Are InDesign Classes Worth It?

When it comes to learning a new skill, whether or not you participate in a class can often have a huge impact on the direction and tone of your learning journey, which is why this decision is unique for everyone. For the right person in the right situation, InDesign classes are certainly worth the time and money. From gaining marketable skills and job experience to boosting mental health and forming new friendships, the benefits of InDesign classes are numerous. 

While you can certainly learn InDesign without the support of a live class, some benefits of the skill are more readily available to students in formal classes. For instance, it’s not as easy to connect with like-minded creatives from the quiet of your home environment, but a class setting automatically links you with others who share your interests. Similarly, many classes offer professional experience that can set you up for a successful career, putting you ten steps ahead of students who learn InDesign on their own. Top careers for people with InDesign skills include roles like Designer, Graphic Designer, User Experience Designer, User Interface Designer, Print Designer, and Design Director. 

Weighing the Costs

Taking an InDesign class can be expensive, especially if your goal is to master the tool at a professional level. To put it into perspective, many live InDesign courses cost upwards of a thousand dollars, which is no small sum to consider even if you’re learning InDesign in pursuit of a career. As a result, it’s worth taking the time to find a class that’s a perfect fit that will give you your money’s worth. 

If you’re a career-track student, you’ll be best served by an InDesign Bootcamp or certificate training program aimed at your desired career (such as a Graphic Design Certificate). While these programs seem more expensive, they are more economical for your wallet than paying for multiple classes to gain the same skills. 

If InDesign is a hobby for you or you only want to explore a couple of specific skills, you may be better off looking into cheaper options such as short workshops, on-demand classes, and free InDesign seminars. Fortunately, the variety of available class formats means that there’s most likely an option out there that will work for your needs. 

Outside of financing, other costs to consider include the demands a class will have on your time and energy. Since some classes are only offered in person, they’ll typically demand more time and energy for traveling than a live online class that offers interactive instruction via the Internet. Only you can determine which costs and benefits are most important to you. 

Advantages of Learning InDesign in a Live Class

Even though taking live InDesign classes will cost you time and money, these courses come with many benefits that make them incredibly rewarding when compared to other modes of learning.

Instructor Support

Have you ever tried to learn a new skill and given up because you felt you just couldn’t hack it on your own? If you’re like most people, you probably learn new skills more quickly and effectively when you have the right support. In addition to paving a clear-cut path forward, live instructors provide help with difficult skills and offer encouragement to keep you moving forward when things get tough. 

Personalized Feedback

If you’ve ever heard that all art is subjective—you may want to rethink who that argument was coming from. In reality, most people in creative circles can agree to some degree on who the greats are, while those holding fiercely to the art-is-subjective narrative are often doing so in an effort to avoid artistic growth. That said, receiving and implementing feedback is an important part of any creative journey and one that shouldn’t be shrugged off as unnecessary. 

In addition to supporting you on your learning journey, a live instructor can give you personalized feedback on your work, making it easy to identify where you have room to grow. Although it’s possible to recognize your pitfalls on your own, this process often takes significantly longer, even spanning decades when a mistake might only have taken hours to correct if pointed out to you at an earlier stage. 

Access to Software and Resources

For many students, the cost of Adobe Creative Cloud is a major hurdle to learning, as fear of paying for software without making progress can feel like a waste of money. Many classes solve this problem by offering limited access to Adobe tools as a perk of class participation, enabling students to gain both tools and progress in one. These classes also often include free stock images and other design resources that will make it easier to start practicing with InDesign.

Insight on Applied Design Theory

You can learn every feature of InDesign and still end up with a bad design, and the reason is that design is four parts technical skill and six parts applied design theory. The best designers wield classic design concepts like color theory, movement, and line to create designs that communicate the right tone and ideas regardless of their textual content. If done well, viewers might not even realize any strategy was used to communicate anything—only that they reacted in a visceral way. Taking a live InDesign class can help you understand how, when, and why to apply specific design practices to give your work this imperceptible yet powerful impact. 

