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It's just three weeks until Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2017 will bring you some great discounts on creative tools, but in the meantime, we've got you a great daily deal on a portable chalkboard and chalkboard markers. You never know when you're going to have your next great idea, so when it comes, you have to be prepared to capture it. The Contact Paper Creativity Bundle lets you turn any flat surface into the perfect place to record your latest inspiration and bring your ideas to life. You can get this bundle on sale now for just $17.99 (approx £14). The Contact Paper Creativity Bundle is an essential tool for any creative type. This simple peel-and-stick chalkboard can be set up anywhere on any flat surface, no assembly required and no need to lug around extra equipment. Just cut it into the perfect shape and stick it onto your surface of choice. Whether you want to just write down your to-do list in a place you won't miss or work through your latest brain storm, this is the perfect bundle for you. You can get the Contact Paper Creativity Bundle on sale for just $17.99 (approx £14). That's a saving of 30% off the full retail price for a great tool that will help spark your creativity, so grab this deal today. About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. Read more: How to get the best Cyber Monday deals 2017 10 top tools for illustrators to try this October Doodle art: 52 great examples View the full article

Colour harmony is the theory of combining colours in a way that is harmonious to the eye. It's the 'magical glue' that binds all of the elements of your painting together. Without it, you can have the perfect subject to paint, a great base drawing, strong composition, and correct values, but end up with a painting that looks wrong. This problem is pretty common, and the chances are, it’s because the colours you’ve used lack harmony. In real life, the light falling onto elements and the air surrounding them affects the colours we see. The colours on a misty day are completely different to those on a bright and sunny one. It is this ‘atmospheric veil’ of lighting conditions that unifies all the elements of a painting together. There are many rules as to how to achieve such harmony, such as using complementary or analogous colours. We already have an in-depth colour theory guide so I’m not going to go into the theory here – I won’t even mention which colours go well together. Instead, I’ll simply give a few practical tips that can make a big difference to the final result of your piece. The following five tips should help you use colour to create that ‘magical glue’ that harmonises your oil painting and links all the elements within it together. 01. Use a ground colour Start with a ground colour before paintingI always apply a ground colour before starting a painting. It means I won’t need to fill every gap on the canvas, but more importantly, it helps harmonise the piece. The ground colour helps establish an atmosphere, and it can even show through thinly painted areas of the finished piece. My ground colour varies – it could be pink, orange, ochre or grey – depending on the mood of the scene. In this unfinished painting, I chose a vibrant orange to convey the feeling of heat. This colour appears across the whole painting and although in the final piece, many of the gaps are filled in, the feeling remains. For my oil paintings I use primed MDF boards, as they have the correct absorbency for my painting style. I prime each with three coats of acrylic gesso before applying my ground colour. 02. Use a limited palette Keep it simple by using fewer coloursAs a beginner, it is easy to get carried away and buy every colour available. But using a limited palette has many benefits. Fewer colours means you mix most of the colours yourself. I very rarely buy green, for example. Instead, I mix it from two blues and two yellows, so all the greens on my painting look related, and are harmonious with the blues and yellows. The fewer colours you have, the better you’ll get to know them, and the better you’ll become at mixing them. Too many different colours can lead to chaos. Try using only three colours (yellow, blue, red) plus white. You’ll be amazed at how may hues you can make and how harmonious they will look. I mainly use Winsor & Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colours, which means no solvents are needed. 03. Don’t always wipe your brushes Harmony can be achieved by using different colours with the same brushThis tip is rather controversial, and many artists probably won’t agree, but it works for me. I often paint with the same brush for an extended amount of time and consecutively work on various colours without needing to wipe or clean my brush in between. This results in a painting full of harmonious colours that all share some of the same pigments. Obviously, the vibrant colours, strong highlights and darkest darks need to be done with clean brushes to ensure maximum impact. But the mid-tones can benefit from a bit of blending. This technique sometimes even helps to make the highlights stand out. I like to use Rosemary & Co Ivory Filberts (Sizes: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7) and Riggers (Sizes: 0, 2). These combine the silkiness of synthetic brushes with the firmness of hog bristles. 04. Work across the whole canvas Add colours across the canvas for better blendingWhen I paint, I try to see the painting as a whole. If I load my brush with purple, for example, I add brushstrokes everywhere I can see purple in my piece, instead of simply focusing on small areas. I then do the same with the next colour. This helps to harmonise the painting and makes all the elements relate to each other. In this image, note how the same colours appear everywhere on the painting. This technique also has the advantage of making the painting look good at every stage because no areas are left untouched – this is particularly useful when painting outside, as the weather might force you to stop your piece sooner than planned. 05. Add glazing Finishing with glaze can help bring harmony to a pieceIf you have already finished your painting but it still lacks harmony, you can glaze the whole canvas with a colour that adds a specific mood. This reduces the intensity of the colours but links the elements together. Think of it as a little bit like adding a tinted glass over a scene to make it look sunnier, mistier or darker. There are various ways to add glaze. Mix a medium (Winsor & Newton Artists’ Painting Medium works well) or a retouching varnish with a small amount of paint and cover the whole canvas. Make sure you follow the instructions to avoid cracks. Alternatively, load a dry brush with a small amount of paint and apply it thinly over the dry surface. This article originally appeared in issue 11 of Paint & Draw magazine. Buy a copy here Related articles: 7 must-know painting techniques for artists 10 essential oil painting tips and techniques How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorials View the full article

This tutorial, showing you how to make a mobile app prototype in Adobe XD, was put together using Adobe XD CC (2017 beta) in 2016. The newly launched Adobe XD CC has had a few tweaks, making it even easier to use. Get a 15% discount on Adobe Creative Cloud hereIf you are a designer creating user experiences for mobile apps or websites, you may be used to using multiple tools for different tasks when prototyping. You start with research. Then you sketch ideas on pen and paper, and later transfer your thoughts to a design tool. To come up with the best flow, you export all your assets and bring them into another tool to build a prototype. From there, you share or test your prototype, gather feedback, and return to the middle of the cycle to iterate, switching from tool to tool as you refine your design. Several design tools each tackle a different part of the problem. But instead of making your life as a designer easier, switching between all these tools only decreases your pace. What if there were a single tool that meant you could enjoy a fully connected workflow? Where you could design and prototype your experiences in minutes, share them on the web to capture feedback, then make edits easily without breaking your stride? The goal with Adobe Experience Design CC – or, as we call it, Adobe XD – was to do just that. In this tutorial, we'll show you the main areas of Adobe XD by designing, prototyping and sharing a simple 'meet the team' mobile app. We'll create a contents page listing the product team members, then users will be able to click the individual entries to be taken to a more in-depth biog page. You'll learn how to create high-fidelity designs, prototype and share them to gather feedback. Watch the video above and follow the written steps below to learn how to prototype with Adobe XD. Not only will we show you how to make it, we'll also show you how to test it, record a preview video of it in action, and how to share and export it. Note that some processes might have changed slightly in the newer version of Adobe XD. 01. Install Adobe XD and start a new design Start your design by selecting the iPhone artboard from your template options First, ensure Adobe XD is installed on your computer. Launch it, take a look at the welcome screen and start a new design with an iPhone artboard template. 02. Create a second artboard Use the Artboard tool (A) to create a second artboard, then change their titles (by double-clicking on them) to 'iPhone – Team Page' and 'iPhone – Detail Page'. Change both Artboards' background colours to black using the property inspector on your right. With the Select tool (V) selected, you can press the spacebar at any time to pan across your design. 03. Download tutorial assets I've put together a folder of assets that I'll be using throughout this tutorial. You can download them here. From Finder, drag 'iphone-status-bar.svg' to the top of Artboard 1 (x: 8, y: 5). Then copy and paste it into Artboard 2, so both artboards have the status bar on the top. Hit cmd+L to lock these status bars in both artboards so their properties cannot be modified. To unlock them, you can use the shortcut again or click the 'lock' icon. 04. Draw a rectangle and set dimensions Let's focus on Artboard 1 (the team page). Using the Rectangle tool (R), draw a pink rectangle (#FF2BC2 with no border) in Artboard 1 and set its dimensions to 375 x 230 using the property inspector panel on the right. 05. Reorder objects To turn the border or fill on and off, click on the 'eye' icon on the right. Hit shift+cmd+[ to send it all the way to the back, or go to Object > Arrange > Send to Back. If you want to change colours using hexadecimal values, click on the colour icon, and when the native colour picker pops up, select the second tab at the top and change the drop-down to 'RGB Sliders'. 06. Create a header Using the text tool (T), click to create a header for your team page. Mine is Helvetica Bold, 20, #FFFFFF, x: 18, y: 123. Let's start putting together our list of team members. Draw a grey square where the team member's photo will sit (100 x 100, x: 8, y: 238, #D0D0D0 with no border). 07. Add another rectangle To the right of this, we need a white rectangle (260 x 100, x: 108, y: 238, #FFFFFF with no border) on which we'll include the team member's name as a header and job title as a subhead. For now, use placeholder text, and style it up as you wish. 08. Add an arrow icon To show this box will be a tappable area, we'll include an arrow icon. Drag 'path.svg' from Finder onto the XD canvas to a point off the artboard. Then reposition it to x: 330, y: 279. 09. Place your headshot From Finder, drag a headshot into place on the grey square. 10. Create the list Use the powerful Repeat Grid feature to create your list of team members Now we can create our list. At this point, you would normally be copying and pasting the top item, moving the copied version down and adjusting the margin. You would do the same for new items, and if you wanted to change the margins, you would have to do it manually, one by one. Well, not with Adobe XD – you can use the Repeat Grid feature. Select the items you want to repeat, click on the 'Repeat Grid' button on the property inspector on your right (cmd+R) and use the green handles to repeat the items vertically. You could also repeat them horizontally for a tablet version. 11. Adjust the margin Adjust the margin of your repeated grid by hovering on the edge of your items, clicking and dragging. Let's set the margin to 7. Drag the repeat grid to the bottom of your artboard. We now have four rows to play with. 12. Edit the text fields Drag all the headshots onto the grid While properties (colours, x and y positions, and so on) are global, each item's content can be unique. Edit the text fields to each individual's name and job title. You can double-click to enter the grid and the group, or cmd+click to direct-select any element within a group or repeated grid. Now we just need to grab all the headshots at once and drag them onto the grid and we're finished with this screen. 13. Create a darkened effect Let's jump to Artboard 2 (the detail page). Again, we'll start with a placeholder rectangle (375 x 444, x: 0, y: 0, #FFFFFF with no border) and drag a headshot to fill it. We'll create a darkened effect by changing the image's opacity to 60 per cent and sending it to the back (shift+cmd+[). 14. Add another arrow Then lock the headshot item (cmd+L) and add another arrow ('back-arrow.svg') to indicate the user can return to the team list. This needs to sit at x: 20, y: 40. It is important to lock the image first, because otherwise the SVG will replace the headshot. 15. Add contact information bar We want to include a pink bar on each page, which will list the team member's contact details (375 x 45, x: 0, y: 400). Use the Text tool (T) to create a text element reading 'Placeholder link', centre it, style it up, and place it at x: 169, y: 416. 16. Create more instances of the text element Let's use the Repeat Grid tool to create two more instances of this text element. First, convert the text to a Repeat Grid (cmd+R), then hold the option key while expanding your grid horizontally. Beautiful, isn't it? Direct-select the text (cmd+click) and change the contents to read 'Email', 'Twitter' and 'LinkedIn'. 17. Create name and bio box To finish the design, create a white box (360 x 214, x: 8, y: 445) that will include the team member's name and biog. First add a text element using the placeholder 'Person name'. For the text element that holds the biog, we want to use Area Text. To do this, select the Text tool (T) and click and drag to define the area for your copy. Again, type some placeholder text for now, and adjust its styling properties. 18. Create artboards for other team members Duplicate your detail page so there is one for each team member Now let's make some new artboards for other team members. First unlock the main image (cmd+L), then click on Artboard 2's title to select it, and hit cmd+C to copy it. Zoom out (cmd+- or use the trackpad to pinch-to-zoom), then hit cmd+V to paste three new artboards. Add some biog info to each page. Update the names and headshot images, and arrange the artboards on the canvas. Cool! Our design is finished for now. 19. Set up the flow It's time to start defining the app's flow. A prototype can be worth a thousand meetings, so we will create one to communicate our design intent. Simply jump to Prototype Mode (top left), select the item that will be tapped by the user (hold cmd to direct-select), and drag a wire to the right artboard. When the mouse is released, we can set the segue, easing and duration. Simple. 20. Connect up Wire each item on your list to its respective detail page Let's go though each of the items on our list on Artboard 1 and wire them to their respective detail page. For each of these, we want to set the segue to Slide Left, and the easing to Ease out. Next we can wire the back arrows on each of the detail pages back to Artboard 1 – remember to set the segue to Slide Right this time. Boom – our prototype is ready. 21. Test the prototype Any changes to your design will be reflected immediately in the preview To test the prototype, click on the Play button on the top right (Preview). You don't need to close the Preview window to update your design or your wires. Just start making changes, and they will automatically be reflected on the Preview window. 22. Make a video It's easy to record a video of your interactions when testing the prototype. With the Preview window open, click on the Record button to start and stop recording. Save the '.mov' file and share with your stakeholders. 23. Share your work Share prototypes on the web To share the prototypes on the web, click on the last button on the top right (Share Online). Click on the Create Link button. All the assets will be uploaded to Creative Cloud and a link will be created. If changes are necessary, you can go back to Design Mode, make the changes and share again. The whole flow just works. 24. Export files You can export designs as PNGs for Web, iOS and Android at different sizes, or SVGs From XD, you can export PNGs for Web, iOS and Android at different sizes, as well as highly optimised SVG files. 25. Enjoy the results Congratulations! You've mastered the basics of Adobe Experience Design CC (Preview). Feel free to share your prototypes on the web and social media – add #adobexd so we can see your work. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 280. Subscribe to net here. Related articles How to avoid prototyping pitfalls How to use animation in mobile apps 10 tips for better mobile UX design View the full article

