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Graphic design is the use of visual elements such as images and text to create visual content that communicates specific messages and ideas. It includes a diverse number of products, from simple logos to complex webpages and advertisements. Unlike art, which involves visual content created for its own sake, graphic design is created for a specific purpose.

Graphic Designers work with both non-digital media like ink and paper, and digital tools like Adobe Photoshop. In recent years, digital tools have become increasingly dominant in this industry. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are some of the programs commonly used by designers. Becoming a Graphic Designer, however, requires more than just learning the design applications. Graphic design includes visual design concepts like color theory, typography, use of negative space, and headings. Designers also need to understand how to crop, move, resize, and manipulate photos. Graphic Designers also learn how to work with vector graphics and how to scale designs for different devices.

You can go to art school for four years to learn graphic design or sign up for a graphic design bootcamp. Graphic design bootcamps offer in-depth training that you can complete in a matter of months, rather than years, and provide you with all the training you’ll need to start a new career as a Graphic Designer.

What Can You Do with Graphic Design?

Training in graphic design can help you find many different jobs. You can work as a Graphic Designer in the art department of a company or for an advertising agency. Many Graphic Designers are self-employed freelancers. Graphic Designers also work in publishing, laying out pages for books and magazines, and designing and creating cover art and text. With graphic design skills, you can also become a UX Designer or UI Designer. If you learn to code, you may want to move into web development.

Is It Worth It to Learn Graphic Design?

If you’re looking for a career that combines art and technology and lets you explore your creative side, then it is definitely worth it to learn graphic design. Signing up for a graphic design course can start you on the road to a fulfilling and enjoyable future in the arts. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of graphic design jobs is expected to increase by 2 percent over the next ten years. It says, “About 21,100 openings for graphic designers are projected each year, on average, over the decade.” The agency reports that the median pay for a Graphic Designer in the United States is about $59,000 yearly.

You don't have to work as a Graphic Designer to benefit from a graphic design class. Learning to work with the various Adobe products and other design tools used in this field can help you create logos, posters, or websites for yourself, friends, family, or groups you belong to. You don't have to start a new career as a Graphic Designer to enjoy the graphic arts.

What Will I Learn in a Graphic Design Class?

When you sign up for a graphic design class, you will learn the basic foundations of design and how to use the tools you’ll need to create logos, advertisements, packaging, or publications. In a graphic design class, you will learn about visual design concepts, typography, images, popular tools, and branding. You will also explore your creativity and practice communicating your design ideas to team members.

Visual Design

The principles of visual design govern how elements go together to create a successful design. Some of these principles are balance, spacing, color, proportion, and hierarchy. Visual design is about aesthetics. If the elements in a design do not work together in harmony, the design will make users uncomfortable and it will feel "off." Visual design is also focused on optimizing the user experience to make a product easy, intuitive, and comfortable to use.

Typography

A class in graphic design will also address typography, which is the shape, arrangement, and spacing of letters. Typography involves knowing how to use the right font and typeface, provide contrast, align everything correctly, and provide a hierarchy to lead the reader through the piece. Graphic Designers use their knowledge of typography to ensure that text is easy to read, clear, and visually appealing.

Images

Images are a powerful way to convey messages, and a graphic design class will teach you how to choose images and work them into designs. A class will teach you how to resize, move, and alter images for layouts. You need to learn how to choose the right image for a design, where to put it, and how it relates to the other elements around it.

Accessibility

Accessibility is another important consideration in graphic design. Graphic Designers need to consider the needs of all users when creating a design. This affects their choices about many different design elements like typography, color, and navigation. For instance, Graphic Designers need to choose typefaces that are easy to read and scale up well for users with poor eyesight. Color contrasts should be strong, and color should not be the only indicator of a status change because some users are color-blind. Text should be divided into chunks according to subject, with headings and bullet points.

Graphic Design Tools

A good graphic design class will also teach you how to use the tools that are important for creating designs. These include the many apps that are part of the Adobe Creative Cloud such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Other choices include GIMP, Canva, and Behance.

Branding

Part of the job of a Graphic Designer is to produce materials that follow a company's brand. This means creating designs for a company logo, packaging, and advertising that all work together so that customers will recognize the product as coming from a particular company. A graphic design class will teach you how to develop a style sheet for a particular brand made up of a typeface, colors, image styles, and spacing.

Creativity

While a graphic design class won't teach you how to be creative, an experienced instructor will help you find and tap into your own creativity. Class assignments are designed to help you learn to think in creative ways to produce designs you can use as part of your design portfolio to demonstrate your abilities to future employers.

Communication

Communication is another skill that is not specifically covered in graphic design classes, but that you’re likely to improve throughout the class. Many classes offer practice in working as a group, which helps students learn how to get their ideas across to others. Graphic Designers often work as part of a team and being able to communicate effectively is an important skill on the job.

