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Easy to use and with a number of creative tools under its belt, Affinity Designer is a great alternative to Adobe Illustrator. So, if you're working on a new logo design, for example, it has everything you need to create a unique and striking design. In this tutorial, I will show you how to go retro, using gradients and layer effects to create a 1980s-style logotype in Affinity Designer. More info on Affinity Designer 01. Set up your base text Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot First, create a new document (Cmd+N) giving yourself enough space for your typography. Select the rectangle tool (M) and draw in a black background. The Fill and Stroke tool can be found top right of the interface. Select the Artistic Text tool (T) and set your copy. Type a decent slab sans serif and script font to get the 80s feel (check out our best free fonts for designers post for inspiration). 02. Add a gradient Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot To get this 80s look, the majority of the design is put together with gradients. In this case, I've used: one for the sky, one for the horizon, one for the outline, and one for the neon copy. To create gradients in Designer, it's easy. Simply select your object and click the Fill tool, and a window will appear below, then select the Gradient tab. To add more colours to your gradient just double click along the gradient line. 03. Customise the gradient Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot To save your gradient, click the Swatch tab below the gradient window. Next to the drop-down colour menu there's a small palette icon. Click this. To change the direction of your gradient, select the Fill tool (G), this will bring up a guide that'll allow you to move it around. 04. Draw in some shapes Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot For the horizon, select the Pen tool (p) and draw a ragged line across the middle of the text. Create a shape that fills the bottom half of the type, then add your purple gradient. Next, simply cut (Cmd+X), make sure your Text has been selected, then paste inside (Cmd+Alt+V). If you need to move this shape inside the type, click the arrow next to the layer in the layer window, and the shape to select and move should open below. 05. Add a sheen Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot To add a gradient to the stroke of the type, click the Stroke tool, in the top right of the interface, then add the alternating black and white outline gradient. To change the direction of the outline gradient, select the fill tool (G), to get to the outline. In the top-left there's a Context drop-down menu, change this from Fill to Stroke. For the effect, we need to go from corner to corner to give the look of a sheen. 06. Make the neon glow Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot For the neon part, add a dark pink to a light pink gradient, then select the FX icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This will bring up your layer effects window. Here's where we're gong to add an outer glow and the bevel/emboss effect. For the outer glow, keep the blend mode on screen and alter the 'radius and intensity' to get the desired effect. Giving it a mid pink colour will help finish off the effect. 07. Adjust the colours Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot Once you've ticked the bevel/emboss box, make sure the bevel type is set to 'inner'. Altering the 'radius and soften' will give you the edge while tweaking the light direction, and 'highlight and show colour' should add the details. I've given the highlight an off pink/white tone, and the shadow a deep purple. 08. Decorate with flares Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot For the flares, draw two ellipses with the Ellipses tool (M), one bigger than the other. Next add a Gaussian blur layer effect with the FX icon, making the bigger one more blurred that the smaller one. Using the Shift key, select them both and place them on top of each other. It's a good idea to group (Cmd+G) them at this point. Copy (Cmd+C) as many as you need and move them to the white parts of the outline to give the sheen effect. 09. Create a shape to accompany the text Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot Selecting the Triangle tool, draw a triangle and use middle anchor point to rotate it 180 degrees. Once done, draw five rectangles (M) evenly spacing them apart and combine them together with the Add icon, a blue circle and square together in the top right corner of the interface. Then selecting both the triangle and the rectangle, subtract them using the icon next to the Add icon. Once filled with a dark blue, you might need to move the shape behind the main logo. You can do this using (CmD+[) and (Cmd+]) to move it a layer back and forth. 10. Overlay some noise Click the arrows icon (top right) to enlarge this screenshot To add the finishing touches, we'll apply some noise. The easiest way of doing this is to draw a rectangle over the whole logo and fill with white. When you click the fill tool (in this case to the left), select the Colour tab. At the bottom, there's an opacity slider, if you click the small circle next to it, it'll change to a noise slider. Slide this to add as much noise as you want. All you need to do now it change the layer blend mode from normal to Multiply. Job done. Related articles: How to draw with Affinity Photo for iPad 10 iconic examples of Memphis design 5 logo design trends for 2018 View the full article

Leave your preconceptions at the door: when you don't have the time or the budget to commission bespoke photography or illustration for your design project, quality stock assets can be the perfect solution. Success depends on being smart with how, when and why you choose to use stock. It's not always the right solution: complete control can sometimes be crucial, as can guaranteeing originality and standout from competitors who could, after all, purchase the same asset for themselves. But pick the right scenario, and use it wisely, and stock can save you time and money that you can then spend on other aspects of the project. Here we've got advice for four such scenarios, and how to get the most from each of them... First, there are three simple best-practice guidelines to follow whatever the task: To start, if originality is key – and it really should be – then it can be wise to avoid the most popular downloads, as by definition they'll crop up more regularly elsewhere. Secondly, make sure you download the image at a suitably high resolution for your purposes. Don't be tempted to cut corners, as it'll limit your options and risk undermining the rest of the project. And thirdly, steer away from well-trodden, obvious visual territory. That goes for pure cliches like hand-shaking businessmen or beaming call-centre glamour models, but also almost any unnaturally 'posed' shots, or subjects staring down the camera lens. Context and relevance is everything. Now those are out of the way, let's get more specific... 01. Sourcing supplementary photography for a brochure This brochure about biodiversity in the Royal Parks demonstrates how photography can help give a design real wow factor If you're working on a brochure design or other print design for a client, sometimes bespoke brand imagery is the only course of action – especially if they have the budget to art direct a full shoot. This is true where specific products or people are required, but also where a unique and consistent brand voice is key. Stock assets can be incredibly useful for supplementary photography, however. Not necessarily the hero images that grace the cover or lead a section, but when it comes to backgrounds, general mood shots or more abstract representational imagery they can help convey a mood or feeling for a fraction of the cost. Consider the context and relevance of the photo you're using. Don't just use supplementary photography for the sake of it, to fill space or jazz up a spread for aesthetic reasons alone. Ensure it fits with the look and feel of any commissioned material you may have – after all, the beauty of stock is you can manipulate and treat it however you like. For instance, a brochure for a running shoe brand that embodies a carefree, aspirational attitude might have use for an open road cutting through breathtaking mountain scenery, while an adventure travel company might need grittier, more elemental location shots. An organic artisan cafe would be better suited to arty, macro images of all-natural ingredients, while a bank could benefit from visual metaphors for security or trust that are less painfully obvious than a locked safe – or it could be a brand that bucks the trend in search of a more emotional connection with its customers. Take the time to search for less obvious stock options; it really is worth it. Check out our articles on 5 ways to use imagery to create better branding and Where to find unusual images for your design projects for more ideas. 02. Adding depth and texture to your artwork Created for a Computer Arts magazine tutorial, this image by illustrator Jeffrey Bowman demonstrates how texture can add depth Stock assets don't have to be front and centre: they can make life easier for you behind the scenes as well. While the ever-growing trend for authenticity means some designers favour hand-made textures – and they can add a beautifully artisanal twist to your work – the brutal reality is that sometimes there just isn't time to indulge in scanning your mark-making experiments into Photoshop. Stock textures and patterns can give flat digital artwork extra depth and character quickly, cheaply and easily – without the same concerns about uniqueness or originality you might have with stock photography. By the time they're worked into the artwork and combined with other textures, it's much less of an issue if another designer has downloaded the same files. Consider versatility and resolution – vectors will always give you the most flexibility, although bitmap textures are more realistic – and test the construction of the pattern. If it's a texture that you're using over a large area, does it feel suitably 'random' and natural when stitched together and repeated? Value is another consideration: in some cases it may be quicker to create a simple pattern or texture yourself, rather than searching through stock options. Pick your battles, and invest wisely. 03. Incorporating graphic elements into a campaign New York studio Vault49 created this complex double-sided poster for Computer Arts Collection, using iStock vector assets Painstaking creation of smaller assets and design elements for a project is unlikely to be the best use of your time, particularly if you're a freelancer without a team of eager juniors to whom you can outsource such tasks while you focus on the big stuff. When it comes to collage work, using stock assets is well-trodden territory – nobody has the time or money to shoot every element of a complex photomontage composition from scratch. But when it comes to vector elements, some designers may be more reticent. Don't be. Say you're tasked with designing a series of banner ads for a campaign in a graphic, vector style, but you don't have the budget to commission an illustrator. You need the look and feel to be unique, and have created various assets already – but the task as a whole seems insurmountable. Stock can be a great way to supplement your own creations. Once you start trawling stock libraries, choice can be difficult as the range of subject matter is enormous: unlike photography, after all, it's limited only by the imagination of the contributors. Again, pick your battles and source stock vectors that match the look and feel of the rest of your project. That could include stylistic features such as quality of linework, level of realism or use of colour, or more abstract qualities such as wit or whimsy. Remember, as with stock textures and patterns you can break stock illustration apart into its component parts. Consider how assets can be used in different ways in the design – layered files make this simpler – to ensure you get the best value possible from your investment. 04. Developing UI elements for your digital designs Icons and UI elements are available as themed packs of vector assets, such as these examples from iStock Over and above textures and illustrative elements, a third category of vector stock asset can prove invaluable for frontend web and app designers working on smaller details such as buttons, icons, widgets and UI elements – whether it's for early mockups and beta versions, or the final design. Vector elements can often be downloaded as a ready-made package to make life as easy as possible for all involved, but customisation is important to avoid giving your app or website a stagnant, identikit look and feel. If your stock UI elements have a pared-back, flat design feel, this may be as simple as tweaking the colour palette to match the look and feel of your project. Resist the temptation to do it the other way around, and design around the stock assets. If your assets are more stylised and characterful, be wary of using them as they are as they may end up feeling bolted on. Keep an eye on distinguishing features such as shapes, edges, shadows or gradients, which may be consistent within the asset pack you've downloaded, but could stand out for all the wrong reasons if they jar with the look of your project as a whole. As with all of the other scenarios above, setting the time aside to search carefully for the perfect assets will still likely be quicker than creating everything from scratch yourself. You might like these related articles: How to use images more effectively in web design 12 essential tools for graphic designers in 2018 How to use images more effectively in annual reports View the full article

