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You're reading Block Reveal Effect, a New Design Trend for Entrances and Exits, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! For all those who adore the beauty of simplicity obtained by regular geometric shapes and modular layouts, there is an excellent solution. It is the block reveal effect and it is pretty trendy. It ideally refines interfaces as well as adds a subtle dose of interactivity. Being blocky, a bit rigid and in some way […] View the full article

There are hundreds of paid-for and free fonts available online. We've got details of all sorts here on Creative Bloq – including tattoo fonts, cursive fonts and handwriting fonts. But for this article, we're going to focus on retro fonts. Get Adobe Creative CloudRetro designs have the ability to transport audiences back in time so it's important to choose a typeface that reflects the era that you're representing. With the right font you can add age, texture and depth. Here, we've selected some of our favourite retro-style font designs that won't cost you a penny! 01. West Side West Side has a playful 1980s cartoon lookInspired by handmade poster designs and illustrations from the 1980s, with maybe just a hint of Saul Bass, West Side is a block-styled, handcrafted display font created by Artimasa Studio. Big and bold with sharp edges, it's free for both personal and commercial use. FORMAT: OTF 02. Palm Canyon Drive Palm Canyon Drive is a stunning mid-century inspired monoline scriptYou can get a free sample of premium monoline script Palm Canyon Drive – designed by Amy Hood, co-founder of Hoodzpah Design Co, in conjunction with retro and vintage design elements crafter RetroSupply – by signing up to the RetroSupply newsletter. (You'll get a bunch of other retro and vintage-themed design elements, too.) Inspired by mid-century Southern California, the retro font is perfect for adding some old-school west coast goodness to your designs. It’s as comfortable on a Tikki bar matchbook cover as it is on a Hollywood movie poster, and the sample weights are free for personal use. FORMAT: OTF 03. Billionaire Medium Grunge Billionaire Medium Grunge is dripping with decadent charmFor an art deco look that's pleasingly rough around the edges, Billionaire Medium Grunge is just the ticket. It's just one of six fonts that make up the full Billionaire typeface by JumboDesign, and you can pick it up for free from Deeezy to give your work a bit of slightly faded sophistication. 04. Noir Add a touch of elegance and style to your designs with NoirAdd a touch of elegance and style to your designs with this beautiful retro font Noir, by designer Matthias Guggisberg. FORMAT: TTF 05. Frontage Condensed (Outline) Created by Swiss art director Juri Zaech, Frontage Condensed is a beautiful family of retro fonts. Perfect for any vintage-style designs, Frontage Condensed is available in a variety of weights, one of which, Outline, Zaech offers as a free download. FORMAT: TTF 06. Say It Fat Designer Timo Titzmann is behind free retro font Say It Fat. A bold, slab typeface, Say It Fat is great for creating eye-catching retro-style posters and much more. FORMAT: TTF 07. Portico Portico is a display typeface, which includes an urban and rough versionCreated by designer Mehmet Reha Tugcu, Portico is a display typeface, which includes an urban and rough version – perfect for any retro-style designs. FORMAT: TTF 08. Monthoers Add a touch of vintage style to your designs with Monthoers typefaceRetro-style typeface Monthoers was created by graphic designer Agga Swist'blnk. She comments on Behance: "Monthoers is the latest version of Rochoes typeface, which I made almost a year ago. It is free for personal and commercial use." FORMAT: TTF 09. Hamster Hamster is a cursive typeface inspired by brush lettering and traditional sign paintingHamster is a cursive typeface inspired by brush lettering and traditional sign painting. Crafted carefully to equalise its dynamic flow and legibility, Hamster is free to download for both personal and commercial use. FORMAT: TTF 10. Lazer 84 Transport your designs back to the 80s with Lazer 84Transport yourself back in time with Lazer 84. Created by art director Juan Hodgson, 80's-inspired Lazer 84 is a retro-style brush font that comes complete with numbers, symbols and accents. FORMAT: TTF 11. Ansley Graphic designer Kady Jesko created typeface Ansley after being unable to find a retro font that suitedGraphic designer Kady Jesko created typeface Ansley, after searching for a free retro-style font and couldn't find one that suited. Jesko now generously offers it as a free download for both personal and commercial use, with donations, as ever, gratefully received. FORMAT: TTF 12. Berlin Berlin is inspired by classic geometric typefacesBerlin was created by Brazilian graphic designer and illustrator Antonio Rodrigues Jr. "Berlin is a group of display fonts, inspired by the classic geometric typefaces from early last century," he explains. So far Rodrigues Jr has created four versions – Berlin, Berlina, Slaberlin and Uberlin – all of which are available in regular, bold and x-bold. FORMAT: TTF 13. Sabo Need an arcade-themed font? Give Sabo a goSabo, by graphic designer Philippe Moesch, is a striking pixel-style font. Available in two styles – inline and filled – Sabo is great for any retro arcade-themed design. FORMAT: OTF 14. Bobber This slab serif is inspired by bobber motorcyclesLooking for a unique typeface, designers Lucas Almeida and Dmitry Goloub decided to create their own. Inspired by bobber motorcyles, the duo developed this slab serif. With a cool, vintage design, this grid-based font is free to use for both personal and commercial projects. FORMAT: .AI 15. Glasoor Sergiy Tkachenko's Glasoor is perfect for posters and logosCreated by type designer Sergiy Tkachenko, Glasoor is an experimental font with a playful retro design that's perfect for posters, logos and more. FORMAT: TTF, OTF 16. Zebrazil Zebrazil's elegant forms and bold serifs give it a wonderful 1920s feelZebrazil was created by Burmese graphic designer Zarni. This deliciously retro font features lovely thin letterforms married to bold serifs, and is one of many created by Zarni, who generously offers his design as a free download. FORMAT: TTF 17. Unique A retro-contemporary offering from designer Anna PociusUnique was created by designer Anna Pocius aka Artmaker. She describes her design on Behance as 'a display hybrid typeface, which is a little bit flashy, retro but still contemporary font designed specially for headings and logotypes'. FORMAT: TTF 18. Canter Canter is perfect for headlines and titlesDesigned by New York-based creative Christopher J. Lee, Canter is an all caps, condensed typeface available in six different weights. It was designed as a display type for titles, headlines, and posters and will work well with any retro execution. FORMAT: TTF 19. Alt Retro This free retro font comes in five different weightsAlt Retro Typeface is a free five-weight typeface that channels all the art deco inspiration you can muster. Perfect for eye-catching creations, Alt Retro is a playful font that will serve as a brilliant experimental offering. The intricate design makes it a stand out retro font. FORMAT: TTF 20. Rispa This retro font is inspired by the designer's hometownThis retro typeface was inspired by designer Konrad Bednarski's new hometown. The free test version is available to download for free, with a corrected and extended version with more weights soon to be available. Like this font? You can also get Rispa Regular T-shirts, prints, tote bags, pillows and much more from Society6. FORMAT: TTF 21. Betty Noir One of our favourite free retro fonts, Betty Noir is definitely worth checking outThis typeface was developed Blambot, a company 'proudly provide comic fonts and lettering'. You have to pay for many of its brilliant designs, but the team generously offer Betty Noir free for use in personal projects. One of our favourite free retro fonts, it's definitely worth checking out. FORMAT: TTF 22. White Rabbit Inspired by eras gone by, this is one of the coolest free retro fonts we've seen in a whileInspired by eras gone by, this is one of the coolest free retro fonts we've seen in a while. Developed by Alice Creative, this typeface is available free for personal use, with donations to the author, as always, greatfully received. FORMAT: TTF Next page: 21 more free retro fonts... 23. Andes The gorgeous vintage-style font is available in two stylesLooking for retro fonts to use in your personal project? Then you can download this baby for free. The gorgeous vintage-style font is available in two styles, with letters featuring both a curved design (as seen above) and more basic approach. FORMAT: TTF 24. Sesame Sesame wouldn't look out of place on any vintage poster designAn old-school-style of retro fonts, Sesame wouldn't look out of place on any vintage poster design. Developed by designer Dieter Steffmann, the font comes with a full set of uppercase letters, numbers and selection of special characters. FORMAT: TTF 25. Arwen Arwen is one of the most beautiful retro fonts we've foundArwen is not just the name of a Lord of the Rings character, it's also one of the most beautiful retro fonts we've found – and it's totally free to download. Created by Keystrokes, the typeface includes a full set of uppercase characters for you to incorporate into your designs. FORMAT: TTF 26. Highlands This charming slab-serif draws inspiration from National Park posters of oldThis cool retro typeface was created by web and UI designer Tyler Galpin. He describes the font as "a charming slab-serif that draws inspiration from National Park posters of old". It's available as a free download, with any donations to its creator gratefully received. FORMAT: TTF 27. Bazar Olinda Martins developed this vintage-style font from a selection of commercial signage in and around the city of PortoDesigner Olinda Martins developed this vintage-style font from a selection of commercial signage in and around the city of Porto. Collecting several samples, Martins reinterpreted them into this stylish design, which she generously offers as a free download for all to enjoy! FORMAT: TTF 28. Quid Pro Quo Quid Pro Quo is an old-fashioned handwritten scriptQuid Pro Quo is an old-fashioned handwritten script created by designer David Kerkhoff. The typeface comes complete with a full set of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and a selection of special characters. Free for personal use only, with the option to donate to the author should you wish. FORMAT: TTF 29. Pricedown Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts is the man behind this bold, game show-inspired fontRay Larabie of Typodermic Fonts is the man behind this bold, game show-inspired font. Larabie comments on his creation: "Pricedown is based on a late-Sixties font called Pinto Flare; famous for its use in the titles for the TV program The Price is Right." The font is free for personal use only, but donations to the author are much appreciated. FORMAT: TTF 30. Pompadour Numerals This stylish, retro set of numerals and punctuation was inspired by the 1950s Rockabilly HairdoThis stylish, retro set of numerals and punctuation was developed by designer Andy Mangold. Offered online by Lost Type Co-Op, the website describes the design as "a chunky, display numeral sets inspired by the 1950s Rockabilly Hairdo. The numbers, which each fit perfectly inside of a square, are best used in large sizes." Available as a free download, with any donations to the author gratefully received. FORMAT: TTF 31. Riesling Transport your designs back to the 1920s with this beautiful Riesling fontTransport your designs back to the 1920s with this beautiful Riesling font, created by Bright Ideas. The elegant typeface includes a full set of upper and lowercase letters, numbers 0-9 and special characters. FORMAT: TTF 32. Carnivalee Freakshow Carnivalee Freakshow would fit in perfectly to any Western-inspired designCarnivalee Freakshow typeface would fit in perfectly to any Western-inspired design. Created by Christopher Hansen, this popular font has amassed over 1m downloads since its release. Free for personal use only. FORMAT: TTF 33. Top Speed This cool retro font has a definite hint of 1950s Chevrolet to itThis cool retro font has more than a hint of 1950s Chevrolet to it; you can virtually smell the rubber and gasoline. Designed by Jason Vanderhill, Top Speed comes in these three different variations. To link letters, simply use the underscore key. Free for personal use. FORMAT: TTF 34. Echo Deco Echo Deco is perfect for retro-style music poster designsPerfect for a retro-style music poster, typeface Echo Deco was created by GreyWolf Webworks. Free for personal use only, this font comes complete with a full set of uppercase letters, numbers and special characters. FORMAT: TTF 35. Deftone Stylus Deftone Stylus is a structured, industrial script from the late 20th centuryThis beautiful script, retro-style font is another by Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts. Larabie comments on his typeface, "Deftone Stylus is a structured, industrial script from the late 20th century. It was rebuilt in 2011 and now features custom letter pairs to make words flow." FORMAT: TTF 36. Bellerose This elegant typeface Bellerose is a popular choice, having been downloaded almost 1.5m times since its releaseThis elegant typeface Bellerose is a popular choice, having been downloaded almost 1.5m times since its release. The sophisticated design was created by James M. Harris, includes a full set of upper and lower case letters and numbers and is free for personal use only. FORMAT: TTF 37. Airstream This is just one of many retro fonts designed by Nick's Fonts but Airstream just pipped it as our favouriteThis is just one of many retro fonts designed by Nick's Fonts but Airstream just pipped it as our favourite. The designer has over 100 designs to choose from, which collectively have been downloaded over 13m times. Free for personal use. FORMAT: TTF 38. Parisish Parisish has the feel of old Paris about itThis elegant font by type designer George Williams has the feel of old Paris about it. One of 57 fonts created by the designer, this is one of his most popular, having received over 200,000 downloads. This font is free for both personal and commercial uses. FORMAT: TTF 39. Kilogram Kilogram font was based on Nick Curtis' font AnagramThis Kilogram font was created by KalleGraphics and based on Nick Curtis' font Anagram. The bold design includes a full set of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. Free for personal use. FORMAT: OTF 40. Budmo This flashy marquee font wouldn't look out of place on posters at the Moulin RougeThis flashy marquee font wouldn't look out of place on posters at the Moulin Rouge. Another creation from Ray Larabie of Typodermic Fonts, this set includes four font files, all different variations of the same design. Free for personal use. FORMAT: TTF 41. Akura Popo Akura Popo is bold, strong and tough-lookingAkura Popo from Twicolabs Design. The team comment on the typeface on Behance: "Akura Popo is a vintage and classic condensed serif font with a bold, strong and tough-looking style. It's best suited for logos, headlines, letterheads and sport-themed designs." FORMAT: TTF, OTF 42. Zorus Serif Zorus Serif's antique glyphs have a French feel to themCreated by Canadian designer Jérémie Dupuis, Zorus Serif's antique glyphs have a distinctly gallic feel to them, and we think it'd be a perfect fit for a print project that needs a quirky, old-fashioned look. It's available in standard and italic versions. FORMAT: TTF, OTF 43. Streetwear Streetwear captures the spirit of American sports logos of the 60s and 70sA bold and stylish retro-inspired script font, Streetwear is suitable for logos, posters, branding, packaging and much more. Available from Behance, the website states: "Streetwear looks like 1960s and 70s fashion and sport-related typeface, unique and fun at the same time." Streetwear is free for both personal and commercial use. FORMAT: OTF Related articles: 30 free font resources The secrets of custom font development 20 perfect font pairings View the full article

