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Whether you're excited about the possibilities of AI in design, or are terrified that the robots will come and steal your job, one thing's for sure – the right kind of automation can save us all time. You may already be taking full advantage of pre-programmed Actions in your favourite Creative Cloud program, for instance, to speed up your workflow and cut down on repetitive tasks. Good for you. But have you considered how other time-sucking jobs could be automated? Read on for eight invaluable tools for designers that can help automate common business tasks, so you have more time to be creative... 01. Automate time-draining email tasks Email can eat up hours of the day if you don't manage it carefully. One popular technique to keep it at bay is to check your inbox only at particular times of the day, to avoid new messages acting as constant distraction. There are also plenty of ways to automate certain tasks within your email inbox to reduce that daily hassle even more. First and foremost is an autoresponder, a function available with almost all email clients. These don't have to be restricted to out-of-office alerts when you're unavailable. Autoresponders can also be used to tell people when they can expect to hear back from you (keeping anxious clients who expect immediate responses at bay), as well as outlining circumstances in which you won't reply. You can include your soonest availability – sure, you may need to update it regularly, but at least you only have to do it once each time. By setting up rules and filters within your inbox, you can also tailor responses according to key groups, such as current or past clients. 02. Do common tasks at the touch of a bttn Most of the tools on this list are digital apps that streamline how you do run your design business. But we're kicking things off with something delightfully analogue. Available in a range of colours for all your dramatic button-pushing needs, a bttn is an enormously satisfying way to automate everything from a simple action to a whole workflow, just by slamming your fist on your desk. It either comes Wi-Fi enabled, or with a 12-month 2G data plan – and can be programmed as a simple shortcut to anything from reordering supplies, to booking your favourite meeting room, to booking a taxi. 03. Automate repetitive social updates Social media is a personal, conversational thing, and to build your brand effectively online you need to engage in conversations, comment and reply to people – this is the kind of thing that can't be automated. But it is possible to automate more repetitive social tasks that are tied to your marketing and self-promotion efforts. Scheduling tweets or posts – particularly for campaigns that run over several days or weeks, any particular times of day – is an absolute no-brainer, and can be done using tools such as Hootsuite or Buffer. You can also save a lot of time by linking your social channels together, particularly for portfolio updates. Using feeds from Instagram, or Flickr, or YouTube, or whatever your platform of choice is, you can automatically populate Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn with updates, for example. As with email, to aid your productivity you can also be selective about when you do so to cut down on the constant distractions that social media notifications can cause. 04. Automate invoice chasing with FreshBooks One of the most soul-destroying, and time-consuming, tasks for freelancers is the necessary evil of invoicing clients, and even worse, chasing them up afterwards. There are many tools available to handle the financial side of running a design business, including keeping track of expenses, invoices and general accounting matters – popular tools for freelancers include FreeAgent and Solo. FreshBooks is another alternative, pitched at small businesses and freelancer. Following a 30-day free trial, payment plans start from $15/month. Not only do tools like FreshBooks and FreeAgent automate the creation process for estimates and invoices, you can also set up automatic reminders for late-paying clients, straight from the app – saving you time, as well as cutting back on awkward email follow-ups. 05. Follow-up with clients using Streak Of course, client relationships are a lot more complex than just sending and chasing invoices – and as with social media scheduling, there's a limit to how automated the process can be without losing the 'relationship' bit. That's not to say that certain repetitive tasks can't benefit from a bit of careful pre-planning, though. Simple things like a courtesy follow-up 30 days after a project is complete can be easily automated, and kick-start a conversation from there. Streak is a free Client Relationship Management (CRM) plug-in for Gmail, which enables you to organise clients into different work streams, schedule emails, keep track of projects at different stages and much more. Key stages of a project that can cause bottlenecks, such as when feedback is due from the client, can also benefit from automated reminders – just make sure the template is suitably customised and written in your voice, so it doesn't seem like a robot is chasing on your behalf. 06. Collect your business receipts with Wave If you currently collect expense receipts in a shoebox and keep your accounts in a rudimentary Excel spreadsheet, there are plenty of tools to make that easier. As well as chasing clients for you, FreeAgent and FreshBooks also give you the option to automatically import bank transactions – saving a huge amount of time keeping track of, and itemising, expenses. Another useful book-keeping tool is Wave, which comes with a free app called Wave Receipts. Just take a photo of the receipt, and it'll automatically import it for you. No more panic come tax return day! 07. Send electronic contracts with Hellosign Keeping track of contracts and NDAs can be a time-consuming nightmare, especially when amends need making at both ends before being counter-signed, or different clients need subtle tweaks to be made to the agreement. Hellosign makes multiple Word doc versions of contracts a thing of the past, by automating the process. You just upload your contract template, customising it with as many editable fields as required. Each time a client needs a contract, fill in the editable sections within Hellosign, and the app will send it out to them to be signed electronically. 08. Create a reusable project template in Asana There are plenty of project management and productivity tools for designers out there – two of the most popular are Trello and Asana. If Asana is your tool of choice, try automating part of the process by setting up a versatile project template that includes all the generic documents, files and tasks that your projects have in common, as well as a standard timeline of key milestones. It'll save you a lot of time adding these each time. No two projects are identical, but at least it will give you a stable framework to start from and customise as required to suit each client. Related articles: The freelance survival guide 10 best portfolio templates for designers 6 ways to save money as a freelancer View the full article

Only a few years ago, the idea that every digital artist could afford technology that enabled them to draw directly on to their screen was fanciful. Today, we not only have iPads and Android devices that provide this facility, but the options for artists on desktop and laptop computers have greatly increased. XP-Pen's newest drawing tablet is a case in point. It's a generously sized 15.6-inch screen that costs just under £400. The days when you had to sell your car to afford a Cintiq are over. Buy Artist 15.6 tablet Nor are there any apparent compromises that make the Artist 15.6's competitive price possible. Open the classy packaging and you're greeted with a slim but solid flat panel, with six shortcut keys down one side. Pleasingly, you can rotate the display orientation to position the keys to suit right- or left-handed use. The slim-line design of the Artist 15.6 means there's no adjustable stand to prop up the display, so you'll have buy a stand or improvise with a paperback Setting up the Artist 15.6 is a little involved, but you only need to do it once. The cable connecting your computer and the tablet uses a single USB-C port to plug into the tablet. At the other end, though, is a multi-headed hydra of leads: one HDMI to feed the video (an adaptor for Mini DisplayPort is provided); one USB to relay the pen information; and a second red USB to provide power. If you own one of the small but growing number of laptops that use USB-C, you'll need an adaptor to plug in the Artist 15.6. Note: if you use a USB-C MacBook Pro, then the Digital AV Adaptor you need is a hefty £69. You also need to install drivers, either from the provided CD or via the XP-Pen website. This includes a tool for calibrating the stylus and configuring features. It's worth noting that the Windows tool offers more options than the Mac OS equivalent. The stylus doesn't need a battery to operate. The rocker switch enables you to switch between pen and eraser easily The screen itself has a matte surface. The picture isn't as bright or colourful as you'd get from a glossy screen, but its surface is better for drawing on: it has more 'bite'. And drawing and painting on this tablet is a pleasure. The screen size frees you up to make expressive brush strokes, and the pen pressure sensitivity is responsive enough to keep your lines flowing. The Artist 15.6 isn't perfect. There's no stand included for people who prefer to draw at a slight angle; and there's a little too much visual offset between the point of the stylus and where the cursor appears on-screen. You get used to it when painting, but it makes precise work trickier. Yet these are really quibbles within the context of having an expansive drawing surface on a decent-quality screen, for relatively little outlay. The Artist 15.6 can transform your digital art experience for the better. This article originally appeared in issue 159 of ImagineFX, the world's leading magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 159 or subscribe here. Related articles: The best drawing tablet for kids 2018 10 essential tablet accessories Wacom launches new Wacom Cintiq Pro graphics tablets View the full article

