Design a Spirit Day Seamless Pattern in Adobe Illustrator

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What You'll Be Creating

This year, Spirit Day falls on 15 October. 

Millions go purple on Spirit Day in a stand against bullying and to show their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth. 

Observed annually since 2010, individuals, schools, organizations, corporations, and public figures wear purple, which symbolizes 'spirit' on the rainbow flag.

Follow along with this tutorial and create a vivid seamless pattern with fancy flat elements, symbolizing love and friendship and dedicated to GLAAD’s Spirit Day. We’ll be using basic shapes and warp effects, creating the objects and then combining them into an intricate texture, using the Pattern Tool and some other editing tools. Let’s get started!

1. Make a Coffee Cup

Step 1

To start with, let’s make a nice purple background for our future pattern. 

Create a New Document of 400 x 400 px size. Take the Rectangle Tool (M) and make a rectangle of the same size as our Artboard (400 x 400 px), filling it with vivid purple color.

Step 2

Let’s start forming a plastic cup of coffee from a rectangle of 65 x 100 px.

Step 3

We need to make the bottom part of the cup narrower. Take the Direct Selection Tool (A) and select the lower left anchor point. Hit the Enter key to open the Moveoptions window and set the Horizontal value to 5 px, Vertical value to 0 px. ClickOK to move the point 5 px to the right.

Repeat the same for the bottom right anchor point, but this time set the Horizontalmove value to -5 px, thus moving the point to the left.

Step 4

Now let’s add a cap by forming an 80 x 15 px rectangle on top of the cup. And another rectangle above, of 70 x 10 px size. Select all three shapes and head to theAlign panel. Select Align to Key Object and click Horizontal Align Center to align the shapes.

Step 5

Let’s add a paper stripe around the cup. Put a rectangle across the base of the cup. Keeping the shape selected, go to Effect > Warp > Arc and set the Horizontal Bend value to -10% by moving the slider to the right, making the shape slightly bent.

Step 6

Object > Expand Appearance of the paper stripe to apply the Arc effect. Then select both the arched stripe and the cup base, take the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M) and delete the unneeded pieces outside the cup by clicking them, while holding down the Alt key.

Step 7

Let’s modify the base of the cup as well. Select it and apply the Arc effect with -5% Horizontal Bend value. Object > Expand Appearance of the cup.

Step 8

Great, now the bottom of the cup is slightly arched, but we need to make its top part straight again. Select the cup and take the Scissors Tool (C). Click the upper left and upper right anchor points of the cup base, cutting off the top line. Then just delete the unneeded line.

Step 9

Let’s add a coffee-bean label to our cup. Start by making a 30 x 35 px ellipse using the Ellipse Tool (L). Then arm yourself with the Pencil Tool (N) and draw a wavy vertical line across the ellipse. Select both shapes and use the Divide function of thePathfinder panel to split the ellipse apart. Finally, select the right part of the shape and move it a few pixels to the right, using the right arrow key of your keyboard.

Step 10

Finish up with the cup by placing the coffee bean in the center of the paper stripe for the logotype.

Great! Let’s move to the next element of our future pattern.

2. Create a Love Letter Envelope

Step 1

Start forming the envelope by making an 80 x 55 px rectangle and creating a copy on top of it (Control-C > Control-F). 

Select the top copy and go to Object > Path > Add Anchor Points to create additional anchor points on each side of the rectangle.

Step 2

Take the Delete Anchor Point Tool (-) and delete the bottom left and bottom right anchor points, leaving the one in the center, thus forming an upside down triangle. Select the bottom anchor point of the triangle with the Direct Selection Tool (A) and drag the point up, squashing the shape.

Step 3

Let’s form a heart-shaped seal for our envelope. 

Make circle of about a 20 x 20 px size, using the Ellipse Tool (L) and holding down the Shift key. Select the bottom anchor point with the Direct Selection Tool (A) andConvert it to corner with the help of the Convert function in the top control panel, making the bottom of the shape pointed.

Now select the upper anchor point with the Direct Selection Tool (A). Switch to theAnchor Point Tool (Shift-C) and drag the anchor handles up, creating a V-like shape. Drag the top anchor point down, squashing the shape and thus forming a stylized heart. 

Step 4

Seal our love letter by placing the heart stamp in the center of the envelope.

