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Design requires an abundance of analytic thinking – problem solving, task analysis, project management, etc. But design is both a science and an art, so it's important to also spend time learning how to be creative and innovative. That's where Mindbliss can help. A high-tech meditation tool, Mindbliss uses AI algorithms to produce meditation experiences that will fit your needs most effectively, whether you want to help your insomnia, start your day on the right note, or wind down before bedtime. Access hundreds of different guided meditations, breathing exercises, and more, and track your progress within the app. If you're having trouble making meditation a habit, Mindbliss can get you there. A lifetime subscription is only $49.99. Related articles: Can pro artists achieve mindfulness through art? Doodle art: 52 great examples 5 tips for taking guilt-free holidays as a freelancer View the full article

Designers are required to have more and more skills these days. A varied graphic design portfolio is key, which means as well as being confident creating visual identities and branding work, designers are increasingly dabbling in things like 3D art. And as we explain in this article, it's becoming more and more important that graphic designers have a grasp of coding, too. Understanding how code works can greatly improve the conversations you have with developers as well as making your digital designs better. But taking your first steps into the world of coding can be daunting. You can't jump in straight away with complex CSS animation or parallax scrolling effects. Here are six tips to help ease you into the world of code. 01. Do an online course There are plenty of online coding courses to help you get started, and these are a great place to start. “There are a myriad of platforms to help you learn coding,” says Craig Frost, product designer at Pusher. “Take your learning deeper by building something end-to-end using courses from world-class developers and teachers. It’s here where pieces start to click together; where you understand the broader picture of design on the web and the tools available to augment your design process and provide useful constraints to your design thinking and exploration.” The following are three good options to get you started: Treehouse offers a seven-day free trial to its library of video-based coding tutorials. If you like it, you can sign up for a subscription ($26/£20 per month), which allows you to choose from thousands of hours of content covering a wide range of skills and topics, from JavaScript to Python to iOS. To start coding without spending anything, you could try Codecademy – an interactive platform that offers free coding classes in a range of languages including Python, JavaScript, Ruby, SQL, Sass, HTML and CSS. There’s also a paid pro option ($19.99/£15 per month) that gives you access to a personalised learning plan, quizzes, realistic projects, and live help from advisors. Finally, Egghead offers a range of video tutorials by industry pros to help you learn the most popular JavaScript tools and frameworks, including React, Angular and Vue.js. Subscriptions cost $29/£22 per month. 02. Use code to break your routine “As a recent design graduate, I felt like I was hitting a slump after doing four internships in a row,” says Trang Minh Nguyen, a designer working in Berlin, who created the images in this article as part of a coding Instagram project. “Learning to code helped me escape this toxic mindset and open up a new realm of possibilities, especially when it comes to generative design.” 03. Make something One of Trang Minh Nguyen's daily sketches created while she was learning Processing (p5.js) “Think of a project you want to do, pick a language, and just start making,” advises Nguyen. “Get in the habit of creating. Have endless curiosity, look things up, read books, watch tutorials, wake up early so you have a fresh mind. Something will fuck up along the way and that’s OK.” 04. Ask the experts “Ask lots of questions and if someone who knows what they are talking about offers you their time, snap their hand off,” advises Matt Russell, graphic and web designer at Yorkshire marketing agency Red International. “And keep at it: you are going to hit speed bumps along the way but be patient and work through it.” 05. Don't expect to know it all “It’s okay to feel lost,” says Jun Taoka of Red Badger. “If your goal is to be a good digital designer and not a full-stack developer, you shouldn’t need to understand every single thing you hear your developers say to each other. If you can communicate to your developers your designs and their interactions then you’re doing enough.” 06. Use metaphors If new concepts in coding confuse you, try to think of metaphors that will make things clearer. “A developer who helped me start coding once told me to think of the code as if I was building a house,” says Clementine Brown of Red Badger. “The HTML is the frame and bricks, and the CSS is the paint and carpets. That really helped me understand the relationship between the two.” This article was originally published in Computer Arts, the world's leading design magazine. Buy issue 278 here or subscribe here. Read more: 8 great graphic design portfolios 16 top online coding courses 8 ways to automate common design tasks View the full article

Walmart sells a large range of drawing tablets on its website. It’s a huge retailer, which means it can be particularly competitive when it comes to price, offering great deals that smaller outlets simply can't match. But there’s a lot on offer, so we put together this selection of the best drawing tablets at Walmart to help you pick the right option for your needs. The best cheap Wacom tablet deals The best drawing tablet for kids Great prices aren’t the only reason why it can be a beneficial to buy a drawing tablet from Walmart though. The online store also offers free two-day shipping on millions of items, and there's no membership fee, unlike with Amazon Prime. Throw in a generous 90-day returns policy (you don’t need a receipt) and Walmart quickly becomes a smart choice for purchasing tech like drawing tablets, where you need to be comfortable using it and want to be sure you've made the right decision. Read on for our pick of the best drawing tablets at Walmart. The best drawing tablets at Walmart Related articles: The best cheap 4K monitor deals of 2018 The 60 best free Photoshop brushes 8 best external hard drives and SSDs View the full article

So you've taken extensive art classes during high school, read the designer's guide to the golden ratio, maybe experimented with paper art and perhaps even started to think about creating your design portfolio. Now that you feel ready to apply for art college, how do you start? Remember, applying to art college is similar to applying to any other education institution. Here are five tips to help make applying for art colleges a little less daunting. 01. Do the research Hit the web and research, research, research! It's time to do some research – and lots of it. Deciding which art college is best for you is a big decision. Fortunately, you have all the tools you need for making this important choice right at your fingertips. Surf the internet to find school directories, school reviews, ranking information, and more. Before applying to any school, be sure to consider your budget and your educational goals. Keep in mind to choose from schools that are accredited, offer financial aid, scholarship opportunities, and can offer you the art school education that you desire. Consult the school's degree offerings, course catalogues, and financial aid information. You may find that searching the web for art college directories can help you narrow down your choices. Be sure to check out what types of artists the school typically accepts. For a good overview on the types of artists thriving at the school, check out the school's galleries or affiliated exhibition spaces. Finding the school that is the right fit for you can be the key to success. 02. Apply to multiple art colleges You may not get your first pick so ensure you've a list of suitable schools Let's face it, we will not all get that coveted acceptance letter from our number one pick. This is just a fact of life. Narrow down your choices, create a list, and be prepared to apply to multiple art colleges. Start with about 15 potential schools that you would be interested in attending. From this list, choose three 'first pick' schools. These schools may have a notoriously rigorous admissions process, or be highly selective. Don't let this discourage you from applying. You have a chance of making it, but it can be a bit of a long shot. Be sure to review the admissions requirements, and send out those applications. Your 'first pick' schools may be highly selective – don't let this discourage you from applying Next, choose three more art colleges that better match your student profile. It's good to dream big, but applying to 'match' schools increases your chances of acceptance into an excellent fine arts course. These schools are typically less selective, and are more likely to accept students with your academic standing and technical skill. Round out your application list with three more 'safety' schools. These schools not only match your educational goals, but also accept students below your academic standing. In other words, a student like yourself would stand out among the crowd in terms of academic standing and technical skill. Even though safety schools are not your first or second pick, be sure that all of the safety schools on your list offer the education you desire. No matter which schools send acceptance letters, you want to be sure that you will be happy, fulfilled, and satisfied as a student. 03. Prepare a portfolio Your portfolio is worth spending a lot of time on You know that a strong portfolio is essential when applying for art college. The perfect portfolio will not only communicate your technical skills, but also inspire its audience. Include your best representative works. Be bold and choose the work that best speaks to you, or best communicates your goals and aspirations as an artist. As you apply to various institutions, you may want to tweak your portfolio from school to school to best match the admissions requirements for each institution. Another part of building a strong portfolio is highlighting your skills and goals to align with those of college admissions committees. Again, do your research! Visit admissions pages on art school websites to ensure that your portfolio meets all the necessary requirements for application. Not all schools require the same application information. Fine-tuning portfolios and other application materials to each prospective college is a great way to catch the eyes of admissions staff. 04. Prepare for interviews You need to stand out during your interview, so prepare thoroughly by practising with mentors or friends It's true, not all art colleges require an interview as part of the admissions process, but if you apply to a school that does, there's no need to sweat. As important as it is for you to find the school that is the best fit for you, institutions also strive to admit only those students that are the best fit for their courses. An interview gives you the chance to explain your goals and achievements, and present your portfolio in person. This can be your chance to turn the heads of the admissions committee. First, you need to be prepared to talk about yourself and your work. An interview gives you the chance to explain your goals and achievements, and present your portfolio in person Be honest about your processes and your achievements, and don't be afraid to highlight your successes as an artist and a student. Have you contributed artwork for local galleries or events? Did you receive any honours for your work? Let the interviewers know that you are proud of your achievements and are interested in strengthening your skills. Be sure you understand what the admissions committee is looking for; you might explain how you match their goals as an institution, or how you agree with the school's mission statements. Confidence in your work can go a long way. Practise interviewing with guidance counsellors, mentors or trustworthy friends. Interviewers typically look for candidates that can clearly articulate their reasons for application, their educational goals, and their own unique creative process. 05. Consider off-campus opportunities Look out for off-campus opportunities (a hiking club for example), or make your own ideas happen! Sure, art college is a great way to learn, make lasting connections with peers and mentors, and develop and strengthen your talents and skills. However, attending art school does not equal instant success. Ask any art college graduate. In order to succeed in the world post-graduation, you have to be your own advocate. When considering art schools, take a moment to research what types of opportunities are available for artists outside of the campus bubble. An essential skill for any artist is learning how to join a community, as well as self-promotion and valuable networking skills. Are you applying to schools in areas that are excellent cultural hubs? Are there plenty of independent galleries that accept or highlight student artwork? Consider joining social clubs or other organisations outside of school that support the artistic community – successful side projects can really propel your art career. Good luck! Read more: 60 amazing Adobe Illustrator tutorials 11 of the best creative resumes How to become an artist if you're priced out of art schools View the full article

The planned threading in shared memory update gives bad actors a way around the timer mitigations released by browser vendors. View the full article

The planned threading in shared memory update gives bad actors a way around the timer mitigations released by browser vendors. View the full article

