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In this month's roundup, we look at London through the eyes of artists old and new, with a must-see exhibition and a must-read book, both focusing on the English capital in paint. One of the all-time great comic book artists, Dave Gibbons, shows you how he does what he does. We also check out his favourite tool. And a new book takes a surreal look at a surrealism, mixing fact and fiction to dazzling effect. 01. This Is Not A Biography A thought-provoking look at Magritte's artRene Magritte, the surrealist who may or may not have painted a pipe, inspired this collaboration between author Vincent Zabus and artist Thomas Campi. Charles Singular, the book's protagonist, buys a hat that once belonged to Magritte. "What follows," goes the blurb, "is a hallucinatory journey through Magritte’s imaginative landscape, a place where facial features mutate, the crescent moon appears in unexpected places, and answers prove frustratingly elusive." The book is a playful but thoughtful look at Magritte's art and artistic process. 02. French artists in London See London through the eyes of the French ImpressionistsMonet, Tissot and Pissarro all feature in this new exhibition at the Tate. In the 1870s, artists fled the Franco-Prussian war by crossing the channel and setting up shop in London, and their work is said to offer "a fascinating insight into how London was perceived by the visiting French artists". This show maps the many connections between French and British artists, their patrons and art dealers. The exhibition begins the beginning of November and runs right through to January. 03. London in Paint This book shows how artists have represented London over the decadesThis new book by Tate offers an in-depth look at London in paint, with 100 paintings from the 17th century all the way up to present day, works by Constable, Turner and Monet, as well as lesser-known contemporary artists like David Hepher and Lisa Milroy. This diverse collection takes in views of St. Paul’s, the Thames and Tower Bridge, all contextualised with anecdotes about the art and the artists. Just as interesting are the quieter moments, the street corners and residential squares. It's a fascinating look at an ever-changing city. 04. Draw like Dave Gibbons Graphic novel tips from a comic masterDave Gibbons teaches you scriptwriting, page layouts, lettering, cover designs – everything you need to create your own comic. You're learning from the best here: Gibbons drew Watchmen, one of the best-selling graphic novels of all time, and in 2014 became the UK's first Comics Laureate. The book includes scans of original artwork and work-in-progress, looks at both hand-drawn and digital techniques, and how Gibbons layers text for editing, creates effects, and prepares artwork for print and online. 05. Dave's favourite pen A pro pen for a reasonable price tagDave Gibbons' pen of choice is the Mangaka Flexible Fine. Once dry, its water-based pigment ink is smudge-proof with watercolours and alcohol-based markers. The flexible, fine brush tip is smooth and fluent, so it's suitable for beginners as well as pros, and gives good clean lines whether pressed firmly or lightly. These pens are nice to hold too – has a good weight to it – plus they're priced very reasonably. Choose from fine, medium or sepia versions. Buy Dave's pen, draw like Dave. We're pretty sure that's how it works. 06. Sketch Now, Think Later A busy schedule is no reason not to get sketchingIn his new book, artist and urban sketcher Mike Daikubara explains how you can find more time to draw. "Many people give up on their potential hobby (and artistic outlet)," Daikubara writes, "because they feel they just don’t have the time to lay the groundwork." The Boston-based creative says anyone, even those with limited time and no previous experience, can make sketching a part of their daily lives. 07. Daikubara's pen This pen features a bent nib to create brushlike lines Daikubara prefers to sketch with the Fude pen made by Japanese manufacturer Sailor. "At first glance," he writes, " the bent nib almost seems broken. It's quite surprising how this small bend allows the pen to create brushlike lines, but with more control than a regular brush." (Those who want to get really geeky about supplies may also be interested to know Daikubara uses Noodler's Lexington gray ink.) 08. The geometry of sewing Stitching is all about geometry, reallyNatalie Chanin makes their point that all stitches are based on geometric grid systems. By using grids as guides, she says, we can all learn to stitch seemingly elaborate patterns. Her books features illustrated instructions for more than 100 stitched designs, from the most basic to the most complex, photos of the right and wrong sides, and guidelines on modifying stitches once you become more advance. The book includes two reusable plastic stitching cards, die-cut with the grids of every stitch in the book. You practise by stitching through the cards, or use them as stencils to transfer grids to fabric. 09. Stitch Lover set This kit is packed with stitchy lovelinessThe ‘Stitch Lover’ craft box is aimed at both beginners and pros. It contains: a mini ‘Eat. Sleep. Stitch. Repeat’ cross-stitch kit, ‘Sew Happy’ ribbon, embroidery thread and fabric, novelty buttons, a set of needles, a length of blue satin button trim and other sewing room-inspired loveliness. It has been put together by Stitch Kit, a maker who is a regular contributor to craft magazines, and is hand-packed, using only quality, light-fast materials. 10. 365 Days of Art Try out different media and techniques over the course of a yearLorna Scobie is a London-based designer and illustrator. 365 Days of Art is a daily journal that features a range of activities – everything from calligraphy and tonal drawings, to mastering portraits and perspective. Its aim is to encourage you to try different media and techniques, whether you're a novice, hobbyist, or professional artist. Scobie says it's all about freestyling and experimenting, which is "guaranteed to stir your imagination and put a little creativity into every single day." Related articles: How to paint fantasy beasts How to mix shadow colour in paint Can pro artists achieve mindfulness through art? View the full article

Organizations running PeopleSoft exposed to the internet should pay attention to a remote code execution vulnerability patched in the latest Oracle Critical Patch Update. View the full article

The updates keep on coming from Adobe's creative conference, MAX 2017. We've already seen how Adobe Sensei is bringing machine learning to the table to increase the data-handling capabilities across Adobe applications, plus the launch of cloud-centric photo service Lightroom CC which is set to make editing and sharing images easier. But what about Adobe's core tools like Photoshop and Illustrator? Don't worry, they haven't been left behind. The 17 best Adobe Illustrator pluginsNew innovations and performance enhancements have been revealed today for Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Premiere Pro CC, and After Effects CC, along with greater integration with Adobe Stock. With plenty of products and updates to get through, let's crack on and look at what all the enhancements have in store. Photoshop CC Newcomers are guided through Photoshop with a Learn PanelThe latest updates to Photoshop are geared towards making it easier for beginners to pick up the platform for the first time. Adobe started rolling out ease-of-use improvements earlier in the year with the launch of the curvature pen tool, and now they're building on this with a new learn panel which provides interactive tutorials directly inside Photoshop, complete with tips to help you navigate each step. Photoshop CC now also offers significantly expended photography support. By integrating Lightroom Photos into the start screen, users can save themselves time when working with mobile images they've synced via Lightroom CC. The all-time number one request of Photoshop users - improved brush preset management - has finally been addressed as well. These improvements give users the ability to save tool options such as opacity, flow, and blend mode in a brush preset, making the whole painting experience smoother than before. Topping off the updates to Photography CC are an even more accurate Select and Mask tool, brush stroke smoothing enhancements, and an improved integration with Adobe Stock images that lets users find images directly within the properties panel. Illustrator CC The new Property Panel makes tools easy to findAs Illustrator turns 30 this year, Adobe's focus has been on improving the tool's core experience so designers can easily create stunning graphics. We've seen some of these features like an Image Crop tool already, but with this latest release Adobe is looking to take things even further. The standout feature in this upgrade is the updated Essentials workspace which includes a new Properties Panel. By showing users the controls they need, when they need them, Adobe claims that the Properties Panel is so revolutionary that you'll wonder how you lived without it. By organising all panels into one locations so that users can access them quickly and easily, this is one update that's sure to be welcomed by designers that like working in a clutter-free environment. For example when you use the Type Tool to insert a text frame, the Properties Panel automatically displays controls for character attributes so you can change the size, leading, or kerning there and then. What's more, if you draw a shape, the controls for the colour or stroke will be displayed by the Properties Panel. It's hoped that the Properties Panel will improve a user's efficiency, but if it's not suited to how a person works they can always revert back to previous configurations. InDesign CC Find fonts based on style with the latest InDesign CC updateAdobe's efficiency drive continues with the latest updates to InDesign CC. With the new enhancements, users will be able to easily convert posters and books to digital magazines, ebooks and interactive PDFs. Other improvements to the industry-leading page-design app include the ability to add endnotes and table annotations. Endnote numbering, formatting and layout can also be controlled, plus there's the option to directly import endnotes from Microsoft Word. Rounding off the InDesign updates are object-style enhancements, paragraph borders, and the ability to manage text in Creative Cloud Libraries. Finally, additional enhancements make it easier to work with type. Fonts can be filtered via the Character Panel plus you can search for them based on visual similarity. Premiere Pro CC Create immersive environments easily with Premiere Pro CCThere's good news for video editors as the latest innovations for Premiere Pro CC include new collaborative workflows, immersive environments for editing VR/360, and Responsive Design controls for time and position when designing motion graphics. These updates make Premiere Pro the only NLE that allows editors to work with multiple open projects at the same time while editing teams can work on a single project simultaneously over a closed or open network. With Responsive Design functionality, users can also respond to changes in duration, aspect ratio, and frame size. These tools mean that users have the ability to preserve the integrity of keyframes (for example n intro and outro) so they are not affected by changes made to the overall clip duration. In a similar vein to Adobe's improvements to Photoshop CC, there's also a focus on making it easier for newcomers to get on board with Premiere Pro CC. This improved usability includes new key commands for working with graphics, the ability to close gaps in a timeline with just one click, and label support for Search Bins. Coach marks are also on hand to guide users through the process of creating their first sequence. After Effects CC Workflows just got streamlined in After Effects CCImproved workflow efficiency is the order of the day when it comes to the updates for After Effects CC. The latest release streamlines the ability to create data-driven graphics and delivers high-quality VR and 3D results. And thanks to GPU performance enhancements, After Effects CC does this faster than ever before. One of the most exciting new features puts viewers into the centre of the action with either 180 storytelling to full 360 VR. A new VR Comp Editor in After Effects transforms equirectangular 360 footage into familiar, flat rectilinear images. Meanwhile a new Extract Cubemap in After Effects simplifies motion tracking and object removal in 360 video while the new VR Converter lets you switch on-the-fly between different immersive formats so you can ensure your final content will play well on any platform. On top of this, users can design immersive motion graphics experiences, using the new Create VR Environment feature, including camera positions -with or without live-action footage. Thanks to performance and navigation enhancements, users can render layer transforms, motion blurs and more effects on the GPU. Keyboard Shortcut Mapping allows you to quickly find, adjust, and customise keyboard shortcuts using a visual map like the one used in Premiere Pro. And with the help of the enhanced Start screen and New Composition and New Composition from Footage buttons, creatives can get down to work that much quicker. Related articles: Review: Adobe Creative Cloud 2017 Adobe launches revealing video series by artists Sell work even faster with Adobe Sign View the full article

