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Looking for a new design book to get stuck into? With hundreds of new titles coming out each month, it can be tough to know which ones deserve your hard-earned cash. 30 books every graphic designer should readThat’s where we come in. Each month we deliver our pick of the best new graphic design books to hit the shelves. Whether you’re looking for industry insight, practical skills or a heavy dash of inspiration to get the creative juices flowing, you’ll find something here. Read on for three brilliant design books out this month... 01. Design Genius: The Ways and Workings of Creative Thinkers Whether you’re new to design or a seasoned expert, Design Genius has something for you Author: Gavin Ambrose Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts Price: £26.39 / $38.65 In this detailed and practical guide, Gavin Ambrose enlists the likes of Erik Kessels, Anthony Burrill and April Greiman to explore the ways and workings of creative thinkers. It’s all well and good acting the troubled creative and idly sitting around waiting for your muse, but it’s not the most practical or productive way of getting something done. Sadly, while projects work to deadlines, muses don’t. So sometimes you need a book that demystifies things and knuckles down into what makes creative minds tick, which is exactly what Design Genius does. The book brings together insights from 69 leading artists, designers, creative agencies, animators, illustrators and typographers. It aims to help its readers engage with new ways of approaching the design process and creative problem solving that could be applied to any discipline from packaging to graphic design, signage to advertising. The foreword is penned by Stephen Heller, an unequivocal hallmark of a decent design book. And alongside snippets from the likes of Erik Kessels, April Greiman, Ken Garland, John Maeda and Anthony Burrill (it could do with a few more female voices), the book also presents visual and text-based explanations of design rules, theory, best practice and techniques. Colourful illustrations break up the textThe tone of voice manages to tread the fine line between thought-provoking, authoritative and encouraging without ever feeling patronising. Photography throughout provides a splash of colour, and there's light relief in the shape of Morag Myerscough’s adorable little terrier that accompanies the “organised chaos” of her bold and bonkers studio. First published in 2014, Design Genius has just been made available as a Kindle edition, so while digital viewers won’t experience the tactility of the print version’s design nuances, it can only be a good thing that these sort of often-overlooked discussions can reach more people. Morag Myerscough's studio and dog provide light reliefIt’s so refreshing to find something that broaches complex ideas around the unconscious mind as well as linguistic tricks, politics and sustainability, alongside practical tips and tricks. “We are not claiming that inspiration does not exist; it does, but inspiration is a tool that needs to be facilitated and supported by others as part of an overall design process, rather than being the only element that produces results,” author Gavin Ambrose quite adroitly points out in the book’s introduction. “Design is not a talent that a person is born with; it can be learnt and improved through experience. Design is something that you do, and like any activity, one that you need to practice in order to improve and develop,” he says. Erik Kessels sums it up even more succinctly in his discussion of how one can “learn” creativity: “I feel freer now with ideas than I did in art school... My creativity grows every day, and this comes from daring to take a risk.” 02. X-Rated Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s X-Rated makes for a magnificent coffee table book Authors: Tony Nourmand, Graham Marsh and Peter Doggett Publisher: Reel Art Press Price: £20.36 / $28.33 They’re lewd, they’re rude, and they use some of the most beautiful and unusual approaches to typography and graphic design we’ve seen. The majority of designers will be aware (and in awe) of film posters like Saul Bass’s Hitchcock classics like Vertigo, Philip Castle’s iconic image for A Clockwork Orange and even Polish designers such as Jan Lenica’s superb graphic works for European releases. Are modern movie posters in a design crisis?But fewer people will have cast their eyes across the images promoting the seedier films of the era, and perused designs for films such as Flesh Gordon, Sex Cures the Crazy, or Days of Sin and Nights of Nymphomania. Hopefully, that’s about to change with the release of a stunning little volume, X-Rated Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s, which proves just how innovative, cheeky and well-executed the designs for 20th century blue(ish) movies were. Brassy colourways convey good, old-fashioned filthThe brazen use of multiple fonts and brassy colourways managed to convey a combination of good old fashioned filth as well as a keen eye for lettering, spacing and composition. Yet unlike many film posters of the same era that were more above board when it comes to classification, the names of the designers have sadly been lost in time. One of the few exceptions to this is original 'Mad Man' Steve Frankfurt, a Madison Avenue graphic designer and art director whose work can be seen on posters for films such as 1974 smash Emmanuelle. The joy of these images for anyone with a passing interest in graphics and typography is in the sheer variety of styles and formats. Many use a sort of cut and paste aesthetic, giving a sense of rawness that aptly echoes the low budget sexual films promised on celluloid. Stunning hand-drawn lettering features throughout this top graphic design bookOthers echo the photomontage style seen across many French New Wave posters of the time. Much of the lettering is hand drawn and totally bespoke, not to be repeated on another film poster let alone across a set of letterforms for public use. The designs, as co-author Peter Doggett writes in the introduction to the book, “required no decoding... Their mission was to tease and to provoke, to conjure up fantasies and arouse repressed desires, with minimum budget and maximum impact. “Everything – typography, pictorials, those enticing verbal come-ons – was focused on the irresistible lure of the forbidden.” 03. The Visual History of Type One of our favourite graphic design books this month is The Visual History of Type Author: Paul McNeil Publisher: Laurence King Price: £39 / $57.80 Why we should all understand type past to understand type presence, and even show some love for Comic Sans. The vast, heavy and superlatively informative book The Visual History of Type is published by Laurence King this month, detailing every major typeface produced since the advent of printing in the mid-15th century until now. It’s been more than seven years in the making, at the hands of Paul McNeil of type design studio MuirMcNeil. 55 best free fonts for designersThe design and production have a beautiful mix of impactful and functional, with the cover taking on the feel of a classic mid-century standards manual. A bold orange belly band wraps a functional grey, making for a slick balance of coffee table aesthetic delight and information-heavy learning. The no-nonsense boldness of the cover was chosen for its mix of simplicity and on-shelf visibility; and the entire book’s text and cover type uses the original digitisation of Univers – surely a design decision that must have been fairly fraught. The book includes 320 typefaces, presented chronologically and in as faithful a way as possible to their original uses, showing both the typography itself and the pages on which it would have first appeared. This fosters a deeper understanding of how certain technologies and innovations brought about specific visual nuances in typography’s history. The Visual History of Type includes 320 typefacesThe Visual History of Type is divided into seven year-based sections that bore a particular technological development in type. 1450 marks the birth of printing; 1650 “the loosening of the Roman letter from its humanistic roots during the Baroque and Enlightenment periods” that created the foundations for modern type design; 1800 marks the industrial revolution; and so on until the present age of digital type design’s maturation. Among the most recent specimens are Jonathan Barnbrook’s gorgeous Doctrine typeface, which exploited OpenType technology to create a massively expanded character set. While mostly aimed at designers, design students and their teachers, The Visual History of Type is fascinating in its delineation of typographic history as a microcosm of history more widely. It brings home how type design has intrinsically shaped how we view our past, and the associations it engenders. For example, script serifs have become a visual shorthand for antiquation, while Gill Sans has a reassuring confidence that’s carried it from the 1920s transport design origins to the present. And bulbous, decorative typefaces such as Seymour Chwast’s 1968 Artone are synonymous with the halcyon days of swinging psychedelia. As this weighty tome proves, typography is a vital component of our visual landscape, and one as shaped by societal and technological changes as art and politics. Related articles: 10 best graphic design tools for August The best laptops for graphic design 11 brilliant resources for logo designers View the full article

We all know why creatives need beautiful websites, but once you've designed yours, you'll also need a reliable hosting service. Web hosting is not the most exciting part of running a successful design business, but it is essential to make the right choice so that you have a robust, reliable website. Discovering which web hosting service to choose is a minefield, as there are myriad options with various tailored solutions to help your site thrive. Here we try to strip away the jargon and condense the spec sheets into bite-size chunks. Here are 12 of the best web hosting services from around the world. 01. GoDaddy Region: Worldwide Price: From $3.49/£2.99 per month for first year US-based GoDaddy is one of the largest web hosting companies around and, as one of the few that has done television advertising, it is probably the best known, too. Even its bargain-basement package comes with 100GB storage, unmetered bandwidth, and a free domain – with plenty of options due to GoDaddy's vast domain name repository. On every package you can increase hosting capacity on demand directly from your account – handy. 02. Media Temple Region: Worldwide Price: From $20 per month With web hosting powering more than 1.5 million websites in 100 different countries, Media Temple has the experience and expertise to put your mind at ease. But don't think that it only deals in big business: Media Temple has hosting platforms and packages tailored for everything from simple portfolio sites to multinational corporate behemoths. Although not the cheapest, Media Temple insists that it gives you more for your money with fast hardware (with regular investment in hardware innovation), strong software, and great service and support. 03. WP Engine Region: Worldwide Price: From $29 per month WordPress is still the most popular website builder, and WP Engine is a WordPress hosting wizard. Whether you have a small portfolio site or a larger multi-site setup for your design organisation, WP Engine has a plan for you. You can try out any of the WP Engine plans free for 60 days, and with a free site migration service and free SSL certificate, switching over is simple and secure. 04. Namecheap Region: Worldwide Price: From $9.88/£7.63 per year for the first year As the name suggests, Namecheap is cheap. At least, its basic packages are super-cheap, but they offer almost nothing but some token server space. Startups can begin with the Value pack ($9.88/£7.63 for the first year, $38.88/£30.03 per year thereafter) and upgrade as your site grows. After that you'll probably want to use the Ultimate plan, which gives you unlimited storage, unlimited hosting and up to 50 websites. This costs $29.88/£23.08 for the first year then $129.88/£100.32 per year thereafter. 05. 1&1 Region: Worldwide Price: From $0.99/£0.99 per month for first year At under a dollar a month for the first year, 1&1's Basic package will literally get you started for pennies. That will give you enough to kick things off on your site, until the fee is bumped up to $7.99/£5.99 per month after 12 months. At that point you would probably be better switching to the Unlimited Plus package for only two dollars/pounds more per month. That gives you unlimited storage, databases, websites and email accounts, and full SSL certificate support on top. 06. OVH Region: Europe Price: From £2.03/€1.99 per month OVH's cheapest Personal plan gives a full 100GB of disk space and unlimited traffic (which we take to mean bandwidth), but only 200MB of database. That means that for anything but a portfolio-type site you would be better off with the Professional plan, giving 250GB of storage and four databases, still at a very reasonable £5.63/€4.99 per month with no fee staircasing after a year, unlike some rivals. 07. SiteGround Region: Worldwide Price: From $2.46/£2.46 per month for first year SiteGround's basic plan is termed StartUp, and as you'd expect it gives you the web hosting features that you'd need for a new website or an existing blog, portfolio, or small business website. After your first year, you'll pay $9.95/£8.34 per month. SiteGround is keen to make web hosting as simple and site transfer as undaunting as possible – included is a free drag-and-drop website builder, free site migration, and one of its support team will call to guide you through your set-up. 08. DreamHost Region: Worldwide Price: From $7.95 per month DreamHost is keeping things simple – there is only one plan (which comes with a 97-day money-back guarantee) and it provides a free domain for your first year. That's along with annual hosting plans, free domain privacy protection and SSL/TLS certificates, and unlimited storage, bandwidth and domain hosting. 09. Heart Internet Region: UK/Europe Price: From £2.49 per month plus £10 set-up fee Heart Internet is a UK-based web hosting service that provides packages with a minimum of 5GB storage, 30GB bandwidth and 1,000 email boxes. The beginner package is £2.49 per month plus a £10 set-up fee, which is perfect for small websites, portfolios and low-traffic ecommerce. You can administer your site using a mobile app, and Heart provides free support all year round. 10. CWCS Region: UK Price: From £2.99 per month If you hate the thought of being put on hold every time you need technical assistance, CWCS could be the web hosting service for you – its live dedicated technical support is available at all times by telephone, email and live chat, with immediate response to emergency support tickets. And it promises to respond to emails within 90 minutes. Its optional free 12-month hardware upgrade is something you won't find with most rivals, either. 11. Simply Hosting Region: UK Price: From £29 per month Formerly known as Poundhost, Simply Hosting is a UK-based web hosting service that majors on providing dependable, dedicated servers. Its server range starts at £29 per month, but Simply Hosting prides itself in offering bespoke packages tailored to your needs with a bewildering array of configurations available. You can increase your bandwidth for a smidge extra outlay, add more storage, speed up your connection – whatever suits your site's requirements. 12. Fasthosts Region: UK Price: From £2.50 per month for first year Fasthosts provide a well-judged web hosting package called Ignite, which provides 10GB of web hosting space, two 1GB databases, basic SEO tools and 24/7 support. After the first year's introductory rate expires, the price of this plan rises to £5 per month. A secure certificate will necessitate purchasing the next-level Momentum product, but for £7 (for the first 12 months, and £10 after) you also get double the space, 10 times the storage, three websites and advanced SEO tools. Related articles: 23 steps to the perfect website layout 25 brilliant WordPress tutorials 21 top-quality WordPress portfolio themes View the full article

