This really pisses me off. This sort of thing damages our industry. This gives the impression that Graphic Design is nothing more than a set of rules, or a program to master, devoid of all meaning beyond eye candy.

What this course won’t teach you, is how to think!

Bah!

Better awareness of graphic design can only be a good thing. If we were all a little better informed then some of the ludicrous situations we all find ourselves in from time to time with clients or suppliers etc might be avoided. Perhaps this is a course that people working with graphic designers should be sent on.

This sort of thing adds weight to the argument heard all the time from clients who just don’t see the value or artistry in design, very often we’re seen purely as people who know how to use a Mac…

®

I see what your saying, but I do get worried when everybody and their grandmothers are now ‘designers’. This is just fuel to the fire.

For me the heading just says it all. “learn graphic design FAST”, this will probably lead to “design me a logo FAST”, “build me a website FAST”, “do me a poster FAST”…

This and things such as the public bashing of the 2012 logo just belittles what we do, no disrespect intended, I looked at the website, the work is quite stylish, but what concernes me is that it will be a decoration course, not a design one.

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Hi evrybody,
i’m allready thinking about that collage for over 6months.
First when i saw advert i thought same, but then when i saw student works on their website, it seemd nice.
I have some experiance in Graphic Design, and thats why i was thinking that learning 8 hours per day for over 3 montsh is same as masters course for over 1 year.
maybe i was wrong, i don’t know, but other fact is that their students get jobs, and important thing for me is to find a job. As well international students in universities have to pay about 8000 per year, and these collage costs only 7000 and they say that students can get jobs.
please tell me what you think about my arguments,
thanks
Niki

Well yes, I guess it just depends on what sort of job you want to get.

You can teach people how to use a Mac and stuff like that, (everyone’s a designer these days you see) but you can’t necessarily teach just anyone to be talented, you either have it or you don’t, and you only really improve through experience.

Ask yourself what you want to learn, and are you going to get that from these guys? If not, get it some other way. Put yourself in situations which stretch you and build a great portfolio to approach companies with yourself. This course is absolutely nothing like a masters course, no matter how you do the maths.

You’re the expert on you. It’s really only up to you whether you feel it’s what you need. If it helps your employment prospects go for it, just don’t expect it to be the answer…

Well I studied at university, wasted 4 years…..
I’ve been to the open day but you know I’m quite impressed by the quality of work the students seem to produce from this course. Man I wish my portfolio was as good as some the ones I saw tonight!!!!

Actually talent means nothing, if a genuine interest is there you can pretty much do anything including graphic design. From what I’ve seen so far it’s impressive I say, whatever this firm is doing it seems to work.

Hmm:

“Actually talent means nothing, if a genuine interest is there you can pretty much do anything including graphic design. ”

Couldn’t disagree more I’m afraid…

i have been considering the 3month fulltime course here to, its just the £. Is is a large amount to commit for just 3months, but this seems the perfect option for me to change my career path. I have always been artistic an very creative. i did a degree in advertising and brandins and nearly have a years experience in marketing under my belt. i have designed logos an web designs in my current company&had the designer create them on the computer. My designs are getting chosen by clients an managers over the designers so i think i have the talent, i just need a way to learn more skills an computer software. Is this the course for me do you think??

Thanks

Advertising, Branding and Marketing are not Graphic Design. Do you love Graphic Design?

If you actually want to learn computer software skills then find a course specifically for that rather than this one if it’s expensive.

If you think you’re talented, just get on with it. If you want to design, start designing now instead of going on a 3 month course to prepare. Experience is the key, you aren’t going to learn anything there which you couldn’t find out for yourself if you wanted to. Save yourself the money and just get stuck in, you’ll soon see if it’s something you’re good at and enjoy. You’ll only get a design job by having a good portfolio of work anyway no matter what courses you can say you’ve been on.

Graphic Design isn’t the same as knowing how to use a Mac. Perhaps you should be supporting your designer instead of planning how to do without them.

“Perhaps you should be supporting your designer instead of planning how to do without them.”

What a load of rubbish. If clients and so on are choosing her designs over those of someone who is supposed to be trained to fulfil that role, then perhaps she should (as she is) be thinking about changing to what she perceives as a more fulfulling career.

Rubbish? Perhaps. My opinion? I’m afraid so.

