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Your days are full of stress, and it can be hard to find the time to deal with that pressure. Stop letting all that emotional weight hold you back and start living a healthier and more mindful life with Aura Premium. You can get a lifetime subscription on sale for 82% off the retail price. Aura is an app unlike any other that you've had on your phone. Crafted by top meditation teachers and therapists, this app combines the wisdom of wellness experts with groundbreaking artificial intelligence to give you a personalised plan to improve your health every day. Aura helps relieve stress and anxiety through mindfulness meditation exercises crafted to your specific needs. A lifetime subscription to Aura Premium usually costs $399, but you can get it on sale now for just $69.99. That's a saving of 82% off the retail price for a service that will improve your lifestyle, so grab this deal today! View the full article

In 2016, we witnessed the rapid rise of a new buzzword: serverless. At face value, the term makes it sound like servers no longer exist. Of course, this is absurd. Every serverless application is running on a server somewhere. But it does mean that entire applications can be successfully built without deploying code to your own servers. While the term 'serverless' may be misleading, the value of delegating server management to a third party is very real. The dream of spending less time worrying about servers and more time building software can be a reality. Serverless in action At Bustle (where I work as director of engineering) we serve content to over 50 million unique readers a month. This means traffic at our scale is significant but also sudden, as articles can go viral at any moment. Our legacy VM-based infrastructure was having trouble keeping up and our engineers were spending too much time on operations. We started looking at serverless platforms as a solution and, after a few successful experiments, began moving over our entire stack. It has been a complete success; our projects are more maintainable, easier to operate, and cheaper. Amazon Web Services It is difficult to talk about serverless without focusing on Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS has become synonymous with serverless because it answers one critical question: Where does the custom code go? The concept of using third-party services and platforms is not new. Databases, push notifications, caching, and many other layers of an application have all been available 'as a service' for a while, but they sat on the edge of your application. You still needed a place for core application code, which was usually a server (and often many of them) responding to external requests. This is where AWS came in. Its products AWS Lambda and AWS API Gateway exposed primitives that made it simple to deploy custom application code without the overhead of managing your own servers. AWS Lambda Lambda is Amazon's version of functions-as-a-service (FaaS). It is quite simple: you write code and upload it – though currently only Node.js, JavaScript, Python and C# have official support. AWS will then run that code in response to events including HTTP requests, S3 uploads, DynamoDB updates, Kinesis streams, and many others. Scaling happens automatically and you are only charged when your functions are running. None of these features are strictly a requirement for serverless, but AWS has certainly set the bar high. Any serverless platform will likely have a stateless FaaS offering with very granular billing because of the precedent set by AWS. Other platforms Amazon may have the lead, but other providers are catching up quickly. All the major cloud platforms have recently launched services targeted at serverless applications. Here are a few: Google Cloud Functions: Still in alpha, this provides similar functionality to AWS Lambda and can also be triggered by HTTP requests. Azure Functions: This is also similar to Lambda and still relatively new. Azure has a pleasant UI and makes it easy to expose functions over HTTP without needing a separate routing service. IBM OpenWhisk: The only major serverless platform that is open source. If you are interested in deploying your own serverless platform or just curious how they work under the hood, you will want to investigate this. Challenges No servers doesn't mean no operationsServerless does not come without its challenges. The space is new and as such, the community is still discovering best practices – especially when it comes to operations. I've seen people assume that no servers also means no operations. This could not be further from the truth. My favourite definition of operations comes from Charity Majors: "Operations is the constellation of your org's technical skills, practices, and cultural values around designing, building and maintaining systems, shipping software, and solving problems with technology." This beautifully captures how integral operations is to any software team, and serverless does not change that. More than ever we are in need of tools for deploying, maintaining and monitoring our applications. Unfortunately, having no access to the server means we are unable to use many tools that have been battle-tested over the last couple of decades. I anticipate that we will see many new startups' third-party services targeted at solving these problems for serverless developers. Some companies have already sprouted up or modified existing tools, including IOpipe and Honeycomb.io. Tools The open source community has recognised some of these challenges and responded with a wide range of tools and frameworks specifically targeting serverless. Here, the market dominance of Amazon is apparent, as most of these only currently support AWS. Of course, it is possible to manually build and deploy serverless applications yourself, but I wouldn't recommend it – with even a few endpoints, building, packaging, zipping, uploading and versioning all become difficult to manage. Here are just a few of the frameworks out there for you to consider: Serverless Framework: This is the oldest and most established framework for building serverless applications. It has a robust plugin system and integrates with many community developed plugins. Its stated goal is to eventually support deployment to any of the major cloud platforms. Apex: This is written in Go but supports Python, Node.js, Go and Java runtime languages. The creator, TJ Holowaychuk, is a fixture in the open source community and has a great sense of what makes for good developer tools. Chalice: The only framework created and maintained by AWS. It currently just supports Python. Shep: Bustle's own open source framework, used for all our production services. It focuses exclusively on the Node.js runtime and strives to be opinionated about how you should structure, build, and deploy applications. The future 2017 will continue to see the rapid adoption of serverless technologies by everyone from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Even in its nascent state, the serverless movement is a significant step forward in enabling teams to build better software. That has been our experience at Bustle, and I've talked to engineers at other companies with similar stories. Capital One, iRobot, and Nordstrom have all talked publicly about their adoption of serverless. Servers will never fully go away, but it is a joy to build software and let someone else worry about them. If it fits your use case, I highly recommend you consider serverless for your next project. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 292; buy it here! Related articles: 4 of the most game-changing developments in tech 20 useful tools for web developers 15 APIs developers need to know View the full article