Step 5

Use the same heart shape to make additional elements, which will later help us to fill the blank spaces of our pattern. The winged heart is a simple combination of the created shape and a group of rounded rectangles, made with the Rounded Rectangle Tool (it is located in the same drop-down menu as the Rectangle Tool (M) in the Tools panel).

3. Make a Yummy Apple

Step 1

Take the Ellipse Tool (L) and start forming the apple from a 75 x 75 px circle. Select the upper anchor point with the Direct Selection Tool (A) and drag it down, making the top of the shape flatter. 

Step 2

Use the Anchor Point Tool (Shift-C) to position the handles of the top anchor point, dragging them up. And do the same for the handles of the lower anchor point, dragging them down, making them look like an upside-down letter V.

Finally, select both side anchor points and move them up a little, using the up arrow key, thus making the bottom part of the apply narrower.

If you want to make sure that you move the anchor handles symmetrically, use theGuides, which will help you to align the tips of the handles. Turn on the Rulers (Control-R) and simply drag the Guides down to your Artboard from the upper ruler. Then you can easily remove the unneeded guide if you select and delete it, or clear the guides in View > Guides > Clear Guides.

Step 3

Now let’s form the leaf from a small, even circle. Select the top and bottom anchor points of the circle and Convert them to corners with the help of the Convertfunction in the top control panel. Squash the shape, making it thinner, and rotate the leaf, placing it above the left half of the apple.

Add a stylized dimple to the apple by making an arched line with the Pencil Tool (N).

Step 4

Finally, add a stem to our apple. 

Form a small vertical stripe with the Rectangle Tool (M) and make its bottom part narrower by moving the bottom anchor points closer to the center of the shape with the help of the arrow keys.

Attach the stem to the apple and get ready for the next element of our pattern!

4. Form a Shiny Diamond

Step 1

Make a 75 x 18 px rectangle. Duplicate the shape (Control-C > Control-F), grab the upper edge of the rectangle with the Selection Tool (V) by clicking and holding, and drag it down, forming a bigger rectangle beneath the first one.

Step 2

Keeping the bigger shape selected, go to Object > Path > Add Anchor Points. Select the Delete Anchor Point Tool (-) and delete the lower left and lower right anchor points, forming an upside-down triangle.

Step 3

Now let’s modify the upper part of the diamond. Select the top left anchor point with the Direct Selection Tool (A) and press Enter to open the Move menu. Move the point 10 px to the right by setting the Horizontal value to 10 px and Vertical value to 0 px. Do the same for the top right anchor point, moving it in the opposite direction by setting the Horizontal value to -10 px.

Step 4

Now let’s depict the facets of the diamond. Take the Pen Tool (P) and make a short line, parallel to the left side of the top shape. Continue the line, attaching it to the bottom point of the diamond. 

Press P again to start a new line and draw a straight vertical line in the middle of the diamond, holding down the Shift key.

Finally, select the first facet line and double-click the Reflect Tool (O). In the Reflectoptions menu, select the Vertical Axis and click Copy to make a mirrored copy of the line. Place the copy at the right part of the diamond, making a symmetrical shape.

Step 5

Let’s make our diamond shine! Draw three vertical lines on top of the diamond andGroup (Control-G) them. Align the lines to the diamond horizontally, using the Alignpanel.

Select the lines, take the Rotate Tool (R), hold down Alt and click in the center of the diamond to place a pivot point. Release the mouse key to open the Rotatemenu. From here, set the Angle to 360/30. This way Adobe Illustrator will automatically calculate the needed angle value for 30 copies, so no need to set the angle by guesswork. Click the Copy button to make a rotated copy.

And, finally, press Control-D multiple times to create all 30 copies, depicting a stylized shiny effect.

Great work! Let’s move on.

5. Draw a Vintage Key

Step 1

Let’s start forming the key from its top decorative part. Make a circle of 30 x 30 pxand place a smaller one inside, creating a ring. Select both shapes and use theMinus Front function of Pathfinder to cut out the inner circle, making a hole in the ring. You won’t notice any difference right now, but you will see the result of this operation a few steps later, when we’ll be coloring our objects.

Make two more copies of the ring and combine them into an intricate composition, placing one circle on top of two others and making them overlap.

Step 2

Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool to make a long, narrow shaft for the key. Add two smaller rounded rectangles at the bottom of the shaft, placing them horizontally. Then select all the rounded rectangles and Unite them in Pathfinder, merging them into a single shape.

