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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Typography by California Institute of the Arts

4.8
stars
5,698 ratings

About the Course

Typography is the art of manipulating the visual form of language to enrich and control its meaning. It’s an essential area of skill and knowledge for graphic designers. Typography predates modern graphic design by around 500 years; it is rich in rules, conventions, and esoteric terminology—but it remains an exciting space for invention and expression. In this rigorous introductory course, we will study, name, and measure the characteristics of letterforms. We’ll consider the pragmatic concerns involved in selecting and combining type. We’ll peek into the 
rich historical, cultural, and aesthetic histories of familiar typefaces. We’ll discuss time-tested conventions and best practices in setting type, as governed by principles of hierarchy and spatial organization. And we’ll explore the expressive, meaning-making potential of type. Informative lectures will be complemented by a series of three peer-assessed assignments, culminating 
in an opportunity to design a full-scale typographic poster. Please note that this is not a software course; a basic working knowledge of Adobe InDesign or other 
page layout software will be assumed. You will need access to a computer and page layout software, such as InDesign, to complete the assignments....

Top reviews

MB

Jul 25, 2020

The course is very interesting and well presented, the assignments are really helpful for the learning process. I would recommend to anyone interested in design, art, web design or just for curiosity.

BG

Aug 3, 2020

I thought the assignments worked really cohesively with one another. It helped to keep terms and skills in mind from one assignment to the next. The lecture videos were great, short, and to the point.

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1201 - 1225 of 1,231 Reviews for Introduction to Typography

By Syahrul R

•

Jul 31, 2020

Sangat mantab

By prajakta a

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Jun 10, 2020

good course!

By Hugo A R G

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Apr 12, 2020

Buen curso

By Muhammad F K

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Jul 10, 2020

Good.

By Mufizul I A

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Jan 28, 2017

Good!

By LEELASAIKRISHNAVAMSHI K

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Oct 28, 2021

good

By Leela s

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Oct 28, 2021

good

By Nagaraja G

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Oct 7, 2020

good

By DINESH K K

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Jun 14, 2020

good

By Nayama R

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Jun 20, 2022

The videos are objective, clear and interesting, I liked the extra sources too. The assignments have a good level for a introduction course. The peer reviews process are the only bad thing in fact about not only this course but in all coursera courses. Due the large number of people who doing the assignments, some people don't take it serious. While I was reading carefully my coleagues assigments and giving good an construtive feedback, I received poor qualitity reviews with short comentaries like "good", "no", "I like". I also got 0 in every single criteria in my last assignment from a study that clearly even did not opened my PDF. The peer reviews are definetily the most frustating part of the course.

By Julie P

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Nov 1, 2023

I was disappointed by the lack of diverse representation of typeset designers. While I know the historical aspect is what it is, there were also a lot of current designers mentioned, and most mentioned were white men. This lack of diversity was extremely frustrating. Even in the assignments, not one typeset on the entire list was invented by a woman or gender nonconforming human, even though many of the typesets were created fairly recently. I learned so much - so otherwise I would have given a higher rating. It was just too obvious not to be distracting to me.

By Tanja T

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May 30, 2023

There should be an option to get a second round of opinion on peer reviews. Some users leave unreasonably low scores without leaving an explanation. Most times, users don't offer any feedback and just copy and paste random text off the internet.

Other than that the course was quite interesting. However, I would have appreciated a bit of a deeper coverage of general typography rules, as well as more structured notes and further reading material.

By Ayat Y

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Jul 23, 2024

Everything went well there are plenty of amazing and mind opening ideas but i wish the typographic language was more easily explained and the assignments were simpler I struggled a bit with the work cause it took a while to understand . Thanks alot that had alot of new ideas

By Sergio G F

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Jul 24, 2020

I learn that typography is much deeper than I thought but some of the theoretical explanations about how readable some typefaces are are subjective and it depends on each individual or what they are used to.

By YP

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Apr 21, 2024

did not like peer graded way to grade the creative assignments - people have very different backgrounds and their feedback is sometimes pure nonsense as they miss the metaphors or lack some basic integrity

By E. C C

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Jan 24, 2017

Basic overview of Typographical ideas, terms and so forth. A bit short and not very technical, but playing with Type as an integral part of design was really fun and inspirational.

By ANUSHA C

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Aug 26, 2020

peer grade review takes a lot of time and even when i have submitted the assignment before time its not being reviewed.

By Adrienn B

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Jun 27, 2020

In the first 2 weeks there was no hands-on project, literally nothing exciting just dry material.

By Euan M

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Apr 7, 2016

Would have welcomed more or longer lectures, and more variety in the assignments.

By Promise O

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Oct 6, 2022

Great Course For just the introduction

By Cedric K

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Oct 17, 2022

i enjoyed it

By Xinjuan D

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Jun 20, 2019

too boring

By israa h h

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Mar 9, 2019

nice

By Zaida B

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Jul 3, 2023

I am following the Specialization in Graphic Design, so I was expecting in-depth theory about typography, but the course barely expands on the theory given in the "Fundamentals of Graphic Design" course, so it is indeed an introduction. Do not expect more.

Overall, the content is good and the instructor provides some examples, which I apreciate, but it feels too rushed. Sometimes they simply mention concepts not going into any depth, nor showing enough practical examples, making it difficult to grasp.

On the other hand, the peer review system is just absolutly terrible and probably the worst part of all these courses. The system just does not work. And it's simply not possible to improve or learn without proper feedback on assignments.

Unfortunately there are just too many students who don't take it seriously and not only don't follow the intructions for the assignments but also don't review correctly. I have seen other people complain about this so I wish CalArts would act on it and did something to improve the peer-review system or provided an alternative grading system altogether.

By Freyja R

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Jun 29, 2020

Not engaging, seemed to drag on forever.