Email Delivery & Frequency
These desktop publishing email courses will come either daily or weekly depending on the selected course. What you will receive is an email newsletter that contains commentary or notes along with links to the actual lessons covered in the course.Missed Lessons. The first email will arrive shortly after you sign up. Subsequent emails will follow either once a day or once a week.If you miss a lesson, look at one of the other emails you received to find out how to retrieve a copy of a missing lesson. Information for unsubscribing is also in each email.
Email Course Structure
Each email lesson points to pages on the About.com Desktop Publishing site (and sometimes other About.com sites). The emails are designed to organize this material and provide you with regular reminders about the course so that you can read the selected on-site material in an orderly fashion. Some emails might contain some extra material that is not on the site but 99% of the material points to specific pages on the About.com Desktop Publishing site. The full lessons are not contained within the emails. You will need to follow the links in the email to the online pages (lessons).Email Content. The exact content of each email varies by course but there are two general types: loose structure and step-by-step.
- The general desktop publishing courses pull from content all over the About.com Desktop Publishing site but the email lessons organize the material in some specific fashion.
- The business courses and the other beginner courses described below take a more structured approach. The material linked to in each daily or weekly email is part of a very specific set of pages on the site, focused on specific topics (such as starting a business or creating a greeting card).
Read the course descriptions completely to know exactly what you will learn from each course.
General Desktop Publishing Email Courses
There are currently two general desktop publishing courses. Both are daily email courses. They have a loose structure that allows the student to focus on just the topic of the day or dig a little deeper and explore other related topics if they wish.The Rules of Desktop Publishing course is a daily course that sends out 1 email lesson a day for 12 days. This class is designed to give a crash course in how to keep the look of an amateur out of your desktop publishing documents. It is also a part of the Daily Dose of DTP course.The Daily Dose of DTP is a 48 day course. The Rules of Desktop Publishing comprise 12 of the lessons so if you sign up for the Daily Dose course, you don't need to sign up for the Rules course. The Daily Dose of DTP is organized into 6 parts and most of the daily emails will contain a definition(s) section, trivia, and extra credit material that digs a little deeper or provides material related to the main focus of that daily lesson.
Desktop Publishing or Graphic Design Business-Related Email Courses
The business-focused courses cover starting a design business and developing a portfolio. Both courses are very structured and follow a step-by-step plan.There is a 17-day (daily emails) or a 10-week (weekly emails) version of the Start a Graphic Design or Desktop Publishing Business course. They cover the exact same material but the weekly version spreads it out over 2 and half months. Topics covered include developing a business plan, marketing plan, pricing, business name, and creating and using design contracts. There is an assignment (optional, self-guided) with most lessons.The Create a Portfolio course features 6 daily email lessons with accompanying assignments to help you develop your own professional portfolio. The material is useful for those starting a business or seeking employment in the design field.
Other Desktop Publishing Email Courses: Skill Level: Beginner or Non-designer
These email courses currently cover greeting cards and font basics.The Create a Greeting Card course is a basic how to do desktop publishing course that focuses specifically on creating a greeting card. Although Microsoft Publisher is used in the lessons, it is not a software-specific course. It covers basic tasks involved in desktop publishing. There is a daily and a weekly version all containing 9 lessons. Both courses are identical except for frequency of the emails.The Windows Font Basics course is for those unfamiliar with computer fonts. It's the bare basics of font formats, how to download and install fonts, and troubleshooting font issues. There are 5 emails in this course, one a day.
