Students with a creative bent may be interested in spending the summer practicing their artistic skills while learning advanced design techniques. Graphic design summer classes provide students with structured opportunities to hone their creative skills and prepare them for the kinds of work they will do if they pursue higher education in a creative field. These courses will allow students to work with cutting-edge design tools and receive professional feedback on their work. Whether you are preparing to get your BFA or just want something to work on creative projects during your time off of school, a summer graphic design program may be the right fit.
1. NextGen Bootcamp Graphic Design Summer Program
NextGen Bootcamp offers an immersive Graphic Design Summer Program that provides students with instruction in the three major Adobe Creative Cloud graphic design applications: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. In this class, students will get hands-on experience working with these tools to design everything from book and album covers to subway posters. In addition to technical training with creative design tools, students will learn foundational principles of design such as theories of composition, typography and color. This will ensure that their designs are well-thought-out and responsive to recent trends in the field of graphic design. The training that students will receive in this course will give them a solid foundation of design skills to take with them through the rest of their art training.
Students enrolled in this course will learn how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to create vibrant and evocative graphic design projects and layouts. Photoshop is used to manipulate and edit digital photos (students won’t need a camera to enroll), Illustrator is used for drawing digital illustrations, and InDesign lets users create page layouts for everything from magazine spreads to posters. Students will work with these tools to create their own graphic designs and receive personalized feedback. Iterating on designs is one of the most important parts of honing your creative skills, and this course offers a structured space to work on this aspect of the design process. By the end of this course, students will have a collection of workshopped designs to add to their personal portfolio, which can be invaluable for any students hoping to apply to an art program.
Students who have taken this course praise the quality and depth of the instruction. One student described their instructor as “energetic and knowledgeable, ” saying that they “made [the lecture] understandable for everyone.” Another student wrote that the class was “the perfect amount of fun and challenge” and that it “helped me dive deeper into my interest in graphic design.” Students enrolled in this course should know they will receive practical design skills training in a welcoming environment built to ensure their success.
Learn Graphic Design
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2. NextGen Bootcamp UX/UI Design Summer Program
NextGen Bootcamp also offers a UX & UI Design Summer Program for students more interested in new media design projects. This course combines two important aspects of digital design, user interface (UI) design, which emphasizes how a digital interface looks and user experience (UX) design, which emphasizes how that interface feels in the hands of real-world users. This class focuses on how designers build digital interfaces and layouts for webpages, mobile applications, video games and other digital media. Students will learn how to use Figma, one of the most popular professional user interface design applications, and they will learn how to test and iterate their designs for practical release. This course will teach students the best practices for building user interfaces and for ensuring that those interfaces are accessible, easy to use, and responsive. Since digital interfaces are products that users interact with directly, good designers will ensure their audience can easily and pleasurably work with their designs.
This course primarily focuses on using Figma, a collaborative user interface design application recently acquired by Adobe. This tool is designed to allow users to create wireframe layouts of a user interface in web browsers, letting designers work on their projects from any device. The tool is built with collaboration in mind, and like a Google Doc page, multiple users can work on the same layout simultaneously. This allows users to collaborate seamlessly with one another, and it allows students to practice the kind of collaboration work that is so common in the modern web design industry. The other major reason to learn Figma is that it allows users to create working prototypes of their design with limited HTML and CSS functionality so that designers can test how their design feels once a user has it in their hands. This lets UX design professionals collect feedback from real-world users and report back to designers, who can then easily change the webpage in response to this feedback. Figma makes this process effortless, so learning the tool is vital for anyone hoping to design digital interfaces.
Students enrolled in courses at NextGen Bootcamp praise the instructors and their ability to lead courses. One student wrote that “NextGen was overall a great experience. The instructors were knowledgeable and fun to be around, and I learned a lot….” Students regularly praise the quality of the instruction and how comfortable they feel with the foundational skills they learned in the course.
3. Tufts University SMFA Graphic Design Bootcamp
Tufts University offers a Summer Graphic Design Bootcamp through their School of the Museum of Fine Arts. This course, which aims to prepare students for professional graphic design training programs, offers a week-long overview of the features and functionalities of the most commonly used Adobe Creative Cloud graphic design applications. This course aims to provide students with a broad overview of professional graphic design projects, and students will work hands-on to build things like posters, flyers, newsletters, and designs for social media. By the end of the summer session, students will have a familiarity with all of the major graphic design applications, and they will be able to begin working on more elaborate design projects. This is an accelerated course so students won’t be mastering any given tool. Rather, they will learn how many different paths their graphic design training can take.
This course provides students with a space to get hands-on experience using the major graphic design applications offered in Adobe Creative Cloud. Students will receive training in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, and the course is taught by experienced graphic design professionals working within the Tufts University SMFA. Students will not only learn the practical tools that they need to succeed, but they will also learn about graphic design career paths and options for additional training, including those offered at Tufts University. Students will also be able to collaborate with one another in the studio spaces offered through Tufts if they opt to attend the program in-person. By the end of the program, students will have produced one to two new graphic design projects that they can include in their professional portfolio, which can be invaluable for students applying for higher education art training programs.
