Graphic design
Do not start graphic design by learning software. A tool takes weeks; an eye that can say why a design works takes years, so this path starts with looking, not with Photoshop.
- 12 lessons
- Free, no signup
The route, from looking to the first real job
Four camps, in order. None can be skipped, though how fast you pass them is up to you.
- 1Before any tool: what a design is made of and why it works. The first two lessons of this path.
- 2Hierarchy, contrast, alignment, palettes, Persian type. From here on a design can be discussed, not merely liked or disliked.
- 3Figma or Illustrator, one of them. Swapping tools every month is where most people stall while feeling like progress.
- 4A logo or a full set for a real person, with constraints, feedback and a file handover. Practice without a client has a ceiling, and it arrives early.
The summit here is not mastery, it is the first job somebody pays for. Taste keeps building for years after that, and no course shortens it.
The path, step by step
Lessons are ordered so each stands on the previous one. You can also jump in anywhere.
- 1Learning graphic design from scratchGraphic design is arranging text, image and space on a surface so that one specific message reaches one specific person, which makes the work deciding rather than drawing. Learning it starts with looking, then principles, then one tool, and finally a real job with a real constraint.Beginner
- 2The principles of graphic designThe five principles of graphic design are not laws, they are explanations: explanations of how the eye groups things and what it sees first. Hierarchy, contrast, alignment, whitespace and repetition, and all five can be applied to a design you already have so you can see the difference.Beginner
- 3Colour theory, the working versionColour theory is a small set of rules describing how two colours relate to each other and why one of them can be read on the other while the second cannot. Every colour is three numbers, hue, saturation and lightness, and of those three only lightness decides whether text on a background is legible.Beginner
- 4Typography, from the ground upTypography means arranging text on a page: size, weight, spacing and line length. Choosing the typeface is only one of those decisions and in practice the least consequential; a page with an ordinary typeface and a correct scale always reads better than a page with a beautiful typeface and a sloppy one.Beginner
- 5Persian typography on the webPersian typography does not begin with choosing a beautiful typeface; it begins with a technical condition: the font must carry the letter-shaping tables, or the letters will not join and the text becomes unreadable. After that, four decisions remain that have no counterpart in Latin typography: the weight of the font file, where the half-space goes, the form of the numerals, and the Arabic letters that are wrong in Persian.Intermediate
- 6Image formats: which one goes wherePicking an image format is not a matter of taste: the kind of image decides the answer. Photographs shrink with lossy compression, logos and icons belong in vector, and anything that needs transparency drops out of JPEG immediately.Beginner
- 7How to design a logoDesigning a logo does not start in the software, it starts with a brief: without answers to a few specific questions about the business, every sketch is a matter of taste. The output is not an image either; it is a vector file plus a handful of versions of the same mark for the places it will actually be used.Beginner
- 8Graphic design tools and what each one is actually forThe deliverable picks your graphic design tool: anything that will be scaled up or printed needs vector, anything photographic needs pixels, and interface design has a tool of its own. There are six categories, and in each of them at least one option costs nothing and still produces professional output.Beginner
- 9Figma basics: the four concepts everything else is built onFigma is an interface design tool that runs in the browser with the file kept on their servers, which is why several people can be inside one file at the same time. Four concepts make up the whole job: frames, components, styles and variables, and prototypes; the rest of the features are shortcuts over those four.Beginner
- 10What brand identity is, and how it differs from a logoBrand identity is the set of repeated decisions that make a business's separate pieces of work look like they came from one author: colour, type, tone, kind of imagery and the shape of its applications. A logo is one element inside that set and is not an identity on its own; the test is simple, cover the logo and see whether you are still recognisable.Intermediate
- 11Generating images with AIAI image generation means a model builds an image from your text description, one that did not exist before. The hard part is not the generating; it is getting that image to something you can hand a client.Beginner
- 12AI image watermarks and SynthIDAn AI watermark is a mark the model vendor puts inside the output so it can later be told that a machine made the file, and Google own documentation says every image the Gemini API generates carries one. It is invisible to the eye, but anyone holding the file can look for it.Intermediate
The order of these lessons is the reverse of most courses, and it is worth saying why. They start by installing an application and drawing a shape, and three months later the learner knows the tool but still cannot say why their work does not look like professional work. We start with the decisions a designer actually makes, then principles, colour and type, and the tool arrives only after that.
The goal of this path is not a job, it is one specific capability: being able to put into words why a design is not working, and then fix it. That sounds small and in practice it is exactly what separates a designer from someone who knows the software. A client says "something about this is off"; your job is to say where.
One thing course advertising leaves out: many people who come to graphic design actually want something narrower. If you want to build a website, the web design path is shorter and takes interfaces more seriously. If you are after video and promos, the motion and video path is the right place. This one is for someone arranging a message on a fixed surface so that it gets seen.
Real follow-up questions
Do I need to be able to draw to do graphic design?
For most work, no. Graphic design is arranging and deciding far more than drawing: what gets to be big, what gets cut, where the space stays empty. Drawing matters for illustration and hand built logotypes, and that is a separate speciality beside this field, not a prerequisite for it.
Photoshop, Illustrator or Figma: which one first?
It depends on the work you want to do, not on which name is louder. A logo, or anything printed large, needs vectors, so Illustrator or Inkscape. Page and interface layout, Figma. Photoshop is a photo tool, and most people who build a logo in it make their first mistake right there.
Can I start without buying software?
Yes, and for learning it makes no difference. Inkscape for vectors, GIMP for images and Penpot for interface layout are all free and open source, and the principles in this path are identical in every one of them. Where the difference shows up is professional handover: print ready files, and exchanging files with a team that uses something else.
This path is written for someone who wants to design it themselves. If you need a logo or a brand identity now and do not have the time to learn it, see the graphic design service page