ArtRage is a program that enables you to use real-world painting techniques on your computer, tablet or mobile phone. Put simply, you push pixels on a screen to mimic the behaviour of art mediums. The program was aimed at artists from both traditional and digital backgrounds who wanted to create believable works of art using a simple interface. 18 best iPad art apps for painting and sketching With the recent release of ArtRage 5, these ideals have been refined and tools honed so that all users, from digital novices to veritable stylus Seurats, can create beautiful art. The software can be installed on pretty much all platforms, and ranges from free simpler apps right through to the full desktop version geared more towards professional artists or keen enthusiasts. For me, ArtRage is the best program for all your painterly needs – and it's relatively cheap, too. Keep reading to see how easy it is to get up and running. Get set up in ArtRage When first trying out the app, stick to smaller paper sizes so as you can fill the space with colour easily using the medium-sized default brushes 01. Open a new canvas Start with a lovely blank canvas When starting any new piece of art, you first need to create a new blank canvas. ArtRage gives you a vast array of options from colour, size and pixels right through to the texture of the surface that you'll be working on. Begin by clicking File in the top left corner and selecting New Painting. 02. Choose your canvas size Don't saddle yourself with more canvas than you can use The New Painting box will open with a choice of options. Don't be daunted, it's just your chance to pick the size and colour of paper to work on. Select your print size and set the dimensions such as 16x12 inches for A3. Click in the Pixels/Inch box and type 300 to ensure a detailed picture. 03. Select a canvas texture Don't forget to give your canvas a bit of texture Tap in the canvas box that shows a blue stroke across it. Here you can change the colour of the surface along with the grain size and the roughness. If you tap on the arrow pointing right underneath the grain tab and select Select from collection, you're then given even more options and textures. 04. Confirm canvas and begin painting Now you're ready to go Once you're happy with your choices for the surface and texture of the canvas, simply click the tick button and this will bring you back to the Sizing screen. Click the OK button if all looks good for you. Now your fresh canvas will appear, ready to be worked on. Set up your brush Don't be afraid to use the stylus as you would a real brush with fast, emotive strokes or gentle, feathering dabs 05. Select an oil brush There are plenty of brushes to choose from The Medium Picker/Tool selector is probably the most important part on the screen, because it's the hub from which you can select what medium or tool you'll be working in. To pick your chosen medium or tool, just hover your cursor/stylus over the tools to be told what they are and click them to select. 06. Change your brush size If the brush isn't big enough it's easy to change the size Drag your finger, cursor or stylus across the brush head to the right to increase the size and left to decrease. The percentage number changes, indicating where you are on the size scale. To pick a specific size or go larger still, simply tap in the brush head area and type in the number you need. 07. Load paint on your brush You can load up your brush with plenty of paint Click Settings. Keep the brush loading down to between two and nine per cent for a really dry dab of paint, which is great for underpaintings and sketching. Slide the loading up to 50-80 per cent and the paint thickens up, creating thick glossy streaks that can be mixed on the canvas alla prima style. 08. Introduce texture Create texture by reaching for your trusty palette knife Add extra texture by laying down paint direct from the tube and smearing it with the Palette knife. Select the paint tube and apply splodges on the canvas near your brush strokes. Then push the paint with the Palette knife, building it up on the edges of your strokes for added realism and depth. Pick your colours The paint mixes fantastically in ArtRage and in such a believable way 09. Choose a colour and tone With the colour wheel you can quickly get exactly the shade you need No more endlessly mixing palettes and striving for an odd shade here! Using the Colour Wheel on the bottom right-hand side you can easily and quickly select hues across the whole colour spectrum. It's easy, simple and there's not an expensive tube of paint in sight! Tap the outer wheel to select the general colour you wish to use. Using the middle band you can click to select a tone within your initial colour selection, ranging from pale subtle colours right through to rich and deep hues. The smallest wheel shows the colour currently selected and the arrow in the corner enables you to collapse the Colour Picker, giving you more room to paint on your screen. 10. Correct errors with the Eraser... It's a lot easier to correct mistakes in ArtRage than on a real canvas The Eraser can be found in the Tool Picker menu and is ideal for loose smudges, shaping areas or when sketching. Again, like the other tools, the Eraser has settings for altering the Pressure and Softness. Simply click the Eraser and use on your canvas as you would a normal rubber. 11. ...Or go back in time! If you've completely messed up you can just undo your mistakes The alternative method of correcting a mistake is the Undo button. This is located at the top of the screen and resembles a backwards arrow. If you find you've gone astray in your work, click the Undo button to take you back to a point at which you were happy with your art. This article originally appeared in issue 8 of Paint & Draw. Related articles: Create a custom sticker brush in ArtRage The best software for digital artists How to create a digital oil painting using ArtRage View the full article

Thinking of a career change and not afraid of diving into the deep end? If you’re capable of learning quickly in a high-intensity environment, a coding bootcamp could get you working as a software engineer (and potentially commanding an impressive salary) within half a year – even if you’ve never programmed before. If you enjoy things like maths and problem-solving, you’ll probably like programming. If you're not sure, however, most of the bootcamps on this list offer a free online coding course that you can take to help you decide if you enjoy it and have the aptitude to be good at it. You can also explore some other online coding courses, or work though some of the free courses on Codecademy, to get a sense of whether designing/making apps and website layouts is the right career for you. 30 web design tools to speed up your workflow Despite requiring no previous programming experience, some of the bootcamps on this list are extremely tough to get into. They require you to do some self-study to prepare for a rigorous admissions process that ensures they only take on people who can handle a very hard program. Others are less demanding and more suited to a range of ability levels. Learning skills that will earn you a good salary doesn’t come cheap; most of these bootcamps require a considerable fee – but there are cheaper options if you don’t have the money. Some of them allow you to defer payment until you get a job, whereupon you make monthly payments. Sometimes there’s even an employment guarantee: if you don’t get a job as a software engineer within six months or a year you don’t have to pay at all. 01. Hack Reactor The course at this competitive bootcamp has been likened to 'drinking from a firehose' Price: $17,980 tuition fees Location: San Francisco, NYC, LA, Austin or worldwide via remote study Hack Reactor is a bootcamp that teaches software engineering to highly motivated, highly competent students. It’s one of the larger, most well-known programs, and it puts students through a curriculum that’s been compared to ‘drinking from a firehose’. A statistic that’s sure to grab your attention is the six-figure average starting salary of its alumni. There’s an impressive list of companies that have taken on Hack Reactor graduates, including the likes Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and PayPal. With outcomes like that, it’s no surprise that this is a very tough course. The admissions process is highly competitive as only those who can demonstrate they’re likely to succeed with a very demanding program of study are accepted. That said, you don’t actually need any prior programming or computer science experience; you can take the Hack Reactor Prep course, which is an online course that takes five to seven weeks and prepares you for the admissions process. Once you’re admitted, there’s another 80-hour self-study course to take before you start the immersive program, which is 12 weeks full-time either onsite in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles or Austin, or it can be done remotely online. If you can’t do it full-time, there’s the option to study part-time over nine months while still working. 02. General Assembly A range of full and part time courses to study on site or remotely Price: Various Location: Campuses in London, Australia, Asia and across North America General Assembly is a global organisation that has campuses across North America as well as London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. It offers a range of full and part-time courses covering many of the skills required by a technology business, as well as coding bootcamps. If you want to learn full-time, there is a 10- to 13-week immersive course on web development that's available in many of the campuses and can also be completed remotely online. The New York campus has an immersive Android course, and San Francisco has one on iOS development. For part-time learners, there are 10-week JavaScript and Frontend Web Development courses to study on campus, and JavaScript and HTML, CSS & Web Design circuits that can be studied online. Different campuses offer different courses, so you'll need to check up on what can be done in your area, and only certain courses run online. The admissions process for General Assembly isn't as competitive as some of the other bootcamps on this list, so it's more suited to people from a range of ability levels. Employment rates after completing an immersive course are good (you can read about them here). 03. App Academy An elite program with an employment guarantee: no job, no fee Price: From $17,000 (or free if it doesn't lead to a job) Location: San Francisco and NYC For the right person, App Academy is an exciting proposition: if you don’t get a job paying over $50,000 within a year of graduating the program, you don’t pay anything. You can also opt to defer your payment and pay by monthly instalments after you get a job; this enables the programme to select the students with the most potential as opposed to those who have the ability to pay. If you take the offer to defer your payment, you do end up paying quite a bit more: it’s $28,000 total, compared with $17,000 if you pay upfront. There’s also a hybrid plan where you can take a middle route of only deferring part of your fees, paying $23,000 in total. As you might expect, this is a tough program to get into – the acceptance rate is less than 5 per cent. But like Hack Reactor, it offers some impressive earning potential: an average six-figure starting salary for placements in San Francisco, with salaries in New York not far behind. The App Academy experience is a 12-week software engineering program that trains you in Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, React, Redux, SQL, Advanced Algorithms, Data Structures and more. It also teaches you how to succeed at the job search process. Hours are 9am-6pm, 45 hours per week. 04. Le Wagon Le Wagon creates a strong community for its alumni Price: Location-dependent (£6,500 for London) Location: Worldwide, but higher concentration of campuses in Europe Le Wagon is a nine-week web development bootcamp that teaches you to think like a software engineer and prides itself on instilling smart workflow practices in its students and maintaining a community for its alumni. It is primarily a European venture but there are campuses all over the world (although none in the US). The course teaches you to be a full-stack web developer; you'll learn Ruby, SQL, the Rails application framework, frontend work including Flexbox and Grid, as well as JavaScript. During the course you will build up your own GitHub profile, make an Airbnb clone and a personal project of your own. You can see some of the work from previous students here. Le Wagon places more emphasis on the social aspect of the experience than some of the other bootcamps. It is an intensive technical course, but all that's asked of applicants is that they're "very motivated, curious and social". No previous technical knowledge is required, but you have to complete the Ruby track on Codecademy before you get there, which takes 9-15 hours. 05. Hackbright Academy A software engineering bootcamp for women that emphasises networking and collaboration Price: Full-time: $16,895 Location: San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose Hackbright Academy has one major difference from the rest of the bootcamps on this list: it’s for women only. Like Le Wagon, there’s an emphasis on collaboration and a community that persists after the program is completed. The course teaches you to be a full-stack software engineer with a training program that centres around Python. You also learn JavaScript, PostgreSQL as well as web framework Flask and templating engine Jinja, both of which work well with Python. The idea behind the Python-centred approach is that it’s a widely used language that provides you with an excellent foundation for learning other languages. You can study full-time or part-time, and you get plenty of personal attention with 2:1 mentoring. You need to have some basic coding knowledge before you apply, and Hackbright offers a free online Python course to get you started. There’s also a four-week prep course you can take prior to the 12-week immersive program. Results for this bootcamp look impressive: there's a 99 per cent graduation rate, and a sample of 51 graduates reported a median first-job salary of $88,000. 06. Makers A London-based bootcamp that offers an employment guarantee Price: £8,000 (or free if you don't get a job) Location: London Like App Academy, Makers Academy gives you the job guarantee: if you don't get a job building software within six months of completing the course you get your money back (as long as you've put proper effort into finding one). There are two main routes into software development at Makers: the 12-week bootcamp or the Makers Apprenticeship scheme. At the bootcamp, the curriculum focuses on Agile best practices and lets you choose whether to learn Ruby, JavaScript, Python, AI or a combination of those and something else – you get to pick your pathway. Like most of the other camps, there's a pre-course to complete before you start the on-site program. It's anticipated that you could get a salary of £30k after completing the 12-week course. If you opt for the Makers Apprenticeship scheme, you sign up for 12 months. You get paid a salary of £18k-£25k from the start and receive a qualification and hopefully a job offer from the employer at the end. As with most of these courses, you don’t need much prior knowledge but there's a competitive admissions process. Read more: 18 great web design podcasts 20 top tips for design interview success Why designers need to learn to code View the full article

