If you’re like me and you have the option to work as a remote-based designer, you might find that you easily become sick of working in the bustle of city life.

You’re over all the morning traffic, the pollution, and being in loud and noisy environments everyday. Or breaking the bank buying coffee and breakfast at your favorite cafe every morning.

Or you may be on the total opposite side of the spectrum, and this year threw you for a complete whirlwind and you were forced recently to begin working from home; aka the couch.

No matter the reason that you’re now working from home, you might’ve quickly found that it’s not always as good as it’s chalked up to be.

There are tons of distractions that come with working from home. From longer accidental netflix breaks, to doing all your chores to procrastinate from working on your newest design, I feel you and I know how hard it can be to work from home.

That’s why today, I want to present you with the best solution for working from home and staying on top of your A-game.

And the best solution to all remote-working problems is: backyard offices.

What is a backyard office?

A backyard office is going to be your best friend, nay, your guardian angel.

So what is a backyard office anyway?

Well, a backyard office is as simple as it sounds. An office that you can put in your backyard.

The styles of backyard offices vary from modern to farmhouse(link to backyard office inspirations), to a couple of office rooms, to a single open-concept office.

But the point of having a backyard office is to get you into a place where you can access your best productivity levels. A place where you can walk in and train your brain that it’s a place for you to work and achieve all of your life-long career goals and dreams.

Why is a backyard office such a good solution for remote designers?

A backyard office is much more than just a little box in your backyard.

It’s your place of inspiration and creativity. A place where you can get away from the noise of the world and simply hear your own thoughts.

Like I was telling you, working from home is no easy feat.

For one thing, the distractions that come with working from home, especially if you live with friends, roomates, a partner, or family, are just astronomical.

It’s hard to keep everything organized in your home if you work from a common room. People are constantly coming and going from room to room. And if you’ve had some embarrassing moments like I have, a family member might just bust in your room singing while you’re in an important business call.

Not to mention the FOMO(fear of missing out) that you can experience when working from home.

Say you have some friends visit the person you live with. You’re not going to want to stay focused and work while they’re out in the kitchen living their best life eating the cinnamon rolls you made last night.

Or maybe you can’t focus in a dirty environment. If you didn’t tidy up the night before, it’s hard to wake up and focus on work when you’re in a disastrous space.

This is just the tip of the iceberg on why it’s so nice to have your own little backyard work haven.

When you have a backyard office, you can wake up in the morning, get ready as if you’re going to an office, but miss the morning traffic and walk straight into the office of your dreams just as you left it the day before.

Having a backyard office is also incredible beneficial in the sense that it heps separate your work life from your home life.

I’ve been working from home for about 5 years now, and you can believe when I say that before I got my backyard office from Nooka, it was incredibly hard to stay on task and separate my home life from work life.

Your brain is habitual. So whenever you work from a certain place, when you go there, it’ll automatically go into work mode.

And I don’t know about you, but I want my house to be a place of zen and relaxation. I want to be able to turn off the work mode in the evening and just relax.

And Nooka made that possible for me.

How can I get a backyard office?

So maybe now you’re thinking, “Dang, I really need a backyard office,” but you don’t have the time and tools or even skills to make one in a timely fashion.

Well, that’s where my favorite backyard office company, Nooka, comes into play.

In my humble opinion, they’re the best in their area of expertise and I’ll tell you why.

Nooka is the first company worldwide that offers a home garden office that is smart and connected(smart lighting and smart heat control, high-speed wifi, zero human interactions for accessing it with the mobile app, smart scheduling, mobile in-app payment, air control sensors and smart furniture).

Nooka offers you 3 different styles of Nooks, the main differentiator being the size of each one.

Nooka One is 3×4 meters. Nooka Two is 6x4m and has all the standard features like smart lighting, smart access by a mobile app, wi-fi, UV light for disinfection. It also has two interior design options: single-use, with 1 working desk, or multiple-use, which has up to 6 desks. And finally, Nooka Three is 3x9m, and has extra space for more desks, and also comes with a gorgeous deck terrace.

All you have to do to get your hands on one of these beauties is to visit their website and register for one, then pay the upfront set-up fee of approximately 1,000€.

After the initial payment, they will come and set it up for you and the payment plan will be based on your monthly subscription type.

