Probably when you first heard about this field, you thought that you have to go to a design school. I am not saying that you don’t need to go to a design school. What I am saying is maybe it is too late you have already graduated or you simply can’t afford it. For me, I see that in design school they teach a lot of things that are unnecessarily needed in real-life work.
You can also learn almost everything that you will learn in design school from the internet. The only disadvantage is that you will not have a real-life teacher to ask and show your stuff. Also, you will not have those annoying assignments that really make you learn, because you learn by applying. But you can solve this problem easily by making up fake assignments or redesigning stuff that are already made.
Without further due, let’s see how you can learn graphic
design for free. To make this you will learn everything online. The only cost
would be the internet bill, that won’t really be a problem, I guess. You are
actually browsing the internet right now.
The first way: YouTube:
There are tons of videos on YouTube for free at absolutely
no cost. Pick a topic one by one and find a playlist for that one topic, or
different channels that teach it then, start learning, and most importantly: Apply
what you have learned. That is the most important part, Apply. If you didn’t
apply, it will be useless.
There are two ways to choose a topic to learn. The first way
is to learn the basics of graphic design and then apply it in the apps by
following the same tutorial you are watching. The second way is to learn how to
use the software first then apply. If you chose the second way, the process of
applying would be much faster as you already know where all the tools are.
If you want to know which app to use check out this article,
it will tell you what each software is for.
The second way: Online
courses:
Advantages: you won’t have to decide the topics that you
need to learn as the tutor will already put everything ready for you.
Disadvantages: There are very few high-quality free
courses, most of them are terrible and outdated. You know, you have to invest
in order to have a return.
Some websites that offer free courses are Udemy and Coursera.
In conclusion, you have to work really hard and apply as
much as you can to compete with someone who entered a design school. I know,
people asking for a graphic design don’t really care about how you learned it.
They care about the outcome that they will receive. In order to start having clients, you must
have a superb outstanding portfolio.