Design Principles, Typography & Color Theory in 1 MegaCourse

Explore negative space and white space by examining logos like FedEx and Toblerone, and sites like Google and Apple, to understand how empty areas emphasize the main design elements.

Explore unity and variety as core design principles, showing how elements, colors, and shapes create visual unity and seamless cohesion.

Explore alignment in graphic design, including edge alignment and center alignment, and see how grids and balance shape UI/UX layouts in Figma or XD.

Explore balance in graphic design by understanding how visual weight distributes across objects, colors, textures, and space, and apply symmetric, asymmetric, and radial balance to create pleasing layouts.

Master hierarchy in graphic design by ranking elements to add structure, guide reading order, and highlight key items, using size, color, typography, layout, and patterns such as z and f.

Explore repetition and rhythm in design, learning how repetition creates patterns and textures and emphasizes elements. See how rhythm differs through varied sizes and asymmetric repetition to create visual flow.

Explore the vital design principle of contrast in typography, using color, shape, scale, and layout to improve readability, create emphasis, and boost visual appeal.

Explore emphasis in graphic design by using color, shape, and size to focus viewer attention, distinguishing it from contrast and applying typography and layout to highlight key elements.

Demonstrates how scale creates a focal point, how proportion maintains realistic sizing, and how movement directs the viewer's eye across a graphic design.

Choose any design principle from the course for the class project and explain it with at least two examples, either from the internet or by designing your own.

Master the basics of color theory, the color wheel, and color harmonies with real-life examples, and explore palettes using Adobe Colors and Coolors plus the 60-30-10 rule.

Explore color theory basics and uses in design, from brand identity and memorability to mood creation, plus meanings of red, blue, green, purple, and warm vs cool colors.

Explore color properties—hue, saturation, and value—and how they shape perception. Understand the color wheel, primary colors, RGB vs. RYB, CMYK, and various color harmonies, shades, tints, and tones.

Discover how to generate and harmonize colors using top tools like adobe color, coolors, and color space, and explore analogous, monochromatic, triad, and complementary schemes, plus image-based theme extraction.

Explore color interactions to test and adapt your brand color scheme by checking contrast, using grayscale conversions, and applying the 6030 ten rule for balanced backgrounds, headings, and text.

Illustrator provides swatches, color guide, and color panel to create, copy, and save color schemes, with eyedropper, recolor artwork, color harmonies, triads, complementary options, and color theme picker.

Analyze how color theory shapes Skillshare’s website, identifying a main green with purple accents and triad and analogous schemes, complemented by gray neutrals and white highlights.

Execute your class project by applying a downloaded color palette and checking color interactions. Perform a scale test and apply colors to a design, then submit the project on Skillshare.

Master the core color theory and design concepts learned in this course, share your work in the discussion, and explore related courses on graphic design principles, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

Explore the difference between typography and lettering, distinguish typefaces and font families, and see how typography uses predefined characters while lettering is drawn by hand or digitally.

Explain the difference between a typeface and a font, showing that variations are fonts and that font family is another term for typeface, with examples like Arial and Helvetica.

Explore the elements of a typeface, including baseline, x-height, cap height, ascenders, and descenders, and distinguish serifs from sans serif, with examples like Times New Roman and Arial.

Compare serif and sans serif fonts and learn when to use each in display versus body text. Improve readability on mobile with examples like Times New Roman, Helvetica, and Montserrat.

Explore kinds of contrast in typography: background readability and typeface definition, with examples like Times New Roman and Arial. Learn WCAG ratios for body and display text (4.5:1 and 3:1).

Explore how color in typography uses hue and font weight to influence perception, contrast, and emphasis. See how heading color and weight enhance clarity and focus in text.

Explore the evolution of serif fonts from humanist to Didone and slab serifs, detailing stroke contrast, x-height, and notable examples like Baskerville, Bodoni, and Rockwell.

Discover sans serif font families from grotesque and neo grotesque to humanist and geometric, with low contrast designs, and examples like Helvetica, Universe, Tahoma, Gill Sans, Frigidaire, Futura, Gotham.

Explore scripts as a third font category that mimics handwriting, distinguishing formal and casual script styles. Learn how these handwritten-like typefaces enhance display texts.

Choose a body typeface with high x-height and proper white space to ensure readability, and avoid extreme kerning or tracking; compare serif and sans serif for balance.

Learn to choose a font for numbers in body text by using fonts whose numbers dip below the baseline; reserve fonts with equal cap height for headings or display text.

Choose a display typeface with short ascenders and descenders and minimal spacing, using remachine for headings—not for body text—to enhance readability and mood.

Select fonts by industry to match brand goals; use playful fonts for food branding, serif fonts for fashion with a modern touch, and high-contrast sans serif for futuristic looks.

Learn to create typographic hierarchy with headings from H1 to H4, using boldness, color, and specific font sizes (48, 39, 31, 25) to guide reading on a web page.

Apply typographic measure rules to improve readability: 45–75 characters per line and a maximum width equal to font size times 30, with a readable font size such as 20 pixels.

Explore tracking, kerning, and leading in typography, and learn how adjusting letter and line spacing improves display and body text with practical Illustrator examples.

Master essential paragraph rules for typography, including indentation not exceeding four times the font size. Avoid extra space between paragraphs and don’t indent after a heading or image.

Learn how white space boosts readability by spacing text, lines, and characters, using kerning, leading, and tracking, with examples from Facebook, Quora, Apple, and Tesla.

Master text alignment in typography by analyzing left, center, write, and justified options, learn readability implications, and apply language-aware choices for English, Arabic, and Urdu.

Learn to enhance typography hierarchy with contrast by pairing text with backgrounds and avoiding pure black or white for readability.

Explore typography hierarchy with block quotes from Nelson Mandela, lists, dividers, and tables; learn how proper quotations and formatting highlight key ideas and readability.

Learn practical font pairing by combining serif with sans serif, using x-height contrasts, and mixing script with simple fonts; featuring Alegria, Right Pro, Thinking of Betty, and Lato.

Explore grids in typography, including multi-column grids, hang line, and modular grids, and learn to apply appropriate column widths, place images, and use color to enhance themed designs.

Compare normal fonts to variable fonts and use sliders to adjust weight, height, italic, width, and slant, revealing thousands of font variations.

Learn to use the glyphs panel to swap letters with stylistic alternatives, making text and logos more expressive. Discover fonts that include glyphs and how to apply accented characters.

Explore ligatures as creative glyphs that connect close letters to produce flowing, logo-friendly typography, using purity and Catalina to illustrate AR and ER pairings.

Discover how true bold and true italic differ from faux variants in Times New Roman typography. Use actual fonts, not stroke or tilt, to avoid fake bold or italic.

Explore free and paid fonts from Google Fonts, Freepik, Font Squirrel, DaFont, Envato Elements, Yellow Images, and Creative Market; learn licensing notes for commercial use.

Download and install any font, then explore four font formats—open type, type 2, IATI, and WUF—and learn when to use each format, including web fonts for fast loading.

Learn to manage thousands of fonts with font base, activating fonts without installing, organize into collections and folders, and access Google fonts for streamlined typography.

Apply the course's design principles to the provided text in the class project, avoid copying, and ensure readability. Use Word or export to PDF, and adjust size or boldness.

Enhance your typography skills and explore design principles and colour theory, plus practical design tools with tutorials on Photoshop and Illustrator.