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After many years as a graphic designer and type enthusiast, I decided try my hand at designing a typeface. Much has been written about type design, and there are plenty of great typography tutorials out there. But where exactly do you begin if you want to make your own font? If you're a designer or illustrator new to this discipline, what are the first practical steps, the common software and early considerations to get you going? To get started on the right path, I enrolled in the short Type Design (TDi) course at Reading University, which I can highly recommend. I thought it might be helpful to share some of the insights and practical methods I learnt during the two intensive weeks to help you to make your own font. 01. Start with a brief Type specs and drawings from Reading University: 'a' by Lisa Timpe, 'k' by Louisa-Helen Fröhlich and Bengali character by Tim HollowayDesigning a typeface can be a long journey so it's prudent to have a clear vision of its purpose. You might begin with something purely self-expressive. However, the usual practice is to create a typeface in response to a brief. Developing your own brief will inevitably require research and reflection. How will it be used: is it for a specific project or personal use only? Is there a problem you might solve? How might your typeface fit into a landscape alongside similar designs? What makes it unique? The options are vast. Typefaces have been created, for example, specifically for academic texts, to provide better number systems for engineering documents or as a one-off for public lettering. Only when you know what your typeface will actually be used for can you really get started on the design. 02. Fundamental choices There are a number of choices you need to make early on. Will it be a serif or sans-serif typeface? Will it be based on a writing implement or be more geometric? Will your design be a text face, comfortable at small sizes and suitable for long documents, or will it be a display face with an imaginative style, that works better a larger size? Tip: It was suggested on the course that designing a sans-serif typeface can be more challenging for beginners, because the features that provide these typefaces with their identity are much more subtle. 03. Start from scratch You might decide to start by digitising your own handwriting. This can be a useful practice exercise, but because handwriting is so individual, without much refinement your typeface could be restricted to personal use. You should also avoid basing your design on an existing typeface's outlines. 'Helvetica with wings' is not going to produce a better typeface or help you develop your skills as a type designer. This should go without saying, but I'm told that typefaces like these are regularly submitted to foundries (unsuccessfully). 04. Use your hands Even if you are a Bézier curve master, I'd advocate defining your letterforms by hand in the first instance. Articulating certain shapes via computer when establishing your design can be awkward and time consuming. Try to create graceful shapes on paper for the first few characters before refining them digitally. Further characters can then be constructed on screen by matching key features, such as terminal endings and stroke widths. Tip: The hand naturally draws smoother, more accurate curves in a concave arc pivoted by the arm and wrist. To take advantage of this, keep turning your paper rather than adjusting your position or drawing against this pivot point. 05. Start with 'control characters' Designing certain characters first can help set the style of your typeface and bring the other characters into harmony. These are often called 'control characters'. In a lowercase Latin typeface they would be the 'n' and o, and in the uppercase, 'H' and 'O' are often used. On the Reading University course, we steadily added to these, building the word 'adhesion', which is used for testing the type's basic proportions (though initially, it was 'adhecion' leaving the tricky 's' for later). 06. Move to your computer Photo: Kelly Sikkema There are a variety of ways to get your drawings onto the computer. Some people advocate tracing programs, however I prefer manually tracing my drawings because I want full control over where the points on my curves go. Most software requires a well-defined drawing to work with effectively, so when you're happy with a sketched character, try outlining it with a fine tipped pen (to get a shape edge) and then fill in the shape with a marker. Tip: You can then take a snap with your phone's camera, and send it to your computer. 07. Choose your software FontLab is a popular programme choiceLike myself, many designers from a graphic design background will naturally opt straight for Adobe Illustrator to start drawing their type. For drawing individual letterforms and experimenting, this is fine. However, it soon becomes obvious that this is simply not the right tool for creating a typeface. From the outset you will benefit from working in an environment that gets you thinking about letter spacing and word creation. The current industry standard seems to be FontLab Studio (Mac and Windows), but new software like Glyphs and Robofont are gaining more traction with type designers. The programs aren't cheap, but Glyphs does have a 'Mini' version on the Mac App Store, with some functionality removed that beginners are unlikely to miss. Both also offer a 30-day free trail. The other obvious advantage of these packages is that you can export your work-in-progress as a font. 08. Draw some letters I was using Glyphs, as recommended on the course. The interface is good and there are handy videos online, but like any software, it takes a little time to become familiar with. Once you've imported your image, the drawing interface is pretty close to Illustrator, however I found the control of Bézier curve points and handles much more accurate in Glyphs. Tip: Where possible, place your points on the extremities of the letterform curves (top, bottom, left, right) for greater control. 09. Move into text view mode Once you have drawn a few letters, you can start typing words using the text view mode. One major advantage of Glyphs is that you can edit your shapes in the same text view to start harmonising the characters together in words. You can then begin making adjustments to the letter spacing, looking at the rhythm of the counters and refining the overall proportions, like the x-height, weight and width of your typeface (if you're in need of a refresher, take a look at our glossary of typography rules and terms). 10. Test out some words Modifying your shapes within a text view in GlyphsAs Matthew Carter is oft quoted: 'Type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters'. With this in mind, aim to start looking at your design from a line and paragraph level as early as possible. Create a simple InDesign document with text frames and paste some words into them. I set each text frame to a different font size for comparison (the sizes will depend on what your typeface is to be used for). Finally, export your typeface and select it within your document to see it in action. Tip: While you're still in the early stages of your design, before you've settled on any spacing, you can use InDesign's built-in kerning tool to optically space your letters, maybe with some extra tracking, for a quick and dirty impression. When it comes to doing the job properly, take a look at out expert tips for kerning type. 11. Study other typefaces To create a credible typeface, you need to study other good examples. Looking at them in a critical way, from a contextual or historical perspective, will help you understand why certain design choices in these and your own typeface have a particular effect. Look at how the system of shapes work together consistently while forging an identity. Our article 5 ways type can define brands starts to unpack the different effects certain type features can have. The advice I was given is to look at both typefaces that are in a similar style to your own, and those text typefaces that are generally accepted to be good examples. 12. Scale it down It's important to review your typeface at different sizes in your test document. Depending on your brief, readability might be critical at smaller sizes, or you might be concerned with how your display text reads at a distance. A change of scale can be troublesome. Looking at how your shapes behave at a variety of sizes, and learning what design decisions affect them, takes practice. 13. Get it on paper Seeing your typeface in print gives a different perspectivePrinting your progress and seeing it away from the confines of pixels and backlighting will help you view it from a different perspective. To me, it seems much easier to spot issues with misshapen characters, the rhythm of counters, the modulation of strokes and so on, when printed out and pinned to a wall. It's also easier to make notes and sketches for adjustment. Another benefit of printing is that when making thousands of micro-adjustments over a long development period, a printout can help you track your progress so you can see how far you've come. 14. Add special characters My printed work being critiqued by course director Gerry LeonidasYour typeface might comprise a limited set of characters because it's for a particular project, personal use or if it's a very decorative design. However if your aim is for it to be used by other designers, for a variety of projects, then it needs to be flexible and have a broad character set. This would generally include small capitals, diacritic signs (accents), a choice of numerals, ligatures and more. 15. Explore different styles, weights and widths Designers need plenty of optionsWhen a designer is choosing a particular typeface, they are likely going to need a palette of options to design with. Does your typeface have a true italic, not just a slanted roman? Would your typeface suit a condensed version? This goes back to your brief and use cases for your typeface. 16. Consider global usage So you've created something that you're quite proud of. Did you start with a Latin typeface? What about the 250 million readers of Cyrillic in Eastern Europe and central Asia? Or the 220 million Devanagari readers in India and Nepal? There is a growing market for non-Latin typefaces and some scripts are woefully under-served. A common question that I also asked myself is: Can a non-speaker design a good script for a language they do not read? The answer is emphatically yes. It takes a lot of research, learning about the script's history and culture, meeting native speakers and exploring historical examples, but a large number of excellent typefaces have been designed this way throughout history. 17. Put it to the test Well-used Gujarati metal typeOne you've crafted something you're happy with, you'll want to start seeing how it performs at a range of tasks suited to the original brief. Try using your font on some previous design projects, replacing the original typeface. Create some specific artwork that will put it under pressure, or perhaps ask a designer friend to test it out and give you some feedback. 18. Further reading The focus of this article is deliberately narrow and simply highlights the most useful methods I've learned. To further develop your knowledge of this exciting field there are some excellent resources to help you. I Love Typography: So you want to create a font – A good starting guide, if a little dated now Thinking with Type – Good resources for those interested in Type Design Typographica.org – A discussion on good reading lists Type Cooker – Type drawing exercises Typeface design – Final work from the University of Reading 8 Faces – Interviews with leading designers about typography and lettering Adhesion text – Dynamic text generator Diacritics Project – All you need for designing fonts with the right accents View the full article