When it comes to advancing your career, there's no reason to wait. Right now is the best time to add new skills to your repertoire to improve your resume or even send you down a new career path. Aspiring designers can make good on their aspirations with the Learn to Web Design 2017 Bundle. Grab it on sale right now for a price you can pick! There is a lot more going on behind the scenes of your favourite websites than you might imagine. You can learn how to understand and work with all of the parts moving behind the curtains with the Learn to Web Design 2017 Bundle. With more than 60 hours of lessons across nine courses, this bundle can teach you everything from the fundamentals of user interface to the coding languages like HTML5 and CSS3, to using Photoshop to bring your designs to life. The courses of the Learn to Web Design 2017 Bundle usually retail for $1,238. You can get them all now for a price you pick. Beat the average to unlock everything, get on the leaderboard, or just pay what you want. You can't go wrong at any price, so grab this deal today! The nine courses in the bundle are: Learn Photoshop, Web Design & Profitable Freelancing 2017 Adobe Photoshop CC: Your Complete Beginner's Guide Responsive Web Design: Made Easy The Complete Bootstrap Masterclass Course: Build 4 Projects jQuery UI Ultimate: Design Amazing Interfaces Using jQuery UI UI Design in Photoshop: Start Designing Web & Mobile Apps Building Websites: Learn Bootstrap for Rapid Web Development Web Design: Make a Single Page Website Carousel Controls Design a Website From Scratch: HTML, CSS, Responsive Design About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com View the full article

Good news if you're looking for your first job as a designer: right now, there are a lot of opportunities out there. So how can you seize these opportunities and land a role as a full-time designer? Having a killer portfolio, a creative resume and nailing tricky interview questions helps, but there are there other tricks, too, that we'll show you. 50 brilliant design portfolios to inspire you"It feels like, in 2017, it's incredibly healthy in design," enthuses Miles Marshall, design director at Turner Duckworth. "Employment is rising. We've taken on more juniors in the last two years than we probably did in the previous five." It's the same story we're hearing across the industry right now. But before you get too excited, here's the bad news: there's still a heck of a lot of competition out there. "We get applications every single day," says Marshall. "And unless they're from people we've built up relationships with, 99 per cent or more are unsuccessful." So getting your first design job is still a tough proposition, and many choose to just go freelance instead. But there's much to be said for the financial stability and greater career prospects a salaried job can provide. Here we examine common routes into full-time employment, and how to navigate them, using tips from the pros. 01. Shine in an internship Once you've completed your design degree and have crafted a great portfolio, it's natural to feel you've earned your right to a salaried role. But the harsh reality is that taking up an internship (or often, a number of internships) is normally the best route towards a full-time position. That's the case, for example, at The Partners. "The graduates we offer jobs to come through our internship scheme," explains creative director Stuart Radford, who leads the agency's London design team. "As an intern, you've gone through the process of meeting the designers and presenting your work, so what determines your potential job offer is what you do while you're here. You've got four weeks to make the right impression." How to transform a design internship into a jobBy that, he doesn't just mean turning up on time and being polite: it's all about exceeding expectations. "Sometimes graduates do what we've asked them to; sometimes they do what we've asked and more," he says, pointedly. "When a graduate gets into a piece of work and starts to own it, their love of what they do comes through. This can be anything from a few more hours put in to craft a piece of type, or extra thinking they've given to an idea on the bus home. But however it happens, it's always great to see." You need to be pushy, show you want to get involved and meet clients David Newton, founder and creative director at Manchester agency BGN, tells a similar tale. "Internships – fully paid, expenses paid, or even the dreaded unpaid – are ultimately a great way of getting a full-time job," he says. "It's a case of getting your foot in the door and making yourself indispensable. Quite how you do that depends on the agency and their specific needs, but if there's anything you can consistently do, anything that the agency knows they need to do but never seem to have the time to do themselves, that's your in." That is, of course, easier said than done. It's natural to feel overawed when surrounded by senior designers. And it's tempting to avoid sticking your neck out and suggesting anything too controversial or risky. But that would be a mistake, says Mark Kemp, owner of FortyTwo Studio, an Aberdeen design agency that takes on a couple of students on placement each year. "A boss once told me: 'Don't worry about taking on too much responsibility: you'll always be told when you're stepping on toes,' and I've lived by that ever since," he explains. "So when I bring in an intern, I point to the senior person in the room, and I say, 'Your job here is to get their job. They should be feeling insecure about you coming in.'" You need to be pushy, show you want to get involved and meet clients, says Kemp. 02. Apply for the right jobs An internship is not the only route into getting a full-time job, of course. It's perfectly possible to apply directly for a role at a company you've had no previous dealings with. But with so many rivals to compete with, success means putting in every ounce of your energy and imagination. You can start by exercising some empathy. "Put yourself in the shoes of your prospective employer by being tenacious but targeted," advises Lee Hoddy, creative partner at Conran Design Group in London. "Don't blanket-mail portfolios: create one thoughtful piece to raise eyebrows instead, and turn your CV/resume into a story: selling yourself, not just the work. "Try writing your profile in 140 characters, leaving the rest as an appendix. Think about structuring your work, interests, motivations and beliefs as a Pinterest page, with neat little moments that will make you stand out," he suggests. 30 brilliantly creative resumésThe most important thing is to decide who you really want to work for (rather than just applying for every job going) and tailor your approach accordingly. Once you've nailed that, why not start a conversation with your ideal employer, suggests Newton. "With portfolio sites and social media, it's much easier to get hold of the people at agencies that you want to speak to – they're just people, after all," he says. But how best to approach them? "Think of it this way: if your timeline is anything like mine, you'll constantly see creative directors saying which events they're going to," says Newton. "So go to one, and speak to them in person. You're much more likely to catch them on a good day in those situations. Because, although it sounds like a good idea to rock up at a studio unannounced, at busy times of the year there's nothing more off-putting." 03. Nail the interview So you've got yourself an interview. Well done. But don't assume you can wing it. You need to think long and hard about how to tell your story, advises David Johnston, co-founder at London design agency Accept & Proceed. "At interview, we look for people who can articulate their creative process, describe design challenges they've experienced, and explain the rationale behind their creative decisions," he explains. "Seeing these qualities in young designers gives us the confidence they can grow as part of our team. So where you do have industry experience, demonstrating everything you got out of it is crucial." 20 tips for design interview successRemember, also, that it's not just about you. "Show an interest in the agency by reading its blog and website, getting a taste of the company culture, and asking appropriate questions about it," urges Hoddy. "You should have a point of view on what you like about the agency, and build a profile in your mind. This demonstrates a curious mindset during interviews and will inform questions to create a richer conversation," he adds. Don't be too serious, though: being the right 'fit' for a company is also about showcasing your personality and conveying an upbeat attitude. "Be positive and make sure you smile: this should be an exciting experience that could change your life," says Dorina D'Ambrosio, creative director at Manchester agency The Market Creative. "Also, have some questions up your sleeve to show you're interested in the job and company. And look smart; although don't look like you're going for an interview at a bank." Finally, make sure your portfolio has been rigorously honed, says Marshall. "You have to be proud of all the work within it," he says. "An interviewer can tell when a candidate talks through their portfolio and they're not confident about some of the designs. So it's better to have no fillers and six great pieces of work, rather than six great pieces and three pieces you aren't quite sure of." 04. Work in-house Most graduates want their first job to be at a traditional design studio, but that's not your only option. What about working client-side as an in-house designer? It should, in theory at least, be easier to get a job this way. With designers more and more in demand, companies are becoming increasingly pro-active in seeking out talent; looking online, contacting colleges and even turning up to creative events. However, there are potential downsides. Working in-house will mean you spend your whole time focused on one brand, often under strict guidelines. This may make it difficult to get your next job in a studio, where working for multiple clients and thinking outside the box is the norm. For this reason, juniors who start in-house tend to stay in-house for much, if not all, of their careers. That said, Kate Baldwin, UK talent lead at Hotwire PR, believes there are many positive reasons to work in-house. "It doesn't really matter where you work, as long as the people you work with push you to create work you're proud of," she argues. "Plus, working for an in-house team, you may well learn things you wouldn't learn in a traditional design studio where there are a lot more juniors, meaning you have less exposure to seniors who you can learn from," she explains. Lauren Gibbons, lead designer at PR and communications firm Nelson Bostock, concurs. "In-house does have a bad rap, but I think you actually get a lot more exposure to your projects, and it is what you make it at the end of the day," she says. It doesn't really matter where you work, as long as the people you work with push you to create work you're proud of Kate Baldwin, Hotwire PR "So if you can find an in-house role that has potential then you should definitely fly with it." It's certainly worked for her. "When I joined four-and-a-half years ago, there was no design team so it was a massive punt," she recalls. "But since then I've built up a team of four designers, with an in-house photographer and a video editing team. "Now, as well as in-house work for Nelson Bostock and Fever PR, I also do creative design work for clients, the likes of Canon, HTC, EE, Google, Playstation and Now TV." If you do start down the in-house path, though, make sure you're fully committed. Fail to convince recruiters you're serious about an in-house role, and you'll be wasting your time and theirs. "If, for example, the interests you express on your CV aren't matched by the companies you're actually following and interacting with on LinkedIn, we're going to notice," says Baldwin. Linda Nott, group head of recruitment at marketing agency Hogarth, adds that applicants who apply for hundreds of jobs are often unprepared when they receive a call out of the blue. "We expect people to answer the phone in a professional manner," she explains. "So when they answer, 'Who? Who are you?' it doesn't help convince us they're serious." 05. Don't run back to study Months have passed, you feel you've tried everything you can, but still you're struggling to get your first job in design. So maybe you should do a post-graduate course; that will get you ahead in the jobs queue... right? Wrong. "Working in design isn't like working in science or being a doctor, where the more knowledge you have, the better," says Marshall. "Practising design in the field is a much better way to learn, so there's not really any point in doing a post-graduate course, at least in terms of improving your employment opportunities." Employers will have lots of applications, so don't be too hard on yourself if you don't make it through. Your time will come Dorina D'Ambrosio, The Market Creative Yes, such courses do offer you the chance to specialise, says Newton, but he believes that's the wrong way to go about things. "I'd say the better path is to start broad and only worry about niches once you're a few years into your career," he argues. "Leave university, research design studios, and choose somewhere that will suit you. Then get involved with as much as that studio will let you, to give you a chance of finding something you might want to specialise in. "And don't worry if you don't want to specialise at all: I never did. If you find you want to boost your knowledge of something – further study in UX, for instance – then by all means do so. But niche, postgraduate study isn't necessary for a first job." In fact, everyone we asked about this said the same. If you're failing to get your first job, you're better off devoting your energies into working out what you can improve, rather than just retreating back to university. And it may just be a matter of being patient. "Don't take it personally if your portfolio isn't resonating in the way you would want it to," advises Newton. "It might well be very good technically, but if an agency feels that it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit." Similarly, D'Ambrosio advises: "Employers will have lots of applications, so don't be too hard on yourself if you don't make it through. Your time will come." This article originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 269; buy it here! Related articles: Studio vs freelance: The pros and cons 20 tips for design interview success How to get into design without a degree View the full article

