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We’re delighted to announce that Generate London, the event for web designers and developers, is back later on in 2018.
Returning to the UK from 19-21 September, Generate promises to be bigger and better than even before. Held at the Royal Institution, this year’s unmissable conference will feature a day of practical workshops followed by an inspirational two-day conference.
With tickets set to go on sale soon, we wanted to share a sneak peak of a couple of the world-class names that’ll be speaking at Generate London to whet your appetite.
Unmissable speakers
One of the funniest, nicest and most impressive designers in the industry, Sarah Paramenter plunged into this competitive profession at just 19. Scant years later, she has built an internationally respected web and iOS design practice, with clients including Adobe, Ellen Degeneres, Apple, Blackberry, News International, STV and the National Breast Cancer Foundation of America. In 2011, at net magazine’s annual awards show, Sarah’s peers voted her Designer of the Year.
Joining her at the conference is Bruce Lawson. Bruce is a web standards consultant to Wix helping make Stylable.io, an extension of CSS and a pre-processor to make styling components reliable, easy and fun. He was previously Deputy CTO at Opera and has been actively championing web standards since 2003.
Bag more benefits
Need more convincing? Here are just some of the great reasons to attend Generate London:
- Access insight from top web-design talent at the Generate conference
- Get inspired by the stories of the industry’s leading names
- Gain in-depth practical guidance from comprehensive workshops
- Rub shoulders with fellow web-design dignitaries
With so much going on, it’s important to make sure you don’t miss out: tickets go on sale soon so keep your eyes peeled for the launch of Generate London 2018.
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Degree show season is almost upon us. Here's your guide to when and where each of the UK's art and design schools are holding their shows this year, plus links to the website for each. Read on for May's shows, or jump to the listings for June or July.
Degree shows are the best place to spot up-and-coming talent from any creative discipline. For a taste of the level of work you can expect, take a look at our picks of the hottest talent from last year's shows in London and outside of London. If you're a student gearing up to show off your work, see our tips for how to shine at your degree show.
These listings were created for Computer Arts magazine issue 280 (on sale 29 May), which also features a special feature on how to impress at your grad show. Be sure to keep an eye on upcoming issues to find out CA's pick of the best student talent from 2018's shows (subscribe here).
May
University of Reading: Art Education Degree Show
Institute of Education, L19, G03, London Road campus, University of Reading, Redlands Road, RG1 5EX
17 May-7 June
Leeds Arts University: Foundation Diploma in Art & Design
Vernon St, Leeds, LS2 8PH
18-23 May
This open show will transform the university’s buildings into a large scale exhibition space, giving you the opportunity to view the latest work from its creative, talented students.
Edinburgh Napier University: Showtime 2018
Merchiston Campus, 10 Colinton Road, Edinburgh, EH10 5DT
18-27 May
Art, Architecture and Design Building, Brayford Pool Campus, University of Lincoln
21 May-4 June
BA and MA shows for the university’s students of graphic design, product design, architecture, interactive design, advertising, illustration, animation, visual effects, fine art and fashion.
Central Saint Martins: Show One
Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London, N1C 4AA
23-27 May
The prestigious London college’s first show includes its BA and MA Fine Art courses, as well as photography and moving image work.
Liverpool John Moores School of Art and Design
The John Lennon Art and Design Building, Duckinfield Street, Liverpool, L3 5RD
25 May-8 June
Cardiff Metropolitan School of Art and Design
Llandaff Campus, Cardiff, CF5 2YB
26 May-1 June
Canterbury Christ Church University: Fine and Applied Arts BA Degree Show
Sidney Cooper Gallery, 22-23 St Peter’s St, Canterbury, CT1 2BQ
28 May-11 June
London College of Communication: Show 1
London College of Communication, Elephant & Castle, London, SE1 6SB
31 May-2 June (Media School)
LCC invites you to celebrate work by students from its School of Media’s advertising and photography courses.
June
Eldon Building, Winston Churchill Avenue, Portsmouth PO1 2DJ
1-8 June
University of Derby: The Big Show
Markeaton Street, Derby, DE22 3BD and Britannia Mill, DE22 3BL
2-3 June
University of Westminster: Mixed Media Fine Art
Ambika P3, University of Westminster, 35-100 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS
2-5 June
Brampton Road campus and Caldewgate, Carlisle, CA3 9AY
2-8 June
Glasgow School of Art, 167 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, G3 6RQ
2-8 June
The annual undergraduate degree show runs across the GSA campus. Afterwards, the graduates will showcase their work in a range of events in London including New Designers and Free Range and, for the first time, on the catwalk at Graduate Fashion Week.
University Galleries at 58-67 Grand Parade
2-10 June
Lauriston Place, Lauriston Street, West Port, Chambers Street and Bristo Square
2-10 June
For nine days in summer, Edinburgh College of Art is transformed into a public showcase of the work of its graduating students, most of whom are completing undergrad degrees. This year, the work of students from Art, Design, Architecture and Landscape Architecture will be on show.
Nottingham Trent University: Art and Design Show
Arkwright, Barnes Wallis, Bonington, Newton and Waverley buildings, Nottingham Trent University, City Campus, Goldsmith Street, Nottingham
2-10 June
Newcastle University: Fine Art
Newcastle: Hatton Gallery, University of Newcastle, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
2-16 June
Kingston School of Art, Kingston University, Knights Park Kingston KT1 2QJ
3-8 June
The 2018 Undergraduate Degree Show at Kingston School of Art is a celebration of its students' achievements. Work from the film-making, fine art, photography, product and furniture design departments are on show at the Knights Park campus, while that of the illustration and animation students appears at River House, with graphic design, interior design and fashion exhibiting at Portland Road.
University of Hertfordshire: Headlines Degree Show
Art & Design Gallery, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL10 9AB
4-8 June
University of Westminster: BA Animation Graduation Showcase
Regent Street Cinema, 309 Regent St, London, W1B 2UW
7 June, 5.30-8pm
University for the Creative Arts: Farnham
Falkner Road, Farnham, GU9 7DS
7-15 June (closed Sunday 10)
Goldsmith’s University of London
Unit 8, Copeland Park/ Bussey Building, Peckham
8-11 June
The annual BA degree show moves to a new home for 2018, Bussey Building. Come to Peckham and see the latest design emerging from the Goldsmiths BA course.
Ulster University, York Street, Belfast, BT15 1ED
8-12 June
University of the West of England: The Creative Industries Degree Show
City Campus at Bower Ashton Studios, Kennel Lodge Road, Bristol, BS3 2JT; City Campus at Arnolfini, Narrow Quay, BS1 4QA; and City Campus at Spike Island, 33 Cumberland Road, BS1 6UX
8-13 June
The annual Creative Industries Degree Show, Con-form, will showcase work from over 500 graduates from the undergraduate and postgraduate art, design, film and journalism programmes.
Arts University Bournemouth: BA Summer Show
Wallisdown, Poole, Dorset, BH12 5HH
8-15 June
Plymouth University School of Art, Design and Architecture degree show
Roland Levinsky Building, main campus (Illustration, 3D Design, Architecture, Graphic Design); Scott Building, main campus (Media Arts, Photography); Royal William Yard, off campus (Fine Art)
8-15 June
Running alongside the degree show, there will also be an alumni show, Synesthesia, from 9-23 June at the Peninsula Arts Gallery.
University of Salford Degree Show
New Adelphi, University of Salford, University Road, Salford M5 4WT
8-15 June
The University’s annual degree show celebrates the work from across the School of Arts & Media, plus Architecture from the School of Built Environment.
Ruskin Gallery, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1PT
8-16 June
Plymouth College of Art: Degree Show
Plymouth College of Art, Tavistock Place, Plymouth
8-21 June (not Sundays)
Hardwick Centre for Fashion, Art and Photography, St Paul’s Road, Cheltenham, GL50 4BS
8-22 June
University for the Creative Arts: Rochester
UCA Rochester, Fort Pitt, Rochester, Kent, ME1 1DZ
8-22 June (closed Sundays)
University of Westminster: Graphic Communication Design and Contemporary Media Practice
Ambika P3, University of Westminster, 35-100 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS
9-11 June
Vernon St, Leeds, LS2 8PH and Bleinheim Walk, Leeds, LS2 9AQ
9-14 June
This open show will transform the university’s buildings into a large scale exhibition space, giving you the opportunity to view the latest work from their creative, talented students. Degree work is on show at Blenheim Walk, while Vernon Street houses work by those on the Extended Diploma in Art & Design, HE Diploma (Art & Design) and Level 2 Diploma in Visual Arts. You can also purchase prints, cards, stationery and artwork at the Art Market, which will be open at Blenheim Walk (cash payments only).
Buckinghamshire New University Arts & Creative Industries End of Year Show
High Wycombe Campus, Queen Alexandra Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, HP11 2JZ
9-15 June
Courses displaying include Animation and Visual Effects; Foundation Degree Art, Design & Media; Graphic Arts; Interior and Spatial Design; Foundation Degree Kitchen Design; Mechanical Engineering; Product Design; and Textiles and Surface Design. A film illustrating work in the School of Arts & Creative Industries will also be running throughout the show.
Staffordshire University: Show and Tell
College Road, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, ST4 2DE
9-16 June
Hereford College of Arts Degree Show: Synthesis
College Road campus, Hereford, HR1 1LT
9, 11-16 June
Bath Spa University: School of Art and Design Undergraduate Degree Show
Sion Hill campus, Bath BA1 5SF
9-17 June
Edward Barnsley Building, Epinal Way, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU
9-17 June
MK Building, City Campus, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1DT
9-20 June
This year, artwork from over 300 students across 16 BA (Hons) and BDes (Hons) courses will be on display, embracing the areas of applied arts, digital media, fashion and textiles, fine art, graphic communication, illustration, interior design, photography and product design.
Manchester School of Art (Manchester Met)
Benzie, Grosvenor, Chatham and Old Student Union Buildings, MMU All Saints campus, Oxford Rd, Manchester, M15 6BH
9-20 June
University of Reading: Department of Typography & Graphic Communication
TOB2, 2 Earley Gate, Whiteknights, University of Reading, RG6 7BE
11-16 June
Degree shows in BA Graphic Communication, MA Book Design and MA Information Design.
Plymouth College of Art: Foundation Diploma in Art & Design Summer Show
Ocean Studios, Royal William Yard, Plymouth
13-16 June
Free Range: Middlesex University
F Block T1-T5, Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, E1 6QL
14 June-18 July
The Middlesex University Arts and Creative Industries Degree Show 2018, showcases exciting new creative work from graduates in animation, fine art, fashion, graphic design, illustration, photography, interiors and product design.
Free Range: University of Brighton
F Block G4-G5, Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London, E1 6QL
14 June-18 July
‘In Cahoots’ is the collaborative and fully self initiated end of year show from Brighton's Graphic Design and Illustration 3rd year students. The show will be multi faceted ranging through every artistic style, and promises to show off a proper art school sense of individuality.
Merton Hall Road, London, SW19 3QA
14-23 June
The UAL college’s summer show features work from students on its MA Fine Art course and degree courses in painting, sculpture, set design and more.
Brunel University: Made in Brunel 2018
Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, London, SE1 9PH
15-17 June
Goldsmiths University: Degree Shows
Ben Pimlott Building, St James, New Cross, London, SE14 6AD
15, 16, 18 June
University Campus Suffolk: Art, Design and Humanties End of Year Show 2018
Arts Building, Waterfront Building and Gallery, Neptune Quay, Ipswich
15-21 June
University of Central Lancashire
Design: Harrington Social Space, Adelphi Street, Preston, PR1 7BH
Fine Art: Hanover Building, Bhailok Street, Preston, PR1 2YL
Photography: Venue 53, Fylde Road, Preston, PR1 2TQ
15-22 June
City Space, Chester Road, Sunderland, SR1 3SD
15-22 June
Chelsea College of Art and Design: Degree Shows
16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU
15-23 June
University for the Creative Arts: Epsom
Ashley Road, Epsom, KT18 5BE
15-23 June (closed Sundays)
Vijay Patel Building, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH
16-21 June (closed Sunday 17)
Gray’s School of Art Degree Show
Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Garthdee Road, Aberdeen, AB10 7QD
16-23 June
Camberwell College of Arts: Degree Shows
45-65 Peckham Road, London, SE5 8UF
16-23 June
The college’s undergraduate show features work by graduating students from art, graphic design, 3D and illustration courses.