Expert artists share their figure drawing advice in the latest issue of ImagineFX magazine - out now! Drawing the human form is one of the most important skills an artist can dedicate their time to. Thanks to everyone's familiarity with how people look, viewers can easily spot if an arm appears too long or if the muscles don't seem right. To help readers take their anatomy art to the next level, we hear advice and tips from expert illustrators. Buy issue 158 of ImagineFX here Elsewhere in issue 158 we pay a visit to science fiction, fantasy and horror illustrator Bob Eggleton to see how he transformed his bedroom into a studio. We also catch up with French sculptor Romain Van den Bogaert and learn how he carved out his niche career. And of course, there's also all the latest news, reviews, and reader's art in our FXPose section, so make sure you don't miss ImagineFX magazine issue 158! Check out what's in store with a look at the lead features, below. Never miss an issue: Subscribe to ImagineFX here Kick-start your Kickstarter Get your project off the ground with this expert advice Crowdfunding is an increasingly popular way for artists to get their idea off the ground and out into the world. Just look at Lois van Baarle who smashed her target by hundreds of thousands of pounds. Discover if crowdfunding is right for you, and how to run a successful campaign, with these expert tips. Artist interview: Julie Bell The US illustrator talks about the problem with women in fantasy art Specialising in fantasy, westerns, wildlifes, nudes, and many other genres besides, Julie Bell is a prolific and varied artist. We talk to her about wolves, bodybuilding, and how female nudity in art is always dependant on context. Sketchbook insights Explore the amazing sketchbook art of Anna Dittmann What could be more tantalising than taking a look inside an artist's sketchbook to discover how they work? This issue we take a peek into the pages of Anna Dittmann's sketchbooks to discover how her stunning life drawings take shape. Anatomy advice Feast your eyes on ten pages of helpful anatomy advice from Stan Prokopenko When it comes to drawing the human form, it's important to remember that there are lots of rules to follow. After all, the human eye is well versed in looking at the human body so it will spot a mistake a mile off. Illustrator Stan Prokopenko shares his expert advice for drawing the human form in these 24 tips. Charcoal workshop Nathan Fowkes shares how to harness light and shadows with charcoal Understanding how light works is important when it comes to making people and scenes look believable. Animator Nathan Fowkes explores how to use light and shade to convey form in this traditional art workshop for charcoals. Related articles: 10 sketching tips for beginners How to quickly sketch hands Create a fast and anatomically correct sketch View the full article

ASUS patched a bug that allowed attackers to pair two vulnerabilities to gain direct router access and execute commands as root. View the full article

Dueling browsers, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, have patched bugs and beefed up security. View the full article

When light strikes a metallic object, it can reflect back onto any nearby object in an unusual way. Normally, light hitting a primary and secondary object gives varying degrees of light, shadow and cast shadows, but reflective light also happens under these circumstances, and will need to be shown in your artwork. 10 expert tips for charcoal drawing To demonstrate the drawing techniques to make this work, I have produced the images above, working with a dark charcoal pencil and an eraser. 01. Place your objects in light Position your objects to make the most of the highly lit and shadowed areas Select interesting objects – such as this highly polished metallic teapot and a ceramic vase – and place them with light catching one side so you can carefully observe the highly lit and shadowed areas. Then draw basic shapes with a charcoal pencil, trying to represent these reasonably accurately, although adjustments can be made later. 02. Get shading Shading the metallic object is where the fun starts Shade the object in direct light first – here the ceramic pot to the left – observing the deeper and lighter values. Then move on to shade the object in its shadow – here the metallic object. It was important to really concentrate on the depth of the cast shadow from the ceramic pot as it struck the left side of the metallic one, here. The deepening of the shadow to the right of the metallic pot follows conventional rules of light and shadow. 03. Add some shadows Add ground shadows to bring your objects down to Earth The objects appear to be almost floating in space at this stage, so need grounding. Shade the shadows cast by the objects as they fall to the right across the table top, thus sitting the objects on a solid base. 04. Blend and soften Use an eraser to highlight areas where light is reflected off the metallic object Using a charcoal eraser, rub out sections of reflections and – here we rubbed out from the already shaded right side of the vase, where the light was reflected back from the teapot. You can see how this is of secondary importance compared to the other highlighted area. Finally, blend some areas using your finger to soften the transition of tonal variances on the vase for effect. This article was originally published in issue 13 of Paint & Draw, the magazine offering tips and inspiration for artists everywhere. Buy issue 13 here. Related articles: How to choose the right drawing tools Pencil drawing in 6 simple steps How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorials View the full article

It’s difficult to know, most of the time, how much big companies really spend on logo designs and redesigns. Few firms are willing to share figures, and even if they do, it’s difficult to distinguish the cost of designing the logo from the cost of the rebrand as a whole, which can include marketing, advertising and other associated costs. But while we can’t list “the most expensive logos in history” (because we don’t definitively know the top five, and in truth, neither does anyone else), it’s interesting to look at examples where companies have spent vast sums on their logos, and whether they were worth it. In this post, we look at five famous examples of expensive logos, and pull out some lessons we can learn from them. 01. BP In 2008, the sunflower-style BP logo (right) replaced the old shield logo (left) In 2000, BP paid an awful lot of money for a new logo. According to The Daily Telegraph, it cost a whopping £4.6 million just to design the logo, while the overall cost of the rebranding came in at £136 million (including the cost of rebranding stationery, van liveries and manufacturing plants). The project, led by Landor Associates in 2000, saw the replacement of the old ‘shield’ logo with a new one designed specifically to promote “BP’s position as an environmental leader and its goal of moving beyond the petroleum sector”, as the company began to invest in alternative energy. According to Landor: “A stylised sunflower symbolizes the sun’s energy, while the colour green reflects the brand’s environmental sensitivity.” The new logo attracted much ridicule from environmental campaigners, most of whom saw BP’s new interest in green energy as a smokescreen for continuing to promote fossil fuels. Later, Greenpeace even crowd-sourced a parody version featuring a bird stuck in an oil slick. The cost of the rebranding exercise was also lambasted by the UK press at the time, in light of a continuing series of price hikes at petrol stations. However, the case study on Landor’s website offers a different take on the project. Rather than focusing on what the public thought of BP’s revamped logo, it talks more about the internal institutional reaction to the new branding. Landor trained more than 1,400 brand champions in 19 countries on the promise of ‘Beyond Petroleum’. As a result, “nine months after launch, 97 per cent of BP employees were aware of the brand idea, and 9 out of 10 agreed that BP was heading in the right direction”. In short, the tone of the case study suggests BP was less interested in convincing the public that it was becoming greener, and more interested in convincing its own staff. And that puts a completely different spin on how you view the success of the new logo design. Lesson learned: Before you judge a logo, think about who its real audience is. It might, for example, be more targeted towards influencing employees, stakeholders or investors than consumers. 02. CitiBank This 1998 logo was created after the merger of Citicorp and Travellers Group to form CitiBank The CitiBank logo was designed in 1998 by well-known designer Paula Scher of Pentagram, when industry giants Citicorp and Travellers Group merged to create the world’s largest financial services firm. That the bank paid the princely sum of $1.5 million for this design (part of a near-$10 million for the branding as a whole) is not so surprising. With assets under management of $700bn, its pockets were deep enough. But what was controversial is that the logo they received was based on a sketch Scher did on the back of napkin. During their first meeting. In around 10 minutes. Scher’s quick sketch formed the basis of CitiBank’s $1.5 million logo “My best work is kind of big, bold strokes that come very quickly,” she explains in this video interview. “And it’s problematic because a lot of clients like to ‘buy process’ and they don’t think they’re getting their money’s worth, like I sold it too fast. ‘How can it be that you talk to someone and it’s done in a second?’ But it is done in a second – and 34 years.” In other words, drawing on those 34 years of experience meant that Scher could sidestep months of ‘process’ and produce the perfect basis for a logo design in an instant. Certainly, in all meaningful ways, Citibank got their money’s worth. The now-globally recognisable logo has been in place for the whole of the century so far, and shows no signs of needing to be replaced. Lesson learned: The economic value of a logo design lies not in how long it took to produce, but how well it works. Scher’s example highlights how experienced and talented designers can help shortcut the process and still obtain great results, and there’s no shame in being paid accordingly. 03. The City of Belfast The City of Belfast logo cost a reported £180,000 In 2008, the City of Belfast commissioned a new logo, but the process was longer and more involved than originally expected. It took a reported 15 months and £180,000 to create the new logo, designed by brand consultancy Lloyd Northover, along with £250,000 on advertising, launch events and showcase promotions, according to the Belfast Telegraph. That figure attracted widespread press criticism, especially when Sunday Life revealed that the new logo was very similar to others already in use in England, such as a logo for Food and Drink Devon, which had been created for just £7,000. 7 classic logos that should never have been changed It’s worth pointing out, however, that Lloyd Northover certainly worked for its money. Having won the contract following a competitive pitch process, it went on to consult around 3,000 key Belfast City stakeholders from within the business, tourism, hospitality, culture, arts and youth communities. Its in-house market research team also worked with focus groups, held workshops and conducted a web survey to test ideas and concepts across England, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Europe and the USA. Given the troubled history of Belfast, it’s fair to argue that such consultation was necessary to avoid a costly mistake. Consequently, the resulting logo was welcomed across all communities. Lesson learned: In a charged and conflicted environment, it’s good to get everyone on board. And if that costs a little extra when it comes to researching your branding, it’s a price worth paying: the alternative would have been far costlier in the long term. 04. NBC The 1976 NBC logo (left) and the quite similar NETV logo (right) In 1976, NBC wanted to update its image for its 50th anniversary, and introduced a completely new logo design based around an abstract letter N made of two trapezoids: one red, one blue. It went on to be used in the first electronically animated ident for an American TV network, and came into official use on 1 January 1976. Designed by the firm Lippincott and Margulies, it was reported to have cost between $750,000 and $1million; an enormous sum for the 1970s. Unfortunately, nobody had noticed that it was virtually identical to the logo for Nebraska Educational TV, part of the PBS network. In February, the latter filled a trademark infringement lawsuit, and in the eventual out-of-court settlement, NBC gave Nebraska ETV over $800,000 worth of new equipment, as well as paying them $55,000 to cover the cost of designing and implementing a new logo. (Which seems especially high, given that NETV had spent less than $100 on designing their original logo.) Lesson learned: Check you’re not plagiarising other people’s logos, even innocently, or it will cost you dear. Especially if they’re in the same industry as you. 05. Tropicana This new logo and branding cost Tropicana an estimated $30 million in lost sales As the NBC example shows, the “cost” of a logo isn’t always just what you pay the branding company to develop it. In the case of Pepsico fruit brand Tropicana, it was the estimated $30 million in sales it lost because of it, over just two months. To be fair, the failure of its 2009 rebrand wasn’t entirely down to the logo. The new packaging had swapped the well-known fruit-with-a-straw emblem for a generic-looking glass of orange juice, making it difficult to find on the shelves. The $35 million advertising campaign, with its overwrought overtures to family life and a nonsensical slogan (“Squeeze, it’s a natural”), was another factor. But the new, straightened, vertical logo really didn’t help. While the old logo (below) had a sense of fun and personality, this new creation by now-defunct agency Arnell jettisoned all that. This logo looked more grown-up and professional, to be sure, but since when were those values associated with sugary drinks? The leaf that forms the dot of the letter i was still there, but so small as to be indistinct. And overall, beyond the word itself, the recognisability factor had dropped to near zero. The old logo was quickly reinstated after the failure of the new branding As a result, people were less likely to spot their favourite drink in the supermarket, and less inclined to buy it when they did. After two months, Tropicana sensibly reverted to the old logo and packaging. Lesson learned: A clean, minimalist look might suit tech products and web startups, but for food and drink brands with a high degree of customer loyalty, they’re a disaster. Liked this? Read these: 6 secrets to creating outstanding infographics 5 logo design trends for 2018 8 ways to make more money in 2018 View the full article

