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Cloudflare’s chief technology officer was frank and apologetic about February’s Cloudbleed bug during today's Virus Bulletin 2017 keynote. View the full article

It's always the quiet ones, isn't it? Dropbox has just unveiled its new design system and it's nothing short of staggering. We're struggling to think of the right comparison for it. Like, it's a bit like that time in the 1980s when amiable, dependable and thoroughly unexciting BBC presenter Frank Bough was revealed to be into cocaine and S&M. Dropbox is similarly dependable, and that's a good thing. You want it to just be there, holding onto some of your files so you can grab them when you need them. It's not really a brand that you even associate with design – more of a functional utilitarianism – and while you're aware it has a blue, sort of box-like logo, you'd struggle to draw it. 25 logo design tips from the experts Dropbox's new design system is an evolution of the existing brandSo to go from that to this new system, Dropbox Design, overnight, is a bit much to process. It's sort of like seeing an old friend or colleague suddenly go through the most epic midlife crisis ever; maybe not the full Frank Bough, but close. Without warning they're riding a fixie, sucking down bubble tea and buying their clothes from ASOS and Boohoo rather than Marks & Spencer. It's disconcerting, and maybe it's not the best look, and yet you know what? Fair play to them. They're not hurting anyone, and sooner or later they'll tire of squeezing their fortysomething frame into those skintight wet-look jeans and adjust back into something more comfortable, and they'll end up looking a lot better than they did beforehand, so yeah, well done. Dropbox has commissioned artwork to help showcase its new systemDropbox Design has all the echoes of a full-on midlife crisis, and yet we can't help but love it. Because right now it's at the initial blasting-out-of-the-closet phase, brimming with mad ideas and aspirations and totally into its new mission in life. It's all, hey guys, check out the new Dropbox! It wants to be vibrant and expressive and dynamic and playful, and to prove this it's brought with it an immense colour scheme that, it says, juxtaposes colour pairs in bold, unexpected ways and is designed to work with the the new logo. "We've evolved it from a literal box," the company says, "to a collection of surfaces to show that Dropbox is an open platform, and a place for creation." And along with the colours and the new logo design – which is also designed to be changed around depending on the situation – Dropbox is also pulling out all the stops with its typography. Don't call it a font; Sharp Grotesk is the full typeface packageThe company makes it very clear that it's not just using a new font – it's using a new typeface, as per the correct definition of a typeface. Sharp Grotesk is made up of 259 fonts in every conceivable weight, and Dropbox jolly well intends to use every single one of them, stating that it enables it to speak in a variety of tones. Add to that a collection of eye-catching imagery created along with a group of hot young artists and illustrators, and a new feature, Dropbox Paper, intended as a new kind of collaborative online document for creating and sharing ideas, and it all adds up to quite the entrance. And naturally, the internet hate is ready to point and laugh. There are of course more thoughtful responses; both Cennydd Bowles and Renato Valdés make useful points: And they're right, of course. Beyond the design, Dropbox is always going to be about storage (although we'll see how Dropbox Paper does in a world where everyone's trying to come up with the perfect collaborative solution). If you stop for a second and see what the actual Dropbox site looks like today, it's all pretty restrained and business-like. But the thing about this new system is that it gives Dropbox a lot of room to breathe creatively, similar to how WeTransfer brightened up its system with a collection of cool imagery. Calm down; this is what the actual Dropbox site looks like todaySo that's why we're happy to throw in our lot with the vocal minority who absolutely love Dropbox's new design system: Because yeah, maybe the company's having a bit of a midlife crisis, and okay, perhaps some of those wardrobe choices don't quite go together. But it's got people talking about and paying attention to a service that was previously just there, quietly and dependably doing its thing. And as Scott Mackenzie says: We'll drink to that. Related articles: How to challenge brand stereotypes How to choose the right typeface for a brand Create the perfect brand voice View the full article

Getting the design of your newsletter right is an extremely important affair. It's the first thing your subscribers see and the one design that will represent you in email inboxes throughout the world. Start experimenting with this range of free newsletter templates. Get Adobe Creative Cloud01. Email Monks MailChimp Master Template A massive template that you can cut to fit your needsThis could be your go-to template for lots of different email newsletters, because it has a huge number of different block styles all crammed into one document - just delete the ones you don’t want. It works with over 40 emails clients and is easy to integrate with MailChimp. 02. Pook: Newsletter Simple, reliable newsletter template that has been tested thoroughlyIf you're building any kind of email campaign you should check out Litmus, as it will help you to test your email to ensure that it breaks as little as possible. There's a great community that will help if you get stuck, and lots of useful resources. Pook: Newsletter is one of a suite of free, reliable templates on the on the Litmus site. 03. Mooza Get all your latest news across in this simplistic newsletter design from Pixel HintCreated by the team at Pixel Hint, Mooza is a clean, flat, pixel perfect free newsletter template, suited to all creative disciplines. 04. Campaign Monitor Roll your own template quickly and easyIn a rush? Campaign Monitor promises that with its online template builder you can create an HTML template in under 60 seconds. All its templates are fully tested and mobile ready, and once you're done you can either download it for free or upload it to a Campaign Monitor account. 05. ZURB An ideal range of newsletter templates for those who want to customise furtherZURB has a range of free templates available, including this newsletter. Each template is packaged with a separate CSS stylesheet and HTML file. If you're adding images, you'll need to create and compress a separate folder with the CSS stylesheet before you upload. 06. Antwort Antwort's newsletter templates work on all devicesOriginally made for transactional emails with dynamic content, the Antwort layouts are thoroughly tested – in live environments with real data and edge cases. They work across all devices too! 07. 99Designs Pick your favourite colour with this free newsletter template99Designs ran a contest asking designers to create three irresistible templates in four colour options for its customers to download and send out. Each provides a newsletter template, a promotional template and a template for email notifications, and is available in green, blue, orange and grey. 08. Email campaign Email Campaign features all the bits and bobs your newsletter needsA free, responsive newsletter template, Email Campaign features a large hero image, multiple columns and different content sections in order to fully convey any information to subscribers. Related articles: 15 awesome email newsletter designs The secrets of a successful newsletter design 10 best email newsletter tools View the full article