It used to be extremely difficult to find information about how to break in to the movie industry. Concept artists within the profession talked to each other, but rarely with anyone outside the loop, making it difficult to understand what distinguished film work from everything else. Concept art as used in movies has many facets, and these tips are specifically geared toward emphasising clarity and narrative in your portfolio. The advice I give comes from my experiences and observations within the entertainment field (most recently on Star Wars: Rogue One, Pacific Rim 2 and Transformers: The Last Knight, as you can see on my portfolio site), which is a fast-paced and continually changing industry. To stay relevant, concept artists must adapt quickly, and keep ahead of the curve in a challenging environment. Understanding what art directors and production designers look for when assembling their teams is crucial, as is streamlining your process, since time is always of the essence. Joining a project offers many opportunities and you should learn as much as possible from every one, including building strong relationships with colleagues. Since the concept work on a film can last from a few months to a few years, knowing how the industry works and being able to transition seamlessly between jobs will help you stay on the production as long as possible. Here are my tips for making it as a movie concept artist. 01. Show your ability to adapt to storylines Ballarat Establishing: Tell stories with everything you doAny concept artist working for movies is designing for the story, regardless of their level of experience. Every movie is based on a narrative that must be communicated clearly, whether through a design or defined by a key frame, and a movie-oriented portfolio must show the ability to adapt to storylines. Make sure to show your storytelling abilities: usually three or four keyframes can sell a plot point. These moments should relate to each other rather than be chosen from throughout the narrative, since exhibiting one or two important segments is better than randomly choosing points. 02. Design grounded concepts Encounter: Master the art of accurate historical storytellingMany concept artists these days are talented at designing for the fantasy and science fiction genres. But it’s important not to compartmentalise your talents, and drawing on a broad range of genres is crucial for a film designer’s portfolio. Frequently, aspiring artists overlook historical adaptations that can be big selling points in their portfolios. My first position in film came about because of several Western-influenced keyframes I designed. This type of historical work will indicate you have a broader range than the competition. Make sure only to use references that are correct for that specific time period. When your work is grounded in this way, it means you're depicting the past correctly, instead of creating derivative or stylised designs. 03. Get a clear read Hideout: Convey your ideas clearlyExpressing an idea clearly is as important as communicating a narrative, but many aspiring concept artists sacrifice clarity by over-designing an image. The aim is to simplify ideas, not create unnecessary confusion. Studios look to artists who can convey ideas succinctly. Many times it’s the simplest composition that’s the most effective. Always have a reason for every stroke you make, for every light source, and for every composition decision. 04. Create ‘arrows’ to guide the eye Forgotten refuge: Guiding the viewers' eye is essential to film story tellingIt’s important to guide the eye through your composition, and planning the focal points carefully will control the image and compositional elements. A great, simple way to manage this is by breaking down each element into 'arrows'. Think of each brush stroke and texture you add as a line; use the momentum of the shape to carry focus from one object to another, so that they’re linked in a subtle visual way. This can work for any design element, from a shape on a wall, to a character’s shadow, to mist that’s diffusing a scene. Try to guide the eye through several focal points in the image – a main statement followed by supporting focal points. See step 8 for more on this. 05. Consider variations, and how to show them Bistan Gun Designs: Make sure you show the extent of your skillsMost concept artists employed in the industry create variations during their design process, and studios want to hire junior artists who have the same approach. When given a single idea – for instance, an architectural structure – visualise eight different possibilities, each based on the same cultural inspiration and materials. It’s the form and aesthetic that should vary throughout each design, though the theme remains the same. 06. Specialise from the start Stilt House: Become a niche artist to attract the work you wantIn my experience it's easier to break into the industry by specialising in one category, rather than pursuing multiple skillsets. This is not the same as a genre – sci-fi, fantasy, historical, say – rather, it’s focusing your effort on one subject like environments, props, creatures or costumes. Choosing one of these means you can devote more time to mastering that individual craft rather than spreading yourself too thin, which means achieving less but in more categories. Art directors generally choose a “specialist” they have confidence in over a jack-of-all-trades. Selling yourself as the perfect person for a specific type of job reaps rewards. You can always explore other categories later. 07. Push yourself Somnapod: Never get comfortable, keep pushing your skills at every opportunityThis industry is always evolving along with its technology, and as a result, everyone in the field must adapt or risk being left behind. A concept artist who's pushing to learn and grow will be an obvious choice over one who stagnates. It’s tempting to slow down once you get the job you’ve worked hard for. But it’s also important to confront – and learn from – new challenges as you go. This could mean trying a new approach to design once in a while or learning a new program. It could mean taking an extra class on the side. Every person has a different end goal, but the point is to not lose your drive or passion after success. Next page: 7 more tips on becoming a successful film concept artist 08. Use the 'arrows' technique Guide the eye within a composition by making significant choices and establishing a hierarchy of shapesA. Use meaningful shapes Make sure when setting up your composition to place meaningful shapes. Think of lighting as revealing areas in your canvas where you want people to focus. Generally at this point it’s good to think in the abstract. Instead of thinking of the actual object (say, a person), think of it as a shape, and try to create contrast in form where you want people to look. B. Add arrows During the first refinement stage I start adding the arrows we discussed earlier. Here, the concentric rings around the entrance function as a circular arrow, supported by the background rings in the landscape. I add more figures that are centred around my focal point, all looking towards where the action is taking place. I try to reinforce multiple focal points. C. Simplify and refine The last step is just reinforcing the statements from our earlier composition. The great part about setting up your composition beforehand is that it acts as a guide to the rest of your image. The goal is to solve as many problems as you can early on, so when you come to your refinement passes, you're simplifying and rendering rather than changing your canvas. 09. Target pre production vs post production Wobani: Where do you want to be? Working in the initial concepts or on the film itself?There are many phases in a film’s production, and a concept artist has a particular role in each. Some artists are hired even before funding is in place, pitching concepts to investors just as the movie is conceived. When pre-production for a film starts, most of the work is blue sky, meaning it’s focused on exploration and finding the visual style of the film. This is the most open-ended phase of a film, during which time artists usually have more freedom to illustrate their own ideas. As pre-production comes to a close, the creative ideas in a film are resolved. Post-production takes place after principle photography has been completed, when the majority of the film has been shot on camera. In this phase concept artists usually deal with shot replacement, shot extensions, visual effects, and assisting animation and other departments to finalise the CG shots. Often, studios will hire vendors and VFX companies – such as ILM, MPC and Weta Digital – to assist with these shots; with larger-budget films, the amount of vendors required on a film will increase, with CG-heavy films having a multitude of companies involved. While visual development occurs in both sections of a production, generally speaking more development takes place during the earlier phases of the project. 10. Learn about VR Water Tower Callouts: VR is changing the way films are madeVirtual reality is a game-changing technology that’s having a big impact on the industry. Designing in a virtual space has become more popular in film production: set designers construct 3D models of the actual stage, then use real-time simulations that enable the director and crew to move around the scene. This makes conceiving shots and locations easier and faster, sometimes designing sets without any plates or real-world locations. Learning how to design in a virtual set is becoming more important, and a concept artist can offer much more to a team when they can work with this technology. Being fluent in a 3D modelling package is a must when it comes to this kind of work. For a bit of VR inspiration, why not immerse yourself in these VR podcasts? 11. Consider working for a VFX company versus working on-set The Brothers: Being on-set can be preferable if you prefer a wider range of tasksJust as there are differences in production, there are major variations between working within an outsourcing or VFX company versus an on-set art department. When you're working off-site on films, say for a VFX firm or visual development outsourcer, you're surrounded with an extra layer of colleagues, art directors and leads who can help you grow as an artist. Many companies will have artists on several projects at once, which will be very exciting on the creative side as you're switching between many types of design. In contrast, working in an on-set art department brings you closer to the production. You'll interact with the production designer and sometimes the director as well, depending on the project. In a physical art department you work with many more disciplines, with set designers, graphic designers, and the on-stage crew. Based on how long your contract is you might even see the film develop from start to finish. In my experience, you get to try out a wider variety of design in terms of tasks, even though this will normally be governed by your particular speciality. 12. Know your union City of Wind: Make sure to join a union to ensure workEven after you have the portfolio ready, after you know you have the workflow down, many artists still have trouble getting their first gig. If we're talking big productions, getting that first job might be tough, and I recommend approaching either a VFX company or looking for smaller, independent films. If you're hoping to work on big-budget films in the US, specifically in Los Angeles, then there's a film guild/union (IATSE Local 800) that you're required to join before you can work on any major motion picture. There are several ways of gaining admittance: you can get accepted through working a full 30 days on a union project, then submitting an application; a production designer can also sponsor you if they want you on a production; and there's a grandfather clause stipulating that if a show you're working on gets unionised, you can apply for union membership during the transition. That said, it's still hard to get in the guild, and many companies will keep workers on for 29 days, and not sponsor them at all. In the end, being part of the Local 800 union is a huge help to artists working within it, guaranteeing great rates, and providing healthcare. 13. Be sure to network, help others Ruins: Social media can be a brilliant way to get your art seenThe industry is expanding at an exponential rate, and social media is a great platform to get your work out there. Many companies are looking for professionals, but lack the ability to find the right creatives for the job. I recommend promoting your work as early as possible. The internet has a way of compounding search results and information to a point where it'll always assist you down the road. If you ever have an excess of freelance work or clients, recommend colleagues who will appreciate the gesture – and return it one day. 14. Collaborate within the department ARK Tower: Remember, films are a collaborative ventureFilms don't get made without constant collaboration between the artists on your team and also with many other departments. Because of this, personality is a huge factor in the hiring process, and many times I've seen candidates whose work is incredible get passed up because they have a reputation for being difficult to work with. No matter how skilled you are, be humble about your work, always respond well to critique, learn from those around you, and be generous in helping others. Your attitude will go a very long way in this small industry, where you regularly reunite with past colleagues. Remember, they could be hiring you some day. Related articles: 15 concept art skills to power up your illustration Concept design tips for artists How to press start on your game art career View the full article

