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Music legend Sir Elton John is famous for his dazzling stage costumes and performances, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that his new visual identity plays it safe and follows in the footsteps of 2017's biggest logo design trend. The rebrand, created by graphic designer George Adams and launched yesterday, aims to be a timeless piece of design that captures Sir Elton John's musical gravitas, energy and playful visual style. As far as the capital 'E' wordmark at the heart of the project goes, we have to say: mission accomplished. The star shape in place of the central arm is an instantly recognisable piece of design that effectively acts as a substitute for his name. (Think of Prince's famous 'Love Symbol' and David Bowie's Blackstar album cover.) The rebrand covers promotional material and merchandiseSpeaking to It's Nice That, Adams says that the distinctive wordmark references the musician's star-shaped glasses. "Elton always makes a big impact through his costumes, stage design and album covers," he explains, "so for a designer it provided a wealth of iconic images and associations to explore." He goes on to add that the black and white colour palette was inspired by Sir Elton's piano. Other colours such as a sparkling gold and bright magenta act as an eye-catching contrast to give the branding some variety. There's more to the star symbol than meets the eye, though. Its angles were used for grid layouts on posters and other promotional material (see the image above), giving the colours and textures the perfect reason to slice through the page in a dynamic way. The angles of the star shape are the foundation of the visual identityAs for the typography for the rest of the identity, Adams worked closely with typographer Miles Newlyn to develop a bespoke wordmark based on the font Verlag. The sans-serif font is hammered onto the design in uppercase, just as we've seen with plenty of other brands this year. From Fanta to Calvin Klein, and many more besides, it seems that all-caps typography is now the industry standard if you want to make an impact and get your name seen. Fortunately for this rebrand, Verlag is described as a crisp and 'fairminded' font that doesn't come across as too shouty in uppercase. Although, considering that Sir Elton has built a career on being bold, this in-your-face typography style appears to be a perfect fit. Expect to see the new identity on Sir Elton's new world tour, adorning everything from T-shirts to merch and more. Expect to see this logo on all things Sir Elton John in the near future[Via It's Nice That] Related articles: Typography rules and terms every designer must know The 20 best album covers from the 70s Artists redesign their top 10 albums of 2016 View the full article

