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Ubuntu fixed a Linux bug that could have let an attacker cause a denial of service or execute arbitrary code with a TCP payload this week. View the full article

Communicating to a fanbase isn’t always easy. As a brand you’re talking to an audience that knows its preferred subject inside-out and will be all-too eager to call you out if it spots a misstep in your messaging or imagery. For the global, multi-platform media brand SYFY, the situation gets even more complicated as it caters to a diverse range of interests. It covers genres including science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural and the paranormal, with the different TV shows, movies, comics and other things it reports on having little in common when it comes to creating an overarching aesthetic. So for its latest rebrand, which celebrates its 25 birthday, SYFY decided to take a different approach. Working with creative branding agency loyalkaspar and NBC Universal, SYFY’s revamped look, custom font and new logo design are all editorial-led and follow the channel’s focus to deliver round-the-clock content. SYFY rebrand design brief The old SYFY logo had a softer, more bendy lookLoyalkaspar’s executive creative director Daniel Dörnemann explains that when SYFY approached the studio, there was no physical brief to speak of: “So in a way the brief was: ‘This is going to be a whole new SYFY. You shouldn’t hold on to any of the current identity, including the logo and distinct purple colour palette. "'We need an identity that goes beyond the traditional On-Air package. We need an identity that allows us to connect to our community through our passion and POV.’” SYFY reports on a wide range of genre programmingThe new yellow SYFY logo with its blocky letter shapes is certainly a stark contrast to the channel’s previous, curvy version. Thanks to its distinctive geometric shape, the new SYFY logo is a flexible design that is perfectly suited to different platforms. What’s more, it’s not tied down to a specific genre. “That was one of the challenges – to make sure we didn’t lean too much into one specific vernacular,” says Dörnemann “SYFY isn’t just about science fiction and space, but includes fantasy, horror and superheroes. All these genres have very different and specific visual languages. So, we needed to create a logo and font that would nod at the genre overall without feeling out of place in any one specifically. “As far as the font goes, we wanted to evoke the quality of a headline font, since a lot of the communication centres around covering events and news.” Showing brand personality For the bulk of SYFY’s programming there is a lot of associated imagery, whether this is a particular show with prominent symbols and characters, or a genre with longstanding stylistic cues. Crafting a fresh identity for a platform that reports on these shows therefore took a lot of careful consideration. It would be all-too easy to rely on images that a fan base was attached to rather than creating something new. “We often say: The hardest thing about creating a solution is to really understand the problem,” Dörnemann reveals. “So, in a way, I think the secret to creating any identity is to really understand the brand’s personality, its goals and the experience the brand wants to create for its audience and then make sure we deliver on that.” Fans of genre entertainment have often been represented in a less than positive light (the socially awkward stars of The Big Bang Theory spring to mind), so for the loyalkaspar creative team it was important to make sure they weren’t talking down to their audience. Luckily for them they were surrounded by the very people they were trying to target. “Working so closely with the team at SYFY, it became clear very early on that we were working with people who didn’t just understand their audience, they were the audience – fans with passion, insights and opinions,” says Dörnemann. And it was this interaction that fed back into the personality of the rebrand. “Their opinions were often differing, which led to passionate debate around one central theme: making connections within the larger universe of everything science fiction, without ever being authoritative or exclusive,” he explains. News inspiration The new typeface was inspired by sites like WIRED and The New York TimesPart of the rebrand problem-solving process involved highlighting what had gone before and avoiding it. For SYFY this meant looking at traditional sci-fi TV networks. What loyalkaspar found was a predilection for dark palettes and cinematic visuals – elements that weren’t in keeping with the engaging, content-driven approach SYFY was going for. This led loyalkaspar to look outside SYFY's genre stablemates. “With the shift in focus to not only content, but conversations, we took inspiration from news outlets like WIRED magazine and The New York Times, which inspired a more editorial approach,” Dörnemann says. “The result is an approach centred around a simple typographic system that could step back and let the message take centre stage, while always being (visually) clear about where that message is coming from.” Liked this? Then read these: 5 ways type can define brands Vital brand strategy rules 10 commandments of logo design View the full article

A new Linux operating system designed specifically for people who use their computers to create has landed. System76 has developed Pop!_OS for people working on “complicated, professional-grade software and products, sophisticated 3D models... or makers working on their latest invention”, among others, it says – good news for 3D artists and other creatives looking for an alternative to Windows or macOS. Pop!_OS is available now as an alpha releasePop!_OS is a Zero UI operating system built on Ubuntu, meaning the interface is unobtrusive and can be customised to suit your own needs. It's currently in an alpha release but already reportedly offers plenty of open source software and development tools. The OS can be customised in a multitude of ways“While our operating system and computers are great for any user, the ideas and features we develop for Pop!_OS will be squarely focused on the professionals and makers who use their computers to create,” says Carl Richell, CEO of System76, a Linux specialist. An alpha version of Pop!_OS is available to trial now, with the full stable release scheduled for 19 October. System 76 is inviting users to trial it and to get involved in the final stages of its development over at reddit and GitHub. Do you want more? Then read these other great articles: 10 great new tools for 3D artists this June Understand the 12 principles of animation Why you should be excited about Zero UI View the full article

