How to Learn Design Online

If you’re just starting to learn a new skill, you can find dozens of tips and resources online; learning design is no different. Design skills are used to build everything from logos to billboards to online assets and 3D animated special effects. If there is a striking visual image you can remember, either in print or online, there is a good chance that visual design skills went into its creation. If you’ve always wanted to learn design, there are plenty of options at your fingertips. From free tutorials to live classes, your options are outlined here so you can decide how to learn in a way that works best for you. 

What is Design?

Design is an incredibly broad category of skills that refers to utilizing computers to assist in visual communication. This can range from simple graphic design work such as photo manipulation or print layout design to complex 3D animation projects or interactive digital interface design work. Visual and graphic design is vital to any product release, information campaign, rhetorically-effective communication strategy, or web design project. No matter what kind of work is being done, if it intends to communicate with a mass audience, specialized design skills will be needed to make that communication possible.

The tools utilized by Designers are varied, and each tends to have its own niche functionality that differs from project to project. For example, photographers will use photo manipulation tools like Photoshop and Lightroom, Layout Designers will use tools like InDesign and Figma, and Motion Graphic Designers will use After-Effects, Cinema 4D, and Premiere Pro. Rather than learning and mastering every design tool available, Designers will specialize in specific elements of the design process and learn those tools. This makes design a highly varied field to enter, and it offers students a great opportunity to both experiment with different programs and turns their passions into a creative career.

Read more about what design is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Design?

As a creative form of visual expression, the things you can do with design are largely limited only by your imagination and the number of programs you are willing to learn. Users can design vibrant and evocative visual compositions ranging from simple logos, photo manipulations, and posters to complex 3D animations and digital web assets. Almost every professional field employs designers to ensure that their output looks the way they intend it to look and communicates the ideas they want. This is true of both the private and public sectors, given that design tools are just as important in persuasive and advocacy contexts as in commercial and advertising contexts.

Learning design skills is also a great way to build your profile and brand online. Online content creators need to set themselves apart from the crowd, and learning to make vibrant visual designs is a perfect way to do so. Whether this is about producing a logo for your website, designing recognizable branding for the products on your Etsy store, or editing and manipulating video content, learning design skills can improve your creative output. Design skills are also at the center of several different emerging online art and activism movements. Learning design skills can give creatives many mediums to produce rhetorical compelling advocacy content like infographics, digital documentaries, and docu-games.

Live Online Design Training

Students who aren’t located near an in-person training facility or who aren’t interested in a commute may find that live online design classes are a productive way to continue learning. These courses, which are taught in private digital classrooms by experienced instructors and the recent developments in online learning technology and pedagogy help ensure that students learning online are still receiving top-flight education and skills training. Students will get the opportunity to learn design skills in their home workspaces on the machines that they are most likely to use in their professional lives. Students will, however, need to provide their own software applications, which can become costly for students in advanced design programs.

Noble Desktop offers all design training courses through live online instructor options. These classes still come with all of the benefits offered by in-person training at Noble, including the assurance that class sizes will remain small and that students can retake the course for free within one year. Students can even give their instructors permission to interact with their devices directly via a remote access tool. For students looking to compare their options, Noble’s Classes Near Me tool can be an excellent way to explore alternative live online training options, such as those offered by providers such as Thinkful and General Assembly.

On-Demand Design Classes

Many students may find it difficult to fit live training options into their busy schedules. Students with work and family obligations will need to find alternate learning options that let them move at their own pace. On-demand design classes will allow students to learn the design skills of their choosing asynchronously, meaning that they can be picked up and put down when the student has the time to manage a lesson. These courses are ideally suited for students who need to be able to control when they are learning and for students who want to prioritize certain lessons over others in a specific timeframe.

The major drawback in on-demand design classes is that the need for a live instructor means that students will need to find alternate ways to get feedback on their designs. The challenge in learning design skills is that they are often as much about learning how to apply theories as they are about learning how to use tools. Students need to constantly iterate on their designs, respond to feedback, and improve their work, which can be difficult to do if students don’t have a source of honest, professionally-oriented feedback.

Free Intro Courses & Tutorials

Students who aren’t ready to enroll in a full-time, professional design course may want to consider taking advantage of some free training options. These courses give students a chance to learn design skills in a low-stakes, low-stress environment, and they give students greater control over the pace and style of their learning. These courses won’t replace professional skills training if you want to make a career out of those skills, but these courses are excellent places to start learning. As a bonus, all of the skills students learn in a free training course will make it easier to transition to a more paid training seminar, as students will already understand the basics of the course.

Noble Desktop provides students with several free training resources in almost every design tool you would want to learn. First, students must find out what type of design training they want to pursue. To help with this, Noble offers a Getting Started in Design seminar in which students can learn the differences between graphic design, visual design, UX/UI, and motion graphics design and learn what kind of tools and applications each subfield utilizes. This will allow students to make more informed decisions about the kinds of training that they want, after which they can visit Noble’s free seminars page to explore the options available for the specific skill set they want to pursue.

Students looking for other free training options may wish to explore those offered by other service providers such as Udemy or Coursera. In addition, most graphic design applications, particularly those that make up the Adobe Creative Cloud, have first-party training resources on the program provider's website.

Read about more free design videos and online tutorials.

Comparing Online Methods with In-Person Learning 

Students interested in learning design skills and tools will have a lot of different options available to them. This can be overwhelming for new students who aren’t sure which options will be ideal for them. While every student will learn differently, the course offerings tend to lend themselves to benefiting certain learning goals.

