The Best Online Courses for Freelance Designers & Creatives

You may have heard the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none,” but did you know that the actual phrase is “Jack of all trades, master of none…but oftentimes better than master of one”!? (🤯 🤯)

While I believe in the power of having a career focus, I also find value in the occasional creative dabbling. I’ve found that if you are genuinely curious about a breadth of subjects, the skills you pick up from dabbling can actually help elevate the work you do and enhance your existing skillset in unexpected ways.

As a creative dabbler myself, I’ve taken quite a few online courses throughout the years and thought I’d share a few of my favorites in today’s blog post. Fellow multi-passionate creatives and children of the internet, follow along!

(FYI: Some of these classes have helped me find paid gigs and opportunities! 💰💰)

Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate or referral links, which means that I may earn a small commission (at no additional cost to you) if you click through and sign up for a program or make a purchase using my link. I only recommend tools that I 🧡 or would use myself. Learn more HERE.

1) ilovecreatives Squarespace Design Course

Who's it for?: Squarespace Web Designers / Freelance Designers
My thoughts: As mentioned in my testimonial for the course (which you can find on their landing page)…

“The Squarespace Design Course is, hands down, one of the best investments I’ve made as a freelance designer. Puno is a brilliant teacher and shows you how to organize your client process, figure out what to charge, and of course, make the most out of the Squarespace platform. I keep coming back to the Resource Library and the Slack community, which is a resource in itself. Seriously! The community is insanely helpful.
You will learn so much from this course, regardless of your skill level, and leave with tons of useful design tips and tricks (maybe even new opportunities :money_with_wings:)! Don’t miss out!”

Click HERE for a separate, more detailed review of the Squarespace Design Course!

2) CareerFoundry’s Pillar Courses

Who's it for?: Web Developers & UI/UX Designers
CareerFoundry's online courses are designed to equip students (especially those looking to make a career switch) with 6-8 months of intensive education/training in UI Design, UX Design, or Web Development.
While the aforementioned courses are all self-paced, they do have end dates, which gives students an incentive to finish the course. I debated between taking UX Design and UI Design but eventually signed up for the UI Design track. I got a lot out of the course, as it covered the basic principles of UX design and required students to build a portfolio of 6-7 mobile app designs.
Another upside to CF's programs is the job prep component designed to help you land a junior level position in your selected field of study. I was already freelancing while taking the course, but I'm still very satisfied with my experience and I would say that CareerFoundry definitely met my expectations.

For my full review of the CareerFoundry UI Design course, click HERE.

3) Premiere Pro CC for Beginners: Video Editing in Premiere by Phil Ebiner

Who's it for?: Video Editors
This is one of the many fabulous courses taught by Phil Ebiner, an incredible online educator and the founder of Video School Online. If you're interested in learning how to edit and/or produce videos or already have some knowledge or experience, it's likely that you've come across his tutorials at some point on Youtube or in a blog post. You can purchase Phil Ebiner's Premiere Pro course HERE on Udemy.
I had no experience with Premiere Pro prior to taking Phil's class, but after a few minutes of taking the course, I was able to pick things up pretty quickly. The good news is that this course is hosted on Udemy, which means sales happen often and popular courses are rarely ever full-price. I personally haven’t purchased a single Udemy course for more than $15 (& Phil's course is definitely worth more than $15!).

4) Skillshare Coding Class by Aga Naplocha

Who's it for?: People who want to learn to code, animate SVGs using CSS, & learn cool CSS tricks in general!
A short, enjoyable course (2hr total) that eases you into HTML & CSS. At the beginning of the course, the instructor (Aga Naplocha) mentions that the purpose of this class is to code a website from scratch but not necessarily learn the foundation of HTML/CSS. Still, I felt as though I'd left the course with a significantly better understanding of HTML and CSS.
If you already have some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS, this class will help you build upon that knowledge and put it into practice via a fun student project.
You can find all of her courses here on Skillshare!

5) Udemy Graphic Design Course

Who's it for?: Graphic Designers
If you sign up for Udemy, look into Derrick Mitchell’s “Graphic Design Bootcamp: Part 1.” What I love about this course is how comprehensive it is. Derrick's curriculum introduces the beginner graphic designer to the most popular Adobe CC programs, from Photoshop, to Illustrator to InDesign. This course is packed with detailed tutorials and guidance from the instructor. Plus, it's super affordable.

6) Michelle Ward's "Ditch Your Day Job" Creative Live Class

Who's it for?: Aspiring business owners
If you've found yourself in a soul-sucking day job and have thought about launching your own online business, Michelle's CreativeLive course will give you the kick in the butt you need. She offers a ton of practical advice and encourages you to come up with a feasible action plan to transition from your office job to successful self-employment.