Today in Design - Top Articles RoundUp 17 December 2015

The day’s best and most impor­tant design- and design business-focused arti­cles, tuto­ri­als, and resources hand-picked by Pariah Burke.

• Take a Break: 5 Ways Freelance Creatives Make Unpaid Time Off Work
  “If you don’t take full advan­tage of the sched­ule flex­i­bil­i­ty that self-employment allows, you’re doing it wrong.”

  Vacations are a mine­field for inde­pen­dent cre­atives. While the full-time, salaried work­force can take hol­i­days and still get paid, free­lancers have to tread carefully—taking time off means not mak­ing mon­ey. And it’s not just a day here and a day there. Add up nation­al hol­i­days and the typ­i­cal 15 vaca­tion and per­son­al days per year, and you get about five weeks of unre­al­ized earn­ings per year.

  Tags: Design Business

• Universal Principles of Design [Video]
  Design is full of unspo­ken rules and obscure the­o­ries that, when applied, can dra­mat­i­cal­ly improve one’s own design. For the first time, we are doc­u­ment­ing them all in one place.Universal Principles of Design, based on William Lidwell’s award-winning books, illus­trates one design prin­ci­ple every oth­er week, rang­ing from the tried and true (the 80/20 rule) to con­cepts that you may not have ever heard in a design con­text (Ockham’s razor or crowd intel­li­gence.) These prin­ci­ples are crit­i­cal to suc­cess­ful design—no mat­ter what the dis­ci­pline. Anyone who cre­ates, designs, engi­neers, or illus­trates will learn invalu­able lessons that will take their work to the next level.

  Tags: Design GraphicDesign

• Salespeople Should Care About Content Marketing, Too
  Content mar­ket­ing can help gen­er­ate leads, edu­cate the audi­ence, and expand brand awareness.Tags: CM ContentMarketing
• What Bad Reviews Reveal About the “Best” Digital Magazines
  The best dig­i­tal mag­a­zines have their lovers and their haters – and they’ll all tell you exact­ly what to do to make them happy.Tags: DPS emag digimag
• Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015 | Pew Research Center
  Smartphones are fuel­ing a shift in the com­mu­ni­ca­tion land­scape for teens. Nearly three-quarters of teens now use smart­phones and 92% of teens report going
• Publishers Must Be Aware of Their Technical Debt
  A good arti­cle from DBW dis­cussing what’s ahead for tra­di­tion­al pub­lish­ers. Technical debt is what you accrue when you write bad code or take some expe­di­ent short­cut or just think, “Nah, that’ll nev­er be need­ed.” At some point, you might have…

  Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub

• The Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity Methods
  We’ve gath­ered all the most pow­er­ful pro­duc­tiv­i­ty meth­ods in one place. Find the frame­work that fits best for your per­son­al­i­ty and projects.

  Tags: pro­duc­tiv­i­ty todo gtd

• Make Your TV’s Picture Look Better 100% in 5 Minutes
  What if we could tell you how to cal­i­brate your TV accord­ing to the opti­mal set­tings rec­om­mend­ed by a group of pro­fes­sion­al cal­i­bra­tion tech­ni­cians, spe­cif­ic to your HDTV, with­out spend­ing a sin­gle pen­ny? Yes, even with­out a cal­i­bra­tion disc, let alon…
• Navigating an Enterprise UX Project
  Myplanet’s Erik von Stackelberg joined us for a webi­nar on the land­scape of enter­prise UX, its users, its nuanced design chal­lenges, and the poten­tial impact of great expe­ri­ences at scale.Tags: UX UI Design Wearables
• WordPress Mobile Solutions for Your Website [30-Minute Video]
  Make your WordPress sites more mobile. This is a basic, beginner-level course for peo­ple who want to make their sites mobile ready—with a focus on WordPress mobile themes and plugins.

  Tags: WordPress

• Font Management Essential Training [Video]
  When you’re work­ing with type, you need a plan for sourc­ing, orga­niz­ing, val­i­dat­ing, and man­ag­ing fonts. In this course, Mike Rankin explains the dif­fer­ent types of fonts and font licens­es avail­able on Mac and Windows and where you can acquire new fon…
• 20 WordPress Plugins to Optimize Category and Tags
  If you want to do some­thing with the Category and the Tag which is not the built-in util­i­ty, you would per­haps find it on the fol­low­ing list. Here are 20 plu­g­ins to improve WordPress Category and Tag.
• 11 Best Evernote Tips And Tricks
  Evernote has gone from a sim­ple note tak­ing app to the work­space for your life’s work. Here are 11 of the best Evernote tips and tricks.

  Tags: Evernote

• Japan Is Trying To Destroy Tattoos
  Right now, there are some peo­ple in Japan who appear to be doing their best to kill off tat­toos. This guy is one of many who wants to stop that.Tags: Design Inspiration
• How to Survive and Thrive as a Corporate Content Marketer
  Corporate con­tent mar­keters need to accept a few real­i­ties that dif­fer from the free­lance world. Here are sev­en to help you thrive in a new environment.Tags: Writing AmWriting copywriting
• How to Make Images Stand Out on Pinterest [INFOGRAPHIC]
  With more than 12 mil­lion users on Pinterest it’s impor­tant to make your images stand out. Here’s how to opti­mize your pins.Tags: Pinterest
• How To Use OneNote: A Beginner’s Guide
  Microsoft OneNote is a pow­er­ful tool for man­ag­ing & orga­niz­ing your dig­i­tal work­flow. Find out how you can use OneNote to be more productiveTags: OneNote
• 10 Kids’ Grammar and Pronunciation Mistakes Too Cute to Correct

  All par­ents have men­tal lists of this stuff—their kids’ hilar­i­ous mis­pro­nun­ci­a­tions and mala­propisms that were so darn cute they couldn’t bear to set them straight. We polled a bunch of par­ents for some of their favorite examples.

  Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub

• Finding the Right Color Palettes for Data Visualizations
  While there are an increas­ing num­ber of good col­or palettes out there, not all of them are applic­a­ble to charts and data visualizations.Good col­or palettes are easy to come by, but find­ing the right col­or palette for data visu­al­iza­tions is challenging…
• Usability Testing: 5 Heat Map Tracking Tools to Watch What Your Visitors Do
  Supplement your ana­lyt­ics with some cool web­site design visu­als from online heat map track­ing toolsTags: Design WebDesign DesignforMobile
• 58 Online Copywriting Power Words & Phrases
  Here’s a list of copy­writ­ing pow­er words used by one of our for­mer clients who was so suc­cess­ful, the com­pa­ny was even­tu­al­ly sold to F + W Media.

  Tags: Writing AmWriting copy­writ­ing

• You Won’t Live to See the Final Star Wars Movie

  John Knoll is not noth­ing, either. He’s the chief cre­ative offi­cer at Lucasfilm; he did the visu­al effects on the Star Wars “spe­cial edi­tions” of the 1990s and a cou­ple of Star Trek movies, among oth­ers. Along the way he cocre­at­ed Photoshop.

  Tags: StarWars ForceAwakens RogueOne

• Gift Idea for Designers: A Book Featuring 365 Fascinating Stories of Typography and Its Future
  Published in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI), the 365typo annu­al book fea­tures 365 sto­ries by the best writ­ers in the field of typog­ra­phy, visu­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion, type and graph­ic design. 

  Tags: typog­ra­phy design

• Planning and Organizing Workshops
  Good work­shops start long before you get every­one in the room. Senongo Akpem shows how to pre­pare a suc­cess­ful workshop.
• The Most Gorgeous Car Manual You’ve Ever Seen

  Don’t set­tle for an oil-splattered old man­u­al when you can learn every­thing you’ve ever want­ed to know about cars in this beau­ti­ful, search­able guide from How a Car Works.

  Tags: Illustration Inspiration Design Vector

• How to Get Started with E‑Learning

  “How do I get start­ed with elearn­ing” is one of the most fre­quent ques­tions I’m asked. It makes sense since the indus­try is still hot and grow­ing and every day some­one new joins it and needs help.

  Tags: Ed Edu K12 elearn lms

• 5 Essential Principles for Understanding Analytics
  Where to start learn­ing if you don’t know the basics.

  Tags: Marketing met­rics ana­lyt­ics

• 4 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Leave a Good Job
  Ask your­self these four ques­tions to fig­ure out if quit­ting a good job to head to a bet­ter one is the right career move for you to make right now.
• What is Sponsored Content?
  These six pub­lish­ers are nail­ing spon­sored con­tent, but all in very dif­fer­ent ways. These par­tic­u­lar exam­ples of spon­sored con­tent were select­ed because they were done in such a way that makes a clear dis­tinc­tion between adver­tis­ing and edi­to­r­i­al. Full trans­paren­cy is achieved between pub­lish­er and con­sumer, which is the num­ber one goal.

  Tags: ePublishing digipub edi­to­r­i­al

• Apple’s Best iPad Apps of 2015
  From design to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, games to com­mu­ni­ca­tion, this is a great list.Tags: iOS iPhone Design Productivity
• Apple’s Best iPhone Apps of 2015
  From design to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, games to com­mu­ni­ca­tion, this is a great list.Tags: iOS iPhone Design Productivity
• Dazzling air­plane patent puts seats on top of air­craft – CNN​.com
  Aviation tech com­pa­ny Windspeed says its SkyDeck design will com­bat bore­dom on long-haul flights. At last, a new air­plane seat­ing patent that does­n’t try to squeeze more humans into a small­er space.
• New tool lets you use PHP on your Adobe Muse projects
  A tool that lets you make php sites with Adobe muse.Tags: Muse AdobeMuse PHP
• On the impor­tance of self con­fi­dence for mean­der­ing art-makers
  Self con­fi­dence is vital for any­one who wants to make any kind of a dent on the cre­ative world, whether you pro­vide a ser­vice or sell prod­ucts to customers.
• 11 Things Your Startup Should Look for in a Creative Hire for 2016
  While a stel­lar exec­u­tive should have an eye for design, there is so much more that goes into the role.Tags: Design Business
• Give Back Box Ships Your Unwanted Items to Goodwill for Free
  The end of the year is a per­fect time to donate stuff you don’t want, but find­ing the time to drop it off makes it tough. Give Back Box is a new ser­vice that pro­vides free ship­ping labels you can use to mail dona­tions to the near­est Goodwill, using what­ev­er box­es you get from your hol­i­day shopping.
• How to Make 3D Printed Stuff Without Owning a 3D Printer
  3D print­ing is real­ly frig­gin’ cool, but promis­es that we’d all have one in our homes by now have turned out to be less than true. Fortunately, you don’t need one of your own to bring your imag­i­nary cre­ations to life.
• 33 Business Books to Read Before 30
  To help you fig­ure out how to nav­i­gate the pro­fes­sion­al world and set your­self on the right tra­jec­to­ry, we’ve round­ed up some of our favorite busi­ness books.Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Brassballs
• Buying advice: Best Mac for graph­ic design
  Graphic design­ers have long loved Macs, and OS X remains the lead­ing envi­ron­ment in which to be cre­ative. We explore the best options for design­ers, to find the per­fect Macs for themTags: OSX mac macbook
• 5 Smart Moves to Make in a Technical Interview (That Have Nothing to Do With Coding)

  Technical inter­views are known for their puz­zles. Whether you’re asked to write a bina­ry tree out on a white­board, explain a sort­ing algo­rithm, or imple­ment FizzBuzz in 10 lines or less, you should pre­pare for tech­ni­cal pro­gram­ming ques­tions in the aver­age interview.

• 37 Effective PowerPoint Presentation Tips

  Consider this your all-inclusive guide. We’ll look at prepar­ing your pre­sen­ta­tion, how to design it in PowerPoint, prac­tic­ing your deliv­ery, and then how to nail your deliv­ery suc­cess­ful­ly come pre­sen­ta­tion time. We’ll also address what not to do—so you can side­step any big mis­takes. Let’s dig into these tips for effec­tive PowerPoint presentations.

  Tags: PowerPoint pre­sen­ter

• What Are The Biggest Trends In Design For 2016? Get Ahead Of The Curve

  So where is design going in 2016? What are the hot trends that we need to keep an eye on? How will 2016’s design trends dif­fer from those of last year? Check out the info­graph­ic below for a fas­ci­nat­ing look.

