Why Learn InDesign?

Adobe InDesign is one of the most commonly used page layout tools across a number of creative industries. With InDesign, users can build vibrant page layouts for projects like print advertisements, magazines, and brochures, using a wide array of tools to blend text, images, and shapes. Have you ever explored all of the things InDesign can do? Learning InDesign will help expand a user’s career opportunities in the world of graphic design, help them better understand the rest of the Adobe Creative Cloud, and improve their design portfolio. Here, you’ll learn more about the types of careers that benefit from InDesign and how it can enhance your professional life. Regardless of your overall goals, learning InDesign is a valuable and impressive skill to add to your resume.

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.

Common Uses for InDesign

There are many uses for Adobe InDesign, both for professional Graphic Designers and amateur artists. Most InDesign users are professionals working in the print publication industry, but non-professional uses for InDesign exist.

Prepare for a Creative Career

InDesign is an important tool for creatives who hope to turn their passion for design into a career. Anyone looking to work in industries connected to the publishing industry, either books or magazines, will stand to benefit from training in InDesign.

• Publishers and Layout Artists: These professionals are tasked with designing and building the layouts of magazines, periodicals, books, brochures, and many other traditional print objects. They will work to ensure that the layouts are free from error, but they will also build them to help readers navigate the page with eye-catching, easy-to-follow designs. Compelling-looking magazine spreads or newspaper layouts aren’t made by accident, and Adobe InDesign helps these professionals bring these designs to life.

• Ad Designers and Content Marketers: print and digital advertising layouts, marketing brochures, and print advertising. Most consumers only look at advertisements for a short period of time, so it is vital that they catch the eye of prospective customers. Ad Designers and Content Marketers will use InDesign to make their advertisements more effective at grabbing the attention of onlookers.

• Graphic Designers: Graphic Designers is an umbrella term for creatives who build and design elements for printed material and websites. Graphic designers most frequently utilize InDesign to build layouts for branded products when they are also brought on to design logos and icons for those products.

For anyone interested in pursuing a career in publishing or graphic design, Noble Desktop, the creator of this tool, offers training in both Adobe InDesign and the full suite of the Adobe Creative Cloud. For those interested in learning InDesign, consider either Noble’s intensive Adobe InDesign Bootcamp or, for those looking to get their feet wet, InDesign in a Day offers an introduction to the program’s basic functionalities. The Noble Graphic Design Certificate will give students immersive training in all of the major design software programs made available through Adobe Creative Cloud to prepare them for a career in graphic design.

Master Adobe Creative Cloud

Owing to its direct integration with the rest of the Adobe Creative Cloud, learning InDesign will help build skills in Adobe’s other creative software. As a result, very few creative careers just make use of Adobe InDesign. Rather, they use InDesign in conjunction with tools like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. These programs complement one another, and knowledge of one tool will make learning the others easier. In addition, they are all designed to work with one another, and many creative projects will see designers swapping between several programs simultaneously. The direct integration means that layout designers using InDesign can easily import images from Photoshop or Illustrator, and creatives using Photoshop will know the layout of the pages that they will be building with their assets.

To ease students into these programs, Noble Desktop offers bootcamps training students in the basic and intermediate functionalities of Adobe Creative Cloud through their Adobe Illustrator Bootcamp and Adobe Photoshop Bootcamp. Creatives who know that they want a career in graphic design can expand their education through Noble’s Noble Graphic Design Certificate, which covers training in all three programs, provides industry-recognized certification in graphic design, and helps students build a portfolio of sample layouts and designs.

Enhance Creative Projects

The accessibility and ease of using InDesign mean that even amateur creatives can greatly enhance their work with little training in the program. The ease of learning InDesign means that novice designers can quickly pick up the program's basic skills, such as through Noble’s one-day InDesign in a Day course. Additionally, because the system is intuitive and user-friendly, novice designers won’t spend their time fighting with the interface and will instead be able to design layouts quickly.

Self-publishing authors may wish to design their own covers or illustration pages. Activists or community organizers can design fliers and posters to better communicate their messages. Even something as simple as making a sign for a yard sale or an invitation to a birthday party can be significantly enhanced with training in Adobe InDesign. For anyone who regularly needs to make fliers or posters for special community events, Adobe InDesign can streamline the projects using a wide library of templates.

How to Start Learning InDesign

For most students looking to learn how to use InDesign, live professional instruction is often the most desirable option. These courses, which are available both in-person and online, let students receive professional instruction from live instructors who can help troubleshoot issues and respond to questions in real-time. Whether taken in-person or online, these courses offer students the chance to receive hands-on InDesign training from expert instructors to ensure that students are learning the skills they need to master the application. Interested students can search for live training options available to them using Noble’s Courses Near Me tool to find both online and in-person options.

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.

Some students may feel hesitant to enroll in an expensive training seminar if they are very new to a program like InDesign. Those students may wish to consider taking advantage of some of Noble’s free seminars and resources to learn the basics of InDesign before deciding whether or not to enroll in a live training course. Noble offers a number of video tutorials on InDesign through their official YouTube page’s graphic design playlist, and interested students can find helpful resources and articles at Noble’s Learn InDesign hub. These resources can’t replace more immersive skill training courses, but they are great places for new users to start to familiarize themselves with InDesign.

Read the full guide on how to learn InDesign.

Key Takeaways

• InDesign is Adobe’s page layout design tool. It allows users to design memorable and evocative page layouts for various projects, ranging from single-page print advertisements to multi-page brochures to entire magazines and newspapers.
• InDesign is one of the most commonly used tools in the print publishing industry, so learning how to use InDesign can give users a foot in the door to a number of high-paying career opportunities.
• As a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, InDesign is closely integrated with other Adobe creative software, most notably Photoshop and Illustrator. Owing to this integration, learning InDesign will help users learn the other programs more easily and help them optimize their use of all the Adobe programs that they regularly use.
• Learning the basics of InDesign is simple enough that even amateur creatives who regularly make their own printed designs will benefit from learning InDesign.

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.