Are you looking for ways to expand your knowledge and learn something new? If so, Skillshare is an excellent platform that can provide a wide variety of classes taught by professionals in different fields. It’s the perfect place to start learning about topics you’re passionate about or just become more knowledgeable on certain subjects.
Whether you’re interested in tech, design, business, or anything else, Skillshare has tens of thousands of classes for both beginners and experts alike. It’s one of the best online course websites out there.
Of course, as we detailed in our recent Skillshare review, with a library of over 34,000 online courses to choose from, some classes are better than others in terms of quality and effectiveness. And with such a huge selection, it can sometimes be difficult for users to weed through all the choices to find the best Skillshare courses.
In this guide, we’ll be ranking the best classes on Skillshare across a range of categories, discussing what makes them stand out from other courses offered by the platform and why they’re worth checking out. We’ll also offer some pointers on how to find the best Skillshare classes for your individual needs.
So read on to find out which ones made our list!
Disclosure: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost for you, we might get a commission if you click the link and purchase.
The Best Skillshare Courses By Category
Here are our picks for the best Skillshare courses across a range of topics.
Art
Pick an art class to learn anything from color theory to “How to Draw Pine Trees.” From a budding artist to a professional, there are courses for every skill level and every art medium. You can filter the course selection by categories, such as sketching, watercolor, drawing, illustration, digital art, or acrylic. If you want to learn watercolor, there are dozens of courses to choose from. Pick your skill level and art style preference, gather your supplies, and you are ready to go.
Becoming Creative/An Artistic Guide to Creativity
Instructor: Brett Eviston
Duration: 13 lessons (3 hrs 9 min)
Details: Brett will facilitate your artistic journey to help you express your creative side. With tools like art journaling and guided creative projects along the way, you will receive just the right amount of direction to help you explore your art style and practice the skills taught in class. You can apply the skills from this class in any art style and skill level.
Modern Abstract Expressionism: A Journey in Brush Strokes, Texture, and All The Feels
Instructor: Peggy Dean
Duration: 14 lessons (1 hour 14 minutes)
Details: Peggy is one of Skillshare’s top teachers, and she walks her students through specific art projects while teaching them new skills and techniques. In this particular course, she introduces the importance and impact of color transition, texture, and balance in your art.
Visual Design, Graphic Design, Logo Creation, Branding, and Website Layout
Courses in this category offer content in the areas of Adobe Photoshop skills, Digital Illustration, Logo Design, Web Design, UX Design, and Vector Graphics. Whether you want to brush up on your existing graphic design skills, are looking for a career change, or simply want to learn how to create your own Etsy shop business logo, this group of courses will help you get your goal accomplished.
Great Graphic Design: Create Emotional Gripping Typographic Art
Instructor: Sophia Yeshi
Duration: 12 lessons (1 hour 13 minutes)
Details: Graphic designer and illustrator Sophia Yeshi shares her skills and experience in this course so that you do not need to get a Graphic Design degree to create a great graphic on your own. She breaks down the process and engagingly presents the material to help you master basic graphic design elements.
Beginner’s Guide to Adobe InDesign: The Essentials
Instructor: Kate Silver
Duration: 41 lessons (3 hours 22 minutes)
Details: Graphic designer and Adobe instructor Kate Silver will teach you how to use basic Adobe InDesign tools to help you improve your mastery of that software application. This class is a great introductory class for beginners, with ten projects as part of the curriculum so that you can practice hands-on what you learn in class.
Procreate for Beginners: Learn the Basics & Sell Your Artwork
Instructor: Cat Coquillette
Duration: 8 lessons (1 hour 50 minutes)
Details: In this course, artist, entrepreneur, and educator Cat Coquillette teaches her students how to create art in Procreate and how to monetize their art as well. This class combines artistic expression and skill learning with entrepreneurship, allowing you to expand your horizons as an artist while exploring ways to widen your audience. This course is geared toward beginners, with over 700 projects to choose from.
