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If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the amount of learning that’s required to keep up with new web technologies these days, the good news is there are plenty of people building amazing tools to help you. This month we look at resources for building and maintaining Progressive Web Apps, static sites, design systems and more. 01. Layout Land Top notch layout tuition from Jen Simmons This fantastic YouTube channel by Mozilla designer and developer advocate Jen Simmons teaches you about very smart and interesting things you can do with layout on the web. These tutorials will give you a firm grounding in using Flexbox, Grid, CSS Shapes and Clip Path in your designs, guiding you with useful example layouts. You’ll learn about core concepts, such as when to use Grid and when to choose Flexbox, how to make things work with Internet Explorer, and how to write resilient CSS that’s less likely to trip you up in the future. For a taste of what to expect, check out Simmons' article 6 web layout myths busted. 02. basicScroll Use CSS variables to trigger animation based on scroll position The lack of variables in CSS has long been a frustration for developers, but they’re finally here and you can use them to make your life much easier, and to do cool things! basicScroll is a clever tool that makes use of CSS variables to let you trigger animations based on scroll position. As well as CSS Custom Properties, basicScroll requires requestAnimationFrame to work, but beyond that, it’s framework independent and has a simple JavaScript API. You can do all your animation with CSS, but if you want even more control you can use JavaScript. It works on both desktop and mobile and promises “insane” performance. 03. Xray A new spin on the Atom code editor Atom fans may wish to keep an eye on this project, which is an experimental text editor based on what has been learned from Atom since it launched. Essentially it is a way to experiment with some radical ideas without destabilising Atom. The project goal is to develop a fast code editor that makes it easy for users to code collaboratively and to add their own functionality to the program via powerful APIs. Web compatibility is also a priority, so editing in Xray will feel similar to editing in GitHub. 04. Compositor Lab Build and maintain a design system with Compositor Lab Now that many organisations are using design systems as a means of developing their products coherently, it makes sense that tools are emerging to help you work within this framework. Compositor Lab is one such tool: it’s for building and maintaining a design system. Lab enables you to create production-ready React components without writing code, speed up your workflow, and makes it easier to hand-off work between designers and developers. You can export your work in a variety of formats, and publish your style guide with a single click. 05. PWABuilder Building Progressive Web Apps might seem daunting, but this tool makes it easy Progressive Web Apps are the web’s answer to native mobile apps – they attempt to replicate the experience of a native app, but on the web. This means that they’re offline-first, reliable, fast and as easy to use as a native app. If you’d like to make a Progressive Web App using data from your existing site, you’re in luck: PWABuilder makes the process much easier. Feed in the URL and it will help you to generate the manifest, build the Service Worker and publish the finished app. If you don’t know much about Progressive Web Apps, this article is a good primer. 06. Prettier Get your code in order effortlessly with Prettier Keeping things tidy might feel like an extra burden, but your future self will thank you for writing well-formatted code that’s easier to navigate and maintain – as will your colleagues! Prettier is an opinionated code formatter that integrates with many editors including Atom and Sublime Text, and many languages. The advantage of using a tool for this is that it’s automated, so it’s much easier for you, and also that it’s done in a standardised way so there’s less room for annoying debates about how to format things. Just hit save and it formats your code. 07. Google Speed Index Calculator How does your site compare to the competition? We all know that a slow mobile site means fewer conversions, but this calculator helps you to put a number on it. Enter your URL and the Speed Scorecard works out how your site compares to the competition performance-wise, then the Revenue Impact Calculator tells you how much money your slow site is costing you. These numbers can be helpful in giving weight to your arguments when you’re pushing to prioritise the performance of a website. This page also gives some great guidance on what options you have for speeding things up. 08. Gatsby Build fast sites that are easy to deploy with Gatsby Gatsby is a static site generator for React that helps you build fast, secure sites using modern web technology. Static files are much simpler to deploy, so it’s a lot easier to scale your site – and it’s much faster, too. Getting data into your site is straightforward thanks to a great plugin ecosystem that enables you to pull in data from CMSs, APIs, databases and more using GraphQL. Gatsby sites are Progressive Web Apps, which means only the critical data is loaded so that your site is in front of your users as quickly as possible. 09. CSS Gradient A great interface for building gradients with CSS Why use code to build CSS gradients when you don’t have to? There’s no sense in reinventing the wheel; you might as well use a web-based tool like this one to get the job done. CSS Gradient is a simple app that provides a nice interface for creating CSS gradients – pick from one of five gradient styles and adjust the sliders until you get what you need. The code appears underneath, ready for you to copy and paste into your site. 10. Overflow Share your design vision effectively with user flows Overflow was created by the people behind Proto.io as they wanted to make something to help with the process of design critiques. They found that the usual method of presenting design work left out an important element; the story of the design and the designers’ rationale behind the decisions they had made. The answer to this, they found, is user flows: flow diagrams that show how a user will navigate around an interface. But until now, there was no tool designed specifically for creating user flows, so they were difficult to incorporate into a workflow. Overflow is intended to meet that need. It looks exciting, and you can sign up for early access now. This blog post explains in more detail how user flows can help you. Read more: Essential image optimisation tips Essential TED talks for UX designers 5 of the best JavaScript frameworks View the full article

Digital painting tools have evolved greatly in the past few years. Artists can use tablets to produce works of art at home or away, with all the convenience that brings. And it’s also become easier than ever to take traditional painting techniques and apply them to the digital canvas. I’m a young artist who approaches his work with great enthusiasm. I’m keen to take the idea of expressive elements from the Old Masters and portray them in my work, because it’s important to pass on these ideas to a new generation of art fans. I’ve learned the majority of my painting techniques by studying both the Old Masters and those digital artists whose art stands out from the crowd. My favourites are John Singer Sargent and Craig Mullins; you can learn much by studying their work. Recently, I received a few questions on how to recreate the look of an oil painting in Photoshop. Although many people think the brush settings aren’t important, I still believe that configuring an appropriate tool can help the artist in many ways. My secret is to use the Mixer Brush tool in Photoshop. Artists can quickly make brushstrokes in the style of a traditional artist. I’ll be using the Mixer brush a lot in this workshop. I’m happy that I can share my ideas about Mixer Brush tool and hope you guys like my workshop. Get Adobe Creative Cloud now 01. Produce line drawings Rough sketches help you to settle on a good pose I begin by drawing multiple sketches. These figure poses help me choose the best one, based on the visual language such as composition, shape and proportion. In this case, I select the figure looking at the viewer, in a more straightforward pose. 02. Build the form of the shadow The character and background are built up with separate layers Next, I create two separate layers for the character and background. Then I paint the shape of the shadow of the character. In this stage, I ignore the local colour and only capture the form of the shadows. It’s preparation for using the Mixer brushes, later on in the process. 03. Add the local colour Take care to colour according to the lighting I fill in the colours of her skin and clothing. Because of the edge light, I use a brush on low Opacity to add a little green into the lightest area and a little red into the dark area, to make her look subtly different on both sides. 04. Adjust the gesture Hands are an essential part of portrait painting When it comes to portrait paintings, the hand is equally essential as the face. If the face is a flower, then the hand is its leaf. Painting a portrait without the hand in the image would be like showing a flower without the leaf – it’s a incomplete object. So I paint the hand first. 05. Use the Mixer Brush The Mixer brush creates a paint on canvas effect Click and hold the Brush icon in the Tool palette, then select the Mixer Brush and set it to Sample All Layers. This enables me to pick up the canvas colour from all visible layers. Figure A shows two distinct colours (1 and 2). By using the Mixer brush on the colours – figure B – you can create an effect similar to painting on a traditional canvas (3). Using various combinations of colours and brushes, you can achieve a range of real-world painting effects.. 06. Fill in the background The brush is tested out on the background I usually try brushes on the background area before drawing characters. In this case, I decide to use the large Mixer brush to fill the background. Sometimes, the result isn’t what I intended, and in such cases I’ll cover the layer with a standard brush instead. 07. Illustrate the hair Cold and warm colours bring the painting to life I choose a leaf brush to paint the hair and the background. I try to add some cold and warm colours to inject a bit of life into the environment, so it’s not too stuffy in appearance. Sometime I’ll paint the background like an abstract painting. 08. Change the outline The bottom part of the hand is removed to help refine the shape of the figure I adjust the outline of the body, to make the sharp shape softer in appearance. I decided to omit the bottom part of the hand because it’ll help me to express the upper portion of the character’s body. 09. Introduce facial features Low Opacity brushes are better suited to painting details I switch to a low Opacity brush to paint the face, because the Mixer brush is unsuitable for painting details. My approach is to paint a big egg shape, then use a small brush to paint the facial volume, then use an even more smaller brush to tackle the details. 10. Preview and check the shape Time to take stock and review the painting so far By using the Mixer brush, I produced many small shapes and tiny brushstrokes. So I take the opportunity to review the form and find some ideas to finish my work. I use these pauses to manage my pace of painting. 11. Adjust the hand position Colours are removed so they don't detract from the face The position of her hand looks incorrect so I adjust it slightly. I change the colour in the arm because I want to reserve any vivid colours for the character’s face. 12. Vary the look of the character's clothing The strong red dress is toned down with cold colours The colour of the fabric is the purest object in this painting. For me, red is the hardest colour to express. I try to give most of the red dress a cold appearance, only keeping a strong red near the character’s arm. 13. Adjust the shape around the head The face is simplified and made less rigid I’m nearing the finish, now. The head still the primary part of this painting, so I adjust the shapes around the head, to ensure they’re simple yet not stiff. I keep the loose texture on her right side and add a subtle dark colour to mix the hair into the background. 14. Finishing up the portrait Rough areas help the viewer to use their imagination. This is my favourite step in the creative process – and not just because I’m close to finishing! I like paintings with a sense of visual rhythm. So in this workshop, I try to do less detailing, to create a contrast between the rough and the intricate. I won’t connect all the details using dark colours. Instead, I’ll leave some areas to serve as a link to the surrounding tones. This approach creates ebb and flow within an image, and avoids the trap of a dark painting that just looks stiff. The rougher areas will encourage the viewer to use their imagination. This article was originally published in issue 156 of ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 156 here or subscribe to ImagineFX here. Related articles: The 55 best free Photoshop brushes 10 free Photoshop brushes for painting skin and hair Painter 2018 blurs the line between traditional and digital art View the full article

