Creative Catalog
Creative Course Catalog for Instructors
SoftUni has proven success in design and creative education, with over 40K students already gone through the professional program and open cources.
The SoftUni Design Program includes over 500 hours worth of comprehensive, contemporary educational content, teaching aids, and learning materials, in English.
As part of each course from our Creative catalog, both in the program and an open one, we offer:
- Lesson plans;
- Teaching presentations;
- Exercises and homework assignments;
- Exam projects and tests;
- An optional quiz system for final test evaluation.
SoftUni Design Program:
The program’s duration depends entirely on your own course plan. If you choose to do 2 lectures a week, you’ll need approximately 1 month for the introductory course, 6 months for the Foundations Module, and additional 8 months for each professional track, or 15 months altogether for a single iteration of the program.
The basics course’s final exam is a 50-question multiple-choice test. Both Fundamentals and Professional Modules end with a 10-question multiple-choice test and a project.
Design Basics Course
The program starts from the very basics of Design to level up the students’ knowledge and skills. The teaching curriculum includes both lectures and practical exercises. The final exam is a 50-question multiple-choice test.
The syllabus includes:Â Â
- What is Graphic Design;
- What is composition;
- Color theory;
- Color context;
- Pallets and profiles;
- Grids and guides;
- Raster and vector;
- Resolution;
- How to use the Golden ratio;
- Typography;
- Pictograms, ideograms, icons, and logos;
- Design terminology;
- Design best practices;
- Popular Design software;
- How to create a portfolio.
Fundamental Module
The Fundamentals module includes 6 courses that lay the foundations of Graphic Design, Web Design, and Motion Design. Each concentrates on delivering practical understanding and mastery of a specific Adobe product – Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, or the principles of improving User Experience and User Interface. All curriculums include live demos, individual and group exercises. The final exam consists of a 10-question multiple-choice test and a project.
Please note that our offer does not include licensing the programs themselves neither to you as an individual coach or an organization, nor to your students. If you wish to include that as part of your own courses, you’ll have to contact Adobe and make separate arrangements.
Illustrator
- Introduction to vector graphics;
- Menus and panels in Illustrator;
- Vectorizing a simple object;
- Vectorizing a complex object;
- Typography and color;
- Creating a logo;
- Creating branding elements;
- Illustrator tips and tricks.
Premiere Pro
- Introduction to Premiere Pro;
- Montage techniques for different genres;
- Video editing automation;
- Green screen;
- Adding text;
- Color corrections, grading, LUTs;
- Working with build-in effects;
- How to properly export a project.
After Effects
- Introduction to After Effects;
- Basics of Animation;
- Working with text;
- Infographics;
- Processing raster images;
- 3D in Animation;
- Creating a storyboard;
- Designing a character;
- Adding sound.
Photoshop
- Introduction to Photoshop;
- Keyboard shortcuts;
- Creating a CD cover;
- Creating a movie poster;
- Creating a book cover.
UX Design
- Introduction to User Experience Design;
- Basic theories and principles;
- Creating personas and scenarios;
- User journey;
- Creating contextual storyboards;
- Paper and digital prototypes;
- Making interactive prototypes with Adobe XD;
- Validation interactive prototypes with Indigo.Design.
UI Design
- User Interface hierarchy and composition;
- Atomic Design;
- Creating an UI Design system;
- Web and responsive UI Design;
- Native Mobile UI Design;
- Designing for augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality;
- Â Step-by-step Design project guide.
Professional Modules
The third level of SoftUni Design Program consists of specialized courses for 3 of the most popular profession in the industry – Graphic Designer, UX and UI Designer and Animation and Motion Designer. Each track has 4 advanced courses with curriculums focused on giving expert level practical skills. Included are also live demos, projects, exercises, homework assignments, and workshops. The final exam for each course in the modules is a 10-question multiple-choice test and a project.
Graphic Designer
Graphic Design Experts are involved in the creative process of building almost every product or service today. The industry is very fast-paced, with constant software updates and trend changes. The curriculum must focus on giving practical technical skills alongside a strong understanding of design principles, ideation, branding, typography, and designing for web and print.
Graphic Design Specialized Courses
- Graphic Design for Marketing: creating an ad campaign; elements of a creative portfolio; creating a key vision; brand identity; Label Design; Package Design; brand communication; TV ads and Packshot; Web Design; banners and flyers; designing for social media.
