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Samba released fixes for its networking software to address two critical vulnerabilities that allowed attackers to change admin password or launch DoS attacks. View the full article

Cyber espionage group APT15 is back, this time stealing sensitive data from a UK government contractor. View the full article

The best JavaScript frameworks make coding faster and easier, so you can focus on designing the perfect website layout – instead of becoming bogged down in code. A number of great ones have popped up on the market in recent years. In this article, we'll take a look at the biggest and best JavaScript frameworks around, and explore how to get the best out of them for your next projects. We'll look at Vue.js, React, AngularJS, Polymer and Aurelia – you can use the drop-down menu above to jump to the framework you want to explore first. Most of these frameworks are open source projects, too, so you can dig in and see how they work – or even contribute yourself. Vue.js Best for: Beginners Lightweight applications with a small footprint Vue.js is a progressive JavaScript framework for building user interfaces. An open source project (see the GitHub repo here), its ideal for beginners. The main library is focused on the view layer and all templates are valid HTML, making it easy to pick up. In the following two mini-tutorials, we'll walk through how to use Vue to manage multiple data stores, and speed up the first load to improve your site's performance. 01. Manage state with Vue As with any component-based library, managing state in Vue can be tricky. While the application is small, it’s possible to keep things in sync by emitting events when values change. However, this can become brittle and prone to errors as the application grows, so it may be better to start out with a more centralised solution. If you’re familiar with Flux and Redux, Vuex works in much the same way. State is held in one centralised location and is linked to the main Vue application. Everything that happens within the application is reflected somewhere within that state. Components can select what information is relevant to them and be notified if it changes, much like if it was part of its internal state. A Vuex store is made up of four things: the state, getters, mutations and actions. The state is a single object that holds all the necessary data for the entire application. The way this object gets structured depends on the project, but would typically hold at least one value for each view. Getters work like computed properties do inside components. Their value is derived from the state and any parameters passed into it. They can be used to filter lists without having to duplicate that logic inside every component that uses that list. The state cannot be edited directly. Any updates must be performed through mutation methods supplied inside the store. These are usually simple actions that perform one change at a time. Each mutation method receives the state as an argument, which is then updated with the values needed to change. Mutations need to be synchronous in order for Vuex to understand what has changed. For asynchronous logic – like a server call – actions can be used instead. Actions can return Promises, which lets Vuex know that the result will change in the future as well as enabling developers to chain actions together. To perform a mutation, they have to be committed to the store by calling commit() and passing the name of the mutation method required. Actions need to be dispatched in a similar way with dispatch(). It’s good practice to have actions commit mutations rather than commit them manually. That way, all updating logic is held together in the same place. Components can then dispatch the actions directly, so long as they are mapped using the mapActions() method supplied by Vuex. To avoid overcomplicating things, the store can also be broken up into individual modules that look after their own slice of the state. Each module can register its own state, getters, mutations and actions. State is combined between each module and grouped by their module name, in much the same way as combineReducers() works within Redux.pport. 02. Explore lazy load routes By default, the entire contents of the application end up inside one JavaScript file, which can result in a slow page load. A lot of that content is never used on the first screen the user visits. Instead it can be split off from the main bundle and loaded in as and when needed. Vue makes this process incredibly simple to set up, as vue-router has built-in support for lazy loading. Vue supports using dynamic imports to define components. These return Promises, which resolve to the component itself. The router can then use that component to render the page like normal. These work alongside code splitting built in to Webpack, which makes it possible to use features like magic comments to define how components should be split. Next page: React Best for: 
Sites and applications with complex view logic Quick prototypes with a low barrier to entry Launched in 2013, React is maintained by Facebook and Instagram, alongside a community of developers. It's component-based and declarative, and you can also use it to power mobile apps via React Native. Here, we'll explain how to keep your code clean by separating your concerns, move contents outside of the root component, and ensure errors don't destabilise your application. Use container and presentational components As with any project, it's important to keep a separation of concerns. All React applications start off simple. As they grow, it can be tempting to keep adding logic to the same few components. In theory, this simplifies things by reducing the number of moving parts. When problems arise, however, these large components become prone to errors that are difficult to debug. React and JSX encourage the creation on multiple small components to keep things as simple as possible. While breaking the interface down into smaller chunks can help with organisation, having a further separation between how a component works and what it looks like provides greater flexibility. Container and presentational components are special names given to this separation. The container's job is to manage state and deal with interfacing with other parts of the application such as Redux, while the presentational component deals solely with providing the interface. A container component will often be in charge of a small section of the UI, like a tweet. It will hold all the workings of that component – from storing state, like the number of likes, to the methods required for interaction, such as a mechanism for liking that tweet. If the application makes use of external libraries, include at this point. For example, Redux's connect method would provide the container with a way of dispatching actions to the store without worrying the presentational component. Containers will never render their 
own UI and will instead render 
another component – the presentational component. This component will be passed props that detail all the information needed to render the view. If it needs to provide interactivity, the container will then pass down methods for this as well, which can be called like any other method. Having this separation encourages developers to keep things as simple 
as possible. If a container is starting 
to grow too large, it makes it easy 
to break off into a smaller set 
of components. If the inner workings of a component, such as its state, needs to change, this technique allows the presentational component to remain unaffected. This also means this component can be used somewhere else in the application without needing to adjust how it functions. As long as it keeps getting served the same data it will continue to work. Render with portals React 16 introduced the ability to return lots of different types of data from a component. While previously it had to be either a single component or 'null', the latest version allows strings, numbers, arrays and a new concept called 'portals'. The return value of a render() method decides what React displays, which is shown at that point in the component hierarchy. Portals allow React to render any of these return types outside of the component they were called from. These can be other parts of the page completely separate from the main application. They still form part of React and work just the same as any component, but are able to reach outside of the normal confines of 
the root container. A typical use case of this technique would be to trigger modal windows. To get correct positioning, overlay 
and accessibility requirements out 
of a modal it ideally needs to sit as a direct descendant of the <body>. The problem is, the root of a single page application will likely take up that position. Components managing modals will either need to trigger something in the root component, or render it out of place. Here the Modal component returns a portal. The create function for it takes two arguments – what needs to be rendered and where it should render it. The second parameter is a regular DOM node reference, rather than anything specific to React. In this example, it references a <div> at the top of the DOM tree that is a sibling of the main app container. It is possible to target any node, visible or not, as with any JavaScript. To use it, another component can summon Modal just like any other component. It will 
then display its contents in the targeted node. Because React events are synthetic, they are capable of bubbling up from the portal contents to the containing component, rather than the DOM node they are rendered in. In the modal example, this means that 
the summoning component can 
also handle its state, such as its visibility or contents. Establish error boundaries Unhandled errors can cause havoc in a JavaScript application. Without catching them as they happen, methods can stop executing half way. This can cause unpredictable behaviour if the user continues and is a bad experience all around. Previous versions of React did not cope with these situations well. If an error occurred in a nested component, it would leave its parents in limbo. The component state object would be stuck in the middle of performing an operation that could end up locking up the interface. As of version 16, the way React handles errors has changed. Now an error inside any component would unmount the entire application. While that would stop issues arising with an unstable state, it doesn't lend itself well to a good user experience. To avoid this, we can create a special component called an error boundary to ring-fence parts of the application from the rest. Any errors that happen inside children of the boundary will not cause issues to those outside of it. Error boundaries work a lot like typical catch blocks in JavaScript. When an error occurs somewhere inside the component tree, it will be caught by the componentDidCatch() method, which receives the error thrown along with a stack trace. When that gets called it is an opportunity to replace the tree with a fresh interface – typically an error message. Since it only renders its children, this component 
can wrap others 
to catch any errors that happen within it. The components chosen for this will vary by application, but error boundaries can be placed wherever they are needed, including inside other boundaries. Error boundary components shouldn't be too complicated. If an error occurs inside of a boundary, it will bubble up to the next boundary up. Failing that, it will unmount the whole application as usual. Next page: AngularJS Best for: Large projects in need of structure 
Applications with lots of changing data AngularJS is an open source frontend web application framework developed by Google. It offers declarative templates with data-binding, MVW, MVVM, MVC, and dependency injection, all implemented using pure client-side JavaScript. Here, we'll show you how to use AngularJS to create reusable code blocks known as custom decorators, serve content to your users quicker, and create performant and easy to control animations with ease. Create custom decorators TypeScript is a superset that sits on top of JavaScript. It supplies features such as static typing, classes and interfaces that are lacking in the native language. This means that when creating large applications developers can get feedback on how best to work with external code and avoid unnecessary bugs. Angular is built exclusively on top of TypeScript, so it is important to understand how to utilise it correctly. Combining the strengths of both provides a solid foundation for the application as it grows. There are not many better techniques to demonstrate this than with decorators. Decorators are special functions designed to supply behaviour to whatever it is applied to. Angular makes extensive use of them to provide hints to the compiler, like with @Component on classes or @Input on properties. The aim is to make these functions as reusable as possible and are often used to provide utility functions, such as logging. In the example above, @ClassLogger is supplied to a component to log to the console when certain lifecycle hooks are fired. This could be applied to any component to track its behaviour. The ClassLogger example above returns a function, which enables us 
to customise the behaviour of the decorator as it is created. This is known as the decorator factory pattern, which is used by Angular 
to create its own decorators. To apply a decorator, it needs to be positioned just before what it is decorating. Because of the way they are designed, decorators can be stacked on top of each other, including Angular's own. TypeScript will chain these decorators together and combine their behaviours. Decorators are not just limited to classes. They can be applied to properties, methods and parameters inside of them as well. All of these follow similar patterns, but are slightly different in their implementations. This is an example of a plain method decorator. These take three arguments – the object targeted, the name of the method, and the descriptor that provides details on its implementation. By hooking into the value of that descriptor we can replace the behaviour of the method based on 
the needs of the decorator. Build platform-level animations Animations are a great way to introduce a friendly side to an interface. But trying to control animations in JavaScript can be problematic. Adjusting dimensions like height is bad for performance, while toggling classes 
can quickly get confusing. The Web Animations API is a good approach, but working with it inside Angular can be tricky. Angular provides a module that enables components to be animated by integrating with the properties already within the class. It uses a syntax similar to CSS-based animations, which gets passed in as component metadata. Each animation is defined by a 'trigger' – a grouping of states and transition effects. Each state is a string value that, when matched, applies the associated styles to the element. The transition values define different ways the element should move between those states. In this example, once the value bound to hidden evaluates to true, the element will shrink out of view. Two other special states are also defined: void and *. The void state relates to a component that was not in the view at the time and can be used to animate it in or out. The wildcard * will match with any state and could be used to provide a dimming effect while any transition occurs. Inside the template, the trigger is bound to a value within the component that represents the state. As that value changes, as does the state of the animation. That bound value can be supplied either as a plain property or as the output of a method, but the result needs to evaluate into a string that can be matched against an animation state. These animations also provide callbacks such as when they start 
or stop. This can be useful for removing components that are 
no longer visible. Serve content quicker with server rendering HTML parsers struggle with JavaScript frameworks. Web crawlers are often not sophisticated enough to understand how Angular works, so they only see a single, blank element and not the whole application. By rendering the application on the server, it sends down an initial view for the users to look at while Angular and the rest of the functionality downloads in the background. Once the application arrives, it silently picks up from where the server left off. The tools needed to achieve this in Angular are now a native part of the platform as of version 4. With a bit of set up, any application can be server rendered with just a few tweaks. Both server and browser builds need their own modules, but share a lot of common logic. Both need a special version of BrowserModule, which allows Angular to replace the contents on-screen when it loads in. The server also needs ServerModule to generate the appropriate HTML. Servers also need their own entry points where they can bootstrap their unique behaviours as necessary. That behaviour depends on the app, but will also likely mirror much of the main browser entry point. If using the CLI, that also needs to be aware of how to build the project for the server by pointing to the new entry point. This can be triggered by using the "--app" flag when building 
for the server. The application is now ready to be server rendered. Implementations will vary based on the server technology used, but the base principles remain the same. For example, Angular provide an Express engine for Node, which can be used to populate the index page based on the request sent. All the server needs to do is serve that file. Server rendering is a complex subject with many edge cases (look here for more information). Next page: Polymer Best for: Combining with other platforms and frameworks Working with JavaScript standards Polymer is a lightweight library designed to help you take full advantage of Web Components. Read on to find out how to use it to create pain-free forms, bundle your components to keep requests low and sizes small, and finally how to upgrade to the latest Polymer release: 3.0. Work with forms Custom elements are part of the browser. Once they are set up they work like any native element would do on the page. Most of the time, Polymer is just bridging the gap between now and what custom elements will be capable of in the future, along with bringing features like data binding. One place where custom elements shine is their use as form inputs. Native input types in browsers are limited at best, but provide a reliable way of sending data. In cases where a suitable input isn't available – such as in an autocomplete field, for example – then custom elements can provide a suitable drop-in solution. As their work is performed within the shadow DOM, however, custom input values will not get submitted alongside regular form elements like usual. Browsers will just skip over them without looking at their contents. One way around this is to use an <iron-form> component, which is provided by the Polymer team. This component wraps around an existing form and will find any values either as a native input or custom element. Provided a component exposes a form value somewhere within the element, it will be detected and sent like usual. In cases where a custom element does not expose an input, it's still possible to use that element within a form, provided it exposes a property that can be bound to. If <my-input> exposes a property like "value" to hook into we can pull that value out as part of a two-way binding. The value can then be read out into a separate hidden input as part of the main form. It can be transformed at this point into a string to make it suitable for form transmission. Forms not managed by Polymer that would need to make use of these bindings, the Polymer team also provide a <dom-bind> component to automatically bind these values. Bundle components One of Polymer's biggest advantages is that components can be imported and used without any need for a build process. As optimised as these imports may be, each component requires a fresh request, which slows things down. While HTTP/2 would speed things up in newer browsers, those who do not support it will have a severely degraded experience. For those users, files should be bundled together. If a project is set up using the Polymer CLI, bundling is already built in to the project. By running polymer build, the tool will collect all components throughout the project and inline any subcomponents they use. This cuts down on requests, removes unnecessary comments and minifies to reduce the file size. It also has the added benefit of creating separate bundles for both ES5 and ES2015 to support all browsers. Outside of Polymer CLI, applications can still be bundled using the separate Polymer Bundler library. This works much like the CLI, but is more of a manual process. By supplying a component, it will sift through the imports of the file, 
inline their contents, and output a bundled file. Polymer Bundler has a few separate options to customise the output. For example, developers can choose to keep comments or only inline specific components. Upgrade to Polymer 3.0 The philosophy behind Polymer is to 'use the platform': instead of fighting against browser features, work with them to make the experience better for everyone. HTML imports are a key part of Polymer 2, but are being removed from the web components specification moving forward. Polymer 3.0 changes the way that components are written to work with more established standards. While no breaking changes are made with the framework itself, it's important 
to know how the syntax changes 
in this new version. First thing to note is that Polymer is migrating away from Bower as a package manager. To keep up with the way developers work, npm will become the home of Polymer, as well as any related components in the future. To avoid using HTML imports, components are imported as JavaScript modules using the existing standardised syntax. The major difference inside a component is that the class is now exported directly. This enables the module import <script> tag to 
work correctly. Any other components can be included by using ES2015 import statements within this file. Finally, templates have been moved into the class and work 
with template literals. A project by the Polymer team called lit-html is working to provide the same flexibility as <template> tags 
along with the efficiency of 
selective DOM manipulation. Next page: Aurelia Best for: Simple applications with 
little setup Developing alongside 
web standards Aurelia is a JavaScript client framework for web, mobile and desktop. It's written with next-gen ECMAScript, integrates with Web Components and has no external dependencies. Read on for two mini-tutorials, showing you how to change how properties display value and function, and how to use Aurelia to check values in forms. 01. Use value converters Sometimes, when developing components, the values being stored do not lend themselves well to being displayed in a view. A Date object, for example, has an unhelpful value when converted to a string, which requires developers to make special conversion methods just to show values correctly. To get around this problem, Aurelia provides a mechanism to use classes to change values, known as value converters. These can take any kind of value, apply some kind of processing to it, and output that changed value in place of the original. They work similar to pipes in Angular or filters in template languages like Twig. Most will be one way – from the model to the view. But they can also work the other way. The same logic applies, but by using fromView instead of toView, values can be adjusted before they are returned back to the model. A good use-case for this would be to format user input directly from the bind on the element. In this example, it will capitalise every word that is entered, which may be useful for a naming field. They can also be chained together, which encourages the creation of composable converters that can have different uses across the application. One converter could filter an array of values, which then passes to another that sorts them. Converters can also be given simple arguments that can alter the way they behave. Instead of creating different converters to perform similar filtering, create one that takes the type of filter to be performed as an argument. While only one argument is allowed, they can be chained together to achieve the same effect. 02. Try framework-level form validation Validation is an important part of any application. Users need to be putting the correct information into forms for everything to work correctly. If they do not, they should be warned of the fact as early as possible. While validation can often be a tricky process, Aurelia has support for validating properties built right into the framework. As long as form values are bound to class properties, Aurelia can check that they are correct whenever it makes sense to the application. Aurelia provides a ValidationController, which takes instructions from the class, looks over the associated properties and supplies the template with any checks that have failed. Each controller requires a single ValidationRules class that defines what's to be checked. These are all chained together, which enables the controller to logically flow through the checks dependant on the options that are passed. Each ruleset begins with a call to ensure(), which takes the name of 
the property being checked. Any commands that follow will apply 
to that property. Next are the rules. There are plenty of built-in options like required() or email() that cover common scenarios. Anything else can use satisfies(), which takes a function that returns either a Boolean or a Promise that passes or fails the check. After the rules come any customisations of that check, for example the error message to display. Rules provide default messages, but these can be overridden if necessary. Finally, calling on() applies the ruleset to the class specified. If it is being defined from within the constructor of the class, it can be called with this instead. By default, validation will be fired whenever a bound property's input element is blurred. This can be changed to happen either when the property changes, or it can be triggered manually. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 269 or subscribe. Read more: What’s new in Angular 4? 20 JavaScript tools to blow your mind 12 common JavaScript questions answered View the full article