There is a huge number of web APIs available and sometimes as a web developer it can be hard to keep track of new ones. So we've helpfully collated a list of web APIs that are not finalised yet, but are likely to become important in the following months or years. These include APIs for handling payments, connecting to sensors and more. To stay up to date with the latest developments you can have a look at the GitHub page of the Web Incubator Community Group, or the news page of the W3C. Stay tuned! 01. Payment Request API When you look at payment forms and workflows on websites and web applications they often differ from one another. However, in principle the workflow should always be the same: confirm the shopping cart, add the shipping and billing address, select the payment method, confirm everything, accept the terms and conditions and send the final request form. From a usability point of view this difference can actually have a negative effect. Similarly, implementing a new payment flow every time one is required can be a very time-consuming process for the developer: different forms need to be implemented, different payment methods like PayPal or credit card integrated and everything has to be secure. The Payment Request API currently developed by the W3C looks set to simplify the process for everyone. It aims to facilitate and standardise the process of creating payment workflows and provides several interfaces. 02. Web Share API and Web Share Target API These APIs standardise sharing resources from one application to anotherThe goal of the Web Share API is to provide a standardised way of sharing resources (text, images, URLs and so on) from a mobile application to a destination specified by the user – this could be another mobile application, a website or a system service provided by the mobile OS. The Web Share API extends both the interface's Navigator and WorkerNavigator with a method share(), which takes the shared resource as parameter. While the Web Share API defines how to share resources, the Web Share Target API defines how to receive such shared resources. Applications (either native or web) and other services can use this API to register themselves for the share event to receive shared resources. 03. WebUSB API USB is one of the standard ways of connecting external devices to a computer. While devices like mouse and keyboard are automatically recognised, less common devices require you to install native drivers (in other words, native code). This native code means these devices cannot then be used by browser in a standard way. This is where the WebUSB API comes into play: the idea is that USB devices expose their services through this API so web applications can access those services. To achieve this, the interface Navigator is extended with the property USB, which then gives you access to an object of type USB, the main entry point for this API. Using the method getDevices() you can, for example, retrieve a list of all devices that are currently available and subsequently directly start working with them. 04. Geofencing API The Geofencing API lets you set up geographic boundariesToday you can already determine the current geographic position of a device through the Geolocation API. However, with the new Geofencing API it will be possible to set up geographic boundaries around specific locations and get notified when a device enters or leaves those locations. The API will be based on Service Workers, so even if the Geofencing API is used in a web application that has been closed it will still receive notifications. 05. Presentation API The Presentation API can be used to control presentations via JavaScriptThere are a lot of libraries for creating presentations based on HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. However, there is no standard way to handle the interactions between the controlling part of a presentation and the actual presentation. This is where the Presentation API comes into play. The idea behind it is to be able to have one webpage that contains the presentation and one webpage that runs the code for controlling the presentation. Depending on the capabilities of the presenting device and the connection mechanism (DVI, HDMI, Chromecast, AirPlay and so on), either both webpages run in the same user agent (on the controlling device) or one runs in a user agent on the controlling device while the other one runs in a user agent on the presenting device. 06. Shape Detection API The ability to detect shapes in images can be very useful (think of Facebook's face detection features) and there are some libraries available for this, like tracking.js. The Shape Detection API, which is currently in progress, defines interfaces to detect different shapes in still images or in live image feeds. At the current stage the API has three sub-APIs: one for detecting faces, one for detecting barcodes and one for detecting text. The three interfaces FaceDetector, BarcodeDetector and TextDetector are all used in a similar way: they all provide a method detect(), which takes an image source as input and returns a Promise object with a sequence of detected shapes. 07. Async Cookies API The current interface to work with cookies (document.cookie) is not very comfortable: there are no standard methods for adding, reading or deleting cookies, so all of this has to be done manually via string parsing and string manipulation. Of course there are helper libraries to facilitate all of those operations, but with the Async Cookies API it will be much easier and more performant as well. The idea is to not only store the cookies in document.cookie, but also provide a new object named cookieStore, which will be accessible both in webpages and in service workers. The object has methods like write() and set() for adding cookies, delete() for deleting them and read() for reading cookies. They all work asynchronously, so even if some cookie processing takes longer, this will not impact on the overall performance. 08. Input Device Capabilities API Input events like the click event are only abstract representations of the device input; they do not contain information about the actual device that has been used to generate the event. Developers need to make assumptions about which actual input device triggered such an event. When supporting both mouse and touch events this can lead to problems and difficulties: it is hard to find out if some event (e.g. mousedown) was triggered from the mouse (because a mouse is used) or just because of compatibility reasons (but the actual device is a touch device). The new Input Device Capabilities API wants to solve those problems and introduces a new interface (InputDeviceCapabilities), which provides information about the device via a new property sourceCapabilities of the UIEvent interface. 09. FlyWeb API With the rise of the Internet of Things, how devices and electronics connect and interact with each other is becoming more and more important. The idea of the FlyWeb API, which is being developed by the Mozilla team, is to be able to serve web applications on electronics and to then connect to these applications from other electronics (for example, with smartphones) within the same network. Say that you want to connect a smartphone to a game console. The latter would provide a small FlyWeb server, and this would then be visible to the smartphone. 10. Push API The Push API allows servers to push messages to the clientIn traditional web applications there was no way for a server to actively send messages to a client – for example, to update a news ticker or to update some real-time data stream. Instead developers used techniques like Long Polling, XHR Polling or Hidden Frames to simulate real-time connections. Fortunately, thanks to Web Sockets and Server-Sent Events (SSEs) those techniques are not necessary any more. With Web Sockets you can implement a bidirectional communication between the client and the server, and with SSEs a unidirectional communication going from the server to the client, which is perfect for sending updates actively from the server to the client. However, both technologies require a browser window/tab to be open to receive those updates. With the new Push API this is not necessary: it is directly connected to the Service Worker API and allows service workers to receive messages from a server. This means that even if a web application has been closed, the service worker can still receive the messages – for example if you want to send notifications via the Notifications API to inform the user about any updates. Next: 5 more new APIs you need to know about 11. Generic Sensor API There are already a lot of Web APIs that define interfaces for different kinds of sensors (for example, the Device Orientation API and the Geolocation API). Unfortunately those APIs do not have a common interface and are all used differently – for example, by providing callback handlers in one case, or by registering event handlers in another. The goal of the Generic Sensor API is to define a set of common, generic interfaces for accessing any kind of sensor. Concrete sensor APIs that are based on the Generic Sensor API (such as the Ambient Light API) extend generic interfaces and add functionality as required. 12. Accessibility API Accessibility is an important point when developing web applications. There are already standards like ARIA, which provides an ontology of roles, states and properties to define accessible user interfaces on the web. It can also enrich HTML elements (on a markup level) with information that can be used by assistive technologies like screen readers. However, the Accessibility API creates a standard Web API for JavaScript, based on ideas from ARIA and other existing accessibility APIs like Web Accessibility and Actions by Microsoft, the Web Accessibility API by Mozilla or other native platform APIs (including the Java Accessibility API). Using the new property a11ement on DOM elements, developers can access semantic information about the element like the role, the state, relation to other elements and many more, using JavaScript. 13. Font Loading API With the Font Loading API you can load font faces dynamically with JavaScriptWhen you are using custom fonts on a webpage, downloading the font files can take time, depending on the bandwidth and the size of the font files. This can then lead to display problems, such as flickering content when the webpage starts rendering without the font face being loaded first. The new Font Loading API addresses this problem and it can define a standardised API for downloading font faces by utilising JavaScript. Developers can choose when to load a font face and what to do when it has been downloaded. 14. Web Bluetooth API The Bluetooth protocol is a standard that is often used in the field of IoT, for example to connect a smartphone or tablet to other devices like health trackers to read certain sensor values. For mobile web applications it is already possible to connect via Bluetooth by using PhoneGap and its plugins, but if you want to use Bluetooth inside a web application on a desktop computer or laptop then you will still need to install an extra browser plugin. The goal of the Web Bluetooth API that is being worked on by the W3C Web Bluetooth Community Group is to provide a standardised API for accessing Bluetooth devices through the browser, without the need for any plugins. 15. Visual Viewport API The Visual Viewport API solves those layout viewport vs visual layout clashesAs you know, web applications contain two viewports: the layout viewport, which represents the space where a page lays out its elements into, and the visual layout, which represents what is visible on the screen. However, working with those two layouts can be a confusing task: while some properties like innerWidth and innerHeight are relative to the visual viewport, other properties such as those for accessing event coordinates are relative to the layout viewport. On top of that, the browser behaviour can also differ when you pinch-zoom into an application (an online demo that visualises those problems and the relationship between these two different layouts in general can be found here). To overcome these problems and disparities, the goal of the Visual Viewport API is to add new properties that are all related to the visual viewport, as well as to introduce a property visualViewport on the window object. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 292; buy it here! Related articles: 15 APIs developers need to know Framework choices for developers 4 of the most game-changing developments in tech View the full article

