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A new 13-track album from the late king of pop Michael Jackson is set to drop later this month. And who better to design the album art than UK illustrator and king of posters Matt Taylor? According to Sony Music, Michael Jackson: Scream will be a collection of the singer's “all-time most electrifying and danceable tracks including Ghosts, Torture, Thriller, and Dirty Diana." No pressure for Taylor, then. Negative space The final artwork is hauntingly stunning – which is appropriate, given the September 29 release is just in time for Halloween. MJ’s eyes grip your attention, staring out of a partially obscured full moon that uses negative space to cleverly build layers of eerie texture and meaning. Some shapes cut recognisable silhouettes – the descending crows, for example – while others suggest otherworldy creatures lurking in the shadows. Inline text introduces the artist with the title, Scream, painted in blood red and breaking the limited colour palette. Scream posters reportedly first appeared in Germany. Jackson's official Twitter account, @michaeljackson, tweeted out a 15-second-long video on Monday that featured black cats, full moons and other imagery commonly associated with Halloween. Watch it below. View the full article

Generate, the award-winning conference for web designers and developers, is back in London again in less than two weeks' time. The fifth annual conference for web designers and frontend developers, which is held at The Royal Institution from September 20-22, is net magazine and Creative Bloq's flagship web event. Featuring 17 fantastic speakers, it covers web animations, performance, UX strategy, adaptive interfaces, accessibility, design and content sprints, and much more. Tickets are still available, with prices starting from just £295 for a one-day conference pass. If you're struggling to convince your boss to give you a day out of the studio, make sure you present the following reasons why Generate London 2017 is an unmissable event. 01. You'll learn cutting-edge techniques Generate will explore the key techniques in web design and frontend development today. There will be a mix of practical and inspirational talks from the brightest minds in the web industry, with take-aways that can be put into action straight away when you return to the office. 02. It has the best speakers Generate features some of the leading figures in web design and development. Steve Fisher, Ally Long, Anton & Irene, Aaron Gustafson and Seb Lee Delisle, plus 11 other amazing speakers, will share exclusive tips and advice on how to supercharge your web skills. You can see the full line-up here. 03. You won't miss a thing Ever found yourself torn between two equally appealing conference sessions happening at the same time? That's not a problem at Generate London, as it's a single-track programme, which means no difficult decisions over who to see, and no more FOMO (fear of missing out). Just sit back, relax and enjoy the same experience as everybody else. 04. You'll make contacts, contacts, contacts There are fantastic opportunities to network and forge new contacts at Generate. Join one of the workshops at lunch, get chatting during session breaks or let your hair down at the after party. Generate is a great place to meet fellow-minded creatives and chew the fat over the latest industry news. Up your skills and get ahead of the game; book your Generate ticket today! 05. You can watch it again Videos and slide decks of all sessions will be available to attendees after the event, so you can watch the talks again and dig deeper. You can then share them with the rest of your team. In fact, it's openly encouraged! We know there's lots to take in during the conference, so we want you to be able to revisit the information. 06. You'll enjoy a whole day of workshops Generate will be preceded by a day of workshops. Choose from four in-depth sessions on topics including user experience strategy with Jaime Levy and building scalable responsive components with Zell Liew. You can also see a design sprint masterclass with Steve Fisher and learn about work/life balance with Anton & Irene. See you there! Related articles: PixelPyros creator Seb Lee-Delisle shares why he loves open source Adaptive Web Design author shares his accessibility quest Interview: Anton & Irene View the full article

You're reading Top Cheap WordPress Hosting Providers, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! One of the most important aspects of website success is having a solid hosting/server provider because a slow or non-functional website is inefficient for every business. If you use WordPress, it is important to understand that not all companies are ready to host your website. That’s why we recommend specialized hosting for WordPress websites. In […] View the full article

A new variant of the banking trojan Dridex is part of a sophisticated phishing attack targeting users of the cloud-based accounting firm Xero. View the full article

Microsoft is opting to stand pat and not fix a content security bypass vulnerability in its Edge browser, something researchers warn could potentially lead to the disclosure of confidential information. View the full article

Ross Tran steps out of his Californian apartment. The sun shines in the sky above and a car idles on the road below. Holding a couple of large canvases, he climbs over a balcony, shimmies down a tree and speaks to camera: “Welcome to another episode of Ross Draws. It’s my graduation episode!” He runs to the waiting car. Animated sparks fly. He throws his artwork through the open window, jumps into the driver’s seat and speeds away. The hand-written personalised number plate taped to the back of his Chevy reads: COLOR DODGE. In just 20 seconds, we see why the 23-year-old artist’s videos have earned nearly two million views on his YouTube channel: the quick cuts, the playful tone, the breathless, almost hyperactive presenting style; whistle-stop tours of his art school, apartment and various locations around California; interviews with the smiley, unbelievably healthy-looking friends and teachers who populate those places... And, of course, the thing that underpins the channel’s success, Tran's art – bright, stylised, painterly, with tutorials explaining how to paint his work. What you’d never know by watching these videos is that the channel “came from a dark place.” “A piece from my Astro Series. It’s a collection of portraits involving some kind of white garment and shapes as the influence.”Personality is key Tran is a recent graduate of Pasadena’s ArtCenter College of Design. He won his first concept artist job at the nearby West Studio when he was just 17. A couple of years later, he worked as lead character designer on his first feature film – creating Echo for the 2014 animated movie Earth to Echo. He now counts among his clients Disney, Samsung and Microsoft, and has since worked on the upcoming Halo Franchise and several more films. How did he win so many big jobs at such a young age? “You have to personalise your portfolio so it represents what you really want to do,” he says. “For instance, if you love character design and want to get hired for it, make your portfolio and online presence character-based. I’ve seen a lot of people put too many types of work in their portfolio. It makes them look disposable. The last thing you want to be is a robot. Show the world who you are and what you want to do.” “This was one of the few pieces I did in my year off art to pursue acting. I just loved to paint and felt the need to express myself artistically.”He says some people may be familiar with his earlier work, but most of this success has come through Ross Draws, the YouTube channel that he started at the end of 2011. “I actually grew up really shy,” he says, an image very different from the boisterous character he presents in his videos. “I had a lot of insecurities growing up. I think Ross Draws represents a side of myself that depicts transformation and self-growth. I consider myself an introvert, but one who’s learning extroverted skills.” “This was from the third episode on my YouTube channel, drawing Nidalee from League. She’s one of my favourite characters and I had to draw her!”Even after earning a place at the prestigious ArtCenter College of Design, Tran says he felt something was missing in his life. He was passionate about art, but also loved making people laugh. So he took a year off and pursued an acting career. Tran juggled art school and auditions. He took extra classes in improv and scene study. The nearest he got to a big break was an audition for a pilot on the Fox network. “My work has recently taken a more stylised, graphic approach, while still pertaining to my painterly roots.”The small part called for a designer who freaks out a lot. “My perfect role!” Tran says. The producers of hit shows Psych and Scrubs were in the audition room and he made them laugh. They gave the part – which the script labelled “Asian Best Friend” – to a white person. “I’m not sure the pilot even got picked up,” he says. “But it was a great experience. I also auditioned for a lot of commercials.” “I always got tons of requests to draw my dog and found a perfect opportunity – to celebrate one year on YouTube.”How to draw and paint - 95 pro tips and tutorialsBranching out on YouTube “I grew up watching The PowerPuff Girls and wanted to do my take on it. I was bringing my love of graphics in the piece.”A friend suggested he start a YouTube channel combining the two things: art and making people laugh. “I hesitated, thinking it wasn’t really my thing. Prior to the channel, I felt like I had no purpose. I was waking up and feeling really unmotivated to do anything. Uninspired, unwilling, defeated. “Acting helped me to commit. Because, in acting, you have to commit 110 per cent or else no one will believe you, not even you. You can’t be in your head. Going on those auditions and to classes helped me to commit to the moment and just do it, no thinking. It’s a practice I’ve also taken into my art. If you have an idea, don’t be afraid to voice it.” “This piece is quite special to me. People often mention that this was one of the first episodes/pieces they saw when they discovered me.”When Tran reinvented himself as Ross Draws, it shook up his personal life and kickstarted his career. But the success of the YouTube channel brought new problems. “My schedule is different every week, every day,” he says. “Sometimes I feel I overload myself. I’m definitely what they call a night owl. I go to sleep anywhere from 2 to 5am. As my channel grows, so do my opportunities – conventions, signings, gigs – and it’s been harder to have a set schedule. It’s still currently a learning curve. But most of my week consists of editing my videos and painting.” Growing up, Tran was into TV shows like Pokemon, Sailor Moon and Power Rangers – you can see those influences in his art and on his channel. He has a few key rules when making videos. Our attention span is getting shorter and shorter, he says, so he keeps footage under the six-minute mark. It’s also important to be yourself, connect with your audience and collaborate with other people. He’s made videos with artists he looks up to, like Dan LuVisi and Anthony Jones, but also collaborations with non-artists, such as Jimmy Wong and Yoshi Sudarso, who plays the Blue Ranger on the new Power Rangers show. “This was another one that sat in my folder for about two years. I never knew how to finish it, but one day I opened it up and let the story breathe.”The YouTube channel brought Tran new confidence, which was mirrored in his art. When he started at ArtCenter College of Design, he knew he was a capable painter but felt his work was too heavily influenced by his favourite artists. Then he painted a piece called Journey – a landmark in which he found his own voice and techniques. Tran works with Premiere and After Effects for his videos, Photoshop and Lightroom for painting. Using all Adobe software helps him easily switch between apps. One website recently labelled him the “Master of Color Dodge.” The blend mode creates extra depth and makes colours really pop off the screen, an almost glowing effect that’s present in much of Tran's work. “This has been sitting in my WIP folder for about three years. A lot of my pieces sit there until I can see the piece turn into something unique to me.”It's not cheating Tran hadn’t always used such techniques. “At a young age, I thought that using certain methods as cheating, only to realise now that it doesn’t matter. You can learn from anything, any method, anywhere. Have an open mind and you can absorb information easier and faster.” After graduating college, Tran left the apartment that features in many of his YouTube videos. He now rents a house with friends, a place just outside Los Angeles. “We call it The Grind House,” he says. The Grind House? “It’s where we’re going to grind on our stuff for a year and decide what to do from there. There’s not much of an art scene in my area, but I love the motivational energy that the house has.” “This piece was commissioned for the deviantART+Blizzard Campaign ‘21 Days of Overwatch’. It’s probably my best seller at my first convention, Anime Expo.”“Motivational energy” is a perfect term. It’s in everything Tran says and does. You can still see his influences in his work. There’s a bit of Jaime Jones in there, some Craig Mullins and Claire Wending. But despite his youth, he has found a style, voice and motivational energy of his own – and, perhaps most importantly, a platform on which to share it. That’s the one piece of advice he’s keen to get across: do it your own way, on your own terms. “My videos are funded by my amazing supporters on Patreon. I’m blessed to have fans who love what I do and who want the exclusive content that comes with each episode. Patreon is definitely a career option for artists.” Tran's endorsement of Patreon comes with a caveat, however: only launch when you’re ready. “I held off on making my page until I knew I had quality content for the people who supported me. “There’s always a whimsical element to my work, either in the colours or the composition.”“If you do what you love, numbers and finance shouldn’t matter,” Tran adds. “I have friends who absolutely love their studio jobs and want to be surrounded by people. I also had friends who quit those jobs, made a Patreon and earned less, but loved what they do. “I think it’s about finding your own instrument and how to operate at your fullest potential. In today’s industry – and society – we too often compare ourselves to others, which fuels our inner self-critic. We’re all on our own journey at our own pace. We all have different inspirations, a different drive that propels us forward.” This article was originally published in ImagineFX magazine issue 140. Related articles: 10 sci-fi and fantasy art painting tips How to create a vivid fairy queen Tips for developing exciting book cover character art View the full article

You're reading Winners and Trends from the Apple Design Awards 2017, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Apple recently released it’s winners of the 2017 Design Awards. The annual event showcases some of the most outstanding design and innovation in the digital space. The awards are in their 20th year and “recognize excellence in design, innovation and technology in apps and games across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV.” The […] View the full article

