It may only be the ides of July, but August does tend to sneak up on us like a fifth grade summer book report deadline, and so we thought we'd call your attention to an educational morsel smack in the middle of National Picnic Month. On the weekend of August 16-17, the mediabistro.com mothership is hosting "InDesign for Designers," a class in New York City for Mac-based designers ready to make the switch to Adobe's page-layout flagship. Art director and graphