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You're reading Why Developers Use (and Love) Slides Framework (Survey), originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Designmodo created a 10-question survey for users to gather feedback about Slides Framework. Everyone connected with Designmodo fell in love with Slides Framework pretty much at first sight. But the real question was if other developers would love it too. The natural answer was to ask them. View the full article

Whether it be rendering 3D environments, 2D character sprites or slick UI, talented artists and designers play an absolutely crucial role in video game development. 20 best designs in video gamesGaming is a medium that has incredible scope for artistic variety, from collapsed underwater civilisations to worlds populated with Russian dolls. But it's also one that demands very different considerations of its artists. After all, encoded in a game's art are messages that the player must understand and respond to accordingly in order to progress, which makes for a unique relationship between designer and consumer. Celia Hodent, director of UX at video game behemoth Epic Games and holder of a PhD in psychology, has written a book on this subject called The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design. In it, she sets out to explain how cognitive science and an understanding of player psychology can make for better design decisions. Below are some of her practical tips on how game artists can design around the complexities of the human brain. 01. Consider a diegetic interface Some semblance of an HUD (heads-up display) has long been a staple of video game UI design. The principle behind this is simple: that key information, such as health or ammo supply, is always available to the player. But more recently, games like Dead Space – which stylishly displays the health bar on the spine of the playable character – have experimented with diegetic UI elements. Dead Space shows the health bar on the spine of playable charactersThis means that unlike with a traditional HUD, the information is contextualised within the game world and made visible to characters themselves. Another example of diegetic UI is the iconic Pip-Boy from the Fallout series [below]. But cognitively, there are cases both for and against. “If you can actually convey some information where the eyes are looking and where the attention is, it's going to help the player not having to try and find information in the corners,” Celia Hodent tells Creative Bloq. In her book, she explains that this is down to the way in which our visual perception works, with visual acuity far sharper in the centre of our gaze than in our peripheral vision. “When you look at eye-tracking for shooters, the eye is really towards the reticule at the centre of the screen,” she adds. The Pip-Boy 3000 is a pre-War electronic Personal Information Processor (PIP) in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas manufactured by RobCo IndustriesAnother argument for the diegetic interface is that with the HUD stripped away, players are able to immerse themselves more fully in the game world. Hodent is not fully convinced of this. “A lot of people say 'if you want a more immersive experience, remove the HUD and then you got it',” she considers. “Which is not always the case. If you try too hard to do that at the expense of usability principles, this is when you have a problem.” Indeed, she adds that such a move can have the unintended result of increasing a player's 'cognitive load' – in other words, increasing demands on attention and memory – which can lead to frustration. 02. Have form follow function Adapted from Jakob Nielsen's set of oft-cited usability guidelines, written in 1994, Hodent's book includes her own 'Seven Usability Pillars for Game UX'. One that particularly stands out is 'Form Follows Function', which quite succinctly encapsulates the task faced by video game artists. She argues that “the visual expression of a game element should intuitively inform the player how to interact with it.” Of artists, she adds: “their assets are constrained by what players need to understand, and that they need to follow 'Form Follows Function' as an aesthetic guide.” In an interactive experience, everything has to be cohesive to boost the gameplaySimply having a brilliant imagination and incredible technical ability isn't enough to be a great game artist. For that, you need some sense of coherence with the overall vision. “One of the misconceptions about UX is that it is going to hamper your creativity,” Hodent explains. “But in an interactive experience, everything has to be cohesive and you're here to serve gameplay.” “The art has to serve two purposes: it has to really support the gameplay elements, and it has to delight the players. A lot of times, there's design there but I'm not sure what it's saying to me.” 03. Don't make players read Similar to the idea that form follows function, another of Hodent's usability pillars is 'Signs and Feedback'. Signs are what invite the player to take a specific action – like a flashing red screen may prompt a player to use a health pack – while the appropriate feedback both affirms the action and effectively teaches for the future. Effective use of signs and feedback can significantly minimise the need for blocks of tutorial text, which Hodent believes should be avoided where possible. “The brain is taking shortcuts all the time, the brain wants the minimum workload,” she says. “We're actually using heuristics ourselves to go straight to the point.” “If you have a lot of text, it's likely that the player is not going to read it, or try to parse it for keywords. Motivation is the origin of any behaviour. If you just give them instructions, that's not going to be as compelling.” 