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Another October has come and gone, and for plenty of artists that means another Inktober challenge is over. It also means that there are plenty of new ink illustrations to marvel at, thanks to the hard work and talent of online artists. Get Adobe Creative CloudFor the uninitiated, Inktober is a challenge created by illustrator Jake Parker way back in 2009, which calls on artists to create an illustration using ink every day throughout October. Over the years the challenge has really grown in popularity and attracted the likes of artists from Walt Disney Studios. We've already seen some of the best artists from Inktober 2016, but that's so last year. To see what Inktober 2017 has produced, scroll through our roundup below of 10 of the most inspirational artists to take part in the challenge. 01. Cathrine Sandmæl Alas poor Inktober, etcSeeing as Inktober happens in the same month as Halloween, a lot of artists create spooky sketches with their pens and brushes. Oslo-based artist Cathrine Sandmæl brought her drawing challenge to a close with these delightful skulls, which strike a nice balance between the supernatural and the illustrative. Whipped up with with ink and watercolours from Windsor and Newton, the skulls and foliage work together nicely and are one of the prettiest reminders of our own mortality that we've seen recently. 02. Kanzaki Yufei That's one way to keep dryTwitter user Kanzaki Yufei is a 2D artist and video game enthusiast who has fully embraced the Inktober challenge. Perhaps the challenges posed by video games have given Yufei a good work ethic, because the artist has managed to keep up with the pace of Inktober to deliver some truly original and eye-catching characters. Just take a look at this glum figure sheltering underneath a toadstool. What's more, Yufei has posted work in progress images so we can see how the art came together. 03. Becky Cloonan Samara goes skinny dippingAmerican artist Becky Cloonan is something of a superstar in the comics industry, so it's been a real treat to see her Inktober illustrations emerging on Twitter. Cloonan, who was the first woman to draw the main Batman title, has been posting haunting images that appear to gaze right into the core of your soul, such as the above image which she captioned "Awaiting the judgement of Osiris". Although if we were to judge Cloonan's Inktober art, we'd say it's outstanding. 04. Staz Johnson When was the last time you watched The Rocketeer?Another Batman artist, Staz Johnson, has also been sharing Inktober illustrations on Twitter over the last month. Johnson has sketched out an array of characters, ranging from James Bond to zombie Nazis, but it's this image inspired by the 1991 film The Rocketeer that we like the best. It could be because we think The Rocketeer is an underrated film (although nostalgia is probably playing a key factor - I'm youngish, bite me) which is why the illustration caught our eye. However that's not to downplay the expert inking on display which captures the personality of the character perfectly. 05. Laura Heikkala The perfect cloak for concealing everything except your anklesJust like Cathrine Sandmæl, Laura Heikkala blends watercolours and inks to achieve stunning results. The Finland-based artist also has a real eye for creating surreal images that draw the viewer in, especially with the above image entitled Grandma's Cloak. With a short title and a striking character, Heikkala instantly creates a world that we want to know more about. We're also blown away by the invisible effect, which looks so smooth and effortless. 06. Lüleiya We love the textured effects in this imageHungary-based artist Lüleiya describes her work as dreamy illustrations that are brought to life with both digital and traditional tools. You can see all of this in action in the Wizard of Celes (above) which is packed with enchanted imagery and fantastical textures. (Is the wizard some sort of master of the night sky? We like to think he is.) As well as being a formidably talented illustrator, Lüleiya is also a dab hand at decorating her images with flowers and crystals to add to their overall effect. What's more, if you like what you see, you can buy Lüleiya's Inktober art from her online store. 07. Marc "Doodles" Pattenden Sure we've seen a two-step tutorial on how to draw owls like this...A handy tip for artists struggling with Inktober is to pick a theme you can hang your illustrations around. That's just what illustrator Marc Pattenden AKA Marc Doodles did for Inktober 2017 with his series of bird images. Pattenden's full list of Inktober illustrations can be found by visiting his Twitter profile, where's handily collected them into one picture pinned to the top of his timeline. If we had to pick a favourite though it would have to be this quizzical eagle owl. 08. Daria Golab That's either a huge dog or a tiny housePolish illustrator Daria Golab describes herself in her Twitter bio as a "creative soul, coffee drinker, failure". We're sure the first two points are true, but we can't agree about the last one when we see the stunning work she's created for Inktober 2017. Just look at the flowing detail in Golab's illustrations, such as the one above from day five of the challenge. Golab's not just a master of linework either. She also has an eye for vibrant colours, which she uses to give her art an added boost. Be sure to head over to her Twitter profile to see this skill in action. 09. Derek Laufman War, what is it good for? In this case, Inktober inspirationLondon Ontario-based artist Derek Laufman sure likes to keep busy. As well creating RuinWorld comic and working as a freelancer for the likes of Marvel, Warner Bros, Hasbro and Mattel, he also found time to squeeze in daily Inktober illustrations. This picture, titled Metal Slug, takes its inspiration from the run-and-gun video game series of the same name and gives the characters that distinctive Laufman twist. It's also the last picture from Laufman's Inktober challenge, but if you like the look of his work you're in luck as his ink art is up for sale in his store. 10. Brian Stelfreeze Don't worry, we're jealous of Stelfreeze's talent tooAnother big name to take part in Inktober 2017 is Brian Stelfreeze. Comic fans are probably already aware of the American artist who illustrates for both DC and Marvel among other publishers, but for those that haven't seen his work just check out the sample of his brilliant work above. We're in awe at how Stelfreeze can blend his inks so smoothly to create a sense of depth and texture, but when he needs to he can also lay down solid shades to really make his art pop. This image brings his Inktober art to a close, but we recommend heading over to his Twitter page and checking out his other ink illustrations. They're so good they look effortless, and are sure to inspire you to pick up a pen and a brush and create your own masterpieces. Related articles: 7 tips for smashing Inktober 2017 Inktober tips from acclaimed illustrator Yuko Shimizu 10 mesmerising MerMay 2017 artists View the full article

Gamers are a dedicated bunch and spend tons of time thinking about their favourite titles. Put that passion to work as you learn to build your own games with the help of School of Game Design. You can get lifetime access to this great resource for aspiring game designers. It's on sale now for 98% off the retail price! It doesn't matter if you're an expert gamer or a total noob, the School of Game Design is built for people of all skill levels. It's packed with more than 120 hours of actionable content that will teach you the skills you need to learn how to build your very own games. These step-by-step courses will teach you the the fundamentals – from coding languages and frameworks, to advanced techniques for animation and modelling, and much more. This bundle is valued at $5,999, but you can get it for just $69 (approx. £53). That’s 98% off the retail price for access to lessons that could set you on a path to your dream job, so grab it today! Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. Read more: The top 10 big-brand logos 13 tips for making a VR gaming world 10 best video game character designs View the full article

