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Typography has always played a major part in any designer’s arsenal of tools as they select the right typeface that will enhance the message and present the right context for what is being communicated. Over the past eight years, web designers have had the ability to bring in custom typefaces such as kinetic typography to their design and have similar typographical control to those enjoyed by print designers. Take a look at many of the sites that are featured as award-winning or receiving ‘site of the day’ titles and you will soon notice that their use of typography becomes central to the design, allowing them to rise above their competition. This can range from animated letter forms, reactive movement to the user interactions, to bold use of type forms taking centre stage. 3D fonts: 9 top type tips In this tutorial, the type effect will use the shapes of the letters as a mask to some fast, free-flowing particles trails that will dynamically swirl and move through the letters. Not only will there be this beautiful animation, but as this will be rendered onto the HTML5 canvas element, this will be transformed in 3D to rotate towards the mouse as it moves around the screen. This is perfect for site headers or just when you need to grab the user’s attention for a call to action. Download the tutorial files here 01. Start the process Open the ‘start’ folder from the project files in your code IDE. The project is going to start by creating the particle object class. This will be used to create the flowing imagery within the text in the project. Open the ‘sketch.js’ file and add the following variable to start creating the base particle. The effect that is being created is helped extensively by the p5.js library that enables a number of helpers for drawing to the HTML5 canvas element 02. Update the particle In order to move the particle, an update function will be run each frame, this will work out the velocity of the particle and the acceleration to the velocity. The velocity will eventually be limited by a global variable which will be added later. The velocity is added to the position of the individual particle. By creating one particle, several thousand will be created on the screen at any one time. 03. Go with the flow To give the particles their flowing movement, a flow field generated by noise will be followed. The function created here enables the vector of flow to be passed in and it will then be followed, hence the name of this function. The force of the vector direction will be applied to the particle. 04. Follow but not too closely In order to stop all the particles bunching up together, which can easily happen with this kind of movement, the particles will have a very small amount of randomness added to their position. This will cause a slight amount of scattering to occur. The basic HTML5 layout and CSS design has been created in advance so that you can focus on the integration of the flowing lines of the text effect in JavaScript 05. Display the particle The show function here displays the particle. The first thing it does is add a one pixel stroke of a light grey colour to create the line. The line is drawn from its current position to its last position on the previous frame. The previous position is stored for next time through the loop. 06. Wrap around The edges function works out if the particle reaches the edge of the screen and, if so, wraps it around to come on the opposite side. This section deals with the x position so it is detecting if it is greater than the width of the screen then sending it to left edge and vice versa. 07. Wrapper’s delight This code is the remainder of the edge detection and it detects the particle on the y axis for the top and bottom of the screen. The brackets here wrap up the entire particle class. This means by using this class many particles can be created. 08. Make many particles Now as the particle is created it’s time to think about making many particles. To do this all of our code can go above the Particle function class. Here a number of global variables are declared to enable the system to run. They’ll be called at various times during the code, so they can then be explored. 09. Set it all up The setup function, declared here, sets how the screen will look at the start. The first detection being done is to see what the width of the screen is. If it’s relatively large, a large image is loaded, the canvas is created and this is scaled via CSS to fit within the display. Once the particle object class is created, a number of particles are added to the page. The flowing lines can be seen without the addition of the text effect 10. Other screens The rest of the if statement checks different screen resolutions and loads an image that is most appropriate for that screen size. Similarly different-sized canvas elements are created. This is mainly to stop a mobile dealing with more pixels than it has to. 11. Make a grid Once the screen size is worked out the canvas is placed inside the header div tag in the index.html page. A number of columns and rows are worked out based on the width and height; it’s a little like an invisible grid. Finally, an array is set for the flow field. 12. Make particles The number of particles is set up based on the width of the screen – if the screen is 1920 pixels wide then 2500 particles will be created and it moves downwards from there. A for loop creates the new particles. The background colour of the screen is set to almost full white. 13. Draw the screen The results of all the calculations are drawn on screen every frame in the draw function. Firstly, a light grey rectangle with a very low opacity fills the screen to fade what has been drawn previously. After this is drawn, the fill is turned off as the particles will be made up of strokes not fills. 14. Create a flow effect To get the flow effect there are two ‘for’ loops moving through the rows and columns to update the noise values. These are then changed into angles from the noise value ready to update the particles for each of the positions on the screen. 15. Update the array The array of flow is updated with the angle and the values are increased so that the offset of each position is increased each time it goes up. This might seem complicated but it really just creates random flowing motion for the particles to follow on the screen. The text is now present and it’s possible to see the flowing lines, swirling inside the text of the design 16. Update the particles Now the particles are all looped through in their array. Each individual particle is told to follow the flow field, to update, check the edges of the screen, scatter slightly and finally be drawn on the screen using the show function. Save the file and test the ‘index.html’ to see the particles moving about. 17. Add the text The text is a mask that is placed over the top. To do this, the correct image is placed over the top of the particles. Add this code before the closing brace of the draw function. Save and check the browser to see the effect working with the text now. If the design is loaded on smaller size screens, the number of particles is reduced as there is less screen 18. Detect the mouse position The mouse position is referenced and the x and y values are mapped onto degree angles that can be moved. On the y axis this will be -25 to 25 and vice versa for the x axis. The remaining code should be placed after the last code was added, before the end of the draw function. 19. Ease into place The target position is now given a little easing so that the degrees slowly reach their target. This is created using a classic easing algorithm of taking off the current position from the destination and multiplying by a low number. 20. Write the CSS The ‘t’ variable here takes the calculated values and places them into a CSS string using the transform values of rotateX and rotateY. The current position is calculated from the position the canvas is currently rotated to. The final section of code takes the mouse position and applies a CSS transform to the canvas element. This rotates the canvas towards the mouse in 3D space 21. Finish off Now the CSS is applied to the canvas element in this code. Save the page and preview this in the browser. Now the mouse fully updates the rotation of the canvas so that it turns as the mouse moves. Of course all of the particles in that space move with it on the screen. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 271 or subscribe. Related articles: 70 best free fonts for designers 6 steps to the perfect online reading experience Free online tool shows you what your fonts can do View the full article

Photo: Dan Taylor The Next Web kicks off next week in Amsterdam (24-25 May), and this year's event looks set to be bigger and better than any that have gone before. The core of the conference focuses on digital innovation, but this year organisers have scaled up in a big way: there are now a whopping 19 content tracks, covering everything from pure creativity to how to build for the future. Creative Bloq will be at TNW, reporting on all the action as it unfolds – keep an eye on our Twitter feed for updates. We caught up with director of events Wytze de Haan to find out more about the event, and get a taster of what ticket-holders can expect this year. There are still some tickets available to buy here, but if you can't make it there will also be live streams of all the stages. How are preparations going for this year's TNW? Building a technology festival for 15,000 attendees outside in a park is one of the most exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had. An enormous amount of detail goes into the execution and each year as the event grows, the pressure to outperform the previous edition grows with it. The production is one beast to tame, but then there are also the 264 speakers, 59 brands we partner with and roughly 750 staff members that play a part in the event. I really can’t imagine the preparations being more overwhelming than they were now, but then I say that every year. I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way, working on TNW Conference is like taking cocaine: it’s really addictive and we spend way too much money on it. What sets TNW apart from other events? The answer to that question is hard to put into words. I think one of the defining fundamentals of what makes the event great is the fact that we’re innovators building for innovators. I don’t have to stick to some bullshit corporate playbook, and not everything we decide to build or implement has to make sense commercially. Sometimes you just want to create stuff because it’s provocative, crazy and never been done before. If you’re going to spend so much of your time and energy building something, it’d better be something you’re proud of. Xander (creative producer) and I both loved the film Prometheus. The opening scene has Peter Weyland do a talk at TED2023 in a 360-degree arena. We both really wanted to rebuild that setting into the Gashouder – five months later we have a real-life version that fits 3,100 people and is equipped with eight 5x3 metre screens. You've scaled up from last year. Tell us about some of the themes you've added… We’re in a position now where we’re seeing that technology is no longer an industry, but rather the underlying driver of change and innovation for every business everywhere. We’ve added tracks like Offside to discuss how wearables and eSports are innovating the sports industry, Music Summit to talk about distributing music over the blockchain and The Future of Work to look ahead at how Internet of Things will affect the way we work and live in the near future. Overall it’s clearly evident that blockchain, artificial intelligence and internet of things are the key themes of this edition, but what’s really fascinating is to see how these three technologies are being used in niches you would have never expected. That kind of inspiration is what makes it interesting to be here for these two days. For designers attending, what talks would you recommend? One of the tracks we’re launching this year is Design Th:nkers. We have some of the leading experts in design thinking coming to share how they’ve implemented that in their business. Even though I’m usually trying to convince non-designers why they should attend sessions that will help them think like a designer, I also believe this content to be great for designers wanting to understand how their work can help drive business innovation. And then for the creative minds, come and see Jason Silva. His mind works on a completely different level and the last talk I’ve seen him do really blew me away. Read more: What the hell is blockchain? The 5 biggest UX design trends for 2018 What to learn to upgrade your web design skills View the full article

