant to your style guide and add the links there. Cross link between PDF or webpages to each download as well as having this separate download area. Add version numbers and dates to template file names, which are likely to update over time, and do the same with your style guide. 18. Create art-worked examples The BBC's style guide allows you to see how each page looks with different 'skins' Art-working up examples of creative templates can be a great way to showcase how the guide can be interpreted. Also consider supplying these files for download with the style guide. 19. Explain your typographical choices Informative usage guides for type "Type that has long and very fine serifs has a habit of breaking up on screen and becoming illegible when used on television, so big blocky sans-serif fonts are best." That, ladies and gentleman, is an informative tidbit of information. If you didn't know much about type, it would prove useful if you had a choice between two brand fonts for an animated type treatment for television. Pepper your guide with brief titbits of information like this and remember that not everyone is a type guru. Don't write volumes, but instead educate by rationalising and giving examples of usage. Different types for different media are shown in this guide Oh, and if your brand font is bespoke, supply it. If it's available from a font library, give out the download link. Don't distribute fonts you have no right to. 20. Rationalise your thinking A creative example of a visual typographic rationale If you took a friend to your favourite Angus Steakhouse for dinner and they sat there nursing a single malt while refusing to eat, you'd think their behaviour quite bizarre. If, on the other hand, they explained they were a vegetarian, you'd immediately understand their predicament and pop out for a stuffed pepper and some cous cous. Similarly, you need to rationalise your thinking behind why a logo would look bad with a drop shadow, or why all the type shouldn't be used in title case. Typographic rationales explained in a style guide No one's a mind reader, and creatives mostly approach style guides with suspicion that the document will limit their creativity. Rationalise your thinking simply and clearly to prevent this. 21. Anticipate questions At the end of the guide, include relevant contacts and create a group email address in case the reader has any queries about the guide and wants to get in touch. (Although if you've included all the relevant details in your guide, this should very rarely happen.) Also consider creating an FAQ as part of the guide, and think about the top 20 questions a creative might ask about a brand when they first approach it. “I hate your logo. Do I have to use it?” is a question that isn't allowed. 22. Take people on a journey However mawkish that tip might sound, it's exactly what you're aiming for. Approach the job as if you were creating an immersive creative experience, but in book (or online) form. Take the stand that your reader knows nothing about the brand they're about to work with, and from the brand mission statement to showcased collateral examples, educate the reader with bite-sized information about what the brand represents and how the creative elements work together. 23. Show collateral flexibility Briefly touch on the brand collateral's flexibility. It will show the client your thoughts about future-proofing your work, as well as covering off the potential that your guidelines for a purely online brand might one day move into print, outdoor or broadcast collateral. 24. Leave room for improvement To survive in any commercial enterprise, we have to adapt and change. Brands change constantly, either organically, or to reflect markets and fashions. Creating a style guide that bolts down a brand and stifles it to such a degree that it can't develop over time is disastrous and rather silly. There's always room to grow and develop, and your guidelines should reflect this. 25. See some examples DeviantArt's style guide is in our list of top examples Need some inspiration? The best thing to do is have a look through some real-life examples of style guides. Check out Skype's style guide and the Barbican for starters... Related articles: 76 best free fonts for designers How to interpret and follow brand guidelines 10 most hated logos (and what they teach us) View the full article

You're reading The 5 Critical Elements That can Make or Break Your One-Page Website’s Design, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! It seems obvious that one-page websites would be much easier to build than multi-page ones. In truth, it can often be much harder to make a one-pager user-friendly and at the same time visually appealing. It’s not usual for a … View the full article

Researchers have identified multiple security issues with this Lenovo smartwatch. View the full article

For a long time unbiased rendering was barely touched by a wide range of render engines. This was because an unbiased render solution was computationally intensive and therefore very slow. This was a great shame, as from a user’s perspective an unbiased rendering solution offered ‘true’ physical lighting exactly as would be seen by the naked eye or the lens of a camera. OctaneRender from OTOY was one of the pioneers of moving the computationally intensive tasks of unbiased rendering over to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU, otherwise known as the graphics card), which is able to divide tasks across a much greater number of parallel cores. By using GPUs, all of a sudden unbiased renders could be achieved in minutes on a single machine instead of hours or days – as was the norm before using CPU rendering. The best 3D modelling software As OctaneRender gets ready for a milestone version 4 release, it has become one of the leading render engines on the market. This is primarily due to the large number of software solutions that OctaneRender can integrate into through the wide selection of plugins that are available for digital content creation applications, including 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Modo and LightWave to name but a few. OctaneRender is available for CAD applications and also Nuke, allowing compositors to work with OctaneRender without needing to round-trip to an application. A lot of this flexibility is handled in the background by the ORBX format, which OTOY uses as the underpinnings of its standalone application, and makes transferring scenes between applications easier than it would be with other render solutions. OctaneRender also has one of the most responsive render preview systems, making iterative changes easy to visualise in near real time. As OctaneRender is an unbiased solution, it is easy for artists new to 3D to learn with OctaneRender materials, lighting and cameras all corresponding to real-world settings. Here are some key features that will help you get to grips with this powerful software. Get free admission to VERTEX 2019, the ultimate event for 2D and 3D artists 01. Standalone application Having OctaneRender as a standalone app allows a wide range of elements to be tested Unlike many other third-party render solutions, OctaneRender comes with its own standalone application. This may initially seem odd, as so much time is spent in the host application with the chosen OctaneRender plugin. However, having a standalone application is a really useful tool because it allows a wide range of elements to be tested as scenes are moved between different creation applications. 02. Render preview OctaneRender boasts one of the most impressive render preview windows in the digital content space OctaneRender has one of the most impressive render preview windows in the digital content space. Not only is it exceptionally responsive in comparison to other GPU render solutions, OctaneRender allows – depending on the plugin – quick access to material selection, focus point selection and AOV/render layer preview. Support is being implemented for Apple Metal allowing Mac users to bring OctaneRender into their workflows. 03. For compositors OctaneRender is available as a plugin for the compositing application Nuke OctaneRender is friendly for compositors as it is available as a plugin for the compositing application Nuke which supports deep pixel rendering, allowing Nuke artists to have access to the latest compositing toolsets combined with the speed of GPU rendering. As OctaneRender also supports features such as volumetric rendering, it is an excellent solution for effects work where dust, smoke or flames are often required. 04. Material library OctaneRender comes with an array of materials to choose from OctaneRender comes with an array of materials that are constantly added to by the community, and are easily accessed in host applications through the OctaneRender LiveDB. As OctaneRender is an unbiased render engine, materials have a logic to them that is easier to grasp for new 3D artists than those of a biased render engine. OctaneRender also supports a full material baking paradigm, making it an excellent tool for those working in real-time creation. 05. Nodes in OctaneRender Nodes can seem confusing at first, but they offer great efficiencies Nodal workflows are key to the power of OctaneRender. Nodes are used to control practically every aspect of the application in the standalone version and they are also used through the OctaneRender plugin environments for materials. Although these are potentially confusing at first for artists new to nodal workflows, nodes can offer great efficiencies, especially when using texture files and gradients that need only one node to control multiple outputs. 06. OctaneRender 4 The latest release of OctaneRender – version 4 – is now available as a beta to existing customers The new release – OctaneRender 4 – is already available as a beta to existing customers. Major highlights are the integration of OTOY’s real-time path-tracing engine, Brigade, into OctaneRender. There is also the addition of a Spectral AI Denoiser and AI Light system that will enable cleaner animations and dramatically faster render times, improved fog and a new planetary environment. OctaneRender 3 full-licence customers will get a free upgrade to the new version. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 242; subscribe here. Read more: 3D art: 27 stunning examples to inspire you The best cities for 3D artists A beginner's guide to using camera lenses in 3D View the full article

