Graphic Design Classes in NJ
Graphic design is the art of using images, text and iconography to communicate with a mass audience. It is one of the most important aspects of advertising and advocacy efforts, making graphic design skills in high demand in both the public and private sectors. If you are an artist interested in turning your passions into a career or you are interested in expanding the canvas on which you make art, learning graphic design skills is a great option. Given its proximity to NYC, there are a wide range of training options available to residents of NJ.
Why Learn Graphic Design in NJ
Learning graphic design can open a wide range of career opportunities for creatives and artists. Since visual communication is so important in terms of advertising and public outreach, almost all industries, companies and institutions employ trained Graphic Designers to one degree or another. While many of these designers are freelancers or employees of dedicated design studios, there are plenty of specialized jobs available for designers in fields like print publishing, traditional advertising and brand management.
Graphic Designers are professional artists who work for companies or clients to produce a wide range of traditional and digital media design products. These artists will produce everything from product packaging and brand logos to campaign fliers and PSA infographics, depending on who is employing them and in what capacity. Some more specialized Graphic Designers may work for print publishing companies as editors or layout designers, while others may find work in creating advertisements for print publications. Most Graphic Designers are self-employed or work for large design studios, meaning that the kinds of work they do will vary depending on their expertise, skills and clientele. In New Jersey, a Graphic Designer’s average salary starts at about $61,000 annually.
More experienced designers may find work as Design Directors, who are responsible for overseeing teams of designers who collaborate on larger projects. Most major design projects require the input of large groups of creatives, and it is the responsibility of the Design Director to ensure that the project is coming in on time and under budget. They will be expected to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders, and they may be responsible for brainstorming new ideas, guiding creative projects and incorporating elements produced by other designers and teams. In addition to needing to know how to do design work, they will also need soft skills, like communication and conflict management, and they will likely need to understand theories of project management. In NJ, a Design Direct can expect to earn about $101,000 annually.
Learning graphic design can also be productive for hobbyists and amateur artists as well. Aspiring artists can benefit from learning how the digital space can be used to expand the reach of their work, and many individuals regularly engage in tasks that would benefit from a skilled graphic designer, even if they aren’t aiming to create art at a professional level. For example, if you are building a start-up business, learning how to create logos in Illustrator might be a useful skill to have. Similarly, if you are in a band, learning Photoshop and InDesign can help you create your own promotional materials to save on costs.
Best Live Graphic Design Classes in NJ
Students who are willing to commute to Manhattan can take advantage of the Graphic Design Certificate program offered by NYIM Training in conjunction with Noble Desktop. In this immersive training program, students will learn the foundational techniques employed by Graphic Designers, and they will receive an education in the important theories and principles of composition utilized by professional designers. All of the lessons are practical, hands-on activities that aim to teach students the most frequently used aspects of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Since this is a career-focused training program, students will spend their time working on projects based on real-world design tasks and they will begin to prepare a professional portfolio to take with them onto the job market. In addition to dedicated skills training, students will also be able to take advantage of one-on-one career mentorship sessions during which they can work directly with experienced industry experts as they prepare to start applying for graphic design positions.
Students who are interested in learning the basics of a design tool but aren’t ready to commit to a full-on career change may want to consider classes such as NYIM Training’s Photoshop in a Day course. In this course, students will be introduced to the basics of working with graphic design applications such as Photoshop, making them ideal places for new creatives and aspiring hobbyist designers to start learning their way around the interface. In this course, for example, students will learn the basics of photo manipulation and editing using tools and features like layers and color correction. These courses won’t provide students with a deep enough training to parlay into a new career, but they are excellent resources for new students looking to acclimate themselves to the world of graphic design in preparation for future classes. NYIM also offers an Illustrator in a Day course and an InDesign in a Day course.
Anyone with a background in graphic design looking to develop their materials even further should consider enrolling in NYC Career Centers’s in-person Graphic Design Portfolio Bootcamp. This course provides students with a space to work on developing their own professional portfolio for clients and employers. Students will work on hands-on design projects and they will receive and provide feedback on their work and their classmates’ work, giving them valuable experience with the review process. Then, students will then revise their portfolio materials with this feedback in mind in order to strengthen their work and demonstrate their ability to address feedback. Since this is a career-oriented program, students are encouraged to work on projects that will make their portfolio as attractive to employers and clients as possible.
The Manhattan Edit Workshop offers a pair of courses for aspiring photo editors in their Adobe Photoshop Level 1 and Adobe Photoshop Level 2 courses. These courses serve as introductions to the art of manipulating and altering pixel-based images using Photoshop, Adobe’s industry-leading photo manipulation software. The level 1 course introduces students to the basic tools of the application, and lessons cover basic color and photo correction techniques, lessons on using the layers tool to make subtle manipulations to an image, and quick fixes for common issues. Once students move onto the level 2 course, they will learn advanced compositing skills, how to work with vanishing points, adjustments layers and filters, and the use of the mixer brush to add vector based assets to a Photoshop composition. These courses aim to prepare students to use Photoshop in their professional lives and all of the lessons are hands-on exercises based on real-world projects.
Students between grades 6 and 12 can be introduced to graphic design tools in courses like One River School’s Learn to Use Adobe Photoshop course. Over the course of a week, students will work through a series of five mini-projects, each teaching them how to use Photoshop tools to edit photos, manipulate images and create new assets. Students don’t need any art or photography background in order to attend, making it a great opportunity to explore new skills and learn about a versatile digital art platform, so this course is excellent for beginners looking to learn the basics of Photoshop. This course is a great summer activity for younger students looking to explore their creative sides and learn how to navigate a digital design application.
NextGen Bootcamp’s Graphic Design Summer Program NYC course is a more advanced and immersive summer high school graphic design course aimed at students between grades 10 and 12. Students enrolled in this course will spend a part of their summer learning the basics of graphic design applications (like Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign) and foundational principles of composition and layout design. Students will have an opportunity to flex their creative muscles as they get hands-on experience working with industry-standard design tools that they can expect to encounter frequently in their professional and artistic careers. This is also a solid investment in the future of an aspiring graphic artist since the work done in this course will serve as a foundation for later graphic design training programs, including college-level art courses. Participants will even be able to utilize the work they produce in this summer program as part of the application materials they use to apply to later art education programs.
