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The credit bureau Equifax said Monday the information of 145.5M Americans, was implicated in this summer's breach. View the full article

A domain name system server implementation is at risk of remote code execution, information exposure and denial-of-service attacks after a seven vulnerability were disclosed by Google and patched by the maintainers of Dnsmasq. View the full article

Wacom has long been at the top of the game when it comes to interactive pen displays, aka graphics tablets. Wacom's Cintiq range is the premium option for artists and designers working in both 2D and 3D applications. The 7 best graphics tabletsIn recent years, Wacom has produced some excellent models, with great ergonomics matched by good quality materials. With this in mind it’s hard to see where the firm could have improved, except in perhaps reducing the cost of its creative tablets, which makes for a substantial initial investment – although the devices are hardy and stable. However, it appears to have raised its game even further with its latest Wacom Cintiq Pro 13-inch and Wacom Cintiq Pro 16-inch models. Wacom Cintiq Pro price and availability Costing $999.95/£899.99 for the 13-inch and $1,499.95/£1,399.99 for the 16-inch, the new Cintiq Pros follow the same design cues, materials and pen properties as one another. They vary only in screen specifications, where the 16-inch model is 4K and the 13-inch is full HD. This makes a lot of sense at first glance, as the smaller display will still look sharp and crisp, seeing as the pixels are smaller. However, the reality isn’t quite as clear cut. The 13-inch display is easy to live with and looks great but there is some loss in sheer smoothness of gradients and a little sacrifice in colour rendition. This doesn’t get in the way of a good painting session, but it is noticeable in comparison to the 16-inch version. Our price widgets at the top and bottom of this article show you the best deals that our robots have found online today – or alternatively, the Wacom store offers monthly payment plans. Wacom Cintiq Pro performance The 16-inch Wacom Cintiq Pro has a stunning 4K display. Its IPS display is colour accurate, with good contrast levels, and the pixel density is such that you don’t ever feel you’re working with a screen. This is in part due to the thickness of the screen between surface and pixels, which is minimal on both models. There’s very little parallax – that odd artefact where, in previous models, you can see between the nib and the actual image. This, and the beautifully matte etched glass, makes for a more natural-feeling experience. Often a hard nib and glass won't have quite the right amount of friction, but the Cintiq Pros both are a joy to work with, be it for sculpting 3D models in ZBrush or spending time doing concept work in Corel Painter or Adobe Photoshop. Wacom Cintiq Pro accessories Much was said about previous Cintiq stands, little of it good, and Wacom has listened. These two models have solid fold-out legs that do a great job of supporting the tablet, even when you're leaning heavily on the screen. They aren’t adjustable, so unfortunately you will need to shuffle into a comfortable working position, but they are set at a good 20 degrees, so will suit the majority of people. If you don’t like these legs then there is a separate stand that you can buy that provides more usability. Like previous models these have softkeys top-right to access certain functions such as settings, keyboard and touch input. This is great and keeps the beautifully minimal device looking sleek, but some express keys would be so helpful, for those who shove the keyboard to one side to get best access to draw. Luckily the Expresskey Remote is available as an option (for an extra $99.99/£89.99) that brings back the touch ring, multiple buttons and can be placed anywhere. It’s a great accessory, but you’ll need to factor it into your purchasing decisions. Pro Pen 2 The display can be as crisp as you like but if the stylus is no good it will always be left to one side, consigned to the heap of tech so many of us have. Luckily, the Pro Pen 2 – which comes in the box – is excellent, following the same design as previous models, with a button at each end (nib and eraser) and a two-button rocker. The soft touch rubber is comfortable and chunky enough to relieve strain on the hand for prolonged usage. This version has the tilt from previous incarnations but the sensitivity has been increased to over 8000 levels. While this may sound overkill, in use it makes a lot of sense, as the more sensitive, the more like traditional media it feels. What’s more, it’s a battery-free device and the lag, even with large complex Photoshop brushes or sculpting with high res stamps in 3D, is minimal to the point of non-existence. Wacom Cintiq Pro: final verdict The Wacom Cintiq Pro 13 and 16 come with the Pro Pen 2 in the boxThis all goes to show that, even when it looks like a developer has created a success, there is always room for improvement. Both these Wacom Cintiq Pros are incredible machines that will aid artists and designers in a way that is effective, comfortable and in some cases inspiring. The experience is fantastic and, while the price is higher than other options, the investment is a one-time cost that's well worth making. The 13-inch model may not leave quite the same impression as the bigger brother, but it's substantially cheaper and can be put into a bag with a laptop for working in a more portable fashion – making it perfect for location work, or simply getting out of the house to work over a coffee. Related articles: Wacom's new Cintiq has the biggest screen yet View the full article

It’s time to take a dive into the glorious world of After Effects plugins - third-party add-ons for Adobe Creative Cloud's 3D, motion graphics and animation software. While there are so, so many to choose from, there's bound to be plenty in this little selection to take your work to the next level. Get Adobe Creative CloudWhether enhancing your workflows, adding features that simply don’t exist in the core After Effects application or simply just making stuff look cool, After Effects has never been in better health when mixed with these great tools. 01. Element 3D V2.2 Price: $199.95For a straightforward way of incorporating 3D models into your After Effects work, it's hard to go wrong with Video Copilot's Element 3D. It enables you to import OBJ and C4D objects into your After Effects projects, complete with automatic texture importing. Create complex animations with plenty of great-looking features including low poly distortion, particle noise with subsurface scattering, shadows, reflections and ambient occlusion. It's GPU accelerated, too, so if you have a fat graphics card installed then you can enjoy lightning-fast renders. 02. Twitch Twitch lets you build and automate all manner of effects and transitions Price: $45If your work's just a little too clean-looking for your liking, Video Copilot's Twitch is an easy-to-use and cost-effective way to rough things up a bit. With six operators to play with – blur, colour, light, scale, slide and time – it's a straightforward way to spice up your projects with effects such as glitches, lens blur, RGB split and motion blur. Twitch comes with 25 ready-made presets to get you started, as well as 10 royalty-free sound effects to sweeten the deal. 03. Plexus 3 Plexus 3 can create so much more than lines and dots Price: $249.99Plexus from Rowbyte Software has become one of the few plugins that has defined a look by its name. Everyone knows what is meant when a brief asks for the Plexus effect. The fact is that with some manipulation, Plexus is capable of so much more than dots and lines, and with version 3, even more effects and enhancements have been added. One great one is the Plexus Object Panel, which gives an easy way to manage the plexus scene, and is something we would love to see in other complex AE plugins. 04. PQ FUI Toys 2 PQ FUI Toys 2 is a great resource for UI graphics when deadlines are tight Price: $49Ever have a panic deadline that needs some fancy UI graphics? Well, PQ FUI Toys 2 is a great way to add to and enhance any scene with these small motion graphic elements that cover most areas of UI design. While the artist in you may scoff at the idea of using pre-made comps, each of these comps is easily editable to the base level, and is a massive time saver when time is tight. 05. Motion V2 Motion V2 packs a whole plethora of great workflow features into a tiny palette Price: $35Motion V2 is an excellent After Effects workflow plugin. It's amazing how much is packed into this little palette. Motion V2 can set all of your tweening, organise your projects into folders with one click, add animatable lines between any two layers, and group layers to parent nulls. The ability to quickly define the axis point of any shape layer is worth the $35 pricetag alone. 06. Duik Duik offers a complete IK rigging animation toolset for free Price: FreeAfter Effects does have a good basic rigging system, but Duik takes rigging to a whole new level. The best thing is that Duik is free, along with the rest of Rainbox’s AE plugins. More and more with advanced animation work, clients are requesting Duik and it's being seen as the animation backbone for a wide range of projects. 07. Nodes 2 Nodes 2 is brilliant for creating advanced animations in seconds Price: $299/£232.51Nodes 2 is capable of creating a huge range of different imagery from advanced 3D UI elements to more abstract ‘stuff’, which can all be manipulated and navigated through in 3D space. The only downside is that there's no Windows support, but if you are Mac based, check Nodes out now. 08. Magic Bullet Denoiser III Denoiser III is essential for any CG artist working with After Effects for cleaning up render noise Price: $199As an After Effects artist who also works in 3D a lot, Magic Bullet Denoiser III is essential for cleaning up renders. I use the Octane GPU render engine for a lot of my work, and find that Denoiser III can instantly fix a multitude of grainy render problems far more quickly than rendering out more samples in CG. And with GPU support, Red Giant's Denoiser III is quick as well. It also works great with camera footage. 09. Universe 2.1 Red Giant Universe has nearly 60 GPU based tools and effects to bring any kind of project to life Price: $99 per year/$20 per monthI have come to depend on the 60 effects in Red Giant Universe more than I would care to admit. From transitions (which also work in Premiere) to video effects and motion graphics, there is so much handy ‘stuff’ in Red Giant Universe that to not even give it a trial would be remiss. As all of the effects are GPU based, I tend to use them more than equivalent native effects because they are so much quicker. 10. Trapcode Mir 2.1 Trapcode Mir is a multi-use looping geometry creation workhorse Price: $99When Red Giant first launched Trapcode Mir, it was hard to get a handle on how it would be useful, but with version 2.0 (and now 2.1), Mir hit the big time. Mir can be used to create deformable geometry that can be rendered to create beautiful looping abstract pieces and landscapes. Where I have found Mir really useful is for creating undulations in existing compositions, where it can really bring life and depth more quickly than animating the comp itself. 11. Lenscare Lenscare provides convincing depth of field effects for CG and video Price: $199If there is one After Effects plugin that has become ubiquitous among artists and studios it is Lenscare from Frischluft. Lenscare is really two plugins. FL Depth of Field can use Depth data from a 3D render to create a realistic depth of field in CG without having the render overhead of rendering DoF in CG, and the focus point and depth amount is animatable. FL Out of Focus is a quicker version with no depth input, which uses the Frischluft engine to create beautiful lens blurs – essential. 12. Trapcode Particular 3 Particular’s Effect Builder is great for creating new FX templates Price: $399It seems like Red Giant's Trapcode Particular has been around since the dawn of After Effects time. It, like Plexus 3, is becoming much more artist-friendly as it breaks out of the Effects Panel. The Particular Effects Builder palette is a great way to build up the basics of the FX feature that is needed for a comp. Every component can be seen, from sprites to physics, and manipulated to get the look that is required without interfering with the main animation, which can be a massive help when developing new work. Contributions: Jim McCauley Related articles: Inspiring examples of 3D art Best laptops for video editing Amazing After Effects tutorials View the full article

