The Fundamentals of Graphic Design course by CalArts on Coursera is outstanding! The instructors expertly taught the basics of design, covering typography, image making, shape & color, and composition. The hands-on assignments helped me apply these concepts and fostered creativity. This course is a transformative learning opportunity for aspiring graphic designers that I highly recommend!

I really appreciated the hands-on nature of this course, I think it helped me to learn the material better. The assignments in this course were very challenging, and great opportunities for putting everything we learned in the lectures into practice. The lectures had a lot of concrete examples to clearly demonstrate the ideas being presented, and ideas for how to complete the assignments.

The lessons are very well planned, small and compact yet informational. The design of the videos is superb. It encourages you to focus on the narrative and never distracts from it. I enjoyed taking it and plan to follow up with the other courses in this specialization. I do wish I could do the last project as well, even if I couldn't submit it for grading as I have taken the free course.

The class It's really clear and simple.

Every week you can put the information to work on the assignments, that in my case made me put my creativity out there, have fun, discover my abilities and create really cool stuff.

I learned with the recommendations of my classmates and I also learned by review them. I feel I learned a lot on a few weeks.

I really loved this class, very, very much!

I really enjoyed this class. I have had several years of graphic design work experience with no extensive training. This course was a great foundation with the very basic knowledge I have with composition and it's elements. I loved learning about all these elements, even though some seem very simple to begin with, but I am now seeing clearly how they work together to make great design.

The content and instruction is rich. It is simple and truly delivers the concepts in an easy to understand manner. For an introductory course, I enjoyed it thoroughly especially the exercises that encourage you to practice and therefore enhances the learning. The required peer reviews also encourage you to think and analyse submissions and also allows us to improve our own learning.

Great basic overview for anyone new to the field and keen to learn. Perhaps a bit easy if you have prior design experience - this course was fantastic for beginners. The marked and optional assignments gave a good practical experience to learn how to use design programs, while the informative videos explained the history and background theory of what works. Really enjoyed this course!

This class takes you through all the basics of graphic design (type, shapes, colour, composition), perfect for beginners! All the assignments help you to understand the concepts as "you can get better at graphic design only by making graphic design" :) I hope there will be a specialization with advanced levels as well as I would very much like to learn more! Thank you for this class!

Consider me a person without any knowledge of designing. In the midway of this course, I started observing with multiple perspectives. I started visualizing things in a way i can use them in designs. I really love this course as it has changed my ability of processing images in my brain. I feel confident of making simple designs but with precision. Highly recommend it to everyone.

The course was thorough, easy to follow, allowed me to go at my own pace, and helped me to feel confident in my skills. I liked the peer review process because it gave me the ability to see multiple peoples' takes on the projects I was completing. It gave me a great overview of graphic design. I especially enjoyed learning about the process itself, which is just delightful to me.

Fantastic introduction to graphic design. I learned so much about visual analysis and image making. I really appreciated that they limited the use of new vocabulary to only the necessities. What I really took away was the importance of experimentation in design. This class helped me figure out how to it optimize my workflow, use creative tools, and make designs more confidently.

Overall, the course was well-designed and didn't feel crammed. I particularly enjoyed the assignments, and I eagerly completed several of the optional ones. They not only put your practical knowledge to the test, but they're also a lot of fun. The only thing I would have liked to see added is a glossary with all of the important meanings/definitions taught throughout the course.

Very helpful and inspiring! For a deeper and joyful experience, I recommend to do both graduated and optional assignments. I was very pleased with one idea that seems to me very important - do not be afraid and experiment, because the fear of failure fetters and prevents us from learning and creating! Thank you Michael Worthington and all the course's creators from all my heart!

Great introduction into the topic. Makes you start to conceptualize and develop and create right away to get used to the habit of being creative as well as teaching the foundation.

The only negative side is there isn't any instructor feedback on assignments, which I know is to be expected but guidance on some of the briefs from an authority in the field would be very beneficial.

This course is a pretty good starting point to get in touch with many aspects of the creation and reception of graphic design. Very good mixture of theorical and practical elements.

Dieser Kurs ist ein wirklich guter Ausgangspunkt für eine Annäherung an zahlreiche Aspekte der Erschaffung und Wahrnehmung von Grafikdesign. Sehr gute Mischung theoretischer und praktischer Elemente.

Based only on the preview, I believe this course approach to design is excellent. Starts from the very basic building blocks that apply to many visual branches. The originality and variety of the included examples perfectly support the explained subject. I can also appreciate the connection from this view/approach to arts.

I miss the possible motivations behind design and arts.

The course is very similar to what i learned from my university, studying Fine Arts, yet I understood the topics more in depth here than in my classes. I also learned to apply what I know, into typography, which I used to find intimidating and hard to include in compositions. Because of this course, I have learned how to use words better and communicate better with my art.

The course has helped me learn and improve the knowledge that I still do not know much, such as week 2 about Typography, I have never known how to choose a typeface to match the nature I want to describe. This is such a wonderful experience I have. Many thank the teacher of the California Institute of the Arts and so do classmates who help me through review my assignments.

Excellent for beginners and enthusiasts of Graphic Design. Cleared all of my doubts regarding the fundamentals of basic design. Was very well paced and informative. All explanations provided allow efficient learning and the Peer graded review method is ingenious for providing students with critical feedback and streamline their own introspective assessment of their work.

The lessons are very well done and build the content in a nice sequential way. The peer reviewed work are excellent for they encourage communication and constructive criticism between students.

It may seem too simple at first but the fundamental insights you gain in this course become very noticeable when you start looking at simple design pieces around you with new eyes.

The learning process is a complete experience, full of knowledge, good videos and excellent teachers. I think is a 5 stars quality course, because of the amount of tools teachers give. Each one special and necessary.

Graphic Design is about making our soul, heart and brain work together. I believe this course is a great way to get this team to complete our expectations.

i very much enjoyed the projects assigned, both mandatory and optional. the balance of clear parameters with freedom to create allowed me to exercise my creativity in an effective, structural manner. i really learned so much about the fundamentals of design that I have experienced in various ways in the real world but never knew the decision-making process behind them.

It was a very helpful course. I've never had a professional education in this field except for the immense passion towards it. This course has definitely taught the fundamentals really well and in an organized manner. The teaching was very clear and easily understandable. I'm really confident about my fundamentals now. Looking forward to many more courses from CalArts.

I learned a lot about the basics of graphic design. In undergrad, I never took a graphic design course but now as a graphic designer for 5 years, I was hoping to learn the academic side of graphic design that I never got. This course was a great back-to-basics class that taught me valuable approaches and information about the different components of successful design.

It's really a great initiative on behalf of both COURSERA and CALART. Thanks a ton for facilitating such a wonderful learning opportunity for us!

About Required assignments to be evaluated by peers, my suggestion is there should be a system for appeal by the CALART moderators in case some peers unjustly or out of ignorance give a poor grade to his or her fellow peers.