Ghost Rider shone as one of the new characters in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. When Ghost Rider appears you know there are going to be some really cool Ghost Rider transformation scenes, where you'll see a living breathing dude turn into a fiery skeleton. There are some interesting things that happen when Ghost Rider transforms and we'll be breaking all of them down in the same way as his skin changes: piece by piece. 22 mighty Maya tutorials to try todayThe first thing that happens is that his skin starts to boil. You can see bubbles appearing, in a similar way to when you heat some plastic. Then, the skin starts to break off in patches; it's really interesting to see these cracks as they start appearing. Eventually, the skin starts flying off, thanks to environmental factors like wind. From below, his skull starts showing but there's a very neat and sort of controlled chaos in the way his skin cracks. Let's take a look at how we can achieve these effects using Maya and a spot of After Effects. You can download the files for this tutorial here. And to view images at a larger size, simply hit the expand icon in the top-right corner of the image. Get Adobe Creative Cloud01. Prepare the footage Try to use a tripod when you shoot your footage...Before we jump into a 3D program – Autodesk's Maya, in this case – it's worth preparing for the shot. You need to capture good footage. The display is up to you but make sure you stabilise the footage or shoot it on a tripod. Get some sudden movements from the actor as well as slow ones, for when the fire is inside the character's head and burning him when he's human, before slowly turning into the Rider. 02. Stabilise the footage ...otherwise, stabilise it afterwardsIf you don't happen to have a tripod to shoot on, it isn't the end of the world. There are some useful compositing tricks that you can use in order to stabilise the footage. First of all, import your footage into Adobe After Effects, create a new composition, drag the footage into this composition and then right-click on the footage in the timeline. You'll see a Warp Stabilizer VFX button appear. Click it, and then in the properties of the effect, simply change Smooth Motion to No Motion. Do this only if your footage is suffering from camera shake. 03. Sort the geometry Find a pair of models to match your footageYou'll need two models. First, a human base to simulate. This won't contribute to the final composite but it's what we'll burn. Second is the skeleton. Get both of these models, fit the skull inside the head as well as you can and clean the geometry. Weed out any holes. In Maya's modeling module, go to Mesh in the toolbar and find Reduce. This helps cut poly from the geometry. 04. Skinning geometry Create some joints to match your model, then skin itMake some joints based on the actor model and skin it. In my case, I only have the head, and only a small portion of the head. So I created three joints. One from the chest to the neck or the bottom of the skull, another from the neck all the way to the top of the head and a third one that doesn't really do anything but I like to have in case I need changes later. 05. Animate the geometry Animate your geometry so that it matches the movement in your footageNow, animate the geometry to move like the actor in the footage. Get this as close as possible. Once done, create a copy of those animated joints using Edit> Duplicate Special (in the settings of that, check the Duplicate Input Graph to copy the animation) and skin this new joint system to the skull for a quick and accurate duplication of the actor model's motion. 06. Turn geometry into nCloth and rigid bodies You don't want your skin going through your skullUnder the FX module in Maya, go over to the nCloth menu bar and then click Create nCloth while selecting the actor model. This will transform your actor model into an nCloth on which simulations can then be made. In the same menu bar, you'll find the Create Passive Collider option. Click this button while selecting the skeleton model in order to turn it into a Rigid Body. By doing this, you can ensure that the skin on the actor model will be prevented from going through the skull. 07. Prepare for the maps Now you're going to need some animated mapsYou'll need between two and three animated grayscale maps for this part of the tutorial. Firstly, you're going to need a simple map, which goes from total white to total black – let's call this one Dynamics Map. Secondly, you'll need another map that goes from total white to having some black patches but not total blackness – we're going to call this one Tearing Map. The third map you'll need is a copy of the Tearing Map. You just need to invert the colours, offset it by a few frames and then multiply it to the original, getting the edges of the animation. 08. Dynamics map The dynamics map dictates how much of your mesh is nClothThis map will control how much of your mesh is actually nCloth and how much of it isn't. Essentially, if the map is all white, no vertex on your mesh will be dynamically simulated as nCloth. This is very important if your mesh is deforming. In my case, I made some dark areas appear in the map as the actor was moving to make it more natural. You can use the Fractal Noise in After Effects to generate this. 09. Tearing map The tearing map controls how skin breaks offThis map decides where the skin starts to break off from. Black areas will break off completely, meaning every single vertex in that area will separate. Create this like a fabric with white and black patches. Try to minimise the blackness but don't completely eradicate it. I'd say a number near 20 per cent is good. Copy this map and invert its colours. Multiply this new map with the original to create a third map. This will be used to generate sparks. 10. Input mesh attract Setting Input Attract Mesh to 1 disables nCloth simulation on the meshUsually when you turn a mesh into nCloth, you lose the animation. However, there's a setting under the nClothShape node's Dynamic Properties tab called Input Attract Mesh. Set it to 1, which disables nCloth simulation on the mesh and follows the deformation caused by the rigging. In the next tab, input the Dynamics Map into the Input Attract Map to multiply the attribute with your map. 11. Tear the skin Use the Tearable Surface setting with the tearing mapSelect the actor model and under the FX module, go to the nConstraint menu. Click the Tearable Surface button. Your surface will tear like skin. Among the newly created nodes, find one called nComponent and under the Glue Strength Map, input the Tearing Map. This way, your cloth will become weakly bonded and patches of skin will start falling or flying, depending on your settings. 12. Tweak the environment The Turbulence button will add variety to your animationNow that the skin is breaking, make some changes to the environment. Create some wind under the Nucleus node. Under the nClothShape's Dynamic Properties tab, decrease the mass to something like 0.1 or so. The number depends on the scale of your scene. Finally, select the actor model, go to the Fields/Solvers menu bar and click the Turbulence button to add a turbulence field to create some really nice variation in how the skin flies. Without this, the cloth doesn't look good. 13. nCaching the dynamics Cache nObject to stop it resimulating all the timeIn the nClothShape, find the Caching tab. Change Cacheable Attributes to Dynamic State. Go to the nCache under the FX module and go to Create New Cache (you might have to first click Enable all Cache on Selected) and select nObject. Let it cache for a moment. This will save you having to resimulate every time you change the frame. 14. Light the eyes Use a V-Ray Sphere Light to light up the eyesNow we need some fire in the eyes. One method would be to play with materials and self-illumination but that's too much work. Simply go ahead and create a V-Ray Sphere Light. Fit it into one of the eyes. Now, having already selected it, go to the Edit menu and access the Duplicate Special's settings by clicking the square next to it. Check the Duplicate Input Graph and Instance Leaf Nodes. The copy will now be able to take on the attributes of the first light. 15. Create FumeFX node Brush up on your FumeFX skills for this bitYou'll need some basic knowledge of FumeFX. Save a copy at this point. Hide the actor model if you want, to speed things up. Go to the FumeFX menu and click FumeFX Node. Go to the Node's attributes and play with Width, Height and Length to better fit the skeleton mesh, basically, a rough location where the fire lights up. Spacing is the resolution of the simulation. Next page: Create sparks, render your different elements, and finish off the model 16. Feed the fire source Time to set your skeleton on fireWith the skeleton model selected, go the FumeFX menu and pick the Object Source button. Now your skeleton model lights on fire. Run initial simulation by going into the Attribute Editor for the FumeFX node, click the button that's blue-ish and looks like a server rack, select your source from there and then click on the Play button. 17. Animate the fire rate Adjust the attributes to get your fire looking just rightYou have to decide which frame the fire starts to show up and how fast. Also, I would suggest some smoke before the actual fire appears. You have to change two settings for that. First, in the FumeFX node under the Output tab, change Start Frame to whatever you want. Select your source object and animate attributes like Fuel, Smoke, Oxygen and Temperature to set exactly how and when the fire starts, and simulate again. 18. Create sparks Generate some sparks using your third mapUsing the third map, we'll generate sparks to show some fire flying out. Select the actor model (ideally a version without nCloth simulations) and go to the nParticles menu. Click on Emit from Object. Once done, change the Emitter Type in the Emitter node to Surface. Go all the way to the bottom and in Texture Rate, input the third map and check Enable Texture Rate. 19. Sparks material Play with the intensity until you hit a setting that goes with your exposureCreate a new V-Ray Mtl Material or a V-Ray Light Material through the Hypershade. Change the colour to light orange and play with the intensity – find a setting that works with your exposure settings, if making a Light Material. If you're making a V-ray Mtl Material, turn on the Self-Illumination slider and set the colour to orange. Select the nParticle node and apply the material to it. 20. A texturing problem Things don't always go right first timeNow, I got into a problem with texturing that I think would be helpful to discuss for a bit here. You might not run into this particular sticky situation if you did some pre-planning, which is actually something that I did, but unfortunately it got lost over the four-month period that it took me to do this. Anyway, the problem is that I used Spherical Projection before I created the maps but I wanted to put a planar map as the diffuse for my actor model. That's a problem. 21. Planar material mapping Here's how to project an image without messing up UVsIf you want to project an image on a mesh without having to mess with the UVs, create a new material. In the diffuse channel (or any other) import a texture. Select File from the Texture Creator, right-click and pick Create as Projection. Now, you can project your image without messing up the UVs. Once placed, delete history or you can bake your texture into the current UVs. 22. Baking the map (optional) Use Convert to File Texture to bake your map, if you wantSimply go to the Hypershade, select the Material as well as the mesh and just go into the Edit menu and click Convert to File Texture. This will turn your projection image into a usable separate material and distort it according to your UVs rather than distort the UVs to fit your projection. If that happens, it will throw everything you have done up to this point away and you'll have no choice but to redraw the maps and everything else we have done. 23. Render the skull Render all the elements in separate filesI'd suggest you render everything in different files. Render the skull as it is. You can also use the V-Ray Material in Render Element, which basically just outputs the objects with the selected material into a separate file. Although it doesn't get you the Alpha map for those specific materials, so you'll have to keep that in mind. Use this for the skull only. The skin is a different story… 24. Render the skin You only need to render skin that's currently breakingTo composite skin on top of your footage, create a third map. What you basically need is to only render out the part that's breaking at any given moment. Stuff that's not yet broken shouldn't be visible. You can use some modified version of the Tearing Map for this. Honestly, I can't think of any other way you can do this, so maps are all you've got! 25. Render the fire Render the fire using Render ElementsSince you've already got skull and skin, you'll just need to subtract them from a beauty pass for the fire. Render it using Render Elements as well, it's good to have things in separate files so you can edit them later if you want. Now one thing, the rendering is actually very very resource-heavy due to the cloth simulation. nCache helps a bit but not by much, so you have to consider that. 26. Compositing Put everything together in After Effects and you're doneCompositing is a subjective action. You need to think about what you want from the effect and then you have to composite it to your taste. One thing I would recommend, though, is adding some glow. In After Effects, go to Effects, locate the Glow option and then add it to the overall scene using an adjustment layer. Another thing that would be nice is to add some motion blur to the scene. Go to Effects and find Pixel Motion Blur to force some blur to be added to the scene. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 225; buy it here! Related articles: Review: Maya LT How to simulate explosions in Maya 10 of the best new features in Maya 2017 View the full article

Ask professional designers at creative agencies whether they use stock imagery in their designs, and the answer is often a knee-jerk “No!” But delve a little deeper, and you'll often discover that stock imagery is used, just not in the ways you might expect. In this post we look at five common ways that pro designers use stock as a cheap, quick and easy way to advance and promote their creative projects. 01. Social media campaigns 'Tattoos say who I am without having to speak' by People Images. This stock photograph could work well as part of a Facebook campaign In the era of Instagram and Snapchat, social media is becoming more and more about visuals. So for any kind of digital campaign, getting your visuals right is paramount. That means finding images that will grab people’s attention in an environment where the possibilities for distraction are almost infinite. It also means finding images that will work with your message and reinforce it, rather than fighting against it. When you’re creating social media posts that are part of a broader campaign, it’s tempting to use the same imagery that you’ve created for print or website use. But while there’s a lot to be said for consistency, you should never rule out using separate images for social media campaigns. On Facebook, Twitter and so on, attention is at an absolute minimum, so you need images that will strike a chord with people instantaneously... or lose them forever. By and large, most stock imagery has that kind of immediacy built in. (After all, if a library image wasn’t attention-grabbing, it’s unlikely that anyone would ever download it.) So whether you’re looking for an image for a Twitter card, Facebook cover photo, shareable infographic, PDF freebie or any other element of a social media campaign, stock libraries can provide a quick and cheap way of finding the right visuals, fast. 02. Moodboards and presentations Autumn Tree and Sun during Sunset by konradlew. This image could work well as part of a moodboard for a seasonal advertising campaign When it comes to a big brand campaign, there’s usually money in the budget to shoot your own bespoke imagery or commission an illustrator. But when it comes to pitching those projects in the first place, it’s your own money, or that of your agency, that you’re spending. So when it comes to your moodboards and presentations, it can be much better for cashflow, not to mention quicker and easier, to use stock imagery instead. Yes, you could just go to the opposite extreme and grab pictures from Google Images. But that’s technically infringing copyright, plus it usually means you’ll be using lower-resolution imagery, which will often look amateurish when blown up on a big-screen projection or printout. Stock images, in contrast, will be professionally shot, high-resolution and will help to add that touch of sophistication to your moodboards and presentations that could mean the difference between winning and losing the account. 03. Mockups, wireframes and prototypes Bright, colourful lamps hung against blurred background, by DDieschburg. This image could work well as a hero image on a website mockup So you’ve won the account, and you’re starting to build the website wireframe or app prototype that the client wants. Now you’re going to need some visuals. But you don’t want to start organising an expensive photoshoot, video production or bespoke illustration at this stage, only for the client to say that they don’t like it further down the line. It’s much better to get the fundamentals of how the design will look and function first. Right now, then, it’s better to spend a small amount of money on stock images to build your mockup, wireframe or prototype design around. Only once you have signoff on the general principles of the design and its functionality, from all stakeholders, is it prudent to go all-out on commissioning your own bespoke visuals. 04. Email newsletters Raw organic lady apples by bhofack2. This image could get readers of a recipe newsletter salivating and eager to read more If you think that email newsletters went out of fashion in 2004, then think again: they’ve shown a big resurgence in recent years. There are many possible reasons why, but one explanation is that, in a noisy world of competing messages and channels, people are craving measured curation from a reliable source. Careful editing and targeting of email newsletters is only part of the story, though. The rise of solid, reliable HTML email means that newsletters can now look as good as websites – and, more importantly, people expect them to do so. In short, a list of plain links is probably not going to cut it. Just like your website’s landing pages, you’re going to need some bright and attractive visuals that lure people into the content of your newsletter. And stock libraries can be a great place to find suitable photos, illustrations and even videos to engage and enthuse your audience. 05. For inspiration Flaming basketball player by draco77. This beautiful vector artwork could inspire your own sports-related designs In general, stock image libraries provide a high quality range of visual assets for a relatively low cost. But there’s one way in which you can benefit from stock without paying a penny – by using it as inspiration. With multiple millions of visuals at your fingertips, and sophisticated tools helping you hone down your search to perfection, stock image libraries can really help to get your creative motor running, even if you don’t buy anything. For more ideas on how to get inspiration from stock, check out 7 sources of free design inspiration from stock libraries. Related articles: 5 tips for using stock imagery in your designs 6 ways to improve your logo design 10 brilliant image-led portfolio sites for 2017 View the full article