You're reading How to Pair Typefaces & Ensure Readability [Infographic], originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Every designer wants to master the art of pairing typefaces. Good typography enhances design and can lead to better readability – two must-haves for your website design projects. But how do you become a master of typography? Read Also: Typography Cheat Sheet [Infographic] Great Font Combinations You Need to Try It starts with a basic […] View the full article

Creating any 3D art is a complex and time-consuming process, but developing a realistic digital double is one of the most complicated – yet rewarding – tasks in the CG world. The planned pipeline for this realistic 3D portrait was: mood study, measurements, likeness sculpts, detailed sculpt, retopology, UV unwrapping, texturing, initial shader creation, hair/grooming, final shader creation, lighting, rendering, and compositing. Overall, it was a great study and an experience. Leaving your comfort zone to try sculpting/painting someone you know, rather than a celebrity or an imaginary figure, is the ultimate exercise for traditional and digital artists. Since my model is my wife, I had the chance to examine her face in person. This experience is quite different to what you would see on digital reference images. 01. Start with a base mesh This project uses ZBrush and MayaThis first stage is very important; examine your model, take notes, and notice asymmetrical differences. Start with a base low-poly female head mesh – you might have one already, or you might like to use the free one featured in our free 3D models list. Keep your polygons low from the beginning, as it will make everything go faster and smoother. Before you start modelling, match your focal length settings in Maya with ZBrush and lock your settings for consistency. Otherwise, whenever you bring your model into Maya, you will see a difference on your measurements. Adding a spotlight will show you the forms and planes change on your model's face. 02. Build up the face with shadows Shadows will give you the best hint about the transition of the planes. Gradually start building up the details. Another key thing at this stage is to keep measuring and double checking everything. Make sure to work on every facial zone at the same time. The key thing is not to go too far in details and get lost. Keep it simple and get the likeness right at the start. 03. Keep checking your references Try to get the likeness right at the start, and don't get lost in detailsAt this stage there might be a lot of going back and forth with forms, planes and proportions to get the likeness of your model right. Using many reference photographs of your model's face from different angles will help get it right. 04. Add fine skin details Get the fine skin details right and you're well on the way to a realistic sculptUse surface mimic displacement maps to get fine facial details. It's important not to rely on stamp brushes, alpha maps and repeating the brush strokes on the sculpt too much, as each plane is different. You can fine-tune this and use specific sculpt details unique to your model. At this stage, the slightest detail will bring so much more realism to the sculpt. 05. Understand the anatomy of the eye It pays to learn about the anatomy of the eye if you want it to look realIt's very important to understand the anatomy of the eye in order to make it look real. Sculpt the cornea, iris, sclera, pupil, caruncle and tear line that sits between your lower lid and cornea. Use physically accurate shaders in V-Ray to paint the sclera and iris in Mari. Using both projection and painting methods can help you to get rich eye details. 06. Finish up with careful texturing The lighting of this portrait was inspired by RembrandtSkin texture is done in Mari and shaded in V-Ray. Projecting images onto the 3D model provides a base texture layer, which you can add to by painting all the details layer by layer. Rembrandt's portraits and the dramatic lighting in his paintings was a big inspiration, so here we tried to create a similar look and feel in the final image. This article originally appeared in 3D World magazine. Subscribe today. Liked this? Read these: 22 mighty Maya tutorials to try today How to improve your character drawing 29 free 3D models View the full article

When it comes to designing your agency’s website, you want to show off your best work, in an easy to navigate portfolio. You want to show clients your digital smarts. You want it to be aesthetically appealing and functionally innovative. And of course, you want it to be fully responsive, mobile-friendly and accessible. In truth, few agency websites hit all of these notes perfectly (particularly the last one). But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from the things that they do manage to do well. In this post, we look at some of the sharpest sites from London design agencies to hit the web this year. We hope they inspire your own agency website builds or redesigns. 01. dn&co dn&co’s new website takes a modular, blog-like approach to its designBased in Bermondsey in south-east London, dn&co is a brand and design consultancy founded in 2006 with a client list including Aviva, The Crown Estate and Scottish Widows. Highlights for the agency this year include work for the V&A and a podcast initiative in White City Place. dn&co’s new website curates its eclectic portfolio in a colourful and attractive manner. Because the agency’s various projects don’t fall into neat categories, it has sensibly opted on its homepage for a image-based, modular grid that’s more akin to a blog or news website, with snappy headline-style titles to boot. The ‘News’ and ‘Studio’ sections, meanwhile, make great use of bold, clear typography and lots of lovely whitespace to provide both a distinctive and readable visual experience. 02. Impero Impero’s website sets out to grab attention with big typography and vivid colourImpero is an independent, award-winning creative agency that specialises in making “tired brands famous again”. Founded in 2009 and based in Wapping in London's Docklands, it has worked with high-profile brands including Beefeater Gin, Primark, Lindt Chocolate and 7Up. Its nicely art-directed new website is not scared to make use of big, bold and impactful typography. The design, which the agency describes as “strong, bold and to the point – just like us” – also makes use of vivid and arresting background colours and some smart (but not overpowering) transitions as you click from section to section. All in all, you get the impression that this agency is less concerned with nuance and subtlety and more about grabbing people’s attention. And we reckon that’s just want a lot of clients will be looking for. 03. Alchemy Digital Alchemy’s new website uses a circle device to give its design a distinctive feel throughoutWith a studio in Borough Market near London Bridge, Alchemy Digital is a web design agency with an ethos of “building relationships (not sales targets)”. Its client list includes TalkTalk, Elle Macpherson’s lingerie brand, and satellite company Inmarsat. Alchemy’s new website is bright, clean and colourful. We love the device of housing each image in a circle, which brings a distinctive design consistency to the site as a whole, and facilitates a generous use of whitespace in the ‘Projects’ and ‘Articles’ sections that lets everything breathe beautifully. The site also features a dash of parallax scrolling. But, sensibly, it keeps these parallax effects small and subtle, so they add visual interest without overwhelming or becoming the star of the show themselves. 04. ustwo ustwo’s site makes great use of bright colour, even in its typographyustwo is a global digital studio headquartered in Shoreditch, east London. Founded in 2004, it has worked with some of the leading brands and has been dubbed “the John Lewis of Digital” by Campaign magazine. It has also consistently featured in the annual list of the 30 best UK studios compiled by our sister title, Computer Arts magazine. Digital agency websites can sometimes be a little dry, but ustwo’s new website for 2017 is anything but. It’s dominated by eye-popping, child-like colours that seem to pop out of the screen... not just in the imagery and graphics but, unusually, in the typography as well. As you’d expect from a digitally focused agency, there are some lovely little transitions and animations too, showcasing what it can do without ever going over the top. And there’s a sense of balance and proportion to the design that brings it all together and makes it a real pleasure to peruse. 05. Pollen Pollen’s image-led site has a high-end, luxurious feelFounded in 2005, Pollen is a branding and digital agency based in Regent Street in central London. With clients across London, Paris, New York, LA, Barcelona, Hong, Tokyo & Shanghai, it boasts a truly global outlook, and has won numerous awards for its work. Going live in April, its new website is packed with lots of beautiful work, much of it for fashion and luxury brands. And the design makes the most of these elegantly shot images, with a magazine-style layout, stylish typography and acres of whitespace creating a high-end feel to the design. Some gentle scrolling effects and transitions add to the touch of classy professionalism, too. 06. Function and Form Case studies are front and centre on the Function and Form websiteFunction and Form is a small creative studio specialising in web and interface design. Founded last September, it’s based in the Hoxton/Shoreditch area of east London and its clients so far include Continental Clothing, NT Government and Banyan House. When it comes to agencies websites, we constantly hear from clients that what they want to see is the work – and not just pretty pictures, but detailed case studies. So it’s great to see that Function and Form puts this front and centre: case studies begin on the homepage, and feature a good amount of detail about the brief and how the agency solved it. In short, while this website might not be the most beautiful website design we’ve ever seen, it serves up the information and images you expect to see, with the minimum of fuss, and that’s 90 per cent of the battle won right there. 07. Johnson Banks Johnson Banks has taken an experimental approach with its new siteFounded in 1992, Johnson Banks is a small agency based in Clapham, south-west London, with some big clients, including Virgin, Mozilla and Unicef. Previously dividing its time between print and identity, its focus today is firmly on identity and branding, with a strong focus on the non-profit and charity sectors – brands that “make a difference,” it says. There’s something quite different about Johnson Banks’ latest website redesign, too. Its homepage uses a brightly coloured collection of tiles, rapidly diminishing in size from top to bottom, to present its portfolio of work in a highly unusual way. Not to mention that pulling down your scrollbar actually scrolls everything sideways; an effect that could be described as either innovative or annoying, depending on your mood. The whole site, in fact, could be described as Marmite-like (ie, you either love it or hate it). Happily for the agency (as we reported), there have been plenty of lovers out there in the design community. View the full article

