I'm a writer/communications specialist who has been working with and learning from visual designers for 20 years. This course was great for me to get structured, high-level information about the fundamentals of their work, plus some hands-on practice in exploring how to work with basic design principles. If you are looking for instruction in how to use design software, do not look to this course (try YouTube). If you're instead looking for an introduction to ideas and exploration, go fo =r it.

The information in this course was useful and a great jumping off point. However one star has been deducted because of the ridiculous peer review that took up my time and in return got useless comments like good job and nothing else as well as peers removing half a point to things just because they couldn't decide what image they liked best and gave no explanations, comments good or bad and was absolutely useless to helping the designer improve there work.

Some of the feedbacks of my companions were not useful because they were not interested in giving me a good feedback, it would be nice if the professor also give a feedback

Course is all good but I was expectiongmore of application , and an insight into graphic design softwares like photoshop and illustrators.

Overall I think this is a great course and really helpful. However, I had an unpleasant experience on the last week. There is an assignment that asks you to create a single contrast composition of 2 shapes. It says "shapes" and still people are not sure if they can use more count of those shapes. I chose to use 2 shapes, but multiple counts and some people that thought this is not only 2 shapes, but 2 counts as well, chose to grade my work with the lowest rating due to unfulfilled assignment. I think this is Coursera`s fault to begin with. They should word their requirements properly so it does not create confusion. Now, we are left to the good will of a classmate to judge our work and people are not even sure what the assignment asks of us exactly.

El curso está bien, aprendes aspectos básicos del diseño gráfico y te permiten experimentar con ellos. Su mayor problema es que el nivel de exigencia es muy bajo, los proyectos más interesantes son optativos y en ningún momento te corrige un profesor, sino otros alumnos del curso (que muchas veces ponen 0 esfuerzo en dicha corrección).

A pesar de ello he aprendido y lo recomiendo a gente que esté empezando en el mundo del diseño gráfico, aunque es mejor tomárselo como un auto-aprendizaje que como un curso tutelado.

The videos nicely layout information and the course is easy to follow. The reason for two stars is that you never learn from a professional. Every project is peer-reviewed, which can be beneficial when done right. When you are in a beginner class and only getting peer reviews, you don't learn as much as you could. Many of the reviews I have seen are just "ok", "cool", or "N/A". It's a shame. The information is good and the assignments are great, just missing the professional advice.

I found that the instructor did not dive deep enough into the fundementals of design. The intro and his explanations often times took far too long over the same subject, when he could have been diving into different topics in the same amount of time. The peer review work was not very beneficial, some directions were unclear causing people to give out non-passing grades, and his teaching methods just weren't the best in my opinion.

The content of this course is very insightful and the assignements are very helpful to apply all the graphic design principles. However, the quality of peer reviews is extremely poor. I did not receive any useful or constructive feedback on my work whatsover. This also becomes apparent when reviewing the work of others. Most of the assignments ignore the instructions and it is challenging to provide feedback in that case.

"Let's try and draw a very basic, simple apple." I had to stop watching this course there. Sorry, but this is less than "fundamentals". I'm trying a new course on graphic design now...

Opinion from a professional designer:

Oganization: 5/10

Relative to the design field (helpful) 2/10

Level of difficulty: 6/10

I have the plus account that's why I did this one, but I wouldn't pay for this. I only learned 2% of valuable material that was also taught to me in my studies (typography). Nothing taught would be helpful in the professional design world except for tracking and kerning possibly? These videos are extremely out dated and ancient teachings. Very boring and not relative to say the least. It feels like a waste of time, and taught more like an art class, not a technical design class. You will NOT learn any adobe software. This is at your own pace and you can finish in one day if you are experienced and motivated. Somewhat difficult but not in a challenging way if that makes sense, more confusing than anything. I expected more out of a CALARTS course. This was embarrassing for CALARTS, because they are usually a great college. You have to wait for others to "grade" you to finally finish the course. If they rate you bad, you have to redo the assignment.

This course has nothing to do with graphic design. It mentions that you'll have a wonderful portfolio after the course but every assignment I completed was not worth putting into a portfolio. This deals more with the ABSOLUTE basics and fundamentals of art, not graphic design. It felt like this class was what you learn the first day of an art class. You won't use illustrator or anything so no need to purchase it.

Came to do a graphic design course to learn about graphic design, instead get school art classes - multiple videos of lots of different paintings of apples, then an 8 minute video of someone making prints with an apple as if they were in kindergarten! I shall go find a different course

It is a good course overall -- I thoroughly enjoy it. But, the peer-graded assignments are terrible: art is subjective, and if most of the requirements are met, please do not condemn one's assignments to the bowels of hell. Sheesh.

I honestly did not learn much (almost nothing). And it was little bit boring to watch. I got disappointed.

Did not teach graphic designing like using Adobe illustrator, or other tools

I must say, it was an incredible experience. The course covers a wide range of topics from typography to color theory, and provides a solid foundation for anyone interested in pursuing a career in graphic design.

The course is well-structured and the video lectures are informative and engaging. The exercises and assignments are challenging but extremely helpful in putting what you've learned into practice. The feedback from the instructors is detailed and constructive, which helped me to improve my design skills significantly.

One of the things that I appreciated the most about this course was the emphasis on the importance of design principles and how they apply to real-world projects. It really helped me to understand the role of design in solving problems and communicating messages effectively.