Students praise the accessibility of the course and the effort that is put into helping students learn foundational skills. One student notes that the instructors “did a good job explaining the field to beginners.” This program is very welcoming to creatively-minded students who don’t have a significant background using programs like Illustrator or InDesign.
4. UCLA DMA Summer Institute
UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts offers an immersive Summer Institute program for students looking to learn all the major elements of graphic and digital design. This course, which is divided into four major sections, will teach students about print design, web design, game design, and animation, ensuring that students leave with a robust understanding of the paths down which their graphic design training can take them. Over the course of the two-week summer session, students will learn foundational design principles which they can apply to all of their design projects, and they will learn how to use industry-standard tools ranging from Photoshop and Figma to the Unity4D gaming engine. This course offers students a chance to learn diverse creative skills and build a base of knowledge they can take with them into almost any creative setting.
By the end of this course, students will be asked to contribute to an integrated, multi-media exhibition of student art. This hands-on approach to teaching graphic design means that students will have a collection of designs they can add to their personal portfolios and show to prospective employers and admission boards by the end of the course. Learning graphic design at the UCLA DMA Summer Institute will ensure that students have a grounding in the tools and techniques that go into all manner of contemporary digital design projects, and students enrolled in this class will learn from expert instructors with years of experience teaching graphic design at a college level. In-person attendance is required, but students who complete the course can receive college-level credit in the University of California system.
Students who have completed the program praise the depth of the instruction and the diversity of different design philosophies they encounter. One student writes, "I learned more about different aspects of design that I would’ve never explored had I not gone to the summer institute.” Other students talk positively of utilizing the UCLA campus and facilities, particularly as they help them become accustomed to college-level graphic design training.
5. ID Tech: Design with YouTube and Adobe
Students interested in a focused, digital course that they can take in their free time over the summer may be interested in ID Tech’s Design with YouTube and Adobe course. This course will teach students how to use important Adobe Creative Cloud applications, including Photoshop, Animate, and Premiere Pro and then students will learn how to apply this knowledge to creating videos for YouTube. This course meets weekly for one-hour sessions, making it easy to fit into a busy schedule while still learning transferable creative skills. Students will learn how to use Adobe Creative Cloud applications to create digital assets for video content and then publish that content on YouTube, making this an ideal course for anyone interested in trying their hands at graphic design or video content creation.
This course will teach students how to use important creative design programs and it will teach students how to get noticed on the platform. This means not only considering how a video looks and feels, with attention to graphic design projects and assets but also how a video is advertised and how audiences engage with that video. Learning these skills is vital to helping aspiring creatives learn how to maximize their chances of getting noticed on a very crowded online platform. Students will also be able to transfer the skills that they learn using tools like Photoshop and Premiere Pro to other creative endeavors, making this a versatile training program to enroll in. Students who complete the course will be awarded an iD Certification, which they can use to demonstrate their experience in graphic and video design. Class sizes are kept to a minimum, so students are guaranteed to have the direct attention of their instructors since iDTech assures that class sizes won’t exceed five students.
6. Accelerate Computer Training: Illustrator Beginning: Master the Essentials
Some students may be interested in learning graphic design skills but aren’t sure they want to commit to an immersive summer pre-college program. These students may want to enroll in a course like Accelerate Computer Training’s Illustrator Beginning: Master the Essentials. In this class, students will receive hands-on, live online instruction in the basic fundamentals of graphic design using Adobe Illustrator. This is an accelerated training program designed to teach students how to be comfortable using Illustrator’s pen and drawing tools to create vibrant vector graphics designs, setting them up for future success in more advanced Illustrator classes. Students will learn what kinds of projects Illustrator is best suited for, and they will learn how to work with the basic elements of the Illustrator interface.
Courses like this are good fits for high school students who are interested in graphic design but don’t know exactly where to begin their training. These classes are built for students who have no background in using graphic design software, making them incredibly beginner-friendly options. Since they are online and are fairly accelerated, students won’t have to commit a great deal of time and energy to taking these classes, which makes them ideal places to start exploring various options for graphic design training. Service providers also tend to offer more advanced courses for students who complete their introductory classes and they tend to offer courses in various graphic design applications (including other Creative Cloud programs like Photoshop or InDesign).
7. Digital Workshop Centers: Design Fundamentals for Beginners
Students who wish to become Graphic Designers will need more than just training in the tools and software applications associated with the field. They will also need to learn the foundational principles of design in a course like Digital Workshop Center’s Design Fundamentals for Beginners course. This program will introduce students to all of the basic design principles they need to consider when working on graphic compositions. Students will learn the key skills involved in working on graphic design projects, and they will learn the vocabularies that let them communicate with other designers. The course aims to teach students how to answer the question “what constitutes a good design” and how they can produce and defend an answer to that question.