Our day-to-day existence is often far less exciting than we wish it was: always the same old street corner, the lonely bus stop, or familiar patch of sky glimpsed through the bedroom window. Instead of zooming in on the smartphone screen, maybe we can improve the bigger picture, by adding the hidden friends, absent monsters, or secret figments of our imagination we wish were there? Pictoplasma, the world’s leading festival of character design and art, has teamed up with Adobe Project 1324 to invite all global youth (aged 18-24) to augment the banality of everyday routines by giving a face to their imaginary friends and secret sidekicks. Starting with a regular photograph of a typical setting like a nearby shop, the office lift, the school gates, or the front doorstep, entrants are invited to add a character (or characters) to the scene. Any medium or style can be used to alter the original photo – from drawing and collage making to digital painting or vector illustration. Winning streak Up to five winners will be awarded with a Pictoplasma Character Design fellowship, including travel costs and attendance at the 15th Pictoplasma Berlin Conference May 2019 – and the opportunity to exhibit in an exclusive group show. One of the winners of last year’s challenge, Helena Covell from the UK, has already contributed with her Secret Sidekick reference work, entitled W8ing Room (image above). “Having spent a lot of time visiting the hospital in the last few months, I wanted to try and attach a positive feeling to a difficult place. So I reimagined the colourful spirits of the laid-up patients as characters, out of their bodies, up and about and free.” The Secret Sidekick Challenge opens to entrants on 23 May, and the deadline for submissions is 25 June 2018. Related articles: 60 amazing Adobe Illustrator tutorials How to draw: 95 tutorials for drawing animals, people, landscapes and more The best pencils: colouring, drawing and sketching View the full article

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is the process of maximising conversions from existing traffic. For example, if you get 1,000 visitors per day on average, and have a 1% conversion rate, that means 10 of those visitors will convert. CRO is the process of trying to optimise your site, to improve that rate of conversion to 20 users (2%) for every 1,000 visitors on average, for example. The success of your ecommerce website depends on mastering CRO. Imagine that you’re the owner of your town’s first supermarket and you notice that your large store is selling less impulse products (think chocolate and soft drinks) per customer than your smaller corner shop competitors. This is despite your supermarket offering a much larger and higher quality selection. Why would this be the case? After examining your competitors, you realise that the majority of their impulse sales come from displaying their impulse products within eyesight of the checkout while waiting to pay. As such, you trial placing the chocolate near to the cashier and notice a major boost in sales. Following your first success, you then take your improvements one step further and trial different chocolate brands, sizes of package and flavours at each checkout. You monitor which three products sell the most so that you eventually place the most successful products across all cashiers to further increase sales. This is a real world equivalent of Conversion Rate Optimisation and supermarkets across the world are still trialling new layouts and approaches to increase sales of key products all year round to maximise profits from their existing footfall. You should get in the habit of applying the same logic and mindset to improving your website and attempt to convert more visitors into customers. CRO doesn’t just apply to ecommerce sites and product sales but also increasing user signups, newsletter signups or any other KPI that increases revenue, user experience or engagement. Illustration: Neo Pheonix 01. Select your tools There is a large selection of tools to choose from to achieve your CRO goals. Depending on your technical ability and complexity of A/B tests required, a simple visual editor to change some content, visual styles or CTA (Call To Action) elements may be all that is required. On the other hand, if you need more comprehensive A/B tests that justify an integrated service within your application, enabling you to A/B test the back-end logic or serve totally different experiences to your users, then a more advanced tool will be needed. 02. Identify your KPIs Before you get caught up in deciding which CRO tool to use you should clearly define the KPIs that you wish to improve. For an eCommerce site, these are likely to be as simple as more clicks on the Add to Cart button, fewer exits from checkout pages and more newsletter signups. For a SaaS website, the KPIs might be more signups or more upgrades to higher membership types, for example. For a blog these may be as simple as more page views per visit or more clicks on the external ads. 03. Set up analytics and identify your baseline The next step is vital to be able to quantify your results. The easiest way to do this is to set up goals and events within Google Analytics. Once you have completed this step, you will have a firm and reliable baseline to evaluate your first round of A/B tests against. Another benefit is that it is very motivating to know (and brag about) an actual percentage increase, thanks to your hard work. Now for the frustrating part. Before you start your first round of A/B tests, you need to collect enough data from analytics to be able to identify if your improvements are actually working. If you have a busy site you can have this data within a day or two but be prepared to wait a week or two if you have a new website with lower traffic levels. Try to wait until you have data from 1,000 visits before making any major changes. 04. Identify weaknesses and plan A/B tests Now that you have reliable baselines set up for your KPIs, you have much more useful data available to you within analytics and may even be able to spot major weak points in your site. Is there a specific point during the checkout that users leave? Are less than 0.2% of people viewing the product page clicking the Add to Basket button? Is a very low percentage of first-time visitors to your site failing to click the Register button in the top-right corner? Once you’ve identified your biggest and most urgent weak points, evaluate the page, try to find the cause of the poor performance and plan your A/B tests. Is the Add to Basket button the same colour as all the other buttons on the page and therefore hard to spot? Is it below the fold and users have to scroll further down to see it? Think of A/B testing like a science experiment back in school. First you need to create yourself a hypothesis and then get to work proving it wrong or right. For example: “I propose that if I make my ‘Add to Basket’ button stand out more by making it a different colour with slightly bigger text and padding, then more users will notice it and be persuaded to begin their checkout journey." 05. Experiment Now that you have your baseline performance established and a hypothesis to prove, you’re ready to create some A/B tests and put them in the wild. We introduce some CRO tools in the box on the left if you’d like a starting point for available tools. Just remember to be patient until you have enough data to make an informed decision. Around 1,000 visits should be enough to clearly see the difference in performance between them. 06. Evaluate and repeat Finally, your first A/B tests are complete! Compare your results from the 1,000 (or more) visitors to your baseline conversion rates and identify the variation with the highest conversion rate. Put that version permanently live on your website and reap the rewards of your hard work. Now go back through the process, find the next biggest problem within your website, ensure your baseline data is collected, evaluate the page to see what may be the problem, create a hypothesis that you anticipate will solve it and then experiment with options! This article was originally published in issue 301 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 301 or subscribe to net. Eager to keep upping your digital marketing game? Sarah Parmenter is giving her talk Digital Marketing Strategies for the Busy “Web Master” at Generate London from 19-21 September 2018 If you're interested in learning more about marketing, make sure you've picked up your ticket for Generate London from 19-21 September 2018. An award-winning designer with clients including Adobe, Ellen Degeneres, Apple, Blackberry and News International, Sarah Parmenter will be delivering her keynote – Digital Marketing Strategies for the Busy “Web Master” – in which she will discuss the idea of quarterly website design reviews with a “design once use everywhere” mantra. She will also dig into the ever-changing world of Instagram algorithms, Facebook marketing and topical social media takeaways for immediate implementation. Generate London takes place from 19-21 September 2018. Get your ticket now. Related articles: 7 ways to simplify your ecommerce site 7 essential SEO tips for developers Promote your brand with content marketing View the full article