Anthony Burrill is known for producing bold, minimalist designs that combine striking typography, clean colours and pro printing techniques to beautiful effect. Shunning the term ‘style’ to describe his often stripped-back designs because of the word's link to fleeting fashions, Burrill explains that he has a solid approach to his work that's here to stay. 20 fonts every graphic designer should own“It is singular and has developed from a set of values that I try to communicate through everything I do,” the graphic artist, print maker and designer tells us. “I’m a naturally optimistic person, so my work reflects this positive approach.” Burrill has worked for huge international clients including Apple, Google, Hermés, The New York Times and London Underground and his work is held in the permanent collections of London’s V&A museum and New York’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Next month, the British designer will speak at Something Good, a new two-day design festival in Bristol, UK, that focuses on the creative process. He'll also be running a letterpress workshop – and Creative Bloq readers can get 20 per cent off both Friday's ticket and workshop tickets with the code: CreativeBloq20. How to communicate effectively Burrill uses letterpress printing techniques for many of his designsFor a creative with such a distinctive approach to his work now, Burrill didn’t get off to the surest of starts. “My work at college was unconnected to the real world. I was looking for something, trying to find out what I was trying to say,” he recalls. However, this early difficulty seems to have ignited his love of simplistic design, as he explains. “I found it frustrating that people didn’t connect with my work, so I made attempts to create work that was easier to understand." "I learnt that by being simple and straightforward with your message you can communicate effectively with a broad range of people.” Enough is enough! was made for homeless charity Shelter to mark its 50th anniversary, using traditional letterpress techniques This commitment to simple and straightforward communication runs throughout his work, with short, uncomplicated phrases featured often. Message like ‘Work hard & be nice to people’; ‘Enough is enough’ (for homeless charity Shelter); ‘Make time your own’ (for Hermes); and even the title of his book – Make it Now! – grab attention with the directness of their phrasing as well as the attractive way they’re presented. The 'Work hard & be nice to people' print appears in Burrill's book Make it Now! Simplicity continues to feature in Burrill’s approach to colour and texture, too. “I like purity in colour, my palette is simple; bright yellow, red, black and occasionally blue,” he says. A stripped-back approach “I like to work with interesting materials that add a tactile feel to the work I produce. I choose materials that have a texture and colour that works well with accents of pure pigment." “I prefer to print with a maximum of two colours, I think it keeps the message simple when there is the minimum of visual noise, that includes colour.” Burrill's two-colour palette was used in wall paintings, screen print posters and animations for Hermès men’s collection launch in LA Burill says, though, that finding this definite approach led to a period of uncertainty after college. “After graduation I spent a few years working out what I was going to do. I didn’t know how my work would fit in and it didn’t feel like there were the right jobs out there for me,” he says. “I tried to market myself as an illustrator, but that didn’t work. It was only when I started to make work that focused entirely on words and typography that things began to take off.” Burrill largely works with sans serif and display typefaces Take off it has. Burrill has created designs for huge clients, co-created interesting typefaces and produced prints and more for his own shop. He now gets to choose the commercial projects he takes on and the clients he wants to work with. Choosing clients “I’m in the situation now where the work I make is almost all developed from a personal brief,” he explains, adding that he relishes vague creative briefs. “I prefer to work with a client to develop a project from scratch, rather than being given a prescriptive brief.” Burrill will lead a letterpress workshop and deliver a talk at Something Good Get 20% off Something Good tickets Hear more of Burrill’s story, how he developed his visual language and how his personal values inform the way he lives and works at Something Good in Bristol, UK, on 6-7 October. Creative Bloq readers can get 20 per cent off both Friday's ticket and workshop tickets with the code: CreativeBloq20. Related articles: 55 best free fonts for designers 10 top tips for kerning type 5 gems of type wisdom from Erik Spiekermann View the full article

Character design can be a tricky illustration beast to tackle. You may know how to draw dynamic characters, but designing your own character from scratch involves a lot of creative thinking. Although many of the classic characters familiar to us all through cartoons, movies and advertising look simple, that simplicity usually belies the many hours of work that have gone into their development. From Mickey Mouse's famous three-fingered hands – drawn to save production time when he was first developed for animations in the 1920s – to the elegant simplicity of Homer Simpson, character design has always been about keeping it simple. Get Adobe Creative CloudBut aside from clean lines and easily readable features, what else are you going to need to know about character design? There's knowing what to exaggerate and what to play down, what to add to give a hint of background and depth, and what to do to develop personality. Getting started can be the trickiest part in any character design project, but once you've got some ideas these tips will help you breath life into your creation. 01. Decide who your character design is aimed at Deciding who the character is aimed at should be one of the first steps in your design processThink about your audience. Character designs aimed at young children, for example, are typically designed around basic shapes and bright colours. If you're working for a client, the character's target audience is usually predetermined, as Aussie artist Nathan Jurevicius explains. "Commissioned character designs are usually more restrictive but no less creative. Clients have specific needs but also want me to do my 'thing'. Usually, I'll break down the core features and personality." "For example, if the eyes are important then I'll focus the whole design around the face, making this the key feature that stands out." 02. Decide where your character will appear Where will the character design be seen and in what medium? This will have a direct bearing on how you go about your character design. For example, if it's for a mobile-phone screen, there's no point designing it to have a lot of intricate details and features. Nathan Jurevicius says that regardless of the format: "The process of thinking up concepts always starts the same: paper, pencil, green tea... lots of thumbnails, written ideas, scratches and sketches over sketches." 03. Research other designs It can be helpful to try and deconstruct why certain character designs work and why some don't. There's no shortage of research material to be found, with illustrated characters appearing everywhere: on TV commercials, cereal boxes, shop signs, stickers on fruit, animations on mobile phones, and more. Study these character designs and think about what makes some successful and what in particular you like about them. 04. Make your character distinctive Matt Groening used yellow to make The Simpsons characters stand out from the crowdWhether you're creating a monkey, robot or monster, you can guarantee there are going to be a hundred other similar creations out there. Your character design needs to be strong and interesting in a visual sense to get people's attention. When devising The Simpsons, Matt Groening knew he had to offer the viewers something different. He reckoned that when viewers were flicking through TV channels and came across the show, the characters' unusually bright yellow skin colour would grab their attention. 05. Use line qualities and styles to describe your character The drawn lines of which your character design is composed can go some way to describing it. Thick, even, soft and round lines may suggest an approachable, cute character, whereas sharp, scratchy and uneven lines might point to an uneasy and erratic character. Sune Ehlers characters are bold and seem to dance on the page, which echoes his approach to drawing them. He explains: "Drawing a doodle is about decisive pen-manoeuvring. A strong line for me comes from strength and rhythm." 06. Use exaggerated characteristics Exaggerating the defining features of your character design will help it appear larger than life. Exaggerated features will also help viewers to identify the character's key qualities. Exaggeration is key in cartoon caricatures and helps emphasise certain personality traits. If your character is strong, don't just give it normal-sized bulging arms, soup them up so that they're five times as big as they should be. 07. Choose colours carefully Colours can help communicate a character's personality. Typically, dark colours such as black, purples and greys depict baddies with malevolent intentions. Light colours such as white, blues, pinks and yellows express innocence, good and purity. Comic-book reds, yellows and blues might go some way to giving hero qualities to a character design. 08. Add accessories Piggle, a vinyl toy design by TADO, interacts with its accessoriesProps and clothing can help to emphasise character traits and their background. For example, scruffy clothes can be used for poor characters, and lots of diamonds and bling for tasteless rich ones. Accessories can also be more literal extensions of your character's personality, such as a parrot on a pirate's shoulder or a maggot in a ghoul's skull. 09. 2D or 3D? Depending on what you have planned for your character design, you might need to work out what it will look like from all angles. A seemingly flat character can take on a whole new persona when seen from the side if, for example, it has a massive beer belly. If your character is going to exist within a 3D world, as an animation or even as a toy, working out its height, weight and physical shape is all important. 30 inspiring examples of 3D art10. Give your character personality Interesting looks alone do not necessarily make for a good character design; its personality is key as well. A character's personality can be revealed through comic strips and animations, where we see how it reacts to certain situations. The personality of your character doesn't have to be particularly agreeable, but it does need to be interesting (unless your characters is purposely dull). Personality can also be expressed simply in how the character has been drawn. Next page: 10 more top character design tips... 11. Focus on facial expression Facial expression is key to a character's personality, as Tex Avery's Droopy demonstratesExpressions showing a character's range of emotions and depicting its ups and downs will further flesh out your character. Depending on its personality, a figure's emotions might be muted and wry or explosive and wildly exaggerated. Classic examples of this can be found in the work of the legendary Tex Avery: the eyes of his Wild Wolf character often pop out of its head when it's excited. Another example of how expressions communicate motions is deadpan Droopy, who barely registers any sort of emotion at all. 12. Give your character goals and dreams The driving force behind a character's personality is what it wants to achieve. This missing 'something' – be it riches, a girlfriend or solving a mystery – can help to create the dramatic thrust behind the stories and adventures your character gets up to. Often the incompleteness or flaws in a character design are what make it interesting. 13. Build up a back story If you're planning for your character design to exist within comics and animations then developing its back story is important. Where it comes from, how it came to exist and any life-changing events it has experienced are going to help back up the solidity of, and subsequent belief in, your character. Sometimes the telling of a character's back story can be more interesting than the character's present adventures (or not, in the case of the Star Wars prequels). 14. Experiment! Don't be afraid to experiment and ignore all the rules and tips about planning and crafting the look of your character design. Going against what is supposed to be the right way of doing something could create unexpected and exciting results. 15. Make your character design flexible Having decent materials to work with is useful, but not essential, for the early planning of your character design. A lot of amazing characters were successfully designed years ago when no-one had personal computers and Photoshop was just a dream. The drawings of your character should still work when rendered on paper with a simple pen or, as Sune Ehlers puts it: "The character should still be able to work with a stick dipped in mud and drawn on asphalt." 95 top Photoshop tutorials16. Swap mouse for pen Ian of I Like Drawing generates some of his character designs away from both the computer and the sketchbook, allowing outside elements to influence his work. "I really like characters that interact with their surroundings," he says. "The environment normally suggests an idea and then I let my strange mind do the rest. I prefer drawing in the real world with a pen instead of on the computer, because it feels good and odd things happen." 17. Get feedback from others Show people your creations and ask them what they think. Don't just ask whether they like them or not. Instead, see if they can pick up the personalities and traits of your characters. Find who you think is the suitable or ideal audience for your work and get feedback specifically from them about it. 18. Hone, plan and polish your design Creator of Scary Girl Nathan Jurevicius does a lot of preparatory work as part of his character design processInstead of just drawing or doodling without too much pre-planning, Nathan Jurevicius prefers to take a different approach. "I take a long time creating finished looking roughs and also thinking about how the character could be expanded beyond a 2D artwork, what the character will do in a specific world, and how it speaks and acts," he says. 19. Create the right environment for your character In the same way that you create a history for your character, you need to create an environment for it to help further cement believability in your creation. The world in which the character lives and interacts should in some way make sense to who the character is and what it gets up to. 20. Fine-tune your figure Question each element of your creation, especially things such as its facial features. The slightest alteration can have a great effect on how your character is perceived. Illustrator Neil McFarland advises: "Think about the meaning of the word 'character'. You're supposed to breath life into these things, make them appealing and give them the magic that will allow people to imagine what they're like to meet and how they might move. "I think it's strange how creating characters for the sake of it has become a distinct branch of graphic design." This article was originally published in Computer Arts magazine. Subscribe here. Liked this? Read these! 100 amazing Illustrator tutorials How to improve your character drawing 5 key trends in character design View the full article