Free fonts, updated for 2017 – all the best free fonts, and none of the dross. We have filtered out the diamonds in the rough from the thousands of free fonts available online that are suitable for you to use in your designs. This list represents the 50 best free fonts we've found in eight categories. We have many other articles covering specialist font types including handwriting fonts, graffiti fonts, web fonts and more, but we have sectioned our main list under these styles: Serif fonts (this page) Sans-serif fonts Handwriting fonts Vintage and retro fonts Brush fonts Tattoo fonts Graffiti fonts Unusual fonts You can use the drop-down menu at the top of the page to jump to the section you want. Most of the typeface collections listed here can be used in your projects, but please be sure to check the terms. Now join us as we present you with 50 of the best free fonts, which you can download and use today. Serif fonts 01. Butler Free font Butler brings a sense of modernism to the serifFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Inspired by both Dala Floda and the Bodoni family, Butler is a free font designed by Fabian De Smet. His aim was to bring a bit of modernism to serif fonts, by working on the curves of classical serif fonts, and adding an extra stencil family. The Butler family contains 334 characters, seven regular weights and seven stencil weights, and includes text figures, ligatures and fractions. It also suits many different languages with its added glyphs. De Smet suggests it would work well for “posters, very big titles, books and fancy stuff.” 02. Arvo A superior geometric slab-serif, Arvo is one of our favourite free fontsFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Arvo is a geometric slab-serif font family that’s suitable for both screen and print use. Designed for legibility, it was created by Anton Koovit and published in the Google Font directory as a free open font (OFL). Unlike many slab serifs on Google Fonts, Arvo contains normal, italic, bold and bold italic styles. 03. Crimson Text Crimson Text is a free font family inspired by old-time book typefacesFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Here’s a free font family created specifically for book production, inspired by old-time, Garamond-esque book typefaces. Crimson Text is the work of German-born, Toronto-based designer Sebastian Kosch, who says he was influenced by the work of Jan Tschichold, Robert Slimbach and Jonathan Hoefler. It’s also favourite free font of Taylor Palmer, a senior UX designer based out of Utah, USA. "Crimson is a sophisticated serif that makes a nice alternative to traditional Garamond-esque typefaces,” he says. “It also has a very expressive italic, which pairs nicely with strong, geometric sans-serifs like Futura or Avenir." 04. Aleo Aleo is one of those rare free fonts that manages to balance personality with legibility perfectlyFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Aleo has semi-rounded details and a sleek structure, giving a sense of personality while maintaining a good level of legibility. This free font family comprises six styles: three weights (light, regular and bold), with corresponding true italics. Released under the SIL Open Font License, it was designed by Alessio Laiso, a designer at IBM Dublin, as the slab serif companion to Lato. 05. Cormorant Free font Cormorant was inspired by the Garamond greatsFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Cormorant is a display serif typeface inspired by the Garamond heritage. It was hand-drawn and produced by Christian Thalmann, aka Catharsis Fonts, who describes it as containing “scandalously small counters, razor-sharp serifs, dangerously smooth curves, and flamboyantly tall accents”. The font is best used for headlines and poster text at large sizes, both on screen and in print, but is also highly legible at smaller text sizes. 06. Brela Free font Brela works well in editorial designs, both for headlines and body textFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Brela is a humanistic serif font designed exclusively for editorial design. With a generous x-height, it’s very legible, even at tiny sizes, yet it works equally well in bold, large headlines. This free font was designed by Spanish creative agency Makarska Studio and comes in regular and bold weights. 07. Libre Baskerville Free font Libre Baskerville is optimised for reading body text on screenFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Libre Baskerville is a web font optimised for body text (typically 16px). It’s based on the American Type Founder's Baskerville from 1941, but it has a taller x-height, wider counters and a little less contrast, allowing it to work well for reading on screen. This open source project is led by Impallari Type, a type design foundry based in Rosario, Argentina. "I like to keep my eye on the Libre fonts, like Libre Baskerville,” enthuses Taylor Palmer, a senior UX designer based out of Utah, USA. He also recommends you check out its sister font, Libre Franklin, which is also free. “Libre Franklin hearkens back to strong, traditional typefaces, like Franklin Gothic, that have the declarative nature of something like a newspaper headline but are simple enough to set as paragraph text," he explains. 08. Jura Free font Jura looks good at both large and small sizesFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE A remarkably elegant font, Jura is characterised by its narrow proportions and distinguishing details, including its rounded, wedge shaped serifs. It looks good at large sizes, but reads well at small ones too. This free font was created by UK-based designer Ed Merritt. 09. Fenix Fénix is one of the best free fonts we’ve seen for long passages of small textFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Fénix is a calligraphy-inspired font that works well as both display text and body copy. Featuring strong serifs and rough strokes, it provides a lovely rhythm when reading long passages in small text sizes. It’s the work of Fernando Díaz, a designer at Uruguayan foundry TipoType. 10. Luthier Luthier is a free font that can be used for both large and small textFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Luthier is a contemporary typeface characterised by sharp serifs and high contrast, which comes in two weights plus italics. Good for both headlines and body text, it would suit designs focused on serious, intellectual topics. This free font was created by Barcelona-based designer Adrià Gómez. Next page: free sans-serif fonts... 11. Titillium Web Titillium is a free font that works best at larger sizesFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE While many of the lower-quality free fonts out there are the work of amateurs, Titillium has a far more respectable pedigree, born of a type design project at Italy’s Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino. Each academic year, a dozen students work on the project, developing it further and solving problems, and they ask all graphic designers who use Titillium in their projects to email them some examples of the typeface family in use, to help them develop it further. “Titillium has been a favourite font of mine for a few years now,” says Rob Hampson, head of design at The Bot Platform, a new platform for building bots on Messenger. “It’s sharp, contemporary and comes in a wide range of weights. In my opinion, it works best in larger sizes; for example, for titles. That said, with careful consideration, it could be used as a body font.” 12. League Gothic League Gothic is a new free font inspired by an old favouriteFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE League Gothic is a condensed sans-serif inspired by the classic typeface Alternate Gothic #1, originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Type Founders Company in 1903. The League of Movable Type decided to make its own version and, as ever, open source it, with contributions from Micah Rich, Tyler Finck and Dannci. 13. Chivo Chivo is one of the most eye-catching free fonts aroundFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Chivo is a grotesque typeface that’s ideal for headlines, and other page furniture where you want to grab attention. Both confident and elegant, it’s been released in four weights with matching italics. This free font is the work of Héctor Gatti and the Omnibus-Type Team. 14. Comfortaa Free font Comfortaa could work well in a logo designFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Comfortaa is a rounded geometric sans-serif type design intended for large sizes. Created by Johan Aakerlund, a design engineer at the Technical University of Denmark, it’s a simple, good looking font that includes large number of different characters and symbols. Part of the Google Font Improvements Project, the latest updates to the family include the addition of a Cyrillic character set and support for Vietnamese. David Airey, a graphic designer and occasional writer in Northern Ireland, is among its admirers. “A lot of free fonts need too much work cleaning up the points, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find good options,” he says. “For a recent identity project, I used Comfortaa as the base for a bespoke wordmark. The before and after are really quite different, but Johan’s work gave me a great foundation, and the client loves the result.” 15. Noto Sans Free font Noto Sans supports more than 800 languagesFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Noto Sans is a free font family designed by Google supporting more than 100 writing systems, 800 languages, and hundreds of thousands of characters. Noto fonts are intended to be visually harmonious across multiple languages, with compatible heights and stroke thicknesses. The family include regular, bold, italic and bold italic styles, and is hinted. It is derived from Droid, and like Droid it has a serif sister family, Noto Serif. 16. HK Grotesk Hanken HK Grotesk is one of our favourite free fonts for casting small textFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE HK Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface inspired by the classic grotesques, such as Akzidenz Grotesk, Univers, Trade Gothic and Gill Sans. It was designed by Hanken Design Co with the aim of creating a friendly and distinguishable font that’s suitable for small text. It has recently expanded its language support with the addition of Cyrillic characters (Bulgarian, Russian and Serbian). 17. Aileron One of our favourite hybrid free fonts, Aileron is a relaxed choice for on-screen reading Free for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Aileron is a versatile, neo-grotesque sans-serif that’s somewhere between Helvetica and Univers. Created by Sora Sagano, a designer at Tipotype, it aims to provide readers with a high level of visual comfort. It’s available in 16 weights, from ultralight to black. 18. Ubuntu Ubuntu is a custom-designed free font for screen useFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE This free font has been specially created to complement the tone of voice of Ubuntu, the Linux operating system for personal computers, tablets and smartphones. Designed by font foundry Dalton Maag, it uses OpenType features and is manually hinted for clarity on desktop and mobile screens. 19. Clear Sans Who knew Intel did free fonts?Free for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Clear Sans is a versatile font designed by Intel designed with on-screen legibility in mind. Suitable for screen, print, and web, this free font is notable for its minimised characters and slightly narrow proportions, making it a great choice for UI design, from short labels to long passages (it has, for instance, been adopted by Mozilla for the ‘Firefox for Android’ browser). Created by Daniel Ratighan at Monotype under the direction of Intel, Clear Sans supports a wide range of languages using Latin, Cyrillic and Greek, and includes medium, regular, thin, and light weights with upright, italic, and bold styles. 20. Source Sans Pro Adobe’s first foray into open source type, Source Sans Pro remains one of the design community’s most popular free fontsFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Released in 2012, Source Sans Pro was the first open source type family for Adobe, and has proved wildly popular. It was envisioned as a classic grotesque typeface with a simple, unassuming design, intended to work well in user interfaces. It was designed by Paul D. Hunt, who continues to work as a type designer at Adobe, and also designed the complementary free font Source Serif Pro. Source Sans Pro is one of the favourite free fonts of James Hollingworth, a senior-level digital designer and illustrator based near Bath, UK. “It’s such a solid, reliable font to use in design work,” he enthuses. “Being dyslexic myself, I find it a very easy font to read, and it works brilliantly in user interfaces.” Next page: free handwriting fonts... 21. Nickainley Nickainley is a free font based on vintage-style handwritingFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Nickainley is one of our favourite free handwriting fonts. This Monoline script with a classic, vintage feel, includes uppercase and lowercase characters, as well as numerics and punctuation marks. Offering a variety of possible use cases, including logos, T-shirt designs, letterhead and signage, this free font was created by Indonesian agency Seniors Studio. 22. Pacifico Pacifico is one of the most laid-back free fonts aroundFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Pacifico is a fun brush script handwriting font inspired by 1950s American surf culture. This open source font was one of the great contributions to the free software community by the late designer Vernon Adams, who passed away last year. 23. Cute Punk Cute Punk is a free font based on handwriting, but with a twistFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Cute Punk offers a vibrant, youthful and thoroughly modern take on the handwriting font. Infusing the style with a striking, almost geometric feel, this free font is the work of Flou, a designer and illustrator from Bratislava, Slovakia. 24. Futuracha One of the oddest free fonts based on handwriting we’ve seen, Futuracha could work well in the right designFree for personal use only DOWNLOAD HERE An idiosyncratic take on the handwriting font, Futuracha is inspired by John Baskerville’s classic typefaces, as well as Futura Book. Created by Holy, this free font family includes numerics, symbol fonts, and Greek and Latin characters. Designed as a display font, Futuracha could work well when used creatively in headlines, logos or typographical illustrations. 25. Yellowtail Free font Yellowtail features a classic approach to handwritten, brush letteringFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Yellowtail is an old-school, flat, brush font that evokes classic 1930s typefaces like Gillies Gothic and Kaufmann. Designed by typography institute Astigmatic, its mixture of connecting and non-connecting letterforms gives it a unique look and ensures good legibility. Next page: free vintage and retro fonts... 26. Bauru Bauru is a free font with a lot of soulFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Bauru is based on the kind of lettering that instantly sums up the feeling of a bygone age. One of the best free retro fonts, this could work well in portraying a sense of nostalgia and timeless values within a wide range of branding, posters, advertising or logo design. It was designed by Brazilian art director and illustrator Pier Paolo. 27. LOT LOT is one of the fattest, coolest, retro-est free fonts aroundFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Reminiscent of the stylised block lettering of 1970s and 1980s advertising, posters and magazine design, LOT nonetheless provides a sleek new take on a vintage style with its collection of fat, geometric letterforms. Featuring 78 characters, this free font would work well in posters, logos and headlines. It’s the work of independent type foundry FontFabric. 28. Streetwear Free font Streetwear effortlessly sums up a retro feelFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Streetwear is a cool, retro-inspired script typeface that gives a big nod to 1960s and 1970s fashion and sport designs. Suitable for logo, poster, branding, packaging and T-shirt design, it’s the work of Indonesian studio Artimasa. 29. Paralines Font Anyone who remembers TV titles of the 1970s and 80s will recognise the style of this retro-futuristic free fontFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Featuring idiosyncratic use of parallel lines, Paralines takes inspiration from both decades-old design and modern-day typography. This free font would suit any project aiming to evoke the graphic design of the 1970s and early 1980s. It’s the work of freelance UK designer Lewis Latham. 30. Hamurz Free font Hamurz offers a hipster take on retro stylesFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Hamurz is a hipster-style retro typeface with rough edges and rounded shapes. Created by Bagus Budiyanto, it offers a multitude of potential uses, such as logos, headings, or designs for T-shirts, badges or letterpress printing. Next page: free brush fonts... 31. Playlist Free brush font Playlist is great for illustrated designs and merchandiseFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Playlist is a hand-drawn font with dry brush styles that comes in three varieties: Script, Caps, and Ornament. Ideal for illustrated designs, including posters, T-shirts and other merchandise, this is one of our favourite free brush fonts. It’s the work of Indonesian studio Artimasa. 32. Sophia Free font Sophie offers a decorative take on brush script handwritingFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Sophie is light, friendly and slightly off-kilter, in a fun way. Described as “a hand-lettered brush script with a sweet decorative bonus", the family includes multilingual glyphs, as well as left and right stylistic letter combinations. This free font was designed by Mats-Peter Forss and Emily Spadoni, of Finland and the USA respectively. 33. Reckless Free font Reckless has an upbeat feelFree for personal and commercial use (pay with a tweet) DOWNLOAD HERE Reckless is a handwritten brush font that includes uppercase and extended Latin characters. As shown above, it would work well with a watercolour-effect design, either in print or on the web. It was created by Russian designer Nadi Spasibenko. 34. Kust Brush fonts don’t have to be twee, as free font Kust showsFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Kust is a handwritten, all-caps font with a distorted, slightly corrupted look. This free font was based on letters drawn on hard paper, with a thick brush using pure black ink, by fashion designer and artist Leva Mezule. It comes courtesy of Wildtype Design, a studio based in Latvia. 35. Brux Brux takes an original approach to free brush fontsFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE While most brush-style free fonts are pretty laid-back, stylistically speaking, Brux is quite rigid and formal, almost evoking the feel of a stencil. This gives it a very fresh and original look. The free font includes Swedish, German and Spanish characters and is the work of Stockholm-based art director Marcelo Melo. Next page: free tattoo fonts... 36. Betty Free font Betty is inspired by old-school tattoo artFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE None of your hipster stars or tribal tattoos here. Betty is one of those free tattoo fonts that reaches back into the past to a bygone age, when every 'real man' had a sailor’s anchor and ‘I heart Mum’ inked on his bicep. This free font is the work of Athens-based designer Anastasia Dimitriadi. 37. Angilla Angilla is one of the best free fonts we’ve seen in the tattoo script styleFree for personal use only DOWNLOAD HERE This tattoo script font draws on the spirit of calligraphy to create something extremely fresh and stylish. This free font is the work of Swedish designer Måns Grebäck. 38. Serval Free font Serval offers a scratchy style for tattoo letteringFree for personal use only DOWNLOAD HERE Another calligraphic font that’s perfect for tattoo stylings, Serval is a wiry, scratchy beast of a design. This free font is the inspired work of Maelle.K and Thomas Boucherie. 39. MOM MOM is a font inspired by the old school tattoo lettering of the American traditionFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE MOM is a font inspired by the old-school tattoo lettering of the American tradition, and a tribute to the great tattoo artists of the past. This free font is the creation of Rafa Miguel, an art director based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. 40. Original Gangsta Original Gangsta is a free font with uncompromising styleFree for personal use only DOWNLOAD HERE Want a tattoo font that shows no mercy? Original Gangsta is a hard-edged script font that’s both stylish and uncompromising. This free font was created by Gilang Purnama Jaya, a designer from Indonesia. Next page: free graffiti fonts... 41. Ruthless Dripping One Ruthless Dripping One is one of the few free fonts in the graffiti space that’s keeping it realFree for personal use only DOWNLOAD HERE Most free graffiti fonts are really just stylised cursives that lack the sense of art, style and playfulness that’s so central to the urban street art scene. Ruthless Dripping One by Swedish designer Måns Grebäck bucks the trend with this free font, which combines calligraphy with paint drips to create something more on the money. 42. Urban Jungle Distressed free font Urban Jungle conveys the look of street stencilling brilliantlyFree for personal use only DOWNLOAD HERE Stencils are a big focus of modern day street art, for both practical and aesthetic reasons. Here, Urban Jungle draws on the stencil tradition and adds a distressed texture that instantly evokes the sweat and fury of the street. It’s the work of Canadian typographer Kevin Christopher, aka KC Fonts. 43. Blow Brush Free font Blow Brush is inspired by hip-hop and urban cultureFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE There’s a real energy and boldness to Blow Brush, a handwritten, marker-style font inspired by hip-hop and urban culture. Quirky enough to feel authentic, but formal enough to provide legibility and font functionality, this free font is the work of Petar Acanski, aka Raz, a Serbian multidisciplinary designer and frontend developer. It includes a full set of uppercase characters, numbers, 22 ligatures, a selection of special characters and some variations. 44. Sister Spray Free font Sister Spray brings together spray paint-style letters, numbers and splodgesFree for personal use only DOWNLOAD HERE Sister Spray is a beautifully messy, spray paint-style font that includes letters, numbers and a bunch of splatters, splotches and strokes. This free font is the work of French typeface design workshop ImageX. 45. Tag Type Free font Tag Type delivers just what the name suggestsFree for personal use and charity use DOWNLOAD HERE Tag Type is inspired by graffiti tags that contains upper- and lowercase letters, numerals and punctuation. Both Latin and Cyrillic characters are included in this free font, which is the work of Ukranian designer Andy Panchenko. Next page: free unusual fonts... 46. Jaapokki The ‘alternative subtract’ of Jaapokki experiments with removing elements of the fontFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Jaapokki is a beautiful sans-serif font featuring clean lines, two alternatives and large set of glyphs that’s great for headlines, posters, logos and more. And Rob Hampson, head of design at The Bot Platform, is particularly attracted to the more unusual elements of this free font family, which was created by Finnish designer Mikko Nuuttila. “I found Jaapokki around a year ago and instantly fell in love with it,” Hampson explains. “In fact, it’s the font I chose to use on my personal website. It has a range of choices, with some being more experimental than others. For example, ‘alternative subtract’ [shown above] experiments with removing elements of the font. This is definitely one to use at larger sizes.” 47. Carioca Bebas A fresh, fruity and colourful free fontFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Carioca is a fresh, fun and fruity creation, based on a morphological colour and pattern. This delightful free font was developed as part of a three-month experimental type project by Argentinian graphic designers Tano Veron and Yai Salinas. 48. Le Super Serif Le Super Serif is one of the few experimental free fonts that actually worksFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Le Super Serif is that rare thing: a typographical experiment that actually works. It’s described by its creator, Dutch designer Thijs Janssen, as “a fashionable uppercase typeface with a little modern Western flavour to it.” This free font features 88 ligatures and comes in the weights Regular and Semi-Bold. 49. Pelmeshka Free font Pelmeshka offers a new twist on the foode themeFree (pay with a tweet) for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Most food-themed fonts do what you’d expect; no more, no less. Pelmeshka, though, has gone the extra mile to become something truly unique. Perfect for any design aimed at children, this Bodoni-inspired serif is funny, friendly and oh-so original. This free font is the work of Russian designer Cyril Mikhailov. 50. Tiny Hands Yes, this free font is dedicated to the eccentric handwriting of Donald TrumpFree for personal and commercial use DOWNLOAD HERE Even though Buzzfeed is aiming to transform into a serious news organisation, it’s still managing to maintain its sense of fun. And here’s a great example: a free font based on US President Donald Trump’s eccentric handwriting style. It was created by typographer Mark Davis, and apart from being a very funny satire, it could actually work well as a cartoon or comic-book font. Related articles: 10 best sci-fi fonts 12 professional fonts for designers 5 top typography tips for your homepage View the full article