A few lucky developers and this author had the opportunity to tech edit Addy Osmani's new image optimisation eBook, Essential Image Optimization, which you absolutely should read. 10 ways to optimise images for better performance Whether you're building full-size eCommerce websites or simply making an online home for your design portfolio, in this article you'll learn a few tips from Addy's book that will help make your images leaner and faster. Be selective and preload critical images Take a look at your site and identify a critical image asset. For most, this would be a logo or hero image that you want to have render as soon as possible. This is where the preload resource hint comes in. preload is a way of hinting to the client that an asset should be retrieved before the browser parser would otherwise discover it. You can use it for pretty much anything, but it works splendidly for preloading critical imagery. Here's an example of it in use in the HTML <head> element on order to preload a hero banner image: You can also use preload in an HTTP header: Below you can see two screenshot rolls of the same page loading in Chrome. One scenario uses preload to load a hero banner image, while the other doesn't. The effect of using preload on a hero banner In the example with preload, the banner image appears in the browser window half a second faster. All because of a quick one-liner that gave the browser a head start. Automatically simplify your SVG artwork Illustrator’s Simplify tool, showing the number of anchor points before and after as Curve Precision is lowered Optimising SVGs is different than with other image types, because unlike JPEGs or PNGs, SVGs are comprised of text, specifically XML markup. This means that typical optimisations you would apply to text-based assets (for example, minification, gzip/Brotli compression) can and should also be applied to SVGs. Beyond that, you can use an optimiser such as SVGO to tamp down the size of SVGs. But what if you're not merely consuming vector artwork, but creating it? If you're an Illustrator user, you can automatically simplify your artwork to reduce the amount of anchor points in paths via the Simplify dialog window. This dialog can be found in Illustrator CC's menu by going to Object>Path>Simplify. By reducing Curve Precision (and optionally adjusting Angle Threshold), it is possible to remove extra path points in your artwork. In this instance, you'll note that a reduction in Curve Precision of as little as 6% removes 54 path points. Used judiciously, it could even improve the appearance of your artwork. The savings that path simplification can afford Word to the wise – be careful with just how aggressive you get with this tool. Lower Curve Precision too much, and your once carefully crafted artwork will devolve into a blob. Strike the right balance, though, and you'll reap the rewards. Convert animated GIFs to video With FFmpeg you can turn flabby GIFs into svelte video We all love a good animated GIF. They effectively convey nearly any sentiment, but they can be really huge. Image optimisers such as gifsicle can help shave off excess kilobytes, but the ticket is to convert those GIFs into videos and embed them in the HTML5 <video> tag. The ffmpeg command line utility is well suited for this task: The commands above take a source GIF (animated.gif) as input in the -i argument, and output videos with a variable bitrate maximum of 512Kbps. In a test of our own, we were able to take a 989Kb animated GIF and reduce it to a 155Kb MP4, a 109Kb OGV, and a 85Kb WebM. All video files were comparable in quality to the source GIF. Because of the ubiquity of <video> tag support in browsers, these three video formats can be used like so: If you decide to go this route, be sure to order your <source> tags so that the most optimal format is specified first, and the least optimal is specified last. In most cases, this means you'll start with WebM videos first, but check the output file size of each video and go with whatever is smallest first, and end with whatever is largest. If you don't have FFmpeg or don't know what it is, check it out. It's easy to install through most operating system package managers, such as Homebrew or Chocolatey. Lazy load with IntersectionObserver Lazy loading images is something you might already be doing, but many lazy loading scripts use CPU-intensive scroll event handlers. Such methods contribute to sluggish interactions on a page. Older hardware with less processing power is even more prone to the ill effects of this type of code. Execution throttling does help to a degree, but it's still a messy and rather inefficient workaround for determining when elements are in the viewport. Thankfully, the Intersection Observer API gives us a simpler and far more efficient way to determine when elements are in the viewport. Here's an example of some basic lazy loading image markup: Here, we load a placeholder image in the src attribute, and then store the URL for the image we want to lazily load in the data-src attribute. To top it all off, we give the <img> element a class of lazy for easy access with querySelectorAll. From there, we simply use this code: Here, we bind code to the document object's DOMContentLoaded event. This code checks to see if Intersection Observer is supported by the current browser. If it turns out that it is, we grab all img elements with a class of lazy with querySelectorAll and then attach observers to them. The observer contains references to the elements we're observing (entries) and the observer itself (observer). This code hinges on each observer entry's isIntersecting value. While the observed element is out of the viewport, isIntersecting returns 0. As the element enters the viewport, though, it will return a value greater than 0. It's at this point that we swap the content of the image's data-src attribute into the src attribute, and remove its lazy class. After a given image lazy loads, the observer is removed from it with the observer's unobserve method. This process is much easier than mucking around with scroll handlers, but since Intersection Observer doesn't enjoy universal support, you may have to fall back on them. If you're the sort to grab a script and go, we've written a lazy loader that uses Intersection Observer, but also falls back to the methods of yesteryear. You can grab it here. This article was originally published in issue 301 of net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 301 here or subscribe here. Related articles: The complete guide to SVG Using vector tools: A web designer's approach Animate SVG with JavaScript View the full article

You're reading Best Free Tools for Web Developers in 2018, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! There is no point in telling you why tools for web developers are a good thing, since everyone is aware of the advantages. In terms of dealing with mundane tasks, they are indispensable. Of course, not all instruments are of high value, some appear to be trash or simply useless. Nevertheless, there are a ton […] View the full article

Whether on web or mobile, apps make the world go around. These powerful tools have become ingrained in our lives thanks to the incredible functionality they provide. Now you can learn to build apps that people will be sure to love with the Complete Application Development Bundle. Get it on sale now for 89 per cent off the retail price! Even the most simple app looks more complicated when you crack open the hood. With the Complete Application Development Bundle, you'll learn to understand the inner workings of applications. With more than 35 hours of in-depth content about app development, this bundle is the perfect crash course for anyone interested in building their own apps. Master frameworks, learn to use powerful developer tools, and create your own killer app. The Complete Application Development Bundle is valued at $320 / £230, but you can get it on sale for 89 per cent off the retail price. Don’t pass up this opportunity, grab this deal today and get a start on your developer career. About Creative Bloq deals This great deal comes courtesy of the Creative Bloq Deals store – a creative marketplace that's dedicated to ensuring you save money on the items that improve your design life. We all like a special offer or two, particularly with creative tools and design assets often being eye-wateringly expensive. That's why the Creative Bloq Deals store is committed to bringing you useful deals, freebies and giveaways on design assets (logos, templates, icons, fonts, vectors and more), tutorials, e-learning, inspirational items, hardware and more. Every day of the working week we feature a new offer, freebie or contest – if you miss one, you can easily find past deals posts on the Deals Staff author page or Offer tag page. Plus, you can get in touch with any feedback at:deals@creativebloq.com. Related articles: How to make an app 10 apps for endless design inspiration How to use animation in mobile apps View the full article

Breaking any process down into small chunks is a great way to tackle what can seem like a daunting task. If you're struggling to figure out how to draw something complicated, breaking the subject down into simple shapes can help you begin to describe its overall structure. All you need a solid grasp of how to draw a cube, cylinder and sphere, which we'll cover here. How to draw a face In the opening stages of a drawing, you should be looking to describe your subject and its environment in very simple terms: always avoid details too early on. By drawing with simple shapes, we can focus on proportions, composition, planes and the relationships between forms. It's all about working big down to small; simple into complex; basic shapes into crafted details. There are three basic shape archetypes that any form can be fitted into: the cube, the cylinder and the sphere. At the heart of these form shapes are two simple geometric shapes: the square and the ellipse. There are three basic shape archetypes that any form can be fitted into; the cube, the cylinder and the sphere Learning to accurately draw and combine these will help you to construct any object, observed or imagined. In walking you through this process we will have to deal with concepts like perspective and foreshortening, so we'll take a very brief, practical look at them. We'll start with drawing the square, leading onto the cube – the most articulate shape when it comes to describing geometry in a drawing that has perspective. Having six basic planar faces, the cube's proportions help to echo their relationship within 3D space. This aids further description of more complex rectilinear, cylindrical and curvilinear forms. You might think that drawing simple shapes is... well, simple. But don't be fooled. It takes immense skill to perfect drawing freehand shapes like a simple circle. 01. How to draw a square A basic square is the simple connection of four straight lines Drawing a basic square is the simple connection of four straight lines, two along the horizontal axis and two to describe the vertical axis. Drawing these lines is all about living in the future: pinpoint your start point; imagine the end point. Place your pencil on the start point, relax and focus on the end point. Pull your mark along the imagined path removing the pencil once it reaches the end point. Pull your lines towards their goal: this uses more adept muscle groups. Try this squared exercise The barrel of the pencil should rest naturally in your hand's web space The grip shown above is one we're all accustomed to using when writing. Grip using the thumb, index and middle finger. The barrel of the pencil should rest naturally in your hand's web space. Avoid closing the web space as this forces the barrel to rest on the knuckle of the index finger and promotes strokes using finger gestures only. Avoid grasping at the tip of the pencil, as this can limit line length and lead to less fluid lines. 02. How to draw a cube For a cube seen in nature we need to apply perspective... Using the simple square as a starting point [A], begin to describe a box in 3D space. Draw another square that overlaps the first . Connect all the corners of one square to the adjacent corners of the other, using 45-degree lines [C]. This process of showing all six sides of the cube is known as 'drawing through', and here it highlights a problem with this oblique drawing of a cube: it's an impossible shape in nature. For a cube seen in nature we need to apply perspective... 03. How to draw a cube with perspective When you first start drawing cubes, it helps to study with an object in front of you When you first start drawing cubes, it helps to study with an object in front of you. The first line to go down is the vertical line closest to you [A]. The next two lines are for the inside edges . These start at the top of our first stroke as we're looking down at our cube and the top plane is visible. The degree at which the inside edge lines are drawn depends on how much top plane we can see: if it's a lot, the lines are drawn at an acute angle, for less, a more obtuse angle. 04. Finishing your cube The length and angle of the inside edges depend on how much of the front and side is on show The length and angle of the inside edges depends on how much of the front and side is on show. If both are equal, the angle and length of the inside edge lines are also equal. Turn the front face more towards you and the line gets longer, the angle more horizontal. This turning creates the opposite; the line is more vertical, shorter. To finish, go to the end of each line and join the remaining edges with converging lines. 05. Try this cube exercise Your goal is to populate the paper with 3D cubes as seen from various angles Draw a horizontal line across your surface, this will act as your eye line or imaginary horizon line. Draw a square directly in the centre (note no sides should be visible). Now, above the horizon line and off to the right, draw a cube as if you'd picked up the centre square and moved it up and to the right. Your goal is to populate the paper with 3D cubes as seen from various angles. Next page: How to draw a sphere and more shapes 01. How to draw a circle A square grid will keep your circle accurate Measure out a square using a ruler. From the top left corner, draw a line [A] to the bottom right. Draw a second from top right to lower left . Add two centre lines, [C] and [D]. On the eight short lines going out from the centre, plot dots at incremental thirds [E]. Now draw your circle tangent to the sides of the square and using the plot points placed two thirds from the centre. 'Ghost draft' this to practice first. 02. How to draw an ellipse Simplify the process by drawing two lines dissecting each other To draw a circle that appears tilted in perspective (an ellipse) repeat step 6 but this time start with a square drawn on an imaginary angled plane. You can simplify this process by drawing two lines dissecting each other, one short and vertical [A], the other horizontal and longer . Now plot end points. Those on the horizontal line should be equal in distance from the centre. Complete your ellipse It takes a lot of training to draw accurate ellipses Once again it's about connecting these points with a curvilinear path. But this time the upper semi-circle [A] is more foreshortened than the lower arc . Practise this process small at first, just to build up your confidence – then move onto larger ellipses, which require more gestural arm and shoulder movements. It takes a lot of training to draw accurate ellipses. 03. How to draw a cylinder First determine your cylinder's size and orientation You first need to determine your cylinder's size and orientation in 3D space. Draw an angled line measured to express its length in depth [A]. Introduce a line that runs parallel to it to determine the cylinder's width . These two lines should be tapering to an imagined far off point to express any foreshortening that's occurring. The shape of both end ellipses depends on your viewing angle; in both cases the angle of each is perpendicular to the established sides. Complete your cylinder Your ellipses should run perpendicular to your edge lines Your ellipses should run perpendicular to your edge lines; knowing this helps you avoid 'squished' cylinders, a common issue when using horizontal ellipses to cap the ends of angled cylinders. Applying this rule will also help you describe cross contour lines accurately. When you need to add a cross contour line to a cylinder, lightly 'draw through' the entire ellipse in question, this helps maintain the curved ends found when the visible line connects to the form edges. Try this cylinder exercise Establish a horizon line, then draw a plumb line directly down the centre of your paper Establish a horizon line, then draw a plumb line directly down the centre of your paper. From the converging centre point, draw a set of diagonal lines reaching outwards mimicking the length and width lines [A & B] from step 9, and cap it off with an ellipse. As this first cylinder started life at a single point (the vanishing point) we've actually drawn a tiny cone. Now continue to draw more cylinders, continuing along the established perspective plane. 04. How to draw a sphere We can express spherical form using cross contour lines We can express spherical form using cross contour lines. Repeat step 6, but take it further by creating an ellipse within the circle. Starting at [A], lightly draw a curve with a trajectory that passes through the first third-from-centre plot point then follows around to the opposite edge [C], continuing through to the next third-from-centre [D] point, ending where it began [A]. Erase the upper or lower arc. This article originally appeared in ImagineFX's How to draw & paint bookazine. Related articles: How to improve your character drawing How to draw manga Discover the 5 best pencils for artists and designers View the full article

