---
title: Introducing Design and Front-End Development Trails for Upcase
teaser: Hone your design and front-end development skills with a new trail series
  on Upcase.
tags: news,design,web,upcase
author: Rachel Cope
published_on: 2014-12-10
---

We have been working on a new series of design and front-end development trails
for Upcase. Today, I'm happy to announce the first two trails.

The [CSS Transforms &
Transitions](https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/css-transforms-and-transitions) trail will teach
you the basics of 2D transforms - how to make elements change from one style to
another, scale, rotate, move, and tilt. Additionally, you'll learn how to make
these elements smoothly and gradually change styles, as well as control the
delay and speed of the changes.

The [CSS Animation](https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/css-animation) trail will introduce you
to the building blocks of <abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr>
animation: keyframes and animation properties and teach you the basics of
creating complex animations.

Adding <abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr> transforms, transitions,
and animations to your repertoire of front-end development skills will give you
a powerful tool to enhance the interaction of your website or app, draw
attention to important areas of your product, and bring personality to your
interface.

![Pinwheel example](https://images.thoughtbot.com/introducing-front-end-dev-trails-post/pinwheel.gif)

## What is Upcase

[Upcase](https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/) is thoughtbot's online learning community for
intermediate and advanced designers and developers. Each Upcase trail provides a
series of instructions and Git-based exercises that help you learn a topic. As
you submit your solutions, other Upcase members review and provide feedback. You
can review other submissions, discover other ways to solve the problem, and
cement your knowledge by providing feedback to others.

## Get Started Learning Front-End Development

If you're new to front-end development or want to hone your design and front-end
skills, we hope you'll get started with our new design and front-end development
trails. Stay tuned for the release of more in the series. Coming soon: CSS3
Fundamentals and Sass Fundamentals.