The era of Flash banners is coming to an end, and it's time for a better replacement. HTML5 animations are the perfect successor, especially considering how modern browsers handle and optimise animations created using JavaScript and CSS. SVG also makes an excellent tool for creating banners. By animating the content of SVG images, you can create appealing animations that look great on all screen resolutions. In this article we're going to animate an SVG banner using JavaScript. What is GSAP? GreenSock Animation Platform (GSAP) is one of the fastest animation librariesThe GreenSock Animation Platform (GSAP) is a suite of tools for creating scripted animations, and it is one of the most powerful JS animation libraries available today. I don't work for GreenSock nor have they paid me to write this article. I just love the library and highly recommend it for the great features it offers. GSAP has been around for a long time and comes with a mature API that covers the vast majority of our animation use cases. GSAP is created with a huge emphasis on performance and optimisation, making it one of the fastest animation libraries (it's up to 20 times faster than jQuery). Even Google developers recommend GSAP for JavaScript-based animations. GSAP's also solves browser compatibility issues, so you don't have to fret about browser prefixes, bugs or property inconsistencies. It handles all the cross-browser bits for you under the hood. The number one strength of GSAP is its animation sequencing capabilities. You can create individual tweens to animate just about any property of an element. You can also chain tweens into a timeline, making it simple to control them as a whole and precisely manage their timing in relation to each other. You can even nest timelines inside other timelines, as deeply as you want. The GreenSock team has quite a lot of animated SVG and HTML5 demos, including banners like this one, on its Codepen profile GSAP comes with core tools, and there are additional plugins that enable you to extend its functionality. You only need to add the plugins required for your particular project, thus maintaining as small a file size as possible. GSAP's TweenMax is a full-featured tool that handles the animation of any property over time, in addition to providing extra functionality by including some of GSAP's utility plugins by default. The focus is on being full-featured rather than lightweight. TweenMax also includes all the timeline sequencing and controlling capabilities we’ll be using throughout this tutorial. GSAP can be configured to work with the selector engine of your choice – it will even fall back to document. querySelectorAll() if you prefer vanilla JavaScript. So, unlike many other animation libraries, it has zero dependencies. Now you're (hopefully) sold on GSAP's superpowers, let's put it to practice and see how easy it is to create animated banners with it. Prepping the assets For this tutorial, we'll be animating a (modified) banner originally designed by Freepik. The image below shows the four 'screens' of the banner. We'll be animating from one to another in order to create a complex overall animation. The four scenes making up the banner. Each of these screens will be animated sequentiallyBy default, all screens are visible inside the banner, stacked on top of each other. Using GSAP, the elements are hidden, then animated into view and out again so the elements on the following screen can animate in. We will be breaking the animation down into individual tweens, combined into timelines (one for each screen) that are then added into one master timeline for the whole banner. First, we need to include TweenMax in our page. We can load it from a CDN: Next, we set the visibility of the SVG to hidden. This is something you will find yourself doing often. Because the animations will only start after the script is loaded, doing this helps us avoid a short 'flash' of the banner assets before the animation starts. We will unhide the SVG again at the beginning of the script, right before we run the animations. GSAP's tweening methods To create a simple tween you can use one of GSAP's methods: from(), to() or fromTo(). An example of these being used to animate an element might look like this: The from() method basically tweens backwards – you define the beginning values (in the tween) and the current values are used as the destination values. This is great for doing things like animating objects onto the screen, because you can set them up the way you want them to look at the end of the tween, and then animate in from elsewhere. This is exactly what we are going to do for our banner screens. The to() method will animate the target element from its current state to the destination values you define. Hopefully, fromTo() is now self-explanatory. These methods are used to define a single tween (which might be animating multiple properties). These tweens can then be appended to one timeline so they execute sequentially: You can add as many tweens as you want and those tweens can be applied to one or more elements. The timeline will play these tweens in the order you specify. The more complex your animations, the more scenes they will include. Each scene would be a series of 'micro' animations (the tweens) that happen at some point along the main timeline. It is possible to have tweens overlap and play relative to each other's time. You can also combine timelines into one master timeline. This is achieved by using TimelineMax's add() method to literally add the timelines into the master timeline. These timelines can then be controlled just like individual tweens can. For our animated banner, we will create four different timelines (one for each screen), and then these four timelines will be combined into one master timeline: Each of the functions inside the add() method will be used to define and return a timeline, which makes this sequencing possible. The autoAlpha property is the same thing as opacity except that when the value hits 0, the visibility property will be set to hidden in order to improve browser rendering performance and prevent clicks or interactivity on the target. With the help of GSAP’s plugins, you can create impressive HTML text animations, like the GreenSock homepage bannerAnimating elements into view We want to animate the screens into view so that they appear as if they were initially off-canvas. We’ll be using GSAP's from() method to define where they will animate from. Let's start by slide-fading in the text from the left. First, we create and return a timeline inside the animateScreen1() function, then we add to it the tween that will animate the text into view. You need to make sure you give the elements you want to animate proper class names and/or IDs for reference. The text is animated in from a -100% position (which means it is translated to the left, outside the banner's visible area) and opacity value 0. We'll get to the easing function part later. Instead of translateX and translateY, GSAP uses x, y and xPercent and yPercent to apply a translation to an element. You can learn about the difference between them in this video tutorial from Petr Tichy or this blog post from GreenSock. Synchronising tweens We want to fade the world map into view at the same time the text animates in. This is possible by using 'labels' inside the timeline. A label defines a point in time when the animation will start, and can be used in multiple tweens inside the timeline in order to play those tweens at the same time. You can call the label anything you like. Here, we've chosen "first" because it's the first point in time, so to speak. GSAP's labels can also be relative: you can use a label that specifies when to start a tween relative to the preceding tween. For example, you could use a "+=1" label that indicates that the current tween (or timeline) should start animating one second after the preceding one finishes. Staggering animations If you want to apply the same animation to multiple elements in sequence, you can leverage GSAP's staggering functions. This saves you from writing multiple instances of the tween for all those different elements. In the first screen, there are two sets of icons: a monochrome set and a coloured set. Each set is a group (<g>) which in turn contains other groups, one for each icon's contents. We will use the staggerFrom() method to define a tween that will be applied to icons in each group. This method will 'pop' the icons in one after the other: The numerical value right before the label (here "second") is the stagger value. This indicates the amount of time in seconds by which to stagger the start of each tween. Specifying easing functions When the second screen is to be animated into view, the function responsible for that animation first needs to remove the elements of the previous screen. The second animation will be defined in the animateScreen2() function, and will use staggerTo() to animate the first screen's elements out: The easing function specified for the ease property (Power2.easeIn) is used to create more elasticity, thus adding to the overall fluid effect. GSAP comes with a big bunch of built-in easing functions. Learn all about them in the docs. The tl.delay(.5) part is there to delay the execution of the animation. The reason we're delaying it is to give the user some time to read the contents of the first scene before we get to the other. The banner would be useless if the animations stood in the way of the message being read. .add("first", "-=0.6") enables us to create overlap by tightening the time between the previous and following tween. Specifying SVG transform origins The code for the third screen looks similar to that of the previous screens, with the exception of a new property that is used to animate the clock's hour and minute hands: You can specify the transform origin of an SVG element using either a percentage value (relative to the element's bounding box) or an absolute value (relative to the entire SVG canvas). The latter is specified using the svgOrigin property. Sometimes it can be useful to use svgOrigin instead of transformOrigin. Since both clock hands were being animated relative to the same point on the canvas, I've specified the coordinates of that point as the transform origin for both of them. Using Bézier tweens In the last screen, we have a line of text that is divided into multiple <tspan> elements – one wrapping each word, and a call-to-action. The best we can do here is to animate the visibility of the words. That said, if you are creating an HTML5 banner that animates HTML text, you can create extremely impressive text animations using GSAP's plugins. GSAP's homepage banner (at the bottom of the facing page) is a great example of that. You can check its code out here. To create a wiggly effect for the call to action button, we want to rotate it to the left and right a few times in a row. Instead of using multiple rotation tweens, we can use the Bézier plugin to move the values through a certain set smoothly, thus avoiding the jerky effect that could result from individual tweens. Provide the bezier object with an array of values and it will animate through them smoothly. Could it get any simpler? Summing up GSAP's powers really shine when you start creating sequenced, complex animations. All its sequencing and time control features make it an indispensable tool in our animation toolkit today. So go ahead, take GreenSock for a ride and propel your animation powers to the next level. Here's the finished animated banner on Codepen. This article was originally published in issue 273 of net magazine. See Chris Gannon live at Generate London and get an exclusive insight into his work Do you want to find out more about SVG animations and GSAP? Interactive SVG specialist Chris Gannon will present a deep dive into the GreenSock Animation Platform at Generate London on 21/22 September, a two-day/one-track conference also featuring Anton & Irene, Aaron Gustafson, Léonie Watson, Steve Fisher and many more great speakers. Book your ticket today! Related articles: Create storyboards for web animations 15 awesome email newsletter designs Master user experience strategy View the full article

