Bring your creative skills at the next level - online courses with skill share

Would you like to raise your creative skills to a new level? Then you are right here!

With skill shape you can easily develop your creativity and potential. Discover the simple way to improve your skills and increase your creativity - with the No. 1 online learning platform for creative : skill shape.

Michael KarnjanaPrakorn and Malcolm ONG are the founding fathers of Skillshare. The two veterans of the digital world founded the platform in New York in November 2010.

The platform has developed into what we see today: a flourishing marketplace for learners and teachers from many creative and creative industries.

Since its introduction over 10 years ago, it has continuously made a name for itself as an international digital platform for self-specific, modern voting subject online learning.

What is skill shape? In a nutshell

Skillshare is an online platform for video learning that enables you to improve your creative skills and discover new talents. With skill shape you have access to thousands of courses in areas such as design, photography, illustration, writing and much more.

The courses are guided by experts in their respective areas and offer practical learning opportunities and the opportunity to get feedback from the community. The platform is flexible and easy to use - you can learn at any time and anywhere, whether on your desktop or mobile device.

And the best thing about it? With an affordable subscription you can visit as many courses as you want. Regardless of whether you want to push your career forward or just want to exploit your creative potential - skills shape is the perfect platform for you.

We have tested skill shape for you

We have tried skill shape with a test version of the premium access and are happy to present you in this article what we found and experienced.

Just continue to read to explore our comprehensive - and honest - test report about skill shape.

Our test judgment

Skillshare is an online learning platform that provides an immense range of creative topics with over 34,000 courses, including animation, illustration, music, photography and much more.

The platform offers a subscription -based model that offers users unrestricted access to the platform and its course catalog. The annual billing is the equivalent of around EUR 156 (corresponds to 13 euros per month). Even if the term is a bit long, the monthly fees are a real declaration of war on the competition. The price-performance ratio is right.

When you first register with Skillshare, a free trial version available, which gives you the opportunity to try out the platform without obligation and free of charge before you are financially obliged.

If you change your opinion within the first 7 days , no costs will be charged.

Skillshare is an ideal platform for creative people and entrepreneurs or those who want to learn new skills and expand their knowledge in creative areas.

A rating of 4.8 in the Android Appstore (with over 21,000 reviews) also speaks a clear language with regard to positive user experiences.

The Skillshare community encourages users to get involved, work together and support each other, be it by giving feedback or sharing their final work with their colleagues.

In addition to the annual plan for individuals, there are skills shape teams , a subscription plan for teams and companies that costs around EUR 148 per user and year and includes unlimited access to the platform and their courses as well as other business functions.

The plan is designed in such a way that it can be adapted to a team or company in any phase, shape and size.

Skillshare offers both scholarships and financial support for justified learners . The free trial version is a good starting point.

A small drop of bitterness remains that there are no recognized final certificates for the online courses. This makes Skillhare a self-learning platform for personal development in the creative area.

It is also a shame that there is only a few courses in German. Browser translations and translation apps can help here.

Please note that you have to specify your card data to get access to the free test version of Skillshare.

What is skill shape? in detail

Skillshare is a digital platform that is designed to provide students, pupils and creative people of all stripes with online courses, which are taught by real experts, developers, entrepreneurs and experts. It is designed to teach everyone. Empowered e-learning-self-learning platform as its finest.

The course topics cover the entire creative spectrum, but usually revolve around creative professions .

There you will find courses such as managing and designing a WordPress site or painting fantasy landscapes with watercolor paints.

All you need to get to the goal is a quick search in the course database to find a course that teaches you what you want to learn.

Learning categories

If you are not quite sure where your curiosity leads you, you can also browse courses on the website on the website. These grow and change together with the course content and include the following impressively long list in 2023:

Who is skill shape suitable for?

Skillshare is aimed at creative people who want to develop new skills or improve existing ones. Since the courses focus on topics such as illustration, design, photography, video, freelance and much more, it naturally addresses people in creative professions (e.g. designers, chefs, artists, photographers, developers, writers, etc.).

But entrepreneurs (e.g. marketers, bloggers, influencers, YouTuber or SEOS), freelancers or small companies who want to take the next step on their creative journey with their team are also right here.

Why should you raise your creative skills with skill shape to the next level?

If you want to increase your creative skills, you should try skill shape. Here you will find an incredible selection of courses in the areas of design, illustration, photography and much more. Regardless of whether you are a beginner or a professional, there is something to learn for everyone.

The courses are created by experts in their field and offer a practice -oriented approach. You will not only learn new techniques, but also be inspired to develop your own potential.