Bringing 3D art to life using ZBrush and Maya is a process involving a dozen different disciplines, from sculpting all the way to rendering. Being able to achieve the best result on every single detail certainly takes a lot of time. But, from my experience, it has always been an appreciated quality and ultimately helps you become a better artist. With this 3D portrait of Peter Dinklage playing Tyrion Lannister (from Game of Thrones), I tried to capture not only the look of the actor, but his personality, expressions, emotions and, of course, all those details that usually end up being sacrificed just because it takes too much time to create them. This includes elements such as the rings and the jacket pattern. In this tutorial I’ll provide an overview of the creation of the image and the software I used. I’ll show you how to solve some common issues and I hope you’ll find it interesting, helpful, as well as productive. If you have questions about a specific matter, follow me on my ArtStation page. 01. Find references Draw upon existing characters for inspiration Personally, before jumping into ZBrush, I love spending time finding references to get ideas about the pose I want to give my character. This is important for two reasons: we are probably working with a limited selection of resources, and depending on the quality and number of photos we find online, we could settle on an initial idea for the pose and the camera angle. 02. Sculpt the head Use layers as you sculpt to compare stages as you workWhen you sculpt the head, I’d say to start with a sphere and sculpt on it. Every once in a while use the DynaMesh tool to rearrange your mesh and update your sculpture. When you obtain a decent block-out with no details, it is a good time to make a rough retopo and start subdividing it. From now on, I would work on different sculpting layers in order to work individually on wrinkles, skin pores and volume definition, or even just to be able to see the difference a specific area makes to the image by switching the layer on and off. 03. Create the body T-pose model for sculpting clothingFor this particular asset, I sculpted the jacket directly, instead of creating his naked body first. Because of the stiffness of the fabric, I thought it was not worth using Marvelous Designer, this time at least. I sculpted a rough model, focussing only on the main folds. For the initial T-pose model, the jacket was entirely polygonal (over 200 millions polys), but that was too heavy for this render. The final pattern was obtained via texturing. The T-pose render is on my ArtStation page. 04. Sculpt the rings Objects created using Maya and ZBrushI sculpted the rings in ZBrush, one at a time. For the ruby ring, the metal material should be separate from the gem. This will help you when rendering out the ruby’s refraction. I created one of the hooks covering the ruby, duplicated it three times and placed the copies on each side of the ring. The jacket buttons were modelled in Maya and detailed in ZBrush. 05. Retopology in Maya Optimise and export in readiness for the retopology processAfter finishing the high-res sculpture (with no hairs), I optimised it with Decimation Master, from the Zplugin palette, and exported it in Maya to retopologise it. In Maya, make the decimated high-res mesh live and, in Modeling Tool Kit, activate the Quad Draw tool. From now on, you’ll be able to create new topology directly on top of the high-res mesh. Once I created my final meshes for the head, jacket, buttons, hands, and rings, I spent some time creating the UVs for each part of it. 06. Flask and glass modelling Modelling the tableware with reference to photographsAfter the asset retopo, now is the point where I decided to start modelling the glass and the flask in Maya, according to my photo references. Then I exported everything to ZBrush for the posing. These props will be used with our final character in order to create a sense of narrative – and to give our character a sense of personality – in the final image. 07. Pose the asset Subdivided meshes reflect changes to both hi-res and low-resI usually prefer to project my high-res sculpture on a subdivided version of my retopo meshes. This way, whatever adjustment I make on my high-res sculpture, I’ll be updating my low-res mesh at the same time. At this point, using the Transpose Master, I force my asset into pose. After that, I’ll have to re-tweak clothes wrinkles and the skin on the hands and face. 08. Wine sculpting Creating the liquid sculpture that will become the wineAfter posing the asset, and having both the flask and the glass in position, I sculpted the wine in ZBrush, starting with a sphere and using DynaMesh often, until I obtained a decent rough shape. I divided it into some polygroups in order to split the side shape, and connected it to the flask, the glass, and the top surface, where I wanted the wine to be wavy. At that point I used ZRemesher to achieve my final mesh, and then subdivided it in order to add some more detail. 09. Eyeballs mesh setting Focus on eye detail with separate meshesI split the eyeballs in three parts: 1) the iris with the sclera, 2) the cornea with the thin wet layer on top of the eye, 3) the meniscus. Having three meshes helped me obtain the most realistic material in Marmoset. The iris has its own roughness but, without having a second mesh for the cornea, that roughness would be visible in the reflection highlight, which would be wrong. 10. Hair strain grooming Use a combination of density strains for more natural hairI used XGen to grow long, single strain of hairs, to give me more texture space for longer curls. I had high-density strains for the thicker lower layer of hairs, mid-density strains for the basic layer of curls, and two or three strains for the external curls. These were pretty dense but with a thinner shape. I used them to create scattering curls from the main thick ones. Finally, the last two strains were proper scattering hairs. These revealed a minimal amount of single hairs, used to create the scattering effect all over the head and the curls. 11. Hair texture baking Add more detail to hair with texture bakingI used Arnold to bake the Diffuse and the Ambient Occlusion channels but, because the hairs were so thin, I had to use a trick to get the normal map, cavity, specular, fuzziness, and transmission textures. For the normal maps, I used Handplane Baker to project the strain onto a plane. In Photoshop, I used a copy of the Ambient Occlusion channel to obtain another normal map layer, focused on the single hair, so I was able to get more detail on each strain overlaying this second layer. I also added some manual variation. 12. Placement of hair cards Patience and attention required for hair placementPlacing hair cards is a process that you’ll have to do individually. Unfortunately there is no way around it. Of course, you can help speed up the process with some script to adjust the pivot of each strain, and organise different hair layers in groups, so that you can hide them easily, but at the end of the day, you’ll just have to work hard on it. 13. Place beard cards Shorter hairs like those in a beard are easier to create and place The beard, eyebrows and eyelids are easier. Because the hairs are short, you don’t have to work too hard to place every strain, but be careful with the density of your strains. I painted these textures myself in Photoshop, using the space I left in the hair texture. You’ll end up having many more polygons in the beard than in the hairs, but it’s fine. 14. Texture head and hands Bringing life to head and handsThe first pass of the Diffuse channel was done in Mari. Once I had an homogeneous layer, I moved to Painter and Photoshop to refine it, and tweak the other channels. Ambient Occlusion and the normal map were exported via Handplane Baker but, on top of that layer, I added a pass obtained by converting the diffuse channel, so that Diffuse and Normal were more alike. All other channels – Specular, Glossiness, Subdermal, Translucency and Fuzziness – have been tweaked in Painter. Next page: Learn how to texture your figure's clothing, add shaders and finish off your model 15. Create tileable pattern textures Using tileable pattern layers to create maps for jacket textureI took a decent photo of the pattern and imported it into Photoshop. After removing photo distortion, I traced the pattern onto a layer and made it tileable. For the normal map, I baked the folding of the sculpture from ZBrush in Handplane and then, using my tileable pattern layers, I created a normal map focused just on the jacket pattern. All other channels duplicated the Diffuse one in grayscale, before editing in Photoshop. I painted the dots and the lines in two layers to save as separate patterns to then fill the jacket texture. 16. Make sleeves and inner layer Tileable pattern painted by handI painted this tileable pattern by hand and used it to fill the jacket and the sleeves. For the normal map, I baked the sculpted wrinkles with Handplane and using my three pattern layers, created an additional normal map for just the jacket pattern. This was overlaid onto the basic Normal Map channel. All other channels were from duplicating the Diffuse one in grayscale. 17. Marmoset file setup Having lights assigned to groups allows for more flexibilityOne way I use Marmoset to handle lighting is choosing an HDR environment, but limiting visibility to 0.3. This way, reflections are visible mainly on glossy surfaces, but not so much on rough surfaces. A good tip is if you put all lights into a group, but NOT inside the HDR sub-group, it is possible to spin the lights group and HDR independently. 18. Create the head and hands shader Glossiness gives skin surfaces an oily finish where requiredThe main channels of a PBR material are the Normal Map and the Glossiness. I just set the Specular value to 0.04, but didn't add any texture. I spent some time detailing the Glossiness one instead. You'll notice that the forehead, nose tip and areas around the nostrils, lips, and ear tips are more oily than the cheeks, neck, chin, and all the surfaces where hair grows. Scatter, Translucency and Fuzziness textures need some testing to work properly. Depending on your model you could decide to use different values. 19. Make the eyes shader Eyes need moisture so Glossiness is the tool to useThe bumping volume in front of the iris is one of the most glossy and perfect materials in nature, so Glossiness should be set at 1.0. The actual iris is almost non-reflective. The eyeball is a translucent material, and veins in the sclera are thin but the glossiness comes from the wet layer on top. This blurs the effect, making it look more neat and homogeneous. 20. Add the hair shader Remember to set both your reflection channels to AnisotropicI had to do some experiments with the hair. I initially set up my Specular channel with a Microfibre algorithm, but it wasn’t the result I was hoping for. I ended up using the Subsurface Scatter, like the face and the hands. Using the Ambient Occlusion channel, together with the cavity map, helped break the flatness of the Specular highlight along the even polygons. Using a secondary reflection gave the best result on the hairs, more than on the other materials. Remember to set both your reflection channels to Anisotropic. 21. Rings shader Adding some fingerprint marks in the Glossiness channel helps the final resultThe rings were an easy setting. The most important value came from the tone of reflectivity, which can be found online. Everything else is a picky use of Normal Map and Glossiness to create variations along the surface. Adding some fingerprint marks in the Glossiness channel helps the final result. Just remember to model the ruby socket, and then place the gem into it so that they do not intersect. If you model this ring as a unique object, the ruby will end up looking transparent. 22. Glass shader Creating a duplicate mesh with a different process produced good glassThe best way I found to obtain decent glass was duplicating my whole mesh for the glass and flask (and ruby), and inverting the normals of each polygon. But this means values of refraction will be calculated twice. Also, in order to make this material more interesting, I suggest adding a lot of details like fingerprints, scratches and water drops on top of it. 23. Wine shader Changing the colour gradient for more realismI treated wine the same way as the glass. The only difference is that red wine’s transparency gets higher near the surface. That’s why, in Photoshop, I painted a refraction texture, gradually turning to black as it got closer to the bottom of the flask and the glass. Also, in order to make it more believable, there is some noise in it, so that the final result looks thicker. But let’s face it; it still looks like black cherry syrup! I’ll keep testing Marmoset to see if I can find a better way to handle these refractive shaders. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 226. Buy it here. Related articles: 30 free 3D models How to sculpt a 3D-printed goblin How to create a realistic digital portrait View the full article

Graphic design on the web is becoming standardised. Visual trends are being adhered to like rules, and organisations are losing their identity online. A website builder such as Squarespace and Wix might offer seemingly high quality website templates for a fraction of the price of a bespoke site design. (There's also the case of growing political instability... but that's a whole different article.) Platforms such as Dribbble and Behance make it a lot easier to find designers. Supply is high and so is the competition. This can force prices down. So, why should anyone hire us? What makes us unique? Sites like Behance have made the market truly internationalWith stiff competition, how can we maintain a premium price point for the work we do and continue to forge a successful career in web design? The answer lies with our clients and our approach to design. We need to remove ourselves from this race by competing on a completely different level. Our goal must be to create distinctive and unique design work for our clients that elevates us above the competition and in turn helps build us a diverse, unique and strong body of work. Find an identity Over nearly two decades in design, I've formed an approach that helps me create unique work; work that you can't get from a template. It all starts with the client: it's their unique identity and personality that's the foundation for distinctive, engaging design. You're probably familiar with clients sharing ideas with you at the beginning of the design process. These ideas are often based on another company's identity; often they're a direct competitor. Your client has aspirations, but it's our job to help them to recognise that their identity is unique, and that the key to a successful design comes from within their own organisation. Uncovering the client's unique identity is key – as I did with the site design for Mixd We convince them to build upon their own values and mission and not replicate something they've found elsewhere. If you follow, you're always one step behind. Once they're on board, we extract their identity. We want to get to the bottom of who they really are. What drives them? Why do they exist? What is their mission? What are their values? We can do this through a series of discussions with the client. It's important to be empathetic. This discovery process is often very rewarding. It's at this point your client realises who they are and that they have an identity they can own. We now have a strong basis from which to build a distinctive and unique design. Tell a story To use the information we've extracted, we need to make sense of it. We look for common threads and use these to start building our client's story. We're condensing the bigger picture of who they are into a simple, digestible form. I often distil the patterns I find into phrases or straplines that convey the company's values and mission in a few simple words. This forms the basis of your client's story – it's like a movie strapline. This narrative will give you direction and meaning when creating the visual design and branding elements. It will give you solid reasoning and direction for your design decisions. Key phrases – such as Shopify's 'With you all the way' – can help distil a company's values As well as creating the basis for your story, the client's identity, values and mission will guide you in to how to apply style to your site design. Typography, colour, layout and texture all convey meaning to the user. Choose styles that help convey and communicate the core message of the website. Using this logic can make the creative process run more smoothly. You're no longer trying to grab ideas out of thin air; you have solid reasoning in place to help you make your design decisions. By following this process you'll not only create distinctive work for your clients; you'll also build yourself a strong body of design work. You'll demonstrate that good design can't be bought off the shelf and that if a potential client wants a distinctive and unique web presence, it's something worth investing in. This article originally appeared in net magazine. Subscribe here. Read more: The designer’s guide to Brexit 5 top tips for graduate designers How to futureproof yourself as a designer View the full article