Many browsers on countless devices aim to support a growing web technology stack in order to deliver a great user experience for as many people as possible. Unfortunately, finding out what works where often means extensive manual testing. Thankfully, a major open source project has seen Mozilla pulling together this information into compatibility tables. In 2017, the MDN community started to migrate the compatibility information currently stored on thousands of wiki pages to a machine-readable JSON format in a GitHub repository. Having the data available in a structured form enables tools to integrate this information and flag compatibility issues at the point you’re writing code. Web content should be compatible with as many browsers as possible. Compatibility, like accessibility, is an important concern if you wish to avoid excluding people from your website or app. However, it is often difficult to tell whether a certain feature works in a given browser. Is it supported correctly? Does it require a prefix, or is it supported with a non-standard name or behaviour? These kinds of questions can quickly multiply. Do you research every feature in your code to tell if they are supported enough? If your CSS files use more than 200 properties, you will probably start guessing how far back browsers are likely to support your layout. Having no real idea about the compatibility of an entire codebase is not ideal. How can devs use this information? The mission of MDN Web Docs is to document the features of the Open Web. It contains thousands of reference pages about CSS properties, HTML elements, HTTP headers, JavaScript objects, Web APIs and much more. Most docs also contain compatibility tables, so you can check if you’re able to use a certain feature. This has been very helpful in the past, but in the age of linters and programmatic access to (big) data sources, it’s not enough. In 2017, the MDN community started to migrate the compatibility information currently stored on thousands of wiki pages to a machine-readable JSON format in a GitHub repository. Having the data available in a structured form enables tools to integrate this information and flag compatibility issues at the point you’re writing code. This means you no longer have to treat compatibility as an afterthought. The MDN community is migrating compatibility info stored on thousands of wiki pages to a machine-readable JSON format in a GitHub repo The first project to use this data set is compat-report, a browser extension made by developer Eduardo Boucas as a side project. It adds a compatibility panel to the Firefox developer tools and audits CSS usage. It can give an initial overview about potential compatibility problems with the main browsers already, and sometimes tries to suggest ways to address the problem. In the future, more tools like this could be integrated into code editors, for example offering tips about browser support, or giving warnings when your project requirements are incompatible with a certain browser version. Maybe compatibility could even be tested as part of continuous integration. A compat bot could comment on your pull request to give you hints about where support is going to break, for example. How will this data set be maintained? For now, the MDN community focuses on maintaining the compatibility data set and keeping it up-to-date together with other browser vendors. Last year Mozilla brought Microsoft, Google, the W3C, and Samsung together to form an MDN Product Advisory Board. While the MDN community always tried to provide information about web development for many browsers, this collaboration now formalises existing relationships. For the compatibility data, the board members agreed to drive updates for Chrome, Edge and Samsung Internet and help review compatibility data GitHub pull requests (PRs) that are flagged for their browsers. As opposed to the old static compat tables, the new structured compatibility data is now updated regularly. That’s an enormous benefit for the maintainers of the MDN compat tables and everyone interested in using this data. Everyone should be able to use the web with any devices and browsers. Having data available about possible incompatibilities should help with this. Web design event Generate London returns on 19-21 September 2018, offering a packed schedule of industry-leading speakers, a full day of workshops and valuable networking opportunities – don’t miss it. Get your Generate ticket now. This article originally appeared in net, the world's leading web design magazine. Buy issue 305 or subscribe here. Read more: 10 ways to avoid cross-browser compatibility issues Everything you need to know about WebGL 5 sensational new websites to be inspired by View the full article

From Black Pencil-winning animated campaigns such as Honda Grrr, to a string of iconic illustrated posters over the decades for the likes of Coca-Cola and Guinness, illustration and advertising have long been happy bedfellows. Whether it's creating fantastical worlds, grabbing attention with on-trend styles or conveying abstract ideas, illustration can be a fantastic communication tool for advertisers. Read on for 10 stand-out illustrated ad campaigns, created for household-name brands in recent years... 01. Five Go On A Great Western Adventure Picking up a D&AD Graphite Pencil in 2018, this beautifully animated campaign by adam&eveDDB follows Enid Blyton's Famous Five on an adventure through the countryside. It was directed by award-winning animator Pete Candeland. Designed to reignite people’s love of rail travel, the TV spot for Great Western Railway (GWR) follows the dynamic gang through the stunning scenery of the South West and Wales. After they are accidentally separated from Timmy the dog, the children encounter their canine pal at different points of their train journey before finally being reunited at the end. The campaign shows how effective it can be to tap into nostalgia, and follows in the wake of Pentagram's high-profile rebrand of GWR, which returned the train operator to its roots after many years operating as First Great Western. 02. Adidas: Here to Create Iris London commissioned psychedelic illustrator Stevie Gee and left-field animator Nicos Livesey to create this animation for Adidas campaign, Here To Create. Gee also applied his brushstroke style to the print campaign. Winner of the Advertising category at the World Illustration Awards 2018, the spot is a distinctive blend of live footage and animation. It features legendary football stars including Messi, Pogba, Firmino and Suárez. 03. Amnesty International: Teresa's Story This poster depicts the story of a 21-year-old woman born and bred in a Kenyan refugee camp, who believes education will be her saviour For Amnesty International, illustrator Pete Reynolds was tasked with telling the story of refugees, drawing on various real-life testimonies from different countries and situations. Part of his brief was to be engaging and emotive, but not so hard-hitting that people were turned off from the campaign. Compared to the gritty photography that similar campaigns have pursued in the past, the choice to go for illustration provided a softer, more accessible angle reminiscent of simple, graphic Amnesty posters of the past. One of two illustrations distributed on postcards at Amnesty's Give A Home concert series – for which musicians performed in over 300 people's homes – the above depicts the story of a 21-year-old woman born and bred in a Kenyan refugee camp, who believes education will be her saviour. 04. iPhone people talking Pixel 2 This Google Creative Lab and Anyways Creative projects brought phone advertising to life Google Creative Lab's collaboration with Anyways Creative puts a fresh spin on phone advertising, using animation to put a more human face on a field filled with shiny gadget porn. Nine dyed-in-the-wool iPhone users were given one of Google’s Pixel 2 phones to play with, and interviewed about their experiences in short 'vox-pop' format. The recordings were then given to nine different animators to bring to life. Using a format loosely similar model to Aardman's much-loved Creature Comforts spots for Heat Electric in the early 1990s, the campaign picked up a Wood Pencil at this year's D&AD Awards. 05. TfL Safety Posters These bright and bold illustrations are a great way to depict the clear messaging of these TFL posters Transport for London has a rich and deep heritage in graphic design, ranging from the Roundel logo, to Harry Beck's iconic London Underground map, to the instantly recognisable Johnston typeface. This reputation stretches to illustration too, and the archives are overflowing with stunning posters, from Art Deco masterpieces to modern-day trend-setting styles by the likes of mcbess. Design and illustration studio La Boca recently contributed these stylish safety posters to TfL's collection, bringing such messages as 'hold the handrail', 'mind the gap' and 'take care after drinking alcohol' to the network. Bright, bold and simple, they grab attention effortlessly. 06. Fanta Mashup Owen Gildersleeve's multi-level paper-cut design is graded from white to dark orange As part of its global rebrand, Fanta teamed up with a range of illustrators to create artworks inspired by the new cut-out graphic style, as defined by London-based agency Koto, which headed up the rebrand. The paper-cut nature of the new logo suited illustrator Owen Gildersleeve's style perfectly. With a bottle as the hero, his design conveys the theme of 'refreshment' with spray gushing out of the top. The multi-level paper-cut design is graded from white to dark orange, segments of fruit scattered throughout. 07. Alvogen posters Noma Bar is a master at breaking down potentially complex issues or words into simple yet effective images Winner of a Brand Impact Award 2017 in the Pharmaceuticals and Toiletries categories, Kontor Reykjavik's beautiful series of posters for Alovogen – expertly illustrated by Noma Bar – are a stand-out example of how illustration can convey potentially challenging subject matter. Strict Icelandic legal restrictions meant that the posters were not permitted to describe the effect of the medicines they were promoting. Noma Bar was tasked with packing all that meaning into his characteristically simple, witty negative-space style – and did so in style. 08. 7UP: Feels Good To Be You This Christmas In 2015, Bruce Emmett was commissioned by Havas to create illustrators for 7UP's Feels Good To Be You This Christmas campaign. This incorporated posters, printed advertising and billboard applications. His brief was to capture the bygone feel of seasonal joy and comfort through vintage yet photorealistic images, which evoked the advertising art typical of the 1940s and 50 – drawing on the brand heritage of 7UP in the process. 09. IKEA: Apartmentology Rod Hunt's detailed illustrations create 'impossible worlds' As part of a cross-media campaign for IKEA in Russia, Rod Hunt applied his highly detailed isometric style to a large illustration. Entitled Kvartirovedenie—which loosely translates as 'Apartmentology' – it depicts 10 different families within interlocking apartments. Commissioned by Instinct BBDO, the illustrations were also used in a book and online game. The campaign demonstrates how effective illustration can be to create impossible worlds – demonstrating a whole range of different IKEA furniture solutions in one highly detailed piece. 10. WWF: Poachers Another D&AD Graphite Pencil winner, this time in 2015, Leo Burnett Sydney's highly memorable illustrated campaign for WWF highlights the depth, complexity and fragility of the illegal animal trade. The concept at the core is to give individuals the sense that they have the power to help bring down the networks involved. Three illustrators were commissioned for the campaign: John-Henry Pajak, Surachai Puthikulangkura and Supachai U-Rairat. Using a realistic – but not photorealistic – 3D style, they created a series of 'poachers pyramids', which stacked representatives at different levels of the illegal animal trade precariously on each other’s shoulders. The characters have a videogame-like feel, to help emphasise that toppling the pyramid is very much possible. Related articles: 4 on-trend illustration styles for your next project The designer's guide to illustration The designer's guide to using images more effectively View the full article

JavaScript is one of the most widely used, versatile programming languages on the planet. If you're looking to skill up, you can become an expert at it with 2018 Essential JavaScript Coding Bundle. With more than 29 hours and 900 pages of content, the bundle will help you go from being a true beginner to a total pro in no time at all. Learn how to put together effective data structures and algorithms, and master all the design patterns that you'll need under your belt. You'll also discover the power of Angular 2 and Bootstrap for web development, and you'll learn how Javascript fits into the programming world alongside other languages such as HTML5 and CSS3. Get 2018 Essential JavaScript Coding Bundle for only $29. Read more: 5 top code editors for programmers The 4 most in-demand programming languages 5 of the best JavaScript frameworks View the full article

