Best Graphic Design Certificates St. Louis, MO: Find Courses & Onsite Training

Learn More About St. Louis Graphic Design Certificates

Graphic design has a very long history that is basically as old as humanity itself. Early cave drawings are the oldest-known examples of art and utilize many of the same techniques you see in contemporary visual design. Fascinatingly, they were also created for many of the same reasons: to communicate concepts, educate young people, and record local history. Obviously, becoming a Graphic Designer in today’s world is far more advanced than in those early days.

For instance, you’ll have to master various graphic design software programs that let you produce, edit, and share your visuals with your clients. Furthermore, you’ll have to understand web theories, including efficient site layout and much more. Thankfully, earning a certification or certificate in graphic design can streamline this process and help you become a more skilled and competent professional, no matter which career you try.

St. Louis has a very diverse and engaging workforce that includes a myriad of different markets, including growing professional, business, and tech fields. The latter has become particularly big in St. Louis in recent years, with a burgeoning tech boom pushing this city to a higher standing in this industry. For example, graphic design careers have exploded in St. Louis in recent years, which means people with artistic skills may transition to this career more easily.

If you’re interested in pursuing a job in this field, it’s important to consider graphic design certificates or certifications. This extra training can help boost your knowledge, enhance your career, and make it easier to find a position that appeals to you. In this article, we’ll not only highlight some great graphic design certificates in St. Louis but highlight critical skills you’ll learn and careers that may interest you when pursuing this kind of in-depth training.

Why Become Certified in Graphic Design?

Graphic design certificates or certifications train you for this career by immersing you in its unique skills. Doing either of these processes will teach you about important design concepts, make it easier to visualize your products before working on them, and immerse you in various software programs. These processes can help you prepare for a graphic design career in any field and give you the insight that you need to choose a job within any related market.

Furthermore, it can help you stand out in an industry that’s increasingly competitive and prominent in St. Louis. Checking job sites reveals hundreds of related positions in St. Louis, showcasing a heavy demand for people with graphic design skills in this area. Why would a certificate or certification help you stand out in a field that often requires a college education and a creative portfolio? Just think of it from the perspective of a potential employer.

The average graphic design company probably gets hundreds of applications and resumes for each position they post. Most of these applicants probably have a college education, work experience, and even a creative portfolio. In this situation, an employer may seek out people with specialized training certificates or certifications. That’s because this extra learning shows employers that you take your career seriously and did the extra work required to stand out.

What You’ll Learn While Becoming Graphic Design Certified

As you might expect, mastering graphic design in a certificate program requires you to master a broad array of skills. In fact, you’re likely to practice over a dozen new things that may seem new, confusing, and hard to understand. However, a typical graphic design certificate course eases you into your lessons and makes them easier to understand. Here are just a few of the most important things you’ll practice when getting a graphic design certificate or certification.

Basic Drawing

Mastering a few basic drawing concepts is critical for anybody getting into graphic design. That’s not to say that drawing and graphic design are the same thing because they’re quite different. In fact, people without any drawing talent can still make great graphic designers. That said, knowing about things like proportion, scale, and perspective can help you produce more effective graphic design concepts and improve your overall career experience in many ways.

Typography

Typography is a broad term that refers to an extensive range of design ideas. For example, it includes font selection, text size, text location, picture insertion, header usage, and many other important concepts. You’ll study this subject deeply when getting a graphic design certificate or certification. It helps to make this process go more smoothly and creates attractive artwork that will not only draw attention but potentially convert more leads and customers for a company.

Font Knowledge

Most people probably don’t realize that font theory dictates graphic designs in many critical ways. For example, professional-level fonts make your designs seem more sophisticated and your business more serious. By carefully choosing and balancing your fonts, you can create in-depth projects that make your graphic designs more interesting. It’s a surprisingly in-depth subject that will take up much of your studying time but is well worth mastering properly.

Design Principles

The best graphic designers have to master various concepts and principles to produce more effective, engaging, and memorable work. These include balancing text and images to draw the eye, carefully integrating whitespace to make ads feel less cluttered, and properly integrating graphs and other visual elements in your work. Mastering these in-depth ideas should help you become a more skilled and effective Graphic Designer, no matter what your field.

Software Knowledge

As you might expect, you’ll have to learn one or more of the many graphic design programs available on the market when mastering graphic design. These include software like Adobe InDesign and Photoshop, as well as competitor options. In each class, you’ll study how to use these programs properly, master various tips and tricks of the trade, and learn how to produce consistently excellent and engaging digital designs that satisfy your customers’ needs.

Graphic Design Industries in St. Louis

Throughout St. Louis, there are many industries that need people with graphic design skills, including tech-based firms, as well as more traditional markets. The sheer diversity of options shouldn’t intimidate you. Instead, it should inspire you to investigate careers within these fascinating arenas. You never know what you’ll find if you do a little careful research! Here are just a few of the most interesting potential landing spots for graphic designers in St. Louis:

Print Publishing: Digital media still hasn’t completely taken over print publishing, with many physical books getting printed every year. As a result, it’s important for you to research St. Louis’ many printing firms to decide if any are right for you. These businesses often need graphic designers to layout book covers, pages, and more.
Web Developers: Marketing and web development often need graphic designers to produce attractive websites, advertisements, and more. While you may need to learn other skills in this career (such as HTML and CSS coding languages), mastering graphic design can help you get your foot in the door for many St. Louis web development firms.
Digital Marketing: St. Louis’ digital marketing industry often needs highly skilled graphic designers to produce online ads. You’ll likely work with multiple design and marketing professionals when creating campaigns that make sense for a company’s branding. It’s often a high-earning market, which makes it worth seriously considering.
Social Media Management: Though not a huge industry in the area, St. Louis does have many social media marketing teams that may appeal to you. These companies often need graphic designers to create attractive social media profiles and advertisements that highlight a company’s or individual’s unique scope and operation.
Film Companies: St. Louis’s handful of film production companies may need graphic designers to handle a variety of tasks. For example, you may create special effects, various types of unique advertising materials, and much more. While filmmaking isn’t huge in the area, it’s definitely a field where you can practice graphic design.

Graphic Design Careers in St. Louis

Now that you know several fields that need graphic designers, it’s a smart idea to investigate some potential careers within these industries. There are more than a few potential career paths in this field available in St. Louis, many of which make competitive wages. Let’s take a look at five of the most popular graphic design jobs in the area, including their salaries and roles:

Graphic Designer: As a Graphic Designer, you’ll create various visual elements for your customers and employers, including advertisements and much more. In St. Louis, you’ll earn a range between $47,000 and $56,000 and an average salary of $52,000.
Web Designer: What will you do as a Web Designer? Typically, you’ll make attractive websites using graphic design and programming skills and may even produce ads. Expect to make between $44,000 and $56,000 or a median of $50,000 in this career in St. Louis.
Visual Designer: A Visual Designer creates various types of visual elements that vary depending on your specific employer. These may include ads, logos, and even branding material. Visual designers make an average of $69,000 in St. Louis or between $62,000 and $77,000.
CAD Designer: When working as a CAD Designer, you’ll use computer-assisted drafting programs to create blueprints and other technical drawings. St. Louis pays an average of $63,000 for this career or a range between $57,000 and $69,000.
Design Director: A career as a Design Director can be financially rewarding, as you’ll make between $104,000 and $133,000 in St. Louis or a median of $121,000. Your job roles include directing graphic design teams and producing coherent visual strategies.

Should You Pursue a Certificate or Certification

Pursuing both a certificate and a certification is a smart investment and something that shouldn’t be too hard for most people to do. Getting both is wise because they help you in different ways. For example, a certificate teaches you basic graphic design abilities to ensure you understand this career path as fully as possible. You’ll take classes from a licensed professional and get hands-on help creating a project that highlights your skills and capabilities to employers.

By contrast, a certification is an expert-level title you earn when completing an in-depth examination. This test comes with no extra training but does require a specific educational or experience level. In many cases, you can reach that criterion by taking a certificate training course! That’s why we say it’s a great idea to get both a certificate and a certification for graphic design, especially if you don't have educational or work experience in the field.

Top Graphic Design Certificate Programs in St. Louis

By now, you should have a pretty good idea of whether or not graphic design is the right career path for you. Thankfully, there are many graphic design certificate programs in St. Louis, including colleges, universities, and private groups. If a full-time college course seems too expensive or time-consuming, consider working with Noble Desktop, as they provide fairly priced and quickly paced courses that prepare you for graphic design quickly and effectively.

Graphic Design Bachelor’s Degree

USML provides a four-year Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art with an emphasis on graphic design. This program is a great option if you’re just out of high school and have scholarships and time to spend. You can get the full college experience, including living on campus, attending sports games, and much more. As a fully in-person program, you’ll have to attend classes in a hands-on classroom. If you’re a little older, you can live off-campus at home instead.

In this course, you’ll get hands-on education in a real-world environment. You’ll work alongside professors and classmates who greatly understand graphic design and its unique demands. USML focuses on affordability, meaning you can cut out things like on-campus living and food plans and simply travel to and from your classes, as needed. This training option will cost you the most money, though, so make sure you’re ready for time and cash demand.

Graphic Communication

If four years seems like too much time, St. Louis Community College provides an Associate in Applied Science (AAS) and Associate in Fine Arts (AFA) in Graphic Communications. In this program, you’ll take 64-65 credits hours and learn how to work with various typography print concepts, on-screen layouts, advertising concepts, interactive web designs, illustrations, and motion graphics. Learning these skills should give you the support you need for your career.

All your classes are taught by highly trained and hands-on professors who will correct any mistakes you make, help you better understand graphic design, and enhance your skills. By the time you’re done, you’ll understand software training, branding development, package publication, printing techniques, and contemporary design concepts. If you like, you can transfer your credits to another Missouri university to offset the costs of a bachelor’s degree.

Graphic Design

At Stevens – The Institute of Business & Arts, you can earn a Graphic Design specialization in a few ways, including an 18-month accelerated Associate of Applied Science and 36-month Bachelor of Arts degrees. These faster options will help you get through your degree more quickly and save you both time and money. During your class, you’ll learn about a myriad of different subjects that can help immerse you in this unique world.

For instance, you’ll learn about form and space in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds, perspective drawing, figure manipulation, color theory, typography, digital art production, package design, advertising, 3D animation, character production, and many other skills. It’s a great option if you want a comprehensive degree, one that will fully teach you the ins and outs of graphic design in a meaningful, comprehensive, and rewarding manner.

Graphic Design Certificate

Available from Noble Desktop, this program provides many of the same benefits you get in any class from this provider. For example, they are typically small classes that make working with your professor easier. Furthermore, it’s a totally online environment, meaning you can learn at home, while on vacation, or when visiting your parents. Even better, all classes are live, meaning you get real-time support and interactions with your highly skilled professor.

In Graphic Design Certificate, you’ll learn all the skills needed to become a professional Graphic Designer. You’ll start by learning about programs like Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop and practice using them on real-world projects. As you progress, you’ll learn design fundamentals such as compositional theories and much more. This $2,995 class takes just 84 hours to complete and is quicker and more efficient than taking an in-depth college class.

Note that Noble Desktop also provides several other courses related to graphic design that may interest you. For example, Digital Design Certificate, a 138-hour and $4,495 program, teaches you graphic design, motion graphics, UI design, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Adobe XD, InDesign, and much more. UI Design Certificate, a 120-hour and $3,995 class, teaches you how to create high-quality user-interface designs for your customers.

Featured Classes from Noble Desktop

Top Certificate Programs

Top Courses

Featured Classes from Noble Desktop

Top Certificate Programs

Featured Classes from Noble Desktop

Top Certificate Programs

Top Courses

Featured Classes from Noble Desktop

Top Certificate Programs

Top Courses

Graphic Design Certificates St. Louis, MO

Graphic Design Certificate Learn The Skills Guarantee™

Noble Desktop Digital Design Certificate

Noble Desktop UI Design Certificate

Noble Desktop Graphic Design Portfolio Bootcamp

Virtual Design & Construction Institute Graphic Design Certification Course Online (Self-Paced)

Key Insights

Learn More About St. Louis Graphic Design Certificates

Why Become Certified in Graphic Design?

What You’ll Learn While Becoming Graphic Design Certified

Basic Drawing

Typography

Software Knowledge

Graphic Design Industries in St. Louis

Graphic Design Careers in St. Louis

Should You Pursue a Certificate or Certification

Top Graphic Design Certificate Programs in St. Louis

Graphic Design Bachelor’s Degree

Graphic Communication

Graphic Design

Graphic Design Certificate

St. Louis Graphic Design
Corporate & Onsite Training

St. Louis Careers & Salaries Related to Graphic Design

Graphic Designer

Designer

UI Designer

Visual Designer

Digital Designer

Design Director

Top Certificate Programs

Top Courses

Top Certificate Programs

Top Certificate Programs

Top Courses

Top Certificate Programs

Top Courses

Graphic Design Certificate Learn The Skills Guarantee™

Key Insights

Learn More About St. Louis Graphic Design Certificates

Why Become Certified in Graphic Design?

What You’ll Learn While Becoming Graphic Design Certified

Basic Drawing

Typography

Software Knowledge

Graphic Design Industries in St. Louis

Graphic Design Careers in St. Louis

Should You Pursue a Certificate or Certification

Top Graphic Design Certificate Programs in St. Louis

Graphic Design Bachelor’s Degree

Graphic Communication

Graphic Design

St. Louis Graphic Design Corporate & Onsite Training Noble Desktop

St. Louis Careers & Salaries Related to Graphic Design

Related Classes

St. Louis Graphic Design
Corporate & Onsite Training