Adobe has today announced a raft of time-saving updates in Adobe XD CC 2018 that sees the all-in-one UX/UI app work more efficiently with Photoshop CC and rival app Sketch. Now, you can import Photoshop and Sketch assets directly into XD, with files automatically converting to XD files. This makes it possible to create interactive prototypes more quickly. In addition, you can also now copy and paste symbols between XD documents in one simple step. Previously, they needed to be converted manually. Get Adobe Creative Cloud now Elsewhere in Adobe XD, you can speed up your design process by styling grouped elements – this includes changing properties like the fill and stroke of grouped elements. And a scrolling artboard enhancement tops off the latest Adobe XD update. When prototyping, you can now edit the viewport of a scrollable artboard right on the canvas itself without having to exit and go to the Property Inspector. The result is a faster and easier prototyping experience. Seamless workflow Described by Adobe as part of its "commitment to working with the design community", the powerful updates are the latest example of the company actively listening to and implementing highly requested user feedback. Back in January, Adobe XD CC made initial steps to create seamless workflows by integrating Dropbox and other popular UX tools. Adobe XD users can now copy and paste symbols more easily Meanwhile, Adobe has also released a batch of new features in Illustrator CC and InDesign CC. In Illustrator, you can now import multiple PDFs as artboards; increase the size of anchor points, handles and bounding-box controls; and data merge with CSV files. Over in InDesign, you can now deploy Photoshop or Illustrator shortcuts, merge multiple paragraph borders, and see more detailed analytics for documents they published online. Related articles: 24 top Sketch plugins Review: Photoshop CC 2018 How to prototype a mobile app with Adobe XD View the full article

Macs are incredible machines right out of the box, but they aren't perfect. For some tasks, you have find an app to get the job done. The 2018 Mac Essentials Bundle has 10 beloved apps that promise to make your Mac the perfect machine. Get it on sale now for 96 per cent off the retail price. The 2018 Mac Essentials Bundle is packed with the programs you need to get the most out of your Mac. Headlining the bundle is BusyCal 3, an award-winning calendar app that will help you stay on top of your schedule and remain productive. You'll also find a two-year subscription to Cargo VPN, a must-have security tool for any person who travels with their Mac. HoudahSpot 4 can find files that even the Finder can't. And that's just a few of the amazing apps you'll get in this bundle. The 2018 Mac Essentials Bundle usually retails for $524.90 (around £377) but you can get it on sale right now for 96 per cent off the retail price. That's a huge saving on a collection of apps that no Mac should be without, so grab this deal today! About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at:deals@creativebloq.com. Related articles: 10 apps for endless design inspiration How to use animation in mobile apps Trends that will shape app design in 2018 View the full article