When I started my UX career, the iPhone didn’t exist. I was wireframing screens for car navigation systems using PowerPoint. User experience consisted of interacting with the touchscreen interface with their fingers or voice. Tap was the only gesture; there was no swipe, pinch or slide. There were quite a few voice commands but they were difficult to recall, and you had to say them a specific way. Even then, the system didn’t understand it most of the time. Today, when new web design tools are released every day, swipe is the new click. Technology has made it possible for us to talk to computers as if they were human. We’re designing experiences for multiple platforms using design-specific tools. The rules have changed: the next generation of UX designers will face new challenges that will impact our everyday lives. Here’s a look at some of the themes that are changing the face of UX. 01. Conversational UX Hey Siri, find a table for six in Los Angeles tonight. OK Google, take a selfie. Alexa, ask Uber to request a ride. Tech giants Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook have embraced conversational interfaces. Virtual assistants and chatbots have exploded onto the scene. We’re seeing a growing number of applications with invisible interfaces; applications with no commands to remember or user interfaces to learn. Users can just type or talk as they would to their friends or family. Conversational UX will be one of the biggest shifts in how people interact with devices. Natural language recognition is progressing at a rapid pace. Frictionless computing can be a reality. The Amazon Echo and Google Home are AI-powered virtual assistants that have no physical interface – users interact with them entirely through vocal instructions So what does this mean for user experience designers? We won’t be designing visual interfaces as often. Instead, we will design experiences through conversations – experiences that help users achieve their goals. The future of interaction is screenless. These are some things to consider for your conversational UI designs: Start with a quick introduction and explanation of what you do Make it clear the person on the other side is a bot and not a human Avoid open-ended questions; encourage a specific answer Acknowledge valid answers before moving on to the next question 
Focus on micro-copy that is natural 
and represents the brand Conversational UI is still in its infancy. As designers, we have the opportunity to shape the experiences we want. Through the power of conversation, computers and humans will finally be able to speak the same language. 02. Focused design tools It was only a few years ago that designers had to hack existing tools when designing for the web. They’d retrofit tools like Photoshop and Illustrator to create wireframes, flows and mockups. Organisations now realise the importance of a great user experience and are willing to invest in it. New web design tools or sets of updated features are frequently released and are all vying to be a part of the designer’s workflow. Currently leading the way is Sketch, a tool focused on interface design. With a robust set of powerful features and plugins, it has become the go-to for most designers. Competitors have taken notice. Adobe got into the game with XD. It differentiates itself from Sketch by adding a prototyping component and Windows compatibility. Another tool that has been gaining popularity recently and could offer a glimpse towards the future of design tools is Figma. It runs in a web browser and allows for real-time collaboration. CAD-inspired design tool Subform adds another new dimension – it focuses on the unique constraints of responsive layouts. The prototyping game continues to evolve. InVision launched a plugin for Sketch and Photoshop called Craft. Craft helps users design with real data, sync styles, and prototype within Sketch. Facebook has developed its own prototyping tool called Origami Studio. And Framer continues to push updates, making it easier to design with code. 03. A mobile future In 2009, Luke Wroblewski wrote that websites should design for mobile first. Mobile users were growing at an alarming rate. Mobile internet adoption was on the rise. Time spent in mobile apps kept going up. It was clear mobile was here to stay. Fast-forward to today and the numbers don’t lie. There are more smartphones in the world than PCs. The time spent in mobile apps dominates the web browser. A growing population of people no longer use a PC at all. Smartphones have changed the way we communicate with each other and access information. Yet the mobile experience is still riddled with bad UX. 04. Integrated experiences If we are to design for tomorrow’s mobile experiences, we can’t be guided by today’s constraints. Phones will get smarter and more integrated and powerful. Apps are beginning to scratch the surface of contextual experiences. Enter a restaurant and get a suggestion of what to order, based on your preferences. Got a meeting across town? Your phone will tell you when to leave, based on traffic. In the future, the camera will act as another context-aware source – it will be an extra eye that can understand what it’s seeing in real time. We’re starting to see more integration of data and services. Instead of opening a specific app to complete a task, we’ll be able to do it via voice or inside another app. Apps that don’t integrate with each other will seem like a broken user experience. We’ll interact with the other devices in our home, car and at work. To provide the best experience, all devices will talk with one another. The phone will be the one device that’s always with us; the hub of the frictionless experience. The apps that will become a part of our everyday life will be the ones that can best anticipate our needs. 05. Building a library The Airbnb Design Language System is a collection of components defined by shared principles and patterns Creating and maintaining an effective design system requires a huge investment. The Airbnb team created its system by first identifying the inconsistencies in its products. Designers printed out their designs and laid out the screens side-by-side. They audited the flows in order so they could see where the experiences were breaking. Principles helped inform their decisions to standardise on components and design patterns. A pattern library acts as a centralised hub for all components of the user interface. Effective pattern libraries provide pattern descriptions, annotations and contextual information. They also showcase the code and pattern variations, and have the ability to add real data into the pattern structure. Once a design system is up and running, it’s only the first step in the journey. It needs to be living. Nathan Curtis, a co-founder of UX firm EightShapes, says: “A design system isn’t a project. It’s a product, serving products.” Like any good product, a design system needs maintenance and improvements to succeed. Both Google and Salesforce have teams dedicated to improving their design systems. The goal is a workflow where changes to the design system update the documentation and the code. The benefits realised by a thoughtful, unified design system outweigh the effort involved in establishing one. There is a consistency across the entire user experience. Engineers and designers share a common language and systems are more sustainable. Designers can spend their time solving harder problems and the actual user experience. 06. The UX of virtual reality Google’s best practices when designing for virtual reality includes just two main rules: Designers should avoid simulator sickness and establish user familiarity with interactions User experiences are not limited to a desktop or mobile screen – many everyday objects now connect to the internet. One of the more exciting design challenges is virtual reality, which has been around for some time but has recently become more accessible, thanks to headsets like the Oculus Rift. Designing an immersive experience is not the same as designing for a flat screen. Design principles for two-dimensional screens don’t always translate to three-dimensional environments. A new medium means new rules, interactions and patterns. Moving on Design has come a long way. Mobile is the face of digital. Organisations are creating large-scale design systems and a culture of design. Tools for designers are becoming more accessible. We have had a small taste of the power of conversational UX and virtual reality. When I was designing car navigation systems, the goal was to get drivers to their destination. Now, we’re seeing cars that can drive themselves and are safer than humans. As technology is always changing, so will the rules of UX. Now more than ever, it’s an amazing time to be a user experience designer. This article was originally published in net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Subscribe to net. Want to learn more on the latest UX trends? Sara Soueidan is giving her talk Using CSS (and SVG) for the good of UX at Generate London If you're interested in learning more about how you can offer your users a silky smooth user experience, make sure you've picked up your ticket for Generate London. An award-winning freelance front-end UI developer and author from Lebanon with clients including Netflix, The Royal Schiphol Group and Smashing Magazine, Sara Soueidan will be delivering her talk – Using CSS (and SVG) for the good of UX – at Generate. In it, she will show you how UX has a direct impact on how the user feels, whether they find it delightful to use and, most importantly, whether or not they can use it properly. Generate London takes place from 19-21 September 2018. Get your ticket now. Related articles: 10 essential TED talks for UX designers New skills in UX design The ultimate guide to user experience View the full article

We've all done it. You have a great experience with a company, product or service, so when you see on their site a 'Subscribe to our newsletter' button, you think: Hey, why not? Fast-forward a few months and you've got an email inbox clogged up with email newsletters you haven't even opened, and your initial enthusiasm for the company has all but died. You weren't grabbed by any of the email newsletter designs you did look at, and you just don't have the time or inclination to make the effort any more. The unsubscribe button is seeming more and more tempting by the minute. How do you avoid this happening with your email newsletter design? Read on, and find out how to make your missive something people look forward to instead... 01. Find the right tool MailChimp offers a simple way to get started with email newsletter design Before you get started you’ll need a means to distribute your newsletters easily. Although there is a vast amount of software out there for doing this, some of the most popular are MailChimp and Campaign Monitor, and Squarespace has just launched an email marketing service that looks good. The best tools offer really simple campaign and list management, make templating a breeze, and handle all the technicalities of sending lots of emails without getting blacklisted for spamming. Many also offer analytics tools so you can measure just how your campaign faired. Campaign Monitor’s World View provides an addictive live view of your mail getting opened all over the world, which is particularly satisfying. 02. Figure out who it's aimed at There are many ways to use a newsletter, depending what business you are in. It could be that you wish to notify people of a new service you're offering, or an update to an existing one. It could be that you want to shout about offers, previews or discounts. Before you launch into your newsletter's design, it's important to nail down exactly what it's trying to achieve. Your recipients have chosen to receive your updates, so make sure they're your priority. Learn who your subscribers are and always bear them in mind when creating your newsletters. What do you think they're interested in? What do you want to share with them? Think about how you'd talk to the recipients if you were with them. Newsletters are generally a friendly, casual variety of digital communications, so write how you would speak. This will make your email newsletter easier and quicker for readers to digest. 03. Decide on your format Once you've figured out steps one and two, you'll be ready to decide on the form your newsletter should take, including how it's going to look and how you're going to build it. There are many ways to construct an email newsletter template. How you go about it will depend on a number of things: Which email clients do you want to support? Do you want to provide a 'view in web browser' option? Which mobile devices do you want to support? Do you want your email to appear differently on mobile and desktop? Researching other newsletters is a good way to help you decide what’s right for your brand and your audience. Think about what makes the ones you like work better than others. A great place to see lots of examples is the Really Good Emails site. 04. Keep it focused This email from Typeform sells one story, and does it well Whether you're going for a corporate style to fit strict branding guidelines or something more creative, make sure your newsletter doesn’t come across as merely a vehicle for as much content as possible. So many brands try to shoehorn every link from their site into the newsletter. Noise is irritating. Keep your focus tight – what message do you want your reader to come away with? 05. Give your email some personality Headspace keeps things light with an amusing illustration Traditional advice is to keep your newsletter simple. However, what's more important is that at a glance your newsletter design reflects you, your company and your message. Originality – what’s wrong with that? 06. Add section headings Headings and titles are critical, but pretty tricky to master. Be mindful of what captures your attention when you're browsing a newsletter or web page. What draws you in? You can have a brilliant article, but if your heading isn’t interesting enough it could be bypassed. Content and headings are equally important. 07. Get the header right Make sure your header is clearly branded The header will appear on every newsletter you send out, so you need to spend time on getting this right. The most important thing is that it features your brand name or logo, so the reader knows instantly who the email is from. Beyond that, the header should instantly convey the brand's values visually, and ideally create an emotional response in the subscriber that makes it feel like they're getting a beautifully designed present... not a piece of unwanted spam. 08. Don't forget the footer The footer doesn't have to be over-designed, but it is space for key info As on a website, the footer is in many ways as important as the header, giving the design a rounded feel and a sense of completeness. It's where the reader will expect to find contact details. It can also include an easy way for subscribers to share the newsletter or part of its contents with friends, via email or social media. And it should definitely include a link allowing them to unsubscribe. Making it hard for people to unsubscribe is bad form and is not going to make your newsletter any more popular. It’s far more helpful to know that that those that have subscribed actually want to receive your newsletter, and it’s also much more likely that your readers will be actively engaged. It's better to have 50 newsletters that are actually read and enjoyed than 500 that are consigned to the trash. 09. Be smart with images A newsletter full of text can be very boring to look at, and images can be a really great way of communicating what you're about to your readers. If you have good photos of events, staff, or your products ‘out in the wild’, include them. If you don’t have any, think about that next time there is a launch or event. Pictures can be really evocative. Choose those that you love and you feel reflect you and your company. Take the time to make the images look as great as possible with a bit of help from Photoshop, or get an illustrator involved. Nowadays some companies embed video into their newsletters, but this can be a technical minefield, so think carefully about what kind of audience you're aiming at and what kind of technology they're likely to be using before heading too far down this path. 10. Build subscribers' expectations Newsletters are great for building a sense of expectation. News doesn’t have to be something that you have already done – maybe share some of your dreams and hopes for your company. If you have a product launch in six months, take your readers on that journey with you – the ups and the downs. Get people as excited as you are about what you are working towards. 11. Tell a story Sharing your story as your company/project grows is a very powerful way to find people who want to be part of that story too – and your newsletter can let them know how they can be. Be imaginative in how that narrative is conveyed visually – there's no rule to say that a newsletter has to be a dry list of links. 12. Keep an eye on the analytics Services like MailChimp can provide you with oodles of information about what your subscribers are doing with your newsletters, but don’t get too obsessed with it. Analytics can give you a clue as to what is working and what isn’t in general terms, but get too distracted and you’ll overthink it. There are many elements to keep in mind when you are creating your newsletter. Try and use your instinct and trust that with practice you’ll begin to feel what’s right and what's not. 13. Encourage signups Not On The High Street has a signup section in its website footer There are lots of ways to get the word out there about your newsletter, so make use of as many of them as you can. Use any social media accounts you may have, and always include a link to the newsletter signup page on your site. Events and exhibitions are another way to spread the word. However you let people know, it’s important to make sure that the signup process is as quick and easy and possible. 14. Be genuine If you don’t believe what you're writing about, neither will your readers. Blagging can be picked up a mile off – if you believe in your news, your company or your product, that will shine through in your copy. 15. Encourage feedback Physical newsletters were traditionally one-way pieces of communication, but the web should be all about two-way conversations. Digital newsletters, in other words, are a great way to get people involved. Consider introducing a competition, for example, or asking for feedback. In time, your newsletters will help build a community of sorts, and your updates will feel more like a message to a group of likeminded people than an anonymous broadcast. 16. Be a magpie Always remain on the lookout for interesting stuff to include in your newsletter. Bookmark inspiring web pages, write down captivating quotes, take pictures. Write about your experiences. It’s much nicer when you sit down to put your newsletter together to feel like you aren’t starting from scratch. 17. Stay regular Not to get all Pavlov’s Dogs on you, but if your newsletter is regular then people will start to expect and even look forward to it at certain times. Keep in mind how often your newsletter needs to be sent, though (this will vary wildly depending on its purpose) – there’s a fine line between keeping people updated and spamming them. 18. Give something back Airbnb really engages with readers in its newsletter Don’t expect your readers to only take on board messages about your company, business or sponsors. Give them more. People know when they are being sold to, and that’s okay if they want to hear about it, but why not include other things too? Supporting other causes and businesses doesn’t mean people will be less interested in you. Support businesses that you respect, and maybe they will return the favour. 19. Test before sending! Before you send out your newsletter, test it out by mailing it to yourself first. View it in different email clients, on different browsers and on different mobile devices. There are always things that can go wrong, whether that's to do with the wording, the images or the technical delivery. You're more likely to notice errors if you put yourself in the eyes of the subscriber. We like to think Creative Bloq's newsletter is worth reading. To sign up, see our homepage or our About Us page (look for 'get weekly tips and inspiration'). Read more: 10 best email newsletter tools Create perfect messages in all email clients Master HTML typography in email View the full article

