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HP said dozens of enterprise-class printer models will receive a patch for an arbitrary code execution vulnerability sometime this week. View the full article

We are pleased to announce that tickets are now available for Vertex, a brand-new event from the makers of 3D Artist and 3D World. This one-day event will take place on Tuesday 13 March 2018 at Olympia, London, so grab your ticket now! Just like how a vertex connects everything, this event will bring the CG community together for practical inspiration and fantastic networking opportunities. This special event assembles experts from every industry and discipline in CG, from games and VFX through to VR, covering character concepting, real-time creation and more. You’ll be able to boost your skills with leading industry artists and learn from the world’s best creative studios no matter which area you specialise in. Keynote speaker Christopher Nichols is founder of the Digital Human League and director of Chaos Group Labs Expert speakers You’ll get hands-on advice and tips and hear about the newest developments at top talks, including a keynote from CG industry veteran Christopher Nichols (founder of the Digital Human League and director of Chaos Group Labs). Brett Ineson, president of Animatrik, North America’s largest independent motion capture stage, will discuss the future of virtual production in light of the latest developments in real time 3D technology, while Sébastien Deguy (founder and CEO at Allegorithmic) will discuss how Substance and other ‘augmenting’ tools are empowering today’s 3D artists’ workflows. We have even more amazing speakers that we will be announcing soon, so make sure you sign up to our newsletter, keep an eye on social media channels using #vertexconf and Like the Vertex Facebook page for more announcements. Adam Dewhirst from The Mill will teach a Creature creation masterclass Learn new skills in workshops There will also be engaging workshops, including one from The Mill’s Adam Dewhirst who will show his process for character and creature creation, from initial concepts to modelling, texturing and preparing for production use. Glen Southern will take us on a journey through VR creation, in VR, with Oculus Medium, and Bader Badruddin (series animation director at Blue Zoo), meanwhile, gives us an expert masterclass in animating a character shot in a small amount of time without sacrificing quality. Saddington Baynes’s CEO Chris Christodoulou and senior digital artist Marc Shephard will also teach the technical processes that sit behind mass customisation with a focus on tools such as Maya and Nuke that help invigorate imagery. And there’s even more to be announced soon! Portfolio reviews and recruitment fair On top of this amazing insight you can get involved in the portfolio review sessions, fascinating evening panel, and unmissable networking event. There’s even a recruitment fair for aspiring and professional artists and an expo area to showcase the latest in technology and software. What’s more, there will be an ‘Ask an Artist’ area to help you troubleshoot your technique woes one-on-one with pro artists. Tickets to the exhibition area are free, with access all areas tickets priced at £49 or just £25 for students. Don’t miss out! Find out more and get your tickets now at www.vertexconf.com. View the full article

Getting into the games industry used to be an expensive business, but if you have the skills and dedication, the good news is that you can now get a foot on the ladder while working from home without having to splash a whole load of cash. It used to be that if you wanted to use a third party 3D engine to build your gaming masterpiece, you'd need to pay out plenty of money; at least, you would if you wanted a decent one with up-to-date features. But with the rise of the indie gaming sector, the big names in 3D engines have realised that it makes a lot of sense to put their tools into the hands of anyone who wants to use them, so that they can reap the rewards later. All four of these engines are available to download right now, and you can save even more money by finding some free 3D models to use in them. Of course if you use them to create a successful commercial game then you may have to pay out further down the line, but they're all an ideal way to learn your game development skills. 01. Unity Unity's the leader in the free engine stakesThe leader in free software for game development, Unity was available for free before anyone else and benefitted massively, becoming a mainstay of the indie game community. Not the most artist-friendly engine. 02. Unreal engine Unreal Engine is a great choice for artistsEpic Games' engine is powerful and offers a user-friendly, node-based system, and is now free. UE is the choice engine for artists wanting to avoid coding and focus on real-time rendering and scene creation. 03. Stingray Stingray lacks power but comes with plenty of assetsNot as powerful as Unreal or Unity, Autodesk's entry into the market is easy to use and comes with pre-made assets to adapt and use, meaning coding can be minimal. 04. Lumberyard It's early days for Lumberyard but it has a good pedigreeAmazon's entry into the sector is still in beta and is based on the powerful Crytek CryEngine. The bugs are still being ironed out, but this could fit neatly between Unity and Unreal Engine. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 213; buy it here! View the full article

Artists are acutely aware that there's always a more talented painter or illustrator than themselves out there somewhere. We've already seen 20 phenomenally realistic pencil drawings that have left us green with envy. In terms of realistic technical painting skills though, we'd be hard-pressed to find a contemporary artist who can top the works of Young-sung Kim. The artist, who is based in New York City and Korea, has set the internet on fire recently thanks to his incredibly lifelike oil paintings that have got us rubbing our eyes in disbelief. Check out some examples of Kim's paintings by clicking left to right in the gallery below. And yes, just to remind you one last time, they really are paintings, not photographs. As you can see, animals are a recurring subject in Kim's work. By pairing creatures like lizards, frogs and snails with manmade objects such as forks and spanners, Kim is making a point about our society's impact on wildlife and the environment. Thanks to their unbelievable levels of detail, Kim's oil paintings can take anywhere between three and 10 months to create. The wait is worth it though, and not just for us as viewers - Kim's paintings can fetch for anything from £8,000 to £100,000 each. Almost as amazing as Kim's work are the comments from the "anyone can do that" brigade, who have doubted the artist's undeniable talent. These include the old favourites such as "it's just tracing" to "you could photo that in two seconds". Meanwhile some critics have questioned whether or not Kim has really painted these masterpieces, given that most photos only show him signing his name. To these naysayers we say check out the video below of Kim in action. It's one of many videos he's posted to his Twitter profile that show him creating his paintings from scratch. See more of Kim's incredible work by visiting his Instagram page. Related articles: How to paint outdoors How to get harmonious colours in paintings How to paint convincing reflections View the full article

For this workshop, I'd like to show you a really fun way to sketch characters from just your imagination. I'll be showing you how to create Photoshop brushes to mimic the traditional brush pen and marker techniques used by professionals. I'll start with a texture brush to sketch in the lightest values, building the gestures and form of the character. During this early stage I'll also go over some techniques to follow when producing cover art work and layouts. I'll then move on to the darker values, bringing in details from the lighter sketch form. Once the details are in place I'll show how to use economical brush strokes to describe a lot of visual information in a short amount of time. And then, once we have the most information about the character down on the canvas, I'll go over quick ways to adjust colour and cool details within minutes. This is when I'll experiment with shapes within the form and silhouette. Paying attention to the overall design will make everything look unified and, quite frankly, cool! 15 concept art skills to power up your illustrationFinally, I'll apply the final touches of quick overlay sketching to give the sketch a watercolour feel, which will introduce variety and depth to the character. Hopefully, by the end of the workshop you'll be inspired to create your own fun characters! Download the custom brushes for this tutorial. 01. Bash out some thumbnails Get the ideas flowing by banging out some thumbnails I like to start an illustration or character concept by doing small, quick thumbnails to extract ideas out of my head. That means good and bad ideas. It's normal to have old images floating around in your head from something you once saw or inspired you. My method of leaving those mundane images or ideas behind is to bust out a bunch of little sketches, to get the best ideas possible on the canvas. 02. Narrow down the choices Once you've done a pile of thumbnails, pick out the best For this workshop I produce just a few thumbnails because the idea is relatively simple: a woman and her dog. But if you're just starting out, I'd recommend doing a pile of thumbnails – say, 50. It may seem like a lot, but you'll be glad you did and you'll become a better artist for it. These two thumbs have something that we're looking for so, I take pieces from both and mix them up. 03. Finalise the sketch Do a final sketch before moving on to the illustration proper By taking elements that will work for the cover and combining them, I can demonstrate the general layout and idea that I'm going for. This helps to convey the attitude and overall gesture for the woman with the dogs. Now I'm ready to move on to the final illustration. 04. Start the painting stage Start by laying down a neutral skin tone I start my final illustration by laying down a neutral skin tone. You can see on the left of my image that I have a basic value colour palette laid out within easy reach, from which I'll use the Eyedropper tool in Photoshop to pick from. I use one of my custom brushes at this stage – it's an angle brush that works like a real marker pen, and helps me achieve interesting-looking and dynamic angles. 05. Sketch in facial details Sketch the face in using a darker tone Working from light to dark is a good – and traditional – way of working. Using the previous value and shape block-in, I create a new layer above and start sketching in with a burnt sienna colour (a nice, neutral choice). This brings out the details of her eyes and smile. I restrict myself to just drawing in the smaller details for now. 06. Block in larger elements Increase the brush size and block in larger elements On a new layer above the rest, I Ctrl+click the layers below to make a selection. Pressing Ctrl+H hides the selection outline. Then I increase the brush size and block in larger details such as her dress and boots. I'm asked to give the dogs a mechanical appearance, so I apply a grey tone to them. 07. Add darker tones for form Bringing in darker tones helps to bring out more of the form Just like before, I start a layer above the rest, load the selection, hide the selection and now I have a palette to erase and paint on. I'm starting to bring in the idea of the character design now. I toy with a punk rocker look, but notice that it's bringing out more of the form as well. By using the palette brush with broad strokes I'm also able to introduce more details to the robot dogs. 08. Make the character pop Adding some yellow really brings things to life I feel that the black dress makes my character look a little dark, so using the steps before I create a new selection. With that selection I create a new layer and change the mode to Color Dodge. Using the same brush as before I put down large strokes with yellow to make her pop a bit. This technique enables me to control the amount of saturation and opacity in the piece. 09. Bring in sharp edges Start cleaning up the edges to make them nice and sharp Now that I'm close to finishing off this concept piece , I compress all visible layers below and press Ctrl+Alt+E to merge the visible layers into a new layer at the top. I turn off all lower layers, take a Round opaque brush and start cleaning up the edges, to bring in nice, sharp edges. 10. Spot errors Walk away from your nearly-finished work for a bit so you can look at it again with fresh eyes Now I know I have my final form and I think everything is just about done, I like to walk away for a little bit, maybe 30 minutes or so, and then come back with some fresh eyes. This helps me to look at objects anew and perhaps notice something 'off' that I didn't see previously. In this case I feel that there's too much contrast in the character, so I apply a little lighter grey value on a new layer that's set on Lighten mode. 11. Add the final touches to the concept A few finishing touches can make all the difference I'm now happy with this fun chick and her cool bot dogs. I want to add a little sketch vibe to the background to create more of a traditional look. This helps unify everything. Finally, I use these steps to apply a little film grain to the character. I create a new layer, fill it with 50 per cent grey, apply the Noise filter, set the layer to Soft Light and reduce Opacity to 15 per cent, then load the selection of the character and mask it out. This article was originally published in issue 152 of ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists – packed with workshops and interviews with fantasy and sci-fi artists, plus must-have kit reviews. Buy issue 152 here or subscribe to ImagineFX here. Related articles: How to become a better concept artist Concept design tips for artists How to break into movie concept art View the full article