How does a brand become a household name? There’s no easy-to-apply formula, but there are some common ingredients: a killer product. Constant innovation. A keen focus on beating rivals. Strong roots in communities, be they geographical or interest-based. And most importantly, an emotional connection to consumers that’s guaranteed to endure longer than just the latest marketing campaign. Among all this activity, how important is the logo design really? Sometimes that’s debatable. For example, would Google still be the world’s number one search engine if it had a different logo? Probably. We’d argue, though, that these 10 logos really can claim to be an essential element of their brand’s core appeal... 01. Disney The Disney logo is an essential part of the brand’s magicWhen it comes to appealing to children worldwide, nothing beats Disney. That appeal is, of course, largely based on its world-class content. But that’s not the whole story. After all (whisper it), not every Disney film has been that great. And other studios, such as Dreamworks, have created movies and characters that are just as iconic as Disney’s best. Yet rival brands have never come close to matching that indefinable feeling, that sense of wonder, that a trip to the Disney store – or even Disneyland itself – can evoke. This branding brilliance is built on several keystones: The fairytale castle motif that gets sprinkled with stardust at the start of every movie; iconic tunes that every child knows the words to; that ever-adaptable mouse ears silhouette. And right in the centre of it all is a friendly, smiling Disney logo, a sure sign that wondrous things are about to occur. The fact that the logo is (supposedly) based on Walt Disney’s signature is crucial, because it forges a personal connection between the man who started it all and the present day audience. And that all ties in nicely with the ethos of family togetherness that the brand strives for. Of course, Walt’s real signature was actually nothing like this logo, and Disney is as profit-hungry as any other mega-corporation. But none of that really matters when you have an audience that wants to believe in magic, and a brand that’s happy to indulge that wish. Core brand proposition: Fun and magic for all the family. How the logo reinforces it: A friendly signature from the “head of the Disney family”, cast in cartoony, fantastical lettering, conveys both a sense of fun and reassurance. 02. Coca-Cola Coca-Cola’s logo is a true antique, yet still seems modern and relevantIt’s hard to think of a big-brand logo that’s less likely to ever be redesigned. Surveys consistently show that it’s recognised by more than 90 per cent of people the world over. One of the main reasons for the success of Coca-Cola’s logo is its sheer longevity. The original 1886 logo, written in Spencerian script, is so close to the current design that a time traveller from the Victorian era would easily recognise it today. The simple lesson is that, rather than constantly updating and redesigning your logo as some brands feel compelled to do, you may well be better off sticking with what people know. Because just as the more you hear a pop song, the more it lodges in your brain, so it is with logos. Familiarity, in this sphere, is less likely to breed contempt than instant recognition and its associated success. You can learn more about how the Coca-Cola logo became such an icon in our Design Icon: Coca-Cola article, and read about how the brand uses colour in our 5 ways to use imagery to create better branding article. Core brand proposition: The tastiest and most refreshing soda around. How the logo reinforces it: Coca-Cola’s historical script evokes a feeling of longevity and trustworthiness, while its bright red colour adds a sense of youth, brightness and excitement. 03. McDonalds The McDonald’s logo is based on the physical arches of one of the original restaurantsThe story of how salesman Ray Kroc took a restaurant called McDonald’s and turned it into a world-beating franchise – spending millions on buying the name, concept and store design from the original owners – is a fascinating and complex one. The best way to learn about is by watching the much underrated 2016 film The Founder, starring Michael Keaton. But once you’ve discovered about all the Machiavellian plotting by Kroc, you still wonder: why didn’t he just start his own restaurant instead? The simple answer, as he told TIME, was: “I needed the McDonald name and those golden arches. What are you going to do with a name like Kroc?" Those two elements were eventually combined in one brilliant logo design, which has become one of the most ubiquitous on the planet. In fact, not only do people recognise the logo, they actively seek it out. Just think, if you were looking for a quick bite on a long trip, wouldn’t you (subconsciously or otherwise) be looking out for those distinctive golden arches? Learn more about its history by reading our article on The story behind the McDonald's logo. Core brand proposition: Good value, reliable, fast food. How the logo reinforces it: The two arches invite you to a golden palace of calorific delight, while the ‘M’ for McDonalds conveys a reassuring sense of family and tradition. 04. Starbucks Despite the high prices, the Starbucks siren continues to tempt millions towards their caffeine fix dailyIf you’re looking for a caffeine fix in a modern city, you’re probably on the lookout for the Starbucks logo. This distinctive emblem does a great job in drawing millions of customers to pay more than they’d like for a coffee on a daily basis. But what exactly does it mean? When Starbucks was founded in 1971, the Seattle-based company wanted its logo to combine the city’s strong seaport roots with the seafaring history of coffee. After examining a lot of old marine books, someone spotted a 16th century Norse woodcut of a twin-tailed mermaid, also known as a siren. The idea of a seductress beckoning customers towards their caffeine high was irresistible, and she’s been there ever since. There may have been tweaks and updates to the logo itself, but as the company blog stated during the last tweak in 2015: “the Siren has always been there. She is at the heart of Starbucks.” She makes a standout logo, alright – just don't ask people to draw it. Core brand proposition: Good coffee in a convivial atmosphere. How the logo reinforces it: The emblem provides a link to Seattle’s historic past, adding a sense of depth and tradition to the brand, while the siren herself silently speaks to your subconscious, tempting you with that caffeine hit you’ve been craving. 05. Playboy Increasingly, the Playboy logo is the companyIf ever a logo could claim to be a company’s most valuable asset, it’s that of Playboy. After all, few people buy the magazine it was once chiefly known for. And even its soft porn videos are no longer a licence to print money, now they’re competing with free porn on ad-supported websites. Nowadays, the corporation earns the bulk of its revenue from licensing its logo, which was originally created in 1953 by Playboy art director Art Paul. An enduring symbol of both kitsch and sexual liberation, the rabbit in a tux adorns everything from clothing and beauty products to branded cocktail lounges such as LA’s Bar Fifty Three. So it was no surprise when, shortly after founder Hugh Hefner’s recent death, Playboy’s top priority was taking legal steps to lock down ownership of the logo, or indeed any other version of it. Core brand proposition: It’s fun and harmless for men to indulge their sexual fantasies. How the logo reinforces it: The tongue-in-cheek rabbit emblem hints at sexual virility without being at all explicit or offensive, which means it can even be used in public, where children may see it. 06. Ford The Ford logo is officially one of the company’s biggest assetsAs the company that pioneered the mass production of automobiles, Ford has a long history to trade on. And it makes the most of it. Evoking a sense of continuity and reliability is key to Ford’s branding, so it’s not surprising that its logo has changed little over the last century. The original signature lettering appeared in 1912 (interestingly, rendered in the same Spencerian script used in the Coca-Cola logo.) It was encapsulated in the blue oval in 1927. The most recent update was carried out, thoughtfully and carefully, by the great designer Massimo Vignelli in 1966. And that, aside from a few tweaks, has been that. The Ford logo is, then, another case of a big brand logo succeeding because the company stuck to its guns. Even when one of the legends of logo design, Paul Rand, designed a radical alternative in 1966, Henry Ford II, the owner at the time, turned it down. And he was probably right. After all, the logo was one of the valuable assets pledged as collateral in the 2006 deal that gave Ford a much-needed multibillion-dollar line of credit. Core brand proposition: Reliable, high quality motoring. How the logo reinforces it: By carefully respecting its logo over the decades, Ford has protected the brand loyalty and emotional connections it has built up in generation after generation. 07. BBC The BBC’s relatively formal and geometric logo reflects its mission to ‘inform, educate and entertain’The BBC has had an interesting and chequered logo history. But the logo we’re familiar with today – three letters, each encased in separate squares – has essentially been in place since 1960. And it works brilliantly because, well… it’s quite boring. Since its launch in 1992, the BBC’s mission has remained to ‘inform, educate and entertain’. Most other TV channels focus on the ‘entertain’ part of that phrase. But it turns out that people aren’t as dumb as they’re sometimes suspected to be. And audiences around the world really appreciate the BBC’s focus on in-depth documentaries, balanced news, costume dramas, arts and culture. So just as a channel like Fox News needs a dynamic and exciting logo to convey just how combative and game-changing its reporting is, the calmer and more measured approach taken by the BBC is reflected in a logo that’s more formal, geometric and, yes, just a little bit dull. Core brand proposition: To inform, educate and entertain. How the logo reinforces it: The BBC’s formal logo eschews flashy sales techniques and instead reflects the organisation’s sense of confidence in its mission. 08. Shell The Shell logo combines crisp minimalism with a sense of longevity and reliabilityYou can be sure of Shell, the old advertising slogan ran. And while oil and gas companies are no longer feted in the way they were in those pre-eco aware times, the classic Shell logo – relatively unchanged since 1971 – still speaks to the kind of longevity and reliability that people crave in an ever-changing world. Reliability is, of course, what you want from your energy giant, not excitement or unnecessary risk-taking. And the best thing about the Shell logo is that it provides us with that sense of traditionalism, even nostalgia, while at the same time its crisp minimalism means doesn’t look at all dated, almost five decades on from its creation. But why the shell? The company’s name and emblem is surprisingly literal. Shell actually began life in 1891 as a trading company that transported old oriental sea shells to Western nations. But given that oil and gas essentially comes from dead animals and plant life, the emblem still makes sense in the context of its activities today. The distinctive red and yellow colour scheme first appeared around 1915 and followed the construction of Shell’s first service stations in California. The bright colours helped the logo stand out on the freeways, and they’re also the colours of the Spanish flag, which would have resonated with the state’s many Spanish settlers. It's no wonder it made it into our top 10 best logos ever. Core brand proposition: An energy giant you can trust. How the logo reinforces it: Bright colours and simple design make the logo easy to recognise, and its sheer longevity provides a sense of reassuring familiarity in a chaotic world. 09. Nike Nike’s emblem wasn’t originally designed to be a tickSometimes the success of a design lies more in the final result than the original intention. Take the Nike logo, designed by Portland student Carolyn Davidson for the princely sum of $35. The company’s founder, Philip Knight, wanted something to suggest movement, along the lines of the Adidas stripes. And so Davidson’s logo was actually drawn as the outline of the wing of the goddess Nike, to personify victory. Of course, what the world saw, and continues to see, was what the Americans call a check and the British call a tick. More broadly, this now-ubiquitous logo has come to represent positivity, especially when paired in advertising campaigns with the all-encompassing slogan ‘Just do it’. Owning both a punctuation mark and an emotional state of being: now that’s what we call a successful brand logo. Core brand proposition: You, too, can achieve your sporting dreams and physical goals. How the logo reinforces it: A simple emblem that speaks volumes about the power and appeal of positive thinking. 10. Apple Apple’s logo turns its computing devices into fashion itemsTalk to hardcore Apple fans and they’ll tell you the success of the brand lies in the fact that its products “just work”. But many people have had issues trying to use their pricey iPhone as a phone, while others have found that a Chromebook could do everything they needed, without the huge cost of a MacBook. It’s not all, in short, all about functionality. What’s equally important is that Apple has made the visual design of its products a priority. They are undeniably beautiful things. If cost were no longer an issue then few people, if they’re honest, would choose anything else. While the Apple logo, designed by Rob Janoff, may play a small part in this overall aesthetic, it’s certainly an important one. Easy to spot at a distance on any Apple device, think how many times you’ve spotted it in a TV show, movie or just in your local coffee shop and felt a pang of envy (if you’re not an Apple user) or the thrill of belonging to an elite club (if you are). In other words, the Apple logo is not just a quality trademark, it’s a fashion statement. And no other hardware company has yet come up with anything to rival it for sheer, unadulterated cool. Core brand proposition: Apple is just the coolest. Nothing else comes close. How the logo reinforces it: A simple, beautifully designed emblem that sets Apple apart as a fashion brand. Related articles: 5 ways to use imagery to create better branding The 6 best design industry logos 7 classic logos that should never have been changed View the full article

A popular parental monitoring system, called Circle with Disney, receives 23 patches for a wide range of serious vulnerabilities. View the full article

Apple has patched the KRACK vulnerability in iOS and elsewhere in its product line, closing a key re-installation vulnerability in the WPA2 protocol implemented used by its software. View the full article

With Cyber Monday 2017 fast approaching, we’re here to help you grab the best deals for designers, illustrators and artists over the Black Friday long weekend. (You’ll find the best Black Friday 2017 deals here.) According to research by Adobe, Cyber Monday 2016 was a record-breaker. A massive $3.45 billion was spent online last year – making it the biggest day in US ecommerce history. It’s a big day in the UK, too, so where are the best deals for creatives, and how can you beat the competition to get your hands on them? That’s where we can help. We’ll be updating this page throughout Cyber Monday, so bookmark this page for all the latest UK deals and US deals on creative kit. From hardware – laptops deals, tablet deals, desktop deals – and software to cameras, smartphones and more, you’ll find the best Cyber Monday 2017 deals right here. The good news? You don’t have to wait until the end of November to bag a bargain – we expect to see great deals announced throughout the month, and we’ll be posting them all on this page. Scroll down to see the cheapest Black November deals on the best creative kit... When is Cyber Monday 2017? Cyber Monday 2017 falls on 27 November this year. Black Friday will kick off the Christmas shopping season – it’s always the day after Thanksgiving in the US, which this year is Friday 24 November – with Cyber Monday following three days later. During Black Friday, you’ll find deals on the high street as well as online. Cyber Monday, however, was originally dreamt up by savvy marketers as a way to sell more of their wares online, back when online shopping wasn’t as prevalent as it is today. According to the experts, Cyber Monday sees a wider range of deals across individual retailers. That means it's less about one-off discounts, and more about lower prices generally. Of course, if stores need to shift stock they’ll follow-up Black Friday discounts with further reductions on Cyber Monday – so expect one-off deals too. Last year, Amazon offered the likes of the Sony Xperia X for just £319.99, reduced from an original price of £499.99. (Get it now for £299.99 / $239.99.) We anticipate an explosion of excellent deals for designers and illustrators this year, so stay tuned. Cyber Monday 2017: retailer links In the meantime, we’ve rounded up the biggest retailers in the UK and US below, who will be rolling out incredible deals throughout Cyber Monday 2017. We recommend having a browse for inspiration... Cyber Monday UK Amazon Cyber Monday John Lewis Cyber Monday Currys Cyber Monday Argos Cyber Monday Tesco Direct Cyber Monday eBay Cyber Monday Cyber Monday US Amazon Cyber Monday Walmart Cyber Monday Target Cyber Monday Kohl's Cyber Monday 2017 eBay Cyber Monday 2017 Today's best Black November deals for creatives In recent years, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have morphed into a Black November, with retailers increasingly look to beat the competition by releasing early deals. If you’re like us, you’ll have your eye on some creative kit already. Here are the cheapest current deals on our favourite products… Related articles: The best Amazon Cyber Monday deals 2017 The 6 best smartphones for designers in 2017 5 best laptops for video editing in 2017 View the full article