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In architectural photography, artists have time to study a building's form and then experiment with various angles, settings, timing and effects to achieve unique and interesting shots. Here we've scoured the web to find 10 top examples of architectural photography to inspire you. 10 iconic examples of brutalist architecture01. Tour Eiffel The Eiffel Tower as you've never seen it before. Image © Roger MadsenThis refreshingly original capture of the Eiffel Tower was taken by street and architecture travel photographer Roger Madsen. Based in Beijng, Madsen currently works as an Android architect at Sony Mobile. But that doesn't stop him from producing the stunning imagery that fills his portfolio. 02. Up and Above Photographer Sebastian Opitz captured this breathtaking image from the 85th floor of the Princess Tower in Dubai. Image © Sebastian OpitzWhen a massive amount of fog started to roll into Dubai Marina one day last year, photographer Sebastian Opitz was there with his Nikon D700 and fisheye lens to capture it. Taken from the Princess Tower, Opitz photographed this image from the 85th floor. 03. Hamburger Welle A unique take on the office building Hamburger Welle in Hamburg. Image © BildwerkerBildwerker speciliases in abstract architectural photography. And this is just one of the many beautiful photographs that feature in his awe-inspiring portfolio. Simple and elegant, this image is a unique take on the office building Hamburger Welle in Hamburg. 04. Time paints The ageing of this building is depcited through various colours of paint used over the years. Image © kamenfThis thought-provoking photo was taken by photographer kamenf. Based in Serbia, the artist came across this old, derelict building featuring the remanence of different coloured paints used on its exterior over the years. No easy task, he captured the building's decay beautifully. 05. The Bridge We wish we were as good at our hobbies as this talented photographer! Image © Armin MartenIt's hard to believe that the artist behind this atmospheric image does photography just as a hobby. Armin Marten is a student of engineering in Hamburg, but in his spare time takes beautiful images of his surroundings. He captured this stunning bridge image while on his travels in Gellert, Budapest. 06. Cube House Eagle A beautiful, creative capture of Rotterdam's Cube House Eagle development. Image © Guus VuijkThis gorgeous, abstract image of the Cube House Eagle in Rotterdam was captured by photographer Guus Vuijk. Specialising in nature and travel photography, Vuijk comments on his website, "I practice photography as a fine art, the major objective being to produce well designed images that offer a personal view on the diversity of life in general." 07. Berlin Wall This beautiful photo is part of a series of architectural images taken in Berlin by Federico VenudaA perfectly composed shot, this image of the Berlin Wall was captured with a Panasonic DMX-LX3 by photographer Federico Venuda. On his travels, Venuda has taken many photos of various cities in Europe, including Paris, Prague and Brussels. But his (mainly black and white) Berlin series is by far our favourite, capturing the history and essence of the city beautifully. 08. City of colors Photographer David Keochkerian uses a slow shutter speed to capture moving lights in this City of colors imageWe just love this vibrant and creative image by photographer David Keochkerian. Using a slow shutter camera speed in his photography, Keochkerian's portfolio is full of beautiful imagery, a lot of which features surreal yet stunning colour created by shooting moving lights. 09. Divine workshop Swedish photographer Janne Oikkonen achieves the perfect balance of composition and lighting in this stunning workshop photoHobbyist photographer Janne Oikkonen is the artist responsible for this incredibly detailed photo – so detailed in fact that on first glance we were convinced it was a pencil drawing. With the addition of a sepia tone, brilliant lighting and precise composition, the Swedish artist has transformed this old workshop into a truly gorgeous print. 10. Old wall Skill behind a camera can turn the most ordinary of subjects into gorgeous works of art. Image © Choi Go EunThis brilliant shot looks more like a painting than a photograph. The striking image was taken with a Nikon D90 by photographer Choi Go Eun. Featuring simple lines and great colour, this capture has turned an ageing building wall into beautiful piece of art. Related articles: 27 world famous buildings to inspire you The designer's guide to the Golden Ratio 25 logo design tips from the experts View the full article

