The Blog Pros

It's been an interesting year in the marketing world. Advancements in AI and constant changes in Google's algorithm have all but turned the industry on its head.

And as the marketing industry continues to evolve rapidly, marketers like HubSpot's Head of Audience Development and Distribution, Dréa Hudson, are not only keeping up with the changing tides but also thinking far enough outside the box to be on the next wave.

So today, we're going to pick Hudson's brain to learn how marketers can win and stand out in the ever-shifting marketing world. We'll explore why keeping calm is her superpower, how she ensures AI works for her, and why good ideas should always be broken down in favor of better ones. 

What Marketers Can Learn from HubSpot's Head of Audience Development and Distribution

1. Leverage YouTube in your strategy.

According to Nielsen, YouTube topped the list for streaming time for 17 consecutive months in July. YouTube is also the biggest video-sharing platform in the world and the second largest social media platform in the world, with over 2.7 billion users.

So it's no wonder Hudson says marketers should look to YouTube to increase visibility for their brands, especially since formerly tried-and-true channels like Google have become more volatile over the last year.

"Marketers should really be looking to sharpen their skillsets on YouTube," she says. "It doesn't always have to be keyword and search-based, either. YouTube is very good at understanding what videos should surface based on a few different things, like average view duration and the quality of the content. YouTube is a platform that is going to be super beneficial for any marketer looking to stay in the game."

2. Get comfortable with AI.

"We're in the middle of a revolutionary period right now," she says. "Instead of being afraid, it's time to get smart and level up your skillset when it comes to how you're actually bringing in new customers or driving brand awareness."

One skill marketers should absolutely hone is their proficiency in AI.

"If you're a marketer today, and you are not at least playing around with AI tools for an hour a day, you're doing yourself a disservice," Hudson explains.

Hudson recommends blocking off time in your calendar to play around with a tool you find the most intimidating.

"There's nothing wrong with testing something out and trying something," she says. "And the more you work with it, the better off you'll be. I think people are always afraid of AI taking their job, but at the end of the day, AI is not going to be able to replace you as a human."

She takes her own advice, even creating her own GPT that incorporates her love for music and pop culture.

"It's called 'You Got This,' and it's a GPT that basically talks to you in the form of [record producer] Rick Rubin and gives motivational advice or recommendations on how to get through challenges throughout your day."

3. Follow your instincts and look at the data.

Hudson stands out in her field by pushing boundaries and avoiding just copying and pasting from other ideas. And one of her biggest superpowers is her instinct.

"I think my natural disposition is to first go off instinct, which some marketers would advise against" she explains, "but I am very data-driven, so if someone presents me with a marketing challenge, my mind will immediately go into creative overdrive thinking about similar campaigns I've seen out there, or maybe campaigns that I've been wanting to do."

From there, Hudson says she considers the data she has and asks what is actually within her scope.

She also leaves room for her and her team to be data-informed and not just data-driven. Hudson explains that different people can come to different conclusions while looking at the same data, so give yourself room to experiment and follow your instincts about what the data could mean.

"I think it's a combination of pushing the boundaries, but also taking the data that you have and leveraging it to your advantage to hit your goals," she says. "No idea is an original idea. If you think your idea is the best idea, try to break that idea and come up with an even better one. And try that one."

4. Keep calm in the midst of chaos.

Hudson is the queen of cool. Her sense of cool doesn't just extend to her tastes in music and pop culture; it also shows in her demeanor.

"My ability to stay calm during chaos and my ability to be 'people-first' in everything I do is my secret weapon," she says. "As marketers, we're under a lot of pressure, and it can be easy to get overwhelmed by the deliverables and goals. But if you focus on the people you're working with, it's just easier."

Hudson says she's always thinking of the people who are a part of the projects she's leading and how to best make it easier for them to do their work. So, when you're feeling bogged down by deadlines, remember to keep calm and hone in on your team to think of solutions that will help them reach their goals.

Marketing is undergoing some major changes at the hands of AI.

When I last looked for a full-time content writing job in early 2022, I found a few roles that asked for AI experience, but now it seems like every other listing mentions at least one AI program they want you to be a “pro” in.

Beyond that, there are new roles in the marketing center that have AI at the center. Knowing these positions will help you stay ahead of the curve and be competitive in the market.

Who knows, you may even find a new niche that you’ll love.

With that in mind, I’ll go over how AI is impacting marketing jobs, the new AI roles popping up in the industry, and how you can keep up with all of these changes.

Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

• AI Marketing Jobs Marketing Departments are Investing In
• AI Marketing Role Job Descriptions (+ Examples)
• Training and Certification for AI Jobs

AI Marketing Jobs Marketing Departments are Investing In

While AI marketing jobs exist, it’s important to remember AI tends to be a part of most roles. Research from Microsoft found that 22% of recruiters already say they’re updating job descriptions to reflect the usage of generative AI in roles.

A different study from LinkedIn found that 12% of recruiters are creating new roles tied to generative AI.

To some, these numbers may seem small. However, I see this as a part of a growing trend. ChatGPT was launched to the public in November 2022, bringing the power of generative AI to everyone’s fingertips.

We’re already seeing AI’s widespread adoption impacting jobs. In the next few years, I expect these numbers to grow exponentially.

Right now, companies are focusing on highlighting the skills needed to use these programs. In the future, I expect more and more roles will explicitly mention specific software in their job postings, which will be core to the specified role.

So, even if you don’t see the words “artificial intelligence” in a job post, you may still need to use it (and may do so even more in the future). Keep that in mind as I break down which jobs in marketing use AI the most.

Content Writers With AI Expertise

While you might be worried that AI will replace content writers, we’re quickly finding the opposite is true.

In fact, according to our 2023 AI Trends for Marketers Report, only 4% out of 1,350+ marketing professionals use AI-created content without making any changes. Instead, most are probably working the way I do, using generative AI to develop ideas while editing or rewriting the AI-generated text.

Sydney Lamoureux, content lead at Leadhub, agrees that AI adds a new level of nuance to content creation.

She notes that while the initial “perceived potential of AI made it seem like it could handle anything and drastically speed up our workflows,” like most of us, she realized that AI “requires significant oversight, fact-checking, and prompt refinement to produce high-quality, nuanced content for clients.”

That said, AI speeds up the writing process and, in turn, the rate at which writers like me produce content, which is why business leaders or stakeholders are keen on hiring writers who are well-versed in AI.

Some of the content creation roles that require familiarity or experience with AI include:

• AI Content Writer
• Artificial Intelligence Writer
• AI Writing Specialist
• Editorial Director
• AI Content Marketing Expert

Social Media Experts and Managers

Another big area where marketers are using AI is in their social media marketing campaigns. We found that 31% of marketers used AI to create a social media post.

With AI, social media managers can quickly optimize a single piece of content for multiple platforms. Simply type in a prompt, and you’ll get dozens of engaging hashtags and a post made for every social media platform.

This saves time, which you can then devote to other needle-moving tasks in your daily work life. And it’s that time-saving perk that’s driving more and more business leaders to find managers with AI experience.

Take it from Sascha Hoffmann, an independent lifecycle marketing consultant, who sees that same benefit too.

“If I have a podcast, I can spin out a Twitter (X) thread, a LinkedIn post, a blog post, and an email with a single click/prompt. Prior to AI tools, this process took many hours and even a marketing coordinator or content manager role,” says Hoffmann.

If you’re looking for a new role in social media, keep an eye out for titles like:

• Social Media Manager
• Social Media and Marketing Director
• Social Media Ad Creator

Prompt Engineers to Enhance Customer Experience and Other Areas

This role is a bit marketing-adjacent, but if you have a bachelor’s degree in computer science or data science, this new role is a great blend of creativity and data interpretation.

Prompt engineers help train AI by focusing on machine learning and how they can improve AI tools even further. Essentially, they are training the AI by seeing how they can get the program to return a specific response.

Similarly, we’ve got data training roles. These trainers focus on improving the model the AI software uses, analyzing the data created by the AI, and adjusting the prompts or code until the expected outcome is achieved.

These roles are highly data-driven, but both collaborate to bridge the gap between software and humans. They also generally require some coding knowledge, so keep that in mind.

You might find roles like:

• AI Prompt Engineer
• AI Data Trainer
• Generative Prompt Engineer
• Prompt Engineer

General Content Marketing Roles Leveraging AI to Strategize and Create

I can’t stress enough the overarching benefits AI brings to all marketing teams. AI and automation are slowly seeping into nearly every part of the marketing cycle. In our data, we found:

• 32% of marketers use AI for conducting research
• 45% use AI to learn new things
• 45% use AI to help analyze or report on data
• 48% of marketers use AI to create content

And they’re using AI because it’s working in their marketing strategies. Up to 71% of marketers say AI has produced a positive ROI, while 72% of marketing managers say it’s made their teams more effective at their jobs.

You’ll find several marketing roles that require knowledge in AI like:

• SEO Specialist
• Marketing Coordinator
• Director of Marketing
• Senior Product Marketing Manager
• Marketing Consultant

The takeaway? Realistically, the marketing field isn’t seeing many “AI Marketing Jobs” just yet. Rather, AI is being infused into most marketing jobs, impacting parts of their everyday roles.

AI Marketing Role Job Descriptions (+ Examples)

So, current roles in the field are already shifting, but what about new roles popping up on the market?

In the next section, I’ll share some emerging roles that I’ve noticed gained popularity. I’ll also share what the role entails and their average pay.

1. AI Data Trainer

Generative AI is a powerful tool, creating new copy in a matter of seconds. Every piece of that power was trained on human input.

The system synthesizes data from across the web to create an answer that’s ideally an amalgamation of the internet’s best.