Colourising a scanned hand-drawn pencil sketch to get rid of the black lines can save an artist lots of work and aggravation. Dark, black lines are hard to paint over while maintaining the sketch. Thankfully, there's an easy way to colour and soften those black lines using Photoshop. Here's how. 01. Open in Photoshop Use the Levels tool to lighten the black tonesOnce scanned, open your sketch in Photoshop and use 
the 'Image > Adjustments > Levels' menu commands to maximise the white and minimise the black. Move the white adjustment marker to the left so the lightest grey areas become white. Then shift the mid-value adjustment marker to the left so the black lines become light grey. 02. Add a new layer The coloured sketch after merging down the colour layerCreate a new layer and set the blending mode to Color. Then start adding colour to the lines of the sketch. For my lizard sketch I filled this layer with an olive green that would eventually become the colour of the lizard, and I used a brush to paint pink over the small flower. Merge Down the colour layer and save the image. The sketch now has lighter values and the colours are closer to those that will be used in the painting. 03. Blend On! Experiment with Photoshop to get different effectsThere are several additional Blending Modes that work as well but with somewhat different results. Color Burn will give a coloured sketch that's darker. Soft Light will give a more subtle effect with a bit more grey. Try additional Blending Modes for different looks. Like this? Read these! The 60 best free Photoshop brushes Grammy-winning artist Klaus Voormann on why hand-drawn is best How painting in black and white can improve your art View the full article

Even if you've been out of school for years, it's never too late to learn new skills. All you need are the right resources. That's where Virtual Training Company comes in. Grab a lifetime subscription to its educational courses on sale today for just $79 (approx £62)! For anyone hoping to learn a new skill, Virtual Training Company is an invaluable asset. You'll find more than 1,000 courses spread across 15 fields that you'll be able to learn at your own pace. If you're interested in design, coding, animation, 3D, game design, graphics or just about anything else, you'll find a course that's perfect for you. Plus, new ones are being added regularly, so you’ll never run out of things to learn. A lifetime subscription to Virtual Training Company usually retails for $2,500, but you can get it now for just $79 (approx £62). That’s a massive saving of 96% off the retail price for courses that could change your career, so grab it today! View the full article

When learning how to paint, virtually every student starts out afraid and overwhelmed by the unforgiving nature of painting in oils. But the transition to oils can be made much smoother by utilising some simple and practical painting techniques. In the video below, I demonstrate 10 great tips that will help get you started on the right path. (Spoiler alert: it all begins with the fundamentals!) Now let's go through these 10 oil painting tips in more detail. 01. Hold the paintbrush in the right place! Hold your brush at the end for maximum controlThere are many different grips on the paintbrush that an artist can use while painting. However, there is one 'go-to' method that every artist should know: to get the most fluidity and sensitivity with your strokes, hold the brush handle as far back as you can. This might feel uncomfortable at first, but it offers the greatest degree of control because it allows you to paint with your whole arm rather than just your wrist. 02. Master your brush orientation Using every angle of your brush adds to your versatilityDuring the process of painting, it can be very easy to forget that your brush has two sides or orientations! You’re not limited to always making wide strokes using the flat side of your brush, as every brush can be turned on its side for sharper lines or strokes. Learning to control your lines with your brush orientation will help you paint faster and with more versatility. 03. Vary your pressure By varying pressure, you’ll vary texture as wellAvoid having 'heavy hands' with your paintbrush. Sometimes the pressure that you apply with a stroke can make the difference between perfection and a mess. The heavier your pressure, the more your paints will blend and create ridges along the sides of your brushstrokes. Get familiar with how your light, medium, and heavy strokes look on the canvas and vary your pressure appropriately to achieve your desired effects. 04. Harness the power of the painting medium Painting mediums can modify your paint in amazing waysOil painting is not solely about the paint. An absolutely essential part of controlling paint is the artist’s use of a painting medium – typically a mixture of solvent and oil used to modify the paint and make it behave in different ways. Adding lots of medium will make your paint flat and transparent like a wash, whereas adding just a little medium will give your paint a mayonnaise-like consistency. 05. Keep your colours pure Keep your brushes clean so you don’t contaminate your colourBe careful when you grab from the paint piles on your palette. Make sure that your brushes are clean or you will taint the colours you want to use. It’s vital to preserve the intensity of the colours straight out of the tube so remember to clean your brushes regularly and often – even between strokes if necessary. 06. Use two-colour mixtures if possible The fewer paints you mix, the more vibrant the resulting colour will beGrabbing from every single pile while mixing will create a dull and less intense mixture. Practice mixing what you need using only two colours and white. By increasing your colour knowledge and getting better at mixing, you will paint much more efficiently and quickly and your work will benefit from it. 07. Don't over-mix Only mix as much as necessaryWhen mixed colours first bump into one another, there are tiny inconsistencies in the mixture that help add vividness and interest to your paint. So, when you combine colours to create a mixture it’s important to make sure that you only mix them as much as necessary before applying the stroke. If you over-mix two colours, you will turn your interesting mixture into a flat and uninteresting pile of paint. 08. Don't skimp on paint Use as much paint as necessary to realise your visionSometimes you want a thin wash, but other times you need a thick stroke in order to achieve your desired effect, so make sure that you're using enough paint to create the type of stroke you need. Don't hold back on the paint at the expense of your painting. If you find yourself constantly swirling a brush around a thin pool of paint on your palette, then it's probably time to remake that mixture. 09. Try wet-on-wet versus dry brush Use wet versus dry effects to your advantageRemember that you can paint directly onto a wet surface or wait for it to dry and put wet paint over that. Paints will blend on the canvas when working wet-in-wet, which is great for getting transitions or gradients. Painting with a dry brush will give you a more textural effect, which is perfect for painting brick or dirt. 10. Don't forget the palette knife Sometimes, the best brush for the job is not a brush at allThe palette knife is not just a trowel that you use to mix paint! It can also be used quite effectively at times to make interesting strokes. A palette knife is particularly useful for making textural and unpredictable strokes – effects that you'd be hard-pressed to duplicate with a brush. Want more painting articles? Start off with these: How to draw and paint - pro tips and tutorials 7 must-know painting techniques for artists The secrets to painting like Matisse View the full article