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Adobe's flagship image editing software Photoshop has a powerful programming language built in that allows you to record tasks as an 'action' and replay the steps to complete the task automatically. Not only can you record your own but you can also import actions, opening up a whole range of effects and time-saving options. Get 15% off Adobe Creative Cloud nowSo to add to our collections of Photoshop plugins and Photoshop resources (not to mention our best laptops for Photoshop buying guide), here are some great Photoshop actions that are free to download and install, for photographers, graphic designers, game artists and more. You can jump to the section you want right now from the dropdown menu above, but you should definitely bookmark the entire list to check out the rest later – who knows where inspiration will strike. Photo filters 01. Nightmare ...and they were never seen againIf your photos just aren't sinister enough for your liking, this free action should make things a little more unsettling. It's designed to let you easily give your photos a dark, haunting effect. Perfect for creating the impression that you're permanently about to stumble into mortal danger. 02. Cold Nightmare Damn it, stand still when I'm trying to skewer youThis amusingly-titled action will transform a photo of a perfectly innocent scenario into a window into a dark world. In this example image, the archer probably shooting at a target takes on the look of someone who is definitely trying to kill a human. It’s amazing what some shadows can do. 03. Summer Haze Get that summer feeling againIf you'd prefer to cheer up your images, take a sunny shot and make it intensely summery with this great turquoise haze effect. Outdoor portraits taken in natural light are most suitable for this filter. 04. Hazy Afternoon Hazy Afternoon adds a soft gradient colour layerPerfect for outdoor pictures, the Hazy Afternoon action certainly lives up to its name by creating a soft gradient colour layer. You can use this free action on black and white or colour images, plus you can easily adjust the gradient until you get the exact look you're after. 05. Sun Kissed Sun Kissed will brighten and tone even the drabbest landscapeLight up any image with this comprehensive collection of sunlight effects that'll brighten and tone even the drabbest landscape. Simply add a bit of a warm tone, or go the whole hog and throw in a setting sun complete with a lens flare effect; it's all there. 06. HDR Action Ramp up your HDR contrast with these actionsRemove the lack of contrast that comes with HDR photography with this set of four actions; HDR fix Light, Normal, Heavy, and Clicker. 07. Strong HDR Effect Get vibrant colour effects with this free HDR filterAlternatively, try getting vibrant colour effects with this free HDR filter from Shutter Pulse. If it works well for you but you’d like more options, it’s part of a set of 30 HDR actions that you can buy for $13. 08. Blue Evening Add a mysterious atmosphere to your shots with Blue EveningBlue Evening is the free component of a paid-for set called Touch of Drama, which gives you various ways to add a mysterious atmosphere to your shots. The strength of the blue cast depends on your starting colours, so click through to see a good selection of examples. 09. Night to Twilight Turn your nighttime images into twilight photosThis set of 11 actions convert your nighttime images into twilight photos by introducing a colour cast and lightening the sky. The effect is rendered using layers, so you can adjust the degree of twilight by reducing the layer’s opacity, making it nice and flexible. 10. Purple Contrast A bit of purple can give your photographs a dramatically downbeat lookThis free Photoshop action washes out some of the colour from an image and gives it a purpley hue. It's a good way to give your photographs a dramatically downbeat look. 11. Bella Create a romantic, nostalgic feel with a pink castThis action adds a beautiful warmth to your photographs, bringing out rich tones in hair and skin, and softening colours with a pink cast that creates a romantic, nostalgic feel. 12. Wedding Enhancers kit These actions are ideal for fixing wedding photographyPhotoshop actions are extremely useful for wedding photographers, dealing with a huge number of shots. Here you get a set of 11 actions that automatically create common portrait effects, especially around the theme of wedding photography. The set includes skin smoothing and soft filter effects as well as black and white conversion. 13. Photoshop Color actions Here's a handy collection of colour treatmentsA nice range of colour treatments including rich, grainy black-and-white, bleach bypass, and some heavy casting effects. Great for experimentation. Next page: Vintage photo filters 14. Cross-processing ATN This action lets you cross-process without all the messCross-processing is a traditional photographic technique involving deliberate processing of one type of film in a chemical solution intended for another, resulting in oddly skewed colours and increased contrast and saturation. This free Photoshop action gives you a way to recreate the effect digitally, and is available free for personal use. 15. Cross Processed Add drama and vivid colour effects to your imagesThis action adds drama and vivid colour effects to your images by deepening shadows and making colours more saturated. It’s especially good for stormy skies, landscapes, buildings and ocean scenes. 16. Color 024 Create rich, sun-bleached photos that still retain a high level of detailDigital pictures are crisp and precise, but sometimes they can lack that nostalgic glow of a film photograph. By downloading this free action, you can adjust the colour saturation and create rich, sun-bleached photos that still retain a high level of detail. 17. 2-strip Technicolor This action simulates the 2-strip look without damaging the original imageRecreate the look of 2-strip Technicolor film by downloading this free action. Popular in the 20s and 30s, 2-strip technicolor film exposed black and white film behind a green filter and a red filter. By merging the green and blue channels in different layers, this action simulates the 2-strip look without damaging the original image. 18. Light Leaks These gradients are ideal for adding non-destructive vintage effects to your imagesThis handy selection of light leaks has been created using gradients, making it very flexible for adding non-destructive vintage effects to your images. The free version includes five high-quality leaks, all featuring support for 16-bit colour so you can achieve brighter-than-white highlights. And they work with video, too! 19. Hard Lomo If you like your lomo action hard, look no furtherDeviant Art is a great place to find Photoshop actions, as this example from BlackLaceStock demonstrates. Included here is a set of actions that add a classic lomo-look to your images, akin to applying an Instagram effect. 20. Retro Style filters These 35mm-inspired effects include some lovely gritty options as well as colour treatmentsChris Spooner is well known for his excellent Photoshop tutorials and giveaways, and he doesn’t disappoint with this new selection of 10 free retro-style Photoshop actions. Each of the effects is inspired by 35mm film and processing techniques, and includes some lovely gritty options as well as colour treatments. 21. Polanoid Generator Polanoid's one of those Photoshop actions you'll use again and againTurn any image into a Polaroid instantly with one of 10 different effects. It includes colour treatments and shadows automatically, and it's one of those Photoshop actions you'll use again and again. 22. The Mini Collection There's plenty to play with in this taster selectionFeaturing some impressive retro Photoshop actions, plus a kit of light leaks and some vintage Photoshop brushes, the Mini Collection from FilterGrade is a free taster of its larger $49 FilterGrade bundle. 23. Old Photo Add colour and contrast with this old photo actionWant to make your images look like they've through a time warp? Then get experimenting with this old photo action, which adds colour and contrast. 24. Portrait Create a vintage effect with a spot of desaturationDesaturate the colour in your photography with this portrait action, which creates a gorgeous vintage effect. 25. Split Toning Make those ransom notes really pop!The area between greyscale and colour is split toning, and adding this slight change to your photos can have a dramatic effect. You can also create retro and abstract images with this technique. 26. Amatorka Get the action movie look with AmatorkaCreate an instant action movie-style colour treatment with a blue-green cast, rich saturation and increased contrast. 27. Set14 Fill your boots with these vintage actionsIf you're after a vintage effect for your photography but you're not entirely sure what, nab this collection from DeviantArt user Yeonseb. It contains 14 assorted vintage actions, so you're bound to find something to your liking. 28. Thinking of You Add a filmic, green-cast and heavily saturated shadow effectThis is another stylised photographic treatment that adds a filmic, green-cast and heavily saturated shadow effect. The end result feels very fashion-orientated. 29. Unspoken Use Unspoken to heighten details and increase contrastThis simple action creates a beautiful blockbuster film look, heightening details in your photographs and increasing contrast, while introducing a blue/green tint. 30. Vintage Turn lowlights into colourful highlights with this Vintage actionThis simple filter give your photos a tinted, washed-out look with an extra neon touch that'll turn lowlights into colourful highlights. 31. HipstaRev Get the Hipstamatic look in PhotoshopThis set of actions creates Hipstamatic-style images inside Photoshop. The download includes three actions, each of which creates a recognisable treatment including borders and noise. Next page: Monochrome photo filters 32. Bold B&W HDR Why should colour pictures get all the HDR fun?It's not just colour photos that you can apply the HDR treatment to. With this free action you can give any photo a bold, black and white, HDR-style look that'll make it really stand out. 33. Infrared Photography Add some infrared chill to your picturesAdd the eerie touch of a cool infrared chill to your pictures with this free Photoshop action. This action creates two adjustment layers inside a layer group, allowing you to change the red and blue balance, as well as the contrast. 34. High Key Turn any photo into a stunning high-key portraitThis action requires a credit if you use it, but offers a very simple way to convert a regular photograph into a stunning high-key portrait with clean lines and an almost dreamy finish, without compromising essential areas of contrast. 35. Lithprint Lithprint turns photographs into striking lithograph-style imagesCreate a lithograph-style image from your raw photos. This works best on larger images that have already been given a medium-contrast treatment. 36. Gum Bichromate Print Emulate the early days of photography with this actionEmulate 19th century gum bichromate prints with this straightforward action that produces beautiful textured effects. 37. Old Photo Get a vintage look with this heavily-aged photo effectThis excellent free action from DeviantArt user ArtOfDecay creates a simple heavily-aged photo effect. 38. Black and White Get a grainy black and white look that's heavy on the blackThis action adds a punchy, high-contrast black and white effect to your photographs. It produces a nice grittiness with heavy grain and over-saturated blacks. Great for creating a stylised image. 39. Dramatic Sepia Dramatic Sepia's contrast curve gives a slightly more refined version of the standard sepia effectThis superb action offers a slightly more refined version of the standard sepia effect by adding a contrast curve to age the final result so that it feels like a faded photograph. Dramatic Sepia offers a great way to communicate a sense of age. Next page: Touch-up techniques 40. 5 Skin Retouching actions Sort out your skin the easy wayWant to retouch skin like a boss? This set of retouching actions will give you a head-start, enabling you to heal, mattify and airbrush skin with one click, and also enabling you to brighten eyes and increase their contrast. 41. Express Eye Bright Brighten up dull eyes with this quick and easy enhancementQuickly put a bit of sparkle into dull, dark eyes with this easy eye enhancement action. Simply click on the background layer (or the layer with the eyes you want to sharpen), run the action, and paint on the layer mask to sharpen and brighten the eyes. 42. Teeth Whitening Alternatively, just brush your teeth properly, for pity's sakeTeeth aren't naturally a dazzling white, but sometimes they can appear grey or yellow in photographs, depending on the lighting. This useful action can easily brighten up the smiles of family and friends by giving their teeth a clean, white finish. 43. Bright Eyes Another way to bring dull eyes to lifeThis free Photoshop action gives an intense look to blue eyes, as shown above. A great effect for extreme closeups. 44. High Definition Sharpening This action offers a simple one-click solution to sharpeningThe final stage of image preparation should be to sharpen your images according to the final delivery method (you sharpen differently for print or screen). This free action from MCP Actions offers a simple one-click solution to sharpening, with the ability to control the degree of sharpening that’s been applied after the fact by adjusting the opacity and masking of layers. 45. Soft Skin Tones Smooth skin while retaining textures and colouringUsed in combination with an existing selection or mask, this smooths skin while retaining textures and colouring, saving clean-up time. 46. Remove White Background Get rid of white backgrounds with these actionsAutomatically remove white backgrounds with this suite of three actions that allow for different automated processes to strip out the background of your isolated images. Next page: Special effects 47. Glitch Effect Get your glitch on with this fabulous free actionYou can't beat the look of stuff recorded onto a knackered old VHS tape, and this free action by Syed Faraz Ahmad does a pretty good job of recreating it, with plenty of glitches and colour smearing. 48. Plexiglass Plexiglass makes it a doddle to add abstract effects to your photosTransform your photos into posters, covers or backgrounds for text with Plexiglass, a set of Photoshop actions that make it easy to add abstract effects and borders to any image with a single click. 49. 3D Isometric Map Why bother with flat maps when you could have an isometric 3D map?A brilliant action that converts a flat vector map into an isometric 3D map mockup. There are three different styles of map available: sand, ice and grass, and the action also allows you to drop in your choice of buildings, trees, landscape elements and signs. 50. Pencil Draw Quickly turn a colour photo into a pencil sketchThis action uses contrast to find the edges in your image and automatically render a pencil sketch effect. Start from a full-colour image with no need to convert to black and white first. 51. Stickers and Tapes Stickers and tape in one package!Create round stickers with a curl in the corner, or polaroid-style images with clear sticky tape holding them in place. This site requires you to register for free before you can download the action. 52. 1930s Glitter Text Get a bit of glam with this snazzy effectAutomatically convert your text into a snazzy 1930s-style retro treatment with shiny sequins and a nice 3D effect. It’s also easy to adjust after running the action, as all the layers are retained. 53. Stamp Generator Please don't use this to forge postage stampsTurn an image into a stamp automatically using an included Photoshop brush to define how the frill will sit along the edge of the final artwork. 54. Denim & Leather If you're planning your own range of jeans, this is a mustThis Photoshop action automatically generates a blue denim texture, 'sews' on a leather patch and embosses your own artwork onto the leather. The nice, simple and effective output could be adapted for a variety of purposes. 55. Spotlight Make details stand out with this virtual spotlightMake the focal point of an image really stand out with this action from Christopher Fowler, which will train a virtual spotlight on your picture. 56. Fold Paper Turn artwork into a virtual mockup with this neat effectAutomatically render your artwork onto a trifold paper design in pseudo-3D, complete with shadows and shading on the image. Ideal for rendering paper designs ahead of presenting them on-screen to clients. 57. Long Shadow Still doing flat design? Here's the cherry for your flat cakeThis free Photoshop action allows you to create a long shadow from your text content, and you can tweak the shadow's opacity. 58. Triptych Generator Create standard triptych panels for printGenerate standard triptych panels for print, with a 3D effect visual triptych generator also available. Print sizes include 1000x600mm, 1300x800, 1600x1000 with 50mm depth at 288dpi. 59. Action 3D Get a fake 3D effect with this channel-juggling actionThis quirky action from JonasFan93 creates a pseudo 3D anaglyphic image by separating out colour channels within your image and offsetting them. This freebie offers a number of different styles that are more suitable for use in printed brochures and website design where you’re aiming for a stylised effect. 60. Outer space Finally! The final frontierCreate an outer space background automatically complete with space dust and nebulous gases. This action randomly colours the scene to produce a different effect every time. Related posts: The 60 best free Photoshop brushes Infographic: 69 incredibly useful Photoshop shortcuts Top Photoshop tutorials View the full article

