What to Learn After Design

Design refers to a broad selection of skills and tools like graphic design, Photoshop, or User interface design used to create stunning visual imagery for mass audiences. This can include simple logo designs for products, branded merchandise, and complex 3D animations for webpages and films. If you already know how to use design, you might consider learning more advanced design skills, technical design skills that assist in design work, or project management skills. We’ll cover these related skills below, so you clearly understand what skill you want to tackle next. 

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.

Additional Design Skills

While very few designers will receive training in all design programs and techniques, an obvious next step for students who have mastered one design tool is to try and learn another complementary skill. Students who know Photoshop may want to take a graphic design course to learn Illustrator and InDesign. Students who want to branch out into the digital space and learn skills like web design or visual design. Students may wish to learn how to create complicated 3D animated assets in a motion graphics design course.

No matter what design skills you are interested in learning, Noble Desktop has the perfect design class waiting for you.

User Experience Design 

For digital designers, a valuable skill to complement your design training is user experience (UX) design. UX design is a subset of design that deals with how a digital interface or asset feels rather than how it looks. These design professionals will collect user data and feedback to see how an aspect of a web design project is being utilized by real-world users, and they will offer suggestions and advice to adjust those designs accordingly. UX design skills are vital to ensuring that digital design projects are accessible, user-friendly, and easy to navigate.

Students interested in learning more about their user experience design training options should consider exploring the options available through Noble Desktop.

Project Management

Most large-profile design projects require huge teams of designers to work on almost every element of a product release. Given the size and scope of these projects, it can be beneficial for students to learn how to manage the human element of these teams. Project management skills will teach students how to manage multiple teams, each working on a discrete element of the project, so that the final product can be delivered on time and budget.

Consider consulting the course options available through Noble Desktop to learn more about project management skills.

Key Insights

• Design skills refer to the wide range of skills and techniques for creating visual projects for mass communication, ranging from logos and product packaging to film and television.
• Students who learn a design skill like Photoshop may want to learn complementary skills like Illustrator and InDesign, or they may want to learn other advanced design skills like motion graphics design.
• Web design students may want to consider learning UX design skills to understand better how audiences interface with the interactive elements of their designs.
• Professional designers can improve their job prospects by learning project management skills.
• No matter what skills you want to learn to complement your design training, Noble Desktop is here to provide you with comprehensive online or in person training at Noble’s Manhattan campus.

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.