I told you before that I signed up for a Skillshare membership here. The truth is I’m now addicted to it. After signing up for a 14 days free trial, I accidentally upgraded my account to one year subscription (*sigh*). But turns out, it becomes one of the best thing that happened to me. The annual membership costs 96 USD, which means 8 USD/month. That time, the rate was still in IDR 12.000, so I just paid around IDR 96,000/month to learn all the things I wanted! :))
Until this day, I’ve been enrolled to 70 classes and completed 42 classes! Not all the classes turns out informative, but there are several who I love dearly. By the way, in my opinion Skillshare is a great tool to learn. In each class, the teacher will assign you through a certain goal (called project). The class will teach you the basic tools and information to accomplish that goal. In the end, you can post your own project on the Project Class section. You can get feedback from the teacher and your peer on class. In addition to that, the teacher usually shares some course materials that you can download and some references of further learning.
Skillshare also occasionally holds some live sessions with a certain theme to get more interaction from their students to learn more classes and to post more project class. Recently, they held 30 Days Drawing challenge where you need to enroll to some classes and post project for each of the classes. If you decided to join the session, they will send you some syllabus that you need to follow and send you reminder for each deadline classes. In the end of the session, the teacher will select one winner to be given some kind of prize, such as a free annual premium membership. It’s totally fun to learn many creative classes and meet a lot of artist or designer that soon become one of my favorite.
Each classes usually range from 15 minutes to 2 hours, with average classes of an hour. But I love to find classes that only takes 30 – 50 minutes so I can watch it on lunch break between eating my lunch box on the desk :)) I think it is effective to learn something for under an hour because you got time to start putting some interest on it and have enough time to research it by yourself. Here are my recommendations for 5 classes under an hour that I found enjoyable:
Making Your First Zine: From Idea to Illustration
with Kate Bingaman-Burt
46 min
Among all, this is the course I trully enjoy. When people talks to you about what they really like, there is a certain emotion in their eyes. It can be really contagious and that what Kate does. At this course, Kate teaches how to create a zine. She really encourages to make a zine with any little ideas with many different material.s Plus she showcases some of the most interesting zines, the history behind zine, and other resources to find/buy a zine, and even sale yours. The project class itself is a very interesting place to browse around because the task is simple and everybody just let loose making it.
Drawing Daily Monsters: Finding Inspiration in a Drop of Ink
with Stefan G. Bucher
47 min
It is not a secret that I love monsters. The only thing that I enjoy drawing when I was a kid is some googly eyes bat, with wings and big boots. Stefan is the man behind Daily Monster, where he gets his inspiration from daily ink blobs. He lured us to enter his imagination of each monster he created and the story behind it. The creative process between each monster is so fascinating and daring.
Typography That Works: Typographic Composition and Fonts
with Ellen Lupton
36 min
Ellen Lupton demonstrates how to make simple and beautiful name card using some classic fonts like Sans Serif and Serif. She shown us how to create more impact only with changing the composition and the size of the fonts. Ellen, being a curator at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, also tells the detail history of classic fonts which is so interesting in my opinion.
Brand an Online Shop: Create a Cohesive Product Line
with Melanie Abrantes
34 min
Melanie is an entrepreneur and a very passionate person. In this class, she breakdowns some of the essential thing for people who wants to start and developing their new products, as well as branding it. There are many useful insight that I find valuable. Including the cycle of preparing collection, how to tell the story between the products, etc.
Beautiful Plastic: Creating a Great Designer Toy
with Paul Budnitz
41 min
There is something about monster and weird toy that allures me! Paul Budnitz is the founder of Kidrobot, creator of designer art toy. In this class, he told the history of art designer toys as well as product sketching.
Since I found a lot of interesting class, I will be sharing other Skillshare classes here next time. Have fun learning, beautiful rockets :3