Social and Mental Health Benefits

At times, learning a new skill can be discouraging, especially if all you can see online are pros expertly wielding the same tools with zero challenges. That’s where learning InDesign in a class gives you an advantage over self-taught learners. When you’re surrounded by other students experiencing the same difficulties that you are, you’ll have the opportunity to vent your frustrations, making you less likely to struggle with imposter syndrome. 

Moreover, InDesign classes can set you up with a community of like-minded creatives that you’re unlikely to have met in a chance encounter. While many creatives enjoy solitary artistic practice, studies show that those who also feel connected to a local community are less lonely and experience improvements in their mental health. Among these benefits are heightened self-esteem, decreased anxiety, and a feeling of fulfillment. 

Practical Training

On-demand tutorials are a fabulous resource, but if you learn best by doing, you may want to consider joining an InDesign class. Rather than simply explaining how to use InDesign, live classes typically provide hands-on activities that get you working with the tool right away. If you make a mistake, your instructor can point it out to you in the moment so that you don’t accidentally develop bad habits through repetition. 

What’s more, the practical training that comes from live InDesign classes can even prepare you for professional design work better than some college degree programs. In the case of certificate and bootcamp style courses, you’ll receive intensive hands-on training that can enable you to become a Graphic Designer without earning an expensive four-year degree. Keep in mind, however, that InDesign alone isn’t enough to become a Designer, as most design jobs call for multiple high-level skills. For this reason, you’ll want to choose your course carefully to ensure you’re signed up for a high-caliber program. 

Professional Experience

These days, you need professional experience to land a good design job, and while you can practice for thousands of hours at home, most companies won’t consider this as a legitimate experience. In the world of professional design, most projects involving InDesign are a team effort, making it vital to gain collaborative work experience. In addition, professional InDesign projects typically require designers to work closely with clients to meet specific needs. InDesign bootcamps and certificates can help you gain real professional experience that fulfills both of these requirements. Many bootcamps include team projects that involve working with a client or case study, allowing you to simultaneously develop design skills and core soft skills like communication, teamwork, and organization. 

Portfolio Enhancement

Listing skills on a resume isn’t enough to show employers what you can do, and that’s why most job applications ask for a portfolio of work that demonstrates your design style and capacity. As you complete assignments for InDesign classes, you’ll not only be building skills but will be compiling high-quality materials that can be included in a job portfolio. In addition to providing generative assignments, InDesign classes often include dedicated portfolio workshops that can help you fine-tune your portfolio even further. Even if you’re a self-taught rock star who already has a portfolio, participating in a class can help turn your portfolio into a professional-grade design preview that leaves employers hungry for more.

Who Will Find InDesign Classes Worthwhile?

Anyone who wants a career in a design field will benefit immensely from taking an InDesign class. InDesign is particularly relevant for creators who want to work in print design, publishing, or graphic design, but InDesign is also a staple in many other fields. Believe it or not, InDesign is an advantageous tool for workers in industries like marketing, architecture, and computer systems design. While InDesign isn’t the main focus in these fields, saturated job markets now make it essential for professionals in all industries to add technical skills like InDesign to their resumes in order to stand out from the crowd. 

You may also find InDesign classes beneficial if you’re a self-taught learner who’s plateaued and wants to grow beyond what you’ve already learned. In cases like this, even going back to beginner basics can yield valuable insights that you missed previously. 

Is Learning InDesign Worthwhile?

If you enjoy design projects that combine images and text on a page, InDesign is likely for you. Whether you learn InDesign as a hobby or choose to explore its potential as a career starter, you’re unlikely to be disappointed, as the tool offers plenty of benefits for both. 