If you're hungry to create unique digital experiences, the iconic Awwwards conference in Amsterdam is the place to be. This year's event, which kicks off today, will see hundreds of designers, web developers and digital thinkers gather to gain insight and expertise on all the latest and greatest developments in the world of digital design – and you can have a front row seat, courtesy of Adobe. Already helping to shape the future of experience design with its open source prototyping tool Adobe XD, Adobe will host a two-day livestream of Awwwards, from 1000 – 1600 (CET)/ 0900 – 1500 (GMT) on the 14 and 15 February, so you can enjoy all the action from the comfort of your own home. In a line-up you won't want to miss, you'll hear from many of the senior Adobe design team, including Principal Creative Could Evangelist Rufus Deuchler and UX/UI Design Evangelist Stephanie Maier. The Adobe livestream will also feature inspiring talks from leading UX and VR experts, including Active Theory, Moxy, Peter Smart, Anrick Bregman, Simon Widjaja & Ingo Eichel, Clive K. Lavery & Claire- Lise Bengué, and more. Hear their tips for good experience design, ask them questions live online, discover new UX trends and updates in Adobe XD CC. Register now to watch the Adobe Live session Registering for the Adobe Live session couldn't be easier, simply follow the link above, provide your details and voila! You'll also receive an email reminder before the livestream starts so you don't miss anything. When? Join Adobe on the 14 and 15 February from 1000 CET/0900 GMT. Where? The Abobe livestream will be held on Behance. All of the live sessions will be held in English. Don't miss the chance to be a part of this inspiring event and connect with the Adobe community. And as an extra bonus, you'll get a recap of all the latest Adobe XD updates requested by the community. What's new in Adobe XD? Speaking of XD, whether you're a seasoned user, or someone with an interest in UX design, Adobe XD is the fastest way to design, prototype and share any user experience. A leading authority in the world of web design, Adobe works closely with the UX community on the continued development of Adobe XD to maintain and enhance its already impressive toolset. Give Adobe XD a try for free today and see these key new features in all their glory: Voice triggers and speech - Interact with your prototypes like never before. Voice triggers and speech playback let you take users beyond the screen. Auto animate in the browser - First launched in October 2018, Auto-Animate is now accessible via web browsers, enabling users to view animations in prototypes and get the animation property values. This will make it easier for designers showcase their designs to stakeholders and other partners. Record interactions with audio - The desktop preview app now allows you to record your own voice along with any click-through interactions and share it as an MP4 file (Mac only). Voice language and accent support - Since January, 2019 XD allows users across a variety of countries and regions to access voice capabilities and work in multiple languages, including English, French,German, Korean or Japanese. XD also supports regional accents for voice commands with the ability to understand accents in various regions such as English-UK, French-Canadian or Australian. The update also includes a range of personalities and genders. View all comments across artboards - Adobe XD also enables you to view all screen comments across artboards. Users can now turn on the All Screen Comments feature in XD, which allows the ability to see all comments made on a prototype in a single list, making it easier than ever to collaborate and share feedback with colleagues and partners. Linked Symbols - It’s easier to stay on top of changes when symbols that are copied from one document and pasted into prototypes remain linked. Now when changes are made to the source file, you’ll be notified and have the option to accept updates. View the full article

The issue affects default installations of Ubuntu Server and Desktop and is likely included in many Ubuntu-like Linux distributions. View the full article

There are no permission dialogues for apps in certain folders for macOS Mojave, which allows a malicious app to spy on browsing histories.. View the full article

Renowned costume designer Ane Crabtree isn't one to mince her words. In a recent interview with Creative Bloq, this legendary creative pulled on her 28 years of experience in the industry to share a wealth of insight on how aspiring designers can realise where their creative passions lie. Strong and direct, while passionate and warm, this is one woman who isn't afraid to tell it straight. For those of you not familiar with her work, Crabtree made an immediate and lasting impression when she created the look for The Sopranos in the original HBO pilot. Since then she has worked on a number of hit TV shows, but is now best known for being the woman behind the blood red robe and white wing bonnet costume from American dystopian drama The Handmaid's Tale. Costume designer Ane Crabtree is best known for creating the now infamous red robes and white wing bonnets in The Handmaid's Tale. Image credit: Nathan Cyprys Crabtree's path to Hollywood was anything but traditional, but that just makes her all the more alluring. Best seen – and heard – in person, Crabtree will be taking the main stage at this year's Design Indaba, with what looks set to be an unmissable keynote. To whet your appetite before then, here, she shares some inspiring insight on how to figure out your creative passion, plus more on what she has in store for Design Indaba attendees. 01. Have an interest in mankind "I think anyone giving advice is a fool because they are always just saying what works for them, and you never know what's going to work for others," Crabtree begins. "But what I tell everyone I try to help, is the thing that helped me most in my career: having an interest in mankind is the greatest education. "You have to have an interest in people, in their pathos, in their journey and their interior more than their exterior. You have to learn the art of being immersed in humanity and you have to study history to know where we've been and where we're headed. And don't just do a lazy look-up on Google." 02. Visit the places you don't want to go Crabtree's wasn't always Hollywood glitz and glamour. Born in South Dakota and raised in Kentucky as part of a multi-racial family came with its difficulties. "I came from extreme poverty in Kentucky, and some of my really early childhood memories are of my mom not being able to just go and buy clothes," she says. "So instead she made them so I could fit in with the rest of society." But Crabtree is a great believer of drawing on your experiences to inspire your creativity, even the ones you might not want to remember. "It wasn't until I was 40-something, when I worked on FX's pilot Justified that I had to research Kentucky. Up to that point, I just used to not deal with that because it was bad news for me. So it was the first time I started researching where I grew up, Appalachia in particular, and I just fell in love with it. I call these things 'ugly pretty' gifts. "I think the things that are the most discordant in your life and the things that are the most seemingly nightmarish have a way of karmically creatively turning around and inspiring you later." 03. Leave your home town "I would also say to every young person, leave your home f**king town," Crabtree advises. "I needed to because it was too much. Leave your comfort zone and go to a different school, environment or place – travel! "Whichever you do, just get engaged in your world and in worlds that are not your own, and get engaged with histories that are not your own and apply that to the characters or designs you are creating. Put your phone down and engage with somebody and learn why they move like that. What are their fears? What are their influences? And throw that into a character. That has been the most helpful thing for me." 04. Know who you are "Other people have told me that when I'm in a room, I'm used to sell a project," she says. "I'm used to sell a project because I'm a great salesperson, but my sales person connection is: 'I want your life to be better because of the creativity and I can give you that'. "You can call that ego, but I call it love, in a base form. There's definitely something in having an awareness of who you are and what that is, you know, that's going to bring something different to the table." See Ane Crabtree live at Design Indaba 2019 Design Indaba, Cape Town's premier creative conference, is just a couple of weeks away now, but there's still time to get a ticket and see Ane Crabtree live on stage. Here's what she had to say about what she has up her sleeve for the conference: "The overall themes are death and rebirth and man vs nature. I'm going to try to convey a very abstract idea how the influences of nature have inspired my work and also how it's kind of been there since birth, in everybody. And how you have to go into dark places to find those answers." Design Indaba kicks off on 27 February 2019 – and we can't wait! View the full article

