Graphic designers create visual concepts that inspire, inform, and transform. Use industry-leading tools to build innovative design projects and discover the skills needed to become an in-demand visual thinker and communicator.
Build a solid foundation in the elements of design: typography, color, and layout.
Explore the design process to visualize compelling ideas.
Practice with hands on exercises in InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop.
Learn what graphic design is and how it is used to convey ideas and concepts, and to enhance experiences. Discover the impact graphic design has on the success of individuals and businesses.
2m 49s • COURSE
Graphic Design Careers: First Steps with Kristin Ellison
Get started in graphic design. Discover the most crucial skills, tools, and techniques for graphic designers today, and where to find training to kick-start your career.
31m 26s • COURSE
Introduction to Graphic Design with Tony Harmer
Learn the concepts and software skills that you need to become a graphic designer. This introductory training covers image editing, logo design, and layout in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
4h 12m • COURSE
Graphic Design Foundations: Layout and Composition with Sean Adams
Learn how to create stronger, clearer, more attention-grabbing designs by understanding the how, why, and when of layout and composition.
1h 35m • COURSE
Graphic Design Foundations: Typography with Ina Saltz
Explains good typographic practices, how to select and use type to add impact and power, how type is measured and sized, and how factors like spacing and alignment affect your design.
2h 23m • COURSE
Color for Design and Art with Jim Krause
Learn about the practical application of color theory: how to create color palettes, manipulate colors in Adobe tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, and paint for learning and for fun.
1h 45m • COURSE
Learning Logo Design with Von Glitschka
Learn to avoid pitfalls, improve your design process, respond to demanding clients, and solve the creative problems that are involved in building a brand's identity.
2h 34m • COURSE
InDesign Quick Start with David Blatner
Learn the five techniques every InDesign user needs to know to start creating and editing layouts. Get up to speed in less than 30 minutes!
28m 42s • COURSE
Introducing Illustrator with Deke McClelland
Quickly learn how to use Adobe Illustrator to create digital illustrations with no experience required.
3h 55m • COURSE
Introducing Photoshop: Design with Deke McClelland
Quickly learn how to use Photoshop for everyday design tasks—combining text and artwork, replacing backgrounds, and more.
4h 35m • COURSE
Aaron Draplin Takes On a Logo Design Challenge with Aaron Draplin
Aaron Draplin, owner of Draplin Design Co., takes our logo design challenge. Watch as he sketches, tests, and tunes his ideas, and provides tips on freelancing and finding inspiration.
17m 10s • COURSE
You'll learn graphic design with these experts
Founder of design firm AdamsMorioka, Sean Adams teaches at Art Center and designs for clients such as Adobe.
Sean Adams is a fulltime faculty member at Art Center College of Design. He was a founding partner of the noted firm, AdamsMorioka. He is the current national president of AIGA, and the only two-term AIGA national president in the organization's 100-year history. Adams has served on the AIGA national board three times, and was AIGA Los Angeles president.
In 2014, Adams was awarded the AIGA Medal, the highest honor in the profession. He is an AIGA Fellow, and Fellow of the International Design Conference at Aspen. Adams is an author of multiple magazine columns and several bestselling books. He has been cited as one of the forty most important people shaping design internationally in the ID40, and one of the top ten most influential designers working today by GDUSA.
His blog, burningsettlerscabin, is regularly listed one of the ten best design blogs in the United States. Adams is an onscreen author with courses on design, branding, and design history for lynda.com. Adams' clients have included the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Adobe, Gap, The Metropolitan Opera, Frank Gehry Associates, Richard Meier Associates, Nickelodeon, USC, Sundance, and Disney.
Kristin Ellison is the content manager for design at LinkedIn Learning.
Kristin has been involved in the field of design, as a designer, book editor, writer, and now developer of online courses, for more than twenty years. Prior to joining lynda.com, she served as the editorial director at the ebookstore WOWIO, as the senior acquisitions editor of Rockport Publishers' design list, and as an editor at Bulfinch Press, an illustrated-book division of Little, Brown and Company, specializing in high-end fine-art and photography books. Kristin has also been a contributor to Create Magazine, STEP Inside Design, Soundings, and the Los Angeles Times.
Tony Harmer is an educator and illustrator. He has 160+ certifications—including Adobe Creative Suite Master.
Tony Harmer has worked in the creative industry for over thirty years on a range of design, illustration, and web/screen projects. An Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor with more than 160 certifications and one of only a few to achieve status as a Creative Suite Master, Tony has delivered training all over the UK and Europe.
