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If becoming a web developer has always been a dream of yours, then you're in luck. The Complete Web Developer Course 2.0 is here to take you from novice to expert while helping you build sites and apps along the way. You can get this professionally-taught course on sale now for just $19 (approx. £14)! When you understand the fundamentals of code, you can create just about anything imaginable. It’s time to expand your opportunities and improve your resume with the Complete Web Development Course 2.0. Work your way through the basics of web and mobile development and learn how to make the most of programming languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. You’ll get over 30.5 hours of instruction and hands-on lessons that will teach you how to build 25 different websites. The Complete Web Developer Course 2.0 usually retails for $149, but you can save 87% off that price right now. That means you pay just $19 (approx. £14) for lessons that could launch your next career, so grab it today! Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. View the full article

If you need a handwriting font for your project, look no further. When we talk about handwriting fonts, we're not just referring to one style of typography; they can come in a variety of executions. They're in the same area as cursive fonts, but with fewer constraints and often based on freeform illustrations. Get Adobe Creative CloudRecently, this style of typography has been making more appearances than ever, with both print and digital platforms favouring it over more traditional offerings. Here, we've curated some of the best free fonts in a handwritten style for you to download and enjoy. 01. Stay Writer Add charm to your designs with Stay Writer handwriting fontCharming handwriting font Stay Writer was created by graphic designer and illustrator Syed Faraz Ahmed. "A hand-drawn display font, every single letter has been carefully crafted to make your text looks beautiful," Ahmed comments on Behance. 02. SoulMarker Handwriting font SoulMarker is available in two styles; light and boldHandwriting font SoulMarker was created by graphic designer and illustrator Faraz Ahmad. Available in two styles, light and bold, SoulMarker is great for a variety of print and digital projects. 03. Claire Hand Handwriting font Claire Hand is 'fun, bold and friendly'The team at Australian-based design agency Team Scope are behind handwriting font Claire Hand. Available over on Behance, the team describe the design as: 'fun, bold and friendly, and its handwritten style represents our commitment to creative spontaneity (you know how the best ideas get scribbled down on a napkin?). Because we're serious design tragics, we even created each letter in two different weights so it's even more individual'. 04. Cavorting Cavorting typeface is free for both personal and commercial use"This is a one-day font," says Cavorting typeface creator Missy Meyer. "I created the letterforms and did all the spacing and kerning in one day." The, in Meyer's own words, 'goofy' handwritten typeface is free for both personal and commercial use. 05. Mightype Mightype is free for personal and commercial useFree for both personal and commercial use, Mightype was created by the team at AF Studio. A handlettered script font, Mightype is great for packaging designs, branding and much more. 06. Futuracha Add a touch of elegance to your designs with this beautiful handwritten font FuturachaA group of curious designers explorers make up høly and are the team behind beautiful handwritten font Futuracha. The holy Behance page states: "The name is the combination of words futura and cucaracha (cockroach in Spanish). "The design is based on the basis of the pf futura book. The letters edges radically extend in a forceful way trying to remind the art deco's style." 07. Nawabiat Handwriting font Nawabiat is full of charm and personalityNawabiat is a free handwriting font, created by graphic designer and illustrator Syed Faraz Ahmad. Full of personality and charm, Nawabiat is great for posters, logos and much more. 08. Reis Reis is great for posters, logos and much moreThis handwritten design Reis was created by Marcelo Reis Melo. Great for posters, logos and much more, Reis is available free for personal and commercial use, with donations to the author, as always, appreciated. 09. Bellaboo Bellaboo is great for creating eye-catching headlines, posters and moreIn need of an authentic handwritten font for your latest project? Bellaboo by Marcelo Reis Melo may be just what you're looking for. A bold design, Bellaboo is great for creating eye-catching headlines, posters and more. 10. Ludicrous Ludicrous is another free handwritten font from designer Missy MeyerAnother free handwriting font from Missy Meyer, Ludicrous is great for giving your projects an authentic handmade feel. Free for both personal and commercial use, with donations to the author, as always, gratefully received. 11. Fofer Fofer is free in exchange for a tweetToday's typeface of choice is handwritten design Fofer, created by Mousse Creative founder and creative director Angie Raess. "Sometimes the best projects are the ones created from a problem," Raess comments on Behance. "We needed a specific font and couldn't find it. What better way to solve a problem than to use our own handwriting?" Fofer is available to download over on Behance, all Raess asks for in return is a simple tweet. 12. California Sans California Sans includes a full case of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and various special characters.California Sans is a handwritten font, created by Mexico-based designer Noe Araujo. Available as a free download, the design includes a full case of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and various special characters. 13. Skinny Skinny is completely free for commercial useThis handwriting font is, by far, the most popular of the type designs offered online by the artist known as notfon1234. The last update to the design saw a clean up to the spacing and characters, and the font is now completely free for commercial use. 14. Gunny Rewritten Based on his older font Gunny Handwriting, type designer Vit Condak released this new free handwriting font Gunny Rewritten. Unhappy with his original version, Condak completety remade the design and now offers it as a free download for all to enjoy. 15. Halo Handletter Designer Mario Arturo specialises in fancy and script fontsThis elegant hand writing font was developed by graphic designer Mario Arturo. One of over 20 fonts created by Arturo, who specialises in fancy and script designs, Halo Handletter is perfect example of the latter. Free for non-commerical use only. 16. LeHand LeHand is the first font from web designer Ferdie BalderasLeHand is the first font created by indieferdie. The LeHand font reflects a playful handwriting style that will be great for experimenting with on your new design projects. As a web designer and branding designer, we think there's much more inspirational work ahead for indieferdie. 17. Yore Yore is a playful take on the more traditional script fontsCreated by Vietnamese designer Poem haiku, the Yore script is a fun take on the more traditional script offerings. Pulling in his influences from illustration, Yore will be perfect for content experimentation and might even work well on a branding project or two. 18. Whatever it takes The designer asks for a $5 donation if the font is used for commercial purposesThe 'Whatever it takes' free handwriting font harks back to those school boards and chalk typography. It's free for personal and non-profit use. The designer does however, ask for a $5 donation for any commercial use, which we think is still a bargain! 19. Before Breakfast Designer Simon Stratford created Before Breakfast using iPad app iFontMaker in under 10 minutesRecently, designer Simon Stratford discover iPad app iFontMaker and shortly after challenged to create a font with it in under 10 minutes. The result? This hand drawn typeface Before Breakfast. It may not be one of the most considered entries in our free fonts list, but, as Stratford comments: "It's a fun, handwritten typeface that probably breaks every rule in typography." 20. Engine A free handwriting font that comes in an array of different languagesOne of our favourite free handwriting fonts, this design by Ferdie Balderas comes in regular and italic as well as capital and lower-case letters. He's even made it supportive of a number of different languages including French, Spanish and Polish. 21. Chomp Another free handwriting font that's playful and funWe just had to include this download in our list of free handwriting fonts. Chomp is a playful design created by Camberwell based designer William Bayley Suckling. As a student at The London College of Communication, Suckling regularly experiments with fonts and is happy for you to use it with any personal or commercial work. 22. LSTK Bembo LSTK Bembo was inspired by an age-old book font to create this free handwriting fontOne of the loveliest free handwriting fonts we've seen in a long time, LSTK Bembo is an ode to one of the real daddies of book typefaces, Bembo. This handdrawn version of this classic typeface can be used whenever you want to combine personality, tradition and a pinch of attitude. The important glyphs are included in this postscript font except the lowercase x. 23. Haiku's Script Free handwriting font Haiku's Script is Poem Haiku's first attempt at creating a typefaceHaiku's Script is Poem Haiku's first attempt at creating a font. Beginning in 2011, it took three months to finish, from July to September. It's free for personal use and Poem Haiku would love to hear any thoughts and comments about this free handwriting font. 24. Pops This free handwriting font was inspired by the designer's father's handwritingNew York based designer Sune Matras tasked himself to create a font based on one of his father's handwriting styles – a very personal and specific one – normally used for short messages and headlines. We're pleased as punch to include this gorgeous design in our list of free handwriting fonts. 25. Sketch Block Grab people's attention with this bold, headline font. Image © Lukas BischoffThis hand-sketched headline font was designed by artist Lukas Bischoff. He comments: "Created solely by me from sketch by hand and then digitized, Sketch Block makes a perfect font to create the hand-made character look, or to supplement illustrations with typography." Free for personal use only, it's one of the nicest free handwriting fonts we've seen in a long time. Next page: 25 more wonderful free handwriting fonts The best laptops for graphic design26. GoodDog Incorporate this curly, decorative font by Fonthead Design into your personal projectsA contemporary and decorative font, GoodDog was created by Fonthead Design. The curly typeface is a popular choice, having been download almost a million times since its release. This free handwriting font comes complete with a full set of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and characters. 27. J.D Handcrafted This stylish, script-style design was created by Emerald City FontwerksJ.D Handcrafted is one of 16 fonts created by Emerald City Fontwerks, the stylish design being one of the studio's most popular. The brush, script-style typeface is free for personal use, with a full set of characters at your disposal. 28. Amatic Amatic is available for free download in both regular and bold stylesA quirky, narrow and condensed design by typographer Vernon Adams this free handwriting font is perfectly suited to designs on the funny side, such as comedy strips. Amatic only includes uppercase letters but comes in both regular and bold styles. 29. Journal Free handwriting font Journal includes a full set of lower and uppercase letters, numbers and special characters. Image © FontouristCreated by Hans Gerhard Meier aka Fontourist, this beautiful script-style font's name explains exactly the type of design its suited to. This is one of three fonts designed by Meier and his most popular download by far. 30. Mari & David You can also receive numbers and symbols with this free handwriting fontThe charming free handwriting font was designed by Chilean designer and typographer Rodrigo German. The Mari & David font comes in regular, bold and extrabold, which means there's plenty to play around with. You can also receive numbers and symbols in this style when you download the font. 31. Daniel All three styles of the Daniel font are available as a free downloadDaniel is one of many fonts created by designer Daniel Midgley. Free for both personal and commercial use, Daniel includes a full set of upper and lowercase characters, numbers and various special characters. 32. Sumitra This is a handwriting font with plenty of versatilityThis gorgeous, calligraphy based handwriting font was created by Nepal-based graphic designer and typographer Ananda Maharjan. Placing the font on a base of watercolours as well as a white canvas ensure that its versatility shines. 33. LSTK Clarendon This free handwriting font comes in bold and outlineCreated by Austrian mobile studio Studio Elastik, this is their second free font to be released into the wild. They describe it as their "handlettered badass version of the English slab serif typeface, Clarendon", which explains the name. It comes in bold and outline. 34. Mawns' Handwriting This font is to be downloaded for personal use only!This free handwriting font – Mawns' Handwriting – is another created by Måns Grebäck; a graphic designer specialising in font, logotype, and typography design. Mawns' Handwriting is free for personal use, with donations to the designer welcome. 35. Bispo Nova Jackson created the bispo font after studying calligraphy for a number of monthsBispo is a script typeface made inspiring on italic chancery calligraphy, with a flat nib pen and a module of 10 pen widths. Designed by Brazilian typographer Jackson Alves, he decided to make this typeface to allow everyone to be able to create pieces with a charm of calligraphy and taking advantage of the Opentype features. 36. Scribulous Scrawlin' This free handwriting font has a great chalk effect for your designsWe had to pop a chalk-styled free handwriting font in the list and this one which was designed Alphabeta85 is a perfect addition. It comes in both capitalised and non, as well as numbers, punctuation, and symbols. As always, make sure you only use it for personal work! 37. Linny This cute font is actually the designer's real handwritingThis cutesy font was designed by Maya aka Linny. This handwriting type is actually Maya's handwriting and after being asked to develop the font for personal use, she finally did! It comes in upper and lower case, as well as numbers and punctuation. 38. Fatstack Use this heavy-duty handwriting font for bold design workWe love this heavy duty, scribble-friendly font designed by Blambot Comic Fonts and Lettering. Consisting purely of capital letters, this is a free handwriting font that would be perfect for some seriously bold design work. You can also grab some punctuation and numbers in the free package. 39. Soft Sugar Soft sugar evokes a sense of the old-school comic book fontsThis fun handwriting font can only be downloaded for free in the regular format but we think it's a great one to play around with. Evoking a sense of the old-school comic book style fonts, we're sure you'll be able to create something special with this one! 40. Architect's Daughter This neat, blocky handwriting font was inspired by architectural gridsInspired by architectural grids, this neat, blocky handwriting font Architect's Daughter was created by Kimberly Geswein. Author of over 200 fonts, Geswein offers many of her designs, including this one, free for personal use. 41. Worstveld Sling Extra Worstveld Sling Extra is a popular handwriting designOne of 82 typefaces developed by Gem Fonts, Worstveld Sling Extra is one of it's most popular hand writing designs, receiving over 400,000 downloads since its release. Free for personal use, this free handwriting font family includes a full set of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and various special characters. 42. Housegrind This cool script font was created by graphic designer Måns Grebäck. llustration © Måns GrebäckThis cool script font was created by graphic designer Måns Grebäck, who specialises in logotypes and typography. Free for personal use only, a commercial licence for Housegrind can be purchased via the Aring Typeface website. 43. VersionType VersionType is designed to be playful and looseA condensed sans-serif font, VersionType was created by senior designer Victor Coreas. "It is meant to be playful and very loose," he comments. The typeface includes a full set of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters, and it's free for personal and non-profit use. 44. Billy Billy is based on Claire Joines' own handwritingCreated by student and freelancer Claire Joines, Billy is a font made from her own handwriting. "Because it's my own handwriting it didn't take me long to make," says Claire, "So I decided to put it online for other people to use freely!" It's free for personal and non-profit use (although attribution or a thank you would be nice); if you want to use it commercially, get in touch with Claire. She'll normally ask for attribution and a small donation. 45. Novito Nova "This font was made for making people happy," Nina commentsNovito Nova was created by Russian designer Nina Z. "This font was made for making people happy," she comments on Behance. A whimsical design, Novito Nova is great for providing projects with an authentic handmade feel. 46. Mink Type Mink Type features three variations for each letter to keep things freshMink Type was created by New York-based art director Filiz Sahin. "Mink Type is a cool, handpainted display typeface that was developed using brush tools in Illustrator," she comments. "Each letter has three variations including upper and lower cases so you can create a custom feel for your designs." 47. Happy Fox All the Caldentey and Llull ask for in return for this free download is a simple tweetThis Happy Fox font design was a collaborative effort between illustrator Laura Caldentey and Fran Llull. Wanting a thin font to use in their projects, Caldentey drew an alphabet and a selection of glyphs, and worked closely with Llull to refine into this final design. 48. Dickie Freelance designer David Ellis created handwritten font Dickie using MyScriptFontFreelance designer David Ellis created handwritten font Dickie using MyScriptFont, an online tool that allows you to create a vector font from your own handwriting. "It’s a great starting point as there aren’t that many great handwriting style fonts out there and it’s a pretty quick process," Ellis comments. 49. Yunus Handwriting font Yunus is suitable for all manner of creative projectsHandwriting font Yunus is another by graphic designer Faraz Ahmad. "Every single letters has been carefully crafted to make your texts look beautiful," he comments on Behnace. The typeface includes a huge number of glyps, making it suitable for all manner of creative projects. 50. Ruffle Beauty Ideal for poster designs, Ruffle Beauty is free for both personal and commercial useIf you're on the hunt for a playful handwritten font, today's typeface of choice Ruffle Beauty by Anis Iday could be just the solution. Ideal for poster designs, Ruffle Beauty is free for both personal and commercial use. Related articles: 20 perfect font pairings The 100 best free fonts 10 best new fonts of 2017 View the full article