As part of Adobe MAX 2017, today Adobe has launched its all-new cloud based photography service Lightroom CC. Like the rest of Adobe's announcements, Lightroom is one of the next generation of Creative Cloud products powered by Adobe Sensei. The 17 best Adobe Illustrator pluginsBuilding on the original Lightroom, which was launched over a decade ago and went on to become the industry’s leading desktop application for editing and organising photography, Lightroom CC is an update built with smartphones in mind. Aimed at professionals and enthusiasts, Lightroom CC is a more accessible, cloud-based photography service that allows users to edit, organise store and share their images from wherever they are. With a streamlined user interface, Lightroom CC gives photographers the ability to edit in full resolution across mobile, desktop and the web. Edits made on one device automatically synchronise their changes across other platforms, making it easier to keep track of updates. Searching for images is also made easier with Lightroom CC as it automatically tags photos with searchable keywords to save users the hassle of doing it manually and sifting through thousands of assets later down the line. Edits will be synchronised across different devices“As the leader in digital photography, today Adobe is unveiling Lightroom CC, our next generation photography service,” said Bryan Lamkin, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Media at Adobe. “Lightroom CC answers photographers’ demand for a deeply integrated, intelligent, cloud-based photography solution.” Lightroom CC capabilities Easy-to-use scales make editing a doddleLightroom CC is built on the same imaging technology as Photoshop and its predecessor, Lightroom. As well as new streamlined interfaces with easy-to-use sliders, presets and quick adjustment tools, Lightroom CC comes with a host of nifty capabilities for photographers to sink their teeth into. These include: Back-up cloud storage - Lightroom CC has scalable storage options for safe and secure back up of full resolution photos – including raw files. You'' never have to worry about backing up assets again. Built-in sharing tools - Lightroom CC makes it easy to share photos directly via social media and to create custom Lightroom web galleries that can be shared via link. Photographers can also share their work through new Adobe Portfolio integration with Lightroom CC. Adobe Sensei machine learning - Adobe Sensei’s machine learning technology automatically apply searchable keywords to objects in photographs – making organisation in Lightroom CC effortless. On top of this, Lightroom CC comes with support for mobile on iOS and Android, including built-in search functionality and keyword support. For web users, Lightroom CC also gives users the option to manage a public gallery page. Enhanced integration with Adobe Portfolio enables subscribers to easily import collections and publish their best shots to a customised Portfolio website in just a few clicks. Speaking of subscriptions, photographers can choose from three options. The all-in-one plan offers the full benefits of Lightroom CC along with Photoshop for £16.64/month excl. VAT, but it's also available at £12.48/month excl. VAT for the first year for existing Creative Cloud Photography customers. Alternatively, Lightroom CC has been added to the existing Creative Cloud Photography plan with an additional 20 GB of storage to help users get started on the new service. This plan remains at £8.32/month excl. VAT. There's also the all new Lightroom CC plan which includes Lightroom CC, Lightroom for mobile and web, Adobe Spark with premium features, Adobe Portfolio, and 1 TB of cloud storage for £8.32/month excl. VAT. Finally, there's the Lightroom Mobile plan for users that don't need a desktop solution. This is available with 100 GB for iOS (£4.49/month) and Android (£4.39/month). Related articles: Adobe launches revealing video series by artists Review: Adobe Creative Cloud 2017 Sell work even faster with Adobe Sign View the full article

It's a big day designers as Adobe has unveiled the next generation of updates at its creativity conference MAX 2017. Spearheading the new Creative Cloud feature updates announced today is Adobe Sensei, Adobe's artificial intelligence and machine learning platform. By embedding Adobe Sensei across the entire system of Creative Cloud applications, creatives will be able to go from concept to completion faster than before and effectively design at the speed of thought. Sensei-powered features also bring advanced technology and deep learning to the table to help accelerate the creative process. The 17 best Adobe Illustrator pluginsFour brand new applications also make up the latest Creative Cloud update, including Adobe XD CC for experience design, Adobe Dimension CC for 2D to 3D compositing, Character Animator CC for 2D animation, and the all-new cloud-based photography service Adobe Lightroom CC. On top of these applications, Adobe has also unveiled updates to existing products such as Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, and Premiere Pro CC. Meanwhile, the Adobe Stock service continues to be expanded. The next generation of Creative Cloud includes mobile app and website prototyping tool Adobe XD CC“Adobe continues to lead the creative revolution, driving modernisation and innovation that will accelerate the creative process across all platforms and devices,” said Bryan Lamkin, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Media at Adobe. “Today, we unveiled a new generation of Creative Cloud, with a wide spectrum of capabilities—from new experience design, 2D animation and 3D rendering apps to an all-new, cloud-based photography service. These tools enable creative professionals and enthusiasts to express themselves and reach their full creative potential anytime, anywhere, on any device.” Adobe Sensei Adobe Sensei can anticipate your next creative moveAdobe is bringing its decades of creative knowledge to the table with the launch of Adobe Sensei. The machine learning platform is capable of harnessing trillions of content and data assets, including high-resolution images and customer clicks. This enables Adobe Sensei to image match from across millions of assets and understand the meaning of documents. For users of Adobe tools and platforms, this means that Adobe Sensei is capable of anticipating their next move. By understanding the images that creatives are working with, Adobe Sensei can recreate elements in photos where they don't exist thanks to context provided by nearby pixels. This greater working knowledge of assets and images also allows Adobe Sensei to re-create fonts, identify objects in images, and recognise faces. Photos can be tagged with searchable keywords that mean users can use Adobe Sensei to quickly and easily sift through albums containing thousands of images. And thanks to being able to recognise facial landmarks such as eyebrows and lips, expressions can be changed in just a single click. Let Adobe Sensei analyse huge amounts of data for youAdobe Sensei also makes it easier to work with text based documents. Capable of transforming paper into editable digital documents, Adobe Sensei automatically includes the right fonts, creates form fields and even cleans up signatures. Marketers will also be able to benefit from Adobe Sensei as it can handle huge amounts of data and analyse the numbers you've given it to process. This could help marketers identify a new audience they should target and highlight any changes that are emerging in their market. Adobe Sensei also helps with the legwork of targeting a new audience by creating specific messages that will resonate with potential customers. Next generation Adobe applications Creating web and app prototypes just got easier with Adobe XD CCAlongside the launch of Adobe Sensei, a batch of new creative Adobe applications round off the MAX announcement. First up is Adobe XD CC, a tool that caters to the needs of designers working on prototyping mobile apps and websites. This all-in-one cross-platform solution has been developed in partnership with the design community through a public beta to deliver the speed, precision and quality designers need to go from static comps or wireframes to fully interactive prototypes in minutes. Thanks to the ability to switch easily from design to prototype more inside the app itself, creatives can work without interrupting their ideas. Interactions and transitions can be dropped in whenever you want, plus everything can be shared with teammates and stakeholders to test the look and feel of a design. By giving designers the freedom to draw, reuse, and remix vector and raster artwork to create wireframes, screen layouts, interactive prototypes, and production-ready assets all in the same app, Adobe XD CC gets rid of the speedbumps that currently trouble UX designers. Create textures on 3D assets with Adobe Dimension CCMeanwhile, Adobe Dimension CC gives designers the power and flexibility of 3D with the ease and simplicity of working with 2D. Thanks to a range of texture tools and assets, graphic designers are able to quickly create and iterate on photorealistic 3D images to create branding and packaging in real world settings. This is sure to make the lives of product designers easier as it allows them to whip up concepts faster than before. Bring 2D art from Photoshop and Illustrator to life with Adobe Character Animator CCTopping off the new applications Adobe Character Animator CC. Having previously been in beta, today's launch of the 2D animation tool helps bring still image artwork from Photoshop or Illustrator to life. The tool has already been showcased by the likes of Homer Simpson during primetime entertainment slots, but now it's available for everyone to enjoy. With new features including pose-to-pose blending, new physics behaviours and visual puppet controls, Character Animator CC allows designers to animate their art by acting out movements through a webcam. Voices can also be recorded and lip synced with a microphone. And thanks to Adobe Sensei, facial expressions and motions can be tracked in real time. Along with Adobe's photography service, Lightroom CC, there are also updates and enhancements to their flagship applications. These Creative Cloud updates are now available to desktop software. Head over to Adobe's Creative Cloud price page to choose a plan that's right for you. Related articles: Adobe launches revealing video series by artists Review: Adobe Creative Cloud 2017 Sell work even faster with Adobe Sign View the full article