Last week, we headed to London’s Oval Space to learn more about the latest game-changing updates to Adobe Creative Cloud at Adobe’s Creative Meet Up. Joined live by thousands of artists and designers from around the world, we watched as Principal Manager of Creative Cloud Evangelism at Adobe, Rufus Deuchler, walked through some of the most exciting news from Adobe MAX, Adobe’s annual creativity conference. A series of stellar speakers then took to the stage to share their best tips and tricks for making it in the creative industry. Headlined by Nick Knight OBE - one of the world’s most exciting photographers - the event also saw the likes of trailblazing art director Kate Moross and talented print designer Kelly Anna fire up the crowd as they walked through their ground-breaking projects. If you couldn't make it, fear not. You can watch what happened at the Meet Up right here. So what did we learn during this epic evening of creative inspiration? A lot. Here are our top insights from Adobe’s 2017 London Creative Meet Up – and remember, if this inspires you to get creative, you can try a free trial of Creative Cloud over on the Adobe website. 01. Creative Cloud is smarter with Sensei All of the new features and updates announced at Adobe MAX are powered by Sensei, Adobe’s mind-blowing artificial intelligence and machine learning platform. Addressing the issue of ‘content velocity’ – the industry’s ever-increasing need for more content – Sensei helps designers and creatives go from concept to completion much faster, using the power of advanced technology and deep learning to accelerate the creative process. “Sensei represents the blending of art and science in our DNA,” Deuchler told the audience in London. One thing’s for sure: this is the future of the creative industry - and we’ll be seeing a lot more of it soon. 02. Adobe XD is out of beta Adobe’s revolutionary tool for UI and UX designers is out of beta - and it’ll change your life if you design websites or apps. Letting you easily prototype and wireframe your projects on interactive artboards, Adobe XD is an all-in-one cross-platform solution that delivers the speed, precision and quality you need to go from static comps or wireframes to fully interactive prototypes in minutes. 03. Lightroom CC is a cloud-based tool Adobe’s all-new cloud-centric photo service Lightroom CC lets users edit, organise, store and share photos from anywhere. One of its most impressive features – powered by Sensei, of course – automatically applies searchable keywords to your images, without you having to tag them. Looking for a brilliant old photo of your dog that you didn’t bother tagging? Or a particular shot from a shoot that you didn’t tag? No problem. Type in your keywords and Sensei will find it. Amazing. 04. Adobe Live is packed with learning opportunities Launched on Behance, Adobe LIVE is a live-streaming channel where Behance community members can learn from and inspire each other. “Adobe streams eight hours of creative learning content every day, Tuesday to Thursday,” said Deuchler – and this is pegged to expand to 24/7 programming in 2018. 05. All you need is a business card and a website “Everything else you can catch up on later,” explained Kate Moross. She was talking about working for yourself – and explained how this is exactly how she started out in the industry. With clients including Nike, One Direction, Vogue and more - and a host of awards to her name – it’s fair to say the Studio Moross founder seems to know what she’s talking about. 06. Naive is cool Why? “Being naive gives you advantages, and means you haven’t been affected by trends,” said Moross, who also encouraged the audience to “make ugly stuff”. She explained that by taking time to explore less visibly attractive aesthetics, it’s possible to break down the trends we can find ourselves surrounded by every day – and unleash our true creativity. 07. Always look first Talented print designer Kelly Anna had practical tips to offer, during her time on stage at the Creative Meet Up. “Look up and focus on your subject,” she advised. “If you do, technique will follow after.” 08. We’re no longer photographers Celebrated creative Nick Knight provided a fascinating insight into his ongoing debate about photography and image-making. “I take pictures on my phone, broadcast them globally, instantly... I can make them into a 3D sculpture if I want. Let's free ourselves from this idea that we're photographers,” he urged. “I had to come up with another name for it, and all I could come up with was ‘image-making’,” he added. “Photography was great, but it isn’t what we’re doing now.” 09. The internet feels like punk felt in the 1970s If we had to pick one takeaway from Nick’s talk, it would be the importance - and value – of taking a DIY approach to creativity. Thanks to the internet, we don’t need a middleman like a magazine to sell our images or get our names out there anymore. “It feels like we can do it ourselves,” he said. Hear hear. Inspired? Head over to the Adobe website to download a free trial of Creative Cloud – and start creating right now. Related articles: 7 insane tech sneaks from Adobe Max 2017 The best Black Friday deals 2017 View the full article

We've rounded up the best Christmas gift ideas for freelancers. We've got gifts in four price ranges, from under £20/$25, right up to over £150/$125, for big spenders. You can't go wrong with a book – we've got an innovative monograph, a colour harmoniser, and a rallying cry. There's a sweary poster to boost motivation when times are hard. There's a gadget to monitor posture and prevent committed freelancers from turning into hunchbacks. And, for when all else fails, there's a robo-kettle to make the tea. Gifts for freelancers under £20/$25 The Rolling Stones tongue-and-lips logo is one of the greatest pieces of design of all time. It features on this limited edition series of Moleskines. The range includes covers made from the key elements of your average Keith Richards outfit: silk, denim, velvet, and leather. It's perhaps the coolest Moley collaboration ever. Satisfaction guaranteed. Design legends Mirko Ilic and Milton Glaser argue the case for activist graphic design in this new expanded edition of The Design of Dissent. Tony Kushner's foreword says there has to be "some galling truth … imprisoned beneath the surface of public discourse." This is what really gets the activist designer going. Through a series of over 500 images – Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump – the book examines those galling truths in a book that acts as a "testament to the power of imagery but also as an urgent call to action." In The Complete Color Harmony: Pantone Edition – a new, completely revised edition – Leatrice Eiseman (executive director at the Pantone Color Institute) talks you through a different colour "mood" in each chapter, all based on and matched to with Pantone colours. It is the brand's "most comprehensive colour reference to date" and a must for every serious designer's desk. Gifts for freelancers under £50/$75 Easily the worst of all first-world problems is Headphone Wire Tangle and the inevitable Headphone Wire Tangle Rage that follows. Sort that out with one of these: a personalised, handmade, solid oak headphones stand. It also has space for phones, cards, keys, and an "optional secondary hidden message." Interesting. 05. Classic Advice Print Price: $30'Believe in your f****** self. Stay up all f****** night. Work outside of your f****** habits. Know when to f****** speak up. F****** collaborate.' And on and on it goes in all its beautiful, foul-mouthed wisdom, a print that is the work of the US-based company called, unsurprisingly, Good F****** Design Advice. If your freelancer is easily offended, buy the f***** a different f****** gift. One of the most influential designers of his generation, Paul Sahre was always going to do something a bit different in his monograph: this "part memoir, part art book, part meditation on creativity" features personal essays, artwork, and stories from a 30-year career at the top of his game. Sahre shares the moments that have "informed his life as a designer and artist, and proves that humour and meaning can be found anywhere, if you're only willing to look." Gifts for freelancers under £100/$125 Your average freelancer sits like a geriatric chimp with a lumbar spine condition. Help them sort it out with this little gadget. Lumo Lift Posture Coach and Activity Tracker tracks posture, steps, distance, and calories burned. Vibrations from the sensor "gently remind you" to sit up, to stand up straight, and to generally stop slumping and start moving more. It works with an app on your phone, which is free. The Smarter iKettle, as we see it, has a couple of key benefits. It means you don't need to waste valuable procrastinating time waiting for the kettle to boil and you can cut back on the amount of money you spend at that cafe down the street. It's simple: remotely boil your iKettle from anywhere using an app on your phone or tablet. Late, great designer David Hicks (1929–1998) wowed the English was revolutionised the world of interior design. Whether you're interested in that particular field or not, it shouldn't effect your enjoyment of this book. Hicks documented every moment of his life in 24 volumes of scrapbooks. It includes notes, drawings, and photos of clients (Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly, Andy Warhol), all put together lovingly by Hicks son. A fascinating read. Gifts for freelancers over £100/$125 GQ and Vogue recently featured this leather travel wallet. It includes a powerbank charger and cable, a foldaway plug set, and 32GB memory stick – plus room for your own gadgets, notebooks, passport and travel tickets, all that suff. It comes with gold foil or blind embossed initials and is made with "butter-soft Spanish leather and Italian suede lining." The Prynt Case lets you print photos from your smartphone. You attach your phone to the case, press the shutter button to take a shot, and print out the photo in seconds. It doesn't need ink cartridges either. It's good way to make moodboards, to get ideas and inspiration laid out in front of you, rather than flicking through images on your phone. Hawthorn of London hand-makes high-end backpacks that are "built to last a lifetime" using tough 18oz waxed canvas, organic cotton, and proper leather. This model has a several cool features, the best of which is that the zip is on your back, so the only way to open the bag is to take it off. It comes in a few different colours and is naturally water resistant, to keep your laptop and gadgets dry. View the full article