Zero UI doesn't mean getting rid of the interface entirely. Rather, it's a process where many of the visual interfaces we spend so much time with recede into the background, leaving us open to engage with the stuff that is important and useful to us. It is analogous to inbox zero, where we strive to achieve a blissful state in which everything is dealt with, calm and invisible. This shift away from the very controllable  environment of screen and pointer means the things we are trying to do are becoming more complex. They now have to take into account a lot more ideas around human behaviours, motivations and emotions. We’ve always had to bring aspects of psychology and perception into our work, as understanding what would make someone click a button, how users would retain information, and the barriers to committing to a decision, is important . But for all the elegance of the interfaces we have designed, they are two-dimensional, with simplistic cues and triggers. Why design Zero UI? Why are some interfaces so difficult?As we move into a connected world where objects, people and environments are all joined together by a mesh of invisible electronic tethers, the decision making, the services we want, and the results we expect from our interactions become exponentially more complicated. A system will have to predict what someone wants to do next. But it will also need to know where they are, where they're heading and what their intent is. It will be about how we as humans interact with entire systems. I don’t think there is a huge groundswell of opinion bemoaning the terribleness of interactive systems, products and devices. Quite the opposite in fact: we seem to be entranced by them all. And why not? The devices are beautiful, the systems are intelligent and the services make life so much easier. There are pretty strong arguments for the social and emotional discord that our addiction to electronic media causes, but the benefits of the digital world still exceed the problems. Nevertheless, we can all agree that removing the complexity that these devices bring into our lives would genuinely improve the state of things. Not just for the older generations, who try as they might are often confounded by the intricacy and closed-shop paradigms of software, but for all of us who have ever struggled with an update or service switch. Designing intuitive interactions Explore adaptive interfaces with Aaron Gustafson at Generate London and discover a battle-tested tool for planning, discussing, building and testing adaptive interfaces The phrase ‘Zero UI’ is designed to provoke designers, who spend a lot of time thinking about the way things look, and not much time thinking about anything else. We are primarily visual animals, so we sometimes forget how important all of those other senses are in conveying experience, and how important a part of our memory and identity they are. If we think of the ways in which we can make use of those other senses, we can start creating interactions that become easier, more intuitive, more pleasurable, and more subtle. The objective is to be able to spend less time fiddling around with computers, but to still achieve the same outcomes and enjoy their content. Interaction design was originally designed to help us understand how a computer or a machine works and to provide an interface for us to operate it. When I was younger, I was the only one in the family who could program the VCR. I would think: this is really bad, why can’t it be easier? That is the motivation of any designer. A lot of those purely functional parts of the UI have been solved now, with the help of patterns that are pretty good for simple kinds of interface problems. You could design a whole different set of patterns, but they probably wouldn’t be as good and would require people to learn new ways of interacting. However, there is a whole set of more complex things we are trying to do now. One example is the Uber app for Apple watches. In principle it's a genius simplification of the experience  –  just open the app and call a car. But if a flaky GPS sends the car two blocks away, the extremely simple interface gives the user no way to fix the information. They have to use their phone, and the magic is killed. We will need multiple layers of failsafe and redundancy in systems to allow these types of interactions to become commonplace. Zero UI to coordinate systems The Apple watch could be just one of many devices to coordinate seamlessly in futureImagine a Zero UI scenario where the user wants to travel to the other side of the country. Leaving aside the booking of the plane ticket for now (the complexity of which requires a detailed visual interface), all the systems that enable you to get to your destination could coordinate. This would link the alarm that gets you up in the morning, to your coffee machine grinding a double shot, to the alert that tells you when to leave and that you need to take the subway, to the system that allows you to walk straight through the pay barrier at the train station, and so on. Recently Matías Duarte, Google’s VP of design, talked about how atomised apps are the future of the mobile experience, and how even computer power will be distributed into smaller units, away from the device. This is very close to the vision I have for Zero UI, but perhaps a bit more conservative (necessarily). I would love to see a world where we can go about our daily business without having to waste valuable brain cycles on trivial things like making sure the cab finds our exact GPS coordinate. This article originally appeared in issue 279 of net magazine. Learn more about adaptive interfaces with Aaron Gustafson at Generate London. The conference for web designers will return to the Royal Institution on 20-22 September for talks covering web animation, accessibility, performance, conversational UIs and more, while workshops will cover UX strategy, building scalable responsive components, design and content sprints, idea generation and the selling of the idea. Save £95 on a conference & workshop bundle. Reserve yours today. Related articles: 8 minimal UI designs and why they work 11 great UI designs These bad volume sliders are a masterclass in terrible UI design View the full article

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The designer–writer partnership has produced some of the greatest creative work ever. But in the thick of a project it's easy for both sides to retreat into simply defending their own territory. And that's no good for anyone. So how do we make things less frustrating, and more fruitful? This starts when writers and designers better understand – and better appreciate – each other's craft. In this article we'll look at the art of writing a great headline. For student accommodation provider Hello Student, Reed Words adopted a positive voiceThe words you put at the top of a page are usually the most important, so it's no surprise that getting them right can take so many false starts. Headlines are tricky because they matter. They're the thumb flagging down passers-by, the sign of things to come. And if you're a designer, a headline can either be the cherry on top of your work, or its downfall. At Reed Words, we often encounter some pretty strong assumptions around what makes a great headline. It will probably be pithy, such as Volkswagen's 'Think small.' A little cheeky, like Wonderbra's 'Hello boys.' And almost certainly intriguing, like Avis' 'We're number two.' We love these kinds of headlines. They sound glamorous – the kind of thing Don Draper might write. But we're fans of another kind of headline, too. One that doesn't get quite so much fanfare. Below are a few examples: The next bank holiday in England and Wales is 14th April Find a nursery school place What happens if your child gets in trouble with the police These lines are all from the GOV.UK site – and they're great. They are absolute masterpieces of straightforward communication. No frills, no fireworks, and a complete understanding that, in this context, it's the message, not the tone, that matters. Now imagine if GOV.UK's writers had got it wrong, and gone for a 'snappier' approach: Guess when the next bank holiday is in England and Wales! Find the perfect nest for your little chicks to flourish Uh-oh, junior's been causing trouble again… Figuring out the job of your headline is the first step to writing a great one. Is it meant to tease and entertain? Inform and explain? Appeal to a 10-year-old, or a subscriber to the Times Literary Supplement? Appear on the side of a building, or be placed at the top of a website? When we wrote headlines for student accommodation provider Hello Student, we knew that tone was going to be just as important as message. So we developed lines that were fun, optimistic and accompanied with a bucketload of possibility and positivity. For Citizens Advice, a more matter-of-fact tone was requiredWe took the opposite approach for Citizens Advice. Because if you need to find out about your local GP's opening hours, the last thing you want to read is some copywriter's gag about waiting rooms. If you're stuck for a headline, you might just have set off from the wrong place. Put your assumptions aside, and forget seeking out the perfect pun for a moment. Go back to the beginning. Figure out what your headline is supposed to achieve, and who exactly you're expecting to read it. What is your target group interested in? What's likely to catch their attention? Figure all that out, and take it from there. This article originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 266; buy it here! Related articles: How to write a good web design proposal How to write engaging copy for your site How to write a business plan View the full article

https://blog.comae.io/petya-2017-is-a-wiper-not-a-ransomware-9ea1d8961d3b … View the full article

You're reading Zurb Releases Foundation 6.4, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! World, meet Foundation 6.4, the most powerful, flexible, and stable version ever. Foundation is an advanced responsive front-end framework aimed at allowing developers to quickly build websites or apps that work on any kind of devices. It comes with a customizable, responsive grid (that just got updated to… Flexbox), a large library of Sass mixins, commonly […] View the full article

Microsoft is warning customers of an “important” update to its Azure AD Connect service that could allow for an elevation of privilege attack against affected systems. View the full article