And that’s all for the key! Let’s make the next item!

6. Create a Music Note

Step 1

Take the Rectangle Tool (M) and start forming the note from a 30 x 10 px rectangle for its top horizontal part, which is called "the beam".

Make a thin vertical stripe for the stem of the note. Select both shapes and click the beam while holding down Alt to make it a Key Object. Head to the Align panel and align the stem to the left side of the beam.

Add another stem in the right side of the note, aligning it to the right side of the beam.

Finally, attach two 15 x 15 px circles to the bottom of the stems, forming the so-called “heads” of the note.

Step 2

Let’s skew our note a little. Take the Direct Selection Tool (A) and select the whole right side of the note by clicking and dragging the selection frame above the needed part of the object. 

Hold down the left mouse key and move the selected part of the note up, making the shape skewed. 

Awesome! Let’s continue and color our objects!

7. Apply Bright Colors to the Created Items

Step 1

We’ll be using a limited range of colors for our palette, consisting only of purple and yellow colors and their lighter and darker shades.

Apply the colors to the cup, and let’s make it a bit more detailed. Select the base of the cup and go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Set the Offset to -5 px, creating an additional shape inside the cup. Fill it with lighter yellow color, adding dimension to our flat cup.

Step 2

Now let’s color the envelope, using the same technique to make it more detailed. Use the Offset Path function to make additional shapes inside the rectangle base and inside the heart stamp.

As for the top triangle part of the envelope, duplicate it (Control-C > Control-F) and move the copy up a bit. Then select both triangles and use the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M), holding down Alt to delete the unwanted piece outside the envelope. 

Step 3

Let’s move to our diamond and make the facet lines a bit thicker, setting the Strokeweight to 4 pt in the top control panel. Object > Expand Appearance to turn the lines into objects. Color the base of the diamond with yellow shades and apply a very dark-brown color to the facet lines. Set the Blending Mode to Screen, thus making the facet lines semi-transparent.

Step 4

Color other items of our set, using the Offset Path function and adding minor details, such as tiny circle highlights, making the elements look fancy.

8. Render a Fancy Seamless Pattern

Step 1

Now that all the items are ready, let’s combine them into an intricate seamless texture!

Let’s hide the Artboard for a while in View > Hide Artboards (Control-H), so that nothing distracts us from our pattern. Select all the elements and go to Object > Pattern > Make.

Step 2

Now that you’ve entered pattern creation mode, head to the Pattern Optionswindow and set the Width and Height of the Tile to 400 x 400 px (which is equal to the size of our Artboard). Leave all other options as default (make sure that the Tile Type is set to Grid).

Start placing the objects inside the Tile Edge, rotating them and combining them into a nice balanced composition with no gaps or blank spaces.

Step 3

Set the Copies value to 7 x 7 in the Pattern Options menu and zoom out to have an overall look at your pattern. The dimmed copies around the Tile edges will help you to find the empty spots and minor flaws, as you move the objects around. Those copies will move together with your real elements, showing a live preview.

Step 4

Finally, when you’re happy with the composition, return to normal mode by double-clicking anywhere outside the Tile Edge. Now you can find the pattern you created in the Swatches panel. Let’s apply it to a shape!

Switch the Artboard back again in View > Show Artboards (Control-H). Select the purple background rectangle that we made in our very first step, and resize it to 800 x 600 px in the control panel on top. Create a copy on top (Control-C > Control-F)and apply our seamless pattern by selecting it from the Swatches panel.

Step 5

Let’s make some final adjustments!

Firstly, we’ll make the scale of the elements a bit smaller. Keeping the pattern shape selected, double-click the Scale Tool (S) to open the Scale options window. Set the Uniform value to 75% and uncheck all the boxes, except for the Transform Patterns checkbox. Click OK to apply the changes.

Step 6

Now double-click the Rotate Tool (R) and from here, set the Angle to 20 degrees. Check only the Transform Patterns box and click OK.

Go Purple for Spirit Day!

Great job! Our intricate seamless pattern for Spirit Day is ready! I hope you’ve enjoyed following this tutorial and learned some new tips and tricks about forming the objects from basic shapes and combining them into a texture.

