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Why Design Is Best Learned in the Classroom
Learning the fundamentals through traditional design education will pay off even as tech and the industry change
There’s a very serious debate raging about whether there’s value at all in going to a college or university anymore. The massive debt pressure you put yourself under for the rest of your life is a strong argument that it’s not worth it. If you leave school with $100K, $50K, or even $25K in debt, can you honestly say your education has given you a leg up in life? It’s difficult to justify it when the power of a degree in the employment market has substantially weakened over the past generation.
That’s not what I’m writing about today, but it’s good context.
If you want to be a designer, I believe there’s still tremendous value in traditional design education. In fact, I credit having one as being a key part of my successful freelance design career.
Why? Design fundamentals.
What are design fundamentals?
It doesn’t matter what kind of designer you are — graphic, digital, web, mobile, interactive, UX, UI, product, branding, [insert your favorite label here]— the same set of underlying fundamentals are what you apply daily to solve visual…
