design

Blender is a powerful open source 3D drawing and animation program. This software was previously a commercial product, but is now available as a free download. Blender has been used to create stunningly beautiful 3D animated videos, including Big Buck Bunny. Check out some of the gorgeous animated movies made with Blender at the web site's Features Gallery. 

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My experience tells me there are a lot of people interested in trying open source, but they don't know where to start. And the perception that you have to write code to contribute to is a barrier to that curiosity. So, I've outlined 10 ways that anyone can get started with open source—no code writing involved.

I welcome your ideas and additions, there are without a doubt more than 10 ways—let's get started.

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In the past couple of years, a powerful paradigm shift has occurred in user experience (UX) design. UX designers used to focus on desktop users but now, mobile devices and mobile users are at the center of attention. The evidence for the importance of this paradigm shift is stifling: Morgan Stanley predicts that by 2014, mobile users will exceed desktop users. Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt says that "if you don’t have a mobile strategy, you don’t have a future strategy."

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For all of you free and open source creative tool fans out there, plenty of exciting developments happened over the past year—and there's some pretty awesome new things in the pipeline for 2013 as well! Here's a sampling of the good news:

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If you’ve seen an unbelievable interactive projection or a mind-blowing piece of generative video art, odds are you’ve come across openFrameworks, an accessible programming platform that has helped create projects like Arturo Castro and » Read more

Now that full-fledged computers are approaching the size of a USB Flash drive and are being sold for less than $75, my interest in designing a Linux computer of my own has been re-awakened.

As an educator, I would stock that computer full of free creativity and learning software, logic puzzle games, tutorial screencasts, engaging multimedia and artwork created with open source software. Naturally, I would use Linux as the operating system for that computer. » Read more

Today, I have a piece over on Tech President about how the new UK government website—Gov.uk—does a lot of things right.

I'd love to see more governments invest two of the key ingredients that made the website work—good design and better analytics.

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Last week, Red Hatter Máirín Duffy gave us a run down of her favorite open source creative tools. This week, we turn the table and ask you which application you favor in every day practice. » Read more

If you're a big-time open source fanatic like me, you probably get questions about open source alternatives to proprietary tools rather frequently. From the 'Alternatives to Microsoft® Visio®' department, here are three tips that should help designers who use Visio in an open source environment. If you need an open source option for opening Visio files, a revived open source application for creating diagrams, or a lesser-known open source tool for converting Visio® stencils, these tips are for you. » Read more