Being a graphic designer is more than just having Photoshop or Illustrator skills and creating perfect visuals. A great graphic designer understands the theory behind helpful design, knows how important research skills are, and even has some business background if they’re freelance.
This list of seven free Coursera courses will help you take your graphic design skills from visual-only to all-encompassing, so you can level up as a graphic designer.
What Is Coursera?
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Courseraprovides courses from universities or other accredited institutions around the world. Many of Coursera’s courses come with a hefty price tag akin to a real university semester, but there’s also a large choice of free courses.
Although the free courses don’t provide a university credit for completion, you will be awarded a certificate that you can share on LinkedIn or on your resume. So,a Coursera certificate might help you get a jobin graphic design.
We’ve curated a great list of free Coursera courses catered to graphic designers who want to better their knowledge or for novices who want to get into graphic design. The skills needed for graphic designers are far more than being able to draw or use Adobe Photoshop. Let’s dive in.
1.The Language of Design: Form and Meaning
This is a great beginner’s course for future graphic designers. It only takes eight hours to complete this course, so it can be done in a day if you want to learn fast. With instructors from California Institute of the Arts, four assessments, and only five modules, this is the perfect entry into design.
The Language of Design course teaches skills in visual communication and graphic design. The five modules include:
This course is a great opportunity to paddle through the waters of design understanding, rather than jumping in at the deep end.
2.Creative Thinking: Techniques and Tools for Success
Being a successful graphic designer requires more than [following the golden rules of design composition]. Creative thinking is a large aspect of most graphic designers’ workflows. If you can’t think creatively, then you can’t create creatively.
This Imperial College London creative thinking course will guide you through how to think creatively and in an innovative manner, as well as learning how to reflect on and communicate your ideas. These are important design skills—as much as learning the visual part.
This 13-hour course has seven modules, which include the principles of creativity, the theory of inventive problem-solving, and creative thinking styles.
3.Brand Management: Aligning Business, Brand, and Behavior
An understanding of brand management is important for designers who wish to work freelance or as brand designers.
When designing for business or corporate purposes, an understanding of the brand and its audience is more important than creative deliverables. You need the background understanding before you can deliver the visual designs.
This course teaches corporate branding, brand marketing, brand management, and brand identity. You’ll be able tocreate comprehensive brand identity and guidelineswith knowledge gained in this course.
4.Launch Your Online Business
This course isn’t aimed directly to graphic designers, but it is extremely helpful if you want to start your own graphic design business or become a freelance designer—especially if you’re keeping your business online.
In 16 hours, you’ll learn about business models, strategies for naming your creative business, a touch-up on brand identity and persona—which goes hand-in-hand with the above course. You’ll also learn the do’s and don’ts of using brand voice, imagery, and video, as well as other marketing and PR foundations.
If you want to take your graphic design skills into your own business, it is imperative to have some business knowledge. A background in business may also come in handy when you’re creating graphic design projects for other businesses.
An online business is a great way to sell your graphic design services. You canmake passive income online selling graphic designsandsell your graphic designs on many online marketplaces, as well as starting an online design business or agency.
5.Introduction to Personal Branding
Personal branding is equally important as business branding, especially if you’re a freelancer where you’re the face of your own business. While a brand is more than just a visual style, it’s important as a designer to be able to use your skills to create a brand.
Apersonal brand is important in the digital job marketand this Introduction to Personal Branding course will help you succeed as a graphic designer on multiple platforms. These include social media and online marketplaces, and encouraging an air of confidence in yourself and your design abilities.
This course teaches personal branding, social media, and brand management skills. Building your brand’s infrastructure is one module you’ll benefit from as a graphic designer, as well as the final module: Establishing your brand’s digital home.
6.Understanding Research Methods
Research skills are important for graphic designers, especially those in the UX/UI design field who deal directly with users. You need to understand your captive market, and this Understanding Research Methods course is a great way to learn great research skills.
This short five-hour course lets you understand what good research is. While its focus is toward academic research and literature reviews, the activities—ore-tivities, as they’re called—will boost your research confidence.
Better research means better results, and that doesn’t matter if you’re writing your PhD thesis on women in design industries or creating a website design for single moms who need better nutritional choices for their families.
7.Introduction to User Experience Design
If you’re a graphic designer, you might know a little about UX design already. They’re similar. But if you want toswitch careers from graphic design to UX design, this Introduction to User Experience Design course might be the perfect stepping-stone.
Graphic designers have skills that will benefit you if you pivot to UX design. Good research skills will also benefit you in UX design roles. Introduction to User Experience Design teaches you exactly what user experience design is, how to research and gather information, how to design model interfaces, and how to evaluate design for the end goal.
Improve Your Graphic Design Skills and knowledge for Free
While not all these free Coursera courses are directly for graphic designers, they do all offer skills and knowledge that will improve your graphic design understanding and output.
There are not many free professional courses found online, so these listed courses are a great opportunity to learn from the best educators worldwide. If you have only a few hours a week to spare, you can really level up your design skills.
