Which InDesign Training Format Is Right for Me?

Whether a user wants to start a career as a Graphic Designer or just wants to learn a new skill to help their creative projects, learning Adobe InDesign is very useful. Adobe InDesign is the industry-standard page layout design tool in the publishing and print advertising industries. Learning InDesign can help users make vibrant, memorable layouts, and a wealth of training options are available to new users. When comparing types of InDesign training, there are many factors to consider. Everyone learns differently, and choosing the right kind of training is critical to your experience.

Keep reading to learn more about the different formats of InDesign training, how they compare, and how to determine which is best for you.

What is InDesign?

Released in 1999, Adobe InDesign is the industry standard in page layout design software, and it is one of the software programs that comprise the Adobe Creative Cloud. Together with Photoshop and Illustrator, InDesign is one of the most commonly used creative design tools across a number of industries, ranging from publishing to graphic design. Built to streamline the process of designing page layouts for books and magazines, InDesign has a plethora of uses that make it a versatile tool for many creative endeavors. As part of a heavily integrated array of creative tools, Adobe InDesign gives creatives the chance to create compelling and vibrant page layouts.

Unlike its sister programs, Illustrator and Photoshop, InDesign serves a specific but vital function, building page layouts. Creatives will use InDesign to build prototype layouts for everything from brochures to web pages, and the program has tools for populating those prototypes with graphics, texts, and even interactive elements. While it is primarily used in traditional print media, InDesign is seeing increasing use in the digital sphere, such as the world of ePublishing and website design.

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

What Can You Do with InDesign?

Adobe InDesign allows users to create vibrant and memorable design layouts that can be used for anything from print advertisements to promotional brochures to newsletters and magazines. Almost any print layout can be built with InDesign, and the tool is often used to help Web Designers produce mock-ups of web pages. Users can add text, color, and images to their layouts to ensure they communicate what they are trying to communicate. InDesign also lets users easily create templates or replicate pages to streamline the multi-page design process.

InDesign also has numerous non-professional uses for users who are hoping to create eye-catching posters, infographics, or flyers for their own organizations or communities. Visual design skills can help users share information in memorable and effective ways, and learning InDesign will help anyone hoping to communicate with the masses. Additionally, many small businesses or private commercial organizations like Etsy shops or local bands can greatly benefit from having individuals on staff with InDesign training, as the program helps non-professionals make professional-grade graphic page layouts.

Additionally, because InDesign is so closely integrated with the rest of the Adobe Creative Cloud, users who are familiar with other programs can seamlessly integrate their work in other programs into their layout designs. Photos and illustrations can be edited or created in Photoshop and Illustrator and then easily brought over in InDesign to populate a layout. Users can also transfer work between InDesign and XD to help build prototype web layouts. These connections help expand the functionality of all Adobe Creative Cloud applications.

Training Formats for InDesign

When looking for InDesign training opportunities, new learners will need to consider the various training formats available to them. First, live training, but in-person and online, is the most immersive and also the most expensive and time-consuming option. On-demand training is cheaper but requires students to be more self-motivated, plus there is no instructor to help explain difficult concepts. Free resources are plentiful, but for most learners, these resources won’t be enough to learn InDesign in a professional capacity.

In-Person InDesign Training

Given that InDesign is a program with which students tend to have little familiarity, in-person training may be ideal for students who want to interact directly with their instructors. These courses provide an ideal environment for students to learn how to use InDesign with the assistance of trained instructors who are ready and able to help them learn the program. Noble Desktop, the creator of this portal, provides students with a Classes Near Me tool to help students locate local training resources.

Most in-person classes are available in major metropolitan areas, such as Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. Given that these are hubs of major graphic design firms, cities like these have numerous offerings from training providers such as Noble (NYC), Training Connection (Los Angeles and Chicago), or Luminous Works (Seattle). Training providers such as ONLC and New Horizons have campuses in dozens of cities.

Live Online InDesign Training

For aspiring graphic designers who aren’t located in a major city or who find a course located in a different city particularly appealing, live online training is one alternative space to learn InDesign. Noble’s Classes Near Me tool will help students find online classes available for them to take without leaving their homes.

Noble offers multiple online classes in Adobe InDesign training, allowing students to gauge their desired level of time commitment and proficiency. For novice students, Noble’s one-day InDesign in a Day course will give a basic introduction to the features and functions of the program, teaching students how to build layouts, add images and text, and how to export layouts for publication. Students seeking a more advanced education, or those who are looking to improve their existing skills, may consider the Adobe InDesign Bootcamp, which covers the advanced functionalities of the program, such as the use of gradients and opacities, color correction, and parent pages, tables, and libraries.