You can choose to disagree, but perhaps you missed the fact that I was encouraging the original poster to follow her career aspirations, I just don’t think the Shillington course is going to deliver her a successful career automatically and I’d hate to see her waste money on it expecting that. There’s no substitute for hard work and experience. There’s no fast track to ‘becoming’ a graphic designer, it takes your whole career. Three months is a fairly inconsequential amount of time to expect to ‘Learn’ graphic design.

I notice your IP address is the University of Reading, if you’re a student perhaps you’re frustrated that you’re wasting 33 months on the wrong course. If you’re a lecturer, perhaps you realise you could teach graphic design 12 times faster…

I work in the marketing and events department of our local council I think I’ve got an eye for design but am not sure how to use all the applications properly so get a bit frustrated – I’ve only ever been on an InDesign foundation course. Would this course teach me how to use the Design Suite do you think?

Well if you have an eye for design, learning the software applications is easy. I would imagine this course will cover software, but you should contact them directly and ask if there are specific things you need from it. Three months isn’t much to fit everything in.

On a related matter, I did love the advertising campaign a while back for Salford:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4629443.stm

There’s an example of having a good idea, the execution and design is pretty unimpressive but the idea is great…

Thanks for the response both Richard and Leon. Quite rightly Leon, i am not trying to steal the current designers job, but found something i want to learn more about to develop my skills. I support my designer incredibly and surley if they come to me and value my opinion and creativity that says something, even they belived i should be persuing this as a career path. I know three months wouldnt teach me to be a graphic designer (although it is 8.30am-6 5 days a week and constant briefs/projects) but i am simply looking for technical skills which this course is focussed on (shillington college is not proclaiming it teaches you the same as a degree, but high technical abilities).

Yes you can teach yourself which i have been trying to do with the many online tutorials, but maybe im better taught in a more structured way (thats just me)?? Experience is the key, but its very diffiult to find a company particularly at the moment who would take me on to simply teach me technical skills in the adobe suites whilst i preformed marketing,pr and seo activities for them. It seems courses in Manchester are limtied to all theory based and having to go back and do a full degree or shillington college which is the complete opposite on a strictly adobe indesign,illustrator, phototshop course which is focussed on as you said your valuable portfolio but with a wopping £6k price tag. There are adobe classes out there but from friends experiences they teach you little or nothing and to realy get worthwill learning from them you have to entail numerous courses some times at £400 a pop all of which i would have to be taking out of my fulltime current job.

Thanks

Hello everyone – I have always had a long standing passion for design, after studying business and marketing at college/uni I now want to have a career change and enter a business I am passionate about – I have been looking at this course as the structure seems right for me and I will be going along to one of their open days next week –

I have a solid commercial background and experienced with with working with clients and face to face basis – I feel I have a real flare for design and its something that I want to pursue –

do you think that this course would be a good grounding in the basic principals of design/software? Are there any additional pointers or suggestions for an aspiring graphic designer?

Thanks

Blake, if you have any specific requirements for the course, you should ring them and find out if it’s exactly what you are looking for.

In three months I can only assume they will attempt to introduce you reasonably superficially to the main aspects of the job and work through some briefs to build a body of work for you to go out and get a job.

Some people on this thread are obviously looking for an Adode CS Suite course, and so if that’s what you’re after there might well be something more specific on offer elsewhere. My problem with this course is the idea of learning ‘graphic design’ fast. It’s not possible. Learning the CS suite however, for some people could be spending the weekend reading a book about it.

Design principles will take you your lifetime to master. They are the sort of things it is easy to read or write down and repeat back, but putting into practice bears no relation to simply being aware of them. And anyway, you can’t break the rules until you’re an authority on them, and that’s when the fun starts.

As for general advice for aspiring graphic designers, I’d say be curious about everything, ask questions and stretch yourself. Never let a client see anything you’re not happy with and never lose sight of the brief. Take time to come up with a great idea, the aesthetics are subjective, but a fantastic idea will always win the day.

You might also like to check out Ben Terrett’s 7 habits of highly effective people which are all good sensible advice. I’m still working on the always being early bit…

Ultimately if you like the look of this course and it is offering the things you are looking for then go for it, but as I’ve said above, don’t expect it to be the answer.