A popular ecommerce platform sold in 60 countries suffers from a SQL injection vulnerability privately disclosed in April that has yet to be patched by the vendor. View the full article

Last week saw the reveal of a rebrand for the Science Museum created by consultancy North. The new look (on the right in the picture above, next to the old logo) is the first visual shake-up for the Science Museum in seven years, and upon being unveiled the rebrand stirred up some controversy in the creative community. The biggest name to chip in with a negative response was Johnson Banks – the agency behind the old branding scheme – which Tweeted that the rebrand was "a bit of a clunker". Cue Twitter storm and a deluge of designers slamming the Science Museum's new look. How to choose the right typeface for a brandMuch of the negative response was levelled at the new typography, which slims down as the lettering pans from left to right. 'Generic', 'cheap' and 'nasty' were amongst the insults thrown at the rebrand, but are these comments overstepping the mark? Was it, in fact, the right time for the Science Museum to bring in a new identity? Now the dust has settled and the full identity has been unveiled by North, the idea behind the rebrand has found an unlikely supporter in the shape of the very studio that loudly opposed to it: Johnson Banks. The new Science Museum branding includes animated typographyTime to change On the Johnson Banks blog, the design consultancy took the time to reflect on the Science museum rebrand and more in a post called "Why brands change". It opens with an oblique reference to its Tweet ("[t]he change of an organisation’s brand or logo brings many strong feelings to the surface") before going on to examine when and why it's time to update an identity. Kicking off its list of reasons looking at when it's a good time to rebrand is the idea that a new identity should tie into a "fundamental change in business circumstances – a merger, or a takeover, for example". In the case of the Science Museum rebrand, Johnson Banks explains that this seems to be the underlying reason for the revamp. The rebrand brings together different Science Museum Group membersThis is because the rebrand is part of a larger branding change that includes other institutions in what was NMSI – the National Museums of Science and Industry. London's Science Museum and the Science and Media Museum in Bradford are the first institutions to undergo the umbrella rebrand with others in the group expected to follow suit in the future. North creative director Sean Perkins echoed these ideas when he spoke to Design Week about the Science Museum rebrand. “This is about sharing the assets around the country rather than just focusing on London,” he reveals. “From York’s railway museum to visitors travelling to Bradford to see rockets, this is about helping people continue their journey through science. "There are strategic reasons and rationales behind this. It’s not about a logo or what it looks like, it’s there to do a job – it will bring the group together under one visual language." If it ain't broke... As well as talking about when the time's right for a rebrand, Johnson Banks also looks at when an identity should stay put. It explains that boredom is usually a motive for change, which often sets in after about three years. "Yet, paradoxically, about two-to-three years in is precisely when a new brand has just started to seep into the public consciousness, and arguably that’s exactly when a brand should become more consistent, not less," it points out. Gradient shading is at the heart of the new Science Museum brandThe next big reason a rebrand gets pushed through is simply because new directors have joined a team and they want to leave their mark by tinkering with a design. This isn't as accidental as it might sound though. "Every new business manager for every major branding company in the world keeps an eye out for changes at the top of major organisations," Johnson Banks explains, "because this is when existing branding schemes are at their most vulnerable, new brooms are brought in, and the sweeping starts." How designers should react Rounding off the blog post is a look at how brand designers should react when they see their work replaced by a new identity. "Going straight onto Twitter and saying ‘this is a bit of a clunker’ (as we did last week about the Science Museum’s change) is NOT to be advised. Whoops," Johnson Banks admits. In Johnson Banks defence though, it has put its hands up and delivered a constructive apology we can all learn from. It didn't even delete its Tweets in attempt to run away from the situation, so hats off to the team for that. We'll never know if Johnson Banks old brand could've worked on a larger scaleAs if that wasn't magnanimous enough, Johnson Banks has even reappraised the work by North. "We can see the ‘idea’ of the fading type working more successfully with the longer blocks of type, rather than the two-word version," it admits. "Our logo had become quickly recognisable as the Science Museum’s – but how would it have coped as the visual link across the group of museums? We’ll never know." It's tough, but trying to move on seems to be the best course of action. Although, as Johnson Banks confesses, this can be easier said than done. The branding blog post also covers other examples of when brands changed for the right reasons, so we recommend you head over and read the full article. In the meantime, just think before you Tweet. Related articles: 20 perfect font pairings Is no branding the best way to get attention? How to craft a brand voice View the full article

