I'm about as far away from the design world as it gets and I'm not even sure why yt recommended me this channel, but it's actually become one of my favorites.

this continues to be the most underrated design channel on this platform

to be fair, I just finished my first year of design school and I never put my bong down lol

I'm 59 and all your videos motivate me

I'm an instructional designer (learning and development) coming from a background in education, adult learning and corporate training. I'm always trying to improve my design which I was never formally trained in. This guy is 100% right when he says you need to know your place in the schema of client relations. They already have their content, they more or less already know what messaging they want to get out. Projects always have to start with that thinking process of knowing what is the best way to connect the content to the audience.

As a freelance grinder in NYC mastering the grid will definitely save your ass.

I have tremendous respect for this channel, an actual designer turned content creator and not otherwise speaking real industry facts and calling out the bs. You couldn’t get such high quality information even on udemy.

Before I learned the art, a grid was just a grid. After I learned the art, a grid was no longer a grid. Now that I understand the art, a grid is just a grid.

I go to a design school in Canada and I love watching these on my summer break to keep up my skills. and from experience this guy is an amazing teacher not everyone has the pure understanding that can be taught to anyone

Just want to say thank you. I studied design for three years, am a designer and I’ve always recognised how I’ve been let down by the education system. I wish I had you as my educator back then, however, thanks to the internet I have you as my mentor. You are brutal and genuine in the things you’re teaching. Keep swearing at us please 🙏

I want a deep dive into grids. Very interesting

My biggest takeaway here is the subtley innovative approach you take to present the slide show.

I'm into programming (20+ years) and really appreciate listening to this. A challang in software and system design is keeping things simple and sticking to core principles.

Didn't know those were called rivers, but those gaps are freaking me out. Thanks!

bro he's bringing up the graphics live while he speaks instead of adding it in post. that's sick! the evolution of the slideshow. almost feels a bit like a performance.

Love it! It may seem cliche, but design is as much of a culture as it is a career choice. The more you embrace the culture, in all its forms, the more you can pull from for inspiration, reference, what-not-to-do, etc.

Dude, Elliott... this video goes so hard. Thank you for calling all this BS out. We need more of this!!

aint no river wide enough -- to keep me from typesetting youuuuu.....

Man, the phone spyware really working overtime. For once I'm gald about that, I was just talking about how hard getting a design degree is where I live. God bless you for sharing, and thanks Yt you got one right this time! ❤❤❤

The simplest things are never the most obvious. Yet it’s the best place to start.

I never went to design school even though I worked as visual designer for print and web. I was an illustrator who thought "oh, design is easy compared to drawing". Wrong. It might be technically easier, as in fewer lines made in illustrator. But design is way harder because every pixel/point counts. You have tons of wiggle room for composition with illustration, as 80% of the time you're not doing information design (sans illustrations used in a visual design, or comic books with the fancy lines of actions and dialogue placement) So, as a grownup who though he knew what design is, I'm so glad we got folks like you kicking us all in the ass to do better 😊

I may have just found my new favorite channel.

I think everything made sense to me, but the grids was an eye opener. Definitely will start utilising more custom grids.

14:43! Yes, this holds for ALL art of ALL art forms! It is the FORM of a composition that beguiles, excites, annoys, challenges, and arrests us, far more than the content displayed. An incompetent photo depicting the interior of a Romanesque church will almost always fail and pale when compared with a masterful sketch of a full and smoldering ashtray.

Thank you for the knowledge! Love the typeface selection points!

Love your no BS/filter approach, such an inspiration ❤️

Love it. Thank-you As someone with an engineering background I would say you give us too much credit.

So so so good!

Great video, summed up my experience in design school, thank you for the wisdom

I really like your channel and how you go straight to the point. Saludos desde Uruguay

I produce electronic music professionally but I apply these frameworks to my working process because they are valid regardless of field. I don't need any more musical input (its inevitable), I need input from diverse sources, so thanks for these videos.

My dad taught me about rivers growing up... THANKS DAD!!

That was great. The stuff explained wasnt cliche stuff like so much of other stuff on youtube

Love this video. Thanks for saving me the tuition! Would love more.