With each passing year, we see a surge in new tools and technology to make our marketing and creative lives easier. Just five years ago, maybe 100 pieces of technology could claim the title of ‘marketing technology’. Now, there are thousands. 15 tools every web designer needs in 2017In the creative category of marketing tech, UX tools also continue to grow in number and influence. Here are seven great tools and resources to add to your workflows. 01. UX MAP UX MAP takes the pain out of explaining user flowsIf you’re a designer or product manager struggling to convey your ideas and you’re familiar with Axure RP, then UX MAP is worth checking out. More often than not, trying to explain user flows and interactions with words just doesn’t work – especially when there are multiple stakeholders involved. With UXMAP you can bring ideas to life, add notes on mouseover as if you’re there to narrate, and more. 02. UX-App UX-App offers functional prototyping with HTML5I know what you’re thinking. Do we need another prototyping app? Yes. UX-App brings functional HTML5 prototyping to the table. It works via what it calls ‘logic blocks’, which enable designers to move past hotspots. The HTML prototyping allows fast sharing through HTML, without the use of special apps. If you’ve ever sat on the phone waiting for a client to load the viewing app on the other side, you’ll know the struggle is real. 03. HandrailUX HandrailUX simplifies the process conducting of user interviewsCreating user interviews, gathering feedback and sharing insights with others on your team can be a challenge. HandrailUX aims to simplify the whole process by providing a research platform for individuals and teams. HandrailUX simplifies user interview development with built-in guides and cloning functionality, allowing you to quickly replicate past interviews or questions, or build from an existing library. Interviews get translated into real-time results, which means you can iterate your design faster (full disclosure: I work with HandrailUX). 04. Personapp Create user personas quickly and easily with PersonappPersonapp takes the pain out of persona creation. It’s slick. So slick, that there should never, ever, ever, be another excuse why your project or organisation shouldn’t have user or buyer personas. Personapp provides a guided experience with prompts that explain, in beautiful detail, exactly the information necessary for product, design, development and marketing to be successful. And it’s free. 05. UX Project Checklist This simple checklist ensures you don't miss any UX basicsChecklists rock my world. Especially when things get hectic. They ensure that the foundation work gets done (the iterative, reactive things... that’s a whole different story). UX Project Checklist is exactly what it sounds like. It's a checklist for the core steps of the UX design process. Each section includes a link for some extended reading, and you can sign in via Google to share the checklist across your accounts. It’s straightforward, but sometimes less is more. 06. Hello Many Hello Many offers curated lists of tools and assetsWith so many new tools, resources and assets getting shared every day, anything that offers a curated source of these items is A++ in my book. Say howdy to Hello Many. It is a curated source of UI assets including themes, icons and kits. Check here for inspirations or to download resources for your next project and skip the time suck of internet searches. Also, if you do use Hello Many, be a good community steward and submit assets that you find elsewhere. 07. Product Hunt Product Hunt finds the newest resources so you don't have toIn the same thread as Hello Many, for helping to sort through the noise I have to conclude with Product Hunt. If the past is any indicator of the future, we’re only going to see more tools and resources emerge. Product Hunt is a fantastic place to find the latest and greatest. Its community helps the cream rise to the top so you know if it’s trending, it’s worth a look. A couple of my favourite lists to follow include: All Things UX and User Experience Design. I keep a list as well, among many collections. Related posts: The future of adaptive user interfaces 5 top UX design trends for 2017 10 essential tools for freelance UX designers in 2017 View the full article

You're reading Advice for Developers and Designers: Stop Chasing After Innovation – Now!, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! If you’re a web designer or developer, it’s always smart to keep up with the latest website building trends. That doesn’t mean that you have to be caught up in the “innovation” rat race. Even though innovative work, ideas, and technologies are what many clients are asking for. There’s no need to chase after the […] View the full article

Every designer needs a little inspiration every now and then. You won't find a better collection to kickstart your next project than the ByPeople Premium Design Bundle of assets. You can get it on sale now for just $39 (approx £30)! There is no such thing as too many assets when it comes to design work, which is why lifetime access to this ByPeople Premium Design Bundle is such a great resource. You'll get complete access to all the contents of DesignShock, Iconshock, and TemplateShock – all trusted sources of assets for designers. Grab all the icons, logos, avatars, cartoons, templates, and brushes you need –they're yours to use forever. Lifetime membership to the ByPeople Premium Design Asset Bundle usually retails for $129, but you can save 69% off the retail price. That means you'll pay just $39 (approx £30) for this must-have bundle! View the full article

When working with cloth and fabrics in 3D, it can be hard to achieve both good resolution and a great look. Your work might look like fabric from far away, but once you zoom in, it may not be as believable. What usually happens is that either the details are not clear enough or the textures are too low-res. Recently, there’s been a new wave of ready-made fabric textures, but I find that the cloths and fabrics are often unconvincing – mostly because of the patterns. In this Maya, Nuke and Redshift workflow, we're going to use a semi-procedural technique to create the fabric strands, based on a library of models. The work featured in this tutorial is based on Michael Cauchi’s research on tileable images and cloth shading. 01. Create a grid Curves is the most straightforward way to create a weave [click the icon to enlarge the image] The goal of the model is to generate the weaves of the fabric. These are divided into warp (vertical lines) and weft (horizontal ones). The easiest way to create these weaves is to generate them using Curves so that you can make any adjustments, and then convert them into polygons. For the base of the model, you need to create a tiled texture, so first create a grid of curves. You can decide on the spacing but the important part is to have the same amount of control points and distance between the curves. Use Maya to create a 12-unit curve, with a distance of one Maya unit between each of them. After that, just select rebuild with 12 spans and that will result in one control point per Maya unit. Now it’s time to look at the pattern you want to achieve, which depends on the type of cloth. The information that you need to fill this pattern is given by the yarn weaves. 02. Set the weave pattern tile Following a weave pattern is time consuming but worth it [click the icon to enlarge the image] Once you have your pattern, it's time to adjust the grid to follow the weave design. This part can be a little tedious, but it’s really important. You can define the colour pattern that you want to use for your cloth, and if there’s a specific shape you need or want to make, remember to tile the result. The warps should be tighter than the wefts, as they normally define the tension of the fabric. A little movement is good for the warps, but try not to overdo it as this will result in loose fabric. 03. Convert to polygons Tension pulls the yarn into an oval shapeWhen you have your grid and pattern done, and you’re sure it’s tiled, the next step is to generate the polygons for the render. Create a simple curve and snap it to the start of each curve, set the size the yarn shape should take – normally it’s not a perfect circle, more like an oval shape because of the tension. Selecting both the circle and the main curve, just extrude as polygons with enough subdivisions to give a nice, smooth result. Generate the polygons per curve and adjust the curves if you have any intersection. The models should not touch or intersect each other. 04. Set up the ID and depth maps The red channel is an ID pass for the warp, the blue channel is an ID pass for the weftNow that we have the model, it’s time to set up the map for the ID selection and the depth map. As a common colour setting the warps and wefts use the red and blue channels respectively. For this process, you can set a surface shader with the colours on the models depending on the direction, or work with a puzzle matte AOV (Redshift renderer uses the puzzle matte AOV). This doesn’t depend on anti-aliasing and will give a cleaner result. Just set the AOV, with the R channel rendering the warps and the B channel for the wefts. Set the camera on an orthogonal view, and render from the top. Try to achieve a tile and ensure that the weaves look as straight as possible. Now set a ZDepth pass to render the information from the model to use later in Nuke. 05. Compose the maps in Nuke Click to see the full-size image The next step is to generate one image using all the information for the depth map, and the ID maps for warps and wefts. To make the image map you need to import the maps into Nuke. The shader network that you are going to use later depends on the RGB channels to make the selection. For the warps and wefts, maintain the R and B channels, but for the depth, use the G channel. (With textures.xyz, the depth channel goes into the Alpha and the G channel has fibres). Grade the ZDepth until you have a balance between the white and black values, check the deformation that you will generate for the displacement map and try to leave a smooth gradient. By the end of step 5, you should have something that looks like thisOnce you have your depth map, merge the information into the Green channel of the puzzle matte. The result should look something like the image above. Note that if you have a lot of dark blues it means that the warps are not tight enough. 06. Create the base material Click to see the full-size image We're going to work with Redshift for the base material, but any render system should work fine. The first step here is to create an RSMaterial and add a custom Fresnel curve. Then create a sampler info and a remap Value, and connect the facing ratio of the sampler info into the input colour of the RemapValue. This will create the custom Fresnel curve. Next, edit the curve to follow the image as the fabric texture has low to no reflection on 0 Degrees and almost full reflection on 90 Degrees. Set the input min and max values so that they have the same behaviour as the image. Connect the out.Value to the reflection colour of the RSMaterial (with V-Ray remember to uncheck Fresnel to make it work correctly). Finally, set the roughness to a value close to 0.6 to adjust the overall look of the cloth material. 07. Make the map network for the colour ID Click to see the full-size image Create a file and look for the map that we exported from Nuke. Create a layered texture and create two slots on the layered texture node. Connect the Out.ColorR of the file to the Alpha of the Input0, and the Out.ColorR to the Alpha of the second slot. This will mask the slots to use the IDs from the map, then you can adjust the warp and the weft accordingly. Set both inputs to over to let the information pass through the node and textures. You can change the colours of the inputs to see if they are working correctly. Finally, add a new input at the end of the network, change its colour to black and connect to the colour input of your material. (If you mix the R and B channels, the result will give you the alpha information.) Control the repetition of the file accordingly. 08. Create the reflection map Working in black and white helps to bring out reflectionsDuplicate with incoming connections the colour layered texture and add a luminance node at the Out.Color. Connect the Out.Value to the Refl.Weight of the Redshift Material. On the ReflectionMap, adjust the colours to black and white and test your render to look for a result that works for you. I prefer to work on this stage with no colour on the material to see the reflections in Redshift. For more information and better reflection, you can add a fractal or procedural node as new inputs to the layered texture. 09. Add a displacement map Click to see the full size image With the colour and reflection information ready, it’s time to add the displacement information. Connect the G Channel to a displacement Shader node, and connect it to the Shading Group of the Redshift Material. Next, activate the displacement calculation according to your render system (I used Redshift’s default settings). 10. Make the yarn twist A twist effect adds an extra sense of realism [click the icon to enlarge] The fabric is ready. If you want to add the last bit of realism, you can use some procedural noise to make the twist effect on the yarn. First, create a ramp, make nine divisions and configure the colours to look like cylinders with the gradients. This will be the yarn twist. For the yarn repetition, repeat the texture 12 times per main texture division, giving you around four twists per weave. To do that, connect the repeat V from the main File and use a multiply divide node, multiplied by 12. Connect the Output to the Repeat UV of the ramp place2dTexture. Now, on the place2dTexture node of the ramp, change the Rotate Frame value to 45, making the twist diagonal. Duplicate with connections the place2dTexture and the ramp nodes. Change the names to vertical and horizontal, and set Vertical to U Ramp. With this you can add noise to the waves of the yarn and add more detail. 11. Link the twists as a bump map Click to see the full size image Now it's time to add the details to the network. To do this, create a new layered texture, using the same input configuration as the colour base, with three inputs. The first is the horizontal noise, with the R channel as Alpha (this will mask the noise to only the horizontal lines). The vertical noise is the second, with the B channel as Alpha for the vertical lines. Set both inputs to Add on the blend mode, and for the last, set the colour to black. Now for the final step: connect the layered texture to the bump map slot and correct the value until you are happy that the yarns look realistic. 12. Mix layered textures A video tutorial is available at Fernandez's site If you want even more detail, you can mix the information of the three main layered textures (colour, bump and reflection), adding the information of the bump to the colour. You can also mix the bump with the reflection and this will help you with the realism of the shader. And you could add some fractal noises to the colour so that the reflection helps to break the pattern and unify the overall look of the cloth. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 223. Buy it here! You might like these related articles: 22 mighty Maya tutorials to try today Build a custom Maya interface This animator's walking reference video will make you laugh and learn View the full article