HackerOne released its first report on its bug bounty program, and reveals an industry shift toward enlisting hackers for better cybersecurity. View the full article

After many years as a graphic designer and type enthusiast, I decided try my hand at designing a typeface. Much has been written about type design, and there are plenty of great typography tutorials out there. But where exactly do you begin if you want to make your own font? If you're a designer or illustrator new to this discipline, what are the first practical steps, the common software and early considerations to get you going? To get started on the right path, I enrolled in the short Type Design (TDi) course at Reading University, which I can highly recommend. I thought it might be helpful to share some of the insights and practical methods I learnt during the two intensive weeks to help you to make your own font. 01. Start with a brief Type specs and drawings from Reading University: 'a' by Lisa Timpe, 'k' by Louisa-Helen Fröhlich and Bengali character by Tim HollowayDesigning a typeface can be a long journey so it's prudent to have a clear vision of its purpose. You might begin with something purely self-expressive. However, the usual practice is to create a typeface in response to a brief. Developing your own brief will inevitably require research and reflection. How will it be used: is it for a specific project or personal use only? Is there a problem you might solve? How might your typeface fit into a landscape alongside similar designs? What makes it unique? The options are vast. Typefaces have been created, for example, specifically for academic texts, to provide better number systems for engineering documents or as a one-off for public lettering. Only when you know what your typeface will actually be used for can you really get started on the design. 02. Fundamental choices There are a number of choices you need to make early on. Will it be a serif or sans-serif typeface? Will it be based on a writing implement or be more geometric? Will your design be a text face, comfortable at small sizes and suitable for long documents, or will it be a display face with an imaginative style, that works better a larger size? Tip: It was suggested on the course that designing a sans-serif typeface can be more challenging for beginners, because the features that provide these typefaces with their identity are much more subtle. 03. Start from scratch You might decide to start by digitising your own handwriting. This can be a useful practice exercise, but because handwriting is so individual, without much refinement your typeface could be restricted to personal use. You should also avoid basing your design on an existing typeface's outlines. 'Helvetica with wings' is not going to produce a better typeface or help you develop your skills as a type designer. This should go without saying, but I'm told that typefaces like these are regularly submitted to foundries (unsuccessfully). 04. Use your hands Even if you are a Bézier curve master, I'd advocate defining your letterforms by hand in the first instance. Articulating certain shapes via computer when establishing your design can be awkward and time consuming. Try to create graceful shapes on paper for the first few characters before refining them digitally. Further characters can then be constructed on screen by matching key features, such as terminal endings and stroke widths. Tip: The hand naturally draws smoother, more accurate curves in a concave arc pivoted by the arm and wrist. To take advantage of this, keep turning your paper rather than adjusting your position or drawing against this pivot point. 05. Start with 'control characters' Designing certain characters first can help set the style of your typeface and bring the other characters into harmony. These are often called 'control characters'. In a lowercase Latin typeface they would be the 'n' and o, and in the uppercase, 'H' and 'O' are often used. On the Reading University course, we steadily added to these, building the word 'adhesion', which is used for testing the type's basic proportions (though initially, it was 'adhecion' leaving the tricky 's' for later). 06. Move to your computer Photo: Kelly Sikkema There are a variety of ways to get your drawings onto the computer. Some people advocate tracing programs, however I prefer manually tracing my drawings because I want full control over where the points on my curves go. Most software requires a well-defined drawing to work with effectively, so when you're happy with a sketched character, try outlining it with a fine tipped pen (to get a shape edge) and then fill in the shape with a marker. Tip: You can then take a snap with your phone's camera, and send it to your computer. 07. Choose your software FontLab is a popular programme choiceLike myself, many designers from a graphic design background will naturally opt straight for Adobe Illustrator to start drawing their type. For drawing individual letterforms and experimenting, this is fine. However, it soon becomes obvious that this is simply not the right tool for creating a typeface. From the outset you will benefit from working in an environment that gets you thinking about letter spacing and word creation. The current industry standard seems to be FontLab Studio (Mac and Windows), but new software like Glyphs and Robofont are gaining more traction with type designers. The programs aren't cheap, but Glyphs does have a 'Mini' version on the Mac App Store, with some functionality removed that beginners are unlikely to miss. Both also offer a 30-day free trail. The other obvious advantage of these packages is that you can export your work-in-progress as a font. 08. Draw some letters I was using Glyphs, as recommended on the course. The interface is good and there are handy videos online, but like any software, it takes a little time to become familiar with. Once you've imported your image, the drawing interface is pretty close to Illustrator, however I found the control of Bézier curve points and handles much more accurate in Glyphs. Tip: Where possible, place your points on the extremities of the letterform curves (top, bottom, left, right) for greater control. 09. Move into text view mode Once you have drawn a few letters, you can start typing words using the text view mode. One major advantage of Glyphs is that you can edit your shapes in the same text view to start harmonising the characters together in words. You can then begin making adjustments to the letter spacing, looking at the rhythm of the counters and refining the overall proportions, like the x-height, weight and width of your typeface (if you're in need of a refresher, take a look at our glossary of typography rules and terms). 10. Test out some words Modifying your shapes within a text view in GlyphsAs Matthew Carter is oft quoted: 'Type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters'. With this in mind, aim to start looking at your design from a line and paragraph level as early as possible. Create a simple InDesign document with text frames and paste some words into them. I set each text frame to a different font size for comparison (the sizes will depend on what your typeface is to be used for). Finally, export your typeface and select it within your document to see it in action. Tip: While you're still in the early stages of your design, before you've settled on any spacing, you can use InDesign's built-in kerning tool to optically space your letters, maybe with some extra tracking, for a quick and dirty impression. When it comes to doing the job properly, take a look at out expert tips for kerning type. 11. Study other typefaces To create a credible typeface, you need to study other good examples. Looking at them in a critical way, from a contextual or historical perspective, will help you understand why certain design choices in these and your own typeface have a particular effect. Look at how the system of shapes work together consistently while forging an identity. Our article 5 ways type can define brands starts to unpack the different effects certain type features can have. The advice I was given is to look at both typefaces that are in a similar style to your own, and those text typefaces that are generally accepted to be good examples. 12. Scale it down It's important to review your typeface at different sizes in your test document. Depending on your brief, readability might be critical at smaller sizes, or you might be concerned with how your display text reads at a distance. A change of scale can be troublesome. Looking at how your shapes behave at a variety of sizes, and learning what design decisions affect them, takes practice. 13. Get it on paper Seeing your typeface in print gives a different perspectivePrinting your progress and seeing it away from the confines of pixels and backlighting will help you view it from a different perspective. To me, it seems much easier to spot issues with misshapen characters, the rhythm of counters, the modulation of strokes and so on, when printed out and pinned to a wall. It's also easier to make notes and sketches for adjustment. Another benefit of printing is that when making thousands of micro-adjustments over a long development period, a printout can help you track your progress so you can see how far you've come. 14. Add special characters My printed work being critiqued by course director Gerry LeonidasYour typeface might comprise a limited set of characters because it's for a particular project, personal use or if it's a very decorative design. However if your aim is for it to be used by other designers, for a variety of projects, then it needs to be flexible and have a broad character set. This would generally include small capitals, diacritic signs (accents), a choice of numerals, ligatures and more. 15. Explore different styles, weights and widths Designers need plenty of optionsWhen a designer is choosing a particular typeface, they are likely going to need a palette of options to design with. Does your typeface have a true italic, not just a slanted roman? Would your typeface suit a condensed version? This goes back to your brief and use cases for your typeface. 16. Consider global usage So you've created something that you're quite proud of. Did you start with a Latin typeface? What about the 250 million readers of Cyrillic in Eastern Europe and central Asia? Or the 220 million Devanagari readers in India and Nepal? There is a growing market for non-Latin typefaces and some scripts are woefully under-served. A common question that I also asked myself is: Can a non-speaker design a good script for a language they do not read? The answer is emphatically yes. It takes a lot of research, learning about the script's history and culture, meeting native speakers and exploring historical examples, but a large number of excellent typefaces have been designed this way throughout history. 17. Put it to the test Well-used Gujarati metal typeOne you've crafted something you're happy with, you'll want to start seeing how it performs at a range of tasks suited to the original brief. Try using your font on some previous design projects, replacing the original typeface. Create some specific artwork that will put it under pressure, or perhaps ask a designer friend to test it out and give you some feedback. 18. Further reading The focus of this article is deliberately narrow and simply highlights the most useful methods I've learned. To further develop your knowledge of this exciting field there are some excellent resources to help you. I Love Typography: So you want to create a font – A good starting guide, if a little dated now Thinking with Type – Good resources for those interested in Type Design Typographica.org – A discussion on good reading lists Type Cooker – Type drawing exercises Typeface design – Final work from the University of Reading 8 Faces – Interviews with leading designers about typography and lettering Adhesion text – Dynamic text generator Diacritics Project – All you need for designing fonts with the right accents View the full article

