School of Visual Concepts: Find Top Courses & Training Locations

School of Visual Concepts

Located in Seattle, the School of Visual Concepts offers students a chance to master their skills in UX, UI, software, content curation, marketing, branding, graphic design, and letterpress printing. SVC provides students various opportunities to thrive including workshops, practical training, dynamic classrooms, and evening classes. School of Visual Concepts also offers group training opportunities for businesses with a multitude of workshops and coaching.

The School of Visual Concepts helps working professionals expand their skills with public and custom workshops. Students complete a capstone project with a real client. Program options range from half-to-full-day workshops to full certificate programs.

The School of Visual Concepts (SVC) is a vocational training school for working professionals who have a desire to remain on the cutting-edge of creativity, user experience, and web design. Founded in 1971 by husband and wife team Dick and Cherry Brown, SVC was established with the guiding principle that employing those currently employed rather than full-time teachers will offer students the most relevant education possible. The instructors here are currently employed at major corporations like Starbucks and Microsoft. They offer their students priceless real-world knowledge and help them become invaluable assets wherever they work.

School Locations

The School of Visual Concepts is located in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The school is a convenient distance from I-5 and is a five-minute drive to the iconic Space Needle and Pike Place Market. It is also approximately 20 minutes from the Bremerton and Bainbridge ferries for students who use that mode of transportation.

Subjects Taught at School of Visual Concepts

Though there is a wide range of courses taught at this school, the most commonly attended courses at SVC are in UX Design, Adobe Creative Cloud, and marketing. You can check out Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me tool to see how the School of Visual Concepts competes with other UX Design classes, Adobe programs, and digital marketing classes.

What Classes Are Available?

With over twenty different classes available to students, SVC can meet a wide range of needs for students wanting to learn more about UX/UI, web design, business best practices, and digital marketing. Broadly speaking, the class catalog can be broken down into eight distinct categories: User Experience and Visual Design, Art Direction, Letterpress, Content Strategy and Content Writing, Software Classes, Business Practices Workshops, Creativity Classes, and Marketing and Strategy Workshops. Some classes fit into multiple categories—for example, a class related to visual design may also be found in the creativity section.

While most of the classes at SVC are intended to help students fill in some blank spaces in their knowledge, there are also a small number of certification programs available that can help people start a new career in content design/UX writing and user experience. The certificate programs typically consist of several courses offered at SVC. These courses are taken in a specific order to ensure the student is building on a growing foundation of knowledge and end with a ten-week capstone project for a real client.

Class Formats

Due to COVID-19, SVC classes are being temporarily offered live online using Zoom. Class sizes typically average between 12 and 16 students, and SVC also utilizes the breakout room function on Zoom for further individualized instruction and extra help whenever needed. Virtual classes are not recorded to help protect the privacy and intellectual property of the students and instructors.

SVC’s instructors are all currently working in the industry and they teach courses related to their profession. For example, an instructor who teaches a user research course is employed as a UX Researcher at a product consulting firm in Chicago.

Admissions Process

Enrolling in workshops and classes at SVC is as simple as registering for the course you feel would best suit your needs! Some of the classes have prerequisites, but SVC suggests registering for your preferred courses and a staff member will be in touch to make sure the requirements are met. Formal interviews are not required, but students are more than welcome to schedule a time to meet with an advisor to get additional help preparing for classes.

Students interested in a certificate program are advised to attend an information session for more details. Some of the certificate programs have prerequisites and other application requirements. More information about those can be found here.

Pricing & Payment Options

The prices for courses at SVC are predominantly based upon the length of the course. On average, a one-day course is $195, a two-day course is $325, and a three-day course is $425. The courses are taught for three hours per day. The certificate programs are a much larger financial investment; these classes are $11,435 and they take five quarters or 50 weeks of instruction to complete.

SVC does not offer any loans or scholarships, but it will allow students to make payment plans for their courses. Payment plans depend on the length of the course a student is enrolled in. A full breakdown of how the payment plans work can be found here.

Prospective students in good standing with one of the following organizations are also eligible for a 15% discount on any class: AIGA, AAF, Filter, 24Seven, The Creative Group, Creative Circle, Graphic Artists Guild, IXDA, PRSA, and PSAMA. The school also offers corporate discounts as well.

Career Support Services

SVC offers career support services in the form of certificate programs. Currently, they offer certification in the areas of user experience and content design/UX writing. They choose to offer these certifications because careers in this area are in the highest demand, but the available certifications change from time to time. These programs are designed to get folks ready for a career in either of these areas.

Alumni Outcomes

The School of Visual Concepts does not have any alumni outcome/job report data currently available since the school is not designed to help people begin a new career path. However, former students do point out that the classes they offer have improved their standing in their current job. As one reviewer said, “SVC didn't get me a job. I had a job. But it made me so, so much better at it! It has kept my spark alive.”

What Do Students Say?

Former students of the School of Visual Concepts have provided feedback on the program on Yelp. SVC has received nearly universally positive feedback from its students.

Many reviewers appreciated the fact that the instructors are working professionals; many of them are employed as copywriters, creative directors, and art directors at local companies. This means they can consistently update their curriculum to make sure they are only teaching the most current and useful information.

Former students also feel that the programs at SVC made them immediately more valuable at their jobs. One student described himself as "that guy that everyone goes to when they don't know how to do something" once he completed their courses. Several students also pointed out that they were able to learn tangible and valuable skills from just one short day at SVC.

The primary criticisms of the School of Visual Concepts concerned their in-person classes, specifically the location of the building. Students felt that the location was in a noisy part of town which made it difficult to concentrate on the lessons. Some of the rooms the classes are taught in are reportedly oddly shaped as well, making it difficult for some students to see the screens and the instructors.

Pros & Cons

Pros of School of Visual Concepts

All of the instructors are currently employed in their fields which means they can provide up-to-date information and networking contacts to their students.
The subjects taught at SVC are constantly changing to ensure they are following the most current technologies and trends in the industry.
A revolving door of courses allows students to develop strong relationships with the staff and instructors at SVC.

Cons of School of Visual Concepts

In-person courses have some mild but uncorrectable issues—the building location of the building is noisy and distracting.
Courses are expensive, especially the certificate programs.
The school doesn’t offer any financial aid.

Top Course at School of Visual Concepts

Typography Fundamentals
This intensive 33-hour class helps users create functional and expressive typography layouts. Through a combination of hands-on learning, live instruction, and class discussions, participants explore topics like letter anatomy, word choice, sentence hierarchy, paragraph tracking, system concepts, and the artistic qualities of typography.
Locations:
- Seattle
- $695
- 33 Hours
- Weekdays or Evenings
- Beginner
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Subjects Taught at School of Visual Concepts

UX Design

User experience (UX) designers work on creating functional, meaningful, and enjoyable user experiences. UX design focuses on ease of use, navigation, and functionality of products (which are commonly digital products such as websites and apps).

In-Person UX Design Classes Live Online UX Design Classes UX Design Bootcamps

Design

There are many types of design: Graphic Design, UX Design, UI & Web Design, Video Editing, and Motion Graphics. Let's take explore each to see what designers do, what apps they use, and how you can get started.

In-Person Design Classes Live Online Design Classes Design Bootcamps

Graphic Design

Graphic design is visual communication through artwork or combining images and text. Graphic designers create logos, ads, social media graphics, magazines, books, websites, apps, and more.

In-Person Graphic Design Classes Live Online Graphic Design Classes Graphic Design Bootcamps

Visual Design

Visual design focuses on aesthetic presentation of digital products such as websites, apps, social media graphics, and much more. Combining typography, imagery, graphics, shapes, colors, and textures to create a compelling design. Using balance, contrast, scale and space, visual designers create eye-catching designs.

In-Person Visual Design Classes Live Online Visual Design Classes

Business

Business refers to any activity that involves making a living through the buying and selling of products or services.

In-Person Business Classes Live Online Business Classes Business Bootcamps

Business Writing

Business writing is a discipline that encompasses many types of professional writing. This includes resumes, letters, proposals, email communications, reports and more.

In-Person Business Writing Classes Live Online Business Writing Classes

InDesign

Adobe InDesign is the industry-leading layout design tool for print. Publishers of magazines, books, newspapers and other media rely on InDesign for page layouts and graphic design. InDesign can also be used to create digital documents such as PDFs and eBooks.

In-Person InDesign Classes Live Online InDesign Classes

After Effects

Adobe After Effects is the industry standard for video post-production, compositing, effects, and animation. It's one of the most important apps for motion designers and can be used for creating animations and videos for social media, YouTube, websites, TV, and movies.

In-Person After Effects Classes Live Online After Effects Classes

Web Design

Web design combines elements of user experience design (how the website works), visual or user interface design (how the website looks), and coding (how the website is actually built and made to function properly). Some web designers touch on all three areas, while others focus on one specific skill. If you like to design or write code, there's a role for you in web design. With billions of unique websites and more being created every day, web designers continue to be in high demand.

In-Person Web Design Classes Live Online Web Design Classes Web Design Bootcamps

Product Management

Take enterprise-level projects from start to finish with a comprehensive Product Management course. Participants master core concepts, exhibit emotional intelligence, and support a company’s mission.

In-Person Product Management Classes Live Online Product Management Classes Product Management Bootcamps

Figma

Figma is a web-based design application used for wireframing and prototyping applications. With Figma, UX and UI Designers can easily collaborate on projects and share clickable product designs with users for testing.

In-Person Figma Classes Live Online Figma Classes Figma Bootcamps

Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is widely known as the best photo editing software for photographers and photo retouchers. It's also used by digital painters as well as graphic designers for creating a wide variety of designs such as social media graphics, web designs, app designs, graphics that will be animated in Adobe After Effects, and much more.

In-Person Photoshop Classes Live Online Photoshop Classes

Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is one of the most popular vector graphics applications. With seamless integrations across Adobe’s Creative Cloud, Illustrator is widely used by individuals and organizations to create resizable illustrations, design elements for videos and motion graphics, all through its powerful vector creation tools.

In-Person Illustrator Classes Live Online Illustrator Classes

Motion Graphics

Motion graphics refers to animated graphic design. It blends together text, sound, motion, animation, and visual effects to communicate a message or tell a story.

In-Person Motion Graphics Classes Live Online Motion Graphics Classes

Featured Classes from Noble Desktop

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Featured Classes from Noble Desktop

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Featured Classes from Noble Desktop

Top Certificate Programs

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Featured Classes from Noble Desktop

Top Certificate Programs

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School of Visual Concepts

School Locations

Subjects Taught at School of Visual Concepts

What Classes Are Available?

Class Formats

Admissions Process

Pricing & Payment Options

Career Support Services

Alumni Outcomes

What Do Students Say?

Pros & Cons

Top Course at School of Visual Concepts

Typography Fundamentals

Subjects Taught at School of Visual Concepts

UX Design

Design

Graphic Design

Visual Design

Business

Business Writing

InDesign

After Effects

Web Design

Product Management

Figma

Photoshop

Illustrator

Motion Graphics

Map of School of Visual Concepts Locations