When it comes to careers, you’ll find that InDesign is incredibly versatile, with applications for a wide variety of industries. It’s the top software used by the print, publishing, and design industries to create harmonious page layouts and is popular for producing magazines, books, posters, stationery, newspapers, and marketing materials. An essential in the toolbelt of any budding Designer, InDesign makes it easy to elegantly arrange images and text in such a way that neither competes with the other, enabling viewers to enjoy each to their fullest. For ease of use, projects created in InDesign are fully re-scalable, meaning that they can be adjusted to fit on a small postcard and then sized up to fit on a billboard without loss of clarity. Additionally, InDesign works well with Photoshop and Illustrator, making it all the more versatile for multimedia projects. 

If you choose to add InDesign to your hobby list, you’ll find it leaves no shortage of options when it comes to creative expression. Like many other creative pursuits, exploring your artistic side with InDesign can improve your mental health and combat burnout. 

Who Probably Doesn’t Need an InDesign Class?

Amateur designers who don’t have a desire to become experts can get away with not taking InDesign classes, as they don’t have a career riding on mastering InDesign skills quickly. Consequently, hobbyists are free to explore InDesign and related skills at whatever speed suits them. For casual learners who want a bit of extra help tackling design skills, short InDesign courses are a great alternative to professional bootcamp training. 

For situations where you’re working on a specific InDesign project and encounter a unique problem (such as economizing a large InDesign file that runs very slowly), InDesign classes won’t be a quick fix. In these situations, you’d likely spend more time waiting for the class to answer your question than you would solving your issue. For this reason, it’s worth checking out on-demand resources and online comment boards to see if they can help resolve your problem first. Then if you don’t find what you’re looking for, you can sign up for a short class and pose your question to an instructor outside of class hours. 

Can I Learn InDesign on my Own?

Between public libraries and the Internet, there are thousands of free resources for learning InDesign, meaning that you can learn InDesign at the amateur level without paying for training. However, you’ll still need to pay for a subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud if you want to access InDesign. Popular learning resources include how-to books, on-demand InDesign seminars, and YouTube tutorials. 

There are a few important caveats to be conscious of before getting started. Because free training resources don’t come with a live instructor, you’ll only have yourself to depend on to recognize what you’re doing right and wrong. Furthermore, free InDesign resources may not include other relevant skills (such as design theory) that can make you a better designer. 

Learn InDesign Skills with Noble Desktop

No matter what your goals are for learning InDesign, Noble Desktop likely has a class that can help you achieve them on a timeline that works for you. Each expert-led class includes the option to choose between attending class in NYC or building skills through interactive live online training. The Adobe InDesign Bootcamp will teach you practically all there is to learn about InDesign in a compact format that makes it easy to fit training into your busy life. This immersive bootcamp was designed with both novices and veteran designers in mind and will give you the skills to create magazine and book spreads, tables of contents, advertisements, flyers, and posters. While this class will teach you enough about InDesign to design for your own enjoyment, it won’t be enough to prepare you for a career on its own. 

In this case, you may prefer to learn InDesign through one of Noble’s many career-oriented training programs, such as the Graphic Design Certificate, which includes InDesign training alongside Illustrator, Photoshop, and key design principles. As you complete the experiential learning assignments in this course, you’ll not only build the skills to design all facets of your projects but will also generate memory designs that can set your professional portfolio apart from those of other job candidates. These projects will give you professional experience that includes teamwork and can carry into your career. While attending this course, you’ll benefit from career advancement perks such as one-on-one mentorship, job support, and portfolio workshopping. 

If you’re a hobbyist looking for a more casual course, Noble Desktop also offers a beginner-friendly InDesign in a Day class that will give you a run-down of all the basics in no time. Like Noble’s other classes, this course offers expert-led instruction through hands-on learning assignments built to help you develop skills rather than simply memorize information. As a participant in this course, you’ll learn how to take advantage of essential features such as graphics, style text, and color to create layouts for your projects, and by the time you’ve finished, you’ll also know how to format files for printing and PDF viewing.