For designers and animators, not being comfortable with code can be a major hindrance when it comes to realising your vision on the web. But it doesn't need to be that way. There's no reason why a lack of coding ability should limit your creative vision. Interactions 2.0 is a new feature from Webflow that enables you to create website animations and interactions without having to write a single line of code. Interactions 2.0 brings the power and capabilities of CSS and JavaScript animation into a completely visual tool. With it, you can build animations as easily as you'd animate elements in a Keynote deck. Your creations are then transformed instantly into clean, working code – zero coding knowledge required. A creative designer's mind isn't necessarily suited to working with, say, complex JavaScript, but that shouldn't hold you back. With Interactions 2.0 you can still harness all your creative vision to create advanced website interactions and animations. The fact the tool takes care of turning your design into code means there's no danger the intricacies of your design getting lost when it's handed over to the development team. Ideal for retaining total creative control. So if you've been put off getting involved in animation or website creation in the past, now's the time to rethink. With Interactions 2.0, Webflow is welcoming in a new era in which anyone who has a creative mind can envision something amazing for the web and bring it to life easily. View the full article

Designing an ecommerce website is big business, and it's now easier than ever for companies big and small to launch an online store. Bespoke ecommerce site software – such as Shopify, which offers an amazing library of customisable templates – makes it easy to create beautiful and highly immersive online shopping experiences. Here are 12 great ones that have caught our eye. So read on for some top web design inspiration... 01. Simply Chocolate Each product on this site has plenty of space to shineSimply Chocolate is a chocolate company based in Copenhagen, Denmark. A vibrant and fun site design gives each product plenty of space to shine. A parallax effect means that as the user scrolls down, a chocolate bar floats above the content, unwraps, and breaks into chunks. Meanwhile the ingredients of each bar – coconut slices, almonds, mint leaves – animate gently in the background. These in-your-face effects work because there's only a little information displayed in the background at any one time, so it doesn't become overwhelming. Inspiring feature: In-your-face parallax effects put each product front and centre. 02. Kvell Each section is carefully art directedKvell is a contemporary homeware brand based in Canada, and its website is truly a thing of beauty. The homepage displays each range in situ, with the user navigating through by clicking the horizontal scrollbar. They can also dive in to explore each range in more detail (the navigation at this point switches to vertical, but the style remains the same). The bright colours, bold typography and balanced product shots used throughout make this collection a joy to explore. Inspiring feature: Consistent and appealing art direction used throughout. 03. Drybar Tiny animations add a touch of fun without being overwhelmingA great colour scheme paired with subtle animations gives this site both style and personality. Mouse over the little hairdryer and it bounces on its cord; hover over the icons at the top and a tiny animation gives you some feedback. Touches like this make the site fun to use without being overwhelming or annoying. Inspiring feature: Adding colour and movement on hover gives nice feedback and feels fun. 04. Nordstrom Product filters help shoppers narrow down what they're looking forFor a site with a diverse and large range of products – from fashion to furniture to kitchenware – the challenge is to make sure your users can find what they're looking for. Where Nordstom excels is in its product filtering options. After choosing the general area they want via the main header navigation, users can narrow down their search as much as they want to using further filters displayed down the left hand side. Essential for happy shopping. Inspiring feature: Great product filtering options. 05. Northernism A minimalist design makes this site undemanding for the userThis site creates a fresh look by moving away from established ecommerce design patterns, placing images and text on a grid that feels much less familiar. There's plenty of white space and each page contains a few simple images, making it seem a lot less busy than most of the web. Inspiring feature: Great use of photography makes the products feel luxurious. 06. The Practical Man A practical UI for The Practical ManA blocky layout, bold type and strong colour palette give this site for a men's sportswear retailer a distinctive, memorable style. Unlike many ecommerce sites, where an unusual aesthetic is confined to the homepage, the design here is consistent throughout – information on individual product pages is separated into a defined grid (price, colour, size, overview and so on). Inspiring feature: Large, chunky menus are easy to navigate and satisfying to use. 07. PRESS Get the feeling of a cosy bookshop on this beautiful siteThose who love bookshops but can't always make it to the high street can get a taste of a bricks-and-mortar bookstore on PRESS' website. The 'Books and things' shop has a website that makes use of beautiful photography to mimic the atmosphere in a tranquil bookshop. Scroll down and the products appear in a striking black and white chequered grid. Inspiring feature: Huge product shots let you get a feel for each book. 08. A Book Apart A Book Apart's ecommerce website makes a visual feature of its book coversWhile many ecommerce websites rely on large beautiful photography to sell their products, A Book Apart instead uses the block-colour covers to vividly display its series of 'brief books for people who make websites'. This works especially well when displaying the entire collection of books, available as a bundle. Inspiring feature: Makes the most of its simple, colourful book covers. 09. Ada Blackjack Leather goods ecommerce website Ada Blackjack shows off its products with photographyAda Blackjack is a brand of handmade bags and leather goods. While relatively traditional in terms of design and layout, this ecommerce website excels with its expressive use of large hero images. Photos are simple and clean, and let the product shine, as well as emphasising that it's quality that's the focus here. When viewing a large version of a product on its individual detail page, the designers chose to move away from the traditional popup by overlaying the large image within the page. Click the plus icon to see the effect. Inspiring feature: Simple photography shows off the high-quality products. 10. Bellroy Bellory's ecommerce website includes a fun interactive demonstrationLand on the homepage of wallet maker Bellory and you'll be greeted with a relatively simple layout. Delve a little deeper into this ecommerce website and you'll find a wide variety of very different designed pages highlighting individual products. Incorporating fun demonstration videos, the Bellroy site is a great example of how flexible Shopify can be when presenting your products online. The Slim your wallet tutorial is a fun and interesting guide to 'losing the wallet bulge', culminating in some rather nice photographs of the product and links to all its products. Inspiring feature: Fun video demonstrations and an interactive guide. Read more: How to build an ecommerce site from scratch 4 money-making ecommerce redesigns to learn from How to sell your work online View the full article

Oracle released an emergency patch for a remote code execution vulnerability in Oracle Identity Manager rated a 10 out of 10 in severity. View the full article

Busy studios are only successful when they can handle their workload efficiently, otherwise things will go into meltdown: deadlines are missed, budgets squandered and clients lost. That’s where resource management is essential. In a special feature in association with Resource Guru, we paid a visit to two similarly sized London agencies to find out how they stay efficient. Locket Aebischer is senior account manager at SomeOne, and Dan Moore is co-founder and MD of Studio Output. How do you keep track of who works on what? Locket Aebischer: A Google sheet. It’s live, everyone can see it remotely, and we plan two to three weeks ahead. Account managers have a channel on Slack to talk about projects, and the design directors and founders have another so they can feed new business into us. Dan Moore: We also have a big, bulky, custom-built Google sheet that includes design, strategy, copy and whoever else needs to be on it. All the permanent teams are on there, and freelancers. Projects are manually allocated across the week, normally at least four weeks in advance. It gets looked at daily by the project director, then more formally by the producers and design directors if a pitch comes in or a project moves. We ensure there’s as much communication as possible, but you need to be flexible, as you never know what’s around the corner. Our spreadsheet does the job, but it could do it better. How accurate is your current method? DM: We need to get better at allocating actual time from a project into actual time on resource. Generally, people know they have a resource allocated, but also specific tasks. Four hours means you have to get x, y, z done in that time. When we first brought it in, the real challenge was people understanding that time has to have something at the end of it – it’s not just there to be looked at. It’s that balance between the creative resource understanding what there is versus being spoon-fed a bunch of stuff. You want people to take ownership of things, but you also want that level of control from the producers. Whatever tool you use needs to be friendly and accessible, but also make sure everyone’s voice is heard. Some people want to be micromanaged, others want to know what their week looks like and just get on with it. How do you avoid clashes between projects? LA: Usually it’s quite smooth. As I said, we talk a lot on Slack if we’re not in the same room, so if something comes up or there’s a big issue, we can shift things around a bit. Our clients are usually super-flexible and understanding, so if we need more time, it works out OK. Do freelancers fit into your system effectively? DM: When we get freelancers in, it’s generally to do a particular project or task, so their time is easier to resource out – it’s either speciality or overflow. Occasionally, we get someone in just as a pair of hands who can juggle different stuff. Over the years, we’ve built up maybe three or four people who can work for us on that basis. It’s like having a family member come back; they get straight into it, and know where everything is. We just make sure they know what they’re doing in our twice-daily stand-ups. LA: A lot of our freelancers are recommended by designers in the studio. They don’t necessarily come with time-sheets, or stuff that an agency might give them. We have another Google sheet to plot who’s available when. But if we do get a freelancer in, it’s usually for a particular project so we know exactly what hours they’ve spent. Studio Output’s rebrand of AutoTrader was run 'semi-agile'How do you respond to unforeseen issues? DM: You have to be agile to stay in business, but the key is to have as few unknowns as possible. If things jump out of the woodwork, it’s usually because of a communication issue – whether internal or with a client. Sometimes it gets to the point where you have to say ‘no’, or deal with it in a stronger way, but that’s rare. Being independent means we can go down that route if we need to, but we pride ourselves on great communication. When unforeseen things happen relating to health or weather, we have a tight enough team that everyone knows what’s going on. People pitch in. LA: We’re agile. If anyone’s free, or their project has quietened down a bit, they’ll mention it on Slack, and someone else snaps them up. Is staff burnout ever a danger? DM: It’s always a danger, but we’ve tried to foster an environment where people work hard within their contracted hours. They’ve got a life, and come back refreshed the next day. It’s not always possible; sometimes there’s more work than resource. With some projects, everyone wants to put the hours in; for others, they need to because it’s not worked out for some reason. Generally there’s a good balance. Doing things at weekends is rare in terms of projects – it might happen for an event or a shoot, but we make sure the team is happy doing it, and are transparent about time off in lieu. There are times when people do get to that burnout stage. It tends to be because they’ve got their head down and have tried to deal with it, and not shared it. We’ve had to go in and say: “Look, let’s talk about this. Let’s work it out.” If that’s happening, it’s on my shoulders. LA: Overtime isn’t usually a huge issue, but we have just done a 600-page book in two months, which is mad. There were definitely some late-night Deliveroos with that. Usually we’re good at plotting things far enough in advance so that our timelines are fairly manageable. Do time zones ever pose a challenge when you’re working on global projects? LA: Our international clients understand we’re in London, so mostly it’s fine. If it’s really urgent and needs to be done out of our time zone, our Sydney office can help us out. Occasionally someone stays late, but we try to avoid it. Part of SomeOne’s branding for the London 2017 World Para Athletics ChampionshipsYou have both spent some time with Resource Guru. How have you found it so far? DM: The approach is similar: you’re plotting projects on a timeline. But there are definitely time savings that will add up, and that becomes interesting. I like the way you can drag and drop, and queue up jobs – that’s something we have to do manually on our Google doc. The reporting tools are most interesting to us as an agency I think. I like how it puts more care into how resources are communicated to the people doing the job; it feels more personal for each person to have a dashboard, for instance. Some people are fine to be spoon-fed, some want the opposite, and having something like this where there is visibility is really useful. LA: Yeah, it’s super-easy to use. It’s great to be able to plot actual times against people, because on our current Google sheet we only really have ‘morning’ and ‘afternoon’. With Resource Guru, you can plot in times of day much more accurately, which has been quite helpful for scheduling meetings and so on. Which features in Resource Guru do you think your studio would benefit from most? LA: I think being able to see further ahead than one or two weeks would be really useful, so we can put in the deadlines of the biggest projects, and see when people have to work on them. At the moment we only do it one or two weeks ahead, which can make it harder to see the big picture. It feels like it’d be a real improvement to see meetings and deadlines all in one place, instead of having to check multiple calendars and tabs along the bar. DM: Daily email updates are a particularly good idea. It’s something we’ve tried to do manually over the years, and it’s just dropped off. Once there’s some project data in there, I’d be keen to explore the reporting tools in more detail. The bigger we get as an agency, the fewer people have eyeballs on each individual job. We need to review things from a global view, so it’s useful to have it all there at your fingertips. I think that’s where tools like this are useful – they give you a real-time look at what’s going on. Read more: How to build a thriving studio 56 best free fonts for designers How to futureproof yourself as a designer View the full article