The political landscape today is somewhat unpredictable, and certainly surprising. Yet in turbulent times – where each daily news story is greeted in the majority with “what have they fucked up now?” – those ever-bundling folk at UKIP have proved again, that above all parties and characters of politics, they are the gift that keeps on giving. Or maybe more aptly ‘the gaff...’ 25 logo design tips from the expertsLast Friday, at their party conference (in a building part-funded with EU money. Just sayin') they didn’t just hold an election for the person to lead their party, but the logo to lead it too. And in the model of the referendum they’d been crusading for since the early 1990s, it was a 'this or that' demonstration of democracy in selection process. The first choice depicted the party acronym strapped-in above the line “For the Nation”, complete with two swooshing sashes of yellow and purple respectively – the whole graphic boat-load ready to set sail out of Torquay harbour. The second option had all-but-the-same type and layout, but it swapped the seaside for the Serengeti, with the head of a lion mounted beside the text. Roaring to victory? The conceptual rigour in the two routes is clear for all to see. The first obviously represents UKIP’s primary contribution to politics: wind and hot air. The second harks back to those halcyon days in British history that the party is assumedly so proud of. You know, the times where all we had to worry about was the Church, medieval poverty, famine and disease, whilst our royalty and elites looked after themselves at the expense of global stability. Exceptional brand strategy on both counts, we can all agree. But it was the latter lion that roared to victory, winning the vote and sinking the sails to democracy. Cue pandemonium, furore and unrestrained mocking. Many swapped the usual “my kid could've done that” for “you've just nicked that”, citing the startling similarities to the lion in the Premier League logo (which is also no stranger to Simba-based scoffing). Others questioned why an anti-immigration party felt an African / Asian animal an apt symbol. The new Ukip logo (left) is similar to that of the Premier LeagueBut there are valid critiques that need to be debated here. If, in fact, a lion represents qualities of so-called ‘Britishness’ (pride, courage and so on) – qualities that UKIP is so desperate to align with – why, then, does it bear the resigned look of a lion staring down the barrel of a rifle of a rich US dentist? Or like it’s just got to the border and realised it’s forgotten its passport? Creative logo amends Social media wasn’t shy in offering some viable amends, replacing the lion render with the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz; Scar from the Lion King; a Lion from Crappy Taxidermy; and, of course, a treated version of the infamous image of a busted and bleeding Nigel Farage as he emerged from a plane accident in 2010. Others confirmed the resemblance of the lion with the protagonist of Japanese animé Dragon Ball Z (only upturned). And some just downright changed the lot. Of course, all UK political parties fall to the branding sword at one point or another. Surely everyone can remember the ‘Tory Tree’ and its subsequent tale (not to mention that the party commandeered the bulldog association through the corpulent Churchill). Labour, too, has wilted its rose under the marketing and PR press over the past few decades. However, with UKIP facing falling support and the label of redundant after seemingly achieving its one and only ambition of Britain withdrawing from the EU, a rebrand hardly feels like the most robust and defiant response to questions of its integrity and identity as a political party. No, UKIP lumped for a lion and its connotations, leaving one to only assume that it thought no animal native to the British Isles had the necessary qualities to personify their party. Whereas the weasel, surely, is a worthy consideration. Craig Oldham designed Me & EU, a limited-edition collection of postcards written and designed by UK-based creatives that were sent across Europe as a means to reconnect the UK with the EU in the wake of Brexit – available for pre-order now. Related articles: 10 iconic logos hilariously drawn from memory Brilliant sketch pokes fun at Avatar's Papyrus logo 14 best-practice rules for striking editorial design View the full article

Wireframe tools make the process of knowing how to create an app or website fundamentally easier, by visually stripping the product down and enabling all involved to focus purely on functions and user interactivity. Clients need to understand how your proposed app or website will work. But simply explaining to them verbally or in writing leaves the vast majority of functions down to their imagination – which isn't helpful for you or your client, and leaves a lot of room of error. Wireframe tools can be extremely helpful in squaring that circle. Get Adobe Creative CloudThere are more wireframe tools on the market than ever, each offering varying levels of functionality. Some software can be used purely for simple wireframes, while others will allow you to create a working prototype. Taking advantage of trial downloads or free software and finding the one that fits in with the way you work is the only way of finding out which one is right for you. Here we've selected 20 of the best wireframe tools to get you started. Enjoy... Choose a website builder: 16 top toolsPromoted: Justinmind Justinmind offers a library of UI elements and custom styling for use in your wireframes Platform: Web-based Price: $19/month Web-based Justinmind includes a library of UI elements, from buttons and forms to generics shapes and a range of widgets for iOS, SAP and Android. Custom styling is included, so you can add rounded corners, cropped images or colour gradients, or import graphics by dragging them into the browser. Prototypes can be exported as HTML. 01. Wireframe.cc Wireframe.cc offers a clean, minimal interface Platform: Web-based Price: Free-$99/month Wireframe.cc offers a simple interface for sketching your wireframes that eschews the toolbars and icons of a typical drawing app. There's a limited colour palette to help you avoid that particular avenue of procrastination, and UI elements are context-sensitive and only appear when you need them. Whether or not you enjoy this is a matter of personal taste. 02. Moqups Work collaboratively on wireframes, mockups, prototypes and more Platform: Web-based Price: Free-€49/month This tool is designed to take you through the whole process of roughly sketching your wireframes; collaborating on them with others; creating site maps, flowcharts and storyboards; and building functional prototypes. 03. UXPin Quick tutorials show you how to build advanced animations in the UXPin editor Platform: Web-based Price: $19-$99/month You can put together wireframes in UXPin at top speed by dragging and dropping custom elements. There are regularly updated libraries for Bootstrap, Foundation, iOS and Android, and your wireframes can be quickly converted to high-fidelity mockups. From there you can create fully interactive and animated prototypes of your final product. Alternatively, you can also start your designs in Photoshop or Sketch and import into UXPin for prototyping. To support the full UX process, you can then create and pin documentation to your prototypes and auto-generate specs and style guides for developers. 04. Fluid UI Each project generates a QR code you can scan to get the prototype working on your phone Platform: Web-based Price: $8.25-$41.58/month Fluid UI has 16 built-in libraries for iOS, Android, Windows and more, and pages are created by dragging in elements from these libraries. This app provides a great way for you to map out your projects visually by creating links to join screens, forming a diagram of how everything fits together. Hovering over a link gives you the option to change the kind of transition you're using. 05. Balsamiq Mockups Balsamiq Mockups aims to replicate the experience of sketching on a whiteboard Platform: Mac, Windows, web-based Price: Various Balsamiq Mockups includes several drag-and-drop elements, from buttons to lists, each styled as a hand-drawing. The basic premise behind this wireframing tool is to keep the mock-ups 'intentionally rough and low fidelity', to encourage as much feedback as possible. 06. Axure Axure lets you create interactive HTML mockups for websites and apps Platform: Mac, Windows Price: $29-$99/month per user As well as creating mockups, Axure allows you to add functionality to your layout and create an interactive prototype. Features of this wireframing tool include sitemaps and various widgets in the form of various UI elements. Interactive HTML mockups can be created for both websites and apps, and you can even view your app design on your phone with a built-in share function. 07. Pidoco Pidoco includes a handy library of drag-and-drop interface elements Platform: Web-based Price: $12-$175/month Pidoco is similar to Axure in that it includes library of various drag-and-drop interface elements, as well as the ability to add multiple pages and layers. Your prototypes can be shared online with clients, and includes functions for collaborative feedback and discussion. Viewing your prototypes on your phone is as easy as downloading the Pidoco app. 08. Visio Viseo's interface will be familiar if you're used to using Microsoft Word or Excel Platform: Windows Price: £9.80 or £11.70 per month Viseo's real strength lies in technical diagrams rather than wireframing; however, for those already accustomed with other Microsoft apps such as Word or Excel, the interface will be very familiar. It is quite clunky, Viseo does offer add-on tools such as Swipr, which allows you to create and export a usable HTML prototype. 09. InDesign CC InDesign lets you use animations and videos in your wireframes Platform: Mac, Windows Price: From $16.44/month as part of Adobe Creative Cloud By including animations, video and object states, InDesign can be used to create an interactive PDF that acts as a wireframe for your website or app. The software also includes the ability to create libraries of page elements, so you can create collections of various reusable interface graphics. 10. Photoshop CC Never thought of Photoshop as a wireframing tool? Think again! Platform: Mac, Windows Price: From $16.44/month as part of Adobe Creative Cloud Photoshop doesn’t offer libraries of interface elements, but for straightforward, fast wireframing, it is a very easy choice for designers. If you're familiar with Adobe products, it's simple to sketch out quick ideas, group various elements and layers, and build an effective wireframe. Next page: 10 more top wireframe tools to explore 11. Protoshare Protoshare puts the emphasis on online collaboration Platform: Web-based Price: $29-$59/month Protoshare is an online tool with a focus on collaboration and sharing. It includes a library of drag-and-drop elements, a sitemap, and the ability to use custom CSS and insert your own elements. Due to the emphasis on online collaboration, unlike some other tools, it can't export as a PDF, however it is worth considering for its prototyping features. 12. Penultimate Wireframing for an iPad app? Then use an iPad tool! Platform: iPad Price: Free If you're working purely for iPad design, sketching out ideas directly within the device itself is the perfect way to ensure you’re working to the right ratio and with well-sized active areas. With Penultimate from Evernote, sketches and ideas can be easily saved and sent to clients for approval. 13. Pencil Project Pencil is free, open source and comes with a variety of templates Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac Price: Free Pencil is a free, open source wireframing tool available for Windows, Linux and Mac. Features include multi-page documents, external object import, as well as aligning, z-ordering, scaling and rotation. Various templates are included as well as the ability to export to HTML, PNG, Openoffice.org document, Word document, and PDF. 14. OmniGraffle OmniGraffle has made a seamless transition from Mac to iPad Platform: Mac, iPad, iPhone Price: From $49.99 (standard iOS version) OmniGraffle is effectively an ideas tool that enables you to quickly bash together website wireframes, diagrams, process charts or page layouts. You select a document type, and OmniGraffle makes context-sensitive joins between separate elements, automatically linking lines in diagrams and aligning shapes and elements in wireframes or page layouts. 15. Gliffy Gliffy aims to 'make diagramming a team sport' Platform: Web-based Price: $4.99-$7.99/month per user Gliffy is a tool that enables you to collaborate with other team members on flowcharts, network diagrams and more. It includes drag and drop components, online collaboration, image export and version tracking. 16. MockFlow MockFlow is another great wireframe tool Platform: Web-based Price: Free-$39/month Mockflow enables you to create working prototypes, and has an emphasis on collaboration and sharing. It includes features such as a sitemap creator for pages and folders, version tracking, image and component collections, chat, and HTML5 export. 17. Frame Box Frame Box is a good free solution for simple wireframes Platform: Online Price: Free Frame Box is a free online tool for very simple wireframing. It includes a few drag and drop elements and allows you to share the web page as a unique URL. You can also give your elements titles and descriptions to help explain their function. 18. FlairBuilder FlairBuilder lets you choose between ‘high-fidelity’ and ‘low-fidelity’ style graphics Platform: Mac, Windows Price: $99 Flairbuilder features multi-page projects, site map and comments. Like the rest, components are placed using a drag-and-drop interface and a clickable prototypes can be exported as HTML or shared online. You can also choose between 'high-fidelity' and 'low-fidelity' style graphics. 19. HotGloo Wireframing tool HotGloo offers a rich range of features Platform: Web-based Price: $13-$54/month HotGloo's prototyping alone offers a rich range of features that goes far beyond simple clickable buttons. For example, users can change displayed elements depending on whether or not a user is logged in. And don't forget... pen and paper There's nothing quicker than grabbing a pen and paperYes. An actual pen. And some real made-from-wood paper. OK, so these don’t allow you to make a prototype, and there are no built-in elements. But, if you feel more comfortable using a more traditional approach, why not get your ideas down on paper first and refine them in software later? Related articles: Photoshop for web design: 20 pro tips 10 top prototyping tools Rapid prototyping using Photoshop CC View the full article

