The Best Online Branding Courses & MOOCs in 2024

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In this article, we’re looking at the top branding courses for entrepreneurs, marketers, designers, and anyone who pursues a career in the field of branding.

In particular, we selected online courses and trainings from the following areas of branding:

• Brand building & brand strategy
• Brand management
• Design
• Digital strategy
• Personal branding

We’ve also included information on certifications and the duration of each course for your convenience. Happy learning!

Brand Building & Strategic Branding Courses

Branding: The Creative Journey

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 5 months (5 hours/week)
• Certificate: Yes (optional)
• Presenter: IE Business School
• Platform: Coursera

“Branding: The Creative Journey” is a specialization program offered by the IE Business School (Madrid, Spain). This very complete program was designed as a series of courses that help you master your branding skills, including developing branding strategies, branded content generation, image creation, and customer experience. The best part of the program is the applied learning project, which, in the end, gives you the opportunity to put into practice everything you learned during the course.

Due to the length of the program, it is okay to choose the courses that interest you the most and follow the content according to your preferences.

Business Branding: The Complete Course

“Business Branding” is a great online course for people interested in creating a new brand from scratch. Steve Houraghan offers a practical step-by-step guide with examples. It is perfect for entrepreneurs and business owners, designers, or marketers who want to learn about strategic branding. The course is divided into two parts: Strategy (Part 1) and Expression (Part 2). 

Part 1 – Strategy

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 3.5 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Steve Houraghan (Brand Creator & Strategist)
• Platform: Udemy

The first part of the series provides an overview of brand strategy and covers the fundamentals of brand positioning, internal branding, and brand personality.

Part 2 – Expression

• Level: Intermediate
• Duration: 4 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Steve Houraghan (Brand Creator & Strategist)
• Platform: Udemy

The second part of this course explains the concepts of brand psychology, naming, and visual identity. Steve Houraghan also provides a core message and storytelling framework.

Branding Foundations

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 1.5 hours
• Certificate: No
• Presenter: Drew Boyd (co-author of “Inside the Box”, executive director of the Master of Science in Marketing program, and associate professor of marketing and innovation at the University of Cincinnati)
• Platform: LinkedIn Learning (Lynda)

Branding Foundations is an excellent course for understanding the fundamentals of branding in a well-structured and complete way. The course is short but provides a solid background for entrepreneurs or anyone interested in learning about branding. The author teaches how to develop and launch a brand and measure its success.

Brand Identity and Strategy

• Level: Intermediate
• Duration: 14 hours
• Certificate: Yes (optional)
• Presenter: IE Business School
• Platform: Coursera

The Brand Identity and Strategy online course explores the concept of a brand, why branding is essential, and how to build successful brands. Dr. Maria Eizaguirre (a Rhodes Scholar winning professor) also teaches how to apply theoretical models to the real business world.

Contemporary Brand Identity

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 2 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Michael Johnson
• Platform: Domestika

In this course, Michael Johnson, who is an experienced designer and creative director, shares his branding techniques to develop a strategic branding concept from scratch. You will learn to develop a brand’s manifesto and a design toolkit using verbal and visual concepts for a new or existing brand. This course is perfect for people looking to learn about the strategic side of branding and the concept of brand identity.

How to Build an Outstanding Brand

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 1.5 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Mac Piechota
• Platform: Udemy

Mac Piechota designed this course to help entrepreneurs build and grow their brands. Even though the course is focused on physical product businesses, the presented branding strategies and techniques can be applied to almost any business type. Several case studies showcase branding theory in action.

Fundamentals of Branding for Small Business

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 1.5 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Nour Boustani
• Platform: Udemy

In 1.5 hours, Nour Boustani presents a step-by-step guide for building a successful brand. The course is targeted at entrepreneurs who are on a tight budget but still want to stand out in the marketplace. Students learn about the different aspects of business marketing, consumer behavior, and visual communications. Examples and assignments ensure a deep understanding of the concepts.

Brand Management Courses

Strategic Brand Management

• Level: Intermediate
• Duration: 12 weeks (8–10 hours/week)
• Certificate: Yes (optional)
• Presenter: Curtin University (Australia)
• Platform: edX

The Strategic Brand Management online course is part of the Marketing in a Digital World MicroMasters program. It provides a great overview of different key elements of branding. Students learn how to build a brand (brand positioning, brand values), market a brand (marketing communications, brand associations), manage brand equityBrand equity represents the value of a brand. It is the difference between the value of a branded product and the value of that product without that brand name attached to it., and develop specific strategies to rejuvenate and extend an existing brand.

Brand Management: Aligning Business, Brand and Behaviour

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 17 hours
• Certificate: Yes (optional)
• Presenter: University of London & London Business School
• Platform: Coursera

This course is presented by Professor Nader Tavassoli of the London Business School. Throughout the course, students foster their understanding that a brand is more than a visual identity and image: it is instead an experience along the entire customer journey and, therefore, concerns people in the entire organization. The course covers all aspects of how to build, manage, and measure brands in the context of bigger organizations.

Managing Brand Reputation

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 28 minutes
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Goldie Chan
• Platform: LinkedIn Learning (Lynda)

In this specialized online course, Goldie Chan explains the basics of brand reputation management and provides practical tools for monitoring and enhancing a brand’s reputation. Students also learn how to respond to and react to customer criticism.

