Despite living in the ‘information age’, knowledge seems paradoxically harder to acquire than ever. Ask anyone who’s ever used a search engine: for every relevant result to your query you’re going to get roughly twenty useless links, thirty painfully outdated forum threads, and at least twelve pages of unrelated slash-fiction. With that in mind, we searched high and low to bring you the best free Graphic Design courses the internet has to offer, just so you don’t have to:
credit: University of Fraser Valley
Lynda.com
The great thing about Lynda is you can learn pretty much anything there. While they may not list a Graphic Design course per se, they do have courses on topics as diverse as logo design, poster design, newsletter design and many more. Best of all: it comes with a ‘free trial’ period, for you to try and cram as much info as humanly possible without paying a penny.
Tutsplus
A vast, constantly updating hub of all things design-related; supplying you with the ‘hows’, ‘whats’ and indeed the ‘whys’. Our link will take you to a mammoth series of introductory tutorials, but those more-advanced can follow the links to increasingly in-depth, theory based articles. Be warned: this site will keep you occupied for months.
Adobe Online
Offering free video tutorials for anyone who cares to take them, Adobe’s design courses come straight from the horse’s mouth (as it were). Of course, it’s all taught on Adobe products, but we’re guessing most of you will be pretty au fait with these already.
Planet Photoshop
Everything you ever needed to know about photoshop (and a helluva lot you didn’t), spread over roughly a kabillion hard-to-navigate tutorials. OK, so there are some ease-of-use issues, but once you get into it, the amount of info on offer vastly outweighs the negatives.
The Tech Labs
If your ambitions lie down a strictly digital route, you could do worse than paying a visit to the tech labs. With a good hunk of tutorials available, written by people who know what they’re doing, this should be one of your first stops for web design or effects.
Wikiversity
Where would we be without good old Wikiversity? What’s that, you’ve never heard of it? To be honest, neither had we before we started researching this; and with good reason: roughly 70% of its ‘courses’ suck absolute ass. That being said, there are a few gems and – lucky for you – one of them is their web design course. Useful as an addendum to the rest of your learning, rather than a top-notch resource, Wikiversity is nonetheless worth a visit from any beginner.
Design Freebies
Those good folks at design freebies have gone out of their way to scour the web for the very best tutorials hidden away in Google’s darkest recesses. From tips on creating gorgeous vertical portraiture, to typographical design to good old-fashioned line drawing, this site has everything. Carefully curated by a team of enthusiastic design geeks, their regular ‘top ten’ roundups are as inspirational as they are essential.
Abduzeedo
The fellas at Abduzeedo know design, and they love what they do. Aside from having one of the most effortlessly stylish websites in the world, they offer a wealth of detailed tutorials, inspirational links and helpful interviews to spur you on. One to check out, no matter how accomplished you might already be.
Emagister
Let’s say you’re looking for a tutorial on something super-specific and can’t be bothered to comb all these sites to find it. Emagister will do a Google and dredge it up for you. Need to learn Dreamweaver, Flash, or simply want to check out what common web design mistakes to avoid? You’ll find it all here.
GrafxTV
Brainchild of Augustine Makachemu (or ‘Mak’), grafxTV specialises in accessible, intelligent video tutorials covering a wide range of subjects. With over 50 already available, and more expected soon, this is the perfect resource for anyone looking for an unthreatening introduction to the world of Graphic Design.
These great courses were compiled by the folks at online ink cartridge merchants, PrinterInks.com.