I really think you're not being mean at all, the truth is usually harsh. The grid talk is a really high level concept. Nice video!

I just like to make things. I'm trying to understand what graphic design is and how to do it. But I also just want to do what I want lmao. Idk. I like these videos, maybe I over-complicate things out of fear. I realized what it is..I DON'T LIKE LEARNING. Or I'm not all that interested in understanding the learning processes of the things I'm interested in. It's hard for me to be TRULY BOTHERED to do it. You said 3 months approx. right? I HAVE THAT TIME. YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I'VE SAT DOWN AND WAS LIKE "I'm going to try to learn about design today". Only to drop it, then pick it up and then drop it. Like a damn hot potato lmaoo. That's my vibe rn, but w discipline I'm sure I can become a great learner. I'm creative as fuck, I do not doubt my ability to visually communicate a specific thing to someone.

Paradoxically, simplicity and sophistication is the most difficult to achive. Good design and art looks so simple that it is overlooked by many. Great chanel!

Watching your video made me feel like I am in one sided relationship with graphic design!

Very good content!

God damn man, you'r a gold mine

I studied Computer Science. It’s the same thing. If you “put the bong down” and concentrate, the whole program can be done in about a year. It is definitely harder than art and design but it doesn’t have to take four years to master the core fundamentals of Computer Science. One year can do it

Excellent as always

Found this channel yesterday, and I'm already binge watching 😅 great work, and precious lessons. My two cents on "rivers": either flush left or "Elements of typographic style" the s*it out of it. Never leave the house without my pal Bringhurst ;)

In the middle of grading 2nd year design projects. How many students 'hear' these rants we give ... I might assign this as mandatory watching at the beginning of every semester, it'll save me the repetition.

I m not into a design program yet, but seeing how much of the works shown along the video are mostly illustrations makes me wonder If I should really take drawing classes and build a solid base before gettin into graphic design.

This was fun to watch. But for the first point on engineering I had a different experience. I’m currently at the end of my bachelors program which is a 50/50 mix of Computer Engineering and Interactiondesign and from my experience the design courses were the ones with the highest workload and most stress, while you could sleep trough the less demanding CE courses like Datamanagement and get a good grade anyway. Now I’m heading into my Identity Design Master and all people who were accepted whom i know are powerhouses of workethics. And the typography tipps on the Adobe Fonts saved my current work thank you for that :D

11:30 The Veracity of Sources concept is excellent. One thing to add to this is that designers can take a method that is appropriate for design-and misapply it elsewhere. A beautiful typeface is "true" for the use of solving a specific communication problem. The error here is to assume that anyone using that typeface must then be therefore on "team good" which means anything they state is factually and morally correct. But anyone can use that typeface and not necessarily be telling you the truth. They might believe they are but have been fooled themselves. (The "C-" problem has implications for critical thinking and moral reasoning sadly.) Sometimes superb designers will echo a propaganda line and seemingly be completely unaware even of the very valid criticisms of it. As often they are in echo chambers and will make no effort to find what's happening outside it directly from those with alternate viewpoints.

Give it to me. I’m waking up in sweats about being in school. I appreciate your unique perspective.

The last point really resonated with me. That design is about THINKING. + Mindset shift about being a designer. A designer is a person that takes content and makes it an easy way to understand the content (possibly with some goal or emotion in mind) + NOT About the content. its about the WAY it is presented. ----- "They Key to making sophisticated design.. is outside design" My thoughts: - Look at how people consume information - Understanding the psychology of "wanting" and perceived "needs" - Observe how products / ideas are successful if there was no visual design (audio? human interaction? Value? The "content"?) ----- [Notes] Interesting points on: - Rivers. (I personally never thought about this before, I just thought that it was bad to have unevening spacing. Its hard to focus on the content when I can see literal patterns while I'm reading) - going against idea of Grids. Grids for Layouts to make easier design choices, not for infinite options. - Typography, base it on the back of giants. If other people already like it, why not also branch off of them? Why try to try a brand new font that hasn't been tested. ---- I love your content, thank you for making this free for us to learn! Coming from a "hard" engineering field, Design feels felt like it has a lack of distinct steps to make a "good" design. Its not like math where 2+2=4, a good design has good points, but still feels subjective to me. I'm glad that you put your teachings out here for people to learn and gives us a more structured guideline towards what to look towards

CCS student here, thanks for the content and for the illustration w/ the critique method. Massimo Vignelli is busting out of his black funeral unitard rn to defend the unigrid.