Careers for Graphic Design Bootcamp Graduates

While graphic design specifically relates to graphics, learning graphic design teaches the fundamentals for other creative positions. The most common graphic design jobs are Graphic Designer, Visual Designer, and Digital Designer. Those who start in graphic design may also go on to take classes in UX design and motion graphics. Designers with a background in mobile products and user experience (UI) are in particularly high demand.

A graphic design bootcamp is an excellent first step into the field of graphic design. Graphic and Visual Designers might work with non-digital media even if they digitize their work, while Digital Designers only design digital products. Those looking for more earning potential might choose to specialize in UI design, which would require additional training. UI Designers apply graphic design principles to create the visual elements that users interact with on websites and apps, including buttons, menus, and layouts.

What Industries Use Graphic Design?

Many businesses need graphic design services to design a logo, create packaging materials, or put together advertising, but some industries use graphic design more than others. Publishing, branding, advertising, social media management, and game development are all areas where the talents of Graphic Designers are welcomed.

Publishing

Many Graphic Designers are employed in the publishing industry. They work on text and image layouts for print publications and online magazines and newspapers, and design covers for print and digital books. They produce concept visuals for approval, work with Illustrators, and create the final design. Graphic Designers work as part of a larger publishing team.

Brand Development

Graphic Designers help companies develop and maintain a brand by creating logos, packaging, and advertising that help customers recognize the company's products. They create designs made up of typefaces, colors, image styles, and spacing chosen to support the brand. Graphic Designers working in brand development often take extra courses in marketing.

Advertising

Graphic Designers in the advertising industry work with art departments to design ads and produce layouts. They work with many other professionals on in-house projects and outside assignments. This can involve anything from simple illustrations to creating scalable logos with programs like Adobe Illustrator.

Social Media Management

Social Media Managers use Graphic Designers to produce visually appealing materials to post on social media. This role includes choosing particular typefaces, colors, and images to fit into a company's brand. Social Media Managers also need to learn about Search Engine Optimization and analytics.

Game Development

Graphic Designers play an important role in game development. Their talents contribute to visually stunning graphics, character design, and branding to produce captivating and immersive gaming experiences. They work with a team that may include artists, designers, and programmers.

What Jobs Use Graphic Design?

Graphic Designer

Graphic Designers use images, text, and color to communicate a visual message in print and digital media. They use tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to create ads, logos, brochures, websites, and social media posts. Graphic Designers need to learn about color theory, typography, layout, and hierarchies as well as working with images. Graphic Designers in the U.S. make between $61,000 and $66,000 annually.

Visual Designer

Visual Designers work in digital media to design webpages, icons, banner ads, and overlays. They focus on creating elegant and intuitive user interfaces using software applications like Photoshop, Sketch, Adobe XD, and Figma. Some Visual Designers focus on branding, while others work to improve the usability of digital products. Visual Designers in the U.S. earn roughly $77,000 to $82,000 a year.

Digital Designer

While Graphic Designers often work on print materials, Digital Designers work on webpages, animations, and other visual effects for advertisements, infographics, or publications. Many Digital Designers also have video editing skills, especially in the area of motion graphics. Digital Designers often work for gaming companies, web design, TV and video production, animation studios, digital and social media marketing companies, and advertising firms. In the U.S., Digital Designers make an average of $72,000 to $100,000 a year.

UX Designer

User Experience Designers (UX) create digital products like websites and mobile apps providing a smooth and enjoyable user experience. They do user research, create prototypes and user personas to test designs, and iterate the design process to constantly improve the product. Most UX Designers work in computing and software development, but some also work in financial services and for advertising agencies. The average yearly salary for UX Designers in the U.S. is about $81,000 to $122,000.

UI Designer

User Interface Designers (UI) focus on how an application or webpage looks and what users do with it. UI Designers use colors, fonts, icons, buttons, patterns, and textures to create the best design possible. They work with UX Designers to improve the user experience mostly in the software, computing, education, insurance, and finance industries. UI Designers make an average annual salary of $91,000 to $93,000 in the U.S.

Web Designer

Web Designers work exclusively on websites and pages. They test pages for user experience and functionality, and they create webpages that are well-optimized. Web Designers often use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create websites. Some Web Designers work in computing and game development, while others are self-employed. U.S. Web Designers earn an average yearly salary of $53,000 to $69,000.

How Long Will It Take to Learn Graphic Design?

How long it takes you to learn graphic design will depend on your previous experience with graphic design tools and your knowledge of art and design principles. You can learn to use many of the popular graphic design tools in just a few days, and if you have prior training in art, you should be able to learn the basics of graphic design in a few weeks. This is different from mastering graphic design, which can take months to years. As with learning anything, the more time you have to devote to practice and your level of motivation will go a long way toward helping you become a Graphic Designer.