Have fun, be creative, and don’t forget to check out some other tutorials dedicated to Spirit Day:

• Transform a Stock Photo Into an Airbrushed and Stenciled Illustration in Adobe Photoshop 
• Create a Purple Monochrome Portrait for Spirit Day in Adobe Illustrator

by Yulia Sokolova

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How Tech Firms are Becoming More Diverse by Changing the Way They Recruit

Recently I wrote about the gender imbalance in the tech industry, and made some practical suggestions as to what we can all do to change that. One of the areas I covered was recruitment: if you're an employer, it's important to review your recruitment and employment practices to ensure you're not just attracting the same kind of people all the time.

Many tech employers, from giants to startups, are determined to make their companies more reflective of their customer and user base, and are changing the way they attract applicants and the recruitment processes those applicants have to go through.

This isn't about positive action: I'm not talking about introducing quotas or lowering standards in order to become more diverse. Instead, it's about recognising that by even indirectly discouraging underrepresented sections of the community from working for them, employers are missing out on a huge talent pool. 

More companies are complaining of a skills shortage as the demand for talented workers in the tech industry continues growing. These firms know they have access to a bigger talent pool if they ensure their recruitment practices aren't biased in any way.

Companies also know that there are business benefits by being more diverse: if your employees are customer facing, it helps if they're as representative of the customers as possible. A McKinsey study found that more diverse companies tend to be higher performing. Apple products, for example, aren't used exclusively by young white men: but most Apple store staff are young white men, and Apple wants to change that because they know it helps them to attract a broader customer base.

In this article I'll outline some of the steps employers are taking to increase the diversity of their employees, and I won't limit this analysis to gender diversity: a commitment to diversity is about something much broader than that, and isn't just about putting people into groups either. It can also be about recruiting people with a different mindset from existing employees, people who don't fit the company mould: something which many employers know can help them be more innovative and keep up with change.

I'm going to look at:

• Job titles: how employers are recognising that the name you give a job can affect who applies for it.
• Adverts: taking care in how they're worded.
• The recruitment process: making it as accessible as possible and ensuring it uses objective measures.
• Company culture: reducing the emphasis on cultural fit when recruiting and ensuring your culture doesn't exclude people.
• Location and hours: adopting more flexible practices to attract people with disabilities, caring commitments or who don't work in a location with lots of tech firms.
• Public perception: recognising that advertising, marketing and stores will influence people's perception of a company as a place to work.
• Outreach: how employers are reaching out to communities and encouraging young people to consider them as a future employer.

Ensuring Job Titles Apply to Everyone

For most people working in tech, their job title is something they don't give much thought to: some companies use very generic ones, others (especially the public sector in the UK) use odd ones that mean very little, and yet other employers, especially startups, do without them altogether.

But when you're placing a recruitment advert, a job titles will give potential applicants a quick idea of what the job involves and whether they'd be qualified to apply. Many people read no further than the job title.

Buffer discovered that by including the word 'hacker' in many of their job titles, they were putting women off applying for those jobs: only 2% of applicants were women. So they started an internal dialogue of how they might change their job titles. As they explain on their blog:

Through lots of discussion, we generally agreed that engineer sounded neutral, and developer sounded the friendliest, clearest and most inclusive of all.

So the word 'hacker' was replaced by the word 'developer' in their job titles. While their development team remains their least diverse team according to their diversity dashboard, it does now include 10% women, which is significant progress from 2% of applicants.

Buffer's diversity dashboard makes its progress on diversity public

Job Adverts

There's evidence that most tech job recruitment ads tend to include language that people perceive as masculine. This results in a subliminal message that can discourage women from applying. However the same research shows that if you use more inclusive, feminine language, it doesn't put men off applying: they'll still apply in the same numbers. What will happen is that more women will apply: some simple math tells you that this gives you more candidates and a broader recruitment pool, which can be no bad thing. 

Unitive is a startup founded to help tech firms adopt recruitment practices to enhance their diversity, including reviewing the language used in job adverts. It focuses on removing unconscious bias in all aspects of the recruitment process, including the words used in adverts. In an interview with CCN its founder Laura Mather said that many job adverts "project a 'brogrammer' culture".

Their software identifies words with male bias in job adverts so that recruiters can change the language to be more inclusive. So an advert requiring a 'driven, go-getting' individual, for example, could be edited to use words like 'excellent' and 'dedicated'.

Unitive was founded to help tech firms become more diverse.