Another great thing about Nooka is that if you’re looking for a business opportunity and an amazing community, you can set up a Nooka in your own town, with an extremely low initial investment, and start subleasing it to other remote workers.

Answering the question of who is the most handsome man in Hamburg has been a difficult task. Up until a couple years ago, we did not have the technology to do that. There were multiple people wondering if Valentin Firak, Eike Reichert or Amando Aust is the rightful owner of this title but now research reveals something surprising.

Research reveals, the most handsome man in Hamburg, Germany is Malte Scholz. A new survey from The Pew Research Center — as well as other research studies from the Hamburg Institute of social research and The London School of Economics.— have finally arrived at a definitive answer. Malte Scholz is biologically the most handsome man in the Hamburg Germany.

Malte Scholz, the CEO of emerging Product management startup airfocus is the father of one, enjoys playing priority poker, and can be seen in multiple podcast appearances as well as written interviews.

Malte is currently leading a team of ~20 bright professionals who all agree with the research’s new finds regarding his title as the most handsome man in Hamburg.

Okay, so here’s the truth …

First, Malte might not have this title right now and this is clearly just an SEO experiment that was originally done by Sol Orwell, the most handsome guy in Toronto. So did Aaron Orendorff who is the most handsome man in Portland, Oregon.

Google loves strongly-worded and (seemingly) research-backed answers to specific questions. Even if those answers are unsubstantiated.

If there’s anything Siri, Alexa, and other search engines love, it’s the idea of having one definitive answer.”
So says Sol Orwell. (The most handsome guy in Toronto can’t be wrong.)

With that said, if you are curious about who is not the most handsome guy in Hamburg the answer is most definitely Malte Scholz.

The whole year we tested and reviewed hundreds of different web tools and services for web designers. Today we prepared for you the very best ones, that are offered with huge discounts for the Black Friday special event.

You will find 25+ products that are offered with excellent discounts, free stuff or products that couldn’t be offered for lower prices as that companies are investing tons of money to further improve it and the prices are already in the lower range.

Check below the collection and tell us your opinion.

Enjoy the shopping session.

1. Hotjar – See how your visitors are really using your site

Hotjar is an all-in-one solution packed with lots of tools that will help you increase conversions and sales on your website. Find out how visitors are interacting with your website, the friendly interface will guide every step, without having any previous knowledge. Hotjar should be installed on every website, the competition is very strong and this can be a great differentiator.

The most used tool of Hotjar, the heatmaps, helps you to know where visitors click and how they interact with your website. This provides relevant information about which sections of the webpage is clicked the most and which receives the least attention. You can, therefore, include a strong call to action (CTA) buttons in spots with the most clicks. Even go a step further to add a hook to spots with the least attention and reduce bounce rates. Trampoline Plezier is a good example of heatmaps in action. The company started a blog to address the need for information on customizing trampolines for backyards. After reviewing a scroll heatmap, they noticed that the CTA was too low. To fix this, they added the primary CTA button at the top of the page. And boom! It led to an 11% increase in clickthrough rates.

Start a free trial with Hotjar, you don’t need a credit card and it’s the best way to see it in action.

2. Freelance Invoice

If you a freelancer and you are looking for the best, dedicated invoicing platform for you, stop and read. Bonsai was built from scratch as a freelance invoice solution, being a solution to many of the freelancers invoicing headaches.

You can use to build and fully customize invoices in seconds, to generate professional invoices directly from contracts or proposals and to send automatic payment reminders to your customers. Bonsai is even letting you know when customers and interacting with you invoice and when they plan to pay it. It’s an all-in-one solution that will save tons of time and you will enjoy using it, having a wonderful and friendly interface.

Get started for free with Bonsai.

3. Tailor Brands: The World’s Leading AI-Driven Logo Maker

Tailor Brands uses machine learning to create sleek, affordable logos for any small business. Their logo creator is based on AI, which means it can take the knowledge of an expert design team and combine it with your preferences for design – ultimately making a logo you’ll be happy to take home. You can also customize your logo however you’d like with Tailor’s sophisticated design platform.

Tailor’s logo creator plans start at $3.99, with a $9.99 plan that gives you access to products like a Vector EPS file and business cards, and a $15.99 plan that includes a full suite of adaptable branding tools.

Black Friday deal ahead! CodeCondo readers can enter {blackfribrand50} at checkout to receive an additional 60% off their Tailor Brands subscription, and create an automated logo today.

4. BrowseEmAll: Automated & Manual Browser Testing

BrowseEmAll is a professional, easy to use and complete cross-browser testing that works with all the major browsers and it supports both manual and automated website testing. One of the many things we all love at this solution is the fact that we can work with real browsers on a local machine, nobody likes emulators.

Other cool things are the friendly and extremely fast interface, the live testing and record &play features. Check their website for complete information.

Get the free trial today and save 30% with the coupon code ‘BLACKFRIDAY’ on every purchase until the end of the year!

5. Pageproofer – Visual Bug Tracker Visual Feedback Tool

PageProofer is the fastest, most convenient and professional way to request changes, leave feedback and track issues directly on the websites. It’s exactly like using sticky notes

The team behind PageProofer used their 20 years experience in building the very best solution on the market. It is loaded with tons of features and options that you should check on their website. Forget the old methods that were time consuming like sending emails, handwriting nots or recording meetings.

Pricing: plans start at $20/month. Use promo code BLACKFRI18 to save 25%.

6. Codester – Complete marketplace for designers and developers

Codester is one of the best marketplaces for web designers and developers where they can easily find thousands of premium PHP scripts, codes, themes and much more. Everything is very well structured and many items are being added every month.

7. Format – Free Website Template Using Bootstrap For Portfolio

Format is a brilliant free to use portfolio website theme that is lightning fast, SEO friendly and it is using a super clean code. Keep in mind that you will find premium features and options on this theme that usually can be found on expensive themes, not free like Format is.

8. WeGraphics Design 

We Graphics is the first cooperative community on the internet where talented graphic designers can share and download lots of premium mockups, graphics, templates, themes and much more. Everything is handpicked, you will be amazed by the quality of the items.

For a $20 membership you will get unlimited and full access to all these products. Great deal, check it.

9. Meridianthemes.net

Meridian Themes is a professional WordPress developer which is building pixel-perfect themes with a super clean code. All of the themes are SEO friendly, extremely fast and are s

Always check the Deals section where hugely discounts products are being sold.

Use the coupon code “bf2018” and you will get an excellent 30% discount (valid from nov 23 to 30).

10. Landingi – Powerful Landing Page Builder

Loaded with over 200 gorgeous templates, 800 fonts, 5,000 beautiful stock images, a professional drag-and-drop builder and tons of features and options, Landingi is by far the best website builder on the market. Anyone can build a gorgeous and fully functional website in less than 1 hours, without having any coding skills or previous experience.

Check out this year’s Black Friday deal and save up to $912 on an annual subscription!

11. Design Hooks

Design Hooks is the best free resource website for web designers and developers. Here you can find thousands of free PSD Mockups, HTML templates, WordPress themes, fonts, logos and much more. Everything is handpicked, prepare to find only high-quality items.

12. Paper Sizes

Designers need lots of things to make a brochure or a full-page ad. On this niche website, you will find all the existing paper sizes on the market, making your life much easier. The website is very well structured and fast, all info can be found in seconds.

13. WordPress Business Themes

Tesla Themes is one of the most powerful and professional WordPress developers on the market, building one of a kind themes that are packed with tons of features and options, including an awesome drag-and-drop builder that will make your life easy.

Join the 27,000 happy people using Tesla Themes and build a new website with these themes.

Coupon: BF40  Deal: 40% off Date: 11/23

14. WordPress Event Themes

Looking to build an awesome event WordPress website? ShowThemes is the very best player in this niche, building pixel-perfect, bright themes that are perfectly adapted for events.

Some of the best and largest events in the world are using these themes.

Use a highly tested even theme for your next project.

Coupon: BF40  Deal: 40% off Date: 11/23

15. WordPress Gallery Plugin

NextGen Gallery is the very best in the industry, used by more than 1 million people for displaying stunning galleries and to sell images in a professional way. This plugin is loaded with tons of features and options, everything you want the Gallery will make for you.