However, we’ve seen that AI can hallucinate, give incorrect information, or fail to strike the right tone. That’s where AI data training comes in, teaching AI systems how to respond and provide helpful, correct content.

To do this, trainers craft prompts for AI systems, monitor the output, and make adjustments to train the model.

People in this line of work need strong communication and analytical skills. You may also need a strong understanding of your employer's brand values and voice.

Below is an AI training job focused specifically on marketing copywriting. Positions in this field may be part-time or full-time.

Average Salary: $51,570

2. AI Content Writer/Editor

I’ve started seeing AI content writing positions open up at companies like Amazon and Braintrust. These roles are very similar to AI data trainers, with a few distinctions.

Content writer roles often require that the employee be able to cover different types of writing. One role from Amazon recommends that applicants have knowledge of a wide range of fields, included by not limited to “computer science, literature, music, mathematics, economics, and travel.”

Beyond that, the role specifies that the employee with be reviewing both human and AI-generated content. They’ll then rank the content by preference, helping train the model further.

AI editors also focus on LLMs’ output. They may be ranking content to drive preference data. They also shape the output before publication to ensure accuracy and a human touch.

Average Pay: $40 an hour

3. Product Marketing Manager

So perhaps you don’t want to live and breathe generative AI. There are still plenty of jobs that sit in the overlap of the AI/marketing Venn diagram. That’s especially true if you have experience in product marketing.

As more AI-driven products pop up on the market, more companies are looking for marketers that can help drive buzz about their offerings. Technical knowledge will help you navigate this role as you translate AI offerings capabilities into campaigns consumers of all levels can understand.

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Average Salary: $112,939

4. AI Content Marketing Specialist

Content marketers, there’s no need to sound the alarm! There are still roles that use your creativity and strong writing skills.

Jobs like the AI content marketing specialist role below take your existing talents and apply them to this emerging market.

In these roles, employees tell the story of AI products. They help explain what the offering does, how it makes life easier, and who can benefit. You’ll also have the opportunity to build a content strategy across channels.

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Average Salary: This position is still emerging, so average salary information is not widely available. The U.S. average salary for content marketing specialists is $59,518.

5. AI/ML Enablement Content Writer

If you have a background in technical writing, this role may be the perfect fit. AI/machine learning enablement content writers help create the material to enable adoption. That can be consumer-facing or internal to a company.

The role below involves creating training materials to educate employees on how to use AI in their workflows. The job also involves staying on top of product development to communicate changes as they arise.

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Average Salary: This position is still emerging, so average salary information is not widely available. The U.S. average salary for technical content writers is $83,301.

Training and Certification for AI Jobs

If you’ve reviewed a few AI marketing job results and feel that you aren’t quite up to the task of meeting all of the requirements, I’ve found a practical solution: certification.

Whether you’re looking for a new AI marketing job or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, getting some more training can help. Here are some of the courses I’d recommend if you want to get started.

1. HubSpot Academy

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You’ll find several AI-focused training courses in the HubSpot Academy. My favorites are:

• AI for Marketing
• Utilizing Marketing Automation and Artificial Intelligence

Both of these are free courses that help give a good overview of AI and how it’s used in marketing. You’ll also learn how to use some AI tools, so you’re getting practical applications.

These courses are especially useful if you use any of HubSpot’s tools, like our CRM or CMS. We already use AI in these tools, but you can learn how to make the most of the software by taking some of our training courses.

2. Google Training

Amelia Munday, social media marketer at Custom Neon®, recommends Google’s AI for Marketers courses because “they provide a solid basis for utilizing AI in a variety of marketing contexts, which is extremely relevant to my daily responsibilities.”

Google offers dozens of AI courses, including several with certification options. I recommend trying them out to see if their style appeals to you:

• Machine Learning Crash Course
• Google AI Essentials
• Responsible AI: Applying Principles with Google Cloud

3. GrowthTribe Certification

GrowthTribe offers several AI certification programs. Each program will help you understand how to use AI in your everyday work and offer more specific tips, depending on the course you take.

I like how several of GrowthTribe’s courses focus on marketers who want to gain a more data-focused understanding of AI.

Here are a couple of courses to get you started:

• AI for Business
• Data Fundamentals Certificate

4. LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn also offers hundreds of courses, videos, and certificate programs focused on AI. The courses cover every area, from programming to ethics.

Some of LinkedIn’s most popular options include:

• AI Trends
• Artificial Intelligence for Marketing
• Generative AI for Digital Marketers.

While most of these are premium courses, LinkedIn continues to update these courses to ensure they remain relevant. You also get to know exactly when the courses were created, and the ratings are pretty transparent.

Future Proofing Your Marketing Career

AI is creeping into every aspect of the workforce, and if you don’t keep up, you’ll end up falling behind.

So whether you’re looking for an AI marketing job at the beginning of your career or hoping to move into management, keeping up with the trends in this field is a must. And who knows — you may even come up with your own AI marketing initiatives in the process.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

AI is becoming an essential tool for businesses, especially for increasing productivity. But did you know you can also use AI to make money?

AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney are for more than just writing emails and generating funny images. They can also be used to make money. Many freelancers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs are already using AI to make thousands of dollars by implementing AI tools into their workflows.

Generative AI and machine learning were among the top most in-demand skills of 2024 on Upwork and it’s spreading fast into many different industries as well.

In a previous post, we showcased the most useful AI tools for improving your business. We also explained how you can use those tools to grow different aspects of your business.

In this post, we look at some of the ways and methods to use AI to make money and grow your business. Let’s dive in.

1. Copywriting and Content Creation

One of the best uses of AI is content creation. Generative AI tools excel at written content and there are many ways you can take advantage of them to make money and increase the revenue of your business.

Offer Freelance Writing Services

As a freelancer, you can create a content writing service using AI. You can provide blog posts, write resumes, cover letters, technical documents, and more with the help of AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude.

Many freelance marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork already have freelancers who make huge profits by offering AI content writing services.

Edit Content Using AI

As a writer, you can use AI tools to edit, rewrite, and refine your content to further improve them. This way, you don’t have to rely on editors or feedback from clients to make your content better. As a freelancer, you can even offer it as a service.

Develop a Blog for Your Business

If you have a small business, you can now easily develop your blog with high-quality blog posts, guides, tutorials, and more without having to hire writers. Using AI tools, writing great articles is now effortless and they will even help optimize your content for SEO.

This is a great way to generate organic traffic to your business website, which will then lead to more sales and revenue.

Write White Papers

AI tools are also great at writing technical documents. Use them to write white papers to increase awareness of your business and build authority. Additionally, you can create technical manuals, FAQ pages, knowledge bases, and tutorials by training AI on your business data as well.

Write Copy for Websites and Products

Use AI tools to write better copy for your website descriptions and call to actions (CTA). Also, write descriptions for your product pages using AI and test them with your existing copy using A/B split testing. This will help you create better product pages and increase sales.

2. AI Consulting

Most small businesses are still not aware of how to properly utilize AI tools to improve their businesses. This is where AI consultants come in. They are experts in the subject of AI and offer consulting services to help businesses discover ways to integrate AI into their businesses.

(Shopify’s Shop app)

This includes API integration, which essentially allows business websites to take advantage of popular AI models, like OpenAI’s GPT models, to create more advanced apps, websites, services, and systems. For example, AI is often used to offer better product recommendations for customers on eCommerce websites.

AI consultants also offer services in educating businesses on AI ethics and compliance, helping businesses use the best practices for AI without getting into trouble.

3. AI Chatbot Creation

One of the most profitable businesses in the AI industry right now is AI chatbots. These help businesses automate many of their tasks and customer services as well as generate more leads.

As an AI chatbot creator, your job is to create and program custom chatbots to serve customers on behalf of businesses. For example, these can be live service bots you see on a website. Or a custom bot that automatically replies to customers on Facebook or WhatsApp.

Creating these AI chatbots is quite simple, thanks to platforms like ChatBot and LiveChatAI. All you have to do is write the messages and personalize them according to the business and its services.

4. Selling AI-Generated Art

Even though people were reluctant to accept AI art at first, they are now as normal as stock photos. In fact, many stock photo websites, including Shutterstock, now have categories dedicated to AI art. And they even accept submissions from creators.

If you’ve mastered the art of writing great prompts and generating high-quality AI art, you can now make good money by selling your art to these stock photo sites.

Wirestock is one of the best places you can use to sell your AI art but there are plenty of other stock photo sites you can use as well.

Businesses and agencies can also use AI art generators to create custom artwork, illustrations, icons, and photos for their websites, social media, and projects.

5. AI Photo Editing

Photoshop now has powerful AI tools that allow you to edit, generate, and enhance photos with just text prompts. They help you edit photos, fix damaged photos, create photo manipulations, design posters, and more without much graphic design knowledge.

Whether you’re a freelancer or have a design agency, AI photo editing will offer a great way to bring in more revenue for your business.

6. AI-Powered Web Design

Designing and developing websites is now easier than ever thanks to powerful AI tools. Most online website-building platforms now include AI-powered tools for building websites.

Hostinger’s AI website builder is a great example that shows what these tools are capable of. And it offers a great opportunity for freelancers to make money by helping businesses build websites, even without any coding knowledge.

AI platforms like Relume, CodeWP, and Framer are other great tools you can use to create more complex websites with the help of AI.

7. Social Media Marketing

When it comes to social media marketing, AI comes in handy in many different ways. Whether you want to generate a unique image for your promo post, create a custom voiceover for a quick video, or even plan entire ad campaigns, AI tools will make your workflow quite seamless.

Freelancers and social media marketing agencies can profit from integrating AI into their marketing process. And small businesses can also save money by using AI to run their social media marketing campaigns.

8. AI Translations

While you shouldn’t rely on AI tools to translate important documents like business contracts, there are ways small businesses can use AI translation tools to generate more revenue.