Digital innovation doesn't have to mean ripping up the rule book – it can involve trusting your gut and paring things back to the essentials. Here, Halo's technical director Alex Martin and senior UX/UI designer Tim Banks reveal how the studio stays ahead of the curve when it comes to new technologies, and share some best-practice user experience design advice (scroll down to watch the video). 01. Focus on the big idea To help festival T in the Park stand out in a crowded market, Halo used vibrant colours and strong typography“Data can drive you in certain directions, but it won’t show you if there’s a big idea,” says Tim Banks. “If you want to change something radically, it’s hard to have data to hand beforehand. Sometimes you need to do more testing afterwards, to go, ‘You’ve had this hypothesis, let’s actually test it to see if it works in a real environment.’” 02. Don’t lean too hard on research 
The classic quote from Henry Ford, inventor of the motor car – “If I asked people what they’d wanted, they’d have said faster horses” – applies to modern innovation, too. “You’ve got to go with your gut at first – testing comes after,” insists Alex Martin. “User research can be overwhelming, and you’ll just give them 
a better version of what they’ve got, rather than something new and fresh that’ll actually make a difference.” 03. Keep it as simple as possible Gigs in Scotland benefitted from Halo’s user-friendly design, with the clean layout allowing music lovers to easily find the information they need“Strip out everything you don’t need, and give people the clearest and most straightforward journey you can,” is Martin’s advice. “Sometimes the UX is great to start with, but people mess up on content.” 04. Consider content from the outset As the old adage goes, content is king 
– so don’t make it an afterthought. “You see designs that have been made without any idea of what content will go into them. That’s a big failing,” argues Banks. 05. Avoid gilding the lily “As developers, we need to be careful not to put in things just to keep ourselves amused. We’re all guilty of that,” warns Martin. “There’s no point just changing it 
up unless there’s good reason.” This article originally appeared in issue 269 of Computer Arts magazine. Buy it now. Read more: Great business cards for UX designers 6 things to watch out for in UX design Essential TED talks for UX designers View the full article

It's not enough to just put your content up online and hope people take notice. You need to give people an experience they'll enjoy by making your sites and apps easy to navigate. Learn how to build a better, more responsive website that visitors will love coming back to with the UI/UX Professional Designer Bundle, on sale now for just $39 (approx £29)! The UI and UX Designer Bundle includes eight incredible courses that are packed with lessons to teach you the fundamentals of web and app design with the goal of improving the overall user experience on your websites and apps. You'll work through ways to use popular coding languages such as HTML and CSS and tweak your site to be more responsive and easier for users to interact with. You'll pick up the concepts of user interface and modern design principles in a snap with this collection of courses. You can get the UI and UX Designer Bundle on sale right now for just $39 (approx £29). That's a 94% saving off the full retail price for this can't-miss bundle of courses that will up your design game, so grab this deal today. Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. View the full article

The primary objective of any page you design, whether it's for a printed brochure or the latest web app, is to communicate information clearly and effectively to the reader. One of the best ways to ensure that the key messages are delivered to the reader is to create a balanced layout. 14 best-practice rules for striking editorial designPage layout typically involves a lot of placement, rearranging and formatting of elements. Many designers approach this process organically, feeling their way to a pleasing end result. While this can lead to some excellent happy accidents, there is a risk that using a free-form methodology can result in a lack of visual balance on the page. A good page composition should be both pleasing to the eye, and also communicate those key messages clearly to the intended audience. We've collected together some top tips to help you ensure your page layouts have balance. These approaches will work well to provide a structure for balance, regardless of the medium you're working with. 01. Use a grid One of the easiest ways to ensure your page has a degree of balance is to use a grid system. Grids used to be the sole preserve of the printed page, but much work has been completed online in the past few years to help migrate the concept of the grid across to the digital medium. By using a grid to inform the position of different elements on a page, you'll create a connection between the different elements that make up your page. This can help provide a sense of order to your layout, providing the reader with a clear structural reference to fall back on. This is important because when all your page elements have a feeling of connectivity with each other, the overall effect feels more comfortable to the reader, helping to put them at ease, and facilitating their access to the important stuff: the content. 02. Choose a single focal point One of the most effective ways to provide a sense of balance is to choose a single focal point for your layout. A good example of this in practice is the use of a large image as the biggest single element on a page. A strong visual can provide a powerful way to lead the reader into your page, and also supplies a useful structural element around which to arrange the remaining content in your layout. If you have multiple visual elements, use the proximity principle of Gestalt Theory to group them together, aligning them in the same way. It's also worth keeping in mind that you can use a headline or pull quote in the same way; a good display headline can offer as much visual interest as an image, while continuing to provide the structure that will help you ensure a balanced layout. 03. Use the Rule of Thirds One of the best ways to provide a sense of balance is to use the designer's favourite Rule of Thirds or Golden Ratio. Put simply, the rule of thirds says that if you divide your page into thirds both vertically and horizontally, the points at which the grid lines intersect provide the natural focal points of a composition. By aligning your key elements to these four points, you'll achieve a more pleasing composition than if you, for example, perfectly centre elements on your page. In itself the rule of thirds won't magically provide your layout with balance, but by extending the principle it's easy to use this tendency towards a natural focal point to help inform the balance of your layout. A common approach is to place the most important elements of your page in the upper (or lower) third of the page, with the primary focal point aligned to match one of the intersections. 04. Use white space It's common for novice designers to make use of every single bit of space on a page, stuffing in content until every gap has been filled. The more experienced know that sometimes the best bit of design involves leaving elements out, rather than shoehorning them in. In the printed medium, the most common way to make use of white space is by enlarging the page margins and gutters. On the web, simply providing plenty of breathing room around elements can help make the layout feel composed and balanced. Using negative space works best when you have a clear structure that anchors content together (such as that provided by a grid), as the risk of white space can be a sense of disconnection between page elements if introduced haphazardly. 05. Repeat design elements Another Gestalt principle, repetition can provide a strong sense of connected design and balance to a composition. The idea is that by identifying and re-using a motif or design treatment throughout your layout, you can provide a reference for the reader so that disparate areas feel connected and part of the same overall composition. You can also use this technique to provide a focal point in your design, while retaining an overall balance, by intentionally breaking the pattern of similarity introduced through repetition. 06. Use hierarchy One of the key approaches to achieving layout nirvana is a clear sense of structure and hierarchy. We've already touched on structure, but it's important to also convey the relative importance of different pieces of content on your page. A headline, for example, should almost always be more visually important than body text content. Look at the different elements that make up your page and decide which element is the most important. Use this element to provide a structural hook for the remaining elements on the page, keeping it most important. 07. Use scale, contrast, and harmony Finally, the use of scale can be a very effective method for achieving a good visual balance in your layout. By making some elements larger than others, a sense of order and hierarchy will emerge. This helps create a comfortable layout because the viewer will automatically look at the larger elements within the layout first, progressing through to the smaller elements as they read. This principle also works with increased contrast, so that by isolating an element on the page through contrast will make the eye focus on that point first. This provides a way in to the page, and again gives a useful structural point to develop your layout from. Both scale and contrast work best when they apply to one element, making it stand out from the other parts of your layout. Use the principles of harmony to make the others feel connected and accentuate the focal point. Related articles: Best laptops for graphic design 60 free must-have Photoshop brushes The best Photoshop plugins View the full article

