Designer Certifications

Certifications can be a helpful adjunct to a resume as you seek to build a career as a Designer, as they can testify to proficiency in one type of software or another, and software, be it the Adobe Creative Cloud, AutoCAD, or another program, is an essential part of the modern Designer’s toolkit. In this context, certifications are objective credentials, generally earned by passing an exam administered by a third party. These certifications shouldn’t be confused with certificates, which are issued by IT schools, generally after one of their more in-depth courses of study; these take the place of diplomas.

What is a Designer?

A designer is a person who comes up with designs—plans, drawings, schematics, renderings, and prototypes—of just about anything you may encounter in today’s world. Everything from a shampoo bottle to the outsides of airplanes had to be designed before they could become tangible realities. The designer is often the person who comes up with the idea for something and then comes up with the plans for it. Designers are idea people and creative types who possess the ability to see things that don’t exist (yet).

Designers come in as many shapes and sizes as the objects they design. You’ll thus encounter everything from Floral Designers to Mechanical Designers and Graphic Designers to UX/UI Designers. Each field requires specialized knowledge, but the threads connecting all of them are a creative spirit and artistic ability. Much designing today is done on the computer, using CAD (computer-assisted design) software, but the good old-fashioned ability to draw is still an essential tool in most designers’ toolkits.

Read more about what a designer does.

Do I Need a Degree to Become a Designer?

As a general rule, designers are people with four-year degrees. These degrees are often specialized, such as a bachelor’s degree in fashion design for those who would be Fashion Designers or a bachelor’s in graphic design for budding Graphic Designers. Often coming in the form of a BFA (bachelor of fine arts), these are pre-professional degrees for people who’ve made up their minds about what they want to specialize in, although more general degrees in design are available. There are also Bachelor of Arts degrees in art, which cast an even broader net but can be corralled into a career in design.

Although HR Directors looking for designers generally look for candidates with bachelor’s degrees, there are cases where the four-year degree rule doesn’t apply. Some people have built design careers on associate’s degrees. There are also quite a few schools that offer fast-track pre-professional certificate programs that cover much of the material taught in four-year programs, with an emphasis on the technical side of design. In rare cases, you can even be a self-taught designer and finish your education on the job, although there unquestionably are surer methods for establishing yourself in a design career.

Read more about whether you need a degree to become a designer.

Do Certifications Matter for Designers?

In some fields today, certifications are essential to enter and proceed along in the workforce. A good example of such a field is cybersecurity: there, you’ll need at the very least one objective certification (Certified Ethical Hacker, for example) to begin a career.

Design is generally different from this type of career field. Certifications for certain types of software are available, but they aren’t the first things that recruiters are going to look at when evaluating your resume. Other factors (education, experience, portfolio) are more important than a third-party certification of your abilities. That said, certifications, at the very worst, can’t hurt and, in some fields, can work to your advantage. They can sometimes help to compensate for a lack of experience and show that you know your stuff, even though you haven’t had much occasion to use it professionally.

Certifications vs. Certificates: What’s the Difference?

The words certification and certificate sound alike but mean very different things in the world of employment in an IT field. They should by no means be confused with each other, as they play very different roles in your preparation for a career.

A certification is a badge of honor (often, it’s a digital badge you can display on your LinkedIn and other online profiles) that is awarded by software manufacturers to those who have passed an examination administered by a third party (in the case of both Adobe and Autodesk the administering party of the exam is Certiport, a Pearson Vue company.) The exams themselves are set up by the software companies, often come in multiple levels, and, once passed, testify to some very solid knowledge of the programs in question. Indeed, you need to know the programs in considerable depth to pass the exams: arguably more depth than is necessary for most day-to-day users of the software, although there is something to be said for being the office expert to whom people turn when they have questions about vector tracing in Photoshop. A certification can also bring a sense of achievement to those who know the software inside and out and would like to have their knowledge validated.