What to Learn Along with Graphic Design?

Once you are working as a Graphic Designer, you might want to branch out and learn other skills. If you want to enhance your digital design skills, consider UX & UI design. A digital marketing certificate is a good choice if you are interested in advertising. If animation has captured your attention, studying video editing techniques and animation software is a good next step.

UX & UI Design

A fundamental knowledge of graphic design can put you in a good position to become a UX Designer or UI Designer. These designers are both involved in creating websites and mobile applications. UX Designers focus on understanding what a user wants from an app and they do research to uncover those desires. UI Designers study what users do on prototypes of apps to find just the right design. A background in graphic design gives you an understanding of the visual design concepts you need to work as a Digital Designer.

Digital Marketing

Digital Marketers work for businesses or advertising agencies to promote products and services online through email marketing or social media posts. A graphic design background can help when you need to design attractive emails that are in line with a company's brand or social media posts that attract followers. Digital marketing classes will also cover data analytics to help you determine how successful your campaigns are.

Animation and Video Editing

Graphic Designers use text, graphics, images, and visual design principles to communicate a message. Movement captures a viewer's attention more quickly than static images, so adding animation to your toolbox is a good idea. You can take classes in Adobe Premiere Pro and Animator to learn the basics and then move on to more advanced skills like Adobe After Effects.

Web Development

If your work as a Graphic Designer involves website production, you may want to take some coding classes. Learning popular computer programming languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or Python can open doors for a career as a Web Developer. Your graphic design training can be helpful when choosing elements and layouts and learning to code will let you create websites and apps that look just like you want them to.

Should I Learn Graphic Design in Person or Online?

When you decide to learn a new skill like graphic design, you can choose between different learning environments and class structures. Many people prefer an in-person class when learning something new. It's comfortable to have an instructor and other students in the room to talk to. Unfortunately, it may take a long time to get to the class location and find parking. Also, there may not be in-person classes available in the area where you live.

Not only are live online classes a good alternative to in-person courses, they have some unique advantages. They run in a similar way to in-person classes, with a live instructor lecturing, answering questions, and providing feedback in real-time. When you learn through a live online class, you don't have to drive to class, and you can log on from anywhere with a stable internet connection. You can attend class from your couch or kitchen, your desk in your office, or your favorite cafe.

Live Online Graphic Design Bootcamps

Noble Desktop offers many different live online bootcamp courses on graphic design. This school is based in New York City, and is licensed by the New York State Education Department. The Adobe Photoshop Bootcamp covers working with photographs. You’ll learn the basics of Photoshop to retouch and correct the color in photos, create graphics, and combine and manipulate images. In Adobe InDesign Bootcamp, you will learn how to layout pages including text and graphics to create publication covers, packaging materials, and advertisements. You can learn to draw vector graphics and edit them with Adobe Illustrator Bootcamp. The course covers using the Pen tool and creating effects, masks, and layers.

An eye-catching design portfolio is the best way to start a career as a Graphic Designer. Noble's Graphic Design Portfolio Bootcamp will teach you the basic design concepts of graphic design, using Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. The assignments in the course are planned to help you put together a collection of work to show prospective employers. Assignments will be critiqued by instructors and classmates.

If you are looking for more extensive training, Noble Desktop offers certificate programs to help you start a new career as a Graphic Designer. Noble's Graphic Design Certificate covers graphic design fundamentals and processes and includes in-depth practice with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Students create designs, edit and retouch photos, vector graphics in Illustrator, and layout documents in InDesign. They learn about composition, typography, color, and design theory, and create projects including social media graphics, logos, and cover art to showcase clients or employers. This course includes six one-on-one mentoring sessions.

Another certificate option is the Digital Design Certificate, which covers the essential Adobe applications, plus Figma and key design concepts and theories to get you started on a career as a Digital Designer. In this course, you’ll learn to create great designs and you’ll also create a digital portfolio to showcase your work. Eight one-on-one mentoring sessions are included.

Noble Desktop also offers a UX & UI Design Certificate. This covers the fundamentals of UX and UI design and also includes instruction in Sketch, Photoshop, and Illustrator. It is a popular choice for those who not only want to learn to design websites but also want to make informed decisions about how to set up a website based on user experiences. Those who would prefer to focus on design without learning about coding might be interested in the UI Design Certificate in which participants learn how to design user interfaces based on graphic design concepts. Both of these courses come with several private mentoring sessions.

Several other schools also offer live online bootcamps that are related to graphic design. Designed for high school students looking to get a head-start on skills that will help them as they enter the workforce, NextGen offers a live online graphic design class for high school students. Thinkful offers a 6-month intermediate UX/UI Design Flex course that meets 25 hours per week.

General Assembly offers a multi-week, hands-on UX Design Immersive course designed to help individuals with little to no UX learn the common tools and concepts to launch their UX career. Students learn the foundations and fundamentals of UX, like the design process, affinity mapping, rapid prototyping, and usability testing.