Canterbury Christ Church University: BA Photography Degree Show
Sidney Cooper Gallery, 22-23 St Peter's St, Canterbury CT1 2BQ
16-23 June
University for the Creative Arts: Canterbury
New Dover Road, Canterbury, Kent, CT1 3AN
16-29 June (closed Sundays)
Greenwich Peninsula, 6 Penrose Way, London, SE10 0EW
20-22 June
Central Saint Martins: Degree Show Two
Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London, N1C 4AA
20-24 June
Graduates of graphic design exhibit at this prestigious show alongside other disciplines including architecture and ceramics, jewellery, furniture and design.
London College of Communication: Show 2
21-23 June
LCC invites you to celebrate work by students of graphic design and illustration at its Design School; and film, animation, TV and games design students at its Screen School.
London Metropolitan University: Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design
Central House, 59-63 Whitechapel High St, E1 7PF
22 June -5 July
University of Westminster: Photography
Ambika P3, University of Westminster, 35-100 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS
23-28 June
RCA Kensington: Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2EU
RCA Battersea: Howie Street, London, SW11 4AY
23 June-1 July (closed Friday 30 June)
Plymouth College of Art: Pre-Degree Summer Show
Plymouth College of Art, Palace Court, Plymouth
25-29 June
Norwich University of the Arts Degree Shows
Francis House, 3-7 Redwell St, Norwich, NR2 4SN
26 June-4 July
Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, London, N1 0QH
27-30 June
Every year over 3,000 of the most promising graduate talents from Britain’s leading design courses exhibit at New Designers. Part one of the show features textiles, fashion, costume design, jewellery, glass, ceramics, and contemporary design crafts.
July
Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, London, N1 0QH
4-7 July
Part two of the show features graduates from various design disciplines including graphic design, illustration and animation, motion and digital arts, furniture, product and industrial design, and spatial design and interiors.
The Old Truman Brewery, Shoreditch, London
12-14 July
New Blood Festival brings together emerging talent and industry professionals for a double whammy of Fringe events and a free exhibition in east London. The exhibition sees university courses from around the UK showing off their very best students' work from the past year. It gives industry professionals the chance to meet new talent and young creatives the opportunity to network and skill up.
Camberwell College of Arts: MA Shows
45-65 Peckham Road, London, SE5 8UF
12-18 July
The college’s postgraduate show features work by the college’s MA Visual Arts courses: Book Arts, Designer Maker, Fine Art Digital, Illustration and Printmaking.
Goldsmiths University: Postgrad Shows
Ben Pimlott Building, St James, New Cross, London, SE14 6AD
13, 14, 16 July
Shillington College: Graduate Exhibitions
The Old Truman Brewery F Block - Ground Floor, Elys Yard, London, E1 6QL; Manchester location to be confirmed
27 July (6pm-8pm)
Shillington offers a mixture of short full-time and longer part-time courses that represent an alternative to three-year university degree courses. Check out the impressive and beautiful work by their students, many of whom were beginners to design just three months previously, at their Manchester and London campuses.
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Researchers found an array of vulnerabilities in the Logitech Harmony Hub, shedding light on IoT security.
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An attacker can gain man-in-the-middle access to inject a rogue executable file onto the phone.
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It's been 10 years since Upfest - The Urban Paint Festival was set up by co-founder Stephen Hayles and a small team of like-minded people with a passion for street art. Since then, Upfest has grown to become the largest free event of its kind in Europe, but it needs your help to make the tenth anniversary edition a stand-out event.
Located in south Bristol, a city famous in graffiti circles for its Banksy murals, Upfest 2018 is planned for 28-30 July and is expected to host 400 artists from across the globe, as well as an estimated 50,000 visitors. The event is an inclusive space for artists to come together, paint, and show off their talents with a spray can.
But with running costs ticking over into hundreds of thousands of pounds, the Upfest organisers are once again turning to crowd funding to help cover costs. With a target of £20,000 to help cover materials, management fees and marketing, the Upfest Fundsurfer pledge only has four days left to reach its goal.
Xenz & Will Barras on the Masonic at Upfest 2017: Photo Credit Paul Box
If you're able to dig deep and pledge as little as a fiver towards this amazing event, you'll be thanked for your generosity with a plethora of rewards ranging from a simple smile to a chair shaped like a tin of beans. Everyone who pledges will also be entered into a free prize draw, where you could win a festival weekend stay at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel.
There's just four days to go on this campaign so you'll have to be quick if you want to back this project. Having already raised more than three quarters of the money needed, the end is in sight for Upfest, so our fingers are crossed it'll find the rest of the support it needs soon. We hope to see you there!
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In September 2017, Dutch illustrator and animator Lois van Baarle launched her second crowdfunded project The Sketchbook of Loish. She smashed her £20,000 target almost instantly, eventually closing the campaign with some 10,000 backers pledging £383,404 to bring the project to life.
Van Baarle is by no means unique. Back in June, illustrator Iris Compiet saw her Faeries of the Faultlines artbook funded within 50 minutes. It raised 111,019 EUR before the campaign closed.
According to Kickstarter, 36 per cent of all campaigns are successful. But that means 64 per cent fail. So what’s the secret to running a successful Kickstarter? And are there any pitfalls artists should avoid? Read on to find out...
Check it’s the right platform for you
First, check that crowdfunding is the right way to raise capital for your project. Before throwing yourself into a campaign, ask yourself: do you have a clear goal? And do you have a compelling story to tell that will convince people to stump up the cash?
Compiet did, on both counts. She’d been working as a graphic designer for over 16 years before she crowdfunded her first sketchbook. “I knew all about designing books,” she says. “I wanted something luxurious – a book that would be amazing not only because of the art, but also how it looked. I wanted it to be a treasure in a bookcase. Only the best paper would do. I didn’t want to settle for less.”
Loish has successfully launched two books through Kickstarter
Before launching both of her Kickstarter projects, Van Baarle spent time researching other campaigns in the same field – both those that had been successful and those that hadn’t.
“I read a lot of blogs on running a Kickstarter, and talked to people who knew more about the process than I did,” Van Baarle says. “I also started promotion ahead of time. It’s advised to start at least three months before launch, but I started a year in advance. I worked on it almost every day for 12 months.”
Simon Frisby agrees that adequate preparation and pre-marketing is key to a good Kickstarter project. He launched the wildly successful Nomad Art Satchel with concept artist Darren Yeow a few years ago. In September 2017, the pair launched two further Kickstarter products: The Etchr Art Satchel and Field Case.
Build some buzz
“If your project doesn’t have a bumper first day or two, then you’re fighting an uphill battle,” says Frisby. “We spent a good six months showing iterations of our new products on social media and blog posts, gathering feedback from the art community and building our mailing list,” he recalls. “We even spent time making memes and doing other unconventional things to offer value beyond saying ‘Hey, buy our bag!’, which can be kind of annoying.”
Simon Frisby shared the different iterations of his Nomad Art Satchel to build interest before the launch
Yeow and Frisby also sent prototypes to leading artists and YouTubers, asking them to review the products and provide feedback. “This pre-launch buzz-building is crucial because if you have a good first few days then that momentum can really erupt as ‘social proof’, and you can quickly push past your funding goal as people see your campaign as a winner. I believe we funded our $30k goal in about four minutes,” he says.
“If we did it all again,” he adds, “we would have more early bird specials to avoid disappointment – we just didn’t expect them to go so quickly. We’d also engage with more artists and YouTubers from non-English speaking countries to broaden our exposure.”
Take time off work
Illustrator Emily Hare recommends taking time off work during your campaign – something she wasn’t able to do. She launched her artbook, Strangehollow, in April 2017 after shouting about it on social media for three months. To her surprise, she hit her £2,500 funding target in just two hours, with the project receiving more than £30,000 over the next month.
Emily Hare's Strangehollow project took a lot more time than she anticipated
“I was overwhelmed on the first day of the project as I didn’t expect it to fund so soon, let alone finish the way it did,” says Hare. “Be prepared to be working non-stop, answering emails, posting about your project daily – and that’s only the start of it. It’s a full-time job.”
Also, consider the time needed for your rewards. One mistake Compiet made was to promise people who pledged within the first 48 hours an original sketch in their book. “I limited the time, but not the amount of sketches,” she admits. “I now have over 600 books to sign and sketch in!”
Things like packaging postcards, prints and other pledges also take time. And don’t forget storage. “I never thought I’d have more than 500 books sold,” says Compiet. “I’m looking at over 2,000 now. There’s no way I can store that many books in my home, so I need to rent a secure storage space and get insurance on the books while they’re in storage.”
Be prepared to be working non-stop, answering emails, posting about your project daily – and that’s only the start of it.
Emily HareOne option is to collaborate with a publisher. Van Baarle teamed up with 3D Total for her Kickstarter campaigns. This meant she could focus on the art, while 3D Total took on the technical aspects. “My publisher set up the Kickstarter page, answered questions and did all the work that I didn’t have time for,” she recalls. “I was able to focus on the content of the book and engaging with my online audience, which is my area of expertise.”
Budget properly
Don’t underestimate costs when you’re budgeting a Kickstarter project: ask for full quotes from printers or other partners, keep an eye on taxes and always account for postage when setting your funding goal. “People often get caught out,” says Hare. “Make sure all your potential costs are covered in the funding goal.”
“I’ve learned to avoid over-promising and over-complicating a campaign,” says illustrator Sean Murray, who recently raised $25,593 for his second Sketchbook collection. “Too many reward levels and too many stretch goals without proper budgeting can get you in trouble. Make something awesome, show people how they can get the awesome thing, and then send them the awesome thing.”
Sean Murray kept rewards simple for his sketchbook Kickstarter
Murray attributes his Kickstarter success to his increased Instagram audience. And Frisby agrees that developing a strong social following before launch day is key. He also advises building a mailing list. “For creatives in particular, the Kickstarter platform is useful for turning existing support into raised pledges, but not so effective at driving the new traffic necessary to have a very strong launch,” he says.
Ultimately, he says, it’s all about knowing your audience, and engaging with them before and during launch. “Speak their language,” he advises. “Don’t just ‘market’ to them. Make sure you offer something valuable.”
This article was originally published in ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Subscribe now.
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In a declining industry plagued with tumbling circulation figures and title closures, designing covers for newsstand magazines has become increasingly fraught.
Limitless digital content available in a split-second makes the monthly print cycle of magazines look ever more anachronistic and irrelevant, and the corresponding decline in revenue from print ads only hastens print’s downward spiral.
The battle is no longer print versus digital. Digital has already won. The challenge for print is simply to co-exist, and the frontline of this battle is the cover of your magazine, which must somehow engage, cajole and convince readers that buying something written six weeks ago might somehow still be a worthwhile experience.
But despite all the gloomy headlines announcing the death of print, there are still bold launches and thrilling innovations that suggest all may not be lost. And just as the book publishing industry defended itself against the assault of e-readers with more beautiful jacket designs that celebrated the physical properties of print, so magazine publishers and designers must remind their readers why print is different, not inferior to digital.
01. Beware the formula
GQ (left) doesn’t want you to miss out on any content, so it lists most of it on its cover. Esquire (right) hard sells one story, creating a cover that exudes confidence
An exhausting checklist of unofficial best practices – The Formula – has accumulated over time. These guidelines include adding flashes in the top left quadrant (the hot zone of visibility), running sell lines above your masthead (to grab the browsers attention before they’ve even seen your logo design) and keeping the main cover hit in the top half of the cover (so it’s less likely to be hidden by other titles). The list’s endless: models should make eye contact; the colour pink is ‘feminine’; ‘green shouldn’t be seen’…
The obvious problem with following The Formula is that nearly everyone else on the newsstand is doing the same thing. Browse any magazine shelf and you’ll see an exhausting repetition, a visual cacophony where every title is cancelled out by its identikit neighbour. And despite the apparent common sense behind some of these rules, common sense rarely makes for a truly thrilling magazine cover.