Overall, I highly recommend this course to anyone who is interested in graphic design or wants to enhance their design skills. It's a great investment in your career and personal development.

I'm currently enrolled in the Fundamentals of Graphic Design course on Coursera, taught by the California Institute of the Arts. Thus far, my experience has been positive. Covering crucial design elements like Imagemaking, Typography, Composition, and Working with color, the course is well-structured with video lessons, readings, quizzes, assignments, and design projects. The instructors are knowledgeable and offer valuable feedback. Part of CalArts' Graphic Design Specialization, the course aims to provide essential skills for a graphic design career. I recommend it for anyone interested in learning design principles and their application across multimedia platforms. The skills and knowledge gained are valuable for one's design journey. In summary, my ongoing experience with the Coursera Fundamentals of Graphic Design course has been positive, offering comprehensive and engaging learning that equips learners with essential tools and techniques for success in graphic design.

This course definitely gave me more than I expected even though my expectations was high. Every aspect of the course is well designed and well implemented. Structure of the course is perfect for you to stay interested and learning fast. Video lessons provide very clear explanation of course's material, music and motion design in the videos create a great vibe. I learned in this course not only some specific design skills, but realized even more important things: first of all, I'm really sure about my ability to design; second of all, I understand general creative process much better. I can recommend this course for anyone in creative fields (and maybe not only in creative fields), cause it teaches you how to generate and iterate any kind of ideas and apply them to reach your creative goals. Personally, I'm a musician also and I never could make such a great music as I could now, after course's completion, because lessons it gave me is easy to transfer to other activities.

I'm a graphic and motion designer with 4-5 years of experience, and I found this course to be an invaluable resource after all of these years.

I really appreciated the way the course covered a wide range of topics, from the basic principles of design to more advanced concepts such as typography and color theory. The lectures were well-organized and informative, and the assignments were simple but rewarding.

I particularly liked the way the course emphasized the importance of practicing design principles. The assignments gave me the opportunity to apply what I was learning in a real-world context, and I felt that I made significant progress in my understanding of design as a result.

Overall, I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in learning the simple fundamentals of graphic design. The course is well-structured, informative, and challenging, and it provides a solid foundation for anyone who wants to pursue a career in graphic design. Thanks you.

I enjoyed Michael's class very much and gained a lot of helpful background and practical information. The assignments were interesting and fun to work on, I was surprised more of them weren't required but I did them all.

Just disappointed by the quality of peer reviews because most did not provide any feedback, and one person gave harsh feedback because they did not understand the assignment and so they judged me thinking I did the assignment wrongly when I did not. I read the instructions correctly; it's fine if I didn't do well, but I know I got followed instructions, the critique and score were flawed based on the reviewer's erroneous read of the directions.

I gave detailed reviews in all my peer assignments.

I am looking forward to continuing, however it does not appear obvious how to start the next course.

Thanks Mr. Worthington and Coursera for the financial assistance as I am disabled and on a fixed income. Greatly appreciated.

I really enjoyed this course, it really sparked my creativity and enhanced my knowledge about graphic design and it's core fundamentals, I had fun doing the assignments, especially the ones in the 1st week. The instructor is very thorough and breaks down every aspect of graphic design fundamentals in a simple, understandable and also applicable way. I may have had a bit of hiccups due to some difficulties in comprehending the requirements in some assignments, whether if I was allowed to do certain things or not, and more specifically if what I understood was right, I wished there were more elaborations in a kind (Maybe a sample of how the end results should look like : arrangements of pages & such, so students would know if they got it right and also simulate it if they weren't sure) but I managed to understand & get it done. Overall this is an amazing intro into the world of graphic design.

This is one of the best courses you can take if you want to get started as a graphic designer. I've been working as a graphic designer for many years but I had only learned the technicalities and software, never the principles or foundations and only worked with my sense and feeling for them. This course basically solved my problem as it's focus is exactly that: the foundations and principles of graphic design. The main components of image, design terminology, approaching design, experimenting and exploring the different aspects of design. I honestly though this course would be too simple but despite being about the fundamentals it provides some of the most essential knowledge you can have as a designer and it does it in a clear, non-complicated way (Thanks to Mr. Worthington's calm and clear approach). I am glad I signed up for it!

This was a helpful course for breaking graphic design down to the basic building blocks of the art. It will give you some simple concepts and principles to keep in mind as you create graphic design. You will get a high-level overview of basic image-making, typography, and contrast/hierarchy within your design elements. I was looking for a true 101 graphic design program that would cover the most basic concepts, and this delivered. I feel prepared to move on and take a deeper dive into each of the topics covered so that I can grow my skill set. The only suggestion I would offer is to make the final optional project a required one. That project requires you to take everything you've learned and use it in a final design project. It seems odd that this isn't the final required project.

The course is basically the reason I decided to sign up to Coursera in the first place. It gives a good introduction into graphic design. Instead of focusing on projects and tutorials on how to use design programs like inDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop - the course gives a good theoretical background into graphic design than no other courses offer online. You will be encouraged to use various media to create your artwork, instead of going through a boring video which expects you to copy whatever the person on the screen is doing while learning nothing about the process. I really enjoyed this and recommend it to anyone who can handle the applications on their own, and needs a good theory and background into design, creation process and similar ideas.