Whenever we talk about building maintainable and scalable websites, we inevitably come across JavaScript-related solutions like CSS Modules, Styled Components and Container Queries. Do we really have to use them? What if there's a way to build maintainable and scalable websites without JavaScript? What if it was possible to accomplish this feat in pure CSS without turning your code into a bloody hacky mess? Freelance developer and writer Zell Liew is coming over from Singapore to Generate London (20-22 September) to give a talk and to run a full-day workshop on building reusable components without adding complexity to your code. This is crucial when building websites in our age. In his workshop, you'll learn: How to create modular components that can be dropped anywhere on your website How to scale components without over-complicating your code How to structure your code to make it easy to maintain How to deal with components that need to be placed in many different areas How to write mobile-first CSS the easy way What relative units are and when you should use which unit How to change CSS without being afraid of breaking anything else on your website Zell will share his experiences and approach to building responsive, reusable components. He'll even go deep into design principles and how they can shape your CSS. Other topics he'll cover include layouts, media queries, modularity vs scalability, naming conventions and more. This workshop is for you if you want to build websites that are easy to maintain and scale, whether you're alone or in a team. Knowledge of Sass is not required, but recommended. Other Generate London workshops on 20 September feature Steve Fisher on running design and content sprints, Anton & Irene on idea generation and the selling of the idea, and Jaime Levy on user experience strategy. The conference will also cover adaptive interfaces, web animations, performance, accessibility, chatbots, better teamwork, and much more. If you buy a combined workshop and conference pass for Generate London, you will save £95! Don't miss it! You might like these articles: 5 of the best resources for learning HTML and CSS Is it okay to build sites that rely on JavaScript? How to design websites that stand out View the full article

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The ability to perform simple cut-outs and masking tasks is a basic requirement of any designer and often forms the backbone of any Photoshop work that you may undertake. In this post, I'll run through three basic techniques for creating simple selections, and then cover the layer mask options and how they work a little more in depth. Once you've grasped the basics you'll see how it opens up a whole new realm of creative possibilities within Photoshop. 01. Magic wand The magic wand is the quickest way to make simple selectionsThe Magic Wand is the quickest and perhaps simplest way to make simple selections within Photoshop. Product imagery is often supplied on a white background, so the Magic Wand tool is perfect for this job. Navigate to the Wand tool and then up the tolerance to 30 and click on the white area to make your selection. Now hit shift+cmd+I to invert the selection and hit the 'Add layer mask' button at the bottom of the Layers panel to mask off the product from the background. 02. Pen tool and path selections For more precise selections, go for the Pen toolWhen we zoom into the bottom of the watch image, we can see the shadows have not been masked off from the background. For more precise selections, there really is no better tool than the Pen tool. Select the Pen tool and begin clicking, holding and dragging to create paths and Bézier curves until you're satisfied, then click on the original point to close the path. Now navigate to the Paths panel, cmd+click the path you've just created and a selection will be made. 03. Colour range tool and layer masks The Colour Range tool is good for selecting large areas in similar tonesThe Colour Range tool is particularly good for selecting large areas containing a similar tonal range. Simply navigate to the select menu and click to launch the Colour Range panel. Now hover over your image and you'll notice an eyedropper appears. Click on the area you wish to make a selection of and the image within the panel will change. There's the option to increase the intensity of the selection using the 'fuzziness' slider. There are also a number of standard options to choose from the drop-down menu, such as mid-tones, highlights, shadows and skin tones. 04. Working with Layer Masks Layer masks are one of the most useful tools in PhotoshopLayer masks are one of the most useful tools to get your head around in Photoshop, and can be created from any selection as demonstrated in step 1. Once you have created your layer mask you can edit it by clicking on the lever mask icon that appears next to the layer in the Layers panel. Using black to subtract areas of the layer mask and white to add to the layers mask. This can result in some pretty cool effects (which we'll cover next) – plus, layer masks are non-destructive so all the layer information remains and the mask can be deleted at any time. 05. Easy layer mask effects Selections and masks can be used to create cool effects like thisOnce you've mastered the basics of selections and masks, it's easy to create some cool effects such as the glossy shine on the phones in the above cover. To create this effect, make a selection of the phone once you've masked it off. Now on a new layer fill the selection with a colour or white. Then, with the Pen tool, draw a curved path. We'll use this to create a layer mask that will give the impression of a hard sheen on the phone. Once you've masked off the sheen area you can alter the opacity to make the effect more subtle, and use a big, soft, round brush to edit the layer mask. Once you've masked off the sheen area you can alter the opacityRelated articles: Create a repeating pattern in Photoshop 12 top Photoshop resources 60 free Photoshop actions View the full article

After many impassioned debates between the world-class judging panel, just over a quarter of the projects submitted to Computer Arts' Brand Impact Awards have made the shortlist. We can now reveal those 49 projects, from 32 different agencies – scroll down for the full list. Computer Arts' Brand Impact Awards reward the very best branding from around the world. Now in its fourth year, the scheme's rich heritage of past winners represent the cream of the global branding industry. 2017's shortlist is no different. This year, the Brand Impact Awards received a record number of entries – 187 projects, from 86 different agencies. The winning and highly commended projects will be revealed at the fourth-annual Brand Impact Awards ceremony at the Ham Yard Hotel, London, on Wednesday 13 September. Early bird prices are valid until 21 July, so book your tickets now to join the world's top agencies and discover 2017's big winners. Book your Brand Impact Awards tickets Being shortlisted for the Brand Impact Awards is an accolade in itself. Standards are unfalteringly high, and if judges felt that none of the projects submitted in a category met the criteria, that category was cut altogether. Those criteria are: A strong, compelling concept that's appropriate for the client Beautiful and consistent execution across two or more brand touchpoints Branding that stands head and shoulders above the rest of its market sector Also, being the only agency shortlisted in a category does not necessarily mean taking home a coveted BIA trophy on the night. So it's all to play for. So without further ado, in alphabetical order, here are the 32 agencies that made the shortlist in the Brand Impact Awards 2017: Alphabetical Fashion Business School, by AlphabeticalCategory: Education Project: Fashion Business School Anagrama Winter Milk, by AnagramaCategory: Bars & Restaurants Project: Winter Milk Helvetimart, by AnagramaCategory: Retail Project: Helvetimart BrandOpus The Badger, by BrandOpusCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: The Badger Design Bridge Guinness, by Design BridgeCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: Guinness DesignStudio Deliveroo, by DesignStudioCategory: Retail Project: Deliveroo Premier League, by DesignStudioCategory: Sports Project: Premier League DixonBaxi Premier League broadcast graphics, by DixonBaxiCategory: Entertainment Project: Premier League broadcast graphics GBH London AB Walker, by GBH LondonCategory: Professional Services Project: AB Walker PUMA: Non-Corporate Box, by GBH LondonCategory: Sports Project: PUMA Non-Corporate Box GW+Co Reiss, by GW+CoCategory: Technology & Telecoms Project: Reiss Jack Renwick Studio Carpenters Wharf, by Jack Renwick StudioCategory: Property Project: Carpenters Wharf Johnson Banks Action For Children, by Johnson BanksCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Action for Children Mozilla, by Johnson BanksCategory: Technology & Telecoms Project: Mozilla Kontor Reykjavik Alvogen, by Kontor ReykjavikCategory: Pharmaceuticals & Toiletries Project: Alvogen MARK Studio Manchester Literature Festival, by MARK StudioCategory: Culture Project: Manchester Literature Festival 2016 Walk Through Walls, by MARK StudioCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Walk Through Walls Music Powerleague, by MusicCategory: Sports Project: Powerleague NB TypoCircle, by NB (with Studio Sutherl&)Category: Not-for-profit Project: TypoCircle Neon I’m An Activist, by NeonCategory: Not-for-profit Project: I'm an Activist for Action for Children Acumin, by NeonCategory: Professional Services Project: Acumin Pearlfisher Seedlip, by PearlfisherCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: Seedlip Peter and Paul Noiascape, by Peter and PaulCategory: Property Project: Noiascape Sagmeister & Walsh Pins Won't Save The World, by Sagmeister & WalshCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Pins Won't Save the World Salad Halo, by SaladCategory: Pharmaceuticals & Toiletries Project: Halo SB Conquista, by SBCategory: Publishing Project: Conquista SODA SODA rebrand, by SODACategory: Self-Branding Project: SODA rebrand Spy Studio H+J, by Spy StudioCategory: Bars & Restaurants Project: H+J Studio Dumbar NEMO, by Studio DumbarCategory: Education Project: NEMO Science Museum Studio Sutherl& Somos Brasil, by Studio Sutherl&Category: Culture Project: Somos Brasil Supple Studio D.R.A.W., by Supple StudioCategory: Professional Services Project: D.R.A.W. Straightline, by Supple StudioCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Straightline Twine, by Supple StudioCategory: Technology & Telecoms Project: Twine Taxi Studio Carlsberg Export, by Taxi StudioCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: Carlsberg Export Kobenhavn Collection, by Taxi StudioCategory 1: FMCG Category 2: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: The København Collection Polo, by Taxi StudioCategory: FMCG Project: POLO rebrand The Allotment Radical, by The AllotmentCategory: Automotive Project: Radical Sportscars The Clearing Wild Cards, by The ClearingCategory: Self-Branding Project: Wild Cards The Neighbourhood Smith’s Dock, by The Neighbourhood Category: Property Project: Smith's Dock The Partners Arte, by The PartnersCategory: Entertainment Project: Arte The Butcher The Baker, by The PartnersCategory: Artisan Project: The Butcher The Baker Hello Universe, by The PartnersCategory: Not-for-profit Project: Hello, Universe London Cru, by The PartnersCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: London Cru winery London Symphony Orchestra, by The PartnersCategory: Culture Project: London Symphony Orchestra #RewritingTheCode, by The PartnersCategory: Not-for-profit Project: #RewritingTheCode Thunderclap Creative Pillars Brewery Russian Doll Campaign, by Thunderclap CreativeCategory: Wine, Beer & Spirits Project: Pillars Brewery Russian Doll campaign True North National Gallery of Ireland, by True NorthCategory: Culture Project: National Gallery of Ireland Buy your Brand Impact Awards tickets now! The Brand Impact Awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday 13 September 2017 at the Ham Yard Hotel in London. Tickets include drinks reception, canapés and bowl food, and of course a chance to toast your success or drown your sorrows at the BIA after party. Earlybird prices (until Friday 21 July): 1 seat: £99 + VAT 5+ seats: 10% discount Buy tickets now! Standard prices: 1 seat: £110 + VAT 5+ seats: 10% discount Good luck to all shortlisted agencies! View the full article

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Researchers have found links between the BlackEnergy APT group and threat actors behind the ExPetr malware used in last month’s global attacks. View the full article