RubyGems patched an unsafe object deserialization vulnerability this week that could have allowed attackers to remotely execute code on vulnerable systems. View the full article

Learning how to draw hands can be difficult. In fact, most artists find drawing hands to be a challenge. But, much like knowing how to draw a face, it's a useful skill to have. The human hand is a complex and amazing piece of anatomy, and one of the most recognisable features in the whole of the animal kingdom, which is why it's crucial that we study to how to draw hands accurately. How can we begin to coordinate the odd tube-like fingers with the flattened palm and fleshy pads? It seems like when we begin to learning how to draw hands the perspective and volumes get tangled up. The human hand is one of our most recognisable features, so it's crucial to study them accurately In this tutorial, we'll learn how to draw a hand by looking inside to see the skeletal view and how the flesh lays over top. From here I will draw in simple shapes to describe the main forms of the hand. I'll explore how we can begin to break our simplified hand into a planar view using 3D shapes like cylinders and spheres. By breaking the hand into simpler forms and using contour to explore volumes, we can start to arrange the hand in a variety of poses without worrying too much about detail. In creating this tutorial, I found myself looking at my own two hands quite a bit. It's great to use your own hands as reference while trying this exercise out! I'm working digitally here but the same principles can be used with any drawing medium. If you're working traditionally, be sure to start out light and gradually build up volume and forms with heavier lead only toward the end of your study. 01. What's inside? Look at anatomical views so you're aware how the mechanism works The hand is comprised of bone, tendon, and lots of connective tissue as well as muscle and fat. It’s a very strong and flexible appendage. It can be helpful to sketch out skeletal studies of human anatomy in general but, when learning how to draw hands, a lot of the form we are used to is lost at the skeletal view. If we then overlay a surface view over top of the skeletal view, we can begin to appreciate where the skeleton sits inside our own hands. It's worth looking into anatomical views of the hand so you become aware of how the mechanism works. 02. Break it into shapes Simplifying forms will help you make sense of the basic shapes You can use my image as a base to draw this step over (hit the icon in the top right to enlarge it). From our skeletal view, we can lay in broad shapes to build the hand. We can use a flattened wedge like shape for the palm; rectangles for the digits and a teardrop shape for the thumb. When figuring how to draw hands, simplifying the forms like this will help take away the pressure of rendering out a perfect hand from the beginning. From here, we can begin to fill out the shapes into 3D forms to help us build the hand and pose it in perspective. 03. Build it in 3D and then observe Pay attention to finger proportions to keep hands looking naturalNow we can begin to turn the forms to make the hand feel more 3D! Our flattened wedge for the palm gains another dimension, the fingers become cylinders and the joints become spheres. We're going to call this view the planar view. By drawing through our forms, we can also show volume as I've done here with the palm pads. This is also a good time to work on proportion and placement. Notice how the palm is about as long as the middle finger (the green lines indicate this). Remember that the fingers are never the same length or perfectly straight. What sells this is imperfection. Note the blue lines indicating the angle at which the fingers end. We can also see that the middle finger stems straight from the middle of the hand. Paying attention to these proportions will help you ensure your hands look natural and accurate. 04. Pose the shapes Use 3D shapes to represent the fingers at this stageOnce you've drawn out the 3D version of our first hand, you can try out some poses of your own! As you need your own to learn how to draw hands, why not ask a friend or family member to help out? I've used my own hands as reference here, but used the planar view to help keep it simple. This way I can quickly draw out poses of hands without worrying too much about detail. Note the small diagram of the cylinder and sphere. Fingers can be unruly at times – it's best to keep them very simple and utilise 3D shapes to represent them at this stage. 05. Start with planes Concentrate on capturing proportion, perspective and volumeNow that you've had some fun with posing, pick a pose that you like and, using your own hand as reference, draw out your hand in the planar view. I've drawn in little cones that help indicate which way the cylinders are traveling. It can be helpful to do this so you're able to keep a grasp on where the curves of the cylinders need to bend. Again, I'm mostly concerned with keeping it simple at this stage and I’m not worried about detail. I want to capture proportion, perspective and volume. It's important to work lightly at this stage if you're using pencil. 06. Begin to find gesture and forms Use the planar view as a guide to help lay the forms Since I'm working digitally here, I will knock back the opacity of the planar drawing to begin to find the forms I see on my own hand. If you're working traditionally, simply begin to press harder with your pencil. From here, I can use the planar view as a guide to help me lay the forms of my hand as I look at it. I'm careful to take note of how the forms curve around each other and I'm also mindful of the silhouette of my hand. You can see where I've deviated from the pink line and instead used it as a guide to find where the forms turn in space. 07. Begin to lay in detail Now you can start to place details like creases Now we can push back the first two layers, or switch to a heavier lead to begin to lay in those details. You can see how helpful the construction of both the planar view drawing and the gesture drawing really help me place details like wrinkles and creases in the hand. I can also begin to place fingernails and render out the side of the palm. Read more: Draw a figure in under five minutes 20 phenomenally realistic pencil drawings How to draw a face View the full article

The art of typography, at first, looks pretty straightforward: choose a typeface, fiddle with the size and perhaps alter the colour, right? Wrong. The truth is, there's so much more to effective typesetting than that. Typography is an almost invisible art form; if successful, the care and attention put into setting type on a page will melt away effortlessly, leaving the content front and foremost in the eye of the reader. As a discipline it's really an act of facilitation – that is to say that it exists to help make the words and meaning the focus, providing a platform for it to shine through. The best 100 free fonts for designersIn other words, typography has to achieve a lot without all the bells, whistles and applause. So it's hardly surprising that it's often misunderstood and abused by designers who haven't been trained specifically in how to handle and set type. Here we've listed some of the biggest mistakes designers make when it comes to type, and how to avoid them in your own work... 01. Insufficient leading If leading is too tight, it makes the copy appear bunched upLeading is the space between two lines of type, and is named after the strips of lead used in original metal type press to ensure an adequate gap between the lines. In word processing software such as Microsoft Word, and on the web, it's referred to as line-spacing. Put simply, too little line-spacing makes the copy feel bunched up and hard to read. Similarly too much leads to a feeling of disconnection between the lines of type. There's no absolute hard-and-fast rule to choosing the right amount of leading, but an aesthetic judgement can be made based on how legible the text itself is. 02. Too much positive tracking Too much tracking can reduce readabilityTracking refers to the space between letters across an entire word or phrase. The greater the tracking, the more the characters that form a word will have space to either side. Designers commonly use tracking to adjust type so that it fits a particular line length perfectly, and while small adjustments are okay in these circumstances, adding too much tracking can reduce the legibility and readability of the copy. In general terms, leaving tracking (referred to as letter-spacing on the web) at the default value will provide the best legibility for a specific font. If you're using a font as a headline or display face, it's not uncommon to reduce the tracking to a value of up to -20 in order to make it appear heavier and more like a headline than it would untouched. 03. Confusing tracking and kerning Tracking and kerning are similar but not the sameDesigners can spend hours poring over the tracking and kerning of their typography. It's important, however, to understand that the two things are not synonymous. Tracking, as we've already mentioned above, deals with the spacing between characters across an entire word or phrase. Kerning is an adjustment of the specific space between two characters in particular. Kerning is often used to bring characters that naturally have a lot of white space around them closer to their neighbours. A good example is the combination of the letterforms W and A, which can sit closer together than most fonts will naturally place them, due to the complementary angles that make up their shapes. 04. Using too many faces and weights Too many fonts can make your copy appear cluttered and confusingOne of the biggest mistakes made by designers, especially those new to the discipline, is a tendency to use too many fonts and weights in a design. As a general principle, it's best practice to limit a piece of work to containing a maximum of three different fonts. Of course there are occasions where you'll need many more than three, but by introducing too many typefaces you'll unsettle the reader, and make the design feel disjointed. This effect can also be felt when using to many different weights within a specific font, although using the same font with different weights is a little more forgivable. 05. Failing to set reasonable line lengths Print titles normally limit their content's lines to a maximum of 75 charactersThis is another legibility issue that many designers fall foul of: excessive line lengths make it difficult for a reader to find their place on the next line, and can hamper understanding. In general it's worth taking a cue from newspapers and magazines, limiting your content's lines to a maximum of 75 characters. Of course there are times when this simply isn't possible, but if your content wraps to more than a couple of lines, you should make every effort to restrict the line length. 06. Inadequate contrast Insufficient contrast can make text difficult to readAs with many of the possibilities that modern software provides, just because you can do something, it doesn't mean that you should! One such example is where copy is rendered with insufficient contrast against its background, leading to difficulties reading and understanding the text. This can either be because the type is set using a colour that's too tonally similar to the background colour, or because it's placed on top of a tinted semi-transparent background that sits above an image. Either way, this mistake is easily avoided by scrunching up your eyes and checking that you can still make out the characters of your type (as this reduces your colour perception and makes it easier to discern the underlying tonality of different colours). 07. Centering text universally Only ever centre text if you have a good reason for doing soOne of the first things you'll often hear a designer say is that you should never centre text. We don't fully agree with that sentiment; there's definitely a time and place for centred text, and used wisely it can enhance a design significantly. However, novice designers often centre all their text in an attempt to create a sense of balance in their design. This is a critical error as the symmetry is both unsettling and difficult to read - especially in longer passages of text. Avoid centring text universally, and embrace the asymmetry of a design which features ragged lines, or use justified text where you need a solid block of copy. 08. Two spaces after a full stop The double-space after punctuation is an outdated conventionIn truth this isn't typically the fault of the designer, but it's worth highlighting simply because so many of these creep through into production. The double-space after a full stop (aka period or full point) is a hangover from the days of typewriters, and was (apparently) necessary to avoid placing the next character too close to the stop. Modern word processing software, desktop publishing tools, and web browsers all take this into account and can happily render type correctly without the need for this vestige of a bygone era. Let your copywriters know! Related articles: 40 free retro fonts 13 calligraphy fonts every designer should own Calvin Klein reveals new logo design View the full article

How're you coping with the daily demands of the Inktober? The challenge, which asks for artists to create ink drawings every day throughout October, is a popular task amongst illustrators. However, many people can find the medium and the pace of the challenge difficult. To help artists power through Inktober and make sure they get the most out of the medium, award-winning illustrator Yuko Shimizu has been sharing tips for how to draw in ink on her Instagram page. 14 fantasy artists to follow on Instagram"For me, doing this as a career, I ink pretty much every day of the year," Shimizu tells Creative Bloq. "But for the rest of us, it’s a great excuse and incentive to enjoy, and get better at the craft. It’s something you have to put time in, but when you are having fun, the learning process is not daunting. More power to Inktober!" We've rounded up five of Shimizu's ink drawing tips below, but be sure to follow her on Instagram for more illustration advice as the month progresses. Or, if you're after more guidance, take a look at our 7 tips for smashing Inktober 2017. 01. Do an underdrawing first Shimizu likes to create underdrawings with an HB pencilShimizu's first piece of advice for ink drawing is to hold fire on the inking itself. Instead, she recommends that artists put down an underdrawing to provide a basis for their work. "I find HB the best pencil for the purpose," she reveals on Instagram. "Anything harder than HB may leave scratch marks even after erasing, and anything softer would be easier to draw but harder to erase out completely and often leaves dark marks." If it's taking a while to create a sketch you're happy with, Shimizu suggests drawing on a separate piece of paper and only tracing over what's necessary onto a fresh sheet with the help of a light box. "This way, the underdrawing is light and clean, makes it easier to see the ink lines you are making, and easier to erase the underdrawing completely," she adds. 02. Ink from left to right Shimizu's careful hand ensured this intricate piece wasn't smudgedSeasoned veterans of ink drawing are sure to be familiar with this tip, but you're never so experienced you can't benefit from brushing up on the basics. By working from left to right, artists can prevent wet ink from smudging and create beautiful, crisp illustrations. While this tip is aimed at right handers, it can be easily adjusted for left handers, too. "If you are a lefty, move the other way around," says Shimizu. "This way, you have less chance of making an inky mess on your paper." 03. Keep underdrawings loose Aim for style and energy, not perfectionThis tip is a follow-up to Shimizu's first piece of advice about underdrawing. "f you have pretty advanced drawing skill, my advice is to go as loose as possible on underdrawing, and let the inking stage figure out each line you are putting down," she explains. "This makes the final ink drawing have a lot more energy and motion. The less you trace, the more energetic the result becomes." But what happens if you make a mistake when you're drawing? Don't worry, small errors can be worked out later, says Shimizu. "Move on, and revisit after the drawing is done, then you know your mistake is not that big of a deal," she says. "Some artists prefer perfection, but it is also true that it’s more charming when something is slightly off and imperfect." 04. Don't be afraid to start over Let's say you do make a big mistake, though, what should you do then? It's hard, but Shimizu recommends that you take the plunge and start over from scratch. On Twitter she demonstrated how this can improve your work by posting two versions of a similar image. The one on the left is the one that worked, while the one on the right was thrown away. "I liked how the faces and hair turned out, but I wanted all the kids to be wrapped in one scarf, and the wrap flow didn’t quite work," she said on Instagram. "I kept trying to fix it, but at some point, I had to give up. This was a tight deadline, and I honestly didn’t have much time to waste. I would have loved it if I didn't have to start over. But then, when things don’t work, they really don’t work. I just have to give up." When it came to the second attempt, though, Shimizu found the inking process much faster and smoother. This is because she already knew what wouldn't work, and how to fix any mistakes along the way. "Even the facial features that already worked in the first one, the second one worked even better!" she says. "So, don’t get scared of starting over. It’s a good thing!" 05. Watch Shimizu's ink drawing class for free You've got until Friday to watch Shimizu's ink drawing tutorial for freeFor a complete look at how Shimizu works, be sure to watch her Ink Drawing Techniques video series on Skillshare. In these videos you'll see how to select the best materials, as well as finding advice on how to work with textures, different types of nibs and paper. The series is made up of 14 videos that total over an hour of footage, so there's plenty to dig into and enjoy. Not only that, but until 13 October, the series can be yours to watch for absolutely free. You will have to sign up to Skillshare, but watching the videos won't cost you a penny. This is a rare chance to catch the advice of a master illustrator for nothing, so be sure not to miss it! Related articles: 10 amazing Inktober 2016 artists 18 illustrators to follow on Instagram The 23 best Illustrator brushes View the full article

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/mobile/oxygenos-telemetry-lets-os-maker-tie-phones-to-individual-users/ … View the full article

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

When you start using Adobe Photoshop, it can be a complex and time-consuming tool to get to grips with (subscribe to the Creative Cloud here). However, the more you use it, the more time-saving shortcuts you learn to use to improve your workflow. We decided to speed up your learning process with this Photoshop shortcuts cheat sheet; an infographic that is packed with shortcuts for all manner of image editing functions. And it just happens to be a useful memory-jogger for experienced Photoshoppers, too! To find out exactly what each shortcut does, head to our more detailed Photoshop shortcuts article. Why not pin our infographic to your Pinterest board so you have instant access to all the PS shortcuts you'll ever need? Click on the image to see the whole infographic Click on the image to see the full-size infographic Designer: Jo Gulliver Related articles: 5 best laptops for Photoshop How to manage colours in Photoshop 95 top Photoshop tutorials View the full article

