Today in Design - Top Articles RoundUp 20 November 2014

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

  • 40 Creative “Transparent Screen” Trick Photos for Your Inspiration

    Here’s an easy opti­cal illu­sion you can do to make your lap­top or com­put­er screen look see-through. The opti­cal illu­sion of trans­par­ent screen is a sim­ple yet effec­tive illu­sion. These Illusions are cre­at­ed by tak­ing a dig­i­tal pho­to of your sur­round­ings then place it as the desk­top back­ground of your mon­i­tor or screen. That way, they appear to have a ful­ly trans­par­ent display.

  • Dynamics of the Children’s Digital Book Market — 2014 Digital Publishing Summit Report

    The children’s book mar­ket is fast becom­ing one of the most dynam­ic in the dig­i­tal space. That’s the con­clu­sion of the Digital Publishing Summit orga­nized by Aquafadas just before the 2014 Frankfurt Book Fair, where four pub­lish­ers from four dif­fer­ent parts of the world shared their expe­ri­ences. Even in a dif­fi­cult mar­ket such as Russia’s, where pira­cy is a huge brake on the dig­i­tal econ­o­my, children’s books rep­re­sent the most inter­est­ing seg­ment for tablets, smart­phones and e‑reader dis­tri­b­u­tion. They all use Aquafadas tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate their dig­i­tal books, and each shared their expe­ri­ences in the dig­i­tal pub­lish­ing market.

  • 10 Simple, Customisable Invoice Templates Every Freelancer Should Use

    Let’s look at the last one. Billing. If you’re any­thing like me, you spend hours each month cre­at­ing new invoic­es from scratch. You don’t both­er with a tem­plate, just out of sheer lazi­ness, or sim­ply not hav­ing found one that meets your needs. Thanksfully, Vertex42 has a stun­ning array of invoice tem­plates that both look great, and will get you paid. 

  • Connect Any External Microphone to your iPhone with a Powered USB Hub
    If you want good qual­i­ty audio in an inter­view record­ed on an iPhone or need to add a voiceover for the video you’re edit­ing on your iPad, it’s best to con­nect an exter­nal micro­phone. Here’s how to do it.
  • How to raise your rates with­out tick­ing off your clients

    But I’d like to dig a bit deep­er in this arti­cle and go back to the “why” of chang­ing prices, because it frames the whole thing dif­fer­ent­ly depend­ing on your answer.