Poetry can make people swoon, and a shocking image can enrage people to action. But one of the lesser-known, but no less powerful, ways to invoke emotion is through colour. There is much written about colour theory, and you only need to look at the world around you to see – and feel – its impact. 21 outstanding uses of colour in brandingEvery colour elicits a different and unique emotional response in the viewer, and a clever web designer (or any visual professional, in fact) will know the effect of each colour, plus how and when to use each. While the discipline of colour theory is broad, this article will teach you the fundamentals in a single, quick-reference source. But before we delve into the emotional nuances of 12 separate colours, we need to first make a quick note about vibrancy. Different shades of the same colour will also have different effectsSimply put, a colour's vibrancy is how dark or light it is. The tricky part about vibrancy is that, just like each individual colour has its own properties, so does each shade of the same colour. While light green and dark green have more in common than green and purple, they will still have smaller, more subtly different effects on the user. Below, we'll explain all the noteworthy differences between a colour's shades, regarding their impact on web design. As a general rule, though, brighter shades tend to be more energetic, while darker shades feel more relaxing. The brighter shades of calls-to-action attract the eye, while the darker shades in backgrounds help create an immersive effect. Now on to the impact on viewers of different colours... 01. Red Used here, red is playful and stimulating Passionate, aggressive, important As a dominating colour, red adds gravity and heightened awareness – quite literally, as the colour increases blood circulation, breathing rates, and metabolism. Red can take on a variety of meanings, associated with both love and war, but the unifying factor in all meanings is a sense of importance. Think of the red carpet. Red is a colour best used cautiously. Its knack for attracting attention makes it a priceless tool for designers, but used excessively it will inhibit relaxation. Lighter shades emphasise the energetic aspects of red – including youthfulness – while darker shades emphasise power, and even durability, such as a brick wall. The landing page for the game design company Playtika has an aggressive but potent flair. Playful and stimulating, the red suits the cheetah logo – a powerful icon itself, softened by its cartoonish qualities and anthropomorphic smile. 02. Orange Epic uses orange as a highlight colour on its websitePlayful, energetic, cheap Sharing red's energising aspects, but to a safer degree, orange is a good way to add excitement to a site without severity. It is generally playful, and some claim it creates haste and plays on impulse. It can even signify health, suggesting vitality and vibrance. Creative agency Epic uses orange as the highlight colour on its website. The choice emphasises the team's playfulness and youthfulness. 03. Yellow Yellow can be revitalising or jarringHappy, friendly, warning Yellow is a strange colour: it is often associated with happiness, but also activates the anxiety centre of the brain. Like red and orange, it's able to stimulate and revitalise – it's the colour of warning signs and taxis – but use bright yellow sparingly because of the potential negative connotations. Lighter shades play on the happiness aspects, reminding users of summer and the sun. Darker shades, including gold, add more weight and give a sense of antiquity. The bright yellow-dominated colour palette on the Post-it website is synonymous with the product itself. It creates an energetic vibe, and is instantly recognisable as that particular brand. 04. Green The green scheme emphasises Massis' natural qualitiesNatural, stable, prosperous Green mostly represents the environment and outdoors, for obvious reasons, making it the clear choice to suggest nature and an organic quality. As the bridge between stimulating, warm colours (red, orange, yellow) and calming, cool colours (blue, purple), it is the most balanced of colours, lending it an air of stability. It's also a popular choice as an accent or for calls-to-action because it stands out, but more softly than the warmer colours. In Western culture, it also represents money and financial safety. Massis Tea plays on its natural qualities with the green scheme for its site. The green top navigation bar, green logo, and photograph of greenery all work together to accentuate the brand's ties to nature. 05. Blue Image courtesy of Evolve WealthSerene, trustworthy, inviting Blue is one of the most popular colours in web design – and for good reason. You see blue on a lot of websites because, to put it simply, it is the colour of trust. Blue is the colour of calm and serenity, and as such inspires security and a feeling of safety. For this reason, blue is a colour often used by banks: CitiBank, Chase, Capital One and Barclays, for example, all use blue. However the calming effects also make blue a friendly and inviting colour, which explains its adoption by Facebook and Twitter. As if that weren't reason enough to use it, blue is also incredibly versatile; its vibrancy has more drastic effects than other colours. Light blue is the colour of water and the sky, so it generally has a refreshing and free feeling – even energising if bright enough, but still retaining that reliable calm. Darker blues tend to be more sombre, heightening the security aspects, which makes them an excellent choice for professionalism. Trust is essential for financial advisors such as Evolve Wealth, so most of its site is designed in varying hues of blue. All this comes at a small price, though: blue shouldn't be used for food-related sites. Because blue foods aren't common in the wild, studies show that the colour actually acts as an appetite suppressant. 06. Purple Purple has links to wealth and luxuryLuxurious, mysterious, romantic Long associated with royalty, purple creates an air of luxury, even decadence. Using a purple dominantly is a quick way to create a sense of elegance or high-end appeal, even if your product is budget-minded (an 'expensive' effect that's quite the opposite of orange). Lighter shades of purple – especially lavender – bring to mind spring and romance. Darker shades add more mystery, and can even symbolise creativity. Darkening the shade will also turn the romantic elements more sensual. With its ties to personal wealth, WooCommerce chose purple as the colour to represent its WooView app, playing on themes like royalty and panache that fit the function of checking how much money you're making in real time. Next page: 6 more colours and the effects they have on viewers 07. Pink Pink creates a soft mood on this renting websiteFeminine, young, innocent Pink is a specialist colour that won't work for a lot of websites, but will work perfectly with the right audience. Because most people interpret pink as feminine, the colour is popular for targeting female users. However, don't overdo the pink-femininity connection, or else you're walking a fine line between appealing to users and pandering to gender stereotypes. Its links with childhood and with sugary treats give pink a sweet, sometimes innocent appeal (not surprisingly a self-perpetuating cycle). It is also traditionally used with love and romantic themes, alongside red and light purple. Rental service Rentberry's website uses pink as its key colour. In this case, it creates a soft, safe vibe, and intentionally distances itself from more corporate, traditional rental services. 08. Brown B&O Play uses brown in an unexpected way on its siteEarthy, sturdy, rustic While not a popular choice in web design, brown can, under the right circumstances, be effective nonetheless. As the colour associated with the earth and trees, brown can add an outdoorsy feel, maximised by a pairing with green. The tree connotations also give a sturdy and reliable feeling. In web design, brown is often used in conjunction with wood texturing, giving the same old-fashioned and rustic atmosphere of a wooden cabin. While tech websites are typically dominated by stronger, bolder shades, the microsite for B&O Play uses brown to great effect. The muted tones suggest a classier, more human side to the technology on offer. Natural connotations also remain: wood and leather feature prominently in the hero video, while a marble effect is used in the background. 09. Black Black creates a real impact on Cartelle's websitePowerful, sophisticated, edgy As the strongest of all colours, black is often used only sparingly – such as for text – but it works quite well as a primary colour element (like for backgrounds). Much like purple, black adds an air of sophistication and elegance, and also mystery, though with much bolder confidence. The heavy use of black for the Cartelle creative agency creates unquestionable impact on its homepage and subsequent animations. 10. White An off-white background keeps the focus on the shoes hereClean, virtuous, healthy Literally the opposite of black, white pairs well with just about anything, making it ideal as a secondary colour. In a supporting role, white draws out the elements of more stimulating colours, and can even guide your user's attention if you know how to use it (check out UXPin's Zen of White Space in Web UI Design guide to learn more). As a primary colour, though, white gives off an impression that is both clean and chaste. White has that 'spotless' feeling that, for the right site, feels completely effortless. Its association with purity can make it seem virtuous, but also sterile and cold. To soften this feeling of sterility, some web designers will tend towards an ivory or cream instead. These offshoots of white are softer and even less noticeable, but with the same minimalist and complementary aspects. They are the more comforting and less stark alternatives to white. The shoe company ETQ uses a dominant off-white background to keep the users' attention where it belongs: on the shoes. 11. Grey Grey is used sensitively on the Galvan Mobili websiteNeutral, formal, gloomy As the intermediary between black and white, grey exudes neutrality, or a lack of any particular sensation. However, in the hands of an expert, this intermediary position can be a powerful tool. By varying the vibrancy, grey can take on the properties of either black or white – attention grabbing or repelling – to specific degrees. That means if black is too powerful for your design, try dark grey. If white is too bland, try light grey. On its own, though, grey is rich with individual characteristics. It is the colour of formality, so sites aiming to look traditional or professional tend to favour it. It can also give a depressing vibe, as it's the colour of gloomy, rainy days. When used dominantly, it can be somewhat subduing, for better or worse. You can tell the Italian furniture company Galvan Mobili uses grey well because you don't even notice it. The grey background gives a professional air, and keeps attention on the pictures and bright red logo. 12. Beige Beige here creates a calming backdropAccentuates surrounding colours Beige may not be a primary colour, but it's worth mentioning because of its accentuating effects: it takes on the characteristics of the colours around it. While dull on its own, its enhancing effects make it a powerful choice as a background or secondary colour. The use of beige for the aptly named Tokyo restaurant Beige Alain Ducasse creates a calming, comfortable backdrop to the more relevant elements such as clickable text and photos. Like this? Read these! The best colour tools for web designers 25 top-class website templates If celebrities were Pantone colours View the full article

http://www.zdnet.com/article/us-supreme-court-rejects-kim-dotcom-forfeiture-appeal/ … View the full article

Logo design is something you should get better at throughout your career, just by doing it. But if you’re looking to create truly great logo designs, practice alone won’t always be enough. In this post, we suggest six key areas you can work on to help improve your logo design, to take it to the next level... 01. Do better research Logo design is all about conveying what the brand stands forLogo design isn’t about making something that looks pretty; it’s about serving a business need and reflecting what a brand stands for. So before you start sketching out ideas, you need to do some solid research into your client and what it's about. In the same way that you’d prepare for a job interview, then, you need to thoroughly research the company and its brand. Read what it has to say about itself, on its website and other official sources, as well as what industry blogs and other commentators have written about it, and what people have posted about it on social media. All this will give you a head start in your initial discussions with the client. Your logo design ideas will be far more likely to be accepted, because you’ll be able to explain them in terms of how they can help the business. An example of this principle in action can be seen in Design Bridge’s 2016 redesign of the Guinness logo, which drew on extensive research into the company’s heritage to tell the brand's story. 02. Ask better questions The initial research you do into a company is only the first step in understanding it. The next is to dig deep; taking advantage of your access to its leaders, and asking some penetrating questions. Your questions will normally include things like: Who is your target audience? How do you plan to grow the business? Who are your main rivals? What’s your mission statement? What are your long-term goals? These may sound irrelevant to the discipline of logo design, but they couldn’t be more central. For example, if the target audience turns out to be the over-50s then you probably won’t want to give your design a youthful, funky vibe. If the main rival’s logo uses a distinctive font, you’ll want to use a different one (for legal reasons alone). It’s also worth asking the obvious question: “Why do you need a new logo?” The answer, or lack of one, can often be quite enlightening. 03. Focus on mobile first Instagram’s newer logo (right) is much more scalable for reading on small screens than its skeuomorphic predecessor (left)If you’ve been paying attention to Creative Bloq's logo news channel, you’ll have noticed a number of big brands have simplified and flattened their logos. They’re continuing a trend that’s been evident throughout the decade, with the likes of Facebook, Instagram, eBay, Microsoft and Yahoo leading the way in making their designs super-minimal. It’s no accident that these firms are all tech giants, because it’s largely a tech-driven phenomenon – but it’s one that increasingly affects all brands. In short, as more and more people start accessing the web via mobile rather than desktop, the more logo designers lose control of the size their creations are reproduced at. When it comes down to a tiny number pixels, an overly fussy logo is just going to look like a splodge, whereas a flat, minimal design with a simple colour palette is still going to be recognisable. Whether you like it or not, then, the future of logo design will be simplified. So you may as well jump on board now and start thinking ‘mobile first’ when you start designing your logo. 04. Exit your font comfort zone One part of creating a distinctive-looking logo can be to use a distinctive-looking font. There are new fonts coming out all the time that could give you that bolt of inspiration; a good place to find them is our constantly updated Best free fonts post, while we’ve gathered together some great logo fonts too. You don’t have to necessarily spend a lot of money to take advantage of new fonts, either. These days, Adobe Illustrator lets you play around with Typekit fonts, directly within the software, without having to purchase them, plus there are a range of other try before you buy font services too. So don’t hold back from experimenting with different fonts, and hopefully inspiration will strike. 05. Study the masters Pay attention to how big-brand logos work in the real worldMany posts on logo design recommend you check out the countless logo galleries that populate the web for inspiration – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t be fooled. Many of these logos are personal or student projects, serving no business need whatsoever. And while others will be real logos, there’s usually little or no information about whether they actually succeeded in their business goals. If you wanted to improve your football prowess, you’d watch the stars of the Premier League, not the kids kicking a ball around on the local playing field. And similarly, if you want to learn logo design, you’re better off learning from the best. So rather than trawling through middling logos on logo galleries, hoping to be inspired, spend your time studying the big brand logos that have stood the test of time. It’s only by seeing how well they work in the real world of posters, packaging, supermarkets, commercials and elsewhere (you don’t exactly have to go far to find them) that you can truly appreciate why and how well they work. Plus, to get a taste of the stories behind them, check out our posts on the history of the McDonald's logo, Penguin books logo, Adidas logo, BMW logo and Coca-Cola logo. 06. Understand psychology It’s all very well giving a long and detailed explanation of why your logo design is so clever. But in reality, nobody (except possibly other designers) will ever glance at your logo for more than a millisecond. To make an impact, then, it needs to appeal to people’s subconscious human instincts, at their most primitive level. It follows that a good understanding of human psychology can help you create better designs that connect on this subliminal level. A proper understanding of psychology requires some serious reading, of course. But if you find academia off-putting then a pop-science book such as Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, Nudge by Richard H Thaler or Drive by Daniel H Pink will get you most of the way there. Meanwhile, for some simple psychological tips, it’s also worth checking out our posts on the psychology of logo shapes and How to pick the perfect colour palette every time. Read more: 10 iconic logos hilariously drawn from memory Google logo sparks 'correct design' debate 10 commandments of logo design View the full article

