For a creative person, learning and evolution never stop. Starting (or growing) your creative career in 2023 requires some skills to help you glide seamlessly into the digital world of the modern day.
You’ll also need strong business knowledge and productivity skills to help you sail through the waters of creative professions. We have done the research and in this article, you will find a carefully curated list of courses that will boost your creative career.
Top 10 courses for creatives
A creative career is divided into the “creative” and “career” aspects. For many creatives, the latter proves difficult.
Time management, structure, focus, and goal-setting may not be your strongest skills, but they constitute the backbone of productivity in any career path. One course that will give you a leg up is this one by Nikki Henderson, a Marketing Copywriter who describes herself as a colorful content writer responsible for developing a ton of user education content for Asana, a top productivity software that helps teams coordinate and manage projects collaboratively.
This beginner-level course with modules such as “Increase Productivity”, “Set Goals” and “Stick to a Schedule” has had 11,890 students, 84% of which stated that it either met or exceeded their expectations. That’s quite a feat for a course totaling only 23 minutes!
All in all, this course is excellent for creatives who need a bit of a primer on how to handle their workflow and productivity.
In 2023, no career path is excluded from the power of social media. Creative careers specifically benefit from the community-building, networking, and visibility opportunities that social media provides. Unfortunately, having a social media presence that converts into business success is much easier said than done. Enter this course by Andy J. Pizza: illustrator, podcaster, and designer.
This course features twelve lessons aimed at simplifying social media, increasing engagement, identifying potential followers, earning subscribers, and building brand awareness.
At 1 hour and 32 minutes long, this course caters to creatives in all phases of their careers. 10,781 creatives have already enrolled in this course, and a whopping 84% rated it as “exceeded expectations”.
This course is definitely for you if you find the idea of social media for your creative career a bit daunting, or if you just want to know more about the algorithm.
Still, in line with the importance of social media marketing and visibility for your creative brand, this course is your passport to getting those numbers!
Cat Coquillette (artist, educator, and owner of the CatCoq brand) shares her top strategies as an artist who has been noticed primarily through social media and tapped to collaborate with institutions such as Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom, Buzzfeed, and Teen Vogue.
This class will teach you to leverage social media to reach new audiences, grow followers, and build engagement.
By guiding you through creating the perfect post and crafting the perfect bio, as well as giving you tips on when and how often to post, deepening your understanding of analytics, and sharing hashtag dos and don’ts, the course aims to solidify your new side hustle or an established brand in the minds of your audience.
Take a leap and join the 97,000 people already benefiting from this course.
The best way to let people know about your creative career is to tell them yourself. This course will teach you how to do just that.
The importance of a personal brand in the modern economy of 2023 cannot be overemphasized, hence you need this 37-minute course by Hamza Khan: marketer, author, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Splash Effect, a boutique marketing and creative agency.
Over the course of 14 modules, you’ll receive a step-by-step guide to building a strong online presence through lessons such as identifying your brand perception, articulating your value proposition, completing your social profiles, selecting your channel mix, and building thought leadership.
What’s more, most of the 30,000 creatives who have taken this course testified that it exceeded their expectations, with a large number attributing that to the engaging tutor and clarity the course provides.
Whether you're a lowly beginner or a high-ranking executive, this course is what you need to build a foolproof personal brand.
As the title suggests, this course was developed with designers in mind. However, the content is applicable to all creatives, tackling the hard questions like how to price your work, engage with vendors, present to clients, understand your contract, organize and schedule your workflow, and promote your work.
Dan Kuhlken and Nathan Goldman, founders of DKNG Studios (a full-service graphic design studio with a focus on the entertainment industry), will walk you through this 1 hour, 23-minute course that’s suitable for you whether you’re just dipping your toes into the creative industry for the first time or you’ve been here a while.
If you choose to take this course, you’ll be one of 9,500 creatives learning from these industry leaders.
The key to a successful creative career is authenticity. This course, also by Andy J. Pizza, is a manual for discovering your true artistic identity, rather than just blindly following trends that do not speak to you or capture your creative essence.
In an hour and thirteen minutes, you will learn how to find your style and “creative DNA”, as well as translate your tastes into your work and essentially make your creative work a reflection of you as a person.
Regardless of creative medium or level of experience, this course has helped over 60,000 creatives and you could be next!
Figuring out the right steps to take in launching your creative career could be a little overwhelming but this course by Emma Gannon would help soothe your nerves as she takes you on a voyage through her real-life experiences with a creative's biggest enemy- fear.
Emma is a bestselling author, broadcaster, and host of the creative careers podcast, Ctrl Alt Delete. In this 43-minute course, she shares tips from her own journey of defeating fear and doubts to carve her own creative path.
It covers identifying your patterns, overcoming perfectionism, beating procrastination, and silencing your inner critic.
If you intend to start that creative career in 2023, this is an excellent head start.
Artist & entrepreneur Alicia Souza aims to help you convert your passion into profit through her course. By teaching you the basics of starting a business, creating a brand identity, and finding your market, this course will illuminate all the administrative steps that will take you to the heights of your creative career.
Launching your business, attracting customers, managing your finances, building an online store, and producing and shipping products are all covered in this 30-minute course. It truly has all the ingredients for a successful creative career in 2023.
A crucial requirement for a sterling creative career in today’s digital world is an attractive, high-quality website.
However, many creatives don’t know that it’s possible to do this themselves! Mimi Chao, an artist and author-illustrator who shares skills on mindful creativity developed this course to aid creatives all over the world.
In less than 2 hours, Mimi will teach you how to create a beautiful website using Shopify, with no coding ability required! The course includes an overview of the platform, and tutorials on key elements like planning your site, picking a theme, and all the steps involved in setting up the site pages.
This beginner level will help you just like it has helped over 10,000 other beginner creatives. Your beautiful, customer-magnet website awaits.
Over the past decade, YouTube has been a pivotal platform for thousands of creatives, and it shows no signs of slowing down in 2023.
Marques Keith Brownlee, also known professionally as MKBHD, is a YouTuber and podcast host with a community of over 13 million subscribers on his tech review channel.
In this course, Marques takes you through the processes required to establish your brand on YouTube as a creative. Across 11 modules including planning your next video; researching your topic; writing your script; planning, shooting, and editing your visuals; hooking your audience, and growing your channel, you and 78,000 other creatives will learn all the elements of content creation for YouTube.
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For creatives who want to start or grow their careers in 2023, there are a ton of resources out there to provide guidance. Sink your teeth into these courses and watch your career take off.