Regardless of what you want to call them – voice assistants, voice services, voice UIs, one thing is clear: the artificial intelligence behind voice technology is already advanced enough to make it the most efficient way to perform many common tasks. The user experience is improving at an impressive rate. In fact, the machines behind voice services such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Microsoft Cortana are growing smarter by the day. They can understand different utterances, variations in syntax and different accents – and thanks to cloud computing they can access vast amounts of data in the blink of an eye. In order to train the next generation of voice designers, tech school CareerFoundry has built a comprehensive Voice User Interface Design course in collaboration with Amazon Alexa, and in the process, discovered these eight important things that you need to consider when designing for voice... 01. Users don’t talk the way they type Users have developed a specific way of instructing devicesIf we want to find a good sushi restaurant in Berlin, we might type ‘best sushi Berlin’ or ‘top sushi restaurant Berlin.’ In contrast, in speech with a friend, we might say something like, ‘Do you know any good sushi restaurants in Berlin?’ or ‘What’s your favourite sushi restaurant in Berlin?’ When using a voice service, we tend to be aware that we’re talking to an artificially intelligent machine – so we don’t necessarily say, ‘Alexa, what’s your favourite sushi restaurant?’ but rather, ‘Alexa, find me a good sushi restaurant in Berlin’ or ‘Alexa, where should I eat sushi?’ There’s a new pattern of commands emerging, where the voice service assumes the persona of a helpful assistant. We speak to them with natural speech, but not as we would to a friend. Over time, this may change. Who knows, maybe Alexa will respond, ‘Say please', to ensure we don’t lose sight of our good manners. Otherwise, we might end up in a future where we talk to our partners with the same directness as we do our devices. 02. Personalisation is paramount Voice interfaces that remember preferences add to the ease of useAlready in voice-operated devices there’s a clear tendency towards personalisation. This is all part of creating a quick, efficient experience. A great way to do this is for a device to remember your preferences so you don’t have to input information every time you use it. For example, if you use the Deutsche Bahn Alexa skill to check your train times to work, rather than naming your departure and arrival station each day, the device remembers your route to work. Similarly, you might not want to order from Amazon and have to tell it your address and postcode through speech (‘8TK’ ‘80K?’). However, once you’ve ordered online once, Amazon will remember your delivery address and simply ask you to confirm it when you’re placing repeat orders via voice. 03. We need new conventions for showing system status Cortana has different animations to indicate what it's doing When you’re waiting for a webpage to load, not receiving feedback is incredibly frustrating. Mainly because you don’t know if it’s crashed or if it’s just taking its time. Status feedback is an important part of good user experience – if a site has to search through a large database to find what you need, it’s important to keep the user informed on where it’s up to. When you’re talking to a voice service, you’ll also want reassurance that it’s switched on and listening or performing a given action. However, you don’t necessarily want it to talk over you and disrupt your flow. This is where other indicators like lights or sound effects, which don’t disrupt your speech, can serve a valuable purpose. Have you ever had the experience of being on the phone and suddenly wondering if the person on the other end is still there? Thankfully we often use subtle audible clues to let the other person know we’re still on the line when they’re in the middle of a long anecdote. Similarly, voice services can find subtle ways of letting us know they’re switched on and at our service. Amazon Alexa devices reassure their owners that they’re listening with flashing lights and non-disruptive sound effects. Maybe in future we’ll be so used to them being failsafe that we won’t need any reassurance. 04. Adapting for flat navigation is key Users need to be able to direct voice assistants easilyWhen designing the UX of website, the site navigation is crucial. What are the most common actions a user performs? What options should be available on the homepage? How many click-throughs does it take a user to perform a simple task? When users interact with the web using voice, they’re likely to bypass many intermediary stages and go straight to the information they need. For example, a user who wants to order from Amazon will not say, 'Alexa, go to Amazon.com, then go to my account, then view my history, then find coffee, then place the order again.' They’ll simply go straight to the final step: ‘Alexa, re-order coffee.’ 05. Talking should come naturally The aim is to make the voice interaction as intuitive as possibleUsers don’t want to memorise hundreds of commands to perform specific tasks. The whole point of voice services is to leverage our most natural communication style and applying this to computers, not to create something new that takes time to learn. Graphical interfaces have a few codes we have come to understand. For example, if you can’t find what you’re looking for, it’s probably hiding in the hamburger menu. With voice, we may end up with a few established conventions, but in general the aim is to make voice interactions so intuitive that anyone could pick up a device and start using it. This will be an exciting task for designers and programmers: understanding the natural cues in conversations and teaching computers to understand us and seamlessly provide an answer or perform a task. The database of utterances that machines can understand is growing daily, and it’s very possible that we’ll reach a point where machines are better at deciphering our drunken slurs than our friends are. 06. Accessibility has different implications for voice Voice interaction designers need to be aware of speech or hearing impedimentsAs any UI designer will tell you, one of the most important things to worry about is accessibility. Fonts, colours, and graphics are not just aesthetic matters, it’s also about making sure everyone can access the content – for example, is the contrast making your content illegible for people with visual impairments? The designer's guide to digital accessibilityConsiderations around accessibility are important in voice interactions, but they take a different form. Voice interactions rely on two things working successfully: the device understanding the person talking, and the person understanding the device. This means designers should plan for speech impediments (not just regional accents), hearing impairments, and any other factors that could influence the communication, such as cognitive disorders. 07. It's difficult to curate answers but avoid bias We’re used to finding hundreds of results when we search on Google, however, when we’re interacting via voice we often just want the device to intelligently pick the best answer for us, rather than reeling off a long list of search results. This could get complicated quickly. For example, imagine asking your voice service to tell you what the best headphones on the market are. The information is quite subjective and could easily lend itself to commercial bias. Search engines will also have a huge role to play in determining which content is picked up by voice services, and this will no doubt result in some debates and accusations. 08. Privacy and fraud present a problem We may need a way for our devices to adapt what they offer depending on who's talkingFrom your children talking to Amazon Alexa and re-ordering tons of chocolate, to people overhearing your confidential information – there are lots of considerations around privacy and security when it comes to voice interfaces. An obvious solution is password-locking devices, but again, with voice it probably won’t take much effort for the kids to learn it. In the future, it’s likely that shared devices will recognise users by their voice and personalise their experience accordingly. In the meantime, we’ll have to think carefully and recognise that there are some use cases where voice just isn’t appropriate. Embracing voice interactions Alexa is even on smart watchesAs voice interaction evolves and machines become smarter and smarter, there will no doubt be loads of considerations that we haven’t even thought of today. Voice is potentially the next huge paradigm shift in technology, and with machine learning moving at the rate it is today it’s highly possible that over the next few years machines will become better than humans at deciphering human speech. If you’re working in technology, you’d be silly to ignore voice. There are lots of exciting initiatives out there, and Amazon, Cisco, IBM and Slack are just some of the big companies investing heavily in voice startups. If you’re keen to learn more about designing for voice, check out CareerFoundry’s 8-week Voice User Interface Design with Amazon Alexa online course. Related articles: Léonie Watson on making accessibility integral to web design process 8 minimal UI designs and why they work Why you should be excited about zero UI View the full article

The launch of iOS 11 is right around the corner, making right now the perfect time to master the art of app development so your projects can climb the App Store ranks. Get your start with the Complete iOS 11 Developer Bundle, on sale for a price you can pick! The Complete iOS 11 Developer Bundle is here to give you a preview of what iOS 11 will bring to iPhones around the world and how you can take advantage of it as a developer. This bundle includes four levels of course packages, each building upon the knowledge gained from the last. Work through the fundamentals all the way up to the tips and tricks that experts count on. By the time you're finished, you'll be building your own apps from scratch and launching them in the App Store. The Complete iOS 11 Developer Bundle usually retails for $596 but you can get it on sale now for a price you can pick! Beat the average to unlock it all, get on the leaderboard, or just pay what you want. No matter what, you're going to get a bundle that you won't want to miss! About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com View the full article

CSS Custom Properties, commonly known as CSS variables, have been steadily making their way into browsers for some time now. With the release of Microsoft Edge 15 back in March, they are now supported by all major modern browsers. This means that for projects that aren't burdened by having to support legacy browsers such as Internet Explorer, CSS variables can be considered – for all intents and purposes – safe to use. A guide to writing better CSSMany developers already use variables with preprocessors such as Sass or Less as a means of reducing code repetition. Native CSS variables work in largely the same way, but don't require any additional build step, cascade like a regular CSS property, and most importantly, are available at runtime. These benefits give native CSS variables an edge over their preprocessor siblings, and opens the door for developers to do a lot of interesting things with a lot less code. In this tutorial, we'll be exploring how we can use CSS variables to implement website theming into a mock web app called NoteApp. This will involve writing CSS and JavaScript to allow the user to change the colour scheme and toggle the amount of columns shown. We'll then leverage the Web Storage API to make sure any changes are saved for future sessions. Get the tutorial files First things first, download the project files from Web Designer's FileSilo. To do this, go to FileSilo, select Free Stuff and Free Content next to the tutorial. Note: First time users will have to register to use FileSilo. 01. Set up the workspace In the '/website-template' directory you'll find the static NoteApp webpage in which we'll be implementing website theming using CSS variables and the Web Storage API. Open the directory in your preferred text editor. 02. Set up our CSS variables In 'main.css', you'll find much of the project's CSS. At the top, create a block targeting the 'root' pseudo-class. Within it define variables like in the snippet below. This root block contains global variables that will cascade down through our stylesheet like any regular CSS property. 03. Replace colours with variables Go through the stylesheet, either manually or using find/replace, and swap any static colour hex codes with their corresponding variable from the root block. To do this, use the var function and pass the variable's name. This tells the browser to reference that variable's value. For example: 04. Locate inline SVG for icons Open 'index.html' and one of the first things you notice is a large SVG element. This contains the paths for all the page's icons, each wrapped in a symbol element, and given a unique ID. These symbols are then referenced where needed with the 'use' element, allowing for the reuse of icons without any duplication of SVG code. 05. Add CSS variables to the SVG One benefit of using inline SVG instead of a .SVG file is that CSS can access its internal structure. This means so can our CSS variables (Except Edge, at the time of writing). In 'index.html', replace the SVG's style block with the snippet below. Now each of the SVG's colours are linked to the values of our CSS variables. 06. Create a columns variable We can also use CSS variables for properties other than colour. Create a new variable in the root block, call it 'columns', and give it a value of 3. This should match the default value of the 'Columns' UI component on the page. When functional, this component will toggle the number of columns. 07. Implement a columns toggle Using our new columns variable and the calc() function, we'll now calculate how wide each note component should be in order to create the correct number of columns. For example, if columns is set to 4, each note should have a width of 25%. 08. Add JS classes and data attributes When applying JS behaviour to a DOM element, hook into it via a class with a JS prefix. This decouples the functional aspects of an element from CSS ones. Let's add a 'js-update-variable' class to all colour and radio inputs as well as a 'data-attribute' referencing the corresponding variable to update. 09. Add JS to update CSS variables Open 'main.js' and add the snippet below. This loops through all our 'js-update-variable' inputs and adds logic, so on change, the variable referenced in its data-variable attribute is updated with the inputs value. The colour swatches and column toggle should now be working! 10. Attach a JS class to the Save button It makes sense to only save the user's colour scheme when they click the save button, as that allows them to experiment with themes as much as they'd like without automatically overriding the current one. To start, add '.js-save-colours' to the 'Save' button to function as our JS hook. 11. Create colours array Back in 'main.js', declare a new variable called 'colours' and assign to it a new array containing all the colour variables we want to be saved once the save button has been clicked. 12. Build Save button event listener Below the colours array, create a click event listener for the 'js-save-colours' class which we previously added to the Save button. Inside it create a new variable called 'htmlStyles' and assign it the computed properties of the root HTML element. We will use this to access our CSS variables. 13. Record CSS colour variables Next, within the event listener, create a new variable called 'coloursToSave' and assign it an empty object. Next, create a FOR loop using the 'colours' array from step 11. Within it, we'll add a complete key/value record of the variables mentioned in the 'colours' array to the 'coloursToSave' object. 14. Send coloursToSave to localStorage Now we have all the colour variables saved in 'coloursToSave', we'll send it to a component of the Web Storage API called localStorage. This is essentially an object that persists across sessions. We can store other objects within it using its 'setItem()' method. Let's send it our 'coloursToSave' object. 15. Add a JS class to Columns In addition to colours, we also want to make sure that our chosen columns number also persists across sessions. The first step towards this would be to add 'js-update-columns' to all radio inputs within the columns component. 16. Send columns to localStorage For each 'js-update-columns', we'll next assign event listeners to watch for changes. On detection, we'll then send the current value of the 'columns' variable to localStorage, again using its 'setItem()' method. Unlike with colours, we don't need to stringify this value as it's not an object. 17. Handle new sessions If the user returns after previously choosing a colour and column preference, we need to build logic so this saved data is turned back into CSS variables. The first step is to define a 'DOMContentLoaded' event listener, and then an 'if' statement to check for any saved data in localStorage using its 'getItem()' method. 18. Amending colour variables In the colours 'if' statement, create a new variable called 'savedColours' and assign it the value of a parsed colours object from localStorage. Using a FOR IN loop with 'savedColours', grab each colour key/value pair and append it to the root HTML element as a CSS variable. 19. Gather column variables data Before we can amend the columns variable, we have to first grab references to the saved data in localStorage and also the radio inputs within the 'Columns' component. The latter is so we can updates its state to make sure the correct number is pre-selected. 20. Amend variable and state Finally, we'll update the columns CSS variable with its saved localStorage counterpart and set the checked attribute of the relevant radio input within the 'Columns' component to true. The 'columns - 1' is to compensate for the fact that the columns NodeList is zero-based. 21. Test the finished product The finished product: everything on the mock NoteApp page should now workThat's it! Everything on the mock NoteApp page should now work. You can create your own colour scheme by clicking the swatches and then commit it to localStorage via the Save button. If you wish to toggle the amount of columns shown, click the appropriate number in the columns component. This article originally appeared in Web Designer magazine issue 264. Buy it here. Read more: What is Sass? How to get started with Sass 7 tips to manage colour better on the web View the full article