Affinity Photo for iPad is clearly an unrivalled photo editor – and it’s hard to argue with its one-off price of £19.99 – but how does Serif’s app fare when it comes to creating illustrations from scratch? For this article I’ve put the app through its paces while drawing and colouring a full comic page. Just to spice things up a little, I decided to create this page far away from my usual studio mess, using Affinity Photo on the new iPad Pro10.5-inch with the Apple Pencil. It felt great to be truly mobile and to work whenever inspiration struck: in the back of the car on the way to the supermarket, a hospital waiting room and (of course!) a couple of dive bars. Here's how I went about it. 01. Set up your comic page Let’s start with finding Undo (this threw me on first use as I assumed it was a two-finger tap gesture) – it can be found in the bottom right along with Redo and Tooltip Assistant. Using the Rectangle tool, draw one square and then duplicate it (Commands > Duplicate) to make a row of three. If you don’t know the names of tools, just press the Tooltip Assistant. Then duplicate that row vertically to create a 10-panel layout. To change the stroke width, tap Pen and change the Width. You can drag the values up and down by pressing Width or tapping it and typing values with the number keys. Tap Use Fill to remove the colour inside the rectangles. Then group all panels and lock them by tapping Layer the More (the circle with three dots) and hit Lock. You’ll find Layer Opacity and Layer Blend Modes here too – ideally for me these would be in the main Layers panel and not an additional tap away, because we’re going to be changing and locking layers a lot in this project. 02. Start sketching Pick a random brush and start drawing the rough layout of the comic. This will enable you to make sure the story flows correctly and there is enough room for the speech bubbles. A common newbie mistake is not to leave enough space for the bubbles and a pro shortcut is to use them to save time... if you know a bubble will obscure a large part of the background, it means less drawing and a longer lunch! Traditionally, comic artists draw with non-reproducing blue pencils, and this has carried over into the digital realm. Choosing blue has no real function, but it makes the sketch easier draw over. The thinking behind my choice of page layout is a tutorial for another day, but the basic idea is to vary the 'camera angle'. If the two characters here were just pictured side by side in every panel it would feel boring. 03. Add the speech bubbles and text At this point it's a good idea to add quick speech bubbles that include the full text for the comic strip. There is a huge range of fonts installed in Affinity Photo, but at the time of writing you cannot add your own fonts, so I will letter this design properly in Affinity Designer on desktop later. A great way to rapidly create speech bubbles is to first type your text by pressing Text and then Frame Text. Then on a new layer draw a rough shape around the each text block – it doesn’t matter what colour. Open Layer FX Studio and apply Outline (black) and Colour Overlay (white fill). Now you can draw speech bubbles. A bonus tip is to add ‘mockup text’ by selecting Inner Glow. This helps you see the layout better without the hassle of typing in text. 04. Play around with brushes The Daub brushes that come installed by default are fantastic, but I prefer a much more basic brush for inking. Create your own brush category by tapping Brush Studio then the hamburger icon > Add Category, and name it. Hit the hamburger again and then select New Round Brush. Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image In the image above you can see the settings I used. Very basic stuff – a solid brush that tapers at the ends is all I need really. You can fine-tune brush settings to an amazing degree, adjusting tilt sensitivity, hardness by angle and so on. I should mention at this stage that I’m using an Apple stylus. Do you really need an Apple Stylus to use Affinity Photo on the iPad? For photo editing I don’t think it is essential, but for illustration I would say yes. To create lines with variable width it’s all about pen pressure. 05. Draw smooth lines with the brush stabiliser I was playing with the app for over a week before I noticed the tiny white arrow icon to the right of the sub-tool menu. And what lay hidden there really made my day. I thought the Brush Stabiliser tools were only currently available in the Beta of Affinity Designer 1.6. But here they are. To use a worn-out phrase: this tool is a game-changer. It allows you to draw smooth curves and lines in a very satisfying way. I love playing with this. Armed with your custom brush and Rope Stabiliser, you can get to work inking the page. One little issue worth noting: in the current version 1.6.3 there is no line tool. However, you can just whip out your credit card and use that as an old fashioned ruler directly on the iPad. 06. Group and merge layers One drawback of digital freedom is that you can get lost with too many layers. I used to suffer from 'fear of commitment' and keep dozens of ink layers. But I’ve found the best way to structure your project is to limit yourself to three ink layers. I name them: *INK 1*, **INK 2** and ***INK 3***, so I have no problem identifying them. To add these three layers to a master INK folder: Slide select or hit the checkbox on your layers and then tap the folder icon. To change the name from ‘Unnamed’, tap More (circle with three dots) to reveal more options. At this point, I was a little confused because my folder is called ‘Unnamed’, while the label says ‘Group’. Tap 'Group' and rename your folder. You can rename individual layers the same way. To merge multiple layers or folders into one layer just select the ones you want and tap Commands > Rasterise. 07. Colour the page Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image Now you have the full page inked you're ready to colour it. Tap Layer > More > Multiply in order to colour ‘behind’ your line art. Draw rectangle shapes behind each comic panel – this will enable you to block out the colours and also use the rectangles as a ‘folder’ to clip all the sub layers into. To add colours I create a new layer and use some of the Daub Dry Media brushes. Depending on how you prefer to work, you can set the tool to create a new pixel layer automatically every time you use a brush. Turn this on or off in Document > Assistant. For big shapes such as the coffin and the Explorer character I create a vector shape with the Pen tool. This allows me to clip in sub-layers easily and dynamically change the overall colours and shadows with the Gradient tool. 08. Adjust lighting and texture As a final touch, add a texture to the character and some lighting to the scene. For textures you can use any photo or image and you will always be surprised with the results. Import images to your file by tapping Commands > Place and then choose the location; either from your Photos or Cloud storage. I placed a gingerbread texture, resized it and clipped into place. To add a powerful lighting effect, tap Filters Studio > Lighting and drag the control lines and experiment with the Ambient, Specular, Shininess and Diffuse settings. I could play with textures and lighting all day. So that was my first of hopefully many comics created completely on an iPad. Right now Affinity Photo is only a couple of months old, so I can only imagine what future versions will bring. View the full article

Netgear patches over a dozen vulnerabilities impacting its routers, switches and NAS devices. View the full article

Have you ever looked at a logo design and just been floored at how basic it is? Dumbfounded by the sheer audacity of the designer who apparently just typed up some text, selected a distinctive font then called it a day? There are plenty of designs out there that look too simple to be true, but this brilliant sketch about Avatar’s Papyrus logo pushes the idea of apparently lazy logos to the limit. In the sketch, which was broadcast on a recent edition of American comedy show Saturday Night Live, host Ryan Gosling plays a man frustrated by the logo of James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster Avatar. Unable to sleep, haunted by visions ‘Avatar’ written in Papyrus font, Gosling’s character seeks professional help before hunting down the monster that designed the branding for the film. Watch it below. Over the years we’ve posted a fair few new logo stories here on Creative Bloq that have met with a critical response. And thanks to the inhuman filter that is the social media comments section, we have to say that based on that feedback, the actions in this sketch aren’t entirely unrealistic. We’ve heard from keyboard critics slamming simple designs for their apparent laziness. And when it comes to font choices, let’s just say it's a very contentious issue. The makers of this sketch are clearly aware of some of the heated opinions among the design community. At the end of the sketch they spell out 'Papyrus' in the font that designers love to hate (or defend, really, it could go either way knowing you lot), Comic Sans. Here's how the end card for Avatar (2009) looksSo, is the Avatar logo really just made by slapping Papyrus onto the title? Well, yes and no. Judging by the title card at the end of the 2009 film (above), it has been tweaked ever so slightly from how it would look from a straightforward font selection (below) to make it a bit unique. But only a bit. There's an uncanny resemblance to say the least. How the Avatar logo would look in straightforward all-caps PapyrusEither way, designers are sure to get a chuckle out of this clever sketch. And don't feel too sorry for the creator of Papyrus, Chris Costello. He's got a good sense of humour and can appreciate where the sketch is coming from, as he told CBS News. "I woke up this morning Sunday and my email was full," he revealed. "I had a lot of people telling me, ‘Did you see this ‘Saturday Night Live’ thing?’ I took a look at it and me and my wife were like cracking up, I mean we couldn’t stop laughing. It was one of the best things I’ve seen. "I designed the font when I was 23 years old," he adds. "I was right out of college. I was kind of just struggling with some different life issues, I was studying the Bible, looking for God and this font came to mind, this idea of, thinking about the biblical times and Egypt and the Middle East. I just started scribbling this alphabet while I was at work and it kind of looked pretty cool. I’m a graphic designer as well, I’m an illustrator … I believe it’s a well-designed font, it’s well-thought [out].” Related articles: The secrets of custom font development 55 best free fonts for designers Comic Sans is 'the best font in the world' View the full article

Web developers are vital to the growth of the internet. They create and maintain the apps and services that you count on every day. If you want to join the ranks of those important people who help keep the digital world running, then you need to check out the Full Stack Web Development Course. You can get it on sale now for just $23 (approx £17). You won't find a better starting point for an aspiring web developer than the Full Stack Web Development Course. This course will lay the foundation for your next career. By working through this course, you'll learn how to work with the most important languages in web development, including frontend development standards such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. There are more than 33.5 hours of professionally-taught lessons that will get help you build apps and sites that people will love. You can get the Full Stack Web Development Bundle on sale right now for just $23 (approx £17)! That's a saving of 77% off the retail price for a course that will give you a start on your web dev career, so grab this deal today. Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com. View the full article

Believe it or not it's October already, and for illustrators that means it's time to get involved with Inktober. If you're not familiar with Inktober, it's an annual challenge created by Jake Parker, which calls on artists to create an ink-based drawing every day of the month and share their creations on social media with the hashtag #Inktober. The best drawing tabletsInktober might not sound too difficult on paper, but finding the time to ink an image every day for 31 days can quickly become daunting. If you're not careful, you'll soon find yourself asking how amazing artists like Lüleiya (who drew the breathtaking illustration above for day one of this year's challenge) keep up the pace. We're still admiring the amazing Inktober 2016 artists who made the whole challenge look effortless, but if you're struggling to get going with Inktober, or if you need a creative pick-me-up, we've put together some tips to help you on your way. 01. Follow the prompts For tips on how to tackle Inktober, who better to offer advice than the man who created it? In the video above, challenge creator Parker explains how artists can overcome creative hurdles and idea droughts with the help of the official Inktober 2017 prompt list. He reveals that each day of the month is assigned a single word prompt to provide the starting point for an illustration. These include a range of ideas, such as shy, mysterious, and juicy. Of course you don't have to stick to these prompts, but they're there if you need them. You could also check out our article on 20 ways to overcome creative block for inspiration. 02. Browse the hashtag If the official prompts aren't working for you, there's always the hashtag to explore for inspiration. Simply chuck #Inktober into the Twitter search box and you'll instantly get a glimpse into how other illustrators are tackling the challenge. Not only that, but you get to browse social media and not feel guilty that you're wasting time when you should be drawing. It's a win-win. Don't forget to comment on pieces you like with words of encouragement: the support goes a long way to helping other artists persevere. 03. Take your tools with you You never know when you might grab a spare five minutes, or whether or not you're going to get struck by inspiration, so carrying your ink pens and a notebook with you wherever you go is another way to make Inktober more manageable. Lugging your tools with you is also just good artistic practice. And seeing as Inktober is as much about refining your artistic discipline as it is about drawing a masterpiece day in day out, you might as well take the opportunity to start two good habits at the same time. 04. Ink from left to right Time for some straight up technical advice that should save you some headaches further down the road. In this video by Kiara Lashay over on her YouTube channel Kiara's Studio, she recommends working from left to right to avoid smudging when illustrating with ink. And for all you left handers out there, don't worry. Lashay recommends that you do the opposite and ink from right to left. (Speaking from personal experience as a lefty, I find fountain pens difficult to use in terms of pressure, so maybe markers are the way forward.) 05. Pick a theme If you like the idea of using the Inktober prompts we mentioned earlier, another way to make the most of them is to pick a theme you can hang them around. We've seen lots of artists doing this over on the Inktober hashtag, and it looks like a genius way to narrow down your decision making over the coming weeks. Not only that, but by picking a theme you're comfortable with, you get to play to your strengths by illustrating something you care about. This could be anything from Disney princesses to robots – or, as Twitter user Crisalys demonstrates, guitars. 06. Get ahead Bit of a controversial one, this. Given that life is busy and that it's hard to make the time for creative side projects, artists need all the help they can get to crank out an ink illustration every day for 31 days straight. To this end, Windy Iris suggests in the video above that doing some groundwork in the form of preparatory drawing is fair game. As long as you're just sketching ideas in pencil and not actually inking your work it's not breaking the rules... is it? We're sure that some Inktober purists out there will be marching on Creative Bloq towers with torches and pitchforks for suggesting such a thing, but give yourself a break. Inktober is a long challenge, so it makes sense to get ahead if you want to. 07. Have fun! We've bleated on and on about how Inktober is great for polishing your artistic skills and discipline, but remember it's also a fantastic opportunity to simply have fun. Be sure not to go too hard on yourself, and if you need to skip a few days it's not the end of the world. Nothing stalls a creative roll like unnecessary stress, and this pressure will definitely come across in your work. So keep your art looking good by relaxing. Indeed, Parker says you can take it slower if you like: "You can do it daily, or go the half-marathon route and post every other day, or just do the 5K and post once a week. Whatever you decide, just be consistent with it. Inktober is about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more you’re consistent the better." If you see illustrations you like on Twitter, make sure you share them with your followers. Hopefully you'll make some new friends along the way and discover exciting artists you've never heard of before. Related articles: Get started with ink drawing 17 stunning examples of ink drawings Tools of the experts: Eva-Lotta Lamm View the full article

