Are InDesign Bootcamps Worth It?

What is InDesign?

Released by Adobe in the late 90s, InDesign is a versatile software application useful for designing page layouts. With this tool, users can create balanced arrangements of text and images that can be published in a variety of formats. As a result, InDesign is the number one software tool used in the publishing industry today and is popular among creatives who work with print design and digital media. 

Today, InDesign is packaged as a paid subscription alongside other Adobe Creative Cloud favorites. Because all Adobe apps are cross-compatible with one another, InDesign can make full use of images designed in Photoshop or Illustrator to create stunning multimedia designs. 

What Can You Do With InDesign?

InDesign is an incredibly powerful tool that can be used to design a versatile miscellany of print and digital media. Additionally, the software’s online connection makes it easy to publish your designs for the world to enjoy and get feedback on where you can improve for the future. If learning InDesign feels like coming home, you may also want to consider choosing an InDesign career.

Design print and digital media

It may not surprise you that although InDesign was first conceptualized as a solution for print design, the tool is just as useful for formatting eBooks and PDFs. With InDesign, you can easily format documents that require page numbers, headers, various typographies, and paragraphing in addition to images. This combination of layout and typography design features makes it the ideal tool for creating all sorts of print projects, including newspapers, magazines, and marketing materials. 

Additionally, InDesign’s powerful image formatting features make it an equally perfect tool for creating image-dominant media such as posters, advertisements, and stationery. Rather than purely existing as a formatting tool, InDesign enables Designers to stylize to their heart’s content, with over 20,000 fonts and limitless color options. To customize fonts for individual projects, InDesign users can even adjust their paths, widths, heights, and slants. 

Other popular uses for InDesign include web design, device optimization, and marketing. 

Create and publish interactive documents

Have you ever heard of user experience (UX) design—a type of design that emphasizes creating an experience for a digital user? It’s a community-building way to get other people interacting with digital media—in this case, your designs. With InDesign’s Publish Online feature, you can turn your design projects into interactive experiences for online viewers to explore. After adding responsive elements like buttons, animations, and slideshows, to your document, you can publish it to any digital space. On top of all the fun elements you add to your document, automatic accessibility features like searchable text will make it easier for digital viewers to find information quickly. 

Chart a career

Because InDesign is a staple in many design fields, learning how to use this tool is a great way to start building a design career from the ground up. Although InDesign skills won’t get you a job on their own, they can serve as foundational skills for a wide variety of exciting careers. The trick is to combine InDesign with other industry-specific skills, such as Photoshop for graphic design, and Figma for UX design. Professionals who are known for their love of InDesign include Graphic Designers, Digital Marketers, User Experience Designers, User Interface Designers, and Design Directors.

In addition to serving as the basis for a creative career, InDesign makes a great add-on skill for resumes that need a little more pizazz to help you stand out from the crowd. Many companies value workers with InDesign skills, which can be used unconventionally to generate marketing content, create employee training manuals, and more.

Get feedback on your work

Through InDesign’s in-app collaboration system, you can choose to share your work with others in exchange for a chance to learn and grow. The app’s online platform will notify you of comments and give you the option to ask clarifying questions. If you’re not ready for constructive feedback, you can even ask your friends to use this space to build your confidence as you learn this new skill. 

Why Learn InDesign in a Bootcamp?

Participating in an InDesign bootcamp will ultimately be valuable for anyone hoping to become a professional designer as these courses offer the quickest and cheapest path to mastering skills and gaining experience. When it comes to choosing a class, you want a training format that speaks to your unique learning style, stretching you where you need it while also aligning with your limitations, and understanding the key differences between different types of classes can help you make the best decision for you. In contrast to college, bootcamps offer several months of immersive career training often including additional perks like job support. Bootcamps also differ from shorter classes in that they provide more comprehensive instruction and are aimed at career preparation rather than beginner training.

Bootcamps Compared to College

For decades, colleges have served as one of the number one ways to get a design education, and there are good reasons for this. Universities offer many different types of design and art classes, including courses exploring the history and theory of art and design, something you won’t get in your average InDesign bootcamp. Much more comprehensive in scope, the rigorous training that you’ll receive at a university design program also includes additional requirements of multidisciplinary academics. These requirements often include courses in math, science, and literature and are intended to help expand your creative and critical thinking skills beyond what’s strictly necessary for your career.