• How to Create Your Own Online Video Membership Site

  Online video mem­ber­ship sites are quick­ly grow­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty. If you are think­ing about mak­ing your own video mem­ber­ship site, you will be relieved to know that the process is rather sim­ple. There are many options out there; how­ev­er, the most sim­ple meth­ods of cre­at­ing your site will now be pre­sent­ed so that your chances of mak­ing a mis­take are dras­ti­cal­ly reduced.

• How to Move Your Startup Into Its First Office
  Here’s what you need to know before mov­ing your start­up into an office space.Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Startup
• Why Increased Efficiency Will Make Us Miserable
  Unfortunately, this con­ve­nience comes at a cost: The more effi­cient we get, the less we interact.
• The Guide to Hiring the Best Designer for Your Team
  This guide to hir­ing design­er will pro­vide an out­line of the hir­ing process that will find you the best design­er for your team. First iden­ti­fy the designer.Tags: Design Business
• ‘Based on a true sto­ry’: the fine line between fact and fiction

  From Kapuscinski to Knausgaard, from Mantel to Macfarlane, more and more writ­ers are chal­leng­ing the bor­der between fic­tion and non­fic­tion. Here Geoff Dyer – long­time mas­ter of the space between, in books such as But Beautiful and Out of Sheer Rage – argues that there is no sin­gle path to ‘truth’ while, below, writ­ers on both sides of the divide share their thoughts…

  Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub

• Setting Boundaries: The Key to Maintaining Control of Your Life and Work

  The dif­fer­ence between suc­cess­ful peo­ple and real­ly suc­cess­ful peo­ple is that real­ly suc­cess­ful peo­ple say no to almost every­thing. – Warren Buffett
• Make Your New Year Resolutions Work with 9+ Super Tools
  Science says new year res­o­lu­tions are a good idea because we end up dis­so­ci­at­ing from our old selves and look for­ward to start­ing anew. But a lit­tle help nev­er hurts, right? The Internet is full of fan­tas­tic web­sites and resources to aid in your quest to make a bet­ter you.
• The Internet: Addicted to Distraction – NYT Opinion

  “The net is designed to be an inter­rup­tion sys­tem, a machine geared to divid­ing atten­tion,” Nicholas Carr explains in his book “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.” “We will­ing­ly accept the loss of con­cen­tra­tion and focus, the divi­sion of our atten­tion and the frag­men­ta­tion of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of com­pelling or at least divert­ing infor­ma­tion we receive.”

• What Is Content Marketing?
  Here’s a handy, sys­tem­at­ic, and exhaus­tive guide to con­tent mar­ket­ing that cov­ers the essen­tials of build­ing a viable online plat­form that converts.Tags: CM ContentMarketing
• The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit | GQ
  For near­ly thir­ty years, a phan­tom haunt­ed the woods of Central Maine. Unseen and unknown, he lived in secret, creep­ing into homes in the dead of night and sur­viv­ing on what he could steal. To the spooked locals, he became a legend—or maybe a myth. They won­dered how he could pos­si­bly be real. Until one day last year, the her­mit came out of the forest
• What Would a Real Freelancer’s Union Look Like?
  The time is right for a major col­lec­tive effort by free­lance writ­ers to cap­i­tal­ize on the suc­cess of the indus­try and find a way to improve their work­ing conditions.Tags: Freelance Writing AmWriting
• Why PowerPoint Isn’t the Right Choice for Interactive E‑Learning
  PowerPoint is a great mul­ti­me­dia appli­ca­tion but it’s not the best appli­ca­tion to cre­ate inter­ac­tive e‑learning. Here’s why.Tags: Ed Edu K12 elearn lms
• Kindle Income: 4 Tips For Short Story Cash
  Use short sto­ries to increase your Kindle income. Yes, you can make mon­ey writ­ing them; more income than you could make pre­vi­ous­ly. These tips will help.Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub
• How to Write Better Professional Objectives

  Would you read a book with a dull title? When you apply for a job, the pro­fes­sion­al objec­tive state­ment is like a title describ­ing your résumé. If it’s intrigu­ing, the hir­ing man­ag­er might want to see what else your résumé has to say about you. If it’s lack­lus­ter, your résumé might not hold much inter­est for her. You can write a pro­fes­sion­al objec­tive that will invite hir­ing man­agers to read beyond it. But how?

• 14 of the Longest Words in English

  Yes, this arti­cle is about some of the longest English words on record. No, you will not find the very longest word in English in this arti­cle. That one word would span about fifty-seven pages. It’s the chem­i­cal name for the titin pro­tein found in humans. Its full name has 189,819 let­ters. Would you like to hear it pro­nounced? One man help­ful­ly sounds it out in a YouTube video, but pop some pop­corn before you get start­ed! It will take you over three hours to watch—it’s just slight­ly short­er than the film Gone with the Wind. Dictionaries omit the name of this pro­tein and many oth­er long words. Obviously, dic­tio­nar­ies have space con­straints, and the aver­age per­son would have no need to know the tech­ni­cal names of chem­i­cals. Still, there are plen­ty of lengthy words in dic­tio­nar­ies. Let’s take a moment to appre­ci­ate a few of them.

  Tags: Writing AmWriting copy­writ­ing

• Artist Tattoos Tools Of People’s Professions On Their Skin
  Oozy, a tat­too artist in South Korea, cre­ates beau­ti­ful, detailed tat­toos depict­ing the tools that some of his clients use to make a liv­ing. Whether they’re chefs or crafts­peo­ple, the tools are a sim­ple, ele­gant and beau­ti­ful tes­ta­ment to their work a…
• Flat 2.0 & How It Solves Flat Design’s Usability Problems

  While flat design gives us tremen­dous help and a great toolk­it to pro­vide our users with fast and clutter-free web­sites, it can cause cer­tain usabil­i­ty prob­lems, espe­cial­ly when it’s overused.
• What Could Happen If You Worked As Hard As You Possibly Could?
  Fact: I’ve nev­er worked as hard in my entire life as I did last year. (Because I’m a stu­dent, I now think in aca­d­e­m­ic years, so I mean the peri­od between September 2014 and the end of May.) Here’s anoth­er fact you might not know, one you might be sur­prised to learn: I had never…

  Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Brassballs

• 60+ Fresh Resources for Designers, December 2015

  Here we are again with a cool col­lec­tion of more than 60 fresh resources for you to down­load. You’ll find stacks of icons, tons of web devel­op­ment tools, new respon­sive con­cepts, plu­g­ins, WordPress themes, PSD tem­plates, incred­i­ble UI kits, and of course some awe­some fonts.

