Piktochart x Skillshare: A Free Visual Communication Class

During his time at university, Michael Karnjanaprakorn saw a variety of teaching styles and experienced the difference between education and learning. Later, in an Inc. feature, he shared that he favored the collaborative, project-based, and creative environment in graduate school to his undergraduate classes.

He then realized that education and learning were two completely different approaches, which lit a fire in him. In 2011, Karnjanaprakorn launched a tech startup called Skillshare.

Skillshare is an online learning community where anyone can discover, take, or even teach a class. Students pay $10 per month for unlimited access to a catalog of 18,000+ classes. With classes ranging from design and business to crafts and culinary, there truly is something on Skillshare for everyone who wants to learn something new!

Students take bite-sized, self-paced classes at their own pace alongside a community of over two million students and teachers. Every Skillshare class has a project that lets students exchange feedback, learn together, and showcase their progress to the world.

“As a low-cost subscription business in a largely high cost and a-la-carte driven industry, we see ourselves as the Spotify to the industry’s iTunes,” Karnjanaprakorn told TechCrunch.

Piktochart Partners with Skillshare

Today, we are thrilled to announce something special. Over the past several months, our team here at Piktochart has been working with the Skillshare team on a class for creators who want to learn more about visual communication. In May, we visited Skillshare in their studio to spend the day filming and we can’t wait to show you what came to be!

The class, which is free for a limited time here, is called ‘Creating Easy Infographics: Visual Communication Essentials for Non-Designers.’ In this class, we’ll share tactics, industry data, tools, and resources to help you harness the power of design to work for your business goals.

Whether you’re a marketer, small business owner, copywriter, blogger, educator, or student, seize this opportunity to add a new skill to your toolkit — and create a powerful infographic along the way!

This class is free for the first 30 days after it goes live on Skillshare. After that, it will move to Skillshare’s premium class catalog and students will need a Skillshare Premium membership to access. Friends of Piktochart can click here to get a free 2-month trial of Skillshare premium.

Takeaways From Our Skillshare Class

Even the team at Skillshare learned something new while working alongside our team to create this class.

“We were really surprised by how much increased engagement content will receive when they prominently feature visuals as the primary way of conveying information, especially on Twitter and in blog posts!” said Katie Keohane, Partnerships Manager at Skillshare. “But that doesn’t mean the visual is an automatic success,” she added.

In our Skillshare class, you will learn:

• Why visual communication is an essential skill in today’s workplace
• 3 most popular professional infographic types: persuasion, reporting, and storytelling
• A primer in graphic design basics
• How to effectively share and present with infographics

You’ll see case studies, inspirational infographics from Piktochart users, and even make your own infographic as part of the project for the class. So come join us! We’d love to hear what you think of the class.

The Makings of a Great Skillshare Class

After seeing thousands and thousands of classes come through their community, Katie and her team know what makes a class stand out.

The eight qualities of top Skillshare classes are:

“If I had to pick the top three elements, they would be to hook students right away, offer your personalized approach, and imagine your student is in the room with you,” suggested Katie.

“Visuals were front and center in our class. See the below image for a sneak preview!”

Stuck on what to visualize for your next presentation, online class, or blog post? Piktochart designer Maxi Albella has a helpful tip to take dry text and make it more fun and friendly:

“Always turn the main idea of your message into a visual,” he said.

“If your main idea is too complex to represent in just one icon or illustration, look to information such as numbers, dates, names, and places. These data points can be used to make visual icons or illustrations.

That way, it would be easier for your audience to remember pieces of your message and then associate them with your main idea. It’s easier to remember an icon or illustration over just pure text.”

Are you an online educator who wants to up your game for your next online class? Watch Skillshare’s top five classes to see what exciting and innovative things the educators bring to the table:

• Getting Started with Email Marketing — MailChimp
• Presentation Essentials: How to Share Ideas that Inspire Action — Simon Sinek
• Graphic Illustration: Boldly Design with Color and Shape — Olimpia Zagnoli
• Fundamentals of DSLR Photography — Justin Bridges
• Storytelling for Leaders: Crafting Stories That Matter — Keith Yamashita