I’m very wary of online tutorials and bad practices in these videos/tips and quick tips and all that comes with it.
Even Adobe’s own videos are terrible and teach bad practices.
Going to a reputable, accredited formal education either during the day or at night is the way forward.
Agreed, but it’s not always an option - are you saying that someone who can’t afford to pay anything should forget about learning altogether and not follow their dreams all because they can’t afford it? It’s somewhere to start when one has no other options…
Hey @efmgdesign, I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. I’m absolutely not saying that someone who can’t afford formal education should forget about learning altogether or not follow their dreams. That would be ridiculous.
What I am saying is that online tutorials especially random ones on YouTube are often full of bad practices, and even Adobe’s own videos aren’t always great. When learning design, starting with proper foundations is crucial because bad habits are hard to unlearn.
If formal education isn’t an option, then sure, structured online courses can be a starting point but they should be chosen carefully.
A lot of the ‘quick tips’ and ‘hacks’ floating around actually teach poor design principles. That’s why I advocate for accredited courses or, at the very least, studying from reputable sources rather than just piecing together knowledge from scattered tutorials.
So no, I’m not saying someone should give up if they can’t afford formal education. But I am saying that learning the right way from the start is important if they want to go beyond just making logos in Canva and actually become a skilled designer.
Hope that clears things up!
@Smurf2 Yes, got what you’re saying now, but it didn’t sound like that, thanks for clarifying your point. I’m with you on choosing carefully and definitely don’t advocate the only learning to be through quick tutorials. That being said, tutorials are good as a supplement and way to upskill and each designer that puts out videos for learning has a variation in how they learned the same topics from their own university days based on how each of their professors taught them - so you’ll always see differing pieces of advice and info. on the same topics - even in reputable, formal education settings.
There are definitely certain things that are universal for best versus bad practice in design, but a large portion of things can be taught in several ways, and none are good versus bad, just different, so each designer/video is not necessarily wrong in the way they teach the info., it’s just different. The learner has to be discerning in the advice and tips they take on and decide what makes most sense for them. My Shillington teachers each reiterated this point as well cause each of them had different ways of teaching things.
Yeah, I get what you’re saying, and I agree to an extent different designers and educators will always have their own approaches, and there’s definitely room for variation in how things are taught.
But there’s a difference between legitimate variations in technique and outright bad practices, and that’s where I think a lot of online content falls short, and why I am saying to avoid these and concentrate on accredited learning - and that doesn’t have to mean expensive, it could even be free for all I know.
Beginners often don’t know the difference, which is why I push for structured, well-sourced learning over random tutorials. Of course, there’s no single ‘right’ way to do everything in design, but there are wrong ways.
Definitely agree that there are legitimate variations in technique and outright bad practices to avoid and I see where you’re coming from about beginners not knowing the difference when looking for learning resources online. That’s why I try to direct people towards online learning resources (especially free ones) I’ve found to be reputable so one has the opportunity to start their learning with good practices and habits.
I never stated that your resources were either good or bad. I was merely pointing out that even reputable sources, like Adobe, can have poor resources something I’ve raised with them multiple times.
It’s been a while since I learned anything new in design, and when I started, online resources weren’t even an option. It wasn’t about being unable to afford it, but more about not being able to figure out how to pay for it.
I was fortunate enough to land a job that also funded my college education, but before that, I took a six-month paid course, which I left a decent-paying job for. I went from earning thousands a month to just £200. I had to take on a second job, all while training for my black belt. So, job, college, black belt, and a second job it was a lot to juggle, especially when it involved teaching martial arts and prepping students to go to world championships and organising trips, flights, hotels (all without the internet) for 100s of people.
There were no online options back then. It frustrates me when people claim they can’t afford it, because in reality, you can’t afford not to.
However, I understand that the internet is global and not everyone has the same financial opportunities or resources where they live. In that case, alternative options need to be found.
My formal education feels like a long time ago, and the world has certainly changed since then. Maybe I’m too old to give advice on the best educational practices in today’s world.
But I’ve been in this profession for over 25 years, and not much has changed I’m still seeing poorly designed work that requires complete overhauls from a production standpoint.
This is why I push to learn the right way from the beginning.
Without the internet, the options for education were very different - your path to design is quite inspiring with all that you juggled to get your design degree. I definitely look up to you and everyone who learned in the times without the internet as the learning options were much more limited. I guess back in the day, if someone couldn’t afford it, they didn’t learn it.
Now, with the internet, the landscape of learning has changed drastically. But that doesn’t mean someone shouldn’t seek out reputable learning options - that’s still important like you’ve been saying - but the learning path is a lot less limiting monetarily with the global level of options the internet provides.
By the way, curious what you mean by poorly designed work that requires complete overhauls from a production standpoint? Are you referring to this in the context of print design? If you are, are you referring to the work itself or the file in that the file isn’t print-ready?
Print design, web design, logo design, any of it and all of it.
Incorrect use of spot colours, not correctly named colours, fonts not embedded, compound paths/clipping paths/masks - entire magazines designed in photoshop a file per page, badly designed logos that can’t be replicated in print.
Recently a design for a massive global corporation that had major design flaws in their packaging that was designed by an external designer that simply cannot be printed due to the complex nature of the print process - and I’ve seen this from day 1 for the last 25 years. And it still happens.
When the process is not understood then the design might not hold up in real world production.
Oh, wow, using Photoshop for an entire magazine - that’s crazy!!
For compound paths/clipping paths/masks - what is considered incorrect use of this from a production standpoint?
Using them incorrectly - or opening files in the wrong program can inadvertently damage or remove portions of them - or become unstable in print/production or even on screen when transferred to different file formats.
So, to clarify, if I created a compound path/clipping path/mask in Illustrator, opening the Illustrator file in InDesign or Photoshop would damage it?
What do you mean by this?
Yes they can and vice versa, and not just from these apps, but also from PDFs that people think Illustartor is a PDF editor - people often open PDFs created in other applications directly in Illustrator to make edits and clipping paths/masks/compound paths are not all the same language based on the program they are created in - so the application opening them ‘translates’ the language into what it understands it wants, and often lots of information is lost in translation.
Some file formats simply do not support the kind of vector details like clipping paths, compound paths, and masks. For example, common raster formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and GIF flatten everything. This means that the intricate vector information gets lost in translation when you move from a fully editable vector file to these formats often reducing the sharpness of the mask and pixelating.
Even on the vector side, certain older or more “basic” formats like EPS or some versions of PDF might not play nicely with all those fancy features. EPS, for instance, is notorious for flattening transparency and might struggle with complex compound paths. When you open these files in another program, the paths or masks can become corrupted or simply not work as expected.
Thanks so much for explaining all this, definitely valuable info. to keep in mind - appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge here!
Formal Education but online (maybe) ?. I think formal education is important and it gives the experience while Online tutorials just gives knowledge but not the experience. That’s what I think.