Design Resources:Quick start guide

Hey everyone!

(Skip to the bulleted points if you want to read just the resource link)

So last year when I graduated from college I decided rather not to join the mainstream mentality and get a job instead I took a break. I wanted to do something that I really loved and not getting sucked into a boring job. So I contemplated and decided that I want to be a designer. Design was something that intrigued me during the college and was very intuitive for me.

So like a question that most beginners ask “from where should I start?”, “should I go for a masters in design?”, “should I join a design startup or something else?” Now many people would disagree with me but I think getting a Design degree is slightly overrated. Don’t get me wrong I think college is a great way to gain expertise in a subject but given that it requires about 2.5 years to complete and a whopping tuition fees makes me ponder that is it worth it? Is it worth it when you have a tremendous amount of resources available on the web at our disposal? And that too free or with marginal charge. When I can learn things of the internet at my own pace, flexibility and the comfort of my home. I taught myself illustrations, digital painting, UX/UI, web design and what not from scratch and in just 3 months (a little show-off there: P) I may not be able to beat the highly qualified professional but I can do the same job pretty well.

Since the web is flooded with humongous amount of data the main challenge is separate good resources from the bad and best from good.

So in this post I am going to put up the list of resources I compiled over time to learn design. It’s for all the newbies and wanna-be in design out there so that you don’t have to waste time searching for resources and you could use your time to focus on learning things. Wish someone had made a list for me but nevertheless here you go. Enjoy!

I would like to thank Priya Prabhakar for her amazing blog on design and Karen X Cheng’s blog for amazing advice on design career.

*The starred resources are the ones I, personally, highly recommend.

General overview to land on a design career:

• How to become a designer without going to Design school by Karen X Cheng.

Learn how to code basic things like an interactive website.

• Codecademy

ONLINE COURSES:

• Product/Industrial Design

  *Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society (Coursera)
  *Intro to the Design of Everyday Things (Udacity)
  VLSI CAD: Logic to Layout (Coursera)
  Design 101 (Design Basics) (iversity)
  Cars: Past, Present, and Future (iTunes U)
  Industrial Design (UNINETTO)
  Human-Centered Design for Social Innovation (Plusacumen)
  *Hack Design
  Engineering and Technology (iTunes U)
  Design Decisions in Engineering (Saylor)
  Sustainable Product Development (NovoEd)
  Student Design Project (Saylor)
  Product Design (Alison)

• Design Thinking

  Design Thinking for Business Innovation (Coursera)
  Creativity, Innovation, and Change (Coursera)
  Creative Problem Solving (Coursera)
  *Human-Computer Interaction (Coursera)
  Design Lab
  Design Thinking (iversity)
  DO Startup Lab (iversity)
  Reinventing School – A Design Thinking Challenge (Udemy)
  Instructional Design Training: Learn the Basics (Udemy)
  Innovation Training – Learn Design Thinking Process (Udemy)
  Design Thinking Action Lab (NovoEd)
  Designing for Deeper Learning (NovoEd)
  Carpe Diem (Swin Education)
  *Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking (Stanford d.school)

• Urban Design/Planning:

  Designing Cities (Coursera)
  *City Design (Sceptic)

   

• Graphic Design:

  Graphic Design (iTunes U)
  Photoshop CS5 (iTunes U)
  Introduction to Graphic Design by Sean Berg (Udemy)
  Just Creative
  Canva
  Graphic Design – Visual and Graphic Design Course (Alison)

   

• Game/Experience Design:

  Gamification Design (iversity)
  Game Design Concepts (Canvas Network)

   

• Computer-Aided Design:

  Computer-Aided Design (CAD) (Saylor)
  Machine Design (Saylor)

   

• Web Design/UI/UX/App Design:

  Website Design for Entrepreneurs by Justin Mitchel (Udemy)
  iPhone App Design: 30 minutes to a custom GUI design by Jen Gordon (Udemy)
  Web Design – CSS & HTML For Beginners by Brett Romero (Udemy)
  User Experience for the Web (WebUX) (Open2Study)
  Learn HTML & CSS Programming (Codeacademy)
  Fundamentals of Web Design (Code School) (from: Alex Tangel)

   

• Systems Design

  DelftX: NGI101x: Next Generation Infrastructures (edX)
  Principles of Computer System Design: An Introduction (MIT Open Course)
  Engineering Systems Division (MIT Open Course)
  Introduction to Instructional Systems Design Online Course (Alison)

   

• Other:

  Design Classes (Skillshare) ($19 per class, but incredible array)

TALKS/PODCASTS:

• TED Talks about Design (TED, Playlist)
• Design Giants (TED, Playlist)
• *Design for people, not awards (TED, Timothy Prestero)
• Designers — think big! (TED, Tim Brown)
• Design is in the details (TED, Paul Bennett)
• Cradle to cradle design (TED, William McDonough)
• Happiness by design (TED, Stefan Sagmeister)
• Design with the blind in mind (TED, Chris Downey)
• *99% Invisible Podcast with Roman Mars (Tiny Radio Show About Design)
• Design Matters with Debbie Millman: 2009-2014 (Podcast by Design Observer)
• On the Grid (Podcast)
• Besquare (Podcast)
• Adventures in Design (Podcast)
• The Frequency (Podcast)
• Type Radio (Podcast)
• *Joe Gebbia: The Airbnb Story
• *Aaron Draplin takes on logo design challenge

 

BOOKS/ARTICLES:

• *The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition: Don Norman
• *d.school Reading List
• Commadot Reading List
• * How Buildings Learn
• *Understanding Comics
• Product Design for the Web-Randy J. Hunt
• *Should Tech Designers Go with Their Guts — or the Data?
• *Design for continuous experimentation
• *Building Websites with Science
• *Change Aversion: Why Users Hate What You Launched (and What to Do about It)
• *Here Comes Everybody
• *Hidden in Plain Sight
• The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)
• Product Design and Development: Karl Ulrich, Steven Eppinger
• *The Shape of Design by Frank Chimero
• Critiqued: Inside the Minds of 23 Leaders in Design: Christina Beard
• Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design

• *Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible: Sophie Lovell, Klaus Kemp, Jonathan Ive

• *Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation: Tim Brown

• This is Service Design Thinking: Basics, Tools, Cases: Marc Stickdorn, Jakob Schneider
• Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All: Tom Kelley, David Kelley
• Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value: Thomas Lockwood
• *Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative: Austin Kleon
• Report on the Makers Movement (from: Sharon Kong)

 

• A startup without design is still an idea with code behind.
• *A letter from a flat designer.
• David Kelley, founder of IDEO and Stanford’s d.school, on How To Do Design Thinking
• What Designers Can Learn From Poverty Fighters
• Thoughts on the Thinking Behind Design
• *Design thinking and creative intelligence
• Five Design Answers
• When Good Design Isn’t Enough
• Design Archives – Smashing Magazine (from: Ram Aditya G)

 

MOVIES/DOCUMENTARIES/SHOWS:

Design Trilogy by Gary Hustwit:

• *Helvetica
• *Objectified
• *Urbanized

 

• Design & Thinking
• A Documentary on Design Thinking
• Connecting Series (from: Joseph Tsukka)

 

If you find any other resources ,send me the link I’ll add here.Also comment the broken links.

I haven’t completed many resources listed above myself but I’m doing it at my own pace.Do you still have any other excuse for not learning ?Do you still think college is necessary to learn stuff?

Share this so that all who aspires to be a designer can learn.The world needs good designers!

Stay hungry ! Stay foolish ! -Steve Jobs 🙂