7 Online Games for Honing Your Design Skills

Tired of plodding through textbooks and articles on color theory, typography and mastery of design tools?

Graphic design is equal parts science and art, but sometimes what you need is practice, not education. Learning through play is a great way to do it, so we’ve highlighted the best designer-themed browser games from a list put together by the folks over at Graphism.fr!

No matter the project, you’ll find applications for the skills these games teach in your daily life. So whenever you need a break from your work, don’t feel guilty or like you’re not being productive. Load one of these up and go for that high score!

Color

Put your chromatic perception to the test with this simple online game! Find the best locations on the color wheel in order to match color properties and relationships. From finding the right hue to feeling out a triadic color scheme web design, this easy-to-play diversion will help you master color theory in no time.

Pen Tool

Learn to use the indispensable pen tool with precision and speed while guiding Weber the space explorer to safety in this tutorial game. As you progress through its levels, you’ll be tasked with increasingly advanced uses of the tool, drawing straight lines, tracing shapes, creating curves and more. The Pen Tool is useful in almost every design project, from cutting out selections to defining shapes, so it pays to brush up on your skills with online games like this one.

Shape

While the Pen Tool tutorial challenges you with some free-form uses of curves, this game focuses on mastering Bézier curves by adjusting them within glyphs. Take your time to drag your handles around so the angles are just right, and you’ll find organic shapes start to come more naturally when working with vectors.

What the Hex?

Nothing beats seeing the color itself, but an efficient designer should be able to read Hex values almost like sheet music, visualizing them immediately. This simple game puts that skill to the test, offering up colors as multiple-choice matches for a Hex value. Too easy? Just turn up the difficulty at the bottom to increase the amount of colors you can choose from, and you’ll start seeing colors pop out from your web code soon.

Logo Quiz

Understanding logo design will help you meet your clients’ needs and target your audience, so it pays to review some of the most iconic logos ever. This online game puts your knowledge to the test with timed questions, asking you to identify a brand from a partial logo element. Every time you play, you’ll get a new set of 10 logos to go through, so time yourself and see how quickly you can recognize your peers’ creations. Maybe one of yours will be up there soon!

(the rather difficult) Font Game

Typography is a vast field, where subtleties matter. As a designer with a keen eye, it pays to identify font faces as quickly as possible so you can find them when the need arises. Practice your attention to detail with this game and see how accurately you can match a set of glyphs with their font. Forget looking through the code to find out the families — you’ll start calling them out before you know it.

Kill Comic Sans

While it does have its applications, the famously overused font is a source of frustration for many designers. What better way to wrap up this list than by releasing some tension and putting some bullet holes through the font you love to hate? Don’t think you’re not learning anything, either. Hitting your target consistently takes speed and precision with your mouse, so go ahead and develop those motor skills while letting off some steam!

Up Your Design Skills With Online Games

While there’s no substitute for real-world experience, as an effective designer you’ll need to unleash your creativity by knowing your way around your tools and techniques, even if they aren’t applied with every project.

These online games will help hone your skills so they don’t get rusty, making you a faster, cleaner and more flexible designer. So keep playing, and have fun!

If you have any other favorite graphic design themed games, let us know in the comments!