Amongst the multitude of problems frontend developers encounter during site creation, managing colours is definitely towards the very end of the list. Nevertheless, if you want a clean and consistent website layout, good colour management is important. Not only will this prevent your site from looking like a rainbow, but it also means you won't end up with multiple shades of the same colour appearing (which has happened to me quite a few times). This article will go through some top tips and tools I use regularly to manage colours on my web-based projects. 01. Put all your colours in a style guide Create a colour palette to keep you right First things first, before you create a site you should have a basic design style guide or colour palette that contains all the colours you plan to use. This doesn't mean you can't add colours to the site as you develop it, but it will help you keep track of colours you already have so they are not repeated with slightly different shades. Excluding black, grey and white, it's best to have no more than five different colours on your website. Of course, this is a general rule and there can be some exceptions. Need some more guidance? Take a look at our article on how to choose the perfect colour palette for your website. 02. Use one file just for colours One of the benefits of using CSS preprocessors such as Sass is the ability to separate styles into many different files and combine them to output CSS to one file. With that in mind I believe it's best to use one file for the main colours of your site, as well as any variations of them. This not only makes it easier to locate colour variables, but can also be a regular reminder of what and how many colours are being used. 03. Name up your colour variables Giving your colours variable names is a good tip It's best to give the main colours of your site variable names that correspond to the colours they actually are or what they look like, (also with custom namespacing, if you're that way inclined). So the yellow for a McDonald's site will have the variable name $mc-yellow. HTML colour names like AliceBlue and DeepPink (and the other 140 colours) don't require custom variable names, as they are already easy to remember. If you are using a library for colours that already contains variable names (such as Colour me Sass), you could make your custom variable equal the library variable, so $mc-yellow = $yellowGold. 04. Use Sass maps for colours This tip is optional, as it is dependant on the way you write CSS. Sass maps make it easier to assign class names to different colours and their relevant CSS property – very similar to looping in most programming languages. For example, if you would like a background colour class for all of the colours that are used on your site, this is the best and cleanest way to do it: This method is especially helpful for those who write Atomic CSS. 05. Use Sass for opacity, lightness and darkness Utilise the functions that come built into Sass For slight variations in the lightness, darkness or opacity of your main website colours, instead of specifying another string of HEX values it's best to use the functions that come built into Sass, along with your custom colour variable. For opacity use rgba, for lightness and darkness use their respective functions. I am fully aware that Sass also contains functions to mix colours as well as adjust hue and saturation, you are more than welcome to use these but I am yet to find a reason for them on my projects. Of course I recommend you give your colour variations custom variables to make it easy to remember them. 06. Use the custom palettes in developer tools The Chrome DevTools come with a great Eyedropper tool for picking colours. However, for experimenting with colours on background, borders, text and so on, I've found it incredibly useful to place the main site colours from my theme into a DevTools custom colour palette, which enables you to update your colours at the click of a button. 07. Try Pigments for Atom Last but not least is this fantastic package for Atom. Pigments simply highlights a colour string, hex or otherwise, with the actual colour it's representing. This sounds very basic, but Pigments becomes really useful when it's used with Sass. The plugin also highlights Sass colour variables with its respective colour wherever it is placed in the code, even in different files. It also changes colours instantly based on the opacity, or whatever Sass function that is applied to it. Pigments for Atom is more useful than you might think I can't begin to describe how helpful it is to have instant visual feedback of colour changes being made in the code. If you ignore all my other colour tips and just do this one I will consider this article a success. Related articles: The pro's guide to UI design 10 essential TED talks for UX designers 5 articles to improve your web design career View the full article

Whether you're a recent graduate, a seasoned pro applying for a new job, or a freelancer scouting for new work, you need a powerful portfolio. Curating and maintaining your portfolio should be an essential part of your professional life. In essence, your portfolio should showcase your professional work, demonstrating what you can do and the skills you have. But more than that, it should demonstrate your experience and the journey that you've been on to get there. Needless to say, it's no simple task, Through this article, I'll run through some essential portfolio advice and golden rules that can be applied to any creative discipline, to help you on your way to curating a killer portfolio. 01. Only the best will do Designer and Illustrator Becca Allen's online portfolio is clean and simple This is a no-brainer, but only include your very best work in your portfolio: it should be all killer and no filler. Although we're used to being ruthless in presenting only the key information when responding to a creative brief, it's often very hard to apply the same ruthless decision-making process to our own work. Ensure that all the pieces in your portfolio 100 per cent represent your best work. If you're unsure whether or not to feature a piece then, as a rule of thumb, you probably need to ditch it. The work featured should demonstrate the very best of what you can do. Any sub-par pieces will only let down the portfolio as a whole, and give the impression that you're unable to self-edit or be self-critical. I asked designer and illustrator Becca Allen about how she goes about selecting the work that appears in her portfolio. "My portfolio is 5 per cent of my work over the last five years. It's the pieces I slaved over, I am most proud of and through which I pushed my design knowledge. It covers a large variety of design practices to show my ability and strengths, but only the best pieces make the cut. Quality not quantity." 02. Choose the right format This is more of an interview-specific tip, really, as it should go without saying that you need an online portfolio in this day and age. If you don't, get one! There's no excuse for not having an online space to showcase your creative work – you don't even have to be able to code. There are so many off-the-peg solutions from Cargo to Squarespace, not to mention the likes of Tumblr, Wordpress and Behance. 5 hidden heroes of web design Back to the interview portfolio. This really depends on your output as it would make zero sense to print out motion work. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that traditional printed portfolios are largely redundant today. Put together an iPad presentation or even a full screen interactive PDF presentation that fits to your laptop screen and can be cycled through easily. Of course, take in actual physical copies of some of the more tactile pieces. If you've created a beautiful foil blocked and embossed book cover, that's the sort of thing people want to see and feel in the flesh. Printing that out and presenting it in a traditional format would do it no justice anyway. 03. Tell your story and present it well Pacing and presentation is key when curating a portfolio. Treat it like any other design job in the way that you present the work, and ensure that it has a beginning, middle and end. The exact aesthetic and typographic choices you make when creating your portfolio are yours and yours alone, but I'd suggest that less is more. It's better to let the work featured speak for itself and be the main event – not the vessel that holds the work. Whether it's a website or a printed folio, it should be easy to view each project clearly and identify who it was created for. "Your portfolio is a piece of artwork in itself – the order, composition, format, typography, colour palette," adds Allen. "It should all be considered just like a brief. A poorly designed portfolio could let the rest of the work down. It should be cohesive as a whole, from the first page to the last and all the pages in between." In terms of pacing, my suggestion would be to always start and end with key, knockout pieces so that the viewer is instantly impressed and left wanting more. This is easy to apply to a printed, PDF or showreel portfolio, but slightly harder online. With online portfolios, my advice as a commissioning art editor would, again, be 'less is more' in terms of the design and presentation. Make the work easy to view and then make the images big. I have definitely left illustrators and designers websites in the past, not because the work was poor but because the experience of trying to view it was so awful. Mike Sullivan, from digital design studio Mister, agrees with this. "When designing a portfolio, you want a website that is straightforward, easy to use and engaging," he says. "You want your work to be the focal point, rather than a distracting, design heavy folio." 04. Adapt for each job Your portfolio should be a living, breathing entity and should evolve over time, as your work does. It makes sense to periodically update your website and if you're looking for a job, always update what you intend to present in the interview. Don't be tempted to simply take along the same selection of work and present it in the same manner for every job role. The work within your folio should be thought about in terms of who you're going to be presenting it to. This, of course, applies to the samples that you send out when applying for the job in the first place as this is the first snapshot of your work that the potential employer will see. 05. Be confident Finally, be confident when curating your portfolio. This will speak volumes to viewers, telling people a little about yourself in the process. Choose your most interesting, dynamic and accomplished work, and pick pieces that you know you'll be able to talk about in a meeting or interview situation. Think about including some WIPS or alternative routes to a finished piece of work as this will provide valuable insight into your creative process and a talking point when face-to-face with someone. Mike Sullivan concurs: "Don't be afraid to specialise, if you want to work in editorial show this. If UX is your strong suite – show that and always share the process and backstory." Be careful not to overdo the 'behind the scenes' bit, though, and don't be tempted to retro-fit 'process' images as it'll only come off as contrived. We've all seen those spirograph logo diagrams. Now go forth and curate! Related articles: 32 brilliant design portfolios to inspire you 8 great examples of graphic design portfolios 10 tips for a killer design portfolio View the full article

You're reading wpDataTables: The Leading Plugin for Creating Tables and Charts in WordPress, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Most web designers love a challenge. Creating attractive and informative tables and charts can be one of them and a rewarding one as well. When large amounts of data are concerned however, creating a table or chart can quickly become a mind-numbing task, and an error-prone one as well. The good news for WordPress users […] View the full article

Even the best writers make some embarrassing mistakes. That's why they have editors. While your work and everyday texts don't have a second set of eyes to catch those slip-ups, you can still improve your writing with the help of WhiteSmoke. This powerful app will spot all the errors that sneak past you. Grab a lifetime subscription on sale for just $69.99 (approximately £51). WhiteSmoke is an essential tool, no matter your writing level. The powerful app makes use of advanced technology to proofread your work and identify grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style errors as you write. This versatile and easy-to-use app works on mobile and desktop, so no matter where you're writing, it can keep you from making common mistakes. Never send an email with a misspelled word again with the help of WhiteSmoke. A lifetime subscription to WhiteSmoke Premium usually retails for $399.95, but you can save 82 per cent on that price right now. Grab this must-have writing app on sale for just $69.99 (£51) and watch your writing improve in no time. About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at:deals@creativebloq.com. Related articles: How to write engaging case studies for your portfolio How to write the perfect design dissertation How to write a great headline View the full article