‘Learn Graphic design fast’ I think is a response to the ‘Learn graphic design slow’ method which is currently taught at UK universities .

The course was set up by a disgruntled graphic designer who found that he could not recruit designers who had any computer skills which in this day and age is ludicrous and many of the students
on the course have actually just finished graphic design degrees without the essential skills required to get a job in the industry. Whilst Shillington can claim to have students with jobs in agencies as reputable as Frost

Shillington College does not claim that when you complete the course, whether over 3 months or a year part time, that you will be the finished article but does claim to give the basic framework to start a career
as a junior and from there the skies the limit because in this game we never stop learning.

I have a BA AND MA in Graphic design but specialising in illustration and am finding the course focused and unpretentious.

I do think that a lot of designers think themselves rather special and talented and a course like this which demystifies their ‘talent’ is probably a little threatening.

But Peter, you ARE special.

The course may well be fantastic, but the advertisement is awful. It professes to teach graphic design in 3 months, not InDesign. You cannot ‘learn’ graphic design in three months, as you are clearly aware from your illustrious educational journey thus far, and the implication (whether intentional or not) that learning software makes you a designer is a damaging one. (See crowdspring.com for evidence) We don’t need any more people claiming to be designers because they can stack their palettes nicely in Illustrator.

Shillington College are responsible for their own choice of words, not anyone else, and they have clearly confused some people on this thread at the very least. This course doesn’t seem to demystify a designer’s talent, so much as demystify the Adobe CS Suite. In fact there’s nothing mysterious about talent, it is a clear quality which cannot be automated. It’s a mystery to me how anyone can be expected to become more talented through screen burn.

I’m afraid I think the advert is misguided and misleading.

Is this advertisement misleading Richard or does it just anoy you personally as a graphic designer?
If you need to hear the word your SPECIAL thats fine, but do not deter those have maybe not fond their path in design as fast as you have. The advert is designed to attract those who would benefit from a course such as this and it seems to be doing this well, so surely its not misguided or misleading, yet successful?

Anyone who has considered this course or made comment on this post has not asked the question “will i be a graphic designer after this course”, thats because they are not stupid and look at the course as a way to explore or develop new or skills.

each and to their own opinion, but surley with with Peter (someone doing the actual course) praising its focus when already having an strong background in design, it says something to the course being what others might just be looking for in their situation.

Well Richard I don’t think it’s misleading because it does teach graphic design,well….Fast.
Incredibly fast compared with with the educational institutions which are currently pumping out students without the skills to do the job and these student’s and often their parents have forked out a small fortune.
Is it misguided? If you read the complete ad it says exactly what the course offers.

You seem to be using the ad as a stick to beat the course with and I think it’s the course that’s got under your skin.

What they concentrate on is giving you the skills to to the job AND understanding design principles along the way. It has nothing to do with crowd sourcing design websites at all which I despise.

And Richard you a ARE truly special if you can learn Creative Suite in a weekend. I know professional
photographers who have taken years to uncover the depths of photoshop.

Oh! and to clear up another misconception about the Shillington course on this thread.
It is portfolio based- you don’t get some Adobe certificate – you get a portfolio of your design work which, as we all know, is how you can gauge if someone my be helpful to your organisation.

Love your work Richard and your blog.

Vicky: It does both I’m afraid. I’ve actually encouraged everyone who has participated in this thread and asked for my advice. If the course is right for you go for it, but remember that you cannot learn graphic design in three months.

Peter: I love you too. There’s some nice photography on your site.

You guys are obviously both fans of the ad and I am not, so let’s just agree to disagree, as I’m as happy with my opinion of it as you are with yours. Seeing as this thread now comes up as one of the first few Google search results for ‘Shillington College’ I can understand why a body of people might wish to visit it and redress the balance, and I’m certainly happy with the hit count.

I wish you both well with your studies, good luck with it…

…we’re ALL special.

I’m baffled by some of the comments on this thread. This thread isn’t so much a reflection on Shillington College (who I’m sure are a fine college producing solid work) but the perception on the perception of what Graphic Design is.

Learning how to lay a brick won’t make you an architect, the same way that knowing how to handle some CS software won’t qualify you as a designer. Last time I checked there was no ‘design’ button on a mac, yes it will be useful to master the tools, but to be a designer you need to have the foundation of having ideas.