Whether you're a working front-end developer, a web beginner or somewhere in between, Bootstrap is the ideal way to create fantastic-looking responsive websites, and there's no better way to put it to use than with the Material Design for Bootstrap 4 UI kit, which is free to download right now. Material Design for Bootstrap 4 makes it easy to create clean and beautiful sitesBootstrap is the leading web design solution, used by millions of coders; it's easy to learn but powerful with it, and it can produce the slick mobile-first sites that your clients demand with minimal effort on your part. And with Material Design for Bootstrap 4 you can quickly get to work and have a fully-functioning site ready in record time. Used by over 200,000 developers worldwide and trusted by big names such as Amazon, Sony and Unity, Material Design for Bootstrap 4 is crammed with features designed to make your life easier. Based on the latest version of Bootstrap, it's easy to install – just five minutes and a few clicks and you'll be up and running and ready to create beautiful things. Whatever the browser or platform, your site will look amazing on itYou'll find yourself almost spoiled for choice by Material Design for Bootstrap 4's selection of free components: it boasts over 400 material UI elements for you to build with, as well as over 600 material icons and more than 70 ready-made CSS animations; just copy and paste what you need and you're good to go. If you want to make life really easy for yourself, there's even a set of free templates for you to choose from; either use them as they are, or tweak them to suit your own purposes. However you choose to build, you'll find that with very little effort you can get better-looking results than you would with vanilla Bootstrap; check out the differences between a simple navbar in MDB and plain Bootstrap for a basic idea. MDB's components look a lot better than Bootstrap's defaultsDon't be put off if you're new to Bootstrap, either. Material Design for Bootstrap 4 will ease you into things with comprehensive tutorials that cover everything you need to know about getting started, from installation and learning about MDB UI kit's file structure through to building landing pages, carousels and corporate websites, with more advanced tutorials to follow. If you prefer to use AngularJS that's not a problem; there's a special Angular 4 version of MDB, using Angular CLI and TypeScript, that you can download instead, and there's also a React version on the way. MDB's tutorials will get you well on the way to building impressive, responsive sitesMaterial Design for Bootstrap 4 is the easiest way to start delivering beautiful sites quickly; try it today and find out what your web design workflow's been missing. View the full article

“The power of cartoons and caricatures shouldn’t be underestimated,” states writer Victor Navasky in his no-nonsense introduction to At War With War, Seymour Chwast’s comprehensive illustrated timeline of 5,000 years of war. How to draw and paint – 100 pro tips and tutorialsIt’s a supremely fitting statement for this little yellow tome, which uses the power of stripped-back visual narration to demonstrate the abhorrence of killing and lament mankind’s historical, current, and likely future propensity for large-scale organised killing. Chwast’s book runs with the subtitle “5,000 years of conquests, invasions, and terrorist attacks, an illustrated timeline,” and that’s pretty much exactly what it is. The designer has long used his graphics as a tool to promote peace and challenge the 'necessity' of war, and this is perhaps his most comprehensive distillation of that yet. Seymour Chwast has long used his art to make political commentsFor a rather wee volume, a lot is packed in: alongside Chwast’s gorgeously emotive woodcut-like illustrations and the chronological timeline, At War With War presents written passages discussing war (and peace) including 5th century BC Chinese military treatise The Art of War by Sun Tzu; 1521’s The Complaint of Peace by Desiderius Erasmus; and The State, an essay on the link between state and war, by Randolph Bourne. At War With War was initially launched as a Kickstarter last year, which proved the appetite for a considered visual exploration of war and terror (and, of course, another book by Chwast) when it raised well over its target – 784 backers pledged a whopping $112,754 to help realise the project. The video about the book that sat on the Kickstarter page is below. “Seymour’s desire was to present his reaction to war in its purest form…” writes Steven Heller, who edited the book. “To set aside his interest in colour and mixed media and use what would allow him to focus on the idea alone: marker on paper; just black and white. "His technique serves the content and the intention – to viscerally connect with the audience and bring front and centre the horror and waste that is war.” The illustrations are completed in marker pen, to put the focus on the challenging contentIn smallish, unassuming paperback form, the volume is a refreshing riposte to weighty, academic, frequently daunting tomes on war. Chwast presents atrocities in poignant, visual, bitesize chunks but makes them no more easily digestible. As At War With War points out, there is “no happy ending to this book." Buy At War With War here Related articles: 26 books every graphic designer should read 10 top design-related movies 10 great tools for illustrators View the full article

While using website templates for your website layout might have something of an iffy reputation among web designers and developers, there are plenty of decent examples out there, crafted by some truly smart designers. For creatives without a web design background, and for web professionals alike, these templates provide amazing web design inspiration. To illustrate the point, we've rounded up some good options that might open your eyes to the possibilities that templates have to offer – at least when they're created by people who know what they're doing. These web templates are designed for Bootstrap, HTML5, Adobe Muse, WordPress, Tumblr, Jekyll, Perch, SASS, Statamic and Ghost. At a range of price points (including some for free), there should be a template here that's ideal for your website. 01. Composer (WordPress) Composer's developers are keen to hear your ideas for new featuresComposer's not exactly cheap at $60, but you'll get a lot of use out of it. It spoils you for choice from the off, with over 70 ready-made demo sites for you to go to work with, covering just about every web design possibility, and it makes it easy to create your own layouts from scratch. It features ultra-responsive layouts and WooCommerce integration, comes complete with some free premium plugins, and the developers are always keen to receive suggestions for new designs and features. 02. Flaunt (Muse) Flaunt's hover effects will make your Muse sites come aliveIf you're keen on cool hover effects but you're using Adobe Muse and finding it a little difficult to implement them, Flaunt may be the answer to your problems. As well as being a simple and fully responsive template, it bypasses Muse's hover effect restrictions with some custom CSS. With over 50 slick hover effects for both images and text to choose from, you'll be able to create stand-out Muse sites without difficulty, and at just $16 Flaunt is a bargain buy, too. 03. Definity (Bootstrap) Definity's modular design makes it easy to play with layoutsA multipurpose single and multi-page template by Ocarine Themes, Definity is built on Bootstrap 3 and comes crammed with stuff. It's 100 per cent responsive with cool features such as video backgrounds, hover effects and parallax scrolling, and its modular design makes it easy to move sections of your pages around until you've nailed your layout. Priced at just $29, Definity features multiple website templates and shop layouts. 04. Enfold (WordPress) Enfold comes with plenty of demos to try outDesigned to be the most user-friendly WordPress theme ever made, Enfold is a versatile and fully responsive theme suitable for business sites, online stores (with WooCommerce support) and portfolios. Its drag and drop template builder is just the thing for creating your own layout, but it also comes with a stack of ready-made demos to inspire you. The regular licence will cost you $59, which includes future updates and six months' support. 05. Porto (HTML5) Porto is available on various platformsThe basic HTML5 version of Porto will cost you just $16 and features a stack of homepage styles as well as unlimited header layouts and a style switcher that enables you to customise your site on the fly. It's also available in WordPress, Drupal and Magento flavours, with an additional admin version so you can manage your site much more effectively with a swish dashboard and all the widgets and charts you can eat. 06. Maple (WordPress) Maple is easy to use and fully responsiveThere are six reasons you'll love Maple, say its developers: its bold and unique design; the fact that it's responsive and retina-ready; the way that it features light and dark styles; its parallax header backgrounds; its multi sidebar support; and how super-easy to use it is. With 15 layout combinations plus plenty of features and widgets, at $49 it gives you your money's worth. 07. BeTheme (HTML5) They can't all be zingers, but you can't go far wrong with BeTheme's selectionWhy settle for one theme when you can have over 210? Described as the most complete, comprehensive and flexible HTML template for business or personal websites, BeTheme is simply crammed with stuff. Fully responsive and retina-ready, with all the parallax and smooth scrolling features you'd expect, it's an absolute monster and the biggest headache it'll cause you is trying to choose from the enormous selection of pre-built sites. For $18 you can't go wrong. 08. NOHO (Muse) Designed for creatives, NOHO's perfect for portfoliosDesigned with creative professionals in mind, NOHO is built to be easy to edit in Adobe Muse, enabling you to get your agency site or portfolio up and running in record time. Its templates come in desktop, tablet and mobile flavours and in multiple layouts, and you'll find ample features such as image sliders, parallax scrolling and CSS rollover effects. The results are clean and eye-catching, and it's yours for just $22. 09. Jupiter (WordPress) Jupiter's not cheap but its output is gloriously fast and lightweightJupiter confidently describes itself as the world's fastest and lightest WordPress theme ever, and its latest version been completely reviewed and rewritten to deliver lightning-fast pages that won't thrash your CPU or drain your batter. It uses GPU rendering to deliver smooth parallax scrolling, it features adaptive image resolution to ensure that pictures look great regardless of devices, and it comes with over 85 templates in case you don't have time to build your own pages with its drag and drop interface. It's not cheap at $59, but the results are worth it. 10. Summer (Ghost) Summer features parallax blog background covers and author pagesDeveloper PXThemes specialises in Ghost template and themes, and Summer is one of its most popular offerings. For $19 you get a simple and clean template with plenty of options to help your content stand out, including author pages and full screen covers, parallax blog background covers, and Foundation 5 and Disqus integration. 11. Type & Grids (HTML5/Statamic) This website template offers speed and great typographyJeremiah Shoaf's seemingly on a mission to free people from complex content management systems, so Type & Grids embraces the notion of the flat-file CMS. The portfolio and marketing templates are extremely fast, boast a number of variations, and have some very smart typography. They'll work as-is, entirely for free, but Shoaf offers various tiers for pro use, and adds that Type & Grids works nicely with Statamic. 12. Ness (WordPress) An image-focused website templateA lot of modern themes concentrate on stark minimalism and type, but Ness is far more interested in imagery, aiming for people wanting to rapidly get a photo blog or magazine up and running. Priced at $39, it's Retina-ready and mobile-friendly, and in use feels like high-end photo journal app such as Storehouse. 13. Bootstrap (HTML5) Bootstrap defaults look pretty good in their own right"Um, hello?", you might be saying, given that Bootstrap's really a framework rather than a template. This is true, but as the examples section showcases, even the Bootstrap defaults look pretty good if you've a design idea in mind that utilises a lot of rich imagery and backgrounds. It's just a few tweaks from a beautiful minimal creation – and that's even faster if you peruse Bootswatch's free themes. Next: more top-class website templates 14. Yuga (Muse) Yuga boasts six themes and plenty of tutorials to get you startedIf you're using Muse and you want plenty of options as well as value for money, look no further than Yuga. Billed as a 6-in-1 creative multipurpose true parallax template, it comes with six themes with plenty of transitions and animation that are easy to implement. It has loads of online documentation, including step-by-step editing tutorials, and it's yours for just $25. 15. Halcyon (Tumblr) A bold and eye-catching website templatePixel Union is a team of designers dedicated to "reshaping publishing, self-expression and entrepreneurship on the web", which basically means the company creates templates and themes for content management systems. Halcyon's one of the team's top-sellers for Tumblr, a bold and eye-catching $49 responsive grid-based effort. 16. Avada (WordPress) There are tools of tools for refining this WordPress templateAvada ($60) claims to be the best-selling WordPress theme of all, and it certainly has a lot going for it. It might be a third-party template, but the underlying framework is flexible enough to enable the crafting of all kinds of design styles, and there are tons of user-friendly tools and options for subsequently fine-tuning the resulting site. 17. Vitality (Bootstrap) Build a responsive one-page site with this website templateVitality is billed as a time-saver for anyone wanting to rapidly get a versatile, responsive one-page site live. Just $10 gets you the licence, and the template boasts six sample layouts, three page styles, 10 colour schemes, a PHP contact form, and optional full-page image backgrounds and video background headers. 18. Huge (Tumblr) This website template is perfect for image- or video-heavy blogsThis $19 website template by Precrafted is aimed at people wanting a blog that is heavy in imagery and videos. Many elements can be fully customised, and keyboard navigation makes it easy to quickly jump between posts when using traditional keyboard input. The design also includes a fixed (but not distracting) menu and options for controlling how photos appear. 19. Red Cap (HTML5) Create 'coming soon' landing pages with this niche website templateThis one's a single-page HTML5 template, based on Bootstrap, boasting plenty of customisation options and a MailChimp subscription form. It's primarily aimed at people wanting to create 'coming soon' landing pages for upcoming projects or products, and for $7 it saves you the hassle of smashing together countdown scripts and the like yourself. 20. Mediator (Jekyll) A responsive, minimal website template for JekyllAnother creation that's heavily focused on content, Mediator is a responsive, minimal template for Jekyll by Dirk Fabisch. It's also available for free. It has support for featured articles, enables the use of header images, and includes FontAwesome, in order that you can easily work with icon fonts. 21. Oblivion Magazine (Tumblr) With over 100 customisation options, Oblivion Magazine has everything you needAimed squarely at journalists and publishers, Oblivion Magazine is a responsive Tumblr template that's crammed with customisation options, features and widgets. It includes a custom preloader and fancy loading animations, multiple authors, reading time info and SoundCloud player. Made by adraft, it's a steal at $24. 22. Valenti (WordPress) A website template that's great for magazine-oriented sitesWhere Valenti largely succeeds is in its flexibility and richness. This is a template primarily designed for magazine-oriented sites, and it's packed with options for vibrant home pages, full-background image styles, and parallax. Priced at $59, it's also high-res- and mobile-ready, provides alternatives for review ratings, and makes it easy to craft mega-menu navigation. 23. Free Minimal Responsive Theme (Perch) A good foundation on which to build a website in PerchPerch isn't a product that necessarily lends itself to templates in the traditional sense, but Laura Kalbag created a default some time back, as a starting point. Clift Walker's minimal theme comes from similar thinking, giving you a little extra help to get started. It's a simple, sleek foundation on which to build. 24. Muffin (SASS/Jekyll) A design-focused frontend website template that comes in four flavoursRichard Bray's Muffin is a design-focused frontend web template that uses SASS, Jekyll and Gulp. Aimed at the reasonably tech-savvy, the template includes colour variables, SASS media queries, HTML includes and SVG icons. It comes in four 'flavours' based around the kind of website you want to design, and it's free. 25. Lychee (HTML5) Lychee has great parallax effects and is also available as a WordPress templatePowered by Twitter's Bootstrap 3 framework, Lychee is designed as a professional portfolio site theme. It produces valid HTML5/CSS3 pages and features over 30 pages, six homepages, 20 portfolio pages and two blog styles, all of them perfectly responsive. Excellent parallax effects pair with a clean and professional design, and the whole package will cost you $15. It's also available as a WordPress template. Related articles: Best free WordPress themes The best free web fonts 50 brilliant design portfolios to inspire you View the full article