You can learn with skill shape at any time and anywhere - be it in your free time or during your working time. Access to skill shape is affordable and flexible. You can choose between monthly or annual subscriptions and have the opportunity to cancel at any time.

How does skill shape work?

If you want to improve your creative skills, Skillshare is the perfect platform for you. But how exactly does skill shape actually work?

Quite simply: After registration, you have access to over 34,000 courses on various subject areas such as design, photography, illustration and much more.

The courses are managed by experts from the industry and offer a mixture of video tutorials, exercises and tasks . You can access the courses at any time and anywhere and complete them at your own pace .

You also have the opportunity to get in touch with other participants and get feedback Skillshare also offers a mobile app so that you can learn on the go.

Learning platform for self -study

Skillshare members receive immediate access to the platform's course catalog. In the past, there was something like a free membership that gave them access to a subset of the courses, but this was discontinued (and replaced by a free 7-day test version that gives you access to everything).

All you have to do is search for your target competence to find dozens of, sometimes hundreds or thousands of relatives to choose from.

For example, a quick search for "painting courses" in 2023 provides over 6,000 results. You can easily refine your search with the integrated platform filters based on the following factors:

• Whether a course is a skill -share original or a staff pick
• The course of the course (beginner, middle school or advanced)
• Course duration (how profound should your training be? Do you prefer courses with a length of less than 15 minutes or more than 60 minutes?)
• Gourse age: How old is the course? Has it been released or updated recently?
• Relevance : Are the tips still relevant today?

As soon as you have found a course that arouses your interest, you can assess the quality of the course reading both the section "About" and the reviews of previous students This is important because the quality of the courses varies greatly.

If you click on "Discussions" or " Project & Resources" , you will receive a clearer picture of the course content and expectations. If it fits, you can get started immediately by simply starting playing the videos of the course.

Access to the courses is very comfortable. You can keep your courses via your smartphone in your pocket at any time or start your laptop at school, university or work.

Since the skills shape courses are recorded in advance, you can learn at your own pace. No more lesson interruptions due to disturbing background noises.

Thanks to the offline function in the app, you can easily take the learning content on the go-very helpful for pendulum trips with a shaky internet connection.

Thanks to the "Discover" function of the mobile app, you will receive personalized recommendations based on your course participation and your search course. This is a great function if you are learning hungry, but are not yet quite sure what you want to tackle next.

A note on live courses on skillshare

Please note that there were formerly skill-shaping workshops in which courses were summarized in packages that were completed together with other students according to a certain schedule. This was followed by the introduction of live chroma courses in 2021.

However, these features were both set and from 2023 none of these functions are available.

Professional tip: Check member projects

Visual learners can search the course options by watching the member projects (formerly "project gallery" ) in their skill sharew account.

Here you can see current examples of completed work of other skillshare members, since this photo gallery quickly shows the "end results" of the course selection and personal knowledge of others.

You can filter the gallery after "Trending", "Latest" and "Top-Rated" projects, not to mention similar categories from the "Kur search" function of the website.

If you come across a project that captures your ideal project result, click on the project not only to learn more details about the student, but also through the actual path that he has taken when he did his thesis.

Since the abolition of the "groups" function, member projects have been the most important way to get in touch with other students.

Certifications and funding of skill shape courses?

What about final certificates, certificates or funding for vocational training at skills shape?

Certified course services?

Fortunately, there are many ways in our modern world to gain a foothold in an artistic job. While some job profiles require completed studies or training, there are also millions of people who have provided online courses, tutorials and on their own for their creative skills.

Nevertheless, it may be necessary that you take your further training, such as a new employer, a customer or an agency with which you want to work with.

It must be said here that skills shape does not issue recognized certificates or certificates for course successes .

The gratifying news is that in today's fragmented creative world, practical hand-on knowledge and a portfolio of meaningful projects are increasingly important. Missing academic or school performance evidence is no longer a exclusion criterion.

Alternatives with certificates: MOOCS

MOOCs (= massive open online courses) are a great alternative to skill shape in order to refresh your own knowledge or to acquire new skills with certification.

These online courses combine multimedia elements such as video recordings of courses, reading recommendations, animations, graphics, exercises and tests with virtual learning groups and discussion forums.

They are mostly produced by renowned universities, which speaks for the quality of the content. MOOCs enable an unlimited number of users to participate free of charge, while a fee must be paid for the exhibition of participation certificates or certificates.

Although the first and largest MOOC platforms, such as Udacity ( www.udacity.com ) or Coursera ( www.coursera.org ), come from the USA, there has also been a German provider called Iversity ( Iversity.org )

However, the origin only plays a subordinate role, since most courses are open internationally and kept in English.