Modern branding faces a dizzying array of challenges. Consumers are bored, over-stimulated and increasingly sceptical about inauthentic marketing ploys (don't even get us started on period product branding). So engaging them in fresh, meaningful ways with a clear brand voice is the holy grail for any branding agency. Fortunately, the Brand Impact Awards judging panel is well-placed to dig a little deeper into the art and craft involved. We spoke to branding consultant Louise Kyme, and Studio Sutherl& founder Jim Sutherland, the two co-chairs of the judging panel, to get their thoughts on how brands can use humour and behave in a more human way. Why is wit, charm and humour so important in branding? How does it help create standout? Louise Kyme: It's a big world out there, and everybody's competing for the same space. More and more, people are having one-to-one interactions on social media, and brands feel the need to get some kind of emotional response, whether that's a little snigger, or a tear in the eye. But it's tough. Brands work hard to get easy laughs, but actually, clever interaction takes time, thought and intelligence. When brands try to use humour 24/7, it's like being on a bad date with someone who's trying really hard to be funny all the time. Louise Kyme Jim Sutherland: I think it depends on your definition of wit. I don't think it's about humour and making people laugh necessarily – it's about intelligence, and gauging people. There's so much bland, corporate wallpaper out there. Wit is a way of engaging people, and having a bit of humanity. The trouble is when it goes wrong, it just feels like it's massively condescending and isn't very funny. There are lots of examples of brands that get it wrong – it's like somebody's written a really bad joke, and you're supposed to laugh at it over and over again. LK: Brands trying to use humour 24/7 is the equivalent of going on a bad date, and someone trying really hard to be funny all the time. JS: Constantly. That's exactly right. It's choosing your moments, isn't it? Rather than just banging people over the head. If you have someone who constantly tells you jokes, unless they're a clown, it's not very appropriate is it? I don't think so. How can brands behave in a more 'human' way, and establish empathy? How much of it is visual, compared to tone of voice? The Badger, by BrandOpus, was highly commended in the Brand Impact Awards. Our main image, Mozilla by Johnson Banks, won the collaboration award JS: There's no way of separating out those two things – you need both. It's about being genuine. I don't want my bank telling me jokes about what they're doing – or not doing – with my money. You need appropriateness, and genuineness. You don't want to feel that somebody's pulling the wool over your eyes. It's about not pretending to be something you're not. Not trying to look friendly and cuddly when you're an axe murderer. Jim Sutherland LK: To behave empathetically, you have to really relate to your audience and understand the situations they're in. You talk about appropriate moments, Jim – that could be totally dependent on what you're trying to achieve, but also where your audience are at certain moments. In a way, it's easier to do in the charity sector because you're very closely connected to people, and where they're at in their lives. JS: Just be honest. That's the key. You're never empathetic with somebody when you don't feel like they're telling you the truth. LK: Small organisations probably act more as individuals, compared to these big corporate beasts that have systems and structures in place to manage how things are done. They risk losing that human touch. JS: It's a corporate machine – hence that idea of corporate wallpaper. A lot of design is bland because it's not doing any of those things. Are certain types of brand better at doing this, and why do you think this is? The Butcher The Baker, by The Partners, was also highly commended at The Brand Impact Awards JS: It's probably easiest to do in the charity and cultural sectors than in banking, say, because everybody hates bankers, or solicitors, or estate agents – so it's more difficult to do engaging work in those areas. People want to like galleries and charities, don't they? They don't necessarily want to like some other corporate institutions. It's doable, but it comes back to not pretending to be something you're not. Not trying to look friendly and cuddly when you're an axe murderer. LK: It's one of these things that as soon as you try to achieve it, it all goes wrong. JS: When it works well, it feels effortless. When it's trying too hard – too many bits of tone, like packaging that just talks to you constantly – people get a bit tired of it, I think. But doing effortless work takes a lot of work. It takes time to come up with something that looks like you came up with it really quickly, because it just feels like the right solution. This article originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 270. Buy it here. Related articles: 21 outstanding uses of colour in branding How to challenge brand stereotypes 4 vital brand strategy rules View the full article

Studio Analogous has created a set of flash cards aimed at helping others embrace more inclusive design practices. The studio's 'Designing for Everyone' cards contain clearly laid out information to help adjust designs for hearing or visually impaired audiences, and is useful for digital and print designers alike. The set of 11 cards include advice on designing for colour blind viewers, those with poor vision who might use screen magnifiers, severely blind users who use Braille, and those with hearing impairments who rely on sign language. The argument for building accessibility into your designs is a strong one: and in commercial terms as well as ethical ones – it could help you reach a much wider market. Virgin.com increased its online sales by 60 per cent after adding accessibility features to its website, while Tesco found that when it had an accessible and non-accessible version of its site, the accessible version was preferred by customers. Around 8 per cent of men struggle with colour blindness [click the image to see it full-size] An estimated 8 per cent of men experience colour blindness, which can render traditionally designed advertising confusing or even incomprehensible. These cards outline the colour combinations that most people struggle with so you can avoid them in your designs – as well as offering straightforward tips to help ensure your designs are clear to everyone. That's a sizeable segment of potential customers you've opened up. Check out the cards to start integrating the inclusivity tips into your design practices. Studio Analogous is a New-York based design and strategy firm with a special focus on promoting diversity and inclusivity. Knowing which colour combinations to avoid is key [click the image to see it full-size] Blind users need to be considered in more designs – these cards suggest some tips [click the image to see it full-size] Knowing basic sign gestures for deaf and hard of hearing audiences will always be useful [click the image to see it full-size] Visually imparred users may use a screen magnifier to access your site [click the image to see it full-size] Read more: Get started with web accessibility The designer's guide to digital accessibility The essential guide to colour correction View the full article

