Graphic Design for beginners¶

Welcome! This course teaches you to make things that look good and read fast — posters, logos, social media posts and web interfaces. You need no drawing talent and no expensive software: we work in Figma and Canva, both free and right in the browser.

What you will build¶

A poster for a school event (olympiad, show, project fair)
A logo and the rules for using it
A colour palette and a font pairing you can reuse anywhere
A set of social media posts in square and story formats
A web page mockup ready to hand over to a developer
The complete visual identity of the computer science club — final project
An interactive prototype of a landing page, with screens linked together

Course map¶

Introduction¶

No	Lesson	What you learn
00	What graphic design is	Where you meet it every day, what a designer does, briefs and feedback
01	Figma and Canva — first contact	Free account, the interface, your first file, saving and sharing

Module 1 — Visual language¶

No	Lesson	What you learn
02	Shape, line, space	Basic elements, white space, visual weight
03	Colour	Colour wheel, HEX and RGB, 3–5 colour palettes, contrast and accessibility
04	Typography	Serif vs. sans-serif, hierarchy, type size, font pairings that work
05	Composition and grid	Alignment, 12-column grid, rule of thirds, margins
06	Visual hierarchy	What the eye sees first, size and colour contrast, reading path

Module 2 — Figma in depth¶

No	Lesson	What you learn
07	Vectors and the Pen Tool	Frames, shapes, nodes, boolean operations
08	Styles and components	Colour and text styles, reusable components, variants
09	Auto Layout	Automatic arrangement, spacing, elements that resize correctly
10	Images, masks and export	Cropping, masks, exporting to PNG, JPG, SVG and PDF

Module 3 — Applied projects¶

No	Lesson	What you build
11	Poster for a school event	A3 format, clear hierarchy, print preparation
12	Logo and visual identity	Concept, variants, monochrome version, usage rules
13	Social media post	Canva: 1080×1080 and 1080×1920 story, reusable templates
14	Web interface design	Wireframe, mockup, what you hand over to HTML and CSS

Capstone projects¶

No	Project	What you build
15	Visual identity for the computer science club	Logo, palette, fonts, poster and post — one coherent set
16	Interactive landing page prototype	Screens linked in Figma, with navigation you can actually test

Prerequisites¶

A computer running Windows / macOS / Linux, or a tablet with a browser
A modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge)
An email address for the free Figma and Canva accounts
No prior experience and no drawing skills required

Estimated duration¶

~17 sessions of 90 minutes
Recommended pace: one lesson per week
Period: September – June (one school year)

Tools used¶

Tool	What for	Where
Figma	Vector design, interfaces, prototypes	figma.com
Canva	Quick materials: posters, posts, presentations	canva.com
Google Fonts	Free fonts, usable in web projects too	fonts.google.com
Coolors	Generating and testing colour palettes	coolors.co
Unsplash	Free photos with no usage restrictions	unsplash.com

Student accounts

Figma offers its Education plan free to students and teachers, and Canva has Canva for Education for school accounts. Both are obtained with a school email address. The course works fully on the regular free plans as well.

How it connects to the other courses¶

Graphic design does not stop at the image. What you draw in Figma in lesson 14 can then be built in HTML and CSS — see the Web Development course, especially the lessons on CSS introduction and Flexbox and Grid.

How to use this course

Do not copy ready-made templates. In every lesson make your own version, even if it looks clumsy at first — the eye trains through repetition. Keep all files in a single Figma project: at the end you will clearly see how far you have come.

Ready? Let's go! → Lesson 00: What graphic design is