Apple recently announced that it would be releasing two new versions of its iPad Pro that have the potential to transform the device into a true pro tool. The added features, bumped up specs and all new screen could even make this device a viable replacement for the MacBook Pro or other cumbersome laptops. The new iPad Pro could easily allow you to work away from your desk or even remotely, thanks to its smaller footprint. However, working away from the office poses an increased security risk as you will often be connecting to unfamiliar Wi-Fi networks. By using a VPN to connect to the internet, you can better protect yourself online while working on the move, and the added security benefits of using such a service will ensure that your projects and your privacy remain safe from potential threats. Most VPN service providers offer services globally and thus charge in US Dollars rather than in local currencies, so we've listed pricing in Dollars for the sake of simplicity. When you click through to the actual deals, you may find the prices automatically displayed in pounds, or whatever your native currency may be. These are some of the best deals we found for staying safe online on the go: 1. IVPN – Great performance for $99.96 per year This VPN is a great choice for desktop users who value speed above all else. IVPN offers quality clients for both Windows and Mac and the company also provides detailed instructions for users who want to get the service up and running on Linux or mobile. The company truly values user privacy and it has a clear ‘no logs’ policy, as well as the option to sign up using minimal personal details. There is even an option to pay via Bitcoin for users who wish to remain truly anonymous. New customers can try out this VPN for free as IVPN offers a three-day free trial. 2. IPVanish – From $58.49 per year IPVanish has 700 servers across more than 60 locations and there are over 40,000 shared IP addresses available to its users. This VPN has excellent download speeds, which is useful for taking advantage of the company’s unlimited P2P traffic and support for five simultaneous connections. IPVanish keeps no logs on your browsing or download data, giving you total privacy. The company also offers new customers a seven-day money back guarantee if you are unhappy with the service. 3. ExpressVPN – 12 months from only $99.95 Setting up ExpressVPN is a breeze thanks to the numerous web-based tutorials the company provides on its site. This VPN supports both desktop and mobile with native clients for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and even BlackBerry. ExpressVPN has over 1,000 servers across 136 locations, and three connections can be used simultaneously. The service also has full P2P support, a kill switch to keep your IP concealed in the event that the VPN goes down, and solid performance across the board. A ‘no hassle’ 30-day money back guarantee is available for new ExpressVPN customers. Check out the best VPN services of 2017View the full article

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Mozilla fixed 32 vulnerabilities, including a critical bug that could have resulted in a crash, with the release Tuesday of Firefox 54, the latest version of its flagship browser. View the full article

DHS and the FBI warned that North Korean attackers are targeting U.S. businesses with malware- and botnet-related attacks that are part of concerted effort dubbed "Hidden Cobra." View the full article

Wireframes are dead! Interactive prototypes are everything! We’ve heard these shouts for at least the past seven years. If the popularity of these discussions proves anything, it’s that the opposite is true. The mere fact that we continue to discuss the alleged death of wireframing proves that wireframing continues to suit at least some projects and some designers. So how has wireframing survived? It continues to evolve. Long gone are the days of black on white wires built in Microsoft Visio or Excel Spreadsheets (yes, I worked with PMs who used to place wireframes in spreadsheets). The evolution of wireframes Today’s wireframing has been split into multiple techniques that serve the different purposes, projects or preferences of designers. Lightweight interactive wireframes Some designers like to gather early feedback with lightweight interactive wireframes (take a look at The Guide to Interactive Wireframing). Interactive wireframes are design deliverables that represent the high-level architecture and the most basic interactivity. Created in the span of hours instead of days, they help with user testing and getting early buy-in from stakeholders. Interactive wireframes might be destroyed soon after their creation, or evolve into a completely different asset that is part of the overall concept. Content wireframing a video app Content wireframes Another version is a content wireframe (see the Content Wireframing for Responsive Design guide). This static form serves as a structure that is used to plan content and information architecture before investing time and money into the rest of the interface design. This technique works well for content-heavy websites, which need a careful content strategy, before we designers get all creative with their form and beautiful looks. After all, content is king. Microframes Finally, there are wireframes that have evolved to be even lower fidelity. In this form the wireframe is minimised, text is replaced by geometric shapes and every piece of the interface is simplified as much as possible. That’s my favourite new form of wireframing. What microframes are Microframes, or micro-wireframes, are miniaturised versions of wireframes. Microframes amplify the benefits of wireframing and eliminate most of the shortcomings. Their benefits include speed, clarity of communication and lack of confusion. Microframes are as fast as sketching, but let you easily iterate on your work and immediately share the results with anybody, despite the location. They clearly communicate plans and requirements and let designers iterate together with a customer towards the common vision, without over-investing in disposable assets, and they cannot be confused with the final product because their form is drastically minimised. Microframes offer minimum effort and maximum speedMicroframes are also extremely flexible. They can be used on their own, as part of a user journey chart, documentation or even as part of a project roadmap. They serve as a cheap illustration and a tool to enhance design thinking. And guess what? You’ve been microframing for years – you were just doing it on a whiteboard. Microframes are digitised versions of the whiteboard sketches that designers use all the time when brainstorming with colleagues and clients. Unlike your whiteboard drawings, though, microframes are easy to share and optimised for speed and reusability. Get started with microframing Microframing is very intuitive. If you try to fit your ideas into a 200px x 300px container, the microframe will naturally come to life. To increase readability, consider the following: Avoid text: Replace text by blocks symbolising different levels of typographic hierarchy Use colours to represent different pieces of the interface: Separate CTAs, navigation links and blocks of text by assigning each a different background colour (preferably shades of grey) Add icons to remove confusion: Icons can clarify elements that can be easily confused with others – for example, the classic landscape icon could be used to indicate an image Skip details: You’ll have plenty of time to add them later once the concept is crystallised for higher levels of fidelity Once your basic drawings are ready, think about what needs to be added to enhance their communication value. A text description? Flows? There are no rules here. Whatever serves the purpose is good. An example of the microframe documentation used for the UXPin site redesign Microframing design language To optimise your microframing process for speed and reusability you have to create your micro design language. Think about a convention that works for you and recipients of your work, then document it. A glimpse of the microframing process while playing around with design systems libraries and symbols in UXPinJust like with a full-sized design, you should start with the foundation and gradually move to higher-level structures (if you’re interested in building a full-scale design system – I’m sharing my experience in this series of posts). Take all your text blocks and tiny patterns and turn them into symbols, nest them in your microframes and turn those into symbols as well. So is wireframing dead? Definitely not. Wireframing won’t die as long as we need ways to quickly create and share digital sketches. Creating micro-wireframes only enhances the communication and creativity of the team, without sacrificing the speed of the process. We’ve recently really fallen in love with this little deliverable. Hopefully, you’ll find it useful too. For more wireframing best practices, download UXPin’s free 100+ page Guide to Wireframing. Related articles: The 20 best wireframe tools All you need to know about mockups, wireframes, and prototypes 10 top prototyping tools View the full article

