Expand your skillset and learn how to grow your business with these educational offerings for creatives.
New Year's resolutions can easily fall by the wayside, but with the range of courses on offer for creatives, booking onto one could be a resolution worth keeping. These courses are all aimed at adding to your knowledge and opening up opportunities in a business and creative sense. Our eight choices cover creative skills, social media and branding, and freelance or small business advice. We've included a range of free or affordable distance learning options so you can dip your toe in, and if you have the budget, there are also career courses to invest in.
Below you'll find our range of reputable course providers, highly reviewed courses, and different styles of course – from video insights to tips, tricks and assignments. Perhaps you’ll choose one to help you upskill in 2025. For more on what's happening in the creative world this year, see our 2025 typography trends, graphic design trends or digital art trends.
01. Hobbycraft Plus Seminar – TikTok for Small Businesses
(Image credit: Hobbycraft)
Cost: £30
Take the dread out of mastering a new social media platform with a live (+ Q&A) or on-demand seminar as part of the Hobbycraft series aimed at supporting small crafty and creative businesses. We think a seminar is a great way to fit learning into your schedule and focus on one social media platform at a time. Learn how to go viral on TikTok, how to sell through a TikTok shop, the best time to post, and how best to make it work for your creative business. You’ll know you're in good hands with expert insight from indie crafter and founder of Untld project Nerissa, whose agency specialises in supporting creative, crafty, independent brands.
At £30 (or free if you are a Hobbycraft Plus member with a seminar voucher) it’s an affordable way to deep dive into the essentials of this viral content app, and course attendees agree. Attendees praised the tips and advice with one commenting “Recommend for anyone to gain understanding and effective strategies to improve their experience.”
02. Open Learn – A freelance career in the creative arts
Cost: Free
What’s better than valuable insight? Insight that is free. Highly respected learning platform Open Learn, part of the Open University wants to take some of the scary out of taking the leap into a freelance career in the arts, and this looks like a great, and risk-free way to do it.
We love this course as it starts at those first tentative steps into a freelance career, and looks at your choices and the implications of them from every possible angle. The course content totals 24 hours, broken down into self-paced learning which could run over eight weeks.
By the end of the course, you can expect to have an understanding of your needs as a freelancer, where to get support when you need it, practical business issues, finding your audience and more. It seems like the ultimate checklist for a new freelancer, with plenty of resources to boot. One student commented on the way the course content helped her turn her broad ideas into a logical step-by-step plan going forward. For the price of time, you can’t say better than that.
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03. Skillshare – Logo design for beginners
(Image credit: Skillshare)
Cost: Free trial available, then from $32 a month
If you need something bespoke for your brand or want to brush up on existing design knowledge, why not start with a logo design class on SkillShare? We love Skillshare because it gives you a try before you buy trial, and then options for individual or team memberships. During your membership you have unlimited access to courses, so it’s easy to follow a set learning path, or create your own to further upskill.
The logo design classic is run by brand and web designer Jeremy Mura, who has a 10-year background in the design industry working for brands such as Disneyland Paris and American Express and has taught over 80,000 students on this platform. If you want to take designing to the next level or start building a portfolio of design work, this class will teach you styles and types of brand logos, design processes, and how to work with Adobe Illustrator, there’s also a practical class project. Almost half of students say the class exceeded expectations (which is a bit of a funny measure, as it depends what those expectations were...), with clarity and helpful examples plus points in the feedback.
04. Jet Black Squares – Smartphone photography
Cost: from £45
We were excited to come across Jet Black Squares and its sheer range of options when it comes to smartphone photography workshops, masterclasses, and on-location adventurous safaris. Join a course leader on location, take an editing masterclass over Zoom, or learn how to take the best smartphone photos for your small business.
The Jet Black Squares website makes all its masterclasses sound fun and engaging, and with solid foundations working in association with Enterprise Nation, they can help you harness smartphone tools for your next creative project or business marketing. Options for all ages and all makes and models of phone make this a compelling upskill opportunity for 2025.
Have you visited Canva’s Design School yet? Along with courses on graphic design, and typography, this one on branding caught our eye. This is a free bitesize video course, with talking points rather than assessments and exercises, but we love these short sharp reminders of branding essentials, what you need to achieve, and how Canva can help.
The pointers on how you can transfer your brand kit over to Canva and create something everyone can read and apply is a great example of how to use the software for business, although not so good if you're already using another platform. Over 100,000 students have followed this free course, which could be great for new businesses, if you have a new position which needs an understanding of branding, or as a refresher for staff on the essentials.
06. Small Business Charter – Help to grow management course
(Image credit: Small Business Charter)
Cost: £750
This one is for all the UK business owners out there, if you’re looking for a course to help you banish the overwhelm and take steps to grow your business, then this 12-week ‘help to grow’ course could be one to consider. This course is 90% funded by the U.K. government so, while the £750 cost is still an investment, it is heavily subsidised.
The mix of online and face-to-face sessions is also a bonus, and with one session a week, it can fit into life commitments. This more formal learning opportunity will suit those already established who might be looking for ways to target new markets, work more efficiently, or create plans to move to the next level.
07. Skillshare – Drawing seamless patterns in Procreate + professional surface design tips
(Image credit: Skillshare)
Cost: Free trial, then from $32 a month
We had to make a second visit to Skillshare for an illustration course as the site offers many ways to learn a new skill, expand your knowledge, or learn how to use software in a professional context. If you’ve already dabbled in digital art techniques and experimented with brushes, lettering and individual items, then maybe pattern design is the next logical step in your artist journey. It could lead you to create designs for fabric, wallpaper, homeware, in fact, anything that needs a repeat design.
This is an intermediate-level course that teaches you how to turn your existing artwork into neatly lined up pattern blocks that can be scaled up for a variety of products. The 3-step draw arrange, tile method is broken down into 13 self-paced learning modules with plenty of tips and tricks to help you bring your pattern design skills to life. We love the addition of free brushes and colour palettes that you can unlock with this course, which is available to Skill Share subscribers. One student commented that it “was a very professional and fun class that exceeded my expectations by also giving tips and recommendations about the product design industry.”
08. Open University Short Courses – Digital photography, creating and sharing better images
Cost: £225
Running twice yearly in 2025 and 2026, this distance learning course is supported by the Royal Photographic Society. A ten-week course costing £225, it’s a stepping stone if you are just starting in photography or want to take it further career-wise. We love that it’s easily accessible via the OU online platform, and you get to be part of a community while learning.
The modules are broken down to give you the theory behind good image taking, understanding light, exposure, colour, different lenses, and a whole host of technical and visual aspects of photography. There are weekly assignments and an end-of-module project so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to practise what you’ve learned, and find out how to take that forward professionally. This is one of the most comprehensive short courses we’ve seen.
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Lauren John is a journalist, copywriter and creative, with a background in craft, and a growing list of creative hobbies. She’s had art and craft content published in an RSPB children’s magazine and on the Prima Website, also writing on outdoor photography for Reader’s Digest. Lauren enjoys working on content from all creative industries, flying the flag for musicians, bands, artists and authors, and shining a light on some of the issues they face.