A type of card-not-present fraud is spreading throughout the Latin American underground, uniting groups of malefactors in a communal effort to perpetrate it as widely as possible. View the full article

The use of Dome lights has been one of the greatest advancements in CGI creation over the past decade. Bathing a scene from every direction used to be computationally intensive, but with advances in both hardware and software, the Dome light has emerged as an efficient way to start lighting your 3D art. This is because a Dome light can embed an image-based light image (IBL, also known as HDRIs). This is a single image of a real environment or one created by an artist which, when mapped into a Dome light, instantly re-creates the lighting environment. These images are usually saved in a 32-bit format that captures nearly the full range of available light, and allows lighting to be created with a rolling falloff with no ugly clipping or banding. As the images have a full range of captured light they can be adjusted either with more power or less to help set the desired mood of the image. 12 tips for realistic 3D lighting While there are applications that can create IBLs, there are countless images available that re-create everything from a rocky vista to a photography studio. Dome lights are also highly computationally efficient, which means it can be a good idea to use a spherical camera in an existing scene to create a HDRI map of the background. Placing that in a scene creates no loss of light fidelity, but enables the artist to concentrate on the primary geometry with little slowdown. The biggest caveat with using Dome lights is that they solve so many problems that it can be easy to neglect other light types. This can be a mistake, as adding extra light to highlight key objects will always make a scene feel more alive than just using a Dome light. What is a Dome light? Dome lights give your 3D work a studio look A Dome light in its simplest form is a light object that surrounds the scene in a constant white light from all directions. As soon as a Dome light (Skydome or Environment are other commonly used terms) is placed it creates an instantly pleasing soft 'studio' look, which would be hard to re-create with any other type of single light object. Be warned that not all applications show the Dome light as a visible object, especially when it is for a third-party render solution. 01. Colour a Dome light Colour gradients can give you interesting visual results While Dome lights are most commonly associated as a base for image-based light sources, this doesn't mean that there aren't other ways to light a scene with them. One of the easiest and most powerful ways for a creative effect is to use a ramp or gradient texture to feed in a range of colours into the Dome light, to produce a more interesting look. As the Dome light is a physical object in the scene it can be rotated to easily adjust the look you are after. 02. Use image-based lighting Use 32-bit HDR images for best lighting results Using an image with a Dome light is a really effective way to add a much more realistic look to a scene. High Dynamic Range images which contain a full 32 bits of colour data are the best format to use with a Dome light, as they allow exposure to be adjusted without any clipping. Otherwise, the coloured areas in an image can either go to white or black as there is not enough colour data, which can in turn create some ugly, unwanted image artefacts. 03. Eliminate the background Hide the light image for better results and faster renders While many HDRIs come with additional background images, it is still a good idea to ensure that the HDRI is invisible to the alpha channel and potentially to the camera itself. This means that the Dome light is only lighting the geometry and creating interesting reflections rather than getting in the way where it is not needed, such as skies. Also, not having the background enabled can save on render speed, as the computer only needs to render the areas that are visible. This article was originally published in 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 233 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Related articles: How to create a diffuse light in a 3D scene Octane Lighting Essentials review How to achieve better lighting with V-Ray View the full article

This issue we take a look at not just some incredible projects (from Adam to Altered Carbon) but also an in-depth look at some of the tools used to create some of the environments used in them. We explore invisible visual effects to uncover some of the astounding work carried out that isn't explosions, superheroes or aliens. We bring you some of the best training, to help you build your skill set to include the creation of jointed models in Zbrush, animatable vehicles using iClone, as well as our regular Q and A section. > Buy 3D World issue #235 now Not only that but we cast our expert eye over the latest releases, to help you decide what's the best investment for your time and money. This month we take a good look at Substance and Zbrush 2018. Tutorial: Create action figures Create poseable action figures with this Zbrush training In this tutorial Brodie Perkins shows you his process for creating poseable action figures, using Zbrush. A great way to breathe new life into an old scene file and a truly useful skill to learn. Feature: Invisible effects We explore some of the unsung heroes of the visual effects world In this in-depth feature Ian Failes explores some of the shots you might not expect to be heavily effects laden. We are all used to seeing huge spaceships exploding, dinosaurs on the rampage or giant robots stampeding through cities but there is much more to vfx. This feature explores some of the unsung heroes of the visual effects world. Feature: Altered Carbon We investigate the creation of a future Earth We investigate the creation of a future earth, for Netflix' Altered Carbon. We talk to VFX supervisor Everett Burrall, to get the low down on how the team put together this astounding vfx work. Feature: The Beyond Explore the sci-fi creation of a vfx artist turned director. Visual effects artist turned director Hasraf Dulull chats to us about his sci-fi feature film; The Beyond. Tutorial: iClone vehicles Animate vehicles in iClone Tutorial: Tiny Worlds Learn to create macro cinematography In this tutorial Greg Barta shows you his workflow, tips and tricks for creating macro cinematography, using the standard tools you use for your other 3D projects. You might also like these 3D articles: 37 brilliant Blender tutorials 30 inspiring examples of 3D art How VR is revolutionising the creation of 3D art View the full article

Since 2001, the Mental Health Foundation has run Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK with the aim of raising awareness of mental health issues and promoting the message of good mental health for all. The creative industries have their fair share of mental health problems, and this year – as in many others – artists have taken to Twitter and Instagram to share artwork that captures their experiences of mental illness or acts as a support to others suffering. We spoke to five of the artists who have used their artwork to capture their experience of mental health issues. Click the icon in the top-right corner of each image to see the full-size version. 01. Cat Finnie Finnie's image explores the idea that depression can feel like being under your own personal raincloud Cat Finnie is an illustrator based in London, UK. She likes to create concept-driven digital art, often bringing in elements of the surreal. Finnie created the above illustration especially for Mental Health Awareness Week. "This image is based on the idea of opening up about mental health," she explains. "I wanted to capture the idea that depression can feel like being under your own personal cloud. I hope people can relate to my image and know that they're not alone." 02. Shawn Coss Coss' work explores themes of mental illness and depression Shawn Coss is an artist from Akron, Ohio, who creates work with a focus on mental Illness. The drawing above – entitled The Glass – was created on a flight to a comic convention last year. "I had been toying with the idea for a few months but wasn’t sure how to execute it. Apparently the turbulence and humming of a jet engine was enough to start pumping my creative energy, and I went to work," explains Coss. "That year was a wonderful year in terms of self-discovery. Learning to embrace my own battles with depression was liberating but terrifying. The overwhelming response, though, has made it easier to open up. In the end, we’re all humans, and we’re all looking to connect with one another." 03. Holly Chisolm Chisolm uses comics as a form of journalling Holly Chisolm is a designer and illustrator who started making comics as a form of journaling after she was diagnosed with depression in December 2016. For this year's Mental Health Awareness Week she decided to post a new comic each day. "Weirdly enough, this was a tough week for me emotionally, and I found myself grateful that I had decided to do daily comics, because they keep me grounded and help me process through things," she says. Chisolm notes that many people don't realise that mental illness can actually affect your physical health, rather than being a purely emotional issue. "My happiest moments are when people message me asking questions, because there is a lot of fear and confusion about mental illness," she continues. "I hope my comics can help people question their assumptions about what it means to be depressed, and perhaps even spur those who need help to get it." 04. Sanda Sanda works under the alias Broken Isn't Bad Sanda is an artist based in Croatia who shares her work under the artist name Broken Isn't Bad. Her black-and-white, line-based, minimalist drawings. "My art has always been a salvation for me personally," she explains. "Through it I want to inspire and encourage others to pursue their dreams and live their life passionately, to find that invincible power which connects them with their inner self, to accept all their beautiful imperfections and create a positive relationship with themselves." 05. Toby Allen Allen's Real Monsters put a face to invisible or misrepresented illnesses Toby Allen is a freelance illustrator working on games and children's books. His Real Monsters project aims to spread awareness about lesser-known or misrepresented mental illnesses, and help reduce the stigma surrounding them. "The Anxiety monster is based on my own experiences with the illness," he says. "It helps to put a face to something very invisible to the outside world." 06. Stefanie This sketch explores the idea of confronting your demons Stefanie is a designer and illustrator based in Graz, Austria. Sharing her drawings on Instagram has helped connect her with others struggling with their own mental health issues around the world. This sketch represents the depths you have to delve to in order to confront your demons and improve your mental health, perhaps in a therapy setting. "Putting up a fight with your own monsters is incredibly hard, but it is so worth it," she comments. "That is why people struggling with mental health issues might be among the toughest you'll ever meet." Read more: How to cope with burnout 20 illustrators to follow on Instagram How art can be a healing technique View the full article

