Red & Yellow launches a series of design-focused courses

These part-time contact and online courses are aimed at working professionals who want to learn how to create beautiful designs, magazine layouts and other visual marketing materials. The courses will equip delegates with all the skills required to use industry-leading software packages like Adobe InDesign and PhotoShop, and will provide a solid grounding in design principles to ensure students can create beautiful, impactful visuals.

Today's online and offline marketers need a wide range of inter-disciplinary skills. In the fast-paced marketing world, having the ability to create beautiful designs and marketing materials quickly - without the hassle of briefing and managing a designer - is fast becoming a necessary skill.

Four reasons why marketers should skill up in design:

• Save time and money. Quite simply, if you can do some of the daily design work, corrections and updates yourself, you'll save the time and expense of hiring a designer to help you. While you will still need expert design help for bigger projects, being able to manage small maintenance and update tasks can streamline your marketing process, especially when dealing with fast-changing online content.
  
• Control your brand. Nobody knows your brand better that you do - so having the design skills to express it is essential for maintaining a coherent, consistent brand presence. Being able to create your own designs, even simple ones, means that you will be able to express your brand in a dynamic and visual way.
  
• Get creative. Learning a skill like design not only makes you a more versatile employee, it also gives you an avenue to express yourself and add something new and interesting to your daily tasks. Opening yourself up to a different way of working can also help spark ideas for existing tasks and projects.
  
• Design goes beyond art. Design is a facet of almost any product or service, not to mention the experience your customers have with your brand. Understanding design from one perspective can give you insights and ideas for other parts of the business - such as building a more effective website, creating a friendlier product or conceptualising a new way to reach your audience.

The courses are billed as "Zero to Hero" programmes. Delegates do not need any prior design or software experience, and will learn everything from basic tools and functions through to aesthetic principles, complex tasks like animations and working correctly with files.

The series will kick off with Adobe Indesign, starting 13 October.