For example, you can use AI to write descriptions for your products in different languages and include them on your website to show to visitors based on their geographical location.

Or write multilingual captions for your social media posts as well as generate voiceovers for your marketing videos in different languages.

9. AI Data Mining

Data mining is one of the most effective strategies big corporations and companies use to beat their competitors and boost awareness for their brands. Small businesses often can’t afford such services, but thanks to AI tools you can now do data mining as well.

Claude and ChatGPT are great starting points for utilizing AI for data mining. You can also hire professionals to do the work for you.

If you’re a freelancer, this is an industry that’s worth pursuing as it will create a high-value and highly profitable skill that will be future-proof for a long time.

10. Building Custom AI Models

Many of the AI tools you see today are built using the same AI models developed by the tech giants. Meta’s Llama AI, OpenAI’s GPT, Google’s Vertex AI, and many other AI models allow you to build your own custom AI models.

Creating custom AI models is not as easy as signing up for a website. But they provide you with the foundation for creating more complex, unique, and convenient AI tools of your own. And that will create entirely new revenue streams for you in the future. Who knows, you might even be able to sell your AI tool for a few hundred million dollars.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the many different ways you can use AI to create new opportunities to expand your business and services and earn more money.

Remember that there’s more to AI than just ChatGPT. There are far more advanced and creative AI tools available that perform better at specific tasks.

From highlighting geographic data to illustrating global trends, a world map can make complex information more accessible and engaging.

However, creating a detailed and aesthetically pleasing map from scratch can be time-consuming and technically demanding. That’s where pre-designed world map templates come in, offering a ready-made solution that saves time while maintaining professional standards.

In this post, you’ll find various styles of world map templates in PowerPoint, PDF, Illustrator, and EPS formats. Whether you’re looking for a minimalist outline map, a detailed vector map, or a stylized version with artistic flair, our collection has something for every project. Have a look.

World Map PowerPoint Templates

7 Continents World Map PowerPoint Template

Enhance your data presentations with this world map PowerPoint template. Designed for ease and versatility, this template helps you create visually impressive flowcharts to illustrate complex ideas, making it ideal for business, education, and beyond. With 8 unique slides, adjustable shapes, colors, sizes, and positions, it’s easy to create professional, captivating presentations.

World Maps Data PowerPoint Template

This is a high-quality PowerPoint template for presenting data in a visually rich manner. Its unique tube shape diagrams are designed to boost your sales and marketing efforts. You can easily customize the 120 unique slides, vector objects, and over 3000 icons to suit your needs. The template offers a one-click color change and auto recolor feature, along with 90 different color themes.

World Maps Infographics Powerpoint Template

A versatile, graphically impressive PowerPoint template perfect for any presentation involving geographical or statistical data. With 21 editable, easy-to-use slides and placeholder images, this collection is designed to bring your data to life in a visually compelling manner. It features a 16:9 widescreen ratio and user-friendly drag-and-drop capabilities.

World Maps Template for PowerPoint

This is an innovative PowerPoint template for data and education presentations. This sophisticated infographic template, featuring over 20 unique world map slides, is fully customizable to your preference. It’s user-friendly, with easily editable elements, allowing you to personalize your content to suit your business needs.

Gradient World Maps PowerPoint Template

A modern and creative PowerPoint template for crafting professional presentations. Enhanced by gradient color designs, this modern-style world map infographic template is perfect for business presentations, lookbook slides, or project pitches. The package provides 25 unique slides, both light and dark backgrounds, and resizable graphics. It also includes an icon pack and color scheme XML files for seamless customization.

11 Regions World Map PowerPoint Template

A dynamic PowerPoint template for captivating presentations. With its 13 unique slides and easy editing, it allows for seamless communication of complex ideas. The versatile template is perfect for business, education, and even more personal use. It comes with helpful documentation and makes use of free licensed fonts.

Simple World Maps Infographics PPT

This is an effectively designed PowerPoint template ideal for showcasing global data. Crafted specifically for global strategy and market analysis presentations, this template, packed with detailed world maps, brings international insights into sharp focus. The widescreen format and drag and drop picture placeholder add to the user-friendly layout, while easy editable graphics allow personal customization.

Doodle World Map Infographic for PowerPoint

A user-friendly PowerPoint template designed to bring your presentations to life. With an engaging doodle-style design, it effortlessly simplifies complex ideas and strategies through its visually striking graphics. The template, ideal for both business and educational use, includes 31 unique slides, a 16:9 aspect ratio, and offers easy editability of shapes and colors.

Minimal World Map Infographics PPT

This is a versatile, customizable PowerPoint template with a clean, understated design. It includes 10 editable slides with resizable graphics, uses free web fonts, and operates on a 16:9 widescreen ratio. Simply drag and drop to create impactful, visually arresting world map presentations.

Colorful World Maps Template for PowerPoint

This PowerPoint template offers an engaging way to visually communicate your business development stages. With 30 unique slides and over 90 XML files, it lets you fully customize your presentations with light and dark background options and handmade infographics.

World Map Graphic Templates (AI, EPS, PDF)

World Map Infographic Template AI & EPS

This is a vibrant, eye-catching world map template for Adobe Illustrator. This template includes three AI and EPS files featuring different styles of world map designs. Additional PNG files and a PDF make this world map design versatile and accessible for a variety of creative projects.

World Map Infographics for Illustrator

This is a world map infographic template offering three distinct design templates. The package covers you with dedicated AI, EPS files, and also offers PNG and PDF formats. An efficient solution for producing engaging, informative visual representations of global data.

Full World Maps Infographics

A versatile world map template suitable for Illustrator, packed with four distinct design styles. Available in AI, EPS, PNG, and PDF, it supports Illustrator versions CS, CS5, and higher. This creative template is perfect for delivering your world map-based information in a clear, visually pleasing way.

Color Coded World Map Infographics

Featuring an easy-to-use, color-coded design, this world map template comes with a customizable design. It includes all the essential files, including AI, EPS, PNG, PDF, and SVG, compatible with various versions of Illustrator. The asset even includes a handy icon set, serving as a comprehensive tool for your infographic creations.

Complete Map Infographics for Illustrator

Complete Map Infographics for Illustrator is a comprehensive and versatile creative asset. It’s a world map infographic template that comes with elements design and an assortment of file types like AI for Illustrator CS, CS5, and 10, EPS files, PNG files, and PDF.

Customizable Map Infographics

This world map template for Illustrator comes in three different variations. It comes with unique design elements and offers files adaptable for Illustrator and other vector editors. In addition to AI and EPS formats, it also provides PNG files and PDFs, making it easy for you to inject customized graphic flair into your projects.

Light & Dark Map Infographics

A highly customizable world map template designed for Illustrator. Available in both light and dark color themes, it includes two unique map design elements. The package provides three AI Files as well as EPS Files, PNG Files, and a PDF file. It’s an excellent resource for creative projects.

Blank World Map Template AI & EPS

This is a comprehensive, vector-based infographic template made for designers. The pack includes editable elements for business planning, education, web design, and more. It offers a range of vector-compatible file types, making it a versatile asset for numerous graphic programs.

Free World Map Templates

Free World Map Infographic AI & EPS

This is one of the most stylish world map templates on our list. It features a creative design of the world map featuring a dotted design. It also has color-coded elements to create an infographic with details.

Free World Map Template for Illustrator

Another simple and minimal world map template that you can edit and fully customize using Adobe Illustrator. This template features a blank world map design with elements to highlight specific parts of the map.

Free Vector World Map Infographic

A colorful and detailed world map infographic template featuring color-coded elements. This map is ideal for presenting data and research as it comes with space to detail your findings. The template comes in EPS format.

Free World Maps PowerPoint Template

This is a free PowerPoint template featuring a set of customizable world map slides. These can be used to create professional-looking infographics to present your data. The template includes 30 unique slides.

Free Flat Style World Maps Infographics PPT

This PowerPoint template also comes with multiple world map infographics with flat-style designs. They can be easily customized to add your own data. The template includes 31 slides and it’s available in Google Slides format as well.

If you are a designer on the hunt for the perfect Figma presentation template, look no further! Our post features a collection of stunning slide deck templates that will level up your Figma design project presentation and showcases.

Figma is a versatile software that’s capable of handling various types of designs, including slide decks. You can use Figma to create stylish slide decks and presentations to showcase your projects and present new concepts to clients without having to rely on any presentation software like PowerPoint or Keynote.

One of the main benefits of using Figma to design slide decks is you get to craft more attractive and visual slides for the presentation. And with this collection of Figma templates, you’ll be able to go above and beyond with your slideshow designs.

We handpicked a collection of Figma templates that feature slide deck-style graphics and layouts. You can use these to make your own presentations, slideshows, and more.

Let’s dive right in and explore these free and paid options that will impress clients and enhance your presentations.

Aesthetic eCourse Slide Deck for FIGMA & PSD

This is a dynamic collection of 100 customizable slide templates for Figma and they are perfect for creating engaging online course-related presentations. This creative template not only includes visually pleasing designs but also provides a host of layouts like quotes, infographics, and lists. Suitable for webinars, influencer content, and marketing pitches, it’s a practical solution that saves you time and resources while elevating the visual appeal of your presentations.

Fashion Slideshow Promo Template for Figma

This Figma presentation template offers a chic, minimalistic, and contemporary design, optimal for delivering your fashion-related content effectively. It features high-quality screens, customizable layers, fonts, and colors, and is fully editable, enabling you to customize its vector shape to your taste.

Infographics Figma Presentation Template

A useful Figma presentation template for creating engaging, data-driven presentations. It offers stunning visuals, dynamic roadmaps, and insightful timelines that effectively communicate information. It includes slide layouts in Photoshop, Figma, Sketch, PDF, and PNG formats, all fully editable for easy color changes and a free font. Unleash your data’s potential with this captivating infographic template.

