All Graphic Design Courses for High Schoolers classes include
Free retakes
Detailed curriculum
Live instructor
Flexible rescheduling
Certificate of Completion
Graphic Design Bootcamp for High School Students
Graphic Design Bootcamp for High School Students
In this four-week summertime graphic design bootcamp, high school students learn the principles of great design and typography from a design industry professional while using professional-grade Adobe Creative Cloud software applications to create digital drawings, logos, advertisements, magazine layouts, and more. Students complete the week by creating a digital portfolio to showcase their work. No prior art or design experience is necessary for this program. This graphic design class is generally offered for two weeks only each year in the summer, yet for the summer of 2021 the graphic design bootcamp for high school students will occur live online over four consecutive weeks over the summer. This updated schedule allows for shorter online days, yet covers the same materials in live, small-group workshops. The program is led by live instructors that teach our professional development courses. No previous experience with graphic design or previous design software skills are required. If you are interested in a shorter duration, consider the two-week graphic design course for high school students.
Graphic Design Bootcamp Topics Covered:
- Principles of great graphic design
- Digital drawing and tracing
- Typography and text effects
- Creating print advertisements
- Editing and retouching images
- Designing and creating a logo
- Print design layouts
- Conducting a design critique
- Creating a digital design portfolio
Applications used for the graphic design class (all supplied for in-class use):
- Adobe Photoshop: Learn photo retourching, color adjustments, to create images for use in digital, print, or online.
- Adobe Illustrator: Discover how to draw logos, graphics, patterns and icons.
- Adobe InDesign: Find out how to create layouts for brochures, flyers, magazines and posters.
By the end of the graphic design bootcamp, students will gain:
- Knowledge of core design principles
- Basic understanding of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
- Insight into the opportunities and challenges of a design career
- Portfolio of graphic design work
Course Dates
This graphic design course meets online every weekday from 10 am - 1 pm.
Course meets for four weeks from July 5 to July 30, 2021.
60 hours of class time.
Graphic Design Bootcamp for High School Students - Sample Daily Schedule (summer)
9:45 am - Log-in to live online classroom
10:00 am - Workshops start: learn new topics and techniques with live instructor
11:00 am - Complete practice exercises
11:30 am - Learn new topics and techniques
12:00 pm - Project planning; Individual or collaborative project work
12:30 pm - Review and share projects
1:00 pm - Class ends for the day
All times are Eastern. While the start and end-times remain consistent, the in-class schedule may vary based upon materials being covered.
This course is available individually or as part of these certificate programs:
Please call 800-851-9237 or 781-376-6044 to schedule a course.
Topics Covered in Graphic Design Bootcamp for High School Students
Understanding Graphic Design
- Why design is important
- Understanding the International Typographic Style
The use of sketching for graphic design
- Low fidelity sketching
- Developing innovative concepts
- Creating flexibility in early stages of design
The use of space
- Understanding and using negative space
- Creating designs that utilize white and non-white space
Balance as a design element
- Understanding types of balance
- Experimenting with symmetrical and asymmetrical designs
- Experimenting with weight in order to create more dynamic designs
Using type as a design element: Typography
- Typeface scenarios.
- Understanding which typefaces are best to use in different situations
- Basic typography rules that help improve viewer’s experience
- Building an effective and successful information hierarchy with a type ramp
Design proportions
- Building a beautifully proportioned layout for your design
- How positioning can affect aesthetics of your design
- Incorporating the golden mean into your designs
Color as a design element
- Understanding HSL (Hue, Saturation and Luminosity)
- Designing with color
Using Photoshop in Graphic Design
- Photoshop workspace, tools, and panels
- Editing specific areas using selections in Photoshop
- Creating selections to limit editing area
- Color Correcting Images with Photoshop
- Understanding Photoshop Color Modes
- Introduction to Content-Aware Tools in Photoshop
- Content–Aware retouching in Photoshop
- Using Photoshop layers
- Advanced use of Photoshop layers
- Combining images
- Retouching images
- Using Photoshop blending modes
- Advanced editing techniques
Using Illustrator in Graphic Design
- When to use Illustrator vs. Photoshop
- Understanding the Illustrator Workspace
- Illustrator Essential Skills
- Drawing using Illustrator's Tools
- Creating, applying and saving color
- Adding text to designs and applying formatting
- Using Layers to organize Illustrator artwork
- Exporting Illustrator artwork for use in digital, print, and video projects
Using InDesign for Graphic Design
- Understanding InDesign Tools
- Creating documents using InDesign
- Navigating within InDesign documents
- Adding, editing, and formatting Text using InDesign
- Adding graphics to a layout using InDesign
- Applying color to layouts using InDesign
- Transforming Objects in InDesign
- Adding, Deleting & Arranging Pages in InDesign
- Using Master Pages in InDesign
- Printing and Exporting from InDesign to share your documents
Portfolio Development
- Understanding the purpose of a portfolio
- Selecting existing artwork for portfolio
- Developing designs that showcase skills and capabilities
Differences between Graphic Design Bootcamp and Graphic Design Course for High School Students
The graphic design bootcamp is four weeks in length compared to the two-week graphic design course. As a four-week program it covers additional material, including more advanced concepts using the Adobe Creative Cloud tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. The graphic design bootcamp also allows for more time to be spent on project work and portfolio development, which is more limited in the two-week program.
There are no prerequisites for this course. It is open to high school students and middle school students ages 13 to 18.
You will receive comprehensive course materials with this class developed by the Adobe Certified Instructors at AGI. AGI instructors have created many of the official training guides and books for Adobe Systems.