The Graphics department will be running a new "SHL Graphics Academy" starting this season.

What is this about?
The intent of the Graphics Academy is twofold; it will allow us to teach members of the site how to create signatures that will enable them to fund their players' careers, secondly it will enable us to increase engagement and activity in the graphics community.

Description:

We will run classes with those that are interested in improving their graphics skills. Classes will be split into two categories: Beginner and Advanced, and will run over a number of several weeks throughout the season. Each fortnight a lesson will be set that focuses on one element of player signatures depending on the skill level of the class.

Graphics Graders will be assigned to mentor these classes. The academy will run over 7 weeks, the first week of each lesson will be used by participants to create and submit their work to the class mentors. The following week will be used provide feedback on the submission. This work will be shared with the other members of their class so there will be two types of feedback for participants: peer feedback from their class members and professional feedback from a grader a.k.a. mentor.

Participants will be paid for completing each stage and will receive a bonus for completing all 3 stages. Participants will also be paid for actively providing feedback to peers during each stage. None of it is mandatory, but the more you do, the more everyone will benefit.

Lesson plan Beginner Class:
Week 1: Player render
Week 2: Feedback
Week 3: Logo swap
Week 4: Feedback
Week 5: Text
Week 6: Feedback
Week 7: no lesson

Lesson plan Advanced Class
Week 1: no lesson
Week 2: Jersey Swap
Week 3: Feedback
Week 4: Lighting
Week 5: Feedback
Week 6: Text and effects
Week 7: Feedback

Payment:
- 500k per submitted task (500k extra for giving peer feedback every time) = max 1M per lesson
- Bonus for completing all 3 lessons: 3M
- Maximum payment per season: 6M

When does the Academy run?
The Graphics Academy will run from the 12th of September for 6 weeks for the Beginner class and starts one week later from the 19th for 6 weeks for the Advanced class.

Should I be in the Beginner or Advanced class?
If you are new to making graphics or have submitted graphics but not received a grade over 3/5 sign up for the beginner class. If you are confident in the fundamentals of making graphics but would like to improve sign up for the advanced class.

How will I learn?
Each lesson a task will be set and some useful references will be provided, it will be up to the participants to attempt the task. Once the task is complete, participants will submit their work, and discuss what they found challenging, peers and the assigned mentors will review the work and provide feedback and advice on the areas that were found challenging.

But I don't have Photoshop!
That's ok. There are free alternatives (such as PhotoPea - https://www.photopea.com/) that you can use!

How do I sign up?
Just reply to this forum post until this upcoming Sunday (11th of September) and let us know what class you want to take part in. The classes will be run through Discord so please include your discord name and join the SHL Graphics Discord server (join here!) so we can invite you to the Academy channel.

If you have other questions, also feel free to ask them here in this thread.