Project case studies are one of the most important yet overlooked parts of building a design portfolio. In our efforts to design the perfect portfolio and showcase our visual work, we often rush the copy or omit it entirely, leaving only a shallow overview of who we are and what we can do. But dumping a bunch of photos on your project pages without any context sells your work short. Case studies are so crucial to the success of a designer's website that we built Semplice, a portfolio system for designers, entirely around them. (If you're after design portfolio and case study inspiration, check out the Semplice Showcase.) Your portfolio case studies are your opportunity to show prospective clients and employers how you think, how you work and what you can contribute to the world. Here are five examples of designers who do case studies well. 01. Liz Wells Wells includes videos of her website designs in action As a UX designer, Liz Wells has the unique task of making sitemaps, sketches, prototypes and user flows both visually engaging and concrete for her readers. She strikes the perfect balance in her portfolio case studies, highlighting work for brands like Google, Viceland and Spotify. Wells shares the project story from challenge to solution, taking care to explain her process along the way. Photos, videos – even early sketches torn from her notebooks – are thoughtfully photographed and laid out. All of it works together to not only showcase Wells' work, but also who she is and how she thinks. Early brainstorms offer insight into the project On my blog, I publish a series in which I interview top companies about how to get a design job where they work. Almost every company has voiced that they want to understand how you think and see your process. Think about your project in phases and share your work – even the less glamorous notes and sketches, if they’re important to the story – from beginning to end, and you’ll find you have plenty to say. 02. Melissa Deckhert Melissa Deckert’s case studies may be minimal but they pack a punch. Some, like her Food Quote GIFs case study for Tumblr, hook you in with a little secret that makes you look closer at the work. “Tumblr asked me to animate a few food quotes for an internal project,” Deckert explains in the case study. “Naturally I found a way to weave Beyonce into two out of three.” Short and sweet, but the last line creates intrigue and make you want to see more. If you hand-made a project, show off that fact Others case studies, like her In Every Moment We Are Alive book cover project, surprise you with a big reveal at the end. The case study works in reverse, leading with the finished product (the final book cover) and ending with a behind-the-scenes shot that makes you rethink what you saw before. Despite all our excuses, designers can write too. While it’s good to share your process, it also helps to remember the one person who is reading your website. They’re tired, they’re busy and they’ve probably reviewed dozens of portfolios today already. If your case study surprises them and brightens their day, it will be remembered. 03. Naim Sheriff Explain the visuals, don't just dump them on the page Naim Sheriff breaks his case studies into sections, making the page easy to read and digest. He leads with a brief paragraph introducing the client and task at hand, then shares each project element in bite-sized pieces. Most importantly, he explains his visuals instead of just dumping them on the page. Sheriff’s case studies are rich in imagery but he doesn’t just show, he tells. Just as with a newspaper or magazine article, it’s important to remember people are scanning your case studies. They may decide to read deeper if something catches their interest, or they may just skim and move on to the next project. Use your layout to guide them through the content and draw them deeper. Make your captions meaningful for scanners, and write easy-to-read paragraphs for the ones who stay. 04. Mackey Saturday Mackey Saturday’s case studies, like his whole portfolio, are clean and light. His identity designs for brands like Instagram, Oculus and Luxe stand on their own (as logos must do) but his case studies, complete with videos, polished photos and before and after GIFs, explain the nuances and decisions behind the finished product. Most notably, Saturday reveals his entire perspective on branding and design in his case studies. Before/after GIFs help emphasise design nuances “Redesigning a globally recognised logo is a polarising opportunity: Do you put your personal style on display, or stay true to what the brand’s users are familiar with?” he writes. “I believe the best designs channel a company’s culture, not the designer’s.” Don’t be afraid to share your opinion and perspective in your case study. While you should avoid sharing opinions like, 'I really hated working with this client', you should, where relevant, express your beliefs about design and how you applied them to your work. Tell people what inspires you, what principles guide you, share your feelings about the final result. This adds personality and helps visitors understand who you are as a designer. Read more tips for writing case studies here. 05. Kali & Karina Make it clear what your role was in the project Kali & Karina tee everything up for their case study readers with a strong introduction, including the project challenge, the project brief (in one sentence), as well as the partnering agency, their client and their role. They then follow through with their approach and the outcome. On of the most common portfolio mistakes is forgetting to mention your role and give credit to your team. Giving credit doesn’t make your work on the project any less impressive. In fact, it shows you can work well and collaborate with a team. It also helps a potential employer or client understand where your main skills lie and how you’ll fit into their team or project. Read more: Inspiring redesigns of design agency portfolios 6 ways to power up your portfolio How to start a blog: 10 pro tips View the full article

