Top 10 Online Graphic Design Courses

You can teach a classically-trained graphic designer new tricks

While the graphic design community debates whether it is necessary to obtain a graphic design degree or whether self-taught graphic designers can craft quality designs on par with those of degree-holding designers, you can quietly bolster your graphic design skills and become a better – and more marketable – graphic designer by taking the following 10 free and low-investment online graphic design courses.

Teach Yourself Graphic Design

This PSD Tuts Plus self-study online course teaches the basics of graphic design. Following a standardized curriculum, you’ll learn graphic design theory and the best practices you need to build a strong foundation in design.

Graphic Design Theory?

Published on design authority AIGA’s website, Helen Armstrong’s outstanding article lends perspective into graphic design theory. Once you’ve learned the basics in the PSD Tuts Plus course, you’ll benefit from this alternative viewpoint that delves into what graphic design theory really means, as well as its impact on how you work as a graphic designer.

Digital Typography

If you want to establish yourself as a stellar graphic designer, don’t skimp on learning typography. Your choice of typography can make or break any design, no matter how good or bad it already is. This free course, complete with materials, was developed by MIT and published on About.com.

How to Design a Logo

What goes into a great logo design? Find out the answer to that question as you explore great logo artwork so you can craft your own unique logos and outstanding brand images. This course is $45; an investment that pales in comparison to a single credit hour.

Photoshop Basix

Part of the PSD Tuts Plus “Sessions” series, this course reveals the secrets to mastering Photoshop. The result? You’ll be a more talented designer capable of quick, accurate work; thus, far more marketable.

Logo Design: Let The Type Do The Talking

This $20 Skillshare course explores the role typography plays in logo design, and how you can select the right logo typography to influence emotion.

The Graphic Design School

This complete course curriculum covers nearly every aspect of graphic and web design. Find myriad classes and certificates to achieve, and be instructed by knowledgeable instructors. The fees are higher than other options listed here – around $2,000 – but still far cheaper and quicker than earning an MFA.

Illustrator Training Course

Vector Diary’s four-week Adobe Illustrator course is the perfect way to quickly learn and master the nuances of one of the most popular vector design programs in the world.

HOW Design University

The experts at HOW Design have created a comprehensive graphic design learning program that covers far more than the basics of design. From advanced typography to design business management, you can take online courses designed to make you a more successful designer for around $200 each.

The Complete Guide to Starting a Graphic and Web Design Business From Home

Colorburned’s Gino Orlandi takes you step-by-step through the process of starting a successful design business from home. This course represents an excellent overview of the world of self-employed graphic designers and helps you make important decisions up-front, such as determining what your niche will be so you can market to targeted customers.

What self-study online graphic design courses do you recommend?

Guest Author Brian Morris writes for the PsPrint Design & Printing Blog. PsPrint is an online commercial printing company. Follow PsPrint on Twitter @PsPrint and Facebook.

Popular Posts

Škoda Popular 1100 - 4

I love those popular posts widgets, but I don’t have room for one here on Web Teacher. Today I want to share some of the most popular posts on this blog to make up for that omission. If you missed them the first time, please take a look.

How soon should flexbox replace float in the web education curriculum?

Is anyone teaching flexbox for layout as a regular part of the web design curriculum? I’m thinking probably not a lot of classes are doing it now because it isn’t supported in all browsers yet.

I’m telling students about CSS layouts using floats. But I’m starting to mention flexbox to them as something they need to watch because it’s going to change everything.

When do we switch from teaching one layout method to another? When browser compliance is complete? Before that? After that? What are you doing? Do we teach both side by side?

I’m just wondering what everyone is doing and what I should be recommending to my institution about when to update the curriculum.

See also: Flexbox Tutorials from Web Designer Depot and a number of Useful Link posts.

Useful links: CS Edu, Flexbox, Digital Learners

From The Female Perspective of Computer Science comes this video for educators: A Forty Minute Tour of CS Education With Mark Guzdial.

Here’s a good flexbox tutorial from Stian Karlsen. Look at the tutorial with a compliant browser, Chrome, for example.

Tomorrow.org published a study on the new digital learners of 2013, and about the way schools are helping or hindering education with technology. The study is published as a PDF: The Emergence of the K-12 Digital Learner.

