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It's annoying for website users to click on a link only to find that the web page isn't of interest, wasting their time. Using a picture in the page background is a great way to give users an indication of what to expect from a link before committing to loading the page. You can see a great example of this technique in use on the Ivan Aivazvsky life site. Using the page background can also help dyslexic readers or those who speak English as an additional language. In these cases you can communicate additional information to the user without overloading them with too much text. 10 steps to creating an engaging user experienceAs with any effect that combines text with background images, make sure that your text remains readable at all times. This can be achieved by placing a semi-transparent colour on your navigation links. Also consider UX readability for issues such as colour blindness that affect how users are able to interpret coloured text. Here's we'll show you how to create an interactive navigation display with useful and accessible visual cues. Download the files for this tutorial here. The Ivan Aivazvsky life site changes the background images as you hover over links (click the image to go to the website) 01. Create the HTML document Create the main HTML document template, which consists of the HTML container storing the head and body section. The head section stores description information such as the document title, as well as links to external resources – ie CSS and JavaScript. The body stores the document content. A significant feature of the body is the 'data-theme' attribute it has applied – to be modified by JavaScript to trigger CSS presentation changes. 02. Add navigation HTML The page content consists of a navigation container containing links. The navigation's ID and the titles of the child links will be used by JavaScript to listen for interactions and alter the 'data-theme' attribute defined as part of the body container. 03. Initiate the CSS file The HTML content is now complete, so create a new file called 'styles.css'. This file stores the CSS formatting rules that control the visual presentation. Start this file with rules to present the HTML document and its body to appear across the full screen using a white background and black text. 04. Set rules for visuals An important component for the effect is the use of the 'data-theme' attribute applied to the document body. A rule is set to define the data's default behaviour – which we'll use for background positioning and change transitioning. This avoids the need to repeat these rule definitions for each individual theme, which makes your web pages easier to maintain. 05. Design the theme The design of each theme is set using the value of the data-theme attribute. To achieve the desired effect, we are setting a different background image for each version of the theme. The previous step takes care of all of the default settings that these themes will inherit. 06. Add a navigation container The navigation container is used to make sure that links are presented with a consistent width placed in the middle of the screen. A width of 50% and auto calculation used for horizontal margining is applied. This approach provides a guarantee of consistency regardless of the user's screen resolution/size. 07. Style navigation links The links inside the navigation container are to be displayed as blocks set to adapt to the width of the container. This means that their 100% width is defined by the container's width. Padding, borders and background colouring are also applied to make sure that they stand out from the background images. 08. Link event listeners The CSS is now complete, so create a new file called 'code.js' for the JavaScript. The effect requires each link inside the navigation to listen and react to a mouseover event where the user hovers over a link. This listener applies the 'title' value of the link to the data-theme attribute of the document body – hence triggering styles in the CSS. After the page window had loaded, the navigation link nodes are placed into an array, upon which a for loop is used to apply the event listener. This article originally appeared in Web Designer issue 262. Buy it here! Related articles: 10 website navigation trends for 2017 10 steps to creating an engaging user experience Léonie Watson on why accessibility must be an integral part of the web design processes View the full article

Websites are a company’s main calling card – and for none more so than for creative agencies, which use them both to tell potential clients about their style and values, and to showcase exactly what they can do. Of course, you can go too far down the latter road: feature too many flashy digital tricks and you risk making it difficult for people to find the information they’re looking for. These agency websites, all new or newly redesigned for 2017, manage to strike the right balance between showing that they can innovate to provide original work and remaining accessible to potential customers – which is surely what every potential client will be looking for. 01. Johnson Banks Johnson Banks’ new site overturns the rules on scrollingFounded by Michael Johnson in 1992, Johnson Banks is a relatively small London agency that nevertheless has garnered some huge clients and a stellar reputation. Specialising in visual identity and branding systems, and with a strong focus on the non-profit and charity sectors, it states that “We don’t just help brands change. We help them change the world.” In April, it also changed the rules of how an agency website functions, with a new site created in collaboration with Bong International. The two things that hit you immediately are the eye-wateringly colourful design – which carefully straddles the line between stylish and gaudy – and the defiantly experimental scrolling system. Pull the scrollbar down and the projects scroll across the screen rather than downwards. This seems to break one of the fundamental rules of usability: stick to what people know. But somehow, it’s so intuitive in use that it’s surprisingly delightful rather than annoying. 02. Ustwo The kaleidoscopic colours of Ustwo’s new site pop like there’s no tomorrowUstwo is a global digital product studio with branches in New York, Malmö, London and Sydney. Like Johnson Banks, it made our 2016 list of the 30 best design studios, and for good reason. Founded by two best friends in 2004, the agency continues to bring a real sense of creativity and originality to its mobile games, apps and websites. This May saw Ustwo launch a striking new website design, dominated by kaleidoscopic colours that seem to pop out of the screen. That mild sense of craziness, though, is balanced by a calming and measured use of whitespace, while extra interest is provided by cleverly positioned videos and oh-so-subtle use of transitions and animations. A great showcase, then, for what Ustwo does best: creating fun, functional and attractive digital experiences. 03. Ueno Ueno’s new site benefits from some subtle splashes of dry comedyFounded in 2014, Ueno describes itself as a “full-service, all-singing, all-dancing, flame-haired, fun-loving, not-quite-bohemian agency, busy designing and building beautiful digital products, brands, and experiences.” With offices in San Francisco, New York, LA and Reykjavík, its clients include Airbnb, Medium, Lonely Planet, Google, Reuters and Dropbox. What we love about its new website, launched this month, is its tongue-in-cheek sense of fun. So when the homepage loads, rather than a spectacular loading animation, we get a bathetic slice of text stating, drily, “Hi I’m preloader”. Then once you’ve scrolled down the first page, the footer is dominated by a series of ‘Meet the Team’ videos, where the staff are attacked by balloons, tennis balls and more, again with a cool sense of understated irony. Sensibly, the site avoids going overboard with these quirky bits of comedy, and the presentation of the client work itself is beautifully composed, with some lovely flurries of subtle movement that you only catch out of the corner of your eye, and which are all the more effective for it. 04. Herman-Sheer Herman-Scheer’s new website is invitingly informalFounded in 2010, Herman-Scheer is a creative agency based in LA, specialising in branding, website design, video production and digital marketing. Or, in its own words, “a galvanized group of strategists, designers, developers, and writers with a contagious case of fire under the ass”. This is clearly not a group of people, then, who communicate in an overly formal manner. And this casual style of talking like real people rather than business robots comes across clearly in its new website, launched in May. For instance, the background video when you visit the homepage presents a series of real, relatable people rather than the airbrushed models you might expect. Also when you click on the ‘chat’ button out of office hours, you get a photo and message that sounds like it was written by a real person, not an automated chatbot... hurrah! Want to become a client? Click through and you’re greeted with, “Let’s talk – who are you and how should we help?” Want a job? Their message is: “Hey, we should meet.” Getting the right brand voice in your microcopy can really boost conversion rates, and it looks like Herman-Scheer is doing everything right on that score here. 05. Random Studio Random’s new website is thrillingly arty without being offputtingRandom is an experience design studio based in Amsterdam with clients including Chanel, Tommy Hilfiger and Nike. Its staff are comprised of visual artists, strategists and engineers who constantly blur the boundaries between art, design and technology in new and interesting ways. When you’re pushing at boundaries like this, you don’t want the design of your website to look dull. At the same time, you don’t want to move so far from convention that people find it difficult to use. With it new website, launched this month, Random has managed to strike the perfect balance. The layout of projects is arty and contemporary, with generous use of whitespace providing a beautiful sense of flow, while the friendly typography and carefully sparing use of video make scrolling and clicking through to individual projects both alluring and addictive. 06. Norgram Studio Norgram uses a horizontal scrolling calendar to showcase what it has been up toNorgram is a two-person Danish design studio consisting of award-winning design directors Sebastian Gram and Mathias Høst Normark. Founded in 2016, the duo are firmly focused on design collaborations and in progressing the next generation of digital brands and experiences. And their new website, launched in 2017, is also pretty innovative in its own right. Design agency websites normally divide all the things they’ve been doing into different categories, so you have to click through a number of different sections to find out everything they've been up to. Norgram does away with all of that, and brings everything the agency has been up to, day by day, using a visual, horizontally scrolling calendar. It’s beautifully put together, both in terms of aesthetics and its functionality. And it’s a device that would work well for any new agency with a range of diverse activities to talk about. 07. P22 P22’s site goes from monochrome minimalism to colourful excitement in a surprising wayP22 is a product studio focusing on early-stage ideas. Founded in 2016, and with team members in New York, Sydney and Auckland, New Zealand, it produces its own innovative in-house ventures as well as working alongside other teams on theirs. The way P22 Studios showcases its projects online is pretty innovative. At first glance, it’s all cool monochrome minimalism, with funky fonts and acres of laid-back whitespace. Hover over any of the projects, though, and you get an immediate, colourful full page-takeover of what’s to come when you click through. In short, it’s not quite like anything we’ve seen before, and the effect is pretty darned cool. 08. Bukwild Bukwild’s site uses clever visual tricks to convey a number of complex messages in a laid-back wayA digital creative agency founded in 2001 and based in Sacramento, California, Bukwild is another business that avoids business jargon and marketing speak like the plague. Its ‘About Me’ page, for instance, begins: “We talk to you like we talk to our friends. We tell the truth. No bullshit.” And that’s a spirit that continues throughout its new site, which was launched this April. There are also some pretty jazzy transitions, web animations and little videos as you wander around the site. But it’s not about clever technology as such – more the clever and artful use of those technologies. We love, for example, the way that line drawings of simple geometric shapes have been used as an organising design feature. This helps to make what is a potentially confusing mass of information and different services into a logical, aesthetically pleasing whole. 09. WONDR.io WONDR.io’s cinema-style graphics and video deliver the wonder its name suggestsWONDR.io is a digital architecture and creative agency based in Dublin, Ireland. Founded by Dermot O'Shea and Sébastien Sicot in 2014, it launched a new website in March that feels more like a trailer for a blockbuster movie than a design agency. If you want to see how far you can take cinema-quality graphics and video in the presentation of your work, then you need to head here (preferably on a high-powered desktop computer), and turn on the sound. Admittedly, it’s a little disappointing that when you click through to individual projects, there are no case studies, just the websites themselves. But we’ll forgive the agency this once, because sometimes it’s just nice to see people push the boat out with something quite mesmerising and different. 10. Team Arnold Creative collective Team Arnold’s new site evokes a sense of fun and approachabilityTeam Arnold has ‘Team’ in its name for a reason. Rather than work within a traditional big company bureaucracy, Hamburg-based leader Melanie Arnold instead runs a global collective of freelance creatives, planners, consultants and producers. The idea is that this structure offers a greater degree of flexibility to create the right team for each client. And Team Arnold’s new website, launched in May, does a lot to convey the appropriate sense of approachability and friendliness. The cartoon figures and comic-style typography, the low-fi bursts of animation, the on-trend arty layout and the relaxed use of whitespace all suggest these are the kind of people that any hip young brand would want to work with. Not to mention the many other brands who’d like to be seen as a bit younger and hipper themselves. View the full article

