15 Best InDesign Courses, Classes & Training Programs Online To Take In 2023

Best InDesign Courses, Classes & Training Programs

1. Adobe InDesign CC: Your Complete Guide to InDesign

Master the complete InDesign workflow and create stunning PDFs, eBooks, pamphlets, and more with Adobe InDesign CC. This comprehensive course is designed for beginners and advanced users alike, making it ideal for graphic designers, photographers, authors, and online entrepreneurs. By completing the course, you'll develop a strong understanding of InDesign's features and functionalities, enabling you to create eye-catching designs that will set you apart from the competition.

In addition to teaching you the basics of InDesign's workspace and panels, this course covers essential topics such as adding and adjusting text, graphics, and photos to your designs. You'll also explore the creation of multi-page documents, using tables for a clear display of complex data, and saving and exporting your project for any purpose. Throughout the course, you'll receive expert guidance from experienced instructors who are passionate about helping you succeed in your creative endeavors. Enroll now to unlock your full potential with Adobe InDesign CC.

2. Adobe InDesign Made Easy. A Beginners Guide To InDesign

This comprehensive course, carefully crafted by Infinite Skills, aims to make complex page layout and design software accessible to beginners. By providing in-depth instruction on Adobe InDesign CS5.5, the program helps newcomers understand essential topics such as setting up your workspace, using grids, leveraging the enhanced layers panel in CS5, working with text, paragraph formatting, creating and using styles, and integrating text and objects seamlessly. The latest addition to InDesign, EPUB, is given thorough treatment, enabling users to build both print and digital ready documents with confidence.

The course also covers the extensive range of export capabilities that InDesign offers, guiding users through various output formats for both print and interactive documents. To ensure a smooth and effective learning experience, the author has included more than 2GB of work files, enabling learners to follow along as they delve into the powerful features of this industry-standard desktop publishing software. With this resource, mastering Adobe InDesign is made easy, opening up a world of design possibilities for beginners.

3. Graphic Design Bootcamp: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign

This comprehensive Graphic Design Bootcamp teaches students how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for various design projects such as logo design, web design, and poster design. Catered especially to beginners, the course offers over 15 hours of on-demand content that encompasses a wide array of design principles applicable across different design tools. It also delves into shortcuts and tricks to maximize productivity and streamline the workflow. Students get the chance to create custom logos, business cards, brochures, flyers, and web graphics, among other projects, providing a hands-on learning experience that helps to develop necessary skills for a career in graphic design.

In addition to covering core design concepts through engaging projects, the course also guides participants in building their design portfolios using Adobe Portfolio and Behance. With a private Facebook group that counts over 13,000 members, students can network with like-minded individuals, get insights on their projects, and receive critiques from fellow professionals. Though this course primarily utilizes Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, the skills and knowledge gained can be easily applied to other design applications. The instructor, Derrick Mitchell, is a design industry expert whose work has been featured in numerous international publications and across various trending websites.

4. Graphic Design MasterClass- Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign

If you're looking to dive into the world of graphic design and master the art of creating stunning visuals, then this comprehensive Graphic Design MasterClass is perfect for you. Covering everything from graphic design theories to practical application in Adobe's key design software - Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign - this course ensures that both beginners and advanced learners walk away with the knowledge and skills needed to excel in their careers as professional graphic designers. Throughout the course, you'll be given practical, real-world projects that are designed to sharpen your skills and showcase your abilities in various design niches and advertising campaigns for big brands.

Apart from mastering the technical aspects of design software, the course also teaches creative thinking and professional graphic visuals creation. In Illustrator, for example, you'll learn how to design corporate identities and branding from scratch, as well as build professional logos and various brand publications. InDesign sessions cover editorial designs and designing an impressive graphic designer portfolio, while Photoshop training includes basics, essentials, and exercises tailored to help you develop your graphic design skills further. Moreover, the course embraces constant updates on graphic design applications and new content to stay relevant in the ever-changing design landscape. By the end of the course, you'll have a solid grasp of graphic design theory and the tools to confidently execute creative projects, along with a portfolio showcasing your best work.