- Logo and Visual Identity Design: logo and visual identity; logo design vs. visual identity vs. branding; elements of a visual identity; idea, process, brief; moodboards; typography; Logo Design; colors; visual identity in Print; visual identity in Digital; creating a mockup; presenting best practices; creating a brand book.
- Illustrator Advanced: graphic sculpting and style manipulation; creating brushes in Illustrator; colors and effects; proportions, balance, and composition; complex curves and style adaptations; vectorizing raster images; typography and lettering; how to go from prototype to presentation; creating personalized fonds; prepress preparation.
- Photoshop Advanced: Advertising Design; Web Design; Package Design; designing for social media; photo editing; photo manipulation; creating mockups; making collages.
UX and UI Designer
User Experience and User Interface Designers are an integral part of the modern digital world. They take both emotional and technical factors into consideration when optimizing the interactions between people and computer systems.
Essential skills to teach aspiring students are ways to understand the target audience, how to organize information in a clear and easy-to-follow structure, хов to construct the necessary wireframe, how to build mockups and prototypes, how to create meaningful visual communication, and how to validate everything afterward.
UX and UI Design Specialized Courses
- UX Design Advanced: competitive analysis of similar products; polls and interviews; menus, forms, and dialogs; user manuals, product assistance and tutorials; App Design; user and continuity tests; interface description for a design system; components, styles, and interface templates for a design system; information search and data visualization.
- UI Design Advanced: icons; illustrations; data visualization; animation and micro interactions; conversational UI; decomposition of the dialog interface; augmented, virtual, and mix realities; automation; validating UI Design with potential users; effective team collaboration.
- Illustrator Advanced: graphic sculpting and style manipulation; creating brushes in Illustrator; colors and effects; proportions, balance, and composition; complex curves and style adaptations; vectorizing raster images; typography and lettering; how to go from prototype to presentation; creating personalized fonds; prepress preparation.
- Photoshop Advanced: Advertising Design; Web Design; Package Design; designing for social media; photo editing; photo manipulation; creating mockups; making collages.
Animaton and Motion Designer
Animation and Motion Designers are among the most sought-after professionals in the industry thanks to the ever increasing use of special effects in film making. The syllabus must combine lectures and exercises to give a deeper understanding of Animation, 3D Design skills, color theory, typography, and a master-level of technical skill with industry standard software.
Animation and Motion Design Specialized Courses
- Premiere Pro Advanced: interface preview; creating the right work process; doubles; video composition; color correction techniques; audio manipulation with Audio Cli, Track Mixer, DeNoise, Unlink; how to properly export a project.
- After Effects Advanced: main plugins; Duik, Motion V2, Explode Layer Shapes, Joysticks n sliders, RubberHose; working with Graph Editor and keys; Fake 3D; fluid animation; importing vector elements from Illustrator; text manipulation; building a style; integrating multiple objects into 1; 3D camera and compositing – tracking; Joystics, Duik Rig, and rotating an object in motion.
- 3D Animation: introduction to Autodesk Maya’s interface; modeling;Â UV unfold; shaders; creating texture with Maya and Photoshop; rigging; main principles of animation; classic case studies; adjusting light; rendering with Arnold for Maya.
- 3D Animation Advanced:Â modeling an organic character; UV unfolds for an organic character; drawing textures for an organic character; rigging a humanoid character; animating motion; animating weight and balance; animating jumps; exporting animation cycles for a game engine; composing frames for animation movies.
Open Creative Courses
The open courses in our Creative catalog give practical skills of specific software or а deepened understanding of a problem or a niche issue. All courses combine theory and practice, with the syllabus consisting of many individual or group exercises and live demos.
The final exam is a 10-question test and a project.
You can include SoftUni’s creative open courses in your offerings individually or combined in shorter modules.
- Introduction to Photoshop interface;
- Raster vs. vector;
- Print vs. digital;
- Layers;
- Smart objects;
- Typography;
- Image editing and manipulation;
- Designing for Digital;
- Designing for print.
- Main tools in Illustrator:
- Color and pallets;
- Typography and text effects;
- Vectorizing a simple object;
- Vectorizing a complex object;
- Finalizing a project.
- Introduction to UI Design;
- UI and Design Basics;
- Design systems;
- Flowcharts, planning wireframes, and sketches with Figma;
- UI Graphic Design with Figma.