Four years ago I taught myself to create vector art in Adobe Illustrator, and became a vector contributor for micro-stock agencies like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, 123RF and Vectorstock. Recently, I discovered CrazyTalk Animator 3, and even though I don't have a background in animation, I found it easy to use to animate my characters. You can start with a PSD design, make a few quick modifications so it fits the CTA format, and bring it to life quickly and easily. The results look professional and it saves loads of time compared to other animation methods. Photoshop Creative ranked the tool 8 out of 10, commenting: ”Overall CTA3 is a very good tool to create nice, smooth two dimensional animations…” In five hours, I can create a whole family of characters based on one initial character. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to animate a character with CrazyTalk Animator 3. I like creating 2D characters in a traditional flat design as it gives me more leeway for quick changes, but these techniques can be adjusted and applied to any style of character. Let's get started! 01. Customise your characters 20-25 minutes The first step is to modify your character designs so they'll work with the CTA3 format. My original character – which comes from Shutterstock – has six body parts. We need him to have 10 parts to work in CTA3, so I edited the design as shown in the image above. I tend to use Adobe Illustrator for tasks like these. 02. Adjust the character layers 2-5 minutes In order to animate the character, we need to locate all the bone joints. This is simple to do if you follow the PSD template provided for CrazyTalk Animator 3 Pipeline. You can download the template here. Make sure your character's hips are located in the same position as the dummy hip. Carefully place body parts into the right template folder. Then delete the dummy and rearrange layers by relocating the hand and feet folders on top of the arm and thigh folders, respectively. 03. Edit your joints Around 5 minutes Focusing on the head part, and again following the CTA3 template, relocate the labels and joints into the right positions. Move the baselines (shown here in red and blue) close to feet, and at this point hide the hips and hand so you can focus on the arm and leg parts. Make sure the all end joints are close to the end of the image sprites. Then move on to finish relocating the rest of the joints on torso and hand parts. All done! Now you can save the character's PSD file. 04. Bring the PSD character to life 20-30 minutes Open CTA3 and click on the 'Create G3 Free Bone Actor' button. The character will appear in the Composer Mode, as shown in the image above. Now we can play around with our animated character by using the preview mode and clicking on the bones to move or rotate different parts. Let's go back into the Stage Mode, and apply some motion effects from the motion library. Save and rename the actor, then get your G3 character ready to animate. As you can see, from start to finish this process took around 40 minutes. In order to animate a group of six to eight characters it will take approximately four to six hours or less, as I can work quicker for the later characters. View the full article

What could be a better gift for the creative in your life than a design magazine subscription? Our range of magazines cover all areas of design, from illustration to web design, and 3D art to graphic design, so there's something for everyone, regardless of their skill level. What's more, there are currently some amazing Christmas deals across all of our design magazines. This means that you can save up to 49% on some magazines for yourself or as a gift. To start claiming these savings, all you have to do is head over to the MyFavouriteMagazines store. When you subscribe to one of our design titles you can expect up to 13 issues from the magazine per year. They're the gift that keeps on giving! Packed with value and expert insight, the full range of design magazines, which you can explore below, are just what the designer in your life is looking for. All of these magazines are sister titles to Creative Bloq, which means that their articles and features are all written by experts in their field. Related articles: The best Amazon Cyber Monday deals 2017 How to get the best Cyber Monday deals 2017 View the full article

You're reading Imbalanced Layouts Offer Different Patterns to Adopt, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! For a long time, web interfaces were the places where balance, proportion and symmetry were considered to be the signs of good taste and attributes of great design. Everyone was struggling to achieve complete harmony and equilibrium of details. But the situation has changed. There were many attempts to embrace chaos. These days we witness […] View the full article

Never mind about illustration trends: learning how to accurately draw animals is the first step to designing your own fantasy creatures. Nature offers an amazing variety of solutions, shapes, colours and sizes, all designed to solve the challenge of survival in different way. You'll find that drawing and studying animals will provide plenty of inspiration that can be incorporated into your artwork. How to draw a horseTo help you get started, I'm going to show you how to draw a bear. I always start by working quickly and using broad, light pencil marks to find the animal's gesture. This is especially key when drawing from life, where animals move about as you draw. So, get your best pencils at the ready as I reveal how to draw a bear in five simple steps. 01. Start with a light sketch Keep your arm loose and move quickly – this is the messy stage! I begin with a light sketch – I don't want to make any solid marks or bold lines yet, I'm just finding the shapes of the animal's form. I will break this initial sketch into a wire skeleton and shapes to start. This is the foundation of my study. 02. Draw through forms Build up the form with repetitive, fluid strokes to keep the drawing full of motion As I begin to build up my drawing, I'll draw through forms. This means that I'm not worried about forms covering each other, but rather I begin to see through them. This helps to keep the drawing fluid and keeps me aware of where the forms are overlapping in space. I'm also looking for landmarks, such as the scapula and knee caps, to help me locate the anatomy of the animal as it develops on the paper. 03. Find the muscle groups Locating the joints and major muscle groups helps to keep the sketch accurate This is where my experience in drawing real-life animals frequently comes to help. I'm able to locate and find a variety of different muscle groups based on both my previous studies and memory. However, I'm always sure to really look at my subject so as not to miss out on what's actually in front of me. Locating the joints and major muscle groups can also help with fur placement and rendering later on. 04. Introduce form and value Adding in some value can help to turn the formNow that I've got a solid blueprint in place, I can begin to add in some quick values. Here, I'm imagining a light source above the bear. This is where heavier lead comes in handy. I tend to alternate from HB and B lead, but you can use what you’re comfortable with. I'll draw with these heavier pencils to nail in those lines, and flesh out the forms of the muscle groups, too. 05. Flesh out details Add fur in correlation with the muscle groups to keep the animal from looking flatNow I can begin to suggest a few details here and there. Every animal has a different set of proportions and small details that make that species unique, and every species has unique individuals. It's important to pay attention and really see what's there. I'm also interested in adding in markings or any other distinguishing textures or features in this step. Related articles: How to draw and paint – 90 pro tips and tutorials How to draw a dragon 100 amazing Illustrator tutorials View the full article

Running a successful studio is not just about the quality of your work – you also need to be able to juggle your resources effectively to make sure you're working to your full potential. We talked to the resource scheduling experts at Resource Guru to find out their top 10 tips for managing a busy studio successfully. 01. Don’t treat people like robots Be realistic with your project planning and remember that people don’t work on billable projects from 9am to 6pm every day – meetings, breaks, and other distractions will limit the time they can actually spend working. Even the most dedicated workers need to stop for a cup of tea occasionally. 02. Don't neglect existing projects Maintaining existing client projects can take a surprising amount of time. If you don’t have a separate support team, then put aside some time each week for someone to take care of any issues that may arise. This has the added bonus of keeping existing clients on-side. 03. Get a helping hand with dedicated tools Use tools to support and streamline management tasks. Keep your team up-to-date using dedicated resource scheduling software. One option is Resource Guru – a tool dedicated to helping you effectively allocate the people, equipment and online resources in your studio, to free you up so you can focus on the creative stuff. 04. Avoid over-allocating your resources Pushing your team members too hard is a recipe for disaster. While there may be a short-term gain, over long periods this leads to burnout and high staff turnover. If it’s unavoidable, make sure to set a regular time to review and reprioritise the overbookings. 05. Don’t forget about time off Holidays and other types of leave will have an impact on your projects. It's easy to forget about this, but it can have a significant impact on your workflow. Make sure leave management is integral to your resource scheduling. 06. Monitor resource utilisation Keep an eye on your resource utilisation rate. An under-utilised team is less profitable, while consistent over-utilisation quickly leads to burnout. Your aim is to find the sweet spot in the middle, where no one's tearing their hair out and no one's left twiddling their thumbs. 07. Don't just throw resources at a problem Nine women can’t make a baby in a month. Remember that simply throwing more resources at a problem won’t fix it. Onboarding new team members takes time, so it’s much better to spend time planning how you’ll be using your resources before a problem arises. 08. Set realistic expectations Missed budgets, milestones and lead times will quickly sour your relationship with your team, and your clients. Saying 'no' to a client is difficult, but promising something you know isn't possible is even worse. 09. Keep your team focused Help minimise distractions for your team. The time lost to context-switching is greater than it may appear, and even a few 'quick chats' about unrelated issues can have a negative impact on your projects. Create an environment in which your designers can focus 100 per cent on the task at hand, before moving on to the next task. 10. Keep your team happy Make sure you’re aware of when your designers are being made to work overtime or if they haven’t been assigned to a project they were promised. A happy studio is a more productive (and profitable!) studio. View the full article

As the end of the year approaches, it's a good time to take a look back at the biggest illustration trends of 2017 – and to forecast what we expect to be the most exciting illustration trends of 2018. Of course, the best illustrators have their own distinctive art styles, and when commissioned they'll work towards fulfilling the creative brief as specified by the client. But none of us exist in a vacuum, and looking back over the past year, it’s possible to identify common themes across some of the best new illustrative work that we've seen. Whether you decide to put your own stamp on these and push your work in an unexpected direction, or you prefer to avoid popular trends at all costs, it's helpful to know where the industry's at – particularly when it comes to justifying your creative decisions to clients. Here, then, are some of the hottest illustration trends of 2017 that we’ve noticed over the last 12 months... 01. Playful colours When Ana Jacks created the visual language for the Facebook event House of Us, bold colour was at the forefront In 2017, illustrators haven’t been shy in using bright and playful colours to bring their work to people’s attention. It’s an illustration trend that can be seen everywhere in editorial illustration, from the eye-catching hues of Berlin-based visual artist Siggi Eggertsson to the chaotically colourful pattern-collages of Hamburg-based illustrator Max Knicker. It’s also evident in the more “out there” work too, such as the eerie, goblin-like characters of Londoner Alex Gamsu Jenkins and the psychedelic imaginings of Belgian illustrator Ellen van Engelen. Not to mention the vibrant trad-children’s book stylings of Brazil-based Jana Glatt or the uncompromising female character studies of Daiana Ruiz. There are some who raise colour almost to the level of a special effect, as can be seen in the zesty, humorous scenes of Anka Bara, the in-your-face character studies of Isle of Man-based illustrator Ana Jaks (above), and the distinctive and evocative work of Madrid and Barcelona-based artist Josea Roda. And it’s an illustration trend that’s set to continue into 2018, predicts illustrator Fiona Wade, creative collaborator with Brown&co. “I think the trends in illustration next year will be summed up by one word,” she says. “Colour. Bold, intense, saturated, colour. Lots of it. “Colour will be used as a concept all on its own – becoming a feature, rather than simply background information in a picture. Particular colours that will be popping up in both illustration and fashion prints will be pastel ice-cream shades and rich jewel-like teals and golds.” 02. Female empowerment Hamburg artist Helena Ravenne is known for her images of female empowerment From the Weinstein scandal to controversy over the gender pay gap, gender issues have rarely been out of the headlines in 2017. And illustrators haven't been shy in bringing forth their perspectives on issues of female empowerment and solidarity. New York-based designer and illustrator Amber Vittoria is among those challenging the societal assumptions placed on women through her defiant work, based around physical traits such as body hair, overtly extended limbs and rounded features. Melbourne-based illustrator Jordyn McGeachin, meanwhile, is focused on normalising notions of women’s sexuality. Less confrontational but just as powerful is the work of Polish designer and illustrator Weronika Anna Marianna, which explores the “wild and sacred sides” of women, or that of Hamburg-based illustrator Helena Ravenne (above) who recently launched a series called Girls are Back in Town, celebrating talented and strong women. And it’s not just about individual efforts, but collective action, too. For example, 2017 also saw the launch of Women Who Draw, an online community of female illustrators, artists and cartoonists, with the aim of increasing their visibility and give them a stronger voice worldwide. It’s currently 2,700 creatives strong, and counting. 03. Absurdity and surrealism Felix Decombat’s interactive homepage at felixdecombat.com is the trippiest thing we’ve seen this year The world of 2017 has felt like a place where, for good or bad, anything can happen and increasingly, anything goes. So it’s not surprising that we’ve seen increased visibility this year for strange and unusual illustration styles. These include the delightful head-scrambling lunacy of German illustrator Sebastian Schwamm, the delightfully deconstructive visions of Ottowa comic artist Michael Haddad and the futuristic and weirdly subversive stylings of French illustrator Felix Decombat. Also well worth checking out are the the gruesomely spaced-out sci-fi works of Norwegian illustrator Derek Ercolano, the hilariously surreal work of Russian illustrator Andrey Kasay and the jagged, dysmorphic characters of Oslo-based illustrator and animator Steph Hope. 04. Anxiety and alienation The Weather of the World, by Yann Kebbi for the New York Times It’s been a year in which all the old norms of politics, society and culture seemed to be crumbling, austerity gathered pace, the distance between citizenry and their representatives widened, and even nuclear war seemingly became a possibility. This sense of global anxiety and alienation was reflected in the work of a number of illustrators. For example, French artist Yann Kebbi took the ideas of catastrophe and fracturing as the inspiration for a number of impactful pieces, including one for the New York Times, shown above. And similarly, New York illustrator, printmaker and comic book artist Evan M Cohen’s Noise series portrays the stress, fear and delusion of modern life in stark monochromatic scenes. Ominous and disturbing, the work of Brooklyn-based illustrator Minju An takes delight in the deconstruction of body parts, while German artist Max Guther draws on the influence of Bauhaus architects to hold up a dispassionate mirror to the empty banalities of modern existence. Elsewhere, Illustrator Noa Snir’s series Disorder explored a variety of common psychological problems through dramatic black and white linocuts. 05. 1990s retro The 90s influence is strong in the work of Igor Bastidas In uncertain times, there’s always safety and comfort to be found in the familiar. For a long while, we’ve all been indulging in 1980s nostalgia, but 2017 saw that finally start to give ground to 1990s retro. Yes, it’s finally time to look back longingly on the last decade of the last century, and leading the pack is Miami-based illustrator and animator Igor Bastidas, whose work for MTV, Converse and Cartoon Network highlights his love of clean lines and solid colours. Other exponents of the 90s vibe include Rotterdam-based illustrator Xaviera Altena, whose work is peppered with 90s pop culture references, and Amy Sutton, who’s strongly influenced by the vibrant colours of 90s cartoons. 06. Japanese style Part of Andrew Archer’s Edo Ball series, which combines images of basketball and Japanese art Whether its traditional Ukiyo-e art, anime-style art or artworks inspired by Japanese culture, cities and fashions, one 2017 illustration trend to have continued developing is that of Japanese influence. Take for example Edo Ball, a series by New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based illustrator Andrew Archer inspired by “basketball, culture, Japan and Ukiyo-e art” (above). Or there’s The Tokyoiter, a spoof illustrated series of tributes to covers of The New Yorker and The Parisianer, established by British illustrator Andrew Joyce, French art director David Robert, and Japanese illustrator and creative director Tatsushi Eto. The Japanese influence is also central to the work of Nick Alston, a British illustrator based in Tokyo; Karan Singh, an Australian artist and illustrator in Amsterdam; Polish watercolour artist Mateusz Urbanowiczs; and many more besides. 07. Digital meets hand-drawn This 2017 illustration trend isn't new. It's been around for years now – but with mobile creative tech continuing to take over the market, it's set to become one of the strongest illustrations trends of 2018, too. “Above everything else I’ve seen this year, it’s been illustrators mastering elements of the iPad Pro to sketch and draw in a way that speeds up workflow,” explains Jamie Clarke, who designs illustrative type and lettering and edits the typography blog Type Worship. “In the lettering world there’s a digital hand-drawn style that's wedging itself comfortably between vector artwork and paper-drawn,” he continues. “Those who are really getting to grips with it, such as the Oregon-based designer Jordan Metcalf, are allowing the technology to influence the final piece.” The lines between hand-drawn and digital are also being blurred in the work of Chinese freelancer Samuel Chen, who creates digital work that looks like it’s been crafted traditionally. Similarly, Austrian illustrator Nanna Prieler's work is based in physical media but looks like it includes digital elements. Related articles: 8 design industry trends for 2018 5 free apps that can boost your creativity 5 uses for stock images you might not have thought of View the full article

Intel released eight patches for vulnerabilities in remote management software and firmware that could allow local adversaries to elevate privileges, run arbitrary code, crash systems and eavesdrop on communications. View the full article

If you're looking to bag a Black Friday deal on a Surface Book, Surface Pro or any other model from Microsoft's fantastic Surface family, then you've come to the right place. We're collecting all the best Microsoft Surface Black Friday deals right here, throughout Black November, as soon as they appear. So far, the best savings we've seen have arrived in the form of Black Friday Surface Book deals. That's because the Surface Book – our laptop of the summer – was recently replaced by the stunning Surface Book 2 and retailers are looking to shift their older stock. We gave the Surface Book five out of five stars when we reviewed it. It's powerful, flexible and has a stunning screen – so if you don't mind buying an older model, there are some incredible savings to be had. And if you're in the market for more creative hardware generally, don't miss the following articles: Best cheap laptop deals, Best monitors for creatives, The best Wacom tablet deals, 6 smartphone deals for designers, and our exclusive Adobe Creative Cloud deal. Read on for the best Black Friday Microsoft Surface deals to be had right now... 01. Surface Book 2 Black Friday deals At 15-inches, the beautiful new 2-in-1 Microsoft Surface Book 2 introduces a larger form factor to the original Surface Book. This is currently the world’s best 2-in-1 laptop: it’s incredibly powerful, with a dazzling 13.5-inch PixelSense display, and boasts a battery life up to 17 hours. It’s also incredibly flexible – with laptop, tablet, studio and view modes – and lightweight to boot. Prices are unlikely to come down much, but if there are any Black Friday Surface Book 2 deals to be had, you’ll find them here. 02. Surface Book Black Friday deals The first iteration of the Surface Book remains an impressive model – and with huge Black Friday price cuts likely while stocks last, Microsoft's first-ever 2-in-1 laptop makes an irresistible prospect for creatives. With an innovative Performance Base that delivers crisp, vibrant graphics and up to 16 hours of battery life, if you can get your hands on the Surface Book you won't regret it. 03. Surface Pro Black Friday deals Thanks to a powerful Intel Core processor, the Surface Pro delivers great speed and performance that previous models. This has lead to Microsoft describing it as the most powerful Surface Pro ever. With all this power under the hood, the new Surface Pro provides users with a smooth experience to help them stay productive. It can also switch between laptop, studio, and tablet modes easily to keep up with your demanding workflow. Ultra-light and versatile, the Surface Pro gives users the best of Microsoft at their fingertips. 04. Surface Studio Black Friday deals With an impressive 28" PixelSense Display, the Surface Studio is specially designed for the creative process. Capable of switching and adjusting to follow how you work, the Surface Studio is powered by Intel® Core™ processors and an NVIDIA® GeForce® dGPU to help bring your work to life. Paired with the Surface Dial, the Surface Studio is changing how creatives are working for the better. 05. Surface Laptop Black Friday deals The beautifully designed and crafted Surface laptop matches its elegance with its performance. Boasting a vibrant 13.5" PixelSense Display with immersive touchscreen, the Surface Laptop gives users more room to get creative. Available in four colours to suit your style (burgundy, platinum, cobalt blue and graphite gold), this laptop packs the best of Windows and Office. Related articles: The best Amazon Cyber Monday deals 2017 5 best laptops for video editing in 2017 The best drawing tablet for illustrators and artists View the full article

