Learn the Basics of Design This Weekend [Weekendhacker]

Last weekend we looked at resources to coach you ways to code , but writing your app is barely half the battle. It must look good, too. Listed here are resources that will help you learn the basics of design this weekend.

The Basics

To get started, you’re going to want two things: a basic understanding of design and Adobe Photoshop. For sure, not everyone wants to drop hundreds of bucks on Photoshop (or the whole Adobe Creative Suite), so check up on these alternatives ( or these ) if Photoshop is simply too expensive on your taste. As for the understanding portion, listed here are the primary belongings you would like to learn:

Get to grasp the elements of design, comparable to points and features , shapes , space , and more .
How color works , the details of the color wheel , and the impact it has on people

Be sure you know the way to exploit the software you’ve chosen in addition. If it’s Photoshop, there are excellent classes on lynda.com . In the event you’d rather go the free route, you will discover a number of stuff online. These tutorials provide various good exercises to attempt so you will get conversant in your toolset. You Suck at Photoshop is likely one of the most entertaining option to learn. We also post a number of Photoshop tutorials here and there in addition. As a way to learn specific, undoubtedly there is someone online who has posted some variety of help (likely in video form) you can find with a handy guide a rough web search.

Inspiration

Inspiration is what’s going that will help you find your style. Understanding how things work and what has worked before is very important in most fields, but it surely’s critical in relation to design. That’s not to assert the need arises learn the principles and follow them with rigidly, but that it’s extremely useful to grasp 1) what you love, 2) why you prefer it, and 3) how you can create the designs you find most compelling. Whenever you’ve got those three things down, experimentation will come naturally.

So where do you find inspiration? One option is the design blog Web Design Ledger (WDL). They post hundreds great examples of design elements that will help you keep watch over what’s working and supplying you with a source of inspiration. Listed below are a number of good posts to get you started:

35 New Clean & Minimalist Websites to Inspire You
30 Examples of fine Website Navigation
50 Inspiring Examples of Texture in Web Design
40 Excellent Examples of Single Page Websites
35 Creative 404 Error Pages
25 Fresh and Useful Icon Sets
30 Inspiring Design Agency Websites
Web Design Trends in 2011

Another great option is the design community Forrst . While the community is member-only, anyone can apply. It’s a fabulous place to seek out other good design work and get feedback for your own that will help you progress. A less-exclusive option is Ember , that is the same kind of site but was designed to work with some specific apps meant for clipping .

Once you start to seek out people you love, however, keep and eye on what they’re doing and who they like so which you can explore more points of inspiration. As an instance, Tina Roth Eisenberg (a.k.a. Swissmiss, designer of TeuxDeux ) plays a really active role in promoting design she likes and sharing relevant designs resources on her blog .

Fonts

No designer is without his or her fonts, and there are lots of free options to select from. Font Park will start you off with over 70,000 to make a choice from . Da Font is a smaller, more curated collection with loads of great options . There are numerous other free font tools and resources , nonetheless it’s more important to first understand typography. WDL offers up seven free typography ebooks to get you started. If you would like additional portability, you’re able to download the Typography Manual iPhone app . One you’ve got a basic understanding of typography, try mastering font combinations . Rarely will you keep on with a single typeface in a design, so understanding the foundations of combining fonts can save you numerous of frustration.

What’s the font in each of the images? In case you don’t recognize it, head on over to the League of Movable type to download their wonderful font League Gothic .

Web Design

In case you’re trying to learn design, likelihood is that you’re planning on doing it for the internet. Although you’re not likely to discover ways to code in addition, you’re still going to want to pass yourself off as a developer every now and then. Listed here are a couple of great resources to aid cut development corners and get some really stunning functionality into your web designs without a ton of work:

10 Useful jQuery Plug-ins for Images
CSS 3.0 Generator let you generate some really stunning, fairly complex CSS styles.
Pure CSS Progress Bar
New Options for Web Fonts
3 Advanced CSS3 Techniques You’ll want to Learn
The right way to Become a JavaScript Badass

Got any other great design resources you favor? Share ‘em inside the comments!

You may contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You too can follow him on Twitter and Facebook .

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This post is tagged: adobe creative suite, adobe photoshop, color wheel, elements of design, half the battle, handy guide, photoshop tutorials