There are plenty of places to download typefaces on the web. But budgets don't always stretch to include quality, crafted fonts – so where should you look when you need the best free fonts? There's a lot of noise and clutter online. It's easy to end up falling down the rabbit hole of poorly structured sites and low quality fonts. So we've taken it on ourselves to find you the gems in the rough. Besides the obvious places to download free fonts, we've also unearthed some less known sources – including individual design portfolios and agency sites. So next time you want to download fonts, head here to discover a world of typographical inspiration. 01. FontSpace It's easy to find what you want among FontSpace's 32,000 fonts With nearly 32,000 fonts available in TrueType and OpenType flavours, neatly sorted into plenty of categories, FontSpace is a useful go-to for free type. It has over 2,000 designers supplying fonts, and they're clearly labelled so you can be sure whether a font is good for commercial use or not. 02. Font Freak Get your (Font) Freak on On top of over 125,000 commercial fonts, Font Freak boasts more than 9,000 free fonts from over 400 different designers, sorted alphabetically for easy downloading and most of them in both PC and Mac versions. And if you can't be bothered with sorting through everything on offer, you can download its entire archive of free fonts for a small fee. 03. Creative Market Get a free font each week over on Creative Market An online marketplace for community-generated design assets, Creative Market offers free goods each week, which includes a free font. The design changes each week and is only available for a limited time period – a brilliant way to build up a library of different font styles. 04. Behance You'll find all manner of free font designs on Behance The go-to place for designers to show off their work, online portfolio platform Behance is a brilliant place to find free fonts. Whether you want a slab serif, script, tattoo or handwriting font, you're sure to find something that suits here. 05. The Northern Block The Northern Block offers a number of free font designs Launched by creative director Jonathan Hill back in 2006, type foundry The Northern Block offers a number of free fonts. From stencil and bold to modern and geometric designs, you're sure to find something suitable for your project here. 06. FontStruct Find user-generated fonts at FontStruct FontStruct is a place where the community can design fonts and share them with others for free. This means there are a lot of fonts to search through, and more are added every day. The site's easy to navigate and the best fonts are picked for the FontStruct gallery. 07. 1001 Free Fonts Misnomer alert! We're certain that 1001 Free Fonts doesn't feature exactly 1001 free fonts; we reckon it's actually a lot more than that – probably something more in the region of 10,001. All of them are handily organised across 64 categories, along with the option to browse by designer. 08. Abstract fonts This place to download fonts has a clean interface Abstract Fonts has one of the cleaner interfaces in this arena, and it's very easy to navigate. There's a custom font preview option and it's updated regularly, with about 14,000 fonts for you to choose from. 09. Jeff Schreiber It's quality, not quantity with Jeff's font creations Jeff Schreiber is a designer, illustrator and typographer from Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Although he doesn't have too many fonts available on his site, it's all about quality and not quantity here. His 'Razor' creation is brilliant for print and poster work, while his 'Fat Frank' font offers a more playful approach. 10. Neogrey Be sure to check out Ivan's Multicoloure Vector font Neogrey is the portfolio of Ivan Filipov. Working as a graphic and web designer, he's created some stunning fonts that he's very generously made available for free download. We particularly love his latest font, a multicoloured vector font. 11. Smashing Magazine There's some great fonts to choose from on this round-up from Smashing Mag Smashing Magazine provides a wide range of tutorials, inspiration and helpful advice for creatives on a daily basis. The site also has a great series of articles collating quality free fonts for you to choose from. These guys know what they're talking about, so it's a reliable place to download free fonts. 12. Artill Artill is minimalism at its best Created by Lukas Bischoff, a designer based in Germany, Artill is a nice little website that's aimed purely at people wishing to download free fonts. Minimalism at its best, and some great typography to be sampled. 13. Typedepot Type design studio Typedepot offers both free and paid-for fonts Typedepot is a nifty little type-design studio website that offers a number of free fonts for visitors to download. There are also great commercial fonts to buy. The project began as a sideline for studio founders Alexander Nedelev and Veronika Slavova, before they realised their true passion for typography and took it on full-time. Next: More free font resources 14. Free Fonts Project Many great type designers have contributed to the Freeware Fonts Project A massive collection of free fonts is being shared by type designers as part of this project curated by Jovanny Lemonad. They’re totally free and everyone can take part in the project. If you like what you download, you could consider making a donation. 15. Glukfonts Polish designer Gluksza offers some great free design resources Glukfonts is the site of Polish designer Gluksza, which offers some nicely designed typography. You can download free fonts and other design resources too, including PHP scripts. 16. Fontfabric Check out the freebie section of independent type foundry Fontfabric An independent type foundry launched by Bulgarian designer Svetoslav Simov, Fontfabric includes a lot of paid fonts but its freebie section is also a great place to download free fonts. 17. Lost Type Lost Type offers you the chance to pay whatever you like Founded by Riley Cran and Tyler Galpin, Lost Type is a type foundry that offers you the chance to pay whatever you like for a font (and yes, it's possible to type in '$0' for a free download). 18. DaFont DaFont has a massive archive of free fonts to search – including novelty fonts like this DaFont is a massive archive of freely downloadable fonts. Browse by alphabetical listing, style, author or popularity. A lot of it is on the unprofessional side but you can find some choice stuff here. It's also a good resource if you're looking to download free fonts with a novelty theme, like the Pac-Man font featured above. 19. Font Squirrel Font Squirrel's free fonts are mostly @font-face compatible Want to download free fonts for commercial use? Then Font Squirrel is the place to head. The quality of the fonts is high, they're mostly @font-face compatible, plus it's got a very nicely designed website into the bargain. 20. Ten by Twenty Ed Merritt's site Ten by Twenty offers some excellent free fonts Ten by Twenty is the impressive creation of Ed Merritt, a designer at UK web design agency Headscape. You can download free fonts from his site, as well as templates, themes and icons, for your web design projects – all of high quality. 21. Google Fonts Google Web Fonts makes it easy to use web fonts on your site Google Web Fonts makes it quick and easy for everyone to use web fonts on its site. All of the fonts are open source, so you're free to share and customise them for your own use, or collaborate with the original designer to improve them. And you can use them in every way you want, privately or commercially: in print, on your computer, or in your websites. 22. The League of Movable Type The League of Movable Type is the first free and open-source type foundry GitHub project The League of Movable Type is a typographical revolution in the making and anyone looking to download free fonts should make a beeline for it. The very first free and open-source type foundry, it's a hand-selected group of typographers who've created an amazing set of high-quality free fonts for all to download, such as the popular League Gothic. 23. Impallari There's a lot of detail of how the free fonts at Impallari were made "I think that typefaces are living beings," says Pablo Impallari, "they continue to evolve over time. Even if the original designer died over 500 years ago, contemporary designers push their ideas forward, keeping up keeping up with the always-shifting way we perceive the alphabet." You can find some incredible fonts at his site, Impallari. There's a lot of detail in updates too, which gives a helpful insight in how they're put together. Related articles: 50 best free fonts for designers 5 top typography tips for your homepage 10 best sci-fi fonts View the full article

When it comes to picking a typeface, you can't rely on gut alone There are thousands of paid-for and free fonts available for creatives to choose from. However, when it comes to picking a typeface, you can't rely on gut alone. Making the right choice depends on function, context and a whole host of other factors. But how do you ensure you're going about it the right way? With these pointers, you won't go far wrong... 01. Think function Always think about function as well as form. There's no point finding a typeface that ticks the creative boxes, testing it and wowing your client with it, only to discover that it won't actually work for the project because it lacks key technical features. Consider these from the start. 02. Follow foundries Type should be in your consciousness, not something you only think about when you need to use it. Try following some foundries like Dalton Maag, Monotype, Hoefler & Co, Font Bureau and Commercial Type, on social networking sites, read typography blogs or simply keep your eyes peeled for good and bad examples of type you see out in the world. The more you notice, the more you'll know. 03. Test rigorously Always test your type in ways that are relevant to the project. You don't know if a typeface will work until you've seen it at the right size and tested whether the spacing works. You need a realistic idea of how it's going to look – which you often won't get from fake Latin. 04. Think effectively Like any design decision, typeface selection needs to be the result of effective thinking. The fact that you like a typeface doesn't necessarily mean it's going to convey the right brand messages to your target audience. You may convince your client, but the design won't do its job. 05. Pair up properly If you're trying to pair two typefaces, start by defining what you want to achieve: are you aiming for harmony or contrast? Are you looking for complementary typefaces with corresponding curves, for example? Be careful not to let things get too uniform. Done wrong, this can be as inadvisable as double denim. To get it right, read our article on how to find the perfect font pairing. The tips are taken from an article that originally appeared in Computer Arts issue 237. Words: Anne Wollenberg Like this? Read these! Download fonts from these top resources See some stunning examples of kinetic typography These retro fonts will add a touch of nostalgia View the full article