04. Test with real people Front cover of The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game DesignIf there's one thing from her academic background that Hodent would like to see implemented in the games industry, it's the rigorous approach to testing a hypothesis. You think your UI is intuitive, but how will you really know until it's in the hands of players? Big game companies such as Epic have a whole protocol in place for this kind of testing, but Hodent maintains that even small companies can take steps towards assessing usability. “Really get the basic understanding of how perception works, the Gestalt Principles,” she advises. “Study the principle of memory; don't rely on the memory of the players, assuming that when you put a tutorial text that: one, they read it; two, they understood it; and three, they're going to remember it. “You bring people over and they test your game, and they can't see that little thing in the HUD,” she continues. “Once you understand that they're not doing it because they don't have the same context that you do to understand the HUD, that helps you iterate faster. “And when you ship the game, it's going to be way more likely to be successful.” The Gamer's Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design, published by CRC Press, is available now. Related articles: Review: Unreal Engine 4.16.1 How to press start on your game art career 10 best video game character designs View the full article

Putting together video projects can be a pain without the right software. Filmora is the rare combination of an app that is easy to grasp but powerful and capable of keeping up with your creativity. You can get Filmora plus a collection of assets on sale now for 50% off the retail price. Video editing is made simple when you have Filmora. This impressive video editing suite, trusted by millions of people for all of their video projects, is built in an intuitive way that makes it easy to grasp. It's packed with powerful effects and additional tools such as royalty-free music, and is bolstered further by a collection of assets that can be applied to your video projects to make them shine. You can get a lifetime licence for Filmora for Windows PCs plus an additional collection of assets on sale now for 50% off the full retail price – at $49 (approx £38) instead of $99.98. It's a great deal of savings for an app that will finally make video editing easy, so grab this deal today! About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at: deals@creativebloq.com View the full article

http://thehackernews.com/2017/09/taringa-data-breach-hacking.html … pic.twitter.com/S1HPHtCP8i View the full article

The following is an excerpt taken from Bram Stein's new Webfont Handbook – out now. Webfonts are defined in CSS through the @font-face rule. If you’re a web developer, you’ve most likely written, copied and pasted, or at the very least seen an @font-face rule. For the sake of completeness, though, let’s quickly run through a basic example: This creates a new webfont family that can be referenced through the font-family or font shorthand property. But something’s missing here. When referencing a webfont in a font stack, always make sure to include at least one fallback font in case the webfont fails to load. Here, if Elena fails to load, the browser will fall back on the generic serif font family: There’s more to fallback fonts, but for now, let’s keep our font stack simple by including only the generic serif and sans-serif font families. Font Families Creating a font family with multiple styles is accomplished by creating an @font-face rule for each style and using the same font-family name. The following @font-face rules create a family with a normal and bold style: You can use this font family in your CSS by referencing the family name and weight in your selectors. This applies the regular style to paragraphs and the bold style to strong paragraphs: Besides font-weight, @font-face also accepts the font-style and font-stretch property descriptors, which define styles such as italic and condensed. All three property descriptors can be used to create a single font family with multiple styles. Theoretically, this lets you create a family containing 243 individual styles (nine font-weight values × three font-style values × nine font-stretch values). In practice, however, you’re limited to 27 values, since some browsers don’t support font-stretch. Take a look at the table below to see which browsers you can use, and look here for more detailed information. Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image With luck, the remaining browsers will implement the font-stretch property soon, and you will be able to use all 243 font classifications. Font Formats The src descriptor tells a browser where to get a font file. The previous examples used a single font format, but you’ll often see URLs to multiple font formats combined with format hints, which are appended after the URL using the format("value") syntax. Format hints tell the browser what the format of the font file at a given URL is. If you list multiple formats, modern browsers will pick the first format they support based on the format hint. Therefore, it’s important to list webfont formats in the order of best compression to least. Even though format hints are optional, always include them – they let the browser know about the format without needing to download the font. For example, if a browser does not support WOFF2, but does support WOFF, it can skip the WOFF2 font file based on the format hint. Browsers support several webfont formats: OpenType (TrueType), EOT, WOFF, and WOFF2. Some browsers also support SVG fonts, but they’re deprecated and should no longer be used (and should not be confused with the new OpenType-SVG format). EOT, WOFF, and WOFF2 are technically not font formats. They are compressed OpenType files with varying degrees of compression. WOFF2 offers the best compression, followed by WOFF and EOT. Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image In researching coverage for all browsers, you may have come across something called the bulletproof @font-face syntax by Fontspring. The bulletproof syntax uses EOT, WOFF2, WOFF, raw OpenType, and SVG font files for maximum browser coverage: The first URL line might look a little odd to you. Versions of Internet Explorer 8 and below do not support the syntax for multiple font formats, and treat the entire value of the src property as the URL. The bulletproof syntax tricks Internet Explorer 8 and below into thinking that the remaining URLs are part of the fragment identifier of the first URL. Because fragment identifiers are ignored when downloading files, Internet Explorer 8 and below simply use the first URL. Browsers other than Internet Explorer will skip the line because they do not support EOT. The rest of the entries are what you would expect: font formats listed in order of preference. But is the bulletproof syntax still relevant? No. In fact, I think it’s harmful. SVG fonts are deprecated and only supported by browsers that are no longer in use. Most websites support Internet Explorer 9 and up, yet the syntax lists EOT as the first preferred font format. Even though Internet Explorer 9 and up support WOFF, those versions will still download the EOT file, simply because it is listed first. Because most websites no longer support old browsers, I highly recommend using a simplified syntax. This simplified syntax covers all modern browsers, as well as slightly older ones that are still in active use, such as Android 4.4 and earlier: Even though older Android versions are still used, worldwide reliance on these browsers is rapidly dwindling. Soon you will probably be able to drop the raw OpenType format as well, and simplify the syntax even further: In this case, someone running an older browser will simply see your fallback fonts instead of the webfont. That’s fine; they can still read the content in the fallback font. There’s another possible value for the src descriptor. The local function takes the name of a local font family. If the font happens to be installed on the system, the browser will use that instead, thereby avoiding an extra download. While this may seem like a great optimisation, nothing guarantees that the local font matches your webfont. You may get a different version of the font, a font with different language support, or even an entirely different font. For that reason, I usually recommend not using the local function unless you find these downsides acceptable. This is an excerpt from Bram Stein's Webfont Handbook, from A Book Apart. In it, he explores what to consider when selecting webfonts, how to use them effectively, and how to optimise for performance. Related articles: What the hell is blockchain? 30 Chrome extensions for web designers and devs 20 amazing free Google web fonts View the full article

This article will teach you how to draw a dragon, and unlike other drawing tutorials it will focus in particular on those areas that make dragons different to other creatures – just because you know how to draw a bear, for example, it doesn't mean you can draw a dragon. How to draw and paint - 100 pro tips and tutorialsLet's be clear: dragons and dinosaurs are both awesome, but dragons are not the same as dinosaurs. Studying the creatures of this world for clues on how to make a fantastic creature feel like it could exist in it is great. But by making dinosaurs and dragons interchangeable in our work, we're losing integral parts of what have made each one special in history, myth and fantasy. In this workshop we're going to examine why character and personality are important in dragons, and then work through examples on how to imbue them with character. 01. Give your dragon a story Tolkien's Smaug is more than just a violent physical threatJRR Tolkien makes a compelling case for a distinction between dragons and dinosaurs in his essay, On Fairy-stories. In it, the author recounts how when he was introduced to the subjects of zoology and palaeontology at an early age he was told by his elders that dinosaurs were, in fact, dragons. Tolkien wanted adults to recognise the distinction between fact and fantasy, and not to dismiss one in favour of the other. He wrote: "I was eager to study nature, actually more eager than I was to read most faerie stories. But I did not want to be quibbled into science and cheated out of faeries by people who seemed to assume that by some kind of original sin I should prefer fairy-tales. But according to some kind of new religion, I ought to be induced to like science." 