Back in March, the Book Collector announced it was resurrecting James Bond author Ian Fleming's typography competition. Originally launched while Fleming was helping out at the typographical magazine Alphabet & Image, the contest invited graphic designers to create a 27th letter of the alphabet. Over 2,500 people from around the world entered, but there could only be one winner. Assessed by a panel of judges chaired by Professor Phil Cleaver, the entries were whittled down to a shortlist with Sir Peter Blake choosing the overall winner. So without any further ado, meet 'LOL', the 27th letter of the alphabet as imagined by graphic design student David Guthrie. Guthrie was awarded a volume of Ian Fleming's letters embossed with his letter"I found out about the competition through my university tutors," says Guthrie, a third year graphic design student at the University of Cumbria in Carlisle. "I'm a huge fan of typographical design and was instantly attracted to the competition from the title alone, and even more so by the history behind it." "It was such a surprise when I found out I had won! I thought it may have been some sort of prank," he adds. "It was an incredible feeling and it was made all the better as I was able to celebrate my winning with all my classmates at our final degree show where 'LOL' also happened to be the centrepiece of my display." The letter is the centrepiece of Guthrie's final degree showIan Fleming's nephew, Fergus Fleming, praised the standard of entires, some of which will be featured in an upcoming edition of The Book Collector. "We were delighted to receive so many entries from around the world," says Fleming. "Their ingenuity and imagination made the shortlist a very hard call. There wasn’t a dud in the pack and they all showed a spirit of fun. Which is what Ian Fleming had in mind when he came up with the idea in 1947.” Related articles: 5 ways type can define brands Smart typography tool generates font pairs in an instant Fun names for the @ symbol from around the world View the full article

Legal contracts aren't often an entertaining read (how many of us have just blindly clicked 'I Agree' when updating our iTunes account?). However a watertight agreement that meets the 10 contract commandments is the foundation of a good working relationship between a design agency and a client. Sifting through confusing legal jargon can be a chore for creatives eager to get on with a project though, so Chicago-based design firm Segura has decided to go back to basics with its no-nonsense contract. The tongue-in-cheek agreement, called the Segura 'I Am' project, focuses on the practical side of things by hammering home that designers need money to work. You would've thought that would be common knowledge by now, surely? The project is intended to be a bit of fun and represents Segura's focus on creating quality work. We're sure lots of designers would love to use such a up-front contract, but in the meantime you'll have to content yourself by reading the most straight-talking agreement you'll ever see below. Click to see the full size contractView the full article

Every first-time installation of Clip Studio Paint involves an excited exploration of the Decoration subtool. It's a veritable smorgasbord of natural, unnatural and downright goofy brushes that can quickly generate rock-encrusted wastelands, dense forests or, more likely, just a random smear of black and white. In my experience, this toolset quickly gets relegated to the digital equivalent of the bottom drawer. There is, however, a way to fix this, turning it from a little-loved tool into an absolutely essential time saver. 01. Start with a simple silhouette Add your creation to the brush list Think about creating silhouettes: using your own custom-made brush tips is key here. A variety of leaves (hand-drawn or scanned and traced) combined can look like a dense bocage, a set of random blobs add up to the intergalactic power of comics legend Jack Kirby's 'Kirby Krackle' effect and a crowd is really just a mass shape composed of numerous individuals. Each brush tip should be made of a simple silhouette. Draw a variety of shapes on a single layer in black and white, then select them individually and add to the brush list using 'Edit > Register Image as Material'. 02. Build on an existing brush Break your pattern down into a simple silhouetteIt's always easier to start from an existing brush and build up. So find a Decoration subtool you think might do the job – most of my more successful silhouette brushes are derived from the Foliage brush – and use the Create Copy of Currently Selected Sub Tool icon to duplicate it and then edit it. 03. Organise your brushes Once you've designed a few of your own more useful decorative brushes, you can drag them out of their subtool and on to the toolbar on their own, grouping them together to save time hunting for them when you need them. You can produce a complex silhouette by waving the brush around and applying pressure to help generate random patterns. This article originally appeared in ImagineFX issue 145; buy it here! Related articles: Tips for guiding a reader through comic art How to create your own comic The 7 greatest comic logos of all time View the full article

There's never been a better time to start learning design skills. Whether you want to build apps and websites for fun or turn it into your career, the Learn to Design Bundle can teach you how. Grab it on sale right now for just $29 (approx. £23). There is a lot going on behind the scenes of your favourite apps and websites. You can learn how to understand and tinker with the inner workings of those services with the Learn to Design Bundle. With more than 57 hours of lessons across nine courses, this bundle can teach you everything from the fundamentals of UX and UI to the coding languages like HTML5 and CSS3 that make the web and mobile apps run. The courses in the Learn to Design Bundle usually retail for $1,209. You can save a huge 97% on that price right now. That means you pay just $29 (approx. £23). It’s a great price to get your start as a design expert, so grab it today! View the full article