Tony has written frequently for Computer Arts magazine and is a guest author on a number of blogs, but more than anything, he still just loves to sit and draw.
Former Time design director Ina Saltz writes books, art directs, and teaches at City College of New York.
Ina Saltz is an art director, designer, writer, photographer and professor (at The City College of New York) whose areas of expertise are typography and editorial publication design. She has written over fifty articles on design and typography, contributed to five books by Steven Heller, and authored fifteen essays for Phaidon's Archive of Graphic Design.
Ina served as the Design Director at Time Magazine (International Editions), Worth Magazine, Golf Magazine and others. She was one of the first art directors to work on a computer at Time Inc's Teletext Project. Ina frequently lectures on topics related to magazine design and typography and has chaired, co-chaired, and judged numerous design and typography competitions. She is a two term board member of the Type Directors Club.
Ina is the author of the Body Type series of books on typographic tattoos, as well as Typography Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Working With Type. She is a co-author of Typography Referenced: A Comprehensive Visual Guide to the Language, History and Practice of Typography, named one of the best eleven reference books of 2012 across all subject matter by the American Library Association.
Ina lives in New York City with her husband. She has no pets or tattoos, but she does have favorite typefaces (Requiem, Bickham Script, and Franklin Gothic No. 2) and favorite characters (&, Q, Z, and R).
A designer, photographer, illustrator, and writer, Jim Krause's clients include Microsoft and Kodak.
Jim Krause lives in northwest Washington state and has worked as a designer, a photographer, an illustrator, and a writer (all four in a single day, surprisingly often) since the 1980s. Over the years, Jim has done jobs for a wide range of clients, large and small, including Microsoft, Kodak, Seattle Public Schools, Levi Strauss, and Washington Apples. In 1999, Jim began authoring books aimed at designers, photographers, and other creative professionals. Jim has since written 17 books, including Color Index, Idea Index, Design Basics Index, and other titles in his popular Index series. Several of Jim's books have been translated into multiple languages and all have a worldwide following. When he's not working, Jim can usually be found riding a bicycle or a motorcycle, hiking, drinking coffee, reading, taking pictures, or doing an art project of some kind.
Von Glitschka is a designer, illustrator, and avid pursuer of all things creative.
Von is creative director of Glitschka Studios, a multidisciplinary design firm in the Pacific Northwest. The studio shines as a creative hired gun for ad agencies, design firms, and in-house corporate art departments all around the world.
He's a popular speaker on the topics of design, creativity, branding, and marketing and has written six books.
Co-host of CreativeProWeek.com and InDesignSecrets.com, David Blatner is an in-demand speaker and author.
David Blatner is the author or co-author of 15 books, including Real World InDesign, Real World Photoshop, and Spectrums: Our Mind-Boggling Universe from Infinitesimal to Infinity. Co-founder of InDesign Magazine and co-publisher of CreativePro.com, David has spoken at conferences and workshops around North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Africa. You can find more about David at www.63p.com.
Deke McClelland is an award-winning author, an educator, and a titan of image editing and graphic design.
Deke is the author of more than 50 video courses on creative imaging, graphics, 3D, and design for the industry-leading lynda.com. One of the most award-winning writers in the business, Deke has written over 80 books translated into 24 languages, with more than 4 million copies in print. These have included The Photoshop Bible, several For Dummies books, and his own One-on-One series published under Deke Press. In his spare time, Deke runs dekeOnline (deke.com), where he posts episodes of his popular lynda.com weekly series, Deke's Techniques. He lives in Boulder, Colorado with his two sons.
Aaron Draplin designs products, logos, and identity campaigns for companies like Nike, Patagonia, and Target.
Located in the mighty Pacific Northwest, the Draplin Design Co. proudly rolls up its sleeves on a number of projects related to the print, identity, illustration, and Gocco muscle categories. They make stuff for Field Notes, Coal Headwear, Union Binding Co., Richmond Fontaine, Esquire, Nike, Wired, Timberline, Chunklet, Incase, Giro, Cobra Dogs, Burton Snowboards, Dawes, Patagonia, Sub Pop, Target, Megafaun, Danava, Ford Motor Company, Woolrich, and even the Obama administration, if you can believe that. Draplin Design Co. prides itself on a high level of craftsmanship and quality that keeps designers up late into the wet Portland night. Their proud list of services includes graphic design, illustration, friendship, clipping pathery, Garying, jokes/laughter, campfire strummin', Gocco dynamics, road-trip navigation, trust, guitar tuning, gen'l conversation, culture critique, color correcting, existential wondering, bounty hunting, heavy lifting, advice, a warm meal, simple ideas, and occasional usage of big words.