As smartphone cameras are getting better and better, more people are looking for ways to present their photos in style. Photo collages are a hugely popular way to show off a selection of images or collate ideas together into a kind of mood board. But photo collage-making can be a laborious (if rewarding) task if you use Adobe's Creative Cloud suite – you may need the assistance of some Photoshop tutorials to get you started. However you could take some of the effort out with a dedicated collage maker. Get Adobe Creative Cloud Here is our definitive guide to the best around. Scroll down for the best free collage makers online, or jump to page two for the best collage maker apps you can download. 01. Ribbet Developer: Ribbet Price: Free (Basic); $4.95/mo (Premium) Free online collage maker Ribbet has just got a lovely new interface, which is a delight to use. Pick a template, upload images, adjust sizing, round corners, edit lighting, exposure and so on. If you change your mind, you can easily adjust your template by adding extra rows or columns. This our pick for the best online collage maker around. There's also a free iOS app and one in the pipeline for Android users (see page 2 for all the best collage maker apps). 02. Adobe Spark Developer: Adobe Price: Free Spark is a free photo collage maker from Adobe. Its simple interface means it doesn't require the same learning curve demanded by most Adobe applications. Simply name your project and use the various design options available to arrange your photos into an eye-catching collage. 03. Canva Collage Templates Developer: Canva Price: Free (paid plans available) Canva is an all-round design package that you can use in the browser or as an app – originally just for iOS devices, but now available on Android mobile too. The basic package is completely free, but there are paid plans available if you want something more advanced. Amongst Canva's tools is a big selection of collage templates, which look great and are easy to use. You can also spice up your collages with Canva's enormous selection of effects, filters, fonts, shapes and more. 04. BeFunky Developer: BeFunky Price: Free (Basic); $4.95/mo (Plus) BeFunky is one of the best free online collage makers around. It offers tons of templates, a simple interface and seamless integration with the BeFunky Photo Editor. The free version works well, but if you're after more photo effects, higher-resolution downloads and the ability to use your collages commercially, you'll need the BeFunky Plus account. As well as an online tool, BeFunky is available as an app for iOS or Android. 05. piZap Developer: piZap Price: Free (Basic); $5.99/mo (Pro) At time of writing, online collage maker piZap has a new interface in beta, and we're impressed with what we've seen so far. It's simple to use, there are plenty of templates, stock images and fonts to choose from, and you can add text and stickers to liven things up. A nice feature is the inclusion of Facebook banner templates, to help you upgrade your social media branding with ease. The Pro version offers add-free designing, a much bigger selection of fonts, stock images and templates, the ability to download your collage in super hi-res, and more. There are also app versions for iOS and Android so you can piZap on the move too. 06. PhotoCollage Developer: Zygomatic Price: Free PhotoCollage has a nice, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin name, and the web-based collage maker is no less simple to use. It works on Mac, Windows, Android and iOS platforms including touchscreens, and you can choose from collage templates or use your skills to create freeform collages. You work with lo-res images, then once you're happy with the arrangement you can choose to 'order' a hi-res version of your design. One frustrating feature is that the editing tools aren't sticky, so most people will need to scroll up and down to find the ones you want. 07. Fotor collage maker Developer: Fotor Price: Free (Basic); from $3.33/mo (Pro) Fotor is a professional-level online collage maker. Unlike some of the collage making tools on this list, with Fotor you can import a load of images, which are displayed on the right-hand bar, then choose when and where to place them in your collage (rather than selecting where they'll go when you import them). This is a simple feature that makes it much easier to put together attractive collages. You can only get part of the way with the free version – you can design collages, but they'll feature the Fotor watermark, which isn't ideal. For advanced features, an ad-free interface, watermark-free collages and cloud-based storage, you'll need to go for the Pro version. 08. Photovisi Developer: Photovisi Price: Free (Basic); $4.99/mo (Premium) Photovisi is a stand-alone collage maker with no fripperies and no photo editing tools to distract and confuse. You simply select a collage design, add your photos and drag them around till you're satisfied, then download it. What could be easier? If you want to download a watermark-free collage, you'll need to pay up on the Premium plan. 09. Google Photos Developer: Google Price: Free Google Photos, once known as Picasa, is an image organiser and photo editor – but did you know it comes with a built-in collage maker? You can experiment with six different collage types in the hands-on collage creation screen, and they will be saved in your 'Collages' folder. It's pretty basic, but as you'd expect from Google, the interface is nice and clear and it works very well at what it does. 10. Kizoa Collage Maker Developer: Kizoa Price: Free (Basic) plus lifetime Premium memberships The web-based Kizoa Collage Maker is one of the most difficult to navigate, but it does offer dozens of ready-made templates (both static and animated) for all kinds of occasions. You can customise the templates or create your own from scratch, then add photos, GIFs, videos and even stickers to your designs, and finish the whole thing off with some text. Kinoa membership also includes access to a movie maker and photo editor, so you can accomplish any number of creative tasks from inside the browser. 11. FotoJet Developer: Pearlmountain Price: Free (Basic); $6.99/mo (Plus) FotoJet is a free online collage maker that enables you to create collages, photo cards, posters, Facebook covers, Twitter headers, YouTube banners, fun photos and more. There are hundreds of templates for you to work with, including some of the most creative designs we've seen so far – such as this one, where you can add images into coconuts. The paid Plus option offers a much wider range of resources to work with. 12. PicMonkey Collage PicMonkey's free tools give you plenty of control over your collages Developer: PicMonkey Price: From $5.99/mo (free trial available) Part of the PicMonkey suite – a web app that also offers image editing, touch-up and design tools – PicMonkey collage is a fast and powerful way to organise your images into attractive shapes. Import images from your computer or connect to online services such as Facebook, OneDrive, Dropbox and Flickr. You can fine-tune your collage by adjusting the zoom and placement of your images, and add filters. 'Supremium' users also have access to advanced touch-up tools. Once a free online collage maker, you now need to subscribe to PicMonkey to download your design. There are three different plans available, depending on your needs. However, you can design your collage for free, and there is a week-long free trial available, which is worth exploring before you shell out. Next page: The best collage maker apps 01. PicCollage Platform: iOS, Android, Windows Developer: Cardinal Blue Software Price: Free with IAP Collage maker app PicCollage is crammed with features to help you create impressive collages from photos, GIFs and videos. Choose from a portrait canvas or a square one (ideal for Instagram fans), pick from over 60 templates, and clip images with your finger. There's a face detection template in case you want to add things like party hats to your friends, and you can share your creations to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, email, and more. 02. PicsArt Photo Studio & Collage Platform: iOS, Android Developer: PicsArt Price: Free (with IAP) PicsArt's collage maker is just a small part of an app that also includes hundreds of photo editing features, customisable filters, text options and a camera. This collage maker app includes over three million stickers, created by the community and all totally free. Which is impressive by anyone's standards. You can use PicsArt as a digital art suite, with plenty of brushes and effects to choose from that'll take your creative options to the next level. 03. Layout from Instagram Platform: iOS, Android Developer: Instagram Price: Free Facebook-owned Instagram has released Layout, an app designed to help people create collages of their images and share their creations via social media. Layout lets you select and rearrange images by dragging and dropping, and you can also control the size of images by pinching, or tap to mirror or flip them. This collage maker app includes a built-in Photo Booth that you can use to take spur-of-the-moment shots, and instantly see them laid out in various combinations. When you're done, you can easily save, and share your collage across your social media networks. 04. BeFunky Photo Editor Pro Platform: iOS, Android Developer: BeFunky Inc Price: Free (with IAP) The BeFunky Pro collage making app works seamlessly with its photo editing features to help you create collages on the go. You can edit the images in your designs with the touch of a button, there are over 100 templates to pick from, and background textures add interest. Plus, liven up your collages with stickers, overlays and text (there are lots of fonts to choose from, type fans). 05. Capcam Platform: iOS Developer: Christoph Ono Price: $0.99 The guys behind Capcam – called Germany's Best-Kept Secret (and they may well be) – reckon that the best way for us all to tell our life stories is with collages and captions. That's why the collage maker takes centre-stage in this cool iPhone app, which makes collating and captioning your treasured images simpler than a simple thing. 06. Canva App Platform: iOS (iPhone and iPad), Android mobile Developer: Canva Price: Free (with IAP) Available for iPhone and iPad, and now for Android mobile users too, the Canva app is a great collage-making tool and offers lots of other design features too. Use the app to edit photos, add text, elements, stickers, borders, frames and more. There are thousands of templates to select from. Share your design directly to your social media accounts, save it via email, or export it to your camera roll to use later. 07. Pic Stitch Platform: iOS, Android, Windows Phone Developer: Big Blue Clip Price: Free (Windows Phone $1.49) Pic Stitch allows you to stitch pictures (geddit?) to create cool collages. Choose from 300 different layouts and 15 different photo aspect ratios, plus you can apply rounded corners, patterns, shadows, and any number of other photo editing tricks then share your masterpiece on the usual social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 08. piZap Collage Platform: iOS, Android Developer: Digital Palette LLC Price: Free (with IAP) With the piZap collage maker app, you can put together collages on your iPhone, iPad or Android device. It offers over 1,200 layout options and 37 filters, and has been downloaded over 10 million times. It also offers over 2000 free stickers, if that's your thing. 09. Ribbet Platforms: iOS Developer: Foto Friend Pty Ltd Price: Free (with IAP) Ribbet promises a streamlined editing interface that makes photo editing easy even if you aren't a designer. Drop images into one of the grid options and edit each one individually or the whole lot at once. The web version of this collage maker app has just had a cool redesign, so perhaps an update is on its way here, too. 10. PhotoVideoCollage Pro PhotoVideoCollage brings video to the world of collage makers Platform: Mac OS X 10.9 or newer Developer: Bits&Coffee Price: $9.99 PhotoVideoCollage brings the classic photo collage to the next level. Not only can users add photos but also videos and soundtracks of their favourite music. The user can select a layout template from a multitude of presets, add photos and videos to the layout and adjust additional settings like border width, curvature, colour and texture. The placement of the photos and videos inside the collage can be easily changed via drag and drop. 11. Collagelt Platform: iOS, Mac, Windows Developer: PearlMountain Price: Free (Pro version $29.90) PearlMountain's collage maker app offers a straightforward way to create photos on your Mac, PC or iPhone. You can choose from its various templates to suit several page sizes, or you can start from a completely blank sheet – it's up to you. Choose from five collage styles (mosaic, grid, center, pile, free) as well as over 60 templates. There's also a smart fit feature and facial recognition. Its real-time preview means it is easy to use for people of all experience levels, and you can share your creations on Flickr and Facebook. 12. Shapecollage Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS Developer: Shape Collage Price: Free (iOS $1.99) Shape Collage is an automatic photo collage maker that creates collages in different shapes in just a couple of seconds. You can create picture collages in the shape of a rectangle, heart, text or logo, all with just a few clicks of the mouse. The tool automates much of the process so you can just pick a shape, select your photos, and let Shape Collage do the rest – and it's available as an iPhone app too. Related articles: How to get started with mood boards 15 essential photo editor apps The 38 best tools for data visualization View the full article