Dot art – otherwise known as pointillism – covers many forms of art. Artists, graphic designers, photographers and illustrators are experimenting with this, one of the most exciting art techniques around. But whatever the medium, pointillism pieces all have one thing in common: the dot. We've selected 15 striking examples of pointillism-based artwork to inspire you to give the technique a go. Some are more traditional, while others have elaborated on the technique to create something entirely new. 01. James Cochran James' art can be seen on walls around the globeJames Cochran – Jimmy C – was a huge part of the underground graffiti movement in Australia during the late 1980s. His interest in urban realist and figurative oil painting led to the development of his signature aerosol pointillist style; portraits or urban landscapes painted entirely from blobs of spray paint. Although now living in London, Cochran's pieces of art can be seen on walls, buildings, and murals around the globe. His David Bowie mural in Brixton, London, has been adopted as a shrine to the musician. 02. Paul Signac Place des Lices, Saint-Tropez (1893)An artist, anarchist and keen sailor, much of whose work focused on the French coastline, Paul Signac was one of the two founders of Pointillism, along with Georges Seurat. Inspired by Surat's working methods and theory of colours, Signac abandoned impressionism and developed the process of painting scientifically juxtaposed dots of pure colour that would blend in the viewer's eye, rather than on the canvas. 03. Jerry O Wilkerson I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (1992)St Louis-based artist Jerry O Wilkerson expertly blended pointillism with pop art in his work. Much of it was food-based, featuring hamburgers, hot dogs, lobsters and even a Campbell's soup tin, among other things, rendered in vivid pointillistic colours that owed as much to the half-tone looks of print processes as to the impressionistic style of the original pointillists. 04. Phan Thu Trang Peaceful Village – Trang’s strongest point is to capture light and bring it to her stunning paintingsBorn and based in Hanoi, Phan Thu Trang uses a limited palette and bold dabs of colour to bring the rural Vietnamese landscape to vivid life. Using oils and a palette knife to render the amazing impasto trees that dominate her work, she always tries to use colour and light to create a different sensation for each piece of her art. 05. Yuriy Skorohod Skorohod describes his work as being born out of nothingHailing from Minsk in Belarus, Yuriy Skorohod describes himself as a dotwork artist. "The 'dot' is an abstract object in space having neither volume, area, length nor any other measurable characteristics," he says. "This way, out of nothing, my drawings are getting born." 06. William Wilkins The Jubilee Plantation (1980)Having graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1960, William Wilkins started developing his own pointillist technique in the 1970s. His earlier work tends to be concerned with tone and colour and frequently employs many layers of paint, while his more recent work is more interested in luminosity and opacity, with seldom more than one layer of paint on the canvas. He lives and works in Wales, but also works in Venice. 07. Kevin Sprouls Kevin's created the portrait style synonymous with The Wall Street JournalKevin Sprouls spearheaded the style of drawing now referred to as 'hedcut'. Using a stippling method of many small dots and a cross hatching method of many small lines, Sprouls created drawings that emulated the look and feel of old newspaper woodcuts and engraving. In 1979, the illustrator approached The Wall Street Journal with his ink dot work and was subsequently employed by the publication until 1987, helping to create its signature look. There are now five hedcut artists at working at The Wallstreet Journal, continuing Sprouls' legacy. 08. Dr Woo Dr Woo uses a single needle to tattoo his sought-after designsAll tattoos are essentially pointilism, typically using eight needles at once, each one penetrates the skin at high speed to create lines. What is so unique about Dr Woo's work, however, is that he uses one needle, meaning his tattoos are created not from a machine, but by hand dot after excruciating dot. While this style of tattooing isn't unique to Woo, his designs are incredibly intricate and beautiful and have inspired many. The L.A.-based artist has inked celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Brooklyn Beckham and Ellie Goulding. 09. Xavier Casalta 'Winter' [click the icon to enlarge the image] French artist Xavier Casalta is an expert when it comes to creating inspiring dot art. He builds up his images using a time-consuming stippling technique in black ink – the above artwork took 400 hours to complete, and includes around eight million dots. Casalta's intricate designs have attracted clients including Dior, the National Gallery of London and Nissan. 10. Pablo Jurado Ruiz Ruiz often creates beautiful pointillism art in both colour and monochromePablo Jurado Ruiz is a Spanish artist who specialises in pointillist art, using black and white drawing to create beautifully realistic portraits of innocence. "I try to tell stories through a minimalist and subtle vision," he explains. "My current work focuses on simple but realistic drawings worked in an impressionist technique." 11. Georges Seurat Painter Georges Seurat's piece is an early example of pointillism, created in the late 1880sFrench Post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat spent over two years creating his beautiful, and probably best-known, painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. An early example of pointillism, Seurat finished the piece, which is estimated to consist of approximately 3,456,000 dots, in the late 1880s. 12. Miguel Endara Hero is composed of approximately 3.2 million black ink dotsCrafted by illustrator and artist Miguel Endara, Hero (above) is composed of approximately 3.2 million black ink dots, using a single Sakura Pigma Micron pen (nib size 005, 0.2mm). It took nearly a whole year to complete. You can see how it was done in the video below. 13. Matt Booth The skull on the print appears white, until the lights go out!Most - but not – of multidisciplinary designer Matt Booth's work uses pointillism as its influence. This skull glow poster uses an array of dots to make up the image. The skull on this dot art print appears completely white until the lights go out. 14. Yayoi Kusama How could we write up a post on pointillism and dot art without including the Queen of the polka dot herself, Yayoi Kusama? Ever since the 1960s, this dot-loving lady has been renowned for her innovative and inspirational work. This project entitled 'Obliteration Room' was showcased in London's Tate Modern. Over the course of a few weeks, a room was transformed from a blank canvas into an explosion of colour, with thousands of spots stuck over every available surface. 15. Philip Karlberg Philip used around 1200 sticks to create celebrity portraits - this one being Johnny DeppPhotographer Philip Karlberg assignments take him all over the world. Among his commercial clients are Swarovski, Marc O’Polo, Kasthall, and NK. In this project, Philip used around 1200 sticks over a six day period to create these striking celebrity portraits. The other subjects include Lady Gaga and Jackie O. Related articles: 5 things you need for oil painting The secrets to painting like Cézanne How to paint a vibrant floral still life View the full article

It has never been easier to make a website, and our digital toolbox has never been greater. At the same time, we seem more concerned with automating our process and systemising design than with creative thinking and generating ideas. Where does this leave expression and storytelling? We talked to Espen Brunborg, co-founder of small Edinburgh-based web agency Primate, to find out. Why do so many websites look alike these days? EB: Creating something different – be it a website, a car, a building, or a kettle – is difficult. We have a tendency to mimic what we like, and stepping outside of the mainstream comes with real risk attached. Prevailing aesthetic preferences affect not only us, but also our clients and their audiences, which makes it challenging to sell anything that looks too different from what's currently out there. What's more, bucking UI trends and established patterns requires more brain power from our users, which can affect conversion or engagement. That said, there is ample opportunity to stand out without upsetting the general balance of things. Consider books, for example. Their overall shape and function won't change any time soon, but the stories within them are infinitely diverse. Maybe we shouldn't be so hung up on how our websites look, but focus more on the stories we tell on them. Lingscars.com is certainly different...It’s easy to build a great-looking site that’s fast and has a great user experience, so why design something that’s the opposite? EB: The long answer to this question is the wonderful story of how lingscars.com – a beacon of bad design – became an international phenomenon. The short answer is that of course we shouldn't – designing for the opposite of best practice is a really bad idea. Then again, perhaps we should be asking ourselves a different question. Why design something that’s only fast and good looking? If usability and aesthetics are our only concern, why do we need more than one font? Why paint cars in more than one colour? Why not wear uniforms to work? The answer is individual expression. What we should get better at is designing fast, user-friendly websites that are also personable, emotional and expressive. If all other factors are equal, memorability wins. Playfulness and humour features heavily in the Zendesk siteHow can storytelling (and comedy specifically) help create better websites? EB: Whenever we put words to a page we’re telling stories, meaning storytelling is intrinsic to design – whether we like it or not. The key to good design, therefore, is to learn how to tell our stories well and to create meaningful, emotional connections with our readers and visitors. Comedy – meaning anything that pushes our imagination beyond the mere efficiency of any given interface – is a key part of that. For example, if Bill Bryson had only focused on efficiency in his Short History of Nearly Everything, we’d be left with a pile of bullet points instead of a best-selling tale of popular science. The Outline is a new kind of publication that tells stories around three topics: power, culture and the future What aspects of web design annoy you the most when you're browsing? EB: Apart from clickbait and dark patterns? Delay. Delay is infuriating at times. I don’t really mind waiting for a video, game, or otherwise interesting piece of internet to load (though they'd better be worth the wait). But I genuinely want to smash my phone in the face of adverts that force me to wait until I can locate the tiniest ‘x’, pop-ups that appear just as I’m about to click something, or gratuitous effects that result in me requiring several attempts at a simple action because the interface doesn’t respond the way I expect. At Generate London, Brunborg will take a tongue-in-cheek look at the state of web design and explore different creative mindsets What can designers do to stand out on the web, and how difficult is selling 'different' to the client? EB: The easiest thing that anyone can do to stand out on the web is to look at their own content, and it’s a shame that too few of us are willing to invest in it. When we talk about being different, we often think about unnecessary animation, cumbersome layouts and over the top effects. But there’s a lot to be said for just daring to have a personality and making low-risk decisions that set us a part. Of course, it takes a skilled designer to convince a client that a single, beautifully typeset, well written statement can replace their imagined full screen carousel of corporate messaging. The ONiA orthodontists website is fun and friendlyWhat are some of your favourite sites you have seen lately? What do they do well? EB: The Outline has caught my attention from both a content and design perspective. In a way, it's pioneering the online magazine experience, but with very light touches. Nothing feels radically different or novel for the sake of novelty, yet the design and writing combine in a distinct voice that is now a staple in my reading diet. Zendesk also made ripples with its new corporate identity, and it’s obvious it had digital media in mind when it designed it. The logo elements really come to life in the icons and illustrations on the website, which retains the playful personality of the old Zendesk while heading down a completely different visual direction. If those are too old for ‘lately’ (as both launched in 2016), Australian designer Kylie Timpani of Humaan just shared her latest work for ONiA orthodontists that, in its own small way, redefines the image of orthodontics with a very well considered and consistent implementation of a friendly brand. Never has repositioning of teeth looked so inviting! What can people expect to take away from your talk at Generate London? EB: Casual blasphemy and poop jokes. Among other things. Generate London, taking place on 21 and 22 September in the Royal Institution, will feature 16 great presentations for web and UX designers and is preceded by a full day of workshops on 20 September. Don't miss the opportunity to learn from the likes of Steve Fisher, Leonie Watson, Anton & Irene, Zell Liew, Aaron Gustafson and many more. Reserve your spot today! Why not read some of these related articles? How to use logos in web design Bad volume sliders are a masterclass in terrible UI design 8 CodePen features you didn't know about View the full article

