idk. are default wordpress blogs the new shitty geocities / freewebs?

You literally won't learn diddley by taking those design courses, design can only really be grasped by working in the field for three years.

if you're talking about mechanics and stuff, sure, but I took design those design courses and I learned tons. as I suggested before, the most valuable thing I took away from em is the mentality of design, which afaik no one but the hardcore designers (arch, larch, int etc) ever learns. I'd even venture to say that film students and musicians could benefit from learning how to think critically about design. let along game designers, most of them are completely clueless even when they luck out and create something good

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to clarify, I'm actually majoring in landscape architecture, but I've had some previous experience with graphic design and some very minor experience in web design. it's just that a lot of the mistakes I see other designers making seem to come from a lack of training in what I'll just start calling critical design. I don't think this is necessarily something experience can fix, either, though I don't doubt that experience is invaluable

what I'm saying, though, is that graphic/web design students currently are not trained in critical design. "creating something new from an idea" is exactly what I'm talking about, and that's exactly what those design courses taught me to do. like back in 2005-6 when I did a lot of graphic art, I really had to get inspired out of the blue in order to create anything even vaguely worthwhile. these design courses have taught me how to take a solid, well-developed idea and carry it through to completion

note that the design courses I'm writing about are very different from typical graphic or web design classes, at least in my experience. I took a digital design class at my old college, and I've sat in on some "critiques" at this university, and they were all kind of design-lite. I learned some stuff about design concepts in DD, but only because I had a very good professor. conversely, I had a pretty terrible professor in my first design studio, but that was still probably the most valuable class I ever took. I should post some of the projects we did sometime, but for now here's a description of some: making a model of a shoe out of cut layers of cardboard, transforming a Mondrian painting of our choice into a 3D model, designing a city based upon one of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, creating a "site intervention" only out of natural materials on campus a la Andy Goldsworthy, and designing a lamp. some of them might sound kind of terrible and pretentious, but they all worked together to help you use well-developed ideas to create something valuable

but I don't wanna sound like I'm saying everyone who wants to create something needs to thoroughly examine this stuff, because I do value amateur/diy art and design. but I do think if you're planning to be a design professional, it's something you need to have a grasp of by some method or another. I don't doubt that the majority of graphic designers you meet are not cut out for the job on any level besides regurgitating some ad shit that's already out there, as I don't doubt most people who make it into a design profession aren't really cut out for it. we lost like 5 out of 18 students in design I, and I'm not really sure a few who made it past are totally cut out to work in the field either

if you're talking about mechanics and stuff, sure, but I took design those design courses and I learned tons. as I suggested before, the most valuable thing I took away from em is the mentality of design, which afaik no one but the hardcore designers (arch, larch, int etc) ever learns. I'd even venture to say that film students and musicians could benefit from learning how to think critically about design. let along game designers, most of them are completely clueless even when they luck out and create something good

one of my best friends is an interior designer and he's the most frustrating guy ever sometimes, I could never work with him professionally.

one of my best friends is an interior designer and he's the most frustrating guy ever sometimes, I could never work with him professionally.

Don't be such a homophobe dude

if you're talking about mechanics and stuff, sure, but I took design those design courses and I learned tons. as I suggested before, the most valuable thing I took away from em is the mentality of design, which afaik no one but the hardcore designers (arch, larch, int etc) ever learns. I'd even venture to say that film students and musicians could benefit from learning how to think critically about design. let along game designers, most of them are completely clueless even when they luck out and create something good

computer game designers have a dual problem because many of them also have a poor understanding of computer programming. without properly understanding the medium you're working with, it's hard to have interesting ideas. in some game design programs, as far as i'm aware, students are taught 'proven' industry practices and are not taught design or programming. there has been some stuff written about how game designers need to look at other fields to inform their work, though. there have also been some interesting specific studies, like Noah Wardrip-Fruin's book Expressive Processing, which looks at what AI efforts in procedural story generation (independently of games) might have to say for game development and the study of software in general. there's definitely a lot in design (specifically graphic and architecture i guess) that computer programmers could learn from to make better art programs. that's true of most areas of creative endeavour though. writing, film, engineering, musical composition, anthropology, mathematics, art theory/history etc all have huge amounts of information that game designers probably should know. different designers will probably end up looking at different stuff. i don't think that there's much reason to learn one thing first over another.

that said, I am interested in learning about design for my video game nerd stuff. i have read a book on the basic of graphic design and i had what i thought was an important insight at the time while reading it. do you have anything in particular that you think game people should read?

when I'm talking about architecture and stuff I'm only talking about general design concepts, not implying that game designers need to be trained in the methods and designs of architecture. it may help, though, because imo some really good game designers are able to effectively transfer real-world knowledge into the environments they create. the best example I know of is Outerlight, the guys behind the Ship and Bloody Good Time. back when it was just the ship, it seemed like these guys were just really obsessed with ships and the 1920s and wanted to make sure everything about them was perfect, but Bloody Good Time has the same attention to detail and application of knowledge despite being set in a totally different environment (hollywood b-movie sets). either these guys are inherently interested in all these things, or they see the importance in researching some essential fields that make the game environment more engaging.

I don't know of any books or anything though! I've only got a site design textbook, and that's ultra tedious to read even for landscape architects. if you ever wanted specific knowledge about paving or land-forming or plants or soils tho I could set you in the right direction

one of my best friends is an interior designer and he's the most frustrating guy ever sometimes, I could never work with him professionally.

int < arch < larch and it seems like a lot of people who go into interior design are expecting it to be interior decorating

design design design herp derp

Just got another PhD offer. More money, more interesting and industrially relevant than the last one. It is in a town with 300 roundabouts though. 1000 if you count mini-roundabouts.

I shall... overcome my roubdaboutaphobia.

mince is a folk artist

edit: brazilian folk artist

if you're talking about mechanics and stuff, sure, but I took design those design courses and I learned tons. as I suggested before, the most valuable thing I took away from em is the mentality of design, which afaik no one but the hardcore designers (arch, larch, int etc) ever learns. I'd even venture to say that film students and musicians could benefit from learning how to think critically about design. let along game designers, most of them are completely clueless even when they luck out and create something good

wish these were cources here in finland a simpleton layman like me could participate...

trouble, trouble set me free. i have seen your face and its too much too much for me.

hello everybody