There's never a better time to get your start as a designer. Whether you want to build apps and websites just for fun or you want to turn it into your profession, the Learn to Design Bundle can teach you how to get your start. Grab it on sale right now for just $29 (approx. £22), and use the coupon code BUNDLE50 at checkout for an additional 50% off! There is a lot going on behind the scenes of the websites and apps you use every single day. You can learn how to understand how those gears under the hood of those services all work together with the Learn to Design Bundle. Packed with more than 57 hours of lessons across nine courses, this collection can teach you everything from the fundamentals of UX and UI to the coding languages like HTML5 and CSS3 that make the web and mobile apps function. The courses of the Learn to Design Bundle usually retail for $1,209. You can save a huge 97% off that price right now. That means you pay just $29 (approx. £22). It’s a great price to get your start as a designer, so grab it today. Make sure you use the coupon code BUNDLE50 at checkout to save an additional 50%! 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

Podcasts are a great way to find out what's going in the design world while you commute, work out at the gym, or take the dog for a walk. For those who've always wished they could turn on their radio and listen to people chatting about design, this post lists 12 informative, fun, and thought-provoking podcasts that every designer should be listening (and subscribing) to. If web design is your thing, here's a list of the 18 best web design podcasts. 01. Design Matters Debbie Millman offers thought provoking conversations with credible designersDesign Matters with Debbie Millman is a long-running audio podcast featuring industry-leading graphic designers, educators, authors and thinkers from around the globe, including Marian Bantjes, Steven Heller, Seth Godin, Milton Glaser and Tim Brown. The in-depth, thought-provoking conversations between Millman and her guests offer lots of insight from experienced and credible designers. The conversation is often warm and inviting, which makes Design Matters great to turn on whether you're working at your desk, relaxing at home or on your daily commute. With over 50,000 downloads a month on the iTunes Store, Design Matters is one of the most popular design podcasts and a must-listen for any serious designer – and it has a pretty gorgeous website to boot. The complete archives, dating back to 2005, are available at DesignObserver.com. 02. The Design of Business | The Business of Design This podcast is run by Design ObserverRecorded at Yale School of Management, The Design of Business | The business of Design is hosted by Design Observer's Jessica Helfand and Pentagram's Michael Bierut. In it, they explore how design works within complex organisations to shape decisions, ideas, products, and more. Guests include clients from many industries and designers in a range of fields. 03. The Reflex Blue Show Donovan Beery talks design with great guests in The Reflex Blue ShowHosted by Donovan Beery, a designer living and working in Omaha, Nebraska, The Reflex Blue Show is a podcast that covers graphic design, design, pop culture, web design, and the people working in the creative industries. Now in its 10th season, with more than 170 episodes for you to work through, it's featured a huge selection of guests over the years, including Val Head, Jessica Hische and Stefan Sagmeister. 04. Resourceful Designer Want to nail the business side of design? Hit up Mark Des CotesIf you're interested in the business side of graphic design, Mark Des Cotes' Resourceful Designer is a must. With over 90 episodes recorded so far, it's aimed at helping home-based graphic designers and web designers streamline their business, with plenty of advice, tips and resources to help you get things right. Each episode covers a specific theme, such as home office essentials, tips for mastering your emotional intelligence, how to save money, dealing with deadlines and what to do when you mess up a a project. And as well as the podcast, Resourceful Designer also has an in-depth blog plus a useful list of design resources. 05. Adventures In Design Adventures in Design features entertaining and informative industry gossipJoin graphic designer Mark Brickey (Hero Design Studio)as he brings some youthful enthusiasm to the roster of design podcasts. The 'Shop Talk' interview segment features banter between Brinckey and his friends in the design and illustration world and often makes for some highly entertaining – and yet still informative – design gossip. 06. Mac Power Users Make your Mac go faster with Mac Power Users' useful tipsIf you're designing, there's a good chance that you're sitting in front of a Mac. David Sparks and Katie Floyd of Mac Power Users are here to offer you some 'fully-charged discussion' and help you get the most out of your Mac and other Apple technology. The podcast features great tips and tricks for your Mac and covers a wide range of topics such as optimising your machine's performance and repair, web automation, remote access, iOS, and more. 07. Greyscale Gorilla Greyscale Gorilla covers motion graphics in a way that's light-hearted yet informativeIf you're looking for a light-hearted, yet professional podcast related to Cinema4D, After Effects and design in general, The Gorilla, aka Nick Campbell, fronts a podcast that's definitely worthy of subscription. Rather than interviews, Greyscale Gorilla focuses around interaction with live listeners via the podcast chat room. During each show, Nick shares valuable insight into the world of motion graphics and gives great advice on topics including productivity, work ethic, design inspiration, how to land a job and even advice on your demo reel – all the while interacting and answering questions live from the listeners. Greyscalegorilla is a great podcast for anyone from veterans of C4D and Mograph all the way to students looking to get some great industry advice from a seasoned professional. 08. The Deeply Graphic Design Cast The Deeply Graphic Design Cast covers a different topic each weekAimed at freelancers and in-house designers alike, each episode of The Deeply Graphic DesignCast tackles a different topic related to graphic design, from finding better clients to designer fails to advertising your work. There are five hosts, who work as creative directors, studio owners and graphic designers in a variety of different locations, which gives a great range of perspectives. They offer up tips and tricks in the 'Do Yourself a Favour' segment as well as answering listeners' questions. 09. The Accidental Creative This weekly podcast features interviews with artists, authors and business leadersWeekly design podcast The Accidental Creative is hosted by Todd Henry – who describes himself as 'an arms dealer in the creative revolution', and has written a number of design books. The show aims to help listeners build practical, everyday practices that ensure they stay efficient and effective in their life and their work. It features interviews with artists, authors and business leaders. 10. Typeradio Head to Typeradio if you are into type as well as designThe Typeradio podcasts cover both type and more general design. Typeradio is, in fact, a Micro FM broadcast and an MP3 internet radio stream as well as a podcast station, and they broadcast questions, answers, performances, events and talks online - plus on stage too. Read more: 23 great web design podcasts Is it time for designers to leave Twitter? 50 design agencies to follow on Twitter View the full article