Working at home and being your own boss may be a lot of fun, but it also requires a lot of self-discipline, across-the-board knowledge, and the ability to juggle many things at once. Things like launching a marketing campaign, building a website, and maintaining good accounting practices will all fall on you. The Work-At-Home Super Bundle can help you learn the skills you'll need to navigate the world of self-employment. With 23 eBooks, one audiobook, nine online courses, and four printable packs at your disposal, you'll identify the habits and skills you'll need to adopt in order to have a successful self-employed venture. You'll learn how to create a healthy work-life balance, and discover tips for maintaining the financial and legal sides of your self-employment. The Work-At-Home Super Bundle will get you up to speed for only $39.99, a saving of 97 per cent. Related articles: The expert guide to working from home 12 tips for the work-at-home ninja Expert tips for working from home View the full article

The future of PC's, as Intel sees it, is starting to turn a few heads. Introducing Tiger Rapids, the dual-screen digital notebook that could be a game-changer for designers and artists. Intel has spent approximately two years refining this prototype PC device – the design of which was based on the ever-popular Moleskine notebook – which allows users to do everything from note-taking and presentations, to creating intricate drawings and sketches. 10 of the best notebooks for designers Opening like a traditional Moleskine notebook, Tiger Rapids is super-compact, measuring skinnier than an iPhone 8 at just 4.85mm thick, with each screen sporting a small but mighty 7.9-inch LCD display. It even comes complete with a loop on the right to stash your pen. Powering this lightweight device is a Kaby Lake Core processor, with an undisclosed amount of memory. For those of you reading this wondering when – or even if – Tiger Rapids will ever be available to the masses, the good news is this is one concept that will certainly be realised. While Intel has no plans to bring it to market, the company has provided the design to select partners, with Tiger Rapids-inspired products from Asus and Lenovo set to be showcased at the Computex computing trade show in Taipei this week. Could Intel's prototype mean the end of the humble notebook? Watch this space. [Source: Digital Arts] Related articles: The best drawing tablet 2018 60 amazing Adobe Illustrator tutorials 10 great notepads for designers (that aren't Moleskines) View the full article

You're reading A Beginner’s Guide to Voice UX Prototyping, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! As voice technology becomes more and more prominent, we’ll need to design more and more voice apps. In this post, I will go over a general overview for those who are unfamiliar with voice prototyping. It’s not a complicated process … View the full article

An analysis of 10,000 mobile apps has found that a significant portion of them are open to web API hijacking – thanks to inconsistencies between app and server logic in web APIs. View the full article

More than 115,000 sites are still vulnerable to a highly critical Drupal bug - even though a patch was released three months ago. View the full article

Remote code execution vulnerabilities dominate this month’s critical Android patches. View the full article

Learning React, the JavaScript library for creating user interfaces from Facebook and Instagram seems nuts until you give it a chance. Things get much easier when you understand five key concepts. I call these the five mind shifts. They are: components, JSX, state, lifecycle methods and one-way data flow. 01. Components Components are chunks of code that can be combined to provide more complex functionality. When you divide your application into components, it makes it easier to update and maintain. In React, components are even more important: you don’t just program them, you design your app by thinking about how these components fit together. Let’s use the interface below as an example. You can see how it can be divided into three pieces: a box for booking a new appointment, a list view that lets you view the existing appointments, and a search box for looking through them. You can easily see how to structure this app into reusable components In HTML, you might think of this application as a series of elements, like this: And that’s also what you’d do in React. You create a single tag ( <div id="petAppointments"> ) that calls a petAppointments component, which then calls the other sub-components as needed. To pass along a configuration object like this, you use the createClass method of the React object. There are two render methods. In the MainInterface class, we declare the items that will be sent to the browser and the ReactDOM.render method replaces the <div id="petAppointments"></div> element in your HTML with React’s code. We would then write the code that handles each of our three sub-components. Components make code easy to write and maintain. Once you learn to think of and organise your apps as a series of composable components, building complex applications becomes simpler. 02. JSX JSX is probably one of the biggest mind shifts and one of the reasons why the library seems so weird. JSX is an extension to JavaScript that allows you to combine XML code with JavaScript. This is sort of what happens with templating languages like Mustache, which let you include JavaScript within HTML. But JSX gets translated (transpiled) into JavaScript. So you are not just building a template but a structure that gets converted into a series of JavaScript statements. Unlike templating languages, it doesn’t have to be interpreted at runtime. Let’s look at an example. We can use this code to output our appointments. This feels a lot like using a regular templating language, so other than learning a few minor idiosyncrasies about JSX, you can pick it up quickly. The odd part about using JSX isn’t learning the language itself; it’s getting over the fact that putting HTML within your JavaScript code just seems ... well, wrong. But it’s really nice to have all the code for each component living in a single place. 03. State Clicking on one of the red Xs is captured at the component level but references a method in the main component through props The third mind shift is learning to work with state in React. State is stored on the topmost component of your application and manages what’s happening in your app. There’s a special method called getInitialState where you can configure what happens when your application starts. In my sample application, the initial state is set up like this: It looks like I’m setting up global variables for my application but modifying these variables actually controls how components render. If something in my app changes the value of a variable, my components will re-render. If the value of orderBy changes, for example, the list of appointments will reorder. When you write a component, it’s easy to modify the application’s state. Writing components is easier since you’re only focused on what the component does. Here is my app’s final list component: The component is only concerned with two things. First, showing the list of appointments based on the current state of the application. Second, handling a click on one of the red ‘X’s. Clicking on the ‘X’ will push a change to the application state, causing this component to re-render. I’m not worried about what’s happening with the data, simply with how the current data will be displayed. The list component is only concerned with listing things. It doesn’t have to worry about what’s happening elsewhere. It’s a brilliant way to build applications and once you get the hang of it, you’ll see why it’s a superior way to code. 04. One-way data flow Here the search component is only concerned with changing the state of the data. The list will re-render with the new data on the fly The next mind shift is to learn to love a one-way data flow. In React, the state of your application resides in the topmost component. When you need to change it in a sub-component, you create a reference to the topmost component and handle it there. This is a bit hard to get used to. Here’s an example: This is a simplified version of the module that creates a list of appointments. Our list has a Delete button, which we manage through an event handler. This is a special React version of onclick. Our event handler calls the function handleDelete, which is local to the sub-module. Our local function simply creates a reference to another function in an object called props. Props are how main modules communicate with sub-modules. In the main module you’d create an attribute to the tag you’re using to represent the module. It looks just like passing an attribute to an HTML tag: And then you create your own method in the main component to handle the change to the application’s state. Keeping state in the main module helps make your sub-modules more efficient. It’s also easier to maintain code because most of the action happens in one place. 05. Lifecycle methods One of the best things about React is the way it manages the rendering of your modules. Your modules don’t have to worry about updating the DOM, only about reacting to the state of your application. When state changes, React re-renders your application’s components. It does this by creating its own version of the DOM called a Virtual DOM. But sometimes you need to be able to do things in response to the rendering lifecyle. Enter lifecycle methods. These are ways to ask React to handle tasks at different points in the application’s execution. There are, for example, lifecyle methods that allow you to load external data through AJAX requests: Here, componentDidMount enables you to execute something after the initial rendering is complete. This is a great place to load AJAX contents, set up timers and so on. There are lots of other lifecycle methods that allow you to trap the execution of the application at different points. They are necessary because of React’s Virtual DOM, which is a great timesaver when building apps. Rethinking react React requires a rethinking of the way you work with web applications but if you focus on mastering the benefits of these five mind shifts, you’ll quickly learn why the library has become so incredibly popular and is a fantastic way to build interfaces. This article – illustrated by Ray Villalobos – was originally published in issue 286 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Subscribe to net. Want to further refine your React skills? Kristijan Ristovski is giving his workshop Learn How to Think in React at Generate London from 19-21 September 2018 If you're interested in learning more about React, make sure you've picked up your ticket for Generate London from 19-21 September 2018. Having founded React Academy to teach React around the world and launched sizzy.co and ok-google.io, Kristijan Ristovski will be delivering his workshop – Learn How to Think in React – in which he will explore React best practices and teach you solutions to real problems that you might encounter in the process of building an app. Generate London takes place from 19-21 September 2018. Get your ticket now. Related articles: 10 expert ReactJS tips that you need to know today Create a dashboard app with React Build a simple music player with React View the full article