Circle Infographic Presentation Template for FIgma

Explore the Circle infographic presentation template for Figma, a set of slides designed for creative data visualization in slide decks. With this template, you can create mesmerizing presentations, make compelling roadmaps, and craft insightful timelines. The kit comes with PSD, Sketch, PNG, and PDF files, and options for easy color changes. Plus, it’s fully editable and even includes a free font.

Process Diagrams Figma Infographic Template

This Figma slide template makes showcasing intricate workflows and procedures simple. It comes in various convenient file formats, includes an array of visual displays, and features editable graphics with clear color combinations. Its user-friendly design is perfect for crafting beautiful process diagrams and roadmaps for your presentation and slide decks.

Business Strategy Infographic Slides for Figma

This Figma template includes an assortment of fully editable infographics related to various business-related concepts. It’s especially ideal for crafting eye-catching business strategy presentations. The package includes Figma files, unique icons, three slide infographic templates, and free access to a creative font.

Digital Marketing Infographic Slides for FIgma

This is a modern Figma infographic template that transforms your presentations with beautiful infographics. It allows you to showcase data in visual form with stylish digital marketing infographic slides. It includes 3 slide templates in Figma, Adobe XD, and Sketch formats.

Business Analytic Infographic Slides for Figma

This is an exceptional Figma template for elevating your business presentations. The pack offers 15 unique slides with a light background option, a widescreen setup, and handmade infographics. It’s fully customizable, providing PNG files and ready Figma files.

Figma Presentation Slide Template

A versatile Figma template for creating simple slides and landing page headers. It flaunts a modern flat vector design that is easily editable and customizable, making it suitable for web, mobile, hero images, and UI. The template comes as a 100% vector with editable text and colors, organized files, and utilizes an Open Sans font.

Data Presentation Figma Template

A highly adaptable and modern illustration perfect for sectors such as Data Science, Technology, and Finance. Its versatility lends itself well to use within web banners, mobile apps, and landing pages. Offering full customization, it is compatible with numerous platforms and software, and comes in various file types including EPS, PSD, SVG, and more.

Technology Presentation Figma Template

Elevate your technology presentations with this visually engaging, flat-design Figma template. Perfect for web, mobile, and user interface needs, the layouts are entirely editable and customizable. This resource features 100% vector graphics, editable text, and open-sans typography, all arranged neatly for ease of use.

Hero Header Templates for Figma

Even though these Figma templates are for designing website header sections, they can also be used to create attractive slides for your presentations. This pack contains seven innovative, fully editable, and scalable header designs perfect for an array of slides such as food delivery, online stores, and tech tools.

Hero Section Design Figma Templates

Another collection of sleek, modern hero design templates for your slide designs. It includes 11 distinct hero header layouts, fully customizable with Figma. They are excellent for creating cutting-edge website designs and slide decks for various presentations.

Eshoin – Ecommerce Hero Header Templates

Eshoin is a collection of modern header designs for Figma, which are also perfect for enhancing presentations, and various projects. With a sleek, professional layout, the templates come in editable formats (.PSD, .xd, .fig), and feature a 1920×1080 pixel, 16:9 ratio design incorporating Google fonts. Primarily designed for product showcasing, they ensure an appealing and informative display for viewers.

eCommerce Hero Header Design for Figma

This eCommerce-themed header design lends a clean aesthetic to your website or slide decks. It’s user-friendly, adaptable for small to large businesses, and ideal for crafting bold product showcase slide layouts. With compatibility across Sketch, Adobe XD, Invision Studio, and Figma, all components are vector-based ensuring a sleek design.

Free Figma Presentation Templates

Don’t forget to try these free Figma templates.

Free Deck Template with Fresh Folks Illustrations

This is a bundle of beautiful slide designs featuring cute and fun illustrations that add a creative and more engaging look to presentations. The slides have multipurpose designs that can be customized to make various types of slide decks.

Free Figma Pitch Deck Template

This free Figma presentation template comes with a set of bold slide designs for making pitch deck-style presentations. It has several slides with gradient colors and minimal designs.

Free Grey Pitch Deck Presentation Template

With more than 20 different slide layouts to choose from, this Figma presentation template is one of the best options for crafting a convincing pitch deck to win over your clients. And it’s free to use.

30+ Free Presentation Slides for Figma

This free Figma presentation template comes in both light and dark color themes. You can use it to make elegant and bold presentations for various branding and business slide decks. It includes over 30 unique slides too.

Free Figma Presentation Template

Use this Figma presentation template for free to design bold and professional presentations for your business and design projects. The template is especially ideal for startups and entrepreneurs for creating pitch decks.

Free Elegant Presentation Template for Figma

Another free presentation template for Figma. This template includes several creative slide layouts with elegant designs. They are suitable for a wide variety of slide deck presentations. Even though it uses a different language, you can easily customize each slide to change content.

Fonts inspired by newspaper typography offer a unique blend of nostalgia and authority. If you’re looking for such a font for your project, this collection is perfect for you.

Old newspaper fonts can evoke the golden age of print media, with its bold headlines and crisp columns, or they can bring a contemporary edge to your layouts with a clean, structured look. Whether you’re designing a magazine, a website, or any project that needs a touch of editorial flair, the right newspaper font can set the perfect tone.

In this post, we explore a range of fonts that draw from both the past and present, offering you the flexibility to create designs that are both timeless and on-trend. From sharp serifs reminiscent of historic broadsheets to modern interpretations with a minimalist twist, our selection is designed to help you make a bold statement with your typography.

Ventella – Modern Newspaper Font

Ventella is a modern, minimalist serif typeface, perfect for projects that require an elegant and clean aesthetic. Its uppercase and lowercase letters, stylistic alternates, numerals, punctuation, and 89 unique ligatures, provide a comprehensive toolkit for all types of designers. Ideal for logos, headers, quotes, and more, Ventella’s legibility makes it a standout choice for both large display and small body text.

Unblocker – Newspaper Headline Font

Unblocker is a sophisticated, dynamic typeface that’s perfect for eye-catching headlines, titles, or banners. This font radiates a confident personality, deftly balancing boldness with finesse. Unblocker goes beyond just striking design, offering functionality with uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuations, and multilingual support.

News of the World – Newspaper Font

News of the World is a bold, commanding newspaper font that seems plucked straight from a sports blog or magazine. Its wide display garners attention while its four distinct styles offer versatility. Opt for Regular in all caps for vibrant headlines or go for wide italics for a standout company logo. A splendid substitute for Impact, give this font a spin.

Washington – Classic Newspaper Font

Washington is a versatile Serif Font that enhances readability and transforms headlines into attention-grabbing statements. Its heavier weights are perfect for adding depth to subtext applications. Ideal for a wide range of uses; from logo creation, posters, cover designing, to printing on t-shirts, business cards, and even wedding cards.

Bygonest – Typewriter Newspaper Font

Check out Bygonest, a unique typewriter-inspired newspaper font. It boasts two distinctive styles (clean and rustic), three weights (thin, regular, and bold), and alternate stamp texture sets for interesting variety. Its splash of rustic detail on glyph characters adds a characteristic charm. It’s versatile and perfect for various designs including newspapers, magazines, quotes, and more.

Wilson Wells – Blackletter Newspaper Font

Experience the distinct blend of modern and gothic aesthetics with the Wilson Wells font. This unique typeface works perfectly for headlines, posters, t-shirts, and even tattoos. It features uppercase and lowercase letters, ligatures, and stylistic alternatives, placing versatility at your fingertips.

Mencary – Old Typewriter Font

Mencary is a dual-style font package, offering both clean and roughened versions to evoke the nostalgia of vintage writing machines. Its versatility makes Mencary ideal for a myriad of creative projects including logos, labels, stationery, display, and magazine projects. The font includes multilingual characters, making it a highly inclusive choice.

Mondia – Modern Newspaper Font

Mondia is a modern, sophisticated serif font family boasting 18 unique fonts, from thin to fat, with corresponding italics. The design merges traditional and contemporary themes and is enhanced by a high contrast character ratio and a high x-height for superior legibility. With OpenType features including stylistic alternates, ligatures, oldstyle figures, and localized letters, Mondia is a versatile option, perfect for headlines, branding, and more.

San De More – Elegant Newspaper Font

San De More is an elegant, variable family serif font designed to add a touch of class to your creative projects. With a summer-themed design, it stands out in your designs, perfect for bringing a new life to your creations. Its versatility is highlighted in the 5-weight italics style, letting you mix and match without fear of design collision.

Swantay – Modern Newspaper Font

Swantay, a modern newspaper-style sans font, is perfect for various purposes such as headlines, logos, quotes, and advertisements. It supports multiple languages and comes in TTF, OTF, and WOFF formats. This versatile typeface offers both uppercase, lowercase, numerals, punctuations, ligatures, and alternate options.

Mess in Keytic – Typewriter Old Newspaper Font

Mess in Keytic is a classic typewriter-inspired font that offers a unique blend of the old and new. This versatile font can be used for crafting text, titles, or paragraph headings, and is especially suitable for magazine covers and newspaper headlines. Available in .otf, .ttf, .woff, and .woff2 formats, it’s a great addition to any creative toolkit.

Newspaper Cutboy – Color Font

Newspaper Cutboy is a unique sans serif typeface reminiscent of newspaper cut letters. With four distinct alternates for each of the 26 letters, plus question and exclamation marks, this font is versatile and perfect for crafting punchy short titles. It’s beautifully contrasting against both dark and light backgrounds.