Want to know how to create a realistic 3D architectural fly-through but aren't sure where to focus your efforts within the pipeline? If you know the basics of 3D modelling and texturing, this tutorial is for you. Although we will use XSI as a frontend, the steps should be fairly software agnostic. More detail is given on setting up global illumination in Redshift, so most of this will be applicable to a Maya frontend too. 29 free 3D models01. Define your aims Consider your audience carefully before starting a projectThe first questions we ask any client at Fluid Pictures is who the project is for. You need to have a really good idea of who the audience is so you can be clear about how you want it to look. In this case, the project is to be shown to a TV executive and played off a laptop, and the idea is that it looks like it could have been shot on a smartphone. 02. Find references Taking pictures of your own home could help you visualise what you're aiming forOnce you have a concept in mind, go forth to the internet and find as many images as you can as reference. It is so much easier if you have something to hand to provide you with ideas, or to show you exactly what something looks like in indoor lighting. 03. Model simple geometry Start creating your room with basic geometryGet a primitive cube and start to model the base geometry of the architecture. In this case, it is a traditional two room ground floor North London house. Decide where the windows should be and make sure you’ve got all the major bits of architecture in place. If you’re having internal lighting (I’m not in this case), then get stand ins for those, too. 04. Start lighting Decide on how many light sources your scene will have and where they are Add a white diffuse material to your walls and set up your lighting. My scene doesn’t have any additional interior lighting as it is supposed to look ‘off your phone’ real and not ‘shot like a movie’ real. I start with a HDR sky dome and a small area light for the sun to achieve sharp sun shadows. 05. Set up global illumination Redshift's Brute-Force GI Engine makes lighting scenes much quicker You’re not going to get anywhere without being able to the bounce light in the room. In the past, you either had to simulate each area of light falling into the room, or turn on global illumination and sit back for a long wait. Now you can switch on Redshift Brute-Force GI Engine and get good results in a fraction of the time. 06. Model furniture Get some basic furniture but don't worry about detail and texture at this stage You need some furniture, so head to your web-based CG model shop, or make them by hand. Just create the major components that you know you’re going to need. Don’t go mad with detail and texturing just yet, but if you do build anything properly, make sure there are no problem polygons flickering away. 07. Set up camera moves Think about how you want your viewer to see the sceneI want to be walking round the room, so set up a simple camera pan and fly-through at head height with a bit of automatic camera shake. Once again, get references; I walk about the room with a phone camera to get an idea of what a hand-held camera looks like. Don’t guess if you don’t have to. 08. Add detail to the architecture Extra details like the texture of a fireplace add realism to your scene Once you’re happy with the way your camera is moving, you can start adding detail and textures to the architecture where you’re going to see it. Use those references to tell you where to add those unexpected bits of detail that make it real. 09. Add more detail to the scene Add as much details as you can to the rest of the scene Kiss your weekend goodbye and keep adding detail. Use your reference to see what should be lying under the table. Texture the spine of every book, add rounded edges to everything. You might not see it, but you’ll know the detail is there. Keep going till you run out of time, money or willpower. 10. Check references and relight Continual checks with your references will help get accurate lighting So all is looking good. Check your reference again and make sure the colour balance looks convincing. Think about exposure. If you are shooting on a phone, it will vary the exposure as it looks into the light. Do you want to simulate that here, or in the grade afterwards? Render some low-res tests. 11. Decide on a global illumination method Keep testing until you're happy with illumination levels Redshift’s default GI is a brute force method that (fortunately) only has a couple of main parameters. If your render is noisy, as it likely will be – crank up the number of samples until it becomes smooth. However, this can take a very long time if you have big smooth white walls. Your best bet to avoid waiting ages is to invest in a noise reduction plug-in such as Neat Video. The other GI option is number of GI bounces. You may be tempted to think that ‘more is better’, but be warned that a lot of GI bounces can flatten out your image and lose contrast as energy is bounced through the scene. My advice is to make yourself comfortable and keep testing. The other main GI method is Irradiance point clouds and caching. Switch your primary and secondary GI to this, and the results will look a lot smoother with no grain. This method is great for large smooth areas of colour – a lot of the calculations are pre-processed so it can be faster for grain-free results. The issue with irradiance point clouds is potential blotches in your render and you can sometimes see artefacts on fast-moving camera shots. And yes, you’ll have to render it out to realise you have issues, and then slink back to Brute Force and its longer render times. 12. Start compositing Redshift enables you to experiment with various effectsThe aim of this project is to see what could be achieved in a single pass. But with Redshift, you are able to split up the render into its various components, so you can render out passes and then composite, adding subtle grades and effects as you do so, although at the moment, you can’t create custom AOVs. 13. Adjust grading Adjusting the colour grading is the final step in creating your room sceneYour final render should be a thing of beautiful reality, and the last thing to do is adjust the grade and add any effects. You should have thought long and hard about your digital cinematography so changes should be minor, but this is where you can push that big filmic grade, or in our case start to desaturate and get a low-tech look. I don’t feel the need to add grain, video streaks or the appearance of a rolling shutter as I am replicating a phone camera. Just a few tweaks on the levels and you’re done. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 224. Buy it here. Related articles: How to create realistic CG cloth in Redshift 17 tips for modelling a complex city scene Make realistic plants in Cinema 4D View the full article

Julia Khusainova, experience designer at Airbnb, will give a presentation about designing the pivot at Generate London next week, where she will share her process for developing new products from ideation, testing and validation, development, to release and beyond. Airbnb's mission is all about making people feel at home – whether that's during a stay with one of its hosts or on its website. That means communicating effectively with a global user base, and building a design language that can scale with the company as it continues on its meteoric trajectory. We chatted to vice president of design Alex Schleifer, about how the design team is helping Airbnb fulfil its mission. How has the role of design changed at Airbnb since the company launched? Alex Schleifer: Design has always been important at Airbnb – it was founded by designers and the first guests were coming to a design conference in San Francisco. Some of the biggest changes have come from scaling and adapting to the momentum. Our design team has evolved. We have researchers, writers and even engineers that all are today part of the design organisation at Airbnb. We've built better tools and processes. We have designers embedded in all our product groups. It's constantly evolving but at its core it hasn't changed all that much – there's a deep passion for design. At Generate London, Julia Khusainova - experience designer at Airbnb - will walk through her process for developing new products How is the design team structured? AS: Design is a multidisciplinary group that includes experience design and research, content strategy, localisation and design operations. These teams impact everything a user will interact with – this includes internal users like our customer agents. It's a real advantage to have so many disciplines within the same team, as you're constantly exposed to many different facets of the work. What are the core principles your design teams work by? AS: Airbnb has a clear mission that drives all of our decisions: To help build a world where everyone on earth can feel like they belong anywhere. When applied to product design, the key principles this translates to are designing for trust and designing for everyone. These really apply to everything we do and impact the progress we make towards our mission most substantially. In April 2016, Airbnb introduced an updated app designed to match people to the homes, neighbourhoods and experiences that will help them live like a localHow do you apply those two principles in practice? AS: Building trust is really about creating an environment where trust can manifest itself between what are often two strangers. There are very explicit ways to do this, like reviews or verifying profiles, but also subtle ways, like how much we emphasise real people and real homes. As for designing for everyone: We're building a product for a truly diverse and global community. There's something unique about our global reach – when a host and guest meet they're often from different parts of the world. That means every decision we make needs to be done with a global lens. Our community is also incredibly diverse, and making sure everyone feels like they belong on Airbnb is in part the responsibility of our user experience design. What's the role of research in this? AS: We have a strong research team that does substantial global studies and is constantly meeting with our community all around the world. Without local knowledge we can't develop a truly global product. The research team helps develop and iterate on features by capturing real user feedback, but it also takes on larger, long-term research projects that guide the overall product strategy. The work of researchers is critical to every decision we make on the product. The same goes for data science. Our community is so large and diverse it's incredibly important to have a team that helps us understand behaviours on our platform. In most cases, data scientists will work closely with researchers to help us learn more about our users. All of our designers are motivated to learn more about data and how to read it. There's a healthy balance between art and science that makes working here really rewarding. Data and research really help us fine-tune our intuition. Research and data science play a key role in developing Airbnb's productsHow do you manage the design of Airbnb products? AS: We set out to build a design language system (DLS) with some specific goals: create a common language that is understood across disciplines, establish an iconic visual language, and define components that make designing and building software easier. It's all in the name of creating a beautiful, cohesive, usable app or website. For this to happen we need everyone involved, not just designers. It's been great to see engineers really engage with the project. Something at this scale is never easy and there are many ways to define what a component is, how atomic you should be in your definitions, what's called what. These are the conversations that improve the system and since its launch six months ago it's only become a bigger part of the conversation at Airbnb. What was your process in putting the DLS together? AS: We started with a small team that essentially built a manifest of all the patterns, flows and elements that existed in our products. It was important to quickly build a scaffold of sorts for the system; a set of common components with common names. This showed us we could take something that had been developed over years by many different people and organise it into a very reasonable set of patterns. We did visual and brand work alongside this to get a sense of what we wanted our future products to feel like. We knew we wanted to let the photography shine, to bring in typographic qualities that support a range of languages, and so on. Then the work really started. We began building some of the components and getting deeper into the UI. This involved many more teams and conversations around specific philosophies in design and engineering. How is the DLS used now? AS: It has already changed the way we build. It's now owned by everyone that works on our product, which means it's growing and changing every day. The way we look at it, we'll never be done. A design system needs to evolve at the pace of the company – or preferably even be slightly ahead, so it can support new projects. Airbnb's design language system is made up of common components that translate across disciplinesHow important is storytelling? AS: It's incredibly important to us. We actually use storyboarding for a lot of our projects. We are big fans of companies like Pixar and often use professional illustrators to communicate a concept. We also create a lot of content ourselves: short films, animation and music that get integrated into the app or communication. There's a huge variety of incredible talent at Airbnb and we're lucky to have a community that brings so many amazing stories with it. How often do you bring in outside contractors? AS: We will work with the best talent the project requires. This means we've worked with many incredible people over the years. We will usually find people that have specific skills, like illustrators, musicians, data designers and so on. What's your workspace like? AS: Most of the design team is based out of San Francisco in an incredibly varied and creative space. We work in what are essentially neighbourhoods built around large 'project rooms' that are modular spaces with displays, whiteboards, pinboards and tall tables. Everyone is free to pick up and work in the many open spaces distributed around the office. People are also free to change spaces by decorating them. The design team is distributed, but we have a few key spaces that are shared. There's a crit room that really is our main home, as well as the common studio, which is set up with a variety of creative analogue and digital tools. How do you communicate with your team? AS: We're growing very rapidly so reducing the communication overhead is important. Distinct product teams have their own cadence. There is one all-hands every two weeks where the entire team gathers for updates from various parts of the organisation. Individual disciplines also have stand-ups weekly, where most (if not all) of the week's work gets an update. I try to personally meet with different people from the team as much as possible, but it's become harder as it has grown to over 100. I will walk the office and try to chat to whoever I meet about what they're working on. It's one of my favourite things to do. The office layout centres around large project rooms, surrounded by plenty of free workspaces Do you use any particular tools? AS: I'm a big fan of Slack and its integrations. It's really easy to share files and feedback. Our team uses it pretty much constantly. I always have it open on my desktop – I like being available if anyone on the team needs to talk to me. We're also building internal tools for asset management, file sharing and prototyping that we'll share in the coming months. In general, we try not to burden people with too much software, as each team has their own needs. Tell us about the role of atomic design at Airbnb... AS: Any company that builds software at the rate we do ends up using some sort of atomic process. There's no way to scale if you don't become somewhat capable at building systems. We've got a lot better at componentising everything and building tools as well as processes. Tools are a huge part of this. We have a team dedicated to building and integrating tools for our designers; everything from asset integration into Sketch to prototyping environments. Having access to everything quickly is crucial, whether it's an icon or a piece of research. As the company has grown, what have you learned about implementing design thinking in a large organisation? AS: I think it's about creating simple frameworks and giving people the right environment. We're lucky because design thinking has been part of Airbnb since day one, which makes things somewhat easier. The other thing is to make sure you don't consider 'design thinking' as something that exclusively resides within the discipline of design. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 287. Airbnb will be represented by product designer Julia Khusainova at Generate London on 22 September, a two-day/one-track conference with 16 presentations covering prototyping, adaptive interfaces, web animations, user research, performance, accessibility, UX strategy, and lots more. Get your ticket today. Related articles: 11 great UI designs 10 essential tools for freelance UX designers How Jaime Levy became a UX strategy guru View the full article

Black Friday 2017 [LINK] is steaming ever closer: are you ready for the biggest shopping day of the year? If you’re in the market for a creative bargain but don’t have time to permanently monitor Amazon for the best discounts, fear not. We’ll be bringing you all the best Amazon Black Friday deals for designers, illustrators and artists – right here. Whether you’re a studio owner, freelancer or work in-house, we’re on hand to help you make huge savings on everything from hardware (including workstations, laptops, graphics tablets, cameras and more) to software, studio kit, design books, lifestyle items and more. So bookmark this page and make sure you check back regularly – not just once Black Friday 2017 has kicked off on 24 November, but in the run up to Thanksgiving as well. We’ll be scooping up all the best early bargains for designers and creatives. A word of warning, though. The online retailer doesn’t divulge how much stock it has, so if you see an Amazon Black Friday deal you like, it's good advice to purchase the item while you can. (We're not advocating snapping up every deal you see, of course. We're just saying don't expect quality deals to last long.) How can I get the best Amazon Black Friday deals? Aside from checking in regularly to this page, if you’re serious about bagging a bargain this Black Friday, an Amazon Prime subscription is recommended. Last year, Amazon gave subscribers early access to some of its blink-and-you-miss-them Lighting Deals – which you tend to find on the Today's Deals page. These usually centre around items where stock is low and don’t last for long. Start your FREE 30-day Amazon Prime trial today: UK Start your FREE 30-day Amazon Prime trial today: US Amazon also aimed some of its 2016 Black Friday deals exclusively at Prime users. And subscribers benefitted from additional discounts on prices that were already reduced, too. For those who don't already have one, an Amazon prime subscription will set you back £79/$99 per year. For that, you'll get access to Amazon Prime Video (like Netflix), Amazon Prime Music (like Spotify), special offers throughout the year, faster delivery and unlimited photo storage in the cloud – among other benefits. The best Amazon Black Friday deals Amazon gave the Wacom Intuos Pro Small graphics tablet a 30 per cent discount in August The million dollar question: what are the best Amazon Black Friday deals that designers and illustrators can expect in 2017? According to our sister site TechRadar, you can “almost certainly guarantee” that Amazon's own line of products – including the Echo and Echo Dot speakers, Fire stick, Fire tablets and Kindle e-Readers will get a discount too. Based on last year's results, we’d also hope to see some cracking offers in the following areas... Phone Black Friday dealsSave £120 on the Samsung Galaxy S8+ One deal already up on Amazon gives you the chance to pick up the Samsung Galaxy S8+ smartphone for just £626.99. It launched in April 2017 for £779 in the UK – which is what you’ll get it for at most leading retailers – but Amazon has knocked £120 off the price (and we'd hope to see more offers like this over Black Friday). TechRadar gave the Samsung Galaxy S8+ 4.5 our of 5 stars in its review, which you can read here. Camera Black Friday dealsSave £220 on the Nikon D7100 Digital SLR Camera Body Need a new camera for your studio? Amazon is already offering the Nikon D7100 Digital SLR Camera Body for just £629.99 – down from £849.99. It boasts a 24.1 MP DX format CMOS sensor, 3.2 inch LCD and dual SD memory card slots. TechRadar reviewed the camera and awarded it four out of five stars. Graphics tablets Black Friday dealsAmazon recently offered some tasty discounts on select Wacom and Bamboo gear for its #ShopTheFuture event. We’d hope to see more of these repeated over Black Friday 2017. Computing and accessories Black Friday dealsLast year saw a plethora of computing deals, including an HP Slimline 410-135na Desktop machine for £329.99, and – reports TechRadar – £200 off the ASUS Flip UX360UA 13.3-inch Touchscreen Zenbook Notebook. We'd hope to see workstations, laptops, monitors and a host of computing accessories discounted over Black Friday. View the full article

https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16259810/huawei-apple-global-smartphone-sales … View the full article