Another month has come and gone, which can only mean one thing: the new issue of Computer Arts magazine is on sale now. Inside issue 281 we talk to creatives who are shaking up how they work. From challenging the conventional work ethic to redefining design styles in established industries, these creatives are bursting with refreshing insights. Buy Computer Arts issue 281 now In our special report we investigate how top designers, including Gavin Strange, Jessica Hische and Armin Vit are turning income on its head thanks to diverse revenue streams. From books to blogs and products, there are plenty of ways for designers to earn an extra bit of money. Discover how you can do the same. Broaden your revenue streams with these design skills insights Save up to 60% on a Computer Arts subscription Elsewhere in issue 281, Emily Gosling looks at how good book design can elevate content and form to beautiful heights. Following his talk at TYPO Berlin, we catch up with Timothy Goodman to hear how he bridges the gap between the personal and the professional in his murals. This issue also showcases the latest design trends and talks to tactile artist Hattie Newman, you won't want to miss it! Take a look at what's inside Computer Arts issue 281 by scrolling left to right through the gallery below with the arrow icons. Computer Arts is the world's best-selling design magazine, bursting at the seams with insights, inspiration, interviews and all the best new design projects. For all this delivered direct to your door each month, subscribe to Computer Arts. Right now you can save up to 60%, and receive a free Computer Arts tote bag when you subscribe. Related articles: How to design a book in InDesign How to make money on Instagram as a creative Let's talk about money View the full article

Infographics are everywhere on the web, and they're increasingly interactive. On this page I've gathered together examples of the best infographics with interactive functionality, and looked at what makes them great. On page two you'll find some handy resources and libraries to help you build your own (or take a look at our roundup of top infographics tools). Read on to find out how you can create a design that truly engages with your audience. 01. Understand the psychology This infographic explains why infographics work Before you start to make your interactive infographic, it's worth considering why you're making it interactive. As the brilliant infographic Why Your Brain Craves Infographics explains, people are visually wired. We're all far more likely to be willing to read, understand, and remember a presentation that includes engaging visuals. But while visuals are arguably the most essential learning tool, they can only go so far. There is also the vital component of kinetic learning, by which people are better able to retain information through a physical activity. So it makes a lot of sense that adding interactivity to the already potent field of data visualisation should make an infographic even more memorable and effective. This combination of visual and kinetic approaches is what makes interactive infographics the data visualisations of the future. Of course, some infographic topics simply don't encourage the use of any interactive elements – but many others are vastly improved by them. Interactivity can help to make sense of the information, give control to the user, and capture the imagination in ways that a static graphic simply can't. 02. Add spice with scrolling effects Animations can make a dry topic more engaging One of the most popular types of interactivity requires just a little scrolling from its users, which usually triggers animations and transitions. It creates the same need for completion as a jack-in-the-box; users feel compelled to finish what they've started. It's a great technique for drawing viewers into a story and making them feel more engaged without overtaxing any limits of interest. The handwashing infographic above uses both subtle and flashy animations to make the journey through a rather dry topic as fun as possible. Scrolling can also be used in really simple ways, with simple narratives. For example take a look at this iPod capacity visualisation. The content is incredibly basic, but the scrolling factor does an excellent job of communicating the point. 03. Paginate for easy digestion Separating the infographic into pages means the user isn't overwhelmed with information Your Daily Dose of Water has users click through pages rather than scroll, and shows how some concepts work better with this multi-page approach. Elements on each page are interactive beyond the simple movement between topics, so clicking onto a new page more ensures the user has time to fully digest one portion before moving on to the next. 04. Let users highlight certain areas This infographic tackles the subject of tax returns Some of the best infographics are the ones that take an unwieldy amount of data and distill it into a single, manageable graphic. But these visualisations often still take some patience and perseverance to understand. Interactive highlighting of different portions can help minimise initial confusion, which is essential for attracting and retaining the average easily-distracted web user. The infographic about IRS tax returns above, How Much Goes Unclaimed Every Year, could have displayed the number of individuals and amounts of unclaimed money per state in one large chart, but featuring each one individually makes it much less confusing. Using the same functionality across pages helps bring consistency Occupational Outlook (above) which displays percentages of job openings by both occupation and education level, has a similar presentation. But this infographic includes so much information that it was necessarily split it into several different pages. However, the rollover functionality is the same across all pages, which makes the information feel like it's all of a piece. If you don't have the time or resources to build something quite as robust, you can often supplement with a few well placed animations. In a much more simple way, this business guide to intangible assets utilises scrolling animations to add pizazz to its otherwise mundane charts and graphs, helping to keep the user's attention throughout the page. 05. Hide some information Hide extra information behind clickable links for users to explore Another great way to get users to actively participate in the infographic experience is to have clicks or rollovers that offer more information. Not only does this encourage the user's sense of curiosity and exploration, it also allows them to skip over minor topics that are not of interest to them, without discouraging them from continuing on with the rest of the infographic. On the more complex end of examples is the SimpliSafe guide to home security (shown above). There's a lot more than just clickable links in this journey through the different layers of home defence, but their inclusion makes for a richer learning experience. 06. User participation is compelling Personalised information is compelling, but only right for certain situations You vs John Paulson shows an example of the type of infographic that populates its information based on the user's particular data entries. By entering your annual salary, you get a comparison with the amount of money that foreign trader John Paulson makes in a matter of minutes (along with a few other examples, just to drive to point home). Because this type of interactivity only works for a minority of topics, it's less common than the others on this list. However, it's probably also the most compelling, not only because it invites the most user participation, but also because it uses personalised information. Next page: Resources to help you bring your infographics to life The rise in interactive infographics has correlated with a similar upsurge in animation and transition tools and guides, both of which make the process of creating the most complex effects surprisingly manageable. Now you've seen what you're aiming for, let's take a look at some of the tools and resources that will help you build your own interactive infographic. 01. CSS3 = Awesome Get an overview of CSS3 Transitions, Transforms, Animation and Filters This site is helpful for anyone looking to get an overview on CSS animations, transforms, transitions and filters. It offers detailed tutorials on all these topics, and is a great place to start for a thorough technical overview. 02. A collection of page transitions This site showcases various page transition effects using CSS animations This site demonstrates various popular transitions that can be achieved between pages, which can be very useful for inspiration as well as information. 03. D3.js D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data D3.js is a JavaScript library that enables you to transform and animate data in any number of ways, using HTML, CSS, and SVG. With it you can create the collapsing graphs or spinning data points that are one of the key features of most interactive infographics. With all these resources freely available, the reasons for making a traditional static infographic are becoming less and less viable. Read more: The beginner's guide to brochure infographics The best infographics on the web today Free tools for creating infographics View the full article

A PoC shows how ships could be hacked and fooled into changing direction - all due to simple security issues. View the full article

A PoC shows how ships could be hacked and fooled into changing direction - all due to simple security issues. View the full article

