Trending Online Design Courses in 2023

by Taylor Slattery | June 15, 2023

People sitting at a table on their laptops laughing together

Online design courses provide a convenient way to gain the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to get started with a creative career. Whether you’re a student trying to decide which courses to take this year, or a working professional looking to add some new tools to your toolkit, you’re bound to find something on this list that can help you take your design skills to the next level.

After Effects

After Effects

Video is becoming an increasingly important tool for branding and advertising. While most video editors focus their efforts on learning Premiere Pro, After Effects is where the real motion graphic magic happens. While Premiere Pro is the go-to tool for creating standard video edits and has some FX capabilities as well, After Effects enables designers to tap into a world of visual possibilities to create custom animations and branding elements that transform videos into something truly unique. Whether designing eye-catching motion graphics to help companies reach new customers or creating stylish transitions and identity elements for broadcast or event use, a working knowledge of After Effects can take you far.

Photoshop

Photoshop

Believe it or not, Photoshop isn’t just for trying to convince your friends you own a Lamborghini or have swam with sharks, it’s got a large range of professional applications as well. Knowing the ins and outs of Photoshop and having solid compositing skills can come in handy in a variety of work environments beyond just the obvious like product and fashion photography. While retouching is an important skill to have, many companies also utilize compositing as a means of transforming or personalizing stock images in lieu of hiring a photographer to take bespoke photos.

Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver

Once you’ve got a working knowledge of HTML and CSS, Adobe’s Dreamweaver provides a great means of putting all the pieces together and furthering your web development knowledge. Dreamweaver can be used to build responsive page layouts and test for cross-compatibility to ensure visitors have a consistent experience regardless of the browser or device they use to access. The freedom to use Adobe’s visual editor alongside precise control over your code grants designers a great deal of flexibility, making it a powerful tool for users of any skill level.

Logo Design

Logo Design

Thanks to site-building and e-commerce platforms like Squarespace and Shopify, it’s now easier than ever to start a business and sell your goods or services online. However, this also means that a website is often the first and only touchpoint visitors will have to interact with a company. For the majority of websites, the first thing visitors see is the logo, making eye-catching branding to help distinguish businesses from the crowd all the more important. Effective logo design shares the same foundational elements as other design disciplines, though it requires some specific considerations to be taken into account to ensure effectiveness across different sizes and mediums and consistency with the broader branding system.