5. InDesign Secrets

Dive into the world of InDesign Secrets and uncover a treasure trove of hidden and sometimes surprising workflow tips that will make working in InDesign more efficient and enjoyable. Throughout the course, seasoned experts David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepción, cohosts of the web's top resource for InDesign tips and tricks, InDesignSecrets.com, guide students in mastering built-in timesaving features and little-known techniques to maximize productivity and creativity while using InDesign.

Students will explore invaluable tips such as making accurate selections by selecting through or into objects, using the eyedropper to copy and paste character and paragraph text attributes, working with Quick Apply, and auto-expanding text. The course is structured as an ongoing series, providing students with a steady stream of new techniques added regularly, ensuring a continuously enriched learning experience. To access even more tips and tricks, visit indesignsecrets.com.

6. InDesign: Creating Animations

This comprehensive course offers a complete guide to utilizing InDesign's powerful animation features, enabling you to bring logos, ads, and even books to life in fixed layout EPUB format. The course begins with an introduction to controlling basic animations through the Animation and Timing panels and then progresses to customizing animation settings, motion paths, and applying multiple animations to objects. Author Diane Burns also covers common animation effects that might not always use obvious techniques, such as making a line draw itself, a neon sign that flashes, or a bicycle that moves, ensuring you will have the skills needed to create a wide range of engaging animations.

Diving into more complex projects, this course explores animated logos, ads, and books, providing you with the knowledge and skills to take your InDesign creations to the next level. Although the course is "output neutral," a dedicated chapter is devoted to explaining the various output options you have at your disposal, including fixed-layout EPUB and SWF formats. Enhance your InDesign projects with eye-catching animations and interactive elements that will captivate your audience and set your work apart from others.

7. InDesign: Interactive PDFs

Discover the innovative world of interactive PDFs by mastering Adobe InDesign, a powerful tool that opens up a realm of possibilities for creating dynamic and engaging content. Interactive PDFs are incredibly versatile, making them perfect for designing forms, magazines, presentations, prototypes, and even e-books. These unique digital files not only provide the security of the PDF format but are also compatible with both desktop and mobile devices, effortlessly adapting to the ever-evolving digital landscape.

In this comprehensive course, you'll learn from InDesign expert David Blatner as he delves deep into the world of interactive PDFs, covering everything from the basics to advanced techniques. Gain valuable insights into how to create new interactive PDF documents, add links and bookmarks, design buttons that play multimedia or trigger specific actions, and much more. As you explore the wide-ranging functionalities of InDesign, you'll also learn how to enhance your PDFs with polished page transitions and animation, as well as reduce file sizes for more efficient sharing. Unleash your creativity and transform the way you approach digital design with this cutting-edge InDesign course.

8. InDesign: Typography Part 1

Indesign Typography, taught by experienced instructor Nigel French, delves deeply into the powerful typographic capabilities of Adobe InDesign, familiarizing learners with various type options, type-related attributes, and type-specific settings. This engaging course uses practical applications and real-world examples to emphasize the importance of each typographic feature and demonstrates the appropriate situations for using each one. Part 1 of the course is directed towards "micro typography", where students learn about the intricacies of individual letterforms, alongside the dissection of typefaces and an explanation of related terminologies commonly used in graphic design.

As the course progresses, students will be guided through the essential steps of choosing an ideal typeface, effectively scaling type, and fine-tuning spacing with the help of InDesign's leading and kerning controls. The latter part of the course delves into glyphs, special characters, and advanced OpenType features such as ligatures and fractions. By the end of the course, participants will have a comprehensive understanding of typography in InDesign, and the ability to skillfully utilize those unparalleled typographic tools and functions to elevate their design projects to new levels of professionalism and aesthetic appeal.