As Adobe InDesign is often used alongside the other major programs in the Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop and Illustrator), Noble also offers an intensive Noble Graphic Design Certificate, which provides certification in all three programs. In this career-focused bootcamp, students will not only learn how to use InDesign and integrate it with Photoshop and Illustrator, but they will engage with hands-on design projects and build a personal portfolio to take on to the job market.

Noble’s InDesign courses offer students the chance to earn an industry-recognized certification that will set them apart from other prospective graphic designers. The bootcamps and certificate programs are focused on building practical career skills and are tailored for aspiring professional graphic designers who want to ensure that they have the skills required to compete in the industry.

Other service providers, such as Lumenbrite, Ledet Training, and Future Media Concepts, offer live online training in InDesign. These providers offer both beginner-friendly and advanced courses, as well as bootcamps that combine introductory and advanced training courses.

Free Online Courses & Tutorials

Students looking for free online tutorials should start at Noble Desktop’s blog, and the articles tagged InDesign. Here, students will have access to articles and interviews explaining the basics of InDesign, and they will be able to find free online Graphic Design and InDesign courses. Noble’s InDesign overview page also includes links to free online training resources. These free resources are constantly updated, and they are built as onboarding tools for Noble’s paid training seminars, so using these resources will prepare students for the more immersive learning options made available through Noble.

One of the best ways to introduce yourself to InDesign is through a free online video tutorial. Noble’s blog and Graphic Design YouTube playlist provide students with free introductory videos covering both broadly graphic design principles and Adobe InDesign in particular. These videos are a great place to start getting a feel for InDesign, as they allow students to learn the basics of the program at their own pace. Noble’s videos cover the basic functionalities of InDesign, teaching students how to navigate the interface, add text and images to a layout, and how to export and prepare simple layouts for publication.

Students looking for a more detailed background in InDesign should consult the Learn InDesign page on Noble’s Learn Hub. Here, students will find constantly updating free resources to help guide them through the early process of learning InDesign.

Read about more free InDesign videos and online tutorials.

Adobe also offers a number of first-part tutorials and sample projects to help new users learn how to work with InDesign. Adobe offers a free trial of InDesign, and during that trial, users will have access to the full program, including a built-in walkthrough of the program and its interface. These video tutorials can be watched in an afternoon, and they provide users with a straightforward introduction to InDesign, its interface, and its tools.

Students may also wish to browse YouTube to find online tutorials available outside of Noble’s official playlists. These tutorials range from lengthy lectures like those offered through Noble to brief micro lessons that will help students learn specific InDesign skills.

Noble also provides users with a Classes Near Me search tool. This will allow users to compare the live online course offerings of Noble and other service providers such as Lumenbrite, Ledet Training, and ONLC.

On-Demand Classes

For students looking for a less structured approach to learning InDesign, many self-paced and on-demand learning options are available. These courses let students dictate the pace of their own training, letting them avoid the hassle of regular classroom meetings or arbitrary homework deadlines. For self-motivated students or whose schedule doesn’t afford them the time to attend a live training seminar, these courses can provide a suitable alternative to live instruction.

Comparison of InDesign Training Formats

Each training format comes with advantages and disadvantages, and students should gauge their own learning needs to decide on the ideal training option.

Instructor-led courses are the most immersive option and, consequently, the most expensive option. These courses are ideal for students wanting detailed instruction in how to use InDesign and who want hands-on experience working with the program. Online versions of these courses have the advantage of letting students work from home, meaning that they aren’t restricted to the in-person classes that are within a reasonable commute. These courses also tend to be more involved than just InDesign training. While many live instruction courses will teach narrow skills like InDesign, many are more career-focused courses covering subjects such as graphic design or UX design.

Self-paced and On-demand courses provide students with more flexibility in their training than live instruction, particularly live in-person classes. These courses let students work at their own pace, and they are designed for students who either need a slower environment due to things like family obligations or students who want to pick up a new skill as quickly as possible. The drawback to these courses is they require students to be particularly self-motivated and able to work independently of deadlines and obligations. Additionally, because there are no live instructors, there is no one to guide students through difficult issues or provide feedback on their work.

The primary advantage of using free resources is that they are a very low-risk, low-investment way to learn the basics of a new program. The biggest drawback is that anyone hoping to learn InDesign for career purposes will almost certainly need more training than the free resources offer. They are still ideal places to begin a new career path, but almost everyone will need more training.