http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-ai-vs-siri-vs-bing-iq-tests-show-one-is-smartest-by-a-mile/ … View the full article

Android receives three remote code execution patches for vulnerabilities rated critical as Google launches a new Pixel/Nexus Security Bulletin. View the full article

The credit bureau Equifax said Monday the information of 145.5M Americans, was implicated in this summer's breach. View the full article

A domain name system server implementation is at risk of remote code execution, information exposure and denial-of-service attacks after a seven vulnerability were disclosed by Google and patched by the maintainers of Dnsmasq. View the full article

Wacom has long been at the top of the game when it comes to interactive pen displays, aka graphics tablets. Wacom's Cintiq range is the premium option for artists and designers working in both 2D and 3D applications. The 7 best graphics tabletsIn recent years, Wacom has produced some excellent models, with great ergonomics matched by good quality materials. With this in mind it’s hard to see where the firm could have improved, except in perhaps reducing the cost of its creative tablets, which makes for a substantial initial investment – although the devices are hardy and stable. However, it appears to have raised its game even further with its latest Wacom Cintiq Pro 13-inch and Wacom Cintiq Pro 16-inch models. Wacom Cintiq Pro price and availability Costing $999.95/£899.99 for the 13-inch and $1,499.95/£1,399.99 for the 16-inch, the new Cintiq Pros follow the same design cues, materials and pen properties as one another. They vary only in screen specifications, where the 16-inch model is 4K and the 13-inch is full HD. This makes a lot of sense at first glance, as the smaller display will still look sharp and crisp, seeing as the pixels are smaller. However, the reality isn’t quite as clear cut. The 13-inch display is easy to live with and looks great but there is some loss in sheer smoothness of gradients and a little sacrifice in colour rendition. This doesn’t get in the way of a good painting session, but it is noticeable in comparison to the 16-inch version. Our price widgets at the top and bottom of this article show you the best deals that our robots have found online today – or alternatively, the Wacom store offers monthly payment plans. Wacom Cintiq Pro performance The 16-inch Wacom Cintiq Pro has a stunning 4K display. Its IPS display is colour accurate, with good contrast levels, and the pixel density is such that you don’t ever feel you’re working with a screen. This is in part due to the thickness of the screen between surface and pixels, which is minimal on both models. There’s very little parallax – that odd artefact where, in previous models, you can see between the nib and the actual image. This, and the beautifully matte etched glass, makes for a more natural-feeling experience. Often a hard nib and glass won't have quite the right amount of friction, but the Cintiq Pros both are a joy to work with, be it for sculpting 3D models in ZBrush or spending time doing concept work in Corel Painter or Adobe Photoshop. Wacom Cintiq Pro accessories Much was said about previous Cintiq stands, little of it good, and Wacom has listened. These two models have solid fold-out legs that do a great job of supporting the tablet, even when you're leaning heavily on the screen. They aren’t adjustable, so unfortunately you will need to shuffle into a comfortable working position, but they are set at a good 20 degrees, so will suit the majority of people. If you don’t like these legs then there is a separate stand that you can buy that provides more usability. Like previous models these have softkeys top-right to access certain functions such as settings, keyboard and touch input. This is great and keeps the beautifully minimal device looking sleek, but some express keys would be so helpful, for those who shove the keyboard to one side to get best access to draw. Luckily the Expresskey Remote is available as an option (for an extra $99.99/£89.99) that brings back the touch ring, multiple buttons and can be placed anywhere. It’s a great accessory, but you’ll need to factor it into your purchasing decisions. Pro Pen 2 The display can be as crisp as you like but if the stylus is no good it will always be left to one side, consigned to the heap of tech so many of us have. Luckily, the Pro Pen 2 – which comes in the box – is excellent, following the same design as previous models, with a button at each end (nib and eraser) and a two-button rocker. The soft touch rubber is comfortable and chunky enough to relieve strain on the hand for prolonged usage. This version has the tilt from previous incarnations but the sensitivity has been increased to over 8000 levels. While this may sound overkill, in use it makes a lot of sense, as the more sensitive, the more like traditional media it feels. What’s more, it’s a battery-free device and the lag, even with large complex Photoshop brushes or sculpting with high res stamps in 3D, is minimal to the point of non-existence. Wacom Cintiq Pro: final verdict The Wacom Cintiq Pro 13 and 16 come with the Pro Pen 2 in the boxThis all goes to show that, even when it looks like a developer has created a success, there is always room for improvement. Both these Wacom Cintiq Pros are incredible machines that will aid artists and designers in a way that is effective, comfortable and in some cases inspiring. The experience is fantastic and, while the price is higher than other options, the investment is a one-time cost that's well worth making. The 13-inch model may not leave quite the same impression as the bigger brother, but it's substantially cheaper and can be put into a bag with a laptop for working in a more portable fashion – making it perfect for location work, or simply getting out of the house to work over a coffee. Related articles: Wacom's new Cintiq has the biggest screen yet View the full article

It’s time to take a dive into the glorious world of After Effects plugins - third-party add-ons for Adobe Creative Cloud's 3D, motion graphics and animation software. While there are so, so many to choose from, there's bound to be plenty in this little selection to take your work to the next level. Get Adobe Creative CloudWhether enhancing your workflows, adding features that simply don’t exist in the core After Effects application or simply just making stuff look cool, After Effects has never been in better health when mixed with these great tools. 01. Element 3D V2.2 Price: $199.95For a straightforward way of incorporating 3D models into your After Effects work, it's hard to go wrong with Video Copilot's Element 3D. It enables you to import OBJ and C4D objects into your After Effects projects, complete with automatic texture importing. Create complex animations with plenty of great-looking features including low poly distortion, particle noise with subsurface scattering, shadows, reflections and ambient occlusion. It's GPU accelerated, too, so if you have a fat graphics card installed then you can enjoy lightning-fast renders. 02. Twitch Twitch lets you build and automate all manner of effects and transitions Price: $45If your work's just a little too clean-looking for your liking, Video Copilot's Twitch is an easy-to-use and cost-effective way to rough things up a bit. With six operators to play with – blur, colour, light, scale, slide and time – it's a straightforward way to spice up your projects with effects such as glitches, lens blur, RGB split and motion blur. Twitch comes with 25 ready-made presets to get you started, as well as 10 royalty-free sound effects to sweeten the deal. 03. Plexus 3 Plexus 3 can create so much more than lines and dots Price: $249.99Plexus from Rowbyte Software has become one of the few plugins that has defined a look by its name. Everyone knows what is meant when a brief asks for the Plexus effect. The fact is that with some manipulation, Plexus is capable of so much more than dots and lines, and with version 3, even more effects and enhancements have been added. One great one is the Plexus Object Panel, which gives an easy way to manage the plexus scene, and is something we would love to see in other complex AE plugins. 04. PQ FUI Toys 2 PQ FUI Toys 2 is a great resource for UI graphics when deadlines are tight Price: $49Ever have a panic deadline that needs some fancy UI graphics? Well, PQ FUI Toys 2 is a great way to add to and enhance any scene with these small motion graphic elements that cover most areas of UI design. While the artist in you may scoff at the idea of using pre-made comps, each of these comps is easily editable to the base level, and is a massive time saver when time is tight. 05. Motion V2 Motion V2 packs a whole plethora of great workflow features into a tiny palette Price: $35Motion V2 is an excellent After Effects workflow plugin. It's amazing how much is packed into this little palette. Motion V2 can set all of your tweening, organise your projects into folders with one click, add animatable lines between any two layers, and group layers to parent nulls. The ability to quickly define the axis point of any shape layer is worth the $35 pricetag alone. 06. Duik Duik offers a complete IK rigging animation toolset for free Price: FreeAfter Effects does have a good basic rigging system, but Duik takes rigging to a whole new level. The best thing is that Duik is free, along with the rest of Rainbox’s AE plugins. More and more with advanced animation work, clients are requesting Duik and it's being seen as the animation backbone for a wide range of projects. 07. Nodes 2 Nodes 2 is brilliant for creating advanced animations in seconds Price: $299/£232.51Nodes 2 is capable of creating a huge range of different imagery from advanced 3D UI elements to more abstract ‘stuff’, which can all be manipulated and navigated through in 3D space. The only downside is that there's no Windows support, but if you are Mac based, check Nodes out now. 08. Magic Bullet Denoiser III Denoiser III is essential for any CG artist working with After Effects for cleaning up render noise Price: $199As an After Effects artist who also works in 3D a lot, Magic Bullet Denoiser III is essential for cleaning up renders. I use the Octane GPU render engine for a lot of my work, and find that Denoiser III can instantly fix a multitude of grainy render problems far more quickly than rendering out more samples in CG. And with GPU support, Red Giant's Denoiser III is quick as well. It also works great with camera footage. 09. Universe 2.1 Red Giant Universe has nearly 60 GPU based tools and effects to bring any kind of project to life Price: $99 per year/$20 per monthI have come to depend on the 60 effects in Red Giant Universe more than I would care to admit. From transitions (which also work in Premiere) to video effects and motion graphics, there is so much handy ‘stuff’ in Red Giant Universe that to not even give it a trial would be remiss. As all of the effects are GPU based, I tend to use them more than equivalent native effects because they are so much quicker. 10. Trapcode Mir 2.1 Trapcode Mir is a multi-use looping geometry creation workhorse Price: $99When Red Giant first launched Trapcode Mir, it was hard to get a handle on how it would be useful, but with version 2.0 (and now 2.1), Mir hit the big time. Mir can be used to create deformable geometry that can be rendered to create beautiful looping abstract pieces and landscapes. Where I have found Mir really useful is for creating undulations in existing compositions, where it can really bring life and depth more quickly than animating the comp itself. 11. Lenscare Lenscare provides convincing depth of field effects for CG and video Price: $199If there is one After Effects plugin that has become ubiquitous among artists and studios it is Lenscare from Frischluft. Lenscare is really two plugins. FL Depth of Field can use Depth data from a 3D render to create a realistic depth of field in CG without having the render overhead of rendering DoF in CG, and the focus point and depth amount is animatable. FL Out of Focus is a quicker version with no depth input, which uses the Frischluft engine to create beautiful lens blurs – essential. 12. Trapcode Particular 3 Particular’s Effect Builder is great for creating new FX templates Price: $399It seems like Red Giant's Trapcode Particular has been around since the dawn of After Effects time. It, like Plexus 3, is becoming much more artist-friendly as it breaks out of the Effects Panel. The Particular Effects Builder palette is a great way to build up the basics of the FX feature that is needed for a comp. Every component can be seen, from sprites to physics, and manipulated to get the look that is required without interfering with the main animation, which can be a massive help when developing new work. Contributions: Jim McCauley Related articles: Inspiring examples of 3D art Best laptops for video editing Amazing After Effects tutorials View the full article

Digital innovation doesn't have to mean ripping up the rule book – it can involve trusting your gut and paring things back to the essentials. Here, Halo's technical director Alex Martin and senior UX/UI designer Tim Banks reveal how the studio stays ahead of the curve when it comes to new technologies, and share some best-practice user experience design advice (scroll down to watch the video). 01. Focus on the big idea To help festival T in the Park stand out in a crowded market, Halo used vibrant colours and strong typography“Data can drive you in certain directions, but it won’t show you if there’s a big idea,” says Tim Banks. “If you want to change something radically, it’s hard to have data to hand beforehand. Sometimes you need to do more testing afterwards, to go, ‘You’ve had this hypothesis, let’s actually test it to see if it works in a real environment.’” 02. Don’t lean too hard on research 
The classic quote from Henry Ford, inventor of the motor car – “If I asked people what they’d wanted, they’d have said faster horses” – applies to modern innovation, too. “You’ve got to go with your gut at first – testing comes after,” insists Alex Martin. “User research can be overwhelming, and you’ll just give them 
a better version of what they’ve got, rather than something new and fresh that’ll actually make a difference.” 03. Keep it as simple as possible Gigs in Scotland benefitted from Halo’s user-friendly design, with the clean layout allowing music lovers to easily find the information they need“Strip out everything you don’t need, and give people the clearest and most straightforward journey you can,” is Martin’s advice. “Sometimes the UX is great to start with, but people mess up on content.” 04. Consider content from the outset As the old adage goes, content is king 
– so don’t make it an afterthought. “You see designs that have been made without any idea of what content will go into them. That’s a big failing,” argues Banks. 05. Avoid gilding the lily “As developers, we need to be careful not to put in things just to keep ourselves amused. We’re all guilty of that,” warns Martin. “There’s no point just changing it 
up unless there’s good reason.” This article originally appeared in issue 269 of Computer Arts magazine. Buy it now. Read more: Great business cards for UX designers 6 things to watch out for in UX design Essential TED talks for UX designers View the full article

It's not enough to just put your content up online and hope people take notice. You need to give people an experience they'll enjoy by making your sites and apps easy to navigate. Learn how to build a better, more responsive website that visitors will love coming back to with the UI/UX Professional Designer Bundle, on sale now for just $39 (approx £29)! The UI and UX Designer Bundle includes eight incredible courses that are packed with lessons to teach you the fundamentals of web and app design with the goal of improving the overall user experience on your websites and apps. You'll work through ways to use popular coding languages such as HTML and CSS and tweak your site to be more responsive and easier for users to interact with. You'll pick up the concepts of user interface and modern design principles in a snap with this collection of courses. You can get the UI and UX Designer Bundle on sale right now for just $39 (approx £29). That's a 94% saving off the full retail price for this can't-miss bundle of courses that will up your design game, so grab this deal today. Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. View the full article

The primary objective of any page you design, whether it's for a printed brochure or the latest web app, is to communicate information clearly and effectively to the reader. One of the best ways to ensure that the key messages are delivered to the reader is to create a balanced layout. 14 best-practice rules for striking editorial designPage layout typically involves a lot of placement, rearranging and formatting of elements. Many designers approach this process organically, feeling their way to a pleasing end result. While this can lead to some excellent happy accidents, there is a risk that using a free-form methodology can result in a lack of visual balance on the page. A good page composition should be both pleasing to the eye, and also communicate those key messages clearly to the intended audience. We've collected together some top tips to help you ensure your page layouts have balance. These approaches will work well to provide a structure for balance, regardless of the medium you're working with. 01. Use a grid One of the easiest ways to ensure your page has a degree of balance is to use a grid system. Grids used to be the sole preserve of the printed page, but much work has been completed online in the past few years to help migrate the concept of the grid across to the digital medium. By using a grid to inform the position of different elements on a page, you'll create a connection between the different elements that make up your page. This can help provide a sense of order to your layout, providing the reader with a clear structural reference to fall back on. This is important because when all your page elements have a feeling of connectivity with each other, the overall effect feels more comfortable to the reader, helping to put them at ease, and facilitating their access to the important stuff: the content. 02. Choose a single focal point One of the most effective ways to provide a sense of balance is to choose a single focal point for your layout. A good example of this in practice is the use of a large image as the biggest single element on a page. A strong visual can provide a powerful way to lead the reader into your page, and also supplies a useful structural element around which to arrange the remaining content in your layout. If you have multiple visual elements, use the proximity principle of Gestalt Theory to group them together, aligning them in the same way. It's also worth keeping in mind that you can use a headline or pull quote in the same way; a good display headline can offer as much visual interest as an image, while continuing to provide the structure that will help you ensure a balanced layout. 03. Use the Rule of Thirds One of the best ways to provide a sense of balance is to use the designer's favourite Rule of Thirds or Golden Ratio. Put simply, the rule of thirds says that if you divide your page into thirds both vertically and horizontally, the points at which the grid lines intersect provide the natural focal points of a composition. By aligning your key elements to these four points, you'll achieve a more pleasing composition than if you, for example, perfectly centre elements on your page. In itself the rule of thirds won't magically provide your layout with balance, but by extending the principle it's easy to use this tendency towards a natural focal point to help inform the balance of your layout. A common approach is to place the most important elements of your page in the upper (or lower) third of the page, with the primary focal point aligned to match one of the intersections. 04. Use white space It's common for novice designers to make use of every single bit of space on a page, stuffing in content until every gap has been filled. The more experienced know that sometimes the best bit of design involves leaving elements out, rather than shoehorning them in. In the printed medium, the most common way to make use of white space is by enlarging the page margins and gutters. On the web, simply providing plenty of breathing room around elements can help make the layout feel composed and balanced. Using negative space works best when you have a clear structure that anchors content together (such as that provided by a grid), as the risk of white space can be a sense of disconnection between page elements if introduced haphazardly. 05. Repeat design elements Another Gestalt principle, repetition can provide a strong sense of connected design and balance to a composition. The idea is that by identifying and re-using a motif or design treatment throughout your layout, you can provide a reference for the reader so that disparate areas feel connected and part of the same overall composition. You can also use this technique to provide a focal point in your design, while retaining an overall balance, by intentionally breaking the pattern of similarity introduced through repetition. 06. Use hierarchy One of the key approaches to achieving layout nirvana is a clear sense of structure and hierarchy. We've already touched on structure, but it's important to also convey the relative importance of different pieces of content on your page. A headline, for example, should almost always be more visually important than body text content. Look at the different elements that make up your page and decide which element is the most important. Use this element to provide a structural hook for the remaining elements on the page, keeping it most important. 07. Use scale, contrast, and harmony Finally, the use of scale can be a very effective method for achieving a good visual balance in your layout. By making some elements larger than others, a sense of order and hierarchy will emerge. This helps create a comfortable layout because the viewer will automatically look at the larger elements within the layout first, progressing through to the smaller elements as they read. This principle also works with increased contrast, so that by isolating an element on the page through contrast will make the eye focus on that point first. This provides a way in to the page, and again gives a useful structural point to develop your layout from. Both scale and contrast work best when they apply to one element, making it stand out from the other parts of your layout. Use the principles of harmony to make the others feel connected and accentuate the focal point. Related articles: Best laptops for graphic design 60 free must-have Photoshop brushes The best Photoshop plugins View the full article