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Whether physical or online, your portfolio is your design career calling card, so does yours showcase your best work? Whether your design portfolio is physical or digital, read on to discover how to create the perfect portfolio today! There's nothing more important to your career than presenting your best work in an attractive, professional and accessible portfolio. So for this article we've spoken to leading designers, illustrators and creatives and pulled together a selection of great professional tips and advice for dusting off a tired design portfolio and making it the very best it can be, to hook that dream design job. We've divided the tips up into physical and online portfolios – let's start with the physical (skip to the next page for online design portfolio tips)... Physical portfolios There's no rule to say you can't have different design portfolios for different jobsPhysical design portfolios are one-off paper creations, so they can be tailored to the job you are applying for. Other than time constraints, there's no reason why you can't create multiple design portfolios tailored to different jobs or different types of company. 01. Include a breadth of work How many examples of work should a design portfolio include? That's a tricky question, but you should aim to fill at least 20 pages of a physical folio, and at least 30 examples for an online space. You need to be able to show a healthy breadth of work together with a range of applications, so even if you select several examples from a single project you should make sure that you treat image individually. 02. Include appropriate examples "Think about the goal of your design portfolio," advises Seattle-based illustrator Jared NickersonOnly include design portfolio examples for a full-time position that are appropriate to the role. A creative director position, for instance, won't entail much artworking – if any at all – so work that demonstrates your tracking and kerning ability isn't relevant. 03. Provide context to your work Illustrators and designers aren't just employed for their style but also for the clarity with which they interpret a creative brief. So if you include examples of your artwork without providing context, it's impossible to judge. Make sure you use annotations and notes to talk about how and why the work was created. Make it clear what the brief asked for in each design portfolio example you include, then demonstrate how you successfully accomplished it. 04. Include non-client work, too “You need to tell a story, and order your projects so that they feel fluid and complement each other,” says Malika Favre on the next pageYour design portfolio doesn't need to be limited to only including client work. Self-initiated projects are certainly acceptable in full-time applications, and recommended for freelance work - especially for illustrators. Read our feature on making time for creative side projects for more insights from the professionals about the benefits of personal projects. 05. Give your portfolio a regular spring clean Resist the temptation to bulk out your design portfolio with old or irrelevant examples of your work by having a thorough and ruthless clear out. And don't leave this until it's unavoidable. Design portfolios need constant attention - you never know when you might be called on to present to Saatchi's creative directors... 06. Include case studies Don't think of your design portfolio simply as a collection of your art and design work. Recommendations and real-life case studies go a long way in showing how professionally capable you are. Ask a previous client or employer for a recommendation, and write up a short case study to accompany a project. 07. Take a step back Take a step back and try to look at your design portfolio through another's eyes. Experienced employers, project managers and agents know how to match up a resume to a design portfolio and gauge your character strengths and weaknesses, warts and all. So think critically about what your design portfolio says about you. Is it too serious? Too flippant? Strike a balance that you believe shows off your qualities. 08. Demonstrate all-round experience Are you only good at illustration or editorial layout? Of course you're not: you're also a solid communicator who understands budgets and deadlines, as well as the importance of meetings and updates. These are all professional skills. Make sure your design portfolio clearly showcases that you posses these, even if you just simply list them in your accompanying notes. 09. Sell yourself Think about what other creative talents you might have as well. For instance, if you're a handy photographer or accomplished with coding, why not include examples of your shots or web designs? They're all more strings to your creative bow. 10. Index your design portfolio What do you do when you find a particularly interesting website, magazine spread or book chapter? You bookmark it, dog ear it or jot down the page number somewhere. Those viewing your design portfolio – by whatever medium – will want to do the same, so make it easy by including page numbers and clear project titles for each portfolio example. Next page: Online design portfolio tips from the pros Moran Brown's portfolio site is one of the examples featured on Big Black Bag These days if you’re looking for work as a designer, whether a full-time job or a freelance gig, you need an online design portfolio as well as a physical one. An online design portfolio is your creative shop window. It's always on – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – and it's always working to showcase who you are and what you can do. But is this silent sales machine working hard enough? Have you set it up correctly? Are you showing off your best stuff? Is it generating enough enquiries? If you think that your design portfolio website is underperforming, tackle it now, with these tips... 11. Choose your online portfolio platform Squarespace is a good platform for creating a bespoke design portfolio siteHow do you physically set up an online design portfolio? The good news is that you have a number of options. If you're technically-minded, get yourself a personalised domain name, invest in some hosting and set up a WordPress website. WordPress is easy to use, extraordinarily flexible and enjoys massive community support. In fact, we'd recommend you give it a try, even if you don't think of yourself as 'technical'. If you really don't have time, though, you can always pay somebody to do all of the above. Alternatively, consider using a done-for-you web platform. You could set up a hosted blog at WordPress.com, using one of the best WordPress portfolio themes, in a few minutes. Or create something a little more advanced using the drag-and-drop loveliness of Squarespace. Big Black Bag is a dedicated platform for creating bespoke design portfoliosYou could instead use a dedicated design portfolio platform like Behance, Carbonmade, Portfoliobox or Big Black Bag. In other words, there are no shortage of options, so you have no excuse for building yourself an online design portfolio! 12. Consider your aims Nickerson gives insights into his design process alongside his portfolio examples Before you rush in to build your design portfolio site, think about why you're doing this. Many designers think having an online design portfolio is an end in itself – but if you don't know what you're trying to achieve with your design portfolio, you won't know whether it's succeeding. "Think about the goal of your design portfolio," advises Seattle-based illustrator Jared Nickerson. "In the beginning I just wanted constructive feedback, so would only post one image of the core work. "Nowadays I try to showcase different usages of a design or placement on products, and give some insights into the process." 13. Be selective Knowles' Planning Unit design portfolio shows is easy to navigate As with a physical design portfolio, don't make the mistake of trying to show off too much of your work. Potential clients don't need to see everything. Instead, be more selective. Focus on your best stuff and the work you've done for high-profile clients. When showing off your work, consider the sort of briefs that you'd like to tackle in the future. Show the sort of work that you want to do more of and that illustrates the full set of your skills and abilities. "The work that you choose to showcase should be the type of work that you want to be hired to produce," reasons New York-based designer and type artist Sasha Prood. "Be selective, and only show the projects that you can really stand behind. A great way to develop your design portfolio further is through self-initiated projects." 14. Curate work carefully The diverse work of Tim Lahan is curated perfectly on his site There's another aspect to the artwork you choose to put up - how well it works together. "Curate the work you put up carefully," adds London-based illustrator Malika Favre. "Online folios need the same rhythm as printed ones: you need to tell a story, and order your projects so that they feel fluid and complement each other. "If it means that an old project has to be removed to fit the new story, so be it." 15. Show, don't just tell The website you build can say a lot about you in the first few seconds if you design it properly. In other words, you show people what you can do before you even get around to telling them. So if you're a web designer, for example, have a beautiful, quick-to-load online design portfolio that showcases your coding and design talents. If you're an illustrator, make your artwork part of the design. If you're a graphic designer, impress the hell out of your visitors with great typography, a custom logo and easy-on-the-eye layouts. These subtle cues can often make or break any connection with your web visitors. We recently found a marketing agency who built mobile-optimised websites, yet their own site wasn't optimised for mobile... 16. Keep adding new work Laura Barnard adds new projects to her online design portfolio regularly, keeping it fresh "By far the most important thing for me is making it easy to put new work up there," reflects illustrator Laura Barnard, who uses the Squarespace platform. "You could have the fanciest site in the world, but if it was last updated five years ago it looks a bit lazy." Mexico-based designer and illustrator Christopher Mooij agrees that regular updates are crucial – and not just those showing finished work: "Let people know what you're working on, or what you've done over the past few weeks," he says. "Obviously those posts shouldn't be filled with your personal diary: make it smart." 17. Streamline updates The advice in the previous point is easy to give, not so easy to carry out in practice. Speak to some of the world's leading designers and you'll hear them bemoan the fact that their online portfolio needs work but they're too busy. "Completed projects can start ganging up, and it ends up being a project in itself to get your portfolio sorted," says Jeff Knowles. His solution is to make a versatile template, and a concise system for naming and describing your projects: "At the end of each one, simply select your best images and populate the templates." 18. Photograph printed work The online portfolio of Sasha Prood makes great use of photography to showcase printed work "One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to display printed material on screen," points out New York-based designer Derek Chan. "While digital versions of your work will help, photography is definitely the best way to show these off. It's all about the context, and showing your designs as they were intended to be seen." "If you do photograph your work, invest time and resources into making the images as good as possible," adds Emmi Salonen, creative director at Studio EMMI. "Just as spelling mistakes do, images with no contrast, bad focus and so on take attention away from your work, and make the viewer focus on how the presentation could be improved." 19. Label your portfolio examples As we mentioned on the previous page about indexing physical portfolios, it's a good idea to clearly label the work in your online portfolio. This will allow clients to reference individual designs or artwork when they speak to you. 20. Give an insight into how you worked Olly Gibbs' portfolio site at www.ollygibbs.com gives clear explanations of his workRather than just showing the finished design, artwork, logo or illustration, give an insight into how you did it. Give a short description of the brief and how you interpreted it to fulfil the wishes of the client. 21. Avoid long intros Images are important, says Emmi Salonen You've only got a few seconds to make an impression when somebody visits your portfolio website. Don't waste it with a slow-to-load flash intro or a home page that doesn't immediately showcase your work and why it's different to all the other designers/artists out there. If you work in Flash or animation, create something that showcases what you can do and make it part of your portfolio. If you don't then why would you need a long intro in the first place? 22. Consider making it a PDF To give potential clients a different way to browse through your work, consider offering your work as a downloadable PDF as well as a website. 23. Encourage action The best websites are structured in such a way that they funnel visitors to certain pages and invite them to take some sort of action. This might be to fill in a contact form or send you an email. It might be to buy some of your work. Think about whether your current portfolio answers the main questions that your clients will be asking. Questions such as: Who is this person? Where are they? What have they done before? Are there examples of their work that I can view? Who else have they worked for? How do I get in contact with them? What do they charge? Make sure that your online portfolio is easy to navigate and that there are clear goals for each page. 24. Make it simple to navigate Nobody could fail to find what they're looking for on Malika Favre's portfolio site People's attention spans are short. Your online portfolio needs to be quick and easy to browse. This is not as straightforward as it sounds. You need to: Keep the design simple, accessible, convenient and classy. Use an eye-catching logo or motif to make your site stand out Try adding a tagline that succinctly explains what you do Display prominent contact details so visitors are in no doubt as to how they can email you, follow you on Twitter or connect on Facebook. Make it clear you want people to hire you (don't assume they can read your mind. Sometimes you can't beat a good 'Hire me' button. 25. Publish testimonials If shopping on Amazon has taught us anything it's that people love to know what other people think. Getting testimonials from satisfied clients is a great way to show some 'proof' that you can deliver on what your portfolio promises. 26. Cater to diverse tastes "One of my best-selling prints is quite frankly one of my least favourite pictures," admits Stan Chow, who sells his work online through Big Cartel. "Potential clients and buyers look for different things, and sometimes you have to put up images you don't like so much, because the chances are that somebody else will." 27. Promote your portfolio There's no point in having a great portfolio site if nobody is visiting it. Be active on Facebook, Twitter and Google+; deploy portfolio pieces to Behance, Flickr, Dribbble and deviantART. Film yourself working and put the video on YouTube. Put together a PDF brochure and upload it to Scribd. The more places you share your content, the more you'll drive people towards you and your portfolio website. Read our guide on How to make social media work for you for more tips. 28. Add a blog For Jonathan Edwards, a regularly updated blog keeps people coming back: "Set yourself a task, like updating your blog every day for 100 days," he suggests. "It may seem a pain to have to find something new to post every day, but in the long run you'll thank yourself. You'll have 100 new drawings, for a start." 29. Update your blog Google loves a well-structured, regularly updated website that's stuffed with great content – and the easiest way to provide fresh content is to keep your blog updated. You can write about the projects you've worked on, share your thoughts about art and design trends and reveal your favourite tools. In general, the things that make visitors happy are the things that make Google happy. However, striking a balance is always important – in other words... 30. Don't get hung up on SEO It's easy to get obsessed by Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), the art/science of trying to get your site high in the Google rankings. In fact, you can spend too much time worrying about keywords when you should be concentrating on website content. Online portfolio sites typically feature fewer words so traditional SEO is often ineffective. You will probably get better results by promoting yourself (and your website) through other web channels. Related articles: 8 big portfolio trends for 2017 7 tips for driving traffic to your portfolio website 21 top-quality WordPress portfolio themes View the full article

The Onliner spambot, Google's forthcoming Not Secure warnings for Chrome, the WireX botnet, Sarahah privacy and more are discussed. View the full article

The Moto Z2 Play is a smartphone with a difference, with plenty to interest creative professionals. It’s an innovative modular smartphone that enables you to clip on different ‘Moto mods’ that turn your phone into something a bit different – with additions including a Hasselblad zoom lens, a projector and extra battery pack. The best laptops for graphic designMoto Z2 Play overview The Moto Z2 Play itself is a mid-range Android handset, so don’t expect the build quality or screen of a Samsung Galaxy S8, say. That said, it feels great in the hand, with an all-metal design that’s only 6mm thick. It’s also extraordinarily light. For a £380/$410 handset, the Z2 Play undoubtedly feels like a premium phone. Screen-wise, the Moto Z2 Play has a 5.5-inch AMOLED Full HD (not Quad HD like say, the Galaxy S8 or Google Pixel) panel that is bright and crisp. The Moto Z2 Play has a bright and crisp screenAnd the phone is fast, too – Adobe’s mobile apps ticked along perfectly and were great to use on the large screen. Get Creative Cloud The phone charges – like many modern Android handsets – via USB-C, and will charge to 80 per cent in around half and hour thanks to Motorola’s rapid charging tech. And we easily got a day from the battery, even when using the Hasselblad mod (discussed below) quite a bit. Moto Z2 Play and Moto Mods The Moto Mods are where the Z2 Play really innovates and will interest the creative professional. Moto Mods are essentially snap-on devices that connect to the back of your phone (they will attach to any phone in the Moto Z range) via a strong magnet. They cost extra – significantly extra in some cases – but do genuinely transform your phone into something very different indeed. And when you consider the fact that the phone itself is only £380/$410, you can beef it out with a few add-ons for less than a Galaxy S8 or iPhone 7 Plus. Moto Z2 Play and the Hasselblad True Zoom Let’s look at the Hasselblad True Zoom mod first. A few manufacturers have tried to merge smartphones and high optical zoom phones, but none have really succeeded, mainly because of the bulk it adds to a pocketable device. The True Zoom, by clipping on the back of the Z2 Play, turns your smartphone into a 10x optical zoom snapper. Coming from Hasselblad – a company with its traditions in medium format photography – you'd expect the optics to be good. And they are. And it shoots in Raw format photos. The Hasselblad True Zoom is a very good camera appNot only does it take great shots – the camera app recognising the mod and giving you further options – it also feels great in the hand. Our one criticism would be that the shutter feels a little mushy – it needs to be a bit more defined in its action. Oh, and there’s no built-in battery, so it will drain your smartphone’s if you use it too much. But if you are looking for an excellent camera with the ability to zoom without losing any quality, it’s a good add-on at £135/$250. Moto Z2 Play and the Moto Insta-Share Projector The other mod we got to test was the £151/$299 Moto Insta-Share Projector. Now, we know what you’re thinking – a projector clipped onto a smartphone can’t be any good. We thought the same, but we were wrong. Sure, it’s only 480p, and it’s not the brightest, but we were able to project a 70-inch version of our Photoshop Sketch file onto our wall – and the quality of image was great. We got around three hours’ of projecting time with the Moto Insta-Share ProjectorYou probably wouldn’t use it for important client presentations – your laptop is a more obvious tool for that – but for quickly demoing projects and showing off images on your mobile device, it’s a cool gadget to have. (You could use it for full-blown presentations though if you wanted.) And of course it’s great for viewing photos or movies stored on your phone: just project onto a white wall. It’s got a 1,100mAh battery built in, so won’t drain your Moto Z2’s battery too quickly – we got around three hours’ of projecting time (with the built-in battery quoted as one hour). But you can plug your phone in to charge while projecting. Other mods include a battery pack to keep your phone juiced for longer, and a speaker by JBL. But the two above are by far the most interesting to us. Moto Z2 Play performance With its bolt-on extras, the Moto Z2 Play is a creative tool to be reckoned withThe Moto Z2 Play isn’t a top-end smartphone with the processing power of the Galaxy S8, for instance, but its approach is truly innovative. No other manufacturer is pushing the boundaries in design or functionality – and that’s what makes this worth a look. Also read: iPhone 8 price, release date, news and rumours View the full article