Undertaking a college degree isn’t for the faint of heart, as it can cost thousands of dollars each month and take four to six years to complete. Most college design programs are available on a full-time basis (especially if you want to keep your financial aid) and have limited class times. 

It wasn’t many years ago that four years in college was a prerequisite to becoming a Designer, but thanks to bootcamps, you can now become a Designer without a college degree. Bootcamps are a form of vocational training oriented toward skill development and cuts out all the fluff that you may not really care about, from pre-calculus classes to long-standing student debts. Believe it or not, attending an InDesign-related bootcamp typically costs just 5-10% of a single semester of college regret and can be completed in days to months rather than years. Additionally, InDesign bootcamps come with career-oriented perks such as job support and in some cases, expert mentors who can walk you through the process of planning your career. 

Much less rigid than traditional academics, bootcamp-style training also offers a much wider range of InDesign class formats to make your training more convenient. In addition to training in-person and on-demand, you can receive online training that provides interactive training in real-time.

The principal downside to InDesign bootcamps is that they aren’t an end in themselves, but a solid foundation to get your career started. Their accelerated pace can mean that you have less time to fully absorb information and master skills as extensively as in college. For instance, you may only spend one day practicing a specific InDesign editing skill in a bootcamp, while you might have the chance to solidify that skill through repetition in a multi-year college program. However, the solution for this is to simply continue to practice these skills throughout your career just like any other design professional would. 

Bootcamps Compared to Self-Paced Courses

As you consider your training options, you may also come across self-paced training courses that offer lecture-style training and on-demand study materials. On-demand, or asynchronous courses (as they’re also called) exist as a 180-degree opposite to the rigorous style of college InDesign training in that they prioritize total flexibility over comprehensive career preparation. Designed with working professionals in mind, self-paced classes can enable you to learn at any time or place with no need to follow a schedule or meet deadlines. The lack of regular meeting times in these courses means that if you have an inconsistent schedule or need to take breaks from learning for other reasons, your lifestyle won’t clash with your classwork. For these same reasons, however, these courses are ideal for self-reliant learners who have the discipline to stick with training without instructor accountability. 

In contrast to bootcamp training, on-demand courses provide instruction through self-study materials, such as video lectures, reading assignments, and practice suggestions. Without a live instructor, you’ll lose access to important feedback on your designs and techniques. Often, it takes an expert to help you notice subtle mistakes you’re making as you learn design skills like InDesign. On-demand classes also aren’t set up to enable you to ask questions in real-time, leaving you to spend unnecessary time trying to find the answers to basic queries. 

Because providers of self-paced InDesign courses don’t need to account for expenses like paying an hourly instructor or renting a classroom space, these classes are significantly cheaper than bootcamps. In many cases, you can pay for an on-demand class through a subscription to a learning platform like SkillShare, giving you the option to cancel anytime. When combined with how easy it is to procrastinate in an on-demand course, the subscription-based format of these classes can make it all the more tempting to quit learning InDesign altogether. 

When it comes to career training, you really want to pick a program that sets you up for success, and one of the biggest ways that live bootcamps do that is by providing you with professional experience that can get your career started. Rather than taking a reading-and-lecture-focused training approach, most bootcamps help you build InDesign skills by giving you real-world practical assignments to complete. Often, these assignments involve working with a multi-talented team of designers, giving you plenty of communication practice and preparing you for real design jobs. Coming out of these experiences, you’ll have a working knowledge of InDesign with high-quality work to show for it. In contrast, an on-demand training program will leave you with a largely theoretical knowledge of InDesign, little work to include in your portfolio, and no professional experience. 

With all this in mind, self-paced courses do have a place in InDesign training. While less formal than bootcamps, on-demand classes make beginner-level InDesign training available to a wider variety of people. Ultimately, if you’re a casual learner who can’t commit to a bootcamp because of your schedule, your health, or another reason, on-demand classes are a reasonable compromise. However, if you’re planning to build InDesign into your career, bootcamps are the best way to get experiential training at a professional level. 

Bootcamps Compared to Free Training Options

To save money, amateur creatives may also wish to explore free InDesign training resources. Typically, these come in the form of brief video tutorials that tackle just one aspect of InDesign and can be accessed online through platforms like YouTube as well as Adobe, InDesign’s developer. Other popular resources include library-owned how-to books and blog tutorials. As low-stakes training options, these resources present a great option for students who just want to explore InDesign to decide if it’s a good fit before committing to a paid class. Similarly, free InDesign training is a good option for hobby learners who don’t need a comprehensive understanding of the tool. 