Photoshop CC is one of the best photo editor apps and is the creative weapon of choice for many designers. Its Pen and Brush tools mean Photoshop is more than capable of creating wonderful illustrations, making it suitable for digital artists, too. Top Photoshop tutorials The brushes are responsive and easier than ever to control, thanks the CC 2017 update, which introduced smoothing effects. They’re located in folders too, and you can load your own custom brushes for specific, unique effects. In this article, we’ll explain how to use Photoshop’s Brush tool, including guides to what each of the icons in the Brush palette mean. There’s a separate article on how to use the Pen tool, or for more core Photoshop tools knowledge, check out our 2-minute tool school series. Create a basic outline Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image The Brush tool is great for laying down outlines, no matter the nature of project. Begin by creating a new layer in the Layer palette, press B to select a brush and then begin drawing. If necessary, create a guide layer on a new layer, and set it to a lower Opacity level so you can see your work over it. Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image Use the crosshairs icon to change the direction in which the brush drags across the image. This is particularly useful if you’re working with custom brushes. Below the crosshairs icon is an area that displays your recently used brushes. This is handy if you’re working on a project that requires a small set of brushes for a range of requirements. Your brushes are sorted into folders so you can more easily find the one you want. You can edit the folders to suit your workflow. Blend brushstrokes Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image Activate the Mixer brush by ctrl/right-clicking on the Brush tool icon. This can help blend the shades you apply to your piece. You can also alter the Opacity and Flow settings of your brush. Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image The Blend mode dictates how the brushstroke reacts to the pixels below it. Use Overlay mode to mix in the light and dark strokes, or Multiply to make the strokes darker, for example. To the left of the Smoothing dropdown, you'll find the Airbrush Style Effects icon. This is great for creating more realistic brush strokes, with more natural looking edges and flicks on the end of them. The Smoothing feature can help you to create less jagged lines by enabling you to slowly drag your brush around the page, instead of pulling it in short, sharp motions. Use brushes to mask Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image Some of the most exciting possibilities in Photoshop come with masking, and the brush can certainly combine for stunning effects. Click the Mask icon, and use brushes to show or hide areas of your layer. This can become particularly fun to experiment with when it comes to adjustments. Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image Use the Brush settings tab to adjust everything about your chosen brush, from the smoothness of its edges to the amount of Scattering. You'll also find the collection of different brush types displayed in rows. This is a throwback to older versions of Photoshop, but can help to show you whether your brushes are big enough for the project, and what shape they’ll appear in. At the bottom of this tab is the Brush preview. This is the best way to get a feel for how the stroke will look when you apply it to your image. It also changes as you tweak the settings. This article was originally published in ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 159 or subscribe. Read more: The 40 best Photoshop plugins 5 best laptops for Photoshop Photoshop shortcuts to speed up your workflow View the full article

Hoping for a new Mac Pro or maybe an even bigger iPad Pro? Forget about it, at least for the time being. Apple's WWDC announcements are rarely about the hardware, and this year is no exception. The best cheap Apple Pencil deals of 2018 In fact this year's WWDC offered up a big plate of pretty slim pickings all round; nothing earth-shattering, rather some incremental updates and improvements to existing software. But if you're a designer there are a few cool reveals from WWDC that might improve your life; here's what we've found. iOS 12 It's all about the numbers There's not much to say about iOS 12; the big headline is that it's faster and more powerful, which is welcome enough. There are a few stand-out features that might excite designers, though: ARKit 2 ARKit 2 allows for shared augmented reality experiences Apple's still keen on augmented reality, and its new version of ARKit in iOS 12 is designed to help developers create even more immersive AR experiences that can be experienced by multiple people simultaneously. ARKit 2 uses a new Pixar-developed file format for AR content, called usdz, which should make creating and sharing AR creations a lot easier, and which is going to be supported by major developers including Adobe and Autodesk. Another clever AR feature coming in iOS12 is called Measure, which enables you to use AR to work out the size of objects by pointing your iPhone or iPad's camera at them and dragging a finger across them. Quite how accurate it is, we don't know, but at the very least it's a fun feature that could have plenty of useful applications; in Apple's demonstration it was used to size up a photograph for framing. FaceTime group calling Group calling works on both iOS and MacOS, making conference calls easy to set up Another new iOS 12 feature, which you'll also see on the Mac, is a new group calling option in FaceTime. With it you can set up a call of up to 32 people, with a moving tile display of faces that move into greater prominence when someone's talking. It looks like a great way to set up remote meetings and conference calls without any hassle, although we wouldn't suggest it with 32 people; you'd never get anything done. Memoji What's that? You need animated emoji that look like you? Well, if you have an iPhone X then your dreams are about to come true; the latest type of Animoji allows you to create your own Memoji that match your personality and mood, to use in messages and FaceTime. Happy now? MacOS Mojave If you like things dark, Mojave's here to delight you There's a bit more to be excited about in the new version of MacOS. Not a great deal, but Mojave's packing a few features that should make life easier - or at least a little more comfortable - for designers. Apple seems to be particularly pleased with itself about Dark Mode, which sees all its first-party apps take on a darker hue, matching what you already get by default in Adobe's Creative Cloud apps and hopefully resulting in reduced eye strain during those late night sessions. Apple's also tackling desktop clutter with Desktop stacks, which you can use to tidy up your screen by gathering together related icons into piles that you can expand with a tap. Finder is also being given a welcome upgrade in Mojave, introducing a Gallery View that enables you find files visually, using big previews that make it much faster to locate a particular image, as well as a Quick Actions option that lets you work on files from within Finder. With it you can do things like rotating images, adding password protection to documents or trimming video, without having to open another app; time-saving stuff! Quick Look lets you perform everyday editing tasks without the need for a specific app It goes further with the new Quick Look option; with this you can crop or rotate images and PDFs, mark them up with notes and send them off via Mail or Messages, all without needing to launch a specific app. Other improvements in Mojave include better screenshot capabilities that'll let you capture the entire screen, a window or just a selection, as well as enhanced screen recording that allows you to record the whole screen or a specific window. And Apple's making it easier to get photos from your iPhone to your Mac, too; with Continuity Camera you can take a photo or scan a document and have it appear instantly in a desktop app. Will this do? That about covers it for new creative tools and features; consider us just about whelmed. If you want to know about Apple's other announcements from WWDC, head over to TechRadar for the fuller picture. Related articles: 9 iPad Pro apps that make the most of Apple Pencil Why designers should reject Apple’s love of minimalism Apple launches the iMac Pro View the full article

Ever feel like you need to organise your thoughts? Take your scattered ideas and turn them into organised chaos with Scapple. This freeform mind-mapping software allows you to record all your thoughts and ideas, then find connections among them that will help you draw conclusions. The platform is easy to use, and gives you the ability to make notes, trace lines or arrows to connect related thoughts, group different ideas together, and even share your mind map with other people. And, unlike with paper, you won't run out of space for all the thoughts floating around your head. Get Scapple for only $9.99. Related articles: 8 simple productivity tools for designers 20 tools to make your team more productive 22 ways to boost your productivity View the full article

Facebook is again in hot water after an article alleged it struck deals with device-makers to access users' data. View the full article

You don't need to attend an expensive four-year university to become a great coder. With Code Avengers Pro Subscriptions, you can get your hands on an intuitive platform that will teach you the most important coding languages of today. You can use your newfound coding knowledge to build engaging websites, fun games, and useful apps, and perhaps even launch a coding career. The program will teach you the basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and more, and you'll practise creating simple apps and games. With eight courses, hundreds of lessons and guided projects, and quizzes to test your knowledge, you'll be a skilled coder in no time. Use Code Avengers Pro Subscriptions for only $79.99, saving 93 per cent. Related articles: The web designer starter toolkit The future of web design is code-free The future of web design View the full article