It's just three weeks until Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2017 will bring you some great discounts on creative tools, but in the meantime, we've got you a great daily deal on a pen that turns drawings into 3D printed objects. Artists see the world differently. Now you can draw differently too. The Scribbler Duo 3D Pen lets you bring your creations to life by allowing you to create a 3D printed object as you would draw. You can get this powerful and unique artistic tool on sale now for just $99 (approx £76). The Scribbler DUO 3D pen is the latest and most innovative tool for artists, taking the art of 3D printing to a whole new level by letting creatives draw their work into existence (it might just be the closest we'll get to becoming Penny Crayon for real). See it in action in the video below. This pen puts you in complete control over your creations, allowing you to bring any idea to life in plastic. Two nozzles dispense plastic filament that mean you can build a handmade 3D printed object. With four control buttons that allow you to change the speed of extrusion and the temperature of the nozzles, it's easy to draw with any variation of plastic filament – you can even use two colours at once. Whether you're an artist or trying to encourage someone's creativity, this is the perfect tool. You can get the Scribbler DUO 3D Pen on sale now for just $99 (approx £76). That's a saving of 23% off the retail price for a powerful creative tool that will open up your creativity, so grab this deal today. About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. Read more: How to get the best Cyber Monday deals 2017 5 tips for getting started with 3D printing A quick intro to 3D printing for creatives View the full article

It's through animation that we make sense of the world: doors swing open, cars drive to their destinations, lips curl into smiles. Even the things that feel instantaneous, like lightning striking or dropping a phone on your face while using it in bed, happen over time. It's through that motion that we understand how objects relate and function; if they are light or heavy, rigid or loose, connected or separate, sticky or slippery. On the web, however, we've got used to things appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye. We click on a link and everything changes. It's like being led into a room blindfolded, spinning around a few times, and removing the blindfold to take in the surroundings. You don't even know which door you entered through. This is by and large how most sites are built. We can do better. When learning about the potential of web animation, it can be easy to let our imaginations go into hyperdrive and sprinkle animations on just about everything. While animation can be great, we need to be careful and always ask ourselves: Is this animation meaningful? Is it adding any value other than being beautiful? Is it making our product easier to use? Meaningful animation This is the starting point for the tutorial – the sample menu that we’ll reveal with an animationIn this article we're going work with a common UI design element: a menu toggle. We're going to create the menu (and an icon to go with it) with CSS, and make it come alive with animations. We'll make sure that the animations are meaningful, but also apply web performance best practices to ensure they're as smooth as possible. You can preview the end result here. When the user clicks the menu icon we'll expand the icon's background plate (a circle) to cover the screen, and present the menu overlay. Rather than just flash to a close icon, we're going to animate and morph the three vertical lines (that make up the menu icon) into an 'X', to represent a close icon. In other words, as the menu is revealed the icon morphs into a close button. Related elements You might be thinking 'So, is this a meaningful animation?' Well, great question. Short answer: Yes! Longer answer: Animations are great at connecting elements on the screen, and showing how they relate to each other. As we scale up the menu's background plate to become the menu, we show how the two are connected – similar to how an app icon, when pressed on iOS or Android, scales up and takes over the screen, showing that the app was launched from that very icon. Our menu icon doesn't just toggle the menu: it is the menu, only collapsed. Similarly, just like how an on/off toggle transforms between its on and off state when you press it on iOS, our menu toggle will change between a menu icon and a close icon depending on if our site's menu is visible or hidden. This helps enforce the idea that the two icons function in similar ways: they both control the menu. So while we're making our site fun to use, we're also making it easier to understand, and improving the user experience ever so slightly. See how to do this in the video tutorial above and written steps below. 01. Get started By drawing the menu icon with CSS (and no images), we can easily animate it laterDownload the project files. Open up index.html in a browser and you should see three big links against a white background. This is the menu overlay we'll reveal. First of all we need to hide it. In styles.css, add these styles to .menu-overlay: With the overlay gone, a button should appear in the top-left corner. Let's draw our menu icon here, so there's something to click on to show the overlay. To make it easy to animate, we'll draw it using just HTML and CSS; no bitmaps or vectors. We've already got some HTML in index.html for the menu: a container (.menu), a background (.menu-circle), a link (.menu-link) and the icon (.menu-icon) with one span for each line. Having a separate div for the background is a somewhat unconventional approach. If we weren't about to add animations to this circle, we wouldn't need a separate div; we could just add a border-radius and background colour to our menu-link. However, we want to be free to use the transform property on the circle, so we can scale it without affecting the icon itself, so we need to decouple the background from the icon. Let's start drawing the lines that make up the icon. What do they all have in common? They are equally wide, they have rounded corners, are absolutely positioned, and they have a background colour. Since all the lines share the menu-line class, let's use it to set these shared properties: Then we can use the lines' unique classes to set the vertical position: 02. Add a hover effect To make the menu appear clickable, we inflate the background plate on hoverLet's make the icon clearly clickable by adding a hover effect. In styles.css, create a new selector for menu-circle to scale it up when you hover over the menu: Now we can add our first animation. Add "transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out" to .menu-circle {} (not to the hover state). We're telling the browser to animate all properties that may change for .menu-circle. So when we scale it up on hover, it animates over the course of 0.2 seconds to its new state, with a timing function of ease-in-out. How do you know which timing function to choose? First of all, avoid using a linear timing function. Few things in the real world move at a perfectly constant speed, so objects animated with a linear timing function tend to look unnatural and stiff (as Einstein would've said, "God doesn't play dice with a linear timing function"). As a rule of thumb, ease-out works great for presenting new objects, and ease-in works great for removing objects. And when in doubt, ease-in-out is a solid timing function to default to: it has a slow beginning and a slow ending, creating a smooth and fluid animation. 03. Show and hide the menu Let's use jQuery to show and hide our newly created overlay. In script.js, toggle the class of open on .menu-overlay inside the existing click handler: Then show the overlay when it has a class of open: 04. Connect the menu icon The transition we added earlier means we already have a neat fade effect going on when we show and hide the overlay. However, we can make it look like the menu icon background becomes the menu overlay, and better connect the two visually. Achieving this effect is easier than it seems: all we need to do is to quickly enlarge the menu circle when it's clicked. The overlay will fade in simultaneously, creating the illusion that the menu icon is transforming into the overlay. We need to be able to style the menu's circle when the menu has been clicked. Open up script.js, and inside our existing click function toggle the class open for our .menu: Now we can target this class with CSS and expand the circle as the menu is opened. At the very bottom of style.css, expand the .menu-circle when .menu also has a class of .open: 05. Transform the icon The white circle expands to become the menu background, and the icon morphs into an 'X'We've got a beautiful reveal effect for our menu, but how do we turn the menu icon into a close icon? It's surprisingly easy once you know how – we'll only need to set three CSS properties. First off, we need to hide the middle line while the menu is being shown: Then all we need to do is flip the other two lines 45 degrees in opposite directions (the lines need to point in different directions to form an 'X', so note how one of the lines has a negative rotation of 45 degrees): Well, sort of. We also need to centre these two lines vertically. At this point you could be thinking 'Easy! We just need to change the top and bottom position to centre them'. And you'd be right – if we weren't animating this icon. Since we can only achieve hardware-accelerated animations by limiting ourselves to animating the transform and opacity properties, we'll have to resort to centring the lines through transforms. These transforms will move the two lines so they are vertically centred within the icon container, and then rotate them to form the cross. Let's break it down. We have two translations being used simultaneously: translateY(7px) and translateY(-50%). The first transform, translateY(7px), is used to move the line's top edge to the vertical centre of the canvas. The maths here is simple: 14 is the height of our icon, by dividing it by two we get the middle point: 7. The second transform, translateY(-50%), is used to move the line so that the line's vertical centre, not its top edge, resides on the vertical centre point of the canvas. Usually when using the % sign in CSS you refer to the parent of an element (setting width: 100% matches the element's width to that of its parent), but if you use percentages with the transform property you refer to the element itself, not the parent. So for us to find a line's height and move it upwards by half of that, all we need is translateY(-50%). 06. Morph between icons Instead of just replacing the menu icon with the close icon, let's morph between the two states. Start by adding a transition to .menu-line in style.css: Ta-da! A morphing menu icon. The animation is a bit dull, though. Let's fix that. To make the lines appear more vivid, we can rotate them both an additional 90 degrees. The icon will look the same in the end, but the lines will travel further during the same time period. Change the rotations to rotate(-135deg) and rotate(135deg). As a rule of thumb, you can always improve an animation by using a custom Bézier curve that's better adapted to your animation. We're currently using ease-in-out – this means that the animation will have a slow start and ending, with a faster pace in the middle. I think a more spring-like effect is fitting for our icon. Let's make it spin fast, with a small bounce effect as it comes to an end. For .menu-line, replace "ease-in-out" with a custom Bézier curve: What are all those numbers? Don't worry: Bézier curves are rarely written by hand. You use cubic-bezier() to define the pace of an animation over time, and rather than writing them on your own, I recommend using a reference site. This comes from easings.net. It overshoots at the end of animation, and creates a subtle bounce effect. While we're at it, go to easings.net and grab the code for easeOutExpo. We'll use this to create a more refined effect for the menu background animation. Update the transition of .menu-circle to use this custom Bézier curve, and make the animation a bit longer (0.5s): Congratulations, you've created a set of animations that are meaningful: they help you understand what's happening on the site while navigating it, creating a sense of spatial awareness. On top of that, the animations run smoothly. By only animating the transform and opacity properties, we can make sure the browser's hardware acceleration support can kick in, and avoid unnecessary lag. When playing around with animations, make sure you tick these two boxes: make them meaningful, and beautiful. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 281. Subscribe to net here. Related articles: 10 impressive examples of CSS3 animation 28 outstanding examples of CSS Get started with web accessibility View the full article