When you're starting a new illustration – whether doing quick sketches or highly realistic pencil drawings, you want to have your best pencils and drawing tools at the ready. But buying the drawing tools for your needs is largely a question of trial and error. When first becoming acquainted with using pencils for artwork, we'd recommend buying one of each grade from 9H to 9B to become familiar with the hard/light and soft/dark qualities of each. Experiment with various surfaces, and a wide variety of strokes and mark-making. 01. Graphite pencils KOH-I-NOOR makes these 'woodless' graphite pencils If you're just starting out, you'll no doubt want to stick with the familiar. Graphite pencils are the most common type of drawing tool as their composition allows for the smoothest strokes. Once you grow in confidence, though, it's time to start widening your scope. For instance, you could try solid graphite pencils. These are solid sticks of graphite and clay composite (as found in a graphite pencil), which have no casing other than a wrapper or label. Often called woodless pencils, they're used primarily for art purposes, as the lack of casing allows for covering larger spaces more easily, creating different effects. Buy KOH-I-NOOR Progresso Woodless Graphite Pencils: $6.15/£7.99 for 6 02. Charcoal pencils Derwent makes these charcoal pencils Charcoal pencils, as the name suggests, are made of charcoal and provide fuller blacks than graphite pencils, but tend to smudge easily and are more abrasive than graphite. Sepia-toned and white pencils are also available for duotone techniques. "I use charcoal because it's a versatile drawing tool that produces a variety of effects, from thin lines to bold strokes," says Jean-Sébastien Rossbach, an award-winning illustrator, concept artist and painter. However, he adds a word of warning: as with blending tools, "those just starting out can find it tricky to control, with the results often looking messy." Buy Derwent Charcoal Pencils: $9.05/£7 for 6 03. Ink Ink drawing with different nibs can produce stunning results Of course, drawing isn't just about pencils: ink drawing is another popular medium that can lead to some beautiful results. Traditional pen and ink consists of black ink and white paper, creating space through thick or thin lines, repeating marks for texture. There are many options for working in ink so, just as with graphite, you'll need to find which best suits you by experimenting. Read our guide: Get started with ink drawing for more on ink drawing tools and techniques Buy Speedball 2964 Sketching Pen Set: $7.28/£7.89 including 6 nibs And Winsor & Newton Water Resistant Drawing Ink: $9.27/£6.15 for 30ml 04. Pastels We gave SAA Artists Soft Pastels 4.5 stars in our review If you want your drawing to feature vibrant colours then you'll probably want to investigate pastels. Pastels are a great medium for producing colourful artwork easily, with no need for water, brushes or palettes. The main types of pastels are soft and hard pastels, oil pastels, pastel pencils and water soluble pastels. Read our guide: How to start pastel drawing for more on key tools and techniques Read our SAA Artists 12 Soft Pastels review Buy SAA Artists 12 Soft Pastels: $24.42/£21.12 05. Carbon and watercolour pencils We gave the Staedtler watercolour pencils five stars in our review And that's not all! You can also try using carbon pencils, which produce a fuller black than graphite pencils, but are smoother than charcoal. There are grease pencils, which write on almost any surface including glass, plastic, metal and photos. Plus there are watercolour pencils, designed for use with watercolour techniques. (They can also be used by themselves for sharp, bold lines). In short, there's a world of different drawing implements out there. So start trying different drawing tools, and don't hold back. Read our Staedtler watercolour pencils review Buy the Staedtler Karat Aquarell watercolour pencils: $44/£31.75 for 36 06. Blending and sharpening tools Blending stumps are ideal for creating gradations and half-tones After gaining an understanding of the abilities and limitations of each pencil, you can then investigate further with blending tools and erasers for different effects. A blending tool can be anything you can use to add texture to your graphite marks. The most obvious tool you have already to hand: your fingers! Other blending tools you can potentially use include tortillions, blending stumps, paper, cloth, cotton wool, make-up wipes, chamois, paper towels, paper tissue, paintbrushes, and probably a dozen other things we haven't thought of. Blending stumps are made from tightly wound paper, formed into a stick and sanded at both ends to create points. Used ideally to create gradations and half-tones, the sanded area is ideal for blending while the point (ideally kept clean) is best used to blend light-toned areas. Unlike fingers, blending stumps leave no oily smears. Blending tortillons are made from rolled, loose-fibre paper and are pointed at one endBlending tortillons are made from rolled, loose-fibre paper and are pointed at one end. The softer paper texture of blending tortillons gives a different blending texture to stumps, and they can be used to push colour and soften pencil edges. Be warned, though: attempting the use of blending tools too early can look smudgy and amateurish, so don't rush into this. You also need to keep your pencils sharp. And while a pencil sharpener is fine when you're just using a pencil to write with, for drawing we'd suggest you're better off using a scalpel or craft knife. Buy the Stumps And Tortillions Set: $4.56/£6.36 for 10 05. Kneaded eraser Kneaded erasers are dry and don’t smudge or leave flaked residueUnlike standard office erasers, kneaded erasers are dry and don’t smudge or leave flaked residue. Their softness makes them ideal on sketching paper with a lot of ‘tooth’. These erasers can also be formed into points for picking out highlights in eyes and hair. Buy the Prismacolor Premier Kneaded Rubber Eraser: $3.12/£3.01 What to look for Illustrator Terese Nielsen explains how to pick your paper, pencils and more... 01. Choose the right grade Pencils are graded on a scale from H (hardness) to B (blackness)Pencils are graded on a scale from H (hardness) to B (blackness). Generally a 2-4H pencil is as hard as one needs for light areas, an H-B is for midrange, and a 5B-6B is for dark areas. Rather than switching pencils for each tone, experiment with altering the pressure. Brands vary, so experiment to see what suits your temperament. 02. Choose the right paper The paper you choose is going to be equally significant as the pencil choice As much as pencil choice requires careful consideration, the paper you choose is going to be equally significant. If attempting to create a highly realistic style, for example, you could try using a smooth, hot press/plate finish surface. We prefer Arches 140 lb hot press watercolour paper or Bristol Board plate finish. 03. Try some strokes Many strokes can be employed to indicate textures of various objectsMany strokes can be employed to indicate textures of various objects. If you’re attempting a highly realistic style then use very small circular strokes with your pencil; otherwise unwanted banding of pencil marks occurs. Try shading with a variety of tools from blending stumps to paper tissue for better finishes. Check out more of our art posts: How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorials Improve your character drawing today How to draw manga characters View the full article

You're reading Google Maps Updated with New Design for the First Time in Years, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Google released an update to their eponymous Maps service. Product Manager Liz Hunt revealed changes focusing on prioritizing the information presented, what is displayed according to the user situation, and how it is displayed in the UI in terms of icon and colors. Maps Will Present the User with the Most Relevant Information Google states […] View the full article