9. Designing with Grids in InDesign

InDesign is a powerful tool for creating visually stunning layouts, and using grids can greatly enhance the overall design. This course delves into the benefits of incorporating grids, covering their history and the situations in which they are most effective. Participants will learn valuable techniques such as setting up margins and columns, establishing a modular grid, and fitting text to a baseline grid. Through these skills, students can gain a better understanding of how to craft professional and aesthetically pleasing designs.

Another key feature of this course is the exploration of the Gridify tool, which enables designers to create and manipulate grids with ease. Additionally, students will discover how breaking the grid using images can provide a unique and impactful visual effect. By mastering the concepts and techniques presented in this course, designers can elevate their InDesign layouts and create more effective, visually engaging designs for various applications, including business cards, posters, digital magazines, and printed books.

10. InDesign Tips for Design Geeks

Indesign Tips for Design Geeks is a weekly series which aims to improve your design skills with a focus on using InDesign and related software. The series is hosted by Anne-Marie “Her Geekness” Concepcion, co-founder of InDesign Secrets and Adobe-certified Creative Cloud Design and Layout instructor. With her vast experience, Anne-Marie teaches creative ways to use InDesign in conjunction with other commonly used software such as Acrobat, Photoshop, Google Docs, InCopy, and more. Her tips and techniques aim to make your work in InDesign faster, easier, and more enjoyable for amateurs, pros, and everyone in between.

As this is an ongoing series, it's important to note that viewers will not receive a certificate of completion once they finish watching the lessons. However, learners can still benefit significantly from the wealth of knowledge and practical guidance provided within the series, consistently expanding their skill set and becoming more proficient in InDesign and other design software as they keep up with the episodes.

11. InDesign 2022 MasterClass

This comprehensive course is designed to help you master the industry-leading page design and layout application, InDesign. The course starts with the basics and gradually introduces you to various tools and features, so you gain the confidence and knowledge needed to create professional design projects. InDesign is an essential tool for graphic designers as it boasts detailed typographic features, handles high-resolution images with ease, and works seamlessly across desktop and mobile devices.

Throughout the course, you will learn to create various types of documents, from printed books to magazines, eBooks, and interactive PDFs. By the end, you will have a deep understanding of InDesign's complex typographic features and be proficient in handling long documents and manipulating creative assets. With expert guidance from an Adobe Certified Instructor, the course provides an enjoyable and efficient way to learn the software inside out and become an expert in the design industry.

12. InDesign: Advanced Styles

Discover the time-saving benefits of using styles in InDesign through an in-depth exploration of various style-related features. The course covers a wide range of topics, from working with character and paragraph styles to advanced text formatting with nested styles, maximizing your efficiency in the design process. Learn how to create multilevel lists, generate a table of contents, and map Word styles to InDesign styles, ensuring consistency and ease in your work.

Enhance your InDesign skills by understanding how to apply styles using Find/Change and conditional formatting. This feature-packed course covers all necessary aspects of styles, enabling you to seize the potential of InDesign and ultimately transform your designs. Master the art of effectively utilizing styles across various elements in your projects, leading to streamlined workflows, higher productivity, and professional-quality results.

13. InDesign: Tables

In this unique course, you will discover inventive techniques to make the most out of tables in InDesign, by enabling you to create graphics-based tables or transforming them so that they do not even resemble traditional tables. Instructor Diane Burns will guide you through learning how to establish and format tables in unconventional ways that are both visually appealing and highly functional. Some of the creative methods you will explore include implementing special alternating fills, incorporating interesting stroke patterns, and utilizing graphic cells to integrate images seamlessly into your tables.

Apart from mastering these innovative techniques, this course will also teach you how to change the shape of tables using anchored shapes and emphasize specific columns to draw attention to crucial data. Furthermore, you will learn to harness the power of tables for other unique purposes such as designing infographics and constructing complex page layouts. All in all, this course will help you develop a comprehensive understanding of tables in InDesign, equipping you with the skills to unlock their full potential in fascinating and eye-catching ways.