Autodesk Maya 2018 is out now – priced at $185/£204 per month or $1,470/£1,644 per year with a subscription from the Autodesk website – so we gave it an in-depth test for this review. When Autodesk released Maya 2017, it received a mixed reception. In many ways this was due to the company dropping support for Mental Ray and instead focusing on Arnold, (which is now fully integrated into Maya 2018). This was always on the cards; Mental Ray was quickly feeling dated and users were swiftly moving to external plug-ins like V-Ray, so Autodesk had no choice but to do something if it wanted to offer customers an improved rendering experience. Shortly after, Autodesk released Mental Ray as a standalone plug-in, which you could download and add yourself if needed. With the release of Maya 2018, Autodesk has again divided the community. This time, however, the issue seems to be the lack of any major new features, rather than the removal of existing ones. The new clump modifier lets you to interactively sculpt clumps into hair to make them look less uniformWith that said, the legacy viewports have now been removed, leaving your only option as Viewport 2.0, which is another bone of contention among users. You can, however, add the legacy viewports back via the environment variable MAYA_ENABLE_LEGACY_VIEWPORT, although performance has been improved in Viewport 2.0 to such a level where you shouldn’t need to. Maya 2018 improvements Don’t get us wrong, people making the leap from 2017 or earlier to 2018 have a lot to be excited about. Maya 2018 does feel like more of a stability and productivity release, with most updates focused on fixing hundreds of bugs and improving existing tools. This is actually great news. With Autodesk spending time fixing and enhancing what it already has, it means your workflow should be smoother. Surely this is better than adding a feature you may not use? MASH is one area that has seen many improvementsEven with the lack of new features, there is still plenty to be excited about. Almost every aspect of Maya has had a wave of the Autodesk wand to the point where there are just too many improvements to list. However, there are some key tools which will make your 3D life easier. Extrude and Slide tools Modelling workflow has been enhanced with the introduction of the interactive Extrude and Slide tools. Simply hold Shift and move your selected faces to extrude them. Hold Shift and Control to slide the geometry over the surface of the model. It’s a small thing and something that has existed in other applications for a while, but it’s nice to see it finally be implemented because it will save a lot of time. Circularize and Symmetrize tools You can also quickly create a circle in your geometry with the new Circularize tool, which is neat, but again nothing new. Symmetrize is a nice new addition, making your model symmetrical. In practice this works well, however it would have been nice if it also updated topology changes. Dynamics Node gives impressive results, quicklyRigging improvements Rigging is another area where improvements have been made. For example, building upon the Controller options added previously, which allowed custom pick walking, you can now set the controller’s visibility to only show when the mouse pointer is close to it. This addition results in a much cleaner rig for animators. Improved UV Editor The new UV Editor has seen a host of improvements since last year’s releaseThe UV Editor has also benefitted from an upgrade, making UV manipulation much faster and more intuitive. You can enjoy additions to help automatically generate seams, unfold and layout your shells, base the shell scale on 3D space and full symmetry support. Add to this the viewport enhancements like visible UV seams, and you will be creating and texturing models faster than ever before. Further additions Other improvements include the additions of Dash Scripting, a Curve Wrap Deformer and full Arnold 5 support, not to mention MASH dynamics and Look Dev additions to improve your rendering workflow. The list goes on. Maya 2018 downsides What would we have liked to see? The Node Editor could use some work as it still feels clunky compared to the likes of Houdini and Blender. It’s an editor that a lot of people probably find themselves using more and more often, especially when building complex rigs, so anything that can make the experience smoother is surely an improvement. One complaint about Maya that surfaces year after year is how difficult it can be to navigate the menus, so it would have been nice to have seen a quick menu option. Maya 2018 review verdict As you can tell from this review, Maya 2018 is a bit of a mixed bag, but all in all, it feels like it’s a step in the right direction. Having a more stable release with enhancements to overall workflow is a great thing, although we are not sure we needed to wait for a full release for them. Maya 2018 does feel more like an update rather than a full release but if you’re looking to increase your productivity and streamline your workflow, the upgrade is well worth it. However, if you’re happy with what Maya 2017 has to offer, you may not want to rush out and upgrade just yet. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 227. Buy it here. Related articles: 22 mighty Maya tutorials to try today 8 3D web projects to inspire you 30 inspiring examples of 3D art View the full article

You're reading How to Improve the UX of Your e-Commerce Website Visitors, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! One of the main parts of a high-level website is undoubtedly a great user experience. This will, ultimately, tell if you have an increase in your exit rate or an increase in your conversion rate. You will find that a lot of companies nowadays invest in the user experience of their website, in order to […] View the full article

When it comes to launching a startup, logo design is not usually at the forefront of people’s minds. And rightly so. Finding a product or service that people care about, recruiting the right talent, raising seed funding – those are your priorities at this stage. And many startups get by just fine in the early years with no logo at all. If you do find time to develop a logo, though, it can help enormously with spreading the word about your nascent enterprise – as long as it’s done right, that is. Here are 17 logos for 2017 startups that we reckon hit the sweet spot. 01. Mush Mush helps new parents find each other locallyMany new mothers are surprised by how isolated they suddenly feel. That’s the thinking behind London startup Mush, whose app helps new parents find each other locally, then chat, swap and sell items. Its logo is appropriately fun, friendly and upbeat, using nicely designed icons to convey the kind of multitasking that motherhood demands. Normally, of course, you don’t want your logo design to be too cluttered. But here the different icons perfectly evoke the chaos of life as a new parent, without being too messy, so the approach works well in this particular context. 02. Naava Naava’s smart walls provide fresh air so you can focus on your dayNaava is a startup based in Helsinki, Finland, providing smart walls that clean up indoor air and make it healthier to breathe. As its aim is to purify your environment and life, its logo is appropriately minimalist. And rather than aping the clinical minimalism of the average tech company, it brilliantly uses deconstructed letters, cast in the appropriate shade of pine tree green, to suggest a theme of trees and nature. 03. Uniplaces Uniplaces helps students find accommodation across EuropeUniplaces is a startup based in Lisbon, Portugal, that has helped more than a quarter of a million students across Europe link up to landlords and find somewhere to stay. The cartoony lettering of its logo, and the marked absence of a dot over the eye, convey a relaxed sense of youth, while the icon evokes both the idea of living space and the broader sense that attending university ‘opens new doors’ in your life. 04. Paracosm Paracosm is working at the cutting edge of new 3D technologiesFlorida-based startup Paracosm develops mobile 3D scanning, progress monitoring, and visualisation solutions to help construction teams build things. In these days of samey tech logos, it’s great to see it has gone for something… well, pretty different. We’re not sure how a flying space parrot ties in with its clever software, but we expect there’s a coding in-joke in there somewhere. Or perhaps they just think parrots are a cool play on its name, Paracosm. 05. Shipyard Shipyard Games is driving location-based gaming ever forwardAnother Helsinki-based startup, Shipyard Games develops location-based games and is backed by Supercell. As you can see from this website hero image, when it comes to visual branding it has taken the name of the company and run with it. We particularly love the way a stylised shipyard hook emblem has been incorporated as the opening letter S. 06. Monzo Monzo describes itself as ‘the bank of the future’Monzo is one of the hottest startups in the fintech world right now, having been granted a full banking licence in April. When you’re asking people to entrust you with their money, you can’t be too crazy with your branding, but as a startup you want to emphasise your youth and cutting edge approach. We’d argue this formal yet colourful logo strikes the perfect balance between the two positions. 07. Bundlelist Bundlelist seeks to make mobile bundles more transparent to consumersBunch Design designed this logo for Bundlelist, an online platform aiming to help people decide which mobile bundle they should buy for their connected device. It’s a smart, original creation, catching the eye with its individuality while still remaining simple enough to be super-flexible. 08. Elevatr Elevatr is a mobile platform for people with mental health issuesNew York startup Elevatr is aiming to help people suffering from mental health problems, via a free mobile community that connects them with others going through similar experiences. Much like the Naava logo earlier, this simple yet clever logo deconstructs the A and turns it into an ‘Up’ button, evoking both the idea of an elevator and a positive outlook in general. 09. Houndlabs Houndlabs is developing ways to test marijuana intoxication scientificallyHere’s something a bit different: Houndlabs is working to create the first marijuana breathalyser. As more and more countries legalise the weed, they believe it’s important to be able to scientifically test when people are intoxicated, while driving or working heavy machinery, for example. The idea of ‘sniffing out’ a miscreant is neatly encapsulated by the hound icon, while the colour scheme and overall theme remain upbeat, ensuring that the company is seen as responsible, but not a ‘narc’ on an anti-dope crusade. 10. Bomberbot Bomberbot wants to develop the next generation of computer programmersBomberbot is a startup in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, aiming to teach kids coding in a fun and accessible way. Its colourful, Nickelodeon-esque logo certainly brings the fun, but there’s also a geometric formality to it that suggests a structured approach to learning. Plus, who doesn’t like an old-school robot? 11. Norsepower Norsepower is helping reduce the amount of fuel freight ships need Finnish startup Norsepower builds sails for freight ships to help them save fuel and reduce emissions. It sounds like a wacky idea, but it’s based on solid science and engineering: the rotor sail device is based on a 21st century version of the Flettner rotor. Its logo helps to sell the seriousness of the project, too, with a formal approach and colour scheme that wouldn’t look out of place in an older company. (It’s a startup though, so of course it’s lower-case lettering all the way.) 12. Seenit Seenit helps companies crowdsource their video needsSeenit is a London startup that lets companies crowdsource video footage to save on employing a film crew. We love its logo emblem, based on a deconstructed S, which is instantly recognisable wherever you see it. Our knowledge of video production isn’t that deep, so we’re not sure if there’s a meaning to it or it’s just a cool looking shape. Either way, it works in our book. 13. Habito Habito positions itself as a free, online mortgage brokerHabito is a London startup that aims to make it easier for people to apply for mortgages. Its logo is simple but effective, hitting that sweet spot between fun and formal that’s so important in the new digital market for financial services. The raising of the O, especially, adds a sense of the upbeat and optimistic, which is entirely appropriate when it comes to people’s financial futures. 14. Revue Revue is based on the notion that “everybody should send a newsletter”Dutch startup Revue is an online service that makes it super-easy to create and send newsletters. Compiling a newsletter is rarely a task anyone looks forward to, so the curvy and friendly letters of its logo, each one of which appears to be ‘smiling’, do a great job in encouraging you to give it a try. 15. Varjo Varjo is aiming to jumpstart a new era in VR, AR and mixed reality Helsinki, Finland, VR startup Varjo is developing technology that mimics the natural behaviour of the human eye, and promises this will allow us to create products with up to 100 times the resolution of current VR/AR devices. Exciting stuff. Appropriately, Varjo’s cool geometric logo pushes abstraction to its limits, conveying just how boundary-pushing the startup is, without becoming totally illegible in the process. 16. Mellow Mellow is developing new ways for you to control your culinary creation remotelyLisbon, Portugal-based startup Mellow is developing a smart sous chef, in the form of a sous-vide machine you can control via your phone. The emblem shown above might not mean anything to you right now, but once you’ve seen the machine in question – which has that exact shape – its logo design makes perfect sense. 17. TravelPerk TravelPerk wants to make co-ordinating multiple business trips easierTravelPerk is a startup in Barcelona, Spain, that allows you to book and manage multiple business trips in one place. Its simple logo cleverly uses Wi-Fi-style curved lines to convey both cutting-edge tech and a sense of movement. Which is, after all, what the travel industry is all about. Related articles: The 6 best design industry logos 5 ways to use imagery to create better branding 5 design industry trends that students need to know about View the full article