Coupon: BF40  Deal: 40% off Date: 11/23

16. WordPress Photography Theme

Photocrati built the best photography WordPress theme on the market, working closely with photographers so they can solve all the headaches that appear when using non specialized themes. The theme is loaded with the latest features, including the famous NextGen Gallery.

Coupon: BF40  Deal: 40% off Date: 11/23

17. Freelance Time Tracking

Bonsai is well recognized in the market by more than 100,000 creatives for the professional time tracking solution made for freelancers. You can track time in one click, centralize time sheets, automate invoicing and increase productivity with this easy to use solution.

Freleance like a pro with Bonsai.

18. 48HoursLogo

48HoursLogo is one of the fastest and most convenient ways to get yourself with a new, gorgeous logo design. You can simply launch a contest and let professional graphic designers compete for your logo design.

The results are outstanding and not reflecting the small price you have to pay.

Try it.

19. WrapKit Builder

WrapKit Builder is a powerful website builder that you can use with 0 programing skills and 0 previous experience. The friendly interface is guiding you every step, you can start from beautifully predesigned layouts or you can use the drag-and-drop builder to arrange sections as you need and fully customizing them.

Build a gorgeous and fully functional website with Wrappit.

20. MyThemeShop

At MyThemeShop you can find lots of gorgeous, premium themes and super useful plugins for your projects. Everything is being handpicked so the quality of the items is outstanding.

For the Black Friday special event they are offering 2 special deals.

For $19 you can download any premium theme or plugin and for $87 you will get access to all the products.

21. Logaster

With more than 8.5 million gorgeous logos created, Logaster is the best logo design platform in the industry. The friendly interface combined with tons of features and options, makes Logaster the preferred way to get a new logo design, corporate identify and braded items without spending a fortune.

Make a new logo with Logaster.

22. WorkExaminer

Work Examiner build the best and most easy to use internet monitoring software that is best for website and pc tracking, key logging, screenshots captures and much more. This tool is literally packed with tons of features and options, including a super friendly interface.

23. Total Multipurpose WordPress Theme

Total is a fully responsive, flexible and easy to use WordPress theme which is loaded with over 40 demos, a powerful drag-and-drop builder and the latest features and options, making it the first choice for your next project. Check all the info on the link.

24. Chic Blog & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Chic is a responsive and pixel-perfect WordPress theme that you can use for blogging or for a WooCommerce store. It is loaded with tons of features and options, it is SEO friendly, lightning fast and super simple to customize. Check it.

25. Fashionista WordPress Blog Shop Theme

Fashionista is a premium, top quality blogging and WooCommerce ready WordPress theme that is coming with an awesome and bright design, looking great on any device your visitors may have. Fully customizing it takes minutes, having a super friendly interface.

26. Selenium Academy

Do you want to learn everything about Selenium and about automated testing from start to finish? This academy is loaded with over 10 highly detailed and easy to follow courses.

Use the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY50 and you will get 50% discount until the end of the year.

27. InstantLogoDesign

Exactly as the name says, this platform will help you extremely fast with a gorgeous logo design while keeping spending at its minimum. The results are excellent and are not reflecting the small price you are paying.

Try it.

28. GoodieWebsite

Jump online before the 2018 ends. Launch your website with Goodiewebsite.com. This unique platform allows you to work directly with a developer who will code your design within a few days and at the affordable price. At Goodiewebsite “Black Friday” last all year long as you can get a “design to code” conversion for $999.

29. InvoiceBerry

InvoiceBerry is a complex, all-in-one invoicing platform which is super simple to use, having a friendly interface. You can use to build and customize professional invoices in less than 60 seconds, to track expenses, make detailed reports and much more.

Sign up for the free trial.

30. MediaLoot Fonts

Do you want to see the very best Black Friday offer for web designers? It’s coming from Media Loot Fonts. For only $14 you will get access to over 80 gorgeous, unique and stunning fonts and to thousands of mockups, templates and icons.

31. What Font Is

Helping thousands of designers every day, WhatFontIs is the most powerful and quick way to identify a font from an image. The platform is loaded with over 450,000 fonts and the best artificial intelligence font finder on the market. You simply upload the picture with the font you are looking for and in 40 seconds you will get over 60 similar free and commercial fonts.

