Learn Design Theory

Learn the fundamental principles of design, including color theory, visual hierarchy, and more. Then use them to create effective and beautiful web designs.

All Design Theory tutorials:

  1. Researching Your Design Project

    Researching Your Design Project

    Tutorial Beginner

    When working on any project for the web, you should always start by researching as much as you possibly can. To be honest, you can do as little, or as much...

  2. Planning a Design Project

    Planning a Design Project

    Tutorial Beginner

    Before you start designing, there are several things you should look at first. I always find these extra initial steps help when you eventually do start...

  3. Welcome to Design School for Developers

    Welcome to Design School for Developers

    Tutorial Beginner

    Design School for Developers is a tutorial series aimed at helping developers (and those new, or simply interested in designing for the web) to understand...

  4. The Future of User Interfaces

    The Future of User Interfaces

    Tutorial Beginner

    We are web designers and developers. As obvious as our work is (we build interactive media applications) there's a deeper meaning to what we do. We analyze...

  5. Polishing up Your Creative Process

    Polishing up Your Creative Process

    Tutorial Beginner

    Today we'll focus on increasing your creative capabilities through an introduction to a couple of creativity techniques. An important key issue to understand...

  6. Intellectual Creative Block

    Intellectual Creative Block

    Tutorial Beginner

    Beating any form of creative block is difficult, but hopefully this creativity session has helped so far. Today, we'll conclude our coverage of creative...

  7. Creative Block: Environmental and Emotional

    Creative Block: Environmental and Emotional

    Tutorial Beginner

    In the previous article we discussed the meaning of creative block. We introduced the observational block and possible solutions for overcoming it. In this...

  8. Creative Block 101

    Creative Block 101

    Tutorial Beginner

    In the previous article, I described the creative thinking process. Sometimes this process isn't as easy as you might think; problems may arise during any...

  9. Understanding Creative Thinking

    Understanding Creative Thinking

    Tutorial Beginner

    In this article I'll explain how we think during the process of being creative. This knowledge will help you understand creativity and will form a foundation...

  10. Don’t Squelch Your Creativity With the Constraints of Possibility

    Don’t Squelch Your Creativity With the Constraints of Possibility

    Tutorial Beginner

    As a front-end developer who works most of the time with predefined design files handed off to me by a designer, I am often faced with the task of explaining...

  11. Understanding the Split Layout in Web Design

    Understanding the Split Layout in Web Design

    Tutorial Beginner

    As Web Designers, we follow a lot of design paradigms and layout principles: grids, vertical consistency, the F-Layout, Z-Layout, rule of thirds, the...

  12. A Beginner’s Guide to Pairing Fonts

    A Beginner’s Guide to Pairing Fonts

    Tutorial Beginner

    Pairing fonts can be a challenge. Selecting two or more fonts which work well is one thing - selecting two which work together to achieve your typographic...