This new release of Painter has many new features that will make the digital artist quiver in anticipation. Let’s start with the Thick Paint option. This set of painting tools goes beyond the Impasto painting tools that were present in earlier versions of Painter. They accurately mimic the look and feel of traditional oil and acrylic paint. You can pile on the paint, push it around, carve into the paint, scrape the paint, and realistically blend the colours and strokes. Selection brushes can be used to create complex selections, to help you paint interesting shapesThe default brushes have been inspired by their traditional equivalents and Corel says that the brush variants have been created by artists familiar with traditional media. One wonders how they were designed in previous versions. Still, the brushes are flexible, with new options for blending underlying brushstrokes and variable opacity. Thick Paint can be enhanced by changing the direction, intensity, colour and number of light sources that interact with the canvas. Elsewhere, you can now paint using Texture Cover, Source Blending or the new 2.5D Texture Brushes. Texture Source Blending builds depth using textures. Texture Cover uses the colours found in the active texture, or you can choose any colour to be used while painting. Interestingly, the new 2.5D Texture brushes build subtle and dimensional textured surfaces using the active texture. With these brushes you can change, scale and transform the texture at any time while painting. The enhanced Drip and Liquid brushes enable you to blend paint in a number of waysAnother new feature, Texture Synthesis, enables you to pick an area of a document or texture and reproduce it at a larger scale. When synthesising a new texture, the selected area of the original texture is randomised across the new document, creating something unique. You’re not limited to using textures: the brushstrokes in a document enable you to create a new texture. The resulting image can be used as any other texture or as a layer in your painting. You can add texture to a painting or rendered 3D model using the Thick Texture brushesThere are a number of smaller, but welcome new features, too. The Enhanced Drip and Liquid brushes work on an empty layer to blend a colour with an oil paint-like transparency or paint using the colours from underlying layers. Random Grain Rotation will rotate the active paper texture with each brush stroke, giving a natural look. Here’s an example of thick paint using the grainy Real Bristle Oils fl at variantThere’s also a redesigned Natural Brush library, and you can create your own selection brushes using any dab-based brush variant. Finally, new cloning capabilities give you the ability to adjust the size and shape of clone sources as you paint. There have also been a number of background and interface tweaks, making the program easier to use. Overall, Corel’s done well in updating Painter so that, more than ever, it brings the worlds of traditional and digital art closer together. This article was originally published in ImagineFX 151. Buy it now. Related articles: Create portrait art in Corel Painter 8 inspiring digital art portfolios and why they work 6 best digital art tools of 2017 so far View the full article

You're reading A Guide to Payment and Invoicing Tools for Designers/Developers, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! For freelance designers and developers, managing payments and invoicing is an unavoidable consideration and form a key aspect of running a small business. As such, it’s important to use effective tools and platforms to handle both aspects. Luckily, we are in an exciting era which is seeing more innovation and competition in these areas than […] View the full article

If you only ever did client work, you might go a little crazy. So it’s a wise employer that lets its designers blow off a little creative steam in the form of an occasional side project. These might not make a direct contribution to the bottom line. But getting together as a team and working on a collective passion project can generate untold benefits in the long term. Here, we share some of the best agency side projects we’ve heard about this year. Meanwhile, if your company has a side project you think we should hear about, let us know via Twitter or Facebook. 01. Conran Design Group: May the Fourth fun This fun campaign hit the right tongue-in-cheek note for social mediaConran Design Group is an award-winning design agency in London, UK, that’s been around for more than 60 years. It places high importance on projects that sit outside of mainstream client work, and actively seeks out competitions, pro bono work and cultural events to take part in throughout the year. Tapping into cultural events is important to the agency, so this year it targeted Star Wars Day, an unofficial celebration that takes place across social media every May the 4th (it’s of course a pun on the line in the movie, ‘May the force be with you’). Tapping into cultural events is important to the agency – even silly onesMore and more businesses are getting on board with this social media phenomenon. So this year Conran Design Group joined in the fun by creating six images of Star Wars characters taken from everyday items found in its new King’s Cross offices. The campaign tied Star Wars into the agency’s workplace in a clever wayExploiting an internet meme to push a company is a tricky thing to pull off, and runs the risk of either enraging social media users (by being too overtly commercial) or failing to promote your brand (by being too subtle). This clever campaign hit all the right notes, by not taking itself too seriously while subtly promoting the agency in a way that delighted rather than deterred future clients. 02. Bozboz: Events and exhibition space Bozboz’s designers are passionate about music and culture, and some are even DJs themselvesBozboz is an independent digital and design agency based in Brighton, UK. Founded in 2007, its designers are passionate about music and culture. So as an adjunct to its client work the company has launched its own creative space, where it hosts exhibitions from top talent in the contemporary art world. “When we searching for a new agency building, we actively sought out interesting and creative spaces that were inspirational and evocative to be in,” explains Bozboz’s Kitty Hennessy. “The space lends itself so well to alternative uses: exhibitions, launches, private parties. And it means our clients can take advantage of it too. Although separate from the core business, the exhibition space is nonetheless available to clients“Mike Hollingbery, our founder, already had an extensive private collection of contemporary and urban art and it felt like an awesome fit. Clients and staff alike walk through the gallery to get to the main agency premises, so it's almost a visual intro to what Bozboz is all about. "Recently the space has been home to Mal-One and Mau Mau, as well as Chelone Wolf, Richard Martin and Stephen Bunting, who featured in the Nu:Blood show.” The space acts as a “visual intro” to what the agency is about“In terms of working together, the creative space is very much a separate entity and we host independent exhibitions that are not directly connected to Bozboz,” she explains. “But we try very hard to only show work that upholds our values and creativity. In a society where work life and play often collide, and no-one ever really switches off, we're proud to have turned that into a pretty major plus.” 03. Carter Wong: Bespoke designer notebooks The notebooks showcase Carter Wong’s design smarts in an original wayCarter Wong is a independent, multi-disciplinary London, UK, design agency founded in 1984. Every year, it partners with printers Boss Print to create a new and unique notebook. The idea is to show off both Carter Wong’s design smarts and Boss Print’s printing prowess to clients and partners. The emphasis here is firmly on the quirky side of creative. So Volume 1, entitled Found Fonts, featured a selection of 3D letterforms that the Carter Wong team collected on their travels. The first volume focused on 3D letterformsVolume 2, A Cut Above, includes a collection of beautiful razor blade wrappers discovered in a Roman flea market in 1993. And Volume 3, Heidelberg Ephemera, incorporates a series of tickets, wrappers, tags and receipts that document a year that a young woman spent in Germany in the mid-1960s. Two sneak peeks from this year’s Carter Wong notebookWe can’t actually show you the 2017 notebooks yet, as they won’t be released until November, but Carter Wong has shared the two sneak peeks above, to show you just how cool the final product promises to be... 04. Superimpose Studio: Post-truth showcase Tonight’s show is a visual exploration of the post-truth worldSuperimpose is a “next-generation creative studio” based in Shoreditch, East London. Alongside its everyday work with clients including Adidas and Hermes, it also has a small internal division called Services Unknown. This gives the team an opportunity to take ideas that clients didn’t buy into and develop them for itself. The very latest project out of the division is Perspectives, a visual exploration into the polarity between perceived truths and factual evidence (or the ‘fake news’ controversy, as it’s known to most of us). Opening tonight (October 18 at 7.30pm, UK time), at The 100 Room on the rooftop of London’s Ace Hotel, the showcase spans various forms of art and media, from graphics to fabrics, from animation to photography and sound. The aim is to champion the studio’s belief in honesty and imagination as creators and contributors to the evolution of visual culture. 05. Snask: Rock band Snask’s house band VÄG have been bringing heavy rock attitude to an often staid design sceneSnask is a Stockholm-based creative agency with a rock ‘n’ roll attitude and numerous side projects, not least its own heavy rock band, VÄG. The quirky agency gives regular presentations to design conferences around the world, and VÄG plays an integral part in the experience. If there’s an afterparty, the band plays that too. And as anyone who experienced Snask's keynote to Bristol’s Something Good will attest, it’s quite an experience, and certainly unlike anything else you’re likely to witness at a design event. As to the band’s origins, Snask explains on its website that: “The singer in a rock band sold his band to Snask at 04.30 at an afterparty for $3,000 with the condition that we could change the band name as well as their style of music. The day after the singer changed his mind but we had his signature in blood. But just to be fair we decided to start a record label (Snask Recordings) and sign them with the same conditions. “We changed their name to Road and their style of music to 70’s psychedelic rockn’roll. We then contracted one of Sweden’s best producers, Johannes Berglund, who changed them into 'singing' in Swedish. So we just translated the name to Swedish, which becomes VÄG (Road). No, we never had any thought that it is short for vagina to the rest of the world.” So now you know. Related articles: Where to find unusual images for your design projects The student guide to working at a top agency 6 rock-solid ways to improve your graphic design portfolio View the full article