Music
From music fundamentals and composition to production, Skillshare offers courses to help you grow at any point in your musical journey. Whether you want to learn how to play an instrument, improve your singing, compose a song, or publish your music, simply search for a music course based on the sub-category. We have listed some of our favorites below:
Beginner’s Guide to GarageBand (Mac)-Let’s Write a Song
Instructor: Mike Barnes
Duration: 20 lessons (1 hour 48 minutes)
Details: Music instructor Mike Barnes takes his students on a journey from “The Anatomy of GarageBand” to “Exporting” your final composition so that you can confidently create your first song. Whether you want to learn how to use the app or are serious about creating music you can monetize, this course is a great place to get started. This course is geared toward beginners, with 12 projects as part of the class.
SINGING MADE EASY (Level 2): Sing Like A Pro!
Instructor: Gabriel
Duration: 15 lessons (55 minutes)
Details: Voice coach Gabriel helps you develop and improve your singing skills by teaching you how to practice legato, falsetto, and staccato. You will also learn breathing exercises and head movements that greatly influence how your voice carries when you sing. This course is geared toward students with an intermediate skill level.
Photography
If you are thinking of starting your own photography business or want to get better at taking high-quality family portraits at get-togethers, consider taking one of Skillshare’s photography courses. You can pick from categories, such as photographic composition, Adobe Photoshop, or photo editing, to ensure your next photo session is a success. There are also courses on outdoor photography and creating quality photography for Websites, products, and marketing.
Outdoor Photography: See, Shoot & Share The Beauty Around You
Instructor: Minh T
Duration: 10 lessons (52 minutes)
Details: Photographer and art director Minh T teaches students how to create the perfect shot. Capturing the essence of a specific moment and ambiance can be challenging, but with the right skills and knowledge, you will be able to take shots that will impress your audience. Minh gives you the tools to get out there and capture beauty: you will learn how to capture architectural shots, edit nature shots, and make proper selects.
iPhone Photography: How to Shoot & Edit Conceptual Photos On Your Phone
Instructor: Amelie Satzger
Duration: 34 lessons (1 hour 56 minutes)
Details: Photo artist and art director Amelie Satzgerhelps her students to take their iPhone photography to the next level. Rather than taking thousands of images that sit on your iPhone, you will learn how to capture and edit your images to create great masterpieces. With tools like “Mood Board,” you will learn how to apply color and composition theory to create a meaningful piece of art. Amelie will also teach you proper photo editing so that after the 11 projects which are part of this course, you will be able to use these skills going forward.
Business Analytics
For those who are left-brain inclined and are looking for skills to help them in their professional career on a business level, Skillshare offers hundreds of courses in sub-categories, such as data science, visualization, analysis, and business intelligence. On a more practical and hands-on level, you can enroll in a Microsoft Excel course to learn the basics or expand your skills with that platform.
Excel for the Real World: Gain the Basic Skills of Microsoft Excel
Instructor: Al Chen
Duration: 10 lessons (1 hour 2 minutes)
Details: Excel trainer and Coda evangelist Al Chen breaks down the intimidation factor of Excel by teaching his students the basic tools within this software application. Helping you navigate Excel with confidence, Al focuses on skills like “Writing Formulas” and “Lists & Sorting” so that you can use Excel to work for you rather than the other way around. Al makes sure you are not intimidated by Excel after this class. This course is geared toward beginners, with 54 projects to complete within the course.
Kickstart Your Data Analytics Career with Tableau: Solving Real Analytical Problems
Instructor: Dee Naidoo
Duration: 40 lessons (7 hours 54 minutes)
Details: Self-proclaimed data nerd Dee Naidoo helps you undersend and master data analytics by teaching you how to use Tableau. You will learn to navigate the application and use it to build charts, dashboards, and headline cards. In addition to hands-on projects, you will learn the importance of proper data analysis that goes beyond pretty pie charts. This course is geared toward students of all levels, with four major projects to practice your skills hands-on throughout the course.
Professional And Personal Development
Suppose you want to improve your leadership or communication skills. In that case, Skillshare has many options to choose from: from project management to productivity to public speaking, you can find a course that helps you hone those specific skills and helps you grow as an individual in personal development. Skillshare also offers a plethora of technical courses to help you master a new application or software, aiding you to become better at what you do.
Here are some of our favorite professional and personal development courses on Skillshare:
Mastering Productivity: Creating a Custom System That Works
Instructor: Thomas Frank
Duration: 10 lessons (1 hour 5 minutes)
Details: Everyone benefits from an increase in productivity. Whether you want to be more productive on your job or be better with your free time, good time management skills reduce your stress level and help you focus on what’s truly important. YouTuber, author, and entrepreneur Thomas Frank shares his best tips and tricks on becoming a master of your day. With hands-on mini-projects, this class is perfect for everyone at all skill levels.
