Archive for year: 2018

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/zsQAT6Hasl8/10-best-character-designs-games-21619313

The world of games is full of weird and wonderful characters. Everyone has a favourite video game character, right? From Lara Croft to Master Chief, there's arguably no better way to immerse yourself in a game than with the perfect protagonist (or a cracking baddie).

Here are 11 of the best video game character designs and why they're still winning the show. The following creations combine impressive 3D art skills and some clever character design touches.

01. Trico – The Last Guardian

Taking care of Trico can be a real test of your patience, but it’s worth the effort

While your character in Fumito Ueda's The Last Guardian is an unnamed boy, the star of the show is Trico, a giant baby half-bird half-mammal creature that you're trying to guide to safety. Immensely powerful yet ungainly, vulnerable and easily spooked, Trico takes a lot of looking after and can veer wildly between completely adorable and utterly infuriating.

Trico can be encouraged to perform certain actions, but it's like herding a ten-ton kitten; he has his own personality and it's often at odds with the tasks you're trying to accomplish, driving you to distraction but ultimately making success feel all the more rewarding.

02. Abe – Oddworld

Abe was created by Oddworld co-founder Lorne Lanning in 1997

When we're first introduced to Abe, his comical appearance and dim-witted voice make him seem wilfully unprepared for his mission. Undeniable funny, cunning and sneaky, this surprising juxtaposition of appearance to abilities is what gives the player the drive to take Mudokon Pops off the menu for good.

03. Lara Croft – Rise of the Tomb Raider

Lara Croft has become an iconic character since she first appeared in the 1996 video game Tomb Raider

Lara Croft is a refreshing step away from the male-centric character design in the original Tomb Raider but still keeps the universal truths that make her iconic. She would be nothing without her gymnastic abilities and utility belt.

04. Alyx Vance – Half-life 2 

The 2004 design of Alyx was based on the looks of actress Jamil Mullen

Based on the looks of actress Jamil Mullen, the design of Alyx was impressively uncanny. Similar to the evolution of Lara Croft, Alyx as a character is well written and individualistic rather than gender centric.

05. Vaas Montenegro – Far Cry 3 

Vaas is a guy you wouldn’t want to mess with

Surrounded by drugs, guns and paradise has made this 2012 character slightly insane. Although he is never seen directly in the game, his cut scenes are some of the best acted and most memorable. Couple that with the great first person camera work, he really was a fantastic example of a guy you wouldn't want to mess with.

06. GlaDOS – Portal series

Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System is a fictional artificially intelligent computer system from 2007

All she wants to do is carry on testing. She doesn’t see it as a bad thing and can’t understand why you, the test subject, doesn’t want to stay locked up in a research facility until the end of time. You can’t help feeling sorry for her whilst listening to her lie and deceive to keep you there. Plus there is cake… So that’s a bonus.

07. Master Chief and Cortana – Halo series

Cortana and Master Chief’s continuously developing relationship that makes them some of gaming’s most iconic characters

Halo (2001) was the game that defined the early days of Microsoft's Xbox, and has continued to do so since. The story is only as good as its characters, and Bungie created two classic figures – Master Chief, the Spartan soldier leading the battle against the Covenant Armada, and Cortana, the sharp witted artificial intelligence that guides the Chief through the games. 

It's their banter and continuously developing relationship that makes them some of gaming's most iconic characters.

08. Joel and Ellie – The Last of Us 

The relationship between Joel and Ellie is extremely well executed

This game (2013) has some the best characterisation in a video game or in any media, the relationship between Joel and Ellie is so well executed that this game is about as close to playing a movie as you can get. 

Ellie in particular was designed to remain close to the player and to echo their experience in the game's world. The design also built to foster a relationship between Ellie and Joel, as she was created to lead him to cover when needed, whilst he naturally puts his arm around her, creating a relationship between the two.

09. Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time 

The Prince’s amazing agility forces players to utilise new ways to get around
From $7.99/From £3.96

The Sands of Time (2003) featured some great animation and characterisation that felt and looked like a cool cartoon. This was especially highlighted with the Prince's amazing agility in the game, forcing the player to utilise new ways to get from point to point.

