Laura Elizabeth – Design Fundamentals

As a developer, you’re likely involved in design decisions on a daily basis. Maybe you’re being asked to add a new feature to your company’s web app, or you’ve had an idea for a side project that you want to look half-decent. Many tasks you work on involve some level of design skills.

The goal of this course is to give you a solid design foundation to start building upon. It’s not going to teach you everything under the sun about design but it’ll teach you the most important things you can do to improve your designs today — no matter how “artistic” you are (or, more likely, aren’t!). Some highlights include:

• EASY TO FOLLOW PROCESS
  My workflow I use for almost every project from finding inspiration to colour and typography
• THINK LIKE A DESIGNER
  How you can train your eye to spot what’s wrong in a design and, most importantly, fix it
• REAL CASE STUDIES
  Over-the-shoulder case studies showing how I’ve designed different websites from scratch
• VISUALS MADE EASY
  Image and illustration treatment that anyone can do – even if you can’t draw a wonky line

What You’ll Learn In Design Fundamentals

Module 1

• Getting your content ready for a design project
• Different design styles and which one to use
• Gathering (useful) inspiration
• Layout

Module 2

• Sketching layouts
• Filling in your content
• Spacing and alignment (and why they’re the two most important principles!)
• Common layout mistakes and how to avoid them (3 lessons)
• Typography

Module 3

• Choosing body text fonts
• Choosing fonts for headlines
• Making your type look good
• Typographic details
• Colour

Module 4

• Choosing a base colour
• Finding your accent
• Using grey effectively
• When your colours look ‘off’
• Imagery

Module 5

• Sourcing photography
• Photo editing for web design
• Cutting out images
• Using icons in web design
• Sourcing illustrations
• Using illustrations
• Displaying screenshots
• Polish

Module 6

• How to identify and fix problem areas
• Responsive design tips and tricks
• Consistency in design

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