Robinson Press – Vintage Newspaper Font

Robinson Press is a striking typography choice that embodies the aesthetic of traditional newspaper headlines. Specifically designed to harmonize bold titles with smaller texts, it’s exceptional for magazine layouts and poster designs. A distinct feature of this version is its unique horizontal texture, adding an extra touch of vintage appeal.

Indent – Formal Newspaper Font

Indent is a formal newspaper font that exudes professionalism thanks to its minimalist style. This simple, all-caps typeface is versatile, fitting seamlessly on magazine titles, office work, banners, or even large-scale art pieces. The zip file comes with Indent in OTF, TTF, WOFF, and WOFF2 formats. Explore the clean, elegant charm of Indent for your next design project.

Firecracker – Vintage Newspaper Font

Take your project on a nostalgic journey to the dynamism of the 1950s and 1960s with Firecracker, a vintage newspaper font. Available in regular and oblique styles, the font’s exceptional letters are capable of breathing a timeless, retro flair into various mediums such as magazines, packaging, signage, and branding.

Retroma Vibes – Mixed Newspaper Font

Retroma Vibes is a bold and creative mixed font that draws its inspiration from retro collage art and clippings from old newspapers. Offering a unique blend of sans serif, blackletter, handwriting, condensed serif, and old typewriter styles, it enables you to design in a distinctive collage style. Boasting uppercase, lowercase, alternate characters, plus numbers and punctuation, it offers multilingual support for versatile usage.

Macaw – Serif Newspaper Font

Macaw is a modern serif font inspired by classical typography and early 20th-century Italian newspapers. Perfect for a range of editorial needs, from corporate identity to web design, Macaw offers four versatile weights – Light, Regular, Medium, and Bold, all with corresponding italics. Delicate in its lighter forms, it builds to a distinctive, strong emphasis in its boldest weight. With multilingual support, it brings a unique fluidity to any project.

Free Newspaper Fonts

PP Nikkei – Free Newspaper Headline Font

The thick, bold letter design gives this font a very unique look and feel. It’s perfect for crafting attention-grabbing newspaper-style titles for your designs. The font is free to use with your personal projects.

Recia – Free Modern Newspaper Font

Recia is another free newspaper-style font that comes with a classic serif letter design. This font is ideal for crafting modern newspaper headlines and titles with a classic touch. It’s free to use with personal and commercial projects.

Magyar Nemzet – Free Newspaper Headline Font

This font features a narrow serif letter design that comes with a professional look and feel. It’s ideal for crafting newspaper-style headings and titles for your modern design projects. It’s free to use with commercial projects.

Ledger – Free Old Newspaper Font

Ledger is another free newspaper font that you can use freely with all kinds of design projects. It has an old-school serif letter design featuring clean strokes and a bold look. It’s perfect for both modern and vintage-themed designs.

Özgür Gündem – Free Newspaper Font

This free newspaper font comes with a letter design inspired by a Kurdish newspaper. It features a classic look and feel mixed with a sophisticated vibe. The font is free to use with personal and commercial projects.

Hi Everyone
iam Samantha
iam running a blogging website. i have done my best in seo and in content also
but still not getting the traffic i want anyone can guide?
Thank You.

Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) allows large language models (LLMs) to answer queries related to the data the models have not seen during training. In my previous article, I explained how to develop RAG systems using the Claude 3.5 Sonnet model.

However, RAG systems only answer queries about the data stored in the vector database. For example, you have a RAG system that answers queries related to financial documents in your database. If you ask it to search the internet for some information, it will not be able to do so.

This is where tools and agents come into play. Tools and agents enable LLMs to retrieve information from various external sources such as the internet, Wikipedia, YouTube, or virtually any Python method implemented as a tool in LangChain.

This article will show you how to enhance the functionalities of your RAG systems using tools and agents in the Python LangChain framework.

So, let's begin without an ado.

The following script installs the required libraries, including the Python LangChain framework and its associated modules and the OpenAI client.

!pip install -U langchain
!pip install langchain-core
!pip install langchainhub
!pip install -qU langchain-openai
!pip install pypdf
!pip install faiss-cpu
!pip install --upgrade --quiet  wikipedia
Requirement already satisfied: langchain in c:\us

The script below imports the required libraries into your Python application.

from langchain.tools import WikipediaQueryRun
from langchain_community.utilities import WikipediaAPIWrapper
from langchain.tools.retriever import create_retriever_tool
from langchain.agents import AgentExecutor, create_tool_calling_agent
from langchain_openai import ChatOpenAI, OpenAIEmbeddings
from langchain_community.chat_message_histories import ChatMessageHistory
from langchain_core.runnables.history import RunnableWithMessageHistory
from langchain_core.tools import tool
from langchain import hub
import os

from langchain_community.document_loaders import PyPDFLoader
from langchain.text_splitter import RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter
from langchain_community.vectorstores import FAISS

To enhance RAG using tools and agents in LangChain, follow the following steps.

1. Import or create tools you want to use with RAG.
2. Create a retrieval tool for RAG.
3. Add retrieval and other tools to an agent.
4. Create an agent executor that invokes agents' calls.

The benefit of agents over chains is that agents decide at runtime which tool to use to answer user queries.

This article will enhance the RAG model's performance using the Wikipedia tool. We will create a LangChain agent with a RAG tool capable of answering questions from a document containing information about the British parliamentary system. We will incorporate the Wikipedia tool into the agent to enhance its functionality.

If a user asks a question about the British parliament, the agent will call the RAG tool to answer it. In case of any other query, the agent will use the Wikipedia tool to search for answers on Wikipedia.

Let's implement this model step by step.

The following script imports the built-in Wikipedia tool from the LangChain module. To retrieve Wikipedia pages, pass your query to the run() method.

wikipedia_tool = WikipediaQueryRun(api_wrapper=WikipediaAPIWrapper())
response = wikipedia_tool.run("What are large language models?")
print(response)

Output:

To add the above tool to an agent, you must define a function using the @tool decorator. Inside the method, you simply call the run() method as you previously did and return the response.

@tool
def WikipediaSearch(search_term: str):

    """
    Use this tool to search for wikipedia articles.
    If a user asks to search the internet, you can search via this wikipedia tool.
    """


    result = wikipedia_tool.run(search_term)
    return result

Next, we will create a retrieval tool that implements the RAG functionality.

In my article on Retrieval Augmented Generation with Claude 3.5 Sonnet, I explained how to create retriever using LangChain. The process remains the same here.

openai_api_key = os.getenv('OPENAI_API_KEY')

loader = PyPDFLoader("https://web.archive.org/web/20170809122528id_/http://global-settlement.org/pub/The%20English%20Constitution%20-%20by%20Walter%20Bagehot.pdf")
docs = loader.load_and_split()

documents = RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter(
    chunk_size=1000, chunk_overlap=200
).split_documents(docs)

embeddings = OpenAIEmbeddings(openai_api_key = openai_api_key)
vector = FAISS.from_documents(documents, embeddings)

retriever = vector.as_retriever()

You can query the vector retriever using the invoke() method. In the output, you will see the section of documents having the highest semantic similarity with the input.

query = """
"What is the difference between the house of lords and house of commons? How members are elected for both?"
"""
retriever.invoke(query)[:3]

Output:

Next, we will create a retrieval tool that uses the vector retriever you created to answer user queries. You can create a RAG retrieval tool using the create_retriever_tool() function.

BritishParliamentSearch = create_retriever_tool(
    retriever,
    "british_parliament_search",
    "Use this tool tos earch for information about the british parliament, house of lords and house of common and any other related information.",
)

We have created a Wikipedia tool and a retriever (RAG) tool; the next step is adding these tools to an agent.

First, we will create a list containing all our tools. Next, we will define the prompt that we will use to call our agent. I used a built-in prompt from LangSmith, which you can see in the script's output below.

tools = [WikipediaSearch, BritishParliamentSearch]
# Get the prompt to use - you can modify this!
prompt = hub.pull("hwchase17/openai-functions-agent")
prompt.messages

Output:

You can use your prompt if you want.

We also need to define the LLM we will use with the agent. We will use the OpenAI GPT-4o in our script. You can use any other LLM from LangChain.

llm = ChatOpenAI(model="gpt-4o",
                 temperature=0,
                 api_key=openai_api_key,
                )

Next, we will create a tool-calling agent that generates responses using the tools, LLM, and the prompt we just defined.

Finally, to execute an agent, we need to define our agent executor, which returns the agent's response to the user when invoked via the invoke() method.

In the script below, we ask our agent a question about the British parliament.

agent = create_tool_calling_agent(llm, tools, prompt)
agent_executor = AgentExecutor(agent=agent, tools=tools, verbose = True)
response = agent_executor.invoke({"input": "How many members are there in the House of Common?"})
print(response)

Output:

As you can see from the above output, the agent invoked the british_parliament_search tool to generate a response.

Let's ask another question about the President of the United States. Since this information is not available in the document that the RAG tool uses, the agent will call the WikipediaSearch tool to generate the response to this query.

response = agent_executor.invoke({"input": "Who is the current president of United States?"})

Output:

Finally, if you want only to return the response without any additional information, you can use the output key of the response as shown below:

print(response["output"])

Output:

The current President of the United States is Joe Biden. He is the 46th president and assumed office on January 20, 2021.

As a last step, I will show you how to add memory to your agents so that they remember previous conversations with the user.

We will first create an AgentExecutor object as we did previously, but this time, we will set verbose = False since we are not interested in seeing the agent's internal workings.

Next, we will create an object of the ChatMessageHistory() class to save past conversations.