Poetry can make people swoon, and a shocking image can enrage people to action. But one of the lesser-known, but no less powerful, ways to invoke emotion is through colour. There is much written about colour theory, and you only need to look at the world around you to see – and feel – its impact. 21 outstanding uses of colour in brandingEvery colour elicits a different and unique emotional response in the viewer, and a clever web designer (or any visual professional, in fact) will know the effect of each colour, plus how and when to use each. While the discipline of colour theory is broad, this article will teach you the fundamentals in a single, quick-reference source. But before we delve into the emotional nuances of 12 separate colours, we need to first make a quick note about vibrancy. Different shades of the same colour will also have different effectsSimply put, a colour's vibrancy is how dark or light it is. The tricky part about vibrancy is that, just like each individual colour has its own properties, so does each shade of the same colour. While light green and dark green have more in common than green and purple, they will still have smaller, more subtly different effects on the user. Below, we'll explain all the noteworthy differences between a colour's shades, regarding their impact on web design. As a general rule, though, brighter shades tend to be more energetic, while darker shades feel more relaxing. The brighter shades of calls-to-action attract the eye, while the darker shades in backgrounds help create an immersive effect. Now on to the impact on viewers of different colours... 01. Red Used here, red is playful and stimulating Passionate, aggressive, important As a dominating colour, red adds gravity and heightened awareness – quite literally, as the colour increases blood circulation, breathing rates, and metabolism. Red can take on a variety of meanings, associated with both love and war, but the unifying factor in all meanings is a sense of importance. Think of the red carpet. Red is a colour best used cautiously. Its knack for attracting attention makes it a priceless tool for designers, but used excessively it will inhibit relaxation. Lighter shades emphasise the energetic aspects of red – including youthfulness – while darker shades emphasise power, and even durability, such as a brick wall. The landing page for the game design company Playtika has an aggressive but potent flair. Playful and stimulating, the red suits the cheetah logo – a powerful icon itself, softened by its cartoonish qualities and anthropomorphic smile. 02. Orange Epic uses orange as a highlight colour on its websitePlayful, energetic, cheap Sharing red's energising aspects, but to a safer degree, orange is a good way to add excitement to a site without severity. It is generally playful, and some claim it creates haste and plays on impulse. It can even signify health, suggesting vitality and vibrance. Creative agency Epic uses orange as the highlight colour on its website. The choice emphasises the team's playfulness and youthfulness. 03. Yellow Yellow can be revitalising or jarringHappy, friendly, warning Yellow is a strange colour: it is often associated with happiness, but also activates the anxiety centre of the brain. Like red and orange, it's able to stimulate and revitalise – it's the colour of warning signs and taxis – but use bright yellow sparingly because of the potential negative connotations. Lighter shades play on the happiness aspects, reminding users of summer and the sun. Darker shades, including gold, add more weight and give a sense of antiquity. The bright yellow-dominated colour palette on the Post-it website is synonymous with the product itself. It creates an energetic vibe, and is instantly recognisable as that particular brand. 04. Green The green scheme emphasises Massis' natural qualitiesNatural, stable, prosperous Green mostly represents the environment and outdoors, for obvious reasons, making it the clear choice to suggest nature and an organic quality. As the bridge between stimulating, warm colours (red, orange, yellow) and calming, cool colours (blue, purple), it is the most balanced of colours, lending it an air of stability. It's also a popular choice as an accent or for calls-to-action because it stands out, but more softly than the warmer colours. In Western culture, it also represents money and financial safety. Massis Tea plays on its natural qualities with the green scheme for its site. The green top navigation bar, green logo, and photograph of greenery all work together to accentuate the brand's ties to nature. 05. Blue Image courtesy of Evolve WealthSerene, trustworthy, inviting Blue is one of the most popular colours in web design – and for good reason. You see blue on a lot of websites because, to put it simply, it is the colour of trust. Blue is the colour of calm and serenity, and as such inspires security and a feeling of safety. For this reason, blue is a colour often used by banks: CitiBank, Chase, Capital One and Barclays, for example, all use blue. However the calming effects also make blue a friendly and inviting colour, which explains its adoption by Facebook and Twitter. As if that weren't reason enough to use it, blue is also incredibly versatile; its vibrancy has more drastic effects than other colours. Light blue is the colour of water and the sky, so it generally has a refreshing and free feeling – even energising if bright enough, but still retaining that reliable calm. Darker blues tend to be more sombre, heightening the security aspects, which makes them an excellent choice for professionalism. Trust is essential for financial advisors such as Evolve Wealth, so most of its site is designed in varying hues of blue. All this comes at a small price, though: blue shouldn't be used for food-related sites. Because blue foods aren't common in the wild, studies show that the colour actually acts as an appetite suppressant. 06. Purple Purple has links to wealth and luxuryLuxurious, mysterious, romantic Long associated with royalty, purple creates an air of luxury, even decadence. Using a purple dominantly is a quick way to create a sense of elegance or high-end appeal, even if your product is budget-minded (an 'expensive' effect that's quite the opposite of orange). Lighter shades of purple – especially lavender – bring to mind spring and romance. Darker shades add more mystery, and can even symbolise creativity. Darkening the shade will also turn the romantic elements more sensual. With its ties to personal wealth, WooCommerce chose purple as the colour to represent its WooView app, playing on themes like royalty and panache that fit the function of checking how much money you're making in real time. Next page: 6 more colours and the effects they have on viewers 07. Pink Pink creates a soft mood on this renting websiteFeminine, young, innocent Pink is a specialist colour that won't work for a lot of websites, but will work perfectly with the right audience. Because most people interpret pink as feminine, the colour is popular for targeting female users. However, don't overdo the pink-femininity connection, or else you're walking a fine line between appealing to users and pandering to gender stereotypes. Its links with childhood and with sugary treats give pink a sweet, sometimes innocent appeal (not surprisingly a self-perpetuating cycle). It is also traditionally used with love and romantic themes, alongside red and light purple. Rental service Rentberry's website uses pink as its key colour. In this case, it creates a soft, safe vibe, and intentionally distances itself from more corporate, traditional rental services. 08. Brown B&O Play uses brown in an unexpected way on its siteEarthy, sturdy, rustic While not a popular choice in web design, brown can, under the right circumstances, be effective nonetheless. As the colour associated with the earth and trees, brown can add an outdoorsy feel, maximised by a pairing with green. The tree connotations also give a sturdy and reliable feeling. In web design, brown is often used in conjunction with wood texturing, giving the same old-fashioned and rustic atmosphere of a wooden cabin. While tech websites are typically dominated by stronger, bolder shades, the microsite for B&O Play uses brown to great effect. The muted tones suggest a classier, more human side to the technology on offer. Natural connotations also remain: wood and leather feature prominently in the hero video, while a marble effect is used in the background. 09. Black Black creates a real impact on Cartelle's websitePowerful, sophisticated, edgy As the strongest of all colours, black is often used only sparingly – such as for text – but it works quite well as a primary colour element (like for backgrounds). Much like purple, black adds an air of sophistication and elegance, and also mystery, though with much bolder confidence. The heavy use of black for the Cartelle creative agency creates unquestionable impact on its homepage and subsequent animations. 10. White An off-white background keeps the focus on the shoes hereClean, virtuous, healthy Literally the opposite of black, white pairs well with just about anything, making it ideal as a secondary colour. In a supporting role, white draws out the elements of more stimulating colours, and can even guide your user's attention if you know how to use it (check out UXPin's Zen of White Space in Web UI Design guide to learn more). As a primary colour, though, white gives off an impression that is both clean and chaste. White has that 'spotless' feeling that, for the right site, feels completely effortless. Its association with purity can make it seem virtuous, but also sterile and cold. To soften this feeling of sterility, some web designers will tend towards an ivory or cream instead. These offshoots of white are softer and even less noticeable, but with the same minimalist and complementary aspects. They are the more comforting and less stark alternatives to white. The shoe company ETQ uses a dominant off-white background to keep the users' attention where it belongs: on the shoes. 11. Grey Grey is used sensitively on the Galvan Mobili websiteNeutral, formal, gloomy As the intermediary between black and white, grey exudes neutrality, or a lack of any particular sensation. However, in the hands of an expert, this intermediary position can be a powerful tool. By varying the vibrancy, grey can take on the properties of either black or white – attention grabbing or repelling – to specific degrees. That means if black is too powerful for your design, try dark grey. If white is too bland, try light grey. On its own, though, grey is rich with individual characteristics. It is the colour of formality, so sites aiming to look traditional or professional tend to favour it. It can also give a depressing vibe, as it's the colour of gloomy, rainy days. When used dominantly, it can be somewhat subduing, for better or worse. You can tell the Italian furniture company Galvan Mobili uses grey well because you don't even notice it. The grey background gives a professional air, and keeps attention on the pictures and bright red logo. 12. Beige Beige here creates a calming backdropAccentuates surrounding colours Beige may not be a primary colour, but it's worth mentioning because of its accentuating effects: it takes on the characteristics of the colours around it. While dull on its own, its enhancing effects make it a powerful choice as a background or secondary colour. The use of beige for the aptly named Tokyo restaurant Beige Alain Ducasse creates a calming, comfortable backdrop to the more relevant elements such as clickable text and photos. Like this? Read these! The best colour tools for web designers 25 top-class website templates If celebrities were Pantone colours View the full article