It takes courage to promise less and deliver more, but this is the essence of good design
It takes courage to promise less and deliver more, but this is the essence of good design: make a beautiful image that attracts and engages the reader. Your cover is a (visual) tool to draw your reader to the (written) content. For that split-second when the reader first sees the cover, aesthetics must take precedent for the process of seduction to begin.
A text-heavy cover is shouting at a tiny, vanishing audience – the casual reader browsing a local supermarket or newsagent is all but extinct. If your cover is confident and clear, it will stand out in the crowd.
02. Own your cover image
The Sunday Times (left) frames Tracy Emin from her distinctive arched eyebrows to her chin, her personality powerfully communicated in a daring crop. The New York magazine cover (right) demonstrates how a banal image can be electrifying when daringly cropped
Unless you’re lucky enough to commission original artwork every month, you’ll mostly be faced with making covers from supplied images. Sometimes you'll be sharing an image with another magazine and almost certainly the internet, so you need to make your treatment stand out.
One of the most effective ways to take ownership is to crop the image differently.
Inexperienced designers will tend to use the source image unquestioningly as the cover composition, but experienced designers will look for different crops to make the cover unique.
Imagine having a head-and-shoulders portrait as your source image. The obvious solution would be to have the head roughly fill the available area – so the face is as large as possible – and position coverlines accordingly. But by changing the crop you can radically alter the tone and deliver a fresh editorial message.
Zoom in closer for a larger-than-life face, an instantly arresting image. Shrink or discard the coverlines to increase the cover star’s status, or type them on top of their face, so suddenly your story is more important than the star. Desaturate or even eliminate the colour to communicate a different tone. Or apply illustrations on top of the image to stamp your ownership.
03. Use special print treatments
Despite paying for 100% coverage, Gist (left) uses foil sparingly to make a wonderfully classy cover. Wired Italia (right) applies a fluorescent Pantone pink to stunning effect
Foils and fifth colour Pantones (an additional plate to the default CMYK) are the most effective way of triggering the magpie instinct in readers. The powerful physical presence of foil instantly lifts it above flat colour printing: it reacts to the light, changes tone depending on how it’s displayed and carries a unique currency of quality and luxury with consumers (which is why it’s the de facto choice for so many cosmetics brands). There’s no printing technique as reliable as foil to lend desirability and opulence to your cover.
As foils are costed according to the percentage of the cover area they’re applied to, you’ll see quite a few titles foil their logo, not so many that lavish it from corner to corner. But however you use it, impact on newsstand is guaranteed.
Pantone inks – especially fluorescents – are significantly cheaper and can radically weaponise your design. Explore the back catalogue of Wired (UK and US) for a thorough masterclass in fifth colour treatments.
Spot UVs, embosses, dies-cuts and bespoke cover stock finishes can all be applied to maximise impact, and the best way of finding out what you’d like (and can afford) is to visit your printer. They will be manufacturing a host of other products, from food packaging to corporate brochures, so explore what materials, techniques and treatments might be available. Your printer wants your (repeat) business, so negotiation is not uncommon.
04. Make your cover work on social media
Both covers stand out on newsstand but work just as well as thumbnails
Social media is likely to be your biggest promotional tool and first contact with prospective readers. Your cover design must work both at newsstand and at a radically smaller size.
Just as the music industry has embraced the miniaturisation demanded by the digital age, with album designs increasingly sparse and iconic, so magazine covers must work at different sizes and in different media.
Reduce. Simplify. Email your cover to yourself and look at it on your phone. If it looks cluttered at that size and minor hits are illegible, are they worth retaining? What does your cover communicate about you when compressed to little more than an icon? Does it project authority or chaos?
And use social media to promote your cover before it’s even on the newsstand. Create audience anticipation and give them a reason to look out for you. Post photographs of your best spreads, tag your illustrators and contributors, take advantage of the powerful reach of social media to make your cover (and issue) visible to the vast majority of people who aren’t in WHSmith that week. Don’t be afraid to use the internet to celebrate print. There’s no time to hold grudges.
The two magazines above are so utterly confident in their own brands that they ignore any formula. Elle (left) brutally crops Emma Watson through her chin while eye contact is well below the midpoint of the cover. Even her name is essentially invisible, yet as a thumbnail, the white magazine logo condenses to be wonderfully clear. Bazaar’s cover (right) is equally bold, awarding Paltrow the entire cover but daring to hide her face. Both covers stand out on newsstand but work just as well as thumbnails.
05. Trust your reader (and your instincts)
A ‘commercial’ newsstand Esquire (left) and ‘desirable’ subscriber cover (right) demonstrate the wild disparity at the heart of consumer magazine publishing. The perfect cover probably sits somewhere between these two extremes
Many magazines publish two different covers for the same issue: a regular, text-hit heavy newsstand version, and a subscriber covers, usually stripped of words and featuring a more daring crop. The logic is that the subscriber cover doesn’t need to work at newsstand, so the loyal subscriber is rewarded with the cover they'd prefer.
This practice reveals the low opinions many publishers have of the average reader, who they fear needs to be cajoled, hectored and bullied into parting with their cash. But are the two objectives (selling and looking good) really mutually exclusive? The best magazines dare to imagine that their readers are as smart as them, and design accordingly.
Design is no longer a mysterious art – the aesthetics of Apple’s new OS are discussed at the water cooler along with the new Game of Thrones episode – and simplification and decluttering have become synonymous with quality.
Similarly, trust your own instincts. If something seems wrong with your cover, even if you don’t know what it is, it’s still wrong. Take it all off and start again. Workshop as many different ideas as possible. Don’t waste time refining small details or honing type. Make it work as a whole, first.
And don’t be dismayed if your editor asks you to try something else. If your cover needs explaining, it’s a failure. No amount of polish will save a fundamentally flawed idea. A spontaneous, radical new direction can deliver a killer cover in less than a minute, while bad covers usually take forever because they are, ultimately, never finished. They just get sent to the printers when there’s no longer any time left...
Next page: five more ways to make your magazine cover stand out...
06. Mind your language
Wired (left) is legendary for type-only covers, often employing eye-popping Pantone colours to make the text shout even louder. With a title as respected as Time (right), abandoning artwork reinforces the urgency and power of the headline
As the designer you should know the language and editorial tone of your magazine as well as your editor. Each word is as important as the image, every sentence is another opportunity to reinforce brand values. Design is communication and therefore essentially an extension of vocabulary. Great covers should exhibit a seamless synthesis of words and imagery.
For this reason, designer and editor should ideally work in unison on the cover. Designs batted back and forth between editorial and design are less likely to deliver a cohesive solution. That ‘what if?’ spark needs to be caught instantly and allowed to catch fire. The best editors will invariably have great instincts for design, and good designers will love words (or at least typography) as much as images.
Type-only covers have become increasingly popular and the best examples demonstrate the art/editorial hybrid mind in perfect harmony. Provocative statements or urgent questions can engage the reader just as powerfully as an image, the subliminal message being: This is too important to waste time with a pretty picture.
Type-based covers are difficult to pull off, but well executed treatments can make for powerful brand statements and inevitably stand out against cluttered competitors. If all else fails, do one thing and do it well: sell your cover line. And question the value of supplementary sell-lines. Additional hits should support and enhance the overall design, not exist for their own sake.
07. Be controversial
Candy magazine’s Terry Richardson photograph of Miley Cyrus (left) might have been viewed as merely risqué in 2015. In 2018, it’s difficult to imagine it being published. Adbusters (right) seldom pull the punches with controversial subject matter, and it is impossible not to be struck by this stark, witty cover treatment. Would a top left bubble flash really help?
Grab the attention of the reader and you have achieved your primary purpose: making the magazine a purchase option. But shock tactics aren’t appropriate for all titles, and shouldn’t be deployed gratuitously. Readers will be suspicious of cynical or engineered controversy. Context is everything and provocative covers are meaningless if they doesn’t support a genuine message. However if the editorial team do have a daring idea to communicate, your duty as designer is to amplify it.
Of course, getting your magazine withdrawn from the newsstands is a very real danger. Magazines do get taken from the shelves and if you read your audience wrong, you’ll alienate them in the short term and damage trust in the long term.
Sex isn’t the only shock tactic: religion and politics are probably the riskiest subject matters, and cultural tastes are fluid. A sexually provocative cover in 2018 will fall under much greater scrutiny than it might have done pre-#MeToo. Politically sensitive subjects should be approached with maximum caution, although provocative treatments may evade censorship (and rancor) if tempered with sophisticated wit.
08. Brand your own content
Time keeps the cover star behind the logo, establishing a hierarchy of importance. Vogue Italia makes cover model Hadid huge, but the black, stamped masthead is dominant. Both magazines choose subjects that are of equal status to their own brands
Your magazine is more important than your content. Whatever your cover, and however big a deal it is, your brand – the masthead logo, the identity, the values – are your primary concern. Your cover is more than just a billboard for your current issue, it is an ongoing advertisment of brand.
A film magazine with an exclusive on the latest Star Wars movie might be forgiven for sacrificing their own masthead legibility in favour of letting the cover image dominate, but by transferring brand collateral over to your cover star, you make a subtle statement of subservience.
During the design process, you should be constantly printing out your current cover and setting it against the previous half-dozen to see what, if anything, is happening with your brand. Over enthusiasm (or over-promising) can sometimes lead to brand-wounding cover treatments that weaken credibility and dilute authority.
So be prepared (with your editor) to push back over supplied imagery and/or resist commercial pressures. In an ideal world, you will only run covers that share your values. Remember, your brand and your cover subject are inexorably linked, and if there are early doubts over the merits of your cover subject, it's better to address them immediately (and find another cover) than be forever haunted by your own back issues page...
09. Make your cover an event
Multiple covers don’t have to be variations on a theme. Port took an opportunity to deliver two radically different covers for the same issue. The confidence this communicates to the reader is itself an affirmation of Port’s identity and brand authority
Split-run covers can be an effective and cost-efficient way to get attention on the newsstand and generate social media interest. It’s likely your cover is printed four-up – four covers on one sheet of paper which are then cut down and bound – so supplying four different designs can cost next to nothing. Suddenly your new cover is not just about your latest issue – it’s an event.
There’s something intrinsically satisfying about seeing variations on a theme. Simple transitions on social media of your different cover treatments engage reader attention and give an additional spin to your new issue narrative: which cover will you find on the newsstand?
Suddenly your new cover is not just about your latest issue – it’s an event.
And split-runs don’t have to even be for the reader’s benefit. They can be a valuable testing ground for new ideas or treatments. Why not print 75 per cent of your covers with a regular design, but put out 25 per cent with a more daring treatment, as a subtle piece of market research? Regular readers rarely have trouble expressing their preferences and audience feedback is always valuable.
Part of the pleasure (and torture) of magazine design is that however many colour proofs you make, when the finished magazine comes back from the printer, its physical presence will always be slightly different to how you imagined it. Publishing straight to the internet is a brutally efficient, digital exercise – what you see is what you get – but printing magazines is analogue, mercurial and magical.
10. Pay attention to indie mags
If God made magazines, they’d probably look like Migrant Journal (left), the undisputed indie hit of recent years. Port (right) is now an elder statesman of indie publishing, and its smart redesign shows it to be just as hungry now as it was in 2011
The success of the indie magazine market can be a source of anguish for mainstream magazine designers, who often look at their opulent production values and resolutely non-commercial cover treatments with hopeless envy. And whilst their largely subscriber-based/specialist shop distribution mean there are few practical lessons to be learnt from them, their energy, passion and enthusiasm offer a timely reminder of how magazines can still be valued as prestigious products to be celebrated on their own terms.