Named after the brutalist architecture movement from the mid-to-late 20th century, web brutalism gleefully ignores all the web design best practices established over the past 20 years and is throwing out work that's inventive, exciting and challenging – even confrontational. Brutalist websites range from the wilfully chaotic to the obstinately minimal, but they're united by a rejection of mainstream web trends. There comes a time in every creative movement when some of its practitioners decide to push back against the accepted way of doing things and start breaking the rules, usually to the outrage of the establishment. The origins of web brutalism Brutalist architecture is unconcerned about looking attractive, and it's this – as well as the idea that brutalism was conceived as a reaction to the more frivolous architecture of the 1930s and 40s – that led Pascal Deville, cofounder and creative director of Freundliche Grüsse to co-opt the term. "I've had a high interest in digital design and the web design community since the early days of the web, " he tells us. "In the last couple of years I noticed a trend toward streamlined, almost neutralised interfaces that completely missed any sense of brand attributes or characteristics regarding the content or purpose they serve." Deville also noticed designers starting to experiment with a kind of web design anti-trend: a rough and back-to-basics approach on how websites could work outside a perfect UX world, and it's this aspect that reminded him of the original brutalists. Deville keeps track of the latest brutalist websites on brutalistwebsites.com Since then Deville has been curating Brutalistwebsites.com, where he gathers sites that fit in with his ideas of web brutalism and interviews their creators. "It serves as an inspirational platform for young designers," he says, "Something I want to give back to the community." Defining features of web brutalism A trawl through Brutalistwebsites.com will quickly demonstrate that it covers a broad range of styles and aesthetics; nevertheless there are a few commonalities. Interactive designer Bruno Landowski, who in 2013 worked on an early example of a brutalist site for the 13th Istanbul Biennial, sums up the brutalist approach like this: "It uses big fonts, solid-colour backgrounds, geometric shapes and raw features… It doesn't care about the general public." Any Studio's site breaks all the rules, brilliantly Jakob Kornelli from Any Studio in Berlin, which boasts a gloriously brutalist website, also points out the movement's use of bold and somewhat radical typography. "But even more than that," he tells us, "we believe that a brutalist website pushes the boundaries of its medium, especially in terms of interaction. Even though web design has been around for some time now, the interactive and aesthetic possibilities of it are seldom used to their full potential." French multidisciplinary designer Pierre Butin has made a name for himself with his Brutalist Redesigns project, in which he reworked popular apps such as Tinder, Google Maps and even Candy Crush to striking effect. He has his own theories on brutalism: "Some seem to define it as a crude approach, whilst others tends to embrace this loose definition," he says. "This got me wondering: is brutalism in digital design more about Swiss minimalism or just raw coding? For this reason, I tried out different styles that could be deemed as brutalist. I used system fonts, basic web colours, a simple colour scheme and stuck to the original UX of the app. My objective was to start a conversation about what's coming UI-wise and how it should be done." Giacomo Miceli believes that brutalism is all about simplification For Giacomo Miceli, whose monochrome portfolio site is a masterpiece in Courier, it's about simplification, and there's nothing new about it. "Just look at the homepage of Google, " he observes. "17 years ago, AltaVista was a thing and its homepage was cluttered with useless stuff. Google came in with a website that did one thing, did it really well, and was unconcerned with looking pretty. Google definitely gives more attention to the eye these days, but the core remained the same." It's Detroit-based designer Kikko Paradela who sums web brutalism up most succinctly, though: "Typographic. Content-driven. Straightforward." How to build brutalist sites Perhaps a great part of brutalism's appeal is that you can neatly sidestep all the initial preparation that traditionally comes with building a site, and simply get on with it. Many creators of brutalist sites take a distinct pride in the fact that they do virtually all of their design and development work in that venerable Windows mainstay, Notepad. Landowski quickly summarises his brutalist process: "Rock–paper–scissors to make choices, a pen to sketch them, Photoshop and Illustrator to specify them, and a text editor to make them alive." Although, he points out, this isn't an approach that would work for everyone; he comes from a graphic design background which, he says, makes him more sensitive to user experience. The 13th Istanbul Biennial site is an early example of the brutalist approach Kornelli agrees, noting that much of Any Studio's work focuses on strong typography, clear messages and the occasional unexpected twist to keep things interesting. "The website we recently designed for the film production company Very Film shows this approach," he tells us, "with its bold and crisp black-and-white typography combined with only one distinctive interaction that is reminiscent of a curtain closing and opening." For a donation-based poster design service called This is Shit, web designer Jon Matheson had other priorities. "I think the whole point of brutalism in web design is not to be limited to what you're expected to use as a web designer," he explains. Matheson prefers to avoid looking at a screen if he really doesn't have to, and so he designed This is Shit on paper, with an ink brush for the header and footer, Sharpie for the menu tabs and white gel pen for the social media icons. "Most of the site is just scanned in sections of that design," he reveals. And the results are brilliant. And in Paradela's case, both his site and his practice are influenced by where he lives and works. He explains that his site is, "a reflection of my design approach and thinking. I've always aligned myself with the anti-mainstream or 'anti-Jesus' aesthetic because it challenges conventional and convenient truths including my own. This approach is also pertinent to the current social and political environment of Detroit, which is where I live and base my practice." The benefits of brutalism Paradela's philosophy resonates with many of the reasons that designers have given us for building websites that go so strongly against the grain of modern web design. So what are the benefits to this concept? "Instead of this tip-toeing around carefully crafting a modern, expected site," suggests Matheson, "it's like the creators are going 'Here's the site. If you don't like it, your loss' and I love that." There's more to it than that, though; Daan Lucas feels that there's an honesty to brutalism that's perhaps missing from more polished, corporate offerings. "I think brutalism intends to show the core and deduct it from distraction," he says. "I like that. I think it's also the right thing to do these days. People know when they are bullshitted. In our work we always try to make a real connection with people. Make them wonder, invite them to play. If you bullshit people they will walk away and be annoyed." You can see brutalism's playfulness on sites such as Bong's homepage, featuring a giant Newton's cradle and links to the agency's work scrolling around the edge. It might go against the rules, but it's a different and exciting experience for users, and Any Studio is keen to mine the possibilities of this approach to web design. Bong turned heads earlier this year with its new site for johnson banks "Not playing by a certain set of rules or applying different ones – like classic Swiss modernist graphic design rules – has the advantage that the results tend to be more unique and therefore more captivating for the user, " says Kornelli. "Also the influx of avant-garde graphic design opens the field to tons of new and striking aesthetic possibilities, which in return generate more interesting experiences for users and clients." More than punk rock? So maybe this is more than just a punk rock moment. While there's a degree of that – Kornelli points out that there's been a glut in recent years of boring UX-driven web design, creating an environment of functional but bland website clones, and in many ways brutalism is a 'fuck you' reaction to that environment – designers see brutalism as a way of driving web design forward and actually increasing usability. Butin explains: "Straightforward brutalist elements might improve the overall experience users have of an app. UX experts like Luke Wroblewsky show again and again that, for example, the word 'Menu' in an interface generates more engagement than the hamburger icon (as goes the saying, 'obvious always wins'). For this reason, I do not think that brutalism in digital design is incompatible with a UX-driven approach." And looking through the pantheon of brutalist sites, it's hard not to draw comparisons with the world of graphic design. You can see clear parallels between brutalist sites and the work of designers such as David Carson, Stefan Sagmeister and more recently Richard Turley, who used audacious and provocative design to turn stuffy old Bloomberg Businessweek into one of the most talked-about magazines. Kiki Paradela's site is a brutalist goldmine well worth exploring Kornelli agrees that there's definitely a graphic design influence, and Any Studio welcomes this development. "Until recently web design was, for some reason, kind of detached from the long and great tradition of graphic design," he tells us. "Graphic designers treated web design as an unknown medium and didn't really know what to do with it. Now there is a new generation of designers emerging that feel at home in both worlds. Web design is becoming fully integrated into the vocabulary of contemporary graphic designers." This matters, because graphic design is a mature discipline that for many years has been addressing and solving the issues that web brutalists are now taking on. "This is the space where we usually operate," says Paradela. "We deconstruct and understand visual language so we can have it at our disposal to communicate effectively. We are self critical with what's going around us." Where's it all going? Like brutalism, graphic design often goes to provocative extremes, but always in the name of clear communication. While graphic designers tend to go all-out for their portfolios, the work that they produce in the day job is generally a lot less full-on; and this is how the brutalist approach will leave its influence on web design in general. "I found that a fair amount of brutalist websites are small scale; designers' portfolios or personal projects," observes Butin. "Yet, an increasing number of designers work on (popular) mobile apps. It would then not be surprising if they transferred this taste for brutalism/minimalism to the products they design." Matheson's approach to brutalism was to draw his poster site by hand Matheson hopes that this could be a huge turning point for the web in terms of design. "I hope at least that more designers, artist and creatives will have less fear of experimenting with brutalism," he says, "or at least the carefree approach to their work as more and more of these designs and approaches reveal themselves." And Kornelli believes that brutalism is about to establish its relevance and will probably stay for a while, giving designers increasing rein to create a beautiful, communicative web. "Thanks to the evolution of interfaces and software, designers will soon be empowered to create top-notch websites without handing sketches off to a developer – the developers will provide the appropriate tools beforehand instead." This article originally appeared in issue 297 of net, the magazine for professional web designers and developers – offering the latest new web trends, technologies and techniques. Buy issue 297 here or subscribe to net here. Related articles: 16 amazing HTML examples How to survive as a web designer beyond 2020 Get started with HTML canvas View the full article

