Illustrator Essential Training vs User Experience Design Essentials - Adobe XD UI UX Design

Tony Harmer walks through Illustrator's core in a logical sequence — artboards, selection, shapes and line tools, path drawing and transformation, color models, gradients, strokes, brushes, layers and groups, patterns, appearances, transparency, type, image placement and export — and the 2024/2025 editions add a section on generative AI content. Across five released versions the official rating sits at 4.8/5 (2024: 1,148 ratings; 2021: 1,914; 2022: 1,676; 2023: 1,320), an unusually high and stable signal. Reviewers describe the material as dense and thorough; the main critique is that some assignment toolbars don't match the learner's default setup, and that experienced users hit familiar ground before the advanced sections.

Tony Harmer — a certified Adobe Creative Suite Master with 40+ years in the creative industry and close ties to the Illustrator product team — is the standout asset. Reviewers repeatedly single out his delivery as "detailed, easy to follow, and even entertaining," and even a 17-year Illustrator veteran reported learning new tricks. His voice, pacing and articulation draw consistent praise. The only recurring instructor complaint is occasional mismatch between his on-screen toolbars and a fresh install, which can briefly confuse beginners.

LinkedIn Learning is $39.99/month or roughly $19.99/month billed annually, and the course is also bundled with LinkedIn Premium Career and free through many public-library cards. For learners who already hold a LinkedIn subscription or library access, this 5–7 hour course is excellent value and the completion certificate posts straight to a LinkedIn profile. Paying the standalone monthly fee for this one course is less compelling — independent reviewers call the subscription "more on the expensive side" and "expensive if used infrequently," and the certificate is not accredited. The equation flips for prolific learners who tap the 20,000+ course catalogue.

Each lesson ships with downloadable exercise files and the course includes 22 quizzes for self-assessment, so learners practice alongside the instructor rather than just watching. The gap, flagged by multiple reviewers, is open-ended project work: the exercises are instructor-led replications rather than briefs that push learners to design their own piece, and one reviewer asked directly for "more practice sessions or more question examples." There is no portfolio-grade capstone and no instructor feedback on submitted work.

The skills taught — vector paths, transformations, color, type, brushes, patterns and export for print and web — are genuinely foundational and transfer directly to real Illustrator work. Reviewers describe the tool demonstrations as practical and immediately usable, and a decade-lapsed user called it a strong refresher on newer tools like the curvature tool. The certificate carries professional signalling value on LinkedIn but is not an accredited credential, so it complements rather than replaces demonstrated portfolio work.

A genuinely comprehensive ~12-hour beginner UX/UI curriculum — UX vs UI, low- and high-fidelity wireframes, prototyping, components and repeat grids, micro-interactions, user testing and developer hand-off. Reviewers describe it as thorough and well-sequenced. The cap is structural: every lesson is built on Adobe XD, a tool Adobe placed into maintenance mode in 2023, so a chunk of the screen-specific content is now legacy knowledge.

Daniel Walter Scott is an Adobe Certified Instructor and Adobe Max speaker, and across thousands of reviews he is the single most-cited reason to take the course — clear, passionate, funny, and good at reinforcing concepts. A minority find the humour and pacing distracting, but the instructor signal is overwhelmingly positive and consistent with his other courses.

At the typical Udemy sale price (~$13-20, the effective price almost everyone pays) the teaching quality is excellent value. The discount is that you are paying to learn a discontinued tool — the XD-specific skills no longer compound, so the value-per-dollar is lower than the same instructor's Figma course at the same price.

Learners build real, portfolio-shaped deliverables — a mobile app and a website mockup with working prototypes — rather than isolated drills, and reviewers say they finish with confidence and tangible work. The artefacts are tied to XD's prototype format, which limits how shareable they are in a Figma-dominant hiring market.

The transferable UX thinking — wireframing, components, prototyping logic, client briefing, dev hand-off — is real and survives the tool change. But the tool itself does not: Adobe XD is no longer sold standalone or actively developed, and the industry has consolidated on Figma. That gap is the main drag on day-one job applicability for new designers.