So you've got a perfect design portfolio, you've mastered all the nuances of responsive web design and your user experience skills are tip top, but there's something holding you back from progressing in your career. Sometimes, to get better at your day job, you need to look a little outside your particular specialism. You could take on a side project, try a new creative hobby, or simply pick a cutting-edge new area to skill up in. We asked seven top web professionals what they were planning on doing to add some new strings to their bow. 01. Game development Tools like Unity have made game development more accessible “I love playing video games (at the moment I’m currently hooked on Stardew Valley), and there are some really great ones coming out from indie developers that I follow on Twitter,” says frontend developer Anna Debenham. “Watching them share their progress of crafting walking (as well as dancing) bears, and teaching cubes to chase a banana using machine learning, is something that has really inspired me.” Game development software is becoming more and more accessible for beginners, and platforms such as VR are opening up possibilities for more confident web pros. Debenham plans to try her hand at building a 3D game using Unity. Get started: Build your own WebGL physics game 02. iPad design Learning to design on an iPad takes a little dedication There are plenty of great painting apps to help you create artwork on the go, but it takes time and effort to make the most of them. Web designer and frontend developer Katherine Cory finally invested in an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil last year, with the aim of using Procreate to create amazing digital paintings, but is still getting to grips with the new workflow. “I naively thought I’d start creating work as great as the time-lapses I see on Instagram, but after a few hours of playing and only creating scribbles, I’ve realised it’s a skill I need to learn,” she smiles. “I’ve signed up to an Udemy course and have joined Skillshare. Hopefully, by the end of the year I’ll be creating designs like a pro (pun intended).” Get started: Paint a classic fairy tale scene with Procreate 03. Artificial intelligence AI raises ethical questions for developers Digital transformation consultant Sally Lait started playing with neural networks last year, and she’s keen to expand her skills. While AI isn’t something she aims to offer directly to her clients, Lait thinks it’s an important area for web professional to be aware of. “With AI being a growing corner of tech where there’s a lot of hype and even greater amounts of ethical concerns, I’d like more hands-on, practical experience to better inform my knowledge of these important issues,” she explains. “I see it as my responsibility to experience and understand the impact that different technologies can have.” Get started: How the intelligent web will change our interactions 04. Podcasting Podcasts are a great way to immerse yourself in the web industry “2018 is the year to get back to combining technology with stories from real people, therefore I’m relearning a skill from years ago: podcasting!” announces frontend developer and consultant Jenn Lukas. Lukas used to co-host the Ladies in Tech podcast, and will be reprising her skills with a new show No, You Go alongside CEO Katel LeDû and Sara Wachter-Boettcher. To get the podcast launched smoothly she’ll be learning the new WordPress updates, refreshing her audio editing, and brushing up on interviewing skills. Get started: 18 great web design podcasts 05. Soft skills Brushing up on skills like communication can really pay off Don’t forget ‘soft’ skills such as communication and persuasion. Improving these can have a massive effect on your career. Over the coming months, Make Us Proud’s Inayaili de León Persson aims to focus on design leadership and research, to suit where her career is currently headed. “I’ve been reading a lot of books and articles, and watching talks around these subjects, and I’m planning to attend some conferences too – and, of course, learning on the job,” she shares. Get started: How to network successfully 06. AR and VR VR is a completely different ball game An area that’s getting a lot of attention at the moment is virtual reality and augmented reality. In order to understand the possibilities and the limitations in this medium, creative director Shane Mielke plans to spend some time getting to grips with the new tools that are making VR and AR more accessible, including Unity and ARKit. “By understanding the tools and process, I can more confidently solve design and navigation problems in a world that doesn’t follow the standards of the web-only projects that I have most of my experience in,” he explains. Get started: The VR web is here 07. A rounded approach Don't panic over every hot new tool or technique While all these new tools and techniques are exciting, if you try and learn every new thing that comes along, you’ll find yourself running to stand still. So if reading this list is putting you into a panic, worry not. “If you can think algorithmically, share your skills, work with a team and empathise with users, there will always be work,” councils Web Standards specialist Bruce Lawson. “Being rounded is the skill I want to develop.” This article was originally published in net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 304 or subscribe. Read more: The complete guide to SVG 5 web typography trends to look out for The dos and don'ts of perfect portfolios View the full article

Games are very much part of our daily routine now, whether you're playing a game on your PC or tapping away on your phone. If you've ever thought of creating your own, now you can go from playing games to building them with the 30-Minute Unity Bootcamp Bundle, on sale for just $19.99 (approx. £15). The 30-Minute Unity Bootcamp Bundle is your chance to turn your game obsession into something more productive. All you need is half an hour a day to work through these crash course style lessons. This bundle is packed with the knowledge you need to go from exploring virtual worlds to building them. From physics to controls, and everything in between, the 30-Minute Unity Bootcamp Bundle has all of the courses that you need to get your start as a game developer. You can get the 30-Minute Unity Bootcamp Bundle on sale for just $19.99 (approx. £15)! That’s a savings of 95% off the retail price for a bundle that is sure to please any aspiring game developer, so grab this deal today! View the full article