Before The Partners became part of Superunion, it created a new visual identity for Shakespeare's Globe, including a new logo design that draws inspiration from the theatre's shape. The identity is deeply rooted in the Globe's experimental spirit and history and has won several awards, including a D&AD Wood Pencil. Katherina Tudball, designer director; Nick Eagleton, creative partner; and Jay Brodie, senior designer, share how they crafted the identity... 01. Find the cornerstone of the brand Following changes in its artistic direction, Shakespeare's Globe, a reconstruction of the famous London theatre where the Bard's plays were originally performed, asked cultural strategy specialists Morris Hargreaves McIntyre (MHM) to create a new brand model and a mission statement for the organisation. We were brought into the process to help develop a new brand narrative for the Globe and evolve the visual identity accordingly. It wasn't clear, initially, that we'd end up radically altering the existing identity. But the freedom to totally re-evaluate everything came about during the process. Early on, we were asked to turn the new brand narrative into words you might use in a more public facing way. In audience testing, the one word that resonated with everybody was ‘Alive'. It's the notion that going to the Globe brings theatre to life; it's visceral and unpredictable. So that became our cornerstone. 02. Experiment with different ideas The logo reflects the shape of the theatre We approached the development of a new visual identity in a quite experimental way, inspired by the idea that the Globe itself was an experiment. So we shared a lot of early ideas with the team. Given the shape of the iconic building, one theme emerged around the idea of circles, but that never quite felt right. Until one day, when we realised that the building is 20-sided and not a perfect circle. That got us excited, as it would be quite a unique-looking symbol. Another concept emerged around the idea of printing. The endurance of Shakespeare's plays is due to the historical accident of them having been printed and saved. Also, after spending a lot of time visually immersed in the theatre, we felt there should be some sort of physicality or tactile aspect to the identity, and we liked the idea of using wood in some way. 03. Tie your themes together The symbol created from the wood is integrated into all of the identity's designs We asked if any wood from the actual building might be available, and the client loved the idea. That same day, they sent over a circular piece of oak to our offices: the only piece remaining from the timber used to rebuild The Globe. We took this and made a print block out of it in the shape of a 20-sided polygon. ‘The Wooden O' was actually the nickname of the original Globe, with the phrase even appearing in the prologue of Henry V, so this tied all these various themes together quite nicely. The ‘holy relic' we'd been given was carefully cut up by furniture maker Nathalie de Leval, the wife of our creative director Nick Eagleton. Then printmaker Peter Smith, of St Bride Foundation in Fleet Street, covered it with red ink and rubbed paper down on it. So much wonderful granular texture was captured in the process that when it was revealed, there were gasps from the crowd. This print was then scanned and converted into a digital format to create the logo. We didn't really correct that much, other than create the colour suite and identify what level it can reduce down to. This symbol acts as the core ‘source of the action' in the new identity and is integrated into all of the designs. 04. Look to the past for inspiration The First Folio was used as inspiration for the Globe's brochures and printed materials Other elements of the new identity are also inspired by history. We limited our colour palette to red, black and white as these were the colours used in early printing. There's also a story – which is perhaps apocryphal – that in Shakespeare's time, when illiteracy was widespread, red, black and white flags were used to indicate what kind of play was on. The typeface, Effra, is an updated version of a typeface from 1816 called Caslon Junior. As the first commercial sans serif, this was an important family to the history of English printing, but its simplicity means it's also perfect for the multimedia age. We also took inspiration from the First Folio – the original 1623 publication of William Shakespeare's plays – to create the grid for the layouts of the Globe's brochures and other printed material. The design system is very flexible: the philosophy is to provide a kit of simple parts with very light guidance to any artist or designer and just let them play with it. This is in keeping with the whole spirit of experimentation around the project, but consistency is ensured by elements such as the limited colour palette. 05. Take your time The finished identity displayed on an ad on the London Underground What's been so great about this project is that we've had time to pause and reflect along the way; to think carefully about how all these different strands could come together. We wouldn't have arrived at any of these thoughts if we hadn't taken that time to do the research, and just mess around and learn, without being concerned about trying to make an identity and brand system. In the end, it's actually turned into a very robust system, but that wasn't our primary goal. The more time we've spent understanding this unique organisation, the more passionate and excited we've become. Ideas are surer and stronger when they're rooted in some sort of authentic truth from the beginning, and so the research on this has been fundamental to really immersing ourselves in Shakespeare and the history of The Globe. This project is ongoing, with the next big stage being the relaunch of the website later. This article was originally published in 278 of Computer Arts, the world's leading design magazine. Buy 278 or subscribe here. Read more: Define a brand with handmade type The secrets to building a world-class brand 21 outstanding uses of colour in branding View the full article

We know, designers and illustrators love Moleskines. We do too. But a tablet with a stylus offers a world more flexibility – namely, that your notes and drawings don’t have to be created again digitally, and can be safely backed up to the cloud. All of which makes a stylus-equipped tablet the ideal alternative to a traditional notepad and pencil, whatever your preferred drawing technique. But there’s a lot of choice out there, so what’s the best option? Whether you’re looking for an iOS, Android or Windows tablet with a stylus, we’ve got you covered. In this guide, we walk through the best tablets with a stylus for drawing and note-taking available right now – as well as the best budget buys – so you can make the right decision for your needs. The Samsung Galaxy S3 simply ticks all the boxes, making it an easy choice for our favourite overall slate – let alone the best Android tablet with a stylus for drawing and note-taking. With its 9.7mm screen, super slim 6mm thickness and light weight (less than half a kilo), the Tab S3 will wow you with its perfect dimensions even before you turn it on. Once you do, you'll be immediately love the vibrancy of the HDR-enabled screen – ideal for when you're turning your quick sketches into something more aesthetic. 12 essential tools for graphic designers There's only 32GB of onboard storage, so you may be resorting to the cloud more than you'd wish. But the real perk the Tab S3 has over much of the competition is that the S-Pen is included in the price, so there's no need to go shopping for a separate stylus. Just as Hoover has come to mean vacuum cleaner, iPad is a synonym for tablet to many people. When it comes to the best iOS tablet with stylus, we recommend heading straight for the big kahuna – the 12.7-inch iPad Pro. Its broad Retina display has the most colours, its A10X chip has the most power and you won't be disappointed with the sheer amount of handy programs you can download from the App Store. For the price you pay for the iPad Pro, we can't hide our chagrin at the lack of Apple Pencil – that will cost you around $100/£100 to add as an extra. But if you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem, you'll want to add the iPad to the family and, to be fair, are probably used to the cost of these things already. Read more: iPad Pro 12.9 (2017) review A quick glance at the spec sheet of the Microsoft Pro (2017) is enough to tell you the sheer power we're dealing with. An available Intel Core i7 Kaby Lake CPU, 2,736 x 1,824 resolution PixelSense display and 512GB SSD storage. The Surface Pro doesn't just wipe the floor with other tablets, it's a legitimate replacement to your laptop. Even the battery has been given a significant upgrade from the Surface Pro 4. But where's the stylus? You used to get the Surface Pen included, but not any more, so you'll have to cough up an extra $100/£100 if you want that. It's worth it though: its extraordinary 4,096 pressure levels make it a delight to draw with. Read more: Microsoft Surface Pro review If you're primarily looking for a tablet with a stylus for drawing, consider investing in a dedicated drawing tablet. Our favourite is the Wacom Cintiq 22HD: its large dimensions (it's not really one for shoving in your bag too often) mean that you get a total of 50cm x 30cm of total drawing area – perfect if you want a more detailed design than most normal tablets allow you to execute. The super sensitive stylus won't hurt to this end, either – we can't think of another drawing tablet out there that will give you more accurate results. The integrated stand means that you can adjust the angle of the tablet to suit your preferred stance and the full HD display boasts over 16 million colours. If you can afford it, the Wacom Cintiq 22HD could have a major impact on the quality of your work. Read more: The best drawing tablet We eyed the Lenovo Yoga Book with a combination of intrigue and suspicion when it was first announced. It's a kind of tablet-laptop hybrid with a digital, capacitive keyboard that doubles up as a handwriting or drawing surface. But the result is a tablet with a stylus that's well worth owning. The traditional surface is 10.1-inch 1,920 x 1,200 resolution screen, which again hits that magic number of 16.7 million colours. The second surface is that capacitive Halo Keyboard, which – despite the lack of digital keys – is accurate enough to take quick notes straight to your chosen word-processing app. Prefer the old-fashioned method? Then you can utilise the included Real Pen stylus instead and use the Halo surface as a digital notebook, with the added bonus of seeing your scribblings saved immediately into your onboard storage. We know the Yoga Book won't be for everyone (the 180-degree fold back screen means it's much chunkier than most other traditional tablets), but Lenovo's unique proposition means its well worth considering if you can't decide between a laptop and a tablet. Huawei has managed to make a genuinely good tablet at a fraction of the price you'll pay for other tablets. Despite the relatively low price point, you still get an excellent screen, sufficient power for most tasks and a sleek, light aluminium frame that's both practical and won't embarrass you if you pull it out at a coffee shop. Obviously if you rely on apps that require power-intensive rendering and processing, this Huawei MediaPad will inevitably struggle compared to the Surface Pro and iPad. Pro. And there's no stylus included with this one - take a look at the best styluses you can buy below. But if you're just getting going with using a tablet for work (or as a hobby), this is a very affordable starting point. The best stylus to buy for your tablet If you choose one of the tablets above that doesn't come with a stylus in the box, then we can help you pick out a pencil to purchase: Related articles: The best drawing tablets money can buy 4 alternatives to traditional sketchbooks How to draw: 100 tutorials View the full article