Painting realistic manga art isn't easy when it comes to manga characters, because the volumes aren't logical. For example, the eyes are totally flat. The best approach is to cheat and use more human-like shapes. How to draw manga charactersTry to find good references such as vinyl figures or dolls, but bear in mind that it doesn't have to be exclusively plastic in nature. Think about your light sources first, which will help you find your palette and define your volumes. When you have to deal with realism, the most important problem to solve is the contrast. Try to avoid pure white and pure black. To achieve a smooth result, work with the Soft Round brush on a very low opacity. Apply a lot of very light strokes, use a larger brush for bigger areas and a small one for detailing. Use a new layer for each element of the eyes, nose, month and eyebrows. For the flesh tones, your palette has to be more complex than a simple gradient. Add a little bit of red on the nose and the cheek bones, a little bit of green on the shadows, and a little bit of blue/cyan under the eyes. The hair is the boring part. Start with a flat very dark area and paint hair strands individually. It'll take a few hours, but if you want to achieve convincing results, you need to invest the time! Here we go through five simple steps to paint a realistic manga portrait in Photoshop. Top Photoshop tutorials01. False start My first attempt to paint a realistic manga head looks more like a vinyl figure. It's impossible to paint logical volumes for the eyes! 02. Sketch it like you stole it Here's my quick sketch. I don't spend a lot of time on it because when you try to achieve realistic rendering, it's often pointless. It's all about volumes, not lines. Just try to define the composition and the proportions. Digital painting software gives you a lot of freedom ­– you can change everything in your picture very easily. Take advantage of it! 03. Use different strokes The face is the most time-consuming part of the process. I start with a flesh-toned flat area on a layer, then define the volumes gradually with the Soft Round brush in Photoshop on other layers. I need to do a lot of strokes. My sketch is still on the top layer, and I increase or decrease its opacity when necessary. By the time I’ve finished, the sketch will no longer be visible. 04. Paint the hair I use the same method for the hair. Straight and dark hair isn't particularly difficult to paint. First I create a very dark-tinted area and then on another layer, I define the global volume. Then I paint in all the small hairs and I add the reflections using the background colour and white. Once again, I used the Soft Round brush on a very low opacity. 05. Add a realistic skin texture Add skin texture with a textured brush, such as the Drybrush in Photoshop. Apply some freckles with a small Soft Round brush. Working on a different layer enables you to decrease the opacity of the layer for more efficient image adjustments. This article originally appeared in ImagineFX magazine issue 95. Like this? Read these! How to draw manga characters How to colour your manga art like a pro How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorials View the full article

Researchers identified a vulnerability in National Instruments' LabVIEW software that will not receive patch by the vendor. View the full article

One of many illustrations from Iris Compiet’s Faeries of the Faultlines projectWith over two billion active users worldwide, social media offers a powerful channel for artists to connect with audiences, build awareness and increase sales. But the choices are legion: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, GooglePlus, LinkedIn... and that’s before you consider creative communities such as Behance, ArtStation, Tumblr and so on. Which options are best for getting your work out there, and how can you optimise your social media presence? To help you, we’ve put together the ultimate social media guide for artists. 20 digital artists to follow on BehanceFirst, some basics. Successful social media strategy is built on brilliant artwork, so creating the best possible work should be your main focus. Second, it’s impossible to invest time in every platform, so don’t sign up to them all – pick two or three primary channels and become an expert in those spaces. Which ones? Read on as we explore the leading platforms, with tips, tricks and techniques for increasing your social media reach... Drive traffic with Facebook 
Choosing the best platform for your work is a numbers game. Despite reports of millennials moving away from Facebook, it remains the most-used social media site among all ages, with 1.65 billion monthly active users, on average. Baby boomers are driving its current growth. According to a recent report from Pew Research Center, 79 per cent of online Americans use Facebook – with 76 per cent checking in daily – compared to Instagram (32 per cent), Pinterest (31 per cent), LinkedIn (29 per cent) and Twitter (24 per cent). But with ever-changing algorithms and Facebook increasingly wanting a slice of sales, how effective is it for artists? Facebook posts showing my newest artwork particularly generate a lot of interest. However, it’s not ideal for sales Loish “I’ve built a sizeable following on Facebook,” says Dutch artist and animator Lois van Baarle, aka Loish, whose page has over 1.2 million likes. She recommends building your profile by regularly sharing process videos, short tutorials and tips, as well as new artwork. Via these tactics, she 
has been able to successfully crowdfund her first artbook, smashing her £20,000 funding target to reach almost £250,000. “Facebook posts showing my newest artwork particularly generate a lot of interest,” she says. “However, it’s not an ideal social network for sales. "When I post a link to my online prints shop or where to buy my book, only about a tenth of my followers end up seeing it because Facebook wants you to pay to boost these posts.” Lemonade by Loish, who has over 1.2 million likes on her Facebook pageIn the past few years, organic reach has dropped by 49 per cent. Paid-for posts can be a relatively inexpensive method of expanding your reach, but there are also some creative tactics that can help increase your following organically. Facebook is still giving video top priority, for example, so try natively uploading a 30-second video for your next artwork (a sped-up screencapture, for example) with a call-to-action at the end and a link to your website. Always avoid direct sales language and links in your updates. Not only is this annoying for followers, Facebook will penalise you unless you’ve paid for an advert. And make full use of Facebook Insights to better understand your audience. Which posts do they best respond to? Once you know who they are and when they’re on Facebook, you can tailor your posts accordingly. Increase reach with Instagram “Instagram is the most effective platform for me, since it doesn’t have the same limitations on post content as Facebook,” continues Lois. “I can reach many more followers through my Instagram posts, and it has led to a boost in print and book sales.” Ilya Kuvshinov, the Tokyo-based illustrator, agrees. He has over 840,000 Instagram followers and says the platform isn’t just great for increasing awareness of his work, it’s also boosted his Patreon following – converting his audience into paying fans. “However, Instagram posts don’t allow you to insert clickable links,” he says. “If you want to send people somewhere, you have to ask them to check out the link in your profile, which isn’t as effective as having a link to tap in front of you.” “Follow other artists, and use Instagram to have fun yourself,” says Ilya KuvshinovAlgorithmic changes have hit Instagram feeds in recent months, but some basic rules still apply for growing your following. According to entrepreneur Neil Patel, hashtags are more important on Instagram than all other social media platforms. “You won’t need to worry about hashtag fatigue on Instagram,” he says in his article, How to Build a Killer Instagram Following. Instead, treat them like keywords: include relevant, popular hashtags with your updates (Webstagram has a useful list of these) and also integrate less-popular hashtags as well, so that you’re more likely to appear at the top of these search feeds. People love to see work-in-progress pictures, so give them a glimpse into your world Iris Compiet Another way to increase your reach is through ‘tag a friend’ posts, or by giving something away for free. “When I reach a certain goal – say, when I hit 30,000 followers for example – I’ll have a giveaway,” says Netherlands-based illustrator Iris Compiet. “I’ll run a share contest and the winner, picked randomly, will then receive an original piece of my art work for free.” Iris credits Instagram with increased sales of her self-published sketchbook. But better still, she says that posting images from the project also led to new commissions from big-name clients who saw the work. “Limit posts to three a day, tops, though,” she advises others. “But try to post daily, at around the same time. People love to see work-in-progress pictures, so give them a glimpse into your world.” Sell with Pinterest According to Shopify, some 87 per cent of Pinterest users have bought an item because they saw it on Pinterest, while 93 per cent have used the site to plan a purchase. With over 150m monthly users and growing fast, Pinterest isn’t just a significant traffic driver to your website (second only to Facebook), the platform can increase your sales too… with the right strategy. So how can artists get Pinterest to work harder for them? In short: with some savvy SEO. First, create boards that your target audience wants to follow, and add keywords to their descriptions. Not only do boards rank on Google, this will help the right people find your work. Furthermore, give every pin you share an engaging but strategic description, not forgetting to include keywords and a call to action. Just make sure you include your own voice as well: if you go keyword mad, Google will penalise you. Don’t just pin your own work. Share relevant content from other people to increase the chance of your pins appearing at the top of someone’s feed To increase visibility, pin every new artwork or blog on to all your relevant Pinterest boards – not just one of them. And post regularly: Kissmetrics recommends scheduling between five and 30 new pins throughout each day. However, don’t just pin your own work. Share relevant content from other people to increase the chance of your pins appearing at the top of someone’s feed. Finally, make it easy for others to share your work by adding the Pin It button to any image on your site. Whether you’re looking to drive traffic or increase sales, Pinterest is a must for artists. Use a call to action on Twitter Should artists still have a presence on Twitter? The platform’s revenue is down and shares have slumped. But monthly users rose three per cent in 2016, and opportunities to make money still exist. Iris Compiet used Twitter to promote her Faeries of the Faultlines project Hashtags are important, but require a different strategy to Instagram. Don’t go overboard, though: according to marketing agency Lynchpin, tweets with hashtags receive twice as much engagement as those without, but tweets with one or two hashtags have 21 per cent higher engagement than those with three or more. One benefit of Twitter is that its users are among the most responsive to a call to action, so they’re more likely to visit a link. However, tweets become lost quickly, so create a few different versions of each one and schedule them at least six hours apart, or over different days. Connect with YouTube With YouTube ranked as the most popular platform among UK adults online (85 per cent use it, says London agency We Are Flint, rising to 96 per cent of 19-28 year olds), it can make sense to have a presence on it. One artist reaping the benefits is Ross Tran, who boasts over 100,000 subscribers. In January this year, his Korra YouTube episode was a hit. “I uploaded an additional 1.30-minute teaser video to Facebook, which got almost 600,000 views and a few thousand shares,” he says. “This led to me receiving around 3,000 new YouTube subscribers, 3,000 new Instagram followers and new Facebook fans. My Patreon hit an all-time high – about $3,400 a video.” One of Ross Tran’s favourite YouTube episodes sees him taking on Jinx from League of Legends (click the picture to watch the video on YouTube) This isn’t just a shining example of an artist getting the most from YouTube: it’s a top-class lesson in cross-promotion to fully harness the power of social media. And that’s the point. Used cleverly, social media should connect the dots, linking your different online presences together and channelling your audience in whichever direction you’d like them to go. When it comes to YouTube, Ross has some key advice: “Attention spans are getting shorter because more and more content is being shoved in our faces,” he says. “Just accept it and learn how you can be a player.” He recommends utilising YouTube’s Trends tool. “Often when a new movie or character comes out and I create a video, it performs better. Find hot and trending topics that appeal to your audience, to help grow your numbers.” However, his last tip is crucial to all artists, whatever platform you choose. “Be yourself,” he urges. “People subscribe to you because they relate and like you. Remember: your experiences, vision and stories are unique to you. So share them.” This article originally appeared in ImagineFX issue 147. Buy it now. Read more: 10 digital artists you need to know about 8 inspiring digital art portfolios and why they work 6 best digital art tools of 2017 so far View the full article