A certificate is something completely different. Rather than an objective yardstick by which to measure someone’s knowledge of a particular software program, a certificate is issued by a school upon completion of a course of study, generally a relatively rigorous one, although you will find schools that issue certificates for their one-day introductions to Photoshop as well. The problem with certificates is that they’re only as good as the schools that issue them, and Hiring Directors are aware of that fact. On the other hand, a certificate does show that you studied the subject matter and, particularly when experience is lacking, shows that you possess at least some of the qualifications for a given role.

How to Get Certified as a Designer

For Designers, the two key software families offering certification are Adobe (for the most popular of the Creative Cloud programs) and Autodesk (covering their various programs, including AutoCAD.) The procedure for certification in either of these is essentially the same, as the exams are administered by the same company, Certiport. The basic trajectory is to take a class, study for the exam, and then take the test. The exams consist of a multiple-choice section as well as a practical set of problems that employ the software; the balance between these two is roughly ⅓ to ⅔, and you have 50 minutes to complete both sections.

Once you’ve prepared for the exam (Certiport makes sample exams available), you simply find an hour to take it, and you’ll have your results as soon as you finish your test. If you pass, you’ll be able to lay claim to considerable achievement and be able to add a digital badge to your various online profiles.

You should be aware that Certiport doesn’t offer these exams as a public service. There are fees involved for the exam (and extra fees for arranging what amounts to fourth-party remote proctoring), although they’re by no means financially crippling. (The Adobe Certified Professional exam is offered for $125; discounts are often available.)

Top Certifications & Certificates for Designer

Depending on which type of Designer role you intend to assume, the chief certifications you’ll have to consider are either those from Adobe or from Autodesk. These are companies whose software is essential to contemporary design practice, and being able to demonstrate your abilities with Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, or AutoCAD can be of use to you as you set about building your career.

Adobe offers certification on three levels: the Adobe Certified Professional for entry-level job candidates, Adobe Certified Expert for those further along in their careers and their use of Adobe software, and Adobe Certified Master for those with even more experience. The Certified Professional (formerly Adobe Certified Associate—Adobe has proven itself fond of changing the names around) exam is administered in Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Animate, and Dreamweaver and is deemed suitable for students as young as 14 years of age. No bachelor’s degree is necessary to take the test and establish your credentials.

Autodesk’s system is similar to that at Adobe, due no doubt to the fact that Certiport/Pearson Vue administers its exams the way it does Adobe’s. There are four different levels of Autodesk certification; the Autodesk Certified Associate certification functions similarly to the Adobe Certified Professional exam, covers a substantial swath of the Autodesk software universe (including AutoCAD), and it comes with the same pros and cons. The most salient difference between the Autodesk and Adobe certifications is that the former comes with a modest experience requirement: 150 hours of real-world experience is required to stand for the exam.

Other certifications are available as well. Unity, the game engine software, has its own Unity Certified User entry-level credential that can be used to start a career in designing everything from games to VR experiences. Certiport administers the exam, passing which is likely more important to building a career than the more optional Adobe and Autodesk certifications discussed above.

For contrast, you may wish to consider a certificate program. Noble Desktop, a New York-based IT school, offers a pair of certificate programs in design, including a Graphic Design Certificate Program that provides in-depth classes in Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. The program can be taken either full-time on weekdays or part-time on weekday evenings and weekends and includes 1-to-1 mentoring of students by working professional Graphic Designers. Noble also has a certificate program in motion graphics design that concentrates on the use of Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Key Takeaways

• Certifications are obtained by passing examinations created by software companies such as Adobe and Autodesk and provide an objective measurement of someone’s knowledge of the programs in question.
• Being certified in design software isn’t a sine qua non for a career as a Designer, and HR directors tend to concentrate more on a prospective employee’s experience and portfolio when making hiring decisions. On the other hand, no one’s chances of getting hired were ever hurt by being certified in relevant software.
• Unlike certifications, certificates are issued by IT schools upon the completion of what is generally an in-depth course of study.
• Certificate programs in graphic design and motion graphics design are available in-person and live online from Noble Desktop.