If you're learning how to paint, and you're a fan of science fiction and fantasy art, these pro tips will help you to hone your painting techniques. To help beginners learn how to draw sci-fi and fantasy scenes, artists who contributed to 3dtotal Publishing's book Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop: Sci-Fi and Fantasy have shared 10 great pieces of advice. Read on to learn more… 01. Create a dynamic composition Symmetry (while having its own merit in certain situations) is the enemy of dynamism "Ever since the Baroque period, artists have noticed that if you want an artwork to feel dynamic, a great way to achieve this is to pose the scene diagonally," says Bram Sels. "The rider I am creating in this case could have been running straight towards the camera, with legs almost in vertical lines. By tilting the stag and the rider, the figures become unbalanced, adding a lot more movement and action to what they’re doing. Note that there is clear space outside the figures which is irregular to make the composition even more dynamic." 02. Create a story I decide that my fantasy character will be planning to poison the king! "One of the biggest gifts of being an artist is the ability to tell stories without using words. Every line of your pencil and every stroke of your brush carries an intention; they mean to say something," explains Caroline Gariba. "The more you create a background story for your character or scene, the more easily and quickly you will be able to produce a new piece of art. Being able to fully understand the storytelling in a scene is key to achieving the best results in these sorts of illustrative pieces." 03. Consider the mood of the image I use Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, and Curves adjustment layers to make the mood of this image drearier "Mood is just as important as composition when it comes to telling a story. The colour palettes that you choose play an important role in defining the mood," says Wendy Yoon. "Although our interpretation of colour is subjective, there are certain colours with common associations originating from nature, personal experiences, and tradition that are perceived universally. As an artist, you can manipulate the colours in your painting to convey a particular mood to the viewer. Fortunately for us, Photoshop makes it incredibly easy to change things so you can play around with a wide array of possible palettes." 04. Ground your ideas with logic I paint the jewels on the left-hand side of the image like ellipses in an effort to adhere to the idea of water eroding the rock formations into more rounded shapes "If you wish to paint a believable sci-fi landscape, it is incredibly important that you have a good idea of the world you are creating," recommends Oscar Gregeborn. "Here we are dealing with an underwater alien world, so this tells us a number of things: the lighting should be soft and scattered; water scatters light much more effectively than air, so the atmospheric perspective should be pushed; the rock formations should be smooth, as the water grinds away at them over millions of years. The intention of a list like this is to make the world you paint more cohesive. Physics and logic still apply to this image, even though you are painting an alien landscape." 05. Practise perspective I select a horizon line and two vanishing points to start off my perspective "A futuristic sci-fi city demands an accurate use of perspective in order to convince the viewer to suspend their disbelief, engage with the subject matter, and let their imagination run free," says Christopher Balaskas. "A good knowledge of perspective, and its rules, is a critical foundation skill for an artist, so I encourage you to explore and study the great wealth of information and tutorials available either for free or low-cost on the internet or in books dedicated to the subject. If perspective is implemented incorrectly, it’s often the first thing that a viewer will notice, and the rest of the image will suffer." 06. Create more contrast Luminous parts of the sky against the dark areas of the giant’s body will help to make the scene more dynamic and energized "Remember that dark objects can be viewed more clearly if they are placed on bright backgrounds; similarly brighter elements become more visible on darker surfaces. If you don’t consider this, you will probably end up with a flat, dull, or even boring image," explains Sina Pakzad Kasra. "In this image I paint a cloudy sky in the creature’s background and position the brighter parts of the sky where it can help make the shape of the creature more distinct. This will mean that the creature will have higher contrast and as a result gain more prominence in the scene." 07. Use gradients for atmospheric effects You can also play around with different layer modes for the gradient, such as Color Dodge, Vivid Light, and Screen, to really make it pop "Atmosphere is a significant element in conveying a particular mood in a painting," says Yoon. "Use the Gradient tool on a new layer with Opacity set to 14–20% in order to further separate the background from the mid-ground. Simply select the tool and click and drag across the canvas. When you open up the Gradient tool you can choose from a number of gradient types, such as Linear Gradient, Radial Gradient, and Diamond Gradient. I tend to use the Linear Gradient for environment effects (fog, haze, dust) and Radial Gradient for special effects (light blooms). This will help to create atmospheric perspective, which is when objects far away take on some of the atmosphere’s colours and become hazy." 08. Create magical props I want the wand to look aged so I bring out the cracks and add in porous holes, then weave in a handle showing where the character would grasp "It is important to give a wand character to distinguish it from an ordinary stick. Play around with simple silhouettes using the Lasso tool to find a wand that speaks to you," advises James Wolf Strehle. "After choosing your design, select the shape by Ctrl+clicking on the layer thumbnail, then use the Brush tool to rough in the colours. Use a colour palette that helps to describe the wand and its user. Use the Smudge tool to shape the wood, twisting it and bringing out the natural look of the material. Follow the strokes and add details to define the wood. Blue rim lighting rounds out the form and helps define the shape." 09. Loosen up with traditional materials Use traditional media to create textures to be scanned and digitally collaged "After countless hours of screen-time working hard on your digital painting, it can be refreshing to throw some real paint around and make a mess in your living room," says Anna Dittmann. "While your housemates may not agree, the resulting textures can be both fun to create and worthwhile for your digital work. "Occasionally I like to refresh my texture library with new material by testing out assorted stains and drips. I scan these marks I have made with traditional materials into my computer in a high resolution for the best quality." 10. Make sure your animal anatomy is accurate This is important for imaginary creatures and aliens as well "Animals and their anatomy are a really complex thing to recreate, so you should never try to do it without looking at a selection of references," recommends Sels. "Before I begin to work on this animal, I look at how the muscles in deer and horses work and try to understand and then translate the shape, positioning, and movement into the illustration. The anatomy of the head is really important as well, so look closely at how the bone structure of the skull gives shape to the fur on top. These tips come from Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop: Sci-Fi and Fantasy from 3dtotal Publishing, which is aimed at aspiring digital painters and concept artists. Related articles: How to master creature anatomy How to use the rule of thirds in art The best pencils: colouring, drawing and sketching View the full article

For well over a year BuzzFeed UK has been polishing its visual style. As part of the brand refresh, the site has been developing its typography, photography and illustrations to give the site the feel of a glossy magazine. The latest piece of the rebrand, includes a new logo design and bespoke typeface inspired by the jagged trending arrow. Created by Tim Lane, Buzzfeed's first in-house art director outside of the US, the distinctive new logo and typeface are described as a big step towards cementing the platform's redesign. In an exclusive interview with It's Nice That, Lane reveals that he imagined that the arrow was a character in a typeface and built the design from there. "I feel this design is more reflective of the UK's visual output. It gives us our own identity and aesthetically separates us from the rest of the world. It's still 'BuzzFeedy' but with a UK twist. It’s well overdue that we take ownership." The logo has already been rolled out to BuzzFeed UK's social media channels Another key part of the design is the distinctive 'BuzzFeed red' which helps to keep the new logo consistent with the rest of the global branding. At the moment BuzzFeed's bespoke typeface is only being used for the UK logo, although it is expected to be used in article headers across the site. While it isn't the only font BuzzFeed will be using, the site is expected to significantly reduce the number of typefaces readers will see. The full set of arrow-inspired typography Considering that 75per cent of BuzzFeed readers access the site on smartphones, Lane ensured that the rebrand, along with the rest of the platform's design work, is mobile-first. At one point the stripped down design saw the logo become 'BF UK', but it was decided that this strayed too far from the main brand. With a mix of sharp angles and curves, the 'Buzz UK' font is a strong blend of elements that reflects the mix of content BuzzFeed readers have come to enjoy, all while staying in-keeping with the overarching BuzzFeed style. [Via It's Nice That] Related articles: BuzzFeed's new typeface will be your new most hated font The best logos of all time Famous logos redesigned as fonts View the full article

You're reading Best and Free JavaScript Plugins for 2018, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! To be a good developer means not only produce good products but also to stay on top of changes in the field. Keeping up with the ever-changing world is a key to success. But, it does not mean that you … View the full article