You're reading Tips to Design Engaging Newsletter Layouts, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Newsletters still offer the best way to reach your audience directly and increase sales. But if you’ve never managed an email list before this can be an intimidating process. Once you have a list you’ll need to send out emails that connect with subscribers and offer real value. This means great content and great design all wrapped […] View the full article

To work in marketing, you must be able to market yourself. So for marketing executives and agencies, a business card design has to work even harder than usual, as it acts very much like a shop window for their services. In this post, we round up some of our favourite business card designs for marketing pros, to give you a few ideas and to inspire your own business card projects. 01. Casta Beautifully surreal business cards for marketing firm CastaWho said business cards have to be geometrically perfect? These monochrome cards designed in-house at Portguese marketing company Casta come with a beautifully unique design on textured paper. There's no chance of these striking designs getting lost in the pile! 02. Hoofd&Letters This letterpress for a Dutch marketing company shows the two sides to its personalityHoofd&Letters is a Dutch marketing and communication company whose name is Dutch for ‘Head and Letters’. The name symbolises the balance between emotion and reason, and this concept is echoed in the design of its business cards, which combine hand-drawn typography with a sleek sans-serif typeface. Designed by Rens Dekker, these letterpress cards were printed on custom triplex mounted Colorplan paper from GF Smith, by Dutch printing firm Exclusieve Visitekaartjes. 03. LongGrass Marketing We love this letterpress card for Canadian marketing consultancy LongGrassThese stunning letterpress business cards for Canadian firm LongGrass Marketing Inc were printed double-sided in two ink colours on duplex white cotton stock. They were designed by Aileen Fretz at Livework Media and printed by We Do Printing. 04. Tactic Marketing Clever halftone designs give a unique look to Tactic Marketing’s business cardsIndianapolis agency Tactic Marketing wanted a unique look for its letterpress business cards, and it certainly found it with this loose halftone style. The coarse dot pattern means its employees’ headshots just look like an abstract pattern up close, while at a distance they come into focus as a crisp headshot. It just goes to show how effective and memorable business cards can be when you go out of your way to make your designs stand out. 05. Bazooka There’s an eye-catching look to Bazooka’s war-themed business cardsBazooka is a Portuguese agency involved in what it calls “guerilla marketing”. Created in-house for a self-promo, these eye-catching business cards play on that concept, by featuring a ‘war game’ on the flipside: a navy-themed battle puzzle. 06. Ivelin Brachev Upbeat colours and a fun design make these business cards ones you’ll want to keepIvelin Brachev is a Bulgarian business and marketing consultant, and while that might not be the sexiest job title on the planet, these cool business cards make up for it. The clever paper envelope-style designs were created by Kristina Miletieva. 07. Context MG Dots represent noise in this subtly clever design for Context MGContext MG was a small marketing company based in Michigan faced with a tough question: there is so much noise out there, how do you stand out? These cool cards, designed by Kate Disbro, took that idea and ran with it. With a Domtar 120lb cover and dull varnish, they were printed at Holland Litho in Zeeland, Michigan. 08. Latona A business card that folds into a bouquet – genius!Latona Marketing is a company based in Shizuoka, Japan. Designed in-house, these clever business cards fold into the shape of a bouquet. It’s a simple idea, beautifully executed, and draws nicely on the Japanese love of paper folding. View the full article

Today's global ransomware attack is spreading via EternalBlue and through local networks using PSEXEC and WMIC. View the full article

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A massive ransomware outbreak is spreading globally and being compared to WannaCry. View the full article

Sketching a five-minute pose is a lot of fun because it offers just enough time to capture a strong sense of the pose, but not enough time to overwork (or overthink) the drawing. Keeping things simple and being economical is a recurring theme throughout the five-minute process. The main thing to remember for a successful quick pose is to keep the gist of the subject, so we'll build it up bit by bit, adding tone right at the end. Let's get started! 01. Construct the torso Use simple forms to sketch out the torsoOnce the gesture is established, separate the torso into rib cage, abdomen and hips. Then, indicate the openings for the limbs. Next, group the muscles using simple forms. Finally, suggest planes to give the torso structure. 02. Define the limbs Cross-sections and ovals add form to your limbsStart the limbs as long, tapering rectangular shapes that flow from the torso down to the fingers or toes. Next, add cross-sections to indicate their position and direction of movement. Finally, use simple ovals to add muscles and indicate kneecaps and elbows. 03. Simplify the anatomy Group the upper-back muscles into simple formsStarting with the torso, group the upper-back muscles (which surround the shoulder) into simple forms. Where visible, emphasise hip bones, knees and elbows. Finally, emphasise the parts where muscles overlap, as this creates the illusion of more detail and brings the drawing to life. 04. Begin the head Get the head's tilt and rotation rightFor quick head sketches, begin with the gesture and outer shape, making sure the tilt and rotation is correct. Next, add the major planes, such as the side of the head and brow. Finally, add in the features and define the neck muscles. 05. Sketch the hands Start hands off as a simple shape, then refine themHands can be complex, so start with either a box or oval shape, depending on how the fingers are arranged. Next, refine the shape, but keep the fingers grouped. To finish, separate the forefinger and thumb, or any finger necessary to make the hand come to life. 06. Sketch the feet Again, simplify the feet and build up shapeThe feet are fairly easily to simplify since the toes are short and clustered together. Start with a triangle shape to capture the gesture, making sure to emphasise the contact point. Next, refine the ankle and shape of the grouped toes. Finally, separate the big toe, or any other toes as needed. 07. Exaggerate overlaps in side view poses Limbs are great for creating overlapsIn a side view, much of the figure is hidden. To make the drawing work, emphasise and exaggerate overlaps. When available, the limbs are also great tools for creating overlaps at the torso. For more depth, exaggerate the top layers of anatomy, such as the shoulder muscles and hip bones. 08. Use overlaps in foreshortened poses Emphasise overlaps for foreshortened posesSimilar to a side view, emphasise overlaps for foreshortened poses. If the torso is moving away, emphasise the overlap of the hips and abdomen. If the torso is coming toward you, use the rib cage and anatomy to create overlaps. If visible, the limbs drawn with good cross-sections can also create depth. 09. Focus on contact points in reclining poses Make reclining poses look natural by emphasising contact pointsFor reclining and seated poses, you can exaggerate the anatomy that makes contact with the surface. When visible, emphasise the hands making contact by adding more detail at the fingers and wrist. 10. Add tone Smart toning will bring your figure drawing to lifeIf the lighting is good, finish your sketch with tone. One way to do this is by blocking in the shadow and filling in the shape with a suitable tone. This article originally appeared in Paint & Draw issue 6; buy it here! Related articles: Drawing techniques: 7 fundamentals of pencil drawing How to draw a bear Get better at figure drawing View the full article