Animating just got quicker and easier with CrazyTalk Animator 3.2’s new PSD export function. With this tool, character designers can effortlessly move assets back and forth between Photoshop and CTA3. By doing so, you can adjust the look of your characters, experiment with image effects, and pose them with the help of specialist frameworks. Animate Photoshop character instantly Your character drawings can quickly become animationsWith the launch of CrazyTalk Animator 3.2, character designers and Photoshop users will find their work process become five times faster than if they didn’t use the software. This is because they’ll have access to the software’s new PSD character modification and PSD graphic design tools. Creating a professional animation can be a long and difficult task. Even with the help of digital tools, designers and animators can find the whole process a chore that takes longer than it needs to. CrazyTalk Animator 3.2 makes animation faster and easier than ever. CrazyTalk Animator is a 2D animation software that’s already won over a legion of fans in the creative community thanks to its simple animation tools that deliver amazing results. These tools include a motion library for humans and other creatures, templates that can turn any image into a 2D character, plus a range of props and scene elements that can be controlled just how you want. The best complementary tool for Photoshop With the ability to access PSD character modification, animators, video creators and graphic designers will be able to make use of visual enhancements such as textures, colours, and make-up editing. This opens up the possibility of creating truly unique looking character designs, complete with individual touches that you couldn’t deploy before. Exporting to Photoshop allows for custom editingWith the capability to launch Photoshop and synchronise updates, CTA3 can send props or characters to Photoshop in layers for further custom editing. You can easily design clothes, alter colour shading, or apply filter effects to your animatable assets. By using CTA3’s powerful pose and expression tools, designers can easily transform a single character to a full series of actors, each with different styles and gesturesMeanwhile the PSD export function will allow creatives to easily export PSD files from CrazyTalk Animator 3.2 to external tools such as Photoshop and other compatible tools. This will allow for better character modification options, as well as providing the opportunity to recreate a character pose and refine their overall look. Customise your characters with different clothes and accessoriesWhen used together, these tools mean that an animator, video creator or graphic designer can work five times faster than if they didn’t use CrazyTalk Animator 3.2. Use framework tools to bring life to your imagesThese tools provide lots of opportunities across all sectors of graphic design and animation. Along with the other features on offer with CrazyTalk Animator, these additions will instantly bring an image, logo or prop to life. Users can apply effects themselves to get the perfect animation, or choose from a selection of motion templates to whip up movement in a matter of seconds. Topped off with a powerful 2D bone editor rig that creates a realistic sense of movement and weight, plus facial puppets and audio lip-syncing tools, the hassle of creating an animation has gone out of the window thanks to CrazyTalk Animator 3.2. You can even try the tools before you buy, or upgrade in a matter of clicks on the CrazyTalk Animator homepage. Check out more about CrazyTalk Animator here, or learn more about CrazyTalk Animator 3.2. View the full article

Researchers find six previously unknown memory corruption and unlock-bypass vulnerabilities in major chipset vendors' firmware code. View the full article

Google fixed 81 vulnerabilities, including 13 critical remote code execution bugs, in the September edition of its Android Security Bulletin on Tuesday. View the full article

Modern web browsers are tremendously versatile, to a large part by virtue of the wide range of third-party extensions that can be used to add extra features and functionality. 30 Chrome extensions for web designers and devsYet extensions are not just about the browsing experience for the end user. Designers and developers have access to a wide and varied range of extensions for just about anything they might want to do. They will help make your life easier and/or improve the quality of your work. Here, we'll take a look at a small handful of some of the most essential extensions that you need and which can really make a difference. The chances are that you'll be developing primarily with Chrome or Firefox, so we'll focus on extensions which support either or both of these browsers. 01. Web Developer Web Developer is the Swiss Army knife of developer extensionsWeb Developer: Chrome Web Developer: Firefox Developed originally for Firefox and ported to Chrome (and Opera for that matter), Web Developer is the Swiss Army knife of developer extensions, and neatly complements the built-in developer tools of both browsers. The extension adds a toolbar with a wealth of useful features, including the ability to extensively inspect the page structure, manage cookies and form content, enable or disable various things like JavaScript and caching, plus CSS styles and much more. It can also check for common issues with pages such as broken images or non-standard code. One especially useful element is the CSS style inspector; this enables you to hover over any element on the page and see the styles applied to it, which can quickly solve mysterious style behaviour. This one really is a must-have. 02. DevTools Autosave Changes made in DevTools are saved to the source files as you make themDevTools Autosave: Chrome This extension a bit fiddly to set up, but is really useful once you get it running. You can already make changes in Chrome DevTools and see immediately how they reflect on the page. The DevTools Autosave extension, however, enables modifications to be automatically saved back to the source files as you make them. This can be especially useful for CSS tweaks to get your page looking visually spot on. In addition to installing the extension itself, you need to install and run a server. Instructions on how to do this are available on the extension's GitHub site, which is linked to from its page on the Chrome Store. Once you've got things set up, it can support either local filesystem or server-based development. 03. IE Tab Test your work in an IE tabIE Tab: Chrome There are still a significant number of people out there using Internet Explorer, and while these days Microsoft is well-engaged with the web standards community, in the past it's fair to say there was some deviation from the norm when it came to IE's approach to rendering pages. If you're looking to test your work out in IE, then IE Tab provides a straightforward way of doing so. You also have the option of selecting the standards you want to render with. This means that you can test backwards compatibility with the likes of IE7, which rather remarkably can still turn up in enterprise environments 11 years on. In the past, IE Tab was also available for Firefox. However, it is unsupported in the latest version of Firefox and it's unclear whether it will receive an update. 04. HTML Validator A handy alternative to online toolsHTML Validator: Firefox It's easy for mistakes to creep into HTML, and there are a number of online tools already available which can validate your page content. If you find it a bit fiddly or time-consuming to get to them, this could be the extension for you. The button it adds will fire up a source view of the current page, highlighting and listing any HTML errors or warnings. It's particularly good for catching things like missing end tags, deprecated features and general bad practice. You can also choose between validation algorithms to suit your needs. Even if you're a seasoned web developer, it can be useful to run your HTML through validation since things can always slip through the net. Of course, passing validation is no guarantee of good HTML, but it does help! 05. User-Agent Switcher Useful if you've inherited some existing codeUser-Agent Switcher: Chrome This one is prone to cause some debate. In an ideal world, your pages shouldn't be checking for user agent (a fancy way of saying browser version, operating system and rendering engine). It's much better to use feature detection (that is, checking ‘does the user's browser support HTML feature X?'), and have your page progressively enhance or degrade gracefully rather than serving up different content to older browsers. Nonetheless, whether you've inherited some existing code, or have a legitimate need to check user agent in your own code, this extension provides a quick and easy way to switch between them without having to load another browser or power up a different device. 06. Google PageSpeed Insights Access PageSpeed Insights with a single clickGoogle PageSpeed Insights: Chrome Google PageSpeed Insights: Firefox It's worth spending some time optimising the performance of your page, since this can make a subtle yet significant difference to how it is received by users. You might already be familiar with PageSpeed Insights, an online service from Google which will evaluate the performance of your site and make a set of often very useful recommendations on how to optimise it. PageSpeed Insights will also highlight optimisation steps you've already taken (sometimes inadvertently!) This is really a convenience extension which provides a link through to PageSpeed Insights so you can test your page with a single click. It's the same service you get online, but without the need to open up a new tab and navigate to it. The extension itself also provides a performance score before you click through, but really it's the link to the detailed analysis that's useful. 07. BuiltWith Technology Profiler A one-click way to see under the hood of the page you're viewingBuiltWith Technology Profiler: Chrome BuiltWith Technology Profiler: Firefox Ever wondered 'how did they do that?' when browsing the web? There are a variety of reasons that it can be useful to understand the technologies and standards that websites are using when you visit them. The BuiltWith extension gives you a one-click way to see under the hood of the page you're viewing. The tool will give you insight into JavaScript libraries being used, analytics platforms, web standards, frameworks and more. All of the information is delivered in a very readable manner, with straightforward explanations of what each technology or standard is about to save you going off to research them. Taking a look at what some of the most popular and modern sites out there are using can be a great source of inspiration as you try to keep pace with ever-changing stacks and standards. 08. SEOquake A detailed breakdown of traffic and ranking statisticsSEOquake: Chrome SEOquake: Firefox It's likely that SEO will be a factor for you when developing a site, and there are a multitude of tools available which can help you maximise your chances of being seen. SEOquake is one of a number of such tools. The extension provides a very detailed breakdown of traffic and ranking statistics, assuming your site is popular enough for them to be calculated. Also useful even for smaller sites is the ability to click through to SEOquake's own online diagnostic service, which will provide a number of useful recommendations to ensure your page is findable. It will also examine internal and external links and compare domains and URLs. By default the extension will also overlay SEO information onto search engine results. However, it's highly configurable, so if this troubles you then you can disable it in the options. 09. Emmet Re:view Rapidly test out your page on a number of screen sizes side-by-sideEmmet Re:view: Chrome Responsive design is probably at the front of your mind as you work, but testing is not always the easiet stage of development. It can prove to be a real hassle trying to see a site in action on the myriad screens and devices that a site may be viewed on. Luckily, Emmet Re:view gives you the ability to rapidly test out your page on a number of screen sizes side-by-side. You can choose between a 'breakpoints view' which shows a view for every CSS breakpoint on the page, and a 'device wall' which mimics popular mobile and tablet devices. The device wall is configurable, with a large list of devices available to mimic. What's particularly nice is that you can continue to interact with the pages while they are displayed in Emmet Re:view. This gives you the ability to test out form submission, button clicks and much, much more once and see the result across multiple views. 10. PerfectPixel Overlay a transparent, static image onto a webpage in the browser - useful for matching to a wireframePerfectPixel: Chrome PerfectPixel: Firefox PerfectPixel enables you to overlay a static image onto a webpage in the browser, with a degree of transparency so the underlying page can be seen beneath. It's also possible to add multiple overlays if this is needed. This can be useful during the development phase as it allows you to match the implementation to a wireframe or template exactly – even a single pixel deviation will become evident, hence the name. It might be particularly useful for team projects where a hand-off takes place between design and developer(s). Once you've added the overlay, the extension can also scale and move it. Since it's only a static image, it won't of course respond to changes in screen size, so you may want to use multiple overlays to test responsive designs. Next page: 10 more essential browser extensions for web professionals 11. FireShot Take full-page screenshots of webpages without any fiddling aroundChrome Firefox Available for a wide range of browsers, in spite of the name, FireShot fulfils one very simple requirement – it allows you to take full-page screenshots of webpages, without any fiddly scrolling, cropping or trying to stitch together various screenshots with the help of Photoshop. You've almost certainly needed to do this at some point, and it's almost bizarre that there wasn't a straightforward way to do so. While it's an extremely simple extension, there's some flexibility provided – you can choose whether to capture the whole page, only the visible part, or just a selection. Once the image is captured, you can choose whether to save it as an image or PDF, email it, copy it to clipboard, or even print it. FireShot is a great example of a simple extension doing what it does very well. 12. Code Cola Select any element on the page and adjust the styling applied to it with an intuitive interfaceChrome Code Cola offers a very intuitive interface to modify page styling within the browser. You can select any element on the page and adjust the styling applied to it by, for example, dragging a slider for opacity or selecting a font from a drop-down. It's very powerful, but at the same time offers much better readability than DevTools. Essentially this allows you to take a WYSIWYG approach to styling, which, let's be honest, can be very useful with CSS. Once you've played around with styles to see what works visually, the extension also gives you the ability to copy the code changes so you can retrofit them into your CSS. Alternatively, for added power, you could combine this with DevTools Autosave and have the changes automatically saved back to their source files. Just be careful you don't get carried away with experimentation! 13. iMacros Record and replay macros (scripted interactions) within the browserChrome Firefox The iMacros browser extension is a free, pared-down companion to a commercial product, but nonetheless offers some valuable functionality. As you might expect from the name, iMacros enables you to record and replay macros (scripted interactions) within the browser. It's very easy to do so – simply click Record and then interact with the site as you would normally. When you play back the macro, it'll perform the same steps as quickly as the connection will allow. While this could be useful for performing repetitive tasks, the real power for developers is as a testing tool. It enables you to very quickly and intuitively set up automated tests which you can run every time you make a change. This can save tremendous effort manually regression-testing pages, without the need to develop a fully fledged automation test suite using something like Selenium. 14. Check My Links Check whether your links are workingChrome Check My Links will crawl through every link, both internal and external, on your page and check whether it's working. It generates a report as it goes, showing the outcome, and colour-codes good and bad links on the page. This is particularly useful if you have a site with a large number of links to external content, since it can be very hard to know whether they've broken without clicking through every one. There are a number of configuration options available to modify the HTTP request type, control use of caching, and more. In most cases, however, the out-of-the-box settings should do just what you need. It's worth noting that there are a number of similar extensions which offer similar functionality for Firefox. 15. UX Check Adds annotations indicating potential UX issuesChrome User experience should always be front of mind when working on the web. There's no substitute for testing with real users, but it can also be helpful to have an expert, 'heuristic' UX evaluation performed on your site. The UX Check extension is designed to make that straightforward. With UX Check, a UX designer or tester can add annotations to a site highlighting UX issues, and then package these annotations up along with screenshots (which are taken automatically) to send to the designer or developer working on the site. This avoids a lengthy process of stitching together screenshots and comments. The UX Check extension encourages the classification of feedback into one of ten different categories based on the '10 Heuristics for User Interface Design' by renowned UX practitioner Jakob Nielsen, although you can customise these categories if you so wish. 16. JSONView Applies styling and syntax highlighting to your JSON documentChrome Firefox If you're working with HTTP requests returning JSON data, as many developers do these days, you may find yourself frustrated by the lack of formatting and syntax highlighting when Chrome and Firefox present JSON to you. Luckily, JSONView comes to the rescue here. When installed, this will apply styling and syntax highlighting to your JSON document, and adds a context menu to grab individual values. This makes for a tremendous improvement in readability, and can make it much easier to spot the data you're looking for, or even errors. You can also customise the formatting with a built-in style editor, which uses CSS to define the colours and formatting applied. If you ever work with JSON in the browser, there really isn't a good reason not to install this (or any one of several other similar extensions). 17. ColorZilla Hugely popular tool that gives you loads of information about the colours on a pageChrome Firefox ColorZilla is extremely popular, and it has millions of users for a good reason. Very simply, it gives you a wealth of information about the colours used on a page, which can be useful whether you're taking inspiration from another site you've seen, or picking your own from a palette. The extension includes not only a very well-designed eye-dropper tool, but also the ability to analyse and highlight all the colours used on a page, plus a set of colour palettes of commonly used colours. It also links through to a handy CSS gradient generator by the same author which can quickly give you the code you need for gradient backgrounds. Try ColorZilla in combination with DevTools Autosave to experiment with colours on your page visually and on-the-fly. 18. AXE Automatic checking for accessibility problemsChrome Firefox Accessibility – this is, ensuring that sites are equally usable by people with disabilities – is important on the web. Yet unfortunately it isn't always front-of-mind for developers, and so testing tools which help ensure the right focus can be extremely valuable. The aXe extension adds functionality to the browser's Developer Tools which enable you to check for accessibility problems automatically. Not only does this give you the benefit of rapid, automated testing, but one of aXe's strengths is in avoiding false positives, so you know its findings need to be addressed. Note that the same is not true in reverse, however – just because aXe finds nothing does not guarantee an accessible page, so there is no substitute for following best practice, and testing as extensively as possible to get the right result. 19. Page Ruler Adds an on-screen ruler to the browser for measuring pixel dimensionsChrome Page Ruler adds an on-screen ruler to the browser, which enables you to obtain pixel dimensions and positioning for any elements on the page. While this might sound trivial, it can make a huge difference when you're working with CSS. Want to add a new element to the page, having spent too much time trial-and-erroring the size and positioning? Use the ruler to get the values spot on first time around. The tool is pretty simple to use and has a couple of different ways in which the ruler can be used Either you can click and drag free-form to outline a region to measure, or if you need to work with existing content on the page, you can enable 'Element mode' on the left of the ruler's toolbar, which will highlight individual elements on the page as the mouse passes over them. Once done, the measurements make an appearance in the toolbar at the top of the page. 20. Open Graph Preview Control how your site appears when shared on Facebook or other social media sitesChrome Shares on social media are a major source of traffic, but did you know you can control how your site appears when shared on Facebook or other social media sites? The Open Graph protocol is a metadata standard which defines properties read and displayed by social networks. For example, <meta property="og:title" content="My Page"/> controls the title Facebook gives your shared page. The Open Graph Preview extension allows you to see how your page will appear when shared on Facebook and Twitter (plus a couple of others). Once your site is live, you can also use this extension to see how many times your page has been shared on each of the social networks, which it will display below the appropriate icon. This article originally appeared in Web Designer magazine issue 264. Buy it here. Read more: 30 Chrome extensions for web designers and devs 3 handy Chrome extensions for front-end developers 10 top design feedback tools View the full article

