You Can't Miss

I constantly peruse graphic design websites from all over, and most of the time they make me feel quite inadequate. In a good way, I suppose. I know I have much more to learn, and the exciting part about design (or any artform, for that matter) is that you're never "the best." There is always room for improvement, and everyone needs a refresher course every once in a while.

I thought I'd share this extremely informative and helpful website with you, which I found via Quipsologies:

50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory.



Oh, how I wish I had discovered the grid lessons to show my Design One students. It's okay, I'll make them visit the website anyway. The Graphic Design Fundamentals lesson illustrates the key themes and criticisms of Alexander White (one of our faves). There's even a lesson on typography for graphic design students (us!!). Definitely check this out. If you're low on cash (and at this point in the semester aren't we all?), this resource gives you a halfway decent excuse to sell back some of those design textbooks.

Over at Made by Many, Anajli tested out Hunch. It's a website that claims to answer any question you ask it based on an algorithm it creates after you've answered a few questions about your personality. It's still in beta form, so it's invite only for now, but the idea sounds interesting. A more in-depth, multi-word answering Magic 8 Ball? Anajli says it still needs work, but the potential is there, especially if it's claiming to work like Netflix—the more questions you ask, the better it gets at answering. Still, how necessary is it for a web application to make decisions for us? Maybe it's just a fun thing. Maybe it could be helpful for focus groups. But I still think you lose a part of yourself by leaving the decision-making to a computer.

When it does go public, though, maybe it'll tell me where I should go on vacation this summer.