Sketch is the go-to UI tool of choice for many people working in the design industry. What you might not know is that there's a diverse and powerful community of people working to extend Sketch's functionality and features by building custom plugins. In this article, we'll share some of the best Sketch plugins around. The good news is that the management of your Sketch Plugins is even easier now. Plugins update automatically and outdated ones are disabled, plus a string of other small but highly intuitive improvements have been made. Making the plugin ecosystem even more useful is Sketch Cloud, a file-sharing service that anyone can sign up for, where you can view, download and comment on Sketch documents that have been shared publicly, or privately straight from Sketch. So let’s take a look the best Sketch Plugins around – the ones that could drastically change the way we design user interfaces. Once you've spotted one you'd like, read up on how to install Sketch plugins. 01. React Sketch.app This Sketch plugin helps you manage design systems Price: Free Summary: Render React components to Sketch Managing design assets can in Sketch can be difficult. This handy Sketch plugin provides an easier, more reliable way to manage your assets. Implement your designs in code as React components, then use this plugin to render them into sketch. It also makes it easier to fetch and implement real data into your Sketch files. React Sketch.app was developed by Airbnb for use with its design system, with the aim of helping bridge the gap between designers and developers. 02. Git Sketch Plugin Price: Free Summary: A Git client built into Sketch This plugin aims to bring version control into Sketch. It works by exporting an image for every part of the design, then generating pretty diffs so it's clear what changes have been made. By documenting each step of the design process, everyone on the team can see the how the design has progressed. Git Sketch Plugin was created by Mathieu Dutour, who has since moved on to creating a more comprehensive, paid version control system called Kactus. 03. Auto Layout Price: Free Summary: Responsive design for Sketch Group Resizing is a native Sketch feature that enables you to change the way objects react when your artboards or parent groups are resized. Auto Layout, built by AnimaApp, takes this functionality a little further. Where Group Resizing lets you create fluid elements and pin objects to a corner (think: :fixed positioning in CSS), Auto Layout also lets you offset elements by a certain number of pixels, define minimum and maximum dimensions for elements (think: min-: and max-: in CSS) and do everything that Group Resizing allows you to do but with a much less confusing UI. 04. Launchpad Launchpad is an efficient way of converting .sketch designs into static HTML websites Price: Free Summary: Convert designs to static HTML webpages LaunchPad offers an ultra-simple way to convert .sketch designs to static HTML webpages. It's from the same people who created Auto Layout, and in fact you can combine these two Sketch plugins to export responsive .sketch designs as HTML. LaunchPad doesn’t export a ‘finished’ design – you’re still expected to fine-tune loading times, tweak the code to ensure your design responds properly to different screen sizes, and optimise the code output to ensure the site loads quickly and runs smoothly. However, it does give you some pretty solid foundations to work with. After trying Launchpad out with a couple of low-fidelity mockups, I can see that the output is relatively simple, so there's no need to worry about bloated code. 05. ImageOptim ImageOptim brings a sophisticated image optimisation workflow Price: Free Summary: Image optimisation in Sketch While Sketch offers its own solution for optimising SVG files, there is no range of options for compressing JPG and PNG images. Since ImageOptim has been offering a solid service for a number of years, it makes sense that it would bring this functionality to Sketch. Any designer who cares about loading times and image optimisation (which should be all designers) should add ImageOptim to their toolbox. Note that as well as the plugin, you'll need the core ImageOptim app (free) installed on your macOS system, and you still need to mark layers as exportable in Sketch (navigate to ‘Export and Optimise All Assets’ to begin). 06. Magic Mirror Price: From $4/mo Summary: Image perspective transformation tool If you're trying to make impressive product mockups but have to keep jumping into Photoshop to deal with the tricky stuff, Magic Mirror could be a life-saver for you. It's an image perspective transformation tool, enabling you to create perspective mockups and other distorted effects without ever leaving Sketch. 07. Export More Make Mac-ready icons and animated GIFs with Export More Price: Free Summary: Export Mac-compatible icons and GIFs Previously two different plugins – Generate ICNS and Generate GIF – Nathan Rutzky's Export More brings them both together in a single package that addresses a couple of glaring holes in Sketch's export options. With it you can export icon designs as Mac-compatible ICNS files, and create simple animations that you can export as GIFs, all without ever having to step out of your Sketch workflow. This Sketch plugin is ideal for embracing the renewed enthusiasm for GIFs – while you could use Photoshop for or After Effects for your GIF design, you don't necessarily need a full-featured Adobe app, especially when creating relatively simple animations. Export More treats each artboard as an individual frame and combines them together. You can then choose whether to have the GIF play once or on a continuous loop. Navigate to ‘Plugins > Export More > Artboards to GIF’, choose the desired playback method (default or loop), then select the desired frame rate. 08. Sketch Style Inventory Pull all your designs into a single style to rule them all Price: Free Summary: Manage your styles easily Design can be a peculiar combination of freeform exploration and carefully structured process, and Sketch Style Inventory helps you marry the two: it gives you an overview of all the styles you've used and then helps you merge the styles of similar layers into one, enabling you to nail down a final style from all of your various experiments. 09. Day Player Price: Free Summary: Automatically generates placeholder images Adding placeholder images to a design is a necessary part of prototyping, but finding the actual images can be a pain. So rather than waste any time on it, leave it all to Day Player. This allows you to add customised placeholder images to any Sketch document, from a number of different placeholder image services, so the biggest decision you'll have to make will be whether you want to use Bill Murray, Nicolas Cage or kittens. 10. Marketch Turn your designs into lovely CSS with Marketch Price: Free Summary: Turn Sketch artboards into HTML and CSS If you want to retrieve CSS styles from your Sketch designs then a plugin like Marketch is absolutely essential. It enables you to export your Sketch artboards as a zip file full of HTML documents that you can then extract in order to pull out plenty of sweet CSS, ready to go. 11. Sync Sketch Plugin Convenient syncing for your design team Price: Free Summary: Share styles via Google Sheets Keeping your design team in sync is made easier by this plugin that holds your text styles, layer styles and colour palette in a Google Sheet. When you run the plugin it looks into the spreadsheet and changes your Sketch styles and colours to what's stored in there. A great way to share your styles instantly. 12. Segmented circles Segmented circle diagrams Price: Free Summary: Create precise circular graphics Here’s a quick way to make segmented circles for charts and diagrams. This plugin can produce various styles of circular diagram including dashed and tickmark circles, and the thicknesses are controlled via a simple list of comma-separated values. 13. Sketch Runner Sketch Runner is macOS’s Spotlight equivalent for Sketch Price: Free Summary: Spotlight for search Sketch is well-loved for its minimalist keyboard workflow. That being said, there’s always two or three keyboard shortcuts that you always seem to forget or confuse with another design app like Photoshop – and let’s not forget those less common tools and features that don’t have a keyboard shortcut and are hidden deep in the Sketch menu. Sketch Runner solves these issues and does so in a way that macOS users are familiar with – Sketch Runner is the macOS Spotlight, but for Sketch. 14. Icon Font Icon fonts in Sketch Price: Free Summary: Manage icon fonts Icon fonts are a highly efficient way of using icons in your web designs without having to export and optimise a ton of image assets. Typically we reference icon fonts in the <head> section of HTML webpages, as we do with CSS and JavaScript. However, using them in Sketch is a little more complicated. Thankfully, Icon Font makes it easy. After downloading and installing Sketch IconFont, download SVG font files or download this font bundle, which includes the font files for FontAwesome, Material Design Icons, Ion Icons and Simple Line Icons. When you’re done, navigate to ‘Plugins > Icon Font > Install a Font-Bundle’ , select the downloaded fonts from the Open File dialog, then navigate to ‘Plugins > Icon Font > Grid Insert > [your desired icon font]’ in order to insert an icon. Even if you’re intending to design a custom icon set for your design, having ready-made icons at your disposal can help you with rapid prototyping in the early stages of design, adding a little more clarity/fidelity to your low-fidelity mockups. 15. Find and Replace Price: Free Summary: Find and replace text in selected layers Text editors aren’t the only place you need find and replace – it’s useful in Sketch, too. This plugin has lots of advanced options, and it enables you to search for instances of particular words or phrases in the text in selected layers (and everything contained within), then replace it easily. Next page: More time-saving Sketch plugins 16. Content Generator Generate random placeholder content to populate your designs Price: Free Summary: Generate dummy data Built by Timur Carpeev, this tool lets you generate random content, whether that be people's names, addresses, profile pictures, background photos – you name it. The way it works is simple: create a shape (for images) or a text block, select it, go over to the plugins menu bar, run Content Generator, and choose from a variety of options for the kind of content you would like to see. This is extremely useful for populating designs. For example, to quickly mock up a friends list on an app, you could create a grid with circles and a label below, select them and, with this plugin, generate profile pictures and names in seconds. 17. Sketch Dockpreview Preview your work on the OS X Dock Price: Free Summary: Preview your icon design in the Dock This is a great utility if you are working on a Mac app icon – a simple shift+cmd+D will preview your current artboard on the OS X Dock, replacing the Sketch gem. Useless if you are working on a web page or an app, invaluable if you are working on icons. 18. Swap Styles Swap Styles uses a handy keyboard shortcut to swap styles with another later Price: Free Summary: Swap styles between two layers With the help of a handy keyboard shortcut, Swap Styles quite literally swaps styles with another layer. It's is a huge time saver when designing hover states. Let’s take a menu navigation, for example. A menu navigation would appear on every screen, although the active state would differ from screen to screen. On the settings screen the ‘Settings’ menu item might be underlined, and on the newsfeed screen the ‘Newsfeed’ menu item might be underlined. You usually have two options: either awkwardly move things around for every artboard, or create an insane amount of shared styles and/or symbols. In this example, Swap Styles lets you move the active state style to another menu item simply using the keyboard shortcut: cmd+ctrl+S. 19. Color Contrast Analyser Find out if your colour combinations meet MCAG guidelines with this plugin Price: Free Summary: Check your colour contrast meets accessibility guidelines To ensure your website is accessible to most users, there needs to be a certain amount of contrast between different design elements (for example, the background and body text). This contrast is measured using a formula defined by the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). Color Contrast Analyser is a handy Sketch plugin that compares two colours and defines the contrast ratio between them. Contrast ratios are split into three levels (A, AA and AAA) – AA is the minimum specified by the WCAG. If only one layer is selected, the colour will automatically be compared against the background colour of the artboard. This plugin helps you make solid design decisions using internationally recognised design standards, and is a must-have for designers trying to improve both the readability and accessibility of their work. 20. Craft Craft is a super useful toolbox that supercharges your design and prototyping workflow Price: Free Summary: Suite of design and prototyping tools Craft does a lot more than sync your .sketch designs with the InVision web app. In fact, most of Craft’s features can be used without having an InVision subscription at all. Craft supercharges your design workflow by letting you build your design with realistic data and images, rapidly tile objects horizontally and vertically, and create libraries of styles and assets that can be stored in the cloud, shared between your team and accessed at any time. There's also Craft Prototype, which not only lets you demonstrate user flows, transitions and dynamic components such as fixed headers/footers, but also sync those demonstrations into the core InVision app with Craft Sync, bringing your entire team into the loop with an abundance of top-class communication, collaboration and design handoff tools. InVision app subscriptions start at $15 a month, which is suitable for small teams. However, Craft itself can be used for free. 21. Sketch to App Store This plugin creates and exports all the screenshots you need for the App Store Price: Free Summary: Generate App Store images easily This plugin got a lot of exposure when it came out, mostly because it's so brilliant. If you design or develop for iOS, you probably are familiar with the pain of creating a range of screenshots for the App Store, especially now there are two new iPhone screen sizes. What this plugin does is take your screenshot, create a simple but completely customisable template with an iPhone and text on top, and export 45 screenshot images: a set of images with the iPhone and text, and a set with just the screenshot (and an extra Android one), all in JPG format and ready to upload to iTunes Connect. 22. Sketch Notebook Plugin Price: From €4.99 Summary: Manage functional documentation and notes When it comes to presenting your designs to a client or co-worker, sometimes it's nice to explain the thinking behind it. This plugin will add a tasteful sidebar to the right of your document. You just have to select an element of the project, hit ctrl+alt+cmd+9 and type your comment. The plugin will add the appropriate number and respective comment in the sidebar. 23. Sketch Measure Add overlays with useful information to your designs Price: Free Summary: Overlays your design with specs If you work alongside other people, especially developers, it's great if you can deliver your final mockups with some specs overlaid – things like the distance between elements, the dimensions of those icons, the HEX code of the colour you are using, or the font of a label, for example. If this sounds familiar to you, Sketch Measure will make your life easier. With a couple of clicks of your mouse, you can automatically create overlays on your design that contain this kind of information – all in the most unobtrusive way possible, and easily hidden. 24. Divine Proportions See examples of golden spirals or golden ratio grids to help guide your design Price: Free Summary: Check your design against classical ratios Designers love grids. They love logic behind emotion, and divine proportions are just that – divine. This plugin takes a shape and generates, for example, an overlaid golden spiral or golden ratio, or a grid based on the sections created by the golden spiral, or it divides it by the rule of thirds. You name it. It's a fundamental tool when it comes to layout work. How to Install Sketch Plugins Sketch Plugins can be installed in a variety of ways. Most developers simply upload their extensions to GitHub in the form of a .sketchplugin file. This is easy enough, but you’d have to check back regularly for updates as extensions are known to break when newer versions of Sketch are released. We can also use Sketch Toolbox to search for, install and manage Sketch Plugins. However, there’s no assurance that you’ll be given the latest versions, and some (such as Craft and Zeplin) aren’t even included in the toolbox. SketchPacks is updated more often and usually includes the big boys like AnimaApp – yet it’s still missing the private-source plugins like Craft and Zeplin. The newest version of Sketch (version 48) tries to update Sketch Plugins when it can, but using Sketchpacks or even the GitHub GUI – if you’re familiar with GitHub – could serve as a suitable alternative. For more guidance, look here. This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in net magazine. Subscribe here. Related articles: How to automate your Sketch handoffs Implement beautiful typography in Sketch Jargonbuster: Mockups, wireframes, prototypes View the full article

Don't miss Vertex 2018, our debut event for the CG community. Packed with inspiring talks from industry pros working in games, VFX and more, plus career advice, workshops, an expo and more, if you work – or play – in CG, it’s unmissable. Book your ticket now. Creating realistic 3D portraiture will more than likely include simulated hair, but there may also be many other situations when a hair modifier is useful in a scene. Not only for dressing a human head, but also for clothing items, fabrics, animal hair, carpets and grassy surfaces to name but a few. 3ds Max comes with a very intuitive tool for creating realistic and styled hair and fur. This modifier is found under the World Space Modifiers drop-down list. V-Ray also has a (less flexible) hair creation tool found under Geometry and VRay: VRayFur. How to perfect hair in your portraits The 3ds Max Hair and Fur modifier enables you to comb, style and trim hair strands on screen and interactively, as if using a comb and scissors. This is fantastic for creating detailed, brushed hair styles and it can be additionally deformed by adding external simulated forces like wind. Styling with VRayFur is tricky and less intuitive however, as it requires tweaking the variables in linked procedural maps in the material editor. For this reason VRayFur is best used as a tool for creating random furry objects such as deep pile carpet or even grassy areas, as it doesn't lend itself easily to such close control. V-Ray also supplies a very nice material specifically for use with hair and fur objects. I find this to be a superior material to the default option offered in the 3ds Max Hair and Fur modifier. To get the best out of both worlds and by selecting one or two additional parameters, it is of course possible to use the V-Ray material together with the 3ds Max Hair and Fur modifier. 01. Create a base for the new hair plume Start with a simplified surface To begin, create a simplified surface in 3ds Max with the line tool whilst snapping to vertices on the top of the cap. The surface does not need to cover the entire cap, but only a reduced area where the plume will appear. Next, create the form with shapes bounded by three or four vertices at most (rectangles or triangles) and then weld all the vertexes. Apply the Surface modifier and ensure the normals are pointing upwards. Make the surface non-renderable in its properties dialogue. 02. Hair and fur assignment Use the Hair Count option to adjust the hair's thickness With the new surface selected, we now need to open up the drop-down Modifier list in the top right, and select the Hair and Fur option. Start by adjusting the general parameters in order to achieve the approximate length required for the plume. Tweak the hair strand thickness and the hair density to your liking with the Hair Count option. Adjust the amount of hairs on display to help with GPU memory under the Display tab, and then switch on the guides icon. 03. Comb and cut Channel your inner Vidal Sassoon in the Styling tab Under the Styling tab choose the Select button and select an area of hair guides that you might want to work on. Then click the Hairbrush button and the Scale button underneath. Work in the top and side viewports and stretch the hair with the green comb icon on screen. Switching from the Scale button to the Translate button will enable you to easily comb the hair into a style of your choosing, and switching from the comb to the cut icon will allow you to snip off ends in order to neaten and tidy the plume. 04. Render settings Finally, render out your hairy creation Once the hair has been combed and cut into the required style open the mr Parameters tab, select Apply mr Shader and click into the box under. Choose VRayHairMtl. Drag and instance the material into an empty slot in the material editor and adjust the colour and glossiness parameters, or choose a preset. Next open the Environment dialogue from the Rendering tab in the main top menu and select the Effects tab. Add Hair and Fur and under Hair Rendering Options select 'mr prim' for the Hairs options. This article was originally published in issue 231 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 231 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Book your Vertex 2018 ticket now On 13 March we’re launching Vertex 2018: a one-day event in London for the CG community. Featuring a jam-packed schedule of inspiring talks from the industry’s most exciting practitioners, there will also be workshops, networking opportunities, a busy expo and lots more. Get your ticket to Vertex 2018 now. Related articles: How to sculpt fur in Maya How to create manga-style hair in motion How to create hair in Cinema 4D View the full article