Have you started using the Flexible Box Layout module in your projects yet? Although the module has been around for some time, there have been two major barriers stopping frontend developers from using it in their projects. First, until recently the spec was in flux and there wasn't great support for it. Today, all modern browsers support Flexbox. The second barrier is that it is pretty tough to grasp the concept of Flexbox. While it is super-powerful, there are a lot of moving parts and it can be difficult to learn. But the ability to arrange page elements, and have them behave in a predictable way, across multiple screen sizes, is well worth the effort. Want to get started with flexbox? Read on!In this article, I will get you up and running with the fundamental concepts behind flexbox. Understanding these core concepts will open up a whole world of extremely flexible, easy to create layouts (especially for responsive web design). Next-generation design Flexbox is a next-generation tool to help you create layouts with CSS; whether you want to lay out a section of your website or display a grid of media elements. It enables you to easily align, centre, justify, scale and reorder elements on your page, without having to resort to nasty CSS hacks or fragile JavaScript dependencies. Flexbox can replace floats, positioning tricks, inline-block layouts and even – shudder – table display layouts. If you have ever pulled your hair out wondering why some seemingly simple layouts were difficult or even impossible in CSS, you are going to love Flexbox. Flex elements The magic of Flexbox is in the relationship between the parent 'flex container' and the children 'flex items'. In order to take full control of Flexbox, you must put aside any previous ideas of floats, positioning and clearing. This is a totally new way of laying out your page. Setting display:flex; on a parent element turns it into a flex container, and all of its immediate children will be turned into flex items. Once you have your markup set up, you can use one of the many available flex properties to create a layout. Note: any of the HTML elements can be a flex container or flex item. Any :before and :after pseudo-elements you have on your flex container will be treated as children, and therefore first-class flex items. Rows and columns The default flex-direction set to rowThere are two axes in Flexbox that control how the flex items on the page are laid out: the main axis and the cross axis. By default, Flexbox is set up so the main axis goes from left-to-right (or the opposite, for languages that read right-to-left) and the cross axis flows top-to-bottom (shown above). Before you go memorising that, note that this can – and will – all change with the flex-direction property. The main axis flipped with flex-direction:row-reverse;By default, Flexbox is set up with flex-direction: row; which means the items flow on the main axis from left-to-right, in a row. We can switch the main axis so it flows from right-to-left by using flex-direction:row-reverse (as shown above). The main axis switched from horizontal to vertical with flex-direction:column;To switch both the main axis and the cross axis, we change the layout to flex-direction:column;. This will alter the main axis and flex item flow from left-to-right to top-to-bottom, in a column (above). We can also start from the bottom and move up by flipping the main axis with flex-direction:column-reverse. Centring items One of the best things about Flexbox is that it allows you to align your content in any way you please – even vertical centring is an absolute breeze! There is often confusion surrounding Flexbox alignment, because there are three different properties that we use to modify the alignment of our flex items. One reason for this is that these properties align the items along the main and the cross axis. So instead of asking, 'how do I centre something vertically or horizontally?' you must first establish which direction your axes are pointed, and then figure out which CSS property to use to properly align and centre your flex items on them. In the next few examples, I'll be attempting to perfectly centre my items. However, you should know that each of these properties has a number of alignment options. For a full list, I recommend keeping this CSS-Tricks flexbox reference handy. The cross axis align-items:center; will centre our items along the cross axis, which in our case is top-to-bottomBy default, flex items stretch across the entire flex container along the cross axis. If we want to centre items along the cross axis, we can use the align-items property on our flex container and set it to center (shown above). In addition to stretch and center, we can also use flex-start and flex-end to anchor the items at the top and bottom respectively. Finally, we have baseline, which will align the items along the bottom (or baseline) of your text. This is extremely helpful when you are trying to align items with varying font sizes. Justifying along the main axis Justify-content:center; will centre our items along the main axisNow we have the centring working along the cross axis – top to bottom in our case – we need to get centring working across the main axis. For this, we use justify-content:center (shown above). Just like with align-items, we can also use flex-start or flex-end, as well as space-between and space-around, which will evenly divvy up the remaining space between the elements. This is super-useful when working with grid layouts that don't add up to 100 per cent of the margin and widths. Just remember, if we switch from the default flex-direction:row; to flex-direction:column;, the main axis can change from left-to-right to top-to-bottom. When we switch to column, align-items becomes the horizontal alignment while justify-content becomes the vertical alignment. Aligning multiple lines While align-items and justify-content work great when you have a single row or column of content, things get a little trickier when you're dealing with multiple lines of content as a result of using flex-wrap:wrap; on the flex container. align-content works just like justify-content, but kicks in when we have multiple lines of content. By applying align-content:center; we can ensure that the lines will anchor in the middle of the cross axis and centre their elements from there. Just like with justify-content, we can also use flex-start, flex-end, space-between and space-around. However, this time they refer to the space in-between the rows or columns of content, and not the flex items themselves. Now, with just four lines of CSS, we have a bulletproof way of vertically and horizontally centring all direct children of a flex container. Filling the space So far, everything we have learned about alignment has to do with the flex container and how it aligns its children. With align-self it is possible to override the align-items property set on the flex container by individually setting align-self to flex-start, flex-end, center, baseline or stretch. Another often misunderstood part of flexbox is how to work with grow, shrink and basis values. It's helpful to once again throw away any ideas of pixel-perfect grids and embrace that flexbox is, well, flexible. Each flex item can be assigned a flex-grow, flex-shrink and a flex-basis value. With these values we can indicate our ideal sizes, and then specify how the items should act in situations where there is extra, or not enough, space. From there, the items will just figure it out for themselves. I like to think of these properties as: flex-grow: How do I act when there is extra space available? How will the flex items divvy up the remaining space? flex-shrink: How do I act when there isn't enough room for all the flex items? Rather than overflow the container, who will give up part of themselves to make everything fit? flex-basis: Instead of setting a definite width or a height on your element, ideally what width (as a row) or height (as a column) will it be? Note that while it is possible to specify these properties individually, you will almost always be using the flex shorthand to specify the grow, shrink and basis values all at once. Check the videos at Flexbox.io for a more detailed description of the flex shorthand property. Growing and shrinking The idea is that we can set our ideal width or height with the basis value, and then when there is extra space available for the flex items, the flex-grow property will decide how much extra to take up. Similarly, when there is not enough space available, the shrink property will decide how much each element will give up (or 'shrink'). The flex-grow and flex-shrink properties are unitless, proportional values. They describe how much – in relation to all the other flex items – the item will grow or shrink. Let's say we have two flex items: video and credits. We will set the video to flex:1 1 700px; and the credits to flex:3 3 300px;. Now the parent of both of these items is the flex container, and when it is 1000px wide things work out perfectly: the video takes up its 700px and the credits take up the other 300px. What happens when the flex container is 1500px wide? We have an extra 500px to work with, so where does that go? That is where flex-grow kicks in. The video is set to 1 while credits is set to 3. That means of all the extra room, credits will take three times (375px) the amount of space the video will get (125px). Similarity, what happens when our flex container is smaller than 1000px? Let's say it's 900px: how do the video and the credits act then? Unlike with floats, we don't just break onto a new line, or scale them down with percentages. Instead, we use the flex-shrink property. Since the credits have a flex-shrink of 3 and the video has a flex-shrink of 1, this means the credits will give up three times as much space as the video. So since we need to shave off 100px from somewhere, the credits will give up 75px, while the video container will only give up 25px. Unknown navigation size Let's look at some common use cases of flexbox. If you have ever worked with a navigation in a CMS like WordPress, you'll know that it can be hard to predict how many elements will be included in your navigation. Evenly distributing the space between all the elements requires JavaScript. For example if you have three elements, each one should be take up 33.33 per cent of the width, while with five elements each one should take up 20 per cent. Let's take a look at this commonly seen code as an example: With flexbox, we can easily create this navigation, and even make it responsive, all with just a few lines of CSS. All we need to do is to set our navigation container (usually an unordered list of items) to display:flex, and then each of the flex items to flex:1 or flex-grow:1;. This will stretch the list items horizontally and fit them perfectly into the available width. The reason this works so nicely is that we set the flex items to grow 1, which means that when there is extra space left over, it will be divvied up evenly between all the items. For more on this, and to learn how to size your navigation elements differently, make sure to watch the responsive navigation tutorial available on Flexbox.io. Equal-height columns align-items:center; will centre our items along the cross axis, which in our case is top-to-bottomHave you ever wished that CSS had a height:as-high-as-the-highest-sibling property? We have all been there – we have three columns of content, all of which are different sizes (above). The content is dynamic and the site is responsive, so setting a fixed height on each one is out of the question, and a JavaScript fix isn't ideal. Earlier we learned that the default of align-items is stretch. This means the flex items will stretch to fit the parent flex container. And how is the height of the flex container defined? Almost always by the height of the tallest content box. Let's take the following markup, for example. If we render this out with floats and percentage widths, we will see the container is sized by the middle element and the other two are only as high as they need to be. With flexbox, boxes stretch to fit the flex container and all become equal heightNow, if we simply use display:flex; on the flex container, and set each element to be 33.33 per cent with the flex-basis property, immediately the flex items stretch across the entire cross axis, regardless of how much content is in them (see image above). Conclusion I hope by now you see the value in learning how to use the Flexible Box module. While it won't solve every issue you have with CSS, it's an important tool every designer and developer should know, and have in their arsenal. It has been a while since we have had anything this large come to CSS, and I'd argue it's one of the tougher parts of CSS to learn. Just remember that you pushed though learning floats, so Flexbox is totally something you can master! Must-have resources What the Flexbox?! 'What the Flexbox?!' is a free 20-video training course I've created. In the first half of the course, each video introduces a new aspect of Flexbox. I've kept these nice and short, so you can reference them later when you need to brush up on a particular part. The second half of the course dives into a real-world example, detailing how we can use Flexbox to quickly and easily solve many of the common layout problems we face. A complete guide to Flexbox Once you get the hang of Flexbox, you can put the training materials aside. However, it's helpful to keep a visual reference handy. This fantastic resource from Chris Coyier breaks down each of the 13 different Flexbox properties, showing which apply to the flex container and which apply directly to the flex items. Flexbugs Flexbox is not without fault, and like anything, there are a handful of cross-browser bugs and workarounds you should know about. Flexbugs outlines a range of known Flexbox bugs as well as offering possible fixes and workarounds. Flexbox in 5 minutes For a quick'n'easy introduction to the fundamentals of Flexbox, check out 'Flexbox in 5 minutes'. It's a step-by-step wizard that will guide you through how to create, style and change your first Flexbox-based layout. View the full article