The Adobe Creative Suite is and probably always will be ubiquitous in the creative field. Its tools remain the gold standard for graphic design, photo manipulation, video editing, and more. If you want to make the most out of every app, you can rely on the Complete Adobe Mastery Bundle to show you the ropes. Across 11 courses and over 70 hours of premium training, you'll explore and master the functionalities of the top Adobe programs including Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Lightroom. You'll learn how to transform dull photos into dazzling imagery, create compelling videos, design marketing materials, and tons more. By the time you finish, you'll have all the skills that you can apply to your own creative endeavours. Get Adobe Creative Cloud here You can get the Complete Adobe Mastery Bundle today for only $39 – a saving of 98 per cent. Related articles: 5 best laptops for Photoshop 80 best Adobe Illustrator tutorials The 18 best Adobe Illustrator plugins View the full article

You're reading Startup 3 Coming Soon, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! We told you it was coming, and now we’ll give you a sneak peek into the release of Startup 3, (read about our plans for 2019 here). Today, you’re getting the first information about the new Startup 3 🚀. View the full article

OFFSET Dublin's 2019 is nearly upon us, and this year looks set to be better than ever, as the creative conference celebrates its 10th anniversary. The conference takes place 5-7 April at The Point Square, Dublin, and early bird tickets are still on sale – buy your tickets to OFFSET here. But what can you expect from this year's extravaganza? Which big speakers are coming to the event? And what else can you look out for? Here are three things we're looking forward to at OFFSET Dublin 2019... 01. Inspiring speakers Ariane Spanier is known for her innovative use of type and texture OFFSET is known for curating stellar line-ups from across the creative industries, and this year is no exception. There are too many cool speakers to mention here, and more are still to be announced, but we're particularly looking forward to seeing design legend Lance Wyman, type genius Ariane Spanier and advertising gurus Alexander Nowak and Felix Richter of DROGA5. Other big names include Edel Rodriguez, Yumi Suzaki of Pentagram and James Victore. 02. OFFSITE OFFSITE often involves speakers doing workshops. Fingers crossed that Lance Wyman, who created Mexico's Olympic 1968 logo, will be running one this year OFFSET's fringe festival, OFFSITE, is also worth checking out. Details of this year's events have yet to be announced, but last year saw workshops, exhibitions and panel talks take place across the city in the days around the festival. These events are often when you can get up close and personal with your heroes, as well as swap tips and tricks with other OFFSET attendees, so stay tuned for more details. 03. Creative community OFFSET directors Lisa Haran and Bren Byrne have recently been awarded the IDI President's Award for Outstanding Contribution to Design at the 2019 Irish Design Awards, and their commitment to the creative community shows at OFFSET. The creative buzz around the event, and Dublin's general fun atmosphere means your time at OFFSET is bound to be exciting, inspiring and sociable. Buy your tickets for OFFSET here. 76 best free fonts for designers 5 dos and don'ts for new illustrators 5 ad campaigns which embraced a stupid idea View the full article

The affected SICAM 230 process control system is used as an integrated energy system for utility companies, and as a monitoring system for smart-grid applications. View the full article

In its February Patch Tuesday bulletin Microsoft patches four public bugs and one that under active attack. View the full article

Users of the popular plugin, Simple Social Buttons, are encouraged to update to version 2.0.22. View the full article

A fundamental component of container technologies like Docker, cri-o, containerd and Kubernetes contains an important vulnerability that could cause cascading attacks. View the full article