02. Consider your dragon's motive Dragons have a motive, and more often than not it involves greed for goldIn Smaug, Tolkien's dragon from The Hobbit, we find a creature that provides more than just the mere threat of physical violence. He also offers a personification of greed – and a distinctly aristocratic greed at that (he refuses to share or redistribute his wealth, instead pointlessly hoarding it for centuries in his vast cave). In John Gardner's Grendel, the dragon is even more of a philosophical threat over a physical one. The dragon reveals to Grendel philosophical principles that he wrestles with, and is ultimately overcome by. This leads him to choose to become, and even embrace, his position as the villain in the Shaper's story. Gardner uses the imagery and the archetype views of the dragon to convey how threatening the idea is The dragon in Grendel personifies a deeply nihilistic view of the world: his final argument is about the purpose of life being that all human values are baseless and that everything we do will be made irrelevant. His best advice to Grendel therefore is to, "Seek out gold and sit on it," as nothing really matters anyway. Gardner cleverly uses both the imagery and the archetype views of the dragon to convey how threatening and dangerous the idea is, and this belief is ultimately played out through Grendel's own final meeting with Beowulf. Like these excellent examples, give your dragon a story! 03. Use symbolism Dragons offer a physical example of man's internal struggles, which is possibly why they are a creature who has stood the test of timeDragon symbolism offers something far more than a struggle of man versus nature. It does what fantasy does best: offers physical examples of man's internal struggles. It also reveals a wealth of other conflicts, external and internal. Not all dragons are evil. In Kenneth Grahame's The Reluctant Dragon, the writer acknowledges the classical archetype for a dragon, but flips it on its head to give the dragon a good heart. The dragon in this story understands her design is one of evil, but chooses to rise above it. She prefers tea parties and poetry recitals to pillaging and burning. A wealth of personality can be poured into a dragon, all the while keeping its sinister features. 04. Draw from life Gerard studies a variety of creatures in order to create a truly unique and convincing dragonWhile dragons have a largely spiritual dimension to them, they also exist in the actual world. Therefore we should seek to make them look like they belong here. This is key when learning how to draw a dragon. When we're searching for something to use as physical reference for dragons, there are many creatures alive today that provide us with a great wealth of material. Crocodiles offer what is perhaps the best and most threatening example. Of all modern-day lizards they are some of the most brutal and terrifying in appearance. Gerard goes to a reserve called Alligator Adventure in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to study one of the largest crocs in the world - UtanAs you draw from life or photos, make mental notes about your subject. How far are the eyes from the mouth? How large is the upper jaw compared to the lower? As you draw these details you're adding them to a mental library you'll be able to pull from in future. It also broadens your overall understanding of the construction of living things. 05. Use human references, too By making studies of human faces and expressions you'll soon find they creep into your artWe're searching for a visual balance between a creature that captures our sense of reptilian evil and human intelligence. For humans, you could keep a folder of images from the news of sinister-looking political figures – there are some wonderfully sinister politicians out there! So, a brief foray onto political websites turned these curious figures up. The human studies inform the expressions on the faces of the dragons Now that we have good references for human expressions of deviousness, we can turn to our dragons. The human studies inform the expressions on the faces of the dragons. As you go through these sketches, keep in mind the expressions of the human figures. And even if you don't deliberately try to, it's likely that the humans' expressions will still find their way into the corners of the smiles and the eyes of the dragons. 06. Draw dragons' eyes Eyes are windows to the soul, so make sure your dragon's eyes are full of emotionThe first place almost all biological creatures look when they identify another shape as a biological form is the eyes. They have been called the window to the soul. The same holds true for when we look at a character in a painting: we will generally always try to look at the eyes first, before we move on to the other aspects of the image. This is hard-wired into us as creatures. So, it's important to capture the eyes correctly. Take some time and make studies of reptile eyes and human eyes. Find which ones are the most expressive. Which ones communicate what you’re after the best? Try combining them to achieve something new. 07. Work from memory By studying human facial expressions and working from memory, you can create a distinctive dragon with characterAs you execute your tight drawing, combine what you've learnt from the sinister human faces and from your real life creature references. Try to stick to what you have already memorised, as opposed to directly copying your reference. If you rely too much on copying, you'll slowly suck the humanity out of your dragon until it's simply a brute animal. Try to use your reference only to check your work or when you run into a problem. This article originally appeared in ImagineFX magazine issue 91. Related articles: How to draw a face How to improve your character drawing 14 fantasy artists to follow on Instagram View the full article