Back in March, the Book Collector announced it was resurrecting James Bond author Ian Fleming's typography competition. Originally launched while Fleming was helping out at the typographical magazine Alphabet & Image, the contest invited graphic designers to create a 27th letter of the alphabet. Over 2,500 people from around the world entered, but there could only be one winner. Assessed by a panel of judges chaired by Professor Phil Cleaver, the entries were whittled down to a shortlist with Sir Peter Blake choosing the overall winner. So without any further ado, meet 'LOL', the 27th letter of the alphabet as imagined by graphic design student David Guthrie. Guthrie was awarded a volume of Ian Fleming's letters embossed with his letter"I found out about the competition through my university tutors," says Guthrie, a third year graphic design student at the University of Cumbria in Carlisle. "I'm a huge fan of typographical design and was instantly attracted to the competition from the title alone, and even more so by the history behind it." "It was such a surprise when I found out I had won! I thought it may have been some sort of prank," he adds. "It was an incredible feeling and it was made all the better as I was able to celebrate my winning with all my classmates at our final degree show where 'LOL' also happened to be the centrepiece of my display." The letter is the centrepiece of Guthrie's final degree showIan Fleming's nephew, Fergus Fleming, praised the standard of entires, some of which will be featured in an upcoming edition of The Book Collector. "We were delighted to receive so many entries from around the world," says Fleming. "Their ingenuity and imagination made the shortlist a very hard call. There wasn’t a dud in the pack and they all showed a spirit of fun. Which is what Ian Fleming had in mind when he came up with the idea in 1947.” Related articles: 5 ways type can define brands Smart typography tool generates font pairs in an instant Fun names for the @ symbol from around the world View the full article

Legal contracts aren't often an entertaining read (how many of us have just blindly clicked 'I Agree' when updating our iTunes account?). However a watertight agreement that meets the 10 contract commandments is the foundation of a good working relationship between a design agency and a client. Sifting through confusing legal jargon can be a chore for creatives eager to get on with a project though, so Chicago-based design firm Segura has decided to go back to basics with its no-nonsense contract. The tongue-in-cheek agreement, called the Segura 'I Am' project, focuses on the practical side of things by hammering home that designers need money to work. You would've thought that would be common knowledge by now, surely? The project is intended to be a bit of fun and represents Segura's focus on creating quality work. We're sure lots of designers would love to use such a up-front contract, but in the meantime you'll have to content yourself by reading the most straight-talking agreement you'll ever see below. Click to see the full size contractView the full article

Every first-time installation of Clip Studio Paint involves an excited exploration of the Decoration subtool. It's a veritable smorgasbord of natural, unnatural and downright goofy brushes that can quickly generate rock-encrusted wastelands, dense forests or, more likely, just a random smear of black and white. In my experience, this toolset quickly gets relegated to the digital equivalent of the bottom drawer. There is, however, a way to fix this, turning it from a little-loved tool into an absolutely essential time saver. 01. Start with a simple silhouette Add your creation to the brush list Think about creating silhouettes: using your own custom-made brush tips is key here. A variety of leaves (hand-drawn or scanned and traced) combined can look like a dense bocage, a set of random blobs add up to the intergalactic power of comics legend Jack Kirby's 'Kirby Krackle' effect and a crowd is really just a mass shape composed of numerous individuals. Each brush tip should be made of a simple silhouette. Draw a variety of shapes on a single layer in black and white, then select them individually and add to the brush list using 'Edit > Register Image as Material'. 02. Build on an existing brush Break your pattern down into a simple silhouetteIt's always easier to start from an existing brush and build up. So find a Decoration subtool you think might do the job – most of my more successful silhouette brushes are derived from the Foliage brush – and use the Create Copy of Currently Selected Sub Tool icon to duplicate it and then edit it. 03. Organise your brushes Once you've designed a few of your own more useful decorative brushes, you can drag them out of their subtool and on to the toolbar on their own, grouping them together to save time hunting for them when you need them. You can produce a complex silhouette by waving the brush around and applying pressure to help generate random patterns. This article originally appeared in ImagineFX issue 145; buy it here! Related articles: Tips for guiding a reader through comic art How to create your own comic The 7 greatest comic logos of all time View the full article

There's never been a better time to start learning design skills. Whether you want to build apps and websites for fun or turn it into your career, the Learn to Design Bundle can teach you how. Grab it on sale right now for just $29 (approx. £23). There is a lot going on behind the scenes of your favourite apps and websites. You can learn how to understand and tinker with the inner workings of those services with the Learn to Design Bundle. With more than 57 hours of lessons across nine courses, this bundle can teach you everything from the fundamentals of UX and UI to the coding languages like HTML5 and CSS3 that make the web and mobile apps run. The courses in the Learn to Design Bundle usually retail for $1,209. You can save a huge 97% on that price right now. That means you pay just $29 (approx. £23). It’s a great price to get your start as a design expert, so grab it today! View the full article