From making false teeth to firing flaming arrows and painting magic wossname for fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, British artist Paul Kidby has had long and eventful career, as he tells us. Kidby grew up in suburban London in the 1960s and 70s. As a boy, there was a lady's house on his street that he found fascinating. In the window was a skeleton. And when he heard what this lady did for a living, 
he found her house all the more fascinating. But he was well into his teens before he dared knock on the door of Miss Ockingdon’s. At that time, he’d just dropped out of sixth form and worked on a Youth Opportunity Program making false teeth. He’d been interested in art from a young age. He’d make plasticine models of the orcs and elves from the books that his big sister would read to him. He was always drawing, too. He had plenty of supplies, since his dad was a stationary salesman. As a teenager, 
he drew imaginative pieces influenced by his two interests: fantasy literature and punk rock – The Lord of the Rings and The Jam, War of the Worlds and The Clash. Aged 17, Kidby “plucked up the courage” to introduce himself to Miss Ockingdon. “Miss Ockingdon,” he says, “had been an anatomical artist working in operating theatres, and was an adept draughtswoman and calligrapher. She had taught art at Ealing Art College. Her students included Pete Townsend, Freddie Mercury and Ronnie Wood. “She told me, in no uncertain terms, that if I was serious about becoming 
an artist, I had to learn the nuts and bolts of my craft, starting with perspective, anatomy and composition. I had to ditch my imaginative illustrations and start drawing from life.” Kidby began illustrating for Sir Terry Pratchett back in 2002 and remained close with the author until his death in 2015Kidby visited Miss Ockingdon every week. She critiqued his work and set him challenges. Technically, he learned a lot from her. But above 
all else he learned that to be a successful artist you need discipline. “It was the start,” the illustrator and sculptor says, “of a life-changing process in my artistic development.” In the early 1980s, Kidby designed and painted roller blinds in a factory. He was working, but not hard. He and a friend would clock in and then go jogging. If they weren’t doing that, they were doing something far worse. 
“We made bows and arrows to fire across our department into the rolls of cardboard. This stopped after we got carried away and fired flaming arrows, as we realised things might be getting a tad out of hand.” By the mid-80s, he was working 
as a commercial illustrator, first as a freelancer in London, where he created greetings cards and packaging, and later at Future Publishing in Bath (which publishes Imagine FX and Creative Bloq, among others), where he drew covers for magazines like Sega Power, GamesMaster, and Commodore Format. “I had the optimism of youth,” he says, “but it 
did mean working a lot harder, including weekends. The days of firing arrows, flaming or otherwise, were well and truly over.” "I had no idea how popular he was!" “I painted this in 2014. It’s a large-scale piece, acrylic on canvas, and features over 70 Discworld characters. It’s for the Terry Pratchett Hisworld exhibition, at the Salisbury Museum.” I shook his hand and gave him my envelope of sketches... a few weeks later, he rang me up and suggested that I create some artwork for him. Paul Kidby Kidby remembers the day that would define his career: his first meeting with best-selling author Sir Terry Pratchett. “In 1993, my sister gave me The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett for my birthday. This was a pivotal gift,” he recalls. “At once, I was able to visualise Discworld and its inhabitants. I sketched up some of the characters and took them to a book signing in Bath.” At the time, Kidby had no idea how popular the late author was and was rather surprised when he joined a very long queue to meet him. “I shook his hand and gave him my envelope of sketches. I expected to hear nothing further. However, a few weeks later, he rang me up and suggested that I create some artwork for him. It was a very exciting moment.” Pratchett told him that the character designs he presented him with were the closest anyone had got to how he himself imagined them. “That for me was hugely encouraging, as was his endorsement of my creative work by allowing me 
to illustrate for him. "I would visit him often at his home and we would discuss the character designs and develop the look of the environments. Terry’s work remains a great inspiration for me and my gratitude for the opportunity he gave me is huge.” Depicting Discworld Wryd Sisters - “I started this piece in 2002 and finished it in 2013. It was for an exhibition at the Russell Coates Museum in Bournemouth. Granny Weatherwax looks like my mum.”Since 2002, Kidby has designed book jackets for the author’s celebrated Discworld series and its various tie-ins. Kidby used to have direct contact with Sir Terry until the author’s death in 2015. They’d flesh out designs together. Now Discworld commissions come from publishers or the Pratchett estate. For book jackets, Kidby receives a brief, then he works with an art editor until their ideas aline. “My job is to visualise the brief,” he says, “so it’s not a matter of compromise for me, rather a case of giving the client what they want to see. Sometimes I input additional ideas when I submit my designs, but it’s a collaborative process overall and one that I enjoy.” Kidby begins by drawing a very rough sketch, which only he’ll ever see. He doesn’t develop it into a series of working sketches. Instead, once he has the idea straight, he starts work on what will eventually be the finished piece, adding lines, taking them out, working with the pencil and the eraser until he’s entirely happy with the composition. He shades for form and tone. If he’s going to colour the work, he’ll create a detailed underpainting in sepia tones, which “provides the bones for the drawing by strengthening the lines and form.” He adds thin washes of colour. “The Reformed Vampyres, drawn for the 2003 Discworld Diary. I tinted my pencils digitally.”In the final stages, Kidby uses colour pencils for details and highlights. He describes himself as “modern old school.” He strives for accuracy, in perspective, in proportion, in the things that always underpin his paintings. He makes final tweaks in Photoshop. By his own admission, he’s not a fast worker. “Even if the subject matter is fantastical,” he says, “such as a dragon, I’ll apply my knowledge of anatomy to make it believable. My work has a historical feel and my colours tend to be muted. "I’ll often give an illustration a humorous slant, and sometimes I parody an existing painting, but only if it’s appropriate. I think the underlying thread that ties all my work together is ‘magical wossname’ – a useful Pratchett term.” Kidby works every day, often including weekends. He wakes up a 6.30am and runs on the treadmill. He gets cracking no later than 9am, after breakfast and a strong pot of coffee. He stops for lunch, walks his dog in the afternoons, and does Pilates to “counteract the hours I spend hunched over my drawing table.” He’s usually done by 6pm and rarely works at night. Kidby likes oils, acrylics or coloured pencils, and a smooth Bristol board on which to apply them. He doesn’t have a dedicated studio. He works at the dining table or in the conservatory. He uses an iPad, but for reference more than for making art. Other than that, he has no “fancy art equipment.” Immortalised in bronze This large-scale bronze statue of Sir Terry was created for the city of Salisbury, where the author lived. “Terry’s ongoing legacy is extraordinary, and there’s still a wonderfully rich body of work for me to illustrate”Kidby put together a project to honour the Discworld author, a sculpted portraiture bust of Sir Terry Pratchett. “I made it as a preliminary study for a full length, large-scale sculpture that I’ll be making of the writer for the city of Salisbury.” The bust is made in the oil-based clay Chavant, Kidby explains. “It has no wire armature inside. Initially, I worked from photographs until I was happy with the basic proportions. I then began to work from memory to try and capture the expression of the man I knew. Only when I was satisfied that I had a likeness of Terry did I tackle his glasses and trademark hat.” Kidby says that Pratchett’s signature glasses were very fiddly to make. “They’re formed with fine wire with a light skim of clay. The hat was made separately and can be removed. The sculpt was then taken to the foundry, Sculpture Castings in Basingstoke, where a team undertook the process of mould making and casting. “The final stages are fettling the raw bronze, before applying the patination and a beeswax polish. There will be only 12 bronze casts.” Interacting with viewers Great A’Tuin II - “This large-scale painting depicts the Discworld, on the backs of four elephants, who are standing on a giant turtle, travelling through space. Pratchett genius at work.”“As an illustrator,” Kidby says, “it’s my job to always consider my viewer and to convey information from the text into visual form.” He finds exhibiting in galleries the most rewarding part of his job as it enables him to show work as he intended it to be seen, free of text, titles or changes made digitally by clients. It’s when 
he can interact directly with the viewer, the most intimate kind of artist-viewer communication. Kidby is working in collaboration with Sir Terry Pratchett’s estate and the Salisbury Museum on a major exhibition titled Hisworld, which runs until January 2018 and features over 40 original Discworld paintings, including Kidby’s concept design for the large-scale bronze statue of Sir Terry for the city of Salisbury in England, where the author lived. He has some new collaborations lined up, too: “Although Terry has sadly passed away,” Kidby says, “his ongoing legacy is extraordinary, and there’s still a wonderfully rich body of work for me to illustrate, so there are plenty of exciting new projects on the horizon.” “This was done for a French book jacket in 2011. It became an iconic work because it was released during the time that Terry was battling Alzheimer’s. I painted it so that Terry’s chess pieces are positioned to win.”After two decades of these collaborations, Kidby’s art is almost inseparable from Pratchett’s writing, and vice versa. But being the go-to artist for one of the world’s most successful authors hasn’t changed the way he works. He sometimes spends years developing a piece before he puts pencil to paper. One single colour illustration can take six weeks to complete. And it all goes back to the discipline that he learned from his time with Miss Ockingdon. “I prefer to plough my own furrow,” he says, “and this doesn’t involve attending publishing parties, conventions, entering contests or being the focus of attention. So I guess courting praise is not important to 
me. In fact, the most important thing to me is to be left to get on with my work undisturbed.” This article originally appeared in ImagineFX issue 151. Buy it here or subscribe here. Read more: How Tove Jansson and the Moomins continue to inspire 8 things you didn't know about design for film How to draw and paint - 100 pro art tips and tutorials View the full article