  Tags: Free Freebie

• 13 Tantalizing Incentives that Will Build Your Email List
  Need a quick way to entice some­one to join your email list or reg­is­ter for your web­site? Give away some­thing for free. Beth Hayden shares 13 win­ning ideas.
• The Man Who Used Facebook to Find an Extinct Human Species
  Nautilus is a dif­fer­ent kind of sci­ence mag­a­zine. We deliv­er big-picture sci­ence by report­ing on a sin­gle month­ly top­ic from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives. Read a new chap­ter in the sto­ry every Thursday.
• 4 Unique Multi-Platform Publishing Examples by Legacy Magazines
  How these multi-platform pub­lish­ing exam­ples brought these mag­a­zines to rock­star status.Tags: DPS emag digimag
• Influential Designers Talk About Sources of Inspiration

  Inspiration is every­where, but it can be hard to know where to start. For this rea­son, we asked a few of our favorite design­ers what inspires them. Here’s what they had to say.

  Tags: Design Inspiration

• The Big Mistake Most Non-Profits (and Some Businesses) Make

  There’s a big mis­take that many, if not most, non-profits make, and this error can reduce the num­ber of donors and vol­un­teers. Some busi­ness­es make the same mis­take, too.

  Tags: non­prof­it busi­ness

• Broadband adop­tion rates and gaps in U.S. met­ro­pol­i­tan areas

  For many Americans, dai­ly life orbits around a high-speed Internet con­nec­tion. Workers and stu­dents go online to com­mu­ni­cate and learn. Families stay in touch through live video feeds. Job seek­ers often need an elec­tron­ic resume and an email address for appli­ca­tions. Smartphones put maps, social net­works, and video streams in people’s pock­ets. The American econ­o­my has gone digital.

• Best WordPress Plugins – Over 40 Hand-Tested Plugins!

  This Ain’t Your Average Best WordPress Plugins Post

  This isn’t just some half-baked list of untest­ed plu­g­ins that seem super cool and might make me a bunch of affil­i­ate mon­ey. No, this is some­thing much bet­ter than that. This is a list of the best WordPress plu­g­ins ever cre­at­ed since the dawn of time. These are WordPress plu­g­ins that solve real prob­lems and do so in a way that won’t dam­age your website.

• Ten Easy Steps To Get your E‑Book Ready For Editing

  As an inde­pen­dent author, there’s no get­ting away from the fact you will need to get your e‑book edit­ed pro­fes­sion­al­ly by the sort of edi­tor who knows the dif­fer­ences between e‑book and print book. However, these quick ten steps will help you pre­pare your book for the edit and final pub­li­ca­tion ear­ly on in the process. This is a rag­bag of for­mat­ting and gram­mar tips, but trust me, your e‑book edi­tor will love you for­ev­er if you prep your book this way!

  
  

  Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub

• 7 Psychological Ways to Emotionally Connect with Your Blog Readers

  How do you cre­ate an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with your blog read­ers? More impor­tant­ly, how do you get them so inspired they want to take action, like join your list, opt-in, com­ment, or buy some­thing? Here are some psy­cho­log­i­cal secrets to keep in mind.

  Tags: Writing AmWriting copy­writ­ing amblog­ging

• You Can Now Buy Online Harassment Insurance
  As plat­forms like Facebook and Twitter strug­gle with safe­ty, an insur­ance com­pa­ny is sell­ing a pol­i­cy to compensate.
• Radiate Charisma With a Technique Everyone Should Know
  A behav­iour­al trick that’s linked to high­er per­cep­tions of charisma.Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Brassballs
• Novelists Are Working Hard To Create Apps That Are Deliberately User-Unfriendly
  A decade ago, cutting-edge writers/publishers were craft­ing books that were phys­i­cal­ly works of art, in response to the rise of ebooks. Now, those same peo­ple are mak­ing apps. Miranda July, cre­ator of the instant-messaging app Somebody, talks to Russe…
• 9 Little Known Facts About Mark Twain
  We’ve dug up a few sur­pris­ing, unusu­al, and def­i­nite­ly true facts about his life. (Twain once wrote,“Never tell the truth to peo­ple who are not wor­thy of it”—and you, dear Goodreads mem­ber, are def­i­nite­ly wor­thy of the truth). 

  Tags: Writing AmWriting

• What Star Wars Can Teach Us About Design
  We can learn a lot from Star Wars. We can learn about using the Force, how Obi Wan is our only hope, and how to be bet­ter design­ers. Wait, what was that last one?Tags: Design StarWars
• First They Jailed the Bankers, Now Every Icelander to Get Paid in Bank Sale

  Iceland made world news by jail­ing their crooked bankers that had an involve­ment in the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis, and now they will pay every Icelander for the sale of Íslandsbanki, one of its largest banks.

• 5 Ways to Drive Your Creativity When You Don’t Have the Spark

  Sometimes you don’t feel creative.

  Other times the ideas just flow and flow.

  If your job requires you to write or cre­ate new things, you need to be able to be cre­ative even when you don’t feel like it.

  Today, I want to share sev­er­al of my top tips to dri­ve your cre­ativ­i­ty when you don’t feel productive.

• Graphic Designer Helps the Cherokee Nation Update Its Language for the Digital Age
  Mark Jamra cre­at­ed Phoreus Cherokee, the first com­mer­cial­ly avail­able and most com­plete type­face for the Cherokee language.Tags: typog­ra­phy amnative
• 20 Amazing Christmas Symbol Fonts
  Thinking of spruc­ing up your site or designs for the hol­i­day sea­son? Need some fons to help share in the Christmas cheer? Here is a col­lec­tion of Christmas
• Signing Away Your Rights: Arbitration Clauses in Book Contracts

  Recently, the New York Times pub­lished a fas­ci­nat­ing three-part series of arti­cles on arbi­tra­tion claus­es, and how such claus­es “buried in tens of mil­lions of con­tracts have deprived Americans of one of their most fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tion­al rights: their day in court.” (You can also lis­ten to an inter­view with the arti­cles’ author on NPR.)