10. Ida and Ro – Monument Valley 2 

Ida and her mum’s designs are simple, but very effective

The original Monument Valley charmed us with its interactions between Ida and the Totem, and while Totem makes an appearance in the more recent Monument Valley 2, this outing focuses more on the relationship between Ida and her mother, Ro, who teaches her daughter how to navigate the game's strange worlds and gives the game plenty of new emotional beats.

11. Mario – Super Mario Bros 

A list of top gaming characters just wouldn’t be complete without Mario

We couldn't talk about video game characters without mentioning Mario. Designed to make it easy for new players to understand the game, Mario's character was engineered to engage and excite fans in the game, using subtle design attributes to achieve this. For example, making Mario small so that he can then become big which left players feel more content.

Mario has been through many iterations since he first graced our computer screens in 1981, but the original 8-bit version remains our firm favourite.

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Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2018/05/take-control-of-wordpress-with-new-elementor-pro-2-0/

Elementor 2.0 is an innovative approach to site building in WordPress that lets you customize any part of your site, with absolutely zero coding knowledge.

A plugin rather than a theme, this flexible approach means that you can use Elementor 2.0 to manage your site design, and unlike some WordPress site builders, you won’t be tied to a particular theme; Elementor 2.0 works with almost any WordPress theme from any vendor, as well as custom themes.

Build everything on your WordPress site exactly as you want it, without having to switch themes to find the right functionality, or pay a developer’s fees to personalize your template.

A Comprehensive Site Builder

There are dozens of different theme builders that will allow you to change the layout of your static content, but they nearly all tie you to fundamental elements of the theme, such as the header, or footer. Elementor 2.0 is designed to free you from that restriction by enabling the customization of those hard-to-change elements such as your header.

Using intuitive tools that enable you to build your site in a familiar WYSIWYG style, Elementor 2.0 is one of the simplest ways to make these changes, all the while confident that the code underpinning your design is robust and properly implemented.

All of this functionality was available before, but reserved for those coders who knew how to drill into the WordPress codebase. Elementor 2.0 puts the power to customize your site in your hands.

Intuitive Workflow

Elementor 2.0 has been crafted for speed. To make changes, simply install the plugin and you’ll find the Elementor option added to your dashboard menu, and you can now create new templates at will. Everything works instantly, giving you control of your site in a few clicks.

To speed up the editing process Elementor 2.0 features theme element widgets, such as an author box, a site logo, or a featured image; these and other elements can be combined to rapidly develop real-world WordPress solutions. To build templates, either start with one of the pre-designed options and customize it to suit your site, or build entirely from scratch.

All of Elementor 2.0’s code is fully responsive, meaning that you can create a design and be confident that it will look exactly as you intend on any device. You can even create premium features like a sticky header—an essential component of modern UX—so that your menu will follow users up and down the screen as they scroll.

To see your design live, all you have to do it click the ‘publish’ button and choose the conditions under which your new element should appear.

Conditional Elements

One of the features of Elementor 2.0 that we like the most is the conditional option: Once you’ve finished designing an element for your site, you can choose the conditions under which it will be displayed.

Let’s say for example that you want to design two headers: one for your main site, and one for your blog; Elementor 2.0 allows you to create them both and set them so that they will appear on the right pages; even when you’re creating repetitive UI elements you can apply them intelligently.

Create different footers for your site and blog, or a unique footer for your contact page, or even different designs for personal blog posts and professional blog posts. The biggest benefit to conditional elements is that you retain control of what elements appear when.

Design Dynamic Content

Many pages on your site, your home page for example, are static pages. Your blog posts however—the part of your site that WordPress really excels at creating—are dynamic. Dynamic pages pull content in from your database, so you can’t always be sure what that content will be.

The challenge this creates is that while static pages can easily be previewed in your WordPress dashboard, dynamic pages cannot, and each dynamic post could significantly affect your design. Elementor 2.0 solves this issue with an innovative preview option that really should be built into the WordPress core: With Elementor 2.0 you can choose which post content to preview a page with, giving you an unprecedented overview of your design right in the dashboard.

As well as elegantly handling static pages and dynamic posts, Elementor 2.0 allows you to create archives like category pages and search results, even a custom 404 error page; all the control you need to manage a modern WordPress site.