Recent successes like Migrant Journal and Mushpit both radically rethink how a magazine can look and read: the former presenting deep content with a clinical precision closer to an academic journal (albeit beautifully designed), the latter brattishly throwing every convention of ‘good design’ out of the window and reengaging with readers in a playfully aggressive fashion.
The (best) indies demonstrate the magazine format to be an infinitely mutable medium, capable of radical reinvention and continued relevance. It is the indie mags that have responded most readily to the challenges of existing in a digital world, championing the value of magazines in their own right. Adopting the (more often than not) wilful obtuseness of their cover designs is unlikely to translate to a mainstream, newsstand title, but there are underlying principles of audience engagement, brand-as-content and bold experimentalism that can be inspiring and instructive.
Mark Wynne is the art editor of Computer Arts magazine, the world's best-selling design magazine. Subscribe to make sure you don't miss his next cover.
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Having raised almost $100,000 on Kickstarter – nearly $20,000 over its target – Design Canada, a documentary about the history of Canadian graphic design, is premiering this summer.
It's five years since Greg Durrell, who is a partner at Hulse & Durrell, and his collaborators Jessica Edwards and Gary Hustwit began filming. The team thought they were finished last year, but ended up having to delay the release in order to rework a story arch.
Throughout filming, they met the heavyweights of Canadian graphic design – the people responsible for the design thinking that ultimately shaped the nation.
Watch the trailer below and read on for our exclusive interview with Durrell...
What inspired you to start the project?
Growing up in Canada, I realised I was surrounded by beautiful symbols and logos, but I could never really find any information about them. As my frustration grew, I decided to make a film about it. When I began the project I didn’t even know anyone who had made a film before. A mutual friend put me in contact with Jessica and Gary and a half-decade later, the rest is history.
Did you discover any new design work?
I feel like I discovered archives which had not been seen in decades. Tracking down Canada’s design pioneers was often a challenge. Little information existed about them online and when I showed up at their homes often I would be looking through their body of work for the first time. The Canadian design story was not documented in the same way as in the UK or US.
Allan Fleming designed the CN logo in the 1960s
In terms of my favourite design from the project, I think the CN Railway logo was the one which had the biggest impact on design in Canada because prior to that identity, Canadian companies had logos with frilly maples leaves, beavers and various kitschy-Canadiana elements. CN showed Canada that you could modernise and still be Canadian.
Who were you most excited to talk to?
Having the opportunity to interview Massimo Vignelli about Canadian design two years before he passed was a huge honour.
Why do you think your Kickstarter campaign was so successful?
I think there was a lot of exceptional work from that period that has not received the proper recognition that it deserves and people are curious to learn more.
How did you keep motivated over so many years?
The story was something I was very passionate about and I knew from the start that it would take years to complete. I believe that small daily habits can build into extraordinary outcomes, so motivation wasn’t a huge issue. I’ve always enjoyed long-term over short-term projects.
Burton Kramer talks to Greg Durrell during filming
Why did you decide to delay the film's release in 2017?
The decision to delay the release was doing what was best for the film. We had a narrative thread that weaved some of our stories together, and it was not working. It was one of those situations where on paper it sounded great but in executive it was off and we knew we could fix it. This resulted in delaying our release nine months, blowing up our timeline, reshooting new stories and then reassembling everything. but it was worth it.
Will the film help boost Canada's reputation?
Regardless of what it does, or does not do for Canada’s international perception, I hope people take away that graphic design matters and it influences our lives every day. If we can become more conscious of it and use it as a tool, we can build a better country and ultimately a better world.
Design Canada is screening in Canada this summer
How can people see the film?
Follow us at www.designcanada.com and on social @designcanfilm to stay up to date about screenings near you and the digital release at the end of the summer.
This article will appear in Computer Arts issue 280, on sale on 29 May. Subscribe here.
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In this new media environment, where visuals are needed to catch people's attention, video editing is a must-have skill. Adobe Premiere Pro CC is the tool trusted by professionals, and you can become one with the Adobe Premiere Pro CC Masterclass, on sale right now for just $21 (approx. £16).
Adobe Premiere Pro CC is the editing tool video pros trust. The best way to learn this powerful app is to go hands-on, and this comprehensive course will help you get to work with this do-it-all video editing application. You'll get 59 lectures and over 5.5 hours of actionable lessons, that will help you pick up skills that will look great on your resume, or just help you put together some great videos to put on social media.
The Adobe Premiere Pro CC Masterclass usually retails for $200. You can get it on sale right now for just $21 (approx. £16). That's a savings of 89 per cent off the retail price for a course that will have you editing video like an expert, so grab this deal today!
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If you're on the hunt for some web design inspiration, look no further. Pixel Pioneers, a one-day conference for web and UX designers as well as front-end developers, is returning to Bristol's harbourside on 8 June, this time preceded by a day of workshops.
Following on from last year's inaugural event, Pixel Pioneers Bristol will feature some of the brightest minds in web design and user experience, such as Ida Aalen, Simon Collison, Sarah Richards and Heydon Pickering. The talks will cover design systems, inclusive interface design, variable fonts, content design, how to influence users' perception of your site's speed, and more.
You can also choose between two workshops on Thursday, 7 June:
- Easy and Affordable User Testing with Ida Aalen
- Psychology for UX and Product Design with Joe Leech
Plus, An Evening Afloat With Shopify, a free conference warm-up aboard the Grain Barge will include an informal fireside chat with designers Mike Kus, Djuro Selec and Michael Flarup about their top tips for work-life balance in the creative and tech industries, and how we keep ourselves motivated, accountable and on track.
Pixel Pioneers founder, former net magazine editor Oliver Lindberg says: "A lot of the big UK conferences are expensive and/or tend to be in London. Freelancers, small businesses and students often miss out on going to events because of the cost and the time sacrifice involved. I wanted to change that and create an affordable event with international speakers for local communities, right on their doorstep, so people don’t have to travel. It made sense to start in Bristol because the city (and the whole South West for that matter) has such a vibrant tech and digital community."
Bristol has an amazing UX community, and I'm thrilled to be able to bring some true pioneers to the city
Oliver Lindberg"I'm particularly excited about the focus on user-centred design. There will be a lot of talks, crammed with practical takeaways, that will explain how to make the web better and improve user experiences for everyone. Bristol has an amazing UX community, and I'm thrilled to be able to bring some true pioneers to the city, such as Ida Aalen, who will come all the way from Oslo to tell us how to do user testing with limited resources.
"Or Sarah Richards, who created the discipline of 'content design' and leads the way in creating user-centred content. I'm also excited about adding workshops to the Bristol schedule for the first time. For example, as Joe Leech's psychology talk was so popular last year, I've asked him to come back to run a full-day workshop on UX psychology."
Jeremy Keith kicking off the inaugural conference last year
There will be plenty of networking opportunities, including an after-party with free drinks. Student and group discounts for five people or more are available. Please contact the organiser for details.
Pixel Pioneers is also working in partnership with GWR to offer conference attendees heavily discounted rail fares to and from Bristol. If you're planning to travel on a GWR route, go to this page and select 'Bristol'. You'll get a London to Bristol return for £44, for example (this is for a fixed outward journey with flexibility on the return). You only need to be able to provide proof of attending the conference.
We're offering an exclusive 10% discount for Pixel Pioneers Bristol, which applies to both the conference and the workshops. Just use the code 'creativebloq'.
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In total, Microsoft’s May Patch Tuesday roundup included 68 security patches, with 21 listed as critical, 45 rated important and two listed low in severity.
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The flaws would leave the enterprise devices helpless to a range of remote threats, including the charms of the Reaper IoT botnet.
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Adobe fixed critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player and Creative Cloud as part of its regularly scheduled May Security Bulletin, on Tuesday.
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As companies continue to install the vulnerable version of Apache Struts behind the breach, Equifax has filed a clarification statement.
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Some people just know how to get things done. If you want to be one of those people who knows how to get the most out of others, you need to pick up the Essential Project Management Certification Training Bundle. You can get it on sale now for 96% off the retail price!
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The Essential Project Management Certification Training Bundle is valued at $1,800 but you can save a whopping 96% off the retail price right now. That's a great deal for a bundle that will help get you into the career you want, so grab it today!
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Poser software is greatly underrated. With version 11, its PBR Superfly engine enables it to create tremendous realism across a wide range of areas of 3D art, rendering directly in-program without the need to rely on exporting, third-party plugins, or integrating into high-end programs for materials and lighting that obey physically correct laws.
As with any tool, with great power often comes a bewildering range of options, parameters and tweaks that can quickly overwhelm even experienced users. That's why we've compiled this list of 19 tips for using Poser that will help take your renders to the next level.
01. Tweak settings for better reflections
This bathroom artwork, complete with reflections, is by Jura11
Noise in the light or shadows or on reflective surfaces may simply be the result of insufficiently high pixel samples in your Superfly render settings, but it may also mean that certain render settings need to be selectively increased.
Sometimes tweaking these can save overall render time whilst producing the improvements you seek. In the image above, you can increase the Glossy bounces setting to account for the reflective floor and mirror without cranking up the overall pixel samples beyond 50. If you felt it necessary to add realism to the bath water, you could increment the Volume parameter, and even activate Caustics, although these three can greatly increase render times.
02. Check indirect lighting
This beautifully lit scene was created by erogenesis
If you are still using a version of Poser older than 11, be sure to check the Indirect illumination option for richer shadow detail when creating Firefly renders. Be aware however, that trans-mapped hair or other transparent/reflective surfaces can reduce your renders to a snail’s pace that takes many hours, even days for a single HD scene.
In general, using less shadow blur works well with bright sunlight and objects close to the surface they are casting on, whereas grey days, interior lighting or objects further from the shadows they are casting all produce softer shadows.
03. Use optimal render settings
Choose the Superfly rendering engine and select GPU rendering. Rendering with Branched Path Tracing turned off (for additional render stability), and a setting of just 5 Pixel Samples is enough to assess colour, lighting and general form of even 4K images in just a few minutes. Then you can ramp up the settings as needed.
I find that a setting of 40 overall gives great results, and sometimes you can get away with as little as 30 or even 20.
04. Speed up transparency renders
Rendering transparency can bring Poser’s Firefly or Superfly rendering engines to a grinding halt, increasing rendering times from minutes to hours. Nowhere is this more apparent than when using multi-layered transparency effects such as DAZ’s more recent hair creations (yes Genesis 3 can be converted to fit your earlier figures).
For Superfly test renders, you’ll want to either hide these hair figures or set the max transparency in the render settings down to just 1 or 2. When you come to final render, you’ll want to bump the minimum up to 8 or even 16 in order to ensure that transparency looks good.
05. Increase bucket size
You can significantly improve rendering speed by increasing the bucket size on the Superfly render tab if you are using your GPU to render. The bucket speed determines the number of pixels that the program will render simultaneously, and the number of cores on your graphics card will determine the bucket size your card can manage. Try 128 and increase in increments until performance starts to degrade.
06. Send to the queue
In addition to its network rendering, you can instead send multiple renders to the render queue (Render>Send to). This is a great way to set up renders before you go to bed, however, it is somewhat twitchy about being paused if you require your processor for other tasks.
I find that the best workflow is to only send jobs to the queue when you do not require your computer for anything else that night. Then it’s simply a matter of loading jobs to Poser, choosing camera angles, clicking the Send to Queue button, and going to bed.
07. Consider scene interaction
This example of how to draw figures is by Ladonna
The tiny details make all the difference. By all means start with off-the shelf poses, but then take the time to adjust them precisely to your scene. Off-the-shelf poses tend to work well when the figures are not interacting with anything other than the ground.
However, you’ll want to carefully adjust the bends and angles of hands, fingers, feet, toes and any other body parts that interact with objects. Nothing spoils the illusion of reality quicker than stock hands that don’t interact properly, or feet floating off the ground. Ten minutes of extra work makes a world of difference.