Pixologic's new update to its groundbreaking digital 3D sculpting, modelling and painting software ZBrush, includes a variety of new features that are sure to please any user. Priced at $795 for a single license on Macs or Windows PCs, ZBrush 4R8's new updates are aimed at expanding the utility of ZBrush, most notably with hard-surface modelling by the inclusion of Booleans, editable primitives and new deformers. Pixologic has further expanded the options for organic modelling with the development of Multi Vector Displacement Meshes and Alpha 3D. 30 inspiring examples of 3D artZBrush 4R8 features and tools There are many other workflows and UI improvements as well. Gizmo 3D The most notable of these must be the inclusion of the long requested gizmo for object manipulation and a suite of deformers that respect the simultaneous manipulation of multiple SubTools. The new gizmo moves, scales and rotates objects in the ZBrush window. You can now easily set the object centre, move multiple SubTools at once and even utilise a variety of deformers to further manipulate the shape of your objects. The gizmo and deformers will even respect masking across SubTools. These additions provide a traditional method of moving SubTools in the world space and a powerful alternative to the Transpose tools. These updates offer something to excite any user with new possibilities and smoother workflows. Live Booleans The Boolean toolset enables the creation of complex shapes with unprecedented ease and speed using traditional Boolean operations. These Booleans are fast and fully editable until you choose to collapse them into new geometry. The Boolean operators will respect poly meshes, primitives, NanoMeshes and Arrays. Even noisemaker will be factored into the Booleans. Any SubTools can be set to add, subtract, union or difference in any order effectively allowing for highly complex forms. These Booleans are achieved through a rendering and display mode so they remain fully live and editable until the user chooses to collapse them into a final object, which will retain a highly workable topology. Booleans in ZBrush can be used with polymeshes, primitives, ArrayMeshes, and even NanoMeshes. One wonderful aspect of the Boolean toolset is the ability to group SubTools into subgroups now. This is very helpful for large models in which you may have a large variety of related tools (such as teeth, armour plates or claws) that you want to keep separate but would like to collapse in the display as to not crowd the SubTool menu. Vector Displacement Mesh brush The Vector Displacement Mesh brushes in actionOne new feature that is particularly exciting is the Vector Displacement Mesh. This allows complex organic forms, including those with overlapping parts and backfaces, to be stored as brushes for use on other meshes. This works by generating a vector displacement of the mesh and storing this in a custom brush. Think of this as a brush that uses a vector displacement map in place of an alpha. It allows for some fantastic new shapes to be sketched and eases the creation of highly complex surfaces. Multiple instances can be stored in a similar manner to the Insert Multi Mesh brush. This enables you to create brush libraries of a variety of teeth, horns, tentacles or any number of other complex forms you want to sculpt and store. These brushes are particularly useful for applying things like overlapping scales or feathers to a surface and seeing immediate feedback in real-time. Alpha 3D Alpha 3D, meanwhile enables you to store any 3D object as an alpha and retain the ability to edit the orientation of the alpha at any time, effectively changing the alpha shape. Lazymouse 2.0 A subtle yet wonderful addition, Lazymouse 2.0 and lazy snap enables you to continue a stroke or a pattern after stopping to rotate the model. You can also cross over a stroke without adding buildup to the previous stroke. This is invaluable for things like machine panel lines, for example. 3D Text 3D Text and Vector Shape Creator enables you to easily create strings of text in ZBrush as 3D objects and you can even import a SVG file to generate a logo inside ZBrush. Use this in conjunction with the Boolean system to engrave words and designs into surfaces. ZBrush 4R8 interface Beta artist Stephen Anderson created this FishBot image with new feature Live BooleansThere are a variety of other interface changes which will be highly valuable to artists as well. The IMM selector creates a new menu for brushes that can contain a variety of content such as the IMM or VDM brushes. Stored variant brushes are now visible along the top of the screen in a quickly browsable menu, providing seamless changes on the fly. It is also now possible to cut, copy and paste between brushes, making customising your library so much easier. These new features are rounded out with new support for multiple languages and text size scaling with your resolution to help support larger monitors and touchscreens. Buy ZBrush 4R8 from Pixologic here. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 225. Buy it here. Related articles: Brilliant Blender tutorials 10 essential ZBrush shortcuts to improve your workflow 30 free 3D models View the full article

In order to be able to draw a realistic face without references, you need to know how to understand faces. So we'll explain a way of observing your surroundings and then show you how to make notes for yourself visually. You can use whatever drawing technique you’re most comfortable with, but don't use erasers while studying. How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorialsThe common problem with depicting faces and their volumes is that most people have no knowledge about the empty spaces between eyes, nose and mouth and all around them. You have to be in control of these flat surfaces, and know how they behave and fit together. If you could draw these empty surfaces then the main facial elements would be pushed into the right position automatically. But how can you draw something that isn't there? The answer is to translate volume information into lines and use them as a construction basis for your drawing. Here we'll give you one thing to observe for each step, that you later have to turn into lines. We'll also provide some examples of how to do it, using Photoshop for sketching and colouring, together with a Wacom Intuos graphic tablet. 01. Learn shadow language Notice the empty space between eyes and ears (click the arrows icon in the top-right to enlarge this image) Here are the main planes of the face. Notice the empty space between eyes and ears, and how small the face is. For the surrounding planes, use shadow lines – the area where light turns into shadow. Even under different lighting some shadows share the same lines. Some ethnicities have their own shadow language. Collect and use them. 02. Keep faces in proportion Don't skip the studying of proportions here (click the arrows icon in the top-right to enlarge this image) What we won't teach here is how to draw the eyes, nose and mouth. Rather, we add the idea of using mimic and gesture lines to locate the face. The base for the lines here are wrinkles, folds, mimic folds and highlights. Don't skip the studying of proportions here – take a ruler and a book and start making up your own rules. 03. Add shadows and volume Mimic lines make it easier (click the arrows icon in the top-right to enlarge this image) Here we ink the construction lines and add shadows and volume. Since we employed shadows and mimic lines as construction for the face, we can now use them to find the fitting rendering for the face. It makes life so much easier. If you study the face by yourself you'll know how to use these lines. Don't worry, you'll get there. This article originally appeared in ImagineFX issue 110. Subscribe here. Related articles: Get better at figure drawing 20 best iPad art apps for painting and sketching Drawing techniques: 7 fundamentals of pencil drawing View the full article