Any Creative Director worth their salt would rather you turn up to an interview with an original idea drawn on a bit of used tissue than see a beautifully executed, lazer-cut-foil-blocked and embossed bit of holowness.

Sure there are jobs to be had out there where you just ‘design’, and maybe this kind of course would be ideal for people with that aspiration, or for people who already have strong ideas and would like to polish their presentation skills. But don’t expect to ‘learn graphic design fast’, expect to learn the basics of creative suite in three months, the rest is up to you…

A designer is someone who solves complex visual communication problems by taking the same information as everyone else, but coming to an original and more effective conclusion. A designer is not someone who can choose a typeface, or flick through a Pantone swatch and make a page of images and text look OK.

I’ve got nothing against Shillington College, and I would definitely encourage ANYONE to follow their passions and go for what they believe in. However, you cannot learn graphic design in 3 months, and suggesting this devalues design as a whole.

Is this still a live thread? This course at Shillington is provoking a very mixed response! I’ve been coming back to peruse the website for the last year or so – it seems a good starting point (yet an expensive one). I’m not sure I’d be considering it if I didn’t have formal training already although my degree was Design Communication with a slant on graphics. I wouldn’t say I graduated as a competent designer but the degree course was critical to get people to start thinking like a designer and I can’t see how the shillington course can replace that. In saying that it seems like it’s filling a gap in the market for career changers or people like me who need a specific learning. Richard a designer with your cred could also lend some to a course like this – have you thought about teaching????!!!

I’d love to do teaching of some description someday, but I can’t imagine the interview going well once the Shillington guys read this thread.

Perhaps I should advertise…

I’m sure we wouldn’t hold it against you….much

I spotted this blog some time ago. Nothing wrong with a bit of healthy debate. As a college the questions the normal way of doing things we expect to have our critics. Even some of our lecturers have had their doubts before working here because they, as many designers, would have gone down the traditional route of university.

We’re confident in what we do and what our students achieve (and I’m certainly not here for the hard sell) so I’ll skulk back into the shadows and leave you to it.

(Lovely work by the way Richard)

A friend of mine sent me to this interesting thread. As someone who completed the 12 month part-time Shillington Course in Mebourne, AU some years ago I found the course extremely helpful and it helped me improve my self-taught skills significantly by giving me the grounding of design principals. The course is not for everyone however you learn how to implement your creative designs into a professional quality product. It was very interesting when preparing our portfolio at the end of the year to see how much everyone had improved from the beginning of the course. I have encouraged two of my friends to do the course and their portfolios are amazing. THANK YOU Shillington College

Thanks for the compliment Jen, to be fair I’ve only ever had a problem with the advertisement itself. From what I’ve read, the college sounds admirable, I just can’t condone the way that campaign sold it. It obviously worked for them, but I didn’t like it I’m afraid.

Perhaps it could be turned into a project. Get all new students to re-imagine the advertising campaign. Best one gets used next time.

A quote from last night’s Neville Brody lecture I thought the readers of this thread might like:

“You don’t need talent to learn skills”

So what exactly is ‘talent’ – Discuss.

I’ll go with number 1, “a special natural ability or aptitude”, not so much the ancient Hebrew currency thing.

tal⋅ent  [tal-uhnt]
–noun

1. a special natural ability or aptitude: a talent for drawing.
2. a capacity for achievement or success; ability: young men of talent.
3. a talented person: The cast includes many of the theater’s major talents.
4. a group of persons with special ability: an exhibition of watercolors by the local talent.
5. Movies and Television. professional actors collectively, esp. star performers.
6. a power of mind or body considered as given to a person for use and improvement: so called from the parable in Matt. 25:14–30.
7. any of various ancient units of weight, as a unit of Palestine and Syria equal to 3000 shekels, or a unit of Greece equal to 6000 drachmas.
8. any of various ancient Hebrew or Attic monetary units equal in value to that of a talent weight of gold, silver, or other metal.
9. Obsolete. inclination or disposition.
Origin:
bef. 900; ME, OE talente < L talenta, pl. of talentum < Gk tálanton balance, weight, monetary unit

Synonyms:
1. capability, gift, genius. See ability.

OK. If accepting definition no.1, The prerequisite for a Graphic designer is talent,
then all education is pretty much redundant, whether fast or slow. One must have ‘the gift’.