This is heading directly into geek territory. But we are self-confessed geeks, particularly when it comes to logo design and typography. And that leads us to the meticulously regulated world of brand style manuals... A style manual, or style guide, is a set of standards for the design of documents, signage, and any other form of other brand identifier. The reason for their existence is to ensure complete uniformity in style and formatting wherever the brand is used. We've gathered 13 of the best to inspire you when you create your own brand style guide... 01. Urban Outfitters Urban Outfitters changes its logo often but has strict rules about its displayThe average branch might look as though a bunch of squatters decided to hold a jumble sale in a derelict factory, but hipster bazaar Urban Outfitters takes its visual identity very seriously, as a quick flick through its brandbook will reveal. The 42-page guide covers everything from Urban Outfitters' history and philosophy through to logo usage, typography, photography methodology and guidelines on the tone of voice to be used in communications. 02. I Love New York We're sure Milton Glaser approves of these cute treatmentsMilton Glaser's I Love New York logo is a wonderfully simple and iconic piece of design, so you might not expect there to be a 50-page set of brand guidelines attached to it. However there's more to I Love New York than Milton Glaser's logo; that's just the most memorable aspect of a campaign launched in 1977 and refreshed in 2008. The scrupulously detailed brand guidelines cover all the bases for a campaign that represents the whole state of New York and not just New York City; there's a mission statement and brand pyramid, consistency and typography guidelines, plus a whole load of thematic logo treatments and logo usage guidelines to follow. 03. NASA This beautiful reissue is available to buy nowThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Graphics Standards Manual was created by Danne & Blackburn in 1974 when NASA changed from its original crest-based logo to the 'worm' logotype that we are now familar with. The manual has recently been revived thanks to a Kickstarter campaign to fund its reissue. Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth's glorious new 220-page version of the case-bound NASA document comes with 'static shielding' packaging and can be purchased over at standardsmanual.com. 04. British Rail The British Rail style guide dates back to the 1960sCertain members of the Creative Bloq team have spent hours poring over the British Rail corporate identity manual (okay, it's me) and it is easy to see why. Epic levels of obsessive behaviour abound in the guide, which dates back to 1965, and some of the pictograms are a delight. Want to own your own copy? You're in luck; after a successful Kickstarter campaign, designer Wallace Henning has created a high-specification recreation of the original manual that you can order now; find out more here. 05. Channel 4 The Channel 4 style guide is simple, clean and uncluttered for ease of useChannel 4's comprehensive style guide leaves no room for confusion on how its brand is used. The guide is 46 pages long, each of which is clean and clear, stating a single guideline per page, often accompanied by a graphic for visual reference. 06. Skype The Skype style guide lets illustration do all the talkingThe Skype style guide is brilliant for many reasons - its pages of cool illustrations being one of them. The communication network hasn't filled its guide with pages of industry jargon, it simply employs easy-to-understand explanations and graphics to get its point across. 07. Apple The Apple style guide is made up of 48 pages detailing exactly how the company's branding is to be usedOne of the biggest companies in the world, Apple has a comprehensive style guide detailing how its branding is to be used. Clean, clear and concise, this 48-page guide explains exactly how to use Apple assets - even where to apply stickers to your Smart car. 08. Adobe Adobe's style guide goes into great detail about how you can use the branding, with some strict rulesAdobe is one of the design industry's strongest brands, and protecting that cast-iron integrity is this style document. So beware - do not use the red tag logo, it is for Adobe use only. (We do love it when you're forceful, Adobe!) 09. New York City Transit Authority The images of the New York City underground standards manual are a frustrating joyWe love this collection of photos of the New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual, designed by Massimo Vignelli of Unimark International, which feature a font that looks very much like Helvetica and some great pictograms. 10. Barbican The Barbican has ultra-specific instructions for the use of its circle logoThe Barbican theatre's identity "is not just a logo. It is a design scheme composed of a number of core elements that come together to create a distinctive look and feel that makes the Barbican brand instantly recognisable". Which is why this guide is so important. Having said that, the Barbican allows a degree of creative flexibility for designers tasked with using its identity, and takes you through exactly how to achieve that. Which is nice. 11. Firefox The Mozilla Foundation's Firefox style guide will keep your fox facing the right wayMozilla has this handy description of an erroneously utilised Firefox logo: "Think of these as the equivalent of wearing your shoes on the wrong feet: they’re still shoes, they’re basically where they’re supposed to be, but it just feels wrong." This style guide will ensure you know your left from your right. 12. Macmillan Macmillan's document focuses on the charity's brand values as well as styleCancer charity Macmillan's 67-page document is comprehensive, containing identity design rules for everything from signage to infographics, plus how to use the brand's familiar green colours and which photos are best used as the image silhouettes you'll find in the charity's marketing material. 13. Boy Scouts of America No surprise that the Boy Scouts of America style document has strict guidelines for badge designDib dib dib! The quickest way to achieve your logo design badge is to follow the Boy Scouts of America's mildly militaristic manual. Just don't think of writing the scouts' tagline "Prepared. For. Life." without those all-important full-stops... Related articles: 10 commandments of logo design How to create a design style guide: 25 pro tips Speed up your web workflow with style guides View the full article