Great video Sir Elliot. I have a request: Can you please release a video on the "Thinking" aspect from your video? It'll be a great help as I often struggle to be innovative / creative in my Design Philosophy of Minimalism often digesting comments like "its boring".

Thank you.

as a professional this is great

Only found your channel a few days ago and I f*ing love your channel! There are so many graphic design KZfaqrs that I just can't stomach as there's an air pretentiousness that you simply don't carry. Love the videos please keep them coming! From a recently graduated mature graphic designer, who's a bit at a loss as to what move to make next, due to family commitments complicating things. ❤☮️✌️and all that

i love your enders

I’ve had this video on my mind for the last few days just because of the grids segment..I’m working on manuals for my company and thought “yeah I’ll use a grid” but it’s been more annoying than helpful. Spending more time editing the grid than putting stuff on it!

My Gen-X soul loves this guy!

I'd add a couple caveats --> Schools are forced to be less selective due to enrollment issues (or that's an issue within the SUNY system right now as I see), and many schools are trying to decouple from the necessity for standardized test success as a marker of intelligence but are still tied to antiquated notions like the A-F grading system or even the 4 year degree system itself which would require too much infrastructural change to dismantle. The enrollment issue is gonna get really bad from my understanding once we hit 2025, not sure how it is going to effect MFA programs. The point being I don't think you're being a "hater" by saying schools are less selective. If you think about even NY and the art schools there. Some have to be selective to maintain their social cache/perception (idk, Pratt, Cooper) and that leaves a lot of people who are potentially on the cusp of being in those institutions out in the cold and forced to apply to other schools. Training or sensitizing your ability to see/looking at stuff (and maybe this is tied in with "thinking" but I think this oughta come first). Worse than the river issue, I still occasionally am telling senior/junior level undergraduate students to adjust the kerning between A's and V's and other common kerning issues. This has been an issue for me with students, but they're not looking at the design content they're making. They are so tunneled in on a special interest (concept art/sequential art/drawing elves or a furry comic) but are in graphic design because that has a greater correlation with employment/non-poverty-based existence that they do that at the expense of just making their type not be bad. There are good free fonts (Velvetyne is a good example, or many foundries typically have "trial" or "test drive" fonts with a limited character set. I'd argue that much of the "free bullshit" you mention is "fine" if you know you're probably gonna have to deal with no kerning pairs or terrible spacing or have to create outlines and adjust some curves) and any typeface can be free if you have friends/ask.

could you do poster or general graphic critiques?

You mention a 3 month timeline of concentrated study for diligent focused learners to acquire the required skills for competent graphic design. Can you provide some kind of study guide with your recommendations for completing something like this. I would be forever grateful.🙏

Are you able to go over the ending in more detail? Definitely opened up a whole other line of questions for me.

thanks for the video

Before this video I had didn't know most of these concepts. Now all I see are rivers.

literally doing my final homework assignments for typography this semester as im watching this ahahah

This video made me miss my graphic design classes in college so much! I would love to hear recommendations for advanced design online courses from you but if you already have a video with recommendations, where can I find them? Thank you very much!

6:54 As a 10 year veteran of book design the justification fight is real. But not particularly aggressive after so long :)

Can you please make a video explaining how grids are to be created and used properly.if you can

I still am trying to understand what's a legit grid all other points make sense. Thanks for the video! - an engineering student trying to teach themselves graphic design

I find it funny when people think design is an "easy" alternative to engineerining. I did well in school, obtained good grades. When I decided to pursue art/design in college, it became much more difficult. The classes are twice the length of any other major and the end goal is infinitely more ambiguous. Professors also assume the time you spend on homework is propotional to your in-class time (twice as long) so you end up spending twice as much time on homework than other majors.

