Figma Essential Training vs Graphic Design Basics for Illustrators

The course covers Figma essentials — file setup, frames, shapes, text, images, masks, layers, components, constraints, and a basic interactive prototype — in a logical, tightly paced sequence. The 2025 edition adds a section on Figma AI features, which reviewers welcomed. However, at 1h 37m it is genuinely thin: auto layout, variables, design systems, and developer handoff are absent. Multiple independent reviewers flag it as a starting point that must be supplemented, not a complete Figma education.

Garrick Chow spent over 15 years as a Senior Staff Instructor at LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com), authoring more than 200 video-based courses covering Adobe Creative Cloud, productivity tools, and design workflows. Learners across platform reviews consistently describe the teaching style as clear, demo-driven, and accessible without oversimplifying. The course's 4.7-out-of-5 star rating across nearly 7,000 learner ratings is a strong signal of execution quality at the instructor level.

LinkedIn Learning costs $29.99/month or $239.88/year (effective $19.99/month annually) as a standalone subscription; it is also included in LinkedIn Premium Career ($29.99/month) and available free via many public library cards. For learners who already have a LinkedIn Premium subscription, the course is essentially free and excellent value. For learners paying the standalone fee just for this course, the value is weak — 1h 37m of content at $29.99 for a single month is expensive per learning-hour compared to an equivalent Udemy course. The subscription unlocks 20,000+ other courses, which changes the equation significantly for prolific learners.

The course builds toward a functional multi-screen prototype using a restaurant app scenario, with one exercise file provided. Reviewers appreciated leaving the course with a completed mini-project. However, the exercise is instructor-led and offers limited creative latitude — learners replicate the instructor's screens rather than designing their own concept. For portfolio purposes, the output requires significant additional work to be genuinely presentable.

The skills taught — frames, components, constraints, basic prototyping — are genuinely foundational and immediately transferable to real Figma workflows. Reviewers confirm that even the older 2021 version's workflow concepts remain valid today because Figma's underlying design model has not changed. The main gap is that workplace Figma usage involves auto layout, design tokens, branching, and dev mode handoff, none of which the course covers.

16 lessons in 2h 21m cover briefing, color theory, typography, image synthesis, grid, and format adaptation — a complete mini-campaign workflow for an animal-defence NGO. Capped because the narrow runtime leaves advanced typography and colour-management only lightly treated.

Silvio Díaz Labrador works at Barcelona's Estudio Mariscal — six years alongside Javier Mariscal — bringing real-studio experience to every lesson. Teaches in Spanish; English subtitles are serviceable but occasionally uneven on tool names.

~$10 one-time for 2h 21m of structured studio-level design fundamentals with lifetime access and 17 downloadable resources. The cost-per-insight ratio is exceptionally high for illustrators who need to pitch campaigns to clients but have never studied design formally.

The NGO campaign brief (poster + format adaptations) is a genuine end-to-end brief with real deliverables, clearly stronger than a pure tool-tour. Capped because the fictional client and constrained scope mean a single project rather than a varied portfolio batch.

Color cohesion, grid composition, and format-adaptation workflows map directly to real client campaign work. Reviewers consistently note picking up immediately usable skills. Limited by the course's short runtime — depth on complex briefs requires follow-on study.