Love it or hate it, Halloween is well and truly here. It's the time of year where thousands of young 'uns (and not-so-young 'uns) dress up as their favourite scary character and pumpkins adorn homes across the world. But not all pumpkin carvings are created equal – and these examples of creative pumpkin designs have truly blown our minds. 01. Pennywise Tim Curry's original Pennywise While there may be a new Pennywise in town these days, Ben Angotti (and friends Maniac Pumpkin Carvers) decided to pay homage to the original nightmare clown, played by Tim Curry. The design you can see here is entirely carved from pumpkin, lit with an LED bulb – no paint or markers. 02. BB-8 This two-pumpkin masterpiece comes complete with flashing LEDsMore cute than terrifying, this Halloween version of Star Wars' BB-8 is an impressive effort by imgur user Magnetic Attitude. It was created by stacking a little pumpkin on top of a bigger one, and lit with two light sources plus some flashing LEDs. Bonus points for creating a design that works from all angles, too. Head to imgur to see a 360-degree view of this masterpiece, plus GIFs of it in action. 03. Smiler This scary smiler was created by Villafane StudiosThis pumpkin carving comes from Villafane Studios, a group of specialist sculptors that makes incredible sculptures from pumpkins, sand, and other materials. This scary smiler is part of the Enchanted Pumpkin Garden exhibition that the studio puts on each Halloween. 04. Walking Dead The Walking Dead design is the second offering here from Maniac Pumpkin CarversWant to make a bold design statement this Halloween? You could do worse than to be inspired by the Maniac Pumpkin Carvers, aka Brooklyn-based artists Marc Evan and Chris Soria (which helped create the Pennywise design at the top of this article). Maniac Pumpkin Carvers is a full creative art studio that specialises in elaborate pumpkin art, and have clients including Honda, Yahoo, and the BBC. 05. Haunted castle The candle really brings this castle pumpkin design to lifeThe full glory of a pumpkin design is never quite realised until a candle is placed inside. This is certainly the case for this haunted castle design, with its intricate carvings of windows, bats and an almost 3D feel. The huge moon in the background really makes this one. 06. Bored squash Another amazing creation from Ray Villafane and his teamWe know we're cheating a little here, as this bored looking face wasn't actually carved from a pumpkin. It was etched into a squash and was created by Ray Villafane and his Villafane Studios team (which also created the Smiler design, at number 3). Come on - you didn't expect us to include just one of his designs?! 07. ET ET gets a spooky makeoverThis creepy ET design is part of the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, hosted annually by Passion for Pumpkins. "Basically, what we put on here is an illuminated art show set to music,” explains founder John Reckner. The event begun as a small, family-run show, but has exploded in popularity – the event has been attended by over a million patrons to date. Check out further masterpieces in its online gallery. 08. Elephant This wizened elephant design is beautifulA beautifully crafted animal creation with this pumpkin design. We can't get over the amazing attention to detail with this one – from the carefully placed wrinkles to the wholly realistic eyes. Notice the 3D aspect of the trunk too. 09. Spider-Man Spidey makes his pumpkin design debutThere are plenty of superhero pumpkin designs out there, but we have to say that this crawling Spider-Man impressed us the most. Looking like he's crawling from the top of the pumpkin, the attention to detail with his web-like costume makes this a winner at Creative Bloq. 10. Game of Thrones The pattern work on this Game of Thrones pumpkin design is brilliantAnother television show-inspired pumpkin design is this awesome Game of Thrones opening credit creation. The pattern work with this one must have taken a bucket load of patience, with the carefully etched wolf silhouettes proving wholly inspirational. Liked this? Read these: 8 golden rules of handmade 100 amazing Adobe Illustrator tutorials Doodle art: 52 great examples View the full article

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It's now under a month until Black Friday 2017 will bring you some great discounts on creative tools, but in the meantime, we've got you a great daily deal on a stock image service. Stock art is an essential part of any creator's toolbox. Having the right image to fit a project is important, and you can always find the one you want with Stock-Graphic's massive library. For a limited time, you can get a lifetime subscription for just $29 (approx £22). Stock-Graphics is packed full of perfect images just waiting to be put to use in any project you can imagine. There are invaluable tons of assets, from one-of-a-kind vectors to a massive collection of editable images that can be used as you see fit. There are more than 13,500 photos and 2,900 vectors with new content being added every month, meaning you'll never run out of inspiration. Download as many images as you need and put them to use in all of your projects. A lifetime subscription to Stock-Graphics usually runs at $4,999, but you can get full access on sale now for just $29 (approx £22). That's a massive 99% saving off the retail price for an essential asset for any designer, so grab this deal while you can. About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at:deals@creativebloq.com. Related articles: The best Black Friday deals 2017View the full article

Horror and gothic art will never lose its appeal as long as humanity maintains its fascination with death. For some artists, the macabre provides a release from internalised fear. For others, it's a playful way to seek a reaction from their viewers. Whatever the motive, managing to capture a truly frightening scene, and present the viewer with a disturbing yet beautiful image, is a real skill. In honour of Halloween, we have updated this list of great contemporary artists who focus on dark fantasy themes, with many revealing why they paint such deadly themes. 01. Keith Thompson Keith Thompson's Pestilential Advent illustration If you haven't heard of Keith Thompson, you have almost certainly been privy to some of his inner artistic workings, bringing to life some of the most revered film director's characters (including Guillermo Del Toro) and injecting his creativity into video games and book projects. A concept artist, creature designer and illustrator, Thompson recently worked on 2017 horror flick The Ritual, to create the movie's 'big bad'. He's also worked on Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan book series. One of Thompson's illustrations used in Guillermo Del Toro's Don't be Afraid of the Dark (in the film they are maddened illustrations created in 1909 by character, Blackwood) Thompson's work focuses on characterisation and that is what makes his art so terrifyingly good. His characters are believable, and could be injected into any good work of horror fiction. 02. Scott M Fischer Copper X: Fischer painted this stunning piece on engraved copper, so the piece changes dramatically as you move around it You might recognise Fischer's intricate artwork from his years spent illustrating for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer graphic novel covers, and their various spin-offs. His process is no less than artistic alchemy, each image meticulously layered full of glorious detail and lyrical line work – it's a treat to watch, and he generously allows his fans to witness it through videos posted on his site. Fischer uses a unique variety of techniques, including painting on copper. Cover for Dark Horse Comics, Angel #3. Fischer worked in FWink on Duralar, hitting both sides of the translucent material Of course, not all of his work is horror, but all maintain a distinctly eerie, yet romantic feel to them – perhaps an unwitting insight into the artist's own delights and his gravitation towards all things fantastical. 03. Wes Benscoter Part of Benscoter's album cover design for death metal legends Mortician's Darkest Day of Horror Wes Benscoter is a master of metal music album artwork. His terrifying visual skills have been enlisted by pretty much every self-respecting death metal band, including Cattle Decapitation, Morticia, Kreator and Autopsy, not to mention thrashers Slayer, and heavy metal masters Black Sabbath. Autopsy's Skull Grinder finished album cover with featured artwork by Benscoter It takes a seriously strong stomach to take on the challenge of lending your hand in illustrating merch for such brutal acts – one that many an artist would understandably find a little hard to handle. Benscoter never fails to deliver, no matter how gruesome and gory. He'll happily intricately etch a corpse's entrails or set up a more subtly sinister scene. 04. Alexandros Pyromallis Pyromallis's Visual Horror Sequences evokes the golden age of horror flicks with a VHS vibe [Click for the full image] Pyromallis is the co-founder of Viral Graphics, a music-related artwork collaborative set up back in 2006 with fellow artist and music aficionado, Konstantinos Psichas. Under this name, they have provided some stand-out poster art for bands like Soundgarden, the Melvins and Swans. One of Pyromallis' T-shirt designs for Cvlt Nation. The artist also designs skateboards and band posters Pyromallis explains that he is "influenced by the plague of culture, horror films/comics, the metal of death, monsters, the hidden paths of the mind, human stupidity and fear." He practises what he calls "analogue illustration" – traditional techniques using ink, brushes and paper. He seeks to add his "own ideas and manifestations into the ever-boiling Cauldron of Depravity", and his illustrations certainly don't stray away from this macabre manifesto. 05. DZO: Olivier Olivier's illustration Persephone, originally drawn for guitarist Adam Crossman French illustrator Olivier (or DZO, as he's also known) wishes to go deeper into his exploration of the "noosphere" (a philosophical concept about human thought) with his art. Conjuring up the aesthetics of old etchings and religious engravings, occult manuscripts that flirt with alchemy, witchcraft and blasphemy, the artist creates intricate drawings dull of enigmatic detail. Close up of Persephone, black ink on Canson paper A mix of sensuality, darkness and mythology, he strives to create pieces that are disturbing, haunting and stimulating, oozing with mystery and fascination. 06. Anne Stokes Summon the Reaper: "the girl stands with confidence, in control of time as the darkness swirls around her," says Stokes "I am a fan of all things fantasy and much of horror falls into this. It's the dark side of fantasy with many monsters, characters and fantasy situations," reveals illustrator Anne Stokes. "I love the style of the gothic architecture with its soaring, sweeping shapes and detailed carvings. Dark and deathly imagery offer great scope for artists and the possibility of suggesting a sinister story in the picture. I like the possibilities for contrasting softer and darker subjects." Stokes has created works that have been used for metal band albums, poker decks, tees and zippo lighters (like this design) "I have always enjoyed the creativity and look of gothic clothing and enjoyed visiting the Whitby Goth weekends," Stokes continues. "Many people who attend make a great effort to dress up for the occasion which provides an interesting spectacle as the picturesque old town gets taken over by Goths." 07. Aly Fell Tiffany May recalls the vibe of classic tongue and cheek slasher flicks "I’m not really a 'horror' artist as such, but the 'Gothic' is an aesthetic that has always resonated with me, from music, fashion, literature and of course visual art. Confronting the shadows is the best way to come to terms with them," says artist Aly Fell. Fell classes his art as gothic rather than horror "That 'long night' is waiting for us all, pretending it doesn't exist is to kid yourself. My fluffy bunnies have teeth, but 'Death' looks good in a tutu." 08. Michael Whelan Smiler is sinister rather than gruesome Illustrator Michael Whelan is one of the most important science fiction illustrators of our time, having been the first living artist inducted in the Sci-Fi Hall of Fame in 2009 "I just think about things that seem eerie, or recall frightening situations from my own experiences then adapt them to the exigencies of illustration," admits Whelan. "I don't go for blood and gore; that's about creating revulsion, not fear. I'm inclined towards establishing a situation that provokes more of a feeling of unease than anything else. It's really very hard to actually create a sense of fear in an image alone. Deadend: Whelan is known for his surrealist art, beginning his career as a book cover illustrator "We, as viewers, are so accustomed to hearing soundtracks with scary noises and music to trigger a 'fear' mood that to do it with an image alone seems almost impossible in these jaded times." 09. Laurie Lipton Tete A Tete: Lipton describes this unnerving image as her "shadow" "I do not love horror. I draw about the things that annoy or frighten me," explains artist Laurie Lipton. "When I visited Mexico after my mother died, I realised that I could grab onto my fear of death and feel an illusion of control by drawing about it." Family Reunion Of the image above, Family Reunion, the artist says: "Death will reunite us with our ancestors. This is how I imagined it will look." 10. Godmachine Godmachine's horror-shaped illustrations have been printed by major gothic apparel companies as well as for skateboard designs Godmachine is inspired by pop culture visions. "There was this video shop in my village when I was a kid, the only video shop for miles around. It was run by one of my older brother's friends and it was wall to wall awesome video cases of drawn, bad photo manipulations and terrible moustaches (a la Tom Selek)." Darkness inside: Godmachine's work varies from pop-culture posters and intricate gothic illustrations to striking graphic designs like this one "I think without fail that shop defined my outlook on the art I am creating at the moment. I am working towards refining my shit but as a starting point; "My inspiration came from a video shop in a small village (think Werewolf in London) crossed with the little curiosity shop in Gremlins where he buys the Mogwai and Royston Vasey... these fictional places created a great launching pad for me." Next page: 8 more superbly creepy horror artists 11. Aeron Alfrey Baba Yaga is multi-layered in its creepiness "I enjoy the mystery that a disturbing or frightening image can evoke. I also like the power that a frightening artwork can hold over a viewer," explains Aeron Alfrey. "I enjoy pushing and pulling lights and darks by moving textural elements across countless layers. Madhouse Cover combines different textures "I'm obsessed with surface textures, and I'll construct an artwork from a wide variety of textures that I sculpt into anything from a face to a landscape. "But I'm also fascinated with the world of monsters that is often found in horrific imagery. Scenes of hell from the likes of Hieronymus Bosch, Cornelis Saftleven, Bruegel to Jacques Callot. I enjoy losing myself in landscapes of fantastical beasts." 12. Steve McGinnis Vincent Price is an all-too familiar face to horror junkies, featuring in fright flicks for decades from hero to villain Steve McGinnis started drawing at an early age. "My aunt, who's a huge horror fan, used to babysit me and we'd watch all the 70's Hammer films, Jaws, The Universal Monsters, and pretty much anything that would keep me up all night," he reveals. Michael Myers' white-out Captain Kirk mask provided a fearsome face for the Halloween films, yet Steve has managed to make him a little more terrifying in this ghostly image "It started reflecting in my art at a young age. I have some art I did at six featuring Grover vs Jaws. From then on, I was a horror fan. I grew up in the perfect time for horror; I was a kid in the 70s watching Hammer films and in the 80s watching slashers and so on. "I draw just about everything but when I get to sit down and draw a horror character I really put everything I have into it. I guess you'd say it's my passion." 13. Rovina Cai Rovina Cai says that her image of Dorian Gray was "the perfect opportunity to use animation to create something unexpected" Artist Rovina Cai says: "I like the idea of creating something beautiful with just a bit of danger lurking around the edges. It's a challenge to get the right balance between dark and beautiful elements, but when it works, it creates something unexpected that makes the audience want to look closer." Frankenstein's Monster: Cai depicts the monster as a sympathetic character, to make the grotesque beautiful "I created these images for the Month of Fear challenge. The first is an illustration of Dorian Gray – it was the perfect opportunity to use animation to create something unexpected. "The second is an illustration of Frankenstein's Monster – I wanted to depict the monster as a sympathetic character, to make the grotesque beautiful." 14. Dave Kendall In Houses of the Holy for the Madefire app, Kendall's expert use of colour provides a ghastly backdrop that would make even the more ordinary image appear ghastly "From a very early age, I've been drawn to the gothic and macabre," explains illustrator Dave Kendall. "It started with exposure to the old Universal monster films and carried on with literary forms. Early exposure to Stoker's Dracula and the world of Stephen King cemented that." Kendall has provided his gothic imagery to capture 2000AD's Dark Judges in Dreams of Deadworld – a match well made "That love has carried over into many on my projects. Foremost among them was Houses of the Holy for the Madefire app, and illustrating The Dark Judges for 2000AD's Dreams of Deadworld." 15. Kim Myatt Myatt uses a minimal palette to create her haunting art, leaving plenty of darkness to allow the viewers own imagination to fill in the blanks Artist Kim Myatt says: "Horror is a fascinating subject for me. I like to go beyond the shocking and grisly blood 'n' guts and get into that more subtle terror. The unsettling feeling that follows you home at night. "Nothing is scarier than what is already in the viewer's mind, and creating truly haunting pieces is a delicate dance of what to show and what not to show. Creating these images helps Myatt understand her own fears "Horror is personal, and nothing pleases me more than to hear someone have a genuine reaction to my work. It's like I've tapped into a part of their psyche they keep secret. Something unknown. "On my own personal note, creating these images helps me understand my own fears and understanding is a method of control. Once you lance a boil it doesn't hurt anymore. That's why I paint what I paint." 16. Martin McKenna The Old Dark House: Drawn from a still from The Old Dark House (1932) when McKenna was about 15 years old For Martin McKenna, the appeal of horror is simple. "Drawing these things would be a way of prolonging my sojourns in the shadowy realms of my favourite genre books and movies; to revel in, and attempt to recreate, some of their atmosphere. I like spooky stuff!" he says. Curse of the Mummy was done as a cover for the book of the same name written by Jonathan Green, published by Puffin Books as the final release in the original Fighting Fantasy series "This illustration (above) shows Akharis the mummy, his half-mask giving me the chance to use a nice shiny golden death mask similar to Tutankhamun's, while still allowing a glimpse of his shrivelled flesh. "His desiccated face recalling my favourite screen mummy, Karloff's Imhotep from 1932. The sarcophagus in the background pays tribute to the Doctor Who story Pyramids of Mars, itself a gothic horror classic!" 17. Kevin Crossley Crossley's work is full of dark fantasy creatures, which he says is purely accidental! "Any horror and darkness that appears in my art is curiously accidental in a way! "It was never something I set about trying to achieve during my formative years, but nevertheless it does seem to have crept into much of what I do," admits artist Kevin Crossley. This Red Queen illustration is from Alice's Nightmare In Wonderland "I enjoy working with nightmarish concepts, but I never start a piece with such a theme in mind. This might sound strange, but some images just let you know, as you're working on them, that they'll be heading down a 'darker path', and these instances I find are the most rewarding: "The content evolves on its own terms, often inspired by botanical or skeletal themes mingled with insect anatomy and other natural influences. Out of such a pot all sorts of wonderfully twisted things can arise." 18. Iris Compiet Misfortune Teller was part of Compiet's Freaks and Monsters side project, which combines her fascination for freak circuses and early photography "I tend to gravitate towards the horror side of things, have always done so," says illustrator Iris Compiet. "Yet I stay away from the obvious blood and gore stuff. Instead I like to seek out the subtle feeling of unease, of despair, of horrific feelings. "I try to lure people in under the pretence of things being normal and okay and as soon as you take a closer look you'll see something's off. To me horror is more about a feeling, about the little hairs in the back of your neck, about a shiver and shudder. Compiet's creepy sketches of witches are reminiscent of the goblin-like evil beings that reside in legend (and in Roald Dahl novels) "The whispers in the dark, the scary tales at night. The folktales, the urban legends. The seemingly normal, the darkness that's in each and everyone of us. There's never black or white, good or bad but both and everything in between." Related articles: The 11 best horror movie logos of all time 7 must-know painting techniques for artists 9 scarily effective horror novel covers View the full article

