Graphic Arts/Design

[actionhank1786]

Hey guys.
I've been around these forums for a few years now, and decided i would make a thread.
Anyhow, I took some graphic arts courses at the local community college. I have a math credit left to graduate, but i've realized that my portfolio is really weak (it's mostly just BS projects our teacher gave us. He was a super cool guy, but they kind of had him as a jack of all trades teacher since it's a smaller community college. He knew a ton about printing, having spent 20 years running printing presses for Missouri University, but as far as design and things like that, he was just kind of doing the best he could. Not bad, but he wasn't exactly super knowledgeable on the subject).
Anyhow, long story semi-short, i've just recently taken a job working warehouse at Midway USA. They are a global gun parts/hunting supply company. They told me about how they love to hire from within the company, so i went and tracked down the head of their Graphic Design department and sat down with him one morning to talk to him. He said he was glad to see me take the initiative to talk to him, and that i should just get a portfolio together and try and get some freelance work on the side to build it up. He was a super cool guy, and we talked for a good 30 minutes. He said i should look into Flash, and working with InDesign (I hated that program so much in school. Actually both of them...)
Anyhow, i was wondering what you all thought would be a good place to find resources to kind of teach yourself the basics. Any good books or tutorials would be excellent. I'm wanting to learn the basics of design from a more fresh standpoint, and work on logo work, design elements, and more specifically how to get it all done in the Adobe suite. (He also told me that their entire department runs on Windows, which i found odd. I thought everyone and their mother used Mac these days for the work. It was interesting though.)
So if you all could help me with some sites, and books i would greatly appreciate it. I will start getting some work together in the coming weeks for everyone to tear down and let me know what to work on.
Thanks in advance everyone.

[ConstableMurtis]

There really are countless books and websites that help with learning graphic design. I've been doing it for just over 6 years now and I still learn new things every day by reading online tutorials and looking up inspiring images to try to recreate certain styles/effects their creators use.

Some of the sites I go to are:

Vimeo/YouTube - search for different concepts or ideas you are trying to accomplish or just general techniques and you should be able to come up with something

Abduzeedo
From Up North
PSD Tuts
Brushes Download
Creattica
Cruzine
PSD Vault
Pixel Tango
Adobe Tutorialz
Photoshop Tutorials
Art Junks
Tutorial Storage
Design Instruct
Tutorial 9
Inspiks

Personally, I find I learn more by trying to recreate effects and styles that others have made and by trying to apply those concepts to my own designs. But there's always a time when a new technique is used that I have no idea what do so I have to look that up too.

[JohnPrince]

Thank you for the great links