What's New
New website, course and product updates - April 2024
A lot happened this month. Take a look at what's coming.
Michael Wong
Apr 17, 2024
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7 min read
Figma is one of the best (and easiest) UX/UI design platforms to learn. With an infinite number of free online courses available online, becoming a UX designer with all the necessary skills can be achieved without spending a cent.
If you’re a beginner looking to get into UX/UI design, or if you are a designer who is considering making the switch to Figma, these free courses are a great way to test the waters before diving in.
In this article, we will list:
- The best free Figma courses of 2022
- What each free Figma course teaches
- How to access the free lessons
Figma is the universal UX/UI design tool for a number of reasons.
- Remote work effortlessly: Figma is designed to be intuitive, and with powerful live-collaborative capabilities across all devices, you can literally work from anywhere.
- UX/UI design as a career: UX/UI design is quickly becoming one of the most in-demand skills of 2022. Many companies are entering into bidding wars, which has given UX designers an advantage in salary negotiations. Higher demand means higher pay.
- Upskilling: if you’re looking to upskill, why wouldn’t you want to add Figma to your toolbox? After all, it’s one of the most used design tools on the market.
Want to get started in design but worried you need a degree? You can become a UX designer without a degree or previous experience. Using these free online courses, or enrolling in a paid course, can be your first step on your UX journey.
Best free courses to learn Figma
Figma
The universal design tool Figma itself has a vast array of free resources, FAQs, and more importantly, free online courses.
This powerful and intuitive design platform also offers a complete how-to guide for beginners.
Spread across 12 lessons and covering all the how-tos and must-knows, Figma’s online courses are a great starting point for those interested in entering the UX/UI design field. This is because it covers all the important, technical bases. As an added bonus, learning design from the native platform makes the learner experience easier.
In addition to tools and tutorials, they have also covered other design must-knows, including design ethics and design research.
Best of all—the course is completely free. Subsequently, you don’t even need to have an account or subscription for the course—anyone can access it.
In addition to their free course, you can tap into Figma’s incredible community, and search through their Help Centre. Figma’s booming popularity in the UX/UI design field is somewhat owed to its strong community and support system. Rough estimates say that Figma has a user base of 4M+ users globally that you could be working alongside—power in numbers!
Paired perfectly with their free online Figma course, you can easily search through their community boards for troubleshooting, detailed video tutorials, and even chat with the developers and designers themselves.
Mizko @ The Designership
Already a leading name in the industry, The Designership has launched a short course curating all the best Figma lessons. The free Figma Crash Course is a valuable resource for anyone looking to become a pro at Figma & UI Design.
This course is a great option for those interested in taking their learning to the next level with the Ultimate Figma & UI Design Masterclass, but still want to make sure Figma is right for them.
This crash course is just a quick peek into everything you can learn in the Ultimate Figma & UI Design Masterclass. Think about it as your free Figma gateway drug—once you start studying, you won’t be able to stop learning and levelling up.
In this 20-part crash course, you’ll cover all the basics including:
- Grid layouts
- Typography scales
- Design systems
- Figma Variants, Autolayout, and Components
- And, so much more…
This course does not use locked-in lessons. Therefore, intermediate or advanced designers can ahead to lessons like 14 Advanced Tips to Help You Design Faster. Moreover, they can take a quick lesson on how to nail your Typography Scaling Across Different Mobile And Tablet Devices.
In addition to this incredible free crash course in Figma, you can also check out the Designership’s YouTube channel for hours of free content.
Learn alongside a community of 25K+ other designers, keep ahead of the game with up-to-date community news, and learn all the tricks of the trade with in-depth Q&As.
Along with the technical side of design, you can also explore real-life career advice for UX/UI designers. This is because being a designer is not just about making things work well and look good—it’s about strategic career choices to make design work for you.
Being a UX/UI designer can be tough, and for those suffering from Imposter Syndrome, having such a strong community behind you can help remind you why you wanted to be a designer!
FreeCodeCamp
For beginners, the FreeCodeCamp has a dedicated crash course in Figma. Within a 47 minute video, you will learn everything from account setup to using common Figma features to prototyping a prototype.
Not just a professional social media platform, LinkedIn is also a fantastic online education platform with thousands of courses, tutorials, and lessons at your fingertips.
The LinkedIn Learning library has over 16K courses, all created and taught by the professionals themselves. This means you’ll need to have a LinkedIn Premium membership to access the library which costs around $39.99AUD per month. But, you can also sign up for a 1-month free trial period—plenty of time to complete one of the many free online courses on the platform.
Best of all, once you complete the courses, you get a certificate of completion on your LinkedIn profile which can be used to leverage a higher UX design salary.
Udemy
If you haven’t already got an account on Udemy, this is the sign you’ve been waiting for.
Free courses are not always readily available on Udemy, but once in a blue moon they do slash the prices on some courses. Keep an eye out for these special promotions!
AJ&Smart
A product design team based out of Germany, AJ&Smart tackles the basics of Figma on their YouTube channel. Specializing in UX/UI design sprints, AJ&Smart uses their YouTube channel as a crash course in using Figma.
For example, their most-watched video, Figma UI Design Tutorial: Get Started in Just 24 Minutes, is like a crash course in using the platform giving you a nice overview of Figma and what it can do.
It’s a great introduction to the platform—ideal for those still on the fence trying to decide between Figma vs. Adobe XD vs. Sketch.
ArtTutor
ArtTutor is a smaller YouTube channel, but their content and Figma tutorials are well constructed and incredibly detailed. You can check out their full Figma Tutorial playlist here.
Their collection of Figma tutorials doesn’t use voice-overs or instructional steps on all their videos, instead, they show you the design process from the ground up using a screen record and peppy music.
Each video varies in length, usually ranging around one hour per design and sometimes reaching the four-hour mark. Their tutorials are ideal for designers with a little more experience, or for those who learn better by watching someone else design.
Some how-to videos of note are How To Create Line Icons For Your Ui Design By Using Free Software Figma, or How to create kids storybook art & illustrations in free software Figma.
Self Study Place
Another smaller YouTube Channel, Self Study Place, has a Learn Figma for UX/UI Design course spanning 21 videos. Every lesson is under 10 minutes, ideal for designers a little short on time but still looking to learn.
Become a designer without spending a cent
Becoming a UX designer for free is entirely possible thanks to the infinite amount of free content, courses, and tutorials on the market.
You can even become a UX designer without a degree or previous experience using free courses. Many UX designers credit free education as their stepping-stone to becoming game-changing designers.
Usability has been a core feature of Figma since it's creation. Because of this, the platform is incredibly intuitive, the community is one of the best communities on the market, and everyone who uses Figma has the same North Star: make good designs that work well.
With such a positive environment, it’s no wonder that there are so many free Figma courses to choose between. You can take Figma for a test run, see if it works for you, and you don’t need to spend a dime.
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