Få värde från kurser i grafisk design online: Guide för 2024

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Som med allt annat du gör i livet, även om du redan är extraordinärt rik, bör du söka värde när du gör kurser i grafisk design. När du spenderar pengar på något som är sämre och dåligt, uppmuntrar du helt enkelt undermåliga leverantörer att fortsätta lura folk, slösa bort dina pengar och med största sannolikhet slösa bort din tid också.

I den här artikeln tar vi en titt på de olika alternativen som finns tillgängliga för att hjälpa dig uppnå ditt önskade resultat på kortast möjliga tid till lägsta kostnad. Dessa kriterier är viktiga, eftersom värdebestämningen avgörs av följande formel:

1. Först måste du fastställa tydligt varför du vill gå i studiet

Människor åtar sig studier av alla slags skäl. Genom att veta varför du vill göra den här studien, som kommer att ta upp lite av din tid och kan kosta pengar (c + t), kan du lättare fastställa önskan om utfallet (do), och alla dessa tre är nödvändigt för att beräkna värdet (v).

Typiska skäl till att människor vill studera:

  • Att lära sig nya färdigheter
  • Att vinna prestige
  • För att hjälpa till att få arbete
  • För att förbättra utsikterna för marknadsföring
  • För en känsla av prestation
  • För att eliminera tristess

Dessa skäl kan faktiskt kategoriseras enligt följande:

You may possibly have other reasons as well, but you should easily be able to work out whether the reasons are for yourself or for others. These categories may seem confusing. You may be thinking that gaining employment is something you do for yourself, as is getting a promotion and earning prestige. That’s true, you do (sometimes) benefit from all those things, but that’s not the point. What we’re actually talking about here is whose expectation is being fulfilled.

To frame it in simple terms, if your desired outcome is to gain employment, then you don’t actually care about the qualification itself, you are simply getting that in order to get what you really want (so it’s secondary to your real objective). You’re getting the qualification because you believe the employer you want to work for expects you to have it. The same goes for prestige. In that case, your primary objective is to impress other people, and the qualification is simply a means to achieve that end.

When the only expectations you’re trying to meet are your own (gaining new skills, achieving something, and eliminating boredom), then the situation is entirely different. In this case, you care more about what you’re studying and learning than the piece of paper you get at the end of it.

Så var ärlig mot dig själv när du bestämmer orsaken till ditt beslut att studera, eftersom det kommer att hjälpa resten av processen.

2. Bestäm sedan vad du har råd att investera i din utbildning

The cost of study can vary enormously from $0 to over $100,000. The primary determinants of cost are how, where, and what you study. Since you’re reading this article, we can already be fairly sure that what you want to study is something related to graphic design, so that just leaves the how and where to be worked out.

With regard to the matter of where, it does make a difference. For example, the National University of Singapore is ranked far above UC San Diego (by a full 15 places), but you can’t expect an employer in Frumpburg, Arizona to actually know such a thing unless you point it out. Ironically the exact same situation may occur to job seekers in Singapore, where the Singaporean employer may incorrectly view the American degree as having a higher value than one earned locally.

This is why determining the reason for studying was so important. If your reason is from the left column, the quality of education you’d receive in Singapore is considered by the experts to be better than what you’d receive in a very large number of American academic institutions. However, if the reason was from the “For others” column, and you live in the United States, you may actually find that studying even in a low ranked American institution provides more value.

Next you’ll come to the challenge that if you decide to study online, while much has improved recently, there is still a stigma associated with it, as illustrated dramatically in Better Call Saul when Charles openly expresses his contempt to Jimmy when it is revealed that he earned his degree from the University of American Samoa (go Land Crabs!), even though Jimmy pointed out that the university was accredited.

The reality is that, assuming this was a real scenario, Jimmy’s entitlement to practice law would not be any less than that of Charles, even though Charles earned a degree from a prestigious American Ivy League university, and Jimmy studied by distance education by night while spending his days working in the mail room. Both universities were accredited and all lawyers in New Mexico take the same bar exam. Pass the bar, you’re a lawyer. It’s supposed to be that easy. And yet, there’s still an obvious stigma about distance education, and not just in TV land.

If your reason for studying was a left column reason, online study should definitely be your number one option. It’s way more convenient and the quality of instruction isn’t any less. It’s also often much more economical, and in some cases it’s even free (more about that later).