Web designers are known for applying their design eye to every product they own, so they can be tricky to buy for at Christmas – and at other points in the year. But don’t worry, we won’t let you go wrong. The gifts below are a selection of useful tools, books, amusements and other things made by brands that are well-loved by designers for their attention to detail and stylish, practical products. We've organised our gift guide into different price bands, too, so there's a gift to suit your budget and the recipient's tastes. If you're buying for a few different creatives, fear not. We also have gift guides for graphic designers, illustrators, design students and even creative kids. Best gifts for web designers under £20/$25 Power users are often dissatisfied with the charging cables that come with Apple devices because they start to break after a while and are expensive to replace. This ultra-strong reinforced one from Native Union is much more suitable for someone who pushes cables to their limits: it's 4 feet long and claims to be six times stronger than standard Lightning cables. It has a cool print design, a luxurious leather strap to stop it from tangling, and even comes with a lifetime warranty. This may seem excessive, but bear with us. No-one likes a dirty keyboard, and cleaning the crumbs out of the little gaps between your keys requires a dedicated tool. Help your developer friend keep their workspace hygienic with this handy little jointed brush. It has two rows of bristles of different lengths for removing debris from every crevice of your laptop, and it's made from oiled beech wood and goat/horse hair. Did you see the video of the racist soap dispenser? If not and you don't want to click, it's an automatic soap dispenser that only works for white people; a darker skin tone gets no soap. This book is essentially about that: the processes, biases and assumptions that lead to digital products that fail us in horrible, cringeworthy ways. Anyone who designs products will benefit from reading it. The design world is full of aphorisms such as 'there are no new ideas', 'rules are there to be broken' and so on, which are often assimilated into the minds of young designers without question. In this fascinating and entertaining read, multi-award-winning design director Craig Ward dissects each of these mantras in turn and gives many of them a good debunking. The result is a handbook that will make any designer wiser about how they approach their craft. Best gifts for web designers under £50/$75 This portable wooden stand gives you the ergonomic layout of a desktop setup wherever you go. If you're only working for a few hours a day you might get away with putting your laptop on a desk, but having to look down for long periods will start to hurt eventually and cause neck and back problems. This stand allows you to put your laptop at eye level for a healthy sitting position. 06. Field Notes Project Kit Price: $54.95 (around £41.50)Many web designers like to sketch their ideas on paper first, and if your loved one is a big user of notebooks then this set will go down well. Field Notes is a brand loved by designers because so much thought has been put into every element of the product, from the choice of paper and typography to the dimensions and rounded corners. This set has four different types of notebook and a set of carpenter pencils. Tabletop board games are a favourite among web designers and developers, so this could be the ideal gift that doubles as something fun for everyone to do over Christmas. We asked the people at board game cafe Chance & Counters what they would pick for a web geek and they recommended The Networks. "It's so good," said Steve Cownie. "You play as upstart TV networks, trying to amass the most viewers over five seasons. It's a solid combination of silliness and strategy, with lots of funny parodies and pop culture nods throughout." Best gifts for web designers under £100/$125 08. Street Fighter II hard drive Price: $99.99/£78.12 Let the web designer in your life back up their data in style with this fantastically retro external drive, lovingly crafted from an original SNES Street Fighter II game cartridge. Inside there's a 1TB hard disk (or 2TB if you go for the pricier option), which is more than enough for them to safely store all of their important stuff, and its USB 3.0 connection means everything gets transferred nice and quickly. Other games such as Zelda or Super Mario World are also available. This stylish leather case has a clever design element: it holds your phone tightly and is lined with felt so that the screen gets a polish every time you use it. It's the right size for an iPhone X, but you can do a custom order to get other dimensions. Best gifts for web designers over £100/$125 If the web designer in your life is a freelancer, a decent set of headphones is a must for getting work done in cafes or coworking spaces. These ones aren't a new model, but T3 still ranks them at the top of its list for wired, over-ear headphones because they have yet to be outdone in terms of comfort, sound quality and style. The double-hinged headband makes them highly portable, the ear cushions are soft and comfortable so you can wear them for hours, and they sound fantastic. Noise cancelling headphones are another option, but you’ll have to go into a higher price bracket for those. A hybrid smartwatch is a way to get a fitness and sleep tracker that looks like a normal watch, and the Nokia Steel strikes a great balance between functionality, style, battery life and budget. It tracks walking, running, swimming, calories burned and distance, as well as providing sleep cycle analysis. The battery lasts up to eight months and it looks good enough to wear all day, even with a formal outfit. Read more: How accessible are your designs? How to power up your menus with CSS animation How CodePen made itself secure View the full article

As Black Friday 2017 and Cyber Monday 2017 creeps closer, we're working hard to bring designers, illustrators and artists the best bargains on creative tools. But we haven't neglected our daily deals; today we've got you a great discount on training to boost your graphic design skills. If you want to work as a graphic designer, you're going to have to know how to use Adobe applications. Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator are the tools experts rely on and are packed with tools to help make your work truly shine. You can master these programs with Graphic Design Certification School. Get it on sale now for a special Black Friday price of just $25 (approx £19). Graphic designers love using Adobe's suite of creative apps to bring their art to life, and you can learn why with this bundle of courses. The Graphic Design Certification School will teach you how to make the most of Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. As we also have an exclusive 15% discount on Creative Cloud subscriptions until 27 November, now is the time to get into Photoshop, Lightroom and Adobe's other great programs. Get your 15% discount on Adobe Creative Cloud hereYou'll get tons of expert-taught lessons that will show you how to take your ideas and bring them to life on screen. You can also get certifications to prove your skills after each course you complete. The Graphic Design Certification School is valued at over $1,197, but you can get this incredible bundle of courses on sale for just $25 (approx £19) for Black Friday. It's a deal you won't want to miss, so grab it while you can. About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. Related articles: The 60 best free Photoshop brushes Get 15% off Adobe Creative Cloud with our exclusive deal The best Black Friday phone deals 2017 View the full article

Don’t have access to a photogrammetry camera array to carry out a 3D scan? No problem, these tips and tricks will show you how to capture an actor quickly with great results for 3D modelling – and all you need is a camera or smartphone. Imagine you’re on a movie location with little equipment and only a few minutes with your actor. Getting an accurate scan and generating a useable CG model is now possible with just a smartphone and a laptop running Agisoft PhotoScan software. LA-based Emmy and VES Award-winning visual effects artist, Johnathan R Banta, from Agrapha Productions, breaks down his five-step ‘RapidCapture’ photogrammetry process, taking advantage of professional tools. Christmas offer: Save up to 49% on a subscription to 3D World 01. Get the actor ready Capture the subject using quick-fire photogrammetry Have your actor sit or stand (either is fine as long as they remain stable) and fix their gaze on a point in the near distance. Try to avoid direct sunlight or hard shadows. Our example here was in a room with fluorescent tube lights, but any ambient illumination is fine. Clothing does not matter too much, but try to avoid solid colours, especially white, as the photogrammetry software finds this harder to solve (although in our example, the subject did in fact have a white shirt on). 02. Photograph your actor These are the resulting 15 photos from this capture session Use any camera app on your smartphone (or use any camera). Try an app that lets you fix exposure for better results. In this example, we captured a portion of the actor’s face with just 15 photographs following a geodesic capture pattern at a consistent distance from the actor. Starting at a 45-degree angle to your subject, take a total of 15 photographs in a ‘plus-cross-plus’ configuration. Take one photo in the centre of the angle, stretch arms up, down, left, and right while taking photos pointing at the subject (ie, a plus pattern). Cross-step 45 degrees around to the front, and photograph in a cross pattern. Take one photo in the centre of the angle, stretch arms to the upper left, upper right, lower left, and lower right while taking additional photos pointing at the subject. Step 45 degrees around again, then repeat the plus pattern. You can always take more photos – a full rotation around the subject is likely to be 48-50 photos – but remember that the idea here is to carry out this scan as quickly as possible. 03. Solve the scan PhotoScan solves the positions of the photographs Import your photos into PhotoScan. Choose one photo as the representative angle before picking the Align Photos option. This produces better results, and sometimes will determine the success of the algorithm. There are several options in the software for resolution and point correspondence. The most consistently successful setting at this point has been to use the MEDIUM solving resolution, and leave everything else at default. If you are pleased with the alignment, go on to the build dense cloud step, which will use your solved cameras and sparse point cloud as a guide for a more involved algorithm. There are several resolution options, but to test the solve, a resolution setting of MEDIUM can produce results good enough to evaluate with. There is often extra material in the dense point cloud that is not your subject. Use the lasso tools and other selection methods to delete this excess data before going any further. 04. Mesh and texture model The resulting model will still need cleaning up, but clearly resembles the actor PhotoScan can take the resulting point cloud, and build a mesh of polygons to re-create the surface. Depending on your photos and detail of the subject matter, results can vary. Again, it loves detail, so areas of flat, smooth colour may end up a little noisy (most actors wear make-up to smooth out their skin, and this can result in a noisy solve). The open-source software MeshLab has many capable tools that can take your exported points and build a surface, and if you need to work quickly, it can sometimes do this faster than PhotoScan. If you are serious about this, it is worth a try, but PhotoScan can do a very reasonable job of it, too. The resulting mesh can be exported to other software as a guide for clean-up and modelling. As long as you keep the original scaling and orientation exported from PhotoScan, you can re-import this model for texturing. This is not necessary for quick evaluation, though, and you can build textures directly on the solved mesh as well. The final step is to build texture on the object by projecting every single solved camera image onto the 3D model, and average the result inside PhotoScan. With properly aligned geometry, it is possible to achieve credible results quickly. 05. Export your 3D model Export your model to a 3D program for whatever you need. Export formats include FBX, OBJ, PLY and more, which means you can work with the model in tools such as Maya, ZBrush, Mudbox and 3ds Max. It’s in one of these tools that you can also do further clean-up, or take advantage of the dimensionally accurate model to aid in tracking, matchmoving or digital make-up work. Remember you have the original photos for reference, too. (Thanks to R Brent Adams, director of the Center for Animation at Brigham Young University, for volunteering to be our scanning subject.) This article was originally published in issue 227 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists – packed with expert tutorials, inspiration and reviews. Buy issue 227 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Special Christmas offer: Save up to 49% on a subscription to 3D World for you or a friend for Christmas. It's a limited offer, so move quickly... Related articles: The secrets of 3D scanning 15 mighty Maya tutorials to try today 30 inspiring examples of 3D art View the full article

Experimenting with new drawing and painting techniques is a great way to bring new flavours to a piece that's almost finished. Try to approach it in an organic, playful way, discovering new things you hadn't even thought of when embarking on an image – these experimental pieces may end up making a great addition to your design portfolio. Here's a portrait I've been working on: it's at a stage where I feel I can play with textures and experiment, using a range of techniques to drive the piece forward to a different place. Start experimenting with textures to add new flavours to your workI'm excited to see what digital techniques can do to the piece and how they can give it a different perspective to what I've previously envisioned. I'll show you how I go about experimenting with this in the written steps below and the video further down the page. The hard part is to be able to open your mind to enable the piece you've been working on to be altered and played with. 01. Add texture Finding stock images can add interesting texture to your piece I now look for photos and textures that are stock-free and have something special in them that I find inspiring. It could be a small pattern, or the silkiness of a fabric, or even the way the light's being cast on a surface. 02. Experiment Crop, invert and rotate stock images to use them as a background texture Once I have some images, I insert them on top and play with the settings and blending modes to see what happens. This is a structured way to achieve happy accidents. I then rearrange them and eliminate parts to fit my piece. 03. Use Color Range Play with colour and levels to create interesting painterly effects This is a quick tool that grabs a similar grouping of colours and values and selects them. You can then copy the selection to a new layer and experiment with it however you wish. Watch the full video This article originally appeared in issue 116 of ImagineFX , the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists – packed with workshops and interviews with fantasy and sci-fi artists, plus must-have kit reviews. Subscribe to ImagineFX here. Like this? Read these: How to improve your character drawing How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorials The best drawing tablet: our pick of the best graphics tablets in 2017 View the full article

