Chevron Left
Back to Fundamentals of Graphic Design

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Fundamentals of Graphic Design by California Institute of the Arts

4.8
stars
17,129 ratings

About the Course

Graphic Design is all around us! Words and pictures—the building blocks of graphic design—are the elements that carry the majority of the content in both the digital world and the printed world. As graphic design becomes more visible and prevalent in our lives, graphic design as a practice becomes more important in our culture. Through visual examples, this course will teach you the fundamental principles of graphic design: imagemaking, typography, composition, working with color and shape... foundational skills that are common in all areas of graphic design practice. I don't just want you to watch a video of someone talking about design, I want you to MAKE design! If you want to be a designer you have to be a maker and a communicator, so this course will offer you lots of opportunities to get your hands dirty with exercises and with more practical projects. At the end of this course you will have learned how to explore and investigate visual representation through a range of image-making techniques; understand basic principles of working with shape, color and pattern; been exposed to the language and skills of typography; and understand and have applied the principles of composition and visual contrast. If you complete the course, along with its optional (but highly recommended) briefs, you will have a core set of graphic design skills that you can apply to your own projects, or to more deeply investigate a specialized area of graphic design. To succeed in this course you will need access to a computer. You can complete this course without one but it will be tougher. Access to, and a beginner's level knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite programs, such as Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign will help you, especially if you want to complete the optional briefs....

Top reviews

MN

May 18, 2022

very good introductory course. i enjoyed the assignments, they are not overwhelming, easy to start, and the optional ones offer great opportunity to dig little deeper into graphic design fundamentals.

AR

Apr 17, 2016

very good introductory course. i enjoyed the assignments, they are not overwhelming, easy to start, and the optional ones offer great opportunity to dig little deeper into graphic design fundamentals.

Filter by:

4251 - 4275 of 4,419 Reviews for Fundamentals of Graphic Design

By Maria M

•

Dec 17, 2020

very nice!

By Kanishka R

•

Apr 25, 2020

Excellent.

By Claudio S

•

May 5, 2018

Well done!

By shanto i

•

Dec 18, 2022

Very good

By Sandip R

•

Feb 21, 2021

VERY GOOD

By Vishnu R C 5

•

Feb 13, 2020

VERY GOOD

By 飞飞

•

Aug 16, 2016

实用，新颖，～～～

By Mustafa R

•

Jun 23, 2020

Alright

By Dulce A

•

Mar 14, 2016

Good!!!

By April E

•

Mar 17, 2021

Thanks

By Vengatesh A

•

Dec 2, 2020

Good..

By Anike k g

•

Jul 30, 2020

nice..

By Loga S G 1

•

Jun 6, 2020

Useful

By Richel F

•

Dec 12, 2018

Great!

By GUNAWAN, A B (

•

Jun 29, 2020

good!

By Abdul- M O

•

Nov 17, 2023

Cool

By henid y

•

Feb 15, 2023

good

By Ayan M

•

Mar 4, 2021

good

By Manisha

•

Sep 11, 2020

good

By DINESH K K

•

Jun 14, 2020

good

By preksha m

•

May 20, 2020

good

By Invader

•

Jan 22, 2022

UwU

By Baher A

•

Oct 14, 2022

ر

By Amir B

•

Feb 14, 2019

N

By Rebecca W

•

Feb 9, 2022

This was a great overview of the fundamentals, useful, interesting assignments and a lot of opportunity to practice. It was highly enjoyable and I like how the professor chose to explain things. Knocking off two stars for two reasons:

- The peer review system is broken. I rarely received useful feedback. In general, I think a paid course should have a professional give professional-grade feedback, but in the absence of that possibility, the least they could do is place a minimal word limit on the review sections so that people have to type more than one word to qualify as a review. In addition, people who don't pay attention to the rubric mark down your assignments and can screw with your grade as a result

- The quality of this course was not matched by the next in the specialization, which is Intro to Typography. So people who signed up for this course and then pursued a specialization based on the quality of this course will likely be let down by the very next course in the track. Intro to Typography is totally self-guided, is not at all dense with content (could be done in two weeks EASILY), and is almost completely grade reliant on peer reviewers, which as I pointed out, are of questionable quality. There is really no quality control for the work you complete in this course and it should be free as it currently exists.