Participation in MOOCs is mostly free of charge, but a fee of 49 to 99 euros is due for the acquisition of certificates.

What about funding?

Funding is often a crucial factor in deciding on professional training.

Are there any funding options for course fees on skill shape? Educational vouchers, further training scholarship, promotion BAföG or further training check would be considered here.

Unfortunately, there are none of these financial subsidies for skillshare courses.

With a course fee of around 13 euros per month, this is not really serious.

What courses really help you to increase your creative skills quickly and effectively?

If you want to increase your creative skills, there are many courses on skill shape that can help you. Regardless of whether you want to improve your sign capabilities or want to learn how to illustrate a book - skills shape has something to offer for everyone.

If you are interested in photography, you can take a course that shows you how to take impressive landscape photos or how to absorb portraits of people.

When it comes to design, there are many courses to choose from - from creating logos to the design of websites .

And if you like to write, you could try a course that will help you improve your writing style or show you how to tell a story.

Topic costs: What are the fees?

Skillshare offers various subscriptions to expand your access to the platform and improve your creative skills. The 7-day test subscription is free and enables you to access all content, courses and projects for this limited period.

With the premium subscription you have unrestricted access to all courses, projects and resources. You will also receive exclusive advantages such as offline view, subtitles and offline project files .

The premium membership of Skillshare, which offers you access to the full catalog of over 34,000 courses, costs $ 32 (approx. 29.75 EUR) per month with monthly payment, or $ 168 for a whole year if you choose an annual billing (approx. EUR 13 per month).

to get a 30-day premium membership free of charge skillshare link .

The team subscription is ideal for companies or teams who want to improve their skills. It offers all the advantages of premium subscription as well as functions such as team management and analysis reports . No matter which subscription you choose, Skillshare offers a variety of courses and projects in various areas such as design, photography, illustration, marketing and more.

Is skills shaking a subscription rip-off?

An honest test report also includes critically looking at the dark sides. Above all, we noticed the numerous negative reviews on Trustpilot :

What is this violent criticism justified?

After an in-depth occupation with the 1-star reviews, we noticed a fact: many users criticize-sometimes violently-the subscription model of skill shape and often describe it as dubious and even as a bad rip off.

There is talk of unjustified debit, unwanted subscription extension, bad customer service and non-transparent business practices.

What is behind it?

At first glance, these negative reviews, also in this mass - are alarming and caution. At second glance, however, we were able to work out a discrepancy between the expectation of customers and the actual services/costs as the most common cause of the negative judgments on the trust pilot.

What does that mean specifically? Well, Skillshare puts off the free test phase in marketing campaigns offt and advertises with low fees from EUR 13 per month. This gives the impression that you get to high -quality training content for free.

Less prominently, Skillshare communicates the automatic extension of the subscriptions or the strong differences in quality of the coaches and courses.

So you should be clear about the facts from the outset, then there is no unsightly awakening afterwards.

Here are the bare facts:

• Free test phase is limited to 7 days and extends into a paid subscription without termination.
• If you have not registered with a gift card or a scholarship, your subscription will continue and will automatically extend on a annual basis until you cancel your subscription.
• For some trial versions you have to specify a payment method to start the test version. In the end of such test versions, the operator automatically burdens this payment method for a paid subscription on the first day after the end of the test version and on a recurring annual basis
• Discounted advertising or sales prices are limited to a subscription year. At the end of this year, the subscription is automatically extended to the full annual price.
• You can cancel the respective paid subscription before loading via your payment settings in your skills shape account profile at skillshare.com/settings/payments.
• You can cancel your skillshale membership at any time without giving reasons. If membership is terminated before the end of the ongoing subscription period, the provider does not refund any subscription fees that have already been paid or offset with their payment method. Access to skill shape ends with the end of the subscription period.

If you take these conditions into account, there are no bad surprises.

So always have the booked subscription period in mind and canceled if necessary. Then you will get a very instructive, fertile elearning experience at a very good price-performance ratio (this applies especially to annual booking).

To get 30% discount on the annual premium membership skills shape 30% .

Use the 7 days of the test phase intensively in advance to ensure that your skill shape will also use for the period of one year.

How do you find the right course for yourself?

In order to find the right course for you on skillshare, you should first clarify your interests and goals. For example, do you want to improve your photography skills or learn how to illustrate a book?

Use the search function of Skillshare to search for courses in your area. The reviews of other users can also help you with the decision. Take a look at which courses are particularly popular and what positive feedback you have received.

If you are unsure whether a course is the right one for you, you can often view a preview of the course or contact the teacher to get more information.