Conclusion

You shouldn’t have to choose between the freedom to switch themes and the ability to modify your site; with Elementor 2.0 you don’t have to.

Fresh to the market, Elementor 2.0 is a significant advancement in the control WordPress developers have, enabling them to edit almost any theme with ease, and with absolutely zero coding knowledge.

Not only is Elementor 2.0 a boost to creativity, but it’s a boon to timetables too. Delivering site-wide changes in a fraction of the time it would take to hand-code them could give you the competitive edge you need.

With a unique visual approach to theme building, Elementor 2.0 opens up new possibilities for WordPress professionals.

[– This is a sponsored post on behalf of Elementor –]

Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

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Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/angular-augury-debug-code/

Augury is an open-source tool allowing developers to profile and debug Angular 2 and 4 applications.

Modern web browsers provide developer consoles to inspect various elements on the page, which is really handy when trying to debug markup, styles, and scripts. However, this console isn’t enough to debug Angular applications that usually have lots of components, events, attributes, and a separate routing system.

Augury is a tool designed specifically for Angular apps. It’s an open-source debugging and profiling tool for Angular 2+ applications.

Augury is just a Chrome extension that’s quite simple to use, so you won’t need to spend hours and hours learning how to utilize this tool. We’re going to build a sample Angular app and then see Augury in action by exploring various parts of our project. So, let’s get started!

Hello, Augury!

Augury visualizes your app’s structure in a form of a tree, showing how components and their dependencies relate to each other. It also allows you to inspect properties of your objects and change them on the fly. On top of that, you can easily view the source code of a specific component, insert breakpoints as needed, work with events, and more. Lastly, you can browse the application’s routing system, as well as view the full list of all utilized modules.

Augury is only available as a Chrome extension (there’s no Firefox support yet, unfortunately) and installing it is as simple as going to this page and pressing the Install button. After that, you may open the developer tools by pressing Ctrl + Shift + I (Windows/Linux) or Cmd + Opt + I (macOS). You’ll note that a new tab called Augury has appeared. After switching to this tab, you’ll either see the application’s structure or the phrase “This application is not an Angular application”. I’ve noticed that sometimes it may be required to re-open the Developer Console in order for Augury to analyze the page properly, so watch out.

Now that we have Augury installed, let’s proceed to the next section and prepare the sample application that we’ll use as a playground!

Building a Sample App

In order to see Augury in action, we need something to debug, right? In this section, I’m going to quickly guide you through the process of creating a very simple application (loosely based on the sample app from the Angular’s official tutorial) listing some users and allowing you to edit them. Alternatively, you may grab the source code from my GitHub repo.

Before getting started, install Angular CLI on your machine if you don’t have it yet:

npm install -g @angular/cli

Next, create the skeleton of our new project:

ng new sitepoint-augury

Change the application’s title by tweaking the src/app/app.component.ts file:

// …

export class AppComponent {
title = ‘Augury Demo’;
}

Tweak the src/app/app.component.html by removing all the links to documentation added automatically by code generator and add an <app-users></app-users> line:

<div style=”text-align:center”>
<h1>
Welcome to {{ title }}!
</h1>
</div>

<app-users></app-users>

Of course, we need a User component, so generate it now by running:

ng generate component users

Change the src/app/users/user.component.ts file in the following way:

import { Component, OnInit } from ‘@angular/core’;
import { User } from ‘./user.model’; // <— 1
import { UserService } from ‘./user.service’; // <— 2

@Component({
selector: ‘app-users’,
templateUrl: ‘./users.component.html’,
styleUrls: [‘./users.component.css’]
})
export class UsersComponent implements OnInit {
users: User[];

selectedUser: User;

onSelect(user: User): void { // <— 3
this.selectedUser = user;
}

constructor(private userService: UserService) { } // <— 4

ngOnInit() {
this.getUsers(); // <— 5
}

getUsers(): void { // <— 6
this.users = this.userService.getUsers();
}

}

Main things to note here:

We are importing a User model that will be created in a moment.
We’re also importing a UserService. It will simply return a list of hardcoded users, but let’s pretend they’re being fetched from some remote location.
We’re allowing the users to be selected by clicking on them. The currently selected user is stored in a separate selectedUser attribute.
Hook up the userService using the dependency injection mechanism.
Load the list of users once the component is initialized.
In order to get users, we’re utilizing our userService.