Ulrike Rausch is a type designer and letterer, and the founder of her own type foundry, LiebeFonts. Her studio is dedicated to crafting handwriting fonts with love, with the likes of KFC using her lettering to give its branding a personal touch. In her talk at TYPO Berlin 2018 (tune in to the livestream here), Rausch shattered some of the romantic illusions surrounding font design and pointed out that handwritten fonts can go from unique to boring very quickly if they’re used unimaginatively. So how do typographers keep their work fresh? In her talk, 'Brush, Ink and Code - The Making of a Font', Rausch revealed some advice for combining digital know-how with traditional methods in order to create a handwritten font with a sense of individuality. Here are some of the key tips from the talk, which Rausch says help “preserve the liveliness of irregularities.” 01. Create handwritten alternatives LiebeDoris was used for a KFC campaign Repetition of letter shapes can kill the charm of a handwritten font dead in the water. After all, even the neatest human handwriting contains subtle idiosyncrasies between one use of a letter and the next. Why should handwriting fonts have an uncanny sense of uniformity about them? One way around this is to create handwritten alternatives. This is what Rausch did for her KFC lettering, with the project taking around a year and a half to complete thanks to this extra level of effort with the type design. By creating different variations of each letter by hand, the branding team had the flexibility to shake-up the lettering in its marketing and stop the font from becoming stale. 02. Use OpenType features LiebeLotte offers a variety of ligatures and alternates via OpenType features If there was one message Rausch was keen for typographers to take away from her talk, it was to use OpenType features. If you’re unfamiliar with OpenType features, don’t worry. According to Rausch, design software tries its hardest to hide these features from its users. So what are they? Put simply, they’re a series of tools that make fonts look and behave differently, which is perfect for changing characters in handwritten fonts. When used with a batch of handwritten alternatives, OpenType features, in particular the contextual alternate feature, are a way of jumbling up the occurrence of a letterform. There’s a lot of scope for flexibility with OpenType features. For example, they can be programmed to sniff out repetitions of a letter shape that appears twice in a row, or multiple times in the same sentence. Perfect for keeping handwritten fonts lively. 03. Make sure the client uses the features Rausch's work for KFC didn't live up to its potential... because the client didn't turn on the OpenType features If OpenType features are hard for designers to find and use, just think how difficult it is for clients with no typography skills. For Rausch, her KFC lettering was sure to be the pride of her portfolio, with the alternate lettering set to spice up the fast food chain’s marketing. This wasn’t quite the case. When she saw it in reality, the lettering had that handwritten yet uniform look she dreaded. The reason? KFC had not turned on the OpenType alternate features option when it came to writing out its branding messages. 04. Beware the glyph palette LiebeGerda comes alive with OpenType magic – most characters three variations that are automatically shuffled and inserted as you type Even if you’ve been extra careful and alerted the client to the OpenType alternate features, this doesn’t mean you’re home and dry yet. That’s because each piece of design software, as well as making OpenType features hard to find, apparently doesn’t make them straightforward to use, either. One particular glitch Rausch pointed out could be found in the glyph palette. If this is opened up while working with a set of alternate fonts it has the annoying habit of turning off the contextual alternate feature. Definitely one to point out to your client before you see your hard work become another repetitive handwritten font out out in the wild. Related articles: 8 elegant script fonts 23 great places to download fonts for free 19 top free brush fonts View the full article

Professional artists share how 3D software can take your digital art to the next level in ImagineFX 162 - on sale now! Acting as a medium in itself or as a framework for other tools, 3D software have a range of creative possibilities. With concept and games artists possibly best suited to benefiting from 3D software, we talk to 5518 Studios to hear how they incorporated the tools into their workflow. Meanwhile in our in depth workshop we learn from Adam Dewhirst how to quickly work up a 3D concpet using ZBrush and Photoshop. Buy issue 162 of ImagineFX here Elsewhere in issue 162 we hear from Ara Kermanikian how to model a sci-fi composition model ready to be painted over. It's not all 3D fun though, as there are plenty of traditional art workshops to enjoy, including Nicolas Delort's pen tutorial which explores how to draw an iconic fantasy encounter. Topped off with all the latest news, reviews and reader art in our FXPose, you won't want to miss ImagineFX issue 162. Check out what's in store by taking a look over the lead features, below. Never miss an issue: Subscribe to ImagineFX here Add a new dimension Learn why you need to add 3D to your skill set Is 3D software the shortcut to a creative career? Or does it depend on which route you decide to take your art? We talk to artists who use 3D software in a variety of ways to find out how artists can benefit by adding technical wizardry to their artistic tool belt. Artist portfolio: Pablo Carpio Pablo Carpio went from having no job to working for Disney When it comes to carving out a career as an artist, there can be moments when you have to take a leap into the unknown. That's just what happened to Pablo Carpio as he found himself with no job, no leads, but a lot of ambition. We talk to the artist to hear how he made it and ended up working on AAA games. Find your motivation Get out of your creative slump with these tips An artistic funk can strike anyone at any level of their career. To help you out of your creative doldrums, Mel Milton is on hand to share his tried and tested motivational tips. Tackling everything from goals and challenges to dreaming big, this advice is sure to give your creativity a kick start. VR sculpting workshop Technology has finally caught up with VR Artists with their finger on the pulse will be all too aware that the industry seems to be going through something of a VR renaissance. Thanks to easier access to powerful computers, more and more artists now have the chance to harness the possibilities of the VR medium. Glen Southern shows you how to sculpt a character for VR with this workshop. Master watercolour basics Tame the tricky medium with these tips Thanks to its habit of running away with itself, watercolours have a bit of a reputation with artists. Kelly McKernan argues that this protean nature is something to be celebrated as she walks us through the basics of watercolour in this new core skills series. ImagineFX is the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists – packed with workshops and interviews with fantasy and sci-fi artists, plus must-have kit reviews. Related articles: 30 top examples of 3D art New Illustrator plugin lets 2D designers easily work in 3D Bring 3D tools into your 2D art View the full article

The company urges customers to patch three vulnerabilities that received the highest severity rating of 10. View the full article

Threatpost talked to several security researchers about what's changed in the past year. View the full article

Following hot on the heels of this year’s successful Generate New York, tickets for Generate London 2018 are now officially on sale. And if you’re quick off the mark you can gain all the expert web design insight and advice on offer at an even better price: we're offering 50 early-bird tickets to the country’s premier web-design event. You can pick up a two-day or three-day pass for £100 off the usual price! > Buy your Early Bird ticket for £100 off Taking place once again at London’s Royal Institution, the home of the Christmas Lectures, from 19-21 September, Generate London is a three-day event packed full of inspiration, education and networking opportunities. Generate kicks off with a day of workshops, it transitions into two single-track conference days offering talks from world-class web designers. Here’s just a taste of what you can expect: Sarah Parmenter Having cut her teeth working for clients such as Adobe, Ellen Degeneres, Apple, and News International, and picked up Designer of the Year at the 2011 net awards, few people know the world of high-profile web design like Sarah Parmenter. Her keynote at Generate will dive into the subject of quarterly website design reviews with a “design once use everywhere” mantra, plus digging into the ever changing world of Instagram algorithms, Facebook marketing, and topical social media takeaways. Sara Soueidan Sara is an award-winning freelance front-end UI developer and author from Lebanon with clients including Netflix, The Royal Schiphol Group and Smashing Magazine. Her Generate keynote will serve up a wide range of possibilities for improving the overall user experience of your UI using CSS (with sprinkles of SVG and JavaScript here and there). Bruce Lawson 'Shokunin' is a Japanese word often translated as 'artisan’. But the woodwork master craftsman Tasio Odate writes, "such a literal description does not fully express the deeper meaning. The Japanese apprentice is taught that shokunin means not only having technical skills, but also implies an attitude and social consciousness … The shokunin has a social obligation to work his/her best for the general welfare of the people." Following this lead in his keynote, Bruce Lawson, the web standards consultant to Wix and former deputy CTO at Opera, will look at the web standards and the mindset required to be a Shokunin of the web. Marpi Marcinowski Marpi Marcinowski is a Polish-born San-Francisco-based digital artist who currently works with Obscura as director of web and experiential design. His artworks are interactive, scalable, and multiplatform, giving anyone ability to shape them, and create their own. His talk will take you on a journey through all interactive media and technologies and how anyone can create their own generative worlds and interact with one another. Richard Rutter In Douglas Adams’ novels, Dirk Gently is a "holistic detective" who makes use of "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things" to solve crime. Through a series of stories, Richard Rutter, the co-founder of Clearleft and Fontdeck, will use his talk to show you how to be like Dirk and work out which of a service’s pieces need to fit together, determine how well they meet user needs and rebuild them from the ground up so that they do. Steven Roberts Sure we all know about the power of CSS transitions, we use them day in and day out to animate the state of a button or link; but CSS is capable of so much more, especially when paired with SVG and it’s about time we started utilising it. Learn the best tools for the job with front-end designer and developer Steven Roberts in his talk recreating some of the best animations the web has to offer, while discovering the possibilities and limitations of animating with just CSS. With so many great speakers on offer and many more still to be announced, it’s safe to say that the 50 early-bird tickets will sell out fast. So make sure you grab your ticket while they last. Related articles: 10 new web design tools for April 2018 10 reasons to attend Generate NYC 2018 10 fantastic new web design tools for March 2018 View the full article