eCommerce has become so popular in recent years it's now hard to imagine a future without it. The power of the internet has made connecting with customers a breeze for businesses and brands, and eCommerce, for the most part, is the easiest way to deliver products to their audience. Foundation's Building Blocks library of coded UI components are designed to make it easier to reach a final product faster. Unlike templates, Building Blocks don't dictate how your site should look or be structured. They simply provide you the tools to build up your own custom look and feel much faster. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to build a static eCommerce website from scratch using the eCommerce Kit, a curated collection of Building Blocks that are designed to help you build specific kinds of websites. Though this scaffold is a prototype, the Building Blocks we're using and layout we end up with can be applied to any system. Getting started Building Blocks don’t dictate how your site should look The first thing we need to do is set up an environment to build the site. For this tutorial, you'll need to first download node.js. Once that's installed, you'll want to install the Foundation CLI using the command npm install -g foundation-cli. Now that you have Foundation installed on your system, let's start up a new Foundation project by using the command foundation new ecommerce-site. In the list that follows, select the first option, 'A website (Foundation for Sites)', type in our project name 'ecommerce-site ', and then select 'ZURB Template'. This will start up a Foundation template and development server so that we can easily begin building our website. Run npm start in the terminal to run the project. Next, let's take a look behind the code of our new project by opening it up in a text editor. In here, you'll find a sample page in 'src/pages/index.html' containing some default template material. We're going to remove all of the code here. Installing a Kit Before we write any code, we're going to pull in Foundation's eCommerce Kit with Foundation's CLI. Head to your terminal and use the command foundation kits install ecommerce. If this command doesn't work, double-check that your Foundation CLI is updated to 2.2.3. To check which version you're on, run foundation -v in your terminal. If you need to update, simply uninstall the CLI with npm uninstall -g foundation-cli and reinstall it with npm install -g foundation-cli. This just downloaded all of the Building Blocks inside of our eCommerce Kit! Any time you install a Building Block, it will appear in src/partials/building-blocks. You'll know that your Kit installed correctly if all of the Building Blocks have been automatically imported into your app.scss file. Some of these Building Blocks include icons from Font Awesome, so you'll want to either manually install them or add their CDN to the <head> of your site. To do this, navigate to src/layouts/default.html and add <link href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/font-awesome/4.7.0/css/font-awesome.css" rel="stylesheet"> between the <head> tags. Scaffolding the site Mix and match blocks to achieve your ideal eCommerce layout Let's get to building! With our Kit installed, these next couple of steps will feel a bit like playing with LEGO: in your own projects, you can choose to use all of them, or you can use just a selection. Feel free to mix and match Building Blocks to achieve your dream eCommerce layout. For this tutorial, the first two Blocks we'll start with are header and promo hero. To do this, we're going to use the Handlebars partial mechanism. In our empty index.html file, let's throw in the partials {{> ecommerce-header}} and {{> ecommerce-promo-hero}}. With just these two Building Blocks, our eCommerce landing page already looks about half-way done. Next, we'll throw in some product cards below our hero section. To use the product card Building Block, we'll use Foundation's block grid so that the cards sit evenly within a grid. This will also make it easier to change the layout of these cards later. Let's start with <div class="row small-up-2 medium-up-5">. Inside this div, throw in ten columns with the product card inside of each column <div class="column">{{> ecommerce-product-card}}</div>. We want to give our customers a way to get to more of our products, so let's add a callout button beneath our product cards. First we need to create our <div class="row column text-center"> so that our button will be centred on the page. Next, we'll use the Foundation button component to create our callout. Add a <button class="button">Shop All Products</button> inside of the .row.column. The page feels almost complete now, but let's also add a header between our hero and product cards to give a little bit of context. Under the hero, add a <div class="row column"> to contain our header <h1>Newest Arrivals</h1>. Most eCommerce home pages have more promotional content below their products. Let's use the Building Block {{> ecommerce-hero-slider-small}} here. To prevent the slider from spanning the width of the page, we will wrap it around a <div class="row column">. Since eCommerce sites typically consist of many pages, most will require a mega footer with lots of links to handle the volume of pages. Our eCommerce Kit comes with a footer for this exact use case. To wrap up this scaffold, let's drop in the {{> ecommerce-footer}} at the very bottom of our HTML. Check for responsiveness These days, it's hard for any site to get by without being mobile-friendly. This is especially true for eCommerce sites. Now that online shopping has become the norm, we don't want to lose that percentage of users who do this through their mobile phones. Following our motto of mobile-first, Foundation's Building Blocks are built to be naturally responsive. A quick check on a smaller screen shows that our site is still looking pretty good. However, when we click on the hamburger menu, our off-canvas hasn't been properly hooked up. This part gets a little tricky, but don't worry! We'll break down what's happening in this off-canvas menu and then walk through how to hook it up. If you take a look into the ecommerce-header.html file, you'll notice that this header has an off-canvas built into it. So, why didn't it work? When we clicked on the hamburger menu, the only thing that was 'pushed' was the header. The rest of the page remained in view, causing some strange overlapping. This is because this header was built to work on its own, but in reality it needs to work with the entire page. In other words, it needs to push all of the content on the page over when the off-canvas menu is triggered, not just the header menu. This ecommerce-header was written like this because setting up an off-canvas requires diving into your src/layouts/default.html page, which is beyond the Building Block's reach. This is what we’re currently seeing because the off-canvas hasn't been hooked up yetTo fix this, all we need to do is take everything inside of <div class="off-canvas ecommerce-header-off-canvas position-left" id="ecommerce-header" data-off-canvas> and move it into src/layouts/default.html. Next, we're going to wrap the {{> body}} of our site inside of a <div class="off-canvas-content" data-off-canvas-content>. This will push the body of our site when off-canvas is triggered. Now when we click on our hamburger, the entire site moves over for the off-canvas menu! The body of our default.html page should look like this: Conclusion We've shown you how to jump-start your eCommerce site with Foundation's eCommerce Kit, but don't stop there! There are over 100 Building Blocks that can be used to help enhance your pages. In a matter of minutes, we've scaffolded a static eCommerce site with Building Blocks. This saves you a great deal of time that you can now use to layer in the visuals and style the site to fit your brand. Even if you're taking this further and using a back-end system, different partial mechanism or have another way of getting your data into the site, the given workflow with Building Blocks will really save you time and therefore money. Foundation's Building Blocks are a great way to get started because they're meant to be extended upon, fit into your existing styles, and be used in any application system. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 266. Buy it here. Related articles: Build a card-based UI with Foundation 10 beautiful new ecommerce sites you must see How to improve the performance of ecommerce sites View the full article