Julia Khusainova currently works as an experience designer at Airbnb, previously led design for a new product line at Shyp, worked on growth at Twitter and established design at various early stage startups. Next week she will give her first conference talk at Generate London, in which she will walk through her process for developing new products from ideation, testing and validation, development, to release and beyond — achieving business goals without compromising the user experience. We caught up with her to find out more about what product design and software engineering have in common, how collaboration at Airbnb works, how to create a compelling onboarding experience and more. You’re originally from Russia. How did you end up in San Francisco? Julia Khusainova: I've always had a passion for traveling and it was only a matter of time until I decided to leave the familiar life behind and move to a new country. I ran a design consultancy in Russia and one of my clients turned out to be a start-up in San Francisco who was looking to bring a designer on board. They wanted me to join as their lead designer. So I did. How did you make the jump from software engineering to product design? JK: In my mind, both disciplines are very similar, just tackling the user problems from different angles — what should the product be and look like vs how to build it. We even draw the same diagrams! It’s always amazing to see that as soon as design and engineering are aligned on the goal, they start singing the same song. I just wanted to try the other side of this process — the “pre-building” phase where I would be defining the user experience. I still write code for fun. You joined Airbnb earlier this year. What does your role involve, and what kind of projects have you worked on so far? JK: I design experiences for Airbnb, meaning it’s not “just” the digital product — it’s an end-to-end user journey. A big part of Airbnb happens offline, and as an experience designer, I am responsible for taking that into account when I design. I’ve worked on a variety of projects from defining the identity of a person on Airbnb to being a creative director for photography projects and writing travel stories. It’s always fun and engaging! The product goes smoother if everyone is aligned on the goals and the outcomes at the beginning of the project. I assume you work with lots of engineers, project managers, user researchers and others at Airbnb. How does the collaboration work? JK: I do indeed! The teams at Airbnb are fairly large and there’s a lot of cross-collaboration happening. I always put my foot forward to have the conversation with my engineering, product, content strategists, data scientists and research partners as early as possible. It makes the product go smoother if everyone is aligned on the goals and the outcomes at the beginning of the project. In-person communication with note taking is always best, but email works too. It’s a balance between sharing the information too early and not early enough. The proper documentation and knowledge sharing are also crucial. You were at quite a few startups before, including Shyp and Twitter. What do they all have in common when it comes to product design? JK: They all strive to deliver the best user experience. I learned a lot about working in a team setting, collaborating with engineering and product partners, as well as other designers, and prioritization and analysis of user behaviour. Also research. It’s hard to put numbers on what a good (or bad) experience is — but it’s eye opening to see how people react to your design, and it’s certainly a valuable lesson I learned while working with my research partners. In her talk at Generate London, Julia Khusainova will walk through her process for developing new products How do you approach design systems to develop products faster and more consistently? JK: I start by thinking holistically about the product and defining design principles. What do I want the product to feel like when people use it? What’s the most important part to communicate? How will users be engaging with the product? Answering these questions at the beginning as well as bringing the engineering team on board with my decisions makes it a smoother journey when designing the actual experience. It’s also important to lay the foundation — like the typography and colour scheme — that are the atomic elements of most design systems. After that, when I have the base, I can create more complex elements like buttons and tables and define their behaviour along the way. What kind of prototypes do you create and how do you use them for user research? JK: I work in InVision, Framer, and Principle for fast interactive prototypes. I create a few versions depending on what I want to test (the messaging, the storytelling aspect of it, the layout, etc) and present it to the user. I iterate fast based on the feedback, so the next person gets a “better”, more refined version of it. I have experience using paper sketches and even creating an “ideal” product with the users — it’s a lot of fun to draw together! I work in InVision, Framer, and Principle for fast interactive prototypes. What’s the secret to a compelling user onboarding experience? JK: Being clear on the benefits of using the product you’re getting onboarded on, the features, and being concise. Nobody wants to scroll or click through 40 screens of how-tos when they just went through the pain of downloading the app or registering on the website. Cut the scope, leave the three most important features you want the user to know and introduce the rest later on in the user lifecycle. In her work Julia Khusainova thinks systematically and designs for scalabilityWhat is the biggest pain point in your work as a product designer and how do you overcome it? JK: I often think like an engineer. It makes it easier to negotiate my design decisions with myself because I anticipate certain questions to be asked by my engineers. So I’m trying to shut that part off until it’s time to have a conversation. What can people expect to take away from your talk at Generate London? JK: We’re going to be diving into the exciting and challenging world of startups, and what it means to be a designer at one. How to think through, design and build the product that is innovative, different from what was previously built but still preserves the brand authenticity that is important for the existing customers. How to think systematically and design for scalability. Generate London on 21/22 September features 15 other presentations covering web animations, UX strategy, prototyping, user research, accessibility, performance, responsive CSS components, and much more. There are still a few tickets left for the workshops on 20 September, too. Reserve your spot now! 10 essential TED talks for UX designersView the full article

Exploit acquisition vendor Zerodium said Wednesday it will pay up to $1M for an unknown Tor Browser zero day. View the full article