Chromatic aberration (distortion), also known as 'colour fringing' is a common optical problem. It occurs when a camera lens fails to bring all colour wavelengths to the same focal plane, or when the wavelengths of colour focus in different positions on the plane. It is caused by a lens dispersion, with different colours of light travelling at different speed while passing through a lens – in effect, producing a blurred image with coloured fringes (a rainbow edge in areas of contrast). 3 huge colour trends for 2018 There are two types of chromatic aberration: axial (longitudinal) and transverse (lateral). Without going into too much detail, axial aberration occurs consistently throughout the image, whereas transverse does not occur in the centre and increases towards the edge of the image. There are a few ways to minimise or remove these with photo editing apps or Photoshop CC. You may also notice this effect in some movies. Yes, it is there on purpose. It looks much better in motion than on a still, as it actually helps sharpen the picture as opposed to blur an image in photography. So, if photographers do everything to avoid chromatic aberration in their work because it is deemed 'incorrect', why would you want to add it to your 3D art? Because, if used correctly, it can make your image 'pop' and look more realistic. Here's how you can manually achieve this effect in Photoshop. 01. Image preparation Merge your composition to a single layer before you start Chromatic aberration is best added at the end, so first, complete your usual image composition. Put a copy of your layers in a folder for safekeeping (optional) or just start a new project. Make sure your composition is merged down to a single layer, then duplicate it twice. Set the duplicates to Lighten. 02. Choose your channels Turn down the colours you don't need for each channel Decide which colours you want to create the effect with. Green and blue work here. Select the first duplicate, go to Levels and change the Red and Blue output levels to 0, leaving the Green levels untouched. Select the second duplicate and set Red and Green levels to 0, leaving Blue as it is. Rename layers accordingly. 03. Distortion Don't overdo the effect, because it'll definitely look awful Select the Green layer, activate the Move tool and press the left arrow on the keyboard (twice should be enough). Select the Blue layer and shift it to the right. Do not shift them by too many clicks because it will make the distortion too great, and your image will be painful to look at. 04. Emboss Finish off with a tiny bit of subtle embossing If you want to boost your image details even more, you can try adding an overlay of Filter/Stylize/Emboss on top. Experiment and play with the options for the angle, height and amount of Emboss, to see what works best with the lighting of your scene. This article was originally published in issue 231 of 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 231 here or subscribe to 3D World here. Related articles: The essential guide to colour correction 5 photography trends influencing designers in 2018 Create distorted typography in Photoshop View the full article

Buy Illustrator CC 2018 or sign up to Adobe Creative Cloud now Illustrator has long been the standard when it comes to vector illustration and design. Since its first release way back in 1987, it’s been the go-to for anyone wanting to create infinitely scalable graphics. During its journey to its current CC 2018 incarnation – over 30 years after the original release – the application has evolved into much more than an ‘illustration’ tool. Whether you’re working with type, on branding projects, or designing icons for apps and the web, Illustrator has pretty much everything you need. But there are a raft of rivals out there, so is the Illustrator the right tool for you? Here, I take a look at what’s new in Illustrator CC 2018 and how these features can speed up your creative workflow – and review whether Adobe's vector graphics software is still best in class... New intelligent Properties Panel The new intelligent Properties panel, in my opinion, is the biggest update to Illustrator CC 2018 – and also the most game-changing. It streamlines your workflow by giving you access to the settings and controls – tools, effects and options – you need for the task you’re working on. For example, clicking on a path will show the Transform and Appearance panels, letting you scale, skew, flip and rotate your vector, and giving you quick access to stroke, colour and Illustrator effects. Meanwhile, the Quick Actions panel also puts various functions – such as recolor, expanding shapes and arrange – at your fingertips. What initially seemed like a minor change has become something I would miss dearly if it were to go in a future update. It’s improved my workflow vastly – even if it was a bit of a learning curve initially. Rival software already had similar functions in place, so it was about time Illustrator made this tweak to its UI. Type improvements Another notable update is that OpenType variable fonts have been added to Illustrator CC 2018. This means you can now easily customise and tweak the weight, width and even slant of a font, and stylise your type without having to outline your strokes and edit manually or use a different font entirely. With the inclusion of SVG colour fonts, you can also now add multiple colours and gradients to a single glyph. Again, this gives you more freedom to customise without having to outline your type and lose the editability of text. Emoji (woo) – which are becoming increasingly trendy as they become ingrained in pop culture – have also been added as a font, so you can go wild and include them in your work. And one additional useful type feature that’s crept into Illustrator is stylistic sets. These enable you to apply predefined glyph alternates to blocks of text without having to manually edit each glyph. Macbook Pro Touch Bar support One thing Illustrator was previously lacking was the ability to use the MacBook Pro’s touch bar. Love it or hate it, it’s a useful tool for people wanting quick access to specific tools and controls, and adjusts to your current task intuitively. People who include the touch bar in their Illustrator workflow will be rewarded with alternative options for many functions – ranging from the colour picker, which lets you drag your finger to change colour (this is super fun) to quick access to the Align tools. Whether it’s quicker is debatable, but it’s definitely an interesting gesture-based addition to your workflow, potentially providing a welcome break from constantly clicking your trackpad or mouse and keyboard. Puppet Warp Puppet Warp is a brand new tool debuting in the latest update of Illustrator CC 2018. It enables you to transform your vector graphics without having to adjust individual paths or anchor paths. Whilst the feature is limited in some ways, this could prove an invaluable tool for illustrators and animators who create characters. It lets you change poses quickly, easily and in a more natural way that will speed up your workflow greatly. What’s ace about this tool is that the pins you place to tweak your vector can be removed in an instant, making it pain free and non-destructive. More artboards and easier organisation Illustrator CC now lets you create up to 1,000 artboards (I wonder if anyone will ever hit this before their computer explodes). The new ability to select multiple artboards, and quickly and neatly organise them is a major score for heavy users of multiple artboards, making light work of what used to be quite a chore. If you’re anything like me, projects usually end up with multiple artboards all over the document – so this is a lifesaver when you need to hand over files to other designers or clients. Text Management in Creative Cloud Libraries This feature will be much welcomed if you use the Libraries feature – and you really should if you don’t. It enables you to store text in your Creative Cloud library to be used in any manner you see fit. This is especially useful if, for example, you’re working on a tonne of brand collateral across several of the Creative Cloud tools, and you need to include a bunch of headlines and body content that will be formatted in different sizes and layouts. It makes total sense to be able to store your text as well as your graphics, allowing for a more complete solution for CC power users. Should you get Illustrator CC 2018? We're used to seeing small, incremental improvements to Illustrator CC. The latest version, Illustrator CC 2018, makes a rare worthwhile update by streamlining some key functions in a reformed Properties panel. It also provides a range of additional handy tweaks and features that will speed up your workflow. When the updates were first announced back in October, if you didn't already have Illustrator in your Creative Cloud subscription, it would have been questionable as to whether it was worth purchasing as an additional upgrade. Many Mac users reported a multitude of bugs and errors after updating to the latest OS High Sierra, and Adobe gave no date for a fix – which was troubling, given the $50/£50 subscription price per month. Apple has now fixed this with an update, which is in BETA. That being said, Illustrator is still by far the most-used vector graphics software across the creative industry. It’s a powerful tool and the latest new features serve to further streamline your workflow. If you only use vector software solely – in isolation of other creative software – or sparingly, I would suggest investing in Affinity Designer. The one-time purchase trumps Illustrator in value for money, in this case, and delivers just as good a result. However, if you regularly collaborate with other designers as part of a team, or you already work within the Creative Cloud ecosystem, it's worth adding Illustrator CC 2018 to your arsenal for maximum value for money. The best Adobe deals Buy Illustrator CC 2018 or sign up to Adobe Creative Cloud now View the full article

What I love about drawing is how you can capture the imagination. It’s the thing that keeps me fascinated. My speciality is hand-drawn illustration, and in particular, the creation of line work with dip pen and black Indian ink. In this workshop I’ll show how I create my own interpretation of Mephisto, the demonic antagonist in the German legend of Faust. I start with an underdrawing, on to which the line work is inked. Through this process I emphasise anything that conveys the fantasy noir atmosphere of the tale, in particular the hard lighting. Unlike digital drawing, inking with a traditional dip pen only allows the draughtsman to push forward. It’s a live take with every mark of the pen. Every nib gives a different stroke, each responding differently to pressure and speed. With practise the range of lines that can be made with a single nib is enough to create compelling line work. Materials Paper: Daler Rowney 160gsm fine grain cartridge paper (A3 size) Mark Making: Derwent Graphic pencils, F to 2H lead Cork tip penholder Steel G nib Winsor & Newton Series 7 brush, no. 2 Winsor & Newton Black Indian Ink Miscellanous: Soft putty eraser Raised edge ruler Inkwell Small dish of water to clean nib Lint-free cloth to wipe and dry nib Lightweight rolling paper to soak up blots Scalpel to scratch up unwanted ink marks 01. Pencilling the structure Marking lightly with an overhand grip, I map where the major elements fall on the page: gestural lines, blocks, cylinders, spheres, wedges, and in this case a few anatomical landmarks. Any compositional changes are made at this stage before moving forward. If any pencil lines need to be lifted, then I use a soft eraser to ensure that the paper isn’t distressed. 02. Lay in the figure The blocks offer visual cues to lay in the drawing. Although good body language, anatomy and musculature are central in this piece, it’s more important to capture the main idea than perfect every single detail. To keep the paper intact I continue to work lightly with the pencil, especially when using a hard lead. 03. Light and shadow I refine parts of the drawing, and with the light source in mind the shadow shapes can be mapped. This is an underdrawing, so the pencil values don’t matter. What does matter is deciding where to ink in full black, and how halftones and plane changes might be inked. 04. Ease in the ink Inking with a dip pen requires precision and sensitivity. To warm up I begin on areas of the picture that aren’t critical. That means no facial details until I get into my stride. There are no golden rules with inking, but it’s always visible when an inker has found their rhythm. 05. Between the lines Rather than following the pencil work, I interpret the underdrawing, as tracing often makes a picture lose vitality. For this reason I explore ways to improve on the original pencils, so the line work moves the image along. 06. Balance is key As the drawing finds its shape my attention shifts to balancing the image. When solid blacks and halftone hatching are evenly measured throughout, it brings cohesion to the picture as a whole. The same goes for different line weights and textures. These are all techniques that I use to pull the image together. 07. Filling areas with black I spot any black areas by brush, planning the route to avoid tide marks. Many inkers prefer to leave all the black fills to the end. My own preference is to add them as I work through the drawing, so I can respond to the illustration as it emerges. 08. Adjustments on the fly With the inks in place it becomes easier to assess what might benefit the artwork. The inking usually becomes more improvised beyond this stage, so it’s good to keep in mind what the aim is, and to keep the artwork legible. 09. It’s a grey area Good hatching that flexes around the forms can help lead the eye through a picture. As a rule of thumb, if I want to cross-hatch I avoid intersecting at 90 degrees because this can look like a wire mesh. Overlaying lines of different weights is also preferable for the same reason. 10. Taking one final pass Before signing off the artwork, I like to take a look with fresh eyes. With so many details it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture, even when it’s right under your nose. Now I see that leaving the lower left of the picture clear doesn’t create the effect I’d hoped for. The solution doesn’t take long to appear. 11. Embrace the unexpected As I mentioned before, visual balance is key, so when I realise that an area needs working up I let the ink dry and plan the next move. Using light pencil marks as in step one, I develop the area that needs attention. When I’m confident with the layout I go back in with ink, ensuring the line work remains consistent. This article was originally published in issue 156 of ImagineFX, the world's best-selling magazine for digital artists. Buy issue 156 here or subscribe to ImagineFX here. Related articles: How to draw: 95 tutorials for drawing animals, people, landscapes and more How to draw a dragon: 16 pro tips How to curate a creative portfolio View the full article