The Tor Project released a patch for a vulnerability that leaks the real IP addresses of macOS and Linux users of its Tor Browser. View the full article

Painting digitally using a drawing tablet and drawing software ArtRage is easier than it looks, and strangely addictive. Using on a graphics tablet or mobile device means that you are not tied to just the office or studio – you can paint anywhere. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to create a believable digital portrait using only the pixels on the screen. The Surface Pro 3, with its touchscreen and ergonomic stylus is ideal for this workshop, but any touchscreen device would be able to produce similar results – see our pick of the best graphics tablets for a start. We’ll take you through each step of the process, from creating a new file and loading up a reference image, to sketching out ideas and thumbnails, making initial pencil drawings right through to blocking in and adding thick textured paint. We'll also show you how to add some final digital flourishes before explaining how to save your finished digital artwork, ready for printing. Find a work setting and get comfortablePainting digitally is pretty much the same as painting with real oils and acrylics, so hopefully the process won’t feel too alien if you come from a fine art background. The tutorial helps to show how the screen really does become a canvas before you. The portrait we're walking you through here is of a young man in a modern setting. We'll keep the paint loose and choppy to create movement and interest while maintaining a vibrant feel, all the while adhering to real-world painting techniques. Follow the steps below to learn how to create your own portrait in ArtRage, and watch the video at the end to help you along further. 01. Pick a subject The portrait here is of a young man in a modern settingIt can sometimes be a bit of a struggle to source a model, or royalty-free images that you are allowed to draw from. No need to worry, as with a bit of searching you can find a plethora of websites that have stock images ready for you to use. Pixabay or Flickr Commons have a vast array of great reference images, for example. 02. Create a new file for your painting Ensure your saving settings are correct to create a high res painting [Click the arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Open ArtRage and click on File in the top-left corner. In the drop-down box, select New Painting and then in the Print Size tab, set the dimensions for the painting (in this case, 222 x 300mm, but these could be any size). Make sure to change the default 72 pixels/inch setting to 300 for a high-resolution painting. 03. Import the reference photo into ArtRage Import your chosen reference material so you can easily refer back throughout your painting session [Click the arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] To import your chosen reference image, simply select Refs on the right-hand side of the screen and in the new box that opens, either click the file image or the Post It note with a pin in it. A new window will open that enables you to search your computer for your chosen picture. Double-click the image for it to open, ready to copy. 04. Make thumbnail sketches I like to start a painting at the dining room table and finish it reclining with my feet up on the sofa [Click the arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Doodling thumbnail sketches often helps you to understand the space better and to choose where to place the drawing on the canvas. Draw a very rough rectangle to mimic the canvas dimensions and sketch the head roughly. This does not have to be a masterpiece, but it will get you warmed up and ready to begin. 05. Make an initial pencil sketch Play with different tools before you start working [Click the arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Select the default Pencil tool from the tool selection panel on the left of the screen. Start by drawing in guidelines for where the top and sides of the figure’s head will be, along with the neckline and shoulders. Begin drawing in the eye and work outwards, roughly at first then adding more detail as you go. 06. Add layers Experiment to learn new techniques [Click the arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] If we were using real paint, we would paint directly over the sketch on the canvas. However, in digital art you can keep these lines on a separate layer in case they need tweaking at a later stage. Select the Layers box on the right-hand side of the screen and click the plus button. A new layer is now created and selected for you to paint on, without losing your pencil sketch. 07. Block in the basic colour Start blocking just like you would if you were creating a traditional oil painting on paper [Click the arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Select the Oil Brush tool, but don’t add too much paint just yet. This is to stop the painting becoming muddy and hard to manage. Once selected, click the Settings box and pull the slider labelled Loading right down to between 4% and 9%. This now gives you a dry brush with which to paint in the tones, highlights and shaded areas. 08. Apply thicker paint Building upon your initial painting is what really brings it to life [Click the arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Select a new layer and in the Settings box of the Oil Paint brush, slide the Loading setting up to between 16% and 30%. Now the paint flows far more freely and you can begin to load it onto the canvas heavily with chunky strokes. The paint now mixes believably on the surface and enables you to form the shapes, shading and contours better, while bringing the painting to life. 09. Paint the background Add an abstract background for a modern look full of movement [Click the arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Create a new layer as we did before and drag it right down to the bottom of the other layers. Any thick paint or texture you put on this layer will add depth and chunkiness to the brushstrokes above. For the background, decrease the Loading on the brush to 3 and click in the Brush Size box and select 300. You can now fill in an abstract background easily. 10. Save and export the painting Never slack on saving – the last thing you want is to lose all your hard work! [Click the arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Make sure you save your artwork throughout the painting process, just in case the app crashes or you spill tea on your tablet. Simply click the File button and select Save Painting As and name the file. Once named, only click the Save button as you progress. When you've finished your painting, click Export Image File and save as a JPEG from the drop-down box. Watch the video below to see all of the steps in action. Related articles: How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorials 10 incredible online art schools The best drawing tablet: our pick of the best graphics tablets View the full article

Threatpost editors Mike Mimoso and Tom Spring discuss the week's top information security news stories. View the full article

Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription packages continue to divide designers – they offer great flexibility, regular updates and the latest app updates, but they do cost more for long-term users than outright purchasing used to. If you use more than one app (which you almost certainly will), you’ll find yourself paying at least $600/£600 per year to use the Creative Cloud package. Special Creative Bloq November deal: We’ve teamed up with Adobe to offer Creative Bloq readers a special 15% discount on Creative Cloud membership. Instead of paying the usual $49.94/£49.94 every month, you’ll pay just US$42.49/£42.49 per month for the first year. So if you’ve been debating whether to sign up, now’s your chance to get hands-on with Adobe’s stellar suite of world-class design tools – and save some cash in the process.The offer is valid from now until 27 November 2017, and includes Adobe’s entire suite of desktop and mobile apps for Mac and PC, from essentials such as Photoshop CC to next generation tools such as Adobe XD CC. If you just fancy paying as you go (with a monthly contract) the price rises to nearly £76 per month. Add Adobe Stock on an annual contract and it’s around £75 per month. Remember that Creative Cloud subscriptions also give you 20GB cloud storage allowance, making it easier than ever to create across multiple devices and collaborate by sharing files with others. Our pick of the best Adobe Creative Cloud deals available right now The best Adobe Creative Cloud deals As well as our exclusive 15% discount on subscriptions, the price widget below will show you the latest deals on Adobe's Creative Cloud today. The best Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan deals As well as our exclusive 15% discount, the price widget below will show you the latest deals on Adobe's Creative Cloud Photography Plan. Related articles: 95 top Photoshop tutorials The best Black Friday deals 2017 7 insane tech sneaks from Adobe Max 2017 View the full article

CodePen provides users with a development playground, whereby people can create small webpages called Pens. These Pens are a mix of HTML, JavaScript and CSS and are used for a wide variety of reasons. Whether it be to show off a UI concept, an API, to debug a problem or to show off some fancy canvas work, CodePen aims to be the one-stop shop for quick, unhindered development. The move for CodePen to being entirely HTTPS was a large one. With over 15 million Pens created, and since CodePen puts no serious limitations on what people can create, over three quarters of Pens created have links, images and requests to outside sources that could possibly be insecure. HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) protects the integrity and confidentiality of data between the user’s computer and the site. Secure and private sessions online are fast becoming an expectation, rather than an option. For a long time now (since Firefox 23, IE9 and the early days of Chrome) browsers have prevented mixed content running on secure sites. HTTPS therefore will not allow scripts transferred from HTTP to run. For CodePen, this means that if someone is hitting an API that isn’t secure, their Pen could suddenly stop working, which is the absolute last thing that we want. It would also prevent us from processing signups and accepting passwords when a page is insecure, which we also need to avoid. Here's how we made the move to HTTPS at CodePen – we hope you can learn from our experience. 01. Plans were communicated early Before we get into the good stuff, a big part of making the move to HTTPS – especially if you have active users – is communication. This can’t be overstated. We gave everyone on CodePen plenty of notifications and information months before we began making permanent changes to the site. Three months before the change, we told everyone that we would be moving to HTTPS and what this meant for them, especially if they’re using specific APIs and libraries that may be served using the insecure HTTP protocol. This was about seeding the idea that there would be change. One month before the change we contacted everyone again, to reiterate the date of change. Then a week before we released tools (we’ll get into that later) and told everyone about the changes that had already been made. Finally, a day before the move, we filled everyone in on our progress once again. This may seem like a lot of emails and notifications, but in reality the more people know about changes that could affect them, the better. We wanted there to be no excuse to not know. After telling over one million users, we received not one single email of complaint and just a few asking for advice on how to fix up Pens. 02. Users were educated There are a lot of things to do to get secure, the first one is getting a correct certificate. For us, this was done through the AWS Certificate Manager, which enabled us to procure, manage and apply the certificate to our servers with ease. There are lots of smaller pitfalls that you can come across making this jump which we won’t go into here, but you can read more here. We made sure new creations began on an HTTPS page... This was a big step in nudging everyone into creating more secure Pens After this was sorted, we wanted to begin updating people’s Pens, posts and collections, but alas this had to wait. To make this move without disrupting anyone, we needed to take measures to a) Educate people about links that were using the insecure protocol, and b) Prevent people from creating more insecure links. The first step we took was to make all new creations begin on an HTTPS page. This meant that if anyone tried to use resources that were insecure, they would immediately see in their developer console that the browser had stopped the request. This alone was a big step, silently nudging everyone into creating more secure Pens and projects, and this process was immediately effective. Showing users what the problem is is better than telling them just to change with no explanationSecondly, we started notifying people if they were including something that could break in the future. These included little alerts when you added an external resource to a Pen. These external resources are the main entry point for HTTP links in CodePen, where people would link to things like Google Fonts, external images and custom hosted scripts. 03. Content was redirected Once we were in a place where the majority of people building things were creating them in a secure way, we could start to migrate pages over to HTTPS. This was a gradual process, with a few quirks, ultimately making sure that some pages would only be accessible using the secure protocol. If they were requested in HTTP form, they would be redirected. Initially we moved over pages that didn’t contain any user creations, since with these pages we could ensure that nothing would break – things like the blog, documentation pages, jobs, meetup and the CodePen Spark. It turns out that these little moves were incredibly important to the bigger picture, as we watched traffic slowly move to HTTPS. The real benefit was that once people were on any page in a secure protocol, the rest of the links on CodePen were protocol agnostic, meaning they would stay on HTTPS. Because of this, we found that the majority of people using CodePen ended up browsing securely from this point onwards. 04. We fixed potentially broken links Once we had a secure protocol, and people were actively browsing the site on it, we could begin the monolithic process of trying to fix potentially broken content. This was a vital piece of the process, since CodePen hosts millions of embeds, in blogs and documentation all over the web. The last thing we would want is for CodePen to become some kind of coding graveyard. The first step was to locate anywhere that people could enter their own URLs. In the end we had a huge list. We then went over this list, and saved any string that was a URL. We quickly realised the size of the task at hand was enormous: we had over 10 million individual links. Of these 10 million, there were exactly 2,129,437 insecure links. We were able to convert 1,787,411 of the 2,129,437 URLs to their secure counterparts, saving a lot of Pens from obscurity We ran a script though these 2,129,437 links that would check if there was a similar resource hosted on the HTTPS version of the link. So for something like http://fonts.google.com, there would be an exact copy at https://fonts.google.com, which meant that we could change the URL without feeling intrusive or jeopardising the Pen’s functionality or the creator’s privacy. This process was lengthy, with us sending out hundreds of thousands of requests, although it was made a little quicker by caching results. For example, once we knew there was an HTTPS version of fonts.google.com, we knew that every similar link from that point on could be converted without doing another check. That said, even after this was completed we would also do a manual check over links to see if there were any discrepancies. As much as you can trust your code, it’s always good to get another eye. We were able to convert 1,787,411 of the 2,129,437 URLs to their secure counterparts, saving a lot of Pens from obscurity. We didn’t want to abandon those remaining resources, so we parsed through those that couldn’t be fixed, and compiled a list of those most used. Any resource that had over 500 uses that didn’t have a secure server was put onto a list. We reached out to the creators of these, and found a lot of them were happy to provide us with either a new URL (if they had the resources hosted elsewhere) or to provide those resources from a secure protocol themselves. 05. We helped users to fix remaining links Our tooling helped identify when a Pen has a particular problem, and how to solve it With the majority of Pens secure, we wanted to do something for those who weren’t updated. We created a tool that would allow people to see which of their Pens were in violation of the secure protocol. For this, we created a dashboard page for everyone to see which of their Pens were potentially compromised. This itself has its own problems, since we needed to parse through all the code within each Pen. From a machine’s perspective it’s difficult to tell which of the URLs were going to be used and which ones were harmless. For example, an insecure link in a comment will not jeopardise the integrity of the page. For JavaScript, we used Esprima, an ECMAScript-compliant parser that was used to check if URLs were in use within the code. For HTML, we used the browser’s DOMParser API. Once we had these results, we provided a simple page that would show which links were invalid, enabling everyone to see and fix up their remaining Pens. All in all, the steps taken to secure CodePen were lengthy and involved a lot of hands-on action. The best time to have your website served from a secure protocol is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Read more: 8 CodePen features you didn't know about Download images securely with a VPN 9 security tips to protect your website from hackers View the full article