New illustration and design trends can spread globally almost overnight. But any creative worth their salt will look to forge their own path and solve a brief in their own way, even if influenced by a larger movement. It's about driving the discipline forward, not blindly following the crowd. At the start of 2018, we identified a list of major illustration trends, as well as three broader visual movements that capture modern life, as identified by the team at Getty Images. Here, we explore how leading practitioners have evolved some of them over the past six months. Read on to discover four on-trend illustrators who could be perfect for your next design project... 01. Unexpected colour palettes: Cristina Daura One of the key trends we identified earlier in the year across both illustration and design is an increasing use of brave, bold and unexpected colour palettes – as encapsulated by the high-profile rebrand of Dropbox, for instance. Barcelona-based creative Cristina Daura is a leading exponent of this approach. Her influences are diverse, and include Matisse and the wider Fauvism movement, architect Ricardo Bofill, illustration duo Icinori, and comic artists such as Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware and Olivier Schrauwen. "I think colour is my main defining mark, that and the composition of my illustrations," explains the illustrator, who strives to "bend reality" using bold colours and playful forms. "I’m very fond of primary colours: red, blue and yellow mainly, but also green and pink. I try to work with a very limited colour palette to express my story, and provoke attention and visual pleasure – at least for me," she grins. Daura has witnessed a growing number of clients seeking bold colour palettes in their commissions. "Although I hope it doesn’t go too far or we'll get sick of it too fast," she warns. "If a client asks me for a specific palette just because it’s what people want now, that doesn’t work for me." 02. Softer take on masculinity: Tianju Duan In the wake of the #MeToo crisis, the notion of toxic masculinity has gone hand in hand with the rise of female empowerment and the wider equality movement. Conversely, the reaction to this has also included a trend for a more emotionally nuanced, less toxic and stereotypical portrayal: masculinity undone. Illustrator Tianju Duan is at the forefront of this movement, through his recent project, Boy Power! "I came across young queer artists posing on social media some time ago, many of whom don’t represent mainstream male beauty, but they are all so comfortable in their own skin," he recalls. "I was drawn to their confidence, and decided to draw them." Boy Power! celebrates the non-stereotypical qualities of masculinity, depicting "sensitive, sensual, vulnerable or flamboyant" subjects, as Duan puts it. "There's a wide LGBTQ+ rights movement in recent years. As a queer artist myself, I feel uplifted by this trend," he adds. "Even though the movement hasn’t brought positive changes in every corner of the world, I have good hopes that it will." 03. Rebirth of surrealism: Andrey Kasay These are strange, turbulent times we live in, and another significant recent trend in illustration has been the rebirth of surrealist, absurd styles and subject matters. Illustrator Andrey Kasay originally hails from the far-east of Russia where, as he puts it, "my neighbours were the Amur tiger and the Dingo dog, who taught me to draw and make animated videos" – which sets the scene nicely for his surreal work. While the rising trend for conceptual realism in photography gives surreal and abstract subjects a grittier, more 'real' aesthetic, illustration can more comfortably straddle the line between realistic and fantastical. "I want to surprise others, and myself," shrugs Kasay. "My work is mostly done intuitively, when I’m in a flow." And while surrealism is on the rise in general, its various proponents all have a uniquely bizarre twist on the movement. "I feel alone in my world - in a good way," Kasay adds. "Walk alone. Look around, notice things and do works – all alone. It’s good to be somewhere in between, and not part of a system." 04. Retro 1990s aesthetic: Xaviera Altena For the last few years, the 1980s have reigned supreme when it comes to retro aesthetics in design and illustration, as well as pop culture output such as Stranger Things and Thor: Ragnarok. Rotterdam-based illustrator Xaviera Altena, however, is part of a growing trend for reawakening the 1990s aesthetic, and brings pop culture references from the decade to life with bold, simple linework and bright, poppy colours. "Bold colours, loud noises, and bold statements were a common thing on television, posters and T-shirts," recalls the illustrator, who was born in the mid-'90s. "Nowadays everything is black and 'simple'. We've lost all the happiness that was so alive in the '90s." For subject matter, Altena lists "ballsy ladies, big sunglasses, big boots, crazy hairstyles, patterns and feminism – all with a big splash of pop thrown over it." Her influences include Laura Callaghan, Hattie Stewart, Sara Andreasson and Celia Jacobs: similarly-aged, female creatives with an occasional political edge. While Altena isn't convinced that the '90s aesthetic has replaced the '80s obsession - she's currently working on an '80s-inspired brief herself – she believes it's the edgy attitude that's most in-vogue. "I draw fierce and bold women, and that ties into the whole new-feminism wave that is happening right now," she adds. Related articles: The designer's guide to illustration 4 design trends we're tired of hearing about 10 huge graphic design trends for 2018 View the full article

