Anyone know about this place?
Just came across and I think the courses look comprehensive and expansive. Fees are high but then it does seem to be pretty hard to find both in-person and short courses for adults in the UK.
I love to hear opinions. Thanks!
Maybe I’m missing something, but it’s 8000 pounds ($10,100 USD) for a 3 month course. That’s not going to be a ‘comprehensive’ education.
I looked up the address on Google street view and it looks like the design school is 1000 square feet, which coincidentally, is the size of my loft.
I should open a design school in my loft.
I think this post sounds like an ad. 
I can see why you’d think it is an ad! I really want to learn GD in person. I’m in my mid 50s and I’m not going back to uni to do a 3 yr degree with a bunch of 20 yr olds! If anyone knows of any in person trainings up to a year long please tell me cos I can’t them anywhere!! And I’m not the type of person to teach myself from YouTube! Thank u!
Why are you wanting to learn graphic design? If you are looking for a career change, from one guy in his 50s to another, I would urge you to do some research in the field and talk to career counselors before spending any money on formal training.
I’m not sure what it’s like in the U.K., but, in the U.S., graphic design is a saturated field. Not only are there a ton of graphic designers out there, everyone is competing for a piece of a shrinking pie as more and more would-be clients are opting for DIY solutions. Then there is the threat possed by AI and crowdsourcing / contest websites.
On top of all of that, you’ll be a 50-something-year-old competing for an entry level job with a bunch of 20-year-olds in a field that has been known to have an age bias.
I’d also look at how much you can expect to earn in your area as an entry-level graphic designer. Will you earn enough to sustain your budget? Am I being pessimistic? I’d say I’m being a realist. My daughter is a talented illustrator. Ten or twelve years ago, I was trying to convince her to study design and come work for me. Now, I am glad she didn’t. There will always be clients who understand what a talented, experienced designer brings to the table, and there will always be a need for professional designers. But the marketplace isn’t what it used to be.
I have bad news affecting you, me, and lots of us. The graphic design and advertising industries are near the top of the offenders when it comes to age discrimination.
According to survey results listed in the publication Design Week, 56.6% of designers were in their 20s. By their 30s, half of them had dropped out, leaving only 26.9% still working. By 40, the percentage of still-employed designers had dropped to 10%. By 60, only 0.8% were still employed.
Those in their 20s are typically poorly paid yet still represent the cream of the crop of university design graduates, the ones who survived the culling to separate the talented, employable designers from the wannabes in an oversaturated field.
For those surviving to their early 30s, designers had better be well on their way to becoming art directors, or they might as well begin looking for other work. The pay becomes decent for those who become art directors and creative directors. By 50, the remainder are usually self-employed with long-standing clients, own their agencies, or landed jobs as marketing, creative, and communication directors at VP levels. For those losing their jobs at 60 for whatever reason, they’re done and unemployable.
Summarizing what you’re proposing, you want to become a newbie designer at 50+ with only a short course in design. You propose competing against 22-year-olds with bachelor’s degrees for £30,000 per year for entry-level jobs.
I have bachelor’s and master’s degrees in design. When I was in my early 40s, I regularly received job offers from all over the U.S. I wasn’t even looking for them; they came to me. By 50, the headhunters had stopped calling, but I still had my job as the communication and marketing director. During my early 60s, I lost my job as part of a university restructuring due to the Covid pandemic. After 300 job applications and resumes with no takers, I finally gave up and decided to finish out my career doing freelance work.
To summarize, if you want a financially viable path to start a design career at 50+, it’s a pipe dream. If you want to learn it as a hobby and pick up a job here and there on one of the crowdsourcing sites, go right ahead.
If you’re looking for evidence, do some Google searches. here’s one to get you started.