Discover the Best InDesign Classes Near Me
Adobe InDesign serves as the industry-standard desktop publishing application used to create page layouts and designs for nearly any kind of publishing-related project. Possessing skills in Adobe InDesign can contribute to finding careers ranging from working as an Editor in the publishing industry to a Graphic Designer working in advertising or marketing. Learning Adobe InDesign helps with working on page layouts and graphic design.
Because InDesign is available as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, the desktop publishing software integrates seamlessly with other Adobe applications like Photoshop and Illustrator, making InDesign among the most versatile creative design tools available for the publishing industries and other businesses. Adobe InDesign helps in streamlining the process for designing and creating page layouts for books, magazines, brochures, and websites.
Adobe InDesign helps publishers and designers with designing and developing everything from posters, business cards, newspapers, books, eBooks, webpages, and a wide range of other types of documents using graphics, text, and interactive elements. While Adobe InDesign is mainly used in the publishing industry for print media, the desktop publishing tool is also popular among other media industries for designing and developing digital material from ePublishing to blogs.
Best InDesign Classes & Schools
CourseHorse offers a central location for finding training opportunities throughout the country, which helps potential students discover the best path for reaching their learning goals.
New York City
Students can enroll at Plexus Creative, located at 198 Greenpoint Avenue in Brooklyn, for the Introduction to Adobe InDesign course, for students to learn about the functions and features for the desktop publishing application in order to create page layouts for developing documents for digital and print media at a tuition of $600. Training includes lessons on editing text and graphics, working with typography, inserting interactive elements, and exporting documents for print and digital projects. Upon completing this course, participants will be able to create and customize documents as well as build interactive PDFs and online documents.
Students are required to bring their own laptops to class using any version of Adobe InDesign. Students will work on their own laptops using the course material provided by the instructor at the beginning of the course.
Prerequisites: No prerequisites are listed for this course.
People living in New York City can enroll at General Assembly, located at 10 E. 21st Street, Third Floor, for Introduction to Adobe InDesign: Weekend Workshop, which is a beginner-level course that costs $240 to attend. This course teaches students on how to use the desktop publishing application for creating professional-looking page layouts for the publishing, marketing, and entertainment industries. Adobe InDesign facilitates creating a broad range of documents for print and digital purposes, including brochures, catalogs, magazines, books, and eBooks. InDesign helps professionals create page layouts for designing a variety of documents used in several industries.
Prerequisites: No prerequisites are listed for this course.
Los Angeles
Students can enroll at Training Connection, located at 915 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1800 in Los Angeles, for the InDesign Bootcamp, which is a six-day course that costs $1,695 for training beginners or experts in using the desktop publishing application. This course trains students through a series of hands-on publishing projects that can be used in professional work for publishing magazines, novels, recipe books or creating corporate brochures, movie posters, restaurant menus, and travel guides. Lessons focus on creating useful graphics, newspaper design, the fundamentals of publishing, and working with interactive documents.
Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites listed for this course.
People can also attend Accelerate Computer Training, located at 200 Pine Avenue, Suite 280 in nearby Long Beach, to enroll for InDesign: Create Beautiful Layouts Efficiently, which is a three-day class that costs $995 and taught by Adobe Certified Instructors for training in functions and features associated with the desktop publishing application. This course trains students in building single and multi-page print and digital documents with lessons in graphics, threaded text, styles, and master pages. Lessons for this course focus on working with objects, text and typography, graphics, color, and multiple page documents for print and digital distribution. Upon completing this course, students will be able to use layers, select and export color, convert files to PDFs as well as learn how to prepare documents for publishing, including ePub fixed layouts.
Prerequisites: Students must have basic computer skills. Experience with word processing or page layout software is a plus but not required.
Denver
People in Denver can attend Colorado Free University, located at 7653 E. 1st Place, to enroll in the Exploring Adobe InDesign: An Intro to Publishing course costing $164 for a single-session course that trains participants in the basic functions and features for the desktop publishing application. This beginner-level course teaches students how to set up multiple pages, import and place photos, work with text strings, and create character and paragraph style menus for digital and print documents. Through lessons, students will learn how to produce professional-looking documents like flyers and brochures using Adobe InDesign’s advanced features. Upon completing this course, students gain basic knowledge in Adobe InDesign, which should provide them with the foundation for moving on to further intermediate and advanced training for the desktop publishing software.
Prerequisites: This course requires participants to have a basic understanding of Windows operating systems.
Chicago
In Chicago, students can enroll at ONLC Training Centers, located at 1320 Tower Road, First Floor, for the Adobe InDesign Core Skills: Level 1 course, which is a two-day program that costs $795 for training in the basic functions for the desktop publishing application. This class provides comprehensive training for Adobe InDesign, including using tools and panels, customizing and saving Workspaces, learning to set up documents, and saving document presets for designing and creating page layouts. Students will learn how to create professional-looking page layouts from lessons in text frames and graphic frames as well as placing text content and images. Participants will develop skills for understanding how to set up documents using master pages, guides, grids and placeholders. Lessons will include training on rearranging or deleting pages using the Pages panel, learning how to format text and paragraphs, and creating and applying paragraph and character styles. Upon completing this course, students will understand how to correctly use different color modes, apply color to design elements, create custom colors, and work with swatches and gradients. Participants will be able to use Adobe InDesign for print and digital projects, creating ZIP files, and exporting documents into the PDF format.
It should be noted that ONLC courses are taught using remote instructors who are not in the same room as their student but teach these classes live online with participants having the option to take advantage of ONLC’s up-to-date computer labs.
Prerequisites: Students must possess basic computer and file management skills for this course, meaning that they should be able to locate, copy, and open files, create folders, arrange, re-size, minimize and maximize application windows, and be able to start and exit programs. Students must also be able to use multiple programs simultaneously and be able to switch between open programs.
Anyone living in the Chicago area who is interested in gaining skills for creating page layouts can enroll at Computer Training Source, Inc., located at 1821 Walden Office Square, Suite 400, for InDesign Part 1, which costs $649 for a single day session. This course trains students in the basic functions and features for the desktop publishing application used for creating professional-looking page layouts and designs. Participants will learn how to navigate Adobe InDesign for interfacing, creating documents, customizing documents using color, swatches, gradients, and styles. Lessons also include managing page elements, adding tables, and preparing documents for completion. Upon completing this course, students will be able to use Adobe InDesign to create print and digital documents.
Prerequisites: This beginner-level course lists no prerequisites.
Industries That Use InDesign
Many industries use Adobe InDesign in their daily process of doing business. The desktop publishing application allows all types of companies to create page layouts that fit their business objectives. Many organizations use InDesign for creating digital and print documents like posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers, presentations, and books and eBooks.
Using InDesign, businesses can develop visual layouts for both print and digital media that simplifies the process for creating documents while yielding professional-looking results for print or online distribution.
While Adobe InDesign is mainly associated with publishing, several industries use the desktop publishing software in a variety of capacities, including marketing and graphic design. Many businesses also use InDesign in both in-house communications within a company and for creating publications used in marketing or promotions to outside parties.
Publishing
Publishing has been a big business since Johannes Gutenberg first used the printing press to print dozens of Bibles in the middle of the 15th century. Adobe InDesign facilitates various functions for publishing that go beyond simply designing and developing page layouts. Of course, publishing books does require creating page layouts, but InDesign also helps with typesetting, interior design within the pages for font and type, and exterior design for creating book covers in the process of designing, developing, printing, and publishing a physical book. However, Adobe InDesign also facilitates digital publishing with eBooks, which despite not being physical products, require book covers and interior design like typesetting.
While it’s advised to not judge a book by its cover, a book cover provides the first impression for readers about what they think of any novel or biography they might pull from a shelf or find in an online search. The publishing industry uses InDesign for creating book covers using artworks that best fits the vision and purpose of a specific book whether it's a work of fiction, science, biography, or history. The desktop publishing software allows publishers to combine text, illustrations, or photography to create an impression that best helps a book receive the appropriate judgment from potential readers.
Adobe InDesign lets editors and designers create the typesetting for a book’s interior design. While many people might not think about how a book looks inside, font style can greatly affect how a book feels while someone reads it. InDesign helps with designing and creating what everything looks like between the pages, including margins, font style, font size, and page numbers.
Today, many readers purchase eBooks, which have become popular over recent decades due to both online access for digital text along with the development of eReaders and mobile apps like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. Although eBooks are not physical items, they usually have attributes of printed books, including possessing covers and font settings. This makes the design for an eBook as crucial as it would be for a physical document, which all adds up to why skills with Adobe InDesign could provide a strong asset for gaining work in the publishing industry.
Magazines and Newspapers
While newspapers and magazines seem to be a relic of days gone by, both still provide a strong influence on society through online and digital presence. Just as the printing press had made Gutenberg's Bible popular and abundant during its time, the printing press also allowed information to be quickly produced and distributed, which not only led to more people hungering for information but more people wanting to learn how to read.
Adobe InDesign facilitates designing and publishing magazines, newspapers, and blogs nowadays in both digital and printed formats. Like the book publishing industry, news media publishing has had to adapt to the way people consume information nowadays. InDesign helps with designing and creating newspapers and magazines by allowing Publishers and Editors options with publication layouts for creating full-page spreads for layouts, typesetting, images, and overall design for print or digital distribution.
Graphic Design
The graphic design industry also uses Adobe InDesign to provide design options for working with clients or other industries. InDesign allows Graphic Designers to create design layouts for promotional material, including flyers, brochures, and business cards along with designs for books and magazines. InDesign offers virtually limitless options for skilled Graphic Designers.
Adobe InDesign allows Graphic Designers to create portfolio designs, presentations, outdoor signage like billboards, logos, websites, and animations for digital and print graphics.