The WordPress community is big. Really big. We're talking thousands of designers and developers, tens of thousands of writers, and millions of users, all contributing to pushing WordPress forward. And one very popular way to do this is designing and developing free WordPress themes. Free Wordpress themes are a great way to get a blog or website off the ground – and there are countless WordPress tutorials online to help you do just that. You might want to start writing about a topic but don't want to invest the money in a custom site design on top of hosting and a domain. And once your site is up and running, there's nothing to stop you dissecting them, building on top of them and learning from them. 01. Mallow Mallow is designed with writers in mindAimed at writers of all kinds, Mallow is a well-balanced and flexible theme designed to be a blank canvas to express what’s on your mind. Perfect for blogging and case studies, it's fast and fully responsive with complete browser support and regular updates; upgrade to the Pro version for a live theme customiser and unlimited colour choices. 02. Bandana Bandana is responsive and versatile with plenty of useful featuresFeaturing responsive layouts and Font Awesome support as well as custom menus, widgetised sidebars, custom background, featured images and more, Bandana is a free, clean and simple WordPress theme that's tested in modern browsers and fully optimised for SEO. And if you don't mind getting handy with code, you can fork it on GitHub to create your own version. 03. Sydney Set your business up for success with SydneyIf you're looking to improve your online presence and attract customers or clients, Sydney is an excellent choice. It was built with business owners and freelancers in mind, and provides a wide array of customisation options that will help your website stand out. Sydney is also fully responsive, supports translation, and makes social media integration a cinch. 04. Illdy Illdy boasts plenty of plugin supportBuilt on the Bootstrap framework and fully responsive and mobile-friendly, Illdy is a fantastic-looking multipurpose theme. All the heavy lifting is done via the WordPress Customizer, enabling you to build your site on the fly using preview mode, and it's entirely compatible with popular plugins such as Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms and Yoast SEO, with WooCommerce support coming soon. 05. Hemingway Classic blog template with large textUnless you want to change themes every year it's best to pick something that won't look dated as design trends evolve, and Hemingway is a good option in that regard. It's a simple, elegant two-column layout with classic typography and large, readable text. Bloggers will find it ideal. Hemingway is built to be responsive, so will work on desktop and mobile. 06. SKT Full Width Fill the browser with your large imagesThis is a nice one if you've a site whose main purpose is to display images; it uses the whole browser window and lets you add discriptions via overlay text. The only thing to watch out for is whether your images will stand up to being displayed on very large screens. 07. Origin Origin, beautiful type for long readsIf you want to fit a lot of text onto your homepage, Origin does a good job of that without looking messy or cluttered. Your articles are arranged in a column that gives each one space for a decent intro length, and the type looks great. A good choice for a site with a lot of reading. 08. Upright Upright is a free Wordpress theme that can be used for portfoliosUpright is a fully responsive blog magazine theme for WordPress that leverages big imagery and portfolio functionality to present content effectively. Featured sliders, sidebar colour pickers, and custom background images allow users to create unique websites without having to code. Upright is search engine optimised from the get-go which helps increase traffic. 09. Fashionista Bold headlines for a magazine blogFashionista is another type-driven theme that's good for magazine-style blogs. We like the bold headlines and pleasingly busy layout that will look good on both desktop and mobile. 10. Hatch The image grid shows visitors your work with no clicking or scrollingIllustrators, photographers and artists will love this theme: the layout has one slot for your main image and then a grid of 12 that instantly gives visitors a sense of what your work is like. It's a great use of space that fits a lot of content into one screen. 11. Future Lite Creative agencies might want to check out this smart, feature rich themeA clean, creative, feature-rich and multipurpose theme that would be perfect for creative agencies, creative portfolios or freelancers. The responsive layout of this WordPress theme adapts well to the screen size of different device your visitors are using. Future is also retina ready and will look sharp on high resolution displays. It's powered with custom menu, custom header, sidebar widget, featured image, theme options, nice typography and built-in pagination features. 12. Lightly This free WordPress theme is another that can be used for portfoliosLightly is a clean, minimalist blog magazine theme for WordPress that puts your content centre stage. The theme's refreshing design features a home page slider and a widgetised home page that allows users to create custom layouts by simply dragging and dropping everything into place and high quality coding ensures your site performs optimally every time! 13. Longform Tell all your stories with LongformGreat for storytellers, Longform is a free WordPress theme designed to be fully compatible with the powerful Aesop Story Engine plugin. It includes beautiful styles for all Aesop story modules with no code snippets or extra configuration required. Fully responsive, retina-ready and super easy to customise. 14. Moesia As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words...Moesia is perfect for building your business's online presence. Choose from eleven predefined blocks and build the homepage that best suits your company. Each of the homepage blocks can have a parallax background image and its own set of colours. Featuring a good selection of Google Fonts, two types of layouts for the blog page, cool animations and effects, a parallax header and much more... Make sure you have a great header image to grab attention! 15. TA Dailyblog A great blogging template for the avid blogger!TA DailyBlog offers a simple and clean design with full optimisation for smartphones, tablets, desktops and any other devices. This free WordPress theme would be ideal for blogging, especially for daily or hobby bloggers who love to share their stuff. It's very flexible and fully customizable with 16 color schemes and smooth and fast user experience. What’s more, the theme is SEO friendly, with a Schema compatible structure that will make Google love your website. It supports most popular plugins, too. 16. InterStellar InterStellar is a clean, sophisticated designCreate and manage your portfolio or blog with ease with this clean and sophisticated InterStellar design. With multiple portfolio page layouts, this theme's options allow you to change the layout, colour scheme, logo and add your Google Analytics code, buttons, Google maps, columns and more. 17. Arcade Create a stand-out site with fully responsive HTML5 theme ArcadeCreate a stand-out website with Arcade, a lightweight and fully responsive HTML5 theme. Customise it to your taste by adding your own header image, page layout, site width and more. Each post can be distinguished with one of the eight supported formats; video, image, aside, status, audio, quote, link and gallery. 18. vFlex vFlex was designed specifically with designers and bloggers in mindDesigned specially with bloggers and designers in mind, vFlex is a stylish, free, responsive WordPress theme. Its main features include an inbuilt FlexSlider so you can simply select featured images, and an integrated VibeOptions panel, which supports logo upload, import and export settings and many other features. vFlex's responsive layout also means the theme looks great on iPad, iPhones, and other devices. 19. Meeta Don't overlook this 'plain Jane' themeSometimes "Plain Jane" themes like Meeta get overlooked. However themes like this are easily converted and modified to fit your site and content. With two navigations, a featured graphic and a responsive layout, this free WordPress theme will act as a great foundation for your site or blog. However you will need to dedicate the time to customise it a bit. 20. Folder Free WordPress theme Folder is perfect for showcasing projects and productsFolder is a free WordPress theme with a slight retro feel to it. With a design dominated by images, this responsive theme is perfect for displaying projects and products. Features include custom project posts and admin panel, five different widgets included (video, latest work, contact form, twitter feed, recent posts), and more. Next page: 12 more awesome free WordPress themes 21. YAMINTH Yet another minimal WordPress theme available for free downloadThere's no shortage of modern and minimal WordPress themes available online. But YAMINTH (Yet Another Minimal Theme) and its unusual image layout caught our eye. The free theme comes with light colors, dark footer, Google Web Fonts and jQuery fade in, fade out of images. It also has an options page for easy customisation and is free for use in both personal and commercial projects. With an unlimited selection of colour themes this theme would be appropriate for any blogger. Another feature, which has been cropping up on some of the newer WordPress themes, is the Translation-ready abilities, reaching new audiences in a foreign languages. 22. Thoughts Thoughts takes it cue from flat designLike flat design and want to use large images on your website or blog? Want it to be responsive? Then as free WordPress themes go, Thoughts is probably good one to investigate. 23. Glider Who needs images? Glider brings text to the foreDon't want to mess about trying to find beautiful imagery? Looking for free WordPress themes that focus on the text, to make that look beautiful instead? This minimal text-focused theme is all about seamless reading: no page loads, no interruptions, just a quick and easy way to access content. 24. Travelify Travelify is inspired by natureThe Travelify free WordPress theme is inspired by nature. Fully customizable, with several Theme Options and page templates, this theme is an obvious choice for travel blogs, green thinking and adventurists. 25. Clean Retina Clean Retina is simple, clean, responsive and retina-readyClean Retina delivers exactly what it says on the tin. The theme is simple, clean, responsive and retina-ready. There is a selection of nine homepage layout options, also a large homepage slider with space for supporting text. This is one of those free WordPress themes that would work nicely for bloggers or small business owners. 26. Simple Corp Simple Corp has plenty of time saving featuresSimple Corp is a responsive HTML Theme by Site5. It includes plenty of time-saver features, so no need hunting around for plug-ins. The contact page consists of a built-in contact form furthermore and a large Google Map. Multiple colour styles can be easily accessed via the colour options tab. One of the best free WordPress themes we've seen for business, it can update a corporate website with a fresh vibe. 27. Photo Photo is the ideal free WordPress theme for photographersPhoto is, you won't be surprised to hear, best suited for a photographer, as its major feature is the responsive gallery. The theme is clean with a bold header that emphasizes your logo. This is perfect if you're looking for a minimal and versatile theme. 28. Great Great is exactly what it claims to beWith an unlimited selection of colour themes, as well as being SEO Optimized, this free WordPress theme would be appropriate for any blogger. Another feature which has been cropping up on some of the newer themes is the Translation-ready abilities, reaching new audiences in a foreign languages. 29. Grid Grid is great for a graphically rich or photo-heavy siteGrid gives you the feeling you're on a site that's had a lot of thought put into its design. This free WordPress theme would work really well for a portfolio, artist or event site. It's very graphic or photo-heavy, so make sure you have the content to back it up. One plus is that this theme maintains its responsiveness quite well. 30. Sensitive Sensitive features a Metro-styled accent to its designSensitive is a fully responsive theme built using Twitter's Bootstrap framework with Metro Styled Accent. It ships with three different page templates, support for custom backgrounds and menus. It's a great option if you're looking for clean and modern, without a lot of fussy code. 31. _ARCHITEKT Architekt is a minimalist, responsive themeArchitekt's layout and minimalistic approach to design makes content (especially photos) stand out well. This is a really nicely designed and well thought-out responsive theme. 32. Panoramica With a full-width slideshow on the homepage, Panoramica is perfect for showcasing your photosIf you want to showcase images in all their glory, free WordPress theme Panoramica may be just what you're after. Its design heavily emphasizes the use of images, with its appearance fully customiseable through an extensive options panel. Panoramica also features a full-width slideshow on the homepage, perfect for grabbing prospective client's and employer's attention. Contributions to this article from: Aaron Kitney, a freelance graphic designer and art director based in London and Vancouver. Jesse Friedman, a veteran WordPress developer. Sam Hampton-Smith, a freelance author and front-end designer/developer based in Scotland. Tanya Combrinck, who has been writing about the web for over four years. View the full article