E-Commerce Essentials: How To Start a Successful Online Business
Instructor: Tracey Wallace
Duration: 9 lessons (1 hour 3 minutes)
Details: Content creator and Director of Content at Klaviyo, Tracey Wallace, walks you through what it takes to get your e-business off the ground. From finding your product niche to the official launch of your e-store, you will get all the information you need to get started. This course is geared toward beginners seeking ways to create passive income online.
Hand-Code Your First Website: HTML+CSS Basics
Instructor: Rich Armstrong
Duration: 14 lessons (1 hour 56 minutes)
Details: Artist and designer Rich Armstrong teaches his students how to code their first Website from scratch. More on the technical side, this course will teach you how to use HTML and CSS and code on your own, allowing you to be creative with your skills once mastered. This gives you more control over your Website, as opposed to cookie-cutter templates available online. This is a beginner’s course.
WordPress Academy: Learn WordPress Step by Step
Instructor: Chris Dixon
Duration: 85 lessons (8 hours 27 minutes)
Details: Web developer and online trainer Chris Dixon offers this course to equip you to navigate WordPress confidently, learning its in-and-outs to create your own blog, customize it and utilize all the tools that WordPress offers. This course is geared toward beginners, with 12 projects to practice all learned skills hands-on.
Do Things, Tell People: The Power of Personal Branding
Instructor: Hamza Khan
Duration: 14 lessons (37 minutes)
Details: Everyone has a story. Telling your story is a powerful tool to connect with others, especially if you desire to connect with your audience or clients. Managing Director of Student Life Network Hamza Khan helps his students craft their personal stories to help them tell them with ease and impact. While this course is fairly short, it will change how you interact with others. Geared toward all skill levels, Hamza provides his students with nine tangible action items to apply throughout the course and long afterward.
How to Find the Best Skillshare Classes for Your Needs
While our guide above is a great place to get started, the reality is that there are tens of thousands of Skillshare classes to choose from. And this isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. Everyone is different, and everyone has different needs and goals. That’s why it’s important to be able to find the right Skillshare classes for you.
To make things easier, here are a few tips that can help you in your search:
- Determine Your Needs: It’s important to decide what your needs are before you even begin looking for Skillshare classes. Do you need to learn a specific skill? Are you looking to build your portfolio? Or do you just want to expand your skillset generally? By knowing exactly what it is that you’re after, it will be much easier to narrow down the search and find the right classes for you.
- Read Reviews & Ratings: Reviews and ratings are a great way to get an idea of what other people think of the Skillshare classes you’re interested in. If a class has mostly good reviews, then it’s probably a good one to take. However, if there are lots of negative reviews then it might be best to look elsewhere.
- Check Out Skillshare’s Personalized Recommendations: When you first sign up for Skillshare, it will ask you a few questions to determine your interests and goals. From there, it will offer personalized course recommendations. This is a great place to start if you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the options.
- Look at the Staff Picks: Skillshare has a section of “Staff Picks” that are classes that the Skillshare team has hand-picked as being great. This section is a great resource if you’re looking for high-quality courses to take.
- Filter Your Searches Carefully: Browsing the Skillshare course catalog is a lot easier if you use the filters properly. You can filter by things like course length, subject, and skill level. This helps you find courses that fit exactly your needs or interests.
- Pay Attention to Emails from the Company: As a Skillshare member, you’ll get emails from the company with relevant recommendations. Read through these thoroughly and you might find some great courses that you wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
A Final Word on the Best Skillshare Courses
With tens of thousands of classes to choose from, there’s practically no limit to what you can learn on Skillshare. Whether you’re looking to pick up a new hobby, refine your professional skillset, or just become a more knowledgeable person in general, the platform has something for everyone.
And with the affordable Skillshare pricing model where you pay only about $165 for a full year of unlimited access to everything on the platform — that works out to less than $15 a month — you’ll be able to scratch your intellectual itch without breaking the bank.
So don’t hesitate – jump right in and start learning something new today! You won’t regret it.
Have any questions about our guide to the best Skillshare courses? Are there other great Skillshare classes we left off the list? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.