Which Design Training Format Is Right for Me?

Design refers to the collection of skills that go into the creative projects undertaken by companies and institutions. This ranges from simple things like product packaging all the way up to complex multi-year development projects for film and television. Anyone who wants to turn their creative passions into a career will want to consider learning some design skills. When comparing types of design 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 design training, how they compare, and how to determine which is best for you.

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.

Training Formats for Design

Students looking to learn design skills have a lot of different options available to them regarding training. Students can learn in-person or online, and they can learn asynchronously or in live training courses. Since each student's needs are different, you can read on to learn more about the different types of training available.

In-Person Design Training

Many students find in-person learning is the most effective way to learn a skill quickly and easily. In-person training lets students interact directly with experienced instructors in a classroom environment that maximizes learning outcomes. Students will be able to work alongside a cohort of like-minded student designers, and they will be able to avail themselves of the training center’s technology, which can be beneficial for students learning a lot of programs at once. The drawback is that these courses tend to be restricted to only a few locations, so students may find that they only have a few in-person training options if any if they don’t live in a major metropolitan area.

Noble offers comprehensive design training courses at their campus in Manhattan. Students who live in or can commute to New York City can learn from Noble’s expert instructors and take advantage of their state-of-the-art technology labs. Students who don’t live near Manhattan or would like to compare their options can visit Noble’s Classes Near Me tool to find in-person design classes in their local area, such as those offered through the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle or Ironhack in Miami.

Live Online Design Training

Students who aren’t located near an in-person training facility or who aren’t interested in a commute may find that live online design classes are a productive way to continue learning. These courses, which are taught in private digital classrooms by experienced instructors and the recent developments in online learning technology and pedagogy help ensure that students learning online are still receiving top-flight education and skills training. Students will get the opportunity to learn design skills in their home workspaces on the machines that they are most likely to use in their professional lives. Students will, however, need to provide their own software applications, which can become costly for students in advanced design programs.

Noble Desktop offers all design training courses through live online instructor options. These classes still come with all of the benefits offered by in-person training at Noble, including the assurance that class sizes will remain small and that students can retake the course for free within one year. Students can even give their instructors permission to interact with their devices directly via a remote access tool. For students looking to compare their options, Noble’s Classes Near Me tool can be an excellent way to explore alternative live online training options, such as those offered by providers such as Thinkful and General Assembly.

Free Online Courses & Tutorials

Students who aren’t ready to enroll in a full-time, professional design course may want to consider taking advantage of some free training options. These courses give students a chance to learn design skills in a low-stakes, low-stress environment, and they give students greater control over the pace and style of their learning. These courses won’t replace professional skills training if you want to make a career out of those skills, but these courses are excellent places to start learning. As a bonus, all of the skills students learn in a free training course will make it easier to transition to a more paid training seminar, as students will already understand the basics of the course.

Noble Desktop provides students with several free training resources in almost every design tool you would want to learn. First, students must find out what type of design training they want to pursue. To help with this, Noble offers a Getting Started in Design seminar in which students can learn the differences between graphic design, visual design, UX/UI, and motion graphics design and learn what kind of tools and applications each subfield utilizes. This will allow students to make more informed decisions about the kinds of training that they want, after which they can visit Noble’s free seminars page to explore the options available for the specific skill set they want to pursue.

Students looking for other free training options may wish to explore those offered by other service providers such as Udemy or Coursera. In addition, most graphic design applications, particularly those that make up the Adobe Creative Cloud, have first-party training resources on the program provider's website.

Read about more free design videos and online tutorials.

Then find other non-Noble courses.

On-Demand Classes

Students who cannot attend a regularly scheduled live training session may want to look at their options for on-demand design classes. These classes, which are given to students as collections of video recordings or training modules, allow students to work and learn at their own pace, making them ideal for students with work or family commitments that prevent them from attending a regularly scheduled online course. These courses are also ideally suited for students who want to learn an eclectic or specific mix of design skills since they can choose the courses they enroll in and prioritize the skills they emphasize. The drawback is that without live instructors, students won’t have a way to get feedback on their designs, which is a vital part of learning creative tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, or After Effects.