The Oscar nominations for 2018 have been announced. Leading the nominations this year are The Shape of Water (with a whopping 13 nominations), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Dunkirk. You'll surely be aware of Dunkirk (Harry Styles and Christopher Nolan. The Actual Harry Styles and the Actual Christopher Nolan), but if those other titles aren't ringing any bells, or if you're wondering whether it's worth investing an evening in watching one of them, take a look at this series of alternate posters TheShiznit.co.uk has removed the original cover lines for each of these critically acclaimed movies and replaced them with what it considers to be the movie's real... er... USP. Click the icon in the top right to see the full-sized poster Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water is a fantasy film with an admittedly obscure premise: the relationship between a mute employee at a high-security government lab and a captured amphibian creature. The alternate poster spells out exactly what you're thinking. Click the icon in the top right to see the full-sized poster All the Money in the Word focuses on the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III and his mother's struggle to convince his billionaire grandfather to pay the ransom. It's a heart-wrenching, emotionally hard-hitting story that earned an Oscar nom for Christopher Plummer. However, all of that has been monumentally overshadowed by some unforeseen casting issues that resulted in a hasty reshoot with the aforementioned Plummer. Click the icon in the top right to see the full-sized poster The snappily-named Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is in the running for a whole bunch of Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay. The alternate poster for black comedy-meets-revenge thriller opts for a similarly rolls-off-the-tongue title. Click the icon in the top right to see the full-sized poster It's been a trying year, what with various political events we won't go into here. In such a climate, the only thing to do – if you're Steven Spielberg – is to tackle the issue obliquely, in movie form. The alternate poster for bio-drama The Post lets you know exactly what Spielberg (probably) really wanted to say. Click the icon in the top right to see the full-sized poster There's something about seeing a mega-famous actor pretending to be another mega-famous person that really draws the audiences. Add in a fat suit and some incredible prosthetics and wait for the cash to roll in. Can you tell who that is in the poster for Darkest Hour? Visit TheShiznit.co.uk to see the full set. Read more: Are movie posters in a design crisis? Have we entered the era of bad graphic design? 4 classic movie poster designs making a comeback View the full article

You're reading Create Landing Page in 2 Days  –  Overview of Slides by Designmodo, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! As you may know, Slides Framework is our flagship in the website framework lineup. It is a professional product with a bunch of helpful features. You can literally build a website in minutes without delving deep into the code. It is one thing for us to tout our product since as developers we are perfectly […] View the full article

Have an idea for a film floating around in your head that you've been trying to put down on the page? Final Draft 10 is the perfect tool to help you make those ideas reality. Write your script with the same tool the expert screenwriters trust and get it on sale now for 50% off the retail price. Final Draft 10 is the absolute gold standard for screenwriting software. Name your favourite film or TV show and odds are the screenplay for them was written with this program. Now it's your turn to use it for your creative side project or career-changing venture into scriptwriting. Craft your own script with this powerful writing tool that will make it easy to form your work the way the pros do. You can start from scratch or use templates to build your script, create easy-to-follow outlines, and can even collaborate in real time with a writing partner. Final Draft 10 usually retails for $249.99, but you can get it on sale now for 50% off that price. That means you pay just $124.99 for this powerful piece of software for writers, 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: 20 tools to make your team more productive 22 ways to boost your productivity How to start a side project: 21 pro tips View the full article

One of the key things that working in CGI should provide is greater precision. However, it is amazing just how difficult it can be to get accurate control over CGI mesh placement in the 3D world of digital content creation applications. This is where snapping can come in handy, as it allows objects to align to others via a range of desired parameters. Whether snapping to the grid of the world or the vertices of another CGI mesh, snapping can be a life-saver when organising models and getting meshes correct down to the last detail. 37 brilliant Blender tutorials While most digital content creation applications come with the snapping 'basics' of object and grid-based snapping, some allow more refinement such as enabling 'sliding' of elements along a predefined set of parameters, for example a background mesh. One of the best features of snapping can also be the worst, especially when working in 3D viewports. Snapped objects can snap to the wrong place, and it is not until the view is altered that snapping mistakes can then become evident. To this end, having easy access to snapping controls, which also includes the ability to turn snapping on and off, is essential. When combined with a movable pivot point, snapping is the basis for setting up animation rigs, which depend on accurate placement of joints at exactly the right point to enable convincing movement without causing unwanted geometry deformation. Snapping can be one of the most useful tools for helping to set up scenes, but do not be afraid to switch it off when working with more organic shapes; the snapping function should be there to help you, not to get in the way of your creative freedom. 01. Snap by edge, point or polygon Most applications have multiple snapping options for you to use While most snapping tools rely on aligning whole CGI meshes to each other, most digital content creation applications can also snap by the core elements of a shape, namely the points (vertices), edges or polygons. Having the ability to snap elements within a mesh can be hugely useful when retopologising a mesh or getting elements in alignment. Every application is different, however, so make sure to explore all the available snapping options within the application. 02. Step snap Step snapping can help you if you're trying to create convincing hard-surface models Step snapping refers to the ability to move, scale or rotate models (or the elements of models) by a predefined amount. The most common example of this is a rotation that is constrained to fixed angle amounts of 15 degrees or similar. Using a step snap system is especially useful when hard-surface modelling as most man-made objects are created to tolerances, so mimicking that by placing objects 'by eye' can create unconvincing models. 03. Snaps and pivots Using snapping on your pivot points will save you a lot of grief Understanding how to manipulate pivot points in a model is a fundamental factor of becoming a successful 3D artist. Pivot points are useful for aligning furniture to floors, wheels to axles and horns to demons. Snapping is key to this, as the pivot is usually snapped to a surface feature on a mesh, whether it is a vertex or the centre of a polygon. Having a pivot set by snapping rather than arbitrarily is important for preventing any issues later down the line. 04. Adjust the grid Adjusting the grid size and snapping tolerance can make your life a lot easier One of the most common uses of snapping is aligning objects to the grid shown in the viewport. Dependant on the size of the object being built, grid snap can either be a huge help or a major hindrance when it comes to building geometry. Thankfully, most digital content creation applications offer an adjustable grid, which enables an artist to snap objects to a tolerance of millimetres, before switching to snapping by kilometres all within the same scene. This article was originally published in issue 229 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists – packed with expert tutorials, inspiration and reviews. Buy issue 229 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Related articles: Sharpen your hard-surface modelling Discover how this stunning Millennium Falcon model was made 30 inspiring examples of 3D art View the full article