Click the image to see it full size I’m a big fan of traditional media, but it’s hard to beat the convenience, versatility and speed of working digitally. Over the years I’ve developed a hybrid process that combines pencil drawing techniques with digital colouring skills. It’s great for artists who are at home with traditional tools, but looking to branch out into digital media or gain a little bit of extra control over the look of their finished pieces. In this workshop, I’ll be walking you through the creation of my painting The Bear Wife, showing how I build up an image, starting with a detailed drawing using my best pencils and working my way up to a monochromatic traditional-media underpainting on toned paper, before switching over to Photoshop CC for a bold digital finale. Watch the video below to see my full process. These techniques are infinitely adaptable. I’d encourage you to use this workshop as a jumping-off point, integrating the tools with which you’re the most comfortable to tailor a process that’s uniquely your own. 01. Start with a thumbnail sketch A successful image starts with an informative thumbnail sketch. To avoid bland images, think before you draw. Who are your characters, and what is their story? Let the answers inform your choices! I then polish the chosen sketch in Photoshop, establishing the values and colours I’ll be aiming for in my final image. 02. Take reference photos Drawing from real life (or photos) helps ground an imaginary scene in reality. I’d avoid relying on found images or stock photos. Composing your own reference photographs will ensure that the resulting images fit your vision. Sometimes you have to get creative to gather the correct reference; I don’t have a bear cub handy, so my dog Tiki will have to do! 03. Produce a tight sketch I trace an enlarged version of my thumbnail on to a sheet of Bristol paper, then start to flesh out the drawing, incorporating visual information gathered from my reference photos. I like to use grey Col-Erase instead of graphite: it’s a little softer and more forgiving, making it ideal for the sketch stage. 04. Transfer the print I like to draw and paint on different kinds of paper. (And I hate painting directly over an original drawing – the fear of ruining it always hinders my creativity.) So rather than working directly over my pencil drawing, I print a low-opacity copy of my sketch onto tinted pastel paper, and wet-stretch it. This is an essential step when using water media on paper. 05. Create a two-tone underdrawing The underdrawing is a slightly more polished version of my original sketch. I refer back to my thumbnail value study, noting which areas are light and which are dark. For dark areas (the bear and coat) I use a black Col-Erase pencil; for light areas (the hair, skin, trees and bear cub), grey Col-Erase gives a subtler effect. 06. Apply ink flats This is another step that relies on the clear value structure I established early on. I apply a diluted wash of a brown and black acrylic ink mixture to only the dark areas of the piece. This develops a strong base value for the darks that will help keep my darks and lights separate as I begin to render the piece. 07. Render the ink Using a small, round brush, I start rendering within the newly established base tone. I’m ignoring the light areas completely at this stage, and instead focusing on building up the darker values with carefully applied ink washes. The base value ensures that the value of dark area highlights will never get too close to light areas of the piece. 08. Bring in details Once I have a nice range of values within my dark areas, I switch to black Col-Erase. Then I add fine details and textures, and re-emphasise the line art from my underdrawing. Light shading can even be used to push the values even darker at this stage. 09. Render the light areas With the dark areas completely rendered, I finally switch over to the light areas. Happily, very little additional work is required here. I block in the large areas of shadow on the face and bear cub with an extremely diluted wash of ink, then switch back to the grey Col-Erase to perfect the line drawing and add subtle shading. 10. Add highlights To add an extra layer of depth, I pick out the brightest highlights in white charcoal pencil. I stick to the light areas of the piece for a more naturalistic look. For the rest of the piece, retracing key outlines in bolder Prismacolor pencil (dark grey for the mid-tones, black for the dark areas) creates emphasis without disrupting the value structure. Avoid overdoing your highlights, though. Remember that only shiny surfaces will have hard-edged highlights, and that highlights will almost never appear in shadowy areas. 11. Scan and adjust I now have a pretty sophisticated starting point for my digital painting. Almost all of the rendering is finished, but I’ll be able to add colour and polish in Photoshop. I scan my painting, then match the on-screen image to the real-life painting using Curves and Levels adjustments to increase the contrast, and a Hue/Saturation layer to correct the colour. 12. Introduce digital tints I start slow with my colour; first, I outline the big areas of the scarf using the Pen tool, then convert the outline to a selection. Next, I fill the area with a bright red colour (alt+del), switch the layer mode to Overlay, and then reduce the Opacity for a subtler effect. 13. Brighten the whites The intensity of white charcoal never quite comes through in a scan, so to counteract the dulling effect I retrace my white charcoal highlights from the traditional phase of the painting to bring some drama back to the hair and skin. I’m using a textured, angled brush set to white on a new layer, painting around 40 per cent Opacity with a very light hand. 14. Darken the darks Since a scanner blasts such bright light at an image, there’s a similar loss of intensity in the darker areas. On a new layer set to Multiply, I use the same brush to deepen the values in the darkest areas of the piece: the bear’s face and paws, and the folds of the jacket. I use desaturated reds and blues rather than pure black. 15. Make final adjustments I finish the image with one final set of adjustment layers. I use levels to brighten the image, and Selective Color to reduce the yellow tones in the piece – skewing the colour scheme a little cooler to give the finished piece a wintery feel. This article was originally published in issue 159 of ImagineFX, the world's leading magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 159 or subscribe here. Read more: How to draw hands Colourise greyscale work in Photoshop Best practice advice for capturing human anatomy View the full article

This top-rated Facebook Ads course on the web can teach you all the secrets behind successful Facebook marketing. With the Facebook Ads & Facebook Marketing Mastery Course, you'll learn marketing methods that have proven time and time again to be the most effective at getting more eyeballs on your business. You'll learn how to optimise your ad campaigns in such a way that increases profits, and you'll also discover how to effectively grow your Facebook follower base and post engagement. Learn to make Facebook work for you with the Facebook Ads & Facebook Marketing Mastery Course. It's on sale now for only $9.99. Read more: 10 social media tricks you didn't know about Make money on Instagram as a creative How to make social media work for you View the full article

Andrew Gordon worked as Pixar's directing animator for seven years, and is now co-director at Illumination McGuff and head of animation at Double Negative. He's worked on films such as The Incredibles, Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc, so it's safe to say he's seen a few demo reels in his time. 15 pro tips for crafting the perfect showreel Here, Gordon walks through some stand-out demo reels from the last decade, explaining why each one won its creator either an internship or a job at Pixar… 01. Stefan Schumacher: Demo reel 2010 “This one was done by Stefan Schumacher, who was one of my interns a few years back,” explains Gordon. “All of the scenes are based on a simple rig that has been modified to be a character. Also, he put sets in and, in general, shows really great acting ideas. Especially in the scene at 00:30…” 02. Allison Rutland: 2009 animation demo reel “Another reel that I remember being wonderful was this one from Allison Rutland. It’s a professional reel that showed great potential at the time,” Gordon explains. “She didn’t have much feature work on her reel, but she did two personal tests that got her a job. The last one on the reel [at 00:50] I think really closed it for her. It’s a great example of believable acting,” he says. Rutland went on to win an Annie for best character animation for her work on 2015 animated film, Inside Out. You can watch her 2017 animation showreel here. 03. Cesar Tafova: Animation reel 2016 “There are many rigs out there – many are attached to schools that ‘give them away’ for free as a marketing tool,” says Gordon. “Just know that when you see the same rig over and over from hundreds and hundreds of students, it’s very hard to separate yourself from the pack. “This example [at 00:17] shows a good use of changing the scene and character. It has a good hook. It’s the Malclom rig,” he adds. “I see lot of demo reels with this guy. If you’re going to use a rig from a school, come up with a really original design and test. “Look at the rig as the actor, and you as the director who needs to put him in a costume. Make the scenery and direct the acting to tell a story.” 04: Carlo Vogele: For Sock’s Sake “Once you get past the work from schools that teach animation by using stock rigs and running you through animation exercises, the stuff that really stands out is the student films from other schools in the world,” says Gordon. “When you see a film that’s well-crafted, it means a lot. This film by Carlo Vogele was one of those you see and, right off the bat, you say: ‘That’s a great idea – using clothing to animate.” Don’t fall into the trap of being a shot animator. Try to be a storyteller “It’s so important to remember to be a film-maker and not just try to do exercises that you think will get you into this or that studio – especially when you’re a student. Now’s your time to make films, because not many people out there are going to give you the money to make a film. “I was personally hired out of school on a two-minute Flour Sack test that turned into a little story. I saw another student get an internship based off his Flour Sack film and go on to Pixar, then Disney feature animation,” he continues. “You don’t need complex rigs to get noticed. Just great ideas. Many times it’s the story telling, the entertainment value, what you bring to the work… Don’t fall into the trap of being a shot animator. Try to be a storyteller.” Related articles: Top animation tools for digital artists The dos and don'ts of animation showreels How to get clients on board with animation View the full article

Your landing page is a crucial element in your website layout. It is the first real opportunity you have to introduce your business, or the product you sell, so its design is key. Landing pages are designed with a single focused objective known as a call to action (CTA). The use of colours and images to complement the calls to action and the user experience is a must. See the working CodePen for this tutorial In this tutorial, we'll walk through how to build an engaging landing page for a fictional fashion brand. It will be centred around a split-screen design with large images and animated transitions that happen on hover. This page will have two clear call to action buttons and we'll be using HTML, Sass for styling and a touch of vanilla JavaScript that uses the ES6 syntax. 01. Get set up Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image If you're using CodePen, make sure the CSS is set to 'SCSS' in the Pen settings. You can make this change by clicking on the settings tab, choose 'CSS' and change the CSS Preprocessor to SCSS in the drop-down options. Then we can begin adding in our HTML. We're going to wrap a section called 'left' and a section called 'right' within a container class, with both sections given a class of 'screen'. 02. Finish the HTML Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image To finalise our HTML, we will add in a title for each section using an h1 tag. Underneath that we will need to add in a button, which would link to another page if this was a real-world project. We will give this a class of button to keep things nice and simple. 03. Explore Sass variables The one thing we all love about Sass is the use of variables. Even though native CSS variables are getting more support, we will keep things safe by using Sass. We will put these at the top of our .scss, and you can choose whatever colours you want, but using rgba values will give us more flexibility. 04. Adjust body styling Firstly, we will clear all default padding and margin to the body and then set the font family to Open Sans. This will only affect the button, so it doesn't matter too much what font we use. Then we will set the width and height to 100% and make sure that anything that overflows on the X axis gets hidden. 05. Style the section titles It’s time to pick a Google font for the section titles – we’ve chosen Playfair Display. Then using translateX we can make sure the section titles are always centred on the X axis. 06. Make the CTAs stand out Our buttons will act as our calls to action, so these need to be big, bold and positioned where they are easy to click. Both buttons will have a white border and an interesting transition effect. The default styles for both buttons will be the same, however we will change their colours on hover. The main buttons will have a nice simple hover effect and we will use the Sass variables we specified for the colour, which will be a similar colour to the background of the page. 07. Set the container background and screens Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image The container class will act as our page wrapper and we will set the position of this to relative, simply because we want to position the screens to absolute positioning. We will give the container a default background colour, but of course this won't be seen because we will be setting different colours to both screen backgrounds. 08. Add background images Both the left and right sections will display an image, and you can find royalty-free stock images from websites such as Unsplash, Pixabay or Pexels (which I've used in this tutorial). To make things easier, I've used a free image hosting and sharing service called imgbb that we can link to in our CSS. The right-hand side of the page will also display a background image using imgbb, and we will set the background colour to pink. Again, we set the background size to cover. This will allow us to cover the entire containing element, which in our case is the .screen class. 09. Add transitions and hover effects The animation speed for our hover effect on both screens will be controlled by a transition that holds the value of our variable $animateSpeed, which is 1000ms (one second). Then we'll finish off by giving the animation some easing, which is an ease in and out that will help to give us a smoother animation. What we want to happen now is that when you hover over the left screen, there will be a class added to that section using JavaScript (which we will write in a later step). When this class is added, then that screen will stretch to whatever the width of the variable we specified – which will be 75%, and then the right side will be set to the smaller width variable (25%). This works exactly the same as the left side, where a new class will be added on mouse hover using JavaScript, and the right screen will stretch out accordingly. We also need to make sure the z-index is set to 2 so the CTA button becomes more prominent. 10. Move into JavaScript We will be using a touch of vanilla JavaScript to help us add and remove CSS classes and we will also be using some of the new ES6 features. The first thing we need to do is to declare some constant variables. Because we will be using document more than once, we will set a constant variable called doc and store the document within that so we can keep the word 'document' nice and short. Now we need to set three more constants that will store the .right, .left and .container selectors. The reason we are using constants is because we know we don't want to change the value of these, so using a constants makes sense. With these now set, we can go ahead and add some mouse events to them. Using the left constant variable we declared in the last step, we can now add an event listener to it. This event will be the mouseenter event and instead of using a callback function, we will use another ES6 feature called Arrow Functions' ( () => ). 11. Add and remove a class In the last step, our event listener added a mouseenter event that targets the main container class and adds a new class called hover-left to the left section element. With this called added, we now need to remove it when we hover off it. We'll do this by using the mouseleave event and the .remove() method. Up until now we have done everything on the left screen. Now we will finish off the JavaScript and add and remove classes on the right section elements. Again we have used the arrow function syntax here to keep everything looking nice and tidy. 12. Make it responsive Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image No project – no matter how big or small – should avoid being made responsive. So, in this step we will add some media queries to our CSS, and make this small project as adaptive to mobile devices as best we can. It's worth checking out the original CodePen to see how this works. We've made sure that when the width of our page gets down to 800px, the font and buttons will reduce in size. So, to finish things off we want to target the height too and make sure our buttons move down the page when the page height gets below 700px. Web design event Generate London returns on 19-21 September 2018, offering a packed schedule of industry-leading speakers, a full day of workshops and valuable networking opportunities – don’t miss it. Get your Generate ticket now. This article was originally published in net magazine issue 305. Subscribe now. Read more: 5 sensational new websites to be inspired by Create an animated 3D text effect 19 great parallax scrolling websites View the full article