Since the dawn of the personal computer, a battle for platform supremacy has raged between macOS and Windows. While Windows is the dominant force in nearly every area of business, Apple and its macOS has for a long time been the weapon of choice for creatives. Fundamentally, a computer is a tool, and if you're creating digital or 3D art or video work, you'll need bespoke tools crafted to your specific needs. That means a fast pen-enabled, multi-core CPU for modelling tasks, and enough graphic card grunt to make the most of the latest generation of GPU-accelerated workflows and render engines. When we last looked at switching from macOS to Windows, there were many compelling reasons to do so. There had been no new 'Pro' desktop hardware in several years and the MacBook Pro had proven to be a disappointment, with users who did not agree with Apple's notion that everyone needs a dongle for their laptop. With the launch of the iMac Pro and potentially a new, modular 'Mac Pro' on the way, Apple has stepped back into the professional marketplace for creatives (although this impressive hardware does come with a hefty price tag). 6 best laptops for video editing 2018 With the launch of the iMac Pro, Apple has stepped back into the professional marketplace for creatives The iMac Pro is a particularly compelling option for video artists. With the adoption of Thunderbolt 3 and better external GPU support coming for macOS, is the iMac Pro enough to make 3D and video artists ignore the pull of Windows? While there are now better options for staying loyal to macOS, there are still a large number of reasons to consider a switch to Windows – or at the very least explore a hybrid environment. As an artist who has used a mixed Windows and macOS environment for my professional work for the past four years, I can offer some insight to macOS users who might want to make the switch. In this article we'll take a look at what Windows has to offer for digital artists. Windows: The pros First of all, let's concentrate on the good points about Windows. First of all, app switching is, on the whole, pretty painless. Most software is now tied to the user and for all the big names – Cinema 4D, Maya, the Substance suite and Adobe's Creative Cloud suite – you can access your account by simply logging in and downloading the Windows version. It's the same with most plugins. For 3D artists, most of the innovation is still happening on the Windows platform. For example, GPU render engines such as Redshift are better tuned to Windows at the moment. If you want to work with a VR-certified machine, Windows is still a better choice – only the HTC Vive is currently supported on macOS. Windows also offers benefits in terms of speed; I have always found viewport performance in 3D apps to be vastly superior on Windows to Mac. Applications like 1Password and DJV make moving to windows relatively painless As for Windows itself, Windows 10 is very solid, and Windows Explorer is more 'malleable' than the Finder in Mac OS. There is also a raft of solutions available to make Windows feel more Mac-like, such as the FastPictureViewer codec, which shows thumbnails for a huge range of image formats, and DJV, which can act as a good media player. If you're worried about losing access to your favourite productivity applications, fear not – a lot of previously Mac-only apps are now available for Windows. For example, I have depended on 1Password to hold of all my password details for years; with the 1Password account feature my Windows PCs, iOS devices and Macs are now all synced. The inside of a upgradeable laptop, something Mac owners haven’t seen for quite a while Then there is the hardware itself. 3D and video artists are dependant on power, and a decent GPU-enabled desktop can be bought for the fraction of the cost of a Mac with equivalent power. If your software is dependant on NVIDIA-powered GPUs for CUDA acceleration – common both in 3D render engines and video editors – using a Windows machine is by far the easiest option (although there are macOS workarounds using external GPU boxes). Unfortunately, the graphics card shortage caused by cryptocurrency users buying up every GPU available at inflated prices does make bespoke PC building harder than it has been for a couple of years. range show Windows' ability to adapt to a variety of form factors The biggest advantage to moving to Windows is that there is a lot more choice of form factors in the Windows space: everything from touchscreen laptops to enormous 12 GPU-card equipped desktops and tablet computers. Odds are, there is likely to be a Windows machine that could suit a bespoke working environment more readily than a Mac. Windows: The cons While on the surface, performance, value for money and configurability all seem like obvious wins for Windows, there are downsides to consider. Until comparatively recently, Microsoft didn't make its own hardware, and compared to macOS, a Windows machine can still can feel like a selection of parts and drivers. There is not the hardware quality, consistency and the reliability of a Mac (especially for those of us who have access to an Apple Store). The macOS still 'looks' better out of the box, and has a lot of helpful bundled applications, including Preview, QuickTime player and the excellent Finder preview, quicklook and column view. These can be replicated on Windows but only with the use of third party apps or hacks. In terms of backup, Time Machine is still a better one-stop solution. In my experience, Macs are more dependable. Whenever I have taken a PC laptop out on a job with me, the battery has either run down because a background process has failed to quit, or the machine has only run at half-power because the CPU and GPU are being throttled. The is the powerful yet quiet creative solution that's been missing from the Apple lineup Compare this with the latest MacBook Pro, which does not throttle down any component while on battery power. The MacBook Pro also has an incredible standby time when the lid is closed and it's dropped into a rucksack. The latest generation of Macs are very quiet in operation, and while I have not used one, the new iMac Pros seem to be able to run most computationally heavy applications with little strain on the fan. Although expandability is still an issue on macOS – especially on the laptop front – Thunderbolt 3 can be an effective way of adding functionality to a Mac. For example, you can introduce more graphics grunt via an external GPU box, which now natively supports the latest AMD Radeon cards on macOS (NVIDIA support is available through some third party solutions, with native support on the way). Thunderbolt 3, as it uses the same connector as USB-C, means you can connect a plethora of peripherals to your Mac. There are signs that the pro software market is sticking with the Mac. GPU render engines such as Redshift and Octane are available for macOS with the correct hardware, and Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X are back at the forefront of their respective creative fields – especially when combined with Apples new Pro hardware. Finally, it's possible to run Windows through any Mac via the Boot Camp software, turning your Mac into a multi-platform solution. Time to switch? As with all things creative, everyone has their own workflow and solution. If your Mac is covering all your work needs, then we wouldn't recommend making a switch – especially with Apple resurgent in the professional market. However, for new and existing 3D artists, it's worth exploring Windows for the potential benefits it may offer. Windows machines offer cheaper creative solutions and form factors, such as pen-enabled touchscreens, tablets and multi-GPU desktop monsters that can chew through render tasks as fast as you can throw them at them. Plus, they can be upgraded with stock components to make your investment last. There is nothing to be afraid of whichever computer platform you choose to use. Both options are interchangeable, and there has never been a better time to craft a bespoke creative solution for your needs. Related articles: The best VR headsets for 2018 How to master creature anatomy Review: Marvelous Designer 7 View the full article

Web development is a rapidly growing field, and there's still plenty of room for you to get your start in this profession. You just need the right skills. Dive head-first into the field with the Complete Web Developer Course 2.0 and you'll pick up the talents you need in no time. It's on sale now for just $25 (approx. £18). The Complete Web Development Course 2.0 is the perfect opportunity to pick up the web development skills that you've always wanted to have. No matter your skill level, this professionally taught course will help you learn the fundamentals of web development and provide you with a complete understanding of essential programming languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. Once you have the basics down, you'll move up to full, creative projects that will help you put your new skills to the test. The Complete Web Developer Course 2.0 usually retails for $149, but you can save 83 per cent on that price right now. That means you pay just $25 (approx. £18) for a great course that could launch your next career, 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. Related articles: How to use Markdown in web development 20 useful tools for web developers 6 must-have skills for young web developers View the full article