14. InDesign: Beyond the Essentials

In the InDesign: Beyond the Essentials course, David Blatner shares his extensive expertise in Adobe InDesign, building on his Essential Training series to provide valuable insight and instruction in harnessing the full power and functionality of the software. This installment delves into a variety of key advanced topics, ranging from interface customization to state-of-the-art layout and text-formatting strategies. Participants will gain a vast amount of knowledge, including setting crucial application and document preferences, formatting extensive documents, matching swatches, utilizing GREP styles, and many other advanced techniques.

The course offers a comprehensive learning experience, covering every aspect of InDesign's wide-ranging capabilities in a clear and concise manner. With David Blatner's engaging teaching style and mastery of the subject matter, participants are empowered to elevate their InDesign skills and create professional-quality projects. By taking this course, anyone seeking to develop their proficiency in InDesign will not only deepen their understanding of how the software works, but also learn practical applications of advanced features, making their projects truly stand out from the competition.

15. Learn Adobe InDesign: Design a Magazine and More in InDesign

Explore the essential skills and techniques required to create captivating editorial designs using Adobe InDesign, one of the most popular and versatile publishing and layout tools in the industry. This comprehensive course delves into the world of professional magazine and brochure design, covering a wide range of topics such as placing and formatting text and images, adding character and paragraph styles, utilizing libraries and snippets, applying color themes, drawing and adjusting shapes, working with layers and master pages, as well as packaging, saving, exporting, and printing files using InDesign. In addition to learning technical skills, you will also study and apply key editorial design principles, including proximity, alignment, contrast, and repetition.

In this course, you will be guided by an expert instructor with significant experience in the field of graphic design, including roles as a managing editor, advertising layout specialist, and university professor. Gain valuable insights from your instructor's real-world experience and education, and benefit from exclusive lessons, follow-along tutorials, printable PDF handouts, and discussion board access to facilitate peer critiques and feedback. Become a proficient user of InDesign and unlock your creative potential to produce stunning magazines, brochures, and more.

Compare InDesign Online Courses

How to choose best InDesign online course

Choosing the best InDesign course is crucial for learners who aim to become proficient in using the software for various design projects. To make the right decision, consider your learning objectives and pay attention to certain crucial aspects of each course. The content below provides a learner guide to help you make an informed choice.

Keep the following points in mind while selecting an InDesign course:

• Ensure the course covers comprehensive InDesign knowledge and skills relevant to your needs.
• Look for courses that emphasize professional design techniques to create visually appealing output.
• Consider courses that focus on typography and its application in InDesign, as it is a vital aspect of design.
• If you aim to create interactive PDFs, opt for courses that teach this skill effectively.
• Advanced users may want to explore courses covering advanced features and techniques for enhanced proficiency.
• For publication-based projects, consider courses that cover design principles for magazines and other print materials.
• Those looking to improve their overall design skills should opt for courses that include Photoshop and Illustrator content as well.
• Discover courses that teach design principles, such as working with grids, to sharpen your creative abilities.
• Finally, gather insights from seasoned professionals through courses that share tips and tricks on InDesign.

Remember to read course reviews and filter your options based on your objectives, prior knowledge, and individual preferences to find the perfect InDesign course to elevate your design skills.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the courses mentioned in this article are tailored to meet the diverse needs and interests of individuals who want to gain a comprehensive understanding of InDesign, elevate their design skills, and create professional-looking projects for both work and personal purposes. From typography and grid design to mastering the advanced features of InDesign, these courses provide the necessary knowledge and techniques required to excel in the field of graphic design.

Enrolling in one or more of these courses will not only improve your proficiency in InDesign but also potentially in other Adobe applications like Photoshop and Illustrator. The opportunity to learn from experienced professionals and discover practical tips and tricks will undeniably accelerate your progress in this creative journey. So, don't wait any longer – take the initiative and make a significant investment in your professional development with the right InDesign course today!