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/06/14/is-it-time-for-cash-for-medical-clunkers/ … View the full article

There's no bad time to start learning how to code. It might feel like you have some catching up to do, but it'll be easy to get up to speed with the Coding Powerhouse eBook Bundle. You can get it on sale right now for 91% off the retail price. Coding languages can look intimidating at first glance if you aren't familiar with them, but you can master them as you work your way through the Coding Powerhouse eBook Bundle. This collection of nine reference guides written by experts will teach you how to start speaking the languages of app and web development, from Java and Python to Swift 3. No matter what you want to build, this bundle has a course that can help. The Coding Powerhouse eBook Bundle is valued at $324, but you can get it on sale now for 91% off the retail price. That's a saving you can't pass up if you want to up your developer skills, so grab this deal today! View the full article

In its annual National Exposure Index report, Rapid7 found 160 million computers, IoT devices and servers with open ports that should not be exposed to the public network. View the full article

Microsoft released patches on Tuesday for unsupported versions of Windows, a decision prompted by three NSA exploits that remained unaddressed from April’s ShadowBrokers leak. View the full article

The main task of a visual development environment artist working in animation is to conceptualise, design and execute a believable world for characters to live in. But the success of these environment concepts doesn't rely solely on the drafting skill level of the artist – it's the whole package that makes the final product work effectively. Visual development is simply the visual evolution from an idea to the final product. So it's crucial that the structural makeup of the artworks in development occur in this order: concept, design, technique. To think technique is the key to the success of the artwork is totally missing the mark. Here are my key tips that point towards a successful process in creating strong concepts and compositions for animation. 01. Concept art = Concept + Art Here the main character is a design need; the secondary one is a design wantConcept art is not just about the epic, or its beautiful execution. It's artwork that grows out of a design process, well rooted in an idea that supports the story. The priority of concept can be identified thus: needs and wants. What the story needs has to be conceptualised first. The artist then provide his design wants that focus and support the story. So in the image above, the need for this image is to design an Asian fairy and her magical environment. A second character is a design want, to exemplify the scale and dimension. The design choice of the secondary character creates a relational affinity and familiarity between the two. 02. Dynamic research Sketch while doing your research so you don't drown in reference materialResearch breeds authenticity in the design evolution, from concept to the final product. Similar to the old adage about knowing the rules first before one can break them, I have to learn what's real before I can design, or redesign, an object or environment. Research gives a vision of functionality. What makes it dynamic is when I start sketching and creating thumbnails while doing research. This keeps me from getting bogged down in reference material. I trust my artistic instincts when I hit a design target from reference materials, and I stop looking for more and start sketching. My approach towards design improved by doing this. 03. Think inside before outside the box An inside- and outside-the-box retelling of the Titanic storyAs visual development artists and concept designers, we're always told to think outside the box. But I believe this is only possible if the designer knows what's inside the box. And not only to know what's inside, but also understand how those objects inside the box work. I've learned over the years not to go outside the box if what's inside it still works. At the end of the day, it's how the story/idea could be told more effectively that influences your design choices, not whether it's a safe or 'out there' idea. These quick sketches give me two spring boards on retelling the story of the Titanic. The first image is the inside-the-box translation, with a literal narrative of its present underwater situation. Alternatively, I can go for the outside-the-box option by creating a juxtaposed imagery of its supposed description and its present-day situation, encapsulated in a classic ship-in-a-bottle setting. 04. Design loosely Design with your arm but draw with your wristOne key discipline I've learned over the years is to design with my arm and draw with my wrist. There's a dynamic balance of freedom and control in my wrist, and a dynamic balance of freedom and control in finding the right design language when the arm is moving loosely. When I become lazy and miss the arm out, the artwork tends to be static and lifeless. These images are from a 90-minute demo process in a live workshop. The 18x24-inch canvas gave me a good amount of arm flexibility. Then I took a hi-res iPhone photo and transferred the file into Photoshop for value and colour. 05. Understanding composition Perspective, staging and value are key to good compositionGetting to grips with composition is vital to the structural strength of design. Composition is not just a standalone term that simply describes an arrangement of forms and shapes. Instead, realise that composition is perspective, value, staging and colour arranged harmoniously, to tell the story or idea more efficiently. Perspective is the placement of the camera and what type of lens is being used. Value translates the application of lighting. Staging is the arrangement of different elements in the canvas using the combination of shapes, sizes and overlaps, creating depth, dimension and balance. Colour is the harmony of palettes and temperatures. 06. Visual aesthetics using perspective A high-angle shot suggests invincibility, strength, confidence and leadership, an eye-level shot gives a perception of normality, neutrality, and is relatable, and a low-angle shot suggests vulnerability, weakness, danger and loneliness.Perspective has a strong psychological effect on viewers' perception. Below, various camera placements of the same subject and environment give different viewer perceptions. The viewpoint is the audience's eyes. 07. The application of visual aesthetics My original idea for this image was to place the male subject at the same distance from the camera, but staged right below the lady on the bridge. Yet this gave the impression he'd already reached his destination. So instead I moved him just a little bit to the left. It gave a hint that he's not completed his journey, but he's about to reach his destination very soon. It also helped to create a perception of movement in the painting.Visual aesthetics is the study of how compositional elements (value, perspective, staging and colour) interact and the audience's reactions to them. It's not enough to understand composition and expect to be effective visual storytellers. Rather, it's important to understand perception – how the audience reacts to composition. Improper use of composition will result in an audience's selective perception. Selective perception results in selective context. And selective context means the audience will have different interpretations of the story/idea. With the proper use of visual aesthetics, the compositional choices become intentional and directional towards intended perception. When the artist controls selective seeing, the visual message becomes subjective. Subjective means controlled perception. Controlled perception results in controlled context, and this means the audience will have a singular interpretation of the story idea. 08. Visual aesthetics using value Your value composition will determine the success of your colour compositionValue is the lightness or darkness of a colour. Every colour has a corresponding value and that lightness or darkness depends on the amount of lighting applied to the colour. The three important rules of value are: It controls focal points – usually the brightest area, the highest contrast, or when a predominant value encloses an opposite value; Value gives the illusion of three-dimensional form, when it shows the surface being hit by light and the surface under the shadows; Value creates the illusion of depth (altering the range of dark and light creates distance). The perception of mood or emotion of the story being told in the canvas is established by the applied lighting translated into values. The success of colour composition depends on the value composition. Next page: more concept tips 09. Visual aesthetics using staging Group and overlap shapes to infer cohesion in your compositionCombining different shapes and sizes together in a shot creates the perception of intensity. Intentional overlap in images also develops cohesion and relationships among characters and environment. The higher the contrast between sizes should result in greater intensity. The same goes with shapes. 10. Why the readability of shapes and form is key Make sure your shapes are readable by checking that they work as silhouettesFrom the overall form to the least visible prop, every shape has to be readable. Even in a busy setup, the effectiveness of information is not dependent on the details, but the readability of shapes. Even if those shapes were stripped of details to the point of silhouette, they will still be easily identifiable. World War II pilots were trained to identify specific enemy ships at sea by reading their silhouettes. So I would say your designs must be exaggerated and simplified, with clear silhouettes working harmoniously. 11. Balance in a scene The example above is balanced, with the closer tram on the left equalled by the lamp post and more-distant tramImagine the subject as the pivot of a horizontal lever. Now remember, all other elements that will be drawn on the canvas will have "weights" that are based on their shapes, sizes and value. Balance will be attained if these elements are staged on both sides of the pivot, without having the lever tilt on either side. 12. Less is more Simplify details to leave room for the viewer's imaginationIn designing what's supposed to be repetitive patterns, such as bricks on a wall, or organic patterns like rough textures on rocks, always apply the economy of lines and simplify without the compromise of information. This can be done through the less-is-more approach. This is either the simplification or purposeful removal of details on some sections. By doing this, the designer leaves room for the viewer's imagination to fill in the missing details. 13. Don't become dependent on photos and texture brushes Hand-drawn textures will give your work extra charmThis tip doesn't intend, in any way, to look down or undermine the direct use of photos in the digital painting process. If it's needed in production, then go for it. But the heavy reliance and dependency on photos should not become a designer's priority. Your goal is to learn how to create simplified textural patterns and concentrate on the design essentials first and foremost. There's a charm added when hand-drawn textures are applied. 14. Adding some history and story The statues indicate that penguins inhabit this islandResearch plays a big part in this process. The believability of a world doesn't come from a literal application of a photo. The designer has to find a way to design the history and story of an environment that personifies and supports the personalities in it. So in the image above, we're creating island that's inhabited by penguins. Just designing from a photo wouldn't be convincing – what makes it believable is applied history and story. Adding the two penguin monuments made sense in establishing the penguin world. 15. Lasso painting This is the technique I use when I'm pressed for time. I coined the name from the Lasso selection tool in Photoshop. Its simplicity and ease of use enable me to drop the values, carry out speedy colourisation and paint over highlighted surfaces. With practise, this process is very effective for a quick turnaround of art. At this point the heavy lifting has been done and all I need to do is a bit more painting over the image to create a refined, final version if needed. Thumbnail and line work I create a very quick thumbnail idea for composition and direction, then lay down the line work. The column and the character are on two separate layers. Then I drop and separate the local values using the Lasso tool. I also use a little bit of Airbrush to soften the edges. Duplicating the layer Next I duplicate the desired layer to be colourised, then select it. I pick the desired brush and then from the Brush Mode drop-down menu, I select Color (and I make sure to bring it back to Normal mode after this step). Keeping lighting consistent Using the Lasso tool, I select the cast shadowed surfaces. I soften the mask for the columns but keep it sharp on the character. Consistency in lighting is the key for this step. I create separate new layers for shadowed and highlighted surfaces and I increase the cool tone, then darken the layer with the shadowed surface. I increase the warm tones and contrast on the layer using highlighted surfaces. This article originally appeared in ImagineFX issue 145; buy it here! Related articles: Just what is concept art? 4 steps to creating concept art with extra depth 15 concept art skills to power up your illustration View the full article