Most students find that live training is the best way to learn a new skill, particularly one as focused on technique as design skills. These courses will allow students to interact directly with live, experienced instructors and receive feedback and assistance in real-time. This makes it much easier for students to overcome the challenges of learning a new creative design tool, particularly if they are unfamiliar with fine arts training.

These live classes can be taken either in-person at a dedicated training center or online from the comfort of a student’s workspace. Students learning in person will be able to benefit from dedicated classroom spaces that are designed to ensure that students learning goals are met. They will also be able to work alongside a cohort of like-minded students and potentially take advantage of on-site hardware and software. Since these courses are taught at dedicated training centers, students must commute to a location to take these classes. This can mean that students have restricted or no choices in their preferred range. Online classes let students skip the commute and learn design skills from anywhere they would like. In addition, some students find that the classroom space isn’t as effective as learning on their devices. However, students will likely need to supply their software for these courses, which can meet or even eclipse the commute cost, depending on time and location.

Students who can’t manage to attend a live training course regularly or who want to learn a specific set of skills in a very limited time frame will want to enroll in an on-demand training course. These design classes are self-paced and asynchronous, allowing students to learn at their own pace and prioritize the skills they feel are most important for them to learn. These courses also tend to be cheaper than their live instruction counterparts. However, since there are no live instructors to assist students, they will need to find alternative ways to receive assistance and feedback on their work, which is one of the most complicated aspects of learning skills like Illustrator or After Effects.

Tips to Succeed when Learning Design Online

Students who are new to an online learning environment may feel they need help with how to approach their courses. While online learning can be as productive as in-person training, students may find that they need to prepare themselves for a new style of learning, particularly when it comes to learning a creative skill like a design application.

Students often underestimate just how important the classroom design is to their learning. Classrooms are built to eliminate outside distractions, funnel students' attention directly toward their instructor, and ensure that they can absorb the lesson. Students in an online learning environment won’t have this advantage and must build their workstations to minimize outside distractions interfering with their training. For some students, this will be as simple as closing some windows and asking roommates to be considerate during an online class. For others, it can be as complex as finding a private space outside the house or hiring a babysitter.

On the other hand, students tend to massively overestimate how good they are at multitasking. Studies repeatedly show that it is virtually impossible to focus on multiple tasks at once. However, students still tend to want to use the freedom of the online learning environment as a way of doing multiple things at the same time. This will set students up for failure, so students should take an honest self-assessment of how likely they are to attempt to multitask during their lessons and take steps, like preparing in advance or blocking webpages and applications, to ensure that they aren’t spreading their attention across multiple things.

Finally, since students won’t have access to a cohort of fellow students, and on-demand students won’t have access to a live instructor, students must consider ways to get honest, useful feedback on their work. Half the challenge in learning design skills involves making effective and memorable designs, which can only be learned through trial and iteration. Thus, students will need to get many sets of eyes on their work, which can be hard in an online environment. Students should prepare in advance by finding people willing and able to provide them with direct feedback on their sample design projects.

Key Insights

• Design skill refers to a broad collection of skills and tools used to create memorable, rhetorically effective visual designs.
• Students looking to learn visual design skills online can enroll in either live training courses or on-demand training courses that offer a more flexible schedule.
• Students moving to an online learning environment will want to ensure that their environment is free from external distractions and the temptation to try and work on multiple projects during a lesson.
• Students will also want to prepare for their online training by finding people they trust to provide honest feedback on their work, especially if they are enrolled in a course without a live instructor.
• Students looking for comprehensive live online training in design skills should explore the options available to them through Noble Desktop.

Learn Design with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Students looking to master design skills can find the path to success through the expert instruction offered at Noble Desktop. Noble offers a wide array of design courses, from introductory bootcamps that will teach students the basics of an individual program like Photoshop or After Effects to career-centered design certificate programs that will give students all the tools they need to enter the professional world as designers. Noble’s classes are available in person at their Manhattan campus or through live online instruction. Regardless, all of Noble’s classes are taught by expert instructors who are present to help guide students through the process of learning design skills. Each course ensures small class sizes so students won’t fight for their instructor's attention, and all of Noble's classes come with a free retake option, allowing students to enroll in the course again, for free, within one year. This means that students will have even more time and opportunity to get hands-on experience and instruction in design skills.

Students looking to become Graphic Designers may consider enrolling in Noble’s Graphic Design Certificate program. In this class, students will receive introductory and advanced training in tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. These are the industry-standard tools in almost every field of print and physical design. Students enrolled in this program will receive hands-on experience working on real-world projects, such as designing signage, infographics, product packaging, logos, and branded merchandise. In addition, since this is a career-focused program, students will receive professionalization training, including one-on-one career mentorship and portfolio-building seminars designed to prepare students for entry into the job market.

Students looking to work in a more digital environment may wish to enroll in Noble’s Digital Design Certificate program. This course teaches students how to use programs like Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop and applies those skills to digital spaces, such as webpage layout design or user interface design. Students will learn digital design theories and philosophies and master necessary web design tools like Figma. This course also offers students the opportunity to receive one-on-one career mentorship. Students will build specialized design portfolios to position themselves as career-ready Web Designers and UI Designers. This course has no requirement for coding, meaning students can focus on the visually creative elements of web and digital design.

Noble also offers a wide array of certificate programs and bootcamps across all disciplines of design, including graphic design, web design, UX/UI design, motion graphics design, and video editing. No matter what direction you choose for your design education, Noble Desktop has a course built to suit your needs.