08. Remove or add clutter
Keeping the near distance uncluttered can focus the viewer’s attention and avoid confusing figure profiles and distracting shadows, especially when background scenery is naturally busy (flora, textured walls or complex landscape topography).
When it comes to scenes without distant backgrounds, adding clutter can create intimacy, and provide subtle additional threads to the narrative of your image, encouraging the viewer to explore beyond the central tableau. Carefully arranged clutter can lead your viewer’s eye around your image, creating a living narrative that has the central figures as the focal point.
09. Focus on the eyes
These stunning eyes were created by Ghostship
Aim to create a connection with the character’s eyes. The focal point for eyes can tell a story in its own right. Sometimes eyes that don’t meet another person’s, or that don’t look straight at the camera, can speak volumes. At other times, a direct gaze bespeaks honesty, openness or confidence.
Convert your characters to Superfly-ready materials with Snarly Gribbly’s superb EZSkin script. Once you’ve run this, you can then replace the eye material nodes with Ghostship’s eyes, which creates much better realism. You can always swap your previous irises back into the material nodes if you need specific colours.
10. Vary skin tones
Create skin types for different ethnicities (or levels of tan) by altering the base colour or the subsurface colour. In an ideal world, you’d digitise real people and use those photos to create skin of the precise colour you need, but that takes a huge amount of work and time to accomplish.
I created a pale skin base, and can create a range of different tones, from red-head white, rosy pink to darker skin, by changing the base colour. You’ll sometimes need to give an extra tweak to mouth, lips and nipple bases to create a consistent appearance.
Next page: More tips on Poser, including how to use lighting and materials
11. Consider body weight
Most off-the-shelf models come with morphs for shape and muscularity, but none have settings for interaction with other objects (the ground, couches and chairs, etc). Sinking a character’s feet slightly into the ground or their buttocks into a chair will avoid that floaty look caused by simply dropping to the ground or resting on a surface. Use the Morph tool or magnets to deform the skin or couch surface to give the illusion of weight.
12. Make use of area lights
When it comes to lighting, sometimes less is more. A single overhead or frontal area light will often provide sufficient soft lighting with no other lights needed. The more lights in a scene, the more the rendering engine has to calculate and the greater the likelihood of unwanted noise artefacts. The softness of an area light’s shadows are proportional to its scale.
In the past, you’d mess about with infinite lights, having to make building parts invisible to simulate internal overhead light arrays. Now you can simply insert a single area into the room at a scale of say 1,000%, and a brightness of 300% is a great size for lighting a large room or hall.
13. Check out EZDome
When it comes to lighting outdoor scenes, Snarly Gribbly’s free EZDome program is a versatile replacement for the old Firefly IBL system. It uses smart image-based lighting (sIBL) images which include the sun’s location. You can convert standard HDRI images to sIBL using sIBL Edit – which is also free.
EZDome will add an sIBL or HDRI to a full or half sky dome, and can then be set to automatically add a shadow-casting light that will be applied at the correct point in the scene. This is a great and easy way to add realistic 360-degree lighting to a scene.
14. Don't be constrained by realism
Even though you may be using Poser’s powerful Cycles-based renderer, if your scene is better served by highlighting and accenting with lights that could not exist in the real world (such as spot whose origin is inside the visible scene yet has no visible source to the viewer), then don’t be such a slave to realism that you sacrifice the effect you are seeking.
One subtle effect for creating drama is a low-level, upwards-facing spot attached to the figure’s head (think of the old campfire horror-story trick with a flashlight). Turned bright, the effect is stark, but turned very low, it’s a great way to add some subtle fill-in colour to a dark scene.
15. Utilise gobos for shadows
Use gobos or billboards to cast shadows rather than depending upon expensive geometry. The old Firefly way of simply plugging an image directly into the light’s colour channel no longer works. In Superfly, the easiest way is simply to create a semi-transparent plane and attach it in front of the spot that you want to affect (much as a photographer would use a gel).
However, using this slightly more sophisticated setup (thanks to piersyf for the original), you can extend the effect to create stained glass and projector effects. You can use a mix of greyscale or coloured imagery to add interest and realism.
16. Apply displacement
Superfly uses a different displacement engine to Firefly (vertex displacement rather than micro polygon). With Superfly, the more polygons, the greater the displacement resolution. Before you can even apply displacement, you’ll have to open the object’s properties tab and increase subdivision to 3 or even 5.
There is an option with a multipart model, such as a human figure, to subdivide only the parts that you need extra resolution on (the face for instance). This avoids creating unwieldy numbers of polygons that will needlessly degrade your system performance. Subdivision is also a great way to smooth jagged bends on older figures.
17. Set up Cycles
Don’t feel the need to create Cycles node rigs just because they are part of the Superfly PBR engine. These can be complicated to set up, and there are still imperfections and unpredictabilities
in Poser’s implementation of certain features, such as transparency and displacement. The Poser surface root node does an excellent job of approximating many Cycles features for a fraction of the effort, complexity and rendering time. That said, notwithstanding the occasional feature that was not ported over, you can copy Cycles materials from Blender across to Poser if you find any that you like.
18. Create hair gloss
If you are repurposing hair materials intended for the default renderer for use in Superfly (almost all off-the-shelf products), you’ll usually need to reduce the glossiness, reflection or specularity. These will usually be plugged into the ALTERNATE specularity channel.
Lips and fingernails will also commonly need reworking. Expand Anisotropic nodes and look for values labelled ‘Glossiness’ or ‘K’s’. These can usually be reduced to 0.1 or less. The easiest solution is simply to delete anything plugged into the alternate diffuse or specularity channels. You’ll probably want to reduce any primary specularity or reflection values too.
19. Create grass
Importing polygon grass is expensive on your memory budget, and using the hair room to grow it is even more costly on your processing, especially during render.
If you are using the Firefly renderer, there’s thankfully an easy technique you can use to effectively create ‘fur’ grass or carpet. Simply attach a noise node to the displacement input. If you use a Clouds node in the Diffuse input, or a carpet pattern, this is a great way to transform bland polygons. For carpet combine the noise with a greyscale bump map using the Blender node if you want to give it deep pile sculpting.
This article originally published in 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 233 now or subscribe.
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Design is all about solving problems. One such problem we all face every day is how to get around without getting lost.
British designers have considerable form in this area. Harry Beck's London Underground tube map is an undisputed design icon, and Margaret Calvert's much-imitated UK road signage is the envy of the world.
For many of us, sat navs have replaced the humble road atlas for navigating over long distances, but when it comes to town centres, museums or famous buildings, hospitals or other potentially confusing places, wayfinding design really comes into its own.
What is wayfinding?
In a nutshell, wayfinding design is all about spatial problem solving.
If you're in a particular area of a building or environment, a great piece of wayfinding design will tell you exactly where you are, where you want to go, and how to get there as quickly as possible.
Read on to discover five particularly effective examples of wayfinding design from around the world, and what you can learn from them...
01. Falls Creek ski resort
Signage in Falls Creek slots together in many different configurations
Great wayfinding and signage design can be as much about innovative and creative use of materials as it is about communication design.
Winner of a D&AD Wood Pencil in Environmental Graphics in 2011, Büro North's wayfinding work for the Falls Creek ski resort in Australia does exactly that.
As well as signposts, the modular system also accommodates maps and information boards
Like most ski resorts, Falls Creek is a complex, rambling place with extensive need for signage. Büro North's modular system enables different signpost units to be slotted together as required.
The design caters to a huge variety of potential directions that a sign might need to point within the ski village, as well as providing the maximum visibility of information within an economical, versatile sign structure.
02. Google Chrome Web Lab
These Google Chrome Web Lab exhibition graphics split the different exhibits into clearly marked zones
Wayfinding isn't restricted to the physical world, as shown by the innovative design of Google's Chrome Web Lab exhibition at London's Science Museum.
As well as being a physical installation that visitors could explore in person, the exhibition was open to the world via 24-hour web cam feeds.
Designed to be equally useful for in-person and online visitors, the graphics make sense from above
Technological experiments included as the 'Universal Orchestra', which encouraged users to collaborate through physical and virtual instruments, and 'Sketchbot', a camera that converted your portrait into a sand drawing.
To make the exhibition equally navigable for in-person and online visitors, London-based design consultancy Bibliothèque split the exhibition into distinct architectural planes, using a graphic flowchart system on the floor that could also be read from a birds-eye-view perspective.
03. V&A Ceramics Galleries
Cartlidge Levene designed these bold exhibition graphics to fit around the display cabinets
Another D&AD Wood Pencil winner, Cartlidge Levene's exhibition graphics for the V&A Ceramics Galleries demonstrate how wayfinding can also help you navigate through complex layers of information in a small space.
Briefed to integrate the graphics seamlessly with the architectural design of the space, Cartlidge Levene made use of the walls, ceilings and display units.
The easily updated labeling system encourages interaction with the exhibits
This included large-scale type in the ceiling cornicing, and dates painted directly onto wall surfaces to provide narrative and act as navigational aids.
An easily updated label system integrates with the display cases, while bold enamel graphics interact with the furniture to explain the ceramic-making process.
04. University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück
Büro Uebele bucked the wayfinding trend and used the ceiling instead of the walls to guide people
This striking wayfinding for the University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück raises the stakes on the awards front: it won Büro Uebele a D&AD Yellow Pencil.
The agency's description is poetic: "A sky of black letters and numbers, interspersed with red clouds. Words like stars show the way, guiding the traveler. The ceiling is the firmament, scattered with words, the concrete walls are bare."
The University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück wayfinding system won a D&AD Yellow Pencil
Making use of the ceiling instead of the walls, the system guides people through the corridors, repeating key information about destinations in huge, unmissable type with clear arrows pointing the way.
While the floor and walls are brutally simple and bare, the ceiling – or "starry sky", as the agency puts it – does all the work.
05. Here East campus
dn&co's striking wayfinding system for Here East is inspired by an electrical diagram
Occupying a 1.2 million square-foot area on the site of the former London 2012 Olympics, Here East is a vast campus for tech entrepreneurs.
Working alongside Poke London and Hawkins\Brown, dn&co created bold, flexible and expressive branding for Here East, based around a disrupted 'H'.
Bespoke icons add personality, while bright orange lines on the walls and floor lead you to your destination
As part of the brand development, dn&co also took responsibility for the wayfinding and signage to help people navigate the enormous campus.
Catering to the audience's specialist reference points, the wayfinding system and accompanying iconography is inspired by electrical diagrams.
It literally leads people through the space to their destination, using bright orange lines and bold symbols on the floor and walls.
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Logo design is the bread and butter of the design industry, and the best logos of all time have been hotly debated for years. But what defines a truly iconic logo, and has that changed over time?
Of course, modern branding goes far beyond the design of a quality marque – and there are many different elements at play, from colour and use of typography to style of art direction and tone of voice.
There are some brands so strong they don't need a logo, as their other elements are so distinctive and well-established – but of course, they do still have one.
Many of the world's best logos have a particular place in our hearts, and plenty of uproar has been caused over the years about logos that should never have been changed (and in some case, are swiftly changed back again).
As shown by the winners of Computer Arts' Brand Impact Awards in recent years, some market sectors are traditionally stronger, or more risk-taking, than others. It's easier to create an edgy cultural or artisan brand than to do the same in financial services or FMCG, for instance.
Read on for our essential guide to the best logos of all time, according to market sector. We will keep adding to this post with up-to-date examples.
01. Best logos for iconic brands
02. Best entertainment logos
03. Best sports brand logos
04. Best design industry logos
05. Best technology brand logos
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Perhaps one of the best things about being alive in the social media age is the unsightly rush to have opinions whenever a new logo design is revealed. Given any new logo, the internet – that is, Twitter – can't wait to critique its every detail and pick apart all its faults. It's the first step on the road to being hailed as a modern design classic a few years down the line.
Even better is when a well-meaning but entirely unqualified CEO decides to take matters into her own hands and design the logo herself, as Marissa Mayer infamously did with the Yahoo! logo back in 2013. So the news this morning that the First Lady of the United States had unveiled an exciting new initiative and also designed the logo had us, quite reasonably, rubbing our hands in glee.
Melania Trump's initiative, entitled Be Best, aims to encourage children to literally be best in their individual paths, while focusing on the three biggest issues facing young people today: well-being, social media use, and of course, opioid abuse.
Spot the difference
While it's clearly driven by the very best intentions, it's already drawn plenty of internet shade, particularly for the jarringly ungrammatical name and its pamphlet on safety online that's a mildly updated copy of another pamphlet from 2014. But what's really got us going is that logo.
According to the White House, FLOTUS designed it herself, and while Melania has form for claiming other people's work as her own, in this case we can quite believe it. Apparently Melania likes clean lines and wanted something that would appeal to children, and this is the result.
An unkind person might suggest that it looks like it was scrawled with a chisel tip marker in five seconds, then scanned and coloured in Photoshop. We think it looks more like it was drawn on-screen using free chisel tip Photoshop brushes. Others have been less kind.
For once, we're enjoying a social media logo backlash without an ounce of the usual low level guilt that we usually feel when everyone's ripping on a perfectly acceptable design that's just a little unexpected and different. Keep it coming, Twitter.
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Adobe has reinforced its commitment to K-12 schools with a new Creative Cloud offer. As of May 15, 2018, the full suite of Adobe Creative Cloud apps will be available to US primary and secondary schools via its authorised Adobe reseller for $4.99 per user license, per year.
The subscription gives students their very own license and sign-in, providing access both at school and home. Terms include a minimum purchase quantity of 500 licenses for a single school, or 2,500 licenses for a school district.
The offer follows Adobe's announcement in January to provide access to Spark for Education, a set of storytelling apps with premium features and additional capabilities for K-12 and higher education institutions, free of charge.
In this blog post, Sharif Karmally, senior product marketing manager at Creative Cloud for education comments: "We are on an exciting journey, collaborating with educators to empower the next generation to be lifelong creators. With these two new offers, Spark for Education and Creative Cloud for K-12, we’re equipping teachers with the apps, training, and support they need to make this happen. We can’t wait to see all of the amazing things students create on their journey to becoming the creative problem solvers of the future."
Save 15% on Adobe Creative Cloud
Creative Bloq readers get a special 15% discount on Creative Cloud membership
The price drop for K-12 schools isn't the only Adobe deal up for grabs. We’ve teamed up with Adobe to offer Creative Bloq readers a special 15% discount on Creative Cloud membership. Instead of paying the usual US$49.94/£49.94 every month, you’ll pay just $42.46/£42.46 for the first year.
The offer is valid from now until 13 May 2018, and includes Adobe’s entire suite of desktop and mobile apps for Mac and PC, from essentials such as Photoshop CC to next generation tools such as Adobe XD CC.
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Hundreds of sites vulnerable to 'Drupalgeddon 2.0' have been impacted by a massive cryptomining campaign.
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Lenovo warns of a high-severity bug impacting its System x line of servers, along with a medium-severity buffer-overflow vulnerability affecting its popular ThinkPad line.
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The design world is by no means child's play. Or is it? Recently, graphic designer Dave Sedgwick, owner of Manchester-based agency Studio DBD, merged the two worlds together, using his two-year-old daughter's scribbles to form the basis of a new packaging design label for Track Brewing Co.
Sedgwick has been working with the Track brand since they started out back in 2015. "A small brewery in Manchester, I created the brand identity, pump clips and bottle beer labels etc and I still do all this today," he says.
"We have a great working relationship and they are quite good at allowing me to have creative freedom. My two-year-old daughter Aoife is obsessed with the jobs my wife and I do, and she’s been to my studio a fair bit to see my work. I always thought it would be cool to 'collaborate’ with her on something!'
And so that's exactly what Sedgwick did. "I had a lot of beer labels to design and it’s hard to be consistently creative with them," he adds. "Aoife was doing some drawings, trying to make numbers, letters, etc, and I just thought they looked so unique and interesting. So I scanned them in and started to play with the colours and voila!"
When explaining the deisgn process with Track Brewing, Sedgwick was met with instant approval. "I’m not sure how many clients would allow the designer's toddler to be involved," he says. "But Track trust me and so when I sent the design and explained it all they just said ‘cool’!
Since tweeting about (above) the project recently, Sedgwick has had an overwhelmingly positive response. "I can’t believe the reaction the project has got - it's gone crazy," he says. "Of course Aoife is oblivious to it all!"
Oblivious she may be, but Sedgwick assures us his young design mentee will be paid for her contribution.
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When working in Photoshop, simple tasks can become a hindrance to your workflow. To help out, we've got a great selection of Photoshop shortcuts right here, all guaranteed to speed up your workflow once you get the hang of them.
We've also got free Photoshop actions to create stunning effects and some brilliant Photoshop tutorials to help you put them into practice.
Want to change the size of your text? No problem. Deselect a layer or merge a series of layers? We've got you covered. There are also some handy hints for brushes, saving and closing, and viewing options. Whether you're using an old version of CS or the latest Creative Cloud update, these shortcuts are guaranteed to speed up your workflow.
(Prefer a quick visual guide instead? Take a look at our handy Photoshop shortcuts cheat sheet.)
Manipulating and arranging layers is simple with these great Photoshop shortcuts
01. Create New layer
- MAC: Shift+Cmd+N
- WINDOWS: Shift+Ctrl+N
Get started on your latest project in next to no time with this handy shortcut that instantly whips up a new layer and dialogue box.
02. Create new layer behind selected layer
- MAC: Ctrl+New Layer icon
- WINDOWS: Cmd+New Layer Icon
Mastering the new layer shortcut is a doddle, so once you're ready to drop in a layer behind it, be sure to use this shortcut.
03. Fill a layer
- MAC: Alt+Backspace (foreground) or Cmd+Backspace (background)
- WINDOWS: Alt+Delete (foreground) or Ctrl+Delete (background)
This command will fill an empty later with the current foreground or background colour.
04. Flatten layers
- MAC: Cmd+Alt+Shift+E
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E
Add a new, empty layer to the top of your stack, select it and use the above command to flatten the layers in an image to sharpen the result. This adds a flattened version of the image to the new layer but leaves the stacked layers intact too.
05. Merge visible layers
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+E
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+E
This command enables you to merge all your existing layers to create one new layer. Beware! Once merged, they're extremely difficult to separate.
06. Stamp down selected layers
- MAC: Cmd+Alt+E
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Alt+E
Once you've selected your layers, use this command to merge them into just one layer. To see them merged as a new layer, simply add in the Shift modifier. This is useful if you need to make adjustments later on.
07. New layer via copy
- MAC: Cmd+J
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+J
Use this command to create a new layer from an existing one. Sound complicated? Give it a go!
08. New layer via cut
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+J
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+J
Like creating a new layer via copy, this command will create a new layer with the selected image area in it. The only difference via cut is that it will remove the selected image portion from the original image.
09. Bring layer to top of stack
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+]
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+]
Here, you can move your preferred layer to the top of the stack of images you're working with in Photoshop.
10. Send layer to bottom of stack
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+[
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+[
Yep, this is pretty self-explanatory. It does exactly the same as the command above, but in the opposite direction.
11. Bring layer forward
- MAC: Cmd+]
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+]
This Photoshop shortcut enables you to bring any selected image to the front.
12. Send layer back
- MAC: Cmd+[
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+[
If you decide to change your mind, you can always select the image and send it to the back of the pile.
13. Copy multiple layers
- MAC: Shift+Cmd+C
- WINDOWS: Shift+Ctrl+C
Draw a selection, then use this command to take every layer into the clipboard, rather than just the current layer selection.
Next page: Selections
Adding, subtracting, inverting. Getting selections right has never been easier
14. Reselect
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+D
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+D
This is a great command for when you accidentally click away from a section. Pressing these keys will have that section reselected in no time.
15. Invert selection
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+I
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+I
Select objects around a pre-selected image. This way, you can work around your main focus without losing it.
16. Select all layers
- MAC: Cmd+Opt+A
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Alt+A
A perfect command for those times when you need to get everything in sync.
17. Select bottom layer
- MAC: Opt+,
- WINDOWS: Alt+,
This will select the bottom layer in the Layers panel.
18. Select top layer
- MAC: Opt+.
- WINDOWS: Alt+.
This will select the top layer in the Layers panel.
19. Deselect from the selection area
- MAC: Opt+drag
- WINDOWS: Alt+drag
If you need to deselect a certain area sharpish, then hit these keys and drag your mouse.
20. Deselect all but the intersected area
- MAC: Shift+Opt+drag
- WINDOWS: Shift+Alt+drag
If you don't want to deselect an area, you can use this shortcut to ensure you're clicking on what you want.
21. Deselect the entire image
- MAC: Cmd+D
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+D
If you need to get away from the image, use this Photoshop shortcut to deselect anything that you've clicked on.
22. Find the sizing handles
- MAC: Cmd+T, then Cmd+0
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+T, then Ctrl+0
When pasting a layer or selection into a Photoshop image and it's bigger than the current image, it can be difficult to find the sizing handles. This command selects Transform and sizes the image inside the window so you can see the sizing handles.
23. Move a selection
- MAC: Spacebar+Marquee tool
- WINDOWS: Spacebar+Marquee tool
Want to move a selection easily? Simply choose the Marquee tool, and press and hold the Spacebar. Continue to do so until the selection is in the correct place.
24. Select individual channels
- MAC: Cmd+3 (red), 4 (green), 5 (blue)
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+3 (red), 4 (green), 5 (blue)
Selecting with Photoshop Channels makes removing a complex object from the background much easier than using other tools. And using this Photoshop shortcut makes the process even simpler.
25. Select a colour from an image
- MAC: Opt+Brush tool
- WINDOWS: Alt+Brush tool
When working with a Photoshop brush, if you want to sample a colour from an image, instead of clicking the Eyedropper tool, simply hold the Alt or Option key to switch temporarily. Then let go to return to the Brush tool.
Next page: Brushes and filling
Play with brush sizes and more with these great Photoshop shortcuts
26. Increase/decrease brush size
- MAC: ]/[
- WINDOWS: ]/[
Getting your brush size just right is one of the most important aspects of Photoshop. Do it with this command.
27. Fill
- MAC: Shift+F5
- WINDOWS: Shift+F5
Whether you want to fill the selection with the foreground colour or with a selected pattern, use this Photoshop shortcut to get the job done quickly.
28. Increase/decrease brush hardness
- MAC: }/{
- WINDOWS: }/{
Brush hardness is just as important, so get it right with this shortcut.
29. Previous/next brush
- MAC: ,/.
- WINDOWS: ,/.
Save time and distractions by using these simple commands to swiftly move through the various brushes on offer.
30. First/last brush
- MAC: </>
- WINDOWS: </>
If you don't want to have go through the entire array of Brushes on offer, hit these commands to go back to the start or end.
31. Toggle airbrush option
- MAC: Shift+Opt+P
- WINDOWS: Shift+Alt+P
Simulate spraying painting with Photoshop's Airbrush tool using this helpful shortcut.
Next page: Saving and closing
You'll save most things. So these Photoshop shortcuts should come in handy.
32. Save for web & devices
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+Opt+S
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S
Pretty self-explanatory, but if you prefer not to drag your mouse onto a number of options, use this Photoshop shortcut on your keyboard.
33. Close and go to Bridge
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+W
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+W
As the name implies, this will close your document and then open up Adobe Bridge, where you can select the next file you wish to work on.
Next page: Working with your images
We love Clipping Masks. Does that make us weird? DOES IT?! Ok. Fair enough
34. Levels
- MAC: Cmd+L
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+L
When editing your images, you'll be using the Levels box regularly. Save yourself some time with this Photoshop shortcut.
35. Free Transform
- MAC: Cmd+T
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+T
This command opens Photoshop's Free Transform tool for resizing, rotating, and skewing an image using a draggable outline.
36. Curves
- MAC: Cmd+M
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+M
This Photoshop shortcut enables you to quickly edit the Curves on an image.
37. Colour Balance
- MAC: Cmd+B
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+B
This is the perfect Photoshop shortcut to edit the Colour Balance of your images.
38. Hue/Saturation
- MAC: Cmd+U
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+U
These two powerful Photoshop tools will aid you in the colour balance battle, and decrease the amount of crossover.
39. Desaturate
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+U
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+U
Convert your colour image to grayscale values, leaving the image in the same colour mode.
40. Quick image fixes
Auto Tone
- MAC: Shift+Cmd+L
- WINDOWS: Shift+Ctrl+L
Auto Contrast
- MAC: Opt+Shift+Cmd+L
- WINDOWS: Alt+Shift+Ctrl+L
Auto Color
- MAC: Shift+Cmd+B
- WINDOWS: Shift+Ctrl+B
After a quick fix for a photo? While they're not reliable cure-alls, these tools are usually worth a go for automatically improving your images.
41. Lens correction
- MAC: Shift+Cmd+R
- WINDOWS: Shift+Ctrl+R
The camera always lies, particularly where lens distortion is involved. Use the lens correction filter to reduce the effect of barrel distortion, pincushion distortion and vignetting.
42. Adaptive Wide Angle
- MAC: Opt+Shift+Cmd+A
- WINDOWS: Opt+Shift+Ctrl+A
Wide-angle lenses can bring their own particular distortions, and Photoshop has a filter for this. The Adaptive Wide Angle filter can quickly straighten lines that appear curved in panoramas, or photos taken with fish-eye and wide-angle lenses.
43. Camera Raw Filter
- MAC: Shift+Cmd+A
- WINDOWS: Shift+Ctrl+A
With older versions of Photoshop you have to run Adobe Camera Raw as a separate program. But in Photoshop CC it's available as a filter, enabling you to non-destructively apply sophisticated adjustments to any image type.
44. Content Aware Scale
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+Opt+C
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+C
Scale your image to your preferred state with this super-quick Photoshop shortcut.
45. Content-Aware Move
- MAC AND WINDOWS: Shift+J
The latest content-aware tool in Photoshop CC enables you to move objects around in a photograph, and it'll intelligently fill in the gaps where they used to be.
46. Create clipping mask
- MAC: Cmd+Opt+G
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Alt+G
A great way to keep shadows and shading where they belong, the clipping mask tool is basic but useful.
47. Blending modes
- MAC: Shift++ or -
- WINDOWS: Shift++ or -
Photoshop has a variety of blending modes to create cool effects. Use this command to cycle through each.
48. Black and white dialogue box
- MAC: Shift+Cmd+Opt+B
- WINDOWS: Shift+Ctrl+Alt+B
Speed up the process of converting colour photos to black and white with this Photoshop shortcut, which opens the black and white adjustment dialogue box.
49. Change image size
- MAC: Cmd+Opt+i
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Alt+i
Set up your image sizes with ease with this quick and simple shortcut.
Next page: 3D work
Speed up your 3D work with these Photoshop shortcuts
50. Show/Hide polygons
Within Selection
- MAC: Opt+Cmd+X
- WINDOWS: Alt+Ctrl+X
Reveal All
- MAC: Opt+Shift+Cmd+X
- WINDOWS: Opt+Shift+Ctrl+X
If you're working with 3D assets, use this option to view the polygons that make up your 3D models.
51. Render
- MAC: Opt+Shift+Cmd+R
- WINDOWS: Alt+Shift+Ctrl+R
Once you're happy with your 3D model, use this Photoshop shortcut to create a final render and create the highest quality version for output to web, print, or animation.
Next page: Viewing
Just how sharp is that pic of a knight? Only one way to tell: CMD+OPT+0, baby!
52. View actual pixels
- MAC: Cmd+Opt+0
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Alt+0
Viewing an image in Photoshop in actual pixels gives you the chance to see each pixel individually – ensuring your work is perfect.
53. Fit on screen
- MAC: Cmd+0
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+0
This Photoshop shortcut is a great way to view your work in all its glory on screen.
54. Zoom in
- MAC: Cmd++
- WINDOWS: Ctrl++
If you want to get down to the nitty gritty of an image, zoom right in with this Photoshop shortcut command.
55. Zoom out
- MAC: Cmd+-
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+-
Get an insight into how your work will look from afar with this zoom out command.
Next page: Text in Photoshop
Text options are a pain to find in Photoshop, because everyone uses these
56. Increase/decrease size of selected text by 2pts
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+>/<
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+>/<
Experiment with text in Photoshop by using this command to change its size by 2pts.
57. Increase/decrease size of selected text by 10pts
- MAC: Cmd+Option+Shift->/<
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+>/<
This Photoshop shortcut works the same as the command above, but it's by 10pts this time.
58. Increase/decrease kerning or tracking
- MAC: Opt+right/left arrow
- WINDOWS: Alt+right/left arrow
Adjust the space between your text in Photoshop with this handy keyboard command.
59. Align text left/centre/right
- MAC: Cmd+Shift+L/C/R
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+Shift+L/C/R
A great way to experiment with the alignment of your text, this Photoshop shortcut will enable you to do it quickly.
60. Show/Hide selection on selected type
- MAC: Cmd+H
- WINDOWS: Ctrl+H
Speed up the process of selecting elements on type with this easy-to-remember shortcut.
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Lego art: 40 designs that will blow your mind
in Ειδήσεις από τον χώρο του Design και Hosting
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It's hard to imagine a world without Lego. From its ubiquitous bricks, to its theme parks, to the host of media tie-ins, via video games, movies, comics and more – Lego is the biggest toy brand on the planet.
In this post we've celebrated the Lego legacy (or should we say Legocy, ahem) by presenting you with some of the greatest models ever built. So sit back and enjoy, as we showcase the very best in Lego art, from both certified Lego professionals and some amateurs whose love for Lego knows no bounds.
01. Mystic Currency
Dante Dentoni's work reveals colourful goings-on beneath the surfaces of ordinary walls
"I like making art in difficult places," says Miami-based visual artist Dante Dentoni, who specialises in site-specific sculptural installations that mix Lego, cement and wood, along with ready made toys, to reveal a harmonic interconnectivity between physical and emotional environments.
Mystic Currency is a perfect example of his work; it takes the form of a corner of a wall where the plaster has been hacked away to reveal a Lego substrate beneath, and if you peer into the gaps you'll discover playful tableaux made up of Lego figures.
02. Afternoon of a Faun
David Hughes tries to push the limits of what Lego can do in his sculptures
David Hughes describes himself as a designer and artist who uses Lego bricks to create contemporary art. As well as flat Lego recreations of famous artworks, he also makes three-dimensional sculptures such as Afternoon of a Faun that are available to buy through his site, although be warned that they're built to order and don't come cheap. And if you're after your own special work of Lego art, David is happy to accept commissions.
03. New Money
Can you crack the code and win some Bitcoin?
Los Angeles-based Andy Bauch enjoys using bright and cheerful Lego bricks to explore darker, more complex subjects, and he employs computer algorithms and software assistance to create intricate mosaics that have a lot more to them than meets the eye.
His most recent exhibition, New Money, used 100,000 Lego bricks and $10,000 in cryptocurrencies to comment on the simultaneous freedom and volatility of rapidly developing digital currencies, and came with an irresistible twist: if you can decode Bauch's patterns you'll reveal the private keys to their wallets, and the money's yours to grab.
04. Batman Batarang
This brilliant Batman Batarang is made up of 35,000 Lego bricksThis brilliant Batman Batarang crash landed in London to mark the release of the Lego Batman movie. Made from 35,000 lego bricks, the creation took the team at Bright Bricks 225 hours to build, with broken pavement, smoke and lights (all non-Lego based) completing the scene of destruction.
05. JME - Integrity
We love this Lego replica of JME's Integrity album coverLego Albums is a project by Harry Heaton, an artist who recreates iconic album covers using the little bricks. The finished products resemble low-resolution pixelated versions of album art, but are nonetheless brilliant. This replica of JME's Integrity album is definitely one of our favourites. Check out Heaton's collection to find yours.
06. The Simpsons town of Springfield
You only get The Simpsons' house in the official set, so Matt De Lanoy built the whole town
Everyone loves the Simpsons, but veteran Lego artist Matt De Lanoy clearly loves them more than most. Just a few months after the release of the official Simpsons Lego set, he's recreated the entire town of Springfield in coloured bricks, including the Kwik-E-Mart, Moe's, Krusty Burger, the nuclear power plant and more. This image only shows one corner of his creation – see more on his Flickr page.
07. Warren Elsmore
Warren Elsmore attracted the most visitors ever to Paisley Museum and Art GalleriesProfessional Lego artist Warren Elsmore broke records in March, with an exhibition of 72 Lego models. Attracting over 50,000 visitors, with 2,000 on the busiest day, the likes of the Olympic Park and St Pancras Station in London and the Forth Bridge were on show. His Las Vegas strip also proved hugely popular.
08. Jin Kei
A Lego steampunk creation from Lego artist Jin KeiKorean Lego artist Jin Kei has given life to one of the giant four-legged mammals from Salvador Dali’s painting The Elephants. The artist added his own steampunk twist with mechanical accessories, and at 32 inches, this makes for a seriously impressive piece of Lego art.
09. Back to the Future train
Great Scott! Back to the Future Lego is, at last, a thing!We were extremely excited to learn that Back to the Future Lego was a thing. Our excitement then prompted us to search for BTTF Lego fan art, which is when we came across this 19th century train by G Russo.
Russo is keen to get his design developed into an actual Lego set. And he's gone all out to try and ensure that happens, adding fine details including two side panels that fold open to reveal an overhead door, some foldout steps, and various controls, levers, pipes, and wheels for controlling the train.
10. Pixel Kiss
This custom mosaic was based on the Pop Art style of Roy LichtensteinThe talented team at Brickworkz create the most amazing custom Lego art work. One such example is this piece, modelled based on the Pop Art style of Roy Lichtenstein's Kiss V 1969.
Composed of over 20,000 Lego bricks, the cool mosaic currently resides at legal office of William Ellyson in Richmond, Virginia.
11. Lego aircraft carrier
This epic Lego sculpture is composed of 200,000 bricks, stands at 4.5m long and weighs over 350 poundsThis Lego aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman has got to be one of the most impressive creations on our list, in terms of size and detail. The 200,000 brick, 4.5m long, 350-pound aircraft carrier comes complete with electrical lights as well as moving elevators and radar dishes.
The epic sculpture, built by German Lego fan Malle Hawking, also includes a half submarine and a mini gunboat on the side.
12. Lego framed rainbow
This gorgeous Lego rainbow took designer Simon C. Page six hours to piece togetherAfter discovering the Lego Factory and latest Lego Digital Designer software, artist Simon C Page became hooked on Lego art design. And this Lego framed rainbow is his first creation.
Created out of 3,029 bricks, there are over 200 1x1 pieces of each of the 16 colours used throughout. "It has took me over six hours to put together and wasn't easy – stacking nearly 50 1 x 1 piece end to end nearly 50 times across, all the time keeping to a strict colouring pattern," he said on his website.
13. A futuristic Japan
School children in Japan created this amazing futuristic Japan using 1.8 million bricksProject Build Up Japan was sponsored and curated by the legendary toy brick makers and encouraged school children to build imaginary structures of a Japan that they wanted to see.
With a little help from their parents and a few Lego officials, children across Japan were able to create their country the way they wanted it. The total number of Lego bricks used was a jaw-dropping 1.8 million.
14. Lifesize Lego forest
This lifesize LEGO forest is made up of 15 pine trees and 15 flower sets, all 66 times bigger than their design toy counterparts
How cool is this? This isn’t a child-sized toy set: it’s actually a lifesize Lego forest in the Australian Outback. It’s made up of 15 pine trees, and 15 flower sets, all 66 times bigger than their design toy counterparts – making the trees a whopping 4m high.
