Top 9 Best Courses on Coursera for Designers

Table Of Content

• Top 10 Graphic Design Courses in LA to Consider in 2024
• User Experience Research and Design Specialization
• Art School Project Archive
• Graphic Design Courses from Coursera
• Learn Adobe Photoshop from Scratch

You'll walk away with a better grasp of color theory, typography, composition, and more. The design specialization is a very condensed design education meant to give students an introduction to graphic design. It shouldn’t replace a proper design education, or years of being self-taught. That being said, if you’re interested in design, this program will give you some great fundamentals and a proper place to start learning about design. This entire specialization is a fundamentals program, so students will absolutely come away from this program with a decent grasp of some of the fundamental design principles.

Top 10 Graphic Design Courses in LA to Consider in 2024

People are curious by nature and thanks to the internet, anyone curious about a topic or looking to expand their skills or even learn a new skill can take classes online on their time. One of the best options for taking classes online is through the courses that are available on Coursera. Coursera offers numerous courses and works with leading universities and companies.

User Experience Research and Design Specialization

Consider Product Ideation, Design, and Management Specialisation from the University of Maryland on Coursera. This Professional Certificate covers developing innovative ideas, product management skills, establishing product-market fit, and more. A course dedicated to design principles and concepts suitable for everyone who is building a career in graphic design. This course covers interesting insight and crucial rules about design which every graphic designer have to know and apply. The goal of this specialization is to equip learners with a set of transferable formal and conceptual tools for “making and communicating” in the field of graphic design.

Art School Project Archive

In this week we’ll talk about what it means to be confident, yet open to criticism. We’ll explore the importance of revision as an ongoing component of design, as well as the need to enlist feedback and maintain distance in assessing our own work. When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.

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Graphic Design Courses from Coursera

Shaw Academy is an educational company providing fully online and accredited courses in different fields. The mission of the Academy is to provide personalized and interactive education while delivering engaging, relevant and up-to-date content. Users of all levels can enroll in these courses gaining access not only to the course itself but to their own student website – the Schoolyard. In this site, students can access an e-library, training videos, and a forum. Even if you opt for the Intensive Foundation Course, you can upgrade to Certificate IV later.

This specialization and the courses within it will help creatives gain a deeper understanding of how to design your own business around your expertise and ultimately launch your career in the marketplace as a freelancer. The Graphic Design Program at CalArts fosters the next generation of graphic designers through rigorous inquiry, fearless exploration and innovative making within a tight-knit studio community. The program’s curriculum is based on the Institute’s critical approach of contextualizing praxis in history, theory and broad cultural literacy, and in the Graphic Design program’s inclusive pedagogy. We aim to educate the whole student through focused metier coursework, engaged mentorship, robust critique, cross-disciplinary exploration, and fearless making in a vibrant, intimate studio community. Completed in 8 months, students gain hands-on experience of taking a product through the entire journey starting from initial concept to user research, ideation, and refinement. Through the use of formal analysis, prototyping, user testing, and then applying those perspectives and methods to create a great experience for every user.

What jobs can I get with my graphic design skills?‎

The lesson here is about experimentation, with both digital and print medium, with any type of tools you can. This means you shouldn’t be limited to creating an image using a pencil or marker. This was actually one of the first things my design school professor discussed from day one. Paint a twig and draw with it, use a potato stamp, mix ink and a tissue and blot it on paper. If you want to better convey text information, then you'll want to learn more about typography.

Take Graphic Design Courses to Launch Your Career as a Graphic Designer, Video Game Designer, UI Designer & More - Open Culture

Take Graphic Design Courses to Launch Your Career as a Graphic Designer, Video Game Designer, UI Designer & More.

Posted: Thu, 30 Jun 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Backstory: Why I take a graphic design specialization as a professional product designer

If Coursera’s Graphic Design Specialization is the only graphic design education you’ve had (self-taught or academic), you likely won’t have a good enough portfolio to get a real job in graphic design. Students learn some type terminology, the history of popular typefaces, how to design with type by using letter spacing, kerning, leading, line length, alignment, and proximity, and how to create a type poster. The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, stands as another leading educational institution that adopts an experimental approach to cultivate critical thinking essential in artistic practice.