Again this doesn't mean lowering standards or not seeking applicants with the skills you need: it just means using words that still describe what's required but in a way which won't exclude women.

The Recruitment Process

If you're applying for a job in a tech firm, you'll find that there's quite a range of recruitment procedures. This ranges from the traditional face-to-face interview to remote project-based assessment and everything in between.

Tech firms, especially startups, tend to be more innovative than other industries when it comes to recruitment practices. It's more common for recruitment to be conducted entirely remotely, as so many firms have dispersed teams. For example at Automattic the recruitment process is all done remotely using text: you won't be expected to have a Skype call at 3 AM with someone the other side of the world. That's not a bad thing, as I don't imagine any of us would perform at our best in those circumstances! Buffer employ a recruitment process that includes a 'boot camp': a trial period where you work on a specific project. Both firms base hiring decisions on seeing your work instead of the more traditional method of asking you to sell yourself to them.

British hosting company Bytemark Hosting has adopted an even more radical approach: it makes its recruitment anonymous to reduce bias. On their website they say:

Have you ever thought your chances of being hired were affected by something ... other than your ability to do the job? Hiring biases are real and they are ugly. We don't even trust ourselves to avoid them.

Bytemark has an innovative way of reducing bias in recruitment.

This level of honesty led them to change their recruitment process in early 2015, replacing phone calls or face to face chats in the early stages of their recruitment process with anonymous text-based interviews using online chat. If you pass this stage you'll complete an online challenge designed to let you showcase your skills: again this removes bias. It's only at the final stage of interviews that you'll actually meet someone from Bytemark.

I spent 15 years working in Human Resources and this runs counter to the perception of so many hiring managers that they just 'know' when they've met the right candidate. An attitude like this leads to companies recruiting in their own image: hiring managers will recruit people they 'click' with, who it's not unreasonable to assume will probably be like them in terms of gender, race, sexuality and disability status, not to mention personality. In my experiences hiring managers relying on intuitive decisions like this made a lot of mistakes they later come to regret!

Company Culture

It's common for tech firms to require new employees to fit in with the existing culture: Google even goes so far as to state that one of the traits it looks for is 'Googleyness'.

But there's evidence that companies who repeatedly recruit people in the same mould struggle to become more diverse and might even suffer in other ways, as they fail to attract people with new ideas and ways of thinking.

In an article in Forbes, Micha Solomon outlines the disadvantages of recruiting to a 'mould':

Whatever particular culture fit strategy you pursue, to succeed you need to make room for diverse backgrounds, interests, work and learning styles, and need for work/life balance rather than endless happy hours with the boss and the “team.”

For many hiring managers, identifying people who fit with the firm's culture actually becomes identifying people who they get along with during the interview.

Being successful in a firm and in a job doesn't mean being best friends with the boss or even your colleagues. And companies who consistently hire people 'like them' risk getting sucked into a comfort zone that can impact on their ability to react to change, and can become less diverse.

So companies like Bytemark who are working to become more diverse have dropped any requirement for a cultural fit. On the Bytemark careers site, they say:

There's no "cultural fit" requirement. If you have a skill we like and you can learn and work with a team, you'll get on fine here. You'll be our company culture, and we welcome your contribution.

However this is unusual. I struggled to find examples of firms that don't include cultural fit anywhere in their recruitment process, which is why it's so important that those companies ensure their culture is one that's diverse and open to new ideas and people.

So what are tech firms doing to ensure that their company culture doesn't exclude people?

Microsoft are working to ensure that their company culture embraces diversity:

Microsoft recognizes that diversity gains will not be sustained unless the work environment promotes behaviors that encourage new ways of problem-solving and rewards diversity of thought. We foster a culture of inclusive behaviors.

They've adopted measures such as providing training in diversity and culture to leaders and other staff, setting up programmes specifically aimed at encouraging women and ethnic monitories to advance within the firm, and offering flexible work arrangements. They also publish their diversity figures.

The attitudes and openness of high-profile senior staff will have an impact too. The fact that Tim Cook came out as gay in 2014 is likely to have an impact on how accepted gay people feel in the firm. And Sheryl Sandberg's vocal advocacy of women's empowerment should have an impact on how it feels to be a woman at Facebook.