Storyboarding can help you to solve a multitude of problems. It's a great method that enables Studio AKA – and many other creatives – to work with stories that lack clarity and structure, or concepts that need upending in order to work. If you need to tell stories for any kind of commercial work, try storyboarding by following these tips. 01. Get your story ideas onto paper Starting a storyboard is never easy – all those blank panels! The solution is not to work on one neat sheet of paper. Use small Post-It notes and scribble loads of quick, rough thumbnail ideas. Get all the ideas out of your head in any order you like. Don't feel that you have to just start at the beginning and work forwards. 02. Cut and shuffle ideas into storyboard panels Storyboard panels from The Girl & the Cloud, produced by Studio AKA and Red KnucklesWhen you have a bunch of images that are making sense, re-sequence them and discard as many as possible. Move it all about until it feels coherent and in balance. You can do all this with stick figures, then replace everything with your character drawings once you know what you are doing, working back into the gaps any visual embellishments that reinforce the story. 03. Don't linger on the opening sequence One of the most common mistakes with storyboards is creating opening sequences that drag on, eating up panels with establishing shots. Your aim should be to establish a crisp, clear cadence from the outset. You can always turn that single opening panel drawing into a three-minute tracking shot at a later stage. 04. Keep things flexible The final shot of The Girl & the Cloud, art directed by Amandine PecharmanTry not to lock yourself down at the outset. Some animation directors write in sketches, while others sketch in writing. The storyboarding can start as rough cut and paste, with working boards brought to completion by a process of distillation. Everything should remain open to question up until it's decision time. 05. Embrace random ideas Don't get bogged down in process when it comes to inspiration. If you purge yourself of every single random idea you can, at some point the good stuff will make itself known to you and find its place in the storyboard. Then sleep on it and reconsider it all the next day. 06. Explore character narratives Part of a storyboard done by Mélanie Ballairgé at Pictoplasma Academy 2014Working with sequential or character narratives can be challenging. Try a few exercises to help, such as working through four-, nine-, 12- and 24-panel storyboards, each structured around different character narratives or rules. 07. Make every frame count Creating storyboards within restricted panel allowances pushes an artist to make every frame count. When every drawing must justify its inclusion, being able to distil a story into a small number of key frames is liberating. That refined 'spine' can then be elaborated into a more complex narrative. Set yourself challenges or ask someone else to set you a challenge to see where you end up. Mélanie Ballairgé's Emerged developed from her initial storyboard08. Define your characters An exercise by Andrea López and Gabriela Rodriguez at Pictoplasma Academy 2016To tell any story, you need to understand your character. One way to do this is to ask the basic questions a scriptwriter always asks, such as: Who is your character? What do they want? What do they do to get what they want? What do they achieve in the end? You might also try defining this in another nine- or 12-panel board as the act of visualising those answers really forces you to examine your character. 09. Think beyond what's on the page The surface of a character is described in line or shape on the page, but what really lies within the drawing is given focus by our willingness to engage with what that character can emote and convey. Story, design and biography all influence how a character rises beyond mere mark-making and becomes real to us. 10. Embrace feedback An early storyboard for The Girl & The CloudIt is always easier to know what is amiss with other people's work than your own, and sometimes giving feedback to others can help you think about your own project in a new way. Vice versa, ask others to give you feedback and try to take criticism in a constructive manner, thinking about how you can channel these comments into your character and story to make it better. Even if you don't agree with their suggestions, it's still a good idea to try them out – you might be surprised at the outcome! This article originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 265. Buy it here! Related articles: Create storyboards for web animations How to get started with animation Illustrators will love this storyboard notebook View the full article

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Thanks to its powerful painting tools and workflow features, Corel Painter has become one of the key players on the digital art scene. Part of its appeal is that the software's passionate user base actively feeds into the development of the program. Today's launch of Painter 2018 is no exception, with the digital art studio revealing a range of amazing new and enhanced tools that bridge the gap between traditional and digital art. Aimed at everyone from concept artists to illustrators, as well as fine artists and photo artists, Painter 18 promises to be a vital asset to creators of all levels. Thick Paint tool The headline feature of Corel Painter 2018 is the new Thick Paint tool. Building on the software's already famous collection of painting tools and brushes, Thick Paint pushes the envelope by accurately mimicking the look and feel of viscous paint. The result is a tool that allows you to build up large volumes of paint that behave just like the real thing. Create true to life paint layers with Thick PaintThanks to a range of brushes and palette knives that accompany Thick Paint, you can blend, build up, push, pull and scrape the paint just like you would on a canvas. The pressure of the stylus accurately imitates your tool of choice and allows you to create ridges of paint that pop thanks to shadows in the canyons of the stroke. Elements of 3D functionality are one of the stand-out updates to Painter. While it doesn't deliver a total 3D modelling experience, the software does give you the opportunity to play around with shadow strength and ambient lighting to create a sense of depth in the brushstrokes. Combine this with adjustable paper texture and an array of realistic painting opportunities have just become available to digital artists. Thick Texture Brushes Craggy terrain will benefit from the Thick Texture BrushesTexture Painting has long been a popular tool on Corel's Painter as it gives you the chance to create work that looks like it's leaping off the screen. As part of the latest update, Painter 2018 has taken this tool to a whole new level. With the new 2.5 Thick Texture brushes, you can now apply strokes that look tactile and loaded with depth. This is perfect for creating surfaces that rely on depth to communicate their texture in a way that's true to life. And thanks to adjustable directional lighting, you can amplify textural depth to your heart's desire. Natural-Media brush library This artwork by Deborah Kolesar showcases the power of the Natural-Media brush libraryOne of the biggest ways Painter 2018 will help you transition from creating traditional to digital art is through the new Natural-Media brush library. This library delivers digital brush effects that reproduce everything from pencils and pastels, to oils and pastels, plus a whole lot more. Chances are, if you've got a traditional tool in mind, you'll be able to find a digital equivalent in this library. Selection Brush tools As well as improving how artwork looks, Painter 2018 also upgrades how you work. Thanks to the Selection Brush tools, you can save time by creating a selection just as easily and precisely as applying a brushstroke. By displaying a colour overlay as you lay down a stroke, you can easily distinguish between selected and protected areas. Texture Synthesis The Cloning workflow has been updated in Corel Painter 2018By capturing and synthesising selected areas of a textured piece of artwork, the Texture Synthesis tool gives you the opportunity to reproduce the elements on a larger scale. By randomising the properties of the texture, you can then paint with a brush that is loaded with the same settings. Rounding off the update to Painter are a set of enhancements to pre-existing tools. These include improvements to the Drip and Liquid Brush technologies, plus an upgrade to the Cloning workflow. Corel Painter 2018 is available to new users for £359.99, or as an upgrade for £179.99. For full details of all of the tools and ways to buy, be sure to head over to the Corel Painter 2018 homepage. Now check out these articles: Create portrait art in Corel Painter Are movie posters in a design crisis? 7 best new illustration tools of 2017 so far View the full article