Data isn't a thing that's easy for the average person to grasp. While some can look through a spreadsheet and instinctively find the information they need within a mass of figures, the rest of us need a little help, and that's where data visualisation can be a real help. For the designer, the challenge is not only in rendering a set of data in an informative way, but also in presenting it so that it that stands out from the mass of competing data streams. Get Adobe Creative Cloud One of the best ways to get your message across is to use a visualisation to quickly draw attention to the key messages, and by presenting data visually, it's also possible to uncover surprising patterns and observations that wouldn't be apparent from looking at stats alone. And nowadays, there's plenty of free graphic design software to help you do just that. As author, data journalist and information designer David McCandless said in his TED talk: "By visualising information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map. And when you're lost in information, an information map is kind of useful." There are many different ways of telling a story, but everything starts with an idea. So to help you get started we've rounded up some of the most awesome data visualisation tools available on the web. 01. Chart Studio Chart Studio from Plotly can produce some very slick graphics Make charts, presentations and dashboards with this flexible software. You can perform your analysis using JavaScript, Puthon, R, Matlab, Jupyter or Excel, and there are several options for importing data. The visualisation library and online chart creation tool allow you to make great-looking graphics. 02. DataHero Anyone can use this to make sense of data from multiple services DataHero enables you to pull together data from cloud services and create charts and dashboards. No technical abilities are required, so this is a great tool for your whole team to use. 03. Chart.js Chart.js is perfectly suited to smaller projects Although armed with only six chart types, open source library Chart.js is the perfect data visualisation tool for hobbies and small projects. Using HTML 5 canvas elements to render charts, Chart.js creates responsive, flat designs, and is quickly becoming one of the most poplar open-source charting libraries. Read more about how to use Chart.js here. 04. Tableau Create and share data in real time with Tableau Packed with graphs, charts, maps and more, Tableau Public is a popular data visualisation tool that's also completely free. Users can easily drag and drop data into the system and watch it update in real-time, plus you can collaborate with other team members for quick project turnaround. 05. RAWGraphs RAWGraphs is an open web app with a simple interface Open, customisable, and free to download and modify, RAWGraphs lets users create vector-based data visualisations. Data can be safely uploaded from apps to computers, plus it can be exported as an SVG or PNG and embedded in your webpage. 06. Dygraphs Help visitors explore dense data sets with JavaScript library Dygraphs Dygraphs is a fast, flexible open source JavaScript charting library that allows users to explore and interpret dense data sets. It's highly customisable, works in all major browsers, and you can even pinch to zoom on mobile and tablet devices. 07. ZingChart ZingChart lets you create HTML5 Canvas charts and more ZingChart is a JavaScript charting library and feature-rich API set that lets you build interactive Flash or HTML5 charts. It offers over 100 chart types to fit your data. 08. InstantAtlas InstantAtlas enables you to create highly engaging visualisations around map data If you're looking for a data viz tool with mapping, InstantAtlas is worth checking out. This tool enables you to create highly-interactive dynamic and profile reports that combine statistics and map data to create engaging data visualisations. 09. Modest Maps Integrate and develop interactive maps within your site with this cool tool Modest Maps is a lightweight, simple mapping tool for web designers that makes it easy to integrate and develop interactive maps within your site, using them as a data visualisation tool. The API is easy to get to grips with, and offers a useful number of hooks for adding your own interaction code, making it a good choice for designers looking to fully customise their user's experience to match their website or web app. The basic library can also be extended with additional plugins, adding to its core functionality and offering some very useful data integration options. 10. Leaflet Use OpenStreetMap data and integrate data visualisation in an HTML5/CSS3 wrapper Another mapping tool, Leaflet makes it easy to use OpenStreetMap data and integrate fully interactive data visualisation in an HTML5/CSS3 wrapper. The core library itself is very small, but there are a wide range of plugins available that extend the functionality with specialist functionality, such as animated markers, masks and heatmaps. It's perfect for any project where you need to show data overlaid on a geographical projection. 11. WolframAlpha Wolfram Alpha is excellent at creating charts Billed as a "computational knowledge engine", the Google rival WolframAlpha is really good at intelligently displaying charts in response to data queries, without the need for any configuration. If you're using publicly available data, this offers a simple widget builder to make it really simple to get visualisations on your site. 12. Visualize Free Make visualisations for free! Visualize Free is a hosted tool that allows you to use publicly available datasets, or upload your own, and build interactive visualisations to illustrate the data. The visualisations go well beyond simple charts, and the service is completely free, plus while development work requires Flash, output can be done through HTML5. 13. Better World Flux Orientated towards making positive change to the world, Better World Flux has some lovely visualisations of some pretty depressing data. It would be very useful, for example, if you were writing an article about world poverty, child undernourishment or access to clean water. This tool doesn't allow you to upload your own data, but does offer a rich interactive output. 14. FusionCharts A comprehensive JavaScript/HTML5 charting solution for your data visualisation needs FusionCharts Suite XT brings you 90+ charts and gauges, 965 data-driven maps, and ready-made business dashboards and demos. FusionCharts comes with extensive JavaScript API that makes it easy to integrate it with any AJAX application or JavaScript framework. These charts, maps and dashboards are highly interactive, customisable and work across all devices and platforms. 15. jqPlot jqPlot is a nice solution for line and point charts Another jQuery plugin, jqPlot is a nice solution for line and point charts. It comes with a few nice additional features such as the ability to generate trend lines automatically, and interactive points that can be adjusted by the website visitor, updating the dataset accordingly. 16. D3.js You can render some amazing diagrams with D3 D3.js is a JavaScript library that uses HTML, SVG, and CSS to render some amazing diagrams and charts from a variety of data sources. This library, more than most, is capable of some seriously advanced visualisations with complex data sets. It's open source, and uses web standards so is very accessible. It also includes some fantastic user interaction support. 17. JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit includes a handy modular structure A fantastic library written by Nicolas Belmonte, the JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit includes a modular structure, allowing you to only force visitors to download what's absolutely necessary to display your chosen data visualisations. This library has a number of unique styles and swish animation effects, and is free to use (although donations are encouraged). Next page: More top tools for data visualisation... 18. jpGraph jpGraph is a PHP-based data visualization tool If you need to generate charts and graphs server-side, jpGraph offers a PHP-based solution with a wide range of chart types. It's free for non-commercial use, and features extensive documentation. By rendering on the server, you're guaranteed a consistent visual output, albeit at the expense of interactivity and accessibility. 