Why You Should Stop Working and Play These Graphic Design Games Instead

What are the best graphic design games?

There are numerous games perfect for honing those rusty graphic design and coding skills, and most of them are free! Some of these games include:

• Typeconnection
• Typewar
• Shape Type
• Kern Me
• Graphisme & Interactivité
• Helvetica vs. Arial
• I Shot the Serif
• Pixactly
• The Font Game
• Cheese or Font
• Code Combat

Why should designers play brain games?

Learning new things can be fun, but most of us are so busy with work and responsibilities that a new task—even something as small as reading a book or learning a new skill—can be overwhelming.

Oftentimes, deadlines, errands, and appointments can quickly begin to pile. And if we do get a chance to relax, vegging out can be truly sweet.

However, there’s something to be said for taking breaks while you’re working. In fact, studies suggest taking a few minutes for yourself is actually extremely beneficial to your health, and what better way to spend that break than to play a few skill-building graphic design games?

Whether you need to brush up on type, colors, or code, we’ve got you covered. Below are over 30 games, quizzes, and tutorials to give you a break.

* Some of these games have music, so you may want to plug in your headphones if you're at work.

Graphic Design Games

Typeconnection

Typeconnection is the ultimate type game for the current generation. Set up like a dating site, this game allows you to play matchmaker between various fonts. The game also familiarizes its players with terminology, history, and proper aesthetic.

Typewar

Typewar will test your type knowledge, helping you to recognize various fonts instantly. The game is set up with a point system and levels, granting you more points based on how well or poorly other players perform.

Typewar's Quests

An offshoot of Typewar, Typewar Quests are for people who consistently confuse certain fonts. There are various fonts to compare and guess, and you can choose your own quest (or request one).

Shape Type | A Letter Shaping Game

This game will help you get the hang of shaping letters according to existing fonts. Additionally, the trivia aspect can teach you about the creators of fonts and when each font was designed.

KERNTYPE | a kerning game

This game tests your spacing game. How well can you kern the letters provided? Play and find out.

Graphisme & Interactivité

This website has a variety of graphic design games to play, from color games to lettering games. You'll want to bookmark this site for the next time you need a brain game.

Helvetica vs. Arial

While it's not the most intellectual game ever made, Helvetica vs. Arial is a fun pick-me-up that can help you familiarize yourself with these two fonts.

Fathom | Ragtime

Rag|Time allows you to review copy for any ragged margins. You then have a limited time to fix the copy so it looks even and appealing.

Kill Comic Sans

This is another game that isn't necessarily bettering your design skills, but it is addictive. Comic Sans has an infamous name in the design world, and this game allows designers to do what they really want to do: kill Comic Sans.

DesignBreak

When exploring design games, DesignBreak is a great resource for all types of games, which we've listed below. On DesignBreak, you can find “Shoot the Serif,” “The Bezier Game,” “The Rather Difficult Typo Game,” “What the Hex?,” “Logo Design Quiz,” and “Pixactly.”

Shoot the Serif

This game is available as an app and requires you to “shoot the serif” (and not the sans-serif).

The Bézier Game

The Pen Tool isn't exactly the simplest design resource to learn, but The Bézier Game can help. This game allows you to practice with this tool as much as you want, but with limited nodes, thus forcing you to improve your skills.

Font Game

The Font Game is for type professionals only. This game is a difficult (yet effective) test of font accuracy and knowledge.

What the hex?

This clever game will test you on your color memory and knowledge, asking you to identify a color based solely on its technical title.

Hex Invaders

Color people may find themselves playing Hex Invaders all day long. This game forces you not only to consider the RGB color system, but also to apply it in your decisions.

Color Method

The Color Method game tests your understanding of color with a number of hue-matching levels, from single hues all the way to tetradic colors.

Color Theory

Color Theory may not teach you much about colors, but it takes the RGB color wheel and applies it to a fun game. (This is a good one if you need something to perk you up during that afternoon slump.)

The X-Rite Color Challenge

The X-Rite Color Challenge is one of our favorite graphic design games, as it allows you to arrange color swatches based on various spectrums. This game will certainly test your color memory and powers of perception.

Pixactly

How well do you know your pixels? Pixactly will test your ability to draw exact dimensions based on the numbers given.

Cheese or Font

Cheese or Font is perhaps one of the most applicable graphic design games, because you'll not only learn about fonts; you'll also learn about cheeses. In fact, you might be surprised at the challenging variety of words this game has to offer.

Coding Games

CSS Diner

CSS Diner is a CSS-based game that challenges you to select elements using only CSS code. Although challenging, it's a great way to improve your CSS skills.

Flexbox Defense

Flexbox Defense is a creative exercise in protecting what's yours. You must defend and relocate your towers using CSS. The fast-paced nature of this game will force you to learn and apply CSS.

Flexbox Froggy

Similar to Flexbox Defense, Flexbox Froggy is a coding game in which Froggy's fate rests in your code. As with CSS Diner and Flexbox Defense, it's helpful to have a little CSS knowledge going in.

Ruby Warrior

This pixel game is a throwback to classic games, as well as a tool for aspiring (and current) programmers to learn Ruby. You can set your difficulty to beginner or even intermediate.

Code Combat

Code Combat is the ultimate guide for beginner coders. Designed for students, this is possibly the most intuitive exercise in our list of graphic design games. Set up like a classic RPG, you unlock various places and resources the further you get—only you're doing it with code.

CodeMonkey

CodeMonkey is ridiculously easy, fun, and addictive. This game is great for people who want to understand the basic layout of how coding works and why it looks the way it does.

Codecademy

Codecademy is a platform dedicated to teaching users how to code in a variety of languages. Once you have familiarized yourself with a few different coding languages, you can try this exercise, which allows you to make your own video game.

Quizzes

Logo Design Quiz

For designers, logos are more than just logos; they're art! This is one of many graphic design games that will challenge your advertising knowledge by allowing you to guess the company represented by each image.

Sporcle Logo Quiz

How well do you know modern companies? Similar to the quiz above, this logo game tests your knowledge as well as your ability to beat the clock.

Logo Game: Guess the Brands (for iPhone and iPad)

You can also guess logos on your phone, with this graphic design app game. Download for a quick refresh of your favorite company images.

Drawing & Design Fun

Quick, Draw!

This game won't improve your graphic design skills per se, but it will challenge you to doodle images quickly for the world of science and tech.

Sketch Quest

This game has a couple of downsides. Firstly, you'll need to disable your adblocker and allow Flash. Secondly, you may never get the music out of your head. However, this game is also a fun side scroller that allows you to draw different parts of your game and character. Prepare to spend a lot of time playing Sketch Quest.