Figma Essential Training vs Surface Pattern Design on Skillshare

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.

The Skillshare classes cover pattern fundamentals, vectorising hand-drawn elements in Adobe Illustrator, colour and repeat types — a solid beginner toolkit. Reviewers note the instruction is clear but stays at introductory depth; business strategy, licensing and portfolio-building are absent from the Skillshare content.

Bonnie Christine is universally praised across sources. Reviewers describe her as sweet, generous and methodical, and she is frequently cited as the single best entry-point teacher for surface pattern design. The Skillshare classes showcase the same clear, encouraging style as her paid programmes.

Access through a standard Skillshare subscription (~$14/month) makes the classes easy to sample with low financial risk. Several reviewers used the Skillshare content as a low-cost proof-of-concept before committing to a more expensive course. The value is high relative to price — the ceiling is scope, not delivery.

Students create seamless repeat patterns and vectorised watercolour elements as class projects. The outputs are functional beginner patterns; however, reviewers note that working through Bonnie's exact process tends to produce similar-looking results across students, limiting portfolio differentiation.

The Illustrator and pattern fundamentals are genuinely useful, but reviewers consistently say the Skillshare classes alone leave large gaps in becoming a working surface designer: no licensing guidance, no art-director perspective, and no structured feedback on commercial readiness.