32. TemplateMonster

Black Friday is something like a paradise for shoppers. Despite crowds in all shops and other side-effects of this day. Anyway, it is a marvelous opportunity to buy lots of products at ridiculous prices. TemplateMonster is also going to provide you with great discounts. November, 19-29, you will be ready to buy its ready-made templates with –50% OFF. Do not forget about this offer and save a half of your money!

In a recent case study, Tobias Trübenbacher discovered that over half the animal is thrown isn’t used after it’s processed. This study led to the industrial design student into creating unusual furniture made from cow intestines and pig bladders.

Gross, I know, but the message is powerful. After learning that most of the animal is thrown out, Tobias aimed to use the parts that would otherwise be waste and create something practical. The goal was to bring light to the massive amounts of waste this process is producing and to put a stop to it.

“Inner Values arose out of the fact that the prices for animal products are increasingly declining due to livestock farming and highly industrial slaughter methods,” said Trübenbacher.

“While just some decades ago farm animals where highly valued and mostly all of their resources were further processed, today only the tastiest and easiest-to-prepare parts are actually used,” he continues.

“In present times less than half of an animal is really further processed in Germany. All the rest goes to ‘animal rendering plants’ and thus more or less directly to the garbage can,” he adds.

Tobias chose these specific materials to overcome the typical disgust that comes with the words “animal by-product.” Both chairs feature material that would otherwise be considered waste so that consumers can better appreciate “waste” materials.

“Offals are more and more considered as repellent and inferior in our society. Basically, animals are degraded to cheap filet-resources – being killed for nothing more than some cutlets and schnitzels,” he says.

The project began by experimenting with different materials to better understand each of their characteristics. The materials were thoroughly cleaned with a vinegar solution, dried, and stretched to meet the needs of the unusual furniture. After all was said and done, the materials were covered with a resin to further dry and harden them.

The entire process took several weeks. Each of the bladders and intestines had to be tanned for weeks. Once they were ready, Tobias then massaged a combination of train oil, vaseline, curd soap, and tallow into the still wet material. This would help “regress” the surface to make it more appealing.

Once the message was over, the bladders and intestines were kneaded, stretched, and tumbled for hours. Once this process is done, the once dark, hard, and wrinkly materials turned bright, soft, and smooth. According to Tobias, this made both seats water resistant and durable.

To get that final, “fluffy” look, the bladders were stuffed with recycled bandaging materials, and the bladders were blown up with air.

“I decided to design bench seats since this kind of furniture has quite intimate aspects, as one must permit immediate contact between body and object,” Trübenbacher explains.

“Thereby the former repulsive, negatively-connoted appeal of the supposed waste products is being replaced by opposite values. The materials are advancing to become something beautiful, inviting and supple, which people like to explore and be close to,” he added.

What do you think? Is it a good idea to use the materials? Unusual furniture and designs are quite the showpiece nowadays. You never know, this could be the new trend. For now, we’re just happy someone is taking notice of this sort of waste.

Tiny houses have become a massive trend over the past few years. People are ditching their luxurious homes, and going, minimalist. This has caused a lot of creative architects like James Law, CEO of James Law Cybertecture to think outside of the box.

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No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a tiny house made of a concrete tube, appropriately called the OPod. The tube measures 8.2ft in diameter and boasts enough room for up to two people. The interior is snug, but that’s the idea, right?

The tiny houses were designed to help aid in Hong Kong’s housing shortage crisis. The beauty of this style is that you can theoretically add as many sections as you want.

There’s nothing complex about this design, it’s just a creative solution to an ever-growing issue. You can see that the interior is simple. The sofa doubles as a bed, and the walls comprise mainly of shelving space. In the back, an additional unit could be added for a kitchen, bathroom, or both.

These tiny houses most certainly weren’t designed with house guests in mind. The entire layout only consists of 100 square feet.

As stated before, these tiny houses were created for areas that may not be suitable for standard building techniques. James Law mentions that he envisions these OPods being stacked on top of each other in urban cities. Whether it’s between an alley, or on a rooftop, these little homes are designed to fit in unconventional places.

The future of this project is currently unknown, as it’s still in its prototype stage. According to the South China Morning Post, the entirety of the unit will cost about $15,000, but that doesn’t include land. The Post also recommends not staying in such conditions for too long, advising using them only for temporary purposes.

