4 ms·
It's not a black art -- it just doesn't use many of the same skills most programmers have. That's like saying "playing music ia a black art". No, it just requir
by gte910h 16y ago
It's not a black art -- it just doesn't use many of the same skills most programmers have. That's like saying "playing music ia a black art". No, it just requires a skillset other than you currently have.
Graphic design in particular, is a speciality in which the process of learning pays off greatly. I mean you go from utter crap, to able to alter common designs to your purpose pretty quickly, after about only 80-120 hours of actual education on the topic.
The skills involved in graphic design are:
Drawing
Conceptualization of Space
Conceptualization of Color
Functional Organization
Effective Information Visualization
Execution in tools
And I honestly don't think most of those overlap with programmers base skill sets you have to pickup to do code.
It honestly sounds like you're suffering in the "Execution in tools" section. That's actually the easiest one to "get" in my opinion. Almost any programmer who can follow directions, and has a drawing program can do a bunch of the tutorials (we're talking 40-120 hours of doing tutorials) and practice making different things using those tutorials. You'll then make things "close enough" to fake it for awhile.
Notice this isn't like 20 minutes. It's a real effort. But it's not years before you start seeing real improvements and serviceable work.
- tianyicui 16y agoCan you recommend a design tutorial for programmer to follow? Is _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ your recommendation too? Thanks.
- gte910h 16y agoRobin Williams (Same name, different person than the comedian) makes s set of books targeted at the non-designer. Amazon has lots of them. Non-aff link http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=robin+williams+design&x=0&y=0 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap... To learn to draw, Mark Kistler's Draw squad isn't a horrible thing to get you going and to start to look at shadows, etc (however is aimed at children). As far as tools, trying out the following are good: http://www.pixelmator.com/learn/ http://www.pixelmator.com/learn/ (Scroll to bottom of the page) http://qrayg.com/learn/fireworks/ http://qrayg.com/learn/fireworks/ visual photoshop: http://www.noupe.com/tutorial/30-useful-abstract-photoshop-design-tutorials.html http://www.noupe.com/tutorial/30-useful-abstract-photoshop-d... And while I think the actual lessons are sorta ugly they're not bad on tool usage fundamentals: http://www.pvmgarage.com/2010/11/top-ten-photoshop-website-design-tutorials/ http://www.pvmgarage.com/2010/11/top-ten-photoshop-website-d...