The new issue of 3D World is out now and it's full of inspirational insights into the latest visual effects and animation projects, as well as the best tutorials and reviews to help you improve your 3D art and make the most of your tools. Here's some of the great content you can expect to see in the new issue, on sale now. Buy 3D World issue 231 here Feature: The shape of Water Del Toro projects are often showcases for the very best of what can be done with visual effects and, while a deeper narrative than some blockbusters, the Shape of Water is no exception. We explore behind the scenes, to find out how this visionary love story was put together. Practical feature: Visual language part 1 In this first part of our new short series, you will learn some of the fundamental rules that have evolved as part of the syntax film makers use to help viewers understand what is on screen. As an animator or VFX artist it's vital to have a solid grounding in this, so that you can deliver meaning and narrative in a clear and concise manner. Houdini special This issue brings a special theme to 3D World and we have a huge section on Houdini, the king of procedural workflows. This issue has a huge tips feature, training pieces, industry insights and a review of the latest version, so whether you are new to generative art or a veteran looking to expand your knowledge then there will be something for you here. Tutorial: VR sculpting Follow along with Marin Nebelong, who teaches his workflow for creating stunning concept scifi ships in VR. Q and A Our regular Q and A section is hosted by Maya Jermy, Pietro Chiavarro, Simon Edwards and Ant Ward this month and cover a host of your questions. 3D World is the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists – packed with expert tutorials, inspiration and reviews. Buy issue 231 here or subscribe to 3D World here. View the full article

There is something oddly satisfying about lava lamps. A soothing, colourful light and mesmerising waxy blobs raising and descending due to temperature changes. It almost makes me want to touch and play with it. When it comes to achieving that beautifully looking material for a lava lamp model, you might find yourself stuck at first. It seems as though it should be an easy thing to create, but to achieve that realistic look it can be a bit of a hassle if you do not know much about materials. I will show you how to make a very simple KeyShot material for the blobby lava floating inside of the lamp. It will leave some room for improvement depending on how far down the path of realism you wish to take it, but it will be enough to satisfy the eye. Of course, there are lots of different types of lava lamp, e.g. waxy, metallic or even glittery. Let’s just focus on the most basic and best-known one, which is wax, and try to re-create that look. You may ask, what is so special about the wax material that you cannot just apply it to the part and move on with the rest? Well, if it were just wax for a candle model we were working on, it would probably be fine to do so, but this is a completely different case. The lava lamp wax should emit some of the light we are going to fake and give us control over the colour transformation, to blend and behave within the set scene. I assure you it is all there, we just need to know what settings to apply. 01. Base texture Click the arrows icon (top-right) to enlarge this image Once your model is ready for textures, go to Library>Materials> Miscellaneous, grab the Infrared Gradient material and drop it onto the model. In Project>Material, locate the Material Type setting and set it to Emissive. 02. Feeling blue Click the arrows icon (top-right) to enlarge this image In the Textures tab change the reds and yellows to different shades of blue; light (left) to dark (right). Below, set the Gradient Type to Spherical. Changing the scale of the texture will give you control over the texture spread on your model. 03. Adjustments Click the arrows icon (top-right) to enlarge this image Set the Centre On to either Model or Part, whichever works best with the mesh. Now it is time to move the texture down to where the source of light should be. Go back up to the Material Properties and adjust the Intensity slider. 04. Surrounding materials Click the arrows icon (top-right) to enlarge this image Apply the Glass (Solid) White material to the sphere. Sometimes the liquid that surrounds the lava has a very delicate tint to it, so let’s set the glass diffuse to a very light shade of blue (R254; G255; B255). Expert tip Add a light source emitting from the centre of the lamp to light up the scene. Try other colour combinations for more dramatic looks. Changing the background colour and HDRI can make the colours pop out even more. Learn more from Maya Jermy at Vertex Maya Jermy is a regular contributor to 3D World magazine and has years of industry experience, working across various fields. She will be at Vertex 2018 taking part in our panel discussion, along with other industry veterans including Chris Nichols and Brett Ineson, where the future of digital humans is the topic. Make sure you get your chance to be there for the discussion, as well the workshops, recruitment fair and all the other activities we have throughout the day. Visit the Vertex site to book your tickets, from the free expo ticket, to the access all areas passes. We look forward to seeing you there! Related articles Why Vertex is a must for CG artists The ethics of digital humans Scott Ross at Vertex View the full article

The team behind the popular open-source framework Electron warns a remote code execution flaw could compromise user privacy. View the full article

The team behind the popular open-source framework Electron warns a remote code execution flaw could compromise user privacy. View the full article

Leeds United has nearly hit its centenary, so to celebrate, the club decided it was time to redesign its badge (above). Despite referencing the 'Leeds Salute', however, the new crest has not been well received by fans. Unveiled today, Leeds United's new crest took six months of work to complete and involved consultation with more than 10,000 people. For the uninitiated, the 'Leeds Salute' referenced in the new crest is a gesture used by fans on match days, where they place their right hand on heart and sing the club's song Marching on Together. The redesigned badge is the latest in a series of efforts by the club to re-engage fans and the wider community. Leeds United isn't the first sports organisation to rely on a rebrand to boost interest, of course. Earlier this year, Formula 1 changed its logo to get more people involved. Leeds United managing director, Angus Kinnear, said “updating the crest is not a decision we have taken lightly, but we are proud to have a new crest that is authentic to Leeds United and honours the quality and loyalty of our fans. It is a symbol of ‘strength in unity’ and a proud expression of the club’s identity and history.” Currently, however, the only thing Leeds United fans are united by is their dislike of the new crest. Plenty have taken to social media to voice their despair, with some taking aim at how the emblem can be modified to represent other teams. (A popular one sees a Newcastle supporter punching a horse.) One element that's caused anger and confusion is the crest appears to be covering itself up. If a fan or player does the 'Leeds Salute', of course, by its very nature the gesture obscures the badge – but when it comes to design, blocking your team's badge is a peculiar way to show pride. With a petition to stop the new badge from being implemented having already racked up over 10,000 signatures, it remains to be seen whether the club holds its ground or gives in to fan pressure. Related articles: Photography book celebrates the joy of football The 20 posters of the FIFA World Cup 5 great EPL football stadium illustrations View the full article

The 2018 design trends keep on coming. We've already seen the logo design trends and colour trends that are set to influence the next 12 months. But what about typography – or to be more specific, type used in motion graphics? 37 must-see examples of kinetic typographyWell, wonder no more. StudioBinder – a maker of video, photo, TV and film production management software – has created a video that showcases some big typographic trends to expect in motion graphics for the year ahead. To get an idea of how type will be used in video this year, StudioBinder combed through the best uses of text found in films and programmes in 2017. These include the title sequences for shows such as Top Gear and Stranger Things, among other creative examples. As we watched this video, we were struck by just how many uses of type in motion graphics pass almost unnoticed. Perhaps that's an indicator of how audiences have become used to more sophisticated typographic effects in their media. See for yourself how typography in films and TV has been used in innovative ways – and the predicted text in video trends for 2018 – in the StudioBinder video, below. Over on the StudioBinder site they look into these examples and explore what makes them tick. For example, by studying the Stranger Things titles, we can see that the show cleverly draws in the viewer's attention by containing visuals inside the lettering itself. Meanwhile, some films and shows layer their typography and title graphics with 3D elements to help get across the mood of what viewers are about to watch. Others make the most of the lower third of the screen to flash up an information card that reveals useful plot and character information. For the full dissection of 2018 motion typography trends, be sure to head over to the StudioBinder blog. Related articles: 9 responsive typography tips A designer's guide to typography and fonts Get to grips with accessible web typography View the full article

