Review of: Graphic Design Success

Review by: Nick Usborne

This is a huge, detailed graphic design course - for designers and non-designers - and I like it a lot.

First, let me qualify a thing or two. This course is for designers, copywriters and others who want to learn how to design for direct marketing media.

It's about designing sales letters, envelopes, flyers, lift notes, ads and more.

Who would I recommend this for?

* Freelance designers who want to make money working with direct marketing clients.

* Freelance copywriters who want handle their own direct marketing layout and design - and make more money from each job they work on.

* Entrepreneurs who want to create their own direct marketing materials from the ground up, including the writing and design.

This course is not about beautiful ads with exotic photos

If you want to learn how to create glossy, full-page ads for Vogue magazine, this is not the course to take.

Instead, Graphic Design Success will teach you how to use simple, clean layouts to create letters and ads that highlight the text and help present the sales message clearly and powerfully.

Does this course make sense for someone without artistic talent?

Yes, it does. This course works for both designers and non-designers.

Like I said, this isn't about high design for glossy magazines. If you have some visual sense and can recognize a strong layout with clear text when you see it, that's all you need. You don't need to be able to draw or deal with sophisticated design elements.

A few reasons why I think this course is so good

While the lessons are easy to learn, this is a big course, running to over 500 pages. It's wonderful to see so much attention being paid to the details of designing sales letters and ads.

Almost 100 pages are devoted just to typography. I love that. In most communication media the use of typography is a dying art. So it's great to see so much attention being paid to the subject in this course.

Is type that important? Absolutely. It lies at the heart of creating pages that are attractive and easy to read.

A huge strength in this course lies in how it has been written. The author, Ray Holland, covers a lot of ground and goes into incredible detail. But his writing and communication style is very down to earth.

In other words, however much depth he goes into, everything he says is very easy to understand.

Some of what you'll learn...

Click through at the end of this review to Ray's information and sales page and you'll get a lot of details on what the course includes.

But to give you a taste, you wi'll...

- Learn the rules of direct marketing design, across multiple media.

- Work on sample assignments and training exercises.

- Receive swipe files, templates and numerous other examples of great direct marketing design.

- Get lessons and insights from some of the industry's leading designers.

- Learn how to find clients and get started as a direct marketing designer.

How about designing for the web?

There aren't sections dealing specifically with the web. But with the knowledge you gain from this course, you'll have all the expertise you need to create terrific online sales pages and letters. The basic skills work across all media. It's a matter of designing so that the sales message is delivered with maximum power.

In conclusion...

In addition to it being so comprehensive and well presented, I like this course because it makes direct marketing design skills available to non-designers.

Whether you have some design experience, or are a copywriter or entrepreneur with no design background at all, this course will give you the skills to design compelling sales letters, ads, flyers and more.

Highly recommended.

Read Ray Holland's description of his Graphic Design Course...