Design Education

December 11th, 2009 • 3

Scrivs recently revised and republished an old post of his titled You Are Not A Designer And I Am Not A Musician that is worth reading. In it he bemoans the lack of proper design training that seems to be widespread in the web design industry.

While reading Johannes Itten’s The Elements of Colour I came across an experience of his that speaks to colour theory, but fits perfectly well with the discussion at hand:

When asked if there are general rules and laws of color for the artist, or the appreciation of colours governed solely by subjective opinion, he replied, “If you, unknowing, are able to create masterpieces in color, then un-knowledge is your way. But if you are unable to create masterpieces in color out of your un-knowledge, then you ought to look for knowledge.”

If we can extend this argument into the craft of web design, it seems to say that it’s okay if you don’t have an understanding of design (color theory, grids, typography etc.) as long as the work that you create is of “masterpiece” quality. The keyword here is “materpiece”. Is it really possible to create a masterpiece without having any kind of design knowledge? I would say that’s very unlikely, almost impossible. Maybe Itten felt the same way, after all, he was telling this to students who had come to Bauhaus school to learn about design.

Even if we acknowledge that a masterpiece can be created with un-knowledge, imagine how much more superior that person’s work can be with proper design training.

What I’ve done to help myself

If you’re getting paid to design, you owe it to your clients to understand design thoroughly, and this should go without saying. However, understanding design doesn’t simply mean checking out galleries, it means understanding the core principles, theories and history.

My first degree was in Computer Science which was mostly mathematics and programming. Even though web design held the most interest for me, I was forced to acknowledge that I didn’t have any proper training in it. A few years ago I started to buy books and read them.

Essential graphic design books for web designers

Here are a list of some that I’ve either finished reading or am partway through, starting with the easiest-to-read.

After all, as Itten said, “we can be released from subjective bondage only through knowledge and awareness of objective principles.”

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3 Responses to “Design Education”

  1. Josh tilton January 30th, 2010 at 2:20 pm

    Hey Tony,

    I couldn’t agree with you more. This post is very well written and holds true to my own working experience. In the beginning it was all about learning the tools for design. Now since that knowledge is not a hurdle, it is all about the design principals themselves.

    Cheers,

    Josh

  2. tony January 30th, 2010 at 8:48 pm

    Thanks for stopping by Josh! And you’re right, the way I see it HTML and CSS is easy to learn, there are so many tutorials and clips of code that you can simply copy and paste and have it working. Many people quickly reach that ceiling. Design on the other hand is much more varied that can continuously be evolved and matured, so it’s important to keep working at it, and a basic understanding of the principles is the first step.

  3. Five Simple Steps: Designing for the Web Review February 18th, 2010 at 11:05 am

    [...] I mentioned before, the famous designer and color theorist Johannes Itten once told his students “…if you [...]

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