The Second Assignment

This course focuses on learning, experimenting, and playing with images through composition and juxtaposition with assignments focused on creating spreads and ultimately with your own book of images. If you're completely new to graphic design or need a refresher, this short class focuses on the core principles of functional design. Taught by graphic designers Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), it provides background on the importance of scale, symmetry, framing hierarchy, grids, and more. We trust that our guide on the top Graphic Design Courses in LA has assisted you in making an informed decision and initiating your design journey.

Embark on a creative journey with our meticulously crafted graphic design courses to unleash your artistic potential. Taught by top universities and industry leaders, these courses cover a vast spectrum of graphic design, from fundamental design principles to advanced digital illustration techniques. Explore the intricacies of typography, color theory, branding, and layout design using industry-standard software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

The curriculum also covers essential design concepts such as colour theory, typography, composition, design theory, and more, making it an ideal starting point for those seeking to embark on a career in graphic design. Dive into the exciting and rapidly expanding field of electronic music! Learn fundamental programming and software skills to start creating compelling digital compositions. Premium membership and fee-based certificates available; see Kadenze website for details. Do you want to take your experience in a creative field or industry into your own hands and become your own boss?

I figured this exercise would be a good precursor to revamping my logo. The first week is about half reading and half video lessons, though the readings are mostly general program introductions. Following this there is a peer-graded assignment in addition to reviewing the work of others who have also completed the assignment. Many exercises in the course can let you practice the skills needed in graphic design. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. A bit too basic for someone who has already had experience in design, but is great anyway cause it breaks things back down to the simplest parts to help you remember roots.

Of course is an online marketplace providing video courses led by accredited experts in different professional fields. The platform offers over 1000 courses on various topics subjects – perfect for beginners, as well as intermediate users who want to master their skills. On the learning platform Envato Tuts, you will find over 1200 video courses on all kinds of subjects in the fields of graphic design and illustration, web design, code, photo and video, and more. All courses allow you to learn at your own pace and follow your own learning path. Creative Live is a learning platform providing online classes in creative fields like art and design, photo and video, music, crafts, and more.

CU-Boulder is a dynamic community of scholars and learners on one of the most spectacular college campuses in the country. In this first module I will summarize the assignments and expectations of this course. This Specialization doesn't carry university credit, but some universities may choose to accept Specialization Certificates for credit.

Get Started as a UX or Graphic Designer

Table Of Content

• Coursera’s Graphic Design Specialization – In Summary
• Skills you can learn in Business Essentials
• Graphic design classes on Creative Live
• Program Gallery
• Effective Communication Capstone Project
• Introduction to Typography
• Build necessary skills.
• The 14 best online graphic design courses in 2021

This fundamentals course highlights the importance of aesthetics and designing through a different lens and is geared towards designers, illustrators, and many creative types who want to expand their knowledge and abilities. This course is dedicated to color theory principles, color terminology, and using color to enhance your work. If you're a designer or creative professional interested in expanding your knowledge specifically about using color in design, this is for you. Sooner or later, you'll need to know how to use different Adobe programs if you're serious about graphic design. This course is great for beginners and creative types who want to learn new skills whether it's making a logo, invitation, or website.

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The 14 Best Online Graphic Design Courses to Take in 2021.

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Coursera’s Graphic Design Specialization – In Summary

You can access your lectures, readings and assignments anytime and anywhere via the web or your mobile device. If you want to learn graphic design fundamentals without taking a class, check out Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell. This book has 125 different principles of design; some of which are basic fundamentals you need to know and others that are absolutely mind blowing principles about how people see and learn. Quiz answers are circulated online and design projects that have been submitted are just ripped right from the site and plagiarized. It took less than two weeks before my final project for Brand New Brand was being plagiarized by other students. As one of the nine public community colleges within the Los Angeles Community College District, LATTC boasts nearly a century of experience in providing top-tier education.