Abuse of the Docker API allows remote code execution on targeted system, which enables hackers to escalate and persists thanks to novel attacks called Host Rebinding Attack and Shadow Containers. View the full article

Introduction In my recent research, I investigated six open-source libraries for previously undiscovered vulnerabilities. I was surprised how I could uncover vulnerabilities in most of them. The vulnerabilities result in a DoS (Denial of Service) as worst impact and are rated “Moderately Critical”. This write-up provides a closer look at each of the vulnerabilities. libarchive “lha_read_file_header_1()” Out-Of-Bounds Memory Access Denial of Service Vulnerability [CVE-2017-5601] Summary The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the “lha_read_file_header_1()” function (archive_read_support_format_lha.c), which can be exploited by malicious people to trigger an out-of-bounds read memory access via a specially crafted archive file. The vulnerability is confirmed in version 3.2.2 and has been fixed in version 3.3.1 [1]. Technical Details The root cause of the problem resides in the way how LHA external sections of the input files are processed by the library. With a specially crafted archive file this can end up in the “lha->compsize” variable being wrongly set to a negative value. Let us successively track the computing of the value during processing a PoC file: lha->compsize = archive_le32dec(p + H1_COMP_SIZE_OFFSET); // lha->compsize is set directly from the input file, so we can easily set it to e.g. 4197884248 … lha->compsize = archive_le64dec(extdheader); // lha->compsize is recalculated to 48 … lha->compsize -= extdsize - 2; // since extdsize is bigger than lha->compsize, lha->compsize becomes a negative value; -86 in our case This value is then propagated to the “lzh_br_fillup()” function as “strm->avail_in” variable. Because the function expects the value to be a positive number, this ends up with looping until one of the dereferences triggers an out-of-bounds read memory access: for (;;) { const int x = n >> 3; if (strm->avail_in >= x) { switch (x) { … if (strm->avail_in == 0) { /* There is not enough compressed data to fill up the cache buffer. */ return (0); } br->cache_buffer = (br->cache_buffer << 8) | *strm->next_in++; // * crash *// strm->avail_in--; The fix [2] is a test to make sure that after all the calculations the “lha->compsize” value remains positive. If otherwise, the file is considered invalid. LibRAW “parse_tiff_ifd()” Memory Corruption Vulnerability [CVE-2017-6886] Summary The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the “parse_tiff_ifd()” function (internal/dcraw_common.cpp), which can be exploited by malicious people to corrupt memory. The vulnerability is confirmed in version 0.18.1 and has been fixed in version 0.18.2 [3]. Technical Details Very straightforward vulnerability with an easy fix [4]. With a specially crafted image file it was possible to reach the following assignment with the “len” variable set to 0: cbuf[len-1] = 0; That of course causes the offset of “cbuf” to underflow and results in writing a ‘0’ to an illegal memory address. Since we cannot control where exactly the ‘0’ will be written, this typically results in a crash. To get a better idea, these can be the two addresses – first with a ‘0’ offset (and so the address of the “cbuf” buffer) and the second one as the address with an offset set to ‘-1’ (pointing to a very distant address location): &cbuf[len] = 0x6083e0 &cbuf[len-1] = 0x1006083df libsndfile “flac_buffer_copy()” Buffer Overflow Vulnerability [CVE-2017-7585] Summary The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the “flac_buffer_copy()” function (flac.c), which can be exploited by malicious people to cause a stack-based buffer overflow via a specially crafted FLAC file. The vulnerability is confirmed in version 1.0.27 and has been fixed in version 1.0.28 [5, 6]. Technical Details Stack-based buffer overflow vulnerabilities are fun to research as there is often a potential for a code execution. In this case, it was even possible to trigger both – read and write memory access violations. The root cause of the out-of-bounds access is a loop, which, when processing a crafted file, doesn’t terminate. The reason for not terminating resides in the values of variables being used for termination. To be more precise, in the value of the “pflac->remain” variable. Let’s see how the loop header looks like (flac.c): for (i = 0 ; i < frame->header.blocksize && pflac->remain > 0 ; i++) { … for (j = 0 ; j < frame->header.channels ; j++) (a) retpcm [offset + j] = buffer [j][pflac->bufferpos] * norm ; pflac->remain -= frame->header.channels ; pflac->bufferpos++ ; … } At the first sight, this looks fine. In every iteration, “i” is being incremented by 1 and “pflac->remain” is decremented by the value of “frame->header.channels”. There is one case, though, when this logic fails. With a crafted file, the “frame->header.channels” can be set to an even number, let’s say 2, and the “pflac->remain” to an odd number, let’s say 1023. With this set-up, “pflac->remain” will eventually become 1. Everything is still fine until the next iteration, when the value – being an “unsigned int” type – turns into a very large number and the loop continues and continues until the access violation happens on (a). Let’s focus on the write memory access (lvalue of the (a) line) as that is obviously more interesting speaking of a potential code execution. The value being overwritten, “retpcm”, is a pointer to a stack-based buffer “ubuf” defined at the beginning of the “psf_calc_signal_max()” function (command.c). It was proven that it’s possible to overwrite the return address of this very function. What complicates the exploitation flow beyond a DoS is a way how to terminate the loop so it doesn’t write too far. There was a potential via the “frame->header.blocksize” variable, but this value appeared to be only very partially controllable and a reliable non-crashing test case wasn’t achieved. libsndfile “header_read()” Buffer Overflow Vulnerability [CVE-2017-7586] Note By the time of reporting this vulnerability to the maintainer, the issue was already fixed in the GIT master branch as a part of other improvements. Based on that we didn’t claim credits for the finding and rather credited the maintainer, yet we reported it as the security impact wasn’t known before. It was also quite an interesting issue to explore as at the beginning it seemed there might be a potential for an interesting outcome. After in depth research we had to rule the code execution out, though. Summary The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the “header_read()” function (common.c) when handling ID3 tags, which can be exploited by malicious people to cause a stack-based buffer overflow via a specially crafted FLAC file. The vulnerability is confirmed in version 1.0.27 and has been fixed in version 1.0.28. Technical Details The overwrite happens during processing a FLAC audio file header containing the ID3 marking. When the library recognizes the “ID3” tag in the “guess_file_type()” function (sndfile.c), it continues with calculating the header offset in the “id3_skip()” function (id3.c). This is important to notice because during the ID3 tag skipping, “psf->fileoffset” is set to a value that is directly taken from the input file. The flow then continues up to the “header_seek()” function (SEEK_SET branch in common.c), where the values of “psf->headindex” and “psf->headend” are set: “psf->headindex” is assigned the same value as psf->fileoffset “psf->headend” is calculated from the input file and stores the number of remaining bytes These values are then used in the “header_read()” function (common.c). The function divides the flow using 3 “if” conditions, while all of them utilize “psf->headindex”. Since we control the value, we can choose which path will be taken. To make it even more interesting, if the second condition is fulfilled, the flow continues to a “memcpy” call where the number of bytes is only to be computed: if (psf->headindex + bytes > SIGNED_SIZEOF (psf->header)) { int most ; most = SIGNED_SIZEOF (psf->header) - psf->headend ; psf_fread (psf->header + psf->headend, 1, most, psf) ; memcpy (ptr, psf->header + psf->headend, most) ; … “SIGNED_SIZEOF (psf->header)” is a built-in value, set to “12292” (common.h) “psf->headend” reflects the size of the file and so is controllable (well, partially, there are some limitations so we reach the right path, but the value can be set between 1 and 12k bytes) The last piece of puzzle we need to put together is what and where we are going to write. In the “header_read()” function, we write to the “(void *) ptr” parameter and if we track this pointer down, we end up in the “guess_file_type()” function (sndfile.c) and its local “uint32_t buffer [3]” variable. The size of this variable is 12 bytes, which is not random but rather reflects the maximum number of bytes that would normally be written. For us, though, this is convenient because by overwriting this buffer we also overwrite the return address of the “guess_file_type()” function. It all looks promising until the point we find out what kind of data will be written. As the data source serve bytes between the “psf->headend” and the value of “SIGNED_SIZEOF (psf->header)”. Since this very part of the memory is allocated using the “calloc” call (“sf_open()” function in the sndfile.c file) and cannot be later adjusted via the input file, we end up overwriting the memory with only zeros. The likely outcome is a crash of an application using the library. FLAC “read_metadata_vorbiscomment_()” Memory Leak Denial of Service Vulnerability [CVE-2017-6888] Summary The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the “read_metadata_vorbiscomment_()” function (stream_decoder.c), which can be exploited by malicious people to cause a memory leak via a specially crafted FLAC file. The vulnerability is confirmed in version 1.3.2 and has been fixed in the official source code repository [7, 8]. Technical Details This is the only vulnerability in this write-up that doesn’t directly result in a crash. Unlike the others, this vulnerability causes a memory leak, which, in a worst-case scenario, can lead to an exhaustion of all available memory. When the library processes a specially crafted FLAC file, a memory block allocated in stream_decoder.c is never freed: if (0 == (obj->comments[i].entry = safe_malloc_add_2op_(obj->comments[i].length, /*+*/1))) { The amount of memory being allocated is read directly from the file and so can lead to a partially arbitrary memory leak. It’s only “partial” because the amount is limited to a 24bit value, which can still end up leaking well over 16MB in just one run. Conclusion In conclusion, I’d like to emphasize an important aspect of finding and reporting vulnerabilities, and that is communication. Open-source software development is often very dynamic and fast paced and I can say that so was the communication with the maintainers. Unlike coordinating vulnerability disclosure with major vendors, which can be a slow process, we received a response within a couple of days and a fix was also provided very swiftly. We consider the expedited response and release of the fix very positive as it makes the products safer and significantly limits the exploitation possibilities for the “bad guys”. References [1] https://secuniaresearch.flexerasoftware.com/secunia_research/2017-3/ [2] https://github.com/libarchive/libarchive/commit/98dcbbf0bf4854bf987557e55e55fff7abbf3ea9 [3] https://secuniaresearch.flexerasoftware.com/secunia_research/2017-5/ [4] https://github.com/LibRaw/LibRaw/commit/d7c3d2cb460be10a3ea7b32e9443a83c243b2251 [5] https://secuniaresearch.flexerasoftware.com/secunia_research/2017-4/ [6] https://github.com/erikd/libsndfile/commit/60b234301adf258786d8b90be5c1d437fc8799e0 [7] https://secuniaresearch.flexerasoftware.com/secunia_research/2017-7/ [8] https://git.xiph.org/?p=flac.git;a=commit;h=4f47b63e9c971e6391590caf00a0f2a5ed612e67 View the full article