19. Highcharts Highcharts has a huge range of options available Highcharts is a JavaScript charting library with a huge range of chart options available. The output is rendered using SVG in modern browsers and VML in Internet Explorer. The charts are beautifully animated into view automatically, and the framework also supports live data streams. It's free to download and use non-commercially (and licensable for commercial use). You can also play with the extensive demos using JSFiddle. 20. Google Charts Google Charts has an excellent selection of tools available The seminal charting solution for much of the web, Google Charts is highly flexible and has an excellent set of developer tools behind it. It's an especially useful tool for specialist visualisations such as geocharts and gauges, and it also includes built-in animation and user interaction controls. 21. Excel It isn't graphically flexible, but Excel is a good way to explore data: for example, by creating 'heat maps' like this one You can actually do some pretty complex things with Excel, from 'heat maps' of cells to scatter plots. As an entry-level tool, it can be a good way of quickly exploring data, or creating visualisations for internal use, but the limited default set of colours, lines and styles make it difficult to create graphics that would be usable in a professional publication or website. Nevertheless, as a means of rapidly communicating ideas, Excel should be part of your toolbox. Excel comes as part of the commercial Microsoft Office suite, so if you don't have access to it, Google's spreadsheets – part of Google Docs and Google Drive – can do many of the same things. Google 'eats its own dog food', so the spreadsheet can generate the same charts as the Google Chart API. This will get your familiar with what is possible before stepping off and using the API directly for your own projects. 22. CSV/JSON CSV and JSON are both common formats for data CSV (Comma-Separated Values) and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) aren't actual visualization tools, but they are common formats for data. You'll need to understand their structures and how to get data in or out of them. 23. Crossfilter Crossfilter in action: by restricting the input range on any one chart, data is affected everywhere As we build more complex tools to enable clients to wade through their data, we are starting to create graphs and charts that double as interactive GUI widgets. JavaScript library Crossfilter can be both of these. It displays data, but at the same time, you can restrict the range of that data and see other linked charts react. 24. Tangle Tangle creates complex interactive graphics. Pulling on any one of the knobs affects data throughout all of the linked charts The line between content and control blurs even further with Tangle. When you are trying to describe a complex interaction or equation, letting the reader tweak the input values and see the outcome for themselves provides both a sense of control and a powerful way to explore data. JavaScript library Tangle is a set of tools to do just this. Dragging on variables enables you to increase or decrease their values and see an accompanying chart update automatically. The results are only just short of magical. 25. Polymaps Aimed more at specialist data visualisers, the Polymaps library creates image and vector-tiled maps using SVG Polymaps is a mapping library that is aimed squarely at a data visualisation audience. Offering a unique approach to styling the the maps it creates, analogous to CSS selectors, it's a great resource to know about. 26. OpenLayers It isn't easy to master, but OpenLayers is arguably the most complete, robust mapping solution discussed here OpenLayers is probably the most robust of these mapping libraries. The documentation isn't great and the learning curve is steep, but for certain tasks nothing else can compete. When you need a very specific tool no other library provides, OpenLayers is always there. 27. Kartograph Kartograph's projections breathe new life into our standard slippy maps Kartograph's tag line is 'rethink mapping' and that is exactly what its developers are doing. We're all used to the Mercator projection, but Kartograph brings far more choices to the table. If you aren't working with worldwide data, and can place your map in a defined box, Kartograph has the options you need to stand out from the crowd. 28. Carto Carto provides an unparalleled way to combine maps and tabular data to create visualisations Carto is a must-know site. The ease with which you can combine tabular data with maps is second to none. For example, you can feed in a CSV file of address strings and it will convert them to latitudes and longitudes and plot them on a map, but there are many other users. It's free for students; for everyone else, there are various monthly pricing plans. 29. Processing Processing provides a cross-platform environment for creating images, animations, and interactions Processing has become the poster child for interactive visualizations. It enables you to write much simpler code which is in turn compiled into Java. There is also a Processing.js project to make it easier for websites to use Processing without Java applets, plus a port to Objective-C so you can use it on iOS. It is a desktop application, but can be run on all platforms, and given that it is now several years old, there are plenty of examples and code from the community. 30. NodeBox NodeBox is a quick, easy way for Python-savvy developers to create 2D visualisations NodeBox is an OS X application for creating 2D graphics and visualizations. You need to know and understand Python code, but beyond that it's a quick and easy way to tweak variables and see results instantly. It's similar to Processing, but without all the interactivity. 31. R A powerful free software environment for statistical computing and graphics, R is the most complex of the tools listed here How many other pieces of software have an entire search engine dedicated to them? A statistical package used to parse large data sets, R is a very complex tool, and one that takes a while to understand, but has a strong community and package library, with more and more being produced. The learning curve is one of the steepest of any of these tools listed here, but you must be comfortable using it if you want to get to this level. 32. Weka A collection of machine-learning algorithms for data-mining tasks, Weka is a powerful way to explore data When you get deeper into being a data scientist, you will need to expand your capabilities from just creating visualisations to data mining. Weka is a good tool for classifying and clustering data based on various attributes – both powerful ways to explore data – but it also has the ability to generate simple plots. 33. Gephi Gephi in action. Coloured regions represent clusters of data that the system is guessing are similar When people talk about relatedness, social graphs and co-relations, they are really talking about how two nodes are related to one another relative to the other nodes in a network. The nodes in question could be people in a company, words in a document or passes in a football game, but the maths is the same. Gephi, a graph-based visualiser and data explorer, can not only crunch large data sets and produce beautiful visualisations, but also allows you to clean and sort the data. It's a very niche use case and a complex piece of software, but it puts you ahead of anyone else in the field who doesn't know about this gem. 34. iCharts iCharts can have interactive elements, and you can pull in data from Google Docs The iCharts service provides a hosted solution for creating and presenting compelling charts for inclusion on your website. There are many different chart types available, and each is fully customisable to suit the subject matter and colour scheme of your site. Charts can have interactive elements, and can pull data from Google Docs, Excel spreadsheets and other sources. The free account lets you create basic charts, while you can pay to upgrade for additional features and branding-free options. 35. Flot Create animated visualisations with this jQuery plugin Flot is a specialised plotting library for jQuery, but it has many handy features and crucially works across all common browsers including Internet Explorer 6. Data can be animated and, because it's a jQuery plugin, you can fully control all the aspects of animation, presentation and user interaction. This does mean that you need to be familiar with (and comfortable with) jQuery, but if that's the case, this makes a great option for including interactive charts on your website. Related articles: The 65 best infographics 17 incredible tools for creating infographics Cool CSS examples to recreate View the full article

