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

4.8
stars
17,754 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

EJ

Sep 5, 2021

I had a lot of fun in this course. I learnt some extra bits of information related to graphic design and I think it's a great start for beginners as well as good practice for intermediate and experts!

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.

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1301 - 1325 of 4,555 Reviews for Fundamentals of Graphic Design

By Liudmila S

Dec 5, 2016

Very interesting, informative and a fun course. It surely is a good start of getting familiar with the specialization.

By Utku K

Jun 17, 2016

I liked that course and also the specialization very much. Very new subject to me, and it was fun to learn this stuff.

By Stephanie N

Apr 19, 2016

This course helps any beginner to understand the fundamentals of what it takes to create graphic design. Great course!

By Yu S

Dec 8, 2015

A great course. By showing the mutation and combination of elements, it makes design more approachable, and fun to do.

By Fanny D

Nov 15, 2024

Claer, very well built, and exercises are so interresting. Excellent course to discover graphic design basic rules !

By Lwando M

Mar 30, 2023

This for me was incredible, this gave me foundation of design, I am thankful to Coursera to give me this opportunity.

By Faiyaz A

Sep 25, 2021

So much to learn, I enjoyed the whole course I think I learned something new from this that will help me in my work.

By Filipa P d C G

Jul 7, 2021

Course super interesting and very clear. We really learned about compositions, contrasts and image making. Thank you!

By Rabia H

Apr 5, 2021

The course was really well designed and taught step by step making it easy and a great learning experience. Thank you

By Opeoluwa O

Mar 4, 2021

The facilitators were detailed in their lectures, I had a wonderful experience, thanks a million to the organization.

By Метлицкая Г И

Nov 12, 2020

Thank you for the interesting course material. I liked everything very much. We wish you success in your future work!

By Md. A B M

Jul 23, 2020

This Course is really good for basics. If you are a beginner like me, I will really recommend this course. Thank you.

By Fahim K

Jul 16, 2020

as an architecture student this course was very useful and inspired me to explore more in the field of graphic design

By Carlos J S B

May 6, 2020

Me hizo tener nuevas perspectivas sobre el diseño y a aprender a mejorar correctamente mi manera de plasmar el diseño

By NOEMI T G

Feb 27, 2019

Basic course to learn the principles of graphic design, with very ilustrative and applied exercises, I enjoyed it ;)

By Daniel H R

Dec 19, 2018

Excelent course. It can help you a lot to enforce your design skills, or you can star a real career with this course.

By Tevah P

Apr 14, 2018

The demonstrations in these videos were really engaging and inspiring and the course covered a lot of useful content.

By Poliana F d S

Mar 7, 2018

Excelente curso, aulas super didáticas e interação com os outros alunos é uma das partes mais importantes. Muito bom!

By Lily D

Nov 20, 2017

Really practical exercises, I had a lot of fun making them. Plus, the feedbacks I got from my peers is very valuable!

By xujie

Oct 30, 2017

I like it, let me learn a lot of graphic design of the basic knowledge, I will continue to learn later graphic design

By Benjamin H

Aug 10, 2017

Clear and engaging videos and instruction to get one started and engaged in learning the rudiments of graphic design.

By Emily R

May 6, 2017

Loved it! Really enjoyed the different methods used. A nice dose of fun creativity that I had been needing. Thanks :)

By Анастасия П

Mar 7, 2016

Very informative and inspiring.

It is unfortunate that for optional assignment does not give marks. Only peers review.

By Shaimaa E

Apr 1, 2023

I loved it so much, especially the first test it was super fun, and everything was super awesome. Thank you so much

By Tam M

Oct 12, 2022

This course is organized very well and understandable. It gives a structure and a really fundametal basics. Thanks.