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Logo design is something you should get better at throughout your career, just by doing it. But if you’re looking to create truly great logo designs, practice alone won’t always be enough. In this post, we suggest six key areas you can work on to help improve your logo design, to take it to the next level... 01. Do better research Logo design is all about conveying what the brand stands forLogo design isn’t about making something that looks pretty; it’s about serving a business need and reflecting what a brand stands for. So before you start sketching out ideas, you need to do some solid research into your client and what it's about. In the same way that you’d prepare for a job interview, then, you need to thoroughly research the company and its brand. Read what it has to say about itself, on its website and other official sources, as well as what industry blogs and other commentators have written about it, and what people have posted about it on social media. All this will give you a head start in your initial discussions with the client. Your logo design ideas will be far more likely to be accepted, because you’ll be able to explain them in terms of how they can help the business. An example of this principle in action can be seen in Design Bridge’s 2016 redesign of the Guinness logo, which drew on extensive research into the company’s heritage to tell the brand's story. 02. Ask better questions The initial research you do into a company is only the first step in understanding it. The next is to dig deep; taking advantage of your access to its leaders, and asking some penetrating questions. Your questions will normally include things like: Who is your target audience? How do you plan to grow the business? Who are your main rivals? What’s your mission statement? What are your long-term goals? These may sound irrelevant to the discipline of logo design, but they couldn’t be more central. For example, if the target audience turns out to be the over-50s then you probably won’t want to give your design a youthful, funky vibe. If the main rival’s logo uses a distinctive font, you’ll want to use a different one (for legal reasons alone). It’s also worth asking the obvious question: “Why do you need a new logo?” The answer, or lack of one, can often be quite enlightening. 03. Focus on mobile first Instagram’s newer logo (right) is much more scalable for reading on small screens than its skeuomorphic predecessor (left)If you’ve been paying attention to Creative Bloq's logo news channel, you’ll have noticed a number of big brands have simplified and flattened their logos. They’re continuing a trend that’s been evident throughout the decade, with the likes of Facebook, Instagram, eBay, Microsoft and Yahoo leading the way in making their designs super-minimal. It’s no accident that these firms are all tech giants, because it’s largely a tech-driven phenomenon – but it’s one that increasingly affects all brands. In short, as more and more people start accessing the web via mobile rather than desktop, the more logo designers lose control of the size their creations are reproduced at. When it comes down to a tiny number pixels, an overly fussy logo is just going to look like a splodge, whereas a flat, minimal design with a simple colour palette is still going to be recognisable. Whether you like it or not, then, the future of logo design will be simplified. So you may as well jump on board now and start thinking ‘mobile first’ when you start designing your logo. 04. Exit your font comfort zone One part of creating a distinctive-looking logo can be to use a distinctive-looking font. There are new fonts coming out all the time that could give you that bolt of inspiration; a good place to find them is our constantly updated Best free fonts post, while we’ve gathered together some great logo fonts too. You don’t have to necessarily spend a lot of money to take advantage of new fonts, either. These days, Adobe Illustrator lets you play around with Typekit fonts, directly within the software, without having to purchase them, plus there are a range of other try before you buy font services too. So don’t hold back from experimenting with different fonts, and hopefully inspiration will strike. 05. Study the masters Pay attention to how big-brand logos work in the real worldMany posts on logo design recommend you check out the countless logo galleries that populate the web for inspiration – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t be fooled. Many of these logos are personal or student projects, serving no business need whatsoever. And while others will be real logos, there’s usually little or no information about whether they actually succeeded in their business goals. If you wanted to improve your football prowess, you’d watch the stars of the Premier League, not the kids kicking a ball around on the local playing field. And similarly, if you want to learn logo design, you’re better off learning from the best. So rather than trawling through middling logos on logo galleries, hoping to be inspired, spend your time studying the big brand logos that have stood the test of time. It’s only by seeing how well they work in the real world of posters, packaging, supermarkets, commercials and elsewhere (you don’t exactly have to go far to find them) that you can truly appreciate why and how well they work. Plus, to get a taste of the stories behind them, check out our posts on the history of the McDonald's logo, Penguin books logo, Adidas logo, BMW logo and Coca-Cola logo. 06. Understand psychology It’s all very well giving a long and detailed explanation of why your logo design is so clever. But in reality, nobody (except possibly other designers) will ever glance at your logo for more than a millisecond. To make an impact, then, it needs to appeal to people’s subconscious human instincts, at their most primitive level. It follows that a good understanding of human psychology can help you create better designs that connect on this subliminal level. A proper understanding of psychology requires some serious reading, of course. But if you find academia off-putting then a pop-science book such as Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, Nudge by Richard H Thaler or Drive by Daniel H Pink will get you most of the way there. Meanwhile, for some simple psychological tips, it’s also worth checking out our posts on the psychology of logo shapes and How to pick the perfect colour palette every time. Read more: 10 iconic logos hilariously drawn from memory Google logo sparks 'correct design' debate 10 commandments of logo design View the full article

Affinity Photo for iPad is clearly an unrivalled photo editor – and it’s hard to argue with its one-off price of £19.99 – but how does Serif’s app fare when it comes to creating illustrations from scratch? For this article I’ve put the app through its paces while drawing and colouring a full comic page. Just to spice things up a little, I decided to create this page far away from my usual studio mess, using Affinity Photo on the new iPad Pro10.5-inch with the Apple Pencil. It felt great to be truly mobile and to work whenever inspiration struck: in the back of the car on the way to the supermarket, a hospital waiting room and (of course!) a couple of dive bars. Here's how I went about it. 01. Set up your comic page Let’s start with finding Undo (this threw me on first use as I assumed it was a two-finger tap gesture) – it can be found in the bottom right along with Redo and Tooltip Assistant. Using the Rectangle tool, draw one square and then duplicate it (Commands > Duplicate) to make a row of three. If you don’t know the names of tools, just press the Tooltip Assistant. Then duplicate that row vertically to create a 10-panel layout. To change the stroke width, tap Pen and change the Width. You can drag the values up and down by pressing Width or tapping it and typing values with the number keys. Tap Use Fill to remove the colour inside the rectangles. Then group all panels and lock them by tapping Layer the More (the circle with three dots) and hit Lock. You’ll find Layer Opacity and Layer Blend Modes here too – ideally for me these would be in the main Layers panel and not an additional tap away, because we’re going to be changing and locking layers a lot in this project. 02. Start sketching Pick a random brush and start drawing the rough layout of the comic. This will enable you to make sure the story flows correctly and there is enough room for the speech bubbles. A common newbie mistake is not to leave enough space for the bubbles and a pro shortcut is to use them to save time... if you know a bubble will obscure a large part of the background, it means less drawing and a longer lunch! Traditionally, comic artists draw with non-reproducing blue pencils, and this has carried over into the digital realm. Choosing blue has no real function, but it makes the sketch easier draw over. The thinking behind my choice of page layout is a tutorial for another day, but the basic idea is to vary the 'camera angle'. If the two characters here were just pictured side by side in every panel it would feel boring. 03. Add the speech bubbles and text At this point it's a good idea to add quick speech bubbles that include the full text for the comic strip. There is a huge range of fonts installed in Affinity Photo, but at the time of writing you cannot add your own fonts, so I will letter this design properly in Affinity Designer on desktop later. A great way to rapidly create speech bubbles is to first type your text by pressing Text and then Frame Text. Then on a new layer draw a rough shape around the each text block – it doesn’t matter what colour. Open Layer FX Studio and apply Outline (black) and Colour Overlay (white fill). Now you can draw speech bubbles. A bonus tip is to add ‘mockup text’ by selecting Inner Glow. This helps you see the layout better without the hassle of typing in text. 04. Play around with brushes The Daub brushes that come installed by default are fantastic, but I prefer a much more basic brush for inking. Create your own brush category by tapping Brush Studio then the hamburger icon > Add Category, and name it. Hit the hamburger again and then select New Round Brush. Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image In the image above you can see the settings I used. Very basic stuff – a solid brush that tapers at the ends is all I need really. You can fine-tune brush settings to an amazing degree, adjusting tilt sensitivity, hardness by angle and so on. I should mention at this stage that I’m using an Apple stylus. Do you really need an Apple Stylus to use Affinity Photo on the iPad? For photo editing I don’t think it is essential, but for illustration I would say yes. To create lines with variable width it’s all about pen pressure. 05. Draw smooth lines with the brush stabiliser I was playing with the app for over a week before I noticed the tiny white arrow icon to the right of the sub-tool menu. And what lay hidden there really made my day. I thought the Brush Stabiliser tools were only currently available in the Beta of Affinity Designer 1.6. But here they are. To use a worn-out phrase: this tool is a game-changer. It allows you to draw smooth curves and lines in a very satisfying way. I love playing with this. Armed with your custom brush and Rope Stabiliser, you can get to work inking the page. One little issue worth noting: in the current version 1.6.3 there is no line tool. However, you can just whip out your credit card and use that as an old fashioned ruler directly on the iPad. 06. Group and merge layers One drawback of digital freedom is that you can get lost with too many layers. I used to suffer from 'fear of commitment' and keep dozens of ink layers. But I’ve found the best way to structure your project is to limit yourself to three ink layers. I name them: *INK 1*, **INK 2** and ***INK 3***, so I have no problem identifying them. To add these three layers to a master INK folder: Slide select or hit the checkbox on your layers and then tap the folder icon. To change the name from ‘Unnamed’, tap More (circle with three dots) to reveal more options. At this point, I was a little confused because my folder is called ‘Unnamed’, while the label says ‘Group’. Tap 'Group' and rename your folder. You can rename individual layers the same way. To merge multiple layers or folders into one layer just select the ones you want and tap Commands > Rasterise. 07. Colour the page Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image Now you have the full page inked you're ready to colour it. Tap Layer > More > Multiply in order to colour ‘behind’ your line art. Draw rectangle shapes behind each comic panel – this will enable you to block out the colours and also use the rectangles as a ‘folder’ to clip all the sub layers into. To add colours I create a new layer and use some of the Daub Dry Media brushes. Depending on how you prefer to work, you can set the tool to create a new pixel layer automatically every time you use a brush. Turn this on or off in Document > Assistant. For big shapes such as the coffin and the Explorer character I create a vector shape with the Pen tool. This allows me to clip in sub-layers easily and dynamically change the overall colours and shadows with the Gradient tool. 08. Adjust lighting and texture As a final touch, add a texture to the character and some lighting to the scene. For textures you can use any photo or image and you will always be surprised with the results. Import images to your file by tapping Commands > Place and then choose the location; either from your Photos or Cloud storage. I placed a gingerbread texture, resized it and clipped into place. To add a powerful lighting effect, tap Filters Studio > Lighting and drag the control lines and experiment with the Ambient, Specular, Shininess and Diffuse settings. I could play with textures and lighting all day. So that was my first of hopefully many comics created completely on an iPad. Right now Affinity Photo is only a couple of months old, so I can only imagine what future versions will bring. View the full article