At the start of 2014, Pip Jamieson launched The Dots – an online professional network specifically aimed at designers (think LinkedIn for creatives). Since then the platform has gone from strength to strength, with leading companies including the BBC, TATE, Facebook, Wolff Olins and Pentagram using the site to promote their brand, attract clients and hire talent. It hasn't been plain sailing though. At Reasons To Jamieson talked through her Dots journey, and Creative Bloq was in the audience. Here's what we learned about how to launch your own successful creative business: 01. Build diversity into your teams The dots team includes individuals from a range of backgroundsBefore launching the Dots, Jamieson worked at MTV. She recalls how for any given role, the company would attract hundreds of interested creatives – so to avoid having to spend hours finding the best person for the job, they'd turn to their little black book of contacts. Hiring friends and existing contacts eventually led to the output becoming stale and samey. It's unavoidable: you need an injection of fresh ideas to keep things interesting. When hiring for The Dots, Jamieson purposefully looked to employ a mix of people, a balance of genders, and people from different backgrounds, to build different perspectives into the product. 02. Go all-in... Launching any business is going to be a rollercoaster"You can't really execute a business idea unless you're all-in," says Jamieson. It's a risk, but if you really want to see the potential of your idea, at some point it has to stop being a side project. That means taking a leap of faith, giving up your main job and committing yourself fully. And even then, it's going to be tough. "[Launching The Dots] has been the happiest I have ever been, and it's also been the most desperately sad I've been in my life," Jamieson says. But she's adamant that if you're not going through a rollercoaster of emotions, you're not pushing yourself enough. And it'll be worth it in the end. 03. ... but don't burn yourself out At a certain point, working harder doesn't equate to increased productivity"It's seen as such a badge of honour to work all the time when you're starting something new, but it's actually really stupid," emphasises Jamieson. While you need to dedicate yourself, there's a point where it's proven that productivity actually starts going down. Plus, burn yourself out and you're looking at time off work, and that's not helpful for anyone. Jamieson suggests being wary if you're getting colds or feeling under the weather a lot: it's a sign you're pushing yourself too hard. She also advocates trying to pin down what saps your energy at work, then (if possible) outsourcing it. For example, if money matters leave you drained, hire a good accountant, and put your energies into things that will keep you energised. Similarly, work out what gives you energy in your personal life – whether that's doing yoga or going out on the town – and make time for that. 04. Build relationships based on trust BBH co-founder Sir John Hegarty has joined The Dots as chairmanAt particular low point in the Dots journey, Jamieson and her then-business partner found themselves three weeks away from going out of business. In a meeting, they were offered investment from an individual the pair instinctively felt was wrong for the business. Rather than take up the offer, Jamieson remortgaged, and her partner borrowed money from his parents, to buy The Dots another month. She maintains it was the best decision they could have made. "Going into investment is like going into marriage – you have to trust the people you're taking money off," she says. 05.Use OKRs rather than KPIs OKRs ask teams to take control of how to reach their goalsOKRs – or Objectives and Key Results – were popularised by Google several years ago. Unlike KPIs, OKRs provide teams with purposefully ambitious goals and asks them to innovate and work out how to reach them for themselves. Jamieson swears by them, and credits this approach with contributing significantly to the happiness of her employees. 06. Find some novel self-promo Pip Jamieson runs The Dots from her houseboat – a popular spot for client meetingsGetting people interested in your business can be an uphill struggle. Thankfully, Jamieson had an ace up her sleeve: her houseboat, Horace. While cold-emailing people to meet tended to yield poor results, invite them to a houseboat and suddenly there's more interest. "People would say yes just because they wanted to see the boat," she smiles. 07. Keep it positive Building a business difficult enough – don't let negative people into the foldOne of The Dots' core values is positivity. Building up a new business is difficult enough, says Jamieson, and when things are tough, you need people who will focus on solutions rather than problems. Maintaining a culture of positivity also means getting rid of people who are bringing negativity into the workspace. "You have enough to be getting on with to have have wingers on the team, or people who like to play politics," she warns. To try and make sure everyone stays happy, The Dots employees periodically complete a survey asking them what they're happy with and what frustrates them about their work. This gives management a chance to adjust things and make improvements that suit the team. Related articles: 5 golden rules of self-promotion How to make social media work for you Create the perfect design portfolio: 30 pro tips View the full article

The iPad Pro 12.9 (2017) is Apple's top-end iPad, sitting above the iPad Pro 10.5 that made its debut earlier this year. The iPad Pro 9.7 is no longer available. Here we're looking at it alongside iOS 11 – the latest version of Apple’s now-legendary mobile operating system. There are some significant improvements in this update that are specifically designed to make the iPad Pro more, well, Mac-like. We tested it out on our iPad Pro 12.9 to see what all the fuss is about. The 12.9-inch version of the iPad received several upgrades earlier this year to put it on an even footing with the new iPad Pro 10.5 – notably HDR video support, TrueTone display and a new Apple A10X processor. While iOS 11 is a good update for the iPhone, it’s a particularly super update if you use an iPad on a regular basis. Multitasking was present before on the iPad, but now it has been powered up to provide even more desktop-like functionality. iOS 11 availability iOS 11 is a free update for the iPad Pro and will be released on 19 September. Expect servers to be busy that day, so you might have to wait to download it to your iPad Pro. Note that we’ve been using the public beta version of iOS 11, so the final version may be ever so slightly different than the images you see here. (And to use Apple Pencil you’ll need an iPad Pro 9.7, 10.5 or 12.9-inch.) iPad Pro 12.9 design and screen The first time you see the iPad Pro 12.9 it looks daft – a big, silly joke; something ludicrously, pointlessly oversized – but it's amazing how quickly that impression passes. In part that's because it's lighter than you expect it to be for its size. It's not light enough that you would want to hold it for the length of time it would take to make even a simple portrait sketch, but it's perfectly reasonable to hold it one-handed for minutes at a time. It's also slim, such that when you're using it flat on a table surface, you can just about kid yourself that it's almost not there. That big screen is, in any case, just terrific: bright, saturated, and with liberal viewing angles. iPad Pro 12.9 video and audio The scale of the screen makes it great not just for painting on, but also – for example – to give you more room for digital audio workstations, for editing movies, for creating diagrams and for sketching out wireframes for print or digital layouts in Adobe Comp, which you can then export to InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop. As we've already touched upon, it's a TrueTone display with support for HDR video. Viewing video on this device is a delight, while the quad speakers are surprisingly beefy. Sure, you don’t want to rely on them to fill a room, but everyone who hears them does the same 'Oh, they sound that good?' face. (There's some smarts here: there is a speaker at each corner, and for any audio all four always produce bass, since we can't tell what direction bass comes from. The mid-range and treble is then also played out of whichever two speakers are on the top, depending on orientation, for a proper stereo soundstage.) iPad Pro 12.9 performance and battery life With Apple's A10 X processor, this is a seriously powerful tablet. The big display means that iOS 11's support for multitasking – the ability to run two apps side by side, and/or also have video play in a floating picture-in-picture window – makes such great sense here and works instantly. It's entirely possible, for example, to draw on one side of the screen while referring to source material on the other, or keep an eye on your email as you type a document. The iPad Pro will easily last a day of use. Apple cites 10 hours of battery life and that's about right in our experience. However, the Smart Keyboard accessory draws power from the device, so take it off if you're low on battery. If you're tapping away with the Apple Pencil all day, this may decrease further and you will need to charge it during the day as well. iPad Pro 12.9 accessories The optional £169 Smart Keyboard cover is genuinely good, enabling the iPad Pro to shine in more of the situations where you might hitherto have used a laptop. The fact it doesn't quite work as your Mac or Windows laptop does is a little confusing though – your finger keeps twitching towards the non-existent trackpad. However, cheaper versions are available from other manufactures and, of course, the iPad Pro works with any Bluetooth keyboard. Apple Pencil Then there's the superb Apple Pencil. We've touched on its improvements in iOS 11 below. This stylus – yes, Apple made a stylus – is nothing more nor less than the best digital drawing tool ever made, and with the iPad Pro's generous 12.9-inch canvas, for some illustrators and artists it is, more than ever before, possible not just to sketch out ideas on an iPad, but take them all the way through to completion. It's a bit nuts to say you want the iPad Pro because of another bit of kit that itself costs eighty quid, but the experience of using them together is so good. The pressure- and tilt-sensitivity, the near-perfect palm rejection and the impressively low latency all combine to make it the most real and analogue drawing and writing experience you'll have today unless you're actually using pen and paper. There are some truly magnificent apps on iOS that work great with Apple Pencil; the glorious Procreate, the characterful Paper, the expressive Adobe Photoshop Sketch and the hugely useful Adobe Comp, for example – as well as productivity apps such as Evernote and LiquidText. Many apps will be updated to support iOS 11's drag and drop functionality, including Adobe’s mobile apps, Procreate and Morpholio Trace. How has iOS 11 improved the iPad Pro? Despite its success, iOS has remained an operating system for phones and tablets – not for serious professional work. Can it really turn the iPad Pro into a tool so creatives can move on from their laptops? The first of the enhancements that work especially well with the iPad is the dock. Yes, you’ve seen one of these before right? Well, yes, but the new dock works quite like the one on the Mac. It sits at the foot of the screen like the old dock but instead has support for dragging and dropping app windows and more around the screen. There’s also a recently used files pop-up when you do a long tap on an app that supports it – similar to recent files on a Mac or PC. The dock and is split into two parts; the left is where you have apps you put there yourself (drag them from your home screen) while the right-hand side features apps chosen by Siri. Most likely, these will be the three latest you have used, but it may well bring your chosen music app up when you connect your AirPods. It’s clever like that. As we mentioned, dragging and dropping works with the dock – drag and drop isn’t anything new of course, but you can now drag things around in iOS 11 using Split View, such as an image from your camera roll into an email and so on. Say you were in Photos and wanted to drag something into an email, then just swipe up the dock, and drop Mail on the side of the screen. It opens in Slide Over view, but you can just tap the line at the top of the window to go into Split View. You can even drag things onto the dock as well you don’t expect, like a link from Safari or an image. The implementation of this is really rather great. You can still run a couple of apps at once using the Split View (two apps running side-by-side) and Slide Over (two apps running with one in a floating window). You can now add a third app on an iPad Pro. Note that Slide Over and the advanced multitasking works with iPad Pro, iPad (5th generation), iPad Air and later, or iPad mini 2 and later. iOS 11 and the Apple Pencil Apple Pencil is a fantastic tool for the iPad Pro series and wonderful for artists, but you haven't been able to use it everywhere you've wanted to in all iPad Pro apps. iOS 11 powers up the Apple Pencil's capabilities significantly. Now though, you can create Instant Notes simply by drawing on the lock screen (these are then saved in Notes). Drawing on notes near existing text cleverly now moves the text out of the way. Instant Markup enables you to draw on PDFs and photos. All of your Instant Notes on the lock screen are saved in Notes where there's also a Document Scanner, which scans, crops edges, removes tilt and glare and lets you fill in forms or sign away with an Apple Pencil. You can then save and share the document. There are plenty of Apple Pencil-supporting apps that have enhancements planned for iOS 11. Don't forget to check out our guide to 9 iPad Pro apps that make the most of Apple Pencil How files are handled in iOS 11 on the iPad Pro Apple has also remedied a long-standing issue with iOS – there’s no way to access files on the device unless they’re things like images in your Camera Roll or PDFs in iBooks. OK, so Apple has fudged this for the last few years with iCloud Drive, but the fact is we’re all pretty used to storing stuff on our own devices. Now though, there’s a Files app. You can browse through files stored on your iPad as well as the files synchronised on other devices. It’s all pretty intuitive and frankly pretty basic – it’s just that we haven’t had it before. There are also more options within Settings for you to optimise the storage on your device, including the offloading of unused apps. This will be pretty useful for less tech savvy people who just want to free up a bit of space to do some work. You can also use Files to browse iCloud Drive and cloud services such as Dropbox and, best of all for you, Adobe Creative Cloud. You can tag your files and folders as well – just like on macOS. What else is in iOS 11? Naturally there are also a bunch of other enhancements, such as improvements to Control Center, Siri (it sounds more human and can translate short phrases), Live Photos, the App Store, Apple Music and more besides. One thing that might also be useful is that you can now pay contacts using Apple Pay, while there's also a driving mode. More useful for the iPhone, granted. There are also new iPad keyboard shortcuts which mean you no longer have to flip back and forward between keyboard layers. A new 'flick' gesture means you can access the hidden characters underneath. It all saves time. Control Center is accessed by continuing to swipe up from the dock. On the face of it, it is quite a mish mash. But it's now customisable so you can add and remove features at will. You can now also screen record in iOS 11, so you can send someone a 'how to' video of what you're doing. The screenshot feature has also been improved in iOS. When you take a screenshot using the Home and Power buttons, a preview now hovers in the bottom left for a short time. Tapping on it enables you to edit it right away. Safari has some nice touches, too, including suggestions based on what you were just reading. The Apple browser can also link to your iOS Calendar app, adding entries for flights and hotel stays instantly – useful for planning work trips. Final verdict There is an obvious caveat to this: the iPad Pro, of course, doesn't run Mac or Windows apps, so you're not going to be able to use the big, full, familiar apps from Adobe, Affinity or Corel. And for many – who either don't want the hassle of learning new tools or literally can't do the things they do in the way they want to do them without a traditional desktop – that's reason enough to dismiss the iPad Pro right from the get-go. The iOS 11 dock and multitasking really makes everything sing though, even if the elegance and simplicity of the iPad experience – one screen, one app, one task is now a thing of the past. The iPad Pro is – more than for any other group – for creatives. That big canvas, the sheer processing grunt and, above it all, that wonderful, you've-never-used-anything-like-it-before Pencil are all peculiarly suited to the kind of work we do. It lends itself particularly well to digital painting and illustration, of course, and Procreate is capable of some wonderful things, but it's not only good for that. The fact that you can't run, say, InDesign on it will of course mean that it can't fulfil the role of a primary computer for everyone in the creative industries. But set against this is the fact it does things that a Mac or PC can't. Can it be your only computer? No. But as a go-anywhere portable companion to a computer with full desktop apps, it's unbeatable. View the full article

