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Is It Worth Taking a Graphic Design Class as a High School Student?

Taking a graphic design class as a high school student is a valuable experience that opens up many creative and professional opportunities for you.

Graphic design involves creating visual content to communicate messages by applying visual hierarchy and page layout techniques. As a designer, you’ll use typography and pictures to meet users' needs. Taking a graphic design course as a teenager will prepare you for a unique and exciting range of careers.

Uses of Graphic Design for High School Students

Graphic design is incredibly versatile and can be applied in numerous areas. For example, you could use it to make presentations in class to show off your abilities and even get better grades. However, if you plan on using graphic design in your career, there are many markets that might need it. Just a few that might appeal to teenagers like you include:

  • Book Cover Design: If you have an artistic eye, you might use graphic design when crafting visually appealing covers that reflect the content and attract readers. It’s a big market, particularly if you can develop a reputation for excellence.
  • Magazine Work: As a magazine designer, you’ll work on designing layouts, covers, and artwork that enhance print media's readability and aesthetic appeal. These skills easily translate to digital production, making it a fascinating field to join.
  • Marketing: Marketing professionals use graphic design skills when creating brochures, posters, banners, and digital ads that communicate and sell. Digital and print marketers alike use graphic design concepts to produce effective work.
  • Video Games: If you love video games, it might be worth learning graphic design. You’ll use it when developing graphics and user interfaces that enhance the gaming experience and make it more exciting and dynamic for game buyers.
  • Animation: Producing dynamic visuals for television, movies, and online platforms requires you to build strong graphic design skills. In this way, you can produce attractive and engaging work that viewers and consumers will more readily enjoy.

Benefits of Learning Graphic Design for High School Students

When you take graphic design or even video and animation classes for teenagers, you invest in your future and boost your chances of finding a great job. It’s an amazing experience that can provide many benefits you can’t get with other courses. As a result, it’s worth understanding some of these advantages before starting your studies with a learning team:

  • Diverse Job Opportunities: Graphic design skills apply to many industries, from publishing to advertising and even tech companies. While you might not jump right out of high school and into a career, early training can make college transition easier.
  • Artistic Expression: Graphic design courses provide an outlet for creativity and innovation. Even if you’re interested in a slightly different creative career path, learning graphic design could make it easier to handle its demands.
  • Ease of Use: Modern tools and software have made graphic design more accessible. As a result, even people who don’t have natural artistic talent can become graphic designers. Even stick-figure artists can thrive in this field!
  • Potential Careers: The demand for skilled designers is rising, offering varied career paths with attractive earnings potential. For example, artistic directors can make six-figure salaries and higher, depending on their employer.

Related Skills Worth Learning Alongside Graphic Design

While learning graphic design, acquiring skills in various related areas may also be beneficial. After all, graphic design is such a diverse skill set that it’s usable in many walks of life. In fact, you might find it useful to learn the following things with graphic design to boost your career opportunities or simply to become more skilled in various creative arts:

  • Coding: Understanding basic HTML/CSS can be useful for web designers who want to turn their visual designs into functional web pages. Although HTML and CSS aren’t technically programming languages, they use a similar logic to produce work.
  • Web Design: Mastering graphic design may include learning how to design effective and aesthetically pleasing websites. Web design concepts include proper SEO theory, balancing pages visually, and integrating balanced colors and styles.
  • Visual Theory: Studying principles of color theory, typography, and composition.
  • Adobe Programs: Mastering tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are essential for any graphic designer. You can become a much better graphic specialist by understanding what each software does and how you can use it to solve problems.

Careers with Graphic Design Skills

As one of the most diverse career paths today, graphic design is very rewarding to master, particularly if you’re interested in a creative tech-based career. Often, these jobs provide benefits like vacation time, strong pay, and even the opportunity to advance to a higher-earning position. With skills in graphic design, potential career opportunities include:

  • Graphic Designer: As a graphic designer, you’ll focus on creating visual concepts to communicate ideas that inspire, inform, or captivate consumers. You can thrive by utilizing important layout ideas, such as drawing the eye down the page.
  • Art Director: Art directors lead creative teams in marketing agencies or magazine publishing as you work in this field, you might find yourself working with branding agencies that help make this experience more enjoyable and high-earning.
  • UX/UI Designer: As a UX/UI designer, you must master graphic design skills to design user interfaces for aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly software and applications. In these high-earning careers, you’ll enjoy a lot of creative freedom.
  • Multimedia Artist: Multimedia artists work hard to produce animation and visual effects for television, movies, video games, and other media. Using graphic design skills can help you thrive in this field and get the best results for your needs.

NextGen Bootcamp Courses in Graphic Design

Learn graphic design with hands-on projects at the top design bootcamp for high schoolers. In-person in NYC or live online from anywhere

NextGen Bootcamps offers courses geared toward young learners interested in graphic design. You’ll learn alongside fellow teenagers, create a strong work portfolio, and produce attractive art you can share with colleges and employers. Let’s take a look at three classes from this provider that might work well for your college and career planning experience.

Graphic Design Summer Program NYC

Graphic Design Summer Program NYC covers subjects like Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator to master graphic design theories. You’ll learn to retouch photos, combine images, prepare graphics for the web, style text, import photos, define colors, add multiple pages, and more. You’ll have a great work portfolio to share with potential employers when you're done.

Digital Design Summer Certificate NYC

Digital Design Summer Certificate NYC covers multiple important graphic design concepts, including multiple Adobe products and Figma, a useful prototyping tool for UX and UI concepts. In this interactive class, you’ll work with your professor, interact with fellow teens, and create logos, icons, and scalable images that make your work more attractive and appealing.

UX & UI Design Summer Program

UX & UI Design Summer Program covers user experience and user interface (UX and UI) subjects, including prototyping, graphic design concepts, and user personas. The latter skill is very important because you’ll base your UX and UI designs on what the user may want or need. Note that this program is available primarily online, meaning you can take it wherever you want.

College Graphic Design Classes and Exams

While there is no specific AP exam for "Graphic Design," related courses like AP Studio Art: 2-D Design can serve as a solid foundation for students interested in graphic design. These and other college courses and exams are a great way to improve your knowledge and potentially start a fun and unforgettable career. These courses help students:

  • Prepare for College: Building a portfolio through AP classes can enhance college applications and provide college credits. Often, these include those early-morning beginner classes that might be boring or hard for some students to get to in time.
  • Develop Professional Skills: The rigorous nature of college courses helps develop a strong work ethic and advanced skills attractive to employers. By building your skills in this way, you can prepare a strong graphic design portfolio before applying.
  • Launch Careers: Completing college coursework and building a strong portfolio can open doors to internships and entry-level positions in creative fields. Imagine starting a six-figure career in the graphic design field just after completing college!

Completing a graphic design class in high school is rewarding and provides you with a robust set of skills and a strong portfolio that can help you excel in creative careers. Whether through academic classes, bootcamps, or college courses, the skills acquired are invaluable and widely applicable across various industries. Try it out to see what your training brings you!

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