Branding and Design Courses

The Branding Masterclass for Graphic Designers

• Level: Intermediate
• Duration: 8.5 hours
• Certificate: No
• Presenter: Lindsay Marsh
• Platform: SkillShare

This branding course for graphic designers explains the entire process of brand design based on a practical, real-world branding project. Lindsay Marsh presents all critical topics of successful brand design, including brainstorming, logo design, color & typography systems, client briefs & presentations, brand guidelines, mock-ups, and photography rules. The objective of the course is to show students how to brainstorm concepts and ideas and turn these into a fully finished project.

Good to know: This course offers a private Facebook group for students.

Branding for Designers by Sean Adams

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 1.5 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Sean Adams
• Platform: LinkedIn Learning (Lynda)

In his Branding for Designers course, Sean Adams shows graphic designers how to move from past one-off projects to partner with clients on a holistic branding approach. The online course explains how all brand visual elements (logos, icons, color palettes, etc.) work together to tell a brand story and provides practical systems to deliver to clients who want to sustain their brand into the future.

Graphic Design Specialization for Marketers

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 6 months (3 hours/week)
• Certificate: Yes (optional)
• Presenters: Graphic Design Program at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts)
• Platform: Coursera

The Graphic Design Specialization is a great choice for marketers who want to expand their knowledge in graphic design. This sequence of four courses teaches students how to reach a communication goal through images and typography. The final coursework is a peer-reviewed branding project. Throughout the course, students gain enough knowledge to start their own projects in graphic design, interface design, motion graphics, or editorial design.

Art Direction for Creative Visual Branding

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 2 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenters: Linus Lohoff
• Platform: Domestika

In this course, Linus Lohoff, an art director and photographer, shares an overview of essential art direction tools for creating visual brand identities. This includes learning how to create an impactful brand book and the role of an art director. Basic knowledge of Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign is required for this course.

Brand Design and Packaging

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 1.5 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenters: FIBRA Branding Studio (Andrea Gálvez and Martín Bedoya)
• Platform: Domestika

This course is perfect for entrepreneurs, branding enthusiasts, and of course, graphic designers. The two presenters of this course share their process of approaching a brand identity and visual identity project for product packaging. Basic knowledge of graphic design, as well as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, is required for this course.

Typographic Branding: Create Memorable Logos from Scratch

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 2 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenters: Carlos Mignot
• Platform: Domestika

The main focus of Carlos Mignot’s course is to learn to develop a typographic identity for a brand. This includes creating a color palette and designing typefaces and fonts using Adobe Illustrator. Basic knowledge of Adobe Illustrator is necessary for this course.

Hand-Drawn Branding: Design Original Logos

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 2.5 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenters: Jon Contino
• Platform: Domestika

In this course, Jon Contino (an experienced Graphic Designer, illustrator, and Creative Director) teaches you how to create a logo design by hand and develop a brand’s visual identity based on it. It is recommended that some basic drawing skills, knowledge of fundamental design principles, and some experience with Illustrator and Photoshop are helpful, if possible.

Digital Branding Courses

Digital Branding and Engagement

• Level: Intermediate
• Duration: 4 weeks (3-4 hours/week)
• Certificate: Yes (optional)
• Presenter: Curtin University (Australia)
• Platform: edX

Digital Branding and Engagement is focused on how to increase brand awareness and brand engagement within digital channels. In this online course, students will learn about the concepts of paid, owned, and earned media, the challenges of managing a digital brand, and how to inspire two-way conversations with rich and persuasive content.

Digital Branding: Develop Your Online Visual Identity

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 2 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Óscar Eduardo Bejarano Cabrera
• Platform: Domestika

This digital branding course is perfect for anyone looking to create a digital strategy for a brand (including the mission statement and the consumer journey design). Óscar will teach you the basic concepts of digital marketing and branding, share some advice on how to connect with your consumers on an emotional level via digital platforms, and how to explore each step of the consumer journey starting from the purchase decision.

Personal Branding Courses

An Introduction to Personal Branding

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 7 hours
• Certificate: Yes (optional)
• Presenter: University of Virginia
• Platform: Coursera

The focus of this course offered by the University of Virginia, is to teach students how to create and maintain a personal brand. Kimberley R. Barker provides an overview of personal branding, explains how to write your mission statement, helps you identify which social media platforms fit you best, and explains how reputation and digital privacy affect your personal brand.

The Climb: 6 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 2.5 hours
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Dwayne K. Sutton
• Platform: Udemy

“The Climb” is a very detailed and action-oriented online course that shows you the exact steps for building a powerful personal brand. You will learn how to create a compelling brand story, how to stand out in a competitive market, and how to attract the right customers. Dwayne K. Sutton also shows how to choose distinctive brand colors and create your own personal logo. This course is best suited for people who have an ongoing business.

Personal Branding by Chelsea Krost

• Level: Beginner
• Duration: 47 minutes
• Certificate: Yes
• Presenter: Chelsea Krost
• Platform: LinkedIn Learning (Lynda)

The instructor of this course, Chelsea Krost, is a pioneer in the influencer space. In her online course, she will teach you how to develop your personal brand story, craft your messaging, and define your audience. You will also learn the ins and outs of building a brand presence and how to monetize your personal brand.