  Tags: Writing AmWriting

• The Importance of Happiness at Work
  A sweep­ing mis­con­cep­tion among many American work­ers regard­ing hap­pi­ness and suc­cess is how the two coin­cide with one anoth­er. It is com­mon­ly thought that hap­pi­ness is a result of suc­cess. For instance, once an indi­vid­ual gets the raise they want or t…
• Hoefler & Co. Licenses Fonts for Your Apps, DigiPubs, & eBooks with App.typography
  With App.typography you can pub­lish apps, dig­i­tal pub­li­ca­tions, or eBooks using any of the H&Co fonts you’ve pur­chased for your com­put­er. App.typography is a sim­ple, fixed-cost, annu­al sub­scrip­tion that’s priced per title, not per font, mak­ing it easy for you to work with your entire library of fonts from H&Co.

  Tags: typog­ra­phy fonts epub

• You May Be Invested In Guns And Not Know It
  Do you have a 401k? Yes? Congrats! Investing in a 401k is a com­mon­ly used way to save for what­ev­er the future brings when you’re old—it’s a retire­ment invest­ment plan that you’re able to sign up for through your employ­er. That said, accord­ing to today’s New York Times, your 401k provider might also have you invest­ing in one of the three largest gun man­u­fac­tur­ers in the country.
• Tax Tools for Photographers and Designers
  Tags: Design pho­tog­ra­phy business
• Make It Harder for People to Find You on Facebook
  With close to one-and-a-half bil­lion peo­ple cur­rent­ly on Facebook, keep­ing a low pro­file can be tricky. It’s in the site’s best inter­est to make it easy for you to make con­nec­tions with fam­i­ly, friends, and acquain­tances. However, if you want to make it more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to track you down, there are ways to do it.
• Will Publishers Pay The Price Of This Latest Tech War?

  There is a war going on between Google and Apple. It’s a war for adver­tis­ing dol­lars. The changes com­ing are cer­tain to hurt any small to mid-size pub­lish­ing company.

• Year-End Blues? 5 Steps To Crush Goals And Close Strong

  So, we’re lit­er­al­ly days away from the end of the year. It seems every­one left, right and cen­ter is talk­ing about the year-end and new, fresh beginnings.

  Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Brassballs

• How To Use An Exclamation Point Properly (& How Not To Use It)
  Do you use an excla­ma­tion point? Do you use five or more? Is there real­ly any lim­it to the num­ber of excla­ma­tion points you can and should use?Tags: Writing AmWriting copywriting
• Do You Trust Wikipedia? [Poll]
  We’re keen to find out how peo­ple view the trust­wor­thi­ness of Wikipedia, and we need your help in doing so. Welcome to this week’s MakeUseOf Poll!
• How Parental Absence Alters Children’s Brain Development
  Children liv­ing with­out their par­ents for a peri­od may suf­fer delayed brain devel­op­ment, a new study finds.
• 10 Most Popular Font Managers for Mac & Windows

  How big is your font col­lec­tion? If you’ve been busy down­load­ing all the free fonts you can find, or if you’ve invest­ed in some pre­mi­um type­faces chances are you’ve got hun­dreds (or thou­sands!) of font files that are bog­ging down your sys­tem. Font man­agers are impor­tant tools that allow you to acti­vate and deac­ti­vate your fonts on the fly, organ­ise your col­lec­tion into groups, and eas­i­ly test out mul­ti­ple type­faces at once to find the per­fect choice for your designs. I browsed through graph­ic design forums and mes­sage­boards to find out which font man­agers were rec­om­mend­ed by real pro­fes­sion­als. This roundup fea­tures the most pop­u­lar pro­grams for both Windows and Mac, includ­ing free and pre­mi­um apps for you to consider.

  Tags: Typography fonts design

• How a Product Funnel Makes Blogging Profitable

  a great prod­uct fun­nel pro­vides your read­ers with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get to know you, like you and trust you. You make com­pelling offers to your read­ers that they can receive from free to fee:

  Tags: amblog­ging

• 3D Printed Classic Paintings

  Unseen Art project wants to turn famous 2D paint­ings into three-dimensional sculp­tures that can be touched and felt by blind people.

  Tags: Design Inspiration

• InDesign Tutorial: How to Design a Magazine Cover With Pantone Colours and Spot Varnishes
  Johann Chan takes you through his cre­ative process and shows how to design a mag­a­zine cov­er, add Pantone colours and spot UV varnishes.Tags: InDesign
• 3 Resources to Help You Become a Master Content Marketing Storyteller

  How would you answer the ques­tion, “If you were strand­ed on a desert­ed island — and could only have five books with you — which five would you choose?”

  Tags: CM ContentMarketing

• How to Create Highly Engaging Content for Your Audience
  Sure, there are lots of posts around the inter­net on how to cre­ate engag­ing con­tent – but we’re going to make it eas­i­er for you…

  Tags: CM ContentMarketing

• Beware Social Media Snake Oil
  Read on for sol­id advice on how to sep­a­rate the worth­while from the worth­less, and warn­ings about some com­mon social media scams.Tags: Writing AmWriting copywriting
• 7 Drag And Drop Plugins For Building WordPress Sites
  Building a WordPress site, the drag-and-drop method would help save a lot of time. In this post, we have put togeth­er 7 plu­g­ins that add this func­tion­al­i­ty into the WordPress edi­tor. If you know of more cool plu­g­ins let us know in the comments.

  Tags: WordPress

• WordPress 4.4: 10 Coolest New Features You Should Know
  In this post we will be look­ing at 10 new WordPress 4.4 fea­tures you should be check­ing out.Tags: WordPress
• How to Cold Pitch Work and Get the Creative Photography Jobs You Want

  As pho­tog­ra­phers, we often think of jobs or ideas that we’d love to do. Pitching for these is dif­fi­cult as the com­pa­ny involved might not be look­ing for what you offer. In this arti­cle I’ll talk you through the best ways to get that con­ver­sa­tion started.