Is this the new direction of tiny houses? Possibly. A tiny house is designed to give it’s resident the necessities, without breaking the bank. That being said, there are many examples of tiny homes out there that are much bigger than the OPod, and don’t cost too much more.

What do you think? Is the construction of the OPod a viable solution to the housing situation not only in Hong Kong, but any highly populated city? Only time can truly tell. Either way, hats off to James Law Cybertecture for engaging in a solution.

It’s not every day you’ll find yourself staring at a 20-meter tall sculpture floating on a lake. Abstract art is defined as a separation from normal painting and sculpting methods by using colors and shapes to represent the world, instead of actual, real-world objects. For Christo, all it took was a little fundraising and a lot of barrels.

This is The London Mastaba. It is a massive and vibrant trapezoid floating atop London’s Serpentine Lake. The inspiration for this project came from his late wife, Jeanne-Claude’s desire to make art free and accessible to everyone, and both of their love for the mastaba.

The shape of this mountainous structure, as well as the name, came from the Egyptian tombs and benches used outside houses in ancient Mesopotamia. Both Christo and his wife shared a fascination with the shape, and always had a dream to create a floating version of their favorite design.

The efforts put into this piece were in conjunction with the Serpentine Galleries summer expedition of the artistic duo’s work. Up until this point, Christo has maintained complete independence from galleries, grants, and patrons.

“I grew up in a terrible time in Stalinist Bulgaria, I escaped from there at the age of 21 to be an artist, free, with no restraint,” Christo explains.

“I won’t give a millimeter of my freedom and damage my art,” he said.

The duo started from humble beginnings. After meeting in Paris in 1961, they began their career by wrapping paint cans in any available material. Soon after, their art began to catch on, and they started using trashed barrels to create temporary artistic interventions in the streets surrounding the French capital.

Christo and his wife began to realize their obsession with the mastaba shape when they started toying with form’s possibilities. They began creating abstract art such as The London Mastaba on a much smaller scale, all around the world. While the Serpentine Lake currently houses the largest of their masterpieces, Christo revealed that the couple’s biggest dream has yet to come true: a 170-meter tall mastaba made of barrels, just like the one showcased in London.

The construction on the tower began on April 3, 2018. The entire process was only possible by the massive team consisting of JK Basel, Deep Diving Systems, Coventry Scaffolding, and engineering help from Schlaich Bergermann Partner.

The barrels sit atop a platform made of dense polyethylene, which is held in place by a total of 32, 6-ton anchors. The barrels themselves are supported by a steel frame and scaffolding system, making the entire mastaba weigh an astonishing 600 tonnes. The structure is so massive, in fact, that it takes up over one percent of the lake’s surface.

The red and blue color scheme come into play for contrast against the green and blue scheme of the surrounding park, and the notoriously color-changing, London sky.

“I feel very happy, very excited,” Christo explains after seeing one of he and his wife’s mastabas open free to the public.

“You know, it is all about senses, you can’t put it into words. It’s the physical, visual senses,” he continues.

It’s crazy to see this massive pile of barrels and think of it as anything but trash, much less abstract art. I believe that beauty lies in the simplicity of the creation. It’s huge and it’s colorful. It definitely catches the eye and makes you wonder what’s going on. The more you look into it, the more you realize that it’s doing exactly what any good piece of art should do: make you wonder.

If you’re interested in Christo’s abstract art, or just happen to find yourself in the area, The London Mastaba will float on the famous Serpentine Lake until September of 2018. Although the beauty in the mastaba may not be recognized by many, it’s heartwarming to see Jeanne-Claude’s legacy continue through Christo’s work. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for Christo and his love for his wife.

ABeamer Animation is a simple, yet powerful tool that allows you to create animations within a web browser and generate the images, frame-by-frame into a local drive or the cloud.

ABeamer is not like any animation software in that you can create and save animations, one frame at a time, all with transparency at high resolution and lossless compression without dropping frames.

The reason this is so useful is because companies no longer need to rely on local drives for storage space. Using the cloud, anyone with access to the web browser can create a cool GIF and  instantly submit stories straight to its destination and it will be render perfectly frame-by-frame. In short, this allows anyone using video streaming services, ad networks, and any e-commerce company to directly upload text, images, and effects to videos and images just by using a web browser.