When you first lay eyes on the Surface Studio in the flesh, it’s undeniably a thing of beauty. A huge 28-inch, high-resolution, high pixel density display is at the heart of the machine, which seems to float above the base that houses all of the hardware. Surface Studio vs iMac We know your first question: is this a suitable alternative to an iMac? The answer, on first impressions: 100 per cent yes. Apple has done a great job in blending aesthetics with power – but with the Surface Studio Microsoft has produced something as desirable, if not more so, thanks to its unique Studio Mode feature. What is that? Well, with a light touch – and it is literally a one-handed light touch – you can lower the Surface Studio down to an angle upon which you can sketch. The hinge is actually quite remarkable, enabling you to position the display at pretty much any angle you like (down to a drafting position – it can’t go completely flat). Surface Studio: drawing experience Another thing you don’t get with an iMac is a touch-sensitive display (10-point multi-touch). Not just touch-sensitive, mind, as you can use the new Surface Pen to accurately sketch, draw and design – it’s got 4,096 levels of pressure-sensitivity and can recognise tilt and so on. Using the Surface Pen on such a large screen is, frankly, a fantastic experience. There’s pretty much no lag at all and we felt it to be a hugely responsive drawing experience. There’s another trick – the Surface Dial. This is a puck that you place on the screen or next to your keyboard giving you extra controls. For instance, turn it as you’re drawing to change the tone or width of your line. Using the Dial on-screen is a very interesting experience and one that is very intuitive – although we’re still not quite sure how it actually stays on the screen. With a click and a turn you can select different options for controlling your brushes and so on. There’s only a few apps that currently give you specific options when using the Surface Dial (Creative Cloud apps don’t have any special functionality, so you’re limited to zooming there). We had a play using Sketchable and switching between line width and colour was fluid, and, actually a lot of fun. As soon as Adobe updates its apps to work with the Surface Dial, we’ll be even more interested – but until then the Dial is a little bit of a gimmick. Surface Studio: screen Let’s go back to the screen. In real life this thing is incredible. Absolutely stunning. With a PPI of 192 and a 4500 x 3000 resolution this is pretty much as good as it gets. It's bright and blacks are incredibly black – we have absolutely no complaints. And build quality is equally impressive, with the screen at only 0.5-inches thick. Surface studio: specs Our time with the Surface Studio was limited, so we couldn’t put the machine through rigorous testing – and we couldn’t install Creative Cloud. So we’re going to have to save that part for the full review, coming soon. Get Adobe Creative CloudOn paper though, the Surface Studio is no slouch. The base model has a 64GB SSD with 1TB HDD (hybrid drive), 8GB RAM, a Core i5 CPU and GeForce graphics with 2GB RAM. And even this, the lowest-end model, will cost you around a whopping £3,000. Yes, three grand. Spec it up to a 2TB hard drive, a Core i7, 32GB RAM and 4GB GPU and you’re looking in the region of £4,250. An outrageous amount of money. Port-wise you get 4 x USB 3.0, an SD card reader, a Mini DisplayPort, Ethernet and 3.5mm headphone jack. But all of the ports are on the rear. We wouldn’t mind the aesthetic being slightly marred by having a USB port on the front of the base. Oh, and there’s no Thunderbolt either, in case you were wondering. We’d like to see better graphics in the Surface Studio – due to older graphics cards it doesn’t officially support VR on the base model, and only just tops Oculus’ requirements on the high-end machine. We’re not sure this will be a deal-breaker for creative pros, but it’s something to bear in mind (and we didn’t test any VR apps in our review). Oh, and of course it runs Windows. Windows 10 to be precise. These days cross-platform file compatibility is less of an issue, but bear in mind that you will have to adapt to a new OS if you’re switching from an iMac. Value for money? It’ll be interesting to see how Apple’s forthcoming iMac Pro compares for price versus specs (and specs look hugely impressive ). The point is the Surface Studio is a huge investment, and that's even before you add the cost of the Surface Dial. One thing we’d also say is the keyboard and mouse felt pretty cheap for such an expensive machine – they didn’t match the aesthetic of the display, hinge and base at all. But, the fact is, when you’re sitting in front of the Surface Studio, the expansive screen engulfs you. It’s an immersive environment in which to work. And very natural as you can, with just a small hand movement, adjust the screen from sketching to accurate plotting or editing. Although our hands-on time with the Surface Studio was limited, we came away thinking of all the unique possibilities. The Dial has a lot of potential but needs to be supported – and implemented in the right way – by the likes of Adobe for it to be truly useful. The Surface Studio feels like an evolution of what the all-in-one is for the creative professional. It looks incredible, has ample power (at a price) and can be adjusted to your liking, making it a more personal creative environment. Also read: The best laptops for graphic design View the full article

2016 was a seismic year for the world of SEO. Google dramatically altered the rules – so much so that a website built with great SEO 12 months ago could well have fallen foul, and dropped in the rankings. Changing the way SEO works is nothing new in the fight against 'dirty SEO', but even by Google's standards, the changes the world's biggest search engine made in 2016 have really altered the SEO landscape. As web designers and developers, if you're not fully up to date, you risk a backlash from customers and your reputation as cutting-edge could well be gone forever. SEO hasn't been a fashionable topic for years, but it's essential you understand the latest trends to stay ahead of your rivals. So what exactly changed last year? Perhaps the most important was the switch to mobile-first indexing, while there was a big push for HTTPS and SSL-based websites, as well as greater AMP usage and adoption. There was also a crackdown on pesky pop-up ads, and Google's search algorithm began to have a greater understanding of content. It might not seem like much on the surface, but it has significantly altered the game for designers and developers. Here we look at these changes in depth and how they will alter the way you work. We've talked to some of the biggest names in the industry to give you the ultimate rundown of everything you need to know about mastering SEO in 2017. Build for mobile Let's start with the most important aspect of SEO in 2017. The way users search Google has been changing for years, and searches made from mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, have finally overtaken the traditional desktop methods. Google recognised that in November 2016 by introducing mobile-first indexing into its search criteria. Your SEO strategy should shift to mobile straight away – it's no longer an option to be mobile friendly, it's an absolute essential. Mobile is a trend that is only going to get bigger, and its importance to your online presence cannot be understated. Paul Tyler, head of SEO at All Response Media, believes the new mobile-first indexing will ensure that mobile is the primary focus going forward. "As the number and percentage of searches on mobile has surpassed desktop in many verticals, not approaching SEO from a mobile-first mindset has become too big of a business risk, " he says. Simply having a responsive website won't be enough. An understanding of what makes a great mobile experience is equally important, as Tyler explains: "Whilst many organisations have a mobile friendly website, they still don't understand the role that each type of device plays in the purchase journey as yet, which is critical to maximising both UX and site conversions." If your site isn't optimised properly for mobile, users won't go back to it. It's time to take building for mobile very seriously. Build your brand Social media should form a major part of your SEO strategy. In fact, it probably does now without you knowing it. Your business is present in many more places than just a single website. You'll have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, Instagram profile, YouTube page – the list goes on. The next time you search on Google, spend a bit of time having a look at the number of social media accounts on the first page of results. While Google hasn't officially made the correlation between social media and SEO – the reality is obvious. Building your brand in this way is known as 'off-page' SEO. 'On-page' SEO is the technical SEO that underpins your site (metadata, load times, CSS etc), while off-page is the stuff that happens outside your site. External elements like social media likes, shares and follows help to raise the ranking of your webpages in Google searches. Natural off-page SEO helps tell Google what users think about your site. Building a brand will have a positive effect on your SEO results, helping to increase traffic and make your business easier to find online. Site speed HTTP/2 Use the new standard to boost site optimisationGoogle is placing much more emphasis on the speed of your website this year. Although that's always been a big selling point to users, Google is now purposely looking more and more at the holistic SEO experience, and speed is playing a huge role in page rankings. Some of the technical changes being championed in this feature could have an adverse effect on website performance, so it's absolutely essential that you make sure your site functions at 100% after making those changes. Limiting errors like redirects, 404 pages and orphaned pages will not only help performance, but it will give you a huge SEO boost. Implementing HTTPS/2 will have a positive impact on website optimisation. Daniel Stenberg notes that the amount of data now required to load the home page of an average website is 1.9MB, with over 100 individual resources required to display a page. HTTP/1 hasn't been updated since 1999. It's fair to say that websites are built differently in 2017. Jump onboard with HTTP/2 (it is backwards compatible) as soon as possible. "Site speed is being pushed hard by Google ," says Tyler. "It will be an even bigger focus as HTTP/2 implementation increases over the next few years." You've been told. Voice search One of 2016's biggest trends was the increase in searches made by voice. Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa and Google's Echo have fundamentally changed the way users search with their mobile device. It's a market that has seen tremendous growth, and that won't change anytime soon, so SEO experts need to bear it in mind. To understand how important voice search is to SEO, some commentators believe that by 2020, 50% of searches will be made by voice. Users definitely search differently with their voice, using longer sentences and more natural language. It's easy to imagine searches becoming requests for immediate action, and this will impact on your keyword research and site mapping techniques. Neil Patel, co-founder of Crazy Egg, says: "The good thing is that voice search optimisation is fairly straightforward and intuitive. I find it to be much less robotic than the more antiquated SEO techniques. By getting on board right now and making it as easy as possible for digital assistants to understand your content, you'll be in a position to thrive for the foreseeable future." You can find out more on optimising for voice search here. Backlinking Backlinking: Some times the old ways are still the best. Build a catalogue of external links to boost your brand's popularityBacklinking – those links directed to your website and used by search engines as an indication of popularity and importance – isn't anything new in the world of SEO, but it remains a great way to boost your SEO ranking. We won't go into detail about the various back-linking techniques available (because there are dozens), but its importance can't be understated, even if it's become an unpopular method in your SEO arsenal. "What's really disturbing," says Moz's Cyrus Shepard, "is some people are giving up completely on link building when it's still a really huge part of Google's algorithm." Need more encouragement from Shepard? See here. "When you're doing link building right, you don't even need the links because you're doing good marketing, " he continues. "You're pushing your content out there, you're talking to those influencers, you're getting traffic to your site, and those just happen to be the signals that Google wants to reward." Content is king Content is king: It's no good having great design if your site doesn't meet your audience's needsUsers are becoming more and more demanding. The days of stuffing sites with a barrage of keywords has long gone. Those pages were easy for a search engine to crawl through but the user experience was generally appalling. Google is clever enough to sift through a wall of keywords, demote those pages and instead promote what it believes is great content. It's easy to see how the role of a good copywriter has become essential to web agencies. They agree – content is king. You wouldn't buy this magazine just because it looks good. The words on each page are equally as important to the readers. As Tyler argues: "Even a site with a great technical foundation that loads extremely quickly will not drive business performance if your content doesn't address the right audience or the right questions that need to be answered." Great content builds a community, creating a subtle link between what you say and what your audience is searching for. On the other hand, don't think that updating frequently is enough. Users are on the lookout for authentic content, and they want articles to be well researched and be packed with multimedia content. That content should always be shareable to your social media channels, helping to attract and retain visitors. User experience As machine learning makes Google's algorithm more advanced, UX is pivotal to the future of SEO. These advances have enabled the search engine to focus on providing the most relevant results, in not only content but user experience as well. "Users are becoming more demanding and just having good content is not enough anymore," explains Tyler. "Content needs to be fast to load, feature excellent design on all devices, utilise the right format, match user intent and, of course, have great UX." If UX isn't part of your SEO strategy right now, you desperately need to broaden your horizons or you will lose pace with your forward-thinking counterparts. Convention may tell you that SEO and UX are completely different parts of web design, but you'd be a fool to ignore this perfect marriage. In his article UX vs SEO: Web Design Battle Royale, Zach Rutherford argues that good SEO mixes well with good UX. "They have way more qualities in common than one might assume, " he explains. "Concise, legible, and informative copy – sprinkled lightly with high-quality keywords – serves the purposes of both UX and SEO. Not only that, but properly structured sites are intuitive for search spiders and users alike." Video marketing Revolution: Video marketing is a hot trend for 2017As an entertainment medium, video is hard to match. Just look at Facebook's evolution from a simple photo-sharing hub to a feed full of video, or the rise of YouTube and more recently Snapchat and Instagram Stories. Some of the most impressive new websites are built with videos scattered into the design – what better way to introduce your brand than with a homepage video? Video has wide-ranging consequences for eCommerce sites in particular, providing a better way to show how a product operates, how best to use or store it, and how it looks in regards to quality or size. Visitors to your site are more likely to buy a product or understand a topic through approachable step-by-step videos and tutorials. These videos don't necessarily have to be of the highest quality, but they are definitely worth doing because they offer a great way to become an authoritative voice, build a trusting relationship with your audience and also increase your site's conversion rates. Technical SEO Technical SEO is also going through a development renaissance at the moment after being considered less important for the last few years. It ensures that your website architecture is compatible with essential search engine guidelines, and can be indexed and ranked for keyword searches accordingly. This includes optimising for speed, but more recently Google's new Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project. It might offer limited functionality at the moment, but the positives (prominent real estate in Google's mobile carousel, increased traffic, higher click through rates, etc) far outweigh them. As Tyler pointed out earlier, technical SEO should be the foundation of your SEO but it's only part of the strategy. Keep your eye on Google Want to keep up to date with the world SEO? Follow Google!We've highlighted Google very heavily in this feature, but there is good reason for that. While Bing might be registering good numbers thanks to the popularity of Windows 10 devices, and DuckDuckGo has become the search engine for the security conscious among us, Google is still firmly number one in the market, and that isn't going to change anytime soon. So if you want to stay ahead of the SEO game, Google is the search engine that you need to base your development around. But that can actually be quite tough, because Google is constantly changing the SEO goalposts and creating an SEO landscape that is almost always in a state of flux. To give you an example, Google changes its search algorithm approximately 500 times a year. You need to know when these changes are implemented and explicitly how they affect individual pages on your website. SEO tactics you employed two or three years ago might not work in 2017, and that can have wide-reaching implications for the business if you don't invest time and effort into reevaluating your SEO strategy. What's the best way to stay number one on Google? Analyse your performance to get a greater insight on how you perform so that you can implement change with authority. As Tyler argues: "Ongoing testing is key to learning what works for your site, your audience and your SEO strategy, as these will all change over time and if you are not learning and evolving, your competitors probably are." The world of SEO is changing fast – make sure you're not left behind. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 295. Buy it here. Related articles: Master the art of search engine optimisation with Webtexttool 30 best SEO tools 7 tips for driving traffic to your portfolio website View the full article

