If you were wondering about the title, yes I used the Star Wars quote for Rey when she first begins her journey to become a Jedi like Luke Skywalker. Unlike Rey, this is real life and without a doubt is more than likely going to be a lot more hard work, but I’m good with that.

I have a day off from work today, so I’m using it to scour the internet for free design courses worthy of my time. Time is something that alludes us until we realise we don’t have enough of it! I don’t have a lot of free time, and what free time I do have I’ll be using to upskill myself, and I’m really serious about this (for once).

So the other day I mentioned I was looking at some online courses at the local design school called YooBee. Well, that kind of fell through when I saw their fees. It’s not that I don’t want to spend any money on upskilling, it’s just that I am sure there are other options available before I start pulling out the credit card. If I can’t find something I want that way, I’ll revisit the idea of YooBee and spending money to learn.

I’ve decided that along with learning how to draw, I need to fill the gaps in my knowledge of Photoshop and After Effects. Once I’ve done that, I might focus on InDesign and possibly Illustrator so that I have an array of different tools to use should I need to.

Once I’ve done that, I’m going to focus on Graphic Design basics and go from there. This sounds like a good plan but I’m leaving room for it to change should I need to change it for whatever reason.

I briefly discussed leaving work to pursue Graphic Design full time and my partner was OK with it. While the idea seems straight forward, it really isn’t. I don’t want to have to rely on my partner for everything, and if I’m studying, it means I’ll be eligible for financial support, but it’ll be a lot less than what I’m earning in my current job. That’s a problem for me, and if I can’t resolve it, I’ll need a plan B.