Overall, Adobe patched 75 important and critical vulnerabilities - including a flaw that could allow bad actors to steal victims’ hashed password values. View the full article

You're reading Tiny Trend: Mouse Interactions, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Micro-interactions were one of the biggest trends in 2017. Like a Bitcoin, it was the talk of the office. We happened to witness not just willingness, but eagerness, of developers to change the UX to something better. Slowly, we are … View the full article

Animation is an important part of modern UX and is easier than ever to implement with CSS. While it may seem limited or a lesser tool when it comes to animation, CSS is actually a really powerful tool and is capable of producing beautifully smooth 60fps animations. In this feature we'll explore everything from reasoning and planning to implementation. Read on to learn about CSS transitions, or jump to page 2 for CSS keyframes, page 3 for a closer look at animation performance, page 4 for a guide to animating SVG. Or click through to page 5 to see how to bring it all together to create a UI animation. Need some more inspiration? Take a look at our roundup of awesome CSS animation examples (and how to code them). CSS transitions Put simply, CSS transitions are a way to provide animation between two property values. For the animation to trigger, something needs to change in the application or website. CSS transitions can be used to achieve a number of animated effects, from a simple colour change to more complex transitions. Transitions in CSS are simple, we just need to choose what elements to transition and when. For example, if we have a button and we want to change the background colour gradually instead of instantly when the user hovers over the button, we use a transition. Transition syntax Transitions in CSS are made up of four properties. These give us control over how the transition will animate. transition-property This enables us to choose which properties we want to animate. We can transition a number of different properties. See a full list of transition-property properties. transition-duration This property enables us to control how long the transition from one property value to another will take. This can be defined in either seconds (s) or milliseconds (ms). transition-timing-function Timing functions, or 'easing', enable us to adjust the rate of change over time. There are a number of keywords we can use. For example, the linear keyword will transition from A to B at an equal tempo, whereas ease-in-out will start slowly, speed up in the middle and slow down towards the end. Custom timing functions can also be defined using the cubic-bezier property. See a full list of timing keywords. transition-delay Transitions can be delayed using this property and is set using seconds or milliseconds. Transition shorthand All of the transition properties listed above can be combined into a shorthand statement using the transition property. We are free to omit the values we don't need in order to set the defaults. Combining transitions You can combine multiple transitions to create choreographed animations. Check this example: Browser support Support for transitions and animations in modern browsers is really good. Everything from Internet Explorer 11 or above is going to support the majority of the code needed for animation. There are exceptions with some of the newer animation properties; CSS Motion Path, for example, or when using SVG or custom properties (CSS variables) as part of the animation. Prefixing for the most part is probably not needed unless we need to provide support for Internet Explorer 10 and below. There are several ways we can prefix code if needed. Auto-prefixer is a really useful tool that can be used as part of a build process or manually at the end of a project. It enables us to configure the browser support you need, then it will automatically prefix our code where needed. We can also check the support for any property using the amazing tool CanIUse. Simply type in the property we want to use and see which browsers are supported. Next page: A guide to CSS keyframes CSS keyframes are used for complex or repeatable animations. They enable us to define multiple property values to animate between. Keyframe animations can be reused and repeated, unlike CSS transitions. CSS keyframe animations are defined using the @keyframes syntax. This works much like a media query where we nest elements inside of the @ statement. Inside the keyframe declaration we have two options: we can use the keyword to and from or we can define our timeline using percentages. Keyword animations When the animation we're creating only has two points to animate between, we can use the to and from syntax, in fact we can use just to, providing the original property value is set on the element we're going to be animating. Percentage animations When creating animations where we need to define more than one point to animate, we can use percentages. This enables us to have precise control over our animation. Applying an animation Animation in CSS has a number of properties we can set in order to have precise control over the playback of our keyframe animations. Some, like animation-duration, animation-delay, animation-iteration-count, animation-play-state and animation-name are all fairly self-explanatory, while some of the other properties can be a little trickier to learn and utilise to their full potential. animation-timing-function Timing functions in animation are the same as transitions – we can use either keywords or set a custom timing function by using the cubic-bezier value. Take a look at a full list of timing keywords. animation-direction When applying our animations, we have the ability to play them back in a number of ways. The default value is normal, which will play the animation forwards. We can also play the animation in reverse or alternate the animations playing forwards and backwards. animation-fill-mode The fill mode value enables us to choose what should happen at the end of an animation to the value that we have changed. For example, setting the value to forwards will keep the property values from the end of the animation, whereas the default value none will return the elements to their original state after the animation has finished. Animation shorthand All of the animation properties can be combined into a shorthand statement using the 'animation' property. We are free to omit the values we do not need and want to leave as the default values. Next page: Learn how to manage the performance of your animations Page speed and performance is an important aspect of any application or website. If you are using animation as part of your project, it can be a good place to start when trying to optimise performance. Animating too much or too many properties will cause animations to stutter. Firstly you can check that you're not using too many animations all at once on the page: as well as being bad for performance, it is also bad for your users' experience. Multiple animations on different parts of the page will be fighting for their attention as well as potentially causing performance issues. Being aware of the number of animations will help to address both of these potential issues. What causes janky animations? In order to achieve a smooth 60fps animation, the browser has only 16.7ms (1000ms/60) to achieve all of the work that needs to be done per frame. If the browser can't complete all of the operations needed, it will stop and move on to the next frame, starting the calculation and redrawing process all over again. This is when we start to see dropped frames, causing janky or stuttering animations. How to avoid janky animations While the list of animatable properties is extensive, at the moment we can only safely animate a handful of these properties to keep within the necessary 16.7ms. These properties are transform, opacity and filter. The reason for this is that animating any other property will cause the browser to have to repaint the page, and this is an expensive process in terms of performance and will likely take longer than 16.7ms to calculate and draw each change. We can also give the