I create all my work in Adobe Illustrator. Initially getting to grips with the software can be tricky, but there are a lot of brilliant Illustrator tutorials around to help hone your skills. Get Adobe Illustrator CC One of the best things about Illustrator is the ability to create your own brushes. You can find some amazing free Illustrator brushes online, but sometimes designing your own is the better option. I created my own shading and line work brushes to give my Spider-Man image (above) a more natural feel, while still keeping it 100 per cent vector-based. Over time, I've developed a library of Illustrator brushes. This means I have precise control of drawing with the Pen tool, but I can also give my linework a more natural, hand-drawn appearance. Here's how to create your own vector Illustrator brush in three simple steps... 01. Start with weighted lines Start creating a brush by drawing your own weighted lines Create custom brushes by drawing your own weighted lines, either with a drawing tablet in Photoshop, the Blob brush tool in Illustrator, or good old-fashioned pen and paper. Then, bring your linework into Illustrator and create outlines from the strokes by selecting them, and navigating to Object > Path > Outline Stroke. 02. Refine your lines Use the Anchor Point tools to refine your lines Once you have your brush stokes outlined, use the Pen tool or Anchor Point tools to refine any part of the line to get it just how you want it. Next, create a new Calligraphic brush by selecting the shape you want to make into a brush. Open the Brush panel (Windows > Brush), click Create New Brush and select Calligraphic brush. 03. Create a brush library Create a library of different brushes and effects to suit your style You can follow this technique to create a library of different brushes and effects to suit your style. To create a new brush library, add the brushes you want to the Brushes panel (Window > Brush Libraries). Then, in the Brushes panel, click Save Brush Library, and put the new library file in one of the following folders so that it will appear in the Brush Libraries menu when you restart Illustrator: You can also use this technique to create Pen brush strokes, as well as shading effects such as stippling or half-tone effects – and you can create ‘fills’ as well as ‘strokes’. This article was originally published in issue 156 of ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 156 or subscribe to ImagineFX here. Related articles: 18 best iPad art apps for painting and sketching Art techniques: top tutorials for painting and drawing How to draw: 95 tutorials for drawing animals, people, landscapes and more View the full article

Collaboration is crucial for any successful design studio project, whether it's between internal team members, different agencies, or with external specialists in a particular craft or discipline. There are many different collaboration tools available – some free; some available on a tiered subscription basis. The choice between them will depend on exactly how you plan to collaborate, and with whom. There are also some great one-stop-shop project management tools. One of the most established is Basecamp, which includes to-do lists, project management tools, wiki-style documents, file sharing, messaging and more within its slick, simple interface. It might be the market-leading project management and collaboration tool, but Basecamp has many rivals So well established is Basecamp, in fact, that many of its rivals specifically market themselves as alternatives to it. Take Monday, for example, which integrates Gantt charts and agile project management methods, or Freedcamp, billed as "the closest free alternative you will ever get to Basecamp". Sometimes, however, you need a more task-specific collaboration tool. Maybe you don't plan to shift your whole agency to a new project management solution, or you're frustrated with the limitations of your current tool when it comes to certain functionality. If this is the case, read on for our guide to six common collaboration challenges that many design studios face – and the best tools for managing each of them... 01. Communicating with the rest of the team Slack has been adopted by many agencies as a communication tool, both internally and with external collaborators Whether you're bringing together a disparate team scattered in remote locations, or just chatting with colleagues on the other side of the studio, Slack is the tool of choice for many design agencies keen to improve communication. By splitting the conversation into channels, you can tune straight into relevant exchanges about any given project, while switching off anything irrelevant if you choose to – although many agencies will have a channel reserved for team banter. Best of all, compared to email exchanges – which can become confusing as remote team members cross streams, or people forget to reply all – Slack keeps the discussion in one place, reducing the number of emails and face-to-face meetings, and making everything run more smoothly. There are some great alternatives on the market, notably Flock – which pitches itself as a "team communication app and online collaboration platform", as well as the "most economical alternative to Slack". 02. Brainstorming and developing ideas Mural works across all manner of devices, and gives teams a shared digital whiteboard on which to collaborate remotely While many design studios swear by the hands-on, analogue approach of gathering the team in a room with a whiteboard, a flip-chart, sketches or Post-Its stuck to the wall, when it comes to remote collaboration this approach isn't feasible. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools out there to facilitate brainstorming online, to make sure everyone feels involved in the process. Once such tool is Mural, which enables team members to share thoughts visually. Files, links and documents can all be dragged and dropped onto a shared digital drawing board which is updated in real-time, so two particularly opinionated team members can even have a live argument over a concept from opposite sides of the country. Another popular brainstorming tool is Conceptboard, which is optimised for creative teams and provides flexible, web-based collaborative whiteboards. Like Mural, it facilitates simple drag-and-drop sharing of files for team members to annotate and discuss. 03. Managing shared to-do lists Asana is the king of the to-do list, and arguably the most task-focused app on this list – it's all about assigning and completing jobs Task management is one of the most important parts of managing a complex project, particularly when multiple people are involved at different stages. It gets even more complicated when they're based remotely. Asana is perfect for this very specific part of the collaboration process, as it's structured entirely around lists of tasks – which can be attributed to individual team members, with accompanying deadlines. One of the most useful aspects is the ability to convert emails directly into tasks, either from your G-Suite email using the free plugin or by sending an email to an address associated with a particular project. For small businesses and freelancers, Asana is free for the first 15 users - with unlimited projects and tasks included – but pricing then increases in tiers, with additional features coming into play such as task dependencies and custom fields. 04. Keeping track of projects in a visual way Asana's biggest rival Trello has a much more visual, Post-It-inspired interface where teams can share sketches and mockups as well as tasks to complete The most direct rival to Asana is Trello, which is also a user-friendly project management tool that helps facilitate remote collaboration – but rather than being based on task lists, is structured more like a virtual pinboard. Whether you choose Asana or Trello really depends on how you, and your team, prefer to visualise projects. Where Asana is brutally simple and list-based, giving you the satisfaction of ticking things off, Trello gives you Post-It note-style 'cards' that can include text, photos, drawings and mockups. These are all hosted on a central board for your entire team to collaborate on, while you can view the progress of the overall project at a glance. It's also free, although its Gold package adds functionality, such as larger attachments and saved searches. 05. Managing feedback and revisions GoVisually keeps track of feedback from clients and team members through colour-coded annotations directly on the work-in-progress design Of course, another key aspect of the collaborative design process is between designer and client, and while many of the other tools on this list could involve them too if you choose to, there are also more focused ways to collect feedback and manage amends and revisions. One such example is GoVisually, which essentially provides a platform for your team and your clients to mark annotations and comments on work-in-progress designs. These annotations can highlight particular areas of the design using elliptical, rectangular or lasso-based selection tools, and different people's comments are recorded on separate layers that can be toggled on and off. Concept Inbox is another tool that helps facilitate designer-client collaboration during the sign-off process, providing a dashboard setup to upload images, collate feedback, and re-upload amends with full version control. For digital designers, there's also the capacity to create interactive prototypes to demonstrate how ideas will work in practice. 06. Designing collaboratively Figma enables whole teams to work on a UI design simultaneously, using shared brand assets, for a truly collaborative creative process Perhaps one of the most complex and difficult collaborations to manage remotely is the design process itself. Ultimately, there's no substitute for a design team sitting together and talking things through face-to-face. However, there are various tools that help facilitate creative work. Built into Adobe Creative Cloud, for instance, is the ability to share assets with other CC users, and work cooperatively on them in the cloud. Figma is another creative collaboration tool, pitched more at UI designers. An entire team can work simultaneously on an interface design on the same page, while work in constantly saved - with version control built in. Shared brand assets and colour palettes help maintain a consistent look and feel. And anyone working with moving image should check out Frame.io, a collaborative tool that enables teams to upload footage in 150 different formats, create storyboards, and manage threads of comments and annotations in one place. Related articles: 8 tools to help you work remotely as a freelancer 6 inspiring redesigns of design agency portfolios 5 fascinating stories behind unusual logo designs View the full article

Into web animation? Expert Val Head will be talking at web design conference Generate New York in April. Get your ticket now. Motion plays a very important role in our lives. Our eyes and attention automatically shift focus towards moving objects; static content can't do this as effectively. There's never been a more exciting time for CSS animation. It's become an invaluable tool for creating beautiful and engaging interfaces. But crafting motion properly is not a small task, so having some help can go a long way. This is where Animista comes in. Animista is both a collection of pre-made CSS animations, and a playground where you can tweak and test them out. This speeds up the process of iterating different animation ideas considerably, which is one of the great things about incorporating Animista into your workflow. Understand the UI The Animista playground UI is split into three main sections. The animations are organised in logical categories, groups and variations, all located at the top of the screen. If, for example, you are looking for suitable animations for a presentation, you'll most likely want to browse the Entrances and Exits categories. Say you then opt for a Slide-in, you will find additional variations like Slide-in-Left, Slide-in-Right and so forth just beneath it. Clicking on the category, group or the variation will immediately play the animation on the main stage. Each category, group and variation is assigned their own URL, which makes it very easy to bookmark or share them. The Animista user interface is split into three main sections: 1: the menu bar, 2: the options panel and 3: the main stage The main stage is where all animations take place. There are three buttons in the top-right corner. The first is the Replay Animation button (circular arrow icon), followed by the Add to Favourites (heart icon) and Generate Code (curly braces icon) buttons. The Options panel is where you tweak various aspects of the animation. The first one is a select object drop-down menu that enables you to swap the animated object with another one from a list of predefined objects. It is followed by a group of options that correspond to standard CSS animation properties. The best way to see how each of them affects the animation is to experiment. Inject your code Once you get familiar with the UI, you are ready to start integrating it into your workflow. Speaking of workflows, when it comes to Animista you can pick between two, depending on your preferences and requirements. One at a time When you see the animation you like, simply click the Generate Code button. You will then be presented with the animation code panel. At the top of the panel there are two checkboxes. The first one enables you to minify the code, saving some space in the process. The second one will improve compatibility with some older browsers by adding browser vendor prefixes to the code. The animation code panel reveals the code for the currently active animation Immediately below, you will find the CSS code for the animation helper class named after the currently active animation. It is a one-liner containing the animation code with the animation options applied. Clicking the Copy Class button will copy the helper class code to your computer clipboard, so you can then simply paste it into your editor. The last and the most important bit is the animation keyframes code block. It is where the entire sequence of the animation is described and is what you need in order to use the animation in your project. Upon clicking the Copy Keyframes button, the code is ready to be pasted into your CSS. Animate in batches In contrast to the previous approach, when you see the animation you like, add it to your favourites by clicking the Add to Favourites button. The heart icon will appear next to the active animation in the animation variations list, marking it as a favourite. Repeat this as many times as needed until you are happy with your selection. The download button at the menu bar’s right side takes you to the download page, at the top of which you will find a list containing all of your favourite animations. Here you will get a chance to review your picks once again. You can also make any last-minute changes by clicking the ‘x’ button found next to the animation name. The last section contains the generated code for your entire selection of animations. Upon clicking the Copy Code button, a green notification will inform you that the action was successful and that the code is ready to be pasted into an editor of your choice. In case you are creating a new file, make sure it is saved with the correct extension, in this case .css. Get animating There are countless ways to use CSS animations and enrich your web projects. Animista makes the process more fun and a bit easier. New animations will be coming out soon – and in the meantime, happy animating. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 303. Buy it here. Want more advice on which animation tools are best? If you're into web animation, make sure you've picked up your ticket for Generate New York. Web animation expert, author and design evangelist at Adobe, Val Head, will be delivering a talk – Choose Your Animation Adventure – in which she will break down the long list of choices for making things move on screen. She'll also show you which tools are best suited for things like state transitions, showing data, animating illustrations, and making animations responsive. Generate New York takes place from 25-27 April 2018. Get your ticket now. Related articles: 18 top CSS animation examples How to power up your menus with CSS animation 10 great CSS animation resources View the full article

