Pitman Training Graphic Design Diploma

Patvegas1

New Member
Hi all.

I am a self taught graphic designer with about 18 years experience in the graphic design/printing industry (I'm 36 and in full time employment). The majority of my work involves working in the pre-press department of a printers which does involve some graphic design work but about 95% of the work comes in from external designers so we just set it up for the presses. I'm looking to get out of the printing industry and move into a 100% graphic design role as this is what I love doing. I have a pretty decent portfolio and was accepted onto the BA course through Hertfordshire University with no real qualifications on the basis of my experience and portfolio. After further investigation and discussions with the course advisor, the money was a big issue as i just couldn't afford £14k.

Being self taught obviously brings with it a lot of bad habits and sometimes I can get frustrated with not really having an theory or composition knowledge to fall back on and was trying to look for a decent online course that didn't cost the world or take longer than 2 years to complete. I came across the Pitman Training Diploma and was wondering if anyone had completed this course and how the feel it helped them and if it was worth taking. If not has anyone else taken a decent course that doesn't cost over £2000.

I'm not necessarily in it for the qualification perse as I know I have a lot of experience but would like to have a solid base to fall back on. I guess I'm not at the level I want to be at and want to do something about it.

Any help or pointers would be very much appreciated.
 
Hi Patvegas1 welcome to the forums.

I'm not familiar with Pittman training, but it rings a bell, not sure for the right or wrong reasons...

Seems like the course would be wasted on you as you already understand all the tools to begin with. And looking at the course material looks like an intro to that.
 
Thanks for your reply Hankscorpio.

I have heard of Pitman Training before and I think they're a pretty decent training company. I've got a consultation appointment with them on Thursday. No commitment as it's just a initial discussion. It's a fair comment about knowing the tools as I work with Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign and Acrobat on a daily basis. It's just knowing that I don't have that underlying base of theory and composition that I can fall back on but i guess it's the same with other self taught designers. I guess it's the fact that I'm not progressing at the moment and feel I'm going in the opposite direction as work is drying up at my employers. If I looked for another job with a design agency I don't know if just my experience would be enough for anything other than a junior position. Being in the printing industry and not dealing directly with designers my eyes are a bit blinkered.

I know there's a lot of free courses online I can take but I'm not sure how well structured or how deep they delve. Any pointers?
 
I'm not sure how useful it would be for you since you already have experience in the field but you can try Udemy courses. They definitely fit your budget and you can tailor pick the courses that will be more beneficial to you.
 
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