For any email marketing campaign to work, the email has to reach the inbox and stand out from the all the others. However, the story does not end there. Your email has to render well if you want your subscribers to open your email, click through the CTA and get converted. Rendering is a problem because every email client and device perceives the code differently. Code that works well with one email client can create a rendering issue in another. To make things even more challenging, even the most widely used email clients come with rendering quirks and problems. In this article, I’ll take a look at the challenges and workarounds for each of the main email clients. Outlook It wouldn’t be a hyperbole to say that we email developers shudder at the thought of Outlook. The obvious reason is the numerous rendering challenges presented by this email client. What’s surprising is that any corporates still have Outlook as their standard email client and a small proportion of your subscribers are still loyal to it. Have a look at some of the challenges and hacks for Outlook: Challenge: Outlook doesn’t support margins in <p> and <a> Hack: If you want to provide margins, use the <td> tag; uppercase should be used outside the tag, and lowercase inline Challenge: Padding is only supported on certain HTML attributes (not including on <div> or <p> tags) Hack: Table-based layout is the safest bet to overcome this issue Challenge: Outlook is the only email client that does not support GIFs Hack: As some clients will only see the first frame of your animation, this should include all the important information, run only for a few milliseconds, and make sense as a standalone image Challenge: Outlook does not support Google Fonts, and will implement Times New Roman as a fallback Hack: Embed the following code... Outlook.com A new version of Outlook.com was introduced in early 2016 but the legacy version is still not out of use. Here are the challenges and hacks particular to that client: Challenge: An unnecessary gap of 4-5px is added below images Hack: Set the display property as "img {display:block;}" to remove the padding Outlook.com introduces unnecessary spacing between your images Challenge: Does not support RGB borders Hack: Use HEX codes to set HTML background colour Challenge: Adding # in href links breaks the anchor tag and shifts the CSS to another place Hack: Use domain name rather than href # iPhone native app The native iPhone email app is the most used client, and it supports all the interactive elements you’d typically find in email: GIFs, menus, accordions, countdowns, sliders and so on. Moreover, it also allows the email marketer to use high-definition Retina images for an awesome user experience. iOS10 has become all the more coveted because users can now adjust the number of lines of preview text in emails and even opt for list-unsubscribe. Nonetheless, despite these strong points, iPhone native app also has certain shortcomings. Let’s take a look. iOS10 users can opt for list-unsubscribe Challenge: Tiny text is automatically resized Hack: The minimum font size for headers should be 22px, and for body text 14px Challenge: The release of new iPhone models can cause rendering problems Hack: Fluid layout ensures emails display properly across all devices Challenge: In iOS9, when inline-block level elements are next to each other in the code with a space between the ends of two elements, it leads to wrapping issue Hack: Simply remove the space Challenge: iOS10 does not support fixed positioning Hack: No current workaround... Gmail Gmail is popular because it’s so convenient to use. However, that doesn’t mean it’s without its challenges. Gmail clips larger emails Challenge: If your HTML file exceeds 102kB, Gmail will clip it Hack: Avoid unnecessary style tags and attributes, and don’t copy the code from Microsoft word or other text editors as it is (this will add extra tags to the HTML file) Challenge: Gmail will remove CSS from the <style> block if it exceeds 8142 characters or includes errors or nested @declarations Hack: Make sure embedded styles are short and free of typos Challenge: Floats, margins, paragraphs, and padding are not supported Hack: Use a table-based layout with <td> for padding and margins Challenge: Background images do not work for non-Gmail IDs configured in Gmail Hack: Apply the background colour as fallback Challenge: Attribute selector does not work Hack: Use .class selector instead Apple Mail Apple Mail is perhaps the closest thing to a perfect email client we have. The main advantage of Apple Mail is that it is very forgiving when it comes to bad email coding. Moreover, just like iPhone Native App it supports interactivity in emails, thereby eliminating the need to view the email in browser. You should keep in mind two things while coding emails for your Apple Mail subscribers: Avoid using Calibri fonts Host your email and provide the links to the server, as internal links do not work in Apple Mail Yahoo! Mail As new and better email clients have arrived, Yahoo! Mail is less frequently used these days. Some of its rendering challenges and the hacks are discussed below. Challenge: It does not support the centre-align HTML attribute Hack: Use align="center" Challenge: min-device-width and max-device-width are not supported by media queries Hack: Use width attribute &/or in style instead of min or max-width Use the width attribute instead of min- or max-width, either separately or embedded in the <style> tag Challenge: Float tags do not work Hack: Add align="top" to the image in question On that note, we have reached the end of the discussion on most typical rendering challenges for email clients. Take a look here for more challenges and workarounds. Email marketing, if done right, can pave new avenues for your marketing strategy. Keep these simple workarounds in mind and your subscribers will never see a broken email layout in your emails ever again. Related articles: 15 awesome email newsletter designs 10 best email newsletter tools Master HTML typography in email View the full article