Skills you can learn in Business Essentials

I picked up a set of transferable formal and conceptual tools for “making and communicating” in graphic design. I found a lot of inspiration from historical and modern designers ranging from Paul Klee, Herbert Bayer to Lester Beall, Paul Rand, etc. I spent 3 hours a week for four months to complete the entire specialization, including 1 hour for classes and 2 hours for homework. I wanted to take more time practicing what I learned each week in my daily work. I have seen others finishing the entire specialization in a month, which is more cost-effective.

Graphic design classes on Creative Live

Your skills will not only grow, but the more you create, the more likely you will create something awesome. This concept translates well into the majority of of real world design problems. Maybe if I took the entire specialization I could tell new designers if it’s a program worth investing in or not. In addition, I’ve been out of design school for a long time and I’m sure this program will probably be able to teach me something new.

Program Gallery

Faculty are relentless in their pursuit to get students to excel, and to do work they didn’t think possible. I think that process of examining my own work, critically, as well as the work of the team I have here at The Whitney, is one that I use every day, and contributes to the success of everything we do. Students are trained in print and publication design; web and interface design; motion graphics for broadcast and film; branding, identity and type design; as well as for careers in design history and education.

There was also work submitted that had stock photo site watermarks on them, making the plagiarism very obvious. Students are taught about denotation and connotation, about iteration and experimentation in imagemaking, how different typefaces communicate, and how to create symbols and patterns. Students are also taught some key design principles such as space, texture, form, direction, scale, and weight. I’ve reviewed each course in the specialization separately, but here I want to talk about the program as a whole, in addition to using the Coursera model for online learning.

Introduction to Typography

Kadenze is a commercial, massive open online course (MOOC) provider that offers courses geared towards art, music and creative technology. This California Institute of the Arts course is aimed at beginners entering the field, or students interested in learning more about visual culture and analysis. Alison is an online learning platform that provides free courses for everyone to enroll in and complete.

You’ll need some presentation software, such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple's Keynote, to take the course. Taught by Louise Sandhaus and Lorraine Wild, it traces the emergence of design as a recognised practice, explains why things look the way they do, and how designers approach specific design problems in their work. Coursera is a venture-backed, education-focused technology company founded by professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, which offers online courses from top schools such as Stanford and Yale. Iveta is a passionate writer at GraphicMama who has been writing for the brand ever since the blog was launched. She keeps her focus on inspiring people and giving insight on topics like graphic design, illustrations, education, business, marketing, and more. You will also learn Adobe Xd from the basics – how to create a web layout and working wireframe in the software, and many more skills.

Gain practical skills and a deep understanding of visual communication, preparing you to create impactful, visually appealing designs. Join our community of creative minds, and start transforming your ideas into visually stunning artworks with our graphic design courses. Explore our graphic design courses for beginners and gain knowledge in various topics. Learn about design principles- balance, contrast, color theory, typography, and composition—master industry-standard design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign. Understand the fundamentals of color theory and typography to create visually appealing designs. Develop skills in layout and composition, image editing, and branding and identity design.

The course duration for the part-time program is 3 months whereas the full-time program spans 9 months. Three years after finishing my BFA at Carnegie Mellon I decided to change the trajectory of my career. I wanted to do different types of work and learn to incorporate a personal voice into what I was making. When I looked into the MFA Graphic Design Program at CalArts, I felt inspired by the work of the faculty—all of whom became my mentors. There’s a definite rigor to the Program—a level of excellence that is insisted upon.

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This course helps students to take a project to an interactive level from the initial concept by incorporating the UX Research and Design principles. If you are interested in a product designer job, graphic design skills are essential, but many more to learn beyond that. Core skills like user research, product thinking, system mapping, interaction design, storytelling are not covered in this specialization and will need some extra building. To build a design portfolio, you will need at least 2-3 complex and realistic projects.

If you're considering a career in graphic design (or simply want to gain some quick new skills), this course is designed with beginners in mind. The basics are covered, from images and layouts to logo creation and common design issues to avoid. If you learn best through hands-on learning, you'll want to consider this course that focuses on all the core principles of graphic design, with plenty of assignments to practice and incorporate the skills you learn. In the imagemaking course, students are taught a little about how to critique art and how to make variations of a single object in many styles, which is similar to what was taught in the fundamentals course. Students are also introduced to the idea of different levels of abstraction in design, how to arrange images to portray specific design principles like scale, space, and figure/ground.

