Free Graphic Design Course Online: Learn Graphic Design Online

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the live stream of our webinar, How to Get Started in Graphic Design. My name is Dan Rodney, and I'm an instructor and course developer at Noble Desktop. I've been a graphic designer for over 20 years. 

Tonight, we will be talking about graphic design and how to get started in this field, whether you want to become a full-time freelancer or create some designs in your spare time.

In the video description below this video, you will find a link to this presentation for future reference. 

We're a training center based in New York City for anybody unfamiliar with Noble Desktop. We teach people in live online classes and in-person in New York City, and we've been around for over 30 years. Our specialties are design and coding, so the topic of tonight’s presentation is one of the main topics that we teach. 

What are we going to be talking about tonight? We're going to be discussing:

• What exactly is graphic design?

• What do graphic designers do? I'll be showing some examples of design work. 

• What apps do graphic designers use? It's important to know what you'll need to learn to become a graphic designer.

• What type of computer might you need to develop a portfolio of your work? A portfolio is how you show your work to people, which will be essential for getting a job. When you apply for a job in this field, you have to make a resume linked to your portfolio.

A Lesson Learned

Ultimately, I would recommend starting with one particular design area and focusing on that. Then you can branch out and get into different types of areas.

What are the areas that you're going to start with first? That's one of the reasons we'll be talking about the various types of design, and you’ll need to learn the apps you can use to make designs.

Now, the apps are just tools. It's something you're going to use to create designs. It does not make you a good designer, but you still need to know how to use the tools. For example, if you're a construction worker and you don't know how to use a saw or a screwdriver, you're not going to be very useful as a construction worker.

The same thing applies to designers who don't know the apps needed to design, which will make it very hard for you. As I said, knowing an app doesn't make you a good designer, though. 

The other thing you need to learn is design concepts. 

What makes a design compelling? Examples are typography, color composition (which is how you arrange your layouts), and if you're getting into digital stuff, user interaction and animation.

Depending on the mediums, there are different types of design concepts that you will need to know. What makes a good design, and then you execute it with the apps that you learn. 

To get started with this, you need to practice. Practice is what makes people better.

Here’s an excellent study that a photography professor conducted on one of his classes: He had half of his class take hundreds of pictures, and they were graded on the volume. The other half had to shoot one perfect picture, and their goal was the best single picture they could make. 

The second half analyzed their work, and they didn't focus on taking pictures. They focused on trying to make the best photo. The first group had to shoot many photos, and it turned out that their work ended up being a lot better because they practiced. The more they shot, the better they got. 

The group that only shot one picture was tasked with trying to make the singular best photo they could. They didn't shoot as many photos, and therefore their work was not as good. 

Practice makes perfect. When it comes to design, this does hold up.

Practice as much as you can. In the beginning, you're not going to be as good as you want right away. You might not be able to produce high-quality designs immediately. What's going to bridge that gap is practice, practice, practice. The more you practice, the better you'll get. 

Ultimately, you’ll want to build a portfolio that can present your work to others, and some of those projects can be created as “practice projects.” If it’s good enough for your standards, you can put it into your portfolio.