Letterpress printing has been around for hundreds of years and yet remains one of the hottest trends in stationery. Letterpress business cards still have the ability to turn heads. The ancient technique involves a surface with raised letters or artwork inked and then pressed into thick, soft paper, adding an exciting, tactile quality to the design. Known for producing a clean and elegant style, the letterpress technique is favoured by many designers for creating unique and creative business cards. Here we've picked 55 brilliant examples of letterpress business cards to inspire your designs. The 10 commandments of business card design01. Stefan Leitner These bold cards really reflect Stefan Leitner's personalityPhotographer Stefan Leitner asked Kristina Bartosova to design a simple business card for him. Instead, inspired by his extrovert personality, she decided to do the exact opposite, and designed a bold logotype that really stands out when rendered in letterpress. 21 free business card templates02. Voltalab The Voltalab logo combines a test tube rack and keyboardVoltalab is a recording studio built in the space where Cargo Studios and Suite 16 used to record classic bands such as Joy Division, The Fall, Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses. Fieldwork designed a whole identity package inspired by the building's rich heritage, including these stunning minimal business cards showcasing the logo mark that's a visual play on the Voltalab name, combining references to a test tube rack and an octave on a keyboard. 03. Garage Culture You can't help but love this supremely heavy cotton paper stockDesigned by Rodrigo Cuberas for a custom bike garage in Buenos Aires, these letterpress cards make a real impact thanks to Rodrigo's use of rough and heavyweight artisanal cotton paper stock. 04. Spotted Zebra Sarah Mangion's Spotted Zebra branding com is sophisticated but slightly quirkySarah Mangion's branding for Spotted Zebra, an online resource for writing, events and media management, needed to feel professional, bold and sophisticated with a slight quirkiness. Her letterpress business card design combines the logo in a simple geometric typeface, and a hand-drawn zebra illustration to add a custom feel. 05. Le Balene Those little stamps make Le Balene's cards totes adorbsWe love Eleonora Petrolati's wonderful stylised whale-based logo for Italian communication agency, Le Balene, and how she's turned it into a distinctive business card design. But what really marks this project out is her inclusion of a set of stamps and coloured inks that people can add their own little customisations to. 06. Quentin Monge The pattern work is great on these letterpress business cardsCreated using white foil, these five-colour letterpress business cards on triplex colourplan paper certainly pop. Using a bold and colourful pattern only plays to the card's strengths, which will certainly make for a memorable exchange. Designed by Don't Try Studio for Quentin Monge, they're some of the best-looking we've ever seen. 07. The Fox Yards Company 3D embossed design makes its markProduced by Jukebox Print, these ultra-thick cotton paper letterpress business cards bring 3D embossed design to the table. Using Jukebox Print's own innovative method, the attention to detail is wonderful, with the letterpress used to add text as well as a quirky textured background. 08. Christina Yan A sophisticated letterpress option from Belinda Love Lee"Christina Yan is a talented prop stylist based in Toronto," explains creator Belinda Love Lee. "This whole stationery set exudes sophistication and timelessness with a bit of edge. Each piece was letterpressed with the finishing touches of gold foiling, gold edging, and embossing." 09. OF ZOOS The cards were designed for Singaporean online literary journal OF ZOOSUsing a simple yet effective pattern of illustrative animals, these letterpress business cards pack a punch when it comes to originality. Designed for Singaporean online literary journal OF ZOOS, we love designer Charmaine Yeo's execution. 10. Rafal Borek Photography The historic press was used for this business card designThe Letter & Press Behance page states: "Mr Rafal from Ireland needed some business cards for his photographic business. But not a usual ones – really wonderful and over the top. So we printed the graphic with our historic press which can really show fine detail." 11. Mild Whistle Beautiful letterpress business cards for a Singapore-based agencyCombining craft and precision to produce a beautiful aesthetic, these new cards from Singapore-based agency Oddds are about as beautiful as they come. The Oddds website states: "The identity broadens with usage of letterpress accompanied by glamour with modernism. This is created with the intertwining between bronze and a soft tone of turquoise. The play of metal tones and pieces with cotton represents the designer's ideologies of art direction and design." 12. Elias Mendoza These classic-looking cards aim to convey the unique and personalised touch that Mendoza brings to his workWhen Cocoa Branding was hired to create branding materials for Elias Mendoza, an immigration and naturalisation attorney in the US, it needed to convey the unique and personalised touch that Mendoza brings to his work with all types of family and business immigration needs. Part of the branding solution was these heavyweight letterpress business cards, designed by Rodrigo Suárez. 13. Bailey H Robinson Two Arms Inc aimed for a turn-of-the-century look with this card, and got it spot-onBrooklyn-based tattoo artist Bailey H Robinson has a very distinct take on traditional American tattooing. Two Arms Inc was keen to design something that looked and felt like traditional turn-of-the-century type. The resulting letterpress card is an ornate delight that wouldn't have looked out of place in 1901 (except for the contact URL, of course). 14. Motor City Chop Shop We can practically hear the thunder of the enginesThis design for Motor City Chop Shop has its finger on the pulse of Detroit's motorcycle culture. Created by Company Folders, the card's surface features a dotted emboss effect for a cool background texture that doesn't compete with the letterpress text. Tires and handlebars turn the curvy font into a chopper, while the slanted letters add a sense of speed and movement. 15. The Yard VFX The striking silver contrasts perfectly with the inky blue backgroundThe Yard VFX is a visual effects company based in Paris. When Mr Cup Studio was tasked with redesigning the studio’s identity, the entire graphic language was built around the fact that it would be printed using letterpress. The eye-catching letterpress business cards feature a debossed astrological design, with the studio’s URL in striking silver. 16. Mia Parcell Typographer Mia Parcell gets a circular letterpress cardImpressworks printed these letterpress business cards for designer Mia Parcell. The job features a two-colour, double-sided print on our 600gsm Fluoro White Crane Lettra stock. Parcell took care of the artwork herself, with Impressworks coming up with the circular execution. 17. Simon Featherstone A contemporary logo design and letterpress card for the lighting designerSimon Featherstone is a freelance lighting designer and programmer, with vast experience in video and LED technology. The contemporary logo marque uses a pattern derived from LEDs and combines it with a bold gradient running from cyan to magenta. The branding collateral uses a range of cool grey tones to suitably reflect the high-end nature of the industry and communicate a professional and knowledgable tone of voice. 18. Adicto Combining authentic design with passionate craftsmanshipOffizin Parnassia is a fine art studio born out of a love for old books. The team there combined authentic design with passionate craftsmanship to create these beautiful Adicto letterpress business cards. 19. Lucky Cat Acupuncture A adorable anime-influenced letterpress business cardThis playful letterpress business card was created as part of the identity for designer Kevin Hayes' wife's acupuncture clinic in Minneapolis. "She requested something that had a little bit of an anime style with some whimsy," he explains. The business cards were printed at Studio on Fire. 20. Pepelatz Andrej Barmelaj developed these postage-stamp inspired letterpress business cards for advertising agency PepelatzUkraine-based designer and illustrator Andrej Barmelaj is the designer behind these brilliant postage stamp-inspired letterpress business cards for independent advertising agency Pepelatz. With four different designs to choose from, each stamp adds a splash of colour to Pepelatz employees' otherwise simple white letterpress business card. Next page: 20 more brilliant letterpress business cards 21. German Torres Letterpress business cards for illustrator German Torres feature his character transforming from a human to a werewolfThese beautiful letterpress business cards feature the wild illustrator German Torres transforming from a human to a werewolf. Print shop La Trasteria created them using a two-colour split fountain for the transformation and black ink for the other details. These creative business cards are beautifully printed, and we just love the playful design, which depicts a smiley character by day and the stages that turn him into a wild illustrator by night. 22. Dane Holmquist American artist Dane Holmquist created the illustration for these letterpress business cards himselfThese detailed, beautiful letterpress business cards belong to illustrator and graphic designer Dane Holmquist. The talented artist created the intricate illustration himself, before enlisting the help of printers DSJ in Santa Monica, who helped bring his vision to life. Holmquist's mantra is: "If it has the potential to be cool, I will do my very best to make it so." And he's certainly achieved that with this gorgeous design. 23. Jee Johanna Ecker's gorgeous letterpress business cards double as a tiny notebookBrand consultant Johanna Elisabeth Ecker wanted a business card that reflected both the quality of her work and her personality. Working alongside designer Kurt Glanzer at Moodley Brand Identity, she developed these beautiful letterpress business cards, which double as a tiny notebook, including a personal handwritten message for the receiver and 15 more empty pages for them to use as they wish. 24. Bentply One minute it's a business card, the next it's a Gerald Summers armchair. Cool, huh?What you see here is one of the neat letterpress business cards for furniture shop Bentply in Marylebone, London that can be made into mini bent plywood chairs. The ingenious card design was created by art director, writer, and designer Richard C Evans and produced by Elegante Press in Lithuania. Just follow the instructions and the kiss-cut card can be folded into a miniature replica of the iconic 1934 plywood armchair designed by Gerald Summers. 25. Dot Design The distinct shape makes these creative business cards instantly strikingPrinted using two colours on both sides and die cut to shape, the carefully placed design elements on each side of these letterpress business cards avoid any overlapping. They're printed on 425gsm cotton and are instantly striking. Creating such a distinct shape really makes these creative letterpress business cards one of our favourites. 26. Derek Welsh The sleek finish represents Walsh's work perfectlyGlasgow Press achieved a monster 810gsm when creating these letterpress business cards by bonding 270gsm sheets of Ebony, Citrine and Bright White to achieve a stand out card for furniture maker Derek Welsh. Black letterpress to the Bright White side with the gloss black foil to the Ebony card really make this a unique creation. 27. Whitney Shaw We love the colours used on this letterpress business cardThe colours really won us over with Whitney Shaw's letterpress business card. Incorporating a variety of fonts, as well as a playful illustration, this is a design that would surely be cherished by the receiver. The use of larger 'W's' also allow for Whitney's name to stick in the mind, while keeping the design aspects to a minimum. 28. Bryon Darby The clean-cut, minimal approach works for this letterpress business cardOften, less is more when it comes to design. It's certainly the case for this letterpress business card for photographer Bryon Darby. Using a minimal colour scheme and using the letterpress to create a series of beautiful patterns, we love its simplicity. 29. For Luca A lovely letterpress card for a worthy causeWhen Luca was just three years old he was struck down with Meningococcal Septicaemia, losing both of his legs along with muscle and skin below his hips. When his dad contacted Blush Publishing in North Wales for some business cards to help with Luca's campaign they fired up the presses and produced this delightful design. We love the bright blue typography placed on a simple, white backdrop. Instantly eye-catching. 30. Amy Weibel The typography is simple but effectiveAmy Weibel is an art director and designer with a passion for food, travel, technology and, of course, design. The typography treatment on each side is simple and effective, while the trim is bold and memorable. 31. Kitty's Beauty Parlour The card was letterpress-printed on double thick 236lb cotton card stockPrint & Grain is full service graphic design and letterpress studio. They offer original custom design and letterpress printing. Print & Grain encourage a collaborative effort with their clients during the design process to create a unique and personal card, which will be letterpress printed on double thick 236lb cotton card stock, using an antique Kelsey Excelsior printing press. A strong example from their portfolio is this creation for Kitty's Beauty Parlour. 32. Mei Yen Chua The card combines slab-serif and serif typefacesA variety of techniques were used on this business card for Mei Yen Chua. The experimental techniques using overlays of ink works wonders. Each shape also been embossed into the card, combining slab-serif and serif typefaces. A confident and eye-catching card. 33. Meg Gleason We love the incorporation of natural images into this cardMoglea is a boutique letterpress stationery design studio created by Meg Gleason. She loves bold pops of colour, hand-lettered typography and intricate floral and geometric patterns. The letterpress studio is within a farmhouse in Western Lowa, and this influences her style, which incorporates animals and nature into the designs. 34. Denim Geek Blush pull off yet another beautiful letterpress printing jobThis gorgeous letterpress business card comes from those talented folks at Blush – a bespoke and custom letterpress printing service that offers 
wedding stationery, personalised correspondence, greeting cards and of course, business cards. Even though white letterpress ink is often extremely diffcult to work with and doesn't give a very good solid on dark stock, it works extremely well in this design. The card was printed on 1000mic recycled board, so it's good for the planet too! 35. Leigh Cameron We love the stark contrast within the colour choicesThe guys over at Typoretum have an incredibly impressive array of letterpress business card designs on offer. Specialising in comprehensive letterpress business card and stationery design, the printing service can work from artwork supplied or help you to design your own. This creation for Leigh Cameron is simple, elegant and engaging. We love the stark contrast of the green coupled with the grey. The cards are printed on 750 micron recycled greyboard. 36. Britt Boyd Combining stunning graphic design and typography, this is one of their best examplesPrint and Grain are quickly becoming known for their letterpress business card offerings within the design industry. Based in Portland, Oregon, they also provide letterpress inspired greetings cards through their Etsy shop. This design for Britt Boyd is a stunning feat in typography and graphic design. The beautiful graphics, combined with an eye-catching font and coloured edges, make it one of their best examples. 37. Ninja star A letterpress business card that will get 'the point' acrossNow, here's a letterpress business card that'll catch a potential client's eye for all the right reasons. Showcased on Beast Pieces, this design will certainly get your 'point' across (sorry!) Although it might not be the ideal shape and size to slip into your wallet, the letterpress design and carefully placed typography make it a must in this list. 38. Nili Studios Print & Grain triumph again with this letterpress design for Nili StudiosAnother addition from the guys at Print & Grain, this lovely-looking letterpress business card was designed for creative agency Nili Studios. The nautical-inspired theme is perfectly executed with the chosen soft blues as well as the waves and anchor logo. The easily-readable font is also a brilliant choice. 39. Druckerei Eisenhardt The bold choice in size, shape and typography make this business card stand outA printing press that's been operating for over 42 years, Eisenhardt is a trusted German company offering the best in letterpress design. A family-run business, it works with both modern and traditional techniques in the centre of Frankfurt. This letterpress business card design immediately caught our eye thanks to its bold choice in size, shape and typography. The orange-on-white colour scheme enables the font to stand out whilst the understated letterpress gives it the edge it needs. 40. Stu Horvath Dolce Press showcase the intensity of one-colour printingDolce Press is a boutique print shop and design studio located on the eastern end of Long Island. Specialising in letterpress, the design studio creates one-of-a-kind prints. This letterpress business card was printed on super-thick kraft stock in black ink, showcasing what can be accomplished with one-colour printing. The letterpress cards were finished off with black edge colouring and printed on a Chandler & Price 8x12. Next page: More brilliant letterpress business cards 41. Fizz Creative These coasters complement Fizz Creative's 'Design straight up with a twist' motto perfectlyGraphic designers Jasen Melnick and Katie Major used letterpress printing to create these awesome retro-style coasters to promote their award-winning boutique studio Fizz Creative. Their letterpress business cards design perfectly complements the duo's motto, 'Design straight up with a twist'. Featuring two Pantone colours, and printed on thick, ivory white stock, these business cards won awards from the AIGA Cleveland Design Competition and from the HOW+Print Color in Design Competition. 42. Dare These letterpress-printed cards feature ASCII images of individual employees. We want some!We love these innovative designs by creative agency Dare. The company describes itself as 'a merger of a traditional agency and digital shop', so it wanted letterpress business cards that also combine old with new. An ASCII image was automatically created using characters from employees' contact details. The company then chose to letterpress these images onto individual business cards in order to re-emphasise the idea of traditional techniques meeting digital. 43. Pablo Abad Pablo Abad created this sans-serif typeface specifically for this projectThis beautiful letterpress business card was created by Madrid-based graphic designer and art director Pablo Abad. In a quest to create a new visual identity, Abad designed a bespoke geometric sans-serif typeface, gara. The clean yet edgy letterpress business card design makes it eye-catching but still easy to understand. Abad's love of illustration and typography is clear in this very personal project. 44. Shyama Golden Shyama 'Rhymes with Llama' – as in Shama-Llama, get it?It's always an awkward moment when you can't pronounce someone's name or get it wrong. To ensure that never happens again, artist and designer Shyama Golden designed these funky letterpressed business cards with her catchphrase 'It rhymes with llama'. Printed on Cranes Lettra cotton paper, with 100 per cent hand-drawn type and a hand-drawn llama, these beauties are one-colour letterpress printing at its best. 45. Luke Lucas Luke Lucas's card uses specialist ink to make it glow in the dark. Ooooooooh!After developing a new script-based logo, typographer and graphic designer Luke Lucas decided to update his business cards to show it off. Featuring his name on one side and his logo on the other, Lucas's card is no ordinary one. Printed on 600gsm Lettra cotton stock, this letterpress business cards design uses phosphorescent ink so that in regular light it appears as a simple debossing but when the lights dim, the logo glows bright green. Very cool. 46. Ovi Prunean James Prunean lovingly created these awesome business cards for his brother OviAs is often the case, simplicity can work wonders. A perfect example of this is these gorgeous letterpressed business cards created by graphic designer James Prunean for his brother, Ovi. Prunean used strong, bold colours that immediately catch your eye and at a first glance look very similar to Pantone colour cards. Printed on 220lb cotton paper, the soft yet strong impression has reportedly helped painter Ovi beat off a lot competition. And we can see why! 47. Jennifer Daniel Jennifer Daniel loves unicorns. Can you tell?These quirky but cool letterpress business cards belong to Bloomberg Businessweek's graphic director Jennifer Daniel. An internationally recognised illustrator, designer and art director, Daniel is also a lover of unicorns. After having a hard time choosing from her designs, she decided to have three printed, each one as memorable as the next and featuring her RSI-inducing contact email along the bottom. We wonder whether she's got any unicorn grooming business off the back of them? 48. Rabbit Hole With this business card you also get a cute desktop companionThis beautiful design grabbed our attention as soon as we saw it. Why? Not only because of the gorgeous impressions in fluorescent green with a double hit of silver on Beer Matt Board 390gsm but also because you can turn it into a rabbit. Yes, you read that right. Several shapes are die-cut out and can be put together to create a stylised bunny. Cool, huh? We bet the guys at letterpress and design agency The Hungry Workshop had great fun creating these for The Rabbit Hole Ideation Cafe. 49. Still Liquor The message here is not to drink and drive. Hence the word 'Still'This classy design was created for Still Liquor, a bar and micro distillery in a reclaimed bootleg liquor and auto shop in Seattle. To convey the bar's rich heritage, New York-based multidisciplinary design practice Javas Lehn Studio decided to use the iconic Ford Model T silhouette, bold type and unexpected contemporary compositions. The final, clean design was then letterpress-printed onto Eska board stock, using a bright shade of red to accentuate the bold type. If the bar itself is a classy as its business card, we'd definitely drink there. 50. Jason Carne Carne's business cards echo his website's two-tone colour schemeGraphic designer Jason Carne's personal letterpress business cards are certainly eye-catching. Featuring metallic red edge painting, two-colour foil stamped letterpress on duplex black Neenah paper, this is one design you'd want to keep. Related articles: The 10 commandments of business card design 10 business card fails 20 tools to make your team more productive View the full article