I’ve been a professional graphic designer for over fifteen years now, but this specialization is catered to brand new designers. Eventually, I figured it might actually be useful to take all five courses from an expert (ish) perspective and review them, beginning with the Coursera Fundamentals of Graphic Design. This week introduces you to the importance of recognizing good design as the starting place for creating professional, attractive work of your own. We will look to the ubiquitous world of graphic design to establish a vocabulary of successful design and to find inspiration for our own projects. We will also discuss course prerequisites and review a basic digital design glossary that will help you navigate your chosen application. The Graphic Design Certificate program introduces students to the foundational skills required to excel in the industry.

A shorter course than the others on our list, the Accessibility, and Inclusive Design course can be completed in 22 hours. Within that time, students will learn how to explore adaptive strategies, assistive technologies, and major types of disabilities. Taking 5 months to complete, students will be fluent in user research along with evaluation and prototyping practices that are necessary to create a good user experience through intuitive interfaces.

However, your experience level significantly affects the wages you can anticipate. For example, an entry-level design manager with less than a year of experience can expect to earn an average compensation package of ₹5,60,000 [1]. Design management is essential because businesses can use design elements to stand out from their competition and distinguish themselves from their offering and branding. Its usefulness extends into almost every business aspect, from product development and launch to operations. With the number of courses available, you can’t go wrong with any course.

17 Best Graphic Design Software Options to Use in 2024

Table Of Content

• Autodesk Sketchbook: Best Graphic Design Software for Drawing
• Best YouTube Alternatives: Top Monetization Platforms (
• Divi Products & Services
• Which free PC graphic design app is the best?
• Best for Budget-Conscious Image Editors

Its versatility ensures compatibility with almost any tool currently available. Our job was to narrow down and guide you to the top 11 graphic design tools out there for creatives. So, take a closer look at what exactly you are expecting from the software and compare the features above to decide “the one” made for you. With Figma’s free graphic design tool, you can easily add design to the process of making digital products. The software is easy to use thanks to its layout, menu system, and features. You and your team will find it simpler to work on this website and mobile app design thanks to the collaboration functionality.

Autodesk Sketchbook: Best Graphic Design Software for Drawing

Its extensive toolset is an asset to professionals to retouch photos, create stunning graphics, and design intricate compositions. VistaCreate is an online graphic design tool for those in need of original and impressive visual content. It allows creating customizable social media, web, print, and ad content for your personal and professional needs. With its intuitive online editor, not only does it offer a massive library of trendy templates, but it also lets you download content and create your own designs from scratch. Genially makes design easy with a user-friendly interface and robust options that allow designers to create their own artwork from scratch.

Best YouTube Alternatives: Top Monetization Platforms (

It features the top apps and online tools for editing images, creating vector files, collaborating with others, and finding the best high-quality media for your project. Our experts test graphic design software in a way that's both comprehensive and mimics real-world use. Firstly, we assess the user interface for intuitiveness and efficiency, considering how easy it will be for both beginners and advanced users to pick up. Sketch is a Mac-only graphic design program that focuses mainly on digital design. These digital designs are used to create websites, apps, and interfaces.

Divi Products & Services

Haikei is a fresh breath in graphic design, perfect for designers looking to push creative boundaries with AI-powered tools. While it may not replace traditional design software, it is a powerful complement to innovative design tasks. Haikei stands out with its unique approach, combining traditional design elements with AI-powered capabilities. It’s designed for designers looking to experiment and push the boundaries of graphic design. The tool excels in creating abstract patterns, gradients, and shapes, adding a modern twist to design projects.

Pixlr — Best for Photo Editing

Screely offers a niche solution for quickly turning screenshots into presentable and clean graphics. It’s a straightforward tool, perfect for enhancing visuals for presentations or web content. With minimal design features, it focuses on simplicity and speed, rather than complexity. Screely is ideal for anyone needing to polish screen captures with a professional touch.

Adobe Creative Cloud Express (Formerly Adobe Spark): Best Graphic Design Software for Amateurs

All of the apps included in the Adobe Creative Cloud (previously called the Adobe Creative Suite) is without a doubt the best graphic design software for Mac. Below are a few of the ones that I use most often in my own graphic design business. It’s worth splurging on the paid version because then you can work offline.