If you're familiar with Netflix’s cult series, Stranger Things (and if you aren’t, where have you been for the past 18 months?) you'll also be aware that season two of the critically acclaimed supernatural drama is nigh – and Netflix has gone all out with the poster designs. The must-see show is not only set in the 1980s but unapologetically influenced by everything from Stephen Spielberg to Stephen King. Paying homage in every aspect of the show's design and production, the Duffer Brothers transport you straight back to the era of puffer jackets, Reebok high tops, The Goonies and, of course, OTT low budget sci-fi and horror flicks – they even managed to bag Winona Ryder in a starring role. The producers keep no secret of the influence 80's cult classics have on the showTheir approach to garnering publicity for the second series is no different, and their new marketing campaign reads like a love letter to their influences. As reported by ProMax's Daily Brief, the visual masterminds behind the show have gone all out by reimagining influential movie posters from the decade that spawned horror franchises even bigger than it’s hair-dos. Are movie posters in a design crisis?Have a scroll through the gallery below for a heavy dose of nostalgia that’s sure to get you excited for the show’s return. Can you guess which cult classic is being referenced in each poster? Season Two is set to be released just in time for Halloween, 27th October 2017 exclusive to Netflix. Related articles: Creating the official retro-style Stranger Things poster Scarily superb illustrated tributes to classic horror movies Top 25 movie posters of all time View the full article

http://thehackernews.com/2017/09/windows-zero-day-spyware.html … View the full article

Every designer needs to find a little inspiration to get started or the perfect piece to finish a project. No matter what you're after, you're likely to find it in the ByPeople Premium Design Bundle. You can get a lifetime subscription now for just $39 (approx. £30)! For graphic designers, there is no such thing as having too many assets to work with. That's why lifetime access to the ByPeople Premium Design Bundle arms you with as many as you could possibly require. You'll get unrestricted access to all the contents Designshock, Iconshock, and TemplateShock – all top, trusted sources for designers. Get all the icons, logos, avatars, cartoons, templates, and brushes you need for any project of yours in this massive bundle. Lifetime membership to the ByPeople Premium Design Asset Bundle is valued at $129, but you can save 69% off the retail price. That means you'll pay just $39 (approx. £30) for this must-have bundle, so grab it today! Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. View the full article

Those looking to create realistic creature designs using a mixture of software – ZBrush, Marvelous Designer, KeyShot and Photoshop – should look no further. I use this pipeline in my everyday work for movies, TV shows and video games – and it never disappoints. I start the process by sketching on paper and decide on the best design direction. Once I have a stronger idea of what to do, I jump into ZBrush to flesh out the design in 3D. 01. Create base mesh in ZBrush Having a library of base meshes will speed up this first step I start the model using one of the female base meshes I created a while back. This really cuts down the working time – I suggest you create your own library of base meshes that you can use on every project. For all the other elements that I need to create from scratch, I use ZSpheres. The objective at this stage is to get a strong sense of gesture in the base mesh. 02. Sculpt the face Pushing the proportions of the human face can lead to beautiful mythical creatures One of the main focuses early on in my sculpting is the face. I really want something that looks a bit creature-like, not wholly human, but is still beautiful. I decide that pushing the proportions and the features of a human face is the way to go: spreading the eyes out further than usual, enlarging the mouth, flattening the nose and pushing the bone structure in general. For the final image, I want strong eye contact with the viewer. To sculpt, I use just a few brushes: Clay Tubes, Clay, Dam_Standard, Move and Standard. 03. Detail the body Use references for anatomically correct sculpts Now it’s time for the body, I start to sculpt in more details and to really finalise the entire design. It’s important to always model with anatomy references in front of you: that’s how you make sure everything looks realistic and anatomically correct. At this stage I use the Clay brush instead of the Clay Tubes brush to build up some of the forms, so that my strokes are more delicate and controlled. 04. Pose the model Posing your model in an interesting way makes for a better creature With the main sculpting done, it’s now time to pose my model. The tail is pretty much in the right pose already, since I modelled it directly with Symmetry turned off; so now I am able to focus on the upper body. Using the Transpose function, I can move the lowest subdivision levels around; and with minimum re-sculpting of some areas, like the neck and the shoulders, I can achieve the desired pose pretty easily this way. 05. Create seaweed hair Use Marvelous Designer to create seaweed-like hair Marvelous Designer is typically used for clothing, but I thought of using it in a more creative way, using its simulation power to create seaweed hair. I simply create strings of cloths, attach one end of each string to the head of my creature and create a medium-strength wind system. Once you let it simulate, the strings of cloth will interact and intersect; to get the underwater effect just quickly let go of the wind and freeze the result right away. 06. Detail the seaweed hair Go back to ZBrush to add details to the hair After creating different patches of simulated seaweed hair, I go back to ZBrush, where I can start the detailing process. With the Pinch brush, I make the end of each string pointy and finish the detailing with the Standard brush. With the Move brush, I make sure every patch of seaweed hair is interacting perfectly with the rest, and that each part is attached correctly to the head. 07. Polypaint the model Aim for dark colours on the back of your model Before rendering, I do a quick colour pass to help me out with the final compositing. I use the Standard brush set to RGB and in Color Spray mode with Alpha_08: this way I can select two colours in the palette that I want to mix with a bit of pattern, following the principle of darker colour on the back and lighter colour on the front. With the help of some custom Alphas, I detail the first colour pass. 08. Render in KeyShot An initial render in KeyShot makes for some stunning results With the ZBrush To KeyShot Bridge, I can transfer my model into KeyShot to render with one button. In KeyShot I create a new camera angle for my renders and, with minimum adjustments to my pose in ZBrush based on the new camera, I’m ready to go. Holding [Ctrl] on my keyboard while dragging the skin material on my model, I keep my textures from ZBrush intact. For my main lighting, I use the Factory HDRI preset in KeyShot and a simple top panel I place in ZBrush. 09. Render passes in KeyShot Different render passes in KeyShot My render passes consist of a Shadow Pass, Spec Pass, Beauty Pass, Rim Light Pass, SSS Pass, Texture Passes, Thin Film Pass and Alphas. The most important is the Shadow Pass, realised with a grey material on the model and a top panel with a light material in KeyShot; and the Beauty Pass, realised with a skin material, original textures from ZBrush and the Factory HDRI preset for the lighting. 10. Composite in Photoshop Getting the right balance between passes when compositing is crucial Using Photoshop, I can merge all my renders into one image, trying to find the right balance between the different passes. I place the Shadow Pass at the bottom then apply the other passes on top, lowering their Opacity and playing with the brightness and contrast to blend them all together. The Spec Pass should always be on top of all the other passes, applied with the Screen blend mode to just have the light areas coming through. 11. Start photo-bashing Blending photos with 3D renders take the concept to a new level To take the concept to the next level, I start the process of photo-bashing, which is basically the process of blending photos with my 3D renders. I use photos of people and animals to get realistic details, always making sure that the photos I use have lighting that follows what I established in 3D. The best way to blend the photos is to lower their opacity, then enhance the contrast and erase what you don’t need. 12. Detail the photo-bashing Subtle details such as skin tone can be enhanced by photo-bashing I continue my photo-bashing process by blending a photo of an actress over the face of my creature, using the Liquify filter (Filter>Liquify) to match the position of the photo’s eyes and mouth to the face in my ZBrush sculpt. This way I’m able to obtain some subtle details that I didn’t have before, and also to get better translucency in the skin. I also use the same photo-bashing technique for the background: I blend together some underwater photos that I then blur with a Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur). 13. Paint on top of photo-bashing Painting adds the finishing touches to the photo-bashing stage To perfectly blend the photos and my 3D work together, I start painting on top of my photo-bashing: this way I’m able to add more details and fix some elements. To blend everything even better, I can paint shadows with a dark colour and light areas with a light colour on a Soft Light layer. The last pass here is to paint in some foreground details to frame my creature, and some atmospheric effects using a large soft brush. 14. Add effects Dust and bubbles images help the creature look less '3D' To make the painting feel less ‘3D’, I use some dust and bubbles photos. You can easily find photos with this kind of effect online: you need them to be on a black background so that you can blend them using a Screen layer, which eliminates the background and leaves you with the details you want. 15. Finalise the image The completed project, a creature from the deep The image is basically complete, so I flatten down all the layers. The last steps now are to use Unsharp Mask (Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask) to make the image sharper; before I apply a Radial Blur (Filter>Blur>Radial Blur), which I focus on the centre of the image. This helps to focus the attention of the viewer on the creature, and also to make the image more dynamic. You can also play with applying a Gradient Map to the image to lend more colour to your shadows. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 224. Buy it here. Related articles: How to design and model a fantasy creature How to design better creatures 10 essential ZBrush shortcuts to improve your workflow View the full article