You know the work you do is great, but it's just not getting the attention it deserves. Help get more eyes on your work with a lifetime subscription to Webtexttool's Personal Plus Plan. It's on sale now for just $49 (approx £39). Search engine optimisation (SEO) a necessity for any website, but you can get the effect of perfect SEO with the help of Webtexttool. This powerful tool analyses user data to generate live SEO optimisation tips that will appear as you work. Companies who use Webtexttool raise their Google ranking by an average of 300 per cent and get double the on-page time from visitors. A lifetime subscription to Webtexttool usually retails for $986, but you can score it on sale for just $49 (approx £39). That's a saving of 95% off the retail price for a tool that can help get your business off the ground, so grab it on sale today! View the full article

CodePen and frontend development have become synonymous with each other. As an early user and early hire at CodePen, I had the benefit of learning and growing with the platform as it went from online editor and web playground to a lively community for testing and showcasing HTML, CSS and JavaScript code snippets – which is only set to expand with the addition of CodePen Projects. CodePen is a Swiss Army Knife for frontend developers, offering inspiration, a clean environment to experiment in and more. Everyone has a different approach to development, and there are a few key CodePen features that sometimes go unnoticed and could use a shout out. Here are eight features that you may have overlooked: 01. Preprocessors CodePen can be used in combination with a number of CSS preprocessorsCodePen is a great place to build small components in isolation, without having to set up a development environment. You can design and experiment with a small piece, and when you’re happy, bring it into your larger application. What might not be immediately obvious is that to make isolated development much easier and quicker for everyone, CodePen gives you instant access to a lot of great preprocessors. There are four different HTML preprocessors you can use while creating and editing Pens: Markdown, HAML, Slim and Jade. These can be useful in writing more terse code; or perhaps you are working on projects in these languages and want to keep your examples consistent. Users also have access to JavaScript preprocessors (CoffeeScript, LiveScript, TypeScript and Babel), as well as CSS preprocessors (Less, Sass and SCSS, Stylus and the newer PostCSS). These can be invaluable in helping you get going quickly, but are also a great resource if you’re looking to learn a new language. The ‘View compiled’ option enables you to write with a preprocessor and then see how it translates out once it has been preprocessed. 02. Embed features When it comes to including code in your blog posts, articles and presentations, CodePen embeds are incredibly versatile, and have a few special features. All embeds have a theme that controls the style of the CodePen header, tabs and other details. There are two built-in themes: light and dark. Every CodePen member also gets a customisable personal theme, which you can edit to match your blog’s theme or your heart’s desire. The special thing here is that if you change your theme, CodePen will retroactively update all your previous embeds. So there’s no need to go back to edit each post individually. If you’re a Pro member, you can unlock a few extra features in the world of embeds. Firstly, you have unlimited themes, so you can choose something special for your blog, something different for your slides, and something different again for one-off posts. You can also add your own custom CSS to the entire embed, altering the text styles, fonts and literally anything else. Secondly, Pro users can make their embeds editable. At every conference you head to (or watch online), you’ll end up seeing a few embedded Pens within slides. They’re a great way to showcase your code, as well as its resulting markup and styles. You can show something off while still allowing the code to be tweaked and tuned. Editable embeds are also great for interactive blog posts and tutorials – the author can embed a Pen on the page, and visitors will be able to edit and explore the code and see their changes take effect in real time. Finally, if you’re really going for full customisation, the CodePen iframe has a custom PostMessage API you can use to change the tabs dynamically. First, we get the iframe instance and send it the tabs we want to appear: The above message would set the active tabs on the embed to a split view showing the CSS alongside its result. This feature, combined with a custom theme, enables you to create your own interface and layout through which others can interact with your Pen. In this live example, a Pen cycles through its code to show each tab over time. 03. Live view and live sync Live View is a full-page view of your Pen that updates in real time, as you edit the code. It’s just like the preview in the editor, except that this URL can be open in another window or tab, in a different browser, or even on a completely different computer or device. This means, for instance, that you can use Live View to test your code in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and on your phone all at once. There’s literally no limit to how many different browsers you can use. As an added perk, events are also synced across these views, so when you scroll on one screen, they will all scroll with you. When you click a checkbox on one, it will be checked on all the screens. It really does make cross-device and cross-browser testing a breeze. And to make things even easier, CodePen also offers a feature that allows you to text yourself the current live URL, so there’s really no excuse not to get testing! 04. The Pattern Library This resource collects Pens to suit a whole range of needs and requirements – if you’re looking for inspiration, head hereAs CodePen has grown, we’ve been able to see so many Pens and collections built out by the world. When you have so much code coming in, it’s hard not to see a few patterns emerging, as well as people solving similar problems in different creative ways. So if you’re in the mood for a little inspiration, or need some ideas to kick off a new project, the CodePen Pattern Library is where you should head! The Pattern Library is an incredible resource filled with hundreds of Pens, all sorted according to specific needs. Looking to add a rating system to your site? There’s a pattern collection for that. Researching different breadcrumb patterns? There’s a collection for that. Submissions for the library are open to the public, so if you’ve made something fun or fitting, you’ll be a shoo-in! In a similar vein, there are some great user-made pens that acts as a live demonstration of a certain JavaScript or CSS feature. I find these incredibly informative and useful as resources: Flexbox Playground: This playground Pen by Gabi Siquès demonstrates interactively how each Flexbox property behaves, making it easy to find the specific properties you’re looking for Easing Playground: This Pen by Craig Roblewsky lets you edit and customise GreenSock easings in real time, so you can get those interactions silky smooth Loaders and Spinners: This collection supports over 500 unique loaders and spinners. If you’re ever in a rut, this will be the single point of contact that can take you out of it! 05. Pens as resources Although CodePen was initially built to show smaller, more isolated code demos, it became apparent that some users wanted a little more structure and obfuscation. The solution was to make it possible to use Pens as resources for other Pens. In its most basic form, this is done by exposing the raw, compiled JavaScript and CSS from each Pen. This way, you can build out a really large project structure with individual components. You can do this for any Pen: so for codepen.io/team/codepen/pen/EVdVpQ you would add the suffix .js to view the JavaScript, or .css to view the CSS. You can link up CSS or JavaScript from one Pen and use it in another to form a ‘dependency’ in the looser sense of the word. However, if you use a preprocessor, it is possible to create a ‘real’ dependency. So if you define a set of variables and mixins for one Pen and link it up to another Pen as an external resource, you’ll be able to use those same variables and mixins in the second Pen, where they would otherwise fail or error. 06. CodePen TV CodePen TV dispays a slideshow of random animated Pens – just sit back and enjoyBorn on a random hack day in 2015, CodePen TV demos Pen collections in an endless loop on a full screen. So if you’re presenting at a conference, this would be a great way to show off what people are making on the big screen in the background. There’s also a little Mac screensaver you can use to display all of your favourite Pens on your idle screens. This works really well with more visual CSS and Canvas Pens. 07. Prefill API With the Prefill API, you can offer links and demos in your documentation without having to code anythingOne of the most powerful and useful features of CodePen is its Prefill API, which enables you to add links and demos to your documentation and demo pages without having to actually code anything in CodePen. This feature has led to CodePen becoming a large part of the Mozilla Developer Network, as well as a number of other great resources. It works by passing specific parameters to a defined URL. To prefill a Pen with the code and options you choose, you can POST to codepen.io/pen/define/ with data, where the value of data is JSON containing all the bits you want prefilled. For example, here is a simple Hello World: When you submit this form, you will be taken to the CodePen editor, with the title and HTML of the Pen filled in as per the defined data. It doesn’t stop here, either. You can define almost all Pen settings from this API, to offer up complete custom editors, with preprocessors included. You can read more about the Prefill API here. 08. CodePen Templates When you’re saving a Pen, you also have the option to save it out as a template. The template feature lets you create and save a default set of code and settings for Pens, like a reusable starter kit. Maybe you like to use Markdown and Sass, and have jQuery available – you could make a template for that. Or maybe sometimes you use Jade, Sass and a responsive meta tag in the . You could make a template for that, too. But templates aren’t just settings, they are the actual code in the HTML, CSS and JavaScript editors as well. Anything you write in the editor panels will be included in your template. These are incredibly useful when you’re working with a company JavaScript library or setup, and want to get a project up and running quickly. These templates are also increasingly being used in specific library setups as well: having react, react-dom and a basic component scaffold rigged up and ready to go in just one click really saves a lot of time! This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 283 – subscribe here. Related articles: 20 JavaScript tools to blow your mind A beginner's guide to designing interface animations 10 golden rules for responsive SVGs View the full article