browser a helping hand by utilising the will-change property, which gives it a heads up that a property is going to change. This enables the browser to perform some optimisations before your animation even starts. The future of web animation performance The new Firefox Quantum project is taking amazing strides towards making every animatable property perform well, as well as many other improvements to rendering content on the web. It's also worth noting that the newest versions of the iPad will play animations back at 120fps, which will reduce the time in which the browser has to calculate and paint each frame to 8.35ms. Timing and choreography Utilising the correct timing and delays will produce animations that look better and are easier to comprehend. When animating any elements, it's important to choose a duration that is appropriate to its context. For example, an animation that's applied to a button interaction should be short, usually less than a second. Utilising long animations for common interactions is tedious and annoying to the user and can make your application or website feel sluggish and slow. However, providing an animation duration that is too short can cause confusion and provoke the wrong emotions and feelings for your audience. Once you have chosen a comfortable animation duration, you should use this in every aspect of your website or application. When animating, multiple elements or property delays should be used to enhance comprehension. It's much easier to see what's happening in an animation when one thing happens at a time instead of all at once. Next page: Learn how to animate SVG SVG has many benefits – its vector nature is great, and we don't get any of the problems we get with bitmap images when displaying an image too big or too small or on devices with differing DPIs. SVG is also much smaller in size. SVGs are basically instructions for the browser to draw the image contained within. How do I animate SVG? SVG enables us to create intricate drawings and images, where all of the elements inside SVG can be animated using CSS. Animation in SVG works exactly the same way as it does with any element on the page. We need some way to target the element we want to animate, and then apply the animation. The main way in which animating SVG elements differs from regular elements is the transform-origin property. Normally we would use percentages or keyword values in order to set the point at which a transform operation takes place. So if we can't use keywords and can't use percentages, how do we set our transform origin? The answer is to use pixel values. Further complications come into play because, unlike regular elements that would measure the pixels from the top left corner of itself, SVGs will measure from the top left corner of the parent SVG canvas. This blog post covers the topic in detail. Finally, a note on browser support: CSS animation when used with SVG requires the SVG to be inline in the page for the majority of browsers. This means we can't use the image tag to include our SVG and perform animations; we need to have our SVG inside an SVG tag on the page. Custom properties Custom properties, or CSS variables, can be used to create configurable parts of your animation. Animations and movement can cause motion sickness in some users. We can use custom properties in order to effectively remove animations for users who have indicated preferring reduced motion. By changing the timing to 0, we stop the animation from running when the user has requested it. While this media query isn't yet widely supported, it is by iOS. We can use custom properties to define other parts of our animation, such as the colour or size and use. This is useful if we have a part that's configurable and we're using that property as part of an animation. Next page: Bring everything together in a UI animation In this final tutorial we'll look at how we can combine all of the elements we've covered in the article into one single animation. We'll be creating a record player animation where the arm of the record player moves into position over the record, as well as rotating the record itself at two different speeds. We'll create the animation using SVG transitions and keyframes, and we'll be using custom properties in order to make our animation configurable. 01. Create and export our SVG The first step is to create and export our SVG code. You can do this using many different graphics editors (the example is Sketch for Mac). The shapes being used are simple – mostly straight and poly lines combined with circles. We want to create the SVG in the initial state of our animation. 02. Optimise our SVG When we have the exported code from our editor we need to optimise that code to make it easier for us when creating our animation. Firstly we'll run it through SVGOMG making sure to only optimise the parts we need. Once we've done this, we'll paste our code into CodePen and create some basic page styles. We'll be using Sass to take advantage of the nesting capability. 03. Edit by hand Next we will need to edit our SVG by hand. We are going to need to remove any inline transforms on elements that we are going to animate into our CSS. Doing this will make it easier to animate, because we'll be able to see all of our transform properties in one place. 04. Animate the arm We can achieve most of what we are trying to do using transitions. We will start with the record arm and animating the arm into position over the record. To do this we will need to rotate the arm of the record from -90deg to 0deg. In order to transition rotation we need to use the transform property. This means we also need to keep any other transform properties the same when changing the rotation. 05. Slowly rotate the record Next we can use another transition to complete the first, slower rotation of our record. To do this we will need to target the container and apply our transition code, much like we did in the previous step, except this time we will be adding a delay of a quarter of the time it takes for the arm to move into position. 06. Speed up the rotation In order to speed up the rotation, and for it to repeat infinitely, we'll need to use a keyframe animation. The animation we need to create is simple, we just need to rotate the record 360 degrees. Then when we're applying our animation, we need to make sure to set the delay correctly so our animation starts at the end of the container stopping. 07. Reverse the movement Everything is working now and our animation is complete – until the interaction stops. At that point, both the arm and record stop animating and jump back to their original positions. This is where the setup of our SVG is important. The record element itself sits inside of a container. By animating the container using a transition we can also perform another transition in reverse with just a couple of lines of code. 08. Introduce custom properties Now we've got our complete animation, we'll make it configurable with custom properties. We can do this by setting our custom properties on the root element in our CSS. We can then apply them to the property values where needed, making sure to provide a fallback for each one. We can also use custom properties as part of calc() functions, which is particularly useful for sizing and for creating durations and delays. 09. Make the duration configurable We can utilise the calc() function in order to make the animation duration configurable. Firstly we need to set a new custom property for our duration with a value, in seconds. We can then use this value in order to set all of the other animation time values. Given the custom property --animation-duration being two seconds becomes: By doing this for every time value in our animation, we can control the speed of the entire animation by simply changing the custom property at the top of our CSS. 10. Optimise the animation Now we can add our accessibility options for prefers-reduced-motion and add the will-change property to all of the elements. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 282 or subscribe. Read more: 10 amazing new CSS techniques 34 web design tools to help you work smarter in 2019 Which is the best CSS preprocessor? View the full article

