Proper kerning. Color matching. The convoluted logic of the Bezier curve. These are the skills of any good designer. And if you happen to be heading back to design school after a summer off, you can brush the dust off with Method of Action, a series of fun (really!), educational (really!) mini-games for aspiring designers.
Spotted by Core77, our favorite tutorial is The Bezier Game, which challenges you to learn how to master Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator’s infamous pen tool. While incredibly powerful, the pen tool can be frustrating to learn, because you don’t just draw with it. Instead, you have to plot Bezier curves, forecasting parabolic anchor points with your mind to land the perfect curve of a vector heart or piece of typography. The pen tool is as much art as it is science, requiring you to think ahead, abstracting a shape indirectly before it exists.
In truth, all of the games are pretty fantastic (and impeccably designed). So put down Candy Birds Dungeon Kingdoms Turbo Village Gem Collector already–or whatever app is stealing your free time–and spend a few minutes on some clicky draggy self-improvement instead. Because the pen tool knows all of your weaknesses. And it’s laughing at you.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