❤❤❤

can you do a talk on 3D design?

As a person who all his life look at everything through dumb lens this channel is really eye opening. Your concepts work in so many fields I fiddle in! Thank you dearly!

These things are true. But I have to talk about this: "You have to be able to see this instantly..." Not all type is set with a computer. Not all content is out of the designer's control. Historically, you'd just change the words to fit and limit rivers. Understanding "why" this is a thing - matters. You can't just instantly _get it_. Resolution changes as you engage. But you do round that out at the end a bit. "Hundreds of thousands..." - Scary! Maybe sticking with 10 is the best place to start. Same with music. Are infinite patches really the way to go?

12:05 the rant about fkd up sht fonts! 😂. Oh my, am I guilty. Throughout my career - so guilty. I have been chastised and now I repent and will come to the light! Amen brother 😂

Never saw any video design series which you can learn the basics of design. Tops I've seen is color theory, but all in theory as well. Anyone bumped into a practical design education on the web? Typography, colors, compisitons...etc?

7:49 LOL 😂

Follow up question: How do you know what part of your designs are bad if you are working without a teacher/mentor/community (you're working and learning by yourself)? People can say they "like" a design, but is it really good? My problem is, how do I know what is wrong, and make it better, if no one tells me or there is no authority on it?

hey Elliot, what're some "textbooks" you'd recommend?

Very clear shit, thanks.

Has anyone ever told you that movie line from 8 miles"You went to cranbrook that's a private school" ?

@10:20 -- 😍😍😍

can i ask a polite question.. are you editing your video in real time whilst recording it?

This reminded of that time I had a hangovert and as I was frying some eggs I did a fart and some pasty poop came out and dripped through my underwear down my right leg.

I'm not able to go to college, do you think I can become a Good Designer and land a job without going?

Thanks for the video. For awhile now I've been (to varying degrees of success) trying to collect syllabi from prestigious design undergrad programs to construct a course plan for myself. This has proven very difficult and there's not enough material to actually do it fully. Do you know of any such resources? I'm looking for something more serious and structured than various youtube videos.

I just don't understand is there a bad design in today's world ???? There is symmetrical designs as well as asymmetrical, there is abstract design, I don't understand this part if a great artist makes same design as newbie artist his design would consider as abstract whereas that newbie design would be deemed as bad design, is there in this day and age the greatness of art or design is considered only if you can elaborate on it, isn't that the part where we as artist are giving more time to justify our design rather than design itself ?? I really don't know what I am saying I am totally a beginner, but just alot of questions these days and can't find answer to be honest....

I been saying this forever even outside design lazy people

so... 3 month lesson plan pdf incoming?

Where I'm from, they dont even use grids. East is the wild west of design.

Regarding the conclusion: Can you summarize by saying that design is only responsible for creating beautiful packaging for the client's content? Sorry, I didn't really understand.

I mean… it IS a grid…

Yeah, I'm not an expert; I'm a non-expert, maybe a potential client, stating that most - or almost all - of the graphic design samples shown in this video look weird and unappealing, to put it as diplomatically as possible.

Я хочу от тебя детей!

I’ve learned so much from you but sounds to me like you’re describing a template instead of a grid. What you’re saying isn’t a grid is by definition a grid. Not the template you called a grid. Again, you’re the expert but just from a language standpoint I struggled with this concept.

Sophisticated=ugly? None of the images from your intro are advanced or sophisticated. When I think of sophistication, I think of Brockmann. I think of Bass. I don't think of "ugly for shock factor" or "broken on purpose." Interesting.

I love the everything that you're preaching but 10:20 has got to be the most ironic part of this video. That has got to be the worst typeface to preach that you should have a good typeface to use.

am i missing something... why are all the examples like... repulsive. I swear im not trying to be mean its like these things were made to be intentionally hideous. Sure its subjective but like what the hell does sophisticated mean? grotesque? not one of these things i would allow myself to look at for too long.

What are you even saying dude