Graphic Design Certificate Program

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Improve your creative and technical skills.

Program Overview: 

Have you ever taken a moment to stop and consider how much design is integrated within the world around you? Odds are that just about every color, size and typeface you see was intentionally designed to make you respond a specific way. Increasingly, we’re tasked with presenting complex information in new and interesting ways in order to elicit those responses. Whether you’re looking for a start in the design industry, or wanting to further develop your design skills within your current role, our program will help you hone your skill set to achieve either goal.

Our three-month certificate program will challenge you to develop technical and creative skills in industry-standard software and design practices. You will utilize Adobe products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and After Effects to produce compelling static and motion graphic projects. The curriculum will also address career paths, freelancing concerns and mock interviews. Our fully-online program is comprised of weekly classes through Zoom that are supplemented by a concurrent eLearning module in web development that culminates with a final online portfolio of your work.

Who Should Enroll: 
  • Aspiring designers seeking to build the skills necessary for entry-level employment in a design role.
  • Marketing and communications professionals looking to sharpen their design skills for use in their current roles.
  • Individuals who are familiar with the basic mechanics of Adobe products, and want to master the techniques for creating an aesthetically-pleasing result.
  • Interns seeking supplemental design instruction.
Learning Outcomes: 
  • Produce compelling fixed and motion graphics
  • Implement color theory and the principles of design
  • Create and verify accessibility for PDFs and ePubs
  • Gain coding skills to build marketing emails and promotional landing pages
  • Discover uses and limitations for Generative AI
  • Publish an interactive online portfolio of your design projects
  • Interview for a design job with confidence
Ask Your Employer to Send You:

Are you seeking graphic design training to improve your skills in your current job? Download our editable letter that you can give to your supervisor to help you justify sending you to the program!

Prerequisites: 

You must be proficient in performing the following tasks in Adobe Photoshop:

  • Making accurate selections
  • Basic retouching and color correction
  • Using Layers and Layer Masks to montage multiple images
  • Applying Layer Effects
  • Typesetting
  • Understand differences between common raster file formats

You must be proficient in performing the following tasks in Adobe Illustrator:

  • Creating basic and complex shapes (Shape tools, Pen, Pencil, Pathfinders)
  • Applying Strokes & Fills (including gradients)
  • Typesetting
  • Making freehand and precise transformations (rotate, scale, reflect)
  • Placing and tracing bitmaps
  • Understand differences between common vector file formats

No prior experience necessary with InDesign, After Effects or HTML.

If you are not comfortable performing all of the Photoshop or Illustrator tasks listed above, then check out Introduction to Graphic Design, a self-paced online course, provides all the prerequisite training required. Students have up to 90 days to finish the course but most complete it in about 60 days.

You can find training and tutorials that cover the prerequisite skills listed above on adobe.com and YouTube.

Textbook Information: 

There is no textbook for this program. However, you are required to have Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and After Effects downloaded on your computer. If you do not already have access to these programs, you can find pricing on Adobe's site. There may be other pricing available to you through Adobe.

Additional Information: 

This program will call for you to engage in self-directed learning to complete online modules outside of the class meetings. You should expect to spend on average 10 hours per week of outside class time to complete homework and online modules.

The instructor will host optional office hours on four Saturdays throughout the class.

Completion Requirements:

Digital UT gold seal certificates will be awarded based on timely participation, attendance and completion of assigned projects. Specific details regarding the grading system are available upon request. Requirements include, but are not limited to:

  • Completing the concurrent online module in full
  • Attending at least 11 of the 13 class sessions
  • Submitting assignments on time and to specifications
Continuing Education Hours: 
Continuing Education Units: 7.2 CEUs
Discounts: 

Interested students may be eligible to apply for the Road to Success Scholarship, which could cover up to 80% of this program's tuition.

Find additional information about available discounts.

For withdrawal, transfer and refund information, see Policy Code D.

At A Glance

Duration: 
13 weeks
Modality: 
Online Instructor-Led
Tuition: 
$3,899. Early-bird rate until two weeks prior to start date.
Payment Options: 

Find additional information about payment options.