As we approach the first anniversary of the ShadowBrokers, their true identity and source of their stolen NSA exploits remains a mystery. View the full article

By Jakub Jirsek, Secunia Research at Flexera Introduction In my recent research, I investigated six open-source libraries for previously undiscovered vulnerabilities. I was surprised how I could uncover vulnerabilities in most of them. The vulnerabilities result in a DoS (Denial of Service) as worst impact and are rated “Moderately Critical”. This write-up provides a closer look at each of the vulnerabilities. libarchive "lha_read_file_header_1()" Out-Of-Bounds Memory Access Denial of Service Vulnerability [CVE-2017-5601] Summary The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the "lha_read_file_header_1()" function (archive_read_support_format_lha.c), which can be exploited by malicious people to trigger an out-of-bounds read memory access via a specially crafted archive file. The vulnerability is confirmed in version 3.2.2 and has been fixed in version 3.3.1 [1]. Technical Details The root cause of the problem resides in the way how LHA external sections of the input files are processed by the library. With a specially crafted archive... View the full article

http://www.zdnet.com/article/petya-ransomware-companies-are-still-dealing-with-aftermath-of-global-cyberattack/ … View the full article

We may live in a digital world, but our love affair with paper art has by no means diminished. Folded into origami and kirigami, laser-cut, layered and made into sculptures, paper artists can transform a humble sheet of old tree into a spectacular artwork. Here are some great of examples of paper art being used imaginatively within contemporary design, giving new life to one of the most ancient arts. You're sure to find the inspiration you're looking for... 01. Self Preserving This campaign for Lush even movesThe Self Preserving campaign from cosmetics company Lush to promote its use of natural ingredients saw shop windows all over Europe fill with epic paper art. It was a collaborative effort, with artist Charlotte Day creating original illustrations of the natural ingredients found in the product range, which were then brought to life in 3D using textured paper to create shop window displays designed by Owen Gildersleeve. A special hero installation in Lush's flagship store in London's Oxford Street even moved, masterminded by 3D designer Thomas Forsyth. "Many hours were spent experimenting with different algorithms and code structures so that we could give the flowers more believable and animated movements,” explains Forsyth. “We’ve actually ended up creating a program in which the flowers randomly generate their own movements, so when it feels like one of the flowers has turned to look at you, it kind of has.” 02. Circling Circling is a personal exploration of anxiety and helplessnessPaper art duo Julie Wilkinson and Joyanne Horscroft aka Makerie Studio design and create showpieces for window installations, advertising and editorial clients. "Circling is an extremely personal project, one that came from trying to deal with a period of intense fear and worry," says the duo. "Bright colours and happy thoughts are usually our driving forces, but some days take their toll, and this was our way of dealing with anxiety. Making something constructive out of a stressful state of mind was a way of feeling less helpless, literally turning darkness into beauty." Each piece was handcrafted from iridescent gold and black paper, and features a central creature surrounded by circling predators. 03. Phidala Eric Standley's work echoes Islamic art and Gothic architectureVirgina-based designer Eric Standley takes paper art to a new level with his incredibly intricate, multi-layered creations, often inspired by Islamic or Gothic architecture. This detailed design is based around the fractal geometry that occurs naturally in the universe. "When a DNA braid is viewed from the top down, the layered double helix rotation abides by the golden ratio (phi)," explains Standley. "I began applying phi to the drawing processes of Kismet and Phidala." Take a look at his website for more breathtakingly detailed creations, or read our article on his laser-cut paper art. 04. Tissue series Lisa Nilsson's quilling turns anatomical cross-sections into things of beautyLisa Nilsson works in a variety of media, but for us her stand-out work involves quilling. We can't resist her Tissue series: a collection of anatomical cross-sections rendered in paper. Says Nicholls, "I find quilling exquisitely satisfying for rendering the densely squished and lovely internal landscape of the human body in cross section." 05. Forest Folks Zim & Zou's vibrant paper sculptures are featured all over the worldFrench artists Lucie Thomas and Thibault Zimmerman make up renowned paper art studio Zim & Zou. The duo's colourful paper sculptures appear all over the world – including in this series of installations in a new Hermès store in Dubai. The series is based around the theme of nature. "In this project, spectators have a sneak peek of the curious characters living inside this environment," the pair state. "This microscopic point of view, where plants... reign as masters, is like a kind of picture, a flash, a precise instant in nature’s unrestrained run." 06. European Birds It's hard to resist these detailed and colourful paper birdsColombian-born Diana Beltran Herrera specialises in amazing paper recreations of nature, her work featuring wonderfully detailed flowers and plants and the most incredibly realistic birds of all shapes and sizes. Recently, the Bristol-based artist has also started incorporating insects, butterflies and fish into her work, demonstrating the same level of attention to detail. 07. We Sent Their Briefs Back This is definitely the best way to approach a briefSouth African agency TBWA needed a way of getting clients' attention, and hit upon this novel way of tackling a brief: taking actual paper briefs and turning them into eye-catching paper art incorporating concepts relevant to the specific brand message, and then sending the briefs back to the client. The project was a huge success, attracting new work within five days. 08. Nissan Juke This life-size Nissan car was built from foam board and cardNissan wanted to create a life-size origami version of its Juke car to celebrate the model’s fifth anniversary. Inspired by its Japanese origins and the craftsmanship of UK manufacturing, the company turned to British designer and illustrator Owen Gildersleeve to make its vision reality. As with the Lush project above, Gildersleeve brought in Thomas Forsyth to lend his 3D build expertise to this epic undertaking. The final car was built from heavyweight card over a foam board skeleton. 09. The Tree of Knowledge This book sculpture represents the Tree of KnowledgeThere's plenty of paper art out there that incorporates books into the design, but Spanish designer Malena Valcárcel's designs are particularly magical. "I transform books into a new story in a way to make people stop and appreciate, if just for a moment, the magic of books," she says. Take a look at the range of book paper art designs in Valcárcel's Etsy store, along with some delicate paper jewellery. 10. Cut Scene Paper Dandy's Cut Scene exhibition recreates Star Wars scenesMaking a living from paper art is a difficult task, but thanks to his talents and enthusiasm, Marc Hagan-Guirey – aka Paper Dandy – has done just that. For his Star Wars-inspired Cut Scene exhibition, the artist create 12 kirigami models of different iconic scenes, each cut from a single sheet of paper. The project received rave reviews. Hagan-Guirey has also released a book entitled Horrogami, which includes 20 Kirigami projects inspired by cult horror tales such as Dracula, Frankenstein, Sleepy Hollow and King Kong, along with step-by-step instructions to make your own. 11. Decorex Expo We're big fans of Hagan-Guirey's wonderful paper creationsJust one example of Marc Hagan-Guirey's work in this list would seem like we were short changing you. So feast your eyes on his kirigami design for Decorex International, a company that puts on big interior design expos in the UK. Read more in our article here. 12. Fiat Dobló D'Avila Studio used overlapping paper to create depthBrazil-based illustration agency D'Avila Studio created this vibrant paper art piece as part of Fiat Motors' campaign to promote its SUV, the Dobló Adventure. The team created two prints, both of which placed the paper overlapping on layers to create an impressive depth effect. 13. Paper Dragon This dragon paper art was a team effortThis majestic dragon was created by a group of artists at INK studio in Belgium. It stands at above knee height and was made entirely of paper – it's definitely worth taking a look at the studio's website for some making-of photos. The dragon now resides peacefully – we are told – in the studio's offices. 14. Day of the Dead Koleva celebrates the Day of the Dead with intricate masksThis incredible paper art series from Bulgaria-based designer Tsvetislava Koleva celebrates the Day of the Dead with intricate and colourful masks that quite frankly, took our breath away (read our article here). Each creation takes a different theme and a different colour palette (shown here: Lace and Gold). Koleva specialises in paper art creations – her beautiful but slightly unsettling fashion masks are also well worth a look. 15. 360° Book Oono's books open up to tell their stories layer by layerJapanese artist and designer Yusuke Oono creates books that open up to tell their stories as a multi-layered 3D scene. Each page is a separate laser-cut plane, and together they make up deep and gorgeous 3D images that reveal the story as you make your way from the front to the back of the book. Next page: 15 more incredible examples of paper art 16. Malmö Festival This paper art almost looks like it was created with PhotoshopThis identity for Malmö Festival was created by Swedish design agency Snask and features some wonderfully colourful paper art creations. Used for the print advertisement as well as huge promotional art installations, this is an impeccable example of what can be achieved with patience and creativity. 17. Women White's paper art is incredibly delicateArtist Maude White likes to do something a little different when it comes to her paper art. She meticulously hand-cuts each piece to create works that are almost like lace. Inspired mostly by nature, and creating pieces that feature birds, leaves and flowers, White also creates beautiful paper art portraits of people. Each piece can take thousands of tiny cuts, with White working for hours on end to perfect each one. She updates her Instagram feed with all her latest works, and is well worth a follow. 18. Nerd Love Nerd Love is a collection of cult charactersMeghan Stratman originally started Nerd Love with the intention of creating a new piece of nerdy fan art every Monday for a year, but it turned into an alphabetical series – one geek hero for each letter of the alphabet, from How to Train your Dragon's Astrid (above) to Tali’Zorah from Mass Effect. "I like to include bright colours and a sense of humour in my art," explains Stratman, "and enjoy combining elements to humorous effect, such as badgers sporting fezzes or weasels wearing rocket packs." 19. Magic Circle Each of Brown's paper sculptures is hugely time consumingThe artist Rogan Brown is inspired in part by the tradition of scientific drawing and model making, and particularly the work of artist-scientists such as Ernst Haeckel. He explains: "My work is an exploration and re-presentation of natural organic forms both mineral and vegetal." 20. Hyundai lettering Just one of a set of tiny, detailed paper letters made by People TooThis project for Hyundai saw Russian design duo Alexey Lyapunov and Lena Erlich (aka People Too) creating tens of tiny, paper scenes. The concept was based around the slogan 'Business works better with US in it', with People Too creating letters representing different types of business (above is the 'N' for a care home company). To get a better grasp of the scale of the project, take a look at the duo's work-in-progress photos. 21. Origami animals Origami gets a unique twist using handmade Vietnamese paperVietnamese artist Nguyen Hung Curong shows off the possibilities of origami in his detailed, lifelike paper art sculptures. Curong took up the hobby when he was just five, and created his first original design when he was just 10 years old. He's continued to practise the art of origami and is now able to create amazingly detailed and lifelike models, usually from just one square of Vietnamese handmade paper called Dó. 22. Fairy Forest This magical paper art was featured in the Harrods MagazineThis charming forest series was created by Makerie Studio for Harrods Magazine. The sets were created using layers of iridescent white paper cut into plants, butterflies and miniature mushrooms. Into each was placed a fairy sculpture by Robin Wright , and luxury jewellery. 23. Little Houses These colourful creations are part of a counting bookHelen Musselwhite is an illustrator based in the UK. A creative with a particular knack for paper art, she's previously worked with The National Theatre, Nokia and Stella McCartney. For her own book, Little Houses, Musselwhite fashioned several sets of paper dwellings from around the world. Young readers can count their way from one Scottish crofter's cottage right up to 10 canal-side townhouses in Amsterdam. 24. Paper sculpture Nicholls' paper rendering of fur has to be seen to be believedAfter being introduced to the idea of paper as a medium at art school, Calvin Nicholls' first paper sculpture was a collaboration with artist Jonathan Milne back in 1983, and he quickly felt the draw of working in paper. He uses heavy paper stock for structure and lighter paper for fur and fine detail, and he constantly refers to his drawings and study photos to ensure that the assembled pieces are true to the original plan. Read more about the artist in our article on his stunning paper art animals. 25. Myths Ojala's creations aren't strictly paper artEiko Ojala's Myths designs were created digitally but without the aid of 3D software. The illustrator draws everything by hand to create landscapes, figures and portraits that look as if they’ve been cut from paper. His client list includes the likes of ADC, the Guardian, the V&A and IBM. 26. Continental Breakfast This paper art is made from old mapsMichaela Mihalyiová describes herself as a 'freelance pencil holder and Slovakian palm lover'. She creates sweet (and not so sweet... what's that ocean in the bottom left?) paper art and animations that she shares on her Tumblr site. This design was crafted from 30-year-old maps. 27. Candy Crush Yulia Brodskaya is one of the most well-known of the contemporary designers working with paper art. She combines classic design principles to create beautiful and thought-provoking visual fusions. "Paper always held a special fascination for me," says the artist. "I've tried many different methods and techniques of working with it, until I found the way that has turned out to be 'the one' for me: now I draw with paper instead of on it." 28. Visit Bristol Christmas Campaign Pierpoint assembles her nature-inspired art from card and paper, then edits it in PhotoshopInspired by nature and its never-ending beauty, Sam Pierpoint has constructed a range of colourful, 3D creations that transport you to an entirely different world. This paper art sculpture was part of Visit Bristol's Christmas campaign, and features some of the city's most loved attractions. The night-time scene was created with G.F Smith papers and lit with LED lights, which were carefully threaded through the sculpture. Watch the making-of video below. 29. La Siesta This personal project is all about hugsIn his illustrations and paper art, Juan Carlos Viñas Ballesteros (aka Jotaká) aims to create good vibes. One personal project sure to do just that is 'La Siesta' – a series of paper illustrations all about hugs; their importance and the ideal time to receive them. 30. Midnight Creatures This book has creatures hiding in the shadowsHelen Friel is a freelance paper engineer and illustrator, living and working in London, with clients including Vogue, The Telegraph and Ryan Air. Her book, Midnight Creatures, includes five pop-up scenes full of hidden creatures. To find them, the reader needs to turn the lights out and use a torch to find them in the shadows that appear on their wall. Related articles: Why you should make time for creative side projects How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorials Doodle art: 52 great examples View the full article