Design is an integral part of TED’s DNA. After all, that’s what the D in TED stands for: technology, education, design. Since way back in 1984, the nonprofit has been turning out design inspiration in the form of short talks that change the way we see the world. UX design has grown up with TED, coming to maturity alongside the TED audience. So it’s no surprise that TED’s online platform is replete with talks that can inspire and improve UX design processes and outcomes. From talks on the future of prototyping user interfaces to comical musings on how to build a user-focused team, TED offers something for UX designers of every stripe. These 10 TED talks shine a light on user experience design and innovative ways of building user-friendly products. 01. Got a wicked problem? Tell me how you make toast Have a problem; make toast. Or, to put it more finely, think about the process you go through to make toast, and then apply that systematic approach to your original problem. That’s the advice of designer and problem-solver Tom Wujec. In his TED talk, Wujec walks through a simple design exercise that "reveals unexpected truths about the way we think about things". By breaking down "wicked problems" into mental models UX-ers can use to get to the heart of the why users act like they do. 02. Simplicity sells Ever thought of exposing UI blunders through some snappy musical numbers? Us neither, but former New York Times columnist and tech nerd David Pogue does just that. In Simplicity Sells, Pogue exposes the very worst UIs he’s seen, and coins the phrase 'software rage' – that feeling users get from crummy interfaces. From Microsoft to Dell, no interface is safe from Pogue’s song and dance takedown. The Steve Jobs song is a must-hear. 03. The first secret of design is… noticing He’s the man behind the iPod and the Nest thermostat, so it’s safe to say that product creator Tony Fadell knows a thing or two about great design. In his feel-good TED talk, Fadell lets us into his secrets for driving positive change in design. From understanding habituation and neuroscience to learning from Jerry Seinfeld, Fadell has some awesome tips for building better product solutions. 04. 404, the story of a page not found Uh oh. Looks like your user just got 404-ed. No one likes that. In fact, landing on a 404 is so unpleasant that it’s akin to a relationship break-up, claims Renny Gleeson. But it doesn’t have to be the case. In this TED talk, Gleeson reveals how he and his tech startup created better 404 experiences for users. The key is in having empathy for the user and recognising the UX design potential of 404s. After all, says Gleeson, “little things done right actually matter. Well-designed moments build brands.” 05. The Beauty of Data Visualization Our digital lives are full of complex data. From media trends to Facebook statuses, we as users are continually asked to parse, sort and understand ever larger quantities of information. It’s up to UI and UX designers, says David McCandless, to make that data comprehensible. In this talk McCandless, a data journalist, discusses how designers can combat ‘information glut’ by designing information so it makes sense and tells stories. There are some great visuals and interesting insights on how context, psychology and empathy help users understand the world around them. Next page: 5 more TED talks to help you improve your UX design 06. How Airbnb designs for trust As the co-founder of Airbnb, Joe Gebbia knows a thing or two about designing delightful digital experiences. In this talk, Gebbia tells the story of how Airbnb got started, and how he and his UX team create UIs that build trust. Gebbia explains the ‘stranger bias’ that Airbnb users have to overcome by describing his own anxiety the first time he let a stranger sleep on an airbed in his apartment. In this talk, he also reveals how Airbnb uses of microcopy, user flows and microinteractions to build experiences that make strangers into friends. 07. How giant websites design for you (and a billion others, too) Facebook’s Like and Share buttons are two of the most-viewed UI elements ever created. Get them right, and you can make life more delightful for billions of users, points out Margaret Gould Stewart; but get them wrong and you’ve got a riot on your hands. As director of product design at the social media behemoth, Stewart has to be on top of the how and why of designing user experiences on a massive scale. Using real-world examples, she reveals three tips for how to design user interfaces for the entire world’s population. 08. Designers, think big! What happens if you move from plain old ‘design’ to ‘design thinking’? That’s the question posed by CEO of IDEO Tim Brown in this talk. Brown argues that focusing on the small stuff in design isn’t working for us, and it’s time to make the shift to design thinking. Starting with the example of the original design thinker, 19th century engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Brown explains that design thinking can help us visualise the whole user experience and create new human-centric solutions through prototyping, collaboration and participatory design. Through inspiring examples of design thinking in the developing world, Brown breaks down of the benefits of thinking big in design. 09. Reinventing User Experience Design. You’re thinking about it wrong. At least that’s what Kes Sampanthar thinks. We all want to create engaging products, but counting clicks isn’t the way to do it. Instead of thinking about aesthetics or even usability, we have to think about motivating users. We need Sampanthar’s design paradigm, ‘motivational design’. Through a murder mystery story set in the Louvre and other fun stories, Sampanthar explains the psychology behind motivational design and how tapping into human pleasure centres can help us make engaging products. 10. The best computer interface? Maybe… your hands Mobile gestures. Click rates. Pixels. Just some of the things that UI and UX designers won’t have to worry about any more if designer James Patten is right. He thinks the future might well involve digital information made visceral through incorporating physicality into a UI. In this talk, Patten draws on his experience in robotics and kinetics to explore how we can use physical objects in interface design. Drafting in an army of mini robots, Patten experiments with taking the user interface off the screen and putting it into our own hands – literally. Related articles: The ultimate guide to user experience The 5 biggest UX design trends for 2018 10 rules of great user experience View the full article

Choosing the right typeface for your projects can be a tricky task, especially if you can’t find what you’re looking for. Despite a sea of typefaces online, often the best option for your work is to create your own font. That’s a challenge the graphic design students at Shillington College regularly face. They’re set the task of crafting their own fonts, taking into account weight, style, condensation, width, slant and everything they might need to create a bespoke typeface that fits a specific brief. And they’ve seriously come up with the goods. We’ve showcased a couple of stunning typeface designs here, but there’s a lot more where they came from. Head over to the Shillington blog now to be inspired. View the full article

When it comes to logo design, simple and memorable graphic shapes are often the most effective when it comes to building brand recognition. A great logo will work at all sizes, and will also translate effortlessly into black-and-white for different applications. Logos that rely on their use of colours to make sense, or depend on fine, intricate details, will face problems in certain applications. One sure-fire way to ensure your logo is fit for purpose is to give it the silhouette test. Convert it to monochrome, and study its outline: is it still instantly recognisable? Read on to be inspired by five big-brand symbols that are defined by their distinctive silhouettes... 01. Apple Apple's bite mark helps distinguish it as an apple The much-lauded Apple logo features in more than its fair share of best logo roundups, but it has particular reason to be included here. There are many myths about the bite in the eponymous apple, ranging from Eve's transgressions in the Garden of Eden, to Alan Turing's tragic suicide by biting a fruit laced with cyanide. However, designer Rob Janoff admitted to a much more prosaic reason behind the decision. An apple with a bite out of it – even shown very small – looks like an apple, and not a cherry. That practical decision demonstrates the importance of having a strong, instantly recognisable silhouette. The accompanying myths just add extra layers of meaning, intentional or not. Following Steve Jobs' death, Hong Kong-based graphic design student Jonathan Mak took the significance of the bite mark to a whole new level, replacing it with a simple silhouette of Jobs' face. Design student Jonathan Mak modified the silhouette in a touching tribute to Steve Jobs The sombre tribute touched a nerve with Apple's fanbase, and the image went viral globally. Mak was inundated with thousands of messages about his design, and the iconic status of the bite mark was further cemented in public consciousness. 02. Twitter Twitter's 2012 rebrand pared back the once messy silhouette to a clean geometric icon When DesignStudio was brought on board to help rebrand Twitter back in 2012, much of the focus was placed on how the icon was created. The team even followed the growing trend for using visible construction lines to explain the building blocks of the logo. Ultimately, the once fairly detailed bird – which in 2006 was depicted sitting on a perch and looking to the left, and later evolved into a more characterful bird in flight, complete with fluffy quiff – was pared right back to a clean, satisfyingly geometric silhouette. In short, it felt like Twitter had grown up. According to Twitter, the new logo is born from a "love for ornithology, design within creative constraints, and simple geometry". The above video demonstrates how three sets of overlapping circles – representative of how social networks, interests and ideas intersect in your Twitter feed – define the shape of the bird. 03. Playboy Unchanged since the 1950s, the infamous Playboy Bunny captures the brand's jaunty personality Originally designed by Art Paul, Playboy's cheeky, tongue-in-cheek emblem knowingly plays on the humorous sexual connotations of rabbits, without descending into smut or seediness. Introduced for the second issue of the magazine in 1953, the now infamous Playboy Bunny has stayed a constant through decades of increasingly liberal approaches to sexuality, as well as the proliferation of pornography – testament to the timelessness of its design. Its crisp silhouette, with the circular eye punched out of the outline of the rabbit's face, and the bow tie defined with minimal linework, works effectively in monochrome – a palette designed to evoke luxury, professionalism and class. Whatever your take on the Playboy brand and its place in the modern world, no one can deny the effectiveness of the stylised bunny silhouette that's come to define it. 04. Nike Nike's Swoosh is one of the most instantly recognisable silhouettes in the world of logo design Another familiar sight on best-ever logos lists, the Nike Swoosh was famously created by design student Carolyn Davidson for the princely sum of $35. Its simplicity makes its silhouette even more compelling, and like Apple, it is regularly seen in both black and white versions without an accompanying wordmark. The Swoosh must function at all manner of scales and types of application, from tiny on a sponsorship document, to an embroidered logo on a piece of clothing, to huge on a billboard. While it is widely assumed to be a 'tick', the original inspiration for the Swoosh was in fact the silhouette of a wing – a reference to Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Regardless of its origins, however, the fact remains that a simple yet ownable shape like this will pass the silhouette test every time. 05. WWF The legibility of WWF's panda suffers when the colours are reversed Our fifth example, World Wildlife Federation, is rather an anomaly on this list, as it shows the limitations of using black and white to represent the actual colours of the thing being depicted, rather than just a relatively abstract shape. WWF makes clever use of negative space in its famous panda emblem, the black silhouette neatly defining the shape of the face without the need for a hard outline. But when the colours are reversed, while recognisable, the negative image loses the essence of 'panda'. Situations like this need to be addressed in brand usage guidelines, to make sure the logo is correctly presented. Grey London changed the panda to a polar bear to raise awareness of climate change Back in 2016, Grey London took it upon itself to reinterpret the much-loved WWF emblem. As part of a campaign to raise awareness of climate change, the agency replaced the panda with its considerably more-endangered counterpart, the polar bear. Using the same basic principle of the black areas defining the white, Grey stripped it right back to an eyes, nose and mouth, so the outline of the bear fades into nothingness, to represent its decline towards extinction. As part of the campaign, Grey offered the reworked logo to WWF to use for free – but the offer was never taken up. Like the original logo, however, the clever concept had its limitations and the idea falls apart when the colours are reversed. Read more: 5 small-client rebrands that attracted big attention 8 iconic American logos that changed branding forever The top 20 US design studios of 2018 View the full article

Want to attend Generate New York, the conference for web designers, but biding your time for the perfect moment to pick up some tickets? Well Thursday 15 March might just be your lucky day. For 24-hours only – running from midnight to midnight EST – we're running a 50 per cent flash sale on full-price tickets to the show, meaning you’ll only pay $224.50 for a two-day conference pass. But don’t worry: you’ll be getting just as much bang for your reduced buck. Get full access to conference speakers First of all, your ticket will grant you access to conference sessions from some of the industry’s best and brightest. For example, Val Head, web animation expert, author, and design evangelist at Adobe, will be exploring the full spectrum of animation options, from CSS to React Motion, and showing which are the best fit for common UI design tasks. Meanwhile, Abby Covert, staff information architect at Etsy, will tackle the challenges designers face merging languages and structures across multiple channels and organisations, and introduce you to tools and concepts that will strengthen your information architecture. Crammed with talented devs and designers at the top of their game, the conference schedule also features: Amélie Lamont, product designer, thoughtbot Brenda Storer, front-end developer and designer, thoughtbot Cynthia Savard Saucier, director of design, Shopify Dan Mall, director, SuperFriendly Daniel Schutzsmith, digital technology manager, web developer and professor, Amnesty International USA Donna Lichaw, author, speaker and consultant, donnalichaw.com Henri Helvetica, developer Jason Lengstorf, developer, designer and author, IBM Jenn Lukas, founder, Ladies in Tech Jenn Schiffer, community engineer, Glitch.com Joseph Palumbo, customer success expert, Media Temple Margot Bloomstein, author and founder, Appropriate, Inc Wes Bos, full-stack JavaScript developer Enjoy additional perks and benefits But your ticket doesn’t just entitle you to two days of conference sessions from these superlative industry speakers. Tickets also include: A full-day workshop of your choice (with the three-day pass) Lunch and refreshments every day Goodie bag including net magazine Free drinks at the after party Access to videos of all the sessions Free workshops by our sponsors in the break so you can squeeze in some extra learning So if you want to get your hands on tickets for Generate New York 25 - 27 April 2018, don’t hesitate: get yours now. Related articles: 10 reasons to attend Generate NYC 2018 Learn more about APIs at Generate Generate New York is back for 2018 View the full article