Keeping up with an ever-changing SEO landscape isn’t always easy, but with our previously published guide to Everything you need to know about SEO, and these top tools at your disposal, it should all become a little more manageable. From analysis to the presentation of data, these five great tools can help keep you at the top of search engine rankings. 01. Google Analytics Gain a better understanding of your marketing impactA tool that needs no introduction. Analyse website data in one hub for a detailed overview of how customers experience and use your website. Share your findings with the rest of your business, safe in the knowledge that your Google Analytics results are building the bigger picture for you. 02. Screaming Frog Crawl websites’ URLs and fetch key onsite elements to analyse onsite SEO The SEO Spider is an app that crawls websites’ links, images, CSS and script to evaluate onsite SEO. A favourite of Paul Tyler, head of SEO at All Response Media, it is a great way to quickly analyse onsite elements, but also an essential tool for full in-depth audits, highly customisable and good value too. 03. SEMrush Perform in-depth analysis for improved performance and strategySEMrush is another fantastic tool to be able to review organic search visibility. It’s an all-in-one workflow toolkit for SEO professionals, from a technical SEO audit to ideas to grow organic traffic. SEMrush lets you learn from your competitors and develop perfect content and advertising strategies. 04. GTmetrix Find out how well your website performsWant to discover if all that optimisation work you’ve done has actually made a difference to your site? The best way to find out is to get GTmetrix, which tests your website’s speed and performance. GTmetrix will then provide recommendations on how to improve things. Best of all, it’s completely free. 05. Google Data Highlighter Make your data and website more efficient for searchData Highlighter is a webmaster tool for teaching the search engine about the pattern of structured data on your website. You simply use Data Highlighter to tag the data fields on your site with a mouse and this enables Google to present your data more attractively in search results. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 295. Buy it here. Related articles: 14 great landing page designs 30 Chrome extensions for web designers and devs How to make social media work for you View the full article

There’s no better way to spend Halloween than to watch a classic bloodcurdling horror movie. So, to get you in the mood, we thought we’d take a look at some of our favourite horror movie logos from cinema history. If some don’t appear quite as you remember, then don’t be too surprised. In the old days, studios took a much looser approach to their branding, with multiple, often vastly different logo designs popping up on different movie posters, video and DVD covers, as well as the title sequences of the films themselves... not to mention variants of each of these in different national markets. So this is by necessity a personal selection of logos we have real love for. But if you’ve got a favourite you feel needs adding to the list, please let us know on Facebook, Twitter or even Reddit. 01. The Exorcist This elegantly restrained logo design draws on the film’s religious themesThe classic 1973 film about a girl possessed by a demon was so terrifying, it reportedly provoked fainting and vomiting attacks in cinemas, and was banned by a number of local authorities in the UK. Created by Dan Perri as part of the film’s title sequence, this logo draws on the story’s religious themes in a subtly elegant manner. In contrast with the crazed, cartoonish titles of 1950s and 1960s horror flicks, Perri’s design instead employed the kind of formal semi-serifs you might expect on a Catholic Bible, and was all the more sinister for it. You can see Perri discuss his approach to movie title design in this video. 02. The Omen The off-centre, childlike lettering of this logo reflects the unhinged madness of the demonicA 1976 horror about a child of the devil being born into the modern era, The Omen courted controversy by incorporating the Satanic number 666 into the ‘O’ of this logo, featured on its first theatrical poster by Tom Jung. Like The Exorcist logo above, this design uses a red-on-black colour scheme and a font that’s reminiscent of medieval religious texts. But here there’s a childlike, hand-made feel to the clumsy, off-centre lettering that reflects the unhinged madness of the truly demonic. 03. The Shining Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel is considered one of the greatest horror movies of all time. So it’s fitting that its logo was created by one of the film world’s greatest graphic designers, Saul Bass. Centred around the outline of a mysterious evil presence in the opening ‘T’, the unbalanced typography (a weird mix of upper and lower case; the word ‘the’ being more prominent than ‘shining’) reflects the turmoil in the mind of Jack Nicholson’s central character beautifully. 04. Friday the 13th This bloodsoaked logo leaves little to the imaginationOne of the most successful franchises in history, giving birth to 12 films and counting, Friday the 13th began with a 1980 horror about a group of teenagers who get killed, one by one, at a camp. This film was intended to both scare the audience and make it laugh, and this cartoonish logo brilliantly blends the macabre and the comedic. With lettering resembling broken pieces of wood (a broken camp sign, perhaps?), the blood-drenched ‘13’ leave little to the imagination about what’s in store (bucketloads of gore for those who appreciate a sick sense of humour). 05. A Nightmare on Elm Street This cleverly crafted logo is full of menacing depthThe story of a phantom who haunts both people’s dreams and their waking hours, Nightmare on Elm Street was the archetypal 1980s horror and became a hugely successful franchise. There was a range of logos across different promotional materials, but our favourite has to be this design, created by Dan Perri for the film’s opening titles. This cleverly constructed lettering subtly evokes a street of burning buildings, conveying a grim atmosphere of hellfire and damnation; truly the stuff of nightmares. 06. Scream 1997’s Scream brought things back to basics, including its logoReinventing the slasher film by subverting its cliches (the characters are all expressly aware of horror tropes, which drives the plot), 1997’s Scream brought the horror genre kicking and, er, screaming into the modern age. This super-clean, minimalist logo from the movie’s poster added a splash of contemporary cool for the Nineties audience – and who doesn’t love the cheeky stabbing motif in the final letter? 07. The Blair Witch Project The Blair Witch logo formed part of a groundbreaking viral marketing campaign 1999’s Blair Witch Project brought us a brand new movie genre: the found-footage horror. And with it came a brand new approach to movie marketing. Rather than just appear on posters, the logo was initially circulated on the internet, along with other visual elements of the film, in the guise of a true story. One of the earliest, and most successful, cases of what’s become known as viral marketing, this creepy logo with its jagged, fractured lettering and haunting ‘stick man’ emblem, still stands up today as a design classic. The version shown above is from the DVD cover. 08. The Ring The Ring’s logo lopsided design conveys a spirit of demented anarchy2004’s The Ring, a psychological horror about a cursed videotape, is a big-budget remake of an arguably superior Japanese film, Ringu. But when it comes to the logo, at least, the American version wins hands down. The crazed nature of the lopsided child’s lettering and lumpily luminescent ring add up to a design that’s both truly original and disturbingly sinister. So sinister that (gasp!) no one even thought to add any red... 09. 28 Days Later 24 Hours Later’s logo mixed the hip with the horrificOne of the first modern zombie horrors (recasting the undead as victims of a bizarre plague), 2002 Brit-flick 24 Hours Later remains a stunningly original creation. And its logo is pretty darned original too. Combining a contemporary, stencil-graffiti aesthetic with the medieval-style etchings of devil’s horns, this is both sinister and alluring... just as any good horror movie logo should be. 10. Paranormal Activity The Paranormal Activity logo adds a feeling of menace to digital technologyTaking the found-footage concept of Blair Witch and giving it a blockbuster budget, Paranormal Activity has become one of the biggest horror franchises of the new century. This understated logo, based on coldly minimal, all-caps typography, evokes the digital technology behind the found footage, while the blurred lines, wide-set kerning and red-on-black colour scheme combine to convey the horror contained within it. 11. Saw A purposely ugly logo for the torture porn eraHeralding the rise of the ‘torture porn’ genre, the Saw franchise has brought a renewed sense of the nasty to horror movies. And this twisted, warped and purposefully ugly logo feels right at home with all of that. Distorted and out of focus, with misshaped letterforms and metal scratchings that foretell all sorts of horrific happenings, this logo signals exactly what’s on offer... and it’s certainly not a date movie. Related articles: 7 classic logos that should never have been changed The 6 best design industry logos The 10 best free graphic design courses online View the full article

