We’ve given quite a bit of attention to “learn to code” initiatives lately, many of which have proved especially popular among designers. But as designers increasingly explore front-end development, design-curious programmers are cropping up as well; sadly, there aren’t many services out there that tailor to their needs.
To help resolve this problem, interaction designer Wells Riley and designer/hacker Kevin Xu has launched Hack Design, a design course built specifically for hackers. The site only just kicked off its first lessons, but has already signed up more than 10,000 users. It has also landed partnerships with noteworthy teachers like the Designer Fund‘s Enrique Allen, former Fitbit and Pinterest designer Kerem Suer and Skimm creator Luke Beard.
In many ways, Hack Design is the inverse of Codecademy’s Code Year, as it plans to teach developers to learn by doing with design puzzles and challenging games. In short, Riley wants to make 2013 the year hackers learn design.
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All of these courses will remain available and free for users, and content will continue to be added weekly. For non-devs looking to dive into design, this course is also worth looking into, but you’ll have to keep the target demographic in mind.
To check out the first week’s lessons, you can head here for “Week 1: What is design? Why is it important?,” a curated selection of resources to kick things off. Next week, Riley tells us, will focus on typography.
Image credit: Thinkstock
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