If you’ve been working in the web industry for a couple of years, you may feel that you're always coding or designing the same website layout. Although trends come and go, the majority of sites still look the same: almost every one of them uses a 12-column grid, two and three-column, boxed layouts and similar shapes. It’s getting pretty boring to look at, and the user experience isn't great either. Fortunately, a CSS revolution is underway. Most of you will have heard about all of us have heard about Flexbox or CSS Grid. It’s amazing that there are more and more ways to build our layouts – and that it’s becoming so much easier to do so. With a large variety of CSS features, we are slowly losing our reliance on graphic software. The future of web graphics is bright, and eventually we'll be able to create and modify imagery directly in the browser, using only a couple of code lines (nothing complicated here!). In this article, I’m going to share some CSS tips that will help you break the mould in your layouts. 01. Explore CSS blend modes Duotone imagery and colouriser effects are some of the hottest web design trends this year. They are widely popular across the web thanks to Spotify, which implements them very consequently and cohesively. Now you can finally stop creating multiple different coloured versions of your assets, and apply the effects directly in the browser. Using CSS blend modes is not only a great way to unify the look of the content across websites but also enables you to set different-colour versions of an image, changing only one value in CSS: the colour. There are 15 possible blend mode values, including screen, overlay, lighten and darken. Ortiz Leon Architects uses blend modes to generate a duotone image background There are a couple of implementation methods, depending on the type of element you would like to apply the effect to. For example, you can use background-image and background-colour set on the container background-blend-mode: darken;, or create an overlay with pseudo-elements (i.e. :before and :after) on the image wrapper in order to get a colourising effect. To achieve a satisfying duotone effect, it’s recommended that you use a high-contrast black and white image. You can do this by applying CSS filters to set greyscale and a high contrast level. Bolden’s website has this great example of mix-blend-mode, which has been fully achieved in CSS Another cool property is mix-blend-mode, which lets you blend content of the element with the content or background of its direct parent. This work especially well on overlapped lettering. You may ask why in this case we don’t just adjust opacity – the answer is simple: we can easily lose the colour vividness using transparency only. The era of images that can be edited directly in your web browser is coming, but we can’t forget about browser compatibility – support is limited for blend modes at the moment. 02. Add a mask Masking tells your browser which asset elements should be visible, and is very useful for building creative shapes and layouts. Masking can be done in three ways: using a raster image (e.g. PNG format with transparency parts), CSS gradients or SVG elements. Note that unlike a typical raster image, SVG can be scaled or transformed without a significant loss of quality. It’s important to mention that Firefox supports only the latest one, so we need to use an inline SVG mask element. What if we use a raster image with transparency levels? The transparent parts of the image won’t be seen – so in other words, the opaque fragments will be displayed, hiding other pieces. Masking is particularly powerful because it enables you to apply the same properties to background images, defining their position, size and repetition. Here, the red background is the visible part, and text will emerge from behind the mountains (click the image to see the final mask) One great use case for CSS masking is in articles that combine text and images. Irregular containers and images are very popular in print, but tedious and time-consuming to implement on the web. But thanks to masking, not any more! You can also have fun using transparency levels to cut out part of animated images (e.g. GIF files). However, when using these properties don’t forget about cross-browser support, and add vendor prefixes. 03. Don’t be afraid of clipping Another great feature is CSS clipping. A shape’s boundary is called the clip-path (not to be confused with the deprecated clip property), and clipping defines which image area should be visible. Clipping is similar to cutting out a piece of paper – anything outside the path will be hidden, while anything inside the path will be visible. For example, if a circle function sets a clipping mask over the top of an image, you will only see the part of the image within this circle. The cool thing is that we can use shape functions and SVG as clip paths, which gives us a lot of opportunities – for instance, we could animate them into morphing shapes. Check out this article from Chris Coyier about creating transparent JPG using SVG clip path. With clip path you can remove background from your image (click to see the full example) If you are wondering what the difference between clipping and masking is, then remember that masks are images and clips are only vector paths. It's worth mentioning that masking will consume more memory, as you're working with a full image so everything has to be done pixel by pixel. This is why it’s recommended that you use masks when you want a partial transparency effect; if you want crisp edges, it’s best to use the clip paths. 04. Think outside the box Shape-outside and shape-inside to the rescue! Who said that text containers always need to be rectangular? Let’s step out of the box, literally, and discover new forms making our page layouts richer and less boxy. shape-outside and shape-inside properties allow you to wrap your content around custom paths in CSS. So how does it work? Simply apply the following code to the given floating image or container: It is important to note that the float property and the dimensions of the element – height and width – have to be defined, otherwise this won't work. For the shape you can go with circle(), polygon(), inset() or ellipse(). Another possible value is the url() function. In this case, this enables the shape-outside property to define an element shape based on the image. You might choose to use the url() function instead of the polygon() when you have a particularly sophisticated graphic with many curves and points, and you want the content to wrap around it smoothly. Use DevTools to check how the shape you’ve designed for your text behaves (click the image to see this example) If you’d like to create more room between your element and the content, use the shape-margin property, which will act just like a margin. Shape functions can be animated, but only for defined polygons – the url() function unfortunately is not able to be animated. Browser support for shape-outside is limited at the moment, but keep your fingers crossed for its fast implementation in other browsers. 05. Try SVG for animation To be honest, I cannot imagine today’s web without SVG (scalable vector graphics). Its name speaks for itself – it scales, so it answers all concerns regarding responsive web design. The SVG graphic will be crisp no matter the screen resolution of the device it’s viewed on. Aside from scalability, there is another feature that should encourage you to play with SVG: the ability to manipulate SVG with CSS. If you have never tried dabbling in CSS animations and SVG code, you must try it now – it’s unbelievable how fast you can achieve amazing effects. This animated slideshow is from Aga’s presentation at CSSconf Nordic, and was created entirely in HTML and SVG (click to see it in action) You may think that in some cases it’s easier to use raster images, however, SVG has one big advantage over ordinary images. Words included in SVG are kept in the <text> tag and so remain text, which makes it searchable, selectable and accessible. It also means you can edit it directly in the code. However, we have to remember to embed the font face to be sure that the font will be rendered. Animating SVG with CSS is like animating any other element in HTML – it can be done with transitions, transforms and keyframe animations. Once you’re familiar with the SVG code, the rest is straightforward and very intuitive, because you basically do it just like you would in HTML. The coolest thing about SVG is that you can grab whatever part you want and make it come alive with CSS animations. This means we can create some very interesting dynamic effects, not necessarily using JavaScript. SVG has its own DOM API, so as a matter of fact the whole SVG code can be easily inspected using DevTools, which I strongly recommend using while exploring this topic. 06. Make some noise The 1980s and 1990s are back! Glitch – the aesthetics of chaos, noise and jamming – is becoming a popular design trend this year. The celebration of glitches, failures and errors can be seen on the web as well. If you’d like to play with perspective and be more visually chaotic, you can do so easily by transforming and skewing your site’s elements. This effect is very easy to code, and adds a strong visual accent to a website (click to see it live) The perfect example of how to do it in CSS only can be found on Captain Anonymous' CodePen, which presents skewed, animated text. One line of code does the magic: 07. Get creative with collage Collage-inspired designs are enjoying their moment in visual arts – while researching this article the work of Rosanna Webster and Barrakuz immediately stole my heart – and even on the web they’re getting more and more attention. If you are in doubt, check out the MailChimp homepage (below). Did you notice the collage? Mailchimp's homepage collages have been created using playful CSS properties The traditional approach is to simply attach raster images that have been prepared in a graphics editor, but with the techniques I've discussed in this article, it is possible to create similar effects by using CSS properties. You can even prepare collages that truly adjust to the web’s requirements – and are scalable, animated and interactive. I've prepared some examples using all these cool CSS properties, so you can see how they can be combined to achieve a collage-like style on the web. Take a look at my examples. 08. Don't forget browser support If you feel held back when you want to use CSS properties that you suspect are not supported by all browsers, the @supports rule is there to help you. @supports allows you to check the browser support for CSS property:value pairs. The code that is included in the @supports block will be rendered only if these conditions are true, otherwise the code has not been read by the browser. In a case where the browser doesn’t understand @supports, it doesn’t generate a given part of the code either. Combining features such as blending modes, masking, clipping, CSS shapes and the power of SVG gives us a great set of tools to boost our creativity and break from the norm. With these tools we have an opportunity to create a web version of things we currently see in print. Although some properties may still experience problems with browsers’ compatibility, don’t hesitate to play with them. Although browser support may be limited now, this will likely not be the case in the future. It is just a matter of time. Creative coding! Related articles: 5 tips for super-fast CSS Understanding the CSS display property How to create a pyramid layout with CSS Shapes View the full article