So, what do you get with ABeamer animation?

• ABeamer web browser library – This is a very versatile tool with lots of room for addition. Typescript/Javascript library and a vast tool-kit cut the time for creating complex animations down to a minimum.

• ABeamer render server agent – the render server agent tool is designed to communicate directly with the render server, and save each frame of the animation to the disk. It will run with full potential supporting code handlers and in a clean environment that will allow you to safely render animations created by someone else.

• ABeamer command line utility – A simple tool that allows you to build projects, animate, and render frames.

There are many, I repeat, MANY features that ABeamer has to offer:

• Free and Open-source.
• Simple and intuitive design.
• Supports rendering in the cloud in a sanitized environment.
• Extensively documented: End-User Documentation and Developer Documentation.
• Absolutely minimum dependencies.
• Highly Extensible via plugins including interpolators, functions, flyovers and tasks.
• Tasks to build complex animations and F/X.
• Large gallery of example projects.
• Multiple scenes (only default scenes are teleportable).
• Scene transitions.
• Expressions, functions and variables.
• Parallel and off-sync property animations.
• Teleportable JQuery-like containers.
• Teleportable flyovers.
• Saves frame-by-frame into a file sequence with transparency and at high resolution.
• Optional support for SCSS, LESS and TypeScript
• DOM and Virtual Elements, Animators and Scenes.
• Localization of messages and plugin functionalities, including functions and variables.

CSS animation

Unfortunately, ABeamer doesn’t support CSS animations. However, it was designed in a very similar way to CSS. That being said, it’s very easy to convert CSS into ABeamer animations.

Tool-Kit

Let’s go back and talk about that vast tool-kit. These tools are focused around extensibility and teleportation, which can be extended via plugins. Some of the tools include:

• Scene transitions
• Info flyover
• Video-sync flyover
• Wrappers
• Text tasks: Text-split task, typewriter task
• Factory task
• Decipher task
• Color-attack task
• Shape task
• Speech shape task
• Charts task

All of these, plus tons more, coming soon.

ABeamer is still in Beta stage, but they need your help. If this is something you’d be interested in, then keep the project alive! Help the developers take this thing to the next level. Donate now and reap the rewards when you get one beast of an animator software later.

In a world of constant competition, it helps to stay ahead of the game by staying on top of all the trends. For a company, the first thing your customers see is your logo. Of course, not all trends work for all businesses, but it certainly helps to have these logo design trends in mind. Take a look at the top trends of 2018, and see if you can use them for your own logo.

Experimental typography

It’s pretty easy to see the attraction when you look at the images above. Using experimental typography ensures that nobody else has your same look. Experimenting with typography in your logo isn’t really a new thing, but it certainly has taken off this year.

Weird and funky

Weird and funky sells. Everyone likes having fun, and there’s no better way to show that your company likes to have fun than to have a fun logo. Add a personal touch to your logo with bright colors, funny images, and catchy phrases.

Masking and layering colors and patterns

Adding layers of color can really give a sense of depth that is very appealing to look at. This particular style has a lot of potential and basically endless possibilities. It involves using all the basic elements of a good logo, but the unique combination makes for a unique outcome every time.

Monograms

Monograms follow a rustic and minimalistic trend that’s been around for a while now. Monograms themselves have been a logo style for a very long time, but there has always been a demand for them.

Using this style requires that the logo designer pays close attention to detail. The typeface and colors mean everything in monograms.

Many of these logo design trends aren’t very complicated at all. In fact, they’re very basic. It just goes to show that you don’t need anything fancy or extravagant to catch some attention. Get creative!

So far, 2018 has shown off some very interesting logo design trends, and I personally can’t wait to see more.

The logo is the face of your company. Before anything else, a client will usually see that creative logo design you came up with that represents you and your company. It’s important to be eye-catching, but it should still represent some aspect of who you are and what your company stands for.

We all need a little creative inspiration sometimes. It doesn’t mean you lack creativity, it just means that you’re looking for the perfect fit, and haven’t found the right inspiration yet. With that said, here are some creative logo designs that may give you that creative boost:

10. Fish Food

The fish food logo could be used for a restaurant, a literal fish food company, a market, or anything else that has to do with fish. The logo is simple, but it gets the point across with the first glance.