Dot art – otherwise known as pointillism – covers many forms of art. Artists, graphic designers, photographers and illustrators are experimenting with this, one of the most exciting art techniques around. But whatever the medium, pointillism pieces all have one thing in common: the dot. We've selected 15 striking examples of pointillism-based artwork to inspire you to give the technique a go. Some are more traditional, while others have elaborated on the technique to create something entirely new. 01. James Cochran James' art can be seen on walls around the globeJames Cochran – Jimmy C – was a huge part of the underground graffiti movement in Australia during the late 1980s. His interest in urban realist and figurative oil painting led to the development of his signature aerosol pointillist style; portraits or urban landscapes painted entirely from blobs of spray paint. Although now living in London, Cochran's pieces of art can be seen on walls, buildings, and murals around the globe. His David Bowie mural in Brixton, London, has been adopted as a shrine to the musician. 02. Paul Signac Place des Lices, Saint-Tropez (1893)An artist, anarchist and keen sailor, much of whose work focused on the French coastline, Paul Signac was one of the two founders of Pointillism, along with Georges Seurat. Inspired by Surat's working methods and theory of colours, Signac abandoned impressionism and developed the process of painting scientifically juxtaposed dots of pure colour that would blend in the viewer's eye, rather than on the canvas. 03. Jerry O Wilkerson I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (1992)St Louis-based artist Jerry O Wilkerson expertly blended pointillism with pop art in his work. Much of it was food-based, featuring hamburgers, hot dogs, lobsters and even a Campbell's soup tin, among other things, rendered in vivid pointillistic colours that owed as much to the half-tone looks of print processes as to the impressionistic style of the original pointillists. 04. Phan Thu Trang Peaceful Village – Trang’s strongest point is to capture light and bring it to her stunning paintingsBorn and based in Hanoi, Phan Thu Trang uses a limited palette and bold dabs of colour to bring the rural Vietnamese landscape to vivid life. Using oils and a palette knife to render the amazing impasto trees that dominate her work, she always tries to use colour and light to create a different sensation for each piece of her art. 05. Yuriy Skorohod Skorohod describes his work as being born out of nothingHailing from Minsk in Belarus, Yuriy Skorohod describes himself as a dotwork artist. "The 'dot' is an abstract object in space having neither volume, area, length nor any other measurable characteristics," he says. "This way, out of nothing, my drawings are getting born." 06. William Wilkins The Jubilee Plantation (1980)Having graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1960, William Wilkins started developing his own pointillist technique in the 1970s. His earlier work tends to be concerned with tone and colour and frequently employs many layers of paint, while his more recent work is more interested in luminosity and opacity, with seldom more than one layer of paint on the canvas. He lives and works in Wales, but also works in Venice. 07. Kevin Sprouls Kevin's created the portrait style synonymous with The Wall Street JournalKevin Sprouls spearheaded the style of drawing now referred to as 'hedcut'. Using a stippling method of many small dots and a cross hatching method of many small lines, Sprouls created drawings that emulated the look and feel of old newspaper woodcuts and engraving. In 1979, the illustrator approached The Wall Street Journal with his ink dot work and was subsequently employed by the publication until 1987, helping to create its signature look. There are now five hedcut artists at working at The Wallstreet Journal, continuing Sprouls' legacy. 08. Dr Woo Dr Woo uses a single needle to tattoo his sought-after designsAll tattoos are essentially pointilism, typically using eight needles at once, each one penetrates the skin at high speed to create lines. What is so unique about Dr Woo's work, however, is that he uses one needle, meaning his tattoos are created not from a machine, but by hand dot after excruciating dot. While this style of tattooing isn't unique to Woo, his designs are incredibly intricate and beautiful and have inspired many. The L.A.-based artist has inked celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Brooklyn Beckham and Ellie Goulding. 09. Xavier Casalta 'Winter' [click the icon to enlarge the image] French artist Xavier Casalta is an expert when it comes to creating inspiring dot art. He builds up his images using a time-consuming stippling technique in black ink – the above artwork took 400 hours to complete, and includes around eight million dots. Casalta's intricate designs have attracted clients including Dior, the National Gallery of London and Nissan. 10. Pablo Jurado Ruiz Ruiz often creates beautiful pointillism art in both colour and monochromePablo Jurado Ruiz is a Spanish artist who specialises in pointillist art, using black and white drawing to create beautifully realistic portraits of innocence. "I try to tell stories through a minimalist and subtle vision," he explains. "My current work focuses on simple but realistic drawings worked in an impressionist technique." 11. Georges Seurat Painter Georges Seurat's piece is an early example of pointillism, created in the late 1880sFrench Post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat spent over two years creating his beautiful, and probably best-known, painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. An early example of pointillism, Seurat finished the piece, which is estimated to consist of approximately 3,456,000 dots, in the late 1880s. 12. Miguel Endara Hero is composed of approximately 3.2 million black ink dotsCrafted by illustrator and artist Miguel Endara, Hero (above) is composed of approximately 3.2 million black ink dots, using a single Sakura Pigma Micron pen (nib size 005, 0.2mm). It took nearly a whole year to complete. You can see how it was done in the video below. 13. Matt Booth The skull on the print appears white, until the lights go out!Most - but not – of multidisciplinary designer Matt Booth's work uses pointillism as its influence. This skull glow poster uses an array of dots to make up the image. The skull on this dot art print appears completely white until the lights go out. 14. Yayoi Kusama How could we write up a post on pointillism and dot art without including the Queen of the polka dot herself, Yayoi Kusama? Ever since the 1960s, this dot-loving lady has been renowned for her innovative and inspirational work. This project entitled 'Obliteration Room' was showcased in London's Tate Modern. Over the course of a few weeks, a room was transformed from a blank canvas into an explosion of colour, with thousands of spots stuck over every available surface. 15. Philip Karlberg Philip used around 1200 sticks to create celebrity portraits - this one being Johnny DeppPhotographer Philip Karlberg assignments take him all over the world. Among his commercial clients are Swarovski, Marc O’Polo, Kasthall, and NK. In this project, Philip used around 1200 sticks over a six day period to create these striking celebrity portraits. The other subjects include Lady Gaga and Jackie O. Related articles: 5 things you need for oil painting The secrets to painting like Cézanne How to paint a vibrant floral still life View the full article