If you work in the fast-paced animation industry, it’s essential to have an up-to-date showreel. Whether you specialise in films, video games, television or mobile, animation can be a volatile field: studios close; projects are cancelled; technology changes rapidly. “It’s important to stay on your toes,” says Jonathan Cooper, an animator at American video game developer Naughty Dog. “Always have as much recent work as possible available to make a demo reel in a bind – with permission, of course. “Even beyond job-hunting, though, your showreel is a great way to get your work out there in the animation community – outside of the actual finished product on the shelves – highlighting your skills and what you specifically worked on,” he continues. 32 brilliant design portfolios to inspire you So what’s the secret to creating the perfect animation showreel? Should you tailor it? And what do the world’s top studios want to see? After all, you’ve only got one chance to make a lasting impression. Leading animators from Pixar, Blue Sky Studios and Naughty Dog share their best advice for creating the perfect showreel... 01. Show storytelling Monsters Inc's Mike Wazowski was the first character Gordon got to lead “Piece together pieces so that you’re telling your prospective viewer that you understand cutting, continuity and staging. You want to say: ‘Hey, I’m a film-maker’,” advises Pixar Animation Studios directing animator Andrew Gordon, who’s worked on everything from A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc and Toy Story 3 to Pixar’s Academy Award-nominated short film Presto. “I love the idea of seeing a lot of shots and continuity. Show me a character that I’m really engaged in watching; that’s well-posed and has a funny little story. When I see that, I know this person is thinking about entertainment. People don’t want to see just great animation. They want to see if you can tell a story.” 02. Entertain “At Disney we would talk about portfolios that stuck out – and they stuck out because the work was consistently entertaining throughout,” explains Oscar-nominated animator Aaron Blaise. “We’re in the business of entertainment. I want your portfolio to entertain me.” 03. Demonstrate the principles of animation “I look for stuff that first and foremost shows someone understands the principles of animation,” says Gordon. His blog, Spline Doctors, has a wealth of helpful animation-related tips, although it is no longer being updated. “They need to understand weight, physicality, overlap, squash and stretch,” he continues. “More importantly is the ability to show that somebody has good acting sensibilities and understands how to gesture or when not to gesture.” 04. Add personality “Remember, we're artists,” points out Lisa Allen, an animator at NYC’s Blue Sky Studios and portfolio reviewer at the most recent CTN animation expo. “Don't forget to put yourself into your work.” Remember, we're artists. Don't forget to put yourself into your work. Lisa Allen, Blue Sky Studios Allen’s worked on Epic, Rio 2, Peanuts and Disney’s Wreck It Ralph, and was a year-and-a-half out of college when she won her first full-time animation job. “I was a junior-level animator at the time, but they liked that I took a simple, quick shot of a guy walking and talking, and gave the walk a lot of personality,” she recalls. “You can watch a reel with great animation, where the polish, arcs, everything is perfect. But what makes me remember it is that one unique choice – maybe it’s an unexpected acting choice; maybe it’s surprising and interesting timing. These little things make me think, ‘Oh, this animator can bring ideas to the table that no one else would think of.’” 05. Less is more “For me, the perfect reel is about three-five clips and around a minute long. If you're on the fence about throwing in that one old piece from three years ago just to pad your reel, don't do it,” states Lisa Allen. “If the clip doesn't represent your full abilities as an animator, and leaves the reviewer questioning anything, it’s better to leave it out and have a shorter reel.” 06. Quality, quality, quality “I’m a broken record on this, but only include your best, most impressive work, urges Aaron Blaise. “If you’re an animator, I don’t want to see the walk cycles you did in your first year of college. I want to see your latest, best work. Remember: quality over quantity.” If you have a thesis film, I want to see it finished. Unfinished thesis films speak volumes about the person presenting the portfolio. It could be poor time management, lack of focus, an inability to gauge ones work abilities. None of these are good.” 07. Tailor your reel “For a game-focussed animation reel, I hope to see actions and a style that pertain to the role I'm hiring for,” says Naughty Dog’s Jonathan Cooper, who’s posted some handy showreel tips section on his website, GameAnim and has worked on games including Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. “For the types of games I make, this means navigation around a complex environment involving jumping, climbing and vaulting, one-on-one-combat, walk and run cycles and so on,” he explains. “Dialogue and acting scenes are a huge bonus, as we're always blurring the lines between gameplay and cinematic storytelling, and game animators are typically expected to at least have a hand in both aspects on the job. “Some camera work – or at least decent framing of the animated characters – will help you stand out from reels that have none,” he continues. “Just try to show your characters in the best light possible. Final production quality – render, lighting, music – matters, because it gives an idea of how polished you finish your work.” 08. Put your best work first “Demo reels are traditionally ordered by the quality of work, with the best first and moving from there,” adds Cooper. “This has the dual benefit of grabbing my attention immediately with the best example and tells me what the animator believes to be best in that order which can often reveal some blindspots in their self-critique.” 09. Ditch long animated titles “One thing that immediately puts me off is a long animated title,” says Cooper. “Don't waste time with that – an animator only has a few minutes to show their work and this kind of padding goes against the need to show as much quality work as possible, within the few minutes someone hiring will afford on your portfolio.” 10. Customise your rig An example of the old stock Norman rig “The number one thing that I really don’t like is the use of a rig that I’ve seen a million times before, when it hasn’t been customised,” says Gordon. “You can spot them: there’s the Animation Mentor rig, the iAnimate rig, the Norman rig. The problem comes when people forget to customise the rig and don’t make it their own. It just looks like a store-bought product. “Leaving the default shading and geometry in place is a bad idea. It shows a potential employer that you don’t really have the imagination to come up with a character and scenario to do something original. Whenever I see any stock rig and or situation, I usually end up not watching much…” 11. Don’t forget the breakdown “Include a short written description of each shot,” advises Allen. “For example, where did you get the rigs from? Make sure you give credit. If you only animated part of the shot, make sure you specify which characters.” Cooper agrees: “The only written info required is the breakdown,” he says. “It’s essential for describing exactly where the animator was involved on team-created work and avoids confusion at the interview stage.” 12. Stand out with personal projects “Something that grabs my attention is usually an action or acting sequence that I haven't seen a million times before,” says Cooper. “As such, if you're a student and you start your reel with your class assignments, I’m almost guaranteed to have seen several other reels with the exact same actions and characters.” Something that grabs my attention is usually an action or acting sequence that I haven't seen a million times before Jonathan Cooper, Naughty Dog “Make sure you include personal projects you're proud of. They will ideally be as good as, or better than, your classwork – so use them to stand out from the crowd. Game animation is a much more competitive field than when I started, so even veterans need to keep pushing the quality bar to land that ideal job.” 13. Update it once a year Jonathan Cooper’s last shipped project was Uncharted 4 “Things change so fast in the games industry,” says Cooper. “I've heard too many stories of projects being cancelled, studios closing or general layoffs to keep me on my toes and always have as much recent work as possible available to make a demo reel in a bind – with permission of course. “Even beyond job-hunting though, it's a great way to get your work out there in the animation community outside of the actual finished game on shelves, highlighting your own skills and what you specifically worked on. I find it an almost therapeutic way to put a bow on a years-long game project so I can mentally move onto the next. 14. Don’t forget your website “Your showreel is really the only part of your portfolio that matters for getting a job as an animator,” reflects Allen. “Ideally, the pieces in your showreel demonstrate your eye for acting, posing, design, and composition. If you've done work in any other categories like life drawing, or illustration or anything, that's great – but keep them in a separate part of your website, rather than your showreel.” 15. Showcase your reel everywhere “If you’re applying for a job, a personal website is the easiest to share – but a link to your latest reel in your resume is enough,” says Cooper. “I prefer Vimeo over YouTube because of the final render quality and overall cleanliness of the site, but there's nothing stopping you uploading to both. I recommend adding your reel everywhere – even LinkedIn. Related articles: How to land your dream job in animation Learn to animate for kids 20 top character design tips View the full article

If you're making the move from print to digital, there are lots of criteria to keep in mind when it comes to keeping your typography looking as sharp as possible. We've already looked at what designers can do to improve their digital typography, but to help you take your online lettering even further, be sure to keep these words of wisdom in mind. 01. Build in flexibility “The biggest mistake you can make is to imagine static typographic compositions as written in stone,” says Massimiliano Frangi, senior design director at CBA Italy. “Flexibility, readability and personality: these are the three fundamental characteristics when we speak of web typography.” 02. Limit typefaces “It’s important to not choose too many typefaces, because this will crowd your design,” says Martha Lisboa, digital designer at CBA Paris. “A maximum of two or three will suffice, and this will allow for a lighter app that can be loaded in a few seconds.” 03. Test your type “The most important thing is to test your designs on different device sizes,” adds Lisboa. “The more devices you try your text styles on, the better idea you will get about how it works for the user.” 04. Understand CSS “Use the same skills you’ve developed for print – hierarchy, pairings, colour - but also read up on how type is used when creating web pages,” says Dan Bradshaw, design director at TH_NK. “If you’re just starting out, getting an understanding of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and how they work is a good nerdy start. There are loads of useful tutorials out there, including this one.” 05. Get responsive “We’ve used responsive typography across many projects – it’s actually something our developers have actively encouraged,” says Bradshaw. “We use techniques like CSS locks, as this allows you to smoothly transition between sizes depending on your viewport, as opposed to snapping from one size to another. From a designer’s perspective, this approach is still about considering your type sizes at the various breakpoints, getting it into your browser and testing it out.” This article was originally published in issue 277 of Computer Arts, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 277 here or subscribe to Computer Arts here. Related articles: How to improve your digital typography 5 typography trends for 2018 How to design a handwriting font that isn't boring View the full article

