Business Courses at LinkedIn Learning

Web Career Clinic Weekly

This series explores web careers from a variety of angles: insights from me (a veteran web designer and agency principal), interviews with industry insiders, and answers to questions from our members. I’ve mentored and coached many web professionals as they were starting out and love sharing all that I’ve learned from my 15-year career as a designer, front-end developer, and agency principal. 

If you’re interested in a career in web design, programming, UX, SEO, project management, or content development, this course is a great place to start. Learn about the career options that are available to you, identify a path that fits your skills and preferences, and look a few steps ahead of where you are now, to plan your professional future.

Collaborative Design: Managing a Team

Part 1 of 3 Effective collaboration can make or break a project, as anyone who’s ever suffered through “design by committee” can attest. But how do you manage a team – which will often include clients along with the creative team – so that collaboration moves smoothly and nets great results? It requires clear roles and responsibilities, parameters, and opportunities for input – as well as good people management skills. In this course, you’ll learn both a proven framework and the necessary skills for bringing people together to create extraordinary projects.

Collaborative Design: Vision and Strategy

Part 2 of 3 Beneath the surface layer of design – where colour palettes, fonts, and graphics live – there is an essential core that fuels great design. I call it deep collaboration – with your clients and your end users. When you can get inside the heads of the people you’re designing for, you can do extraordinary work; and when you can’t, you’ll likely be stuck at simply ordinary. In this course, I’ll teach you how to ask better questions and collaborate effectively with your clients – and other project stakeholders – in order to develop a design brief and project strategy that leads to extraordinary results.

Collaborative Design: Process and Efficiency

Part 3 of 3 You’ve got the right people on the team, and you’ve set a clear vision – but how do you keep a collaborative process efficient and streamlined? Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to move a group of people forward without getting stuck in consensus paralysis, scope creep, or death by compromise. In this course, I share my hard-earned lessons about coordinating teams both large and small on creative projects that soar. Topics include setting expectations; gathering input from stakeholders; and getting effective feedback from non-designers.

Planning a Web Design Portfolio: Getting a Job

For web designers and other creative professionals, a great portfolio can make the difference between landing the job and getting passed over. In this course, we explore the five essential components of an outstanding portfolio, and find out how to frame your projects in ways that will appeal to prospective employers. Employers looking to fill a job opening want designers who can solve real-world design challenges, be productive and creative team members, and hit the ground running. This course helps you plan the conceptual structure of your portfolio to make these kinds of skills stand out.

Planning a Web Design Portfolio: Growing Your Freelance Business

A great portfolio can make the difference between landing a new client and losing a sale. In this course, you’ll learn the five essential components of an outstanding portfolio, and see how to frame your projects in ways that will appeal to prospective clients. I help web designers and other creative professionals think strategically about what projects to feature, how to frame those projects for new prospects, and how to conceptually structure a portfolio that will attract fresh clients and move your business in the right direction.

Creative Insights: Lauren Bacon on Web Design

Ever wondered about a career in web design (or know someone who is considering it)? This 24-minute mini-course shares insights on breaking into the industry, possible career paths, navigating career transitions, and more. I speak from the perspective of a self-taught web designer & developer, as well as someone who ran my own agency, hiring and managing my own team. You’ll learn what it takes to thrive in the industry, the kinds of roles that are available, and why I don’t put much stock in certification and degrees.

Running a Web Design Business: Defining Success

This one-hour course is all about getting you crystal-clear on your definition of success, so you can build a business that rocks your socks… and that supports you in experiencing success your way. (Which, after all, is the only kind of success that actually matters.)

“Defining Success” comes from my heart, from 15 years of experience as an entrepreneur – and from my deep desire to see more entrepreneurs living richly satisfying, joyful lives. And while the full title is “Running a Web Design Business: Defining Success” (because it was conceived as part of Lynda.com’s business library for web design entrepreneurs), I designed the course to be valuable to any entrepreneur, no matter what kind of business you’re building.