Oil paints offer the ideal medium for achieving strong and interesting brushwork. An artist's style of brushstrokes is what defines their work and gives it personality. It also plays a big part in the emotional response with the viewer. Two paintings from two different artists might have the same subject, composition, tones and colours, but a different style of brushwork can convey completely different moods or emotions. Here, we share some tips that can help you improve and discover more about your own brushstrokes. To easily achieve strong, powerful brushstrokes, practise on small boards but keep standard size brushes. That way, a single brushstroke will have more of an impact. 01. Choose the right brushes and boards for oil painting Your brushes and surfaces will affect the look of your strokes – rounded edges offer a softer applicationWhen choosing your paintbrushes, take into account the type of hair, the shape of the brush, and the length of the handle, all of which will affect the style of your brushstrokes. Brushes with rounded edges convey a feeling of softness in paintings, while sharp edges will give your paintings a stronger sense of energy. Valérie uses Rosemary & Co Ivory Filberts (0,1,2,3,4,7) and riggers (0,2) that combine the silkiness of traditional synthetic brushes with the firmer feel of hog bristles Your painting surface is also important. If you work with a dry, gritty, absorbent primer, your marks will turn into a dry and chalky glaze, and you will need to load your brush with lots of paint for the strokes to be thick and glossy. However, some pre-prepared canvases have a smooth surface, which means every brushstroke will be visible and glossy. 02. Remember that less is more Use your arm and make every stroke countIn order to achieve powerful brushstrokes, it's important to think before painting and to mean every mark. Use your arm rather than your wrist and be conscious of how you press your brush onto the canvas – and of how you release it. If you're happy with a brushstroke, refrain from fiddling with it or duplicating it everywhere – it will only lose its originality and impact. Highlight the elements that matter with sharp marks and keep the rest more subtle. 03. Create a mood Different styles of brushwork can convey different moodsUse brushwork to give your artwork a mood and atmosphere. Think of the curved, twisted marks of Van Gogh or Munch in comparison to Monet's impressionistic touches or Rembrandt's dramatic highlights. Their work conveys a different feel, due to different brushstroke techniques. Think of the mood you want to convey and adjust your brushwork accordingly. This works for weather, too – a blended, subtle brush application with soft edges depicts a light and misty day, while bold and sharp strokes can convey energy and power to depict a bright sunny day. 04. Depict texture Vary your brushstrokes to bring your painting to lifeBrushstrokes can help describe texture. Smooth, blended brushmarks will describe still, silky water, while bold, directional marks are more suited to an agitated sea or rough parts of the landscape, such as trees, rocks or sand dunes. Using different brushstroke styles between different elements will help bring your painting to life. The aim is to give texture and personality to every element. While doing this, try to be aware of the natural lines and curves of the landscape or still life you are painting and let the direction of your strokes flow like the lines you're observing. 05. Guide the gaze Use the direction of your strokes to guide the viewer's eyeThe direction of your strokes will have an impact on the feel and energy of your painting and can help strengthen your composition. Try directing several strokes towards the focal point of your painting, guiding viewers' gaze. The thickness of strokes can also help focus attention. A sharp, thick mark will stand out more than a blended one. Try using less paint and a muted approach for the dark, less interesting areas of your painting, and save your outstanding brushstrokes for the lighter and more powerful parts. This article originally appeared in Paint & Draw issue 6. Buy it here! Related articles: How to get started with oil painting 5 things you need for oil painting 7 must-know painting techniques for artists View the full article

You're reading 15+ Fresh Design and Development Books to Read this Summer, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! A few years ago when I first started learning computer science, paperback books were the primary source of information. I had to buy or rent them from libraries. The smell of fresh of typographic ink was priceless. It was a ritual of knowledge where the writer shared his experience. Paragraph by paragraph and chapter by […] View the full article

Building your website doesn’t have to require hours upon hours of learning to code. With Dragify, it’s as easy as dragging and dropping. Get a lifetime subscription to this powerful yet simple website building service for just $24.99 (approx £19)! While it's nice to know how to code and work with programming languages, developing a professional website doesn’t require specialised expertise with Dragify. It requires nothing more than dragging and dropping pieces into place. Dragify offers 44 pre-built elements to move around freely, assuring you can get the perfect setup in no time. And if you want to get down to code-level customisation, you can do just that before putting your site online. A lifetime subscription to Dragify usually costs $299, but you can save 91% off the retail price. That means you’ll pay just $24.99 (approx £19) for the perfect tool to build beautiful sites quickly and easily! View the full article

G F Smith has announced that the world’s favourite colour is a rich teal hue, named Marrs Green. Some 30,000 people in over 100 countries voted for their favourite colour from a selection of public submissions, as part of a major global survey conducted over six months by the paper company. Suggested by Dundee-based UNESCO employee Annie Marrs – who said she was inspired by the blue, grey and green tones of the River Tay – Marrs Green has been added to GF Smith’s Colorplan paper range. Introducing Marrs Green, the world’s favourite colour according to GF SmithBut what colour, exactly, is it? Green? Blue? Teal? Aqua? Certainly it makes for an interesting comparison with Franklin Til’s 2017 colour trends predictions, which placed an emphasis on bright, organic green shades and softened blues. In the Making of the World's Favourite Colour video below, we even spot G F Smith adding red pigment to the mix! Of course, it isn't the first time a blue-green shade has come tops. In 2015, a YouGov survey across four continents found blue to be the world's most popular colour, coming top even in China where colours like red, yellow and green are considered lucky. To celebrate Marrs Green, a pop-up shop in Hull will also sell a selection of customised British products sporting the colour, including a Tokyo Bike, Anglepoise lamp, furniture and clothing, before being transferred to GF Smith’s London Show Space on 12 July. Related articles: How to master colour theory 21 outstanding uses of colour in branding Pantone reveals its Colour of the Year 2017 View the full article

When it comes to the visual design of a website, the emphasis is often on the photography, illustrations or vector graphics. But at the end of the day, most websites are there to be read, so typography is one of the most important things you need to nail. In this post, we look at some examples of great typography on websites, all new for 2017, and talk to the designers to find out how they went about creating it. 01. Hi-Pointe Drive-in This restaurant site uses typography as a design element, breaking the grid in placesThe Hi-Pointe is a hip, modern spot for burgers and sandwiches in St Louis, Missouri, highlighting local ingredients and located in a former 1980s drive-in. The website created for the restaurant by local agency Brevity strikes a careful balance design-wise, looking thoroughly modern while incorporating design elements from the 1980s. And it’s all tied together with its clever use of typography, as Bob Schuster, partner and creative director at Brevity, explains: “On the site, we used typography as a design element, breaking the grid in certain places, and becoming a moving, interactive element in others.” The primary headings are set in Refrigerator Deluxe from the Mark Simonson Studio. “This captured the nice blend between the industrial and mid-century architecture, along with the modern and friendly vibe we were going for with the brand. I also really enjoy how fat and bold the typeface is. Because of this, it works really well over photography,” Schuster says. For body copy and other smaller treatments, Brevity used Museo Sans from exljbris Font Foundry. “Overall, it’s just a nice, legible typeface, even at smaller sizes,” says Schuster. “Museo still has a little bit of character that helps it stand well next to the bright personality of Refrigerator and the site design, overall. “We kept the containers for long-form copy to a narrow width to increase readability and allow other elements on the site like photography, colour, and icons to assist in telling the story.” 02. Chris Biron This digital designer’s minimal site lets the typography take the strainA freelance digital designer based in London, Chris Byron collaborates with brands, businesses and startups to shape their digital projects. Currently working with Google Creative Lab, his personal website is beautifully minimal, with bucketloads of white space, so the typography has to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Byron opted for GT Sectra for the headings and large quotes on his site. “I chose it to really hero my website, because it’s quite an unusual font, which is beautiful and memorable,” he says. “The sharpness is less common in serif typefaces and makes the font feel fresh and contemporary to me. I also played with 3D rotations on my site and attaching these to the scroll created a real motion and control, allowing the user to be able to play with the typography in a unique way.” Body copy, meanwhile, is set in Apercu by Colophon Foundry. “It’s probably my favourite sans-serif font,” says Byron, “because of its clean geometry and unique shapes such as the sharp ascender on the ’t’ and the loops of the “g’.” 03. Ditto This site promoting new eyewear technology offers a clean reading experienceDitto is a company that offers eyewear retailers the opportunity to provide customers with virtual try-on and frame recommendation technology. Central to its website is a cool little effect that overlays the central figure with a digital mesh as you scroll. Beyond that gimmick, though, this one-page site offers a clean, elegantly laid-out reading experience, dividing what could have been an overwhelming amount of information into bite-sized, manageable chunks. Sam Dallyn describes the design process as trying to strike the right balance between type size and the structure of content. “The messaging and structure changed about three times, which was really frustrating, but ultimately each time I restructured the layout things became better,” he says. When it came to font choice, Dallyn used Trade Gothic Bold Condensed, “to help give punch to the titles” and Avenir Light “because of the great contrast and this lightness reflected in the preciseness of the technology”. “Also, we had some long titles with words like ‘omnichannel’ that I wanted to keep reasonably graphic, something that's hard to do with a regular typeface,” Dallyn adds. “A classic rule that aids design is always sticking to few typefaces and minimal variations as this forces you to design in a certain way.” 04. Ade Mills The graphic designer and illustrator gave himself strict typographical parameters when it came to creating his websiteAde Mills is a young graphic designer and illustrator from Hastings with a broad skillset. He has a day job as a full-time designer at Playne Design, but he’s also keen to take on side projects in his spare time, including The Design Jones, a podcast where he interviews creatives from around the UK. His personal site is another super-minimal one, which makes original use of blue filters to create a distinctive look. “I wanted to create something that would be flexible and work well with both small and long content,” he explains. “The overarching idea was to give myself very strict parameters like colour, image styling and typography.” When it came to the typography on the site, he says, he wanted to limit himself to a single typeface, which would need to be readable and to render across platforms in the best possible way across the design. “I wanted something classic but nothing obvious or overused, so I ended up going with RM Pro from The Designers Foundry, which was designed by Mark Bloom of Mash Creative. “For me, this was visually perfect for the design,” he adds. “It worked well as the body text and was easy on the eye when reading long texts, but it also held its own with the larger display type.” When it came to implementing the font, Mills decided to give type.js a try. It’s a tool that allows you to write new CSS properties to take finer typographic control of type styles on the web. “I'd always wanted to use type.js in a project, as a way to create something where the type styling wasn't limited and the finer points could be adjusted with the content,” he explains. “It's integrated so that I can plug in values through the CMS, which then injects them into the code rather than having to keep editing the CSS. “Nothing unexpected really came up when using it, but I had to be mindful of how it worked across screen sizes. Some features like the rag and widow adjustments worked perfectly on some screens, while on others it broke the design or didn't have the desired effect. It was a bit of a challenge finding that happy point.” 05. The Lincoln Hotel The Lincoln Hotel website has a classy and elegant feel befitting its locationThe Lincoln Hotel is a beautifully restored 1960s hotel just next door to England's famous Lincoln Cathedral. To promote such a high-class destination in an iconic medieval city, Shotgun Front was tasked with creating an equally high-class site. And it didn’t shrink from the challenge. “Our approach was simple: produce a beautiful website with elegant and well considered typography,” says Jonathan Daly, head of design at Shotgun Front. “The Lincoln Hotel came to us with a strong, clean and well balanced typographic identity, and so continuing this approach across the website was essential to the project. “We used a combination of fonts that complemented each other beautifully: Playfair Display & Lato,” he adds. “We found these two fonts a joy to work with and when composed in such a way as on The Lincoln Hotel’s website they can transform a design into something special.” 06. Go Short This short film festival site makes good use of typographic hierarchy to help you navigate what’s on offerGo Short is the biggest short film festival in the Netherlands, and the next edition will take place in April 2018. The website needed to include a day-to-day schedule, film database and a personal timetable for the festival. Dutch agency Studio Airport took on the challenge, and made great use of typography to condense a mass of information and detail into something that’s delightful to look at and easy to navigate. “The concept of the website was based on short films,” explains Studio Airport’s strategy director and co-founder Bram Broerse. “And for us it was important that the typeface was both characteristic and clean. GT-Walsheim has both of these values. We used this typeface for the navigation, main text and headers. "For the quotes we used an existing typeface of the Go Short identity (Vista Slab) to link everything together with the print material, which was already designed.” To learn more about the website and the digital branding for the Go Short festival, watch the case study video of the project below. 07. Evert_45 Experience the Second World War from a boy’s point of view on this inventive Dutch websiteMany online projects have tried to bring the Second World War to life for today’s younger generations. But Dutch website Evert_45 is one of the most innovative we’ve seen to date. It focuses on a 13-year-old boy, Evert, who shares the everyday events of April 1945 on Instagram, YouTube and the site itself as if it was in real time. The main font used was Linotype's Bodoni 72, says Jan Jesse Bakker, interactive designer at N=5, the Dutch agency that designed the site. “In my opinion, it’s one of the best Serif fonts out there. The numbers in Bodoni 72, especially, stand out compared to the other Bodoni families.” The focus of the project, he adds, was on bringing history to life for young people. “But for the website we also wanted to share the whole story in one timeline for a broader audience. Bodoni, a historical font, was the right choice. And the contrast between the big round numbers with the small caps creates a beautiful historical feeling. “To connect to the Instagram and YouTube content, we used large typography guided by a voiceover at the start of each chapter, to create a seamless online story. And it all seems to be working. We reached an incredible 50 per cent of Dutch teens within two weeks.” View the full article