Freelance life has many perks, but it's not all plain sailing when you’re fending for yourself in the graphic design world. That's why Route One Print has put together a Freelancer's Survival Kit to help you on the road to success as a freelance designer – and you can download it completely free! Whether you've already taken the plunge or are thinking about sacking in the day job and going it alone, this kit has everything you need to make it as a freelance designer. What's inside The free kit contains professional templates and guides to save you time and set you on the right track. All the templates are unbranded and will swiftly guide you through the process of writing the documents that will help nail that next client and keep projects running smoothly! Plus, there's invaluable advice from designers who have left agency life and become success stories in their own right – including T-shirt design specialist Brent Galloway and Ian Paget (who you might know as Logo Geek). This kit contains everything you need to go it aloneHere's exactly what you'll find inside The Freelancers' Survival Kit: Business plan template Just because you're a one-man band doesn't mean you don't need a master plan. This template is here to help you nail down your objectives and keep you on track to reach them. Client proposal template Winning over new clients is vital to building a name for yourself. Customise this proposal template to impress potential clients and secure work from them. Design brief template A thorough design brief template will ensure both parties know exactly what's on the cards, so everyone stays happy. Statement of work template When you're working alone it's all the more important to keep client relationships smooth and projects running like clockwork. A statement of work will help you ensure the client-designer relationship remains stress-free. Invoice template Late payments or missing payments are a headache you don't need. To leave your clients with a professional impression and ensure you receive your payments swiftly, you need a proper invoicing system. Handy ebook There's plenty you can learn from those who have been there are braved the transition themselves. This helpful ebook is packed with tips and advice from established designers who have managed to set up a successful freelance business of their own. Download the kit now The Freelancer's Survival Kit contains everything you need to prepare to take on freelance life. You can download the kit here. This kit comes courtesy of Route One Print, the UK’s largest trade printer. Its aim is to make trade-print easy for graphic designers and print resellers with white label packaging, reseller tools and a smooth order process that helps its clients' businesses grow. View the full article

Does your agency work feel like running to stand still? Are the constant overheads, overruns and client conflicts bringing you down? Perhaps you need to take a step back and have a fundamental rethink of how your studio actually operates. Is there anything you could do differently to cut bureaucracy, streamline processes and create a happier, healthier atmosphere for employees? These five design agencies all do things a little differently. Perhaps they could inspire you to do the same... 01. A "freelance +” experience Brown&co offers “the benefits of working remotely, with many of the benefits of being employed”Launched at the beginning of this year by Troy Wade, Dave Brown and David Bicknell, Brown&co announces on its homepage that “we're not just a new agency, we're a new kind of agency.” That’s because – as Wade explained in his Creative Bloq article The benefits of working remotely – it operates as a ‘virtual collective’, which means it has no head office, but collaborates with freelance talent from around the globe, all working remotely. “From the perspective of the client, there are obviously the savings of not having to support huge agency overheads like fancy office space and other associated costs,” says Wade. “Probably more important, however, is that our flexible workforce means we have a global pool of talent from which to find the perfect specialist for a client or job; we don’t simply have to make do with who is sitting idle in the studio or our own city. “Because people are working more productively – like in ways that individually suit them, and in spaces each day that are more relevant or inspiring – the quality of output should be better too.” He stresses that Brown&Co should not be thought of as just a freelance talent pool, but rather a full service agency that just happens to use freelance talent. “For our creative partners, we aim to provide a ‘Freelance +’ experience – the best of working remotely, with many of the benefits of being employed. For instance, collaborators have full freedom to work how, when and where they wish, are able to see projects through from start to finish, grow long-term relationships with clients, and meet and work with other collaborators.” Their aim, quite simply, is to attract and retain the best freelance talent in order to produce the best work for clients. “It’s about being physically healthy, being in healthy relationships, and getting the life clutter out of the way, so we can focus on doing the best work when we need to work. And new mothers can now continue having careers too.” 02. A virtual consultancy Becoming a one-man virtual consultancy has raised the quality of his work, says John SpencerSimilar to Brown&Co, Offthetopofmyhead works as a virtual consultancy, but with one crucial difference: it’s run by just one person – founder and creative director John Spencer. “This way, I can work on my own if that’s what a project requires, or bring together specialists if it needs a structured team with a variety of skills,” he explains. Aside from this flexibility, running a virtual consultancy benefits the quality of work too, he adds. “I bring in hand-picked specialists for each project so I’m not stuck with the same people day in, day out. We keep things fresh.” Spencer gets most of his clients through referrals, so he makes a big effort to socialise and network. “I often speak at conferences too – I like a captive audience. I’m rarely asked to pitch for work and I never do free creative pitches because I have neither the resources nor the inclination. “I think you dramatically improve your chances of winning clients by being approachable and friendly,” he adds. “Nobody wants to deal with an agency if they’re full of their own importance – and there are plenty of them around. Clients want to enjoy the experience and it’s up to us to make sure they do.” 03. Fewer layers of management Ascender Studios promotes a culture of enjoying work and having funAscender Studios is a New York web design and web development studio focused on delivering custom websites, apps, CMS and ecommerce solutions. Launched in January this year, it represents the coming-together of two long-time studios, Kindred Development and Bobira Studios, that had collaborated and complemented each other’s offerings for years. Culturally they’re very different from most agencies in the field, says co-founder Mike Aldinger. “We have artists, musicians, gamers, dancers and craft beer experts among our designers and developers, who have different perspectives that help in the way we think,” he explains. “We also frequently work for other agencies – as white labelled designers and developers – which is something most agencies don’t offer.” All this means they can be “nimble, original and unique in our approach to servicing clients, and can offer deep expertise across a variety of verticals.” Setting up as a new company has meant that “we can be extremely agile – tweaking our process, standards and products – without the burden of layers of management and approvals," he adds. "We work so closely with our clients; we really know them and they get to experience first-hand our culture that is focused on creating the best product for the client, but while having fun. It's important to us to laugh.” 04. A studio in their house Marc Gallanders and Klaire Walmsley cut out the commute by starting an agency in their own homeAfter spending two and half years as a lead designer for a media and marketing firm in Manchester, Marc Gallanders was a little fed up. “I was working long hours for the same mediocre salary and was still doing freelance work in my spare time, which quickly eclipsed the work from my day job in terms of satisfaction, money and recognition,” he recalls. His girlfriend Klaire Walmsley agreed that something had to change. “As we were both creatives and making the decision to live together initially, we knew we wanted a studio in our house,” she explains. “It was something we never really spoke about, it just sort of happened as our work was starting to cross over.” So they launched Fishbulb Studio in February 2016, and it’s been uphill all the way. “Being a small team of two, we’ve worked with an array of collaborators and freelancers from various creative backgrounds, from animators to furniture makers,” says Gallanders. “This allows us to operate as a large agency would, while working from our home studio. Converting our home into a studio means that we are able to work as and when we need to, so effectively we are able to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” And the work itself is more fulfilling too. “We combine traditional and analogue techniques, such as ebru and letterpress with new, modern styles and technologies to create a totally individual style,” explains Walmsley. “A lot of our work for clients is made up of one-off paintings or old packaging, type and design references.” 05. A design collective Frost*collective has a uniquely diffused organisational structureBased in Redfern, NSW, Australia, Frost*collective is a group of six companies all working together They are Pivot (creating “transformative strategies”), Urbanite (“memorable spatial branded experiences”), Frost* Design (“inspiring brands to life”), Nest (“simple. beautiful. useful. digital”), and Jack (“mindful packaging”). In the standard agency model, these would be departments within a traditional hierarchy, but in Frost*collective, these six parts each act as “a leader in its own right”, explains CEO Vince Frost. “Six individual and accountable business units create better clarity around the company’s specialist offerings, and deliver better results for clients,” he explains. “Together we have an immensely powerful offering. Clients benefit through collaboration, creative ideation and service delivery. Having each individual unit separate allows each to take complete ownership of their specialty and build strong brands in their own right.” And it’s not just the organisational chart that’s different, he stresses: there’s a whole different culture that’s geared towards “designing a better world”. “A business should have one big idea, the simpler the better; at Pivot, it’s making strategies that transform human systems. In our disrupted age, doing strategy well needs to encompass more than on-the-fly SWOT analysis and budgetary in-fighting. "It needs to build an inspiring case for change; to find ways to do more good than we often assume we can.” View the full article

You're reading Designing Responsive Search Forms: Tips & Trends for Web Designers, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Every modern website should use a responsive layout. This makes it easier to browse on any device but it makes the page trickier to design. The beloved search field is one example of a tricky page element. With responsive layouts on the rise web designers have new trends for search forms making them both accessible and […] View the full article

If there’s one graphic design book this month that’ll make designophiles swoon, it’s The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design. With a hardback cover in look-at-me red and more than 300 colour illustrations, it’s a veritable behemoth of midcentury magnificence. Buy The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design (UK): £40 Buy The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design (US): $45.65 Penned by Steven Heller (he’s clearly been very, very busy lately) and graphic designer and writer Greg Donofrio, the book takes the form of a series of profiles of around 60 key designers whose work across magazines, books, record cover, advertisements, posters, packaging and more shaped the contemporary graphic design landscape as we know it. Catalog cover, Paperboard Goes to War, Container Corporation of America, Chicago, 1942. Credit: Permission of Juliet Kepes StoneRefreshingly, the authors have been keen to make this not just another graphic design boys’ club: among the women designers that grace its pages are Lillian Bassman, Jacqueline S. Casey, Elaine Lustig Cohen and Tomoko Miho, among many others. Naturally, these sit alongside the big guns: Josef Albers, Saul Bass, Lester Beall, Herb Lubalin, Paul Rand, Lance Wyman, and so on; as well as a number of names getting the recognition they deserve for the first time. Poster, Knoll International, New York, 1967. Courtesy of Beatriz Cifuentes and the Vignelli familyMany of the designers featured in The Moderns emerged during the postwar period that shook the world in every sense, but for them, this manifested through visuals. “Modern” design, for them, symbolised a severing of ties from the greyer, Depression-era world their parents inhabited; it heralded a brighter (often literally) new movement where graphic design was becoming a bold, artful, and frequently conceptually based force to be reckoned with. What’s so deliciously striking while flicking through the pages of The Moderns is the breadth of the work, and the unanimous sense of innovation and experimentation, even in work for the most apparently straight-laced clients. As the book’s introduction points out, Modernism is a vast and loose concept, one “composed of disparate movements” from the early to mid-20th century that “shared the same philosophical and aesthetic currency.” Book jacket, All That Fall, by Samuel Beckett, Grove Press, 1957. Credit: Arden Kuhlman Riordan But what was that philosophy? “... dissatisfaction, even disgust, with the antiquated ideas about art and design.” In that sense, it was a sort of punk-like drive for newness in the face of staleness; but without any sense of nihilism. Instead, graphic design was being used to drive and create a new approach to aesthetics that suddenly placed graphics in a sense of wider societal and cultural concerns. These were the designers that realised that the visual was all part of a far wider tapestry – they understood the power of graphic design, and its capacity for not only sales or persuasion, but for good, and for freedom. Buy The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design (UK): £40 Buy The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design (US): $45.65 Related articles: 5 must-read books for design students 3 design books we'd like to read this September 10 incredible online art schools View the full article