The iconic toy brick company built this amazing creation in Living Desert State Park, a 2400ha reserve more than 700 miles west of Sydney, as part of its 50-year anniversary celebration.
15. Lego advent
The calendar was made out of an astonishing 600,000 Lego bricksLast year, the UK's only certified Lego technician Duncan Titchmarsh built this huge advent calendar sculpture. Made up of approximately 600,000 bricks, the installation was unveiled in central London's Covent Garden shopping area.
Each door was opened at 4pm every day in the lead up to Xmas day. The presents behind each were also cool Lego creations. What an awesome way to celebrate the festive season.
16. Sea Monster
Brickley is made up of 170,000 Lego bricks and stretches a whopping 30 feet
Take a trip to Disney World in Florida and you'll find this awesome Lego sea monster, Brickley. The cool character is made out of 170,000 Lego bricks, stretches a whopping 30 feet and weighs half a ton!
The brilliant sculpture is one of many found in Downtown Disney at the Lego Imagination centre. Other models include a Transformer, giant models of Woody and Buzz Lightyear and the Seven Dwarves.
17. Poseidon
Poseidon was built for Vancouver Lego Club‘s Mythology exhibitPaul Hetherington – known in the Lego world as BrickBaron – had already given a sneak peek to this incredible creation, by showing off the lower structure full of mermaids, oceans and ships. Little did we know that it would actually play as part of a much larger sculpture featuring the God of the sea.
Poseidon was built for the Vancouver Lego Club's Mythology exhibit at the Surrey Museum; taking place from July until September 15th. The attention to detail is astonishing: we don't know if we'd have the patience to build something as impressive as this. You can see more photos of Poseidon, as well as Paul's other work on his Flickr page.
18. Woman
This stunning piece was created using LSculptThis stunning sculpture was created by Bram Lambrecht using LSculpt – a program which converts a triangle mesh into an LDraw file. Like the sphere generator, the generated model consists of a surface of 1×1 plates oriented in whichever direction provides the best detail.
We love that Bram has taken the time to create not only the body and branch but the shadow too. It's these details that make certain Lego sculptures stand out from the rest. You can see more of Bram's work on his official website.
19. Biggest ever Mario
Although created in 2009, this huge Mario sculpture still deserves a mention. Brick layer Dirk Van Haesbroeck took just over two weeks to finalise the plumber. Mario is comprised of 30,000 Lego bricks with the pedestal containing another 12,000. This video showcases the 160 hours of work in just over a minute.
Once the sculpture was finished, it was auctioned off on eBay in aid of Ronald McDonald, a Dutch organisation that arranges proper housing for relatives of hospitalised children in the vicinity of clinics. It sold for an impressive $5100. You can see more of Dirk's Lego art on his Facebook page.
20. Serenity
This Serenity sculpture is a must-see for any Firefly fan
Despite its short run on television almost ten years ago, fans of Firefly and film Serenity still express an intense love and passion for the Joss Whedon series. One such fan decided to build the ultimate homage to the sci-fi show with a replica of the ship Serenity.
Adrian Drake used around 70,000 Lego pieces and the project took 475 hours over the course of 21 months. The ship itself weighs an incredible 135 pounds due to the intricate details Adrian has included. You can more of Adrian's stunning Lego art on his website.
Next page: 20 more brilliant examples of Lego art
21. Pop-up book Lego art
Nathan Sawaya's pop-up bookWhat can we say about Nathan? Well, first off he's one of the, if not the biggest Lego artist around. Counting himself as one of the world's certified Lego professionals, when he's not jetting off around the world showcasing his artwork in prestigious galleries, he's at his studio creating the next array of Lego art masterpieces.
Here, the pop-up book is a celebration of Waldo H. Hunt – ''the king of pop-up.'' It's created entirely out of Lego (which is handy for this list) and is based around a poem Nathan wrote himself. You can see the said poem across the pages of the book, which we think is a lovely touch.
See more of Nathan's incredible work at his personal website. Or see below...
22. Crowd
Nathan Sawaya's CrowdWe could compile this entire list with Nathan's creations but we'll treat you to just two. Crowd has been trawling the United States for quite some time thanks to Nathan's popular exhibitions so you may have seen it before.
Inspired by the throngs of people walking the streets of New York, Crowd also gives us a sense of George Orwell's 1984 with its watchful eye. The blending of the Lego colours is a perfect example of how talented Nathan is; combining art and toys has never looked so good.
Both Pop-up book and Crowd are currently on tour as part of Nathan's The Art of the Brick exhibition. Schedule information can be found on his website.
23. Cool robots
Anyone who can call themselves a 'professional kid' and can make money from building robots (and other such things) out of Lego, definitely deserves a mention. Sean Kenney is another certified Lego art professional and does just that and has been making waves on the sculpture scene for quite some time.
In this video, the short tutorial coincides with the release of his book Cool Robots. He shows you how you too can become a Lego artist (who wouldn't want that?!) with the Lego pieces that you already own. Check out the rest of his work on his website.
24. The Love Boat Lego art
Ryan McNaught's Lego Love BoatAustralian designer Ryan McNaught is another artist who can claim to be a Certified Lego Professional on his CV – pretty cool huh? The Love Boat is just one of his incredible works and this photo is merely the middle interior. You can see the rest of the pictures, along with his other work on his Flickr stream.
McNaught specialises in interactive models and has even made a Qantas Airbus A380 incorporating Lego Mindstorms technology in the past. It's no wonder he has a stash of awards. You can contact Ryan via his website.
25. Movie Dudes
Angus Maclane's GhostbustersAngus Maclane is one of Pixar's many talented staff members. He has the distinction of working on almost every feature after joining the company in 1997 including Up, Wall-E and Toy Story 3.
If that doesn't make him talented enough, he is an avid Lego builder in his spare time. Take a look at his Flickr stream and you'll see that Angus has managed to create the likes of Gizmo, Indiana Jones, and Dennis Quad using only Lego pieces.
26. Star Wars star destroyer
We couldn't compile a list about Lego art without a mention of Star Wars, right? Lego's master builder Erik Varszegi compiled this amazing rendition of Star Wars' Venator class star destroyer using only Lego pieces. Just look at the size of it!
This 8-foot Star Wars Republic Attack Cruiser LEGO model is one of many creations made from Erik's hands. You can see more images for this Star Wars replica via this Flickr stream.
27. Obama's Inauguration
Lego Master Model builder Gary McIntire doesn't do things by halves. When Obama's inauguration took place on 20 January, 2009, he felt there was no other way to celebrate than with Lego.
Take a look at his amazing reconstruction of that monumental day, with hundreds of tiny Lego characters and a Lego White House so close to the real thing. Who knew Lego could make politics fun?!
28. Creatures of habitat at Philadelphia Zoo
Sean Kenney's penguins for 'Creatures of habitat'We just had to feature another of Sean's Lego sculptures. This collection entitled Creatures of Habitat was created for Philadelphia Zoo to raise awareness of endangered species. And what could be more engaging than Lego animals?
Children flocked to see the sculptures which included a polar bear, penguins and monkeys on display during 2010. Sadly, the sculptures have now been safely locked away but you can still continue to support endangered animals – just not Lego ones.
29. Allianz Stadium
This Allianz Arena Lego replica was built following the original plans from Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron. It took an incredible 4,209 hours of work and over a million Lego pieces to create.
Inside, there are a staggering 30,000 miniature Lego figures to make up the audience. The stadium even contains interior LED lighting to glow red, white and blue to match that of the actual stadium. Special translucent bricks were commissioned for the project.
30. The Burn
Cole Blaq's The BurnCole Blaq is an artist hailing from Germany. He's created some awesome Lego designs including his graffiti series. Here, Cole has managed to create an almost true-to-life burning fire using only Lego bricks.
The mixture of light to dark colours is what really makes this piece work. Although Cole isn't actually endorsed by Lego, we think they should be stopping by his website pronto!
31. Hummingbird
Sean Kenney's HummingbirdOkay, okay, we know we should stop featuring his work but it's just so good! This giant Ruby-Throated Hummingbird magically hovers eight feet about the ground while getting its grub from a giant flower.
This piece took Sean and his team over four weeks to design and five weeks to build with 31,565 Lego pieces. We're still baffled about how Sean managed to keep the bird hovering in the air. It's currently on show at the Reiman Gardens in Iowa as part of Sean's travelling exhibition Nature Connects.
32. Working harpsichord
Henry Lim's HarpsichordHenry Lim has a habit involving Lego which sometimes results in some incredible sculptures. With the exception of the wire strings, this instrument is entirely constructed out of Lego parts. And it is playable.
It took him two years of designing, theorising, collecting parts, building, testing and then building again. You can take a tour of the harpsichord or indulge in its history via his website. Lego art at it's very best.
33. Brooklyn
Jonathan Lopes' BrooklynBrooklyn based artist Jonathan Lopes has started working with Lego, recreating his beloved Brooklyn landscape. Although small in scale (it has to fit in his living room) the urban creation is breathtaking.
The buildings are real spots he walks past everyday and the finished product took him over two years to complete. The city has since been broken up into sections to be displayed around his beloved home city. You can see the rest of his work over on his website.
34. St Pancras Christmas Tree
We know it's a little early (or late?) to be mentioning Christmas but we couldn't help ourselves once we laid eyes upon this incredible Christmas tree that was placed in London's St. Pancras in 2011.
Commissioned by the UK's only certified Lego professional Duncan Titchmarsh and his team at Bright Bricks, the tree consisted of approximately 400,000 Lego bricks and remains as the biggest Lego tree in history. Who can beat them this year?
35. Life-sized Lego SUV
Back in September 2011, a Connecticut-based team of 22 master builders created a life-sized Lego SUV to mark the release Ford's 2012 production range. Sadly, the car doesn't actually drive or work in any way shape or form but it sure looks cool!
The team spent a gruelling 2,500 hours creating the car, using 380,000 bricks (that's around $40,000 dollars to you and me.) In its entirety, the car weighs over 2,600 pounds.
36. Predator
Shawn Snyder's PredatorShawn Snyder has got some serious Lego skills and one of our favourites is this Predator creation. We've had a bit of a love affair with Predator lately (thanks to our sci-fi addiction) and this just seals the deal.
Snyder has created a range of different predators on his website as well as Star Wars characters and superheroes. It's a truly impressive collection from a guy that counts Lego art as a hobby.
37. Princess Mononoke
Eric recreated the character from the popular Studio Gibli animeProfessional Lego artist Eric Hashburger says that qualities for a project must use bright, primary colours and be something that is part of pop culture – something that is easily recognised by most people, whether constructed from Lego bricks or not.
Here, he realised that characters from Japanese anime were prime subjects. This model of San from Princess Mononoke is just over 5ft tall and weighs around 80 pounds. Adrian is also quick to add that the sculpture is completey glue free. To see more of Hasburger's work, visit his Lego art website.
38. London Olympic Stadium
We've already mentioned Warren Elsmore, but his gold-standard creation deserves another mention. To celebrate the Olympics, Warren decided to build a homage to the stadium in Lego art.
The extraordinary work consists of approximately 250,000 standard Lego bricks and took Warren and his wife over 300 hours to construct.
39. Batman to Joker mosaic
Arthur has already created a number of impressive mosaics, including the Afghan Girl and Anakin morphing into Darth Vadar. However, we were most impressed by this incredible Batman and Joker creation. From one angle the picture is Batman and then from the other angle it slowly turns into the Joker.
Arthur believes that this is the fourth lenticular mosaic, with the first being Chris Doyle's mosaic Dorian Bley. You can see more of Arthur Gugick's incredible Lego art on his website.
40. Lost Worlds Dinosaur
Brickville DesignWorks builds sculptures for promotional purposes
Brickville DesignWorks is a commercial venture, with the goal of using Lego bricks and products to produce sculptures for events, displays and exhibits. The team is headed by Robin Sather, Canada's only certified Lego art professional.
This dinosaur sculpture was created for the Telus World of Science and is one of the company's largest creations. You can see more of Brickville DesignWork's Lego art on here.
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