Finally, we will create an object of the RunnableWithMessageHistory() class and pass to it the agent executor and message history objects. We also pass the keys for the user input and chat history.

agent_executor = AgentExecutor(agent=agent, tools=tools, verbose = False)

message_history = ChatMessageHistory()

agent_with_chat_history = RunnableWithMessageHistory(
    agent_executor,
    # This is needed because in most real world scenarios, a session id is needed
    # It isn't really used here because we are using a simple in memory ChatMessageHistory
    lambda session_id: message_history,
    input_messages_key="input",
    history_messages_key="chat_history",
)

Next, we will define a function generate_response() that accepts a user query as a function parameter and invokes the RunnableWithMessageHistory() class object. In this case, you also need to pass the session ID, which points to the past conversation. You can have multiple session IDs if you want multiple conversations.

def generate_response(query):
    response = agent_with_chat_history.invoke(
    {"input": query},
    config={"configurable": {"session_id": "<foo>"}}
    )

    return response

Let's test the generate_response() function by asking a question about the British parliament.

query = "What is the difference between the house of lords and the house of commons?"
response = generate_response(query)
print(response["output"])

Output:

Next, we will ask a question about the US president.

query = "Who is the current President of America?"
response = generate_response(query)
print(response["output"])

Output:

The current President of the United States is Joe Biden. He assumed office on January 20, 2021, and is the 46th president of the United States.

Next, we will only ask And for France but since the agent remembers the past conversation, it will figure out that the user wants to know about the current French President.

query = "And of France?"
response = generate_response(query)
print(response["output"])

Output:

The current President of France is Emmanuel Macron. He has been in office since May 14, 2017, and was re-elected for a second term in 2022.

Retrieval augmented generation allows you to answer questions using documents from a vector database. However, you may need to fetch information from external sources. This is where tools and agents come into play.

In this article, you saw how to enhance the functionalities of your RAG systems using tools and agents in LangChain. I encourage you to incorporate other tools and agents into your RAG systems to build amazing LLM products.

View Transitions are one of the most awesome features CSS has shipped in recent times. Its title is self-explanatory: transitions between views are possible with just CSS, even across pages of the same origin! What’s more interesting is its subtext, since there is no need to create complex SPA with routing just to get those eye-catching transitions between pages.

What also makes View Transitions amazing is how quickly it has gone from its first public draft back in October 2022 to shipping in browsers and even in some production contexts like Airbnb — something that doesn’t happen to every feature coming to CSS, so it shows how rightfully hyped it is.

That said, the API is still new, so it’s bound to have some edge cases or bugs being solved as they come. An interesting way to keep up with the latest developments about CSS features like View Transitions is directly from the CSS Telecom Minutes (you can subscribe to them at W3C.org).

View Transitions were the primary focus at the August 21 meeting, which had a long agenda to address. It started with a light bug in Chrome regarding the navigation descriptor, used in every cross-document view transition to opt-in to a view transition.

@view-transition {
  navigation: auto | none;
}

Currently, the specs define navigation as an enum type (a set of predefined types), but Blink takes it as a CSSOMString (any string). While this initially was passed as a bug, it’s interesting to see the conversation it sparked on the GitHub Issue:

Actually I think this is debatable, we don’t currently have at rules that use enums in that way, and usually CSSOM doesn’t try to be fully type-safe in this way. e.g. if we add new navigation types and some browsers don’t support them, this would interpret them as invalid rules rather than rules with empty navigation.

The last statement may not look exciting, but it opens the possibility of new navigation types beyond auto and none, so think about what a different type of view transition could do.

And then onto the CSSWG Minutes:

emilio: Is it useful to differentiate between missing auto or none?

noamr: Yes, very important for forward compat. If one browser adds another type that others don’t have yet, then we want to see that there’s a difference between none or invalid

emilio: But then you get auto behavior?

noamr: No, the unknown value is not read for purpose of nav. It’s a vt role without navigation descriptor and no initial value Similar to having invalid rule

So in future implementations, an invalid navigation descriptor will be ignored, but exactly how is still under debate:

ntim: How is it different from navigation none?

noamr: Auto vs invalid and then auto vs none. None would supersede auto; it has a meaning to not do a nav while invalid is a no-op.

ntim: So none cancels the nav from the prev doc?

noamr: Yes

The none has the intent to cancel any view transitions from a previous document, while an invalid or empty string will be ignored. In the end, it resolved to return an empty string if it’s missing or invalid.

RESOLVED: navigation is a CSSOMString, it returns an empty string when navigation descriptor is missing or invalid

Onto the next item on the agenda. The discussion went into the view-transition-group property and whether it should have an order of precedence. Not to confuse with the pseudo-element of the same name (::view-transition-group) the view-transition-group property was resolved to be added somewhere in the future. As of right now, the tree of pseudo-elements created by view transitions is flattened:

::view-transition
├─ ::view-transition-group(name-1)
│  └─ ::view-transition-image-pair(name-1)
│     ├─ ::view-transition-old(name-1)
│     └─ ::view-transition-new(name-1)
├─ ::view-transition-group(name-2)
│  └─ ::view-transition-image-pair(name-2)
│     ├─ ::view-transition-old(name-2)
│     └─ ::view-transition-new(name-2)
│ /* and so one... */

However, we may want to nest transition groups into each other for more complex transitions, resulting in a tree with ::view-transition-group inside others ::view-transition-group, like the following:

::view-transition
├─ ::view-transition-group(container-a)
│  ├─ ::view-transition-group(name-1)
│  └─ ::view-transition-group(name-2)
└─ ::view-transition-group(container-b)
    ├─ ::view-transition-group(name-1)
    └─ ::view-transition-group(name-2)

So the view-transition-group property was born, or to be precise, it will be at some point in timer. It might look something close to the following syntax if I’m following along correctly:

view-transition-group: normal | <ident> | nearest | contain;

• normal is contained by the root ::view-transition (current behavior).
• <ident> will be contained by an element with a matching view-transition-name
• nearest will be contained by its nearest ancestor with view-transition-name.
• contain will contain all its descendants without changing the element’s position in the tree

The values seem simple, but they can conflict with each other. Imagine the following nested structure:

A  /* view-transition-name: foo */
└─ B /* view-transition-group: contain */
   └─ C /* view-transition-group: foo */

Here, B wants to contain C, but C explicitly says it wants to be contained by A. So, which wins?

vmpstr: Regarding nesting with view-transition-group, it takes keywords or ident. Contain says that all of the view-transition descendants are nested. Ident says same thing but also element itself will nest on the thing with that ident. Question is what happens if an element has a view-transition-group with a custom ident and also has an ancestor set to contain – where do we nest this? the contain one or the one with the ident? noam and I agree that ident should probably win, seems more specific.

<khush>: +1

The conversations continued if there should be a contain keyword that wins over <ident>

emilio: Agree that this seems desirable. Is there any use case for actually enforcing the containment? Do we need a strong contain? I don’t think so?

astearns: Somewhere along the line of adding a new keyword such as contain-idents?

<fantasai>: “contain-all”

emilio: Yeah, like sth to contain everything but needs a use case

But for now, it was set for <ident> to have more specificity than contain

PROPOSED RESOLUTION: idents take precedence over contain in view-transition-group

astearns: objections or concerns or questions?

<fantasai>: just as they do for <ident> values. (which also apply containment, but only to ‘normal’ elements)

RESOLVED: idents take precedence over contain in view-transition-group

Lastly, the main course of the discussion: whether or not some properties should be captured as styles instead of as a snapshot. Right now, view transitions work by taking a snapshot of the “old” view and transitioning to the “new” page. However, not everything is baked into the snapshot; some relevant properties are saved so they can be animated more carefully.

From the spec:

However, properties like mix-blend-mode which define how the element draws when it is embedded can’t be applied to its image. Such properties are applied to the element’s corresponding ::view-transition-group() pseudo-element, which is meant to generate a box equivalent to the element.

In short, some properties that depend on the element’s container are applied to the ::view-transition-group rather than ::view-transition-image-pair(). Since, in the future, we could nest groups inside groups, how we capture those properties has a lot more nuance.

noamr: Biggest issue we want to discuss today, how we capture and display nested components but also applies to non-nested view transition elements derived from the nested conversation. When we nest groups, some CSS properties that were previously not that important to capture are now very important because otherwise it looks broken. Two groups: tree effects like opacity, mask, clip-path, filters, perspective, these apply to entire tree; borders and border-radius because once you have a hierarchy of groups, and you have overflow then the overflow affects the origin where you draw the borders and shadows these also paint after backgrounds

noamr: We see three options.

1. Change everything by default and don’t just capture snapshot but add more things that get captured as ?? instead of a flat snapshot (opacity, filter, transform, bg borders). Will change things because these styles are part of the group but have changed things before (but this is different as it changes observable computed style)
2. Add new property view-transition-style or view-transition-capture-mode. Fan of the first as it reminds me of transform-style.
3. To have this new property but give it auto value. If group contains other groups when you get the new mode so users using nesting get the new mode but can have a property to change the behavior If people want the old crossfade behavior they can always do so by regular DOM nesting

Regarding the first option about changing how all view transitions capture properties by default:

bramus: Yes, this would be breaking, but it would break in a good way. Regarding the name of the property, one of the values proposed is cross-fade, which is a value I wouldn’t recommend because authors can change the animation, e.g. to scale-up/ scale-down, etc. I would suggest a different name for the property, view-transition-capture-mode: flat | layered

Of course, changing how view transitions work is a dilemma to really think about:

noamr: There is some sentiment to 1 but I feel people need to think about this more?

astearns: Could resolve on option 1 and have blink try it out to see how much breakage there is and if its manageable then we’re good and come back to this. Would be resolving one 1 unless it’s not possible. I’d rather not define a new capture mode without a switch

…so the best course of action was to gather more data and decide:

khush: When we prototype we’ll find edge cases. We will take those back to the WG in that case. Want to get this right

noamr: It involves a lot of CSS props. Some of them are captured and not painted, while others are painted. The ones specifically would all be specified

After some more discussion, it was resolved to come back with compat data from browsers, you can read the full minutes at W3C.org. I bet there are a lot of interesting things I missed, so I encourage you to read it.