  Tags: Photography

• Amazon Is Testing Original Content Written By Experts
  Will prod­uct roundups and ser­vice arti­cles res­onate with loy­al cus­tomers? Amazon sure hopes so.Tags: Writing AmWriting copywriting
• Following the Hunch: How to Make Freelancing Into a Durable Business
  “Ideas are easy; exe­cu­tion is hard.” You’ve prob­a­bly heard some vari­a­tion of this in the past, and it’s true—but it’s also not the whole sto­ry. Executing on ideas only mat­ters if it reflects what peo­ple actu­al­ly want.

  Tags: Entrepreneur Freelance

• 12 Most Profitable Places to Sell Your Photos Online
  If you have pho­tos that you want to sell, there are a num­ber of web­sites that can help you. Here are 12 of the best.Tags: Photography
• What does the future of work look like?

  Singh believes that desk­top apps are on their way out. “Sure, some peo­ple work on their desk­tops, but they’re increas­ing­ly get­ting more done on mobile devices. In the future, you’ll be spend­ing even more time on them, away from your desk.”

• 30+ Free Flat UI (User Interface) Kits For Designers
  These free flat user inter­face kits are per­fect for web & mobile UI design­ers, devel­op­ers and design agencies.Tags: UX UI Design
• The Rise of the Emoji in Branding
  Before we all begin decry­ing the fall of civ­i­liza­tion, let’s stop to review emo­jis for a moment. We know that an image can be incred­i­bly effec­tive in cap­tur­ing the feel­ings and thoughts of some­one, and break­ing across the lim­its of lan­guage. Think back to the most com­pelling pho­tographs of the last century—the haunt­ed, com­pelling eyes of a young Indian girl star­ing from the cov­er of National Geographic or the enthu­si­as­tic joy of a sailor cel­e­brat­ing the end of WWII with a kiss. Pictures have a pow­er to imme­di­ate­ly draw and com­mu­ni­cate a host of sen­sa­tion and feelings.

  Tags: Branding Marketing

• How to Clone Your Best Employee
  Wish all your employ­ees were like your best employ­ee? Here are tips for cre­at­ing more rock­stars in your business.Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Brassballs
• For This Interior Designer, Relationships Come First
  By cul­ti­vat­ing a net­work of arti­sans, Jeannine Williams has built a thriv­ing inte­ri­or design firm-and enjoyed every minute of it.Tags: Design Business Freelance
• easy­book – Create eBooks from Markdown
  700 page ebook pub­lished in 4 sec­onds (that’s 6 times faster than most of our competition)
• 5 Secrets to Awesome User Design
  While there is much to learn about user expe­ri­ence best prac­tices, there are secrets that can guide you to quick­er, bet­ter deci­sions. Outlined below are five secrets to cre­at­ing user expe­ri­ences focus­ing specif­i­cal­ly on user end goals.Tags: UX UI Desi…
• Music Law: Managing a Band’s Business [1‑Hour Video Course]
  Learn to avoid the major music busi­ness and legal pit­falls that can break bands apart, such as finan­cial mis­man­age­ment and con­tract disputes.
• How to Make a Big Impression With a Tiny Team
  Thanks to tech­nol­o­gy, free­lancers just like you and me can col­lab­o­rate on projects with­out hop­ping on a plane. But there are some things you need to do to make sure that you can wow your client with a tiny team.Tags: Entrepreneur Freelance
• Pushbullet’s New Paywall Is a Perfect Example of How NOT to Monetize an App
  In the ongo­ing strug­gle between users want­i­ng free ser­vices and devel­op­ers try­ing to eat, Pushbullet has emerged as the heel.Tags: Entrepreneur PushBullet StartUp
• Why The Promise Of Unlimited Cloud Storage Keeps Getting Broken
  A worry-free online file repos­i­to­ry makes sense on paper, but real­i­ty often gets in the way.
• Eight Uncommon Typography and Punctuation Marks

  Let’s exam­ine the aster­ism and sev­en oth­er punc­tu­a­tion marks des­ig­nat­ed as uncom­mon typography.

  Tags: Writing AmWriting typog­ra­phy

• Photoshop for Designers: Working with Shapes
  Shapes are key to the most icon­ic graph­ic designs in his­to­ry. They’re also the secret weapons of busy design­ers, enabling them to whip up cool, crisp graph­ics quick­ly. Watch this course to learn the ins and outs of cre­at­ing pro­fes­sion­al designs and ar…
• Pantone Collaborates with Street Artists for Color of the Year
  Selecting two col­ors as their PANTONE Color of the Year for the first time, the trend com­pa­ny took to Instagram to show off their col­lab­o­ra­tion with artists Man One, Victor Quinonez, and Werc AlvarezTags: PANTONE
• Copywriting Principles That Will Make New Users Love You
  Appcues’ Jackson Noël talks about how good copy­writ­ing should build enthu­si­asm, relieve com­mon user anx­i­eties, tell users why, and reflect your mission.Tags: Writing AmWriting copywriting
• An In-Depth Look At The Beautiful Color Palettes Of The 20th Century
  Author Katie Greenwood took the time to study the var­i­ous col­or palettes pop­u­lar through­out the 20th cen­tu­ry, focus­ing on col­ors that appeared com­mon­ly in fash­ion and design. Her book titled 100 Years of Colors fea­tures 100 care­ful­ly cho­sen images which rep­re­sent a col­or palette from every year of the 20th century. 

