If it is out there, somebody designed it. From buildings, through clothing, to web pages and video games – this remains true. Someone had to think of the design.

Humans are very visual creatures. Because of that, a catchy image or interesting logo can do wonders. It doesn’t matter whether it is a website, a mobile app, or a business.

Speaking in very general terms, design refers to anything visuals, interaction flows, wireframes, branding, and more. A creative and appealing design can greatly enhance traffic and sales, be it online or offline.

Treehouse’s design category includes 14 courses, 12 workshops, 5 conferences, and 4 bonus series. There is also a web design learning track, where students study how to build and design websites. In this track, students learn the foundations of design like branding, color theory, and typography. These are basics and fundamentals, which can assist in the process of designing a website. Students also learn HTML and CSS, which are industry-standard codes, used by many popular websites.

Businesses have many ways to communicate with customers and clients. One major way is with visuals. Because of this, learning design basics and coding are immensely useful skills, as they are used by most businesses around the world. Students who successfully complete Treehouse’s design learning track will have acquired the skills necessary to build a website of their very own, and even start a career.

Examples of Treehouse design courses: Adobe Illustrator for Web Design, Sketch Basics, UX Basics, and Brand Identity Basics.

Course Review: Photoshop Foundations

This course is instructed by Allison Grayce. Web designers use Adobe’s Photoshop a lot, and those who complete this course will have the knowledge and skills that are relevant to the web designing profession. This course provides a foundation for more advanced topics and skills. Adobe has many pieces of software pertaining to design, and Photoshop is one of the most commonly used programs in the world. This is true not only to designers, but to many others as well.

Allison Grayce

The topics covered in this course are:

• Workspace basics
• Layer basics
• Mask basics
• Type tools
• Vector shapes
• Slices & save for web
• Workflow basics

This course is a beginner course, which runs about three hours. It includes seven modules, and has demonstrations and assessment quizzes.

About the Instructor: Allison Grayce

Grayce is a freelance web designer, graphic designer, and UX consultant. She has experience working at small interactive agencies and large advertising firms. Grayce is a contributing author at Think Vitamin, and is obsessed with ampersands.

Course Review: Illustrator Foundations

This Treehouse course is instructed by Mat Helme. Illustrator Foundations explores the power of Adobe Illustrator, and takes a project-based learning approach to the application’s core features. Special attention is given to tools which are relevant to web design professionals. This is by no means a hypothetical or theoretical course. This is a hands-on course, and by the end of it students are ready to apply everything they have learned to their next project.

Mat Helme

The topics covered in this course are:

• Introduction to Adobe Illustrator
• Creating an Icon
• Adding Color and Type
• How to Draw in Illustrator
• Applying Effects
• Creating Home Page Assets

This is a relatively long course, clocking in at over nine hours. It is made up of six modules, each of which includes lectures, assessment quizzes, and also extra credit work.

About the Instructor: Mat Helme

Helme is a graphic designer, web designer, illustrator, front end web developer, author, and teacher. He fell in love with the fine arts and design at a very young age, and has never stopped loving it.

Designers and graphic artists fill our world – the real one and the web-based one – with color and life. Design has the ability to lift spirits and affect real change in the world. Digital design is amazing by its own rights, since it is all about transforming binary code into something which is creative and beautiful. Digital design is the kind of art which quickly goes way beyond the tools and codes which are used in its creation.