I have always assumed any ‘talent’ I have was aquired by a combination of hard work and attained knowledge. Oh well, guess I’ll just have to settle for being skilled.

Can’t we have both? I kind of thought it probably worked like this:

Talent+Skill+Luck=Success

So some people have more talent but others more than make up for less talent with hard work. I always felt reassured that even if I was never the most talented person at my Uni or place of work, that I could still compete by learning and applying myself.

Talent=Nature Skill=Nurture

I didn’t really think this was depressing, but inspiring really.

Oh, and I held up the Wanker card at the Neville Brody thing, so I didn’t agree with a lot of what he said but the moment he mentioned talent I thought of this thread.

Right folks, I am just approaching the last week in Shillington College so maybe that would be a useful thing to hear about.
The basic facts about Shillington are that the tutors are graphic designers themselves. The students come from all sorts of backgrounds, with varying levels of experience, talent and commitment to what they have signed up for and also different age groups. The 3 month course is a VERY intensive course. The classes are made up of about 25-30 people. During the course about 50 briefs are being completed. Classes last from 8 in the morning to 5 in the evening, two 15 min breaks and one 1h lunch break.
The programs used through out the course are InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. Goal of the course for everyone is to leave with an impressive portfolio that shows not as much perfection as it shows potential and dedication.

My personal opinion is that this is not an “easy solution”. It is madness to claim that any course – university or college, Shillington or internship – will make you a perfect professional. Shillington does a outstandingly good job at giving the basics of theoretical graphic design, teaching the fundamentals of the programs used and more than anything prepares you for the real life working environment. The tutors pay attention to each individual.
At the end of the day what you do with what you learned in Uni or at Shillington is up to you. I think a combination of both would be fabulous – at the open day night I attended the one thing that actually won me over was the statement: “There must be room on this planet for both Shillington and University”
Both are different routes into graphic design, I do know from people who have studied at Uni and then came to the course that they felt they had learned more in 3 weeks than after a year in Uni.
And the notes handed out though out the course, as well as eg the visual diaries each student is asked to keep really are useful for the life after shillington.

what really set this thread on fire is the ad from the college, which i too find slightly dodgy. its not a lie though.
I am annoyed by the barking responses. What do you base your negative opinion on? Been to the open night? Seen a graduates portfolio? Worked with one? If not, GIVE IT A CHANCE because i sure as hell would do the exact same thing again, sign up, move to London and work my butt off.

Who knows what the future brings, I hope I will be able to learn until I die…

Hi folks.

Iv’e been giving this idea a lot of thought over the past 6 months or so, about Shillington, but I want to enrol on the course in Australia. The reasoning behind this is that I want to get permanent residency there eventually and with having an Australian qualification and skills this can only help my cause.

Either way, its something I need to decide about. The reason for this blog was, I was wondering if anyone has actually done that, gone to study in Oz?? It would be great if anyone can share their experiences with me, good and bad, just to get some more ideas.

I have to be sure Im doing the right thing because it is a lot of money and it would mean leaving a perfectly good job, but life’s alll about risks I guess……………

Many thanks peeps

i want to lear graphic designhow many months or year will it take me to learn

I second Ellen’s comments. I’m 4 weeks away from graduation and can say that from my experience, I’ve learnt more in the last 8 weeks than I did in a 3 year degree in Visual communication, not to mention the last six years I’ve spent working on the periphery of a graphic design job in various photographic, photo editing, copywriting and marketing jobs I’ve had since I graduated from Uni.

No, not every graduate is going to walk out of the college and into a designer’s job, but they will walk away with all the fundamentals sitting comfortably and the confidence and a kick ass portfolio to land them interviews. The rest is up to them. If they can land a job as a junior and expand on their sound practical and theoretical skills in using the CS software, design principals, typography, etc then they deserve the chance. The industry will decide whether they ‘make it’ as a designer or not, as will the individual’s dedication to the industry.

Hi Hillary

Can I ask you where you are studying? I posted a message here a while back about the idea of studying abroad(Australia) and weather or not anybody thought it to be a good or bad idea? To me, the cost is the most off putting thing right now and to study abroad would obviously be more expensive. I guess Im looking for someone to say yeah go and do it, but that wont happen. I need to decide for myself.

Any comments would be greatfully received though