  Tags: Design Inspiration

• Pocket Now Lets You Follow People and Read What They’re Recommending
  Pocket’s rec­om­mend­ed feed just got a lit­tle more per­son­al. You can now fol­low friends and inter­est­ing pub­lic fig­ures to see what they’re rec­om­mend­ing in the read-it-later ser­vice, and share your own rec­om­men­da­tions as well.
• Traditional Homepages Are Obsolete, Says Quartz. Here’s What They Built Instead.
  Quartz does­n’t think online pub­li­ca­tions should have home­pages. Instead, they should have faces that show off their personality.Tags: Branding Marketing
• Syte – Set Up a Simple Personal Site with Built-in Social Integrations
  Syte is a real­ly sim­ple but pow­er­ful pack­aged per­son­al site that has social inte­gra­tions like Twitter, GitHub, Dribbble, Instagram, Foursquare, Tumblr, WordPress, Last​.fm, SoundCloud, Bitbucket, StackOverflow, Flickr and Steam.
• There’s a hid­den por­trait under the Mona Lisa, says French scientist
  A French sci­en­tist says he’s found a hid­den por­trait under­neath that enig­mat­ic smile using reflec­tive light tech­nol­o­gy. The ver­sion in the Louvre might not be of silk mer­chan­t’s wife Lisa Gherardini, as is wide­ly believed, and could be of a different …
• Swearing Politely With TextExpander
  A set of TextExpander macros to “car­toon cen­sor” less friend­ly words online. Thus “moth­ertruck­ers” becomes “&%^*#$!¡@ø@ers” and “duck­ing” becomes “ø&¡$ing.”
• Net Neutrality Is Back In Court Again
  A fed­er­al appeals court is issu­ing a rul­ing today that could undo reg­u­la­tions pro­tect­ing the principle.Tags: NetNeutrality
• 10 of the best advent cal­en­dars for 2015
  From tea-themed treats to fes­tive can­dles, these cal­en­dars will make the wait for Christmas fly by.Tags: Design Inspiration
• Photoshopped or Not? Three Ways To Tell If An Image Is Real Or Fake
  We live in a world where every­one has a cam­era tout­ing smart­phone. Kids are learn­ing to pho­to­graph from a very ear­ly age and as they get old­er, they also lTags: Photoshop Photography
• Automatcially Optimize PDFs in Adobe Acrobat Pro X & XI with Keyboard Maestro

  I make a lot of doc­u­men­ta­tion and I reg­u­lar­ly open the files with Acrobat Pro to cre­ate opti­mized (small­er) PDFs before I post them.

  Tags: PDF Acrobat

• Christmas lights may be ruin­ing your Wi-Fi speeds

  Noticed a sud­den drop in your WiFi speeds as the hol­i­day sea­son approach­es? According to a new report from a tele­com watch­dog your ISP isn’t at fault. Blame your Christmas lights.
• Authors ask Supreme Court to over­turn e‑book rul­ing against Apple
  A group of authors and book­sellers are stand­ing by Apple in its deci­sion to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to over­turn a rul­ing stat­ing that Apple con­spired to

  Tags: eprd­ctn epub

• Draw a Variety of Script Lettering in Illustrator
  In this tuto­r­i­al I will show­case three dif­fer­ent approach­es, which result in three dif­fer­ent script let­ter­ing styles. We will start with a nice sim­ple basic script, touch on a more ath­let­ic inspired let­ter­ing style and work our way to a clas­sic, fancy…
• The 7 Best Free Alternatives to Pushbullet
  Mad that Pushbullet is sud­den­ly expen­sive? Don’t wor­ry, there are plen­ty of free alternatives.Tags: Android PushBullet
• Put a low-poly spin on art portraits
  Elroy uses some faux 3D mod­el­ling and Photoshop tex­tur­ing to recre­ate strik­ing vin­tage visuals.Tags: Vector Illustrator Photoshop
• How to Build Letter Art From Bricks In Illustrator
  In this tuto­r­i­al we’ll use 3D-rendering, Blends, and an Art Brush for cre­at­ing the final brick art. The skills you will learn here can eas­i­ly be trans­ferred to cre­at­ing var­i­ous brick let­ters. Enhance your vec­tor skills as a dig­i­tal brick artist in tod…
• We Don’t Do Meetings Like We Used To [Infographic]
  Meetings are part of work­ing life for most peo­ple. Love them or hate them, they’ll always be there. However, the ways in which we meet has changed over tim
• 26 Digital Typography Tips For Beginners To Help You Get Started
  Typography is a skill every design­er should mas­ter, since it can make or break a piece of work. We have pre­vi­ous­ly shared an info­graph­ic with tips on typog­ra­phy for web design, and here are more use­ful tips for begin­ners to dig­i­tal typography. 

  Tags: typog­ra­phy design

• Pantone Color of the Year 2016 – Rose Quartz and Serenity
  Introducing Rose Quartz & Serenity Pantone Color of the Year 2016, a warmer embrac­ing rose tone and the cool­er tran­quil blue. See the col­ors and palettes.Tags: Pantone Design
• If You’ve Named Your Baby After An Instagram Filter, You’re Not Alone
  A site that says that they know lots about babies called BabyCenter​.com (great name for a baby site) shared their top ten names of 2015 for both male and..
• Adobe Rebrands Flash Pro, Merges with Edge Animate into Adobe Animate CC

  Animate CC will con­tin­ue sup­port­ing Flash (SWF) and AIR for­mats as first-class cit­i­zens. In addi­tion, it can out­put ani­ma­tions to vir­tu­al­ly any for­mat (includ­ing SVG), through its exten­si­ble architecture.

  Tags: Flash HTML5 SVG

• Another Popular App Leaves The Mac App Store

  Apple has a Mac App Store prob­lem. Popular vector-based design app Sketch is leav­ing the App Store in order to move back to a direct-selling mod­el. The devel­op­er announced the move on its offi­cial blog this morn­ing. This isn’t the first time devel­op­ers are com­plain­ing about the state of the App Store on the Mac.

  Tags: OSX Mac ElCapitan

• 13 New Board Games to Gift Any Type of Geek in Your Life
  Looking for the per­fect board game as a hol­i­day present? We have 13 new releas­es that will delight many types of people.
• Star Wars Vector Art Exhibit of Orlando Arocena

  In advance of a major Star Wars–themed art exhib­it, at the Hero Festival in Marseille, France (November 7 and 8, with a sec­ond show­ing December 3 through 15), Orlando shared some of his pop­u­lar Star Wars trib­ute images with us, as well as giv­ing us a first look at some new Star Wars work.