Comparison of Design Training Formats

Students interested in learning design skills and tools will have a lot of different options available to them. This can be overwhelming for new students who aren’t sure which options will be ideal for them. While every student will learn differently, the course offerings tend to lend themselves to benefiting certain learning goals.

Most students find that live training is the best way to learn a new skill, particularly one as focused on technique as design skills. These courses will allow students to interact directly with live, experienced instructors and receive feedback and assistance in real-time. This makes it much easier for students to overcome the challenges of learning a new creative design tool, particularly if they are unfamiliar with fine arts training.

These live classes can be taken either in-person at a dedicated training center or online from the comfort of a student’s workspace. Students learning in person will be able to benefit from dedicated classroom spaces that are designed to ensure that students learning goals are met. They will also be able to work alongside a cohort of like-minded students and potentially take advantage of on-site hardware and software. Since these courses are taught at dedicated training centers, students must commute to a location to take these classes. This can mean that students have restricted or no choices in their preferred range. Online classes let students skip the commute and learn design skills from anywhere they would like. In addition, some students find that the classroom space isn’t as effective as learning on their devices. However, students will likely need to supply their software for these courses, which can meet or even eclipse the commute cost, depending on time and location.

Students who can’t manage to attend a live training course regularly or who want to learn a specific set of skills in a very limited time frame will want to enroll in an on-demand training course. These design classes are self-paced and asynchronous, allowing students to learn at their own pace and prioritize the skills they feel are most important for them to learn. These courses also tend to be cheaper than their live instruction counterparts. However, since there are no live instructors to assist students, they will need to find alternative ways to receive assistance and feedback on their work, which is one of the most complicated aspects of learning skills like Illustrator or After Effects.

Is it Possible to Teach Yourself Design?

Students who feel overwhelmed by all these options may ask if it is possible to bypass all of this trouble and just self-teach design skills. The short answer is that it depends on what your end goals are. Students who only want to gain familiarity with a tool or set of tools can slowly build up mastery through experimentation, trial and error, and free training resources. Students who hope to use their skills in a professional context will find it significantly easier to learn with professional training.

It should be noted that learning the tools themselves isn’t always the most challenging part of learning design skills. The tools are user-friendly and accessible, meaning students can navigate them and start experimenting with them rather quickly. The challenging part of learning design is mastering the techniques and practicing enough to become comfortable making design decisions with forethought and craftsmanship. This is much harder to self-teach, as getting feedback and iterating on designs is a vital part of this process. Thus, students who are trying to self-teach will lose out on one of the most significant advantages of professional skills training, access to a live instructor who can provide students with feedback and advice on how they should implement their design knowledge.

How to Decide the Best Way to Learn Design

Given that there are so many different kinds of design courses, students may need clarification about what their options are and how they differ. As a general rule, the kind of course you enroll in will depend on how much specific career training you are hoping to receive.

Students who want to make a career out of some element of design training will want to enroll in a career-focused certificate program. These programs teach clusters of skills that complement one another, such as Noble’s Graphic Design Certificate (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign) or their Motion Graphics Certificate (After Effects, Premiere Pro, Cinema 4D). These classes are ideal for students seeking career development training and leave the course ready to pivot to a new profession or professional field.

Students who want to narrow their focus and learn specific skills will want to consider enrolling in a skills training bootcamp. These classes are less career-oriented, so students won’t leave ready to start a new career. Still, they will leave with advanced knowledge of important design programs that they can complement with future design training. These courses tend to isolate specific design tools, like Noble’s Adobe Photoshop Bootcamp or their Adobe Premiere Bootcamp.

Students who aren’t entirely sure that a design course is right for them or want to get a high-level overview of the field before narrowing it down to a specific skill or subfield will want to enroll in a free online course. These courses will provide students with a low-stakes environment to learn the basics of a design tool, giving them a sampling of the kind of lessons they will learn in more professional training seminars. These classes aren’t replacements for immersive training, but they are a great way to acclimate oneself to the programs and fields before enrolling in a bootcamp or certificate program.

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.