Three critical SQL injections vulnerabilities in Oracle's popular E-Business Suite make up a total of 250 bugs patched for the company's quarterly Critical Patch Update, View the full article

Photoshop is the world's go-to photo editor – so much so that the word has become verbified, like 'Hoover' or 'Google'. This might give the impression that Adobe's photo editor is the undisputed champion, but that all depends on what you use it for – for your purposes it may be a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. There are a wide range of capable alternatives to Photoshop, some of them paid-for and some free (go to page 2 for the free apps), but this list of the best photo editors wouldn't be complete without the ubiquitous Adobe application as well. The best laptops for photo editingPromoted: Adobe Lightroom CC Platform: Windows/Mac $9.99/£9.98 (per month) Adobe Lightroom allows you to keep all your photography in one place, and organise, edit and share it from anywhere. Many creatives opt to use Lightroom as it can tackle the complex image management jobs Photoshop is not designed for, making light work of day-to-day enhancements and raw files. With Lightroom you can store images on your computer, iPad, iPhone or Android device and even transfer photos automatically from your phone into Lightroom as you shoot them. Syncing takes care of itself, so when you make an edit or flag a favourite in one place, it’s automatically updated everywhere else. Read our Adobe Creative Cloud 2017 review 01. Affinity Photo Affinity has quickly become the go-to Photoshop alternative Platform: Mac, Windows, iPad $49.99/£48.99 We will never waver in our love for Serif's Affinity Photo, especially as it's available for Windows PCs and iPad as well as macOS, making it the subscription-free Photoshop alternative that everyone can enjoy. The latest version boasts plenty of amazing features, including full HDR merge support, 360-degree image editing, recordable macros and batch processing, plus a tone mapping workspace that enables you to turn any image – whether it’s a standard JPG or an HDR photo – into a dramatic scene, bringing out details you never realised were there. Read our Affinity Photo brings professional photo editing to iPad story 02. PaintShop Pro Shout out to everyone who used Paint Shop Pro on Windows 3.1 Platform: PC $79.99/£69.99 PaintShop Pro has been the budget Photoshop alternative of choice on PC for over 20 years, and it's still holding its own. The new 2018 version promises to be easiest, faster and more creative than ever. It features ready-made project templates, a built-in screenshot function with a smart capture mode that lets you grab part of the screen, a gradient fill option and improved support for graphics tablets and styluses. On top of the standard version, you can pay a little extra for PaintShop Pro 2018 Ultimate, which adds professional-grade raw editing, automatic photo corrections and screen recordings to the mix. Read our PaintShop Pro X9 review 03. Photoshop CC It's Photoshop. What you gonna do, eh? Platform: Windows/Mac From $19.99/£19.97 (per month) Photoshop CC is head-bangingly brilliant, and has too many features to summarise in this small space – but you can read more in our Photoshop CC 2017 review and explore its capabilities further in our Top Photoshop tutorials article. There's no doubt that the latest Photoshop is a hugely impressive photo editing application; probably the best out there. But it comes at a monthly cost. 04. Acorn Acorn includes non-destructive filters Platform: Mac $29.99/£28.99 Image editing software Acorn debuted back in 2007 and has provided hobbyists and artists on a budget with a great, affordable piece of photo editing software. Features include layer styles, non-destructive filters, curves and levels, blending modes and much more. Acorn 6 features non-destructive filters, which includes a great interface to chain filters together to create unique effects. You can even save and modify your filters after you've closed and re-opened your Acorn image. 05. Photoshop Elements Somewhere inbetween Photoshop and Touch, Elements is a powerful standalone app Platform: Linux/Windows/Mac $79.99/£86.56 This is the basic alternative to Photoshop CC, as reflected in its great Quick and Guided Edit modes, but don't think that means it lacks power under the hood. Also, unlike Photoshop CC, Elements doesn't require a subscription. It's now on the 2018 version, with better organisational tools, intelligent editing tools such as the ability to open closed eyes, options to print your images and features to make it easier to share images via social media. Read our Photoshop Elements review 06. DxO OpticsPro DxO is limited in its scope but what it does, it does very well Platform: Windows/Mac $109/£99 for Essential version $167/£159 for Elite version Things get a bit specific with Optics Pro 11, but what it does, it does very well. Its results are spectacular, but it's a specialised and sometimes complex tool to use. It's arguably the best raw converter of all, but that's just about all it does. DxO Optics Pro automatically compensates for the different degrees of distortion, chromatic aberration, edge softness and vignetting common to practically all digital camera lenses. It's also a raw converter, and DxO has applied just as much scientific rigour to this process as its lens corrections. You can browse the images on your computer, folder by folder, then select an image and choose from the default conversion/correction setting or a range of presets The results are excellent. However, it would never be your one and only image-editing tool. 07. Camera+ Camera+ is adored by iPad users and has subsequently arrived on iPhone - hooray! Platform: iOS $2.99/£2.99 for iPhone $4.99/£4.99 for iPad The Camera app that comes on the iPhone by default is not brilliant: yes, you can use it to take some decent shots, but it doesn't offer you much creative control. This is where Camera+ excels. The app has two parts: a camera and a photo editor, and it truly excels at the latter, with a huge range of advanced features. Camera+ doesn't just limit you to editing new pics – you can quickly import your existing photos into the Lightbox where you can breathe new life into them. 08. Pixelmator Workflow is often much quicker using Mac tool Pixelmator Platform: Mac $29.99/£28.99 Pixelmator uses Mac OS X libraries to create fast, powerful image editing tools, which allows the software to integrate seamlessly with the likes of iPhoto and Aperture, as well as iCloud. There are also built-in export tools for Facebook and Flickr. Colour correction tools such as Hue/Saturation, Shadows/Highlights and Contrast are all present and correct, and Pixelmator supports filters and comes with a collection of 150 to play with. You can also open and save images in many of the popular formats, including PSD, TIFF, PDF and PNG. When saving or opening Photoshop documents, layers are preserved allowing you to collaborate effectively with colleagues using Adobe's software. 09. Handy Photo Handy Photo is all about the interface and photo editor tools Platform: iOS/Android $2.99/£2.99 for iOS $2.85/£2.89 for Android The selling point of photo editor Handy Photo is its interface, which uses the corners of the screen to cater for rotating menu options. It's all designed to keep the central area of the screen clear, allowing you to use swipe gestures to tone your effects up or down. It's a powerful photo editor; the UI isn't for everyone, but this is an amazing price for the effects you get. The 'Move Me' tool enables you to clip out objects and move, resize or flip them. Next page: Free photo editors 10. Pixlr Pixlr's mobile photo editing software comes with more than 600 effects Platform: iOS, Android Price: Free Pixlr claims to be "the most popular online photo editor in the world", which may have something to do with the fact that it's free. But it also boasts more than 600 effects, overlays, and borders and lets you do all the main things you'd expect from a photo editor, from cropping and re-sizing to removing red-eye and whitening teeth. And if you're used to using Photoshop you'll find Pixlr's user interface easy to pick up quickly, as it's very similar. 11. GIMP GIMP is a popular open-source photo editing software Platform: Linux/Windows/Mac Price: Free An open-source photo editor that debuted on Unix-based platforms, GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Today it's available in versions for Linux, Windows and Mac. GIMP offers a wide toolset – everything you're accustomed to is within easy reach, including painting tools, colour correction, cloning, selection, and enhancement. The team that oversees development has worked hard to ensure compatibility too, so you'll be able to work with all the popular file formats without any trouble at all. You'll also find a very capable file manager built in, along similar lines to Adobe's Bridge. 12. Paint.net For photo editing, free Windows tool Paint.net is an excellent option Platform: Windows Price: Free Paint.net is a surprisingly capable and useful tool, available completely free of charge. The focus is on ease of use, and there's a definite tendency towards photo editing rather than artistic creation. That said, there are a range of special effects available, allowing you to easily create fake perspective, blend and push pixels around the canvas, tile and repeat selections, and so on. A good range of selection tools, support for layers, and adjustments such as curves and brightness/contrast mean that Paint.net is a great alternative to Photoshop for photo editing, especially if you can do without some of the more recent additions to Photoshop's toolset. 13. Sumo Paint Sumo Paint works in the browser, and requires Adobe Flash to use Platform: Web browser (requires Adobe Flash Player) Price: Free for basic online version Sumo Paint is a highly capable browser-based image editor. All the standard features you'd expect from a desktop tool are present and correct and by buying the Pro version for $19 you can install a desktop version of the app if you prefer. You need the Adobe Flash Player to use this tool, so you're not going be using Sumo Paint on your iPad. The standard range of tools and adjustments you'd expect are all included. Brushes, pencils, shapes, text, cloning, gradients and so on are all quickly accessed from the Photoshop-esque floating toolbar. It can also open saved documents from your hard drive, making Sumo Paint a perfectly viable option for editing and reediting. There are, however, limitations that will put off some users. The most important of these is that the editor appears to be RGB only, limiting its use to screen-destined artwork only. No CMYK, Lab or other colour models to be found here. 14. Photo Editor by Aviary Aviary strikes a balance between serious photo editor and playful app Platform: Web browser/iOS/Android Price: Free Aviary is a pleasantly designed app that strikes the perfect balance between serious photo editing (with blemish removal, tooth whitening, resizing and adjustments) and playful photo-decoration functions (such as stickers, coloured overlays and the ability to add mem-style text) without looking bland or childish. Related articles: Top Photoshop tutorials The 5 best laptops for photo editing 15 inspiring photographers to follow on Instagram View the full article