  Tags: Vector Illustrator StarWars VII TheForce

• 10 Ways to Improve Typography In Your Designs
  Typography is more than just pick­ing a font and a point size from some drop-down menus on your computer.Tags: Typography fonts design
• 20 Gifts for Graphic Designers

  It’s that time again! Food and fam­i­ly and find­ing the per­fect presents. Whether you’re try­ing to win the heart of a graph­ic design­er in your life, or just brows­ing the web for gifts to give your­self, we’ve got you cov­ered. *Drumroll* It’s HOW’s list of Gifts for Graphic Designers: 2015 edi­tion. We’ve col­lect­ed just a few of our favorite design-related gifts for this year so you can avoid long lines at the ever-dreaded shop­ping mall.

  Tags: Design GraphicDesign

• Europe Is Cracking Down On Bitcoin To Impede Terrorist Financing
  On Friday, European lead­ers will ask the European Commission to fur­ther reg­u­late the use of anony­mous, vir­tu­al cur­ren­cies like bitcoin.Tags: ISIS Paris WarOnTerror
• Confessions of an ISIS Spy
  He joined the so-called Islamic State, trained jihadist infantry, and groomed for­eign operatives—including two Frenchmen. Now Abu Khaled says he’s ready to talk.

  Tags: ISIS Paris WarOnTerror

• Black Friday Is Dying, and That’s a Good Thing
  Don’t get me wrong, there are some great deals to be had this time of year. But lin­ing up in the cold to nab a cheap 55” TV? No longer nec­es­sary. Black Friday isn’t what it used to be, and that’s a good thing.

  Tags: BlackFriday

• Are USB Flash Drives Still Worth It In 2015?
  USB flash dri­ves are great for stor­age, but they have so many oth­er uses. Here’s how they’re worth their weight in gold.
• Artists Around the World Create Moving Tributes to Paris in the Wake of Attacks
  Artists world­wide also shared cre­ative works as a means of send­ing their con­do­lences and spread­ing words of encouragement.

  Tags: Paris

• Why Some Freelancers Struggle to Get Clients
  While some free­lancers enjoy a steady stream of pay­ing clients, many more watch weeks slip by, with crick­ets chirp­ing in their inbox.Tags: Entrepreneur Freelance
• The 10 Best iPad Pro Apps for Designers
  Christopher Phin selects the best apps if you require your iPad Air or iPad Pro to be a true design­er’s tool.Tags: iPadPro ApplePencil Design
• Some Mac App Store Apps ‘Damaged’ Due to Expired Security Certificates
  Tweetbot devel­op­er Paul Haddad tweet­ed that the issue appears to be relat­ed to secu­ri­ty cer­tifi­cates that expired on November 11, 2015, and he fur­ther spec­u­lat­ed that the receipts now using SHA256 encryp­tion may be caus­ing prob­lems with old­er OS X versions.

  Tags: OSX Mac

• Persian Gulf tem­per­a­tures may be at the edge of human tol­er­ance in 30 years
  Problems could arise much soon­er than predicted.
• Twitter Favorites Had To Die So That Twitter Could Live–Not That It Matters to You
  Today, Twitter turned all your faves into likes, swap­ping out a star for a heart. This rep­re­sents a huge and impor­tant par­a­digm shift in the world of tech­nol­o­gy and cul­ture at large. Haha, okay. You got me! None of this shit mat­ters. None of it! Or no…
• When you’ll stop at noth­ing for the best audio expe­ri­ence. | Sennheiser’s $55,000 headphones
  THE QUEST FOR PERFECT SOUND IS NOT ABOUT HIGHEST, LOWEST, THICKEST OR THINNEST, BUT ABOUT ONE SUPERLATIVE AND ONE SUPERLATIVE ONLY: BEST.
• Adobe to Acquire comScore’s Digital Analytix Technology
  comScore announced its inten­tion to trans­fer the tech­nol­o­gy assets and cus­tomer accounts of its Digital Analytix busi­ness to Adobe.Tags: BigData Adobe comScore
• Your Money or Your Life? The High Cost of Prescription Drugs – NBC News
  It costs more than $14,000 a year, but one watch­dog group says the price tag should be far low­er. We asked the CEO why it isn’t.
• Dropbox Is MySpace, Box Is Facebook | The com­pa­ny with the best plat­form will win.

  It’s no secret that Dropbox is floun­der­ing when it comes to its prod­uct direction—particularly with respect to devel­op­ers. At the TechCrunch Disrupt con­fer­ence ear­li­er this month, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston bare­ly talked about the com­pa­ny’s platform.

  Tags: Dropbox Box Cloud

• Fontstand Changes the Game
  Co-founder Peter Biľak talks about how Fontstand came togeth­er, and what makes it valu­able for both the design­ers who use fonts and the type design­ers who make fonts.

  Tags: typog­ra­phy design

• Playboy ‘No Nudes’ Is What Happens When Platforms Rule
  Playboy, once the pre­mier adult mag­a­zine, plans to cov­er up its mod­els and go PG13. As first report­ed by The New York Times, the mag­a­zine will move away from full nudi­ty under a redesign planned for its March issue. “This means the mod­els, celebri­ties and, yes, Playmates will not be naked for the first time since our founder Hugh Hefner laid out the first issue in 1953,” the com­pa­ny says.

  
  

  The move is a stark exam­ple of how con­tent is dic­tat­ed by the plat­forms that dri­ve read­ers to stories.

  Tags: Marketing ContentMarketing Publishing

• Simple ques­tions for writers
  1. What is it for? If this piece of writ­ing works, what will change? What action will be tak­en? The more spe­cif­ic you are in your intent, the more fright­en­ing it is to do the writ­ing (because you might fail).…Tags: Writing AmWriting copywriting
• What Writers Should Do Right After Publication
  After you pub­lish any short piece, con­sid­er tak­ing steps in two main cat­e­gories (oth­er than just Facebook or Twitter) to help your work reach an audience.Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub
• 10 WordPress Plugins For Better Backend Administration
  One of the best parts about WordPress is how easy it is to cus­tomize with plu­g­ins. To illus­trate its flex­i­bil­i­ty, here are a few exam­ples of what you can do on your WordPress site with plugins:

  Tags: WordPress

• How eBook Pricing Affects eBooks Sales on Amazon

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