That’s pretty much it for this component.

Next, let’s create a model in a src/app/users/user.model.ts file. Each user is going to have an ID, a first and a last name:

export class User {
id: number;
first: string;
last: string;
}

Nothing complex.

Now let’s proceed to the UserService that’s going to be defined in the app/src/users/user.service.ts file:

import { Injectable } from ‘@angular/core’;
import { User } from ‘./user.model’;

@Injectable()
export class UserService {

constructor() { }

getUsers(): User[] {
return [
{
id: 1,
first: ‘John’,
last: ‘Doe’
},
{
id: 2,
first: ‘Margaret’,
last: ‘Brown’
}
]
}
}

The getUsers method simply returns an array of users with hardcoded data.

Now let’s display our users with the help of ngFor. Also, we’re going to add a click event listener and fire onSelect whenever a user is clicked on. When this happens, a form to edit the chosen user should be displayed (which is going to be done with the help of ngIf). Modify the src/app/users/user.component.html file like this:

<div *ngFor=”let user of users” (click)=”onSelect(user)”
[class.selected]=”user === selectedUser”>
<p>{{user.last}}, {{user.first}} (ID: {{user.id}})</p>
</div>

<div *ngIf=”selectedUser”>
<h3>Edit</h3>
<label for=”first”>First</label>
<input [(ngModel)]=”selectedUser.first” placeholder=”First name” id=”first”>

<label for=”last”>Last</label>
<input [(ngModel)]=”selectedUser.last” placeholder=”Last name” id=”last”>
</div>

We’re assigning a .selected CSS class to the chosen user, so let’s add some simple styling for it inside the src/app/users/user.component.css file:

.selected {
font-weight: bold;
}

Lastly, we have to import FormsModule and UserService inside the src/app/app.module.ts file:

import { BrowserModule } from ‘@angular/platform-browser’;
import { NgModule } from ‘@angular/core’;
import { FormsModule } from ‘@angular/forms’; // <—
import { UserService } from ‘./users/user.service’; // <—

import { AppComponent } from ‘./app.component’;
import { UsersComponent } from ‘./users/users.component’;

FormsModule should be listed in the imports section in the app.module.ts, whereas UserService goes to the providers:

@NgModule({
declarations: [
AppComponent,
UsersComponent
],
imports: [
BrowserModule,
FormsModule // <—
],
providers: [
UserService // <—
],
bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})

That’s it! Our sample application is finished, and you can open it by running the following command:

ng serve –open

Continue reading %Using Angular Augury to Debug Your Code%

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/hesNXZlK2a8/how-to-excel-at-everything

Product design, packaging design, branding and book publishing are all well-established disciplines, filled with plenty of specialist, single-focus agencies. So for a relatively small studio to excel in all of them at once is rather impressive, but Here Design has managed it.

East London agency Here is also notable in the male-dominated realm of creative directors in that two of its three co-founders are women. Driven by a shared passion for creativity in all its forms, Caz Hildebrand, Kate Marlow and Mark Paton continue to fly the flag for multidisciplinary design. We asked Paton and Marlow to tell us more…

How was Here Design founded?

Mark Paton: We didn’t have a written ethos, or any precise definition of what to do. We just shared a broad interest in food and drink, and sharing knowledge. Caz wanted to do furniture design; Kate was interested in textiles; I was doing other things. Initially it was about sharing infrastructure. We had an accountant in common, and just wanted a nice, creative environment to work in. It was really unstructured.

Kate Marlow: It was 12 years ago now. We left our respective jobs: Mark and I were in branding; Caz in publishing, in book design. We wanted to work together in a small environment, designing for brands we believed in. 

As Mark says, there was no master plan, no big idea. We got on well, and had a shared ethos about what good ideas were, and how to articulate them.

How did the studio evolve?

MP: It’s been super-organic, and a huge learning curve: we’ve had to learn about all of decisions we should have made at the beginning. Early on, we pitched to rebrand an organic food shop, and surprisingly we won. That suddenly gave us a body of work that we were working on together, which crystallised the nature of the studio and how we could share our experience. 