VR is fast becoming the hot topic in a lot of industries, no less our own, as we discover how to utilise this tool to actually stand in worlds you can create yourself. This issue 3D World has a huge 14-page guide to how virtual reality is sparking innovative projects in games, animation and design. There's also the best VFX secrets behind Transformers: The Last Knight and the challenges MPC faced when unleashing a more organic-looking Xenomorph in Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant. There are some amazing tips and techniques to be found this issue, including working with fur to create amazing creatures, making an explosion using FumeFX and how to make convincing CG fabric in just 12 steps. Subscribe to 3D World today Readers can dig into a fantastic video course from Pluralsite on Designing Motion Controller Experiences in Unreal. In this great video series you’ll learn how to set up a VR character with motion controllers, interact with objects and create a teleport system. Also in 3D World 223… Arnold 5 and the Stardust plug-in for After Effects reviewed The new features of Unreal Engine 4.16 revealed Explore Element 3D with a look at the development of Valley of the Kith We explore how game graphics are quickly catching up with film See the best art from around the CG community View the full article

How do slow-performing web applications impact user experience for people with disabilities? Are there aspects of the web rendering process that create barriers when you’re relying on a screen reader? In this talk from Generate New York earlier this year, Marcy Sutton takes a look at web performance through an accessibility lens, and discusses how, by studying the limitations of browsers with assistive technologies and establishing developer best practices, we can we make faster, more accessible experiences for our users. If you want to maximise your reach then both performance and accessibility should be on your agenda, and Marcy's talk will arm your for upping your game on this score, as she looks at progressive enhancement in detail with server- and client-rendered apps built with Angular 2, React or Ember FastBoot, and always remembering our good accessibility friend: static HTML. For more essential performance advice, head to Generate London on 20-22 September, when Patrick Hamann will discuss his latest performance research. Léonie Watson, meanwhile, will explain how JavaScript and accessibility can work together, looking at accessibility mechanics in the browser as well as the new Accessibility Object Model (AOM) JavaScript API. At her talk at Generate London Léonie Watson will explain how to use JavaScript so you only blow the bloody doors off There's plenty more to discover at Generate London, including talks Aaron Gustafson, Seb Lee-Delisle, Ally Long and Jaime Levy, so don't miss out and get your ticket today! View the full article