Not all of us have the time or inclination to craft our own creative resumes from scratch, but your CV still needs to clearly impart key information about your career, while displaying a little of your personality. So why not inject it with a little design flair, courtesy of a free template? Exclusive offer: Save 15% on Adobe Creative Cloud now We've had a search around and found these striking free resume templates, each of which offers something a little different. Download one of these templates today and wing your way to a job interview for the role of your dreams, or impress prospective clients with your attention to detail. 01. Elegant resume Vladyslav Tulinovskyi created this simple layout This minimalist free resume template uses subtle illustration and plenty of white space to create a clean, elegant feel. Created by Vladyslav Tulinovskyi, it's available as an editable PSD file so you can change the colour scheme as well as edit the text. This understated style will enable your information to shine. 02. Graphical resume Fay Zodiac's template is bold This resume template by Fay Zodiac isn't one for the faint-hearted. Its bold letterpress-styled icons and, patterns and text certainly pack a punch, and will ensure your CV jumps out from a pile. You'll just need the confidence in the job interview to back up your loud resume design. It comes with the fonts and icons, as well as the Photoshop resume template, and is fully editable. 03. Colourful resume Riccardo Rivieccio's template comes with matching business cards As any designer knows, colour sells. Riccardo Rivieccio's free resume templates come in a choice of six colour schemes with attention-grabbing patterns in the header. And to further sweeten the deal, he's also designed matching business cards. These Illustrator files are fully editable, too, so have fun with colour. 04. Creative Vintage Resume This wonderfully retro template comes in gorgeous earthtonesThis is a splendidly vintage-looking resume template in deliciously earthy tones, and it comes as an .AI file so that you can adjust it to your heart's content. Be aware, though, that the fonts aren't included, so you'll either have to hunt them down yourself (they're all free, luckily) or substitute your own. 05. Creative Designer Resume Template Make an instant impression with this visually-focused templateFully layered and well organised in order to keep customisation nice and easy, this bold and punchy visual template enables you to get yourself and your skills across quickly, without any messing. It comes as a print-ready 300dpi A4 PSD, ready for editing in Photoshop. 06. Project-based resume A centre-aligned layout with space for imagesDepending on the type of application process you're dealing with, it may be appropriate to include samples of your work within your CV. This template, Velli, is great if you have images of visual work that you'd like to form part of the resume, and there's also space for a cover letter. 07. Two-column layout A two-tone layout with two columnsFitting a lot of information onto your first page can help to a grab a recruiter's attention, and a two-column layout is a way to achieve that without making your page look cluttered. 08. Timeline resume Create a good first impression with this free timeline resume template This free timeline-based resume template was created by graphic designer Patryk Korycki. An AI file, the design features typeface Open Sans, with various fields available to enter education details, skills, interests and much more. 09. Stylish resume A stylish resume template that includes a timeline of your employment historyThis subtle yet stylish CV template features all the details you need to include, along with a neat sidebar holding a profile and references and a timeline – in which you can list your employment history. There's also an online profile section to show just how social media-savvy you are and a software skills bar graph so you can show your exact skills. It's supplied in PSD, AI and INDD formats. 10. Resume for icon fans This resume template has some super-stylised icons includedIf icons are your thing, check out this free template from designer Fernando Báez. A sectionalised design, complete with stylish type and icons included (you get the CV in AI format and the icons in PSD), this resume is perfect for customising with your own icons to represent your interests and achievements. 11. Resume for type fans A central typographic column enables you to list your skillsSure, this may not be to everyone's taste – but it's certainly impactful. A central typographic column bursts out to boxes in which you can add your details. The resume is supplied in AI format so you can easily export a PDF – and comes in black and white so you can get creative with colours. 12. Simple resume This simple resume template uses colour Simplicity is the key in this type-based CV that puts your profile at the top, then lists experience and education in simple boxes. There's also a professional skills section enabling you to give yourself a percentage score on languages and professional skills. The Illustrator file makes the most of colour to aid its simplicity. 13. Clean resume The Smart Object header makes it a cinch to add your own graphic to this resumeThis highly-customisable resume template comes in PSD and AI formats and has a Smart Object header, meaning you can quickly and easily link in an image of your choice. It's A4, 300dpi, with 3mm bleed – so completely print-ready. Just add your logo, bio, experience and so on and you're ready to print and send. 14. Hadi Reda Super-minimal with a neat icon style, this resume is ace for designersKeep it super-minimal with this resume template. Once again there's a bar graph for your skills (which we're still not sure about but some employers may like) along with a neat icon style to represent your social media profiles and software competence. It's supplied in layered PSD format. 15. Resume that makes a statement It's definitely worth experimenting with this contemporary resume template by Paolo PettigianiMaybe you're looking to make more of a statement with your one-pager – in which case this typographic template by Paolo Pettigiani may be just the ticket. Easy to customise and available in AI format with all the necessary fonts and icons, it's definitely worth experimenting with. Related articles: 10 beautiful paper portfolios to inspire you 30 brilliantly creative resumes 5 quick ways to improve your portfolio dramatically View the full article

Whether you're after the very best smartphone for designers - like the Samsung Galaxy S8 or Google Pixel 2 - or a bargain basement handset for staying in touch with clients and scanning Instagram, we've sourced all the best prices for you. We've handpicked some of the standout deals that have really caught our eye at the moment - made a lot easier by Black Friday. And below that, our comparison chart is loaded with every phone on the market we can think of. Use the filters to narrow down your ideal price range, calls and data allowance, and choice of network and we'll do the rest! Best flagship mobile phone deals: These are the mobile phones with the best screens, most powerful chipsets and most premium designs. They can sell for a handsome price, so it's worth taking advantage of our research to ensure you bag a more affordable tariff. Best cheap mobile phone deals: You don't have to subject yourself to phone bills of over £30 to get a good mobile. There are some brilliant budget handsets out there these days, or you can look to older generation models that have really stood the test of time. Best SIM only deals: If you've got to the end of your two year contract, but aren't ready to part with your beloved phone then grabbing a SIM only plan is the solution. You can reduce your monthly spend down to a pittance and remain flexible if you do see a new phone you fancy. Today's best mobile phone deals - get the cheapest price on these handsets: Related articles: See the best apps for your new iPhone Get the best iPad deal Find the perfect VPN for you View the full article

In the busy freelance world, how do you make yourself stand out from the pack and attract those clients you've always dreamed of having on your books? Whatever design discipline you're in – be it web design, graphic design, digital art, illustration, 3D art, VFX or other creative fields – there are some tricks that can help your freelance business to take off. Here we've outlined a few of the basics to help you get started... 01. Find a USP Illustrator and art director Justin Maller has a distinct design aesthetic Before you get yourself out there and flaunt your design skills, first and foremost it's important that you understand exactly what you have to offer. Finding a trait that makes you different to others in the industry can help make you stand out in what is often a saturated market. Once you've nailed that, tailor your design portfolio accordingly. Also consider creating or commissioning a distinctive logo design for yourself and splashing it across all your branded social media pages. Read our 30 pro tips to create the perfect design portfolio to help you. 02. Be a big fish in a small pond Maria De La Guardia makes it clear the kinds of clients she wants Knowing which type of client or specific industry you'd like to attract will also help you create a much more targeted marketing strategy, as it will affect how you pitch yourself online and where to look for new business. Do your unique skills lend themselves to a certain sector, for instance, or have you designed work for a number of similar clients that you can use to target their competitors? Finding a niche can also help you build up your name quickly and, hopefully, lead to more work. 03. Start blogging Designer and illustrator Keenan Cummings posts about works in progress Setting up a blog and updating it regularly with snippets about your projects, industry views and some personal stuff will all help you to maximise your online presence and give you a voice within the industry. Check out our tips on how to create a design blog and take inspiration from this selection of great Tumblr blogs. 04. Network online Contacts are perhaps your biggest asset as a lone freelancer, regardless of whether you're looking to market yourself online or offline. Open networks such as Twitter provide the perfect platform for you to engage in conversations with the wider design world and build relationships with your peers and potential clients. Social networks also serve as a platform for you to show off your expertise and gain some recognition. By sharing interesting and useful content with others, you can become an important voice in your industry and a designer in demand. Read our tips on How to make social media work for you to learn more. 05. Use online marketing tools Use MailChimp to send mailshots to prospective clientsThere are so many free marketing tools out there, ready and waiting for you to take advantage of. As well as social networks and blogging, there's also a huge opportunity to grab some attention with the use of a good email marketing strategy. With a database of email addresses from existing clients and a prominent link on your blog to attract new website visitors, you can send out a monthly or quarterly newsletter to keep people up-to-date with your latest projects. MailChimp is just one great and easy tool to help get you get started with your email marketing – check out our guide to the 10 best email newsletter tools here. 06. Seek out client referrals If you've had an amazing experience with one of your clients, get them to shout about it. Don't be shy to ask your most satisfied clients for a few words on their experience working with you and the process overall, and make sure you publicise it across all your digital channels. You never know, your last satisfied client might lead to your next project win. 07. Network in person Don't stay hidden behind your Mac Offline networking at industry events, conferences or even social meet-ups with other designers or agencies can also help get your name out there and provide opportunities to put your business card in the hands of potential clients. Make sure you connect with your new contacts online afterwards so that you can continue the conversation you started in person. Read more: 4 ways to cash in as a freelancer 20 top tools for freelancers How to make social media work for you View the full article