The design and consulting arm of IBM, known as IBM iX, has revealed a new geometric logo that builds on the company's trend of using experimental typography. The logo was designed in-house and in collaboration with independent, global creative company Moving Brands and inter-disciplinary design studio CATK. It's the latest development for IBM iX, which last year acquired three creative agencies – Ecx.io, Resource Ammirati and Aperto. See how the new logo design compares to the old one by clicking left to right in the gallery below. When it comes to logo designs, IBM has set a high bar for itself. The company's main logo, which breaks apart the IBM lettering into eight distinctive bars, is one of the most distinctive pieces of modern logo design. Created by logo design luminary Paul Rand, the main IBM logo has remained the same since 1972. It's interesting to think what Rand would make of the subdivision's new logo. Famous for presenting only one design concept to clients, Rand's logo designs have been held up as examples of creative genius. One of Rand's best-known theories claims that "the only mandate in the design of logos, it seems, is that they be distinctive, memorable, and clear." In this sense we'd give IBM iX's logo a pass. But as Rand adds, logos live and die depending on what they're representing. "It is only by association with a product, a service, a business, or a corporation that a logo takes on any real meaning. If a company is second rate, the logo will eventually be perceived as second rate." Related articles: Inside IBM studios 5 logos by famous designers and why they work How to make it in a top studio View the full article

People don't just want useful services, they want ones that are intuitive and easy to use. Learn the keys to successful and engaging design with the courses in the UI and UX Design Bootcamp bundle. You can get them for 96% off the retail price. The UI and UX Design Bootcamp is packed with more than 39 hours of amazing design training. This bundle, complete with courses from experts in the field, is an essential resource for anyone looking to learn the principles of engaging web design. No matter what you’re building or what platform you're working with, you’ll learn important concepts to help increase your user base and improve the functionality of your product. This is the ideal time to learn how to improve user interface and user experience when interacting with your designs. You can get the UI and UX Design Bootcamp for just $39 (approx £30). That's a 96% saving off the retail price! View the full article

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Making time for a side project is an ambition lots of creatives strive for. After all, design is a broad discipline with plenty of different skill sets working together and overlapping, so it makes sense that creatives want to master everything that they can, and passion projects are a great way to do that. However, it’s the ‘making time’ part that most people struggle with. To show you why creative side projects are worth the hard work, and how they can improve your life, we talked to leading creatives who’ve turned their side projects into careers. 10 tools to unlock creativityOne of the best things about a side project is that it gives you a chance to explore a topic or technique without the pressure you might feel if it was your day job or if you knew it was going to get graded. This feeling of freedom and playfulness is probably what attracted a lot of people to a creative career in the first place, so side projects are a valuable reminder that the design industry is a great place to be, all things considered. At the very least they’re a good way of giving your brain some exercise. They can also come in handy in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. Explore your design inspirations in diverse mediums Peter Bil’ak has even designed these floor tiles as a side project“It’s better to be seen as a generalist in all creative fields,” says Peter Bil’ak, speaking at TYPO Berlin 2017 as part of his ‘The Best Thing About Design’ talk. If anyone knows about the benefits of a side project, it’s Bil’ak. With a career that has seen him starting the type foundry and design studio Typotheque, teaching typeface design at the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague, as well as editing the magazine of unexpected creativity, Works That Work, Bil’ak is walking proof that having a diverse set of skills can take designers in surprising directions. One project that sums up Bil’ak’s outlook and work ethic are the decorative cement floor tiles he created after speaking at the Es Baluard Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Mallorca and being inspired by traditional Mediterranean architecture. As he says on the Typotheque blog, this project was an example of design at its best, in that it “addresses a very specific need, something both straightforward and personal.” And where better to explore a personal design connection than with a side project? This project also ties into Bil’ak’s belief that good design isn’t necessarily the one that generates the most money. In fact, by taking away commercial pressures, side projects give creatives a rare opportunity to design for fun again and come up with original ideas that they wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. Rid yourself of meetings Peter Bil'ak talking at TYPO Berlin 2017, © Gerhard Kassner / Monotype When I work on too many projects, it helps to work offline for a period of time Peter Bil'ak There are also other benefits to this way of working. “My work consists of mainly self-initiated projects, so I have a great advantage that I don’t have to attend any meetings,” Bil’ak tells Creative Bloq. “That means all of my time in the office is productive time. Another great advantage is that I live in a fairly small city, – The Hague – so I don’t waste time commuting, but cycle 10 minutes to work.” While he admits that these are specific pieces of advice that are hard to be replicated, Bil’ak does offer another insight that’s sure to help those struggling to make time for personal projects. “When I work on too many projects, it helps to work offline for a period of time – for me, the early afternoon time is my most productive time in the office,” he explains. “Otherwise, the constant flow of emails, online garbage and social media is too disruptive for productivity.” Keep going: slow and steady wins the race Mr Bingo's 'The Problem With Life' sums up the creative struggle perfectlyAs well as filtering out distractions, it’s also useful to keep in mind that side projects are something you need to keep plugging away at over a long period of time if you want to get the most out of them. For illustrator and rapper Mr Bingo, whose brilliant illustration ‘The Problem With Life’ sums up the struggle that creatives wrestle with all the time, focusing on a side project meant that he could leave behind working as a commercial illustrator and dedicate his time to being, in his words, “some sort of artist.” “I started doing side projects about 20 years ago,” Mr Bingo told Creative Bloq. “Over the years, the weight of importance I put on side projects became greater and greater until two years ago when I gave up working for clients and side projects became my entire life. It’s the best decision I ever made in my life.” The building pressure to pursue a side project is a feeling we’re sure lots of creatives can relate to. For Mr Bingo, this urge boiled over one drunken night when he decided to send a vintage postcard from his personal collection to a lucky Twitter follower. The popularity of this impulsive experiment eventually ended up becoming Hate Mail, a phenomenally successful Kickstarter-funded book that collected together 156 hateful postcards that Mr Bingo had sent out to eager recipients. Do work you can't resist Combining his passion with his creative skills made Mr Bingo’s Hate Mail a success, but sometimes there can be a nagging doubt that a project just isn’t coming together as naturally as you would like. If you’re questioning the drive of your work, Mr Bingo has got some no-nonsense words of wisdom. “If you’re struggling to make progress with your side projects, give up, they’re not for you. The best work (in my opinion) comes naturally and comes from the heart. It’s a gut instinct to want to make stuff. You shouldn’t need to motivate yourself to do this stuff, it should be a passion, a thing that you feel you just have to make. “That’s how I feel about it, but maybe I’m mental and addicted to ‘work’. I prefer not to use the word 'work' though – I’d say I’m addicted to my hobby, and sometimes people pay me for it. I am mental though, nobody should ever listen to my advice.” See where your passions take you Eva-Lotta Lamm's sketchnotes have furthered her career in visual communicationsImpulsive behaviour can be the tipping point that turns a side project into something much bigger. And while Mr Bingo’s Hate Mail project might have taken some Dutch courage to get off the ground, other creatives have embarked on more drastic moves that took a lot more planning. Just start doing something that interests you and see where it will take you Eva-Lotta Lamm “In 2014, my boyfriend and I quit our jobs, sold most of our belongings and went on a trip around the world,” says designer, illustrator and visual thinker Eva-Lotta Lamm. “Travelling and taking time to experience the world around us is usually a ‘side project’. Work takes most of our time, so we made it our main project for 14 months. “It also allowed me to spend a lot of time sketching. I drew an illustrated spread in my travel diary every day, which – although I hadn't planned it in the beginning – turned into quite a substantial side project called Secrets From The Road.” Drawing sketchnotes had been Lamm’s ‘side thing’ for roughly eight years. These visual notes were often jotted down at talks and conferences for her own benefit, but they soon started to find a life of their own after she shared them on Flickr. “In 2010 gave a talk about sketchnoting at a barcamp,” she explains. “Based on that, I got invited to give the same talk at a conference. Little by little I got more speaking engagements and also started teaching practical workshops. "This year, I finally made this ‘side branch’ of my activities my main focus. I’m now working independently, helping people to think and communicate more visually. My former side projects turned into my main career." Even if the meandering trajectory of a side project doesn’t change your career completely, Lamm is keen to point out that this is part of their charm. After all, you’ll never know where they’ll take you if you don’t try them out. “My advice is to just start doing something that interests you and see where it will take you,” she says. “One of my mottos is: 'The making influences the thinking.' (Otl Aicher). So start making. It might not look like a ‘project’ at the beginning, but if you keep doing it regularly, it will develop. And even if not each activity does, at least, you had a good time doing it.” Related articles: How to start a side project: 21 pro tips Cartoon reveals the importance of completing side projects 6 tips for better side projects View the full article