In this course, students will learn theories of design and composition, and they will learn how to apply these theories to real-world projects. How you approach designing a book cover differs from designing product packaging, and professional designers must understand these differences. Learning these skills early is a good way to lay the groundwork for future success in graphic design training since learning how to produce effective designs and how to frequently iterate on those designs is the real challenge of learning these skills for many people. Enrolling in a course like this before you start learning graphic design tools can be a productive way of helping you make the most of your early design education and set you up for long-term success.
8. the Cooper Union: Graphic Design and Drawing Summer Intensive
Located in New York City, The Cooper Union is a private college that hosts yearly art and design summer immersion programs for high school students. Among these course offerings is the Graphic Design and Drawing Summer Intensive. This course emphasizes digital art and design training, and students enrolled in the course will receive hands-on experience creating vibrant and evocative designs using InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. The course aims to teach students the history of graphic design as a unique medium and the ways in which digital design practices differ from more traditional artistic projects. Students will learn graphic design conceptualization and the various ways they can employ graphic imagery, typography, and symbolism for visual communication. Lessons will emphasize how digital design tools can aid designers and how artists approach design projects as problems that can be solved.
The course also includes traditional drawing lessons students apply to their digital design projects. Students will learn how to sketch sample designs, create draft layouts and brainstorm ideas. Students will also learn easily transferable concepts in their digital design training, especially if they want to pursue training with programs like Illustrator. By the end of the course, students will have built a portfolio of designs that they can add to their college and professional application materials, and they will have been given the opportunity to build confidence in their artistic skills through hands-on digital design assignments.
9. Drexel: Pre-College Graphics Design Program
Drexel University’s College of Media Arts and Design offers a pre-college Exploring Graphic Design program for students interested in learning more about the principles and applications of visual communication. This course provides students with hands-on training in Drexel’s state-of-the-art design studios, giving them access to the technology they need to produce vibrant and evocative digital graphic design projects. In addition, students will participate in group workshopping seminars and provide valuable feedback to one another on their design projects. These classes are taught by experienced artists working in the College of Media Arts and Design, and students can attend guest lectures, online field trips, and guided studio tours. These programs help students gain a deeper understanding of graphic design and the kinds of work they can expect to find if they pursue design as a career.
This pre-college course aims to prepare students for the kinds of instruction they will receive in a college-level art program. By learning in a studio environment, students will become accustomed to working on graphic design projects and participating in communal critique and feedback seminars, which is an important part of higher education design training. Students will also be able to experience college life by attending classes on Drexel’s campus, which can be an important acclimation process for students who aren’t used to living away from home. By the end of the program, students will have developed important soft skills necessary for success in higher education, and they will have started to build a design portfolio that they can use to apply to college art programs.
10. Cornell University: ART 1101 Art As Experience: Drawing, Photography, and Digital
Cornell University offers a collection of art and design courses through its pre-college Art as Experience Summer program, including a drawing, photography and digital art program. In this program, which has a virtual instruction component, students will learn the theories and histories of contemporary digital art, emphasizing collaboration, research, exhibition, and critique. Students will not only learn how to produce digital art but also how that art is shaped by collaboration and the demands of exhibition spaces. Students enrolled in the course will produce and workshop their own drawings, photographs, and digital art pieces (including learning how to use common design applications), and the course will conclude with a course-wide art exhibition at Cornell’s Tjaden Gallery.
This course aims to give students a deeper understanding of the outside factors that shape contemporary art and what students need to do to succeed in the field. Having access to Cornell’s resources and galleries, students will learn the basics of contemporary art history and theory, making this an ideal class for students looking to pursue an education in graphic design or digital art. All of the courses offered through Cornell’s Summer Art as Experience seminars (including animation and sculpture courses) include college admission workshops designed to prepare students for the practical aspects of the college application process.
Why Learn Graphic Design in a Summer Course?
Learning graphic design skills is a great way to take your creative passions and learn the practical skills necessary to turn those passions into a career. Graphic Designers are in high demand and can find work in a wide range of career fields, including commercial industries like advertising and public industries like advocacy organizations. Learning to use tools like Photoshop and Illustrator is only one step of the process, but it is an essential part of finding work in the field. Students who are interested in pursuing creative careers will want to get a start on their training early.
Students interested in pursuing an arts education may also want to consider spending some time one summer to become familiar with the basics of graphic design theories and applications. Not only will this help students lay the foundation for their future training, but it will serve the practical function of getting students acclimated to college-level design work, including collaborative studio workshopping and critique. Additionally, almost all summer graphic design programs help students build a portfolio of designs they can include as part of their application materials when applying to art schools. If you are interested in this aspect of learning graphic design, consider an immersive training program offered through NextGen Bootcamp or pre-college courses offered through universities.
Finally, many students aren’t looking to build a career out of their creative passions but still enjoy creating graphic design projects as a hobby. These students can still benefit from professional training as it will allow them to receive professional feedback on their work and budget time to hone their skills and practice their craft. Plus, since these classes offer professional development instruction, students may learn they are interested in pursuing a career in graphic design or digital art.