Products receiving the most patches included Microsoft browsers and browser-related technologies such as the company’s JavaScript engine Chakra. View the full article

Researchers on Tuesday disclosed over a dozen critical security vulnerabilities in several AMD chips, opening them up for attackers who want to steal sensitive data and install malware on AMD servers, workstations and laptops. View the full article

You're reading Trending Ways to Use Color in Web Design, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+! Color is a staple design element we see everywhere in our lives such as on every website we visit or app we use. Right now you’re seeing the colors of Designmodo. If you’re reading this article on a “read it later” kind of app you’re seeing the colors of that app. No brainer. The thing […] View the full article

Samba released fixes for its networking software to address two critical vulnerabilities that allowed attackers to change admin password or launch DoS attacks. View the full article

Cyber espionage group APT15 is back, this time stealing sensitive data from a UK government contractor. View the full article

The best JavaScript frameworks make coding faster and easier, so you can focus on designing the perfect website layout – instead of becoming bogged down in code. A number of great ones have popped up on the market in recent years. In this article, we'll take a look at the biggest and best JavaScript frameworks around, and explore how to get the best out of them for your next projects. We'll look at Vue.js, React, AngularJS, Polymer and Aurelia – you can use the drop-down menu above to jump to the framework you want to explore first. Most of these frameworks are open source projects, too, so you can dig in and see how they work – or even contribute yourself. Vue.js Best for: Beginners Lightweight applications with a small footprint Vue.js is a progressive JavaScript framework for building user interfaces. An open source project (see the GitHub repo here), its ideal for beginners. The main library is focused on the view layer and all templates are valid HTML, making it easy to pick up. In the following two mini-tutorials, we'll walk through how to use Vue to manage multiple data stores, and speed up the first load to improve your site's performance. 01. Manage state with Vue As with any component-based library, managing state in Vue can be tricky. While the application is small, it’s possible to keep things in sync by emitting events when values change. However, this can become brittle and prone to errors as the application grows, so it may be better to start out with a more centralised solution. If you’re familiar with Flux and Redux, Vuex works in much the same way. State is held in one centralised location and is linked to the main Vue application. Everything that happens within the application is reflected somewhere within that state. Components can select what information is relevant to them and be notified if it changes, much like if it was part of its internal state. A Vuex store is made up of four things: the state, getters, mutations and actions. The state is a single object that holds all the necessary data for the entire application. The way this object gets structured depends on the project, but would typically hold at least one value for each view. Getters work like computed properties do inside components. Their value is derived from the state and any parameters passed into it. They can be used to filter lists without having to duplicate that logic inside every component that uses that list. The state cannot be edited directly. Any updates must be performed through mutation methods supplied inside the store. These are usually simple actions that perform one change at a time. Each mutation method receives the state as an argument, which is then updated with the values needed to change. Mutations need to be synchronous in order for Vuex to understand what has changed. For asynchronous logic – like a server call – actions can be used instead. Actions can return Promises, which lets Vuex know that the result will change in the future as well as enabling developers to chain actions together. To perform a mutation, they have to be committed to the store by calling commit() and passing the name of the mutation method required. Actions need to be dispatched in a similar way with dispatch(). It’s good practice to have actions commit mutations rather than commit them manually. That way, all updating logic is held together in the same place. Components can then dispatch the actions directly, so long as they are mapped using the mapActions() method supplied by Vuex. To avoid overcomplicating things, the store can also be broken up into individual modules that look after their own slice of the state. Each module can register its own state, getters, mutations and actions. State is combined between each module and grouped by their module name, in much the same way as combineReducers() works within Redux.pport. 02. Explore lazy load routes By default, the entire contents of the application end up inside one JavaScript file, which can result in a slow page load. A lot of that content is never used on the first screen the user visits. Instead it can be split off from the main bundle and loaded in as and when needed. Vue makes this process incredibly simple to set up, as vue-router has built-in support for lazy loading. Vue supports using dynamic imports to define components. These return Promises, which resolve to the component itself. The router can then use that component to render the page like normal. These work alongside code splitting built in to Webpack, which makes it possible to use features like magic comments to define how components should be split. Next page: React Best for: 
Sites and applications with complex view logic Quick prototypes with a low barrier to entry Launched in 2013, React is maintained by Facebook and Instagram, alongside a community of developers. It's component-based and declarative, and you can also use it to power mobile apps via React Native. Here, we'll explain how to keep your code clean by separating your concerns, move contents outside of the root component, and ensure errors don't destabilise your application. Use container and presentational components As with any project, it's important to keep a separation of concerns. All React applications start off simple. As they grow, it can be tempting to keep adding logic to the same few components. In theory, this simplifies things by reducing the number of moving parts. When problems arise, however, these large components become prone to errors that are difficult to debug. React and JSX encourage the creation on multiple small components to keep things as simple as possible. While breaking the interface down into smaller chunks can help with organisation, having a further separation between how a component works and what it looks like provides greater flexibility. Container and presentational components are special names given to this separation. The container's job is to manage state and deal with interfacing with other parts of the application such as Redux, while the presentational component deals solely with providing the interface. A container component will often be in charge of a small section of the UI, like a tweet. It will hold all the workings of that component – from storing state, like the number of likes, to the methods required for interaction, such as a mechanism for liking that tweet. If the application makes use of external libraries, include at this point. For example, Redux's connect method would provide the container with a way of dispatching actions to the store without worrying the presentational component. Containers will never render their 
own UI and will instead render 
another component – the presentational component. This component will be passed props that detail all the information needed to render the view. If it needs to provide interactivity, the container will then pass down methods for this as well, which can be called like any other method. Having this separation encourages developers to keep things as simple 
as possible. If a container is starting 
to grow too large, it makes it easy 
to break off into a smaller set 
of components. If the inner workings of a component, such as its state, needs to change, this technique allows the presentational component to remain unaffected. This also means this component can be used somewhere else in the application without needing to adjust how it functions. As long as it keeps getting served the same data it will continue to work. Render with portals React 16 introduced the ability to return lots of different types of data from a component. While previously it had to be either a single component or 'null', the latest version allows strings, numbers, arrays and a new concept called 'portals'. The return value of a render() method decides what React displays, which is shown at that point in the component hierarchy. Portals allow React to render any of these return types outside of the component they were called from. These can be other parts of the page completely separate from the main application. They still form part of React and work just the same as any component, but are able to reach outside of the normal confines of 
the root container. A typical use case of this technique would be to trigger modal windows. To get correct positioning, overlay 
and accessibility requirements out 
of a modal it ideally needs to sit as a direct descendant of the <body>. The problem is, the root of a single page application will likely take up that position. Components managing modals will either need to trigger something in the root component, or render it out of place. Here the Modal component returns a portal. The create function for it takes two arguments – what needs to be rendered and where it should render it. The second parameter is a regular DOM node reference, rather than anything specific to React. In this example, it references a <div> at the top of the DOM tree that is a sibling of the main app container. It is possible to target any node, visible or not, as with any JavaScript. To use it, another component can summon Modal just like any other component. It will 
then display its contents in the targeted node. Because React events are synthetic, they are capable of bubbling up from the portal contents to the containing component, rather than the DOM node they are rendered in. In the modal example, this means that 
the summoning component can 
also handle its state, such as its visibility or contents. Establish error boundaries Unhandled errors can cause havoc in a JavaScript application. Without catching them as they happen, methods can stop executing half way. This can cause unpredictable behaviour if the user continues and is a bad experience all around. Previous versions of React did not cope with these situations well. If an error occurred in a nested component, it would leave its parents in limbo. The component state object would be stuck in the middle of performing an operation that could end up locking up the interface. As of version 16, the way React handles errors has changed. Now an error inside any component would unmount the entire application. While that would stop issues arising with an unstable state, it doesn't lend itself well to a good user experience. To avoid this, we can create a special component called an error boundary to ring-fence parts of the application from the rest. Any errors that happen inside children of the boundary will not cause issues to those outside of it. Error boundaries work a lot like typical catch blocks in JavaScript. When an error occurs somewhere inside the component tree, it will be caught by the componentDidCatch() method, which receives the error thrown along with a stack trace. When that gets called it is an opportunity to replace the tree with a fresh interface – typically an error message. Since it only renders its children, this component 
can wrap others 
to catch any errors that happen within it. The components chosen for this will vary by application, but error boundaries can be placed wherever they are needed, including inside other boundaries. Error boundary components shouldn't be too complicated. If an error occurs inside of a boundary, it will bubble up to the next boundary up. Failing that, it will unmount the whole application as usual. Next page: AngularJS Best for: Large projects in need of structure 
Applications with lots of changing data AngularJS is an open source frontend web application framework developed by Google. It offers declarative templates with data-binding, MVW, MVVM, MVC, and dependency injection, all implemented using pure client-side JavaScript. Here, we'll show you how to use AngularJS to create reusable code blocks known as custom decorators, serve content to your users quicker, and create performant and easy to control animations with ease. Create custom decorators TypeScript is a superset that sits on top of JavaScript. It supplies features such as static typing, classes and interfaces that are lacking in the native language. This means that when creating large applications developers can get feedback on how best to work with external code and avoid unnecessary bugs. Angular is built exclusively on top of TypeScript, so it is important to understand how to utilise it correctly. Combining the strengths of both provides a solid foundation for the application as it grows. There are not many better techniques to demonstrate this than with decorators. Decorators are special functions designed to supply behaviour to whatever it is applied to. Angular makes extensive use of them to provide hints to the compiler, like with @Component on classes or @Input on properties. The aim is to make these functions as reusable as possible and are often used to provide utility functions, such as logging. In the example above, @ClassLogger is supplied to a component to log to the console when certain lifecycle hooks are fired. This could be applied to any component to track its behaviour. The ClassLogger example above returns a function, which enables us 
to customise the behaviour of the decorator as it is created. This is known as the decorator factory pattern, which is used by Angular 
to create its own decorators. To apply a decorator, it needs to be positioned just before what it is decorating. Because of the way they are designed, decorators can be stacked on top of each other, including Angular's own. TypeScript will chain these decorators together and combine their behaviours. Decorators are not just limited to classes. They can be applied to properties, methods and parameters inside of them as well. All of these follow similar patterns, but are slightly different in their implementations. This is an example of a plain method decorator. These take three arguments – the object targeted, the name of the method, and the descriptor that provides details on its implementation. By hooking into the value of that descriptor we can replace the behaviour of the method based on 