RESOLVED: Change the capture mode for all view-transitions and specify how each property is affected by this capture mode change

RESOLVED: Describe categorization of properties in the Module Interactions sections of each spec

RESOLVED: Blink will experiment and come back with changes needed if there are compat concerns

CSSWG Minutes Telecon (2024-08-21) originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

One of the most important early design decisions you will make is what kind of background will carry a project. Should it be a single color, colorless, use trendy elements such as geometric shapes, gradients, or wood grain patterns? Or would a solid background design can help make a project shine?

Staying on trend with background design styles is important as well. A trendy background choice shows that a website design is modern and the content is new. A modern visual framework can even signal a user that you are thinking about their needs and making the most of the tools that will make their experience better.

So how do you do it? Here’s a look at background design trends and styles, with a few great options to try.

Muted Colors

Background designs have changed significantly over the years. Back in the day, most backgrounds, especially on websites, were all about chaotic images, vivid colors, and distracting videos.

Today, most backgrounds aim to create a calm and soothing environment to showcase content more efficiently. And the new muted colors trend is one of the most effective styles you can use to create such backgrounds as it allows you to create beautifully soft and calming backgrounds for all kinds of designs.

One To Try

Creating a muted color background is easy. All you have to do is pick a color that matches your branding design. But to add a bit more style and make it look less bland, you can use a texture that blends well with muted colors, like this gray stone texture pack.

Retro and Vintage Vibes

A classic vintage vibe never goes out of style. Many web designers and graphic designers have been using this trend to their advantage as it’s a background style that often highlights elegance and class.

Featuring aged effects, rough textures, and art deco styles, vintage background designs are perfect for creating a bold look for branding designs as well as high-end website designs.

However, when it comes to more playful and creative projects, a retro-inspired background full of neon colors and 80s vibes is the best approach.

One To Try

Creating a vintage background with a rust and weather effect takes some effort. This bundle of vintage grunge backgrounds will help you save time. Use it to create a gritty background for your digital and print designs.

Hand-Drawn Elements

The background of a design plays a key role in creating a more personal look that not only adds a human touch but also evokes emotions in the audience. Adding creative, hand-drawn elements to a background is an effective way to achieve that goal.

Adding subtle brush strokes, playful sketches, illustrations, and icons allows you to make your backgrounds more unique and alter the overall look of the design in a positive way to make them stand out from the crowd.

One To Try

The best way to recreate this background trend is to craft unique hand-drawn elements on your own. But that could be difficult when you’re working on multiple projects. In such cases, use some items from this 200+ abstract shapes collection.

Gradient Meshes

One of the most mesmerizing background trends in website design is the colorful and creative gradient mesh design. These backgrounds feature interactive designs with gradients that change colors as you move your mouse cursor around.

This background style not only gives your website a vibrant and attractive feel but also makes it much easier to highlight the content above all else. That’s part of why this trend has been quite popular recently and we will likely see more of it throughout this year.

One To Try

You’ll need some CSS skills to recreate this style of interactive gradient meshes for websites. However, if you’re looking to add a static gradient effect, use some of the vibrant gradient backgrounds in this bundle.

Repeated Typography

Backgrounds with repeated text and titles are a new trend we’ve been seeing lately. It’s a popular trend used by web designers but it’s also often used in posters, flyers, and even social media designs as well.

Using this trend requires careful thought and planning as it makes things more difficult to create a background that doesn’t steal the attention from the content. To make it less distracting, you can adapt creative methods like using glitch effects, transparent text, and outline fonts.

One To Try

The repeated typography effect is easy to create but it would take time. The best approach is to use a pattern creator Photoshop plugin like this one. It allows you to easily create patterns from layers.

Glass Blur Effect

Adding a subtle glass blur effect to a background may look simple, but it has many benefits. It not only adds depth to the overall design but also makes it much easier to create contrast between the background and the text.

The glass blur background effect works perfectly with both image and gradient color backgrounds. However, it’s much more effective when used with gradient color backgrounds as it helps create a subtle glass-like aesthetic look for websites and graphic designs.

One To Try

Applying a simple Gaussian blur effect to an image won’t help you recreate this design style. You’ll need a glass blur effect for this one. The easiest way to create this effect is to use a glass blur Photoshop template and apply it directly to your background image.

Split Background

The split background design trend differs from the popular split website layout trend. This trend involves creating backgrounds that are split into multiple sections.

But it’s not just about adding two images side by side or using two different colors. It’s about creating balance and separating sections more innovatively.

In the above example, the website uses a slider that you can move around to change the divider, which is quite interesting for boosting engagement as well.

One To Try

The best way to create this effect is to use CSS. But you can also start with a split layout template like this split homepage template for Adobe XD.

Fun Illustrations

One of the best ways to create emotionally engaging and memorable website designs is to use fun illustrations. We see handcrafted illustrations on almost every website these days but most of them are quite random and chaotic. When used properly, the illustrations give a unique personality to each and every design.

The trick is to make the illustrations fun and relatable in a subtle way. Of course, it has to blend with your overall design and theme as well.

Some websites and brands also use illustrations as a way to convey their messages in visual form. And they also use fun characters and mascots to make more memorable designs. But for backgrounds, a big, fun, and creative illustration will do the trick.

One To Try

You don’t always have to handcraft illustrations. A good illustration pack will give you plenty of options to choose from.

Glowing Effect

The neon glowing effect is something that always grabs your attention. It often works perfectly for adding a dark and moody vibe to the overall look of the design. The glowing background effect uses a similar approach but without the classic retro neon colors.

The soft, luminous light effect also creates depth and contrast between the content and the background. You’ll see this style used more commonly on technology-themed designs.

This background style works perfectly for product landing pages and for promotional adverts like flyers and posters. It creates a bright and bold look while bringing all the attention to the main content.

One To Try

The abstract modern backgrounds is a collection of high-resolution backgrounds that includes 15 different styles of images featuring glowing effects.

Grainy Textures

The grainy texture background style succeeds beautifully when it comes to adding a tactile feel to website designs. It creates a unique handcrafted look to digital designs with its sandy and organic textures.

The main goal of using this background style is to give a more natural, rugged, and raw look to your designs. It’s also perfect for creating a retro and nostalgic look for your digital and print designs, especially for brands that seek to achieve a more grounded aesthetic.

One To Try

You can use this grainy fabric effect Photoshop template to easily apply a grainy texture effect to your background images.

3D Illustration

Three-dimensional anything is a big trend this year. Illustrations with a 3D feel are funky and light for a design that has a certain feel.

The trick to this background style is to pick 3D elements that really work with your content. Illustrations can be a full scene or use 3D icons that create texture or a sort of repeating pattern.

This style emits a certain feel from the get-go. It is lighter and less serious than some other styles, so you want to make sure you are using it with just the right type of content. Otherwise, you could end up with an odd disconnect.

Create your own illustrations or find a UI kit with the elements you need. Add another level of visual interest with a touch of animation, such as the example above.

One To Try

Emoticon 3D Illustration is a fun option with big faces that you can drop in a background grid or with a more random placement.

Pastel Gradient

A pastel gradient background can be soft or brilliant, but the trend is leaning more toward softer hues and subtle graduation of color.

What’s nice about this type of background is that it adds visual interest with an element of depth. The style can work with any type of content and almost every brand color combination, making it a super practical option if you want to refresh your website design.

One To Try

1000 Square Patterns includes plenty of fun repeating elements in a gradient style that can add depth to any website background.

Video

Background video is becoming more common in website design projects. Think of this as b-roll or video that’s more for visual purposes than storytelling.

Motion can help keep attention on a design a little longer or create interest with content that might be lacking visual spunk.

If you click through the example above, it uses two layers of animation – video in the background and moving text in the foreground to create a fun display with a lot of impact. The video background is a stylish contributor to this aesthetic.

One To Try

Gold Modern Business Video Background has simple motion that can work in any space.

Light Shapes

Geometric shapes can be a nice addition as a subtle layer behind other elements in a website design. Elements with thin lines and not a lot of color will create something that’s visually interesting and does not get in the way of the rest of the design.

You can take these effects to another level by using them in similar ways throughout the design and ensuring the shape and style that you use are relevant to the website content as a whole.

Don’t be afraid to use them in multiple ways as well, such as reversed out, with super subtle color, or slight animations. It’s all about creating the right feel for the design with an extra element to engage in the background.

One To Try

Simple Laine Handdrawn Patterns has thin lines that fit this design trend perfectly. Play around with size and placement to make it work for you.

Layered Background Image

This is a background trend that we didn’t expect – photo backgrounds behind other layers, including text, other images, or videos.

These images tend to be wide-angle, easy-to -understand images that set the stage for the content on the website. They are most valuable when they provide extra information to make everything easier to understand. The challenge is that they can clutter or overwhelm the design if not done well.

Look for images that you can fade easily and content that’s easy to understand at a glance. Generally, the best options pull from the overall website color palette or include a lot of unused space that fades from one part of the background to another.

One To Try

Beautiful Seascape is an example of a photo background that could work because it just establishes a sense of location and the color could be muted, if necessary. For this design trend, an image that helps create a locational element can be helpful.

Three-Dimensional Feel

Three-dimensional and tactile backgrounds draw users in because they look and feel like something real. Users can almost dive into the design and be part of what they are seeing on the screen, and there’s a strong visual appeal to that.

The modern 3D background trend is more than just shadows and shapes for depth. They also include animation and texture that enhance the realistic vibe.

The key to making a 3D background work is it has to be believable, meaning the effect replicates reality, or it has to be so far-fetched that it is obviously imaginary. There’s a delicate line there that takes practice to do exceptionally well.