Buy Lightroom CC 2018, Lightroom Classic, or sign up to Adobe Creative Cloud Lightroom is Adobe’s all-in-one photo cataloging, organising and editing tool. Unlike Photoshop, however, which handles photography, illustration and design, Lightroom is purely for photographers. It doesn’t have Photoshop’s in-depth manipulation, layering, selection and compositing tools. But for regular photo enhancement and repair, it’s fast, efficient and powerful – and all its adjustments are non-destructive. In October 2017 Adobe took a bold step, splitting Lightroom into two products, the new Lightroom CC and a continuation of the old Lightroom as ‘Lightroom Classic’. Lightroom Classic sticks to the old desktop storage model. The new Lightroom CC is slimmer, slicker and based around cloud storage instead. Depending on the Adobe subscription plan you choose, you get Lightroom CC or both versions plus Photoshop – more on this in a moment. The key feature of Lightroom CC 2018 is that your entire image library is available everywhere, on any device. This is different to Lightroom Classic, where it’s only chosen Collections which are synchronised, and even then only by using lower-resolution Smart Previews as editing ‘proxies’. If you’re going to store all your photos online, you’re naturally going to need lots of storage, and this is perhaps the biggest bone of contention. There is a new Lightroom CC subscription plan which gives you Lightroom CC and 1TB of storage, but nothing else. Or you can stay with the existing Photography Plan and get both versions of Lightroom, and Photoshop, but no extra storage. Both options cost £9.98/$9.99 per month. Finally, you can get the best of both worlds with the old Photography Plan plus 1TB of storage, but at a cost of £19.97/$19.99 per month. Whichever way you cut it, that 1TB of storage comes in at around £10/$10 per month. Initially, Adobe indicated that extra storage would cost £10/$10 per month per terabyte; now the Adobe website carries the message “Up to 10 TB of cloud storage available. Call for details,” suggesting (we hope) some flexibility. Lightroom CC 2018’s cloud-based approach comes with significant costs, but it does also have advantages: Anywhere editing Need to edit your photos on another computer? With Lightroom web you get access to your full photo library, though only some, not all, of the editing tools Fair enough, this is a big one. With Lightroom Classic’s regular desktop storage, you only get to see the image Collections you’ve selected for synchronisation. And while you can organise and even edit images on your smart device and in your web browser, you can’t download the full-resolution versions, only a lower-resolution Smart Preview. That’s fine for placement but you’ll still need to export a full-res version from your desktop library for final use. Your photos can also be browsed, edited and rated on your smart device using the free Lightroom mobile app Adobe also makes a great play of the new, simpler interface. Lightroom’s workspace has always been pretty oppressive and busy, and Lightroom CC’s stripped-back approach is genuinely refreshing. A few things have gone, like the separate Library and Develop modules (now in a single window) and the Map, Book, Slideshow, Print and Web modules are gone completely – but then these are features that probably only a small percentage of photographers would use anyway. And if you are one of those, well, there’s still Lightroom Classic. Smarter organising Lightroom CC’s organisational tools are stripped-down and straightforward, and aided by Adobe’s intelligent Sensei search tool. Who knew we had so many pictures of boats? Lightroom’s organising tools are indeed simpler. Lightroom Classic and its desktop storage system continues to offer two parallel organisational systems – actual Folders and virtual Collections – which even live in separate panels, while Lightroom CC dumps all your photos into a single giant pot, and then it’s up to you how you want to organise them, using Albums and Folders (not real folders, just virtual containers to organise your albums). How can something that does less be better? Lightroom CC does force you into a simpler way of working, but it also strips away all the distraction, confusion and indecision of working with Lightroom Classic. There is one omission that’s quite hard to take, however – you can’t create smart albums (Smart Collections in Lightroom Classic), so you can’t create a smart album to automatically group all the shots taken in Tokyo last November on your Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, for example, or all the shots you’ve taken with a particular lens at a particular ISO setting. There are filter menus for isolating images by star rating, camera used and more, but even these are much reduced compared to those in Lightroom Classic. But Lightroom CC’s trump card is Adobe’s web-based Sensei search technology. Adobe says its machine learning/object recognition technology saves you the drudge of manually keywording your images. Well, it does do a good job of recognising object types, such as trees or skies, but it’s less effective at identifying locations, except where images feature a well-known landmark or have embedded location information. Worry-free storage Adobe’s cloud storage for Lightroom CC might banish your worries about where your files are, but there is an ongoing cost Adobe’s idea of worry-free storage is fine in as much as you don’t have to find space for your photos on your own computer or disk drives, or worry about synchronising them across computers or even about backing them up… but you might worry about how much your ever-expanding image library might cost you in the future. Editing upgrades Adobe’s aim is full feature parity between Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic and the addition of Tone Curve and Split Toning tools in the latest update is a step along the way The first version of Lightroom CC back in October 2017 was actually missing more than just smart albums and workflow modules. There was no Tone Curve or Split tone panel amongst the editing tools either. These have been added in a December 2017 update, though, plus automatic image enhancement via Sensei and a full-screen view. Even so, Lightroom CC still lacks some of the bells and whistles of Lightroom Classic, and still doesn’t support plug-ins. Should you buy Lightroom CC 2018? You can migrate your existing Lightroom catalog to Lightroom CC, but it’s a one-way journey Lightroom CC is a frustrating mix of brilliance (the new, streamlined interface) and disappointment (the lack of feature parity with Lightroom Classic). And tempting as the idea of cloud storage might be, the cost seems too high right now – £10/$10 per terabyte, per month, seems out of step with competing cloud services. Apple will rent you 2TB of iCloud storage for £6.99 per month, for example. Lightroom CC is still a terrific all-in-one image cataloguing and editing tool and it has no cloud-based rivals. The closest are Adobe’s own Lightroom Classic and, say, Phase One Capture One. Capture One is a terrific product, but lacks Lightroom’s multi-platform synchronisation tools. For designers, it’s a complicated decision. Lightroom CC is great for photos, but that’s all. If you work on projects across Adobe’s creative tools, migrating work from Photoshop, through Illustrator to InDesign, for example, Lightroom CC is a bit of an outlier which might be good for organising your photos but is likely to be on the periphery of your main design work. Early adopters might be keen to try out a wholly cloud-based photo library, but the regular Photography Plan with its desktop storage is better value (you get both versions of Lightroom and Photoshop) and Lightroom Classic is still a more powerful organising and editing tool. For designers, Lightroom CC is not so much a ‘must have’ as a ‘might like’. Buy Lightroom CC 2018, Lightroom Classic, or sign up to Adobe Creative Cloud Related articles: Adobe launches new cloud-based photography service Lightroom CC Adobe announces free Lightroom for Android Shoot raw images on your phone with Lightroom 2.0 View the full article

The way you approach sketching a character is very important. You shouldn’t be afraid of constant refinement. Here, I will lead you through my process, showing you how to use shapes and light lines to create an underdrawing, and then how to properly work on top of this for the best results. The more you sketch, the more confident your drawings will become, so grab your pencils and get sketching! 01. Find a pose Strike a pose, there's nothing to it A very important part in sketching a character is figuring out how you want to depict your subject. It is essential to find the right pose, clothes and general look. The best way to approach this is by creating small loose sketches that are not defined, but at the same time give you an idea of the features of the final sketch. 02. Develop form Take your time to get the foundations right Once you decide which sketch you prefer, you can continue to develop it further by giving it a form. Before going into detail, it is crucial to create a skeleton for the final drawing by using simple shapes and lines. Don’t worry about drawing too many guidelines; you can erase them later. 03. Lay down lines Make sure your lines are solid and confident Choose the lines you want to work with from the guidelines you’ve created. Remember that these lines are there to help and not constrain you, so make changes as you go and add necessary details when appropriate. Don’t rush the drawing, but once you decide to draw a line, use a bold straight stroke to avoid wobbly or uneven marks. 04. Erase guidelines Erase needless guidelines, but leave useful ones behind Some artists are a little intimidated by rubbers. They associate them with correcting mistakes, but in fact, a rubber can be used as an important tool in your drawing. In this example, use your rubber to erase some of the guidelines. You don’t have to rub out all of them – just the ones that get in the way of your drawing. Related articles: Perfect your figures with our anatomy masterclass The Anatomy of Style: Figure Drawing Techniques 10 steps to improve your figure drawing View the full article

What has 2018 got in store for creatives? We've already looked at the biggest logo design trends and typography trends that could be coming our way over the next 12 months, but Shutterstock is looking further afield with its 2018 Creative Trends Report. The latest annual report from the technology and stock photography company has been compiled by studying billions of searches within Shutterstock's collection of 170 million customer images. This data has been gathered over the past year across images, videos and music. By analysing user habits, Shutterstock hopes to determine the standout ideas and concepts that it believes will shape creative direction in the year to come. Top creative trends of 2018 Fantasy - A fantasy theme looks set to be significant in 2018. Searches for fantasy are on the rise, with classics like 'unicorn' up 297%, and 'mermaid' up by 145% on 2017. Alongside this, epic, orchestral music is becoming increasingly popular as creative professionals add some magic to our everyday experiences. New Minimalism - Forget plain old minimalism, 2018 is set to be the year of new minimalism. This is a look that goes beyond crisp, clean lines to feature bold colours and fluid styles. An increase of 432% for 'continuous line' and a boost of 387% for 'neon circle' are giveaways for Shutterstock that new minimalism will be a trend to look out for. Space - The final frontier continues to amaze audiences on the big screen, so perhaps it's no surprise that it's had a big influence on Shutterstock searches. 'Solar' is up by a whopping 991%, while interest in 'astro' has risen by 671%. Meanwhile, the popularity of 'synthwave' has soared by 494% from 2017. "Now in its seventh year, our Creative Trends report inspires creative professionals all over the world as they strategize creative planning for the year ahead," said Shutterstock’s Curator, Robyn Lange. “Our 2017 report was particularly accurate in its predictions, identifying trends like ‘Glitch’ early on. Throughout the year we watched as the style grew, developed, and thrived into major campaign themes for brands across the world. We look forward to watching 2018’s trends blossom the same way.” Check out the trends set to dominate 2018 with the report below. Click enlarge to read the full list of 2018 design trends Image courtesy of Shutterstock. Related articles: 5 trends that will dominate digital in 2018 Biggest trends in product packaging design for 2018 5 typography trends for 2018 View the full article

WordPress is a simple but powerful tool for building professional websites without coding from scratch. To make the most of it without detailed coding knowledge, you’ll need responsive themes to make your site look great on any device. This deal delivers lifetime access to professionally made, responsive themes from Dessign for just $29 (approx. £21)! This lifetime subscription to WordPress themes from Dessign will make your website look and feel like you want. The pros at Dessign have already put together over 180 themes that provide the flexibility and style you need. New themes are added regularly, so you'll never be left searching for more. These designs are even SEO optimised, and include XML files so you can make the most of the themes you choose. You can get a lifetime’s worth of WordPress themes from Dessign on sale for 71% off the retail price. That makes your total just $29 (approx. £21). It's a great offer for a must-have resource, 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: 25 brilliant WordPress tutorials 10 great WordPress plugins for designers 22 great examples of WordPress websites View the full article