You may have blinked and missed it, but there’s been a bit of a revolution in resolution over the last few years. Once seen as an experimental and cutting-edge technology, 4K screens are now commonplace: in TV screens, computer monitors and even smartphones. With 4K offering four times as many pixels per inch, web designers need to make sure their websites look as good as they can on the latest screens. Of course, if you’re already following the principles of responsive web design, that will get you most of the way to ensure your website looks good wherever it’s being viewed. But beyond that, here are four areas you particularly need to pay attention to in the 4K era... 01. Use scalable graphics Icons, logos and other graphics should be created as scalable, not raster imagesFor your website to look good on 4K screens, you need to use scalable rather than raster images wherever possible. With raster formats (which include jpegs, GIFs and PNGs), each image contains a fixed number of pixels and so as they increase in size, they just get more pixellated and blurry. Scalable formats, known as SVG (scalable vector graphics), in contrast, are based on geometric shapes. This means that however big they get, they will remain clean and clear. Of course, you still need to use raster formats for photographs. Which means you need to use media queries to serve high-res versions of your photos to 4K and 5K Retina screens, and much smaller, lower-res versions to mobile devices, to avoid killing your site’s performance on 3G and 4G connections. (If you’re working with a lot of images, it’s worth noting that Photoshop CC lets you export a single image in multiple sizes simultaneously.) Logos, drawings, user interface tools, buttons and so forth, though, should always be created as SVGs. This can be done in software such as Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw and Affinity Designer. To learn more about scalable graphics, read our 10 golden rules for responsive SVGs. 02. Consider larger displays The New York Times website, as screengrabbed by Jon Yabkonski on a large monitor When thinking about what your website will look like in 4K, remember that higher resolutions are making bigger and bigger screens more popular. So although we’ve only just got used to the idea of our sites being viewed on 1920x1080 monitors, we’re now having to think about what they’ll look like on displays on that are 2,560 pixels wide. Many websites can be difficult to read on these screens, where the text and content may look constricted and shrunk down, and an overabundance of whitespace. This excellent article by Jon Yabkonski on CSS Tricks addresses the technical challenges these wider displays present, and suggests some solutions. 03. Use 4K video Stock libraries like iStock by Getty Images can provide a wide range of 4K footage Because our eyes naturally respond to movement in a way that still images can’t compete with, video is a popular tool for grabbing the attention of website visitors. But whether you’re adding a video header, video background or strategic video clips to your site, right now, you have to serve it in 4K to avoid looking clunky and old-fashioned on the latest devices. There are many cheap and easy ways to shoot 4K footage nowadays, with many of the latest stills cameras, POV sports cameras and smartphones offering 4K shooting capabilities. Alternatively, if you don’t have the time, or need something you couldn’t shoot yourself, such as drone footage, most stock libraries now have masses of 4K video content for you to download. For more on using 4K video, check out What the new wave of 4K video means for designers. 04. Buy a 4K monitor Buying a monitor like the Acer S277HK takes all of the guesswork out of ensuring your site works in 4KAt the end of the day, the best way to be sure your websites will look good on a 4K monitor is – to state the obvious – to buy a 4K monitor. The good news is that it’s possible to get on for as little as £250, although as with everything, you get what you pay for. You’ll find an up-to-date roundup of the latest monitors by our sister site TechRadar here, while if your work involves 3D, motion graphics and/or video editing, you may want to check out this roundup too. Read more: The ultimate guide to image resolution The 5 best laptops for photo editing 5 tips for using stock imagery in your designs View the full article

After many impassioned debates between the world-class judging panel, just over a quarter of the projects submitted to Computer Arts' Brand Impact Awards have made the shortlist. We can now reveal those 47 projects, from 32 different agencies – scroll down for the full list. Computer Arts' Brand Impact Awards reward the very best branding from around the world. Now in its fourth year, the scheme's rich heritage of past winners represent the cream of the global branding industry. 2017's shortlist is no different. This year, the Brand Impact Awards received a record number of entries – 187 projects, from 86 different agencies. The winning and highly commended projects will be revealed at the fourth-annual Brand Impact Awards ceremony at the Ham Yard Hotel, London, on Wednesday 13 September. Early bird prices are valid until 21 July, so book your tickets now to join the world's top agencies and discover 2017's big winners. Book your Brand Impact Awards tickets Being shortlisted for the Brand Impact Awards is an accolade in itself. Standards are unfalteringly high, and if judges felt that none of the projects submitted in a category met the criteria, that category was cut altogether. Those criteria are: A strong, compelling concept that's appropriate for the client Beautiful and consistent execution across two or more brand touchpoints Branding that stands head and shoulders above the rest of its market sector Also, being the only agency shortlisted in a category does not necessarily mean taking home a coveted BIA trophy on the night. So it's all to play for. So without further ado, in alphabetical order, here are the 32 agencies that made the shortlist in the Brand Impact Awards 2017: Alphabetical Fashion Business School, by AlphabeticalCategory: Education Project: Fashion Business School Anagrama Winter Milk, by AnagramaCategory: Bars & Restaurants Project: Winter Milk Helvetimart, by AnagramaCategory: Retail Project: Helvetimart BrandOpus The Badger, by BrandOpusCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: The Badger Design Bridge Guinness, by Design BridgeCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: Guinness DesignStudio Deliveroo, by DesignStudioCategory: Retail Project: Deliveroo Premier League, by DesignStudioCategory: Sports Project: Premier League DixonBaxi Premier League broadcast graphics, by DixonBaxiCategory: Entertainment Project: Premier League broadcast graphics GBH London AB Walker, by GBH LondonCategory: Professional Services Project: AB Walker PUMA: Non-Corporate Box, by GBH LondonCategory: Sports Project: PUMA Non-Corporate Box GW+Co Reiss, by GW+CoCategory: Technology & Telecoms Project: Reiss Jack Renwick Studio Carpenters Wharf, by Jack Renwick StudioCategory: Property Project: Carpenters Wharf Johnson Banks Action For Children, by Johnson BanksCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Action for Children Mozilla, by Johnson BanksCategory: Technology & Telecoms Project: Mozilla Kontor Reykjavik Alvogen, by Kontor Reykjavik (illustrations: Noma Bar)Category: Pharmaceuticals & Toiletries Project: Alvogen MARK Studio Manchester Literature Festival, by MARK StudioCategory: Culture Project: Manchester Literature Festival 2016 Walk Through Walls, by MARK StudioCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Walk Through Walls Music Powerleague, by MusicCategory: Sports Project: Powerleague NB TypoCircle, by NB (with Studio Sutherl&)Category: Not-for-profit Project: TypoCircle Neon I’m An Activist, by NeonCategory: Not-for-profit Project: I'm an Activist for Action for Children Acumin, by NeonCategory: Professional Services Project: Acumin Pearlfisher Seedlip, by PearlfisherCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: Seedlip Peter and Paul Noiascape, by Peter and PaulCategory: Property Project: Noiascape Sagmeister & Walsh Pins Won't Save The World, by Sagmeister & WalshCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Pins Won't Save the World Salad Halo, by SaladCategory: Pharmaceuticals & Toiletries Project: Halo SB Conquista, by SBCategory: Publishing Project: Conquista SODA SODA rebrand, by SODACategory: Self-Branding Project: SODA rebrand Spy Studio H+J, by Spy StudioCategory: Bars & Restaurants Project: H+J Studio Dumbar NEMO, by Studio DumbarCategory: Education Project: NEMO Science Museum Studio Sutherl& Somos Brasil, by Studio Sutherl&Category: Culture Project: Somos Brasil Supple Studio D.R.A.W., by Supple StudioCategory: Professional Services Project: D.R.A.W. Straightline, by Supple StudioCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Straightline Twine, by Supple StudioCategory: Technology & Telecoms Project: Twine Taxi Studio Carlsberg Export, by Taxi StudioCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: Carlsberg Export Kobenhavn Collection, by Taxi StudioCategory 1: FMCG Category 2: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: The København Collection Polo, by Taxi StudioCategory: FMCG Project: POLO rebrand The Allotment Radical, by The AllotmentCategory: Automotive Project: Radical Sportscars The Clearing Wild Cards, by The ClearingCategory: Self-Branding Project: Wild Cards The Neighbourhood Smith’s Dock, by The Neighbourhood Category: Property Project: Smith's Dock The Partners Arte, by The Partners and Lambie-NairnCategory: Entertainment Project: Arte The Butcher The Baker, by The PartnersCategory: Artisan Project: The Butcher The Baker Hello Universe, by The PartnersCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Hello, Universe London Cru, by The PartnersCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: London Cru winery London Symphony Orchestra, by The PartnersCategory: Culture Project: London Symphony Orchestra #RewritingTheCode, by The PartnersCategory: Not-for-profit Project: #RewritingTheCode Thunderclap Creative Pillars Brewery Russian Doll Campaign, by Thunderclap CreativeCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: Pillars Brewery Russian Doll campaign True North National Gallery of Ireland, by True NorthCategory: Culture Project: National Gallery of Ireland Buy your Brand Impact Awards tickets now! The Brand Impact Awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday 13 September 2017 at the Ham Yard Hotel in London. Tickets include drinks reception, canapés and bowl food, and of course a chance to toast your success or drown your sorrows at the BIA after party. Earlybird prices (until Friday 21 July): 1 seat: £99 + VAT 5+ seats: 10% discount Buy tickets now! Standard prices: 1 seat: £110 + VAT 5+ seats: 10% discount Good luck to all shortlisted agencies! View the full article