A stellar user experience (UX) strategy is a means to achieving disruption in the marketplace through mental model innovation. Because what’s the point in spending time and energy crafting a digital product that isn’t unique? Or, at the very least, that's a much better alternative to current solutions found in the online marketplace? 10 steps to engaging user experience (UX)To achieve that disruption, we need a framework from which to connect all the dots that will build a cohesive UX strategy. Here I’m going to break down the most important tenets that you need to understand in order to successfully implement the tools and techniques of UX. Think of it as a primer to get you and your team thinking like a UX strategist. The sticker on my laptop lid, reading "Disruptive innovation is the new punk rock"How I discovered my UX strategy In the digital world, strategy usually begins in the discovery phase. This is where teams dig deep into research to reveal key information about the product they want to build. I’ve always liked to think of the discovery phase as similar to the pretrial 'discovery' process used by attorneys in the United States. To avoid a 'trial by ambush,' lawyers can request to see the evidence of the opposing counsel in order to prepare sufficient counter-evidence. In this way, the attorneys try to avoid surprises. You, as a product maker, should also want to strategically do just that. My first chance to practice UX strategy occurred in 2007. At the time, I was the UX lead at Schematic (now Possible) for the website redesign of Oprah.com. Along with the other team leads, I flew into Chicago to kick-off our discovery phase. Before that moment, my 15 years of professional experience focused on interface design and integrating new technologies (such as Flash) into interfaces to create 'cutting-edge' products. Often, I was handed a massive requirements document that listed hundreds of 'essential' features. Or, I was given a flimsy project brief with pretty comps that stated what the final product should accomplish. From there, I made a site or application map that catered to a specific set of user scenarios that enabled those interactions. Based on these documents, I could only infer whether my creation solved the problem or not because it was typically too late at that point to challenge the rationale behind the product vision. I was just supposed to design it on time and on budget. Jamie Levy's workshop at Generate London is a deep dive into user experience strategy But in 2007, it was so fascinating to watch our UX director, Mark Sloan, get a dozen contentious stakeholders – no, Oprah wasn’t there – on the same page. Mark used consensus-building techniques such as affinity maps, dot voting, and forced ranking to help us understand all the different parts – content and critical functionality – that would make up the system we had to digitize. This discovery opportunity helped us (the stakeholders and product team) in examining our goals to make a better platform for the millions of devoted Oprah fans in the world. One week later, after all the workshops, the product team and I presented the discovery brief defining the product vision. The brief contained typical deliverables such as user personas, concept map analyses, and a recommended feature list. Because the stakeholders were anxious to get started, they immediately approved it. Our digital team was off and running on the implementation phase, which took over six months of emotionally fueled hand-offs. There were hundreds of pages of wireframes and functional specifications traded between stakeholders, designers, and developers. Uber’s killer UX – a killer UX is one of the four tenets of UX strategyBut the discovery brief was never referenced again. The personas and proposed solution were never validated by existing customers. The stakeholders went back to fighting for whatever prime real estate they could grab for their particular business units. Yet, there was something good that came out of that discovery phase for me: I was a UX designer who finally got a taste of what a UX strategy could potentially be. I was ruined. I couldn’t imagine just being a wireframe monkey anymore. A full year later, the redesigned site launched. I never looked at it because I had moved onto to another interactive agency with other high-profile clients. In my new position, I was able to focus my energy more directly on the discovery phase of projects in which user research and business strategy were given more weight. I also had a seat at the table to help shape the UX strategy and decide how a product vision should be implemented. I no longer had to feel fraudulent for spending so many waking hours building products for which I lacked a deep understanding of the customer segment and the business model. Tinder’s killer UXToday, I run my own practice that specializes in UX strategy, and since my first discovery phase, I’ve learned a lot about how to make it an iterative, lightweight, and empirical process of intense collaboration between stakeholders, designers, developers, and so on. Because when everyone shares a product vision, you and your team really have a chance at changing the rules of the game for your product, company, and future customers. However, I do want to acknowledge that my methodology is my version of UX strategy and might be different from other strategists. That’s precisely why I included Chapter 10 in my book, which contains profiles on people I respect who have been practicing it, as well. However, you’ll also see that we align on a lot of things. That’s what happens when a new discipline or methodology arises: people will find their own approach, but even within those differences, there are connective tissues that bind them all together to make UX strategy identifiable and unique. The four tenets of UX strategy framework So, with all that said, cue the drum roll to introduce my UX strategy framework: The four tenets of UX strategy, represented as plates at the dinner tableMy formula is this: UX Strategy = Business Strategy + Value Innovation + Validated User Research + Killer UX Design. These are the four tenets that make up my framework. I have seen them in play every day since my first discovery phase. It’s not enough to understand your marketplace if you don’t talk directly to your customers. It’s not enough to validate that your product works if you’re not creating something unique. Good enough just isn’t good enough, and just identifying these tenets won’t be enough to get your team flying. You’ll need to understand how they interact and affect one another. Then, the real trick will be to keep all four of these tenet plates spinning in the air while you move through other techniques and tools. This is the start of chapter 2 from Jaime Levy's book UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products That People Want, published by O’Reilly Media. You can read the rest of this chapter for free on her User Experience (UX) Strategy website. Jaime Levy will present an in-depth workshop into UX strategy at Generate London on 20 September. Other workshops to choose from include Steve Fisher on running design and content sprints; Zell Liew on building scalable responsive components; and Anton & Irene's Concept, Create and Sell! The event will also cover adaptive interfaces, web animations, performance, accessibility, chatbots, better teamwork, and much more. Don't miss it! If you buy a combined workshop and conference pass for Generate London, you will save £95. Related articles: 10 steps to engaging user experience (UX) 10 best pieces of user testing software The UX designer's survival guide View the full article