9. Shop Wise

The name “Shop Wise” plays heavily into the logo. You can see a quaint, well dressed shopping bag front and center, implying that you’re smart to shop there.

8. MilkyMug

The image above shows exactly what the name suggests. It’s a mug full of milk. The only difference now is that the mug is shaped like a cow’s udders. It’s a simple and very effective logo that goes a little deeper than a normal image, but stays true to what the name is all about.

7. Half Badger   

Do I really need to talk about this one? It’s literally half a badger. It’s so straightforward that it’s hilariously brilliant.

6. Campland

It may look simple, but the combination of colors, font, and imagery pulls this thing together. The green reminds me of the forest, the lettering reminds me of a sign outside of a summer camp, and the imagery is a simple compass arrow.

5. Galactic Records

This one combines aliens (Galactic) and music (records). You’ll notice the flying saucer is made out of an old record. Creativity at its finest.

4. Killed Records

The “i” is dead. It literally fell over dead, just like the name suggests. There aren’t any fancy images or colors, and you don’t have to read into the logo much to understand what’s going on.

3. Sushi

Even if you’re not a fan of sushi, you’ll have to agree that this logo is creative. The way the font complements the chopsticks is perfect. Not to mention you have the red dot in the middle, symbolizing the Japanese flag, which is the birthplace of sushi.

2. Freelancer

Get it? Because the knight is holding a lance? Creativity can sprout from any place, and this is the perfect example of that.

1. Bison

Using the name of the product or company is the perfect way to show of your creative logo designs. You can see that the letters in the name make up the logo, which is a bison. It’s creative, entertaining, and unique!

These are just a few examples of how you can spark a creative fire. Don’t be afraid to try something new and most importantly, have fun!

NOAH Watches, a Romanian company, recently unveiled their latest creation. After years of testing and perfecting, we can now get our first glimpses at the NOAH Smart Watch. I know what you’re thinking, and trust me, this is no ordinary smart watch. Let’s look a little deeper.

Natural beauty

One of the features that makes the NOAH watch so unique is the fact that its case is made completely out of wood. Each case is delicately carved for hours until the final product is perfect. The watch brings the beauty of nature together with the power of technology and forms a perfect balance.

What’s more, NOAH is launching their watch with 5 different choices for both the case and the bands, so that you can customize it to your liking. If you get tired of the color, or maybe just want another option, both the cases and the bands are quick and easy to change out.

Smart and beautiful

The wooden case isn’t the only thing that makes the NOAH watch unique. Researchers and developers spent hours creating the one-of-a-kind software that allows the watch to look like an analog watch, while still being a smart watch. That’s right, even though it may look like a simple watch, you’ll still get text and call notifications, information about the caller/texter, alarms, timers, step counters, and much more. The supporting app also makes it possible to apply future updates.

In addition to all the cool features, the team wanted a battery that lasted a decent amount of time. It was a big challenge for the developers, but they managed to come out on top with a battery life of 1+ years.

“We developed a partnership for implementing the new technology and the production of few components with companies from Switzerland and Hong Kong, but the product design and the assembly of the smart hybrid is handcrafted in-house. Each wooden case is polished and treated manually in a process that takes about 3 hours for each product.” – Ruben Perju, co-founder NOAH Watches

NOAH Smart Hybrid lines

As of right now, there are two different lines for both men and women. You have the active line for those who stay in motion, and the heritage line for those who are after a fancier look.

Here you have a good view of what the active line for women looks like. It’s sleek, simple, and smart.

And this is the heritage model for men. It’s still sleek and smart, but it offers a little more of a classic look and continues the wooden theme throughout.

How to get one

If you like smart watches, and want one that will stand out from the crowd, then the NOAH Watch is the one for you. Their global launch will be made through a Kickstarter campaign where customers can purchase the watch for a mere $169. But you better hurry, the campaign will only run for 45 days. Once it’s over, the base price for the watch starts at $199 and goes up depending on the options you choose.

Get your hands on one of these beautiful, handcrafted watches while you can. It’s not everyday that you find something of this quality and this price, especially not a Smart Watch.