Google's reCaptcha service has been cracked by researchers who devised an automated attack called unCaptcha that can break the service with 85 percent accuracy. View the full article

A Tweet about the design of Google's burger emoji has sparked an intense online discussion about how the foodstuff should look, and prompted Google CEO Sundar Pichai to say he would 'drop everything' to fix it. Seriously. If you've ever doubted the power of social media, the recent development surrounding Google's burger emoji (that's a phrase we never thought we'd have to type) will show you how impactful it can be. Following a viral Tweet from author and media analyst Thomas Baekdal, which complained about the placement of the cheese in Google's burger emoji, the CEO of the world's leading technology company has vowed to put the emoji's design above everything else. If that's not power we don't know what is. The Tweet might appear pretty innocent on the surface. After all, have you ever seen a burger that places the cheese underneath the meat? Of course not. That would be madness. Such a burger could only exist in a world gone topsy-turvy. Yet, inexplicably, there it is. This burger bizarreness could explain why, at the time of writing, the Tweet has gained nearly 40,000 retweets and nearly 2,000 comments. Clearly this is an important issue that a lot of people feel strongly about. And because people who are interested in emojis appear to be anything if not thorough, the full list of burger emojis has been dredged up from emojipedia like a political scandal for us all to gawp at and contemplate. How did we, as society, let this happen? One person clearly disturbed by this flagrant disregard for burger etiquette was Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who replied to the public outcry with this placating Tweet: This isn't the only emoji to be publicly shamed, though. Google's pint of beer emoji has been dragged through the mud like an accessory to murder thanks to its gravity-defying head of foam, which appears to hover above the alcoholic good stuff like a tipsy cloud. Perhaps they need a new illustrator, some icon design tips, or at least some decent reference images. There's no word yet on whether or not Google has fixed the placement of cheese on its burger emoji. But with the top technological minds in the world working on it, surely it won't take long to fix? Related articles: Iconic logos get an emoji makeover 18 illustrators to follow on Instagram 31 stunning iOS app icon designs View the full article

Many VFX artists and 3D animators shy away from cloud rendering. After all, it's difficult, unpredictable, and time-consuming, right? Not necessarily. YellowDog offers a solution that's straightforward and pain-free – as leading VFX artist Shahin Toosi discovered. Despite several years in the VFX industry, working on prestigious projects such as Blade Runner 2049, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and X-Men: The Last Stand for top companies including ILM, Double Negative and MPC, Toosi was reluctant to use cloud rendering. He'd tried a few different vendors and his experience had always been the same: it was a pain to set up, what with referencing and linking, and managing uploads and downloads, the pricing was unpredictable, and customer support was lacking. Shanin Toosi's personal machine couldn't keep up with his cutting-edge personal projectsIn his spare time Toosi was pushing his skills by trying out new techniques on personal projects – exploring the possibilities of 4K 360 VR and complex simulations, and pushing V-Ray to its limits. His personal machine couldn't keep up. He decided to give cloud rendering one last try, and happened upon YellowDog. It was a revelation. The team took care of the minor amount of setup that was required, the platform was intuitive, and where explanation was required, a helpful video walked him through things. What's more, YellowDog's prices were clear and fixed, with no hidden charges, and the team were on hand to help him through any issues. "I didn’t realise that cloud rendering could be this easy, it’s totally different to any previous experience I’ve had," he says. "I’ll be coming straight to YellowDog next time I need to render." YellowDog's interface is simple and intuitiveWhere other cloud computing companies didn't seem to understand their audience at all, YellowDog was perfectly suited to Toosi's needs. It looked like an extension of his farm and acted like a local render – he would never have known the rendering was taking place elsewhere. ""The YellowDog team completely got the pressure I was under to deliver, and did everything I needed to help me make my client happy," he smiles. Toosi recorded himself using the YellowDog rendering platform – take a look below. The video even doubles up as a fantastic tutorial for anyone interested in signing up. Offering fixed costs, easy set-up, and limitless compute, YellowDog is a VFX artist’s best friend. Visit YellowDog to sign up to the rendering platform for free, and explore the cloud rendering solutions for yourself. View the full article

It's now under a month until Black Friday 2017 will bring you some great discounts on creative tools, but in the meantime, we've got you a great daily deal on photo editing software that creates cutouts quickly. When it comes to editing photos, some tasks are an absolute pain. Creating cutouts is one of those necessary but time-consuming tasks. Instead of putting yourself through the excruciating process, trust Fluid Mask 3 to do it for you. You can get it on sale now for 74% off the retail price! Whether you're cutting out subjects for a project or just trying to remove a less than perfect part of a photo you want to post on social media, the process can be a total pain. Fluid Mask 3 takes the tedium out of the task. This high-quality masking app makes it easier than ever to quickly cut out images and do away with the aspects you don't need, thanks to its powerful segmented masking procedure. It's so simple that you'll wonder why you've been doing it manually for so long. Fluid Mask 3 usually retails for $99, but you can get it on sale now for 74% off the retail price. That means you pay just $24.99 (approx £19) for an app that will save you tons of time and speed up your editing work, so grab this deal today. Fluid Mask: Works seamlessly to create cutouts of people, products, and places Brushes lets you paint in your mask Finds the edges in your image, allowing you to easily separate out foreground from background Makes super fine color based mask selections w/ the Color Workspace & Sampler Allows you to isolate difficult areas and apply localised settings, combining multiple edge finding & blending techniques within one image Saves your workspace settings for batch processing Forced edge tool allows you to create your own edges Gives you complete control w/ fully customisable user interface colour settings About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at:deals@creativebloq.com. Related articles: 5 things every creative needs to know about print design The 40 best Photoshop plugins Revamp your website with these WordPress Themes View the full article

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Colour correction is a phrase that often appears in job ads for junior designers, but it can mean different things to different people. If a studio mainly works with motion graphics, animation and film, the ad is probably talking about colour correction of video, aka colour grading. However, if it’s a studio dealing mainly with graphic design, branding, digital and/or packaging design, it’s more likely to be referring to the colour correction of still images. In this sense, colour correction essentially means improving the look of a photograph by adjusting the levels of particular colours within it, using image editing software such as Photoshop. It’s a key skill that any junior (or even intern) in a design role will be expected to be familiar with, and a common task they’re liable to get passed at a moment’s notice. So let's find out more about it. What colour correction involves Bring out the colours to make it look vivid and tastyScott Kimble, image creation director at London design agency BrandOpus, offers an example of what colour correction might involve: “We’ll have shot some biscuits, and you want them to look golden and vibrant when they appear on the packaging. But they’ve come out a bit green. That might be due to the level of cyan, so colour correction might involve, among other things, dropping the cyan down to take the greenness out of the image and make the biscuits look more golden.” On the image above, for Mr Kipling, Kimble says: “I needed to make the fruit and the tarts look appetising, but for the scene to still feel rich and intense. Every element was considered, from the crust of the tart to the white of the label. "I worked on each element separately. For instance, I only did one lemon at a time because you have to take into account the lighting on each one. The key to colour balancing is to make the right selections; one tip is to use the most contrasted channels to create a more natural selection.” Know the colour fundamentals Find the richness and contrasting colours in each object for added sparkleTo be able to colour correct images, you first need to learn some basic colour theory principles, such as which colours are complementary (on opposite sides of the colour wheel), so you can adjust one colour to cancel out too much of another. You also need to be able to spot where colours are the most prominent, such as when red is dominating the light areas of a photo, or blue is dominating the dark areas. It’s also about mastering the different tools in Photoshop involved in colour correction, including Curves and Levels. Similarly, you’ll need to become proficient at using Photoshop’s selection tools, so you’re able to efficiently colour correct specific sections of an image. Colour correction is particularly important when it comes to printing, where you often need to convert images from RGB to CMYK (or from the colour system used for screens to the system used to talk to colour printers). “If you’ve got something in RGB, on the screen it looks lovely and bright and fluorescent,” explains Kimble. “You’ve got the greens punching and the purples are really rich. But when you convert that to CMYK, it’s just flattened. The green’s going to go flat, the purple’s going to die a bit. So you’ve got to go into that image and punch those colours back up again, so it looks as good in print as it did on the screen.” For the Belvedere image above, Kimble says: “I needed to make the fruit look punchier and fresh; not just brightening it but lifting the colour. I kept the actual bottle in front of me to make sure I got it right. I also warmed up the wood on the cutting board to make it stand out a bit more. The whites came out of the camera a bit dull, so I used curves to brighten – dropping the cyan ever so slightly so as not to look too blue.” From principles to practice JF Rabbit's drink image was transformed with a vibrant bottle and a zesty backgroundThe fundamental principles and techniques of colour correction are relatively straightforward, and there are a number of online tutorials, videos and books that will explain them to you. As well as YouTube and Vimeo, check out TutsPlus, Photoshop Essentials and Lynda.com. But although understanding the basic rules will help get you started, colour correction is as much of an art as it is a science. And that means the only way you’ll improve your abilities over time is to practise. “Watching tutorials is great,” says Anthony Passler, senior creative artworker at Hogarth Worldwide, “But you really need to get your hands dirty, take photos of stuff and compare the photograph to the real-world item, and then try to match them up.” For example, in the JF Rabbit's picture above, Kimble relied on the real-world item for inspiration. “I needed to brighten up the white while retaining the detailing that came out of the camera. The label is a white vignette that fades to clear to reveal the liquid inside. From the camera, you couldn’t tell the colour, so I kept a bottle on my desk," he explains. "The green on the label came out a bit dull so I stripped out some yellow to match the brand colour.” Experiment with colour correction Gwendolyn Mumford, a junior designer at AIG in Texas, agrees that it’s well worth improving your skills beyond the minimum levels formally required. “When I use colour correction as part of my regular workflow for print and web graphics, these are usually fairly simple jobs,” she explains. “But it still helps to have taken courses that taught more advanced correction techniques, as it prevents that task from slowing down my workflow.” Kyriakos Kokkinos, a junior designer at London and Leeds agency Delete, concurs, and notes that practice will boost your confidence. “While I was at university I was very afraid of trying to colour correct, thinking it would look very off and not as intended,” he admits. “But, just like everything, the more you experiment and fail, the better you understand the subject. And that’s exactly what is going to get you the best end result.” This article originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 270. Buy it now. Related articles: How to master colour theory How to manage colours in Photoshop 5 things every creative needs to know about print design View the full article