Nick Hard and Jeff Knowles left their jobs and set up their own creative design studio, Planning Unit, in February 2011. Here, Knowles shares his experience and offers advice for setting up your own creative business... 10 rules for running a killer studioLooking back now, we'd probably been thinking about setting up a design studio together for a good year. One thing we realise now is that it's hard to get beyond an idea simply being 'bar talk'. It is a big decision, but if you're already talking about it in the pub, it probably means you're ready to do it. So why wait? What's the worst that can happen? 01. Choose a strong studio name The age-old problem of deciding a name for the studio was an easy one. Planning Unit was a renowned graphic design studio in the '60s and '70s and was owned by Nick's grandfather. So as the old Planning Unit was part of Nick's family history, it was an easy decision to re-establish the name. It also gave the studio a background and a story, which helps. 02. Hit the ground running Getting as much set up in the beginning as possible helped us make a smooth start to our new venture. Things like setting up a business bank account, finding a good accountant, registering the company, setting up domain names, email addresses, and so on, can take longer than you think, so get them done in one go. Once you get caught up in work, it will be harder to find the time. 03. Keep starting costs low In terms of equipment, get the bare essentials. There is always that temptation to buy lots of nice equipment and furniture, but try to keep that money in the bank at this early stage. In the beginning, we managed to keeps costs down by working in a shed at the bottom of Nick's garden – we fondly called this the Shedio 2.0 (half shed, half studio, 2.0 as we actually had two different sheds)! Planning Unit has swiftly moved on from its shed-based beginnings04. Learn to woo clients Our experience from our former jobs at Research Studios (RS) really helped in going out on our own. RS had quite a flat hierarchy, with no account handlers or project managers, so from the beginning, we were responsible for our projects and had direct contact with clients. As time went on, we learned how to manage projects, deal with client expectations, give presentations and write proposals. This really helped in setting up Planning Unit. 05. Get over your unease with fees One thing that took a while to get used to, however, was sending out cost estimates for projects. We'd never actually dealt with this before, and, funny as it sounds, had to pluck up courage to send them. We've got over it now, but estimating is still a minefield. Sometimes you wish clients would simply tell you their budget so you can work backwards! 06. Pitch for work For the first few years, we were quite lucky – most of the work came to us. It wasn't until we had a quiet patch that we realised we had to keep getting the brand out there and do 'new business'. Sometimes it's a catch 22: when you're busy, there's no time for new business, and then you get quiet, and you realise you should've been on top of it. 07. Market your studio online One thing that takes a particularly long time is getting the studio website together – photographing work, writing text and trying out layouts. Our site took two weeks to design, but it was a year before we got enough content to launch it. Updating it takes time, but it has to be done, so we have learnt not to get frustrated. With experience, it all gets easier. All in all, preparation is key, but don't hold back or you'll never do it. If you've been thinking about making the leap for some time, perhaps now's the time. This article originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 266; buy it here! Related articles: 10 rules for running a killer studio Why it's time to burn your business plan Why graphic designers need beautiful websites View the full article

You're reading What to Expect When Designing for Startups, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Designing for startups can feel more like a whirlwind than an actual design project. The process can be a rough road to travel if you are not prepared for the full experience. Thankfully, startups are realizing the need for effective web design and many are hiring professionals like you to get the job done correctly. […] View the full article

Three radiation monitoring device vendors will not patch a handful of vulnerabilities that could be abused by hackers, including a backdoor that affords high privileges on one device. View the full article

Negative painting refers to painting the negative space that defines positive shapes. This is especially important with traditional watercolour, where painting things as light-against-dark means the white of the paper must be preserved (rather than using white paint as is done with opaque media). So, instead of painting the object, you paint the object's background. Here's how to do it. 01. Wash and dry Make sure your wash dries before moving onFirst, paint a rectangular section of paper with a two-colour wash, blue at the top and a pale hay colour at the bottom. They can blend together for a soft-edged join. Don't worry about perfection, but aim for half of each colour. Now let the paper dry completely. 02. Paint in the hedgerow Work quickly while painting your hedgerowUsing a thick dark-green mix and a large synthetic brush (which will enable you to work quickly), paint in two bits of hedgerow. These overlap where the background colours merge. You can draw the main shapes in pencil first if you like, but here I'm just 'drawing with the brush', which is good practice for mark-making. 03. Add some definition Use upward and downward strokes to add in detailsNow use a combination of downward and upward brush strokes at the bottom of the hedge. Here you're defining the long grass and weeds in front of the hedge, and you have to think negatively while being quick! In addition, paint a gate, posts and some growth on top of the hedge. You need to do all this while the paint is still wet. 04. Scrape out some lights Use a fingernail or anything hard to scrape out foreground detailsHere's another negative-painting method for some fence posts. First, briskly make horizontal and vertical scrape marks in the still-damp hedge. I find a fingernail works well for this, but you could try anything hard, such as a matchstick. The relatively thick paint will lift off to reveal the underlying wash, and voilà – you have your lights-against-darks! This article originally appeared in Paint & Draw issue 7; buy it here! Related articles: Choose the right brushes for watercolour painting Top tips for keeping watercolour paintings fresh and loose 14 wet-in-wet watercolour painting techniques View the full article

Don't panic, Converse has given its wordmark a redesign but the famous Chuck Taylor logo remains intact. Given that the star-shaped piece of ankle decoration is one of the most recognisable pieces of Americana, arguably up there with McDonald's Golden Arches, it's a relief that this rebrand didn't scrap a design classic. Instead, Converse has revised its wordmark – the one that had the star in the letter 'O' – to tie into a new purpose statement that claims it will provide the youth with "tools that enable movement(s)." To reflect this, Converse has dusted off the star chevron and placed it front and centre in its visual communications. Complete with a wonky star that's representative of the Converse brand moving forwards, this new identity has already started rolling out on the official site and will be fully introduced over the next 12 months. Click left to right in the gallery below to see how the new wordmark compares to the old one. Just like plenty of other recent rebrands, including the Co Op and Kodak redesigns, this identity was updated with a bit of creative inspiration from older logos. For Converse, it was a case of looking at old typography. The wordmark is a combination of four or five different versions of the logo, harking back to lettering from the '20s and '30s, which relied on heavyweight sans-serif fonts. Old wordmarks were referenced for the new logoRelated articles: Why we should be wary of the retro trend Is your design retro... or just dated? How to give illustrations a retro look in Photoshop View the full article

If you have a passion for video games, there’s no better time to turn that love into a lucrative career. From ground-breaking new technology to innovative new titles, the video games industry is a particularly exciting place for digital artists right now. 20 best designs in video games“There are all kinds of exciting opportunities in games,” says Cloud Imperium Games character art director Josh Herman. “Games are such a massive part of our lives now and they aren’t going to go away – the industry is just going to get bigger and bigger and there will always be quality jobs if you have the skill and the drive to find them.” As more ambitious titles are being developed and pioneering technology such as real-time gains momentum within the creative industry, wanting to work in the world of gaming is a goal shared by many. But, like other creative fields, it can be a tricky industry to break in to. Here artists at world-class gaming company Cloud Imperium Games share their pro tips to help aspiring games artists get their foot in the door… 01. Portfolio is king Cloud Imperium Games' record-shattering crowdfunded title Star Citizen is in production“Specifically, the first 10 per cent of it,” says Nathan Dearsley, vehicle art director at Cloud Imperium Games. “Don’t be in the habit of thinking that quantity makes quality, because it doesn’t. In fact, it’s usually the opposite.” “Only show your best stuff. You will be judged by your weakest piece on your reel/site,” adds CIG character art director Josh Herman. 02. Demonstrate a range of styles “We do all kinds of characters, from one with fully cloth costumes that are totally covered in layers to fully armoured heavy marines, alien races, and realistic human faces,” says Herman. “So, in a new recruit I want to see that they have a lot of range in a realistic style. 03. Show the fundamentals “For junior artists, a couple of strong pieces that illustrate a solid understanding of the fundamentals and knowledge of the game art process will help you stand out,” Herman explains. 04. Tailor your portfolio “Also, if you are applying to be a character artist then you should send a portfolio of just character artwork. Don’t confuse me with environments, animations or VFX. A prop or gun can be okay if you’re feeling like you don’t have enough work, but they aren’t needed.” 05. Try to find your niche A highly ambitious and challenging project, it’s no surprise that Star Citizen has attracted the attention – and talents – of leading game artists “There’s no point in applying to Blizzard if all you want to do is make something that’s the complete polar opposite,” points out Dearsley. “Because ultimately, you’ll get there and be unhappy and that’s not cool. If you want to make fantasy-type games, go and work for Blizzard. If you want to make space games, come and work for us. It’s very straightforward. Always try to focus your portfolio on that.” 06. Specialise if you can Herman mirrors that advice: “If you know what you want to do, specialise. Knowing as much as you can about the other disciplines is great, but if you want to get a job you will need to have professional-level work in at least one of them. Specialising is the best way to do that.” 07. Be prepared to fail. A lot “Failure is a big part of personal development,” Dearsley comments. “Fail lots – you’ll come out the other end better for it.” 08. Mix with the community “Get involved, start liking artists on Facebook, comment on their work, get out there and start mixing with people on places like Polycount because it’s an extremely small world and an even smaller industry. You just never know where that next work offer will come from,” Dearsley says. “Project a really good image of yourself online.” 09. Build an industry presence “We use some recruitment forums such as ArtStation, but a lot of the time we find people by asking our devs if they know people who are looking for work, who do good work, and who are fun to work with,” Herman explains. 10. Be nice! Always do your research before interview“No one wants to work with a jerk,” says Herman. Dearsley agrees, especially when it comes to interviewing: “When you do get to the point where you’re getting interviews, make sure you research the company you’re going to be interviewed with.“ “I’ve sat in a few interviews where, when asked about the company, the answer is just a blank face. From that it’s clear you obviously don’t really want to work for us that much. Even if your work is great, at that point, I’m not really interested in working with you.” Related articles: How to land your dream job in video games How to design a spaceship Making it in the video game industry: top tips View the full article