Designers and illustrators are always on the lookout for their next big project, hoping for that ideal commission; the one that puts their skills to the test, appeals to their passions and allows them to truly express themselves creatively. Hopefully, it will also be in complete harmony with their personal, ethical and social sensibilities. You can wait a very long time for a client to hand you that perfect commission, but instead of waiting you could go ahead and turn one of your own ideas into a reality. For many creatives, self-publishing offers the opportunity not only to elevate their creativity but also to advance their careers and earnings. 33 books every graphic designer should read There’s always the risk that your creation will be a drain on your time and resources. It may ultimately fall flat. On the other hand, you’ll use an array of skills you already have, and you’ll most likely learn a great deal about creating content, production, print processes, marketing, promotion, sales, distribution and so on. These things alone make it a worthwhile experience but, crucially, if you don’t give it a shot you’ll never know how good your ideal project could have been. Here, we talk to those who have successfully self-published books, and see what tips we can learn from their experiences. 01. Don't wait around Radim Malinic wrote, designed and sourced imagery for his book One of the latest self-published design books is Radim Malinic’s Book of Ideas – vol 2, which follows on from his first, published in 2016. Inside, the London-based designer behind design studio Brand Nu shares his advice on how to make it in the creative industries, while at the same time letting his own design approach flourish via colourful abstract illustrations, photography, typographic treatments and more. Across an impressive range of chapters, he covers how to work creatively and in a mindful way. He wrote all the copy, designed the book and provided the imagery himself. “I didn’t want to wait or look for a publishing deal — it would take years to achieve that. So I decided to take the power into my own hands and do it all myself,” says Malinic. “I’ve worked with many small independent record labels and could see that you don’t need more than one person to get something significant off the ground. I felt I had a few industry observations and thought processes to share with the world, so I decided to publish them myself.” 02. Get a hybrid publishing deal Ben Tallon got a hybrid publishing deal for his book A similar kind of inspiration struck the Manchester-based illustrator Ben Tallon when, just as his career was taking off, he hit a barren spell. It eventually led to the 2015 publication of Champagne and Wax Crayons, the 200-page book in which he discusses the common experiences of creatives across the industry – the highs, the lows, the frustration, the jubilation. Ben worked with LID Publishing under a hybrid publishing deal to make it a reality. The company took care of printing, sales, distribution and overseas rights but Ben handled the editorial style, illustration, layout and a great deal of the promotion. Like Malinic’s books, Champagne and Wax Crayons has really resonated with young British and American designers. It has also been translated and published in Japanese. 03. Relinquish some control While it’s tempting to see a self-publishing project as your baby, and to try and do everything, what Tallon learned from the experience is that in some areas you just have to let go. “It’s crucial to find ways of working with specialists in each field – editorially, on art direction, in sales, rights management and so on,” he explains. “Asking a lot of questions and not being too proud to admit that you need to be walked through certain parts of the process in order to understand how it works is important.” Learning about the various aspects of publishing while creating the content and looking ahead to how you’ll promote your project does make self-publishing seem like hard work. It is. But if you get it right it’s certainly rewarding. 04. Take care of your finances Unit Editions focuses specifically on books about design Nearly a decade ago, Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brook launched Unit Editions. They wanted to create not just one, but many books about their favourite subject: graphic design. The first was Studio Culture – a guide to setting up a studio. Since then they’ve published 40 titles, including a Paula Scher monograph, two stunning slip-cased volumes of British graphic designer Vaughan Oliver’s works, and a fascinating book of lost Soviet designs. Their next publication is a new book about The Designers Republic. Publishing is a wonderful way to lose money Adrian Shaughnessy The hard work is one thing, according to Adrian Shaughnessy. The other is that you have to keep an eye on the money side of things. Designers have most of the skills needed to be publishers, but financial management proves to be such an important factor that it can’t be overlooked. “Publishing is a wonderful way to lose money,” he says. “The third Unit Editions partner is Trish Finegan. Trish looks after the finances. Without her we wouldn’t be here. “It’s also worth mentioning the power of crowdfunding,” he continues. “We’ve had success with Kickstarter and five or six of our books have been funded this way. It has enabled us to make some important books on a scale and of a quality we couldn’t achieve without funding.” 05. Consider crowdfunding Rick Banks raised over £50,000 for his book on Kickstarter Crowdfunding has been the crux of so many fantastic self-publishing efforts. It doesn’t only give hope to someone with a fresh idea, it actually gets them really excited. Rick Banks of the type foundry Face 37 used it to support his brilliant book Clubbed; the illustrator Lapin crowdfunded his vintage car sketchbook Oldies but Goldies; and Kickstarter funding drove Laura Jane Boast’s incredible mag Design Giving. A site like Kickstarter will carry out multiple functions for a project. Firstly, it will help spread awareness on social channels. Secondly, it can help you gauge interest in your project and thereby scale your effort and personal investment in it. And thirdly, the sales revenue you receive through pre-orders will, as the name suggests, kick-start your self-publishing venture. "The book was super-successful, raising £56,000 in the end,” says Rick Banks. “Kickstarter’s back end is very sophisticated – it gives you analytics to show where all the visits come from. Facebook and Twitter were the biggest referrers. In terms of admin it was great, too. It automatically generated spreadsheets with the ability to add notes about specific customers. One of the biggest errors I made was offering free shipping. I didn’t think the book would be so heavy – by the end it was £15 to ship each one abroad.” 06. Make a digital edition first Illustrator Rohan Eason created Benice with author Metin Karayaka We all love print. We love it to death. But the cost can be formidable. The printing of Malinic’s latest book was financed through a partnership with Adobe. Another way around the issue is to launch digitally first, build up sales and awareness, then take the publication into print if it’s viable. This is the route taken by London-based illustrator Rohan Eason and author Metin Karayaka, creators of the young adult adventure Benice, which is selling now on Amazon, Google Books and Bookshout. Eason created 22 full colour illustrations plus the covers, and the book is being published by Yunka, a company set up by Metin for the project and hopefully for future titles. The book began as solely a digital edition, and has now been printed. Why digital at first? “This is to get a feel for the market size and build up a good amount of positive reviews before going to print. Metin can then publish quotes from good reviews on the back of the book, and have extra strength to push the book to distributors.” When we spoke to him, Eason had been visiting every independent bookshop in London with a box of samples to drum up interest. He was paid up front for his illustrations but will also gain a passive income through royalties based on sales. All the bookshop owners were surprised to meet an illustrator so passionate. 07. Use it as a chance to experiment Creatively, the attraction of this self-published project for Eason was the opportunity to experiment. Black and white, highly detailed ink illustrations are what he normally produces and that’s what most publishers commission him to do. With Benice he’s been able to extend his style on his own terms. “A publisher will require you to give them exactly what they want, giving little scope for experimentation or exploration,” he says. “In this book I added colour ink in blocks to my black and white images. It’s a new method for me, and I’m happy to say it’s been very successful.” 08. Do your research Design Giving has four sections: Design, Thinking, Thoughtful and Giving Imagine an illustrator trudging across London, meeting booksellers directly and pitching an independently published book to each of them over and over again. The true level of commitment required to self-publish begins to become clearer. Your skills and creativity will go into the project. You’ll more than likely spend some money on it. Passion is essential. But it’s also going to eat into your time. Tallon spent three years writing and revising his book. Malinic also spent years building up to the release of his first Book of Ideas. Boast, the Manchester designer behind the magazine Design Giving, spent six years developing what turned from an embryonic idea into the beautiful publication you can see today. At every level it has been lavished with care and consideration. “First came the name, Design Giving, which I derived from the compression of the phrase ‘where design thinking becomes thoughtful giving’ – which was my way of being able to describe a process and a way of designing that is more considerate to both people and the planet,” she explains. “This phrase shaped both the structure of the magazine’s four feature sections – Design, Thinking, Thoughtful and Giving – informing the brand’s aesthetic and the type of content featured.” A deep interest in independent, environmentally-focused design is what inspired Boast, and over time she identified a wide range of creators and companies to work with. “When I was ready for content, I had a big list of designers I’d admired from afar, or had previously met at design fairs that I wanted to feature. After the initial email outlining the idea, we worked together to individually tailor the stories and interviews based around the magazine structure.” Now that the first issue is out, the style has been defined and Boast has built up a network of contacts and a following via the Kickstarter campaign she used to fund it. Her next step will be to publish editions annually. 09. Involve readers from the beginning Readers were involved in every step of Works That Work magazine Based in The Hague, Netherlands, Typotheque founder Peter Bil’ak wanted to go even further when he started publishing the magazine Works That Work. Focusing on functional design in unexpected places, the magazine had a team of five and a variety of contributors were heavily involved in its creation. More than that, Works That Work recruited its readers to participate in its distribution. And it worked. “We involved our readers all the way,” says Bil’ak. “They would contribute content to the magazine, they fully financed it and they helped to distribute it. Forty per cent of the print run – 5,000 copies – was sold using our unorthodox ‘social distribution’ method. This meant we bypassed any distribution and shops, and readers would buy boxes of magazines for their social circles, for schools and offices. The feeling of inclusivity and community involvement was the main motivation for people to help us Peter Bil’ak ”Readers who supported the magazine in this way were rewarded as well, receiving the same cut as a distributor would get for its work. “But more than the money, the feeling of inclusivity and community involvement was the main motivation for people to help us,” continues Bil’ak. 'If it worked so well, then why did it close after 10 issues?' you might be thinking. The answer illustrates another important point about self-publishing. Bil’ak always planned to close Works That Work after 10 issues – its very lifecycle was by design. A self-publishing project begins with a celebration, but even a runaway success can eventually start to feel like regular job, an obligation, possibly even a slog for those responsible for its founding. This way everyone who contributed to Works That Work could enjoy it while it lasted, and never consider it to be a burden. 10. Focus on the positives Rumi Hara sells her children's books and comics on Etsy Still, for those who haven’t even started self-publishing yet, thinking about the end perhaps isn’t the best beginning. The main thing to focus on is positive reasons to launch your project, rather than the reasons to avoid pursuing it. Illustrator Rumi Hara is enjoying growing success creating her own children’s books and comics and selling them on Etsy. She offers the perfect endnote: “I’ve actually met a lot of people who want to self publish, but won’t actually do it,” says Hara. “There are so many reasons not to, like, what’s the point? Why spend so much time and energy on something that may not lead to anything? But you’ll end up with a real, physical book that you made yourself and someone can read it. That’s an incredible thing.” Read more: The best children's books of all time How to illustrate a children's book How to design a contemporary book cover View the full article