One To Try

Abstract 3D Background mixes depth effects with motion for a groovy background. The elements of motion can add to a 3D background, but you have to be careful so that you don’t end up with a dizzying effect.

Layered Elements

Background and foreground elements no longer have to be completely separated on the screen. The merging of background pieces with other parts of the design can create amazing depth, contribute to a three-dimensional effect (as featured above), and help users feel like part of the design.

This background trend is an extension of merging illustration and reality in imagery that we saw trending in 2020 and 2021. Now the trend seems to be more focused on geometric shapes and color with image layers to create this depth effect in a way that’s less cartoonish.

Bright color choices can help propel these designs forward with extra elements of visual interest with shadows or other depth-building techniques.

One To Try

Background Abstract Landing Page is a good starter to create this effect. To get just the right layering of shapes and elements, start with a background element that contains shapes that you like and then add images to the mix.

Liquid Backgrounds

Liquid backgrounds are increasingly popular because they are just so visually interesting.

You might find them in one of two ways:

• As a subtle liquid image behind other elements
• As a flowing animation in the background

Both concepts are neat to look at and even in a still liquid background, it evokes feelings of motion. The waterlike feel of a liquid animation or background often has a somewhat calming effect as well because of the natural flow on the screen.

One To Try

Liquid Backgrounds includes high-resolution backgrounds in a few color schemes. Each has an interesting texture and could work at fully saturated color or muted.

Photos with an Overlay

Background images never seem to get old and designers are playing with different ways to add contrast to images with overlays and effects that bring the whole scene together.

Overlays are interesting because there are so many different ways to do it, from full-color screens to partial overlays to adding color and other design elements on top of images.

The real key to making a photo overlay background work is using enough color to make foreground elements highly visible without hiding too much of the background image.

One To Try

Epic Photo Overlays includes some trend overlay options that both darken images and provide a dreamy effect. (This is popular on social media and starting to creep into more web projects as well.)

Thick Transparencies

In stark contrast, the trend above is using thick color transparency over an image or video. While this effect creates a lot of contrast, it almost renders the background image unreadable.

And that’s what the designer is trying to accomplish with this look. It works best in instances where artwork isn’t strong and primarily serves to provide additional texture so that the background isn’t just a solid color block.

Take care with images or videos used behind thick transparency. They shouldn’t be so interesting that people try to understand them. These images should fade into the background with ease.

One To Try

APPO 3.0 template is designed for presentations but shows what you can do with a thick transparency. Take your color or gradient way up to enhance text elements in the foreground.

Watercolors

Watercolor backgrounds are a new take on illustrations and scenes in website design. This trend includes anything that has a bit of a hand-painted texture to it.

What’s nice about watercolors – and likely what makes them popular – is that the style has a certain softness to it that some harsher background options lack. Watercolor also has an authentic feel that communicates the uniqueness of the content you are about to explore.

Finally, watercolor styles emanate a bit of whimsy. This concept seems to be a design feeling that more projects are trying to replicate right now.

One To Try

Watercolor Backgrounds with Modern Shapes combines a couple of trends – watercolor texture with geometric shapes. The result is pretty stunning and this set of files can help you set the scene for a variety of projects.

Full Screen Video

Video has been a go-to background design element for a couple of years, but it’s being reinvented somewhat with this trend: full-screen background video.

Responsive shapes are allowing designers to scale video to fill the landing screen. Like the example above, this trend focuses on the video with minimal effects and elements surrounding it.

The almost cinematic experience draws users in and can be highly engaging with the right video clip. To make the most of this background design trend, look for a video that has a lot of movement and action.

Options To Try

Envato Elements has a solid collection of stock video – more than 500,000 clips – if you need to jumpstart a video background and don’t have anything to work with.

Text in the Background

You might not think about text as a background element, but it can be.

Powerful typefaces with big words can carry the background with image elements surrounding them or even encroaching into the space.

This might be one of the trickiest background trends to pull off because you need to maintain a balance between lettering, images, and responsiveness all while maintaining readability.

One To Try

Boxer Typeface is a funky, slab display typeface that’s almost made for background use thanks to thick lines.

Subtle Textures

Subtle textures in the background can add depth and dimension to a project.

There are all kinds of texture patterns to try, but the dominant trend seems to be specks (most commonly white) over a solid color.

This style of texture provides a rough element to the background and adds a feeling that the design isn’t overly polished. The best part of this trend might be that it works with practically anything and you can even partner it with other background trends. (The example above uses video and texture.)

One To Try

Procreate Texture Brushes is a cool add-on packed with subtle sand textures for users of the iPad app.

Hover Animation

Who said background images have to be static?

Perfectly placed hover actions add the right amount of movement to otherwise static backgrounds. This technique works with photos, illustrations, and even patterns or textures.

The trick is that it adds an unexpected element of delight to the user experience. Until the hover action presents itself, users don’t even know it is there.

To make the most of this background trend, create a subtle bit of motion. In the example above, the image has a little bounce when activated.

One To Try

Animative is a collection of image hover effects that you can use on your website.

Layered, Scene Illustrations

Another background trend that’s evolving is the use of illustrations. While designers have used illustrations in the background for quite some time, these illustrations are more elaborate with layered scenes and even some animation.

An illustration can be attention-grabbing and memorable. The thing that’s difficult about an illustration is that these background designs can be rather busy, and you’ll have to carefully plan the placement and style of other elements.

The use of the illustration in the example above is almost perfect. With an off-center placement and hints of animation, it complements the text and the rest of the design well.

One To Try

Creative Flat Design Business Concept has a trending flat design with a color palette and styles that are highly usable. The creator has multiple illustration options available in this style.

Color Block Layers

Color blocking has been a design trend that transcends disciplines. You’ll find it in fashion, home décor, and website design.

What’s great about this style for design backgrounds is that it can be bright, and with layering, visually interesting. It works with a variety of color palettes – which can be great for brands – and doesn’t create a background that’s overly complex or difficult to achieve.

Use a color-blocked layer with a bright or light background and then add a second “background” in another color. You can see this in the portfolio website example above with a white background and then individual elements in blue boxes.

Flat Color

One of the parts of flat design that have never really gone away is the colors of the style. These colors are coming back around as background colors.

Not only is the style to use bolder hues for the background, but to use them flatly. No gradients, no variation, just a solid color background in a single hue.

These backgrounds often have realistic layers on top and sometimes a border or another background behind them to create depth. (You can see this full effect from the example above with white edging around a beige background with an image on top.)

Geometric Shapes

Circles, polygons, and other geometric elements are a big part of background design in 2021.

The shapes can be reminiscent of childhood or just a fun alternative to all the flat, single-color backgrounds that had been previously trending. For a modern flair on geometry, stick to a monotone color palette and use elements with a lot of contrast to make the most of the background.

These background styles can be somewhat flashy, such as the example above, or include a muted color palette with subtle geometric undertones.

One To Try

Linear Shadow Backgrounds includes 10 large and small geo (or poly) shapes with fun colors and gradients.

Line Patterns

From subtle curves to bold strokes, line patterns are growing in popularity as a background design element.

What makes lines work is that they mean something. The best line patterns help draw the user into the design and lead the eye to other visual elements, such as the custom line pattern in the example above.

Line patterns can be large or tiny, and both can be effective depending on the goals of your project.

One To Try

Engraved Vector Patterns includes 16 repeat patterns for backgrounds. The kit includes almost any line style you might like with straight lines, blocks and curved lines. (Repeating patterns are nice because you don’t have to worry about “seams” where patterns meet.)

Gradients

If you are at all like me, then you are one of those designers that truly has a love affair with gradients. (I can’t get enough of them.)

This trend is so flexible with background gradients that are only color, background gradients that overlay an image or video, or even animated background gradients that change color or seem to float across the design.

With so many options, it’s almost certain that you can find a workable solution that works with your color palette and design scheme.

Bubbles and Blobs

While bubbles and blobs might resemble geometric shapes, they are often different in that many of these elements include some motion and the shapes are rather imperfect.

This trend tends to work in two ways as a background element:

• As an actual background with bubble or blob-shaped elements that are there only for visual interest or to add a little color to the overall design.
• As a “foreground” background element, such as the example above. Bubbles and blobs are often moving shapes that float up through the design to create a more layered effect but are “background elements” because they serve no functional role other than to help grab user attention.

One To Try

Vintage Bubble Backgrounds has a true-to-life bubble style appeal, with 10 faded bubble images.

Wood Grain

Woodgrain backgrounds are popular when it comes to product photography and scene-style designs.

Both work well with this element because the wood grain background provides a natural setting that isn’t flat. It’s interesting, but not overwhelming. It provides an interesting location to help bring focus to the thing sitting in the background.

To make the most of wood grain styles, try to match the coloring of wood to foreground elements and look for planks that are wide or thin based on foreground elements as well. Try to avoid elements that fall into the “cracks” between planks.

One To Try

Wooden Backgrounds includes 10 different options with color and lighting changes with images that are more than 3,000 pixels wide.

White and Gray

Light-colored – white and gray – backgrounds are a trend that continues to hang on. Mostly derived from the minimalism trend, these backgrounds are simple and easy on the user. They provide ample space and contrast for other elements on the screen.

Most white and gray backgrounds have some element of texture, such as a pale gradient, use of shadows to create separation with foreground elements, or some sort of overall pattern or texture.

One To Try

Showcase Backgrounds includes 12 background images with a light color scheme with only white a pale gray, making these a perfect fade-into-the-distance design option.

Conclusion

Change up an old design with a new background. Something as simple as changing the look of the design canvas can refresh a project.

Look for something with a touch of trendiness to add a more modern touch to your design. Plus, all of the “one to try” options above are ready to download and use.