From grid theory to the Golden Ratio, there are a set of fundamental principles that are passed down from generation to generation of designers. Every good designer should know them, and any decent design course or instructional book will cover them. As well as written rules, design has a number of unwritten rules But as with anything else in life, alongside those written rules are a number of unwritten rules. Many of us only learn these from bitter experience, after unwittingly breaking one. So to save you the anguish, we asked some top designers to reveal the secrets that can help turn you from a good designer into a great one. 01. The client is right (even when they're wrong) Who do you work for? Your client. Who knows their business better than anyone? Your client. "Leave your ego at the door," says Adam Morris, design lead at Made By Many. "It's the user who is the final judge of whether your design is successful." Adds Graham McDonnell, international creative director for The New York Times: "Design is always subjective and although you might be on the bleeding edge of the latest design trends, your client usually knows their audience better than you." 02. Find out the real problem first The brief is not the end of the discussion, but its starting point Never skimp on the discussion stage. You have to dig deeper and understand the brief – or you'll end up revising the work a lot. There are certain things that should be included in every brief, and it's worth looking out for those and clarifying any gaps or vague areas. Remember, you're looking for a clear explanation of the client's problem here, rather than their uniformed idea for a solution. "What is the client trying to achieve?" asks designer and art director John Stanyon. "Prescriptive briefs are often a client's 'design solution' rather than the problem they wish to overcome." 03. Read the brief This advice from Steven Scott is worth quoting in full. It may seem brain-mashingly obvious, but there's a really easy way to derail any job. "Sounds basic, but always read the brief!" says Scott. "Read it once through, then once again to highlight any of the key points. Its amazing how many designers will already think they have answered the brief from a verbal discussion." You'll find more advice on fulfilling a creative brief in this article. 04. Agree deliverables upfront "Agree the level of output up front," says Ben Woolf, head of creative brand experience at RPM. "It sounds obvious, but so many projects are started in earnest without having this agreed." We wholeheartedly recommend Woolf's advice. As well as making sure you're not wasting your time on a deliverable your client doesn't really want, if you leave your client's expectations open, there's a real danger they'll run you ragged – or at the very least have to have some very awkward conversations further down the line. 05. Stay off the computer Pen and paper focuses the mind and frees you from distractions While there are plenty of great prototyping tools around, when you first start developing a design there's still nothing more intuitive that a fist full of pens and some paper. "It helps focus the mind, frees you from the distractions and encourages you to think about content," say digital designer Michael Ibrahim Heins. "Thought hits paper immediately and stops you worrying about which typeface to choose and how big your column needs to be." Creatives agree that computers can sometimes be limiting rather than liberating. "Computers limit your vision to what has already been created, not the possibilities of what can be created," says Ed Bolton, creative director at BrandCap. 06. It's OK to start again How many times have you carried on with a dog of a design, hoping that you can make it right? Sometimes it's better – and less time consuming – to wipe the slate clean. "If you can't make an idea work – move on," says creative director Martin Wells. creative partner Chris Clarke offers a more philosophical perspective: "There is never enough time to do something, but always enough time to do it again." 07. Know when to stop A perennial problem in the creative industries is knowing when a job is finished. "The point at which you think it needs a little something extra is the point you should stop designing," says freelance designer Rob O'Neill. Scott Walker, design director at Lewis, goes a step further, saying the last stage of the process should be to strip things back. "When you think you're finished, ruthlessly strip out the unnecessary bits and you'll be left with a much clearer and refined piece of work." 08. Sleep on it Coming at your design with fresh eyes in the morning can make all the difference Here's a rule that's unwritten because it seems like good old fashioned common sense. Common sense that we sometimes forget. "Taking a break from your design and coming back with fresh eyes is like seeing your design again for the first time," Rob Sterry, UX design consultant at Foolproof. "Sleeping on it is even better." 09. Work in stages It's all well and good being super-creative, but without some kind of workflow process or you'll end up wasting your time. Freelance designer Joe Whitaker thinks good organisation is one of the foundations of design. "Working in stages is a great way to keep organised and look back over the progression of a project," says Whitaker. This practice can help in a couple of ways. It helps you track the progress of a job as you're doing it. In future, you'll find it easier to quote for work as you'll have a better idea how long specific tasks take. 10. Learn to take criticism Criticism will help you improve in the long run As a professional designer working with paying clients, people will sometimes tell you that your work isn't quite what they wanted. Don't take it personally, and don't let it hurt your feelings. "Learning how to take criticism is the toughest part of the job, especially when you're proud of your work" says Bolton. "But without criticism, there's no improvement… " 11. Get paid up front Take a percentage of the fee as a down-payment We'll leave the final word to Joe Morris, commercial director at Tonik: "Take cash up front." Brutal, and straight to the point – but in this age of austerity you have to think about getting paid. Taking a percentage as down-payment on larger jobs shows that your client is serious about making a commitment. Read more: Let's talk about money Nuggets of advice for fresh design graduates How to upgrade yourself View the full article

A Microsoft Windows vulnerability enables remote attackers to execute arbitrary code – and there’s no patch yet. View the full article

An attacker can pick up the profile picture, username and the "likes" of unsuspecting visitors who find themselves landing on a malicious website. View the full article

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are growing in popularity. PWA support started with Chrome on Android, and is now available on most other Android browsers, such as Opera, Firefox, Samsung Internet and UCWeb, as well as iPhones and iPads from iOS 11.3 and Edge for Windows and Chrome on desktop operating systems. How to build a Progressive Web App To help you create a good experience for this growing user base, we're going to share some vital tricks and ideas. 01. WebAPK vs Android shortcut In 2017, Chrome rolled out a new feature for Android users: WebAPK. Now, when your users install your PWA (if it meets the requirements), a Google Play server will create an APK (Android Package, a native app container) on the fly and install it in the device as if it's coming from the Play Store. Your user doesn't need to enable insecure sources or touch any other settings. When the PWA is installed, it will appear in the home screen, in the app launcher, in Settings and as any other first-class citizen app in the OS, including information on battery and space used in the system. If your PWA doesn't meet all the requirements, the Play service is down, there is a connection issue, or another Android browser such as Firefox or Samsung Internet is being used, a standard shortcut to the home screen will be created. That icon will be browser-branded from Android 8+. WebAPK also enables a nice but dangerous feature you need to be aware of: the PWA will own the domain and path within the boundaries of the Android OS. Based on the scope attribute of your Web App Manifest, every link the user receives to that scope will be forwarded to your full-screen app and not the browser, which means you must pay attention to the URLs you use. Let's say you have a PWA serving mobile users and it's on the root folder of your domain. When the app is installed through WebAPK, the whole domain will now be owned by the PWA. If you have a survey at /survey that you share through Facebook, or a PDF with terms and conditions that you email to your users at /terms.pdf, the OS will open PWA and not the browser when clicking those links. It's essential to check if your PWA routing system knows about those URLs and how to serve them and, if not, to open them in a browser on a different scope. 02. Create a custom web app installation banner We can't customise a browser's web app installation banner, but we can defer them after we show more information to the user Several browsers invite the user to install your PWA if certain conditions are met, including recurrent visits from that user for your PWA. At the moment, the banner doesn't include enough information for why a user should accept. However, we can use events to avoid the banner and, more importantly, to defer it for something more likely to generate acceptance, such as an install icon. The first step is to cancel the appearance of the banner and save the event object for later usage: The next step is to provide a user interface to explain the advantages of installing, or an Install button. That user interface will call our next function: 03. Share content from your PWA On compatible browsers, the Web Share API will trigger the well-known share dialog from the operating system When your PWA is in full-screen mode, there is no URL bar or Share action from the browser for the user to share content with social networks. We can take advantage of the Web Share API and have a fallback to open native social apps. 04. Analytics tracking When you have a PWA, you will want to track as many events as possible, so let's take a look at everything we can currently measure. You can use Google Analytics APIs or any other analytic tools to track these events later. The next important tracking event is when the user opens the app from the home screen. That means the user has clicked the app's icon or, on Android with WebAPK support, also clicked on a link pointing to the PWA scope. The simplest way to do this is through the manifest's start_url attribute, adding a tracking event in the URL that can be automatically used as an origin from an Analytics script, such as: Also, the following script leaves us a boolean stating if the user is currently in a browser (true) or a standalone app mode (false): Then, if you use push notifications, you can track several events in the service worker, such as: 05. Create a compatible iOS PWA When doing PWAs on iOS, always make sure you check your status bar definition, which will create different status bar experiences While many think PWA support is about to land for the first time on iOS 11.3, the truth is that the concept – albeit with a different name – was presented by Steve Jobs more than ten years ago at WWDC 07. That's why iOS supported home screen and offline apps for a while, using legacy techniques. But from iOS 11.3, it will start to support the same specs as Android. If you still want to offer an installation experience before iOS 11.3, you need to add meta tags or use a polyfill this author created at https://github.com/firtman/iWAM Now your PWA will be offline-capable and installable on iOS even if you don't opt-in for iOS. It's important to understand some differences that might affect your PWA user experience on iOS: Icons on iOS must be square and non-transparent to avoid UI problems. Don't use the same icon you have on Android. Use 120x120 and 180x180 for iPhones. If you have an SPA or you link to other pages on your scope, be careful with navigation, as iOS users don't have a way to go back or forward if you don't provide navigation links within your UI. Swipe gestures don't work on full-screen PWAs. As of the first versions of iOS 11.3, the OS reloads PWAs on every access to the app, so if the user needs to get out of the app to come back later (for example, for a two-way authentication process), remember your app will start from scratch by default. 06. Syncing data in the background Service workers have a separate life cycle from the PWA window or browser's tab. That's why you can make network operations in the background, even after the user closes the PWA. If there is a pending operation and there is no available network access at that point, the engine will let us process while in the background if a connection is detected later. The Background Sync API is currently only available on some browsers, so you must provide a fallback. The idea is that your PWA will set a flag with a string tag, stating that it needs to do background sync operation. Then, on the ServiceWorker we listen to the event, and if it's the label, we are expecting we return a promise. If the promise is fulfilled, then the operation is flagged as finished. If not it will keep trying later in the background. 07. Social networks and pseudo-browsers If your users share your PWA content on social networks, or if they use pseudo-browsers (browsers without their own engine but using web views), you need to be aware of some issues. For example, Facebook uses a WebView inside the Android and iOS apps to offer an in-app browsing experience when the users click on a link. On Android, most of the WebViews don't support service workers and can't install your PWA, so when the user opens your content from Facebook, your PWA will act as if it's a non-compatible browser without any cached files or session details. From iOS 11.3 the WebView will support service workers, but it will be a clone of the same PWA that the user has used in Safari or even in other pseudo-browsers, such as Chrome or Firefox on iOS. Therefore, if you are rendering an installation banner or installation hint dialog explaining the value of installing your app, check if you are within a WebView because the user won't be able to follow your steps. Hide that information or invite the user to open the URL in the default browser. This applies to Facebook on Android, Facebook on iOS, Chrome on iOS and Firefox on iOS, among other apps. Doing a live check if you are on a WebView or not is tricky, but there is a helper tool available. 08. Test on Android devices and emulators Testing service workers and Web App Manifest requires https, with the exception of localhost. While local desktop testing is fine initially, at one point we want to see our PWAs in action on Android devices. How can we do that? Accessing a dev server from our phone or Android emulator won't work because it's not https and it's not localhost from an Android OS point of view. The solution appears with Chrome Developer Tools. If we go to chrome://inspect and open an emulator or a real device with USB debugging connected, we will be able to enable port forwarding. Then http://localhost on our Android device will be forwarded to our host computer's localhost or any other host. With this trick, Android will render the PWA properly over a non-secure connection. Have in mind, though, that while WebAPK will create the package and install it, it might not work in standalone mode. 09. Publishing to stores PWA Builder is a Microsoft online tool to create store-compatible PWA packages for Windows 10 and other operating systems While the PWA approach didn't start with the stores in mind, some offerings, including Twitter Lite and Google Maps Go in the Play Store, started to serve PWAs on the stores. If this is something you are interested in, to distribute your PWA without packaging it with Cordova, your available options are: Microsoft Store: You can create a PWA for Windows 10 using the official tool from pwabuilder.com Google Play Store: At the time of writing, the Trusted Web Activities available on Canary Channel enable you to create an Android app that just opens a PWA you own and distributes it in the Store, creating a similar solution to WebAPK. You can learn more here. Apple App Store: Currently there are no official solutions to distributing PWAs, but WKWebView will support service workers from iOS 11.3, so it won't be difficult to create a simple wrapper for a PWA. The question is, will Apple approve it in the Store? Apple doesn't want solutions that are just websites with a wrapper on it. This article was originally published in issue 304 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 304 here or subscribe here. Related articles: How to make responsive web apps with container queries Trends that will shape app design in 2018 How to make an app View the full article