Maybe you’re right at the start of your graphic design career or studies. Or maybe you’ve been doing it for a few years, but still feel there are some gaps in your education. Either way, it’s always good to have some good resources to hand, setting down the fundamental principles and basic terminology we all work by. In this post, we round up the best posts for walking you through what you need to know as a graphic designer, plus a few pointers about where you can go further. Make sure you bookmark this page so you can come back to it again and again. 01. Typography rules and terms every designer must know Learn all the font-related terminology you need in this comprehensive guide Typography is, quite simply, the art and technique of arranging type. It's central to the skills of a designer and is about much more than making the words legible. This article explains the fundamental concepts and key terminology of typography. 02. Key terms every graphic designer should know Graphic design, like any profession, is littered with jargon and phrases you might not be familiar with. This article by Rob Carney outlines some of the key terms you should know, with a brief explanation – in words you can understand – plus info on where to go to learn more. 03. 15 printing terms every designer needs to know The world of print design can be a confusing one for those coming from other design disciplines, not least because of all the unfamiliar printing terms and concepts that have evolved gradually over hundreds of years along with the art and science of printing. Confused by printing terms such as pigments, RIPs, and solvents? Keep this jargon-busting glossary close by. 04. 15 design terms you're probably getting wrong Which terms do you get wrong?Any designer will tell you that the industry is teeming with terms every creative needs to know if they're going to be taken seriously by their peers and clients. Compiled by Creative Market, this infographic runs through some of the most frequently mistaken design-speak. 05. The designer's guide to the Golden Ratio Science meets art in the Golden RatioThere's a common mathematical ratio found in nature that can be used to create pleasing, natural looking compositions in your design work. This article explains what it is and how you can use it, and points to some great resources for further inspiration and study. 06. The designer's guide to grid theory An incisive explanation of grid theory from Sam Hampton-SmithGrids are like the glue that holds a design together, so whether you work in web or print, you need to understand grid theory. This article by Sam Hampton-Smith explains all you need to know. 07. How to create a design style guide Hit the right tone with your style guideA design style guide shouldn't read like the work of a control freak, but nor should it be vague and ambiguous. This article by Paul Wyatt explains how to strike the right balance. 08. How to create balanced page layouts Top tips for balanced page layoutsA good page composition should be both pleasing to the eye, but also communicate those key messages clearly to the intended audience. This article collects together some top tips to help you ensure your page layouts have balance. 09. How to design a poster If you want to know how to design a poster, then you can do no better than turn to the experts. In this post, three top illustrators and designers to offer tips on how you can design better posters. 10. How to design a brochure It’s one of the most common tasks given to jobbing graphic designers. But how do you make a brochure that really dazzles? These top tips will get you started. 11. How to master colour theory Sam Hampton-Smith describes the three primary component parts that help us define a colourThis article by Sam Hampton-Smith cuts through the jargon to explain the basic concepts and terminology of colour theory, in words that you can understand. Topics include how colour is formed, colour systems and the colour wheel. 12. Digital colour mixing explained Mixing colours digitally is not the same as mixing them physically. This article explains what the difference between the two is and how to go about it in practice. 13. How to choose a colour scheme for your logo design Graphic designers need to harness the power of colour psychology to bring resonance to their designs – and in no field is this more important than that of logo design. In this post, Martin Christie of Logo Design London explains what you need to know. 14. 10 rules for better editorial design The fundamental skills required to be a good editorial designer are much the same as any form of graphic design, but as with any specialised area there are always unique challenges and general rules that apply. In this post, Luke O'Neill offers 10 rules of thumb for better editorial design. 15. How to design a business card A well-designed business card can make you stand out from the crowd. Here are some top tips from Sam Hampton-Smith on how to make one that leaves a lasting impression. 16. How to design a book The Book Designers cover the basics of flowing in and formatting text for a book layoutThe layout of the pages inside a book is just as important as its cover design. After all, the pages are what people will experience as they read the book. This tutorial from The Book Designers provides a basic step-by-step process for designing and laying out a book that's driven by its text. 17. Free ebooks for designers There's a growing movement towards free and freemium content on the web, and the quality of the content is often on a par with the books you'd part cash for. Compiled by Sam Hampton-Smith, here are 22 of the best ebooks for learning design to download today. 18. The best graphic design podcasts For those who've always wished they could turn on their radio and listen to people chatting about design, this article by Joe Nicklo lists 12 informative, fun, and thought-provoking podcasts that every designer should be listening (and subscribing) to. 19. Photoshop secrets to improve your skills Once you've overcome the beginners' learning curve, there are some real gems hidden inside Photoshop that can help you speed up your work and get more out for less effort. This article rounds up 30 of the best Photoshop secrets to help sharpen your skills and improve your productivity. 20. How to create the perfect infographic Follow these 10 steps to create beautiful infographics The modern day infographic has taken on a slightly different form to that of its predecessors. However, the fundamentals remain the same, explain JESS3's Tiffany Farrant-Gonzalez and Jarred Romley in this article, as they take you through 10 key steps in the creation of informative and beautiful infographics. View the full article

Microsoft patched 95 vulnerabilities today, including two under attack. View the full article

Citing an elevated risk for destructive attacks, Microsoft today included patches for vulnerabilities in Windows XP among its Patch Tuesday updates. View the full article

Adobe fixed 21 vulnerabilities across four products - Flash, Shockwave Player, Captivate, and Adobe Digital Editions - on Tuesday. View the full article

Adobe Stock has launched a way to find better images for your design project with its freshly updated visual search tools and aesthetic filters. Unveiled today, Adobe Stock’s new 'Depth of Field' and 'Vivid Colour' filters help you find the right image based on its looks rather than its keywords. Claude Alexandre, vice president of Adobe Stock, said Adobe had recognised designers’ need for images with high visual impact and for an easy way to find images. He said that the new advanced search "will help creatives solve their most complex visual and design challenges". The new tools update Adobe Stock’s existing visual search, which debuted in November 2016. Google Images, iStock and Shutterstock also offer visual searches – the difference is that Adobe now offers more advanced ways to find pictures that suit the look of your project, whereas most services just offer basic filters such as colour, size, image type and orientation. Review: Photoshop CC 2017To use Adobe Stock visual search, click on the camera icon or drag and drop a picture into the search bar, and Adobe's Sensei technology will find images that are similar. In the example Adobe showed us, uploading a picture of two glasses of wine produced multiple images of two glasses of wine. The results with the Vivid Colour filter upSliding the ‘Depth of Field’ filter right up added people to the scene, and sliding it down focused our attention on the wine. Sliding the ‘Vivid Colour’ filter up revealed images that were naturally colourful, while sliding it down showed pictures with muted colour palettes. Typing ‘sunset’ into the text bar uncovered glasses of wine with a setting sun behind. New filters will be added in the near future, Adobe said, with a number currently being tested. Facial recognition isn’t currently a feature of the visual search, but Adobe said it's in the pipeline. Expanded collection Adobe Stock has added high quality images from StocksyAs well as this new search technology, Adobe Stock has expanded its collection of images. A premium collection from Stocksy – a stock image service founded by photographers who have rejected traditional stock imagery – brings curated, beautiful images that stand out from the crowd. Alongside this, a new editorial collection adds 12 million images from the Reuters archive, with new images set to be added as they are taken. More images from USA Today Sports will be added to the editorial collection soon. Access stock straight from CC and PowerPoint Adobe Stock's new plugin for PowerPointThe Adobe Stock library and services will now be accessible from within Microsoft PowerPoint, thanks to a new plugin, as well as from Adobe’s Creative Cloud programs such as Indesign CC and Photoshop CC. This follows the announcement last week of the free Craft Stock tool from InVision, which enables you to search iStock and Getty Images libraries from within Photoshop and Sketch. Related articles: Review: Photoshop CC 2017 Build your first in-house photo studio The 16 best websites to download stock art View the full article

http://thehackernews.com/2017/06/electric-power-grid-malware.html … View the full article

Join Pixologic for an exclusive livesteam event TODAY (13 June) from 12pm PDT. In it, you'll hear all about the latest version, get tips from the creators, and watch handy ZBrush demos. Plus you’ll be able to chat with the Pixologic team, who will also be giving away prizes! Tune in below. View the full article