It has never been easier to make a website, and our digital toolbox has never been greater. At the same time, we seem more concerned with automating our process and systemising design than with creative thinking and generating ideas. Where does this leave expression and storytelling? We talked to Espen Brunborg, co-founder of small Edinburgh-based web agency Primate, to find out. Why do so many websites look alike these days? EB: Creating something different – be it a website, a car, a building, or a kettle – is difficult. We have a tendency to mimic what we like, and stepping outside of the mainstream comes with real risk attached. Prevailing aesthetic preferences affect not only us, but also our clients and their audiences, which makes it challenging to sell anything that looks too different from what's currently out there. What's more, bucking UI trends and established patterns requires more brain power from our users, which can affect conversion or engagement. That said, there is ample opportunity to stand out without upsetting the general balance of things. Consider books, for example. Their overall shape and function won't change any time soon, but the stories within them are infinitely diverse. Maybe we shouldn't be so hung up on how our websites look, but focus more on the stories we tell on them. Lingscars.com is certainly different...It’s easy to build a great-looking site that’s fast and has a great user experience, so why design something that’s the opposite? EB: The long answer to this question is the wonderful story of how lingscars.com – a beacon of bad design – became an international phenomenon. The short answer is that of course we shouldn't – designing for the opposite of best practice is a really bad idea. Then again, perhaps we should be asking ourselves a different question. Why design something that’s only fast and good looking? If usability and aesthetics are our only concern, why do we need more than one font? Why paint cars in more than one colour? Why not wear uniforms to work? The answer is individual expression. What we should get better at is designing fast, user-friendly websites that are also personable, emotional and expressive. If all other factors are equal, memorability wins. Playfulness and humour features heavily in the Zendesk siteHow can storytelling (and comedy specifically) help create better websites? EB: Whenever we put words to a page we’re telling stories, meaning storytelling is intrinsic to design – whether we like it or not. The key to good design, therefore, is to learn how to tell our stories well and to create meaningful, emotional connections with our readers and visitors. Comedy – meaning anything that pushes our imagination beyond the mere efficiency of any given interface – is a key part of that. For example, if Bill Bryson had only focused on efficiency in his Short History of Nearly Everything, we’d be left with a pile of bullet points instead of a best-selling tale of popular science. The Outline is a new kind of publication that tells stories around three topics: power, culture and the future What aspects of web design annoy you the most when you're browsing? EB: Apart from clickbait and dark patterns? Delay. Delay is infuriating at times. I don’t really mind waiting for a video, game, or otherwise interesting piece of internet to load (though they'd better be worth the wait). But I genuinely want to smash my phone in the face of adverts that force me to wait until I can locate the tiniest ‘x’, pop-ups that appear just as I’m about to click something, or gratuitous effects that result in me requiring several attempts at a simple action because the interface doesn’t respond the way I expect. At Generate London, Brunborg will take a tongue-in-cheek look at the state of web design and explore different creative mindsets What can designers do to stand out on the web, and how difficult is selling 'different' to the client? EB: The easiest thing that anyone can do to stand out on the web is to look at their own content, and it’s a shame that too few of us are willing to invest in it. When we talk about being different, we often think about unnecessary animation, cumbersome layouts and over the top effects. But there’s a lot to be said for just daring to have a personality and making low-risk decisions that set us a part. Of course, it takes a skilled designer to convince a client that a single, beautifully typeset, well written statement can replace their imagined full screen carousel of corporate messaging. The ONiA orthodontists website is fun and friendlyWhat are some of your favourite sites you have seen lately? What do they do well? EB: The Outline has caught my attention from both a content and design perspective. In a way, it's pioneering the online magazine experience, but with very light touches. Nothing feels radically different or novel for the sake of novelty, yet the design and writing combine in a distinct voice that is now a staple in my reading diet. Zendesk also made ripples with its new corporate identity, and it’s obvious it had digital media in mind when it designed it. The logo elements really come to life in the icons and illustrations on the website, which retains the playful personality of the old Zendesk while heading down a completely different visual direction. If those are too old for ‘lately’ (as both launched in 2016), Australian designer Kylie Timpani of Humaan just shared her latest work for ONiA orthodontists that, in its own small way, redefines the image of orthodontics with a very well considered and consistent implementation of a friendly brand. Never has repositioning of teeth looked so inviting! What can people expect to take away from your talk at Generate London? EB: Casual blasphemy and poop jokes. Among other things. Generate London, taking place on 21 and 22 September in the Royal Institution, will feature 16 great presentations for web and UX designers and is preceded by a full day of workshops on 20 September. Don't miss the opportunity to learn from the likes of Steve Fisher, Leonie Watson, Anton & Irene, Zell Liew, Aaron Gustafson and many more. Reserve your spot today! Why not read some of these related articles? How to use logos in web design Bad volume sliders are a masterclass in terrible UI design 8 CodePen features you didn't know about View the full article

You're reading Tips to Design Engaging Newsletter Layouts, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Newsletters still offer the best way to reach your audience directly and increase sales. But if you’ve never managed an email list before this can be an intimidating process. Once you have a list you’ll need to send out emails that connect with subscribers and offer real value. This means great content and great design all wrapped […] View the full article

To work in marketing, you must be able to market yourself. So for marketing executives and agencies, a business card design has to work even harder than usual, as it acts very much like a shop window for their services. In this post, we round up some of our favourite business card designs for marketing pros, to give you a few ideas and to inspire your own business card projects. 01. Casta Beautifully surreal business cards for marketing firm CastaWho said business cards have to be geometrically perfect? These monochrome cards designed in-house at Portguese marketing company Casta come with a beautifully unique design on textured paper. There's no chance of these striking designs getting lost in the pile! 02. Hoofd&Letters This letterpress for a Dutch marketing company shows the two sides to its personalityHoofd&Letters is a Dutch marketing and communication company whose name is Dutch for ‘Head and Letters’. The name symbolises the balance between emotion and reason, and this concept is echoed in the design of its business cards, which combine hand-drawn typography with a sleek sans-serif typeface. Designed by Rens Dekker, these letterpress cards were printed on custom triplex mounted Colorplan paper from GF Smith, by Dutch printing firm Exclusieve Visitekaartjes. 03. LongGrass Marketing We love this letterpress card for Canadian marketing consultancy LongGrassThese stunning letterpress business cards for Canadian firm LongGrass Marketing Inc were printed double-sided in two ink colours on duplex white cotton stock. They were designed by Aileen Fretz at Livework Media and printed by We Do Printing. 04. Tactic Marketing Clever halftone designs give a unique look to Tactic Marketing’s business cardsIndianapolis agency Tactic Marketing wanted a unique look for its letterpress business cards, and it certainly found it with this loose halftone style. The coarse dot pattern means its employees’ headshots just look like an abstract pattern up close, while at a distance they come into focus as a crisp headshot. It just goes to show how effective and memorable business cards can be when you go out of your way to make your designs stand out. 05. Bazooka There’s an eye-catching look to Bazooka’s war-themed business cardsBazooka is a Portuguese agency involved in what it calls “guerilla marketing”. Created in-house for a self-promo, these eye-catching business cards play on that concept, by featuring a ‘war game’ on the flipside: a navy-themed battle puzzle. 06. Ivelin Brachev Upbeat colours and a fun design make these business cards ones you’ll want to keepIvelin Brachev is a Bulgarian business and marketing consultant, and while that might not be the sexiest job title on the planet, these cool business cards make up for it. The clever paper envelope-style designs were created by Kristina Miletieva. 07. Context MG Dots represent noise in this subtly clever design for Context MGContext MG was a small marketing company based in Michigan faced with a tough question: there is so much noise out there, how do you stand out? These cool cards, designed by Kate Disbro, took that idea and ran with it. With a Domtar 120lb cover and dull varnish, they were printed at Holland Litho in Zeeland, Michigan. 08. Latona A business card that folds into a bouquet – genius!Latona Marketing is a company based in Shizuoka, Japan. Designed in-house, these clever business cards fold into the shape of a bouquet. It’s a simple idea, beautifully executed, and draws nicely on the Japanese love of paper folding. View the full article

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