If your reason was a right column reason, then it could be a bit more complicated. Generally speaking, your certificate, diploma, or degree isn’t supposed to look any different whether you complete your course by distance education or not, but in practice it sometimes does. Most of the time it doesn’t. The second thing is the name of the provider. Stanford University makes a bit more of an impression than Uncle Roy’s School of Visual Design & Horse Dentistry. In the US, Canada, and Australia, it can also add some value if your education provider includes the name of a state or province in their institutional name. Private schools and colleges, other than Ivy League ones, are the most likely to earn looks of derision.

All that having been said, and prestige aside, no course of education will drain your bank balance faster than attending an on-campus course at an American Ivy League university. Community colleges and small private colleges or training centers are massively more affordable, and as long as they’re accredited, you’ll still get the same string of letters after your name. If you’re a left column person, accreditation may not even be that big of a deal, since your main interest is in what you learn, not what you get.

Vissa icke-ackrediterade utbildningsleverantörer eller certifieringsutgivare respekteras lika och ibland till och med mer än en motsvarande ackrediterad examensinstitution. Lyckligtvis inom grafisk design är din portfölj vanligtvis mer intresserad av någon än där du studerade.

3. Bestäm hur mycket tid du kan investera i träning

Behöver ett jobb nästa månad? Starting a four year degree probably won’t help a lot (it may help a bit though). Short term certifications are important if you need quick results to achieve an objective that isn’t directly related to the training.

Övrigawise it comes down to how it impacts on your life and work. If you’re already busy, then adding study on top will certainly be difficult, but many people do manage to get by. My own experience suggests that it’s very difficult, but it depends on the courses you take.

Also this has to be said: if you can afford to take more time, do it. The longer you take to finish the training, the less pressure you’ll feel. Stress can really block your creativity, and in a field where more of your assessment is likely to be on what you produce than academic examination, you don’t want to be blocked.

4. För studenter till vänster är gratiskurser och självstudier vanligtvis det bästa valet

Många gratiskurser är lika bra som betalda kurser och vissa är ännu bättre. Du kan också hitta billiga kurser på platser som Udemy, och dessa är ibland mycket mer produktiva och mindre tidsslösa än formella akademiska kurser. Om huvudvärdet ligger på vad du lär dig och inte vad du tjänar, gå sedan vidare och gör billiga eller gratiskurser, få kunskaperna och gå vidare med att göra det du älskar.

5. Konvertera vad du har lärt dig i de gratis eller billiga kurserna till faktiska högskolekrediter

Om du uppmärksammar under din träning och faktiskt lär dig något kan du omvandla dina kunskaper och färdigheter till högskolekrediter via två vägar.

Den första, som är billigare, är att uppnå kredit genom undersökning. För detta betalar du en liten avgift och går en tentamen. Klara tentamen så får du poäng. Vissa universitet tillåter till och med att du tjänar hela examen på detta sätt.

The second way to earn credit is by portfolio assessment, but this is usually very expensive, and unlike if you pass an exam, they’re not obligated to award you any credit if in their opinion your work isn’t worthy of being awarded credit.

6. För högkolumnstudenter är formella akademiska kurser lämpligare

If you’re into acquiring fancy degrees and transcripts without caring whether you actually learn anything of value, formal courses of education provide what you’re in need of. For you, earning that piece of paper (or at least getting it) is more important than the education itself. Now what you will most likely want to do is get that qualification as quickly as possible.

Let’s start with the situation where the qualification you’re pursuing is an actual college or university level qualification. If you’re still in high school, and you’re smart enough, you can enroll in community college classes and start earning college credits before you graduate from high school. This is an excellent way to fast track, and a path that’s often overlooked, usually because students don’t know it’s possible.

Next up, if you have already graduated from high school, you can earn credits by examination and by portfolio assessment (see point 5, above), you don’t have to do every class in the program.

7. För jobb i grafisk design räcker det ofta med ett högskoleexamen

While in most professions a full Bachelors or Masters degree is desirable, graphic designers won’t normally have trouble getting hired with a lot less, especially if they have a strong portfolio or good samples to show. The diploma is just to satisfy the HR department in a big corporation that they’re hiring an “expert” who is not a total slacker. If you want to be even more lazy, some colleges offer an Associate Diploma, which you can get in just one year. Now imagine if you earned that Assoc. Dip. with most of your credits earned by examination. Quite often it’s all you need to satisfy the the HR admin that you’re a serious applicant, and from that point, your portfolio does the rest of the talking.

