Graphic design as part of FCC challenges

I’ll be honest: I can barely draw a stick figure. My 4-year-old draws better than I do, and he’s certainly more imaginative. I have no skills in graphic design, but more fundamentally, I have no gift for it. I cannot imagine a “good looking page” in my head which I would then implement. And it’s not what I want to be doing - I want to write code, not nudge antialiased pixels in Photoshop.

Meanwhile, many FCC projects seem to require just that: good design skills - or else they will look really beginner-ish. I have completed my Random Quote Machine and I am even a bit proud of the db-backed microservice I wrote for it and all the neat little features hidden under the hood (prefetch!). But the page is just some text on some background and a couple of buttons which look good thanks to Bootstrap.

Now I have all the code I need for the Weather project, but I’ve been stuck for a few days (and broke my streak), because I have no idea how to design the page, even with the fantastic weather icons. I am afraid it will only get worse, since there are many graphics-heavy projects ahead: the Pomodoro Clock, Tic-Tac-Toe and many others. And just as I know that it is within my grasp to write all the code for them, I also have no idea about to give them a nice look.

While the new and improved FCC is still in beta (and the new curriculum looks awesome!), might I suggest placing more emphasis on working, efficient, useful code, and less on projects that call for graphic design? (After all, we have envato for that.)

If you have functional code, then you’re done. You don’t need to make it pretty. It’s impossible to have people do front end projects that don’t call for at least a little design, though.

1 Like

Don’t worry, none of the user stories are “I can view the site without wanting to claw my eyes out”.

3 Likes
  • Andrew Loomis’s books are for free, google it.
  • I think lynda.com is still free with your states library (with use of library card), google it to get to your local portal access.
  • I’m into Vilppu style of drawing, although it’s not cheap. You can view his youtube videos to learn how to flow with his drawing style. Check out some of my instagram page, under RacketINK:
    https://www.instagram.com/racketink/