Being a creative student is a weird, topsy-turvy feeling. On the one hand, you feel like you’re a success already. After all, you got on the course, which is no mean feat in itself. You’ve worked hard, and you earned the respect of your peers and your teachers. At times, you’re feeling good about your prospects, and ready to take on the world. But then there are those darker moments, when you get The Fear. Maybe you’re not as good as you think. What if nobody wants you? When you go for a job, will you be outclassed by rivals? Will your future be full of disappointment and bitterness? Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. Swinging between optimism and pessimism is just part of the student experience, so if your ambition is to work at a top creative agency, don’t let it put you off. Instead, put all your emotional energies into taking practical action, and confidence and certainty will eventually come as a result. Here, we lay out seven steps to achieving your dream... 01. Interrogate your motives Is working at a big firm like W+K London really your dream, or is it other people’s?Before you devote yourself to landing a job at a top agency, you first need to work out whether you’re fully committed. Be honest: is this truly your dream, or that of your parents, teachers or friends? Would you be better off working at a smaller, less well-known agency, where you’d probably get given more responsibilities right off the bat? In fact, you don’t even have to work at an agency at all: there are many great opportunities working as an in-house designer. Or if you’ve already got a flow of freelance work going, you could even just go freelance full-time. If you decide that working at a top agency is your undying goal, then great. But it’s a tough road ahead, so you really have to be sure you’re genuinely committed, and willing to put in 100 per cent… or it’s unlikely that you’ll succeed. 02. Do your research Top agencies like Pentagram have a ton of information and case studies on their sites, so take advantage and read everything thoroughlyThere’s one thing you must know about the seniors with the power to give you a job at a top agency: they have busy schedules and are constantly short of time. So if they give up vital minutes to read your CV, design portfolio or covering letter, or to chat to you in a job interview, they’re making a big sacrifice. And if you give the impression that you couldn’t be bothered to put in the effort to properly research or understand the company you’re applying to work at… well, they’re not going to be happy, to say the least. The good news is that, by definition, a well-known agency should be a doddle to research. So hoover up all the information you can glean from its website, its LinkedIn page and its social media accounts. Scour any mentions or press coverage of them on Google. Seek out insightful nuggets of info you might be able slip into conversations where relevant. That said, if you do get a job interview, don’t spit out facts like a machine: that’s just embarrassing. It’s not about showing off your knowledge of the company; it’s about being prepared for anything they ask you. And even if they don’t test your knowledge at all, that preparation will give you an inner sense of confidence that will be just as impressive. 03. Work on your passion projects Gavin Strange combines a full time job with Aardman with being a dad and completing multiple side projects. So what excuse do you have?You’ll find plenty of advice on Creative Bloq about the mechanics of applying for a job, from the things employers are looking for in your portfolio to 20 tips for design interview success and how to create the perfect resume. But when you’re applying for a job at a top creative agency, you have to assume that your biggest rivals will have nailed all these areas too. So what is it that will get you noticed, and truly swing the jury? Ultimately, when it comes to students and graduates, top creative agencies are looking for one, all-compassing thing: high-quality work. But at this stage in your career it’s unlikely you’ll have worked on many, or any, real-world client projects, so this is really going to fall down to your passion projects. What have you been working on, on the side, that conveys what you’re about, gives a sense of your personal style, and shows the kind of work you enjoy doing? (Conversely, if you don’t have any passion projects to show, then it’s basically a sign you have no passion, which is not going to get you very far at all.) So think about what really inspires you, and get moving. Can’t find time? Cancel your Netflix. Visit the pub less. Get up two hours earlier. You’re creative, so find creative ways to manage your schedule and create more time for what you enjoy doing. For more advice on this, check out our guide to Why you should make time for passion projects. 04. Enter competitions Winning a D&AD New Blood award can be a huge boost to your careerCreating impressive side projects is only one side of the coin. You need to let the world know about them, and hopefully get them liking and sharing them. The obvious way to do that is via an online platform like Behance or Dribbble, as well as on your own portfolio site and social media accounts. But one thing students often forget about – or lack the confidence to enter – is student design competitions. There’s no real downside to entering, because even if you’re not successful, nobody’s really going to know. And if you are successful, it’s a great way for you to get on the radar of top creative agencies, either because they’re following the contest themselves, or because the winners’ work gets shared by the design press and social media. Not all student design contests are equal, of course, and many lie on a spectrum between time-wasters and out-and-out scams. But others, such as the annual D&AD New Blood Awards, are well established and highly respected. Your tutors should be able to advise you on the best contests to enter for your discipline and skillset. 05. Network, network, network Design conferences, such as our own Generate event, can be a great way to network in the physical world It won’t surprise you to hear that jobs at top design agencies aren’t always awarded to the person who wrote the best covering letter, or even to the person with the best portfolio. A lot of it comes down to ‘cultural fit’: a vague, nebulous term that essentially means they like you on a personal level and think you will interact well with others in their team. Convincing them that you can do so is a lot easier if they know something of you already. So the more you can get your face out there and network, the better your chances. And that applies to both online and physical networking. So if there’s someone you really admire and would like to work for, why not send them a polite email asking for advice? Or check the conferences they’re attending on LinkedIn, and stroll up to introduce yourself in person? It’s important not to become too stalker-y, of course, but you’d be surprised at how often busy people appreciate the direct approach. 06. Be confident but not cocky Confidence will help you stand out, but cockiness is a turnoffFollowing on from that last point, when you’re seeking a job at a top design firm, you need to be direct about what you want. It’s unlikely that your passion project will be so brilliant that they will come to you and beg you to take a job. So at some point, you’re going to need to ask them for it, whether that’s through a formal application process, a chat in a conference bar, or somewhere in between. But being direct doesn’t mean being cocky, and being humble and friendly works better than being aggressive and pushy, in the creative industries at least. Steam in thinking you’re the big I-am, then, and you’re heading for a fall. Instead, balance self-belief with a recognition that you have a lot to learn (and are keen to do so). Hit that sweet spot, and people will be interested. For more advice, read How to thrive as a young designer. 07. Celebrate your mistakes Don’t beat yourself up over past mistakes, use them to your advantageWhen you’re at student or graduate level, you’ll have had more design failures than successes. So your natural inclination when interviewing will be to bend the truth and make out that you’ve achieved more than you really have. But that can be hugely counterproductive. Your employers have been around the block a few times, and will be able to sniff out exaggeration and false claims at a thousand paces. After all, they were once in the same seat as you, and as the saying goes, you can’t BS a BSer. But the good news is, design is not just about results, it’s about process. And if you can demonstrate that you’ve not only made design mistakes, but can identify how you would do it differently next time, that can be pretty impressive in itself. We’re not saying put terrible design work in your portfolio, of course; that would be dumb. But just remember that we all make mistakes – at senior level as well as junior – and an ability to demonstrate that you can learn from them shows a level of maturity that will set you apart from many a graduate. For more advice on getting work as a graduate, read our 5 golden rules for getting your first design job. Read more: 5 design agencies that do things differently 5 uses for stock images you might not have thought of 6 rock-solid ways to improve your graphic design portfolio View the full article

You're reading Explore and Share Your Skills with Skillshare, the Learning Platform for Creatives, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Two years ago, I became a subscriber to Skillshare, a community of learners and creators. The creative director of a project I’ve been working for sent me an invite. Since then, I’ve been a loyal follower. Why? Because “the future belongs to the curious.” Designmodo readers can also enjoy two months of premium learning, which […] View the full article

Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday security bulletin includes 62 fixes for vulnerabilities tied to Office, SBM1 and the Windows DNS client. View the full article

Microsoft patched three memory corruption vulnerabilities in the Windows DNS client that could be abused by a man-in-the-middle attacker to run arbitrary code. View the full article

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/10/10/stop-calling-users-noobs-and-idiots/ … View the full article

Creativity is a finite resource and something that needs to be managed properly and replenished at regular intervals before it’s used up. If creativity is our currency, we need to make sure we spend it correctly. But, with projects coming thick and fast for creative professionals, how can we do this? We all know a colleague who ignored the ‘red light’ signal until they drained themselves and crashed. If this happens, either your work quality will drop off or you'll start drawing blanks in client meetings. It takes a long time to recharge and recover from that. Having a system for idea generation is vital, while taking a break and soaking up the world around you is just as important. With that in mind, here are some tips for avoiding creative burnout. 01. Be a sponge Creatives need to act like sponges. They need to soak up what’s around them all the time. You never know what will be useful. Now, this isn’t a moan about there being less time to get work done. In fact, many talented creatives thrive in fast-paced, high-pressure environments. But when you’re taking projects from brief to roll-out as quickly as we do, it’s important to understand how your creative process works. So, in the interest of self-preservation and sanity I’ve learned to identify the ‘trigger points’ that spark creativity in myself. Some of what works for me may either be obvious or counter-productive to other people, but the point is being able to turn creativity into a process allows me to be more effective and efficient at work, without unnecessarily exhausting myself. 02. Go big I never think about ‘the project’ when I start working on an idea. I go straight for the wildest ideas with no regard for cost or practicality and then work back from there. Once you’ve explored the outrageously crazy ideas, then daring ideas seem much more realistic. 03. Zone out My best ideas come when I’m not really thinking about the idea itself and I’m left to my own devices. It can be a tough ask when you’re in the middle of a meeting and everyone’s staring at you, but letting your mind wander can really help. There’s evidence that being tired can help creative problem solving too, as your inhibitions are down. 04. Be social Having someone to bounce ideas off is invaluable. Firstly, physically speaking your ideas out loud forces you to examine them closely. And secondly, another person can stop you going off on strange tangents that take you further and further from the brief. 05. Bring on the wall Like bouncing ideas off someone, putting your thoughts onto a wall lets you stand back and examine what works together and what doesn’t. Elements that don’t fit can either be tweaked or removed altogether. It’s becoming a designer cliché to stick design work up on the wall and scratch your chin, but it really does work. Just don’t photograph it happening. 06. Restrict yourself I like to know what the boundaries are. “What can’t we do?” is one of the first things I’ll ask. A restriction gives you a framework to work within and, occasionally, a barrier to break down. 07. Ask questions It might sound silly but I interview myself about my ideas. I have a list of around 50 questions ranging from “How does this meet the client’s needs?” to “Have I seen this done before?” I don’t just mull these over in my head, either. I write down answers to each question. If there’s an answer I don’t like I go back to the concept and work on it. It’s a little Jekyll & Hyde but it really helps. Related articles: Can pro artists achieve mindfulness through art? How to balance money and happiness as a designer Doodle art: 52 great examples View the full article

Justinmind is a prototyping platform that lets you design digital products without messing around with code – and it has just introduced an intuitive new interface that should put designers and developers on the same page at last. By adding Justinmind into their workflow, UX and UI designers can make their prototypes developer-friendly and ensure what they design is translated into the final product, with no miscommunications. The new interface includes a design inspector where developers can download assets, grab CSS styles and see all the information they need to start coding. What's more, Justinmind understands how developers think – screens are displayed in tree mode, to make them easier to understand and work with. Take a look at the video below, or read on to find out more. So how does Justinmind make things easier for developers? First up, it enables UI designers to pack graphical assets in a way that makes sense as part of the development workflow. Developers can see and copy all the CSS styles and UI element locations required to put the design together, and they can also download any necessary graphical elements. Secondly, it makes it simple for developers and designs to start collaborating early on in the prototyping process. In Justinmind, UX/UI designers can share prototypes for others to comment on. Not sure if your idea will be effective (or even possible) in reality? Share it with the dev team and ask for their thoughts before you waste hours designing it in detail. Finally, with Justinmind, you can add as many developer role users as you want, for free. That means you can make sure the whole team is on board, from brief to shipping. Download Justinmind now to streamline your prototyping workflow and remove the barrier between design and development. View the full article