Whether you're just getting into graphic design or you're a seasoned pro looking to expand your existing creative kit, here are the essential tools you need to work smarter and more creatively. Remember, being a good designer isn't about having the latest hardware or software: ideas and execution are far more important than shiny new equipment. But it's worth investing in the best kit you can afford. Here are 12 must-have tools to get you started... Gone are the days when Macs were the only choice for graphic designers (just see our second pick below for proof). Nevertheless, this 2017 refresh of Apple’s iconic all-in-one – with its updated CPU, Thunderbolt 3 connectivity and brighter display – is a powerful, fast and brilliant-value midrange machine for designers. The 21.5-inch iMac comes in three versions. The basic option has a 2.3GHz processor; mid-range comes with a Retina 4K Display and 3.0GHz processor; and the highest tier bumps up to a 3.4GHz processor with a Retina 4K Display. So what's so good about it? Well, for a start, the screen is fantastic: it's bright (43 per cent brighter than before, says Apple) with deep blacks. And if you want more screen real estate, two new Thunderbolt 3/USB C ports can drive an external 5K display at 60Hz with support for 1 billion colours, or two external 4K UHD displays at 60Hz with the same colour support. The mid-priced 4K iMac comes with a Radeon Pro graphics card, which makes tasks like video editing and 3D graphics faster than previously. (If you’re likely to be working in 360 video editing or VR, though, you’ll need the 27-inch 5K iMac.) Also, the iMac’s peripherals are excellent. It ships with a wireless Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse 2, and a Lightning cable is included in the box. Overall, the 21.5-inch iMac – and indeed its more expensive 27-inch counterpart – is a fantastic desktop option for any graphic designer. The Surface Book is, from first pickup, an amazingly high-quality laptop. Build is stellar; the flexible, accordion-like hinge is a masterpiece of industrial design; and the screen – well, the screen! It’s absolutely stunning. Microsoft’s PixelSense tech means that it's thin, bright and hugely responsive to touch and stylus control. The term 'Retina display' is bandied around a lot due to Apple’s excellent marketing, but for its 13.5-inch size the Surface Book packs in an incredible 3000x2000 pixels at 267ppi (Apple’s MacBook Pro is 2560x1600 at 232ppi). The Surface Book is a hybrid, which means you can detach the screen and use it in Windows 10 Tablet Mode. Apps such as Illustrator can be used in Tablet Mode as well, so the Surface Book is not only a super-powerful machine for video editing and 3D, it's also the ultimate sketchbook. As someone pushing say, Adobe CC, to its limits, you’re gonna need top specs in your laptop. And again, the Surface Book delivers. Big style. We tested a mid-range model and whilst it cost a meaty £2,699 you get a 512GB SSD, an Intel Core i7 CPU running at 2.6GHz, 16GB of RAM and a discrete GPU (with 2GB RAM). Fork out £3,149 and you’ll get a 1TB SSD. Read more: Surface Book review The best laptops for graphic design 201703. The right software for you (and your budget) Adobe’s Creative Cloud is the industry standard for design professionalsAdobe’s Creative Cloud is the industry standard for design professionals – the range and depth in its suite of tools unrivalled by any other company. But it comes at a cost. As an individual designer, prices for the entire suite start at £50 per month if paid annually or nearly £80 per month if paid on a monthly basis. It’s a lot of cash. Still, you get Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects and loads more. If you’re looking to be truly multi-disciplined and are confident of the work rolling in, then it’s the way to go. But if your work revolves purely around vector design (illustration, logos and so on) and photo-editing/manipulation, there’s another option you could plump for. Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo are both excellent tools from Serif – believe us, they even top Photoshop and Illustrator in some areas – and they only cost around £50 each. No monthly subscription and free updates. What’s more, superb file compatibility means you can work with others using Photoshop or Illustrator with very few problems. When it comes to drawing, using a mouse isn't natural. After all, when you learn to write and draw at school you don’t just move a pencil around with your wrist. That's where a graphics tablet comes in. We've covered the seven best drawing tablets for designers and creatives in our best graphics tablet buying guide, but our top pick here is the Wacom Cintiq 13HD . Balancing cost and quality, this is a serious piece of kit. As well as a responsive, pin-sharp and highly accurate screen, the Wacom Cintiq 13HD is very comfortable to use. And despite the 13HD Touch's party trick of being finger-operable, the star of the show is Wacom's bundled Pro Pen, which comes with six nibs and offers 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity and tilt recognition. You’ll get pressure-sensitivity in Photoshop, Illustrator and the like, but more importantly you’ll be creating in a more intuitive, natural way. Plus there’s health benefits – using a stylus rather than a mouse is proven to reduce RSI. Read more: Wacom Cintiq 13HD review 05. Pantone Reference Library The only way you can really get an accurate idea of how your special colour will print is to invest in a Pantone Reference LibraryIf you’re doing a lot of print work, you’re likely to be asked to use (or want to use) a fifth colour at some point. The only way you can really get an accurate idea of how your special colour will print is to invest in a Pantone Reference Library – a series of swatch books and folders containing chips that show you a printed representation of each colour. So not only will it show you how the colour you select in say, Illustrator or InDesign, will print, but it will also enable you to tear a swatch out and pin it to your proof for the printers – so everyone’s clear on what colour you need. There are also swatch books that enable you to match a fifth colour to a CMYK value – perfect for situations where your client’s budget doesn’t stretch to a fifth colour for a certain job. The Pantone Reference Library isn’t cheap, however: It’ll cost you over $1,400. That's for all 14 books plus a storage and display stand, though – you can buy books individually if you just need, for example, a metallic colour guide. And you can always add the individual cost of a book to a particular job if needed. 06. Top-end smartphone Samsung has two fantastic rival phones to the iPhoneGalaxy let loose two powerful Android smartphones this summer: the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 – both cracking choices for creatives thanks to their generous screen real estate and excellent cameras. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 sports a 6.3-inch 1,440x2,960 Super AMOLED screen, while the Super AMOLED screen on the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus comes in at 6.2-inches (same resolution). The most impressive camera comes with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, which boasts a 12 MP dual-lens that opens up a whole range of fantastic features – including a bokeh effect and the ability to take two pictures at once (a close-up and wide-angle shot, for example). By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus has just one rear-facing 12MP f/1.7 camera with optical image stabilisation - but it takes fantastic photos. (And it has a larger battery too.) New iPhones The iPhone has long been the choice for designers And of course, Apple introduced three new iPhones in September: the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and the astronomically priced iPhone X. The most affordable is the iPhone 8, which offers a small update on the iPhone 7 with an improved, sharper Retina display, some internal upgrades and improved external hardware. Battery life is boosted, thanks to the new A11 Bionic chip, and the iPhone 8 boasts convenient wireless charging too. Unfortunately the 12MP camera has only received a minor upgrade, but photos are still superb. Certainly if you’re coming from the iPhone 6 or 6S, then the iPhone 8 makes is a decent, more financially accessible option. For a little more cash, the iPhone 8 Plus is also worth a look. It offers more screen real estate than the iPhone 8 due to the larger body, improved battery life again, and an upgraded 12 MP camera with two sensors, a telephoto lens and Portrait Lighting mode. Next page: six more essential graphic design tools... 07. Calibrated monitor The Datacolor Spyder 5 Pro hangs on your monitor and creates a unique colour profileFollowing on from the Pantone Refence Library, it’s vital that your colour workflow is as accurate as possible. The last thing you want is for your hard work to look completely different at output than it did during the design process. Calibrating your monitor isn’t hard, but it does require a specialist tool. One of the best is the Datacolor Spyder 5 Pro. This tool hangs on your monitor and creates a unique colour profile (or the profile your printers are using) adjusting the monitor’s brightness level based on your room lighting. Calibrating your monitor is the only way to guarantee complete accuracy when moving from print to screen – so you should invest as soon as possible. 08. Variable desk Sitting down all day is just not good for you. In fact, it’s terrible for you. Whilst we’re not suggesting a Silicon Valley-esque treadmill desk or anything, using a desk that can raise up so you can stand or sit down depending on your preference is a no-brainer. Varidesk is the undisputed king of, er, variable desks, and offers a few different models depending on your equipment. Just stick the Varidesk on your own desk, pop your laptop and/or desktop on it and you can raise it or lower it with sublime ease. Expect to pay in the region of £400, but your back and health are worth far more than that, right? 09. Ergonomic chair Comfort is critical, so get hold of a decent chairWe all know designers work long hours – hands up if you've ever pulled an all-nighter to meet that deadline! With more and more cases of back pain and RSI occurring in office environments, it's hugely important to have the right chair. And the Herman Miller Aeron chair is pretty much the gold standard when it comes to offering ergonomic comfort (adapting naturally to your body and seating position) in a stylish design. The one drawback? Some models will cost you over £900. 10. Compact system camera Compact, beautiful, water-resistant and rugged, this CSC will do you for all of your creative needsThere was a time where we’d say ‘go for a DSLR’ but the times they are a-changing, and compact system cameras are now almost on a par. Plus, there’s a raft of uber-stylish retro CSC cameras on the market from all the big players – and us designers love a bit of retro styling, right? Just take a look at Fujifilm’s X-Pro2, for instance. Compact, beautiful, water-resistant and rugged… and with a 24.3mp sensor it’ll do you for all of your creative needs, even if you need to take some pro shots for a client job. It’ll cost you around £1350, but it’s a great investment. 11. An (interactive) sketchpad With the Bamboo Slate you can move your handwritten notes into Photoshop or IllustratorA sketchbook is the staple of every designer – whether it’s for creating quick wireframes, doodles or simply taking notes. You may want to opt for a Moleskine or product from Field Notes if you’re a traditionalist (and we wouldn’t blame you – they’re beautiful) but there’s another option – which combines the fluidity of a traditional sketchbook with the ease of getting your ideas into a digital format. And the option is Wacom’s range of smartpads. For instance, the Bamboo Slate is a sketchpad that enables you to move your handwritten notes to files that you can open in Photoshop or Illustrator with a touch of a button. The Bamboo Slate comes in A4 or A5 sizes and will only cost you around £100. For that kind of productivity, a ton is nothing! There are plenty of other innovative options, too. Take a look at our roundup of 5 alternatives to traditional sketchbooks for one that suits you. 12. Reliable solid-state storage Get a reliable, fast hard drive that you can quickly back up toHave you ever lost files due to a creaking hard drive or because your computer failed without you backing up? If so, you'll know how soul-destroying this can be. Our advice is to get a reliable, fast hard drive that you can quickly back up to – either manually or using automated systems such as Mac OS's Time Machine. Solid state drives are still relatively expensive, but because there’s no moving parts they’re less likely to fail. And in the case of Samsung’s T3 range, they’re portable enough to take anywhere – kind of like a mahoosive thumb drive. Related articles: 21 innovative business card designs 8 great examples of graphic design portfolios How design can boost clients' profits View the full article