A metric that won't appear on the balance sheet, but is critical to the success of any business, is the measure of productivity. Productivity is the output of your team over a given period. If you're able to use your team better, you're able to produce more work, deliver more value for your clients, pitch for more new business, and outpace the competition. At Float, we spend a lot of our time observing how the top agencies, studios and brands manage their team's time. Float is a resource scheduling application used by teams big and small to help manage their team's schedule, allocate tasks efficiently, and keep tabs on utilisation. Over the years, through many interviews and studies, we've identified consistent traits of successful companies that allow them to maximise productivity, maintain high utilisation and continue to win more business. Check out these traits and tips to see how you can apply them to your own business. At Generate London on 21 September, Alison Coward will explain how you can design teamwork 01. Limit the number of different tasks your team works on When tasks are assigned to team members in Float, we see that the average allocation is 4.5 hours per day. This means that any team member, on average, has around two tasks for the day to work on. By reducing the number of different tasks a team member works on a given day, it reduces the switching cost associated with transitioning to a new task. Time management is critical for making the most of your team's skillsMany studies have been done regarding the negative effects of switching between different tasks on productivity. Allow your team members long, concentrated stretches to complete projects, limit switches between tasks, and you'll find they can achieve more. Let's leave the term 'multi-tasking' behind. 02. Block out time for no interruptions Pop quiz: How do you make a team member work faster? Interrupt them. Yes, while counterintuitive, studies show that people who are often interrupted work faster when they return to the task to compensate for the lost time. The trade off? Studies also show that these people are more stressed and frustrated with their jobs. Healthy, happy workers are key to long-term productivity. Limiting the number of interruptions and keeping the team focused should be a top priority for any manager. The astronomical growth of platforms like Slack are changing the way we communicate in the workplace. While reducing email clutter, and centralising the team conversation, their real-time nature and ubiquitous presence make them a number one candidate for interruptions. Recently these services have recognised this issue and have started offering features to help. The Basecamp team started this trend with the 'Work Can Wait' setting, and now Slack allows you to set your own 'Do Not Disturb' time, a period where you won't receive any push notifications. Encourage your team to set these up within reasonable work hours and respect them. Also be sure to set an example of how to use @here and @channel settings. These features enable you to message all of your team at once: think of them as the modern-day Reply All. This shotgun approach to communication is disruptive, so use it wisely, and think twice before you decide to interrupt everyone. 03. Start meetings on time, end meetings on time Starting meetings on time is the easiest way to save your agency time. A team of 12 starting a meeting 10 minutes late means you've effectively lost two hours of work. Back to back meetings are a sure-fire way to deliver cascading delays throughout the day. Google Calendar has meeting efficiency built-in with its 'Speedy Meeting' setting. When you check this feature in your Account Settings, 30 minute meetings end five minutes earlier, and one hour meetings end 10 minutes early. Encourage your team to enable this for their meetings. Float allows you to schedule your resources simplyScheduling meetings with clients or vendors? Avoid the email tag and use a tool like Calendly. This gives the meeting recipient access to the hours you have available so they can pick a time that suits, and you can coordinate a meeting time in one email, not five. 04. Embrace real-time change Tools that enable teams to collaborate in real-time should be prioritised over static, locally hosted files. The Google Docs suite has had a huge impact in this space, with the ability to share, write, comment, and edit documents simultaneously among the team – a big time-saver. Float also enables managers to collaborate in real-time on their scheduling, ensuring that when changes arise, as they often do, you can react quickly and keep your team up-to-date. These tools have the added benefit of auto-saving to the cloud, ensuring no matter where you are, you have access to the latest information. If you lose your laptop, you can also be back up and running as soon as you have a replacement. 05. Value not just the work but how you work Leaders who value their team's time take proactive steps to audit, optimise and improve their company's practices and processes. If you're serious about increasing productivity, schedule regular time out of your day to critique the way your team works. If you can find ways to continuously improve, break bad habits, and introduce new ones, you'll soon see not only an increase in long-term productivity, but an increase in your bottom line. For more tips on improving teamwork, don't miss Alison Coward at Generate London as she explains how to find a good balance between creativity and productivity, run great workshops that improve team culture and create good team habits that stick. The conference on 21/22 September also covers web animation, UX strategy, prototyping, user research, performance, responsive design, adaptive and conversational interfaces and loads more. Buy your ticket today! Liked this? Try these... 20 tools to make your team more productive Top 20 new creative tools of 2017 so far 10 of the best free Udemy courses for designers View the full article