Useful links: Web Design Chemistry, Deliverables, Shared Streaming, Jobs vs. Cook

Atomic Web Design takes an interesting metaphorical look at how the bits and pieces (or atoms and molecules) of a web design work together.

The Big Think: Breaking the Deliverables Habit is from Robert Hoekman at Smashing Magazine and is definitely worth thinking about.

Not so long ago I wrote Shared Streaming: Good or Bad? Netflix has decided that shared streaming is happening whether they like it or not and is catering to it with Multiple User Profiles for Accounts.

Is it just me, or does it seem that now that Steve Jobs is gone the Apple fanboys (and fangirls, may I add) feel free to poke jabs and complaints at Apple for various decisions regarding new products? It’s as if they are challenging Tim Cook to earn their affections all over again regardless of the quality of the products. The tweets during the recent announcements about iOS7 were often critical and bitchy – where has the unquestioned glowing enthusiasm gone? Was it all about Steve Jobs and not about Apple technology at all?

 

The Flap Over Flat Design

Lately I’ve been seeing many articles talking about flat design. It was not totally clear from the articles what flat design was. It wasn’t clear why we needed to talk about it as the latest hot thing. So I did a little research. Here’s what I learned.

Most articles talk about flat design as opposed to skeuomorphic design. Skeuomorphism is an attempt to give web page elements qualities they might have in real life. For example, a button might have a drop shadow so it looks like a real-life button. Think Apple design elements with drop shadows, gradients, rounded corners. You can see an example in this calculator keyboard from Apple.

Apple calculator

On the other hand, flat design gets rid of those beveled edges, gradients, shadows, and reflections. The look of Windows 8 is a good example of flat design.

Windows 8

I don’t want to paint this design discussion as a Mac vs. Windows thing. Web sites are using what they are identifying as flat design. Google+ uses it. There’s even one of those showcase design sites where you can look at the latest in flat designs. It’s called – what else – Flat Design.

On the Usabilla blog, they wrote Flat Design: Trend or Revolution? They argue there that flat designs are honest, quick, usable, and scalable. I don’t see any evidence that flat design is more honest, quick, usable and scalable than any other kind of design, but that’s their checklist. In the end, however, Usabilla does not come out and boldly say that flat design is better or more usable.

Reading and researching this topic has been interesting in terms of trying to parse out the facts from the slant and bias. For example, Gizmodo describes skeuomorphism as overwrought trickery while describing flat design as modern and simple.

The article that got me started reading on the topic of flat design is The Interview about flat design that wasn’t cool enough for the media by Michael Flarup. It’s an interview he did for Wired that never made it into the magazine so he published it himself. He, very sensibly in my opinion, says that the debate about flat vs. skeu is a false one.

I think I speak for a sizable amount of the design community when I say that we’re all a bit tired of this debate. One isn’t better than the other, no more than a hammer is better than a screwdriver. A flat minimalistic design, and a rich ‘themed’ design are both tools in a designers toolbox. They are different approaches and they each come with their own pros and cons. Both can work fantastically in the right context.

To me, describing the two styles as 3-D and 2-D makes more sense than using terms like skeuomorphism and flat. But such basic terminology might not generate as much discussion.

What did I learn from this little research project? I learned about the 2 dimensional flat design trend (I’ll label it a trend, even though Usabilla wouldn’t). I understand what the term means now.

Did I learn anything about what makes good design, or the best type of design? No. Flat design is just another type of design. Use it if it makes sense for you. But don’t think you have to because there are 631,000,000 mentions about it on Google.

Useful Links: Clown Car, Screen Choice, Teens Online

Estelle Weyl explains Clown Car Technique: Solving Adaptive Images In Responsive Web Design in this article at Smashing Magazine. This is the full story from the originator of the idea and is worth attention.

Tech Crunch says As TV Falls Apart, Tumblr And Twitter Aim To Pick Up The Pieces. The thing this article does not mention is that we choose which screen to pay attention to based on the quality of what we’re getting from the screen in question. The quality on TV is failing, not the medium of TV itself.

McAfee Digital Deception Study 2013: Exploring the Online Disconnect between Parents & Pre-teens, Teens and Young Adults shows that parents don’t really know what their kids are doing. Teachers and parents should take a look at this study.