Creative Cloud Express

CorelDraw gives you all the professional-level features to create illustrations, logos, and marketing materials. It’s an excellent program for anyone who wants to create vector-based graphics. If graphic design is part of your professional life, CorelDraw is a must-have software. There are four types of symmetry that you can experiment with, and there are unlimited layers that you can work on.

Graphic designers know that it can take a while to do this, which is why this app comes in handy. Canva has a range of pre-created templates too, which gives you a good start with certain types of design project. You can use it to craft logos and other types of branding, if you don't need anything too intricate, although it pales when compared to the likes of Affinity and Illustrator. This makes it hard to review Affinity Publisher, or indeed any of the Affinity apps, in isolation.

Best for Budget-Conscious Image Editors

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It comes with a suite of tools you can use to add more powerful features for editing photography and typography. You can use CorelDRAW Graphics Suite on all major computer platforms, including Windows, Mac, Web, and iPad. Adobe Photoshop stands as the premier choice in the realm of photo editing and manipulation software.

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Unsplash is completely free to use, web-based, and boasts a library of over 3 million photos taken by professional photographers. All photos are royalty-free, meaning you don’t need to pay or ask permission to use them. Palette Cam is a free, lightweight app for selecting color codes, creating palettes, and finding artistic inspiration.

Pixpa is an easy, all-in-one portfolio website builder for photographers & creators to create portfolio websites with a built-in online store, blog, and client galleries. You also need to think out of the box, find your own expression and figure out how to present your work in the best way possible. At Pixpa, we have witnessed (and helped) thousands of designers around the world create their design portfolio websites. We have curated a list of our favorite design portfolio websites for you to explore and learn from. Technology has come a long way, and software is now intuitive and helps a user express creativity more freely. Selecting the right platform would depend on your work and what you want to achieve with the software.

The 14 Best Free Graphic Design Software for Marketers and Beginners

Table Of Content

• Minimum 20 user reviews published on review websites in the last two years
• Best Graphic Design Software for Windows
• UI Graphics: Check New Illustration Styles in Ouch Vector Library
• Adobe Illustrator: Best Graphic Design Software for Illustrators
• Related Graphic Design Programs
• Affinity Publisher: Best for linking up with other apps

Adobe Photoshop is the best graphic design software out there for digital designs. You can manipulate photos in any way and edit them, so it’s almost like Lightroom but with a lot more graphic design capabilities. Easil is the best graphic design software for beginners, and I only recently learned about it. I’m currently a designer for a marketing company, and they’ve been using Easil for years. Krita is last but definitely not least on this list of best free graphic design software. This one is pretty underrated, but if you’re a graphic designer on a budget, you’ll find that it will help many of your projects.

Minimum 20 user reviews published on review websites in the last two years

There are tons of free templates in many different sizes that you can use and tweak as needed. Canva templates have saved me many times when I couldn’t get enough inspiration from Pinterest. Here are 18 apps for animation ideal for anyone getting started in 2024 – for 2D & 3D alike. Whether you’ve got a blog, an ecommerce site, or a portfolio, Webflow is the perfect solution for showcasing all your designs, without any of the headache. After the free trial is up, customers must pay a single fee to continue using the platform — $69.99 for Mac OS and Windows and $18.49 for iPad.

Best Graphic Design Software for Windows

The pre-loaded Microsoft Paint on most computers can be useful to many designers to create something beautiful, yet basic. Pixlr is a suite of three apps that work in the browser or via iOS and Android apps. You don't have to sign up to use them, and you can get going straight away. We do not sell a business opportunity, “get rich quick” program or money-making system. We believe, with education, individuals can be better prepared to make investment decisions, but we do not guarantee success in our training.

UI Graphics: Check New Illustration Styles in Ouch Vector Library

The user interface is sleek and easy to navigate, and you can find a plethora of photos, illustrations, or icons within the app. What makes it stand out is that it puts speeding up the designer’s workflow at the top of the list. Photoshop’s AI tools eliminate monotonous tasks, helping you save time and improve productivity. Meanwhile, its vast selection of features makes Photoshop an excellent option for projects that require more than photo editing work. However, Adobe takes the cake here in terms of video and photo editing tools. Its features are more powerful, and its AI allows users to enhance photos with minimal effort.