With these tips you will quickly and easily find the right course on skill shape and you can specifically improve your creative skills.

Are there any better alternatives to skill share?

Are there any other learning platforms out there? What distinguishes skills shape? Where do other platforms have their strengths?

If you are looking for other high-quality or accredited online learning alternatives, you will find a few options below that must be considered.

Skillshare vs. Masterclass

In contrast to skillshare, Masterclass high -quality courses that are taught world -famous experts and celebrities

In the case of comparable costs (the MasterClass standard plan costs $ 96 a year), MasterClass only offers just a little more than 150 courses in its catalog, with around 2 to 3 new courses being added every month.

Masterclass courses are usually at a high level and are aimed at beginners who want to learn a wide range of skills instead of being interested in specific niche issues.

Masterclass is one of our favorite online learning platforms due to its exclusive coaches and its high production value and definitely worth a look (they offer a risk-free 30-day reimbursement guideline).

Skillshare vs. Udemy

With Udemy, your access to a cheap online learning offer gives you. While skill shape offers over 34,000 high-quality online courses from sometimes top-class lecturers, Udemy offers thousands of cheap online courses from thousands more or less unknown lecturers.

Udemy advertises a niche -oriented approach in which students can learn specific technical skills from less well -known but nevertheless highly qualified specialists. Course finding is a bit difficult because there are hundreds of video courses on some topics alone.

If you have time to look for a course jewel at Udemy: no month or annual subscriptions sold there. Rather, you pay per price access.

Skillshare vs. LinkedIn Learning

We are not the largest LinkedIn fans (or users). At some point, LinkedIn lost who and what it once agreed and finally got into the world of online learning LinkedIn Learning

With $ 39.99 per month or $ 323.88 a year, LinkedIn Learning is more expensive than skill shape and offers-from our point of view-much lower value.

We can imagine how useful it can be for employers to offer their employees training courses on professional development. But for personal use we prefer to spend our time with the much more entertaining skill shape (which never feels like homework).

Skillshare vs. Coursera

In contrast to Skillshare, Coursera courses from the world's leading universities , not from non-academic lecturers.

Coursera's user experience feels more traditional compared to skills shape. Coursera is aimed at more professional users who want to expand their professional skills with real degrees and certificates.

While Coursera offers a much larger selection of professional and accredited courses, I think Skillshare exceeds Coursera due to the diverse selection of videos, user -friendliness and the curated learning paths.

If you coursera , there are numerous free courses available. The paid-up programs cost learning programs at EUR 44-72.

How can you use your developed creative skills?

You have discovered your creative skills and want to apply it now? Then there are different ways of doing this. First of all, you should consider which skills you master particularly well and which projects or tasks are most interested in.

Maybe you want to use your skills in the field of photography to create professional pictures for your business. Or you want to use your artistic talents to create your own works of art or to design designs for T-shirts or posters.

Skillshare offers numerous courses and workshops that can help you develop your creative skills further and use them in various areas.

What are the most important things you should consider when learning creative courses?

If you choose creative courses on skill shape, there are a few important things you should consider.

First of all, you should take your time to find the right course for you. Think carefully about what skills you want to improve or learn and search for courses that cover them.

You should also make sure that the course instructor is qualified and has experience in the area that he taught. Another important point is the regularity of learning.

Set fixed times and goals to continuously progress. It is also important to organize your materials and work environment to minimize distractions and focus on learning.

And finally: have fun!

Learning creative skills should not only be a duty, but also give joy. So take the time to experiment and explore new techniques - who knows, maybe you will even discover a new passion.

Conclusion

If you want to bring your creative skills to the next level, then Skillshare is the perfect platform for you. With a huge selection of courses and workshops on topics such as graphic design, photography, illustration and many more, you are guaranteed to find the right course for yourself.

The courses are guided by experts in their field and offer you valuable knowledge and practical skills that you can apply immediately in your creative work.

Whether you are a beginner or already have experience, skills shape offers courses for every level.

Our test methodology and the Kunstplaza self -understanding of honest test reports

Finally, we would like to give you a few lines About us , self -image with regard to honest, helpful and authentic test reports.

What guidelines we see:

• Complete weighing of all advantages and disadvantages
• Clarification and naming the facts
• Reliable research (two-source principle, where possible) and your own test run ( first hand experience )
• Authentic opinion (we would use the provider ourselves)
• Dispute of user criticism from evaluation portals
• Description of alternatives
• Transparency regarding remuneration and financing (see affiliation note at the bottom)
• Avoiding economic instructions and dependence on the providers mentioned