KM: As it went on, we got more jobs in than we could cope with just three of us. So, we slowly employed people to help us and it grew very, very slowly. For a very long time, we did all our own project management, finance, everything. We were the receptionists too.We learnt what we could and couldn’t do very well. Thankfully we now have experts in areas like finance, and a head of studio. They do a much better job than we ever did.

Here has published several books including a playful book on punctuation entitled This is Me, Full Stop

How have you structured the agency?

MP: This year we’ve employed a new tier of designer in the studio: design associates. We have four now, each with a portfolio of clients.

We’ve struggled a bit to create a structure without being very hierarchical. We don’t buy into certain job titles. For us, it was important to create our own definition. T

he design associates will take more of a lead on certain projects, while the partners focus on developing the business, thinking about new sectors, and also some smaller projects. It may seem a bit counter-intuitive, but we still want to design, so are happy to pick up speculative work that’d be a burden for the studio to do.

Here’s rebrand of Barcardi taps into the brand’s rich heritage

Have you struggled to stay hands-on?

KM: No, in fact we’ve probably struggled to be hands off. We need to learn to do that more, so the other designers can work their way up. 

We’re passionate about all our projects, and as partners we lead teams and are really collaborative with the design associates and senior designers, right through to the juniors. 

How have you stayed multi-disciplinary?

MP: We have had conversations about whether we need to specialise, but I think part of what makes Here interesting is that we work on such different topics. We very pragmatically believe that if a designer works across a book, a pack, an identity and a digital application, they will become a better designer. 

Here translated the physical geography of the streets around adidas Originals stores into architectural models

How do you choose who works on a project?

KM: Sometimes, one of us is just a really good fit for a client. That might be based on personality, or previous experience – or it might be that one of us actually hasn’t got much experience in that field, and that’s what we find exciting. They could come up with things you wouldn’t necessarily think to do, because they don’t know that genre so well. 

Do you work with external collaborators?

MP: A lot is done in-house. At college you didn’t have the option to commission someone: you had to get your paints out and do it. We advocate the guys having a go, but there are instances where it’s beyond us, so we commission out. But the lion’s share of illustration, for instance, is done in-house.

It’s partly a cultural choice: it’s nice to have people making marks and creating images. It makes for a richer experience.

Here created a beautiful wooden display box for Balvenie whisky 

How do you attract and retain the right talent?

MP: From the moment we started in Caz’s kitchen, we recognised the importance of the moments that weren’t designed. Making lunch together was a bonding experience, which sounds a bit cheesy, but it was important. 

We came from quite ordered environments, and wanted it to feel more homely and casual. When we were lucky enough to design this space, a creative kitchen was the first thing we set up. On a Friday, everyone tries to have lunch together and different people cook. 

The strength of the studio is the people within it. It’s not really us as partners – we are not necessarily the embodiment of the company. We’re just kind of trying to create a way of working that everyone can benefit from. 

Recognising people and allowing them to flourish –almost autonomously – is another thing that happens here that maybe doesn’t elsewhere. A junior designer can come in, be given a live project and see it through. We review things democratically too, so there’s an opportunity for everyone to speak up. I think that openness, and the fact that the opportunities are quite apparent and quite quick, makes people stick around. A lot of people have been here for a long time – we’re very lucky.   

This article originally appeared in issue 277 of Computer Arts magazine, the world's best-selling design magazine. Buy issue 277 or subscribe to Computer Arts.

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Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/_7neVZ70Fl8/

Today we’d like to share a little grid layout with you. We use CSS Grid and a playful hover effect on the grid items which are composed of different wildly placed elements. When an item is clicked, we slide in a content preview overlay and animate the grid items out and the preview items in. For the animations we use TweenMax by Greensock.

The demo is kindly sponsored by monday.com: Get your team on the same playbook!. If you would like to sponsor one of our demos, find out more here.

Attention: We’ve made this layout with modern browsers in mind.

Here’s how the grid looks like:

The content preview overlay looks like this:

We hope you enjoy this little layout and find it useful!

References and Credits

TweenMax by Greensock
Images from Unsplash.com
imagesLoaded by Dave DeSandro
Cross icon designed by Freepik

Grid Layout with Motion Hover Effect and Content Preview was written by Mary Lou and published on Codrops.