The aim of this piece was to produce a piece of 3D art that's ready to go straight from the frame buffer, with little or no post-production. Zagreb-based Studio Niskota (now Polymachine) created the project as a test bed for their no-post pipeline, and all the assets are modelled and textured with such detail that they could be used for a close-up render – despite ending up hundreds or thousands of metres from the camera in the final shot. How to create epic environment designs Scenes on this scale containing hundreds of thousands of detailed assets can put a burden on your renderer, and working with billions of polygons in the viewport in a way that enables fast iteration is nearly impossible. Enter Forest Pack and RailClone by iToo Software, two of the most popular plugins for 3ds Max that specialise in instancing almost limitless geometry while maintaining a fully procedural workflow. Forest Pack enables users to scatter hundreds of thousands of objects, each with millions of polygons, while a point-cloud display mode and several optimisation features keep the viewports fast. RailClone shares Forest Pack's instancing capability but uses parametric arrays instead of scattering algorithms to distribute, manipulate and deform geometry. In this tutorial we'll illustrate how these two tools were used to create Studio Niskota's scene, and share some invaluable tips along the way for anyone planning to create large-scale environments. 01. Model the foreground terrain 3ds Max is perfect for modelling landscapes quickly The landscape is probably the biggest contributor to the overall balance of the image, so it's always a good place to start. There are many excellent dedicated landscape modelling applications on the market, but for speed nothing can beat poly modelling in 3ds Max. At this early stage, try to create the landscape in a way that encourages experimentation by maintaining good edge flow, using as few edges as possible to define the basic shapes and only then adding a TurboSmooth or OpenSubDiv modifier to add refinements. 02. Use placeholder geometry Simple placeholders can help you work out your camera angles Once you have the terrain roughed out, add placeholder geometry for the major elements to help work out which camera angles you plan to use. In this scene, the landscape was modelled with a lake in the foreground and a flat section to showcase the architecture in the mid-ground, which gives way to rolling tree-lined hills in the distance. 03. Split up the terrain Make your life easier by breaking the terrain up into manageable chunks It's tempting to model a landscape as one large surface, but when your scene is measured in kilometres, that's not always a sensible approach. If you only model the sides of the hills facing the camera you significantly reduce the number of trees and objects scattered later on, speeding up render times. You can use the same approach to add scan data that fills in the background. 04. Add the buildings Make sure to get some variety into your buildings With the composition worked out, you can create the buildings. Poly modelling is used throughout for the building structure, which is then populated with a mixture of high-quality stock and bespoke models. For believable renders, it's important to add subtle variation. For example, you can use the RandomByElement modifier with multi-sub object materials to randomise the textures. 05. Keep everything parametric Parametric models will be easier to update if you need to For this project we want to retain the ability to experiment, so it's important to make sure that anything we add is easy to update. One way to achieve this is to make models parametric. For example, tucked away in the trees in the final render is a power line that we'll create using the RailClone plugin. RailClone also instances geometry automatically, so even though the object ended up barely visible in the final render, you'll have a reusable high-quality asset that's easy to edit and suitable for close-ups in future projects. 06. Create the power lines Use RailClone to make the power lines Draw a spline across the background of the terrain to define the path. Create a new RailClone object, open the graph editor and create a one-dimensional array by adding an L1S Generator. Wire the pylon geometry to the Generator's Start, End and Evenly inputs. Wire the cable geometry to the Default input and change the Default Mode so the cables are scaled to fit between the pylons. 07. Create the boardwalk You can also use RailClone to build the boardwalk The boardwalk is also created with RailClone. Draw a spline above the terrain to describe the centre of the path. Several plank models are distributed along the spline using a one-dimensional array with a Randomise operator. A second one-dimensional generator distributes the posts at evenly spaced intervals. The Generator's Mirror and Y Offset options are used to copy and move the array to both sides of the path, and a Surface node is added to both generators so that the boardwalk follows the topology of the landscape. 08. Add variation to procedural objects Randomise your planks to give them a more natural look Just like the building's cladding, this boardwalk mustn't look too perfect. Add some chaos to the planks using the transform randomisation features found in the Segment node's settings. You should also randomise the textures used on each plank, but instead of using a modifier, you can use RailClone Color which retains full instancing and has other advanced options. 09. Source plants and other assets Randomise rotation and scale of your vegetation to keep things natural-looking The vegetation used in the scene comes from a mixture of library models and bespoke plants created using SpeedTree. Landscape artists often ask themselves how many plant models they need to create believable variation. It's not really the number but the differences between the models that's important. You can hide a lot of repetition by simply randomising rotation and scale. Ideally, you should only include additional variations of a plant species if they look sufficiently different to justify the extra resources. 10. Scatter the trees Bring in your trees as a new Forest Pack object After you've added the main compositional elements, it's usual to work from large to small elements. The trees occupy the largest area, so create those first by adding a new Forest Pack object that uses the terrain as a surface. Add the tree models to the geometry list and enable Rotation and Scale randomisation. A scale range between 50 and 150 per cent will disguise repetition effectively. 11. Remove trees from the scatter Get rid of trees that are where they shouldn't be The trees are also scattered inside the buildings, on the boardwalk and in the lake. Draw closed splines from the top view and add them to the Forest Pack object's Areas list. Set the mode to Exclude and the items inside the splines will be removed. Remove trees from under the power lines by adding the spline used by the RailClone object to the Areas list and increasing Thickness. 12. Create grass patches Bring in grass and small plants as Forest Pack objects Small plants and ground-cover vegetation are normally modelled as individual plants. If we were to scatter individual plants in this scene, it would take over 6.5 million of them to fill the desired area. The solution is to use two Forest Pack objects, one to create a small patch of grass, and a second to distribute the patch on the terrain. To create a patch, use a small circular spline one metre or more in diameter as an Area to scatter grass with Forest Pack. Use the area's Density Falloff to thin out the scatter as it approaches the spline. 13. Scatter the patches Use Translation randomisation to avoid a grid effect Next, create a second Forest Pack object using the terrain as a surface and add the patch to the Items list. Add Exclude splines to remove grass from inside the buildings, on the lake bed and under the boardwalk, as well as creating clearings. A grid-like appearance can sometimes be visible – to break this up, add Translation randomisation as well as the usual Rotation and Scale. 14. Cull items that aren't visible Save on rendering time by losing everything that's not visible to the camera There's little sense in wasting resources calculating items that aren't seen in the final render. Go to the Camera rollout and enable Limit to Visibility and Auto Assign to Active View to use the current camera to remove items that aren't visible. If you still need some items to be retained for reflections, you can extend the scatter beyond the frustum slightly using Expand. 15. Add layers of ground cover Mix layers of ground cover for a more realistic look Realistic ground cover is achieved by mixing several layers of plants to add visual complexity. Using the same optimisation tricks as the grass, create new Forest Pack objects for long grass, dead leaves, sticks and twigs, mushrooms and tall weeds. Create believable interaction between the layers by drawing unique Exclude areas and experimenting with different distribution maps. 16. Place grass around the boardwalk Add longer grass and weeds where the lawnmower won't reach Grass grows taller around the boundaries of objects where it cannot be trampled or cut. Create a new Forest Pack object to add long grass and weeds around the boardwalk. Add the same spline used by the RailClone style to the Forest Pack object's Areas list and set the mode to Include. Increase the Thickness until the grass area is slightly wider than the boardwalk. Then, to remove the grass from under the boardwalk itself, add the same spline again, set mode to Exclude and change Thickness to roughly the width of the planks. 17. Paint the reeds Use Forest Pack to paint reeds onto the landscape We can hand-paint areas using Forest Pack. Here we'll create a new Forest object to add reeds. Go to the Areas rollout and add a new Paint area. Click the button to activate Paint mode then click and drag on the terrain. It's important to understand that you're only painting an area – the plugin remains fully parametric so you can adjust geometry, density and randomisation at any time. 18. Add lights to the boardwalk You can add lights to the boardwalk with Forest Pack... The final Forest Pack object adds light geometry to cables strung along the boardwalk. In the top view, draw a zigzagging renderable spline between the posts. Divide all the spline segments in half and lower the new vertices slightly to create downward curves as though the cable is affected by gravity. Create a new Forest Pack object and add light geometry and transform randomisation. To array these lights along the spline use Path Distribution mode and set the distance between the lights using the Spacing value. 19. Scatter V-Ray lights ...then scatter them using V-Ray There are more than 350 lights scattered along the boardwalk. No-one wants to place that many objects manually, but unfortunately Forest Pack can't scatter non-geometric items such as lights. Fortunately there's a workaround. Select the Forest Pack object used to distribute the lights geometry and use Forest Tools to convert it to native instances. You can now use Max's built-in Clone and Align tool to add an instance of a new V-Ray light that matches the position and orientation for each of the bulbs. 20. Manual placement Add the last few hero objects by hand Now you can complete the composition by placing hero objects in the mid to foreground. A Forest Pack object can be useful here too. Add all the items you need to the geometry list and add the surface. Enable Custom Edit mode and you'll be able to choose and place items that will have the benefits of using Forest Pack's point-cloud display, randomisation and instancing features. 21. Add the lanterns Add the foreground lanterns manually, too The lanterns in the foreground are created using groups that contain geometry and a V-Ray light to illuminate the scene. Manually instance and position the lanterns so that slightly more than half are sat on the water surface and some are drifting into the sky. To add blur to the airborne lanterns, add a short animation and enable Motion Blur in the renderer and camera settings. 22. Ripples in the water Create ripples with a VRayDistanceTex map To create ripples where the lanterns touch the water, first model wavy discs and then place them just below the surface, one for each light. Use these to add displacement to the water using a VRayDistanceTex map to create a greyscale output based on the surface's distance to the disc's geometry. To move a lantern, just move the disc to update the displacement automatically. 23. Position lights Make sure that all your lighting comes from a believable source Studio Niskota's no-post philosophy applies to lighting too. Pay close attention when lighting the buildings to create a believable mood, with the aim that you could create close-up or even interior renders if needed. Ensure that lights are added where there are fittings so that they originate from a believable source, but feel free to also use invisible lights to add accents. For example you could add lights facing away from the buildings to boost their illumination of the surrounding environment and backlight the nearby trees. 24. Add atmospheric perspective V-Ray Aerial Perspective will give your scene a sense of depth and scale without huge rendering overheads Finally we need to create a sense of depth and scale. This effect is commonly added in post using a Z-Depth Pass, but it can be achieved at render time too. Some artists like to use V-Ray Environment Fog to achieve this, but unless you really need volumetric light and shadows you can use V-Ray Aerial Perspective which approximates the same effect but renders more quickly. This article was originally published in issue 234 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 234 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Related articles: Create an atmospheric game environment 6 expert tips for better 3D renders How to render a photorealistic sky View the full article

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