Character design is an art. Swiff is the story of a dirt-hating extraterrestrial who is travelling in space. He breaks down and crashes on Earth in the countryside. In this 'terra incognita' adventure Swiff goes looking for a compatible fuel source for his spaceship. During his quest, he finds himself face-to-face with a hyperactive little boy who is definitely going to give him a hard time. While working on the short film, I had the opportunity to use Peregrine Labs' Yeti and Pixar's RenderMan (RIS). In this tutorial, I will explain some of the key techniques used in Yeti to make the sheep's wool (fur), and an instancing solution for Maya. 29 free 3D modelsI needed to learn Yeti for Swiff, and along the way picked up some useful tricks that I hope you will find equally handy for your animated film projects. Here I will share my process for setting up and combing fur in Yeti, as well as how we created the scene for our short. 01. Prepare the terrain Click image to enlarge The first step is to establish a good cartoon environment for the character we'll create and add later on. I tend to work in a different, smaller scene to the final scene, and when I'm happy with the look of the object or terrain that I'm working on, I reimport the asset into the final scene. For the grass, I create a basic terrain in Maya and I import my own light rig, which contains multiple lighting conditions for different times of day. 02. Create the terrain and unwrap UVs Use a smaller version of the surfaceFor this terrain, as I want to work in a smaller area than my actual terrain, I create a rounded surface with just a few polygons, where I can populate some grass. Yeti uses a cache system and it can take a long time to generate if you're using big terrain. By using a smaller version of the surface, I make sure that the caching time doesn't exceed a few seconds. The goal is to define the look of the grass so there's no need to waste time on a big surface. Once I model the basic terrain, I unwrap the UVs using Maya's default tools. 03. Adding the stripes Making stripesWe wanted everything in our short film to be striped. To do this I use Ramp, Maya's procedural texture solution. I create a ramp in Maya and plug in a PxrDisney shader. It's just for preview so you can use any shader. Use the place2dTexture to repeat your ramp as much as needed. In my example, I do it directly in the ramp to add a bit of variation in the stripe width. I also connect a PxrConstant in every colour of the ramp for more control. 04. Prepare the geometry for instancing Make sure that your grass is at the centre of the worldWe decided to instance polygons in order to get more control over the look of the grass, but you can also create a fur system in Yeti and use it as grass. If you decide to use polygons, create a few bundles of grass in Maya using basic modelling techniques. There is no need to add a lot of polygons as the tiny details will get lost. You also have to make sure that your grass is at the centre of the world in Maya to make it work with Yeti. 05. Open Yeti Click image to enlarge Yeti is very powerful and offers great optimisation possibilities. It allows you to instance millions of polygons very easily. Start by selecting your terrain and go to Yeti>Create Yeti Node On Mesh. Open the Yeti Graph Editor. In order to control the stripes separately, create multiple Yeti systems corresponding to the different areas of grass. I convert my coloured Ramp to a black and white ramp in order to use it as a density map in Yeti. 06. Nodes in Yeti Click image to enlarge Next, select your Yeti node in the Outliner, and go to the Attribute Editor. You should see your terrain in the Input Objects tab. If you don't, add it. Add the objects you want to instance and make sure that they are at the centre of the grid in Maya. 07. Setting up nodes Click image to enlarge In the Graph Editor, create an Import node, a Texture node and a Scatter node. The texture node will be used to control the density of our instanced geo. In order to do so, I bake my ramp into a texture. It allows me to retouch the map afterwards if necessary. I use Nightshade Blockout to bake the Ramp. It's free and available on www.creativecrash.com. 08. Instance your geometry Click image to enlarge Once you've connected your densityMap in the Texture node, add 'density' in the attribute of the node. Create an Instance node and another Import node. Use the Import node to choose the geometry to instance and connect it to the second input of the Instance node. Set the Instance node to Element and add scale and twist variation; use the Scatter node to change the density. For more variation, add a custom attribute, create a few graphs with different types of grass and merge them. 09. Adding shaders Play with the translucence of the LMDiffuse to get a softer lookWe used RenderMan RIS for rendering. The materials available in RenderMan are physically plausible and offer great possibilities. I use a Pxr LMDiffuse as a base and connect different variations of the texture for the front and the back. Then I use a LMLayer to add a specular layer over it. I've also played with the translucence of the LMDiffuse to get a softer look. Simply assign the shader to your Yeti node to make it work with the instances. 10. Creating the sheep Click image to enlarge Select your mesh and go to Yeti>Create Yeti Node On Mesh. Do the same with Yeti>Create Groom Node On Mesh. This will create a pgYetiNode and pgYetiGroom in your Outliner. Select the pgYeti and go to the Yeti Graph Editor. Click on the Import Button and double-click on the node Yeti has created. This will pop up in a window. Make sure the type is set to Geometry, then click the button on the right of the Selection field. 11. Apply fur Click image to enlarge In the new pop up, select the object you want your fur to be applied to and click Select. If you need to manually add objects in the list, select the pgYeti, go into the Attribute Editor, under Graph>Input Objects and click on Add Object. Weirdly, sometimes the list doesn't seem to update after adding a new object. Select anything else in the Outliner and then select your pgYeti again to see the new object correctly added to the list. 12. Import your groom Keep your graph organisedSelect your pgYeti node and go to the Attribute Editor (Ctrl+A). Under Graph>Input Grooms click on Input Grooms. In the list, select the groom that you've previously created. Now, go back to the Yeti Graph Editor and click on Import. Select and double-click the new Import node. Set the type to Groom and select the groom like we did previously with the geometry. You now have two import nodes in your graph. Keep your graph organised and name your Yeti node correctly. 13. Start grooming Click image to enlarge In the Yeti Graph, create a Scatter node, connect the import_geo to the first input of the Scatter. Select the scatter and create a Grow node. If you double-click on the Scatter, you will be able to increase the density. Connect the import_groom to the second Input of the Grow. Select the Groom node in your Outliner and go into the Attribute Editor. You will find a wide range of tools that you can use to create various hair effects. 14. Populating strands Populate your mesh with strands of hairStart by pressing the + button. This will allow you to populate your mesh with strands that will be used to create the hair in the pgYetiNode. Under the Brush tab, you will find Radius and Strength parameters. Under the Strand tab, there is a slider called Initial Strand Length. Increase this a little bit if the default parameter doesn't fit what you need. Click on your mesh to populate strands. 15. Control the length Click image to enlarge You can easily control the length of your strands by going to the Attribute Paint tab. Simply double-click on the Length parameter, set the Value to the number you want and set the Mode depending on what you want. The Multiply and Randomize modes can help you create a lot of cool variations. For my sheep, I increased the length of the head area to match the original design. 16. Using the comb node Click image to enlarge It's time to create a bit of mess. Create a Comb node. Connect the Grow to the first Input of the Comb and connect the Groom to the second Input. At this stage, I play with the different tools in Yeti to create variations. Take your time, especially if your character will be seen from different angles. When I am done tweaking the strands, I add a Curl node. It creates some nice curling effects in every strand. This adds a lot of variations and makes your fur look more realistic. Next page: the final steps to creating furry cartoon characters... 17. Understanding clumping Multiple clumping effectsThe Clumping node is one of the most important nodes in Yeti. To apply the Clump, select your current network and duplicate it; create a Clump node. Play with the Density and the Length parameters on one of the networks to enhance the effect. You can play with this technique many times in your grooming network to make multiple clumping effects. Note that you can also use the Clump tool to enhance the clump effect in some areas. 18. Bend the clumps Playing with the combination of different nodesTo finish my base network, I add a Bend node (which in this case is crucial to bend the clump we previously made and get the look we want). Playing with the combination of different nodes allows you to get subtle and very cool effects. This leads us to the Merge Node… 19. The merge node Click image to enlarge In order to make the sheep look better, I create a few networks with different looks – the only thing I need to do is merge them. You can create different pgYetis and let them overlap each other but this is not the best option for my sheep. I prefer to create everything in one pgYeti network and merge them by creating a Merge node and connecting input one and two to the desired networks. 20. The Width node Click image to enlarge To complete my graph, I need to control the width of my fur. I create a Width node and put it at the end of my graph, then I am able to control the width of the base and the tip. I get pretty good results with a value of 0.07 for the base and 0.03 for the tip. There is also the Multiplier parameter if needs be. 21. Optimise your display Click image to enlarge Optimisation is obviously very important when dealing with fur. The more fur you have in your scene, the harder it will be to navigate. You can hide the Yeti Node by going into the Show Panel (Viewport) and unticking Plugin Shapes, or by using the attribute provided in the pgYeti Node. In the pgYeti, you will find a Display tab. Three parameters are available to control the display (and only the display) in the viewport: the density, the length and the width. 22. Optimise your render Sheep far from the camera don't need much densityIn the pgYeti under the Display tab, there is a tab called Render. You will find the exact same parameters as in Display, but for rendering. I like to set my density value in the Scatter node and set the render density after that. On some shots, the sheep are quite far from the camera so don't need much density. I decrease the render density accordingly. 23. Limit of the Viewport Render a couple of images at each stageThe preview of Yeti in the viewport is great but it has some limitations. At some point, you need a render to see if you’re going in the right direction. When I start the grooming of my sheep, I import my light rig and render a couple of images at each stage of the Yeti graph in order to get a better look of what my fur is going to look like. I use the PxrMarschnerHair available in RenderMan RIS to shade the fur. 24. Create the stripes Click image to enlarge The final thing to finish the sheep is to add the stripes. I could use the same techniques that I used for the grass but with fur, but there is another method. After creating a ramp with a series of stripes, I create a Pxr Manifold and I connect it to the Maya ramp. Without the Pxr Manifold, it won’t work properly. In the Connection Editor, connect the Result S (Pxr Manifold) to uCoord (Ramp) and ResultT (Pxr Manifold) to vCoord (Ramp). 25. Finish the stripes Tweak the shader to get a good lookTo last thing to do in order to make the stripes work is to add the correct information in the Pxr Manifold. Add surf_s in PrimVar S/ST and surf_t in PrimVar T. Note, if you are not using a Maya node – you want to use a texture that you painted, for instance – simply create a PxrTexture and drag and drop the Pxr Manifold in the Manifold field of the PxrTexture. Once the stripes are set up, I work more on the shader in order to get a nice look. 26. Importing the scene Create a new scene and import the main assetsNow all the assets are created, textured and shaded, it's time for me to gather them all into the scene. I start by creating a new scene in Maya and I import my main assets. I add the grass at the end of the process because it's quite heavy for Maya and not essential at this point. The important thing is to get the main elements to start the lighting. Keep your Outliner as clean as possible in order to stay organised. 27. Start the lighting Add a simple Directional Light to enhance the lighting directionThe lighting of my scene is daylight, the sun is high and some clouds are casting shadows on the ground. I create an HDR of one of our scenes that we use as a base in the main environment shot. Then I add a simple Directional Light to enhance the lighting direction. To enhance certain areas, I put some colours in the light and shadows or plug in some textures. This creates contrast. 28. Adding the grass Apply the grass to my main terrainUsing the technique that I explained before, I apply the grass to my main terrain. With my camera angle, I don't need the same density of grass everywhere. I simply split the terrain into different meshes and create a different Yeti node. I reduce the Render Density of the grass. The scene looks the same but the caching time is reduced. Optimise your scene as much as possible, especially when you are working with instances, otherwise it can become too large. 29. Placing plants The more variation you add, the better it will beIt's time to go into detail. I start by adding mushrooms all around the scene, then some plants. I also add trees in the background to add variation. The more variation you add, the better it will be. Our universe is very colourful and it was not always easy to deal with it. Most of the time, I import a simple version in Photoshop and do a couple of tests with various colours. The important thing is to keep the image clear and readable. 30. Adding rocks Make the ground more interesting by adding rocksI want to make the ground more interesting so I add more variation of colour and textures in the grass. I decide to add some tiny rocks. I've found a very cool, free script called RockGen from Creative Crash. I launch the script, choose the number of rocks, and their height and click Generate. I can now place these rocks in my scene. 31. Using spPaint3d Click image to enlarge spPaint3d is a must-use script on Creative Crash. It enables you to duplicate or instance a series of meshes on a surface. This is very useful for an environment scene like this one. It allows me to place all the clovers, the rocks and the plants randomly in a very short amount of time. There are a lot of parameters I can tweak just to add variation in the placement of my meshes. 32. Splitting your scene Splitting your scene really helps when you need to tweak particular elements separatelyIn order to have more flexibility in compositing, I split my scene into different parts. Splitting your scene really helps when you need to tweak particular elements separately. I use different render layers to split my assets and recombine them in Nuke. For the background, I create a Yeti node on the hill using the same technique as the grass. I work in a different Maya scene to keep it light. Once the hill is created, it can be reused in other shots. 33. Finishing using Nuke Click image to enlarge We use Nuke for compositing. In an environment scene like this one, I really recommend adding a bit of atmosphere (using the ZDepth as a mask) to help the legibility of your image. After this tiny modification, I use a few Grade nodes to enhance some parts of the image using the ID channel. To complete, I add a bit of vignetting, a spot of depth of field and a touch of chromatic aberration. This article was originally featured in 3D World issue 214; buy it here. Related articles: How to render a photorealistic sky Turn photos into 3D animations with Photoshop How to take your vector logo from 2D to 3D View the full article