the needs of the decorator. Build platform-level animations Animations are a great way to introduce a friendly side to an interface. But trying to control animations in JavaScript can be problematic. Adjusting dimensions like height is bad for performance, while toggling classes 
can quickly get confusing. The Web Animations API is a good approach, but working with it inside Angular can be tricky. Angular provides a module that enables components to be animated by integrating with the properties already within the class. It uses a syntax similar to CSS-based animations, which gets passed in as component metadata. Each animation is defined by a 'trigger' – a grouping of states and transition effects. Each state is a string value that, when matched, applies the associated styles to the element. The transition values define different ways the element should move between those states. In this example, once the value bound to hidden evaluates to true, the element will shrink out of view. Two other special states are also defined: void and *. The void state relates to a component that was not in the view at the time and can be used to animate it in or out. The wildcard * will match with any state and could be used to provide a dimming effect while any transition occurs. Inside the template, the trigger is bound to a value within the component that represents the state. As that value changes, as does the state of the animation. That bound value can be supplied either as a plain property or as the output of a method, but the result needs to evaluate into a string that can be matched against an animation state. These animations also provide callbacks such as when they start 
or stop. This can be useful for removing components that are 
no longer visible. Serve content quicker with server rendering HTML parsers struggle with JavaScript frameworks. Web crawlers are often not sophisticated enough to understand how Angular works, so they only see a single, blank element and not the whole application. By rendering the application on the server, it sends down an initial view for the users to look at while Angular and the rest of the functionality downloads in the background. Once the application arrives, it silently picks up from where the server left off. The tools needed to achieve this in Angular are now a native part of the platform as of version 4. With a bit of set up, any application can be server rendered with just a few tweaks. Both server and browser builds need their own modules, but share a lot of common logic. Both need a special version of BrowserModule, which allows Angular to replace the contents on-screen when it loads in. The server also needs ServerModule to generate the appropriate HTML. Servers also need their own entry points where they can bootstrap their unique behaviours as necessary. That behaviour depends on the app, but will also likely mirror much of the main browser entry point. If using the CLI, that also needs to be aware of how to build the project for the server by pointing to the new entry point. This can be triggered by using the "--app" flag when building 
for the server. The application is now ready to be server rendered. Implementations will vary based on the server technology used, but the base principles remain the same. For example, Angular provide an Express engine for Node, which can be used to populate the index page based on the request sent. All the server needs to do is serve that file. Server rendering is a complex subject with many edge cases (look here for more information). Next page: Polymer Best for: Combining with other platforms and frameworks Working with JavaScript standards Polymer is a lightweight library designed to help you take full advantage of Web Components. Read on to find out how to use it to create pain-free forms, bundle your components to keep requests low and sizes small, and finally how to upgrade to the latest Polymer release: 3.0. Work with forms Custom elements are part of the browser. Once they are set up they work like any native element would do on the page. Most of the time, Polymer is just bridging the gap between now and what custom elements will be capable of in the future, along with bringing features like data binding. One place where custom elements shine is their use as form inputs. Native input types in browsers are limited at best, but provide a reliable way of sending data. In cases where a suitable input isn't available – such as in an autocomplete field, for example – then custom elements can provide a suitable drop-in solution. As their work is performed within the shadow DOM, however, custom input values will not get submitted alongside regular form elements like usual. Browsers will just skip over them without looking at their contents. One way around this is to use an <iron-form> component, which is provided by the Polymer team. This component wraps around an existing form and will find any values either as a native input or custom element. Provided a component exposes a form value somewhere within the element, it will be detected and sent like usual. In cases where a custom element does not expose an input, it's still possible to use that element within a form, provided it exposes a property that can be bound to. If <my-input> exposes a property like "value" to hook into we can pull that value out as part of a two-way binding. The value can then be read out into a separate hidden input as part of the main form. It can be transformed at this point into a string to make it suitable for form transmission. Forms not managed by Polymer that would need to make use of these bindings, the Polymer team also provide a <dom-bind> component to automatically bind these values. Bundle components One of Polymer's biggest advantages is that components can be imported and used without any need for a build process. As optimised as these imports may be, each component requires a fresh request, which slows things down. While HTTP/2 would speed things up in newer browsers, those who do not support it will have a severely degraded experience. For those users, files should be bundled together. If a project is set up using the Polymer CLI, bundling is already built in to the project. By running polymer build, the tool will collect all components throughout the project and inline any subcomponents they use. This cuts down on requests, removes unnecessary comments and minifies to reduce the file size. It also has the added benefit of creating separate bundles for both ES5 and ES2015 to support all browsers. Outside of Polymer CLI, applications can still be bundled using the separate Polymer Bundler library. This works much like the CLI, but is more of a manual process. By supplying a component, it will sift through the imports of the file, 
inline their contents, and output a bundled file. Polymer Bundler has a few separate options to customise the output. For example, developers can choose to keep comments or only inline specific components. Upgrade to Polymer 3.0 The philosophy behind Polymer is to 'use the platform': instead of fighting against browser features, work with them to make the experience better for everyone. HTML imports are a key part of Polymer 2, but are being removed from the web components specification moving forward. Polymer 3.0 changes the way that components are written to work with more established standards. While no breaking changes are made with the framework itself, it's important 
to know how the syntax changes 
in this new version. First thing to note is that Polymer is migrating away from Bower as a package manager. To keep up with the way developers work, npm will become the home of Polymer, as well as any related components in the future. To avoid using HTML imports, components are imported as JavaScript modules using the existing standardised syntax. The major difference inside a component is that the class is now exported directly. This enables the module import <script> tag to 
work correctly. Any other components can be included by using ES2015 import statements within this file. Finally, templates have been moved into the class and work 
with template literals. A project by the Polymer team called lit-html is working to provide the same flexibility as <template> tags 
along with the efficiency of 
selective DOM manipulation. Next page: Aurelia Best for: Simple applications with 
little setup Developing alongside 
web standards Aurelia is a JavaScript client framework for web, mobile and desktop. It's written with next-gen ECMAScript, integrates with Web Components and has no external dependencies. Read on for two mini-tutorials, showing you how to change how properties display value and function, and how to use Aurelia to check values in forms. 01. Use value converters Sometimes, when developing components, the values being stored do not lend themselves well to being displayed in a view. A Date object, for example, has an unhelpful value when converted to a string, which requires developers to make special conversion methods just to show values correctly. To get around this problem, Aurelia provides a mechanism to use classes to change values, known as value converters. These can take any kind of value, apply some kind of processing to it, and output that changed value in place of the original. They work similar to pipes in Angular or filters in template languages like Twig. Most will be one way – from the model to the view. But they can also work the other way. The same logic applies, but by using fromView instead of toView, values can be adjusted before they are returned back to the model. A good use-case for this would be to format user input directly from the bind on the element. In this example, it will capitalise every word that is entered, which may be useful for a naming field. They can also be chained together, which encourages the creation of composable converters that can have different uses across the application. One converter could filter an array of values, which then passes to another that sorts them. Converters can also be given simple arguments that can alter the way they behave. Instead of creating different converters to perform similar filtering, create one that takes the type of filter to be performed as an argument. While only one argument is allowed, they can be chained together to achieve the same effect. 02. Try framework-level form validation Validation is an important part of any application. Users need to be putting the correct information into forms for everything to work correctly. If they do not, they should be warned of the fact as early as possible. While validation can often be a tricky process, Aurelia has support for validating properties built right into the framework. As long as form values are bound to class properties, Aurelia can check that they are correct whenever it makes sense to the application. Aurelia provides a ValidationController, which takes instructions from the class, looks over the associated properties and supplies the template with any checks that have failed. Each controller requires a single ValidationRules class that defines what's to be checked. These are all chained together, which enables the controller to logically flow through the checks dependant on the options that are passed. Each ruleset begins with a call to ensure(), which takes the name of 
the property being checked. Any commands that follow will apply 
to that property. Next are the rules. There are plenty of built-in options like required() or email() that cover common scenarios. Anything else can use satisfies(), which takes a function that returns either a Boolean or a Promise that passes or fails the check. After the rules come any customisations of that check, for example the error message to display. Rules provide default messages, but these can be overridden if necessary. Finally, calling on() applies the ruleset to the class specified. If it is being defined from within the constructor of the class, it can be called with this instead. By default, validation will be fired whenever a bound property's input element is blurred. This can be changed to happen either when the property changes, or it can be triggered manually. This article was originally published in creative web design magazine Web Designer. Buy issue 269 or subscribe. Read more: What’s new in Angular 4? 20 JavaScript tools to blow your mind 12 common JavaScript questions answered View the full article

Adobe has today announced a raft of time-saving updates in Adobe XD CC 2018 that sees the all-in-one UX/UI app work more efficiently with Photoshop CC and rival app Sketch. Now, you can import Photoshop and Sketch assets directly into XD, with files automatically converting to XD files. This makes it possible to create interactive prototypes more quickly. In addition, you can also now copy and paste symbols between XD documents in one simple step. Previously, they needed to be converted manually. Get Adobe Creative Cloud now Elsewhere in Adobe XD, you can speed up your design process by styling grouped elements – this includes changing properties like the fill and stroke of grouped elements. And a scrolling artboard enhancement tops off the latest Adobe XD update. When prototyping, you can now edit the viewport of a scrollable artboard right on the canvas itself without having to exit and go to the Property Inspector. The result is a faster and easier prototyping experience. Seamless workflow Described by Adobe as part of its "commitment to working with the design community", the powerful updates are the latest example of the company actively listening to and implementing highly requested user feedback. Back in January, Adobe XD CC made initial steps to create seamless workflows by integrating Dropbox and other popular UX tools. Adobe XD users can now copy and paste symbols more easily Meanwhile, Adobe has also released a batch of new features in Illustrator CC and InDesign CC. In Illustrator, you can now import multiple PDFs as artboards; increase the size of anchor points, handles and bounding-box controls; and data merge with CSV files. Over in InDesign, you can now deploy Photoshop or Illustrator shortcuts, merge multiple paragraph borders, and see more detailed analytics for documents they published online. Related articles: 24 top Sketch plugins Review: Photoshop CC 2018 How to prototype a mobile app with Adobe XD View the full article

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