Moving from print to digital, there's one obvious and important difference to consider when it comes to typography. Unlike with print, in digital design, your type is not going to remain static. "Printed type can be tightly controlled, with the outcome exactly as the designer intended," says Jack Statham, mid-weight designer at Ragged Edge. "But typography on-screen may be rendered with varying levels of detail for different users, depending on their device." That doesn't mean typography loses its importance, though; quite the reverse. "In recent years, web and app design has rid itself of superfluous decoration and now gives more space to content, and therefore to text," explains Massimiliano Frangi, senior design director at CBA Italy. "So the choice of a great font is now a key element for the success of a web project." In recent years, web and app design has rid itself of superfluous decoration Jack Statham Nowadays, specialist web fonts are optimised to display as cleanly and consistently as possible across multiple devices and screen resolutions. "Often, typefaces designed for print have ink traps and a high contrast in stroke-width," says Statham. "Typefaces designed for the web usually feature more consistent stroke weights, higher x-heights, and more open bowls and counters." All this means that if your design is going to work, look good, and be legible on multiple devices, screen sizes and orientations, then choosing the right font carefully and displaying it correctly is essential. Legibility is key "Just because a typeface is beautiful doesn’t mean it will readable in all sizes," says Martha Lisboa, digital designer at CBA Paris. "So avoid crazy typefaces, condensed styles and letterforms with thin strokes. And be aware that type effects such as shadows or bevels may look great at larger sizes but won’t work on small screens. "In short, go with something simple and of a standard weight to ensure readability on all devices, especially for long paragraphs of text." When it comes to typesetting, hierarchy is always important, but it becomes especially so when people are using your interactive design to achieve a goal, says Statham. "You have a limited area in which to set type and reduced navigation and wayfinding elements," he points out. "So a clear type hierarchy helps a user to quickly find their way around the screen, and acts as a bit of a shorthand for the user to digest the information on screen." Fifteen's Nottingham Hospitals website design features a friendly, handwriting style font Alexandra Lofthouse, senior UX designer at Fifteen, agrees, and reminds us that people don't generally use apps to read massive paragraphs of text. "So text should to be easy to read and digest," she stresses. "This comes down to the tone of voice used throughout the copy, and the typographic style fusing together in an interesting and an engaging way." And of course, legibility is hugely important in digital. "Especially in long passages of text, the goal is to make typography 'invisible', in that the user is able to pass over a paragraph quickly, without having to focus too hard on each letterform," says Statham. He advises you "pay attention to paragraph measure; keep them to between 45-75 characters. Provide generous spacing between lines: aim for a minimum line height of 1.5 for body copy. Aim for a slight increase in tracking, to give type room to breathe. And choose a reasonable point size: actual character size varies between fonts, but 16px is a good minimum." Accessible typography Colour is also an important consideration when it comes to legibility, he notes. "Backlit screens can increase the contrast between pure black and white, which can be tiring on the eyes, so using a softer black for text or pale grey background can make text more readable. Also there are a few apps, such as Contrast, which we often use to help ensure any colour combinations in a body of text are compliant with current accessibility standards." Lee Carroll, interaction designer at Seymourpowell, offers similar advice. "Watch out for lack of contrast between text and background colours," he says. "Use the Snook.ca colour contrast checker to ensure the ratio is high enough for a double-A or triple-A standard of accessibility." He also suggests remembering that it might not be the colour alone that needs to change to solve some of these issues, sometimes a thicker weight or bigger text is what’s needed to increase the contrast. Massimiliano Frangi's redesign for De Nigris aimed to captivate viewers through its narrative And all that's just for starters: in 2018, the field is evolving at breakneck pace. "The technology that we use to view type is constantly changing, and so the requirements of type on screen is changing too," says Statham. "Prototypo, for example, has some incredible features in its typefaces which allow you to use one font file for several instances. You might have finer serifs on your headlines than in your captions at smaller sizes, say, or decrease the width of characters on narrower viewports. Browser support is increasing all the time, so we're hoping to utilise this soon." And staying ahead of this curve also means being on good terms with your more technically minded colleagues, says Dan Bradshaw, design director at TH_NK. "One of the main differences with digital typography compared with print is that once you’ve designed it, it needs to be built," he points out. "So get friendly with a developer if you're not too familiar with the code side of things, to ensure your designs can be brought to life justas you've laid them out." This article was originally published in Computer Arts, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 277 here or subscribe to Computer Arts here. Related articles: 5 typography trends for 2018 50 top typography tutorials Better web typography in 13 simple steps View the full article

You're reading Designing a Portfolio Website with Oversized Typography, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! The goal of any portfolio site is to showcase your work. That’s a given. But you also want to sell your work in a way that grabs attention. You can do this with visuals, or by focusing just on content. Or by … View the full article

Hit the icon in the top right to see the final image full size For this video Photoshop tutorial, I'll be taking you through the art techniques and tools that I use to create full-colour images from a greyscale line art starting point. This method will work with any layer setup, workflow and Photoshop brushes, and I'll be demonstrating my approach using Photoshop's default tools. For this walkthrough I'll be working with an ink drawing that I love from fellow artist Hunter Bonyun. Some previous knowledge of how to use masks and layer groups is useful to have before going into this tutorial, but experience using them within a workflow isn't necessary. You'll notice that I point out my personal preferences when tackling a certain step. Nothing's set in stone, especially where painting is concerned, so feel free to adapt my approaches to your own creative workflow! Watch the video tutorial below, or scroll down for some expert tips. Tip 01: Use adjustment layers I like to use adjustment layers because they are a non-destructive way of colourising. Furthermore, I can either go back into them and adjust them when I have more tones down, or pile them on top of each other for a better effect. This is true whether I'm colourising or just adjusting the balance of my work. 02. Play with local colour Trying to get all of the colours to feel right more or less on your first attempt can feel overwhelming. My method can be used to put down local colours instead. You can then adjust them after the image is in place, without any destructive or negative effects. 03. Take care with photo textures If I'm working with photo textures within a piece that has a painterly style, then it's crucial not to leave them as is, or as the final step in texturing. Painting on top of the textures enables me to create a tactile feeling without the dissonance of combining photorealism with non-realistic pieces. The print version of this tutorial appeared in ImagineFX magazine. Subscribe here. Read more: Photoshop shortcuts to speed up your workflow How to improve your character drawing The best Photoshop plugins View the full article