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Have you ever looked at a logo design and just been floored at how basic it is? Dumbfounded by the sheer audacity of the designer who apparently just typed up some text, selected a distinctive font then called it a day? There are plenty of designs out there that look too simple to be true, but this brilliant sketch about Avatar’s Papyrus logo pushes the idea of apparently lazy logos to the limit. In the sketch, which was broadcast on a recent edition of American comedy show Saturday Night Live, host Ryan Gosling plays a man frustrated by the logo of James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster Avatar. Unable to sleep, haunted by visions ‘Avatar’ written in Papyrus font, Gosling’s character seeks professional help before hunting down the monster that designed the branding for the film. Watch it below. Over the years we’ve posted a fair few new logo stories here on Creative Bloq that have met with a critical response. And thanks to the inhuman filter that is the social media comments section, we have to say that based on that feedback, the actions in this sketch aren’t entirely unrealistic. We’ve heard from keyboard critics slamming simple designs for their apparent laziness. And when it comes to font choices, let’s just say it's a very contentious issue. The makers of this sketch are clearly aware of some of the heated opinions among the design community. At the end of the sketch they spell out 'Papyrus' in the font that designers love to hate (or defend, really, it could go either way knowing you lot), Comic Sans. Here's how the end card for Avatar (2009) looksSo, is the Avatar logo really just made by slapping Papyrus onto the title? Well, yes and no. Judging by the title card at the end of the 2009 film (above), it has been tweaked ever so slightly from how it would look from a straightforward font selection (below) to make it a bit unique. But only a bit. There's an uncanny resemblance to say the least. How the Avatar logo would look in straightforward all-caps PapyrusEither way, designers are sure to get a chuckle out of this clever sketch. And don't feel too sorry for the creator of Papyrus, Chris Costello. He's got a good sense of humour and can appreciate where the sketch is coming from, as he told CBS News. "I woke up this morning Sunday and my email was full," he revealed. "I had a lot of people telling me, ‘Did you see this ‘Saturday Night Live’ thing?’ I took a look at it and me and my wife were like cracking up, I mean we couldn’t stop laughing. It was one of the best things I’ve seen. "I designed the font when I was 23 years old," he adds. "I was right out of college. I was kind of just struggling with some different life issues, I was studying the Bible, looking for God and this font came to mind, this idea of, thinking about the biblical times and Egypt and the Middle East. I just started scribbling this alphabet while I was at work and it kind of looked pretty cool. I’m a graphic designer as well, I’m an illustrator … I believe it’s a well-designed font, it’s well-thought [out].” Related articles: The secrets of custom font development 55 best free fonts for designers Comic Sans is 'the best font in the world' View the full article

Web developers are vital to the growth of the internet. They create and maintain the apps and services that you count on every day. If you want to join the ranks of those important people who help keep the digital world running, then you need to check out the Full Stack Web Development Course. You can get it on sale now for just $23 (approx £17). You won't find a better starting point for an aspiring web developer than the Full Stack Web Development Course. This course will lay the foundation for your next career. By working through this course, you'll learn how to work with the most important languages in web development, including frontend development standards such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. There are more than 33.5 hours of professionally-taught lessons that will get help you build apps and sites that people will love. You can get the Full Stack Web Development Bundle on sale right now for just $23 (approx £17)! That's a saving of 77% off the retail price for a course that will give you a start on your web dev career, so grab this deal today. Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. View the full article

Believe it or not it's October already, and for illustrators that means it's time to get involved with Inktober. If you're not familiar with Inktober, it's an annual challenge created by Jake Parker, which calls on artists to create an ink-based drawing every day of the month and share their creations on social media with the hashtag #Inktober. The best drawing tabletsInktober might not sound too difficult on paper, but finding the time to ink an image every day for 31 days can quickly become daunting. If you're not careful, you'll soon find yourself asking how amazing artists like Lüleiya (who drew the breathtaking illustration above for day one of this year's challenge) keep up the pace. We're still admiring the amazing Inktober 2016 artists who made the whole challenge look effortless, but if you're struggling to get going with Inktober, or if you need a creative pick-me-up, we've put together some tips to help you on your way. 01. Follow the prompts For tips on how to tackle Inktober, who better to offer advice than the man who created it? In the video above, challenge creator Parker explains how artists can overcome creative hurdles and idea droughts with the help of the official Inktober 2017 prompt list. He reveals that each day of the month is assigned a single word prompt to provide the starting point for an illustration. These include a range of ideas, such as shy, mysterious, and juicy. Of course you don't have to stick to these prompts, but they're there if you need them. You could also check out our article on 20 ways to overcome creative block for inspiration. 02. Browse the hashtag If the official prompts aren't working for you, there's always the hashtag to explore for inspiration. Simply chuck #Inktober into the Twitter search box and you'll instantly get a glimpse into how other illustrators are tackling the challenge. Not only that, but you get to browse social media and not feel guilty that you're wasting time when you should be drawing. It's a win-win. Don't forget to comment on pieces you like with words of encouragement: the support goes a long way to helping other artists persevere. 03. Take your tools with you You never know when you might grab a spare five minutes, or whether or not you're going to get struck by inspiration, so carrying your ink pens and a notebook with you wherever you go is another way to make Inktober more manageable. Lugging your tools with you is also just good artistic practice. And seeing as Inktober is as much about refining your artistic discipline as it is about drawing a masterpiece day in day out, you might as well take the opportunity to start two good habits at the same time. 04. Ink from left to right Time for some straight up technical advice that should save you some headaches further down the road. In this video by Kiara Lashay over on her YouTube channel Kiara's Studio, she recommends working from left to right to avoid smudging when illustrating with ink. And for all you left handers out there, don't worry. Lashay recommends that you do the opposite and ink from right to left. (Speaking from personal experience as a lefty, I find fountain pens difficult to use in terms of pressure, so maybe markers are the way forward.) 05. Pick a theme If you like the idea of using the Inktober prompts we mentioned earlier, another way to make the most of them is to pick a theme you can hang them around. We've seen lots of artists doing this over on the Inktober hashtag, and it looks like a genius way to narrow down your decision making over the coming weeks. Not only that, but by picking a theme you're comfortable with, you get to play to your strengths by illustrating something you care about. This could be anything from Disney princesses to robots – or, as Twitter user Crisalys demonstrates, guitars. 06. Get ahead Bit of a controversial one, this. Given that life is busy and that it's hard to make the time for creative side projects, artists need all the help they can get to crank out an ink illustration every day for 31 days straight. To this end, Windy Iris suggests in the video above that doing some groundwork in the form of preparatory drawing is fair game. As long as you're just sketching ideas in pencil and not actually inking your work it's not breaking the rules... is it? We're sure that some Inktober purists out there will be marching on Creative Bloq towers with torches and pitchforks for suggesting such a thing, but give yourself a break. Inktober is a long challenge, so it makes sense to get ahead if you want to. 07. Have fun! We've bleated on and on about how Inktober is great for polishing your artistic skills and discipline, but remember it's also a fantastic opportunity to simply have fun. Be sure not to go too hard on yourself, and if you need to skip a few days it's not the end of the world. Nothing stalls a creative roll like unnecessary stress, and this pressure will definitely come across in your work. So keep your art looking good by relaxing. Indeed, Parker says you can take it slower if you like: "You can do it daily, or go the half-marathon route and post every other day, or just do the 5K and post once a week. Whatever you decide, just be consistent with it. Inktober is about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more you’re consistent the better." If you see illustrations you like on Twitter, make sure you share them with your followers. Hopefully you'll make some new friends along the way and discover exciting artists you've never heard of before. Related articles: Get started with ink drawing 17 stunning examples of ink drawings Tools of the experts: Eva-Lotta Lamm View the full article

Whether you're a working front-end developer, a web beginner or somewhere in between, Bootstrap is the ideal way to create fantastic-looking responsive websites, and there's no better way to put it to use than with the Material Design for Bootstrap 4 UI kit, which is free to download right now. Material Design for Bootstrap 4 makes it easy to create clean and beautiful sitesBootstrap is the leading web design solution, used by millions of coders; it's easy to learn but powerful with it, and it can produce the slick mobile-first sites that your clients demand with minimal effort on your part. And with Material Design for Bootstrap 4 you can quickly get to work and have a fully-functioning site ready in record time. Used by over 200,000 developers worldwide and trusted by big names such as Amazon, Sony and Unity, Material Design for Bootstrap 4 is crammed with features designed to make your life easier. Based on the latest version of Bootstrap, it's easy to install – just five minutes and a few clicks and you'll be up and running and ready to create beautiful things. Whatever the browser or platform, your site will look amazing on itYou'll find yourself almost spoiled for choice by Material Design for Bootstrap 4's selection of free components: it boasts over 400 material UI elements for you to build with, as well as over 600 material icons and more than 70 ready-made CSS animations; just copy and paste what you need and you're good to go. If you want to make life really easy for yourself, there's even a set of free templates for you to choose from; either use them as they are, or tweak them to suit your own purposes. However you choose to build, you'll find that with very little effort you can get better-looking results than you would with vanilla Bootstrap; check out the differences between a simple navbar in MDB and plain Bootstrap for a basic idea. MDB's components look a lot better than Bootstrap's defaultsDon't be put off if you're new to Bootstrap, either. Material Design for Bootstrap 4 will ease you into things with comprehensive tutorials that cover everything you need to know about getting started, from installation and learning about MDB UI kit's file structure through to building landing pages, carousels and corporate websites, with more advanced tutorials to follow. If you prefer to use AngularJS that's not a problem; there's a special Angular 4 version of MDB, using Angular CLI and TypeScript, that you can download instead, and there's also a React version on the way. MDB's tutorials will get you well on the way to building impressive, responsive sitesMaterial Design for Bootstrap 4 is the easiest way to start delivering beautiful sites quickly; try it today and find out what your web design workflow's been missing. View the full article