When it comes to left-field creativity, Berlin is indisputably one of Europe's – if not the world's – most vibrant and inspirational design cities to visit. Offering a unique blend of subversive counter-culture, bustling cosmopolitan energy and harrowing historical scars, Berlin is a haven for design inspiration. So whether you're paying the German capital a flying visit, looking to move there to live or just on the hunt for some visual reference material, read on for our guide to 10 of the best off-the-beaten track creative locations in Berlin... 01. Spreepark An abandoned amusement park might sound more like the favoured stomping ground of a Scooby Doo villain than a must-see creative attraction, but bear with us. From a towering, derelict Ferris wheel to derailed go-karts peeking out from the undergrowth, Spreepark – once full of life, bright lights and laughter as the GDR's only permanent amusement park – is now a hugely surreal place to become inspired. Everywhere you look, there's a visual cue to spark off a story in your mind – whether it's toppled, overgrown dinosaur statues or colourful animal faces adorning tunnels. Formerly known as Kulturpark Plänterwald, the park was opened in 1961 and used to attract 1.5 million visitors a year, but fell into financial difficulties after reunification, and was declared insolvent in 2001. If you're passing by, you can peek through the gates into Spreepark for free – or occasionally there are events, screenings and even concerts hosted inside, if you're lucky. 02. Panke art cafe Berlin is packed with quirky arts venues, of which Panke is a great example. Offering a heady combination of art, food and music, it strives to "support edgy creativity that happens away from mainstream culture". Its café serves vegan/vegetarian food and coffee by day, and hosts events by night, while the gallery space showcases both established and emerging artists, with a particular interest in digital or net-based art and club culture. Visual inspiration doesn't stop there, as the bar is continuously redecorated by local and international artists – so you can get a fresh experience every time you visit the city. 03. Monster Kabinett If you like your artistic inspiration mixed with a dose of mechanised horror, there's no better place to do so than Monster Kabinett – a dark, unsettling showcase of hulking robots and warped, insect-like creatures. Hosted in a warehouse, it's the brainchild of the Dead Pigeon Collective and features costumed performers among the giant, moving metal sculptures. It's very literally off the beaten track: you'll find it down a suitably dank, dark alleyway off the side of a busy thoroughfare. It's an unassuming location, and you might not be sure you're in the right place until you're standing directly outside it. 04. Buchstabenmuseum Typography is part of Berlin's design heritage, as the ever-inspiring annual TYPO Berlin conference attests. And you'll find plenty of tangible examples of it in use here. With an impressive collection gathered from around Berlin and beyond, the Buchstabenmuseum – or Museum of Rescued Letters – is one of the world's first museums to collect letterforms from public spaces and display them as part of urban history. Featuring all manner of lost, forgotten and abandoned signage that's been saved from the scrapheap, this is a wonderful source of typographical inspiration. Courtesy of LucasFonts, there's even a free Buchstabenmuseum font, based on a selection of the letterforms on display. 05. Haus Schwarzenberg Street Art Alley Berlin's street art scene is legendary, from the world-renowned East Side Gallery, painted on the remnants of the Berlin Wall, right down to tucked-away alleyways that can be easily missed. One such example is Haus Schwarzenberg Street Art Alley. A narrow, unassuming passageway beside a cafe – not far from the famous art nouveau courtyards of Hackeschen Höfe – leads to a colourful explosion of inspiring murals, paste-ups and graffiti. Given the nature of great street art, the specific creations on display are constantly evolving as new murals are painted on, papered over and adapted, although Jimmy C's beautiful painting of Anne Frank, a centrepiece of the space, remains untouched. The existence of this pocket of inspiration is all thanks to non-profit arts organisation Haus Schwarzenberg, which occupies the adjacent building. 06. The Return of the Cows A quiet residential street in between the Prenzlauerberg and Friedrichshain areas of the city, Dietrich-Bonhoeffer Strasse is definitely off the beaten track by most standards. In fact, there would be no real reason to visit if it weren't for Sergej Dott’s delightfully whimsical public art installation, Die Rückkehr der Kühe – or The Return of the Cows. Peek between two buildings halfway down the road, and you'll spot a photo opportunity unlike any other: a herd of giant cows, seemingly wandering up and down the side of an apartment block. Dott has created several cow-based installations, which he calls 'Kuhunst' - a cheeky pun that will appeal to German-speakers, combining the words 'Kuh' (cow) and 'Kunst' (art). 07. Stand By Me tree An anonymous fan of Ben E. King has demonstrated their passion for his seminal love song Stand By Me, by carving the lyrics into a tree trunk in Berlin’s Tiergarten Park – turning it into a natural sculpture to inspire all who visit it. Unlike the transient, temporary nature of some of the street art featured on this list, this lyrical trunk has a pleasing permanence about it. The bark has healed, sealing the words within – and the anonymity of the creator adds to its enigmatic appeal. While the exact date it was carved is unknown, the tree first became an attraction following King’s death in 2015, and the famous chorus of the song also appeared on a nearby tree at a similar time. 08. Georg von Rauch-Haus A graffiti-daubed icon of socialist activism, the Georg-von-Rauch-Haus is an infamous Berlin squat that takes its name from a violent German anarchist and so-called 'urban guerilla' who was shot dead by the West German police in 1971. Shortly after von Rauch's death, squatters and political activists occupied a former nurses’ dormitory near Bethanien Hospital on Mariannenplatz, Kreuzberg. Attempts by the police to evict the inhabitants culminated in a major protest, which was met with tear gas and batons. With a distinctive ring of graffiti around the lower level, the Georg von Rauch-Haus now operates as a 'free-living' collective, as well as playing host to musical and cultural events. 09. Teufelsberg With an intriguing name that translates as 'devil's mountain', Teufelsberg is a former US spy base from the Cold War. It's built on top of a man-made hill outside the city, formed from the remnants of an incomplete Nazi military-technical college, as well as wartime rubble. Teufelsberg's most distinctive feature is a collection of 'randomes' – enormous listening domes, now dilapidated and broken, but still strangely beautiful – which, like so many of the locations on this list, are plastered with street art. Despite its dilapidated state, however, there's an entry fee to visit Teufelsberg as the site is now privately owned. Guided tours are also available. 10. Urban Nation Rounding up our list is a relatively new addition to Berlin's cultural landscape, having only opened its doors in 2017. Capitalising on Berlin's global reputation on the street art scene, Urban Nation is the world's first museum dedicated to all genres of urban contemporary art: graffiti, paste-ups, sculptures, acrylic designs and more. For over a decade, Urban Nation has championed street art in Berlin and helped transform the once-depressing, Cold War-era concrete cityscape by inviting high-profile muralists to make their mark. Now the organisation has its own free-to-enter permanent space, which features the works of 150 international and local artists. Related articles: 20 tools to make you more creative in 2018 5 fantastic design fails – and what we can learn from them The top 20 US design studios of 2018 View the full article

Two related Mirai variants called Masuta and PureMasuta have links to a hacker identified as Nexus Zeta. View the full article