Vertex is bringing the CG community together on 13th March at Olympia London. And along with the amazing industry-leader talks, workshops, networking opportunities and more, you'll also get the chance to see a real life BAFTA award. Creative Assembly (CA) is bringing its BAFTA to Vertex for you to ohh and ahh over – but the games studio has also teamed up with BAFTA Games for an exclusive competition for Vertex Conference attendees. They have three pairs of tickets to the 2018 BAFTA Games Awards for three lucky winners and their plus-ones. Get your Vertex 2018 ticket now The rules! To enter the competition, make your way to the CA booth at Vertex on Tuesday 13th March, take a photo of yourself with one of the studio’s BAFTA awards, post it on Twitter to @CAGames using the hashtag #takemetothebaftas. You must be 18 years old or over and able to attend the BAFTA Games Awards ceremony on the 12 April in London, UK. Winners will be picked at random by CA on the 14 March and notified via Twitter. Get your Vertex 2018 ticket now There's so much going on at Vertex, you really don't want to miss out. Speakers include the likes of Digital Domain's Scott Ross, Chaos Group's Chris Nichols and ILM's Ben Morris on the VFX of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. There's also workshops, portfolio reviews, an Ask An Artist section for one-on-one advice, a networking party and much more. Get your tickets today, or register for a free expo pass that even gives you access to show-floor talks... Related articles: Get top advice from DNeg, Framestore and MPC artists Scott Ross to talk at Vertex Free supplement: Find out what's going on at Vertex View the full article

Researchers have uncovered a new cyber-espionage threat that uses MikroTik routers as a springboard to launch attacks within a network. View the full article

Vertex, our one-day event bringing the CG community together, is nearly upon us. We have so much on offer that we can't wait to share with you, but in the meantime here are our top three things to start getting excited about. Get your Vertex 2018 ticket now If you haven't picked up your ticket yet, do so today and join us on 13th March at Olympia London. Don't forget you can get a free pass to the expo area, where you can see some talks, access the Ask An Artist area and more – just make sure you register for your free ticket. 01. World-class speakers As general manager of ILM, Scott Ross ran the studio for George Lucas, before founding Digital Domain with James Cameron and Stan Winston Our headline speakers are some of the most inspirational industry leaders around. We've got co-founder of Digital Domain Scott Ross talking about British VFX after Brexit; Chaos Group's Chris Nichols on Digital Humans; Ben Morris from ILM on the VFX behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi and much more. Not only do we have amazing speakers on the main stage and great workshops, though, we also have fantastic talks lined up for you in the free expo area. There's no charge, but don't forget to register for your free ticket. This area will also host a talk from The Mill's Will MacNeil, titled Adventures in Procedural Design. MacNeil is an award-winning motion graphics designer and animator, and he's worked across a broad range of projects in VR, installations, music videos and commercials. His recent clients include Lush, Vue Cinemas, Sony PlayStation and Huawei. We also have Maxon's Jonas Pilz talking about Cinema 4D MoGraph, Blue Zoo talking about the making of their animated shorts, DoveTail Games' Jess Magnus talking about Environment Art for Games and Career Progression, and much more. Find out more about the talks in the free expo area. 02. There are 15 amazing prizes to be won 15 Vertex attendees could be lucky enough to win one of the incredible prizes our partners have on offer. We will be announcing the winners after the panel, so stick around to see if it's you – and, of course, to attend our networking event, where you can mingle with the best in the industry. The prizes: 1x Forest Pack licence from iToo Soft 1x RealFlow 10 from Next Limit 1x RealFlow | Cinema 4D 2 from Next Limit 1x Maxwell 4 (Studio and/or any of the integration plugins available) 1x ftrackftrack Studio account with 10 users for 12 months subscription (worth $2,400) 1x Escape Studios' Intro to Houdini course in 2018 1x Escape Studios Taster Day voucher 1x Blackmagic Filmmaker’s kit (URSA Mini 4K, with Fusion and DaVinci Resolve Studio) 1x License of KeyShot Pro, worth $1,995. 3x six-month access to AnimDojo 2x X-Particles and Cycles 4D licenses from Insydium 1x PullItDown Pro Licence worth 400 EUROS from Thinkinetic 03. Get one-on-one time with pro artists Our Ask An Artist section gives you a rare opportunity to troubleshoot with the pros In our Ask An Artist area, you can spend some one-on-one time with talented people in the industry, who will answer those burning questions or workflow problems you have. We have lined up... Valentina Rosselli, MPC – texturing technical director Joel Best, Framestore – generalist technical director Andrew Baggarley, Dneg – surfacing lead Zakaria Boumediane, Framestore – senior environment technical director Stephen Molyneaux – freelance concept artist Ant Ward – generalist and 3D World contributor Get your Vertex 2018 ticket now We have even more on offer for you at Vertex, including portfolio reviews, an expo area showcasing the latest tech and a networking event. Don't miss out! Get your ticket now or register for a free expo pass. And don't forget to download our show guide too. See you there. Related articles: Scott Ross to talk at Vertex Press start on your game art skills at Vertex Get top advice from DNeg, Framestore and MPC artists View the full article

CANCUN, Mexico – A new analysis of the Russian-speaking Sofacy APT gang shows a continual march toward Far East targets and overlapping of activities with other groups such as Lamberts, Turla and Danti. Researchers at Kaspersky Lab this morning at its Security Analyst Summit, released their update on Sofacy, also known as APT28, Fancy Bear, […] View the full article

Hanwha is patching 13 vulnerabilities in its SmartCam security camera that allows attackers to take control of the device, use it to gain further network access or just brick it. View the full article

Remember 2008? It set the stage for a host of political events that would unfold over the coming decade, with the global financial crisis and the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States both taking place during that year. To take stock of the major moments from the last 10 years, London's Design Museum is hosting an exhibition that will showcase significant political graphic design work. The exhibition, called Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008-18, will feature an array of graphic design – including traditional posters and protest placards – as well as look at how technology and internet memes have played an increasingly important role in the outcome of recent events. "From the global financial crash and the Arab Spring, to ISIS, Brexit and Trump, this exhibition explores the numerous ways graphic messages have challenged, altered and influenced key political moments," says a statement on the Design Museum site. Je Suis Charlie, image credit: Paul SKG "Journey through Occupy Wall Street, Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution and the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Explore over 160 objects and installations, and uncover the real-time social media conversation around political leaders, through dynamic displays created in partnership with leading social listening platform, Pulsar." Split into three sections –Power, Protest and Personality – Hope to Nope features a timeline that divides the gallery space. This timeline tracks how social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have helped to shape and influence events, for better or worse, over the last 10 years. Power examines how institutes use graphic design to establish authority, as well as looking at how these techniques have been subverted by anti-authoritarians. Meanwhile Protest, the largest section, looks at the graphic designs used by campaigners and protestors. Women's march, Washington DC,January 2017. Image credit: Chris Wiliams Zoeica The final section, Personality, explores how political figures have been represented in graphic design. Notable examples include works from youth culture such as the unofficial Jeremy Corbyn Nike logo T-shirt. Curated by the Design Museum's Margaret Cubbage and GraphicDesign&'s Lucienne Roberts and David Shaw, with Rebecca Wright, Hope to Nope runs from 28 March to 12 August 2018. Opening image credit: Scott Wong Related articles: Presidential portrait draws a mixed reaction Why controversial UKIP logo falls on the branding sword Savage Brexit stamps are the best of British View the full article

One golden rule that any designer is guaranteed to come up against time and again is this: don't mess with the logo. Somewhere in most style guides you'll find a section telling you exactly how to use the logo, and warning you in no uncertain terms not to mess about with the logo design, under any circumstances, ever. 5 logo design trends for 2018 Which is fair enough; branding needs consistency if it's going to do its job, after all. But sometimes you just have to break the rules – something that McDonald's has done twice recently. McDonald's has broken all the logo rules with these cleverly cropped billboards First it put up billboards in Canada, cropping the iconic Golden Arches logo to give directions to the nearest restaurant. Then for International Women's Day, it turned the logo upside down, making it into a big W. Such logo manipulation is a ballsy move, and while it's paid off for McDonald's with a stack of publicity, it's the sort of trick a brand can only really get away with if its logo is instantly recognisable. So, how well can you guess the logo if it's been given a serious crop? Test your brand awareness with our extreme close-up logo quiz... Related articles: 10 of the best logos ever The 20 biggest logos of 2017 5 fascinating stories behind unusual logo designs View the full article