Flexible Working Practices

Much of the debate around flexible working has traditionally focused on the fit between work and caring responsibilities, both for parents and for those with elderly or unwell relatives. But it goes much further than that. Tech firms, whether established giants or growing startups, are more likely than companies in other industries to have distributed teams and this can have a positive impact on diversity.

Not recruiting from a company's local area can positively impact racial diversity, for example. And allowing (or better, encouraging) staff to work from a location of their choice and adopt flexible hours can help employees with disabilities or mental illness.

Automattic employee Tom Nowell has written candidly about how his employer keeps its workers happy and healthy through being responsive to their needs and not having fixed demands in respect of working hours and location, for example. Automattic runs an internal Slack channel called Bluehackers which lets 'Automatticians' who are struggling support each other, and it focuses on people's health and long-term development rather than how many hours they're working. As Tom says:

I was told they didn’t care how much work I was doing as long as I was learning and happy. 

Tom Nowell's article on how Automattic supports its employees 

Obviously no employer will grow if employees are unable to do much work for prolonged periods, but Automattic knows that by being flexible and providing support, it will retain and attract talented employees like Tom.

The tech industry has more than its fair share of distributed teams: firms like Automattic and Buffer wok with entirely distributed teams and find that this gives them access to a larger talent pool, as well as reducing office costs.

A hosting company that works in a distributed way is Site5: all of its employees work from home and they're based all over the world. As a customer of Site5 I can attest to a major advantage of this: it means that whatever the time of day, there's always someone available. It also means that those people don't have to work antisocial shifts. I've had experiences of working on something with them over many hours and have watched as the location of support staff I'm dealing with moves across the globe with the daylight! It also means that they have a team which is extremely racially diverse, with staff based on every continent except Antarctica.

Site 5 employees are based all over the world

On their careers site, they state:

We want each of our team members to have a healthy balance between work and life...we understand that our team member’s time, their families, and their life outside of work are important.

Public Perception

Before any job applicant sends in their CV, the chances are they've come across the company in some other way. They might be a customer or work for a client or supplier organization (or a competitor). Or they may just have seen the company's advertising material or read its website.

So the way that companies present themselves to the world will have an impact on the people who consider applying for jobs with them, and how diverse that group will be. Companies that look diverse and project a progressive, inclusive image will be more likely to attract a diverse range of job applicants.

Apple knows that anyone applying for a job will already be a customer, and will most likely have visited an apple store (some people spend their lives in them!). Tim Cook says he's committed to “being as innovative in advancing diversity as we are in developing products” and part of that commitment is in making its store staff more diverse:

"We want every person who joins our team, every customer visiting our stores or calling for support to feel welcome."

The apple jobs site showcases diversity.

Apple uses inclusive language on its careers page, highlights its diversity and affirmative action policies and includes images of a diverse range of apple store employees. It makes its commitment to diversity very public. Its diversity figures show that it's doubled the rate of female hires in the last year, but it explicitly recognises that this isn't enough and is continuing to sponsor programmes designed to encourage underrepresented groups to seek careers in tech and with Apple.

Outreach

Outreach is an important way for companies to ensure that people are aware of the company and what it does, both in terms of marketing and recruitment. This is one area in which companies are specifically engaging in outreach with individuals and organizations from underrepresented groups.

The BBC, for example, has outreach programmes around the UK and attends careers fairs and other events with a focus on reaching minority communities which may not traditionally have identified with the broadcaster.

IBM engages in outreach with women's tech groups such as GirlGeeks, sponsoring events and sending female employees along to speak to other women who might be among a future applicant pool. IBM is also registered with Pride in Diversity, which is an Australian not-for-profit employer support program that encourages all aspects of LGBTI workplace inclusion.

Apple has programs like the Thurgood Marshall College Fund which support students in historically black colleges, and works with the National Center for Women & Information Technology to encourage more women to pursue tech careers.

Summary

Tech firms know that our industry could be more diverse, and that by attracting a more diverse pool of job applicants, they have access to more talent and fresh ideas. And many of them are doing something about it. While there's still plenty more to be done, it's encouraging to see so many tech firms large and small tackling this issue head on and reviewing the way they attract, recruit and treat employees.

Support Spirit Day

Show your support, as Millions go purple on Spirit Day in a stand against bullying and to show their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth.

Resources

Graphic Credit: Globe icon designed by Chris Tucker from the Noun Project.

by Rachel McCollin

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