For more on how teams can collaborate better, don't miss Alison Coward, founder of Bracket and author of A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops, at Generate London next week (20-22 Sept). There are still some tickets available. You probably harbour some resentment towards meetings. Perhaps you've got a plan for getting out of them permanently. Maybe while at university, you built the next killer iApplication and it will reap such monumental rewards you'll never have to sit in a conference room in your entire professional life. Or perhaps after slaving away on award-winning client sites since before you could game Altavista with the phrase "Britney Spears", you're confident that soon royalty checks and speaking gigs should keep you from having to sit in a boring meeting ever again. If you lean towards the latter of these personas, you may resent meetings from extensive experience, watching them destroy productivity. Meetings can be time consuming, costly, and are frequently called for the wrong reasons. Gathering in groups is a deeply rooted part of our psyche that is partly based on fear, going way back to when we proto-humans realised we might fare better against assorted proto-human-eating animals if we worked as a group. Many of the meetings we call today are of this ilk, and therefore can come across feeling more like group therapy than productive discussion. It logically follows that we should eliminate unproductive meetings from our time spent building things. But one cost of doing this is that we lose our collective awareness and agreement on what we are building, and why. Although some refer to this as an illusion of agreement, we have to start with some kind of agreement, and meetings afford us a unique opportunity to drive that illusion closer to a reality. They are the only place we can apply the full range of human communication styles: verbal (spoken word), visual (written words and image), and physical (body language) to a problem as a group. If we don't iterate that shared understanding, flawed though it may be, we guarantee misunderstandings, missed deadlines, and feelings of isolation. At Generate London, Alison Coward will explain how to create good team habits that stick The three flavours of meetings Meetings fall into one of three categories, loosely based on duration: Quick meetings address a simple challenge or level-set group understanding. They can be from five to 20 minutes or so, and require a decision before ending. Business meetings explore a finite problem, and can last one or two hours. They can result in either a decision or further clarification of the problem. Longer, working sessions address complex problems and unknowns in an open collaborative manner. These last from two hours to several days, and are also referred to as workshops. Outcomes include decisions, prototypes, strategic directions, plans, and more. By remembering some basic principles for each meeting type, you can make them more effective and engaging, and even eliminate a few meetings in the process. Quick meetings (30 minutes or less) If you need to make a group decision, there are tools out there to measure consensus on a simple concept without calling a meeting. So before scheduling one, ask yourself if an email thread or using an online survey would be sufficient. If you'd like to allow the team to express their perspectives in person, however, a short meeting with some clear constraints is your best choice. Sticky note activities like the KJ technique help groups establish priorities without devolving into arguments. Have people write their ideas based on a focusing question, rather than speak them aloud, then post them in a shared viewing space. This way, each participant will have a chance to review the group's full range of thought rather than reacting to the last thing that was said. It also levels the playing field between extroverts and introverts. A workshop employing the KJ methodBusiness meetings (1 to 2 hours) At this length meetings are their most problematic. An hour can wreak havoc on a workday, destroying concentration and dividing up productive time periods. When scheduling meetings of this length, consider isolating them to certain parts of the day to minimise damage. Experiment with "no meeting zones:" chunks of time where you eliminate business meetings entirely. When having a meeting like this, for five or more people there should be a designated facilitator. A facilitator leads participants through a meeting process. A good facilitator collaborates with leadership to create the best agenda for the intended results. Facilitators are meeting process ninjas: they make sure everyone has an equal chance to contribute, except themselves. Facilitators shouldn't contribute original ideas to a discussion. If they do, participants that feel their views differ from the facilitator's can accuse the facilitator of engineering the process. For this reason, it's good to select unbiased facilitators. When that isn't possible, the person running that discussion should focus on making sure everyone is heard, and not on their own analysis of the problem. It's also a good idea to have a sense of the business culture of the attendees. Is it a group of doodlers? Let them doodle ideas. Accountants? Focus on the numbers. Align meeting content and activities with the work values at hand. If you can translate the problem into their native language, you'll increase engagement. The workshop Workshops are complex beasts that require a lot of advance planning, a great playbook of activities to draw from, and the alignment of stars and planets to make sure everyone is available. Whether you are building a project plan, a prototype, or even a new company, I suggest keeping the following one thing in mind. When characters on the television show Lost started traveling through time, they introduced the concept of "the constant." "The constant" was something that a character would try to remember, usually the name of a person, to help keep you oriented in time and space. Using "the constant" in a long workshop is a powerful tool. As you move thought the day, it could be something as simple as a single question on the wall, written in large text, where everyone can see it: How will what you are doing right now create the change that we seek? Or it could be an activity: something that all attendees can do cumulatively over the day, any time they have a break: Write down an interface design or usability improvement goal for the next six months on a sticky note every time you hear one you like, and put it on the wall. Having a good constant, whether it's a theme or an activity, helps tie the component parts of a workshop together, giving it a nice arc. Go forth and meet well The next time you are putting together a meeting, try to align the goals of the meeting with one of the three types of meetings described above. Can you come up with a way to make the decision you need to make in 15 minutes, or is an hour discussion a better fit for the problem? Perhaps you should make that kickoff meeting a workshop instead of just spending an hour describing the project to everyone, to increase engagement. Design your meetings well, and they'll be far effective and keeping you out of (unnecessary) ones. At Generate London next week Alison Coward will explore how to run great workshops that improve team culture. The conference will also cover prototyping, user research, UX strategy, performance, web animations, adaptive interfaces, conversational design, and loads more. Reserve your spot today! Related articles: Interview with Alison Coward: How to design teamwork 5 tips for managing your team's time 20 tools to make your team more productive 7 ways to improve teamwork with design View the full article

You're reading Speed Up Your Development With Themify Ultra Theme, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Never before could one decide that they desired a website, then create one with all the bells and whistles in the same afternoon. Well, the Ultra Theme by Themify is here to change all of that. In a matter of minutes, you can setup a fully loaded website, tailor made for your specific needs. Whether you’re creating an online […] View the full article

It’s that time of year again where Tim Cook et al take to the stage in California (this time in the new Steve Jobs Theatre at the Apple Campus 2) to tell us about the new iPhone. We’ve seen two new iPhones announced in recent times, but this year we’ve been treated to three – the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and, most interestingly, the iPhone X (or ‘ten’). Availability and pricing We'll cut to the chase. The iPhone X is available for pre-order from 27th October, with the 64GB version costing a jaw-dropping £999. The 256GB version costs £1,149. The iPhone 8 is available for pre-order on 15th September and costs £699 for the 64GB version. The 8 Plus is available the same date and will set you back a pound less than £800. iPhone X: new design and tech Hit the image to read our sister site TechRadar's hands-on review of the iPhone X So let’s start with the iPhone X, then. Coming 10 years after the original iPhone, the iPhone X is the most radically different iPhone – in terms of design – ever. Gone is the Home button. There’s a very minimal bezel. And there’s a new edge-to-edge 5.8-inch ‘Super Retina Display’. The front and back of the iPhone X are glass – the most durable glass ever, according to Apple – joined together by stainless steel. Spec-wise, the OLED screen looks pretty impressive, with 2,436 x 1,125 dpi resolution at 448 ppi. It’s HDR, and features Apple’s True Tone technology to adapt the screen to your surroundings for viewing comfort. Screen aside, possibly the most interesting thing about the iPhone X is Face ID. The long and short of it is you can now unlock your iPhone with your face. It’s apparently pretty accurate, too – and the company has gone to great lengths to make sure it can’t be fooled by a photo of your good self. Oh, and you can also use it to create talking 3D animal emoji. If you like. The iPhone X is powered by Apple’s A11 Bionic chip – which no doubt enables you to perform super-human feats with your smartphone. It’s splash, water and dust resistant and, even though it’s got a whopping 5.8-inch screen, comes in at a very svelte 5.65 inches (h) x 2.79 (w) x 0.3 (d) and weighs just 174g. Oh, and there’s also wireless charging, thanks to the iPhone adopting the Qi standard. The iPhone X comes in space grey and silver in 64GB and 256GB configurations. iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus TechRadar are at the Apple EventThe iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are much more familiar – with a similar form factor to their predecessors. The difference is there’s a new glass front and back design, with an ‘aerospace grade’ (who cares?) aluminium band. Like with the X, we recommend getting a case. The last glass-backed iPhone was the iPhone 4 – and this writer managed to drop and shatter his on day one. DAY ONE! Of course, glass tech has moved on since then – and like the iPhone X, Apple says the iPhone 8 features the most durable glass ever on a smartphone. The iPhone 8 comes in silver, space gray and gold, and like the iPhone X, in 64GB and 256GB models. Like the iPhone X, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are powerful smartphones, with 4.7- (1334 x 750 pixel at 326dpi) and 5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixel at 401ppi) screens respectively. The iPhone 8(s) also feature the same A11 Bionic chip, wireless charging and water resistance as the X. The cameras OK, let’s talk about the stuff you’re really interested in: how can the new iPhones up your Instagram game? Both the iPhone 8/8 Plus and iPhone X feature significantly upgraded cameras. And both feature some neat new portrait tools to make your shots better quality than ever. iPhone X camera Let’s talk about the iPhone X’s front camera first. This is the camera with facial recognition – and Apple is calling it, in true hyberbolic fashion, the TrueDepth Camera. This is the camera that scans your noggin to log you in. It’s also a 7MP snapper with a new Portrait Lighting feature (also found in the rear camera) enabling you to dynamically alter the lighting of your subject’s face as you shoot. So whereas Portrait Mode creates a depth map and separates your subject from the background, Portrait Lighting analyses the lighting on your subject’s face and enables you to flick between presets – not filters – as you shoot. These include Natural Light, which puts your subject’s face in sharp focus against a blurred background; Studio Light, which gives you a clean look with your subject’s face brightly lit; Contour Light – giving you dramatic highlights and lowlights; Stage Light – your subject’s face spotlit against a black background; and Stage Light Mono – like stage but in black-and-white. Turn the smartphone over and you’ll see a vertical 12MP dual-camera setup – like the iPhone 7 and 8 there’s a Wide-angle and Telephoto lens for optical zoom within the Camera app. There’s dual optical image stabilisation here, as well. In terms of video, you can record 4K at 24, 30 or 60fps and 1080p footage at 30 or 60fps. And of course it supports the new Portrait features. There’s also a new Slow Sync flash for better uniformity in low-light, more filters and Apple’s new image signal processor, which detects elements in a scene, such as people, motion and lighting, and promises to optimise your photos according to the subject matter. iPhone 8 / iPhone 8 Plus camera Image courtesy of TechRadar The iPhone 8 doesn’t feature the new Portrait Lighting option – as it doesn’t have a dual camera setup. The 8 Plus does, on the rear camera only. Aside from this, camera specs in the 8 and 8 Plus are pretty much the same as the X as far as we can tell. ARkit: what you need to know During the unveiling of the iPhone 8/Plus and X we saw a demo of some pretty cool AR games. Developers will be able to take advantage of the faster A11 Bionic chip, the three-core GPU and enhanced camera to create some amazing augmented reality experiences. It’s going to be fascinating to see what games devs do with the new power of the iPhone 8 and X – so watch this space. Related articles: The 30 best iPhone apps for designers 9 iPad Pro apps that make the most of Apple Pencil iOS 11 preview for designers: release date, news and specs View the full article