Procreate has quickly become my go-to digital painting app. Thanks to the portability of the iPad Pro, its appeal to me was to be able to create high-resolution digital paintings from anywhere, with the same quality you would find in a desktop program. Procreate’s clean and simple interface makes it welcoming to new and novice artists alike, and once paired with the Apple Pencil, I found it to feel the most natural way to draw digitally. Don’t be fooled by appearances, though: this application offers all the tools you’ll need to create higher-level artwork. The more I use this app, the more new tools, adjustments and shortcuts I find. 30 of the best Procreate brushes For this workshop, I’ll be painting entirely using the Procreate app. The process is similar to working in Photoshop: making use of multiple layers, colour adjusting and using a variety of brushes. All of the brushes I use are straight from the Procreate library, but the app allows for easy import of downloaded or imported brushes as well. I try to work in the least amount of layers possible, so it feels more like painting on a canvas. I decided to pay homage to classic fairy tale illustrations for this piece – in this case, Snow White and the poison apple. I love the old storybook paintings, and decided to try my take on the subject matter. 01. Start with a sketch Keep your ideas loose with a concept sketch Procreate has a great selection of 'sketching' brushes, and my go-to is the 6B Pencil brush. I loosely sketch out the concept of Snow White and the apple, not worrying too much about details and specifics, but just blocking in very general ideas. I know I can change and tighten ideas later on, so I keep the sketch simple. 02. Refining the idea and inking Avoid using a black brush to keep a softer look Next, I lower the Opacity of the pencil sketch layer. I create a separate layer on top and choose the Brush Pen from the Calligraphy Menu. I choose a dark brown colour to ink, avoiding black (for now) for a softer look. Using simple strokes, I ink over the drawing. 03. Blocking in flat colours Basic colours are blocked in Now having both the light pencils and inks, I merge the two layers and set the combined layer to Multiply. Then I create a layer underneath and then fill the background with a green colour using the Paint Bucket tool. Next, I select the Hard Airbrush and fill in the very basic, flat colours of the drawing that are underneath the lines. 04. Know your light source A grey - blue brush is used to establish shade I select the Flat Brush and set its brush properties to Multiply, before choosing a grey-blue colour. I decide that one light source should come in from the left, so I lightly paint in a thin layer of shadows on the figure and start to define her shape. I tackle a bit of the shadows in the background at the same time. 05. Time to paint Use existing colours to keep the illustration cohesive Now that I have the basics laid out, I create a layer on top and set the Flat Brush properties back to Normal. I eye-drop the colours, then choose lighter colours to push things forward and darker colours to pull things back. I also try to choose colours that are already on the screen, which keeps the colour palette cohesive. 06. Pushing the values A dark brown brush intensifies the shadows Now that the basic textures are painted on Snow White’s face, dress and hair, I create a Multiply layer on top. Still using the Flat Brush, I lightly go over the painting with a dark brown colour to intensify the shadows. I also make the four corners darker, which places more emphasis on the centre of the painting. 07. Painting over shadows Lighter colours are added to the shadows I like to pick a lighter colour (in this case, a light turquoise/blue) and paint inside the shadows. I do this in thin, gradual layers and build up the Opacity where it’s closest to the edge or where it’s the darkest. This can help to create a rim lighting effect. 08. Playing around with curves Adjusting this single layer changes all aspects of the art Procreate has different colour adjustment options. I like to use the Curves tool to play with contrast, and Color Balance to tweak the colours in the shadows, midtones and highlights of the painting. Since I’m working in one layer at this point, the adjustments change all aspects of the piece. 09. On to the background Background colours are defined in the same way as the central figure Using the same principles as painting Snow, I start defining the background. I use colours that are local to the painting, eye-dropping yellow for highlights and dark browns for shadows. I slowly start to render out the leaves, roof tiles and wood grain, still using the Flat Brush. 10. All about the details Bold colour decisions make the artwork look crisp After using the Flat Brush for the bulk of the painting, I select a Hard Airbrush to focus on details, reducing the diameter to make the brush head smaller. Since this brush is opaque, I try to make bold decisions in colour and highlights, giving the painting a crisper look. 11. Brighten the composition with the Color Dodge setting Be careful not to go overboard with the highlights Now moving on to a soft airbrush, I pick a local yellow colour and set the brush properties to Color Dodge. Then I very lightly paint in some highlights around the leaves, wood and face of Snow White. I try to keep these highlights to a minimum to avoid a heavily airbrushed look. 12. Going a bit further Trees and flowers help suggest a forest location Next I switch back to the Hard Airbrush and add elements that were not originally in my sketch. I paint in some trees, flowers and a subtle background to suggest a forest location. I use the Brush Pen from the Calligraphy menu to paint tree branches and grass blades, because it tapers off nicely at the ends. 13. Adopting a different perspective A mirrored image helps to reveal any flaws Throughout the process and more often at the end, I like to flip the canvas horizontally. If something seems off, seeing the mirrored version of the painting usually helps to identify any problems. This is also a great way to check symmetry. The painting should make sense both normally as well as mirrored. 14. Taking a final glance, before calling things done Minor details are added before calling it a day I feel like I’ve come to a point where the painting is almost complete. Using the Hard Airbrush, I look for places to add minor details and make any adjustments and tweaks. This is also the point where I play with the Curves and Color Adjustments one last time. And with that, the painting is finished! This article was originally published in issue 156 of ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 156 here or subscribe to ImagineFX here. Related articles: How to create a vivid fairy queen Paint a Grimm fairy tale-inspired illustration How to paint a dreamlike fantasy forest scene View the full article

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When it comes to grabbing people's attention with digital advertising, both space and attention spans tend to be in short supply. Simplicity and clarity are absolutely crucial. Our eyes are bombarded with content of all shapes and sizes – both welcome and unwelcome – and increasingly brands are turning to the highly personalised, targeted options offered by the likes of Google and Facebook. But carefully placed display ads aren't going away anytime soon. If you're tasked with designing an online ad campaign for a brand, read on for our five top tips to nail the client's KPIs with engaging and effective digital ads that really work... 01. Know your ad formats Glue London's award-winning digital ad campaign for Mini made smart use of the skyscraper format First up, it's important to consider the format, or formats, you're working with. In the UK, one of the most popular ad sizes is the MPU – which, depending on who you ask, stands for mid-page unit or multi-purpose unit, and measures 300x250 pixels. These are called Med Rec, MREC or Medium Rectangle ads in the US. Also very commonly seen are leaderboard ads, which measure 728x90 pixels, and usually sit prominently at the top of a web page – ensuring maximum visibility. Tall and thin skyscraper ads, which measure 160x600 pixels, are generally placed down the side of a page. There are many other formats, including buttons, billboards, banners and more invasive ads such as pop-ups – which could come up against blockers at the user's end. According to Google, wider ad sizes generally outperform their taller counterparts – partly because of their usual placement, but also because reading from left to right rather than vertically is more familiar and comfortable. There are many ways to think creatively within the restrictions of any of these formats. Glue London's 2007 launch campaign for the new Mini is a great example: its smart use of a close-cropped image and mirrored text on a simple skyscraper ad helped win it a D&AD Graphite Pencil. 02. Pick a single message Virgin's #FlauntIt campaign uses its trademark cheeky tone, and its association with red, to convey brand values without cluttering the image Another crucial rule of thumb when it comes to digital ad campaigns is to keep the message brutally simple. Packing in too much information makes an already cramped format look cluttered, messy and confusing. Multiple layers of messaging can be added using animation or video, and this can be effective sometimes, but it's not always the best solution. Even if you do end up adding more dynamic features, start with an idea that works when pared back to a simple static ad. It'll help you to clarify the concept. Pick the one thing that the ad needs to communicate. Is it general brand building, driving traffic, selling a particular product, or promoting an event, for instance? Sometimes, in defining this message, you may need to strip out elements of standard brand messaging – a complex logo or long tagline may need to be sacrificed here. This is where distinctive brand voice, or other recognisable brand assets – colours, style of art direction, a typeface – could need to work hard to associate the ad with the brand through visual shorthand, rather than spelling it out. 03. Choose one killer image Amnesty International teamed up with AdBlock for this freedom of speech campaign, which made use of striking close-cropped black-and-white portraits Don't try to pack each ad with images to get the point across. There's generally only a tiny space to work with, and it's much more effective to invest in a single killer shot that compels attention and draws people in. As with the copy, images in digital ads should be sharp, clear, singular in message, and easy to understand at a glance. Faces work well as they are easy to relate to, establish eye contact and can convey emotion quickly. When it comes to selling particular products, it's often more effective to zoom in close on a single item that represents the brand, rather than trying to show off a whole range of things. Avoid complicated patterns and backgrounds, as they distract attention. One way to choose the right image quickly is to start with the single message you've picked for the ad to communicate in mind, and think what the clearest visual manifestation of that would be. Sometimes this might be a mood, or a more abstract concept, but if you're selling a specific thing don't be afraid to be literal. Think about context, too. You want your ad to stand out, so if the website it's being placed on is awash with bright colours then a black-and-white photo, or a design that makes use of white space, could stand out much more. 04. Think about dynamic cropping This strikingly simple ad campaign for Pedigree features a close-crop of a dog, surrounded by plenty of flat colour background to let the message punch out If you're designing a digital campaign that makes use of the same image across multiple ad formats, you'll need to consider cropping. Given the small canvas size, and often awkward shapes involved, tight crops and detail shots are often essential to achieve impact. Cut-outs, set on flat colour backgrounds or white space, can be an effective way to create a versatile design framework that works in lots of different contexts. It also gives you a base on which to set the type, keeping the key message of the ad crisp and clear. Don't feel you need to pack every inch of the space, just because it's available. On a cluttered page, often the eye is drawn to the lightest or brightest areas of the screen first, so white space definitely isn't wasted space – just make sure your client understands that too. 05. Emphasise the call to action In this savvy campaign for Pink Ribbon Germany, the call to action 'Check it before it's removed' also referred to the inevitable social media censorship for the images Of course, what all of this is ultimately about is encouraging people to click through to something. Once you've chosen your format, defined the right message for the campaign and conveyed it as clearly and effectively as possible through imagery, it helps to be clear about what people should do next. You don't have much room to do this, so while sometimes it's worth being very literal – such as the 'Read more' link in the Amnesty International example above. Direct instructions that explain what happens next are more effective than a generic 'Click here.' If you're promoting an event, for instance, 'Buy tickets' is a better choice as it communicates the end goal. If there's a particular offer, mention it in the call to action: 'Click here to save 50%' is much more compelling. Sometimes, however, a compelling image can almost stand alone – with only a punchy tagline to establish the context. DDB Group's bold breast cancer awareness campaign for Pink Ribbon Germany was structured entirely around the fact that the images featured (artfully shot, entirely non-gratuitous) bare breasts, and the agency knew that Facebook and Instagram would soon begin deleting them. 'Check it before it's removed' was the inspired double-meaning tagline for the campaign, and a potentially life-changing call to action for women at risk of breast cancer. And as the posts were routinely removed, mainstream media attention grew. 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