Social media is a fantastic way to promote yourself or your business – it can increase awareness of your brand, bolster your design portfolio, improve your site's SEO, and help you to genuinely connect with your customers. It's easy to set up a social media page, but gaining traction and turning handfuls of followers into thousands and thousands of engaged users is tough. How to create a killer social media campaign There's no magic formula to success in social media, and it can feel like it's taking a very long time to attract the right followers. There are some social media tricks and some basic rules you can follow to help things along. However, these vary between social media platforms, so we've zoned in on five power tips for each of the three main players: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you follow this advice, and remain patient during the lulls in follower activity, you will be well on the path to audience engagement. On this page we look at Facebook, and on the following pages you'll find power tips for Twitter and Instagram. Let's dive straight in… Facebook power tips Image credit: Tim Bennett 01. Get local If you are only going to do one thing with social media from now on then it should be this. Join as many local community groups as possible and post regularly in them. Get known, provide advice, answer questions. Just participate. People buy from people they know. So make sure everyone knows you. 02. Know your audience Every single Facebook tip boils down to one thing. Get to know the people around you, and make sure they know you. Talk to people, answer their questions for free, be the guy everyone likes, the first person they think of. Then when they need something, you’ll have already sold it. 03. Share memes People love to share funny pictures. The picture itself isn’t going to get you any business, but becoming known as a person who is funny isn’t going to do you any harm at all. Social media is about interaction. Be the person that everyone likes. Try to make what you share relevant… 04. Integrate email marketing Do you have a regular newsletter? If not then shame on you, go start one now. Then integrate the sign up with your Facebook page. There’s no point in going to all of the effort of making people like you if you don’t leverage it to get an opportunity to pitch your business. 05. Retarget We know it kinda goes against the ethos of this list to suggest you simply pay for adverts, but Facebook’s retargeting system rocks. And even better it doesn’t have to cost much. The more people see you the more likely they are to buy, so retarget to make sure they see you again! Recommended app: Tabsite Tabsite adds features to your Facebook page This tool enables you to create tabs in Facebook, so you can run competitions, sweepstakes, and special offers. Next page: Tips for making the most of Twitter Twitter power tips 01. Tweet a lot The average lifespan of a single tweet is measured in minutes. Even assuming you have a good audience then tweeting once a day is only ever going to reach a tiny fraction of them. You should be aiming to post multiple times a day. Retweet yourself if you have to. 02. Become the expert If you aren’t tweeting links to interesting articles about your industry then you are missing a trick. Portray yourself as being knowledgeable and at the cutting edge without having to write your own content. That a real win-win situation. 03. Start a conversation It seems a little odd to think of Twitter as a place for conversations when you remember the character limit, but it really is. Answer people, compliment them, thank them for retweeting you. Show them the person behind the tweets, and you will reap the rewards. 04. Use moving pictures Everyone likes a good GIF right? Get yourself over to Giphy and start using them as answers. You’d be amazed at how many conversations are taking place on Twitter right now with nothing but GIFs. Come and join in. 05. Ride the coat-tails of fame Tag people. The more followers the better. Make sure they are relevant to your business, and your tweet is relevant to them. All it takes is one retweet, or reply from a big name in your industry for people to notice you. Recommended app: Tweetdeck Control multiple accounts and see various feeds at once in Tweetdeck Do you want to manage multiple Twitter streams at the same time? Then TweetDeck is the app for you. Next page: Last, but by no means least, Instagram... Instagram power tips Image credit: Hans Vivek 01. Get on brand Creating a content strategy helps keep you on track when deciding what to post. Make a recognisable look for everything you do and soon people will start to know it is you before they even see your name. Help your potential customers see the world your way to make them feel connected. 02. #UseHashtags Hashtags are massive on Instagram. Unlike on other social media sites where they have been shown to have a negative effect, hashtags genuinely help people find your content. Use trending hashtags to get visibility, and create your own brand hashtags for others to use. Just make sure that you monitor them! 03. Connect with video Because Instagram is so focused on photo sharing, people often forget about video. Lots of people don’t bother because of the length restrictions, but if you’re happy to record live then you can have video of up to an hour in length. 04. Remember the community Whatever your feelings about Instagram, it’s still social media. Which means it’s about interaction. Like your customers’ pics, especially if they have your products in them. Reply to comments on your images, and make sure to comment on other people’s. Don’t forget to tag people too! 05. Run competitions As a general rule of thumb the sort of person who is active on Instagram is creative and likes taking pictures. Running a competition with a specific hashtag is a lovely way to drive awareness of your brand while letting people do what they already like to do anyway. Recommended app: Hootsuite Hootsuite helps take control of Instagram scheduling along with all your other social media accounts Many professional marketers would be lost without Hootsuite. It’s a one-stop-shop for everything social. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 270 or subscribe. Related articles: How to launch a successful Kickstarter How to start a blog: 11 pro tips 10 best portfolio templates for designers View the full article

Building your website doesn’t necessarily mean hours upon hours of coding. And protecting it shouldn't take a cybersecurity expert. With WordPress Build and Host Bundle, the entire process is made easy with Dragify and SSDPage. Get a lifetime subscription to this can't-miss bundle, on sale now for 96% off the retail price! While it's good to know how to code and work with programming languages, developing a professional website doesn’t always require specialised expertise. Dragify offers 44 prebuilt elements you can move around freely, enabling you to create the perfect setup in no time. Once your site is ready to go live, you can host it with SSDPage's Anti-Hacker Web Hosting, which provides enterprise-level security to your site to keep it safe. A lifetime subscription to the services in the WordPress Build and Host Bundle usually costs $1,344.40, but you can save 96% off the retail price. That's a huge saving for two essential tools for any web designer, so grab this deal today! View the full article

You're reading This WordPress Theme Follows the Latest Design Trends – and the Results are Stunning!, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! How to stay relevant, if you are a web designer? You need to put in the time and effort needed to keep pace with the latest design trends. As is the case with the latest technologies, new trends in design … View the full article

Once you've mastered the basics of object creation in Illustrator it's very easy to quickly fill a design with many vector elements, and pattern creation is a great way of doing this. Whereas once this would have involved a lot of time consuming, precise work, Illustrator now has a number of tools and tricks that make it easy to intricate repeating patterns. Get Adobe Creative Cloud Through the next five steps I'll run through my five essential tips and tricks that you need to know when embarking on pattern creation in Illustrator, including using the Patterns panel. This tutorial was completed in CS6, but the techniques we explore here can be applied to any version of the programme. To expand your vector skills further, take a look at these amazing Illustrator tutorials. 01. Create radial patterns Start by creating the shape you want to duplicate Creating radial patterns in Illustrator is quick and easy. Begin by simply creating a shape/graphic of any shape or size, in this case a simple round dot. With this selected hit 'R' for rotate and whilst holding alt+click on a point that will act as the centre of your radial pattern. In the following dialog panel enter a fraction (e.g 360/20), preview it then hit copy. Once back on the art board hit cmd+D to repeat the pattern. Simple. Enter a fraction into the dialog box 02. Use pattern fills This is perhaps the simplest way to create solid patterns One easy pattern creation technique that is often overlooked is to draw a shape and drag it into the swatches panel. You can now draw any other shape and choose this as your pattern fill, as shown above. This technique only becomes tricky if you want there to be spaces between the elements within your pattern – for solid patterns, it's perhaps the simplest approach. 03. Try the Pattern panel The Pattern panel (found under the Window menu) is where things start to get really interesting. To quickly jump to the Pattern panel simply double click on the pattern swatch – you now have a multitude of options to choose from including the tile type, brick offset, spacing and number of copies. Once upon a time all of this would have to have been set manually. When you're happy with your pattern you can save it or save a copy if you want to retain the original design. 04. Work with blends This approach is ideal for creating overlapping patterns The blend options can be used to quickly create repeating objects and can then be used within the Pattern generator. Draw two simple shapes, in this case squares. Navigate to 'Object > Blend > Blend options' and select 'Specified steps'. Enter the number of steps you'd like your blend to be, and then navigate back to 'Object > Blend' and select 'Make'. You can then drag this into your swatches panel and use it in conjunction with the Patterns panel to create some intriguing designs. Select the number of steps required in your pattern 05. Apply patterns to 3D objects Your patterns don't need to stay in two dimensions Once you have a pattern swatch set up its very easy to apply it to a 3D object. Start by creating a pattern fill on the artboard and drag this into the Symbols panel to be used later. We're going to make a cube, so we'll start with a square. Now create a cube by drawing another square and navigating to '3D > Effect > Extrude and Bevel'. Turn your pattern into a symbol to work with it Hit Preview to see how the cube will look and then click 'Map art'. In the symbol drop-down, select your pattern swatch and apply it to one of the sides. Cycle through the different sides, applying your pattern until you're satisfied with the results. Like this? Read these... The best free graphic design software The best laptops for graphic design 2018 10 huge graphic design trends to know for 2018 View the full article