- Communication trough color and form;
- Retouching workflow;
- Catalog photography;
- Ad photography;
- Product photography;
- Corporate portrait photography;
- Toning and color changes;
- Transparency;
- Perspective;
- Creating a promotion ad campaign.
- Generating an idea and creating a prototype;
- Logo styles following brad identity;
- Proportion, balance, and composition;
- Typography;
- Colors;
- Mockup designs;
- Presenting a final product.
- Introduction to video recording;
- Light and lighting;
- Frame composition;
- Dramaturgy and sound;
- Video recording for advertisement;
- Video recording for music video;
- Video recording for vlog;
- Movie scenes breakdown.
- Elements of a good portfolio;
- Portfolio examples;
- Defining a personal (design) brand;
- Visual elements in a portfolio;
- Copy in a portfolio;
- Online presence;
- Offline presence;
- Creating a case study.
- History of language and writing;
- Designing a writing system;
- Specifics of a letter;
- Specifics of a printed letter;
- Typesetting and text formatting;
- Modern fonds.
- Basics of perspective, light, and saturation;
- Adding realism with materials and texture;
- Creating thumbnails in Photoshop;
- 2D unfolds of buildings, structures, and assets;
- Poly modelling, kitbash, and 3DS Max materials;
- 2D Rendering with Vray and Arnold in 3DS Max;
- Finishing a project.
- Introduction to Character Design;
- Anatomy, muscles, skeleton;
- Color theory;
- Types of materials;
- Light;
- Basic 3D block outs and grayboxing;
- Creating and executing a final concept.
- Introduction to Blender;
- Organizing a work process;
- 3D thumbnails, 3D sketching, and formulating an idea;
- Types of materials;
- Rendering;
- Model integration;
- Plugins and automation;
- Generating characters, vehicles, and buildings;
- Finalizing a project;
- Creating a portfolio.
- Introduction to ZBrush
- Sculpting an organic character;
- Sculpting attributes for an organic character;
- Texturing techniques in ZBrush;
- How to present the final model.
- Game Design Basics;
- Foundation of Game Design;
- Design Cycle;
- Game Design Document;
- Specific of digital games;
- Card game live demo;
- Game Design vs. Game Art;
- Prototyping;
- Level Design;
- Game testing.
- Introduction to Maya;
- Basic techniques in 3D character texturing;
- 3D character animation;
- Generating a movie;
- Final stages of processing animation.
- Organic form modeling;
- Hard-surface form modeling;
- Topology and techniques for creating UV unfolds;
- 3D texturing techniques in Photoshop;
- Character rigging with HumanIK in Maya;
- Creating animation cycles.
- Basic settings;
- Main objects and transformations;
- Extended and composite objects;
- Modifiers;
- Data import and export;
- Linear objects;
- Materials, mapping coordinates, and basic lighting;
- Cameras, exposure and photorealistic lighting;
- Advanced modeling and modification;
- Basic animation with keys;
- Simulation of clothes;
- Advanced rendering and post-production.
- Space organization and blocking;
- Light and lighting;
- Modeling furniture and complex ceilings with hidden lighting;
- Modeling complex objects;
- Rendering elements and setting up VR panoramas;
- Post production editing with Photoshop;
- Stylizing and advanced post-production.
- Introduction to Figma;
- Figma essentials;
- Shapes and colors;
- Text and layers;
- Images and masking;
- UI elements;
- Wireframing;
- Creating a prototype;
- Design system;
- Creating a Landing page;
- Figma plugins.
- What is a Landing page;
- Wireframe and responsive Design;
- Principles of conversion-centered Design;
- Creating and maintaining a brand style;
- How to structure a work document;
- Testing.
- Photography as a self-expression;
- Photography as a form of communication;
- Composition, perspective, and diagonal lines;
- Types of cameras and lances;
- Blending and depth of field;
- Exposure;
- Editing in Photoshop;
- Light, color temperature, and white balance.
- Introduction to InDesign;
- Typography;
- Working with text and styles;
- Designing a multi-page print edition;
- Graphic and editorial elements;
- Preparing PDF for print and PDF interactive for digital use.
- Typography and text;
- Creating complex graphic forms;
- Color;
- Image design and usage;
- Paragraph styles;
- Working with long text documents;
- Paging;
- Creating a master page;
- Composition.
- Introduction to Interior Design;
- 3D Modeling Basics;
- Color and texture;
- Space planning;
- Creating a presentation;
- Post-production tips.