It’s beloved by movie industry studios but now, hefty speed improvements, new features and new purchasing options have made Arnold 5 even more enticing and accessible to all 3D artists. Solid Angle’s ray tracing renderer has a significantly updated core that enables faster rendering, plus new features, enhanced workflows and exciting new capabilities. These software improvements come alongside the introduction of a free version of Arnold 5 for educational institutions and a discount of up to 50% for other users. “Everything about Arnold is easier – whether it’s the straightforward controls for the artist or the clean, consistent API for the developer," reports Chad Dombrova of Luma Pictures, one of over 300 studios worldwide that uses Arnold. Arnold 5 for Maya features newly improved standard volume shadersThe three minute video below shows some of the improvements in Arnold 5. These include a new open shading language (OSL) with better closures support; improved lighting with controls over roundness and softness; improved sampling performance; a new hair shader; a new standard volume shader; smarter colour management; a VR camera; and impressive speed improvements. Simple workflows with usable new features With the rendering tool boosted to help artists create more stunning imagery than ever, it’s no wonder Arnold 5 was named one of our 8 best 3D tools of 2017 so far. "Arnold gives us outstanding image quality and the ease of setup that today’s productions demand. I’m thrilled we are able to add it to the arsenal of tools at ILM,” enthuses John Knoll of ILM, which used Arnold for its work on Pacific Rim. Arnold 5 for Maya's FumeFXAt SIGGRAPH 2017, Arnold development manager Fred Servant spoke as part of the Autodesk Vision series about the decisions and changes behind the move from Arnold 4 to Arnold 5. “We knew we needed to lay the foundations for the things we wanted to build for the next generation,” Servant says. “Along the way we tried to simplify everything we could. We tried to simplify the workflows from Arnold 4. When you simplify things, you get performance improvements, but we worked also on really improving the speed of the code.” Arnold produced photorealistic results in the Logan movie (image courtesy of Image Engine)Tried and tested by Hollywood Imagine Engine was one of the first studios to test Arnold 5’s new OSL. Servant explains that Imagine Engine used a “special cut” of Arnold 4 with OSL included to render a CG version of Hugh Jackman for the recent Logan movie, with photorealistic results. Similarly, Digic Pictures tested the newly improved standard volume shaders in Final Fantasy XV: Kingsglaive to create dramatic and high-profile smoke effects. Arnold was used in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 by Marvel Studios (image courtesy of Framestore)Arnold was also used by Framestore in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Framestore’s Martin Preston says: "Arnold has been a revelation both in the minimal time required for us to port all our pipeline to support it, and in the ease by which our lighters have switched to using it." With a gallery bulging with case studies from TV and movies, there’s no shortage of inspiration from the professionals. Take out a free trial today to see what you can create. How to get Arnold 5 Arnold 5 works alone or as a plug-in for Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema4D, Katana, Houdini and SoftimageArnold 5 is available now for Mac, Windows PC or Linux as a standalone renderer or as a plug-in for Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema4D, Katana, Houdini and Softimage. The free 30-day trial version of Arnold functions the same way as the full version. Arnold is available on subscription for £555/$600 per year for a single licence. Or, companies can save 50% by buying an Arnold pack of five annual licences for £1,387.50/$1,500 (plus VAT/tax). Students can use Arnold 5 for freeStarting on 7 September, Arnold 5 will also come free with new or renewed subscriptions to the Media & Entertainment Collection of software by Autodesk, which owns Arnold developer Solid Angle. This software package contains all the 3D pipeline tools you need, including Maya, 3ds Max, Mudbox, Motionbuilder and more. Free Arnold educational licences are available from the Autodesk Education Portal for institutions wishing to teach with the software, while students of Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max can download the latest versions that come bundled with Arnold for interactive rendering. View the full article

These days, most people know Jaime Levy from her book UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want, which is widely regarded as the definitive work on UX strategy, and published in six different languages. But there’s much more to the American author, university professor, interface designer and UX strategist’s career to date. Here she reveals how she started out. It all began back in 1990, when she was working on her Master’s at New York University (NYU) in Interactive Telecommunications. It was an exciting time, she recalls. “I was surrounded by people who were trying to really push technology. Even back then we were doing stuff with virtual reality, reading cyberpunk books... It was a really good time to get fully engrossed in a mindset where ‘Hey, I’m not going to be afraid of technology even though I’m a girl, even though I’m not a programmer,’” she says. Despite being born in Hollywood and going