The past 24 hours has been a thrilling time for any Star Wars fans looking forward to Episode 8: The Last Jedi. Not only was the final trailer for the movie unleashed – revealing some exciting spoilers and along the way, so view it (below) with care – but to get everyone even more pumped, Disney also unveiled the official poster, and it's packed with things to talk about. Created in-house at Disney, the poster's a visual symphony in red, and it suggests that things are likely to get bloody in the second part of the third Star Wars trilogy. That's not a great surprise if the series is following a similar arc to the original trilogy, which would make The Last Jedi equivalent to The Empire Strikes Back, when things got really dark in the Star Wars universe. Disney's art team has done a fine job of cramming in as many characters as possible as per its favoured glossy composite classic movie poster design. There's Rey (Daisy Ridley), wielding a lightsaber, opposite confused emo bad guy Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) with his overblown weapon. We're delighted to see General Leia Organa right in the centre for what's going to be her final Star Wars appearance since Carrie Fisher sadly died last year, and she's surrounded by a host of other characters including Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and creepy General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), plus old favourites Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO. Spot the big similarityTowering above them all, though, is a hooded and grim-looking Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), and it's an interesting compositional choice. If you go back to the original Star Wars trilogy and look at the poster for The Empire Strikes Back, who will you find in a similar position? None other than arch Star Wars baddie and (spoiler) Luke's dad, Darth Vader. We're sure it's a deliberate choice on the part of Disney's designers; you'll have to draw your own conclusions as to what it might mean, though. We're sure the trailer might give you a little more food for thought, so if you've missed it so far today, here it is. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out on 15 December 2017. Related articles: Star Wars artist on how to land that dream job 5 striking Star Wars posters 30 stunning poster designs to inspire you View the full article

If you’re a 2D designer or illustrator who’d love to move into 3D but feel intimidated by 3D software, you’ll be interested in Cineware for Illustrator – a brand new Illustrator plugin that enables users to add and edit 3D objects directly inside Adobe Illustrator CC. Get Adobe Creative CloudCreated by MAXON, Cineware for Illustrator uses the same powerful 3D engine as the developer's other 3D modelling, animation, painting and rendering solution, Cinema 4D. The new plugin marks a welcome addition for artists and designers who regularly work with 3D art , creating a faster, more flexible workflow. Here's how it works: users can import any Cinema 4D file and tweak the view, lighting and textures to integrate 3D elements with 2D design. Alternatively, you can use 3D elements as templates when creating vector artwork in Illustrator CC All this means you can now complete a wealth of 3D tasks in Illustrator. These include visualising objects like product labels, incorporating rich 3D content into Illustrator compositions, and even arranging 3D elements as guides for form and perspective when creating vector artwork. Is this a Project Felix killer? One key difference between Cineware for Illustrator and Project Felix – Adobe’s simplified 3D app for graphic designers and illustrators – is that with Maxon’s plugin, you don’t have to leave the app for rendering. With Project Felix, when you’ve finished your design you’ll need to render your design into a high-quality asset that can be opened in Photoshop CC or Illustrator CC (and so on) to refine further. If you change your mind about part of the design - or the client requests a new edit - it’s back into the app to amend the changes, which you’ll, have to render out again. With Cineware for Illustrator, you import a Cinema 4D file in Illustrator, where you can rotate, zoom and position the 3D Object – and even change cameras, textures or light sources – directly in Illustrator. When you’re satisfied with the result, you can render your image directly in Illustrator. Changes can be made at any time and the image will re-render automatically. A jump start into 3D The creation of Cineware for Illustrator is the result of a partnership between MAXON and TurboSquid, the leading online source for 3D models. TurboSquid hopes that its input will give users of the plugin a "jump start" into the third dimension, thanks to a collection of ready-to-use 3D models. Users of Cinema 4D will also be able to create and share their own custom 3D content for use in Illustrator CC. “Cinema 4D has long offered a fantastic, easy-to-learn toolset for product visualisation and graphic design,” says Harald Egel, managing partner at MAXON. “With Cineware for Illustrator we’re making both the Cinema 4D toolset and 3D in general more accessible to designers, and plan to develop this workflow even further in the future.” Cineware for Illustrator features The tool makes it easy to imagine how 3D products, like packaging, could lookThe main features of Cineware for Illustrator include: 3D objects - Rotate, position and show/hide individual 3D objects from any Cinema 4D scene, all within Illustrator CC. Materials - Adjust the colour, reflection, luminance, transparency, and bump directly within Illustrator CC. Users can even apply vector artwork to the surface of 3D models. Cameras - Switch between preset cameras or use simple navigation tools to choose preferred viewing angles. Lights - Enable or disable lights, and change their colour to set a mood and emphasise shapes. Integrated workflow - Easily remove the background by choosing the automatically created alpha map so 3D elements can be integrated into existing vector artwork. Cineware for Illustrator is available at no cost for macOS and Windows 10 through the MAXON website. For Illustrator CC users that desire a rich, full-features 3D content creation experience, MAXON offers an attractive upgrade path to Cinema 4D. Related articles: 100 amazing Adobe Illustrator tutorials 30 free 3D models Adobe CC 3D tips for graphic designers View the full article

Web developers keep the gears turning on all of our favourite applications and sites. It's a job that is as important as it can be rewarding and creative. If you want to get in on this exciting field, grab the Ultimate Front End Developer Bundle. You can get it now for just $39 (approx £30), which is a massive 96% off the full retail price of $1,016. For any aspiring web developer, the Ultimate Front End Developer Bundle is the perfect place to start learning. This collection of eight professionally-taught courses will teach you how to understand and code with the most important languages in web development, from JavaScript to HTML5 and CSS3. You'll finally be able to bring your dream designs to life as you work through 48 hours of actionable lessons. You can get the Ultimate Front End Developer Bundle on sale for just $39 (approx £30), 96% off the retail price. That’s a massive amount of savings on a bundle that could help you launch a new career, so grab this deal today. About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com Related articles: An introduction to frontend testing 3 handy Chrome extensions for frontend developers 25 top-class website templates View the full article

We all know about the therapeutic benefits of creativity. Most of us, at some point, have experienced the sensation of becoming so immersed in a creative act that the world, and our worries, have melted away. Indeed, for many people, mindful drawing and colouring is an effective practice for achieving a focused, meditative state. But what about when you’re a professional artist? Can art still function as a vehicle for mindfulness or wellbeing when you’ve been drawing, painting or creating all day? What can artists do to escape when it all gets a bit much? Our article by Tom Manning of D&AD on How to balance money and happiness has useful everyday wellbeing advice for creatives, but here we'll delve into the art of creative mindfulness, with insights from professional artists on how they look after their mental health. Achieving inner peace "When you’re working to a brief it can be stressful to try to kerb your ideas and style to fit certain criteria," explains concept artist Izzy Burton. "You have to keep checks on yourself, which can break the flow." “I’m still looking for the perfect activity to release stress,” says Francesco MazzaLondon-based Francesco Mazza had a similar experience. "I started my career as a concept artist because of the mindfulness I experienced when I was drawing. After a few years of doing it as a professional, though, I’ve realised that drawing isn’t such an effective way to achieve mindfulness, because most of the time you have to meet the clients’ needs." Lately, Mazza has been working on personal projects in his spare time in an attempt to recreate a sense of inner peace. And it’s working. "I feel that this is the best way to escape from the pressure of a hectic life," he says. Toronto-based artist Bobby Chiu agrees that client work is often the source of stress. He also points out that far from being a guaranteed gateway to a meditative state, sometimes the creative process can be difficult and stress-inducing. Spring is Coming is one of the first images Bobby Chiu created after coming out of an 'artistic slump'"I've always found the initial steps of a painting or concept to be the most mentally tiring, because you have so many different things to think about and coincide. The stress comes when I have a creative task to accomplish, but I can’t seem to find an idea that I really like, and the deadline is looming." However, it’s a different story when it comes to execution. "If I just have to spend the rest of the day rendering something like fur on a creature or foliage, it can feel quite meditative," he says. "That’s when hours can go by in what feels like minutes. I usually leave these kind of tasks till the end of the day when I’m already a bit tired." To deal with stress, Chiu often goes jogging. He also practises the Wim Hof Method. "It’s a combination of breathing exercises, yoga, stretching, meditation and cold therapy," he says. "It’s quite refreshing." A mental refresher For Blue Zoo director and storyboard artist Chris Drew, swimming three or four times a week offers a similar mental release. "All I can focus on when I’m in the water is my breathing and my technique," he says. As a director he’s involved in every aspect of a production, which often means having several things to deal with at once. At times, this can feel overwhelming. He advises trying to focus on one thing at a time. "Multitasking isn’t a productive way to work," he adds, "so I try to finish one thing before moving onto another." An elf from 2015 Blue Zoo short More Stuff, which animator Simone Giampaolo directedSwiss animator Simone Giampaolo finds drawing on paper particularly effective for escaping reality. He says that switching everything off for an hour or so – phone, computer, tablet – and creating tangible art enables him to reach a state of mindfulness similar to meditating or dreaming. "In fact, after a few hours of addictive drawing I feel a little dizzy, like after a long sleep, but happier and more inspired than before starting. I come up with the best ideas for shorts or stories during or immediately after drawing or building something." Be aware of the here and now "Artistic escapism is great," agrees Dr Danny Penman, a qualified meditation teacher, journalist and author. "Creating something new is deeply satisfying and wonderfully therapeutic, but it’s important to avoid spending all of your time living in a mental fantasy world," he points out. Penman’s new book, The Art of Breathing, provides a guide to practising mindfulness, which he says is the single biggest thing an artist can do to enhance overall wellbeing. "My art style is fluid and sketchy," says Izzy Burton. "I like the energy that it has."Better still, mindfulness can be extremely good for boosting your creativity. To see how this works, Penman suggests taking a step back and asking yourself: What do I need to do to become more creative? He believes it requires three things: "First, you need to cultivate an open mind that can gather and then integrate new ideas. Second, you need to consciously notice the new ideas created by your mind and realise their significance – otherwise they’ll pass you by. And third, you need the courage to follow your ideas wherever they should lead – and the resilience to cope with the inevitable setbacks." Penman walks through a number of meditations and exercises in his 2015 book, Mindfulness for Creativity, which aims to help artists achieve all three objectives. Open your mind One creative who practises mindfulness is vis-dev and concept artist Almu Redondo. She says mindfulness is key to having an open mind and looking at the world in an objective way – which is what being an artist is all about. “Be open and curious about the world,” advises Almu Redondo"In both my personal and professional work, I purposely look for that mindful moment in my brain in which everything flows and is relaxed, but is also focused and receptive at the same time," Redondo says, adding that music, routine and exercise all help her achieve this state. "Have patience," she advises. "Everything comes if you put in the hard work – and remember to try to enjoy yourself while doing art." Burton agrees. "We do art because we love it. If you find yourself becoming stressed, take a step back and relax. Find a new way to approach art that doesn’t stress you out. I’ve found physical painting with acrylics helps me stay creative and calm when my digital work gets too stressful. That’s my meditation." This article was originally published in ImagineFX issue 151. Subscribe here. Read more: 26 books every graphic designer should read How Tove Jansson and the Moomins continue to inspire Doodle art: 52 great examples View the full article

