Using the Right Tools for Multimedia Graphics Design

The explosion of multimedia in our world today is mind-boggling. Multimedia graphics, animation and interactive flash are everywhere, from television, the internet, computer and video games, to billboards, and even your mobile phones.

This in turn is boosting the demand for professionals in the multimedia and graphics industry. Positions available in the industry are wide ranging, including multimedia/graphics designer, flash designer, photo editor and illustrator. Each of these roles requires a certain set of skill sets to marry creativity and technology.

To learn more, I went on to the internet to find out what kind of training courses are available and how I can pick up the skillset. I learned that training for multimedia/ graphics design applications are widely available from vendors, authorized training centers, local computer training schools, on DVDs or even on the internet. Classroom training offers tremendous advantages, as a trainer is available for the duration of the course to answer questions or provide additional real-life case studies or insights.

However, I find that more and more people are now turning to online training programs that offer the convenience of learning from their desktop anytime, anywhere. The key advantage of online training is that the programs are divided into multiple, short lessons such that only one software feature is taught for a 5-minute training segment.

For instance, a 2-hour training program on Photoshop will be divided into various categories such as Brush Tools, Color Adjustments, Effects, Vector Tools, and Filters. Each category is then further divided into various individual lessons on the key features or functions.

As the learner, you get greater flexibility. You can focus only on the specific features that you need to use for a particular design job on a particular day, giving you the ultimate "on-the-job" training.

One of the sites that offer this form of online training IT courses is http://www.MultimediaGraphicsDesign.com. It has a collection of over 300 online video guided courses for multimedia graphics design. And they also offer another 200 over video courses in business programming. The applications covered are very wide and I feel very comprehensive for those who are interested to pick up IT skills. Their videos are very modular and easy to follow. You can control the videos with the start, pause, rewind, forward buttons. I checked with interest and found below are some of the key courses offered:

○ Adobe Illustrator
○ Adobe InDesign
○ Adobe Photoshop
○ Adobe Captivate
○ Adobe After Effects
○ Adobe Flash
○ Search Engine Optimization
○ Sony Sound Forge
○ Sony Vegas
○ 3D Studio Max
○ Final Cut Pro
○ Discreet 3ds Max
○ Apple QuickTime Pro
○ CorelDRAW!
○ Macromedia Dreamweaver
○ Macromedia Flash
○ Macromedia Freehand
○ Microsoft FrontPage
○ Microsoft Publisher
○ QuarkXpress
○ Microsoft .Net
○ Microsoft Visual Basic
○ Microsoft Office
○ Cisco
○ C Programming
○ FileMaker
○ MYOB
○ Symantec
○ Oracle 10g
○ MySQL etc
○ …and many more

Go visit the website http://www.MultimediaGraphicsDesign.com if you are interested. They have demo videos for you to watch.

Good luck!