8. You don’t necessarily even need any diplomas or certificates

If you know you’re a great designer and you don’t think you need any training to prove it, you can bypass the whole song and dance routine simply by joining a professional association. It’s not guaranteed to work in terms of getting you past HR manager scrutiny, but it often does.

Vad det betyder är att du kan lista på ditt CV något liknande:

Medlem i American Institute of Graphic Arts

Then it is sometimes simply assumed you did much more to qualify for that status than paying $150 to the AIGA. There are many similar organizations all around the world. It works because HR managers are often members of Management organizations where you normally do actually have to qualify to be a member, so they just assume that anyone who is a member of a professional organization had to work as hard as they did… if you’re lucky!

9. Just because I told you how to take short cuts doesn’t necessarily mean I think you should

Being an artist and being a designer are not exactly the same thing, although many people think that they are. To truly be a designer, you really need to be as much of an engineer as you are an artist. Most people don’t have what it takes to be an engineer without at least a little bit of real education.

Att vara en stor grafisk formgivare betyder inte bara att veta hur man använder en viss illustrationsteknik, utan också varför och när man ska använda den. Det här är saker du normalt bara lär dig med tiden genom att studera en hel del teori, inklusive psykologi, färgteori och ibland till och med fysik. Beroende på din specialitet kommer du förmodligen också att vilja göra alla typer av teknikklasser och lära dig att använda de avancerade verktygen för handeln. Att ta genvägar innebär att du kan missa mycket av det och i slutändan kanske aldrig nå din fulla potential som designer.

10. Gratis korta kurser som är värda att undersöka

Kommer du ihåg i början av artikeln när jag visade dig den ekvationen? Du vet, den om värde är lika med kostnad och tid divided by the desirability of the outcome? Well, if you can make cost equal zero and time be as short as possible, while the desirability of the outcome is still relatively high, then that must equal great value. Here’s a round up of a few free short courses that you could consider:

  • Alison - Visual & Graphic Design Course. Det är en 3-timmars kurs (studie i din egen takt) med en bedömning i slutet och chansen att få ett icke-ackrediterat certifikat. Kursen täcker ett utmärkt urval av grundfärdigheter som krävs för kompetens inom grafisk design. Om du vill kan du genomföra en hel (icke-ackrediterad) diplomkurs och köpa ett snyggt examensbevis för att hänga på din vägg.
  • Udacity - Introduktion till design av vardagliga saker. This one takes 2 weeks to complete, but it’s an in-depth introductory course taught by design professionals which will equip you with the principles of design.
  • Coursera - Introduktion till typografi. Taught by Anther Kiley on behalf of the California Institute of the Arts, this 4 week Coursera course will give you a really detailed understanding of fonts and the science of typography. Yep, you’re investing a whole month to just learn about type, but you’ll be amazed at just how much you can actually learn about that topic, and how useful it will be to you as a designer.
  • Coursera - Användarforskning och design. It would be nice if this course actually taught you how to design a user, but unfortunately the title is just poor semantics. The course has a large number of instructors from the University of Minnesota, and while it’s primarily geared toward web designers and software UI designers, it will give you insight into how audiences respond to designs and how they think about the elements of a design. Like most Coursera courses, this one also requires an investment of 4 weeks, but it’s free.
  • Coursera - Grafisk design. The no-nonsense title of this course lets you know what you’re getting into right from the start. It’s taught by David Underwood from the University of Colorado Boulder. The course really hits its stride during the 2nd and 3rd weeks, where you’ll learn a lot of important techniques and theories.
  • edX - Natural History Illustration. This one is a little different. The provider is the University of Newcastle (in Australia). While it’s not really aimed at beginners or at all suitable for them, if you can already draw then this course will teach you some of the high level techniques used in sketching the natural world. Although it’s not specifically about graphic design, the skills and knowledge are transferable. Learn to draw and color a butterfly perfectly, and you’ll be able to create all kinds of other things using the same skill set.

Additionally you will find plenty of sites online (such as the one you’re reading now) that offer free tutorials on all things design related. You may have to wade through quite a lot of low quality tutorials before you discover any real gold, but that’s the tradeoff you have to make when you are getting something for free.

Bogdan Rancea

Bogdan är en av grundarna i Inspired Mag och har samlat nästan 6 års erfarenhet under denna period. På fritiden gillar han att studera klassisk musik och utforska bildkonst. Han är ganska besatt av fixies också. Han äger redan 5.

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