You can create a house style on the fly, making it an excellent timesaver. Advanced users will probably find Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to be their tools of choice, especially since they’re the industry standards. If you don’t already have your own library of assets, you’ll be pleased to find that CorelDRAW comes with over 10,000 digital images, 2,000 photos and 1,000 fonts for use in your designs. Definitely one of the best free graphic design programs if you’re a beginner or hobbyist. If you’re used to professional-level programs like the Adobe Creative Suite, you’ll probably be annoyed by the interface. Like Photoshop, Illustrator has a bit of a steep learning curve, but it’s more than worth it if you want to do pro-level vector design.

However, it forces you to do without some major creature comforts, such as easy installation on macOS. It has a simple interface and many of the same powerful tools, offering support for digital retouching and editing of all types of files and its ability to create new designs from scratch quickly. Blender is an open-source, 3D creation suite that makes it possible for graphic designers to create everything from rigging to animation to rendering and motion tracking.

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Related Graphic Design Programs

The icon creator allows you to instantly design unique icons, vectors, and logos, even if you don’t have any design skills. Most business people often shy away from free software for valid reasons, but Inkscape is certainly worth looking at before you commit to buying CorelDRAW or an Adobe CC subscription. If you are opting for monthly payment, the pro plan will cost you US$9 per month and for yearly US$7 per month. Diamond plan is available at US$19 and US$12 per month(Monthly and annual payment).

Inkscape is to Illustrator what GIMP is to Photoshop – a feature-packed open-source alternative created by a team of dedicated and talented enthusiasts. It's hugely adaptable and powerful, and an excellent tool for graphic designers. Visme offers a free plan with limited access to its design elements and templates. In order to access more storage, chat support, team collaboration, and privacy controls, users must upgrade to one of their paid subscriptions which starts at $12.25/month. The platform will appeal to digital artists because those are the people behind the project.

Affinity Publisher: Best for linking up with other apps

You can choose between monthly payments and yearly payments, but there is no way to make a one-time purchase. A great option for freelancers or mid-sized organizations, Lunacy has no subscription or up-front fees and allows up to 10 editors on the platform at a time. To sum up, Lunacy is a great fit for beginner designers since it gives an opportunity to work with professional tools from Sketch or Figma completely for free for everyone. Experienced designers will love the Live Sketch Tool, and 3D digital artists will love the new Draw in Perspective feature.

However, while we found some of the unique filters and tools interesting, VectorStyler is twice the price of Affinity Designer, our top pick as the best non-subscription vector software. It does offer some of the tools that Affinity Designer lacks, so it's worth considering if you need them, but we find it's usually possible to find a workaround. It also now has an iPad app and a browser-based app as well as the Windows and Mac desktop software, giving you more flexibility. This has its advantages in that you automatically get all the latest updates to the software but it also makes Illustrator quite a lot more expensive than comparable programs in the long term. It's best to sign up when there's an offer so you at least get a discount for your first year. See our full hands-on Adobe Illustrator review for more details, and see our guide to how to download Adobe Illustrator.

Gravit Designer Pro is available for $69.99 for your first year and $99.99 for each following year. The Xara Designer Pro+ is available at a monthly subscription of $16.95 per month. Affinity Designer is a clean, capable, and cheaper alternative to Adobe Illustrator.

Other handy features include a pen tool, advanced border controls, non-destructive object styling, etc. Moreover, this platform offers plenty of features to help you optimize your workflow, like giving you the option to customize keyboard shortcuts, create custom workspaces for different tasks, and more. Affinity Designer’s dual environment will come in handy for designers who work with both raster and vector images. It allows you to switch between pixel and vector workspaces with the press of a button. Moreover, this platform allows you to read, edit, and save Sketch files from a PC, making it easy to collaborate with Mac users on your team. When coupled with its advanced AI, Adobe InDesign will help you get the work done quickly without giving you too many headaches.