It's been mocked and satirised, turned into cubist sexual cartoon imagery and had petitions against it, but designer Joe Stone beleives that the London 2012 Olympics logo design is a fantastic piece of branding that has got everything right. Here he explains why ... Joe Stone on the majesty of the 2012 Olympics logo Joe StoneEver since it debuted back in 2007 people have been talking about the logo whether they love it or hate it, and while there are still plenty of negative reactions to this day, it's stayed in the limelight for five years and remains instantly recognisable. People love to hate and insult it - after all, we all know that British public love to complain - but, negative comments or not, it remains impossible to ignore. I think the divisive nature of the logo had to be intentional to draw attention to something that could have ended up looking incredibly dull had the designers gone down the obvious route of previous Olympics logos. Almost every other Olympics logo I can think of compromises the five rings and a colourful swoosh. The fact that Wolff Olins were so bold as to go in such an utterly different direction immediately makes it stand out amongst the group of otherwise dull and samey icons. The brilliant use of the CMYK-inspired colour scheme also goes against the tradition of using the host nation's colours, saving us from yet another lame use of the Union Jack plastered across a brand identity. Saving us from yet another lame use of the Union Jack. There is nothing wrong in the slightest with being proud of ones nation or heritage, but to do something that stands out as much as this logo does is such a brave and exciting development that really helps to push the expectations of future Olympics branding forward into fantastic new directions, and can only enhance Britain's standing and importance in the design world. The most common complaint I've heard amongst the design community is that it simply doesn't look very nice. It's obviously a very subjective matter in the first place, but more importantly I don't think that's what the designers were going for. The logo isn't representing the Olympic games, it represents London as the venue for them, and frankly 'nice' is too weak a word to describe our bustling capital. It's an edgy city. It's a cool city. It's cultural and busy and exciting and forward thinking, and a flaccid adjective like 'nice' doesn't summarise it at all. It's a cool city. It's cultural and busy and exciting and forward thinking. Some people think the logo is downright ugly, but London itself was never designed to be aesthetically pleasing. It's a mesh of organically grown streets full of different styles and cultures. It's not an ugly city by any means, but it's not 'pretty'. I think the logo with it's sharp angles, strong shapes, defined edges and bright colours does a great job of representing the actual traits of London. I see it as a bold, unique and forward thinking logo, which has been applied across the identity in exciting and engaging ways that are impossible to ignore. It does everything that a good identity should do, and it does them well. A triumph, whether you like it or not. Joe Stone is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, and you can follow him on Twitter, too. View the full article

Negative space is, quite simply, the space that surrounds an object in a image. Just as important as that object itself, negative space helps to define the boundaries of positive space and brings balance to a composition. More and more these days, the creative world is seeing an emergence of artists creating positive spaces and shapes that, in turn, cleverly carve out shapes in negative space. And the results can be stunning. Here, we've found some brilliant examples – enjoy! 01. Design from Finland A beautifully minimal piece of typographic negative spaceThe Design from Finland mark was introduced in 2011 to provide consumers in Finland and elsewhere with evidence of Finnish design excellence, and its logo is a prime example. Designed by Rasmus Snabb from Werklig in Helsinki, it packs a glorious little piece of clever negative space into a mostly typographic treatment, turning the F and I of 'Finland' into a Finnish flag. 02. Air Max 2017 Negative space doesn't have to be static, you know. Nike wanted to draw attention to the ultralight support and maximum comfort provided by its Air Max 2017 trainers, and so ManvsMachine delivered a campaign that portrayed this through a series of visual metaphors inspired by scenarios encountered on an everyday run. Rather than use an actual Air Max, it instead employs a trainer-shaped piece of negative space to suggest air. Clever. 03. Monster bite cookies Six hungry monsters are hiding in these cookiesThis personal project saw Michael De Pippo putting his photography, Photoshop and cookie eating skills to test. The Canadian graphic designer used negative space to hide a hungry monster in each of these half-eaten cookies – he cooked up created six different biscuit flavours, and sold them as a limited-edition giclée print. 04. NBC The NBC peacock's been a fixture of its logo since 1956NBC first used a peacock in its logo in 1956. The design subsequently went through a number of changes, experimenting with a snake logo and variations on the letter N, until 1986, when the broadcaster introduced the best-known version with the peacock's body displayed as negative space. There have been stylised variants since then, but the peacock remains in place. 05. Yorokobu Numerografía Forma and Co created these colourful negative space numbersEach month, Yorokobu magazine asks an artist or designer to create a series of original numerical characters for its Numerografía section, and this was what Forma and Co came up with. The Barcelona-based team used eye-popping primary colours and a clever use of negative space that creates a 3D effect. 06. Mister Cooper Johnson Banks set the tone for the company's unconventional brandBriefed to design a distinctive logo for an adult-targeted alcohol and gourmet ice cream startup, renowned branding firm Johnson Banks utilised negative space to tell potential customers exactly what Mister Cooper was selling. The eye-catching identity system was rolled out across packaging, uniforms and merchandise. 07. Symbols It's easy to become desensitised to sad news, but this video for the World Food Programme powerfully drives home the plight of refugees. Designed by negative space master Noma Bar and animated by Ale Accini, the 30-second video called 'Symbols' uses stunning visual shorthand to help stop hunger and start peace. And it's emotively narrated by Liam Neeson. 08. Typogiraffe Bodea Daniel is a pro when it comes to negative spaceRomania-based artist Bodea Daniel – aka Kretank – is a pro when it comes to negative space. Much of his work features the style, and he specialises in animal-based designs. Take a look at his logo portfolio and see if you can spot all the hidden messages! 09. Tang Yau Hoong Tang Yau Hoong negative space art is always jaw-droppingTang Yau Hoong is an artist, illustrator, graphic designer living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. With a passion for creative thinking, he creates art that is conceptual, surreal and fun in a simplistic and unique way. A whole section of his website is dedicated to the art of negative space. 10. Harry Potter Olly Moss' book covers all have a hidden messageIllustrator Olly Moss is known for his super-smart use of negative space. When he was tasked with designing covers for the first ever worldwide digital release of the Harry Potter series, he didn't disappoint. They may look straightforward, but each one has a hidden message – take a look at the full set on his site. Next page: 8 more mind-bending negative space designs 11. The Birds Troy DeShano was inspired by one of Hitchcock's greatest moviesMichigan-based artist Troy DeShano has created tons of negative space art but it's this creation, based on Hitchcock's 'The Birds', that caught our eye. We love the way the figure's hair has been integrated with the silhouettes of flying birds. 12. FedEx The FedEx logo is a classic use of negative spaceThis list wouldn't be complete without perhaps the most famous use of negative space in a logo. The white arrow between the E and the X, once seen is never forgotten. The logo has won ample design awards and is constantly featured in 'best logos' lists. The logo was originally designed by Lindon Leader in 1994. Read our interview with Leader about the design in our 10 best logos ever article. 13. Letters Clever use of negative space to have the maximum impact (not literally)We're used to seeing highly creative and quality work come from worldwide ad agency Leo Burnett, and this brilliantly clever campaign for Fiat is a particular highlight. Created by the Brazil studio, the series of ads encourages drivers not to text while driving. A series of three prints, a large white letter R, N, and F are accompanied by a graphic of a little girl, dog, and bus respectively, each illustration creating the defining shape of each letterform. The taglines state: 'You either see the letter or the dog (bus, little girl). Don’t text and drive.' This is a fantastic example of how clever use of negative space can make a big impact. The stark contrast between black and white creates beautiful silhouettes of the girl, dog and bus hidden within the type. An innovative idea that really drives home the dangers of texting while driving. 04. The Typefaces Negative space gives this type a faceThe Typefaces is a book from Singapore-based designer and illustrator Scott Lambert, which aims to celebrate playful products for kids and kids-at-heart. "Inspired by letterpress printing and childlike observations, The Typefaces are simply faces in type," Lambert explains. Negative space allows Lambert to give each letter a friendly face. 15. The Body Artist One of many Don Delillo book cover designs by Noma BarAward-winning graphic designer Noma Bar's animation work has already featured in this list, but his still work is equally impressive. Using a limited colour palette, Bar carefully crafts and places positive space to give the negative space another meaning. Using the bare minimum to communicate his message, Bar's distinctive work has gained him international recognition and work from leading companies including Vodafone, Coca Cola and the BBC. 16. Cut-Outs Simon C. Page uses negative space trickery to depict Batman versus PenguinIt's Batman versus Penguin in this brilliant print by graphic designer Simon C. Page. Part of his Cut-Out series (click each pixellated image to see the real thing), Page cleverly depicts both characters using negative space. The bald head and long pointy nose are instantly identifiable as Danny Devito's Penguin, which in turn, carves out the bold silhouette of Michael Keaton as Batman. 17. Shigeo Fukuda Japanese graphic designer made full use of negative space in his artworkJapanese poster designer and graphic artist Shigeo Fukuda's optical illusions brought him international renown. Much like many of his pieces, this striking black and white print, constructed of minimal, considered lines, is slightly disorientating – a theme that ran through his work up until his death in 2009. 18. The Kama Sutra Malika Favre is know for her naughty negative space workWhen French artist and illustrator Malika Favre was commissioned to create the cover for this naughty classic, she went through many iterations – including this one – to get to the final design. Known for her distinctive use of graphic shapes and bold colours, Favre comments on her website: "I try and get to the essence of my subject by using as few lines and colours as it needs to convey the core of the idea." And she's certainly done that for this version of the book cover, cleverly incorporated negative space into the design to depict various sexual positions. Related articles: 30 mind-bending trompe l'oeil illusions The designer's guide to the Golden Ratio 10 commandments of logo design View the full article

Microsoft has said it will not patch a two-decade-old Windows SMB vulnerability, called SMBloris because it behaves comparably to the Slowloris attacks. The flaw will be disclosed and demonstrated during DEF CON. View the full article

We all could use some help optimising how we spend our time. Luckily, you can get advice from experts who have mastered the art of productivity. Learn valuable lessons to get more done with the Ultimate Productivity Bundle, on sale now for 97 per cent off the retail price. The Ultimate Productivity Bundle is packed with eight courses taught by some of the most successful people in the world, who are willing to share their tips and tricks with you. Spend nearly 30 hours learning the life hacks that will help you stay on task and get more work done, from maximising your time to picking up new skills that you can add to your resume. You can get the Ultimate Productivity Bundle on sale for 97 per cent off the retail price – now costing just $36 (approx £28). That's a huge saving for a course that will help you make the most of your time, so grab this deal today! View the full article

In this month's round-up, we'll be looking at tools every illustrator should have at the ready. While many of these feel like they're limited to comic book illustration, the truth is, they can be used for so much more. If you're a visual storyteller, this list will have something for you. Read more: Microsoft Paint avoids being canned How Tove Jansson and the Moomins continue to inspire Draw a bad-ass geisha View the full article