First impressions matter: so much so that brands that redesign their ecommerce sites regularly report a 20-30% increase in revenue within three to six months. The industry average for year-on-year revenue growth is less than 25%, so that's quite a boost. Design plays a crucial role in driving every business goal for online brands. Most successful online brands update their design every three to six months and iterate on that design regularly throughout, altering colours, photos, metadata and more to increase organic search ranking, sales and customer lifetime value. When is your next redesign? A brand redesign can be the difference between success and failure in such a competitive online market, so let's look at four examples of online stores that have designed excellent user experiences that result in greater conversions. 01. NatoMounts NatoMounts uses Amazon Pay for an easy checkout experienceNatoMounts has done what nearly everyone in the online selling industry wants to accomplish: create a seamless selling experience from homepage to checkout. The only difference between NatoMounts and everyone else is that the brand only has a homepage and a checkout. Brandon Chatham, founder of NatoMounts, worked with a designer to design first and foremost for mobile audiences, knowing that those on mobiles don't have the time or patience to click a bunch of small buttons. The homepage is long; perfect for mobile scrolling. It also uses Amazon Pay at checkout to connect mobile shoppers with the industry's fastest checkout method (all customer payment data is automatically served by Amazon). The result? Chatham has had multiple customers land on the site and purchase in 43 seconds or less. In total, NatoMounts has a 5% conversion rate for mobile audiences, and 80% of their sales come from mobile devices. "The whole experience from landing on the site to checking-out has got to take a minute or less. Our goal is to have them order as much as possible, as quickly as possible," says Chatham. "Our eCommerce platform, BigCommerce, has built integrations with one-click payment systems, and the platform's optimised single-page checkout helps me do just that." 02. Native Union Native Union uses slick collections to show off its productsNative Union isn't your average online seller. The brand uses Kickstarter to launch new products, which immediately gives it a long list of interested customers. Plus, Native Union products can be seen offline as well – and in such notorious shops as Paper Source and Free People. It is innovating in the industry regularly, too, which is why its homepage redesign was so incredibly crucial. "Our website is the window to the Native Union brand," says Arthur Maitre, ecommerce manager at Native Union. "Often times, the first touchpoint a customer will have is to see our products on shelves in retail locations. "Although our products tell a story, being able to create an exploration experience on our website allows users to discover our brand values and product lines in a much more controlled and aesthetically pleasing way." So, Native Union has redesigned its site to focus on collections, using a merchandising strategy to push new visitors down a path of least resistance to checkout. A clean layout and luxury images appeals to a techie audience, one which is likely wooed by Apple's own branding. Minimalism runs throughoutThe site relaunch, however, hasn't resulted in increased conversions, but it is making the brand more money. Relying on a collections strategy allows for individual collection pages to rank incredibly well on Google – organically – and thereby save the company money in AdWords and Google PLAs. Instead of paying for pricey ad placements, its optimised pages attract free visits from search engines. And those who do purchase are purchasing a whole lot more than they ever used to. AOV and order count are both up, 8% and 41% respectively. "Since the redesign, traffic has increased by 67%, orders have increased by 41%, AOV has increased by 8%, and page download speed increased by 19% ," says Maitre. 03. Soundwall Soundwall uses images to powerful effectNot every redesign is exclusively focused on increasing customer conversions. This is especially true if you can make more money in bulk orders from industry leaders, such as hoteliers. This is exactly what Soundwall has done. Soundwall's redesign has increased not just B2C conversion but also improved the site's performance for large B2B customers. "The big win stemming from this redesign was the ground swell of interest from the hospitality space, which led one of the largest distributors of goods to the hotel industry globally to pick Soundwall up as the newest featured luxury product in their line," says Adam Goodman, president of Soundwall Inc. So what is it that it ultimately changed? First, they cut down on the number of pages needed to explain the product. Today, Soundwall uses a direct, response-inspired homepage and a visually-focused product page. Minimal clicks. Beautiful visuals. And the changes have led to results. "Since we relaunched, average time spent on site has increased by over 200%. Average pages per session went from 1.25 to 2.5. We've seen a 60% increase in engagement from home to shop page with a 4x increase in average time on site and 50% reduction in bounce rate," says Goodman. 04. ONYCHEK What better way to ensure customers love your site than to ask them? NPS (Net Promoter Score) – if you aren't familiar – is an industry best standard of customer satisfaction. Customers are allowed to rate your company on a scale of 0-10. Your goal is to get to a 9 or 10 for every one. However, almost no company is able to achieve that, save for ONYCHEK. "We send NPS surveys to all of our customers, and so far we have had NPS scores of 10 and zero product returns," says Emmanuel Chekwas Nwokocha, founder of ONYCHEK. "This is because, with the minimal design, we describe our products well enough that customers know exactly what they are getting." When you land on the ONYCHEK page you will immerse yourself in a luxury fashion experience akin to what you'd see for NYC-based brands. Except that these guys aren't from NYC – they are an African-based fashion brand and use powerful branding and visuals to draw customers in and then give back to their local community. Using merchandised collections, new product features, and a "buy now" footer, the site pushes users to explore additional content and products and make more purchases than most other sites. "Our conversion rate this April increased by 138.46% compared to March, " says Nwokocha. "We put UI and UX in the forefront of our design idea to make it really easy to shop. Here is an exact quote we received: 'I love your site – it's simple and focuses mainly on your products'." This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 296. Buy it here. Related articles: 10 steps to an engaging user experience 10 brilliant image-led portfolio sites for 2017 Build an ecommerce site from scratch View the full article

Sydney, Australia-based dyslexia correction organisation Sydlexia has combined typography and clever poster layouts to create a piece of design that clears up some of the confusion surrounding the learning difference. Created in partnership with branding and communications specialists BBDO Dubai, the branding campaign aims to challenge the misconceptions associated with dyslexia. Rather than treating dyslexia as a disability, Sydlexia wants to move the conversation towards treating it as a learning difference. And with this innovative paper art it hopes to capture the attention of a diverse range of people. Before they're folded, the type on the posters is pretty unintelligible. Origami folds transform them into wordsThe campaign comes from the idea that people with dyslexia often report that they find written words to appear broken up and rearranged. BBDO runs with this angle by translating it into a visual design for posters based around fractured typography. Words such as 'dog' or 'fox' are deliberately sliced up and jumbled to communicate how people with dyslexia see letters on the page. When looking at the posters, most people would struggle to piece together the words, but once they're folded together in a certain way into origami objects, the words become completely clear. Watch how the clever design takes shape in the video below. The posters, which are being used as newspaper adverts and displayed on billboards, as well as online, double up as interactive learning tools. "Once folded correctly they help forge the connection of the word to the object it represents in the dyslexic mind," says BBDO Dubai. Instructions for folding the paper is on the Sydlexia websiteWith 1 in 10 people worldwide diagnosed with dyslexia, this campaign goes some way towards challenging preconceptions about the learning difference. Topping off the campaign is an optimistic logo that ties together the name of Sydlexia and the scattered lettering present throughout the identity: linking together the d and s in Sydlexia is a smile icon that puts a positive face to dyslexia. Related articles: The designer's guide to printing a poster Are movie posters in a design crisis? 4 classic movie poster designs making a comeback View the full article