Time management is one of the most difficult things to get your head round as a designer. Deadlines looming, working from home with distractions, family commitments, clients requesting amendments... it can all get a bit much. While there are many techniques to managing one's time, I find that the simple approach works best - at least for me. But works for me may not work for another, plus, things change, so being able to adapt to any situation is important. With that in mind, let's take a look at some ways to help you beat procrastination and better manage your time. 01. Use a calendar Whether you opt-in on a digital calendar, like Google Calendar, or you prefer to go old school and use a daily planner or wall calendar, there really is no better way to help manage your time. Remember, though, it takes time to keep it up-to-date, and you need to be diligent in checking it daily. Up until recently, I used a wall calendar. However, I discovered that a digital calendar offered me a lot more options – like daily reminders and the ability to always have it with me. 02. Make a to-do list Use a to-do list to help prioritise your daily tasks Okay, I won't lie... I'm not a list maker. To be honest, to-do lists intimidate me; but many people absolutely swear by them. To-do lists are a great way to keep track of what you need to do each day. If you write down the estimated time for each task, this information is really handy in helping you prioritise them. 03. Delegate Asking others for assistance is okay. Repeat: it's okay! When you delegate, you're actually managing your time in one of the most efficient ways possible. Granted, you can't delegate everything, but take a look at your task list; is there anything o that someone else can do for you? More importantly, is there anyone who can do it more efficiently? If so, consider delegating that task so you're free to work on other things. 04. Understand the power of yes and no 'Yes' and 'No' are a powerful words. In fact, did you know that you can't use one without using the other? That's right! Every time you say 'yes' to one thing, you're saying 'no' to another. Time is not infinite. We only have so much of it before the sun sets at the end of the day. Be selective in what you agree to do. Understand that saying 'no' is perfectly acceptable. 05. Take breaks, often Get out and relax! There's always time to de-stress At some point, you need to recharge yourself. If you're like me, you'll forget that even the most productive person needs a break. I once attended a conference where James Dempsey spoke about going AFK (away from keyboard) and taking time for yourself and for your family. His touching story about the relationship between him and his dad was something I needed to hear. Now, because of his talk, I take more time for myself and my family. The picture above was taken during one of my breaks. 06. Use software to help Many apps have been designed to help you to control and monitor your time I mentioned calendars and to-do lists, but this article would be remiss if I didn't provide a few options for how to manage them. While this list is certainly not all inclusive, it will give you a starting point. Fantastical: An excellent way to manage your calendar. I use it to keep my personal appointments in order. Trello: I use this every day to keep my tasks in order – everything I'm working on gets a Trello Board. I can share my boards with other team members so we can all participate in getting the job done. Google Keep: A fantastic, easy-to-use list app. Use this through its website via the iOS or Android App. Managing your time isn't easy, especially when you have a lot to do, or a lot of people counting on you. It can run even the strongest person into the dirt. But with a little structure and maybe some digital help, even the busiest person can be happy and productive. Related articles: Design a portfolio that packs a punch How art can be a healing technique How to manage a huge client View the full article

Managing my time is one of the most difficult things I have to do. Over the years, I've discovered what works and what doesn't. While there are many techniques to managing one's time, I find that the simple approach works best — at least for me. I also believe that what works for one person may not work for another. Also, things change. Being able to adapt to any situation is important. So with that in mind, let's take a look at some ways to help you better manage your time. 01. Use a calendar A calendar helps to put your tasks into perspective Whether you opt-in on a digital calendar, like Google Calendar, or you prefer to go old school and use a daily planner or wall calendar, there really is no better way to help manage your time. Remember, though, it takes time to keep it up-to-date, and you need to be diligent in checking it daily. Up until recently, I used a wall calendar. However, I discovered that a digital calendar offered me a lot more options – like daily reminders and the ability to always have it with me. 02. Make a to-do list Ticking off your tasks is satisfying and stops them from stressing you out Okay, I won't lie... I'm not a list maker. To be honest, to-do lists intimidate me; but for many people, they absolutely swear by them. On a recent episode of Invisible Red, my co-host, Angela Scott, explains how she uses to-do lists to help keep track of what she must do each day. She talks about how she writes down the estimated time for each task, and then how she uses that information to help prioritize things. Speaking of which... 03. Prioritise your tasks Self-impose deadlines if they haven't been imposed on you Being able to prioritize your tasks is another fantastic time management technique. While it may not be possible to do everything on your list in one day, you need to find a way to decide what's required now, and what can be put off until later. Pro-tip: deadlines help. The bottom line... master the skill of prioritization, and you're well on your way to becoming a Time Lord. 04. Delegate Delegation is a difficult hurdle to overcome Asking others for assistance is okay. Repeat: it's okay! It doesn't mean you're weak. When you delegate, you're actually managing your time in one of the most efficient ways possible. Granted, you can't delegate everything, but take a look at your task list; is there anything listed that someone else can do for you? More importantly, is there anyone who can do it more efficiently? If so, consider delegating that task so you're free to work on other things. 05. Understand the power of yes and no Knowing when to say yes and no is crucial to good time management 'Yes' and 'No' are a powerful words. In fact, did you know that you can't use one without using the other? That's right! Every time you say 'yes' to one thing, you're saying 'no' to another. Time is not infinite. We only have so much of it before the sun sets at the end of the day. Be selective in what you agree to do. Understand that saying 'no' is perfectly acceptable. 06. Take breaks, often Get out and relax! There's always time to de-stress At some point, you need to recharge yourself. If you're like me, you'll forget that even the most productive person needs a break. In February, I had the privilege of hearing James Dempsey speak at RWDevCon 2016 about going AFK (away from keyboard). James talked about taking time for yourself and for your family. His touching story about the relationship between him and his dad was something I needed to hear. Now, because of his talk, I take more time for myself and my family. Note: The picture above was taken during one of my breaks. Follow me on Instagram and come walk with me. 07. Use software to help Many apps have been designed to help you to control and monitor your time I mentioned calendars and to-do lists, but this article would be remiss if I didn't provide a few options for how to manage them. While this list is certainly not all inclusive, it will give you a jumping off point. FantasticalThis is an excellent way to manage your calendar. I use it to keep my personal appointments in order. I also have it tied into my shared Google calendar which Charlie Fulton and I use on Roundabout: Creative Chaos for scheduling our guests. TrelloTrello is how I keep my tasks in order. I use it daily and everything I'm working on gets a Trello Board. What's nice about Trello is that I can share my boards with other team members so we can all participate in getting the job done. Google KeepGoogle Keep is a fantastic way to share lists (or keep them to yourself). You can access Google Keep through their website or using the iOS or Android App. If you're looking for an easy-to-use list app, check this one out. In conclusion Managing your time isn't easy, especially when you have a lot to do, or a lot of people counting on you. It can run even the strongest person into the dirt. But with a little structure and maybe some digital help, even the busiest person can be happy and productive. View the full article

Right now, typography pros and aficionados are gathering in Berlin for the perpetually popular TYPO festival. Couldn’t make it? From 2pm today (GMT) you can tune in right here on Creative Bloq and get a front-seat view of all the action. Just scroll down to watch the livesteam. This year’s festival is themed around the idea of triggering and boasts an incredible lineup of speakers, including graphic design legend Aaron Draplin and typography guru Prof. Gerd Fleischmann. Check out our article 10 reasons we're looking forward to TYPO Berlin 2018 for more info on the speakers and their talks. Livestream schedule Here’s who you can watch and when (times are in CET, so make sure you adjust them for where you are in the world). Talks are in English (E) or German (D). Thursday 17 May 15:00 Jonathan Key (E) 20:00 Frank Rausch (D) Friday 18 May 11:00 Elizabeth Carey Smith (E) 16:00 dina Amin (E) 19:00 Johann Jungwirth (E) Saturday 19 May 16:00 Erica Wolfe-Murray, Alex Mecklenburg (E) 19:00 Underware (E) Related articles: 70 best free fonts for designers 50 top-quality typography tutorials Typography rules and terms every designer must know View the full article