Marketing and Advertising
The marketing and advertising industries use Adobe InDesign for creating promotional campaigns in a variety of formats aimed at attracting target audiences. Marketing companies and advertisers use InDesign for help in creating marketing material like brochures, advertisements, infographics, videos, and social media content. InDesign also helps with working remotely by allowing editors, writers, and designers to work on different parts of a file document simultaneously.
InDesign Jobs & Salaries
Skills with Adobe InDesign can lead to work in publishing and several other industries. While the main functions for the desktop publishing tool focus on designing page layouts using text and graphics, people can use InDesign for several other purposes. InDesign contributes to working as an editor, designer, or writer, who each rely on the application for creating material for print and digital distribution.
Editor
Editors use Adobe InDesign for working with complex design as well as being able to integrate with other Adobe applications like Illustrator and Photoshop. Possessing experience in InDesign helps Editors adapt knowledge from older design and desktop publishing programs, building on experience.
Knowledge in Adobe InDesign can help with finding opportunities as an Editor, which provides an average annual income of around $59,000 nationally with as much as $75,000 in New York City or $85,000 in San Francisco for working on print and digital content by creating page layouts for newspapers, magazines, blogs, websites, and books.
Graphic Designer
Adobe InDesign provides core skills with visual design for publishing projects in several media. InDesign can help with becoming a Graphic Designer, which can bring in an annual income of about $53,000 nationally. In Boston, a Graphic Designer can earn a salary of around $65,000 a year and as much as $75,000 in San Francisco.
Graphic Designers handle all types of design work for various industries. Many use Adobe InDesign for working with graphics for promotional materials including brochures, flyers, book covers, and advertising. Graphic Designers often have to work with text and graphics that they can use Adobe InDesign for integrating with image tools like Illustrator or Photoshop.
Digital Designer
Digital Designers work with digital technology and graphic design for creating animation, digital interfacing for websites and apps, online media, social media platforms, film, and television. Knowledge with Adobe InDesign can help Digital Designers create page layouts for work on a variety of projects.
Digital Designers can earn an average yearly income of around $79,000 nationally with opportunities in places like San Diego, where someone can make as much as $126,000 in the profession. In New York City, a Digital Designer can make about $121,000 a year for work with creating graphics, animation, and a variety of other visual effects. Skills with Adobe InDesign can help Digital Designers create websites, apps, advertising, eBooks, and other digital publications.
Content Marketer
Content Marketers help with creating an online presence for individual clients and companies in various categories that can lead to a career earning a yearly income of around $64,000 nationally. In New York City, a Content Marketer can make as much as $89,000 or $72,000 in Atlanta. Content Marketers often use InDesign for help with creating a social media presence through layout designs for blogs, ads, videos, and other types of online content.
Production Artist
A Production Artist works with Adobe InDesign for designing and creating art for a variety of purposes such as advertising, entertainment, and designing software. Production Artists work with clients in determining design objectives with the goal of bringing projects to completion. A Production Artist works step-by-step in the artistic design process involving graphics, page layouts, and layout design. Adobe InDesign contributes to Production Artists creating appealing designs for clients or employers.
Production Artists average around $45,000 nationally for working in designing and managing graphic material like artwork, outdoor billboards, and other types of graphic material for several types of businesses for providing print and digital graphic properties. In Los Angeles, a Production Artist can earn an annual income of about $50,000 working in the entertainment industry.
Technical Writer
For a Technical Writer, working with Adobe InDesign can help with creating page layouts for magazines, brochures, and many other document formats in a variety of content development related work. InDesign helps with designing and creating training documents, company policies, and promotional material as well as tech-related content.
Technical Writers can earn about $60,000 a year nationally for essentially working as a subject matter expert on various topics that require an appetite for learning and communication. Technical Writers produce content related to several industries. Technical Writers can use Adobe InDesign for help with developing material related to whatever business they are writing for. A Technical Writer can earn around $79,000 a year in a place like New York City or $86,000 in San Francisco.
What Will I Need to Learn InDesign?
Training for Adobe InDesign requires no formal prerequisites, but new learners should have experience with basic computer operating systems for Windows and Macs. With learning InDesign, students should have some basic knowledge in graphic design or visual composition theories. They should also be aware of current trends related to publishing and graphic design.
People who want to learn Adobe InDesign can enroll for in-person courses near where they live by searching online websites like CourseHorse for finding just the right class. For anyone with little to no experience with InDesign, enrolling in a beginner-level course would be appropriate. However, training on an intermediate or advanced level for learning the desktop publishing application might apply to anyone with experience or an aptitude for design software.
Is it Difficult to Learn InDesign?
Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing application that should not be difficult for anyone with basic computer or design software experience. Learning InDesign can help with finding work as an Editor, Graphic Designer, or Technical Writer. The right training allows using the desktop publishing application for creating page layouts for a variety of documents used in print or digital publishing. InDesign allows users to experiment with content design after only a few lessons. Once a new user has gotten the hang of the design tool’s basic functions and features, they may want to move onto training in the software’s advanced functions. Because Adobe InDesign requires no prerequisites for learning the desktop publishing tool, anyone with basic knowledge of computers can jump right into training.
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