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Learn everything about running your own design and content sprints at Generate London on 20 September. Right now is an exciting time for design. Huge names like Twitter and Facebook have wholeheartedly embraced it into their culture, and business leaders are starting to see the true impact design can have. One of the companies at the root of this change is GV – recently rebranded from Google Ventures – a company dedicated to providing venture capital to startups. When Braden Kowitz became the team's first designer in 2010, rumours of this change were already afoot. "It was a time when CEOs had been hearing that design was important, but they didn't quite know what that meant," he recalls. "Many of them didn't have any designers on staff." Braden Kowitz: "We're creating many big tech companies that have design in their DNA."Kowitz had been working as a user experience designer at Google, developing products like Gmail and Google Apps, but the opportunity to work with businesses at the start of their journey caught his imagination. "At that stage, design can have a big impact on what the company does and what the company is," he says. He explains that although design is now very prominent in tech giants like Google and Facebook, that shift has taken place very gradually, over the past 10 years. "I'm interested in getting into companies when they are three people, or when they're 10 people. And hopefully those companies will grow up to be at the same scale. We're creating many big tech companies that have design in their DNA." Developing new habits from sprints In the early days at GV, Kowitz would cycle around to the different startups in San Francisco, dedicating a month or so to each, helping them solve problems and guiding them towards a design-led approach. In time, though, it became clear that effecting a real change was no easy task. Kowitz recalls how company founders would ask him how they could embrace design in their business, and he would go in and explain the basic design process and the team they would need. They would nod and agree with everything he said, but very rarely would there be any change in the organisation afterwards. He points out that while altering your habits as an individual is hard, altering the habits of an organisation is much harder. The solution, although it would take a while to fully mature, was to develop a process that any company could follow: the five-day design sprint. The methodology lays out a way for companies to solve any design problem within the course of one working week, and has been making waves in the web industry. It goes something like this: discuss the problem at hand on Monday, sketch your solutions on Tuesday, pick your favourite on Wednesday, prototype it on Thursday, test it with users on Friday, and be out of the office in time for end-of-the-week drinks. Steve Fisher will be hosting a full-day workshop on design and content sprints at Generate London. There are only limited tickets available, so book yours now! It's explored in detail in Sprint, the book Kowitz co-authored with fellow GV design partners Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. "We decided to show people a very good design process and get them hooked on it. That's part of what a sprint is," Kowitz explains. "When we work with teams, we force them through the process in a very condensed period, so they can see all the way from ideation through to prototyping and testing. Often companies will come back and say things like, 'Wow, you saved us three months of effort.'" This leaves companies more open to embracing other changes, because they have seen firsthand the impact design can have. The sprint process is also a practical solution to the GV design team's burgeoning day-to-day responsibilities. GV now has over 320 companies on its books, and with only five designers on the team, it's clear those days of breezily cycling between startups for a month at a time are gone. With the sprint, GV has an efficient way to teach companies the entire design process. "Sometimes I think of it as being like a recipe," muses Kowitz. "There are thousands of ways to make a cake and there are thousands of ways to practise design. But if you're just getting started in the kitchen, or if you're just getting started with design, sometimes you just need a recipe. "It may not be the only way you do it or the best way to do it in this instance, but it'll get you started. And by doing it you'll understand more about what design thinking is and what the design process is, and the value behind prototyping and talking to customers." How design sprints help clients One project that benefited from the approach was Blue Bottle Coffee, a startup coffee roaster that has since gone international. When Kowitz visited the company, it was looking at moving into delivering coffee via the post and via its website. After one week together, GV and Blue Bottle Coffee had created prototypes and tested them with customers. The feedback from the user tests had led them to a novel solution. "Most people sell coffee by region. You'll go into the store and they'll go, 'Here's some Kenyan coffee; here's some Colombian coffee.' And it turns out very few people know what those would taste like," smiles Kowitz. Instead, Blue Bottle Coffee focuses on how the potential customer brews their coffee at home. Different roasting styles and types of coffee are more suited to particular brewing methods: in a coffee maker or in an espresso machine, for example. "By asking a simple question that people know how to answer, we can very quickly pare down the coffees available to ones that are more likely to be great-tasting for them, and make them feel more confident in their choice," Kowitz points out. "So many people in organisations are creative... great ideas come from all sorts of places."In order to really get to the nub of the problem, and in line with sprint guidelines, GV assembled everyone from the CEO to the director of operations for the process. That might seem like overkill, but Kowitz resolutely believes that having a range of viewpoints feeding into the sprint is vital to reaching an effective solution quickly. The founder can provide insight into the key business aims, while the person responsible for delivering the beans to customers might understand the operations pipeline in a way that no one else could. Design sprints as a team effort Getting everyone together has also had the effect of showing that creative ideas can come from unexpected places. "Designers often think of themselves as a tribe. We call ourselves 'creatives' and we think we're the ones that are going to come up with all the good solutions," laughs Kowitz. "But time and time again I've found that so many people in organisations are creative. If you give them the time and the ability and the encouragement to sketch out ideas, great ideas come from all sorts of places." This ties in with another of Kowitz's beliefs: that design knowledge should not be solely the preserve of designers. Although people may be adamant that they're most effective when they're focusing purely on whatever they see as their job, a little crossover into other disciplines can have a huge positive impact. He draws parallels with the early days of software engineering, when there would be a team writing code, and a totally separate team responsible for testing that code. Having one team motivated by speed and another motivated by quality didn't make for a smooth workflow, nor did it lead to great products. In many organisations today, the picture looks similar. The engineering and product teams are mostly focused on speed, and the design team is tasked with making sure it's a product customers will love. "Often the only way you have to tell what's good is self-critique and community critique."Just as the software quality movement upended the software engineering process, Kowitz thinks attitudes to design are headed for a change. "We're finding that design quality does have to be everyone's job. And that means some other people in the organisation are going to have to probably spend a bit of time on design activities." To clarify, Kowitz is not suggesting everyone should be a whizz in Photoshop or that CEOs should be booking themselves on to colour theory courses. He points to user research as a particular example; for non-designers, it can be extremely valuable to watch the research process. "It turns out that if we don't understand what our customers need or what they want, all the little decisions we make along the way are not going to be as good." Critique as part of design sprints Ask Kowitz what the future of design looks like, and he'll mention a word that most designers dread: critique. "In fields where you can't measure the effectiveness of your work, often the only way you have to tell what's good is self-critique and community critique," he explains. This inward-looking process has led to a view that the design industry is just a bunch of people making beautiful things for each other. However, as design takes a more prominent role, the demands placed on designers are rising. "As design starts to move into the core of businesses, we can develop much better measures of whether design is working," says Kowitz. "We have to move away from just designing things our peers appreciate and into effectiveness. Do our designs actually work? Do they make the company better? Do they make the experience better for customers? That's very much stuff that we can measure and get better at. And I think that is where design is going." Photography: Brian Tan Steve Fisher, experience architect and founder of The Republic of Quality, will run a full-day workshop on design and content sprints at Generate London on 20 September, followed by a keynote talk on the second day of the conference. By booking a combined conference and workshop pass, you save £95. Get yours now! This article originally appeared in net magazine issue 281. Related articles: How to host a successful design sprint Steve Fisher reveals how to run design and content sprints How to design teamwork View the full article