In recent decades, graffiti has moved from an urban nuisance to a professional business thanks to the rise of street art as a serious creative force. And with the artform ever growing in popularity, there are now a wealth of graffiti font styles available online for creatives to use as the typography in their urban artwork. Here, we've scoured the web to find you the best examples of free fonts in a graffiti style for designers. Enjoy! 01. Smasher 312 Custom Smasher 312 Custom is tag-tastic with excellent shading detailsNew from French typeface design workshop ImageX is Smasher 312 Custom, a splendidly cartoony graffiti font with some lovely shading details. It comes in TTF format and it's free for personal use; if you want to use it commercially, contact ImageX. 02. Sister Spray ImageX's Sister Spray is gloriously messyGet messy with this fantastically rough and ready font, again from ImageX. It's made up of a full set of spray-painted uppercase characters, plus a couple of lowercase ones for emphasis, as well as some splatters, splodges and strokes to complete the look. It's free for personal use; contact ImageX if you want to use it commercially. 03. Tag Type Graphic designer Andy Panchenko was inspired by graffiti tags when creating this edgy designGraffiti font Tag Type was created by graphic designer Andy Panchenko. A student project, Panchenko's design was inspired by graffiti tags and is free for personal and charity use. 04. Bombing Give your designs an authentic graffiti feel with Bombing typefaceFrench designer Quentin Aquila is behind this striking graffiti font Bombing. The design is free for personal use only, with commerical licenses available directly from Aquila. 05. Urban Jungle Typeface designer Kevin Christopher designed this gorgeous typeface, which is perfect for creating stand out poster and flyer designsThis big, bold typeface 'Urban Jungle' was created by designer Kevin Christopher of KC Fonts. The eye-catching free graffiti font is perfect for creating stand out graffiti-style posters and flyers. There's a charge to get hold of the full font but you can do personal work to your heart's content with this free demo version. 06. Blow Brush Blow Brush is a handwritten marker style font inspired by the hip hop culture and graffiti communityDesigner and frontend developer Petar Acanski is behind this bold, quirky graffiti font Blow Brush. "Blow Brush is a handwritten marker style font inspired by the hip hop culture and graffiti community," Acanski comments on Behance. "Even though the main intention was to bring that street style to your content, the importance of font functionality was a top priority. The result are legible letters, clear type, a lot of variations and a font that is useful for a wider audience 07. The Fresh Prince The Fresh Prince font was created with a standard felt tip markerThe first font from Team Knorke, The Fresh Prince graffiti design is one of our favourites. "We had the idea for this after some beers and a discussion about the wackness of most graffiti fonts" team member Felix Schwarze comments on Behance. "We sketched the letters pretty dirty with a standard felt tip marker – street style." 08. Gang Bang Design Ideal for adding a touch of stylised street swagger to all your subway photosAnother all-cap font, designer Maelle Keita has two sets on offer for free. They are both caps, one with and one without the dripping paint element. 09. Polla Polla is a lively brush font filled with smudges and splattersCreated by Finnish designer Juha Korhonen, Polla is a wonderfully messy brush font, awash with smudges and splatters that will really bring your text to life. It's free for personal use, and if you want to use it commercially it'll cost you just €15/$20. 10. Damsterdam Damsterdam's bold, crooked letterforms brim with energyAnother one from Juha Korhonen, Damsterdam is a heavyweight all-caps font made of thick, rough brush strokes, with crooked, staggered letterforms that are simply full of energy. As with Polla, it's €15/$20 for commercial use but free for personal projects. 11. Happy Brown Cat Happy Brown Cat will have you purring with delightWho can resist a happy brown cat? This isn't your traditional graffiti font, but LazyPoony's is big and bouncy and crammed with fun. It's free for personal use; if you want to use it commercially you'll have to buy this version for a very reasonable $10. 12. Ruthless Drippin ONE These dripping calligraphic letterforms are a must for digital taggingIf you're after a sick tag font then you'll have a hard time finding a better one than Måns Grebäck's Ruthless Drippin ONE, combining striking calligraphic letterforms with distinctive paint drips. It's free for personal use. Next page: 10 more free graffiti fonts 13. Peinture Fraiche Slightly cracked letters and in-your-face drop shadow make for a fresh graffiti fontGive your graffiti a certain gallic je ne sais quoi with Quentin Aquila's Peinture Fraiche. Its bold cartoon letterforms are slightly shattered to give them extra character, and a heavy drop shadow makes them leap off the page. It's an all-caps font, but with a special set of caps, each adorned with a little arrow to add impact. 14. Misdemeanour Misdemeanour is a stencil font with a graffiti edgeMisdemeanour is a spraypaint stencil font by Kevin Christopher. Free for personal use only, this could be the perfect graffiti font for your Banksy-inspired designs. 15. You Murderer You Murderer conveys a serial killer vibe masterfullyWant to convey the deranged killer vibe? Then the self-explanatory You Murder font offers a suitably psychotic graffiti font for you to try out. Created by Nate Piekos, it's free for personal use only. 16. Brooklyn Brooklyn is available in two versions, regular and inlineOne of our favourite graffiti font styles, Brooklyn was developed by graphic designer Paul Reis, who describes it online as 'a calligraphy-based typeface that is both sleek and brutal'. Created as a result of his calligraphic exercises and doodles, Brooklyn is available in two versions, regular and inline. 17. Stylin' BRK Styli' BRK is a simple marker style tag design. Image © BerakaStylin' BRK was the first font created by graphic and web designer Beraka. One of many graffiti font styles developed by this artist, the simple marker style tag design is by far his most popular download. Free for personal use only. 18. A Dripping Marker Give your graffiti designs an authetic feel with A Dripping Marker by Wick van den BeltThe name says it all: A Dripping Marker, created by designer Wick van den Belt, is free for personal use only and comes complete with a full set of upper and lowercase characters, numbers and selection of special characters. A worthy inclusion in our list of the best free graffiti font styles. 19. Maelstrom This detailed graffiti font was created by designer Chung-Deh TienChung-Deh Tien is the man behind this heavy, detailed typeface design Maelstrom. Tien describes this font as his 'contribution to civic eyesore'. The detailed design is one of the most inspiring graffiti font styles we've seen - and it's free for personal use! 20. Juice Juice is one of many typeface designs by FontaliciousThis font is one of over 100 designs which, collectively, have been downloaded over 10 millions, by Fontalicious. A popular choice among free graffiti fonts, with its quirky, marker-style design it has received over half a million downloads to date. 21. Street Writer Get an authentic graffiti feel with this cool Street Writer fontIf you're looking for free graffiti font downloads, this one is well worth considering. Give your graffiti illustrations an authentic feel with this font by Noah. The interesting design incorporates small pictures outside of each letter and includes a full set of uppercase letters and numbers. 22. Amsterdam Graffiti Jesse Kuiper's Amsterdam Graffiti is free for personal useDesigner Jesse Kuiper was the brains behind this brilliant free graffiti font. A popular choice, it's received nearly 1.4million downloads since its release. It's free for personal use only, with donations to the author, as always, welcome. Next page: 10 more free graffiti fonts 23. El&font Block Create striking designs with the El&font Block typeface. lllustration © Jerome DelageTypeface designer Jérôme Delage is the brains behind this brilliant free graffiti font titled El&font (see what he did there?) Block. A member of Dafont.com - the archive of freely downloadable fonts - Delage is the author of eight typefaces on the popular site, which collectively have been download over seven million times! Next page: 10 more brilliant graffiti fonts 24. Urban Decay Urban Decay is inspired by inner city lifeA handmade brush stroke font inspired by Zofos' love of graffiti, urban exploration, street calligraphy and inner city living, Urban Decay is donationware that you're free to download but encouraged to pay a donation to the author. 25. Ghang Make an impact with your work by using typeface Ghang. Image © Måns GrebäckGraphic designer Måns Grebäck specialises in font, logotype and typography design and he developed this free graffiti font, as well as a host of other typefaces in this particular style. The demo version of Ghang is available as a free download or the full font can be purchased for $59 on Grebäck's site Mawns . 26. Nosegrind The Nosegrind typeface was inspired by similar graffiti styles found on walls in Austin and onlineThis free graffiti font comes from Scriptorium Fonts, an Austin, Texas-based type foundry started in 1992 by game designer, editor and historian Dave Nalle. Describing the typeface, Nalle says on his website, 'Nosegrind is based on skate-culture graffiti gleaned from various samples of similar style found on walls in Austin and online'. 27. The Pricks A brilliant, aptly named typeface by designer Hydro74. Image © Hydro74We love this simple block font with mean spikes by Orlando-based designer Hydro74 aka Joshua M. Smith. The free graffiti font is just one of many typefaces Hydro74 has come up with. While many of them you have to pay for, the generous designer also has a bunch of brilliant free fonts up for grabs on his site. 28. Aerosol Another bright idea! Aerosol doesn't employ the can paint aesthetic, but is a great free font nonthelessThis font sums up the spirit of a clean, cartoon-inspired style of graffitti art, that doesn't use the spray can look that you may expect from the name. Bright Ideas offers caps and lowercase, and you can even see what various sentences look like before you download. 29. Degrassi Degrassi by typeface designer Ray LarabieDegrassi typeface creator Ray Larabie describes this free graffiti font as a 'somewhat wack, graffiti inspired font', which pretty much sums it up. President of Japanese company Typodermic Fonts, Larabie has designed numerous typefaces, many of which are free to download on his site. 30. Brock Vandalo Typeface Brock Vandalo looks like it was hand drawn effortlessly. Image © Luis MarquesGraphic design student Luis Marques aka Brock Marques is the man behind this free graffiti font. The design features rounded shaped characters with thin ends and hairpin bends. Marques describes his typeface as being 'joyous and sometimes disorganised but with a sense of urban scrawl graffiti'. 31. Inner City Add a bit of old school to your work with this cool, free Inner City typeface. lmage © Mike WolfWe love this 3D drop font by type designer Mike Wolf. His particular use of colour in the above design reminds us of the old school graffiti you still see on the walls of many concrete jungles around the globe. Free for personal use, the font includes a full set of caps and digits. 32. Graffonti The Graffonti typefaces incorporates many styles, including drop 3D and gradient fillThis cool 3D drop font was created by 30-year-old programmer Xero who has created typefaces as a hobby since 1997. The designer runs the site Fontvir.us where you can read all about and download more of his brilliant creations. Next page: 10 more graffiti fonts 33. Please show me love Download this cool font to add a handwritten scrapbook-inspired feel to your work. Image © Andrew HartDesigner Andrew Hart is the author of Dirt 2, a site dedicated to design resources - a section of which offers font downloads. There are many to choose from but we particularly liked his handwritten scrapbook-inspired free graffiti font titled 'Please show me love'. Note: the free version is limited to demo only for non-commercial purposes. 34. Hardkaze The uniquely named designer Pizzadude created this cool graffiti style typeface HardkazeThis casual looking, hand drawn free graffiti font was designed by Jakob Fischer aka Pizzadude. Based in Copenhagen, Fischer describes his style as 'Loose, laid back and goofy, which especially comes to expression through unique handmade fonts.' 35. Whoa This cool Whoa font was inspired by graffiti styles of the early 90'sIf you're looking for a free graffiti font that packs a punch then check out this 'Whoa' font by Stockholm-based creative Johan Waldenström. The designer comments on his site 11-D productions, 'As a kid I was often fascinated by all the hiphop graffiti I saw around the early 90's. The oldschool era of graffiti was (and still is) very fascinating to me'. 36. Ruthless One Create stunning graffiti designs with this brilliant Ruthless One typeface. lllustration © Måns GrebäckAnother typeface from Måns Grebäck, we couldn't not include this brilliant free graffiti font. The designer has nearly 100 fonts available to download for free personal use on Dafont.com, many of them with a graffiti style. For a full collection of Grebäck's work, head over to his website Mawns. 37. Ruthless Two Take your pick! Ruthless One and Two are related but subtly differentClearly Grebäck's original Ruthless One was so popular that he created a follow up. Ruthless Two is a little less stylised than it's older brother, but has equal attitude. Head over to see all of Grebäck's fonts at Mawns. 38. DJ Gross Helo yourself to this cool hand drawn graffiti font and many more styles at SD FontsDespite its name, there's nothing at all gross about this hand drawn free graffiti font. The design comes from Finland-based designer who goes by the name of Ritzy (real name Sami), owner of SD Fonts. And thanks to generous creative, DJ Gross is just one of many fonts he has created and offered as a free download. 39. Most Wasted All capital letters for this font, Most Wanted is something for a noisy designA nice play on the once criminal associations with graffitti in cities that have since welcomed tags and burners onto their walls with open arms, this is an old school, loud font. And with all caps, there's nohing subtle to see here! 40. The Battle Continues Win your creative battles with this cool typeface by designer Christopher HansenThe Battle Continues was created by typeface designer Christopher Hansen. Dedicated to his craft, this creative has 28 gorgeous fonts available as a free download on Dafont.com. With over eight million downloads collectively, it is clear to see - just from this free graffiti font - why this designer's work is so popular. 41. Broken Records Fancy adding a bit of a sophistication and sexy to your designs? Then take advantage of this free graffiti font by freelance designer Timo Kuilder. Broken Records is available in two versions, fill and outline and includes a full set of capital letters and digits. 42. ReskaGraf Make your work stand out with this bold typeface by designer Olivier ZitouneBase your designs around this bold typeface for a really eye-catching piece of work. ReskaGraf was created by designer Olivier Zitoune, who also composed another similar styled font titled Zit Graffiti. The free graffiti font set includes a mixture of both capital and lower case letters and digits 0-9. Next page: the final 14 free graffiti fonts 43. Graffogie Make a bold statement with typeface Graffogie. Illustration © Ogeday KoçGraphic and web designer Ogeday Koç is the designer behind this street style typeface. The free graffiti font has a full range of upper, lower and special characters available for both personal and commercial use. 44. London Graffiti This font celebrates the work of 26 London graffiti artistsCreated by Mr Alfabetman, London Graffiti is a caps-only affair, and each letter is drawn in the style of a different London graffiti artist. The end result is understandably a little disjointed, but there are some fab characters in there. 45. PW Graffiti PW Graffiti is free for personal usePeax Webdesign's graffiti font features a full set of capital letters and numerals, plus an assortment of characters and decorative glyphs. It's free for personal use; if you want to use it commercially it'll cost you $15. 46. Sprite Graffiti Sprite features a full set of Cyrillic letterformsDesigned by Four Plus as part of FontFabric's campaign for Sprite Graffiti Fest 2014, this is apparently the first Bulgarian graffiti typeface to use the Cyrillic alphabet. Luckily it also comes with a complete set of Latin letters as well. 47. Wassimo Graffiti Wassimo's letters some in outlined and filled flavoursWassimo's striking letterforms come in caps only, but in outline and filled forms. If you want to use the filled set, simply type out lowercase letters. The font's completely free for personal and commercial use. 48. Fozzie Got A Posse Typeface This graffiti font is explicitly based on taggingThiago, aka TIPS, is a 29-year-old graphic designer from São Paulo, Brazil and he's generously made this organic font based on graffiti tagging available as a free download. A brilliant graffiti font with a name you can't help but love. 49. Graffiti Treat Ray Larabie is the designer behind this angular graffiti-inspired fontFree graffiti font Graffiti Treat was created by Typodermic Fonts founder Ray Larabie. He comments: "Graffiti Treat is a staggered, angular, graffiti inspired display font." 50. JustFist JustFist includes a traditional and paint drip designThis strong, bold, free graffiti font comes complete with two files; a traditional design and another that features paint drips from each letter. However, there are no lowercase letters, numbers or special characters. Free for personal use only. 51. Zit Graffiti Make an impact with Olivier Zitoune D's Zit Graffiti fontMake an impact with this cool block font created by designer Olivier 'Zitoune' D. Free for personal use, this free graffiti font includes a full set of uppercase letters only. 52. Tags Xtreme Tags Xtreme was created by web and font designer Jakob FischerTags Xtreme was created by web and font designer Jakob Fischer aka Pizzadude. The free graffiti font has a full range of uppercase characters, available for personal use only. 53. The Battle Continuez For an authentic graffiti style, check out The Battle ContinuezIf you're looking to give your graffiti designs an authentic feel, look no further than the The Battle Continuez. Created by designer Christopher Hanson, this design includes paint drips and splatters for a true street style. 54. The Graffiti Font The Graffiti Font is available in both black and white and colour. Image © Mike KarolosThis handmade graffiti font was created by 27-year-old graphic designer Mike Karolos who currently works as an art director in Athens. The bold colour and fresh, funky feel to this free graffiti font makes it perfect for injecting life to any bare wall. Only upper case letters are available but the font is free for both personal and commercial use. 55. Take Warning This cartoony take on the graffiti font really hits the spot for usCreated by Skyhaven, aka Alex Tomlinson, this is a cartoony take on the graffiti font that really hits the spot for us. It's free for personal use, while commercial use requires a donation. 56. Marsneveneksk This best seller (you can donate to Ariq before downloading) is a simple marker style tag designIndonesian designer Ariq Sya has created a cap-only font with numbers to boot – and with 300,015 downloads so far, it's his second most popular font. View the full article