Siemens has fixed a remotely executable vulnerability in some versions of its SIMATIC PCS 7 distributed control system, and said that it is working on a fix for remaining affected versions. View the full article

Learn to create your best-ever art with the amazing pen and pencil skills explored in ImagineFX issue 155 – on sale now. Inside the latest issue you will find out how Andrew Marr created our stunning cover art. In the tutorial he shares plenty of pro secrets, so you're bound to learn a new technique to give your own art a boost. Buy issue 155 of ImagineFX here Also in issue 155 is a workshop on how to create a clear story and memorable character designs in Photoshop. We also review the latest software and books that digital artists need to know about, plus we showcase the best artwork sent in from our talented readers. And that's still not all. Take a look at these features below to get a look at what else is in store with issue 155 of ImagineFX. Click here to subscribe to ImagineFX How to take art criticism Remember - don't take criticism personallyReceiving a critique on your art can be tough. But remember, this is one of the most important ways to improve your work. We chat to leading artists to find out how to make the most out of a critique, as well as learning how to not take the feedback personally. The concept art of Syd Mead This interview is a must-read for concept art fansSelf-described visual futurist Syd Mead has defined the look and feel of some of cinema's most iconic sci-fi films. Ahead of the release of a book dedicated to his design work, we talk to the artist about his impressive career. Meet illustrator Gregory Manchess Manchess has worked as a freelance artist for nearly 40 yearsWhen it comes to creating his amazing art, Gregory Manchess wants to forge an emotional connection with the viewer. ImagineFX interviews the freelance artist to hear how he stays curious and creative. Improve your pen and ink skills Learn art skills from the amazing Andrew MarrThe ridiculously talented Andrew Marr takes us through how he created the fantastic cover art that graces the cover of ImagineFX 155. This is a valuable chance to learn from one of the best illustrators in the business, and you're sure to pick up some pro secrets. Draw better fantasy creatures Give fictional creatures a real world groundingIf you want to create fantasy creatures with purpose, there of lots of tricks you can fall back on. Creature designer Bobby Rebholz shares his techniques for making fictional beasts look as real as possible, and why this will improve your art. Related articles: Top learning resources for illustrators How to be an award-winning illustrator 6 best digital art tools of 2017 so far View the full article

The likes of The Wizard of Oz and Guardians of the Galaxy have been transformed into wonderfully detailed maps in this series of illustrations by freelance illustrator and artist Andrew DeGraff. Over the years we've seen artists reimagine their favourite films in weird in wonderful ways. From comics that wonder how smartphones could change the plots of classic films to a range of art prints that recreate fictional boarding passes, it seems that there's no limit to how creatives can reinterpret their most loved movies. But we've never seen anything quite like these maps by DeGraff before. They remind us of London's famous underground map (which itself has been reimagined many times) thanks to their colourful routes, which track the movements of the main characters in films. To get a taste of DeGraff's maps, check out these examples inspired by some of the biggest movies around. First up is everyone's favourite dinosaur disaster flick, Jurassic Park. Click the magnifying glass in the top right to see the full size image We love the attention to detail in these maps. Not content with just tracking the general routes of the characters, DeGraff has been thorough and included instances where the action moves back and forth in a scene. Remember that bit in Jurassic Park where sleazy smuggler Dennis Nedry struggles to free his car from the mud so he has to wrestle with a winch before getting killed by a Dilophosaurus? That makes it to the map. Just follow the yellow line. Click the magnifying glass in the top right to see the full size image Doing justice to the beautiful maps in Tolkein's Lord of the Rings Books, the map above shows the paths that the ring travelled throughout the three main books, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King. De Graff's website shows close ups of this image's stunning details, such as the towers of Minas Tirith (below). Several characters' paths cross in these pieces DeGraff's site also gives an insight into his process, showing this massive 52.5 x 30-inch piece taking shape from a pencil sketch to the finished, detailed piece. Click the magnifying glass in the top right to see the full size image This sprawling map for the first Guardians of the Galaxy film does a great job of bringing the massive space opera into one image that viewers can navigate. But our favourite detail is the little purple arrow that shows Thanos swivelling round in his chair. It's the only movement he makes in the film, but even that makes it to the map. Click the magnifying glass in the top right to see the full size image This Wizard of Oz illustration might be our favourite map of the lot. There's so much going on, from the transition to black and white Kansas, to the circling route of the house as Dorothy and Toto spin through the tornado. If you like these maps you'll be over the moon to hear that DeGraff is featuring these illustrations plus many more in a new book called Cinemaps. Not only that, but his work will be featured in an art show at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles, CA, kicking off today. Related articles Interactive infographic maps UK music scene 18 illustrators to follow on Instagram 10 spectacular Inktober 2017 artists View the full article

It's just three weeks until Black Friday 2017 will bring you some great discounts on creative tools, but in the meantime, we've got you a great daily deal on courses to help you master Adobe's Creative Cloud software. If you're a creative of any kind, you're going to want to know how to work with the apps in the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. These powerful tools are counted upon by amateur and professional creators, and you can learn your way around them with the Adobe CC Lifetime Mastery Bundle – and you can pay what you want for it. If you're an aspiring creator, you'll definitely want to know your way around the Adobe Creative Cloud. It's the most powerful set of design tools around, and the Adobe CC Lifetime Mastery Bundle will help you make the most of it. In this bundle, you'll find more than 40 hours of actionable courses that will make you a master of Adobe's powerful artistic tools – from Photoshop and Illustrator to After Effects and InDesign, plus you'll learn how to make use of motion graphics in After Effects and more. The Adobe CC Lifetime Mastery Bundle is valued at over $384, but you can get it now for a price that you pick. Beat the average to unlock it all, get on the leaderboard, or just pay what you want. You can't go wrong, so grab this bundle today. With our other exclusive deal giving you 15% off Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions at the moment, now is the ideal time to learn to use this powerful design software. The courses included in this bundle are: Photoshop CC Masterclass Illustrator CC Masterclass Total Training for Adobe Dreamweaver CC InDesign CC: Essentials Getting Started with Adobe After Effects CC 2015 Become a Motion Graphics Designer Using After Effects Mastering Adobe Bridge CC About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. Read more: How to get the best Cyber Monday deals 2017 Get 15% off Adobe Creative Cloud with our exclusive deal 7 insane tech sneaks from Adobe Max 2017 View the full article

Although we might hate to admit it, even the most amazing designers can have annoying traits. So much so, in fact, that the team over at Spiralytics decided to investigate, with resident designer Jevie Palalay illustrating the nine most annoying things that designers do. "I think I speak for every designer when I say that this job changes how we think and act in the outside world without even realising it," Palalay comments. "Some good, but some are downright annoying for non-designers, especially for those who date us," she explains. From buying products purely for their packaging (even if you don't particularly want the product inside) to critiquing absolutely everything you see, it could be said that working as a designer has a pretty huge impact on your life. We can't help it, we're just inspired by everything we see, okay? You never know when the fonts on that old herbal tea box or colours on that chocolate bar wrapper will come in handy. The 'mess' on our desks will drive fastidious partners, friends and office PAs crazy, but we're never going to stop. Apparently, taking five minutes to even open the menu can get tiresome to hungry friends. But if said menu has a particularly striking (or, even better, a perplexingly awful) logo, what can we do? It's not our fault we were born this way! You never know when a graffiti font or retro font might be just what you need. Or when a project might call for 23 subtle variations on Helvetica. (FYI, our best free fonts for designers post has 56 different fonts at the moment. Just sayin'). Part of being a creative is being open to other types of creativity, not just design. Apparently, non-designers can find this a bit pretentious though. We may not be Cecil Beaton, but we have a good eye for striking visuals (well, duh). Don't hate the player, non-designer friends. These graphic designers have particularly strong Insta game. A bit like the menu thing, designers just can't switch off. If there's bad kerning or dodgy compositing, it will actually haunt our dreams. Maybe. But apparently our loved ones just don't care that much – they just want to watch Stranger Things without analysing its poster first. Moving swiftly on... But ARGH! That Dave is an absolute moron for doing that, how on Earth can he think that copying and pasting into World is a legitimate way of sending photos? What is this, 1995? Those blank stares from your mum are because she secretly thought this was fine, too. We actually don't think this is a problem. After all, beautiful illustrations and designs have long been part of the joy of buying and reading books. Go on, head down to the book store and lust after some more – the new Futura book has a pretty sweet embossed cover. For a more in-depth look at these traits, head over to the Spiralytics website. Related articles: 26 books every graphic designer should read Doodle art: 52 great examples 12 of the best places to live as a designer View the full article