Articles

Design and 3D

Self-study plans for visual professions and tools — from interface mockups to three-dimensional models. Every stage ends with a piece of work you can show.

A profession and a program are different things#

This section puts articles about professions next to articles about programs, and it is worth telling them apart. Web design and 3D modeling are ways of thinking: composition, hierarchy, proportion, form, topology. Figma and Blender are the tools those ideas are carried out with. A tool without an understanding of the craft produces neat but empty work, and understanding without a tool stays as sketches on paper. That is why it is easier to learn them in pairs: one article answers "what to do", the other "which buttons to press".

Learning visual skills without a teacher#

Your main source of feedback is comparison with a reference. Take a good piece of work, figure out why it looks well put together, copy it, then make your own for the same brief. Keep the files from every stage: after two or three months, putting your first and latest work side by side shows progress better than any grade. Show your results to other people and ask not "do you like it" but "what did you notice first" and "where did your eye stumble" — that answers a question about composition rather than taste.

  • Design and 3D How to learn web design from scratch

    Web design is about how a person finds what they need on a page and does what they came to do. The design editor is only a pencil; what you actually learn is composition, typography, grids and working with users. Below is a six-month plan and a way to build a portfolio without clients.

  • Design and 3D How to learn Figma from scratch

    Figma is an interface design editor that runs in the browser and lets several people edit one file at the same time. The basics take a couple of weeks, and confident work with auto layout and components takes a month or six weeks of practice. This article is about the tool: which features to learn and in what order.

  • Design and 3D How to learn Blender from scratch

    Blender is a free 3D graphics program with modelling, sculpting, materials, animation and rendering in one package. Beginners are put off by the interface and the sheer number of shortcuts, but within the first two or three weeks it becomes familiar. This article is about the program itself — how to find your way around it and in what order to work through its parts.

  • Design and 3D How to learn 3D modelling from scratch

    The term 3D modelling covers very different work — from parts for 3D printing and engineering drawings to game characters and interior visualisation. Before learning a program, figure out which direction you need: it decides both the tool and the order of topics. Below is how to choose a path and how to get through the first months.