I’ve been a member of Skillshare for a few years now and I’ve really enjoyed the classes I’ve taken. Skillshare has classes on all types of topics, but my favorites are the creative artsy ones. I also enjoy the business themed courses on SEO, marketing or social media management and have learned a lot.

My 18 Favorite Skillshare Classes (so far)

Here are some of the classes that I have liked the best. You can see that several of the teachers are well-known experts in their fields, like Rand Fishkin, Gary Vanerchuk and Seth Godin. Other teachers are successful artists and designers like Shantell Martin, Mary Kate McDevitt, Tom Froese and Julia Rothman.

You can try skill share for two months for free! Just click this link to sign up – be sure to click the blue bar at the top to redeem your two free months.

• Hand Lettering Essentials for Beginners with Mary Kate McDevitt
• Circular Logo Design with Aaron Draplin
• Inky Illustrations and Inky Maps with Tom Froese
• Food Photography with Daniel Krieger
• Documentary Photography with Amy Vitale
• Introduction to SEO: Strategies and Tactics with Rand Fishkin of MOZ
• Photoshop for Lunch and Illustrator for Lunch quick tutorials by Helen Bradley
• Ana Victoria Calderon’s watercolor classes
• Context is Key: Social Media Strategy with Gary Vaynerchuk
• Ohn Mar Win’s watercolor classes
• Beginner’s Guide to Animating GIFs by Jake Bartlett
• Pattern Design by Elizabeth Olwen
• The Art of Travel: Create Your Own Tourism Poster by Anne Ditmeyer
• Modern Marketing Workshop by Seth Godin
• Drawing on Everything: Discovering Your Creative Voice by Shantell Martin
• Watercolor classes by Mariya Popandopulo
• Making Your First Zine with Kate Bingaman-Burt
• Illustrating Patterns by Julia Rothman

Here are some samples of student work from these classes.

Pros of Skillshare

• Over 17,000 classes on a variety of topics all free with membership
• No commitment – if you don’t like a particular class you can just quit in the middle
• You can do the classes at your own pace anytime – at midnight or noon
• Classes have a project you can complete and share so there is a deliverable
• It’s fun to share with other students and see their work
• There is a class for almost any skill you want to learn
• Students and teachers are friendly and will answer questions and help you
• Some of the teachers are at the top of their field and it is amazing to be able to learn from them
• Many of the students are extremely talented and inspiring
• Very inexpensive at less than $100/year even after the free membership runs out
• Learn useful skills that you can make money from as a side hustle or use in your job
• If you have awesome skills you can also teach a class, share your knowledge and make money as well

My favorite detail of Skillshare is that the videos can be played speeded up. I love this feature! Some of the teachers talk too slowly for me and it would drive me crazy to have to listen to an hour of very slow speech with lots of pauses. But I can watch it at 1.25x or 1.5x speed and I can still understand everything they say. If I have to go back and watch something again there are handy rewind functions as well. Oh and I should add that you can also watch at half speed if you need things to be a bit slower.

Cons of Skillshare

• Self-directed classes might mean you don’t complete them
• You might forget you have the membership and not take advantage of it, thus wasting money
• Some classes are more professional and more useful than others
• Since the classes are made and submitted by the teachers some of them are not so good, but if you have the membership it doesn’t cost anything to start the class and then quit if you don’t like it
• Sometimes the videos take a few minutes to load, but that might just be my computer or connection

If you can’t tell already I love Skillshare. I was also a member of Creativebug but if I have to choose one (and I do because I am on a budget) I prefer Skillshare. The Skillshare classes are on a wider range of topics and are sometimes less “produced” as they’re created by the teacher and not by the platform. I like that raw edge. Creativebug has beautiful studios and hires famous artists to do their courses. I like their classes but for me Skillshare is more fun. However if I had endless time and money I would definitely have memberships on both platforms.

If you want to try Skillshare you can sign-up here with this link to test it out and see if you like it.

I hope you liked this review of Skillshare and are excited to try a few of my favorite classes!

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