The Shillington School has a live online graphic design course that can be completed in several months and includes both part-time and full-time options. The course covers design theory and principles, design thinking, typography, color theory, and typesetting.

Emory University's Continuing Education Program has a Graphic Design & Visual Communications Certificate to help students start a graphic design career in just a few months. The course covers visual communication, the role of a Graphic Designer, the creative process, and using design tools. Emory also offers a Foundations of Graphic Design course for students who are looking for an introductory course to learn how to make posters, greeting cards, business cards, and other projects.

The Print & Graphic Design Certificate Program from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas trains students to use Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator to create multi-layered compositions for print materials and make basic alterations to photographs for desktop designs.

UCLA Extension's Certificate in Design Communication Arts is a program for people who want a career in visual communication and graphic design. It's a good course for self-taught designers who want to earn a professional certificate and people who want to explore their talents as visual artists.

Ledet Training offers Adobe Creative Cloud Print 501 for students who want to learn to use the state-of-the-art graphics collection to its full potential. The course includes instruction in Adobe Bridge to organize assets, plus instruction in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for working with photos, drawings, text, and graphics.

Shorter Graphic Design Classes

Noble Desktop offers several short Adobe classes. Photoshop in a Day prepares students to edit and enhance photos and create original graphics. The class also covers common tools including paint brushes, textures, and filters. Illustrator in a Day focuses on using Adobe Illustrator to produce high-quality vector graphics such as logos and icons. Students learn to resize a graphic without losing quality. InDesign in a Day introduces students to designing and producing print materials, layout, and graphic design.

Ledet Training has Adobe Photoshop courses at the introductory and advanced levels. Adobe Photoshop 501 is a multi-day class to help students master this powerful tool and learn industry best practices. New Horizons also offers various levels of Photoshop courses.

Choosing a Graphic Design Bootcamp

Bootcamp classes are multi-day courses that start with introductory material and move through more advanced topics. There are several factors to consider when choosing a graphic design bootcamp such as cost, duration, and area of focus. Generally, bootcamps are hands-on learning experiences in which students acquire a solid base in a short period of time, and students can expect to walk away with a work portfolio they can show potential employers. One of the advantages of taking a bootcamp is the job support that is often included in the program. Many bootcamps provide career services whether it be one-on-one mentoring, job search guidance, or networking opportunities.

Graphic design bootcamps can take up to 6 months to complete and cost between $1,000 and $8,000. Many of the bootcamps offer payment plans in monthly installments and income share agreement payment options, which means students don’t pay until they’ve secured a job. Students can also look for scholarships and employer reimbursements.

Corporate Training

If you or your company are interested in corporate graphic design training, Noble Desktop offers custom options to upskill or reskill your employees. Noble's courses cover beginner to advanced topics so you can choose from its line-up of graphic design courses or tailor content to fit your needs. An instructor can come to your offices to train your staff or you can arrange for a remote session. You can also purchase vouchers for employees to sign up for live online classes through Noble. To learn more about corporate graphic design training at Noble Desktop, contact a consultant to find out more today.

Eric Benac

Eric Benac is a copywriter, marketing content producer, researcher, and AI specialist for Noble Desktop. He earned a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in Writing from Northern Michigan University. Before working with Noble Desktop, Eric worked for over 15 years as a copywriter, project manager, and marketer. Since graduating, he's continually expanded his knowledge base by completing project management courses, digital marketing classes, artificial intelligence programs, and programming certifications. Currently, he works full-time as a project manager for an AI firm. Eric’s certifications include Google Project Management, Google Digital Marketing & E-Commerce, and Generative AI Fundamentals.

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Key Insights

Learn More About Live Online Graphic Design Bootcamps

What Can You Do with Graphic Design?

Is It Worth It to Learn Graphic Design?

What Will I Learn in a Graphic Design Class?

Visual Design

Typography

Images

Accessibility

Graphic Design Tools

Branding

Creativity

Communication

Careers for Graphic Design Bootcamp Graduates

What Industries Use Graphic Design?

Publishing

Brand Development

Advertising

Social Media Management

Game Development

What Jobs Use Graphic Design?

Graphic Designer

Visual Designer

Digital Designer

UX Designer

UI Designer

Web Designer

How Long Will It Take to Learn Graphic Design?

What to Learn Along with Graphic Design?

UX & UI Design

Digital Marketing

Animation and Video Editing

Web Development

Should I Learn Graphic Design in Person or Online?

Live Online Graphic Design Bootcamps

Shorter Graphic Design Classes

Choosing a Graphic Design Bootcamp

Corporate Training

Live Online Graphic Design Corporate & Onsite Training Noble Desktop

Related Bootcamps

Live Online Graphic Design
Corporate & Onsite Training