00: Ce este designul grafic
What a graphic designer actually does, where you meet design every day, what a brief looks like and how to ask for feedback.
Lesson 00 · What graphic design is¶
What you will learn
- Why design is about decisions, not decoration
- Where you meet graphic design in an ordinary day
- The five main fields of the profession
- What a brief is and why you never start without one
- How to ask for and receive feedback without taking it personally
- Which images and fonts you are allowed to use
Design means decisions¶
Many people think graphic design is "making things pretty". It is not. Graphic design is solving a communication problem with visual means.
Here is the difference, on a concrete example. You have to announce that the computer science olympiad takes place on Saturday, 14 March, at 9:00, in room 12.
The "decoration" version: you put the text on a starry background, pick a font with shadows and add three colours because it looks cheerful.
The "design" version: you first ask who reads the poster (students walking past in the break, in 3 seconds), what they must remember (date, time, room) and what they should do next (sign up with the computer science teacher). Only then do you decide: the date set large because it is the information that determines whether anyone comes; place and time below it; sign-up at the bottom, smaller but visible.
The 3-second test
A poster in a school corridor gets roughly 3 seconds of attention. If in 3 seconds the reader has not caught what, when and where, the poster does not work — no matter how pretty it is.
Good design is recognised by the fact that you do not notice the design. You notice the message.
Where you meet graphic design in an ordinary day¶
Run the mental exercise: from morning to evening.
| Time of day | The design you see |
|---|---|
| You wake up | The icons on your phone, the alarm interface |
| Breakfast | The cereal box packaging, the label on the milk |
| The way to school | Road signs, billboards, the timetable at the bus stop |
| At school | The textbook, the schedule on the wall, the computer club poster |
| Break | The Instagram interface, YouTube thumbnails |
| Evening | The series title sequence, the streaming app menu |
All of them were drawn by someone. Every decision — why the STOP sign is a red octagon, why the "Buy" button is a different colour from the rest of the page — was made with a purpose.
A looking exercise
Next time you see a road sign, ask yourself: why is it readable from 100 metres? The answer is a combination of strong contrast, simple shape and a single message. Exactly what you will learn in lessons 03–06.
The five fields of graphic design¶
The profession is wide. This course covers the first four.
1. Visual identity (branding)¶
Logo, colours, fonts and the rules for using them. When you see a red box with white italic letters you know the brand before you read it. That is a visual identity that works.
In the course: lessons 12 and 15.
2. Editorial and print design¶
Posters, leaflets, magazines, books, diplomas. Anything that ends up on paper. Here the physical format matters (A4, A3), along with trim margins and resolution.
In the course: lesson 11.
3. Digital and social media design¶
Posts, stories, banners, thumbnails. Fixed formats, read on a phone, usually on the move.
In the course: lesson 13.
4. Interface design (UI)¶
Websites and apps. Here design does not only inform — it must also work: buttons that can be pressed, forms that get filled in, screens that link together.
In the course: lessons 14 and 16.
5. Motion design and 3D¶
Animation, title sequences, effects. Not part of this course, but the fundamentals you learn here (colour, typography, composition) are the same.
Elements and principles¶
Everything you will ever draw is built from a few elements, arranged according to a few principles. It is worth having them in your head from the start.
The elements — the "raw material":
| Element | What it is | Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Line | Separates, guides the eye, underlines | 02 |
| Shape | Rectangle, circle, triangle and their combinations | 02 |
| Space | The gap between things — as important as the things | 02 |
| Colour | Attracts attention, conveys mood, groups | 03 |
| Typography | Text as image: family, size, weight | 04 |
| Texture and image | Photos, illustrations, backgrounds | 10 |
The principles — the "rules of arrangement":
| Principle | What it means | Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Alignment | Nothing sits at random; everything shares an edge | 05 |
| Proximity | Things that belong together stay together | 05 |
| Contrast | Big differences get noticed; small ones look like mistakes | 06 |
| Hierarchy | The reader sees things in order of their importance | 06 |
| Repetition | The same colours and fonts everywhere create unity | 08 |
| Balance | Visual weight distributed, not necessarily symmetrically | 05 |
The most common beginner mistake
Too many elements, too little empty space. When you do not know what to do to make it look better, the answer is usually to remove something, not to add.
The brief: where every project starts¶
A brief is the set of answers you need before you open Figma. Without it you work by guessing and redo the work three times.
A minimal brief — six questions:
- What exactly has to be made? (an A3 poster, a square post, a logo)
- For whom? (middle school students, parents, teachers)
- What message must stick? (a single sentence)
- What action do we want afterwards? (sign up, show up, share)
- Where will it be seen? (school corridor, Instagram feed, projector)
- What constraints exist? (school colours, mandatory logo, deadline)
A completed brief — real example
- What: A3 poster, black and white print (the school printer has no colour).
- For whom: students in grades 5–8.
- Message: "The computer science club is taking new members."
- Action: come on Thursday at 15:00 to lab 2.
- Where: three corridors, at eye level, next to the stairs.