So you’re kicking off your first year at design college. Congratulations, this could be the start of a flourishing creative career – if you play your cards right. Design education in the UK is facing a crisis, with a drop of about 14,000 applicants for art and design courses between 2016 and 2017, according to UCAS. But there are still tens of thousands of design students competing against you for attention, so it really does pay to put the effort in to ensure you stand out and start creating a design portfolio you can be proud of. At the end of it, you may even be named as one of the best graduates of your year. Here are nine sure-fire ways to stay ahead of the curve from day one. 01. Build a studio bookshelf University of Huddersfield graduate Andrew Fish created an impressive series of publications for his final-year project, inspired by dementia No doubt your course will provide a reading list to help you grasp the fundamentals of good design. This kind of theory is crucial, but it’s not everything. Take the time to build your own studio bookshelf to dip into for reference and inspiration: this list of 5 must-read books for design students includes some great insights into the design process. 02. Explore some new skills Entitled Look At Me, Evelina Sara Stasyte's final-year project at the University of Westminster explored borderline personality disorder through illustration Design studios are increasingly looking for multi-disciplinary, versatile creatives to hire. Don’t rely on your course to give you all the skills you need: be proactive, experiment, and give yourself an edge. Codecademy is a great starting point for learning to code, for instance, and there are some great free Udemy courses for designers on the basics of animation, 3D, WordPress and more. 03. Get smart with money Chelsea College of Art graduate Yeong Eun Yoo created her final-year project Regather Hangul to encourage unity and resolution between North and South Korea Whether you plan to make a living as a freelancer, work your way through the ranks of an agency or even start your own studio, you’ll need to get your head round the financial side of things. Take advantage of every opportunity you have to hone your budget management skills, whether it’s through organising the weekly food shop or getting involved with a student society, and you’ll immediately be on the front foot. 04. Fill your sketchbook Sure, you’ll need to show your working for your course projects as they develop. But a good sketchbook should be about more than that: use it as a place to record and evolve all manner of ideas as they occur to you. Get into the habit of thinking conceptually, and turning random sources of inspiration into something more constructive. Who knows, that quick thumbnail sketch could be perfect for a brief further down the line. 05. Maintain your portfolio Medicine For Modern Times was University Centre Southend graduate Mark Nevard's final project, which explores 'functional psychopathy' For many third-year students, the last few months leading up to the final degree show and graduation is a chaotic frenzy, pulling together the best portfolio possible in the time available. Once you’re in the world of work, maintaining your folio will be just one more item on a never-ending to-do list. So use any spare time you have available while studying to craft, develop and maintain it as you go. 06. Start a passion project One of the best ways to bulk out that portfolio with the work you really want to do, as well as creating a distinctive calling card for yourself, is to set your own briefs. Many creative pros indulge their passions and develop their style through personal experiments and creative side projects alongside client work, and as a student there really is no better time to get into the habit. Perhaps it could spark off a fruitful collaboration with a fellow student who you end up founding a studio with down the line. 07. Build up your contacts Plymouth College of Art graduate Penny Chan amassed an impressive portfolio while studying, including her own zine: GIRLHOOD They say it’s who you know, not what you know. While a lucky few might have a contacts book started already thanks to friends and family, when it comes to setting up those all-important placements and internships, it pays if you’ve been proactive during your design school years. Go to design events, festivals and talks, ask questions, get yourself out there early and you never know where it could lead. 08. Freelance while studying Ruth Gardiner's Londependence project while at Kingston University explored what an independent state of London would look like Once you’ve found a style, developed a fledgling portfolio packed with passion projects to supplement your coursework, honed your skills and built up your contacts book, it’s time to start thinking commercially. Don’t be afraid to pitch your skills before you graduate: you may get some knock-backs, but as with all of the above, start early and reap the benefits. Main illustration: Camelia Pham for Computer Arts. Read more: Why it's time for students to stop relying on software 7 organisations design students need to know The student guide to working at a top agency View the full article

Lenovo customers are being told to update their Android tablets and handsets to protect themselves against a handful of critical vulnerabilities impacting tens of millions of vulnerable Lenovo devices. View the full article

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For today's daily deal, we've got you a great discount on a bundle of courses that will teach budding web designers essential frontend development skills. And if you're after more amazing deals for web designers, graphic designers, illustrators, artists and more, bookmark our Best Black Friday deals 2017 page. Web developers are always working behind the scenes to keep the gears turning on all of our favourite applications and sites. It's a career that rewards structure as much as it does creativity. If you want to get in on this exciting field, grab the Ultimate Front End Developer Bundle on sale now for just $39 (approx £29) – plus save an additional 50% off when you use the coupon code BUNDLE50 at the checkout. If you're an aspiring web developer looking for a place to get your start, look no further than the Ultimate Front End Developer Bundle. This collection of eight expert-taught courses can help even an amateur learn how to code with the most important languages in web development, from JavaScript to HTML5 and CSS3. As you work your way through this great collection of courses, you'll start to bring your dream designs to life as you work through 48 hours of actionable lessons. You can get the Ultimate Front End Developer Bundle on sale for just $39 (approx £29), or 96% off the usual full retail price of $1,016. That’s already a massive saving on a bundle that could help you launch a new career, but today you can save a further 50% of that if you use the coupon code BUNDLE50 at checkout. The full titles of all eight courses in this bundle are: Complete Guide to Front-End Web Development & Design JavaScript & jQuery Basics for Beginners Learn to Code JavaScript For Web Designers & Developers The Complete HTML & CSS Course: From Novice To Professional The Complete jQuery Course: From Beginner To Advanced JavaScript: Gentle Introduction for Beginners Advanced JavaScript Website Wireframing with HTML5 & CSS3 About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. Related articles: The best Black Friday deals 2017 25 top-class website templates All you need to know about mockups, wireframes, and prototypes View the full article

Starting your first design job can be very daunting – you've gone from working from home in your pyjamas to being surrounded by brilliant senior designers and creative directors. There's no two ways around it, you're going to mess up at some point in your first job – it's inevitable. But you're not alone. These leading designers have already been there and come out the other side still smiling. Here are some common pitfalls that can happen in the workplace – and some advice to help you avoid making these mistakes. 01. Forgetting your target audience Jacek Utko's newspaper redesigns now focus on the content“For one of my first newspaper redesigns, we were in a rush but had a clear idea of what we wanted," reveals consultant newspaper and web designer Jacek Utko. "We changed the logo radically; all new type, cut the size in half and gave it a completely different layout. It was a clear, powerful concept and a fast, smooth delivery. "Perfect case, right? Not really. Readers didn’t share our excitement. Sales and advertising went down. I’m still sure it was a good design – but not for the audience or product. Now I think more before designing, and compromise for the market and product legacy. And I design from a strategy and content perspective, not just for pure design.” 02. Pretending you know it all (when you don't yet) Kelli Anderson now embraces design jobs that offer chances to learn [click to see the full infographic] Artist and designer Kelli Anderson says: "With my first few client projects, I went to great lengths to conceal the fact that I’d bitten off more than I could chew. This assumed a pathetic, ‘No, really, I’m a professional’, tangibility through my boring business cards, polished letterheads and detailed (but inaccurate) estimates. I realise now that learning on the job is what makes for a sustainable career." "When you ‘don’t know what you’re doing’, you can’t apply stale stock solutions. You must think with your wits, fly by the seat of your pants and engage with the problem on its own terms. Now, I seek out jobs based on how little I know." 03. Forgetting to go home "I animated a section of The Bigger Picture until four in the morning, and then slept on the studio floor," says animator, writer and director Daisy Jacobs. "I woke up and reviewed the footage to find everything past my normal going-home time was completely unusable. My advice? I would suggest going home at a reasonable hour and sleeping in a bed." 04. Failing to check everything Studio Output learned the hard way to double-check all artwork before it goes to printGroup creative director at Studio Output Dan Moore advises: "My biggest learning is to always check everything – be that preflighting your artwork before print (or learning the hard way when you get a full set of 16 x 5000 A6 flyers back with the DJs overprinted, in white) or using spellcheck (so you don’t spell ‘Nottingham’ with one ‘T’, like our first ever Studio Output job). "Also just simply check you're using a phone properly (and not airing your early career frustrations at the client just before you speak to them, without the mute button on)." 05. Wasting time at the wrong company Daniel Aristizabal Arias now happily runs his own studio"I would say my biggest mistake was not quitting at the right time," reveals illustrator and art director Daniel Aristizabal Arias. "I took a job in a small ad agency in Medellín, Colombia, and from the get-go it was a very unfortunate adventure. I was underpaid, working on really crappy projects and my bosses were kind of dickish with the staff." "I lasted for six months there. At the end they lost a big account and they fired all the new people. For me it was a huge relief, and I still thank them for letting me go.” 06. Fudging the truth Jane Stockdale knows the importance of supporting your colleagues"In my first job I designed a flyer for MTV," says photographer Jane Stockdale. "But when we got it back from the printers, I’d accidentally spelt ‘MTV Beatch Party’. "It was obviously my fault but my workmates had my back and said they didn’t know who did it. I told my boss later and he knew it was me but was cool about it. So I’d say if you make a mistake, be honest about it. And always have your workmates’ backs." This article originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 255. Subscribe here. Read more: Top designers reveal their first paid commissions 50 brilliant design portfolios to inspire you The 8 biggest typography mistakes designers make View the full article