Photography is a skill that is easy to learn but hard to master. Having a basic understanding of the art will go a long way, and you can always add new abilities. The Adobe KnowHow All-Inclusive Photography Bundle is here to turn you into an expert, and it’s on sale for just $64.99 (approx £51). No matter your current level of experience as a photographer, you’ll find plenty of useful information in this huge bundle. It spans 13 courses and packs in over 65 hours of actionable content. Whether you're interested in learning specific skills like snapping night shots, or hoping to dive into foundational information applicable to all types of photography, you’re sure to find what you're looking for in this bundle. With this great deal you can get the Adobe KnowHow All-Inclusive Photography Bundle on sale for just $64.99 (approx £51). That's 93% off the full retail price for an essential collection of courses for anyone interested in photography, so get this deal today! About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com View the full article

Sass is a powerful tool that brings many features from other programming languages into CSS – such as functions, variables and loops – as well as bringing its own intuitive features such as mixins, nesting and partials to name a few. In this tutorial we'll be creating social icons using Sass loops, mixins and functions. We'll also be using the powerful nesting available in Sass. What is Sass?We'll be creating a list in Sass to generate our social icons, which will consist of the classname, font reference and colour first – and later the tooltip. And we'll be using mixins to create reusable Media Queries and creating a function to turn a pixel value into an em value. To do this we'll also be creating a variable for our base font-size. There are a number of ways to install and use Sass depending on your system and your build tooling needs – more details can be found here – however, we'll be using CodePen to compile our Sass into CSS to keep things as simple as possible. To truly harness the power of Sass and not get yourself into a mess of specificity and complexity a solid understanding of CSS is required. The particular flavour of Sass we'll be using is SCSS (Sassy CSS), meaning we'll still be using the curly brackets {} in our Sass code. Get the tutorial files To download the example files for this tutorial, go to FileSilo, select Free Stuff and Free Content next to the tutorial. Note: First time users will have to register to use FileSilo. 01. Set up your CodePen CSS Getting your CodePen CSS set up correctly is keyThe first thing we'll need to do is create a new pen and change some of the default settings for the CSS editor in CodePen. We'll change the CSS Preprocessor to SCSS and turn on Normalize and Autoprefixer. 02. Start writing some code Now we've set everything up we can start writing some code. Inside the HTML editor we'll create a container and a number of items inside containing the link and icon for each of our icons. The names used here will be used in our Sass list as a reference in CSS. We'll also be using the BEM naming convention for our class names. 03. Set basic styles Moving over to the CSS editor we'll start by including font-awesome, setting a variable for our base font-size and some basic styles for the page. 04. Create a basic function Next we'll create a basic function to turn a pixel value to an em value using our '$base-font-size' variable. Functions in Sass are created using '@function' followed by the name of the function and the input used to perform the function. Then inside the declaration we use '@return' to output the value when using the function. The '#{}' surrounding the calculation is used for interpolation. 05. Make mixins Continuing on with our setup we'll create mixins for simple mobile-first media queries using our 'px-to-em' function, which we will pass in a px value to return an em value. Mixins are created using '@mixin' followed by a name for the mixin. Then inside the declaration we use '@content' to output the code we put inside the mixin when calling it later in our codebase. 06. Set up a Sass list The last step in our setup is to create a list. Lists in Sass are created using a variable; after that the exact syntax is pretty loose, accepting a wide variety of ways to define it. Inside the variable we'll define the class name, unicode value and colour for each icon, separating them with a comma, inside parentheses. 07. Display your icons in a row In order for our social icons to display in row we'll add some simple CSS to each of their containers. 08. Create a shared icon style To minimise the amount of CSS we output we'll be using a CSS3 selector to find all classes beginning with 'icon' and create a shared style for them. 09. Style up button backgrounds Using the same method we'll do the same for the buttons defining our values in 'em', allowing us later to resize them using the container. 10. @each loop for our icons We’ve used our loop to generate the icons for each of our social iconsNow we have all our base styles we can use our list to generate the CSS specific to each icon. To create a loop in Sass we use '@each' followed by names for each value of each item – '$icon', '$unicode' and '$icon-background' – followed by the word 'in' and then the name of the list. Inside the loop we'll apply the '$unicode' value to the 'before' pseudo element of each icon we've created in the HTML, allowing the shared style we created earlier to take care of all the other styles needed. 11. @each loop for our background colours We’ve added the background colours as well as the icons to our '@each' loopThe icons are now all working but we still have the fallback background colour. We'll add some more code to our list to fix that. Using the same method as above we'll output the '$icon' name but this time on the 'social__icon' classes and inside that the '$icon-background' colour. 12. Use the mixins Using our mixins we've updated the font size of the container to change the icons size depending on the viewport widthUsing the mixins we created earlier and because we styled the icons using 'em' values we can apply a font-size to the container and increase it using our media-query mixin using '@include' and the name of the mixin followed by the code we want to include in the media-query. 13. Add interaction states and built-in functions We can add some interactivity to our buttons by changing the background colour when the button is interacted with either using the mouse or the keyboard. Sass has a number of built-in colour functions allowing us to take the background colour we've set in our list and mix it with black to darken the button – when interacted with. 14. Transition the background colour We can also utilise the 'transition' property in CSS to animate the differences between the background colours. We could use the 'all' value but that is both expensive in terms of performance and would not allow us to transition different values at different timings and timing-functions. 15. Add further transition effects By adding a 'relative' positioning to the buttons and a top value and adding 'top' to our 'transition' property we can ready the elements for further interaction. 16. Move the buttons up upon interaction For this interaction there's nothing specific needed to create it therefore we can add the code to the shared class. By applying a negative top value and removing the outline we have an even clearer visual cue of interaction. 17. Add a drop shadow Using transition properties we’ve animated any interaction with the buttons – moving them up, darkening the background and adding a drop shadowWe can also use the same method to create and animate a 'box-shadow' – adding a little more depth to the interaction – changing the vertical height of the shadow at the same time as the top value. 18. Add tooltips We can easily add tooltips with CSS to add further clarity for our users. The first thing we'll do is to add the tooltip value to the list. Making sure to write them in quotes to allow the use of spaces if required. 19. Modify the @each loop Due to the addition to our list we'll need to modify our '@each' loop to include the tooltip value ('$name'). We can then output that name as the content of the 'before pseudo' element on our buttons. 20. Style the before pseudo element We've added some basic styles to the tooltips again adding transitions to animate them into positionNow we have the name of each element displayed on the screen we need to style the element, adding a background colour, padding and other styling elements – as well as positioning the element and readying it for transitions and modifying the opacity and top values upon interaction. 21. Style the after pseudo element We will use CSS triangles to create the bottom of our tooltips – again positioning the element readying it for transitions – by transitioning the opacity and top values at different timings. By adding a delay we get an animation consisting of the tooltip fading in and moving down into place. The CodePen Collection of tutorial steps can be found here. This article originally appeared in Web Designer magazine issue 264. Buy it here. Read more: What is Sass? 8 CodePen features you didn't know about 5 tips for super-fast CSS View the full article

When it comes to music, you could say that the UK is punching above its weight. Despite its size, the UK has produced bands, artists and music scenes that have had a huge influence all around the world. To celebrate this wealth of talent, TotallyMoney.com has produced a beautiful interactive infographic that takes you on a tour of the best UK music. Pro tips for creating interactive infographicsIn the infographic, the names of various bands and artists cover the town or area where they hail from to make up a musical map of the UK. Many of the band and artist names are styled using fonts and logos to match the band's. When you click on an artist's name, you even get a refresher of their best song, chart performance and net worth. London has its own pull-out interactive map (Click the arrows icon to enlarge the map)"The UK music industry is one of the biggest in the world,” says Joe Gardiner, TotallyMoney.com’s head of brand and communications. “It’s a rich history, but people often think that musicians just congregate in London. Music is universal – singers and bands come from all over.” Perhaps due to London's sheer density, it does have its own pull-out map, though, for users to explore in more depth. We're not sure how we feel about the fact that the CB office seems to fall dangerously near James Blunt territory... See the map for yourself below, and be sure to head over to the full interactive infographic at TotallyMoney.com to find out about all the facts and figures behind your favourite musicians. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in all its musical glory (Click to go to the full interactive map) You might like these related articles: 8 free tools for creating infographics The 25 greatest animated music videos The 20 best album covers of 2016 View the full article