- Constraints: black and white, school logo at the top, ready in 4 days.
Notice how point 6 changes everything: without colour, all contrast has to come from size, letter weight and space. A good brief tells you what you cannot do.
Feedback: how to ask and how to receive¶
Design is done in a team, even when the team is you and your teacher.
When you ask for feedback, do not ask "do you like it?". The answer will be a personal preference, not useful information. Ask instead:
- "What did you take in first from the poster?" — tests hierarchy
- "What do you think you should do after reading it?" — tests the action
- "From how far away could you read the date?" — tests legibility
When you receive feedback, separate two things:
| What you hear | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| "I don't like the blue" | May be preference — ask for the reason |
| "I didn't see the time" | A real hierarchy problem — fix it |
| "It looks cluttered" | Too little empty space — remove elements |
| "I can't read it from a distance" | Insufficient contrast or type size |
The two-versions rule
Never show a single version. Show two, visibly different. You get feedback about direction rather than details, and the conversation becomes "which of these" instead of "I like it / I don't".
What you are allowed to use¶
This is the part beginners skip and then run into trouble.
You do not take images from Google Images. Search results tell you nothing about rights. Most of them are protected.
Safe, free sources:
| What you need | Where | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Photos | Unsplash, Pexels | Free, including commercial use; crediting the author is polite, not required |
| Illustrations | unDraw, Open Doodles | Free, editable |
| Icons | Lucide, Feather | Open-source (ISC / MIT licence) |
| Fonts | Google Fonts | Free, including commercial use |
Fonts are not copied from someone else's computer
A font is a program, with a licence. The ones on Google Fonts have free licences and you can use them anywhere. A font downloaded from a "free fonts" site may well be an illegal copy — avoid it.
Someone else's brand is not yours to use. You do not put a company's logo on a poster of yours as if it were your own, and you do not draw a logo "almost the same" as a well-known one.
Exercises¶
Exercise 1 — Three examples of good design and three of bad¶
Photograph (or note down) three things around you that communicate well and three that communicate badly: school posters, packaging, signs, app screens. For each, write one sentence with the reason.
Solution
There is no single correct answer, but good reasons sound like this:
Works: - "The sign at the entrance: one word, maximum white-on-red contrast, readable while walking." - "The water bottle label: the name large, everything else small — I know exactly what I'm buying." - "The submit button in the form: the only coloured element on screen, I can't miss it."
Does not work: - "The field trip poster: seven different fonts, I can't tell what matters." - "The corridor timetable: set in 12 pt, I have to walk up to within 30 cm." - "The leaflet: yellow text on a white background, almost zero contrast."
Bad reasons sound like this: "it's ugly", "I don't like the colour". Those are not observations, they are tastes.
Exercise 2 — Write a brief¶
Pick a real event at your school (a show, a contest, a fundraiser, a club meeting) and fill in the six brief questions. One sentence each, maximum.
Solution
Example for a project fair:
- What: A3 colour poster + square Instagram post.
- For whom: high school students and their parents.
- Message: "On Saturday you can see the projects your classmates built."
- Action: come on Saturday between 10:00 and 14:00 to the sports hall.
- Where: the school corridors and the school's Instagram feed.
- Constraints: school logo mandatory, no photos of students without parental consent, ready in 7 days.
Check your brief: if point 3 runs to more than one sentence, you do not have a message yet — you have a list.
Exercise 3 — The 3-second test¶
Find a poster in your school. Look at it for 3 seconds, then turn away and write down what you remember. Compare with what the poster actually says.
Solution
If you remembered what, when and where, the poster has a good hierarchy.
If you only remembered the image or the decorative title, the hierarchy is wrong: the most visible element is not the most important one. This is exactly the problem lesson 06 solves.
Mini-project: a visual journal¶
For the length of the course, keep a visual journal — a folder (physical or an album on your phone) where, two or three times a week, you add one piece of design that caught your attention. It does not matter whether you like it; what matters is writing one sentence about what it does and how.
What a good entry looks like
Chocolate packaging, 12 March. The whole surface is dark brown, with a single gold element in the middle. The colour contrast sends the eye straight to the name. The rest of the text (weight, ingredients) is on the back — nothing competes with the name on the front.
Login screen of a banking app, 14 March. One visible field on screen and one button. Everything else (sign up, help) is grey and small. The app decides for me what I have to do.
In three months you will have 30 entries and you will notice that you start seeing decisions where you used to see only images. That is the point.
Summary¶
- Graphic design solves a communication problem, it does not decorate.
- Good design is not noticed — the message is.
- Five fields: visual identity, print, digital, interface, motion. The course covers the first four.
- Elements: line, shape, space, colour, typography, image.
- Principles: alignment, proximity, contrast, hierarchy, repetition, balance.
- You do not open Figma until you have a brief with six answers.
- Useful feedback is requested through questions about what the reader took in, not about taste.
- Images from Unsplash / Pexels, fonts from Google Fonts, open-source icons. Not from Google Images.
Next step: → Lesson 01: Figma and Canva — first contact