Erik Spiekermann’s experimental letterpress workshop, 98a, is the birthplace of post-digital printingChange Is Good is a new fiction book by Louis Rossetto, co-founder of Wired, about the birth of the dot-com age. And fittingly for a book about a revolution, it's the first book to be designed and printed by typography legend Erik Spiekermann's new printing process, which he calls 'post-digital printing'. This method will use a combination of new laser plate cutting technology and letterpress to print 1,000 copies of the book, which is available on Kickstarter. We caught up with Rossetto and Spiekermann to find out more about this printing process. What are the benefits of letterpress printing compared to offset? Louis Rossetto: Offset printing handles colour really well. But at the same time, when you're reading a book that's only text, offset doesn't deliver on a quality level like letterpress used to. On the other hand, letterpress has the limitation of not being able to do typography well. What Erik's able to do in developing this new technology is marry the advances that have occurred in typography over the last 30 years to the clear benefits of letterpress, in terms of its black type and sharp forms impressed into the paper. The whole package ends up being startlingly better than what we're used to. What's the process for this new printing method? Erik Spiekermann: We bought an image setter machine that cuts into polymer plastic with a laser, and then we can print from those plates. We put these plates with metal backs in our machine, which has a magnetic base. It goes into the printing press, and stays there. And then we get the impression, the raised surface, of the letters. You can see the printing process in action in the video above Tell us about Change Is Good... LR: Change Is Good is a story about a moment that changed the world. In the 90s, there were young people with fire in their eyes, with big ideas and a passion to make change happen. Change is Good is about those people and their challenges. It's utterly appropriate that the story of this era of revolutionary change is brought out on new technology which will revolutionise printing. Change is Good is the first book to use Spiekermann's new print processAre there any types of books that you think wouldn't print well using this method? ES: Text is where letterpress shines, but we can imagine printing books using a mix of processes, for example, full colour offset and black type, or other combinations. We are no Luddites, and we like all types of printing on paper – including using our Risograph. What's the future of post-digital printing? ES: Bringing together the best of each technology: digital type and typesetting offer more choices and better precision. Letterpress printing makes type look better than watery offset. We've already printed two books for a major German publisher, and will print another five titles this year. What advice do you have for someone wanting to get more from letterpress, who doesn't have your resources? ES: Come and buy plates from us. We need to get our money back on our investment. This article originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 270. Buy it here. Related articles: 50 inspiring examples of letterpress business cards Create special print finishes in InDesign 5 things every creative needs to know about print design View the full article

After Effects CC might sound like a complex program, but once you grasp some basic concepts, you’ll be able to create a range of animation styles using Adobe's 3D, motion graphics and animation software. Get Adobe Creative CloudIn this article we'll run through some top tips for animating illustrations in After Effects, starting with the basics. And be sure to check out other great After Effects tutorials for beginners, intermediate and experts afterwards, for more practical tips and design inspiration. 01. Import files from Photoshop After Effects allows you to incorporate Photoshop files into your composition (comp). When you import these files into a project, the layers will retain their individual qualities – simply drag one onto the comp and it will appear on the animation timeline. 02. Use keyframes Use the position attribute to move the element during keyframes [click the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Clicking the triangle next to Transform will show Position, Scale, Rotation, and more. Each of these aspects is a keyframe – a location on the timeline that marks the beginning or end of a transition. To add a keyframe, select which characteristic you want to alter and click forward on the timeline. The position, for instance, can change from one keyframe to another by dragging it along the comp. When you play the animation, it will travel along the path you created. 03. Smooth out transitions using easing Easing can make transitions between keyframes look less choppy by organically speeding up or slowing down the animation. Find the Keyframe Assistant menu under Animation to incorporate easing. Easy Ease does what the name suggests by easing the element on both sides of the keyframe. 04. Adjust anchor points Adjust the anchor points to ensure individual parts rotate in relation to one another [click the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Parenting synchronises the changes of one layer with another layer’s transformation. The wheel of a car, for instance, would be the child layer of a vehicle’s body, which is the parent. In this case, every time the car is moved, rotated or scaled, the wheel goes with it. To assign the parent/child relationship, first make sure that your anchor points are correctly aligned. Think about it like the skeleton of a figure – what are the joints? When something rotates, where will it rotate from? Drag the anchor point to change its position. 05. Connect elements Click on the child element (the spiral) and drag the icon to its parent [click the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot] Once these points are determined, select the intended child element and click the spiral icon under Parent. Then, drag it to the parent element and release – the two are now paired and any changes you make will affect both parts of your new element. 06. Add motion Use the Puppet Pins to assign movement to different parts of the image [click the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this image] The Puppet tool adds natural motion to a rasterised image. A snake can bob its head while its tail shakes, for example, all with the placement of a few pins. First, click on the triangle next to effects and select puppet. Under it, you’ll see Mesh 1. Click on the triangle next to it to bring up the Deform menu. You’ll now be able to click on the areas where you’d like to to add Puppet Pins – you can experiment with this until you get the effect you are looking for. Once you’ve finished placing your pins, click forward on the timeline and use the Transform property to stretch or distort each individual pin. Your puppeted subject will be moving in no time. 07. Export your animation Export your animated illustration [click the top-right arrows icon to enlarge this screenshot]Once you're happy with your animation, export it. To export an animation into a movie, go to File > Export > Add to render queue. This article was originally published in Computer Arts magazine. Subscribe now. Related articles: 40 amazing After Effects tutorials How to move over from Photoshop to After Effects The beginner's guide to After Effects View the full article

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A flawed Infineon Technology chipset left HP, Lenovo and Microsoft devices open to what is called a 'practical factorization attack,' in which an attacker computes the private part of an RSA key. View the full article

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The world of a jobbing designer might not always be glamorous and well paid, but it makes up for it in other ways. Whether it's personal pride or fulfilling long-held ambitions, there are different markers of success for creatives, but what are they? We reached out to the community to find out. 01. Surprise recognition Stanley Chow knew he'd made it when his children started recognising his work“When my kids, who are four and seven, recognise my work,” says freelance illustrator Stanley Chow. “I took them to see Paddington Bear at the cinema and unbeknown to me there was a scene that featured an illustration for an ad that I did for McDonald’s. When the camera was panning around Piccadilly Circus, my illustration popped up on the cinema screen – both my kids stood up in the cinema and yelped, ‘Daddy, I saw your picture!’ “Also, there are a few posters and marketing campaigns that I have done dotted around Manchester. My kids frequently spot them before I do, and ask me, ‘Daddy, is that your picture? Are you famous?’” 02. Satisfied clients For Ross Barber-Smith, nothing beats a satisfied client“When a client’s reply blows me away,” says Ross Barber-Smith, the owner and web designer of Electric Kiwi. “I’ve had clients tell me they cried with happiness and excitement when they got the draft design over, because it captured their vision exactly. “I've also had other clients come back to me after their site has been live for a while, telling me how much it’s helped them grow and enabled them to book more gigs across Europe. Hearing feedback and stories like that makes me feel great, and like I’m succeeding.” 03. Positive impact GBH's Brinley Clark thinks a design's success is measured in its impact“Success is many things. In sports, it’s trophies; in politics, it’s votes; and in design, it’s impact,” explains GBH's senior designer Brinley Clark. “I think you’ve got to ask yourself a few questions. Has the work has changed people’s perceptions? Has it made a positive impact on both the end user and the company implementing it? And perhaps most importantly – has it inspired other designers?” This article was originally published in Computer Arts magazine issue 258. Subscribe here. Read more: Johnson Banks responds to Science Museum rebrand New Star Wars movie poster suggests there will be blood Grow your design business without losing focus View the full article