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 content:

Filters

Design Theory

Sketching and Your Design Workflow

Tutorial • Beginner

Once you've finished working with your content - great news! You get to start thinking about the actual design. But not so fast - don't jump onto a computer...

Rachel Shillcock • 20 Jul 2013
Design Theory

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...

Rachel Shillcock • 17 Jul 2013
Design Theory

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...

Rachel Shillcock • 8 Jul 2013
Design Theory

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...

Rachel Shillcock • 8 Jul 2013
Design Theory

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...

Sven Lenaerts • 24 Jun 2013
Design Theory

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...

Sven Lenaerts • 13 May 2013
Design Theory

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...

Sven Lenaerts • 2 May 2013
Design Theory

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...

Sven Lenaerts • 26 Apr 2013
Design Theory

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...

Sven Lenaerts • 15 Apr 2013
Design Theory

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...

Sven Lenaerts • 11 Apr 2013
Design Theory

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...

Jonathan Cutrell • 19 Mar 2013
Design Theory

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...

Amit S Namboothiry • 28 Nov 2012