As anyone who has tried their hand at being digitally creative can testify, there’s far more to being a great designer than finding your way around Photoshop and CSS.
A true designer not only knows their software of choice inside out, they also never get tired of discovering new tricks and shortcuts. There’s a satisfaction that comes with learning new keyboard navigation, and a tweak that used to take hours is suddenly completed in seconds.
And then there’s the knowledge behind the craft – when did you last brush up on your design theory? Do you design the user interface of websites or do you also have a coding language or two up your sleeve?
Everybody knows knowledge is power, so keeping ahead of the curve is crucial in a competitive design market. To help in the pursuit of perfection, check out these handy tutorial websites.
Lynda is great not only for designers but also for entrepreneurs. First of all it will enhance your design dexterity through hundreds of courses for all skill levels, but then it’ll get even better. The site offers software tutorials that will have you master every Photoshop trick under the sun, saving you some serious time and headaches.
Pretty much any Photoshop tutorial you can think of is on this site, helping you work faster and more precisely. If you’re looking to become ultra productive and competitive with your delivery of artwork, this site will definitely be your ticket to the top.
A learning community for creators, this site offers courses on anything from calligraphy to coding, all taught by industry experts. An added plus is this site focuses more on interaction rather than lecturing, which makes it an outlier among online course offerings.
Here’s a lesson in three words – Learn to code. It might not seem like an immediately pressing skill for designers, but if you are focusing on UI design, then it’s crucial to have at least a basic understanding of the most common coding languages. Being a fully-fledged developer can seriously enhance your chances of landing web or app design jobs.
Codecademy teaches you step by step to understand coding language. And best of all, it’s totally free.
Are you a web designer? Codrops is a web design and development blog that publishes articles and tutorials on the latest trends and techniques.
Offering step by step instructions as well as basic blueprints to work from can really help you out during a job, while their “Playground” section shows you what others are experimenting with, providing inspiration as well as giving clues for upcoming trends.
Teaching creative and technical skills, this site offers thousands of courses that’ll come in really handy when looking to expand your design skills and knowledge. The courses are fun and easy to follow, and most of them are free.
More than just a focused ‘how to in design’, it supports designers in creating certain styles using specific software.
The tutorials cover most of the Adobe Suite tools, and provide clear instruction alongside time estimates for how long each lesson should take.
Founded by a group of self-described “Adobe geeks” and “design fanatics”, this blog is full of tutorials for Adobe Suite.
It’s a free, easy to navigate site and a must visit for creatives keen to learn more about the industry trends, tools, and techniques.
An education platform which offers online courses taught by experts from top universities and organisations worldwide.
You can find design courses which focus on both theory and techniques, with feedback given on concepts you might not understand.
Improve your skills with a huge range of courses incorporating code and design. Some of the programs can cost up to a few hundred dollars, but there are free options.
You can also use the site to create your own course.
Offers access to experts in creative fields through live online workshops, although you have to pay for the classes.
Learn design theory, fundamentals, techniques, and trends through what feels like one-on-one teaching, and interact with experienced instructors in real time.
Learn web design and coding through quizzes and interactive challenges that which help you to easily remember the lessons.
Coupled with professional talks, the courses will develop the skills to enable you to build websites and apps on top of your creative work.
A blog which features opinion, trends, and theories on design for web designers and developers.
Use the libraries to research the best design practices and coding techniques.
This is the site for you if you have no desire to do web design professionally, but still want to deliver a smart looking website to host your portfolio online.
There are short tutorial videos on basic WordPress blog and manipulation of ccs, HTML, to make websites desirable.
Lucky last, but not the least our blog. Our articles can teach you design theories, tutorials and even give you tips when designing logos to even websites. Most of all these articles are free!
Do your homework
To become a better designer, it’s imperative you spend time honing your skills.
Look far and wide for tutorials that will take your abilities to another level. This will ensure your output is more efficient and the final assets are as polished as they can be for your clients.