to college in San Francisco, Levy had had no interest in staying put in California. “When I left San Francisco, it still felt like a hippy-dippy scene,” she says. “Apple was starting out but it was floundering. Silicon Valley wasn’t anything like it is now. So I moved to New York because that’s where artists lived who wanted to make a big statement, and I could be part of a scene that had so much energy. Jaime Levy will be presenting her UX strategy workshop at Generate London this month “If you look at film, say, it was the lame Hollywood films that would come out of California, while New York had the people I admired, like Jim Jarmusch or Spike Lee,” she continues. “A big reason that drew me there was that it had experimental industrial music, so I wanted to live where Sonic Youth lived. People like Patti Smith or Allen Ginsberg... it was like, I can do anything because these are the people I’m surrounded by.” Taking a deep dive into the latest technologies, Levy soon became known for launching the electronic magazines Cyber Rag and Electronic Hollywood, which were programmed in HyperCard and Macromedia Director and distributed on 800k floppy disks. “And I quickly learned that it’s one thing to make something, but that’s only half the game,” she says. “The second half is you have to market the shit out of it to get it in people’s hands. Learn how UX strategy can change the world at Generate London So she lugged her disks around bookstores and worked incessantly to create publicity for them. “I sent them to magazines and they wrote articles about them. I took them to bookstores and said, ‘Sell these’. And they said, ‘What the hell are they?’ I said, ‘Just take them for free and if you sell them, give me the money.’” After Billy Idol bought one of her disks in a bookstore, Levy got a gig with EMI Records, where she designed, animated, and programmed the first commercially released interactive press kit for the singer’s Cyberpunk CD digipack. It was just one of a number of multimedia projects Levy produced throughout the 1990s, working with companies like Viacom and IBM, at the same time as working as a Professor at NYU, teaching Electronic Publishing and Interface Design. By 2000, the dotcom bubble had well and truly burst, and then another seismic event, 9/11, sucked the creative air out of New York. Levy decided to move back to California, where she would eventually start a whole new chapter in her career by founding JLR Interactive. The UX consultancy firm, which Levy now runs alongside teaching UX strategy at UCLA, has gone from strength to strength. In 2018, Levy says she's going to stop touring to focus on developing new courses and hands-on consulting projects, meaning that net's Generate London conference may be the last chance you get to see Levy talk in public for some time. The full version of this interview was originally published in issue 297 of net magazine. Buy it today. Jaime Levy will host both a workshop and a talk on UX strategy at Generate London this month. Haven't got a ticket yet? Grab one here now! Related articles: Four tenets of UX strategy The state of UX in 2016 Master user experience strategy View the full article

Digital painting techniques make it possible to depict reflections in glass in a relatively straightforward manner. Certainly, it’s much less laborious than taking the traditional media approach to painting reflections. And it’s all down to the use of layers in painting apps. How to improve your character drawingWhen painting the reflection of a person in a window, remember that window glass is different to a mirror, which produces a sharp, well-defined image. A window works differently because of the transparent nature of glass. As such, a dark background on the other side of the window is what makes the reflection possible in the first place. Some aspects of the background will emerge in the reflection as part of the image, so it’s important not to overdo the transparency effect. Keep in mind that glass is a glossy surface, but also fragile. Elements such as dirt, erosion and cracks in the glass will give it an even more realistic look. Watch the video tutorial below to see this technique in action, then read the step-by-step instructions. Now onto the steps. Begin by laying down the sketch, starting with the environment that you'll see reflected in the glass window... 01. Consider the perspective Perspective lines on a separate layer ensure the sketch is accurate In this example the focal point will be a reflection of the figure, so it is placed in the middle. On a separate layer, draw the perspective lines. Getting the reflection and the perspective correct can be the difference between a successful image and a failed one. 02. Paint the reflections as solids Paint the reflections in before you add the transparency effect (click to see the full image) Start on the background. The girl’s reflection is added on a new layer, without factoring in the transparency effect yet. Then, select the Layer dialog and set the blending mode to Screen, so everything that’s dark in the layer become transparent. 03. Weather the glass Adding dirt and scratches will convey the glass's presence (click to see the full image)  Now, adjust the Opacity and Fill settings in the Layer dialog, which affect the level of reflection. Then add weathering effects to the glass: create a new layer and paint dirt with a light grey and a scattered brush. Depict cracks on another layer. Our finished reflected portrait (click to see the full image) This tutorial originally appeared in ImagineFX issue 147. Buy it here. We think you'll like these related articles: 5 ways to improve your digital art skills How to colour your manga art like a pro The stories behind iconic fantasy film posters of the 80s View the full article