As part of its Hidden Treasures of Creativity project, Adobe transformed the centuries-old paintbrushes used by Edvard Munch into a set of free Photoshop brushes and is offering them to Creative Cloud users completely free: download your brushes here. To help you make the best use of these brushes and channel your inner master painter, Adobe has also put together a series of video tutorials. The first tutorial (watch here) explains how to get started with digital painting in Photoshop. In the second tutorial – which you can watch below – award-winning Photoshop brush maker Kyle T. Webster shows you how to create an expressive self-portrait using Munch's original brushes. View the full article

Progress in web design techniques shows no signs of slowing up. As the proponents of the early web are staggering around with thousand-yard stares, you can't help but feel a little over-awed by the plethora of techniques and frameworks available nowadays. People are championing the new approaches that are about to change the way we work once again, such as Flexbox and CSS Grid. Rachel Andrew and Jen Simmons have been encouraging developers to look at these technologies now, in readiness for their arrival. Is web design too formulaic, or cutting edge, these days?Recently, some of the current web industry's founders – such as Andy Clarke and Jeffrey Zeldman – have asked if it really needs to be this complicated, and whether the web is losing its soul or becoming reliant on a standard output (three-column layouts, hero blocks and the like). Have we all become enslaved to the frameworks and tools available to us? Although they make a good argument, I don't think there has been a time where there has been more choice (or opinion) about how to build digital projects. We are long past 'HTML, CSS and a little JavaScript'. Now there are CSS preprocessors and JS frameworks, and the components that make up a web project encompass a load of new elements – optimisation, CDN delivery and SEO, to name a few. An urge to jump into new methods too early can be the worst thing to do on live client work Sush Kelly Pioneering web tech The talks and conferences advocate best practices and cutting-edge tech – why we should be using X, Y and Z. This is 100 per cent necessary. After all, the web industry is relatively young and we are still defining the standards of the industry to an extent. The problem is, those not using these technologies day-to-day in their work can be left feeling inadequate or somehow lacking. It is a lucky few who get to make their living pushing those boundaries and telling us all about them. Don't get me wrong, it is essential to have these people pushing the bleeding edge, but it can result in an urge to jump into new methods too early, which can be the worst thing to do on live client work. You want long, productive relationships with clients. Changing how you build sites means having to readjust and remember more skills. As much as good commenting and a README file will help, you need to make sure what you're delivering will remain effective and usable for as long as possible. As a digital director at a small creative agency, Imaginate, it is on my shoulders to make sure we use the right technology on client work and invest our time wisely with regards to what we learn and (in due course) adapt into our processes. I completely understand how designers and developers want to adopt the next great thing. I feel the same compulsion, and it is actually one of the things that has kept me in the industry so long (since 2000). The fact is that I also have to think about the longevity of the plugin/library/software, because if it doesn't stand the test of time, or it ends up failing or losing support due to a later development, then the responsibility falls on us. Educating junior web developers Many junior developers have a real thirst for knowledge. It is often an inspiration to more senior team members when they arrive in the studio, eager to show a new method or technique that is emerging and explore how it might be used on a project. You want your staff to grow, to develop and to be able to work on things together, so again it's important to make sure that you're only taking on board advancements that are an improvement on what went before. But when the churn of technology is so quick that we have interns and junior designers who have never had to use a float and do not know life before Bootstrap, it becomes a real balancing act. A good example of this is the move from LESS to SCSS and also from Grunt to Gulp. Both these technologies are similar, but different enough to mean returning to a project using LESS/Grunt becomes an exercise in re-learning – or in the case of juniors or interns, learning a new (old) technology from scratch. Website layout gambles Flex and CSS Grids are the current darlings of frontend talk. CSS Grid has the potential to revolutionise the way we will lay websites out in the future. At the moment it is still hidden in the latest browsers, although you can access it if you enable experimental features on the likes of Chrome. We can't use it in live work for this reason, though with an imminent launch date, Grid could bring about as big a shift in web development practice as the shift from tables to divs and floats. We are using Flexbox on live work now, but only in ways that are a benefit – for example for ordering content in responsive layouts or vertically centring items. To try to use Flexbox for a full site at the moment, with iOS and Safari's flaky support, would be a challenge that just may not be financially viable. Embracing the old browsers Clients, especially within larger companies, likely won't be running the latest browsers. They could also have restrictions on their web access that could affect your build. And if it turns out the main stakeholder is using IE on an old laptop, the site better work on it or the project just won't get signed off. Sometimes a client will have a good idea of what they want, or specify an incumbent system or technology that you need to work with. A key point for us as an agency is to be adaptive to these needs and to work with them, rather than dismissing what the client has and trying to force them down the route we would prefer. Sometimes this may mean having to extend an existing codebase in order to keep within the technology required. When embarking on a new project, we now make sure we establish the required sign-off devices as soon as possible. However, over the years have had our fingers burnt on more than one occasion, when we have run with a new way of doing something with good intentions, only for it to cause issues as we tried to get the site signed off. This just serves to remind us that there are so many device/user combos that it just isn't OK if a given method will only work on certain browsers. Although you can make workarounds and shims, there often isn't budget to do this. And when a client doesn't have the right resources then you need to go with the solution that will please everyone. When it comes down to it, the main aim of the studio is to produce great, forward-thinking work, which means being fully open to new methods but also picking the right time and project to use them. It is a tricky balancing act, but one that gives me a great feeling of satisfaction, especially when a new process finally becomes 'the standard' on live projects. This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 292; buy it here! Related articles: The web designer's guide to Flexbox 10 really useful responsive web design tutorials 5 top Flexbox and PostCSS resources View the full article

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The web is full of endless resources and tutorials on the subject of photography, but sometimes too much choice can be confusing. Here, we've picked the 14 top photography websites that will really help you take your photography skills to the next level. If you're a designer or creative after stock photography, check out our Best websites to download stock art post. 01. TechRadar: Digital Camera World Visit Digital Camera World for daily news, tip, tutorials, reviews and much moreDigital Camera World provides a definitive guide to digital SLR photography and is full of articles that will show you how to improve any digital photo. The site is organised clearly, which sections including tutorials, reviews, news and beginner for easy navigation. Updated daily, the site is full of inspirational imagery. Full disclosure: It's one of our sister titles, also made by Future Publishing. 02. Camera Jabber Camera Jabber is a goldmine of news, reviews and tips for photographersBuilt by photographers for photographers, Camera Jabber offers up an enticing mix of news, reviews and buyers' guides, on everything from phone cameras and DSLRs up to the latest action and 360 cameras. You'll also find a wealth of how-to material that'll take you through the photographic basics and on to more specific guides on things like editing your shots and building a portfolio. It's updated daily, and always worth checking in to see what's new. 03. British Journal of Photography The British Journal Photography has been supporting photographers since 1854The British Journal of Photography has been around since 1854, and it's kept up with the times since then. Its website is a great accompaniment to the venerable magazine, serving up thought-provoking photography and fresh perspectives every day, and its student and professional awards are a great way to discover new talent or, indeed, to get your own photography skills recognised. 04. DIY Photography DIY Photography has been running for over 10 years and is rammed with useful adviceStarted in 2006 as a place for gear-lusting photographers, DIY Photography is a great place to pick up expert advice and read about the latest kit. Written by photographers for photographers, it's heavy on the tutorials with hundreds of useful how-to articles online, plus a whole load of DIY articles that'll help you build your own gear rather than splashing out on expensive kit. 05. iPhone Photography School Don't have a DSLR? You can still take excellent photos with your phoneJust because you don't have a heavyweight camera, it doesn't mean that you can't take beautiful photos. iPhone Photography School has one simple aim: to help you take better photos with your iPhone than most people can with a DSLR. It does this with plenty of in-depth tutorials covering photography techniques and photo editing, as well as inspiring articles and regular competitions so you can pit your newfound skills against others. 06. Digital Photography Review Digital Photography Review is bursting at the virtual seams with all the sector's latest news and product reviewsTouted as the number one destination for everything digital photography-related, Digital Photography Review is bursting at the virtual seams with all the sector's latest news and product reviews. Complete with video tutorials, buying guides and forums, there's plenty on this photography website to keep you hooked and clicking back for more. 07. The Spruce: Photography The Spruce: Photography is both an advice centre and repository of extensive further readingWritten by a host of photography experts, The Spruce: Photography is both an advice centre and a repository of extensive further reading. Once you're on this website's photography channel, you'll be clicking from one useful video to another before veering off down a rabbit hole of enlightening articles. There's plenty to enjoy – just make sure that you don't get lost. 08. Popular Photography Popular Photography is a brilliant all-round photo websiteFull of tutorials, news, reviews and beautiful photos, Popular Photography is a brilliant all-round photography website. With a plethora of interesting and useful articles, advice and inspirational imagery, you'll find yourself lost in this site for hours. 09. Digital Photography School Digital Photographers School aims to help photographers get the most out of their camerasDigital photography enthusiast Darren Rowse is the man behind Digital Photography School, a site that aims to help photographers get the most out of their cameras. With sections including photo tips, gear and post-processing, all the essentials are well covered. 10. Strobist Strobist is a must for anyone just starting out with lightStrobist is about one thing: Learning how to use off-camera flash with your DSLR to take your photos to the next level. Or the next 10 levels. If you're a complete beginner at lighting, no worries. The free Lighting 101 course starts from the very beginning, and can get you up and running fast. 11. 500px Connect with like-minded people at online photography community 500pxIf it's inspirational images you're after then look no further than 500px. Founded by Oleg Gutsol and Evgeny Tchebotarev, this online photography community is a place to gain exposure, find inspiration and connect with other photographers. The site has had a recent redesign, and with a library of over six million photos you'll never run out of pretty pictures to look at and feel inspired by. 12. The Photo Argus Find helpful tips, tricks and techniques on photography blog The Photo ArgusThe Photo Argus is an online resource for photographers – from novice users to advanced pros. The site provides useful information, inspiration, techniques, photographer showcases and more. Find what you're looking for using the organised topic sections or browse through the Popular Posts and the most up-to-date articles on the homepage. 13. PetaPixel Tutorials cover a range of topicsPetaPixel is a website offering tutorials, news and kit. The tutorials are imaginative and practical, offering videos and screen grabs to guide you through each step. Equipment covers new camera, lens and other photography kit announcements, but doesn't include reviews (you'll need to look elsewhere for those). News covers all sorts of interesting developments in the photography world – both hilarious and informative. 14. Photography Week Photography Week is a digital magazine While not technically a website, Photography Week is a digital magazine, so we're including it here. Packed with beautiful photography, it offers heaps of fresh inspiration every week. Full disclosure: It's another of our sister titles, also made by Future Publishing. Get it on iPad and iPhone, Android devices or through Ziniofor multiple devices, including computers. Related articles: 10 ways to improve your photography skills How to enhance photography on your website The 33 best photo apps View the full article