Graphic design is a form of art, but the tools used to create it are very different to those used for traditional art forms. Learn how to make use of the programs and apps made for graphic designers with the Graphic Design Bootcamp, on sale for 88 per cent off the full retail price. No experience with graphic design? No problem. The Graphic Design Bootcamp is here to get you up to speed in no time. This collection of expert lectures is designed to quickly pack your brain with the knowhow you need to do design work. With lessons focused around teaching you to use powerful tools like Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, you'll learn how to use apps that have become the industry standard. You will work through common design projects such as designing posters, logos, adverts, ebooks, brochures, business cards, and a portfolio website. You can get the Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator courses on sale for just $15 (approx £12). That’s an 88 per cent saving off the full retail price for an invaluable crash course that will teach you the basics, so grab this deal today! About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com View the full article

The world of games is full of weird and wonderful characters. If you're in the process of learning how to draw, you could even create one of your own to grace the pages of your design portfolio. But everyone has a favourite video game character, right? From Lara Croft to Master Chief, there's arguably no better way to immerse yourself in a game than with the perfect protagonist. Here are 10 of the best character designs and why they're still winning the show. 01. Abe Oddysee – Odd World Abe was created by Oddworld co-founder Lorne Lanning in 1997At first look Abe's comical appearance and dim-witted voice makes him seem wilfully unprepared for his mission. Undeniable funny, cunning and sneaky, this surprising juxtaposition of appearance to abilities is what gives the player the drive to take Mudokon Pops off the menu for good. 02. Lara Croft – Rise of the Tomb Raider Lara Croft has become an iconic character since she first appeared in the 1996 video game Tomb RaiderLara Croft is a refreshing step away from the male centric character design in the original Tomb Raider but still keeps the universal truths that make her iconic. She would be nothing without her gymnastic abilities and utility belt. 03. Alyx Vance - Half-life 2 The 2004 design of Alyx was based on the looks of actress Jamil MullenBased on the looks of actress Jamil Mullen, the design of Alyx was impressively uncanny. Similar to the evolution of Lara Croft, Alyx as a character is well written and individualistic rather than gender centric. 04. Vaas Montenegro – Far Cry 3 Vaas is a guy you wouldn't want to mess withSurrounded by drugs, guns and paradise has made this 2012 character slightly insane. Although he is never seen directly in the game, his cut scenes are some of the best acted and most memorable. Couple that with the great first person camera work, he really was a fantastic example of a guy you wouldn't want to mess with. 05. GlaDOS - Portal series Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System is a fictional artificially intelligent computer system from 2007All she wants to do is carry on testing. She doesn’t see it as a bad thing and can't understand why you, the test subject, doesn't want to stay locked up in a research facility until the end of time. You can't help feeling sorry for her whilst listening to her lie and deceive to keep you there. Plus there is cake… So that's a bonus. 06. Master Chief and Cortana – Halo series Cortana and Master Chief's continuously developing relationship that makes them some of gaming's most iconic charactersHalo (2001) was the game that defined the early days of Microsoft's Xbox, and has continued to do so since. The story is only as good as its characters, and Bungie created two classic figures – Master Chief, the Spartan soldier leading the battle against the Covenant Armada, and Cortana, the sharp witted artificial intelligence that guides the Chief through the games. It's their banter and continuously developing relationship that makes them some of gaming's most iconic characters. 07. Joel and Ellie - The Last of Us The relationship between Joel and Ellie is extremely well executedThis game (2013) has some the best characterisation in a video game or in any media, the relationship between Joel and Ellie is so well executed that this game is about as close to playing a movie as you can get. Ellie in particular was designed to remain close to the player and to echo their experience in the game's world. The design also built to foster a relationship between Ellie and Joel, as she was created to lead him to cover when needed, whilst he naturally puts his arm around her, creating a relationship between the two. 08. Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time The Prince's amazing agility forces players to utilise new ways to get around From $7.99/From £3.96 The Sands of Time (2003) featured some great animation and characterisation that felt and looked like a cool cartoon. This was especially highlighted with the Prince's amazing agility in the game, forcing the player to utilise new ways to get from point to point. 09. IDA and the Totem - Monument Valley Ida and the Totem's designs are simple, but very effectiveThis design is so simple in terms of form but the interaction between Ida and the Totem is to sweet not to be included in this round up. Designed and based on a visual style based on Japanese prints and minimalist sculpture, the 2014 game used colour to highlight where the player could interact. 10. Mario - Super Mario Bros A list of top gaming characters just wouldn't be complete without MarioWe couldn't talk about video game characters without mentioning Mario. Designed to make it easy for new players to understand the game, Mario's character was engineered to engage and excite fans in the game, using subtle design attributes to achieve this. For example, making Mario small so that he can then become big which left players feel more content. Mario has been through many iterations since he first graced our computer screens in 1981, but the original 8-bit version remains our firm favourite. Related articles: How to choose the right drawing tools How to improve your character drawing Check out these inspiring examples of 3D art View the full article