When approaching a model or scene that requires the refined modelling offered by sculpting, many 3D artists might assume this would be best achieved in a dedicated sculpting application. However, this may not be the best route because many of the leading 3D applications have their own sculpting workflow. This is true for Cinema 4D, which has an impressive sculpting platform, especially when mixed with BodyPaint, Cinema 4D’s 3D painting toolset. The sculpting toolset in Cinema 4D offers all the core features that most sculpting tasks will need, including symmetry, wax, and a non-destructive layer system, which is a powerful tool for managing the detail and additions in a sculpt. There is also the ability to project a sculpted mesh onto another one. This enables versioning of topology from an initial sculpt, alongside a robust baking toolset, which can create normal and displacement maps from a sculpt to use on a low-poly mesh. This is particularly useful for game asset creation. It isn’t just the tools that make the Sculpt workflow in Cinema 4D so refined; it has its own dedicated layout as well as the ability to customise an interface to the artist’s liking, while working with other workflows such as dynamics and animation. The Soloing function within Cinema 4D can be really useful for isolating a sculpted object in a scene to modify it. The fact that a sculpt can be tweaked while in the middle of an animation task is a potentially huge time-saver when compared to using an external sculpting application. Couple this with the financial saving of not having to buy another sculpting application, and it’s clear that if any sculpting needs to be done, the tools that Cinema 4D offers may well be all that is needed. 01. Prepare the base mesh Preparation makes all the difference (Click on the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this image) As with any 3D art, preparation is key. Before sculpting, ensure the base mesh has polygons of similar size over its surface. Doing this means that sculpting tools will flow consistently with no stretching of brush strokes. Having a polygon flow like this for the base mesh also means that when textures are baked from the finished sculpt, they should reapply to the base mesh reliably. 02. Subdivide the model Cinema 4D has a Sculpt layout (Click on the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this image) Switch to the Sculpt layout using the Layout dropdown. This reconfigures the Cinema 4D interface to present a toolset best suited for sculpting. Make sure that the base mesh is selected and press the Subdivide button to start increasing the amount of non-destructive subdivision levels upon which you can sculpt. A Sculpt Tag is added to the mesh in the Object Manager. To stop a rectangular object turning into a blob when subdividing, press the cog beside the Subdvide tag to reduce the Smoothness options. 03. Start sculpting Add layers to work with when sculpting, and use the Pull tool to, erm, pull (Click on the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this image) Although it is possible to jump in and just start sculpting straight away, if you want to keep organised it is a good idea to work with the sculpting layers system. Press the Add Layer button. With this new layer highlighted and renamed, select the Pull tool and start sculpting. Use the Ctrl/Cmd key to invert the pull to make gouges. The size and pressure can be adjusted in the Attributes palette, as can symmetry control and the ability to control pressure and size with a tablet. 04. Use masks Add images such as text on to your sculpt as masks (Click on the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this image) Images can be used for a range of tasks within the sculpting workflow, such as creating embossed text. Select the Mask tool and in the Stencil tab of the Attributes palette, import a black-and-white text bitmap. Apply this as a mask to the sculpted object. Once the mask is painted on, use sculpting tools such as the Pull and Smooth tool to create the embossed text. 05. Add noise and details Noise and details such as cracks add realism to your sculpts (Click on the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this image) Cinema 4D’s sculpting workflow has many ways to add noise and details to a sculpt. In the Settings tab of a sculpting tool, press the Brush Preset Load button (all the brushes are also available in the Content Browser). There is a choice of custom brushes, from noise to cracks, which are great for adding detail. Bitmaps can also be used, and materials are useful for bespoke noise brushes. 06. Bake the sculpt Bake out normal and displacement maps (Click on the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this image) When the sculpt is finished, use the Bake tool to bake out normal and displacement maps that are mapped back onto a base mesh to provide a low polygon asset that can be exported to other 3D applications or game engines. These assets also require fewer resources, so will improve viewport performance. When using the Bake Sculpt Objects tool, Cinema 4D creates a new low-poly mesh with all the correct maps applied and hides the sculpted object, finishing off a clean and simple approach to sculpting. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 226. Buy it here. Related articles: Make realistic plants in Cinema 4D 14 essential Cinema 4D plugins 30 inspiring examples of 3D art View the full article

One of the hardest challenges facing all artists is making the time to knuckle down to work. In an interview with Pascal Champion in issue 154 of ImagineFX magazine, the artist reveals how his workflow has changed over the years, and how unexpected events have made him more productive. Maybe his life story will inspire you to make changes and get on with creating amazing art? Buy issue 154 of ImagineFX here! Also inside issue 154, you'll find plenty of inspiration with our workshops, studio tours and artist profiles. There's also a host of incredible art from our readers to get your creative juices flowing – and don't forget, we're always open for submissions from our readers! Explore the headline features for the latest issue of ImagineFX by scrolling through the images below. Click here to subscribe to ImagineFX Art experts give you the lowdown on your burning questionsNot sure how to communicate a character's personality to your audience quickly? Or perhaps you don't know how to lip-sync your character with audio? You'll find the answers to these tricky conundrums and more thanks to the expert help in our Artist Q&A. Cracking feature, Gromit!We take a trip to the legendary Aardman Animations studio to meet the creative team behind such legendary characters as Morph, Wallace and Gromit, and Shaun the Sheep, to discover how its work ethos makes its famous creations possible. Bring your art to life with a splash of colourThe man behind our radiant cover, Randy Bishop, shows us how he makes use of clean lines, layer modes and lighting to create colour illustrations that seem to leap off the page. Discover how he did it with this workshop. Lovely weather for ducksWhat could be more perfect for the dank autumnal weather than this moody illustration tutorial? (Apologies to our readers in the southern hemisphere enjoying warmer climes.) In this workshop, Pascal Campion reveals how to use a scene to create a story thanks to characters, lighting, and focal points. Master another artistic medium with this core skills workshopGouache is an incredibly versatile medium that has all the advantages of watercolour, yet can be built up in opaque layers. To help you get to grips with gouache, Laura Bifano demonstrates the importance of edge control using four basic techniques to paint clouds. Related articles: 20 best iPad art apps for painting and sketching How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorials 10 incredible online art schools View the full article