The main downside to these courses is that as less comprehensive resources, free InDesign training won’t be enough to prepare you for a design career or help you master design techniques like composition. While you’ll find plenty of free content exploring design history and theory, you’re unlikely to get lessons on how to apply design theory from a free tutorial, and you’re even less likely to get feedback on your work. You’ll also need to rely on a scavenging approach, collecting public information about InDesign to learn, meaning that it’ll be easy to miss important details as you go.

Additionally, it’s important to keep in mind that the vast majority of free learning resources are created by amateurs, meaning that they might even give you some bad habits, rather than training you in the latest best practices. This might not be an issue if you’re learning InDesign for personal enjoyment, but if you’re looking to fuel a career with your skills, you may want to sign up for a professional design bootcamp. 

Learn InDesign Skills with Noble Desktop

If you’re looking to knock InDesign off your bucket list this year, Noble Desktop has a variety of classes that can help you master this software at your preferred pace and format. Their class catalog includes a diverse selection of options, making it easy to achieve your goals, whether you’re dreaming of a career in design or simply want to explore basics. All of Noble’s classes are available for in-person study in NYC as well as live online, but whatever format you choose, you can expect an interactive skill-building experience led by experts.

For an amateur-friendly course that doesn’t require a lengthy time commitment, sign up for InDesign in a Day. This short class will give you a solid grounding in InDesign fundamentals, including features like color, graphics, and style text. Hands-on class assignments will teach you how to generate your own brochure and magazine ad before helping you master the art of printing and PDF formatting. 

If you use InDesign more frequently and want a thorough overview of all its features, consider signing up for Noble Desktop’s immersive Adobe InDesign Bootcamp, which is appropriate for both beginners and veteran users who want to refresh their skills. In addition to the standard skills from InDesign in a Day, this course will train you to use InDesign’s more advanced features, such as Tables, Master Pages, Anchored Objects, and Libraries. Using the skills from this course, you’ll be able to design a much wider variety of layouts, with class projects including posters, tables of contents, magazine and book spreads, advertisements, and flyers. This course offers sufficient training for you to feel confident working on your own projects, but if you’re planning to use InDesign for a career, you may want to look into one of Noble Desktop’s specialized career training programs. These programs offer more comprehensive training, including InDesign as just one skill among many skills necessary to support a career. 

Preparing for a career in graphic design? Why not get a head start on all the skills you need by joining Noble’s Graphic Design Certificate, which offers thorough training in InDesign as well as Photoshop and Illustrator. With these tools, you’ll be able to design all aspects of your project from creating the graphics, to editing images to match your aesthetic, and finally, arranging them in the perfect InDesign layout. As you practice applying your knowledge to a variety of design projects, you’ll also hone a working knowledge of design theory. As a student in this comprehensive course, you’ll benefit from career development benefits like job support, portfolio feedback, and one-on-one mentorship sessions.

Learn InDesign Skills with Noble Desktop

However much time you want to devote to learning InDesign, you can find a class that suits your needs at Noble Desktop, one of the world’s leading tech educators. Become an InDesign master by attending the immersive Adobe InDesign Bootcamp, a comprehensive training program for both beginners and professional InDesign users. As you tackle the hands-on projects in this course, you’ll get comfortable with InDesign’s basic to advanced features, and before you know it, you’ll be capable of creating flyers, posters, advertisements, magazines, and book spreads. 

Suppose you want to be able to do more than design for your own enjoyment. In that case, Noble Desktop also offers a variety of career preparation courses, such as the Graphic Design Certificate, which provides InDesign training alongside skills like Photoshop, Illustrator, and applied design. The group projects in this immersive program are designed to give you professional experience while helping you develop both design skills and soft skills like communication and teamwork. To aid you as you launch your new career, you’ll also receive one-on-one help from one of Noble Desktop’s expert mentors, who can help you revise your portfolio, prepare for job interviews, and more. 

On the other end of the spectrum, Noble Desktop also offers short courses like the InDesign in a Day course for beginners and casual learners. This expert-guided class will get you up and running with InDesign basics in just a few hours and won’t overwhelm you with complicated information. As you perform the skill-building tasks assigned in this class, you’ll grow comfortable utilizing graphics, color, and style text to design page layouts. Before you know it, you’ll be printing or PDF-formatting your designs to share with the world.