I’ve been working as a freelance illustrator and collage maker for nearly five years. At university I flapped around, unsure of my visual language and how to adopt a style that suited me and what I wanted to say. I discovered collage at the end of my second year of study, after realising that my love of film photography and the aesthetic of the prints could be incorporated into my illustration. Ever since then it’s been a case of refining and reflecting in equal measure. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, learnt a lot of lessons and become more confident in the way that I work. My process has twisted and changed over time. It’s essential for me to work quickly and efficiently, particularly when it comes to working on a fast turnaround for editorial clients – sometimes you’ve got five hours from brief to final. Time really is money, so I’ve found ways to ensure I can deliver quality artwork on time. Finding photos My priority initially is to make sure I can source relevant material for the brief. I use copyright-safe archives and free stock image sites as a first port of call. The material can really dictate the direction of the illustration – it does mean I have slightly less control, but equally gives space for happy accidents and experimentation to take place. Clients also provide me with source material they’d like me to include and I also take or use my own photos, bringing us back round full circle to why I fell in love with this style in the first place. Eleanor Shakespeare used an original photo of women jumping over hurdles to create a self-initiated piece on the theme of International Women’s Day. The contextual integrity of the source material can really matter. When creating the illustrations for my book Stormy Seas, I worked closely with the publisher to make sure the images I was using were historically and contextually accurate. When creating non-commissioned work, I am much more free in what I use. Last year, I was producing a self-initiated piece of work in response to International Women’s Day, and was looking for material to inspire me. I came across an old photo of three women jumping over a hurdle, and it summed up exactly what I wanted to convey. The images I find can have so much power on their own, and it’s really exciting to enhance and breathe new life into them. The collage process Once I’ve gathered my images, I cut them out in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. I use the Eraser tool and cut round the object. I find this method most closely represents the process of physical cut and stick collage. A work in progress cut out of the central image for a commission for BBC World Histories (art directed by Susanne Frank), plus the final image (right). It’s then a case of layering, dragging, resizing and playing with the composition and colours. I have archives of handmade textures that I’ve collected and produced over time, as well as found material which I then use to make my work distinctive and bring depth to the illustration. Sometimes I just use one key photograph, and find a concept to hang the image on. Other times, it’s about stitching together a whole range of different material. Either way, I find that a limited colour palette and rich, inky textures and found ephemera make my work unique. From rough to final I’ve worked on hundreds of editorial jobs and the experience differs hugely depending on factors such as client, deadline, budget and topic. Ultimately, I have to remember I’m working for other people, so must find a balance: creating artwork that I’m happy with, but that also satisfies the brief and client. Some of the elements, textures and colours changed as this piece for the Guardian (art directed by Chris Clarke) developed Although I am usually working exclusively with the art director, they are serving as the go-between for me and the editor, designers, their client, sometimes the writer too, so it is vital that I stay flexible and open-minded. Simultaneously, I am a professional image maker, so it’s okay for me to push my ideas and make suggestions. Illustrations develop naturally from roughs to finals and my job is most enjoyable when my vision is in line with the vision of the art director. I don’t tend to draw sketches because my work is so dependent on found imagery, so I loosely put together a rough of what I imagine the final to look like, using materials I plan to use. Achieving cohesion One factor that can define how an image will take shape is the layout and composition of the page. With both editorial and books I try to consider how the page will look as a whole, and I love it when there is flexibility with the layout. The final layout included spot illustrations In a recent illustration for the Guardian, I created the main image – there was no time for roughs – and then we used spots to bring cohesion to the whole spread. Occasionally, clients will have specific colour palettes they’d like me to use, which can be because of other illustrations featuring in the publication or because of the tone of the article. I’m also often restricted by the dimensions given to fit the illustration into. All of these challenges help keep my portfolio diverse and me engaged and excited about what I do. It’s great to see an illustration unfold with the guidance and support of talented art directors. Finding balance This particular Guardian commission was for publication in the launch week of its new tabloid format, so I wasn’t willing to turn it down. At the time, though, I was stranded in New York, meaning there was a five-hour time difference on an already tight six-hour deadline, not to mention that I was simultaneously negotiating flights home and fighting fatigue. My tendency is to say yes to a commission and figure out how to do it afterwards (caffeine!), because once I’ve agreed to a job I have to do it. There are certainly a few tips I’ve learnt along the way to make the fast-paced nature of this career more manageable. I read and reply to emails as soon as I can, more than three icons on my desktop make me feel sick and there are always lists, notes and Post-Its. I’ve learnt that this level of organisation categorically makes my working life easier, but maintaining work-life balance is important too. The flip-side is that I am working with amazing clients on a wide variety of really exciting projects and that makes any moments of stress totally worth it. 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