Even successful digital artists have much to learn, and you constantly need to push and develop your skills or you’ll start to stagnate and get left behind. And that’s not just about learning new software techniques. It’s also about refreshing and refining those core art skills that help you to create brilliant visuals, whatever your medium. In this post, we look at five ways to do so. 01. Sketch regularly Illustration by Christina Mrozik Whether you use a pen and paper or tablet and stylus, regular sketching is an essential way to maintain and improve your skills. American artist Terryl Whitlach, who’s known for her creature designs for Lucasfilm, says: “It’s important to get better as an artist, and to have a platform to experiment, mess up, try again – and again – and grow. Sometimes, things just don't turn out, but that is the process of getting out of one’s comfort zone, and getting better.” Regular sketching can also help you come up with concepts and ideas that you may not reach through other routes. Tony Diterlizzi, whose fantasy art will shortly be exhibiting at the Norman Rockwell Museum, says: “I often sketch random ideas conjured from a relaxed state of mind. Accessing this part of my imagination allows me to sketch out unusual ideas, which I can later incorporate into finished illustrations.” Online sketching resources For advice on how to settle into a productive sketching regime, check out these Sketching Tips for Beginners and these 10 tips from leading international artists. And don’t miss the special feature on art sketching in the next issue of ImagineFX (153), on sale 9 September. 02. Work on your figure drawing Figure Drawing for Artists by Steve Huston is accessible and comprehensive Figure drawing – the accurate reproduction of the human form in various shapes and postures – is a core skill for any artist, digital or otherwise, and always worth working on. The best way to learn the basics is, of course, by attending life drawing classes. But there are ton of books out there to help you, too: here are some of our favourites. Books on figure drawing Figure Drawing for Artists by Steve Huston serves as a good introduction to the subject. It's an accessible book that covers all the principles and practices of figure drawing without ever feeling academic or overly complex. Human Figure Drawing by Daniela Brambilla, meanwhile, is less concerned with theory and more about encouraging you to practise, practise, practise. It does this by setting a series of exercises and encourages you to learn by doing – all the while learning from your mistakes. A more suitable read for experienced artists is perhaps Figure Drawing for Concept Artists by Kan Muftic, who has created concept art for movies like Guardians of the Galaxy, Jungle Book and Godzilla. In this, the concept artist outlines systematic methods to advance your life drawing: the three-tiered approach (observe, process and apply); the Reilly Method; shadow mapping; negative space and shapes; and more. Muftic also reveals how Henry Yan once asked him, “Are you a digital artist? Muftic replied, “Yes, why do you ask?”. Yan shot back, “Well, you just move your hand around mindlessly, hoping that something comes out of the mess.” If your main goal is to achieve anatomic accuracy, you may like The Anatomy of Style: Figure Drawing Techniques by fantasy artist Patrick J Jones, which uses annotated versions of his own pencil drawings to get human anatomy right, without losing sight of creative vision. Online figure drawing resources Away from the printed page, there are number of online articles that show how these principles are put into practice by top artists. In this step-by-step tutorial to improve your figure drawing, John Watkiss walks you through the compositional and anatomical techniques he uses in illustrating the classic character of Tarzan. Similarly, in our Get better at figure drawing article, Patrick J Jones demonstrates how he draws from life without slavishly copying what he sees. And in this How to draw the human figure walkthrough, artist Houston Sharp explains how she uses a few key measurement comparisons and body part alignments to accurately depict a warrior. Sticky Bones is created by animatorsFigure drawing artists' model Finally, if you want a dynamic physical reference to work on at home or in your studio, check out Sticky Bones. This crowdfunded artists' model is created by husband and wife team Erik and Lauren Baker, two stop-motion film animators. "Stickybones has been engineered to withstand anything your imagination throws its way," Erik Baker explains. "It can hit the most expressive poses quickly and easily." 03. Develop your portrait skills Borislav Mitkov explains how to create a portrait in Painter 2017 in this walkthrough Portraiture, whether drawn from life or the imagination, is another fundamental skill that every artist aims to master. Books on portrait skills One of the best recent introductions we’ve seen to this subject is Draw Faces in 15 Minutes by art expert and teacher Jake Spicer. Based on pencil drawing, this easy-to-follow book breaks down its subject into comprehensive stages. You’ll learn how to construct a basic portrait sketch, then go on to discover how to develop your drawings and make them more lifelike. Online portrait skills resources When it comes to developing your portraits digitally, the following tutorials demonstrate some interesting approaches. To create portrait art in Corel Painter 2017, check out our Create portrait art in Corel Painter walkthrough by illustrator and concept artist Borislav Mitkov, in which he makes use of custom brushes from other artists. Also using Corel Painter is Te Hu, who paints a digital watercolour portrait in this tutorial. In his article he demonstrates how to extract a subject from abstract shapes and colours and eventually end up with a fully developed portrait. Finally, this video walkthrough by award-winning Photoshop brush maker Kyle T Webster demonstrates how to create an Edvard Munch-style portrait in Photoshop CC. 04. Evolve your character drawing skills The Silver Way by Stephen Silver offers a systematic approach to improving your character drawings Improving your character drawing is largely about practice, hard work and inspiration. But there are some useful pointers to be learned from the pros as well. Books on character design One of our favourite books of the year so far is The Silver Way: Techniques, Tips and Tutorials for Effective Character Design by Stephen Silver, who’s worked on animated TV shows such as Kim Possible as well as running the Silver Drawing Academy. His fun, colourful 250-page book packs a huge amount of advice and instruction, and covers a number of unusual techniques such as ‘memory sketching’, ‘blind feeling’ and ‘throwing up on the page’ that could help you bring your character drawing to the next level. Online character design resources There’s a lot of great advice online about character design too. Check out our How to improve your character drawing tutorial by legendary artist Aaron Blaise, 20 top character design tips from leading illustrator Jon Burgerman and Mina Petrovic’s step-by-step explanation of how to hand-draw a manga character. 05. Understand composition Dan Dos Santos explains the fundamental principles that lie behind composition Whatever kind of art you’re producing, composition is key. If you’re struggling with composition, it’s worth learning or refreshing the key principles behind it, such as the Golden Ratio and the Rule of Thirds. You’ll find a quick refresher in these 12 pro tips to improve your artistic composition from artist Dan Dos Santos. However, to truly progress as an artist “you’ve got to know the rules to break”, as they say. This article by James Gurney explains how to harness compositional theory in a creative way, rather than being a slave to it. Finally, if you want to see how all of this works in practice, check out Jose Daniel Cabrera Peña’s walkthrough of How to create a dramatic composition with multiple characters. In this case, he uses an image of conflict from Greek mythology. View the full article

GitLab, the popular web-based Git repository manager, fixed a vulnerability recently that could have opened its users up to session hijacking attacks. View the full article

Trivially exploitable vulnerabilities in several Arris home modems, routers and gateways distributed to consumers and small businesses through AT&T’s U-verse service have been discovered. View the full article

Paint & Draw is off to the seaside this issue as we've got plenty of tutorials and workshops dedicated to the life aquatic. These features include tips for using watercolours in experimental ways, plus a look at how to paint some of the ocean's oldest inhabitants... Our lead feature though is a workshop by artist Tony Underhill. With his advice for using inks and watercolours, your artwork will soon start bringing the outdoors in. Thanks to his tips, you'll also get a better understanding of how the two mediums can work together for maximum impact. Buy issue 12 of Paint & Draw here Issue 12 also includes the first part of a new series dedicated to pencil drawing. Our readers have been calling out for this so we're happy to deliver. In these workshops you'll learn the essentials of how to draw with pencils, from tips on how to hold them, to different ways you can use them to make marks. Of course, the latest issue also comes with all the news, reviews and exhibition previews you've come to expect from Paint & Draw, so make sure you don't miss it. Some more of the magazine's highlights are below. Subscribe to Paint & Draw here Fun tips for painting ammonites Replicate beautiful ammonite textures in watercoloursIn this watercolour workshop, artist and author Stephanie Law shares how to paint the intricate textures of prehistoric ammonite fossils. She also guides you through how to add some sparkle to your finish for that extra-special touch. Flamingo painting and the power of 'negative shapes' This workshop shows you how to bring out main features and add interestMake your artwork stand out from the crowd with these composition tips from Marie Antoniou. With her tips for painting colours and patterns, you're sure to start giving your artwork something extra special. How to paint realistic eyes in oils Learn how to start painting perfect peepers with these tipsEyes are the most important part of any successful portrait, so it's important that you get them right. With these quick tips you'll get a better grasp of the anatomy of eyes so that your faces look more lifelike than ever. Evoke memories with a seascape Memories of the sea can create atmosphere and energyArtist Sarah Jane Brown reveals how she channels her previous maritime career into her art with this eye-opening workshop. With her oil painting tips, she shows how you can recreate the mercurial mood of the sea. More great content from Paint & Draw Buy issue 12 of Paint & Draw here View the full article

Abbott Laboratories releases software fixes for pacemakers that could allow an attacker to wirelessly access the devices and steal personal data, drain the battery and disrupt normal life-sustaining operations. View the full article

Short of money but still under pressure to produce an amazing print design? You're not the first designer to struggle against financial odds, and you won't be the last. Free fonts and budget-friendly images will help, but there's also a lot you can do on the business side of things. Follow these five simple steps and you'll soon find you can wring more out of a small design budget than you thought possible... 01. Manage the client's expectations Getting the most from your budget always starts with setting the right budget in the first place, and that relies on getting a good brief together. Make sure you understand what's expected, and what falls within the brief. Then manage your client's expectations as to what they're actually going to get from the project. What they want isn't always going to be what they need. It's all about trying to understand their market, and making sure they understand their own market fully, which you do by asking lots of questions. 02. Invest your time wisely You also need to make sure that you put enough time into a project right at the beginning. Often, clients will want to see your ideas really quickly, and they might not give you enough time to do the research and all the planning, or to get a good concept together and hold focus groups if necessary. You don't want to do endless amounts of planning, but spending too little time can end up costing you money in the long run. Make sure you don't rush into making decisions that may turn into problems later. 03. Plan your print run Lots of small savings can add up to big onesYour campaign should be properly planned so that you print the right amount to start with, rather than doing one print run and then having the client come back a few months later wanting a bit more (or wasting money by overprinting in the first place). Some people say there's always time for a reprint, but starting up the presses again is so inefficient. You need to identify how long the product is going to be in the marketplace for, and how many copies you really need. 04. Size up your paper stock When it comes to picking your paper stock, if the project allows it then stick to standard paper sizes – these are often most efficient and economical. You can potentially also save on paper stock, but work out if it's worth it for your particular job. Your choice of paper obviously depends on who the design is going out to – if it needs to look premium, you don't want to be cutting corners on stock. But if it's a mass mailout, you can perhaps take the stock down a bit. There's no point using 300g uncoated stock for a flyer that's just going to be left in a bar. 05. Get the best from your suppliers It's very important to have good relationships with your suppliers. This isn't so you can knock their prices down, however. Try not to do this, because everyone is already doing things on the tightest of design budgets. It's important to chat to suppliers because you want them to keep you informed. It helps to know that they'll to contact you to say: 'Maybe you've put a bit too much colour in this black', or to let you know if something isn't going to print the way it's supposed to, rather than just going ahead and doing the job anyway. Liked this? Read these: 5 things every creative needs to know about print design How to network successfully Why designers need to talk about money View the full article