Choosing the right typeface is a crucial part of the logo design process, but when it comes to defining the unique characteristics of a brand, it can also play a much more subtle role in shaping its personality and tone of voice. For smaller brands, this tends to be as simple as selecting an existing typeface that’s best suited for their particular needs. But the ultimate solution, for those with the time and budget to do so, is a bespoke font tweaked to perfection. Studios such as Dalton Maag, Commercial Type, Fontsmith and Hoefler & Co haver extensive experience in developing bespoke typefaces for brands, and many of their clients have honed their personality across many different platforms as a result. Read on to discover how bespoke typography has enhanced brands across five different sectors… 01. Motion-friendly type for broadcasters On-screen branding provides a particular challenge for bespoke typefaces, as motion graphics come into play alongside all manner of other uses, from billboards to corporate stationery. Brody Associates’ highly distinctive typeface for Channel 4 is a great example of the versatility required to convey personality in this field. Within the same family, it combines a functional text face (Chadwick) with a highly expressive display version (Horseferry). Channel 4 can choose between text face Chadwick and display face HorseferryHorseferry incorporates elements from Channel 4’s logo into the letterforms, with highly unconventional, striking results that can only function at large sizes, such as for advertising. Chadwick follows the same basic structure, but calms things down to help with legibility, particularly when used to communicate information on screen. The curves of the ITV logotype are echoed in its typefaceFor ITV, Fontsmith was given the task of translating the smooth, flowing curves of the broadcaster’s logotype into a whole typeface family to be used across the brand, including TV, online and on-demand applications. The resulting typeface is detailed and wide proportioned, with a subtle calligraphic feel. According to Fontsmith: “When you take a pen off the page when writing, you get the sense of a rounded ending to the stroke or line creating a subtle, modern and bouncy script tone of voice.” 02. Standout typography for packaging When it comes to brands that express themselves on packaging, on-shelf standout becomes a critical factor to consider in a typeface. And where global brands are concerned, different language support also comes into play as that packaging needs to cater to different markets. Colgate Ready was translated into a range of different scriptsAnother Fontsmith case study is Colgate, in collaboration with The Partners and Red Fuse Communications. The brief was to reflect the “emotional and tonal dimensions” of the brand through a Roman/Latin typeface in three different weights, and ‘Colgate Ready’ was the result. Colgate Ready was translated into Cyrillic, Eastern European, Devanagari and Thai, with a consistent stroke weight, x-height, cap height, width proportions and terminals. Hoefler & Co's bespoke typeface is used sparingly on Tiffany & Co's packagingAt the other end of the scale, in the luxury market, Tiffany & Co’s unique typeface, created by Hoefler & Co, is used sparingly on the jeweller’s minimalist packaging, making those iconic duck-egg-blue boxes even more desirable. 03. Flexible typography for retail Another fascinating application of bespoke type is in the retail space, where applications range from signage and wayfinding, to point-of-sale displays, to own-brand packaging. Dalton Maag was commissioned to create a bespoke font for Lush, translating the boutique cosmetics brand’s distinctive chalkboard-style handwritten signage into a more neutral and contemporary typeface. “Every letter had two alternate versions, while the most-used letters had three alternates,” explains designer Riccardo de Franceschi. “On top of these we created ligatures, and selected them according to not only frequency of use, but also the way the Lush handwriters write.” For Lush's typeface, each character needed two or three alternative versionsLush’s typeface helps develop its boutique, artisan brand voice, but larger stores need to tread a finer line between personality and functionality – such as Fontsmith’s bespoke typeface for Sainsbury’s, which uses the foundry’s own FS Lola as a starting point. “The new font needed to successfully stretch across a wide range of channels including above the line marketing, online, publications, packaging, in-store services, in-store navigation and in-store pricing,” reveals the agency. “It had to work from 400pt, all the way down to 6pt.” Sainsbury's' font needed to stretch across a wide range of usesFS Lola’s distinctive slab serifs were softened, while regularly used brand words – particularly those that featured in wayfinding and signage – were adjusted on a case by case basis to improve legibility while conveying the supermarket’s personality. 04. Scalable typography for mobile When it comes to mobile use, the need for functionality and legibility at tiny sizes on small screens can all too easily overwhelm brand personality. But it’s not impossible. For Nokia, Dalton Maag faced a massive, multi-platform, multi-language projectBespoke type projects don’t get much more in-depth than Dalton Maag’s breakthrough project for global giant Nokia, which saw the agency expand massively to handle the demands of the multi-platform, multi-language project – including Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Greek and Russian. “This was all about going back to Finnish design roots – clean, simple, pure – and functionality was the primary objective,” explains Bruno Maag. “There was a big discussion about whether the brand fonts should have more personality or not. While the UI fonts need to be functional and readable, the display fonts have to do something else for their job.” Fontsmith created this bespoke semi-slab serif typeface for Movistar Fontsmith collaborated with Interbrand on a bespoke semi-slab serif typeface for Movistar, Telefónica’s Spanish and Latin American mobile operator. According to the agency: “We needed to be mindful that the slab wasn’t too static, that it had rhythm, progression, an approachable nature, and was authentic.” 05. Apt typography for editorial One of the most varied uses for a bespoke typeface is in a newspaper or magazine, purely because there are so many sizes, weights and styles involved in different capacities. Commercial Type designed this multi-weight typeface for The Guardian in 2005A particularly high-profile example of this is Commercial Type’s multi-weight typeface for The Guardian, which coincided with the newspaper's transition to the Berliner format in 2005. It has served the newspaper well ever since, although the recent announcement that it’ll shrink to tabloid size in 2018 may prompt another refresh. The extensive family incorporates several interrelated families: an Egyptian for headlines; a Text Egyptian; four different widths of Sans for headlines; and finally an Agate Sans. Between them, they can handle everything from hard-hitting headlines to tiny financial listings. Wired is synonymous with innovative typographyOne magazine that's synonymous with innovative use of type is Condé Nast’s Wired – and again, Hoefler & Co rose to the challenge with Forza, an adaptable sans serif based on a rounded rectangle structure that, like Guardian Collection, is available commercially. “Wired commissioned us to design a square sans as its editorial workhorse – one that could handle everything from philosophical essays to down-to-earth service pieces,” reports Hoefler & Co. “Forza’s sophisticated visual vocabulary makes it alert and engaging, and its broad palette of weights ensures it can meet the needs of the most demanding designer.” Related articles: 7 examples of 2017's biggest logo design trend so far 10 great uses of typography in portfolios 50 best free fonts for designers View the full article

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