Microsoft fixes 25 critical vulnerabilities including one zero day under attack and one tied to the high-profile BlueBorne attack vector. View the full article

Adobe fixed eight vulnerabilities across three products, Flash Player, RoboHelp for Windows, and ColdFusion, as part of its September Patch Tuesday updates. View the full article

https://blog.cpanel.com/keep-email-abuse-off-your-machines/ … View the full article

http://thehackernews.com/2017/09/blueborne-bluetooth-hacking.html … View the full article

Researchers warned Monday of two remote code execution vulnerabilities in FreeXL that could let an attacker execute code with local user privileges. View the full article

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/09/12/why-are-redditors-ripping-images-from-instagram-because-they-can/ … View the full article

Internet sensation and IFX favourite Lois van Baarle, aka Loish, has launched a brand new Kickstarter project. Her new fan-funded book, The Sketchbook of Loish, allows you to delve into her personal sketchbook and see first-hand how she brings her iconic works to life. Check out Loish's new Kickstarter pageLoish has worked as a concept artist and illustrator for the likes of Lego and Coca Cola and her unique designs and self-styled career pathway has proven a major influence on the digital artist community. Loish has worked as a concept artist for global giant, Coca ColaLast time the visual virtuoso launched a book on Kickstarter, she surpassed her target by hundreds of thousands of pounds and has since become one of the most followed artists on social media. Loish revealed via her official Facebook page: “There will be a limited number of signed copies and prints, as well as special prizes and stretch goals. These ran out very fast during my previous campaign!” The campaign goes live today, so if you want to be in for a chance to win any of her exclusives, head over to Kickstarter and get backing her without a moments notice! Related articles: Adobe launches revealing video series by artists Cult YouTube illustrator launches exciting Kickstarter 5 Kickstarter projects worth watching View the full article

Mobile painting app Procreate is quickly becoming the go-to digital sketchpad for both professional and hobbyist designers and artists. That's why we've curated this selection of the best free Procreate brushes – as well as the best premium options – for you to bookmark. Review: Procreate 3.2Winner of the 2013 Apple design award and ImagineFX Editors Choice, Procreate is more than just a quick drawing tool. The iPad app transforms your iPad into a drawing tablet capable of the level of artwork previously only possible on a desktop or expensive graphics tablet dedicated to digital design. There's an unlimited library of brushes available, meaning you can have every style and stoke available at your fingertips. So which ones do you want? Read on for our pick of the best downloadable Procreate brushes to add to your collection… 01. Petra's Procreate Brush Box Vol. 1: Handlettering Price: Free Petra (StudioBurg)’s collection is an essential package, offering a selection of brushes that should suit most basic illustration and graphic design needs. She covers various pen and pencil styles as well as paint brushes, making it easy to pick your desired signature. O2. Ian Bernard's Flat Brushes Price: $5 We all have that favourite brush used time and time again for lettering, and this particular collection is directly inspired by artist Ian Bernard’s old faithful. The brushes are varied from solid to textured to give you plenty of variation for your own work. 03. The Will (Elder) Comic Ink Brush Set Price: Free Perfect for those budding comic illustrators out there. Georg’s tribute to American comic book illustrator Will Elder, who helped launch MAD comics back in the 50’s includes both inking brushes and SFX additions. The perfect addition to any illustrators Procreate repertoire. 04. Pencil and Charcoal Procreate Brushes Price: $6.46 Swiss designer Kim (aka MiksKS) has a whole host of brilliant brushes to offer. Her pencil and charcoal collection make it easy to sketch on the go, with clients or just capture a moment in a coffee shop without wasting paper. 05. Dearest Dotty Price: Free Designer, Missy Meyer has a plethora of free Procreate brushes available on her website that are all brilliant for creating graphic script. The great thing about Dearest Dotty is it’s versatility and the unique retro vibe it helps give off when used for hand lettering. 06. Flora: Vegetation brushes Price: Free Matthew Baldwin’s vegetation brush set makes light work for concept artists. Set the scene instantly and master that painterly effect digitally. Baldwin has captured every style of stroke seen by the concept masters. 07. Lisa Bardot’s Gouache brushes Price: $14.40 Bardot has a few brush packs available on her site but her gouache one is particularly unique. Emulate the classic Disney illustrative magic of Mary Blair digitally, and add depth and personality to your graphic design caricatures. 08. Summit Avenue’s Shimmer and Confetti Price: $16.80 Designing event flyers? Wedding invites? Summit Avenue have got you covered with a set of 12 confetti brushes and 24 foil and glitter textures to add a touch of sparkle to your designs. 09. Procreate Paint Box Price: $14.40 Ben Lew’s paint box has a brilliant selection of brushes, from wet pencil to bristly and his go-to watercolour brush, “gwosh”. Lew has now updated the set with his 4 pastel brushes from his “Pastellesque” set. 10. Nitty Gritty Price: $3.60 Jamie Bartlett’s Nitty Gritty texture brushes are brilliant for adding fine grit texture and an instant ageing effect to your designs. 11. Bistro Marker Price: Free As you can see from her Instagram, Leftyscript’s brushes can create some truly beautiful hand lettering designs that speak for themselves – no further illustration needed! Her bistro marker is a brilliant freebie pen that allows you to capture a hand-written signage type-face perfectly. 12. Vintage Engraving Price: $7.20 Another MilksKS brush set, this one allows you to capture the look of a black and white engraving, adding that extra special touch to your illustrations or design project. Combine a few for a classic crosshatching effect, and pick from a worn-out or clean cut style. 13. Hand Drawn Ornaments Price: $19 Calligraphy artist, Nicole Mauloni’s Hand Drawn Ornaments Procreate Brush Kit includes over 100 brushes to adorn digital calligraphy. Perfect for creating a design stamp with flourishes, shapes and motifs. 14. iPad Lettering Set Price: Free Get back to basics with this freebie set of three essential brushes: original calligraphy, rough edge calligraphy and round edge calligraphy. Sometimes simplicity is beautiful. 15. Rad & Happy Price: Free Rad & Happy founder, Tara, often gets asked what brushes she uses for her designs, the answer? These. And she’s made them downloadable, completely free of charge! Next page: 15 more awesome brushes and brush packs to download to your Procreate app 16. Studio FabianFischer’s Brush 1 Price: $1.19 Fischer created this brush out of a LYRA tip and has edited it into a fully functional, pressure sensitive Procreate brush. Create realistic hand drawn lettering with ease! 17. Thin Ink Price: $3 (AUS) Sasha Hickson, aka Peachface’s ‘Thin Ink’, is a popular brush for making quirky and modern designs. Easily replicate delicate thick and thin strokes and quickly add those feminine flourishes to your designs. 18. Monoline Price: $3 Designer at Hewitt Avenue, Sarah, makes all the brushes she uses for her own designs available to download. Her Monoline brush is a versatile addition to your brush collection and perfect for the newbie letterer. 19. Chalk Letterer Box Price: $12 Forget the dusty hands, Guerilla Craft’s brush set lets you create your chalked masterpieces on the comfort of your own clean, digital iPad. With a selection of wet chalk, smudge chalk, round chalk, flat chalk, gritty chalk and more, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better selection. 20. Dry Marker Price: $15 Everyone loves the effortless scribe of a dry marker and Bec Ralec’s (aka Pixelcolours) collection of add on brushes gives you 15 different marker pens to choose from. Ralec has also kindly included an original calligraphy brush for all your graphic needs! 21. Fat Ink Price: $3.60 Thin ink is great and all, but what about when you need that fat, bold brush to really make your lettering stand out? Sarahtypes has you covered with her super smooth brush, giving you an extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes. 22. Midcentury Illustrators Kit Price: $14.40 Go full-on retro with Lisa Bardot’s latest premium brush kit, designed to help you master that quirky 60s graphic, texture rich commercial design style with ease. 23. Matty B’s Hatch Effects Price: Free Another fantastic free brush pack from MattyB, perfect for the budding or professional illustrator. Lines, dots, scribbles, marks, you name it – it’s in the pack! 24. Lettering Brush Pack Price: $18 Ryan Hamrick’s selection of 14 custom Procreate lettering brushes allows you to produce high-end, professional lettering work on your iPad. A Beautiful selection of his own favourite brushes, there’s little you can’t do with this pack. 25. Nikko’s Brushes Price: Free Well respected Procreate digital artist, Nikolai Lockertsen, has made his own five favourite custom brushes available to download. Just check out his site to see what he had achieved with this small set of tools, it’s nothing short of phenomenal. 26. Blackletter Price: $8 Created by Boston-based calligraphy artist, Jake Rainis; the artist says he’s downloaded almost every set on the market to see what works and what doesn’t in order to produce this, his own extensive brush set. 27. The Parchment Pen Price: $3 This pressure sensitive brush mimics the look of an Eighteenth Century quill, making it perfect for calligraphy but also great for black and grey line drawings. 28. Whiskers Price: Free The Inky Hand’s Whiskers brush is a fantastic little brush, perfect for creating a unique hand-drawn, scratchy effect. Great for rough sketches and adding a touch of originality to your images. 29. Dizzy Tara’s Sketch and Ink Price: $2 A fantastic little package of inky brushes to use while sketching. DizzyTara’s 9 brushes include a variety of shaped ink pens and a board marking brush. 30. Watercolor Brushes Price: $21.60 A very comprehensive set from graphic designer, PicByKate, allowing you to master the watercolour effect in digital format. Unfortunately this collection only works in Procreate 3 and earlier, but the artist is updating it for Procreate 4 soon. Related articles: Review: Procreate 3.2 9 iPad Pro apps that make the most of Apple Pencil 6 best digital art tools of 2017 so far View the full article