It's not just photographers on Instagram who post interesting and intriguing images – the social network is bursting with creative talent from across the artistic spectrum. Instagram is a great way to capture and share some of your favourite moments and get inspired at the same time from some of the most exciting creatives out there. To help get you started, or to spice up your feed, here's a list of the some of the biggest and best illustrators to follow... 01. Catalina Estrada Catalina Estrada's brightly coloured, nature-inspired patterned work graces everything from wallpaper and colouring books to clothing and duvet covers these days. Her Instagram account's a great place to see her latest work, as well as pictures of her and her family. 02. Berta Valló Born in Budapest and now based in London having graduated from Central Saint Martins, Berta Valló's work often explores themes of identity and female sexuality in relation to consumerist culture. Her Instagram is a great place to see it. 03. Jean Julien French illustrator and Central Saint Martin's graduate Jean Julien is everywhere right now. His account is dedicated to his satirical and colourful illustrations – some published works, some sketches in progress – all of which are guaranteed to make you chuckle. 04. Mr Bingo You'll know Mr Bingo from his hugely popular Hate Mail project. On his Instagram account, he shares his latest offensive postcard illustrations, as well as arty shots of his adventures. 05. Rob Hodgson Bristol-based illustrator Rob Hodgson shares a real mix of images on his account. Pictures of his work take predominance, followed closely by some cute – and often funny – pictures of his cat, Peggy Sue. 06. SAINER Polish illustrator and street artist SAINER creates pieces of work that are often gigantic in size and beautifully intricate. Give his Instagram account a follow to keep-up-to date with his latest artworks. 07. DailyDoodleGram Israeli illustrator Geffen Refaeli first started the DailyDoodleGram project in May 2001 and has uploaded a new illustration each day ever since. His account has skyrocketed! With 103,000 followers, make sure you give him a follow to get your daily pencil drawing fix. 08. Luke Pearson Luke Pearson is an illustrator, cartoonist and comic book artist from the UK who has produced work for clients including Penguin Books, Wired, Little White Lies Magazine and Cartoon Network. It's a great account to follow if you're passionate about character design. 09. Guy Mckinley On his Instagram account, illustrator Guy Mckinley shares shots of his intricate pencil drawings. With work commissioned for the likes of Disney, BBC, Adidas and New Balance, make sure to follow him for some truly inspiring work. 10. Hattie Stewart 'Professional doodler' Hattie Stewart's drawing style is fun, colourful, outrageous and abstract. With exhibitions at Pick Me Up, work featured in Interview Magazine and a recent solo show in Brighton, UK, Hattie's popularity has earned her a whopping 19,000 followers on Instagram. Make sure you give her a follow. Next page: more awesome illustrators on Instagram 11. Malika Favre French illustrator Malika Favre's style is graphic and bold and aims to use as few lines and colours as needed to deliver the concept. Her Instagram account showcases her work, as well as some cool photographic shots of her travels. 12. Margaux Carpe London illustrator and one third of design study Animaux Circus, Margaux Carpe creates bold and fun designs using a variety of mediums from 0.2 Rotring pens to tones of cans of spray paint. 13. Daniel Frost London artist Daniel Frost depicts everyday life in striking illustrations, created with simple colour and composition. His Instagram account acts as an online portfolio of his work, including shots of his latest editorial spreads. 14. Justin Maller Australian artist Justin Maller has worked for the likes of American Express, Grammys, Dolby and Nike. His Instagram account is a showreel of his latest designs, peppered with occasional shots of his travels. 15. Darren Booth This Canadian illustrator and letterer has created work for huge brands including Coca-Cola, AOL, Target, Disney, McDonald's. As well as sharing snaps of his work, he also shares some really hilarious pictures of his cat Dougy and Cooper the dog. 16. Ping Zhu Brooklyn-based illustrator Ping Zhu is talked about as one of the most exciting illustrators of the now. Her work is intricate, varied and playful and has been picked up by some of the biggest editorial outlets, including The New York Times and Playboy. Give her a follow and get inspired as she takes to Instagram to share snippets of her work. 17. Steven Millington Steven Millington's Instagram is an homage to his passion for illustration and hand lettering. His work is influenced by the likes of Peter Blake and Quentin Blake, and has seen him collaborate with Vans and Ben Sherman. It's a great account to follow if you're a hand lettering fan, too. 18. Christi du Toit South African-based Christi du Toit is also an illustrator, letterer and graphic designer. Check out his Instagram account for examples of his brilliant character illustrations, as well as pictures of Misty the cat. Related articles: Best graphic designers to follow on Instagram 100 amazing Adobe Illustrator tutorials 7 best new illustration tools of 2017 so far View the full article

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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