Is it Possible to Teach Yourself InDesign?

Some users may be interested in trying to self-teach InDesign. After all, classes can be expensive, and even the most flexible on-demand courses still come with some work obligations. So, can a student self-teach InDesign? To a point.

Students with minimal InDesign experience can very easily pick up the basics of the program using only free resources available to them through sources like Noble and Adobe. The program is accessible and easy to use, letting users experiment with InDesign nearly as soon as they boot up the program. However, this can only take a student so far, and anyone hoping to use InDesign professionally is unlikely to be able to self-teach.

To really grasp the advanced features of InDesign, users will need both instructions on how to make use of these features and in the other Adobe Creative Cloud products that are integrated with InDesign. It can be difficult to learn a program's advanced features without an instructor's assistance to guide students through difficult patches, and it is even more difficult when students are expected to determine which program’s advanced features they need to be using. Plus, while there are a great many free options available online, like most of the internet, it can be difficult to judge what is and isn’t trustworthy, whereas it is hard to go wrong with an industry-recognized training program.

How to Decide the Best Way to Learn InDesign

The time and difficulty involved in learning Adobe InDesign are primarily decided by how much expertise a student feels they need in the program. For students who want to learn the program's basic functionality, Adobe InDesign can be learned in a few days with minimal difficulty. For students seeking advanced training for certification in Adobe InDesign, the process can take weeks or even months of training and involve hundreds of hours of hands-on design experience.

New InDesign users, or users who just want to experiment with the program, may wish to take advantage of free training tutorials to familiarize themselves with the program. These seminars, such as those offered through Noble’s Graphic Design YouTube playlist, will give users a high-level overview of the program without a high up-front cost. Then, users can decide for themselves whether or not they want to continue with their training.

Users hoping to develop InDesign skills to master the program or add a new line to their resume may wish to consider a more intensive training program, such as Noble’s Adobe InDesign Bootcamp. In courses such as these, students will receive training in specific career skills with an emphasis on the practical application of InDesign to their daily work. These courses are ideal for students who want to become more familiar with the professional uses of a program but aren’t looking to make a massive shift in their careers. In addition, for subjects like InDesign, these courses rarely expect students to be familiar with the program and are ideally suited for beginners.

Students interested in a new career outlook involving InDesign should consider more immersive professional skills training, such as the Graphic Design Certificate program. These career-focused seminars aim to teach students InDesign as part of a larger skills training curriculum to help them prepare for a new career path. These courses are ideal for aspiring Graphic Designers who want to break into the industry but don’t have the training that they need to use the industry-standard programs. These are the most expensive and time-consuming courses, but they also provide students with the most immersive training possible.

Learn InDesign with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop offers a wide range of training options for students seeking to learn Adobe InDesign. Ranging from introductory courses such as InDesign in a Day to immersive career training programs like the Graphic Design Certificate program, Noble has a training program built to fit your needs. These courses are all taught by professional instructors with years of training as both teachers and graphic designers. Each course comes with the option to retake the course for free within a year of the initial enrollment, meaning that students have the option to take the courses again in order to receive more hands-on experience with InDesign or to gain more training in skills that they found difficult the first time through.

The Adobe InDesign Bootcamp gives students hands-on experience working with InDesign through exercises that mirror the kinds of projects that professional Graphic Designers would work on. Students will learn how to create layouts with InDesign’s text, color, and graphic tools, they will learn how to import formats and styles to easily build layouts, and they will learn how to work with parent pages to easily create complex, multi-page designs for projects like brochures and magazines. This course is ideal for students who want to learn the advanced features of InDesign within a professional context. At the end of this bootcamp, students will be prepared to use InDesign as part of their professional lives, and they will be able to demonstrate to their employers that they have received in-depth InDesign training.

Noble’s Graphic Design Certificate program takes this InDesign training and pairs it with career-focused training in Photoshop and Illustrator. Students will learn the background of graphic design, receiving training in philosophies of composition, color theory, and typography. Then, they will learn how to use Illustrator and Photoshop to create digital illustrations and assets that can be imported to InDesign to populate finished page layouts. Bringing these programs together, the Graphic Design Certificate program is built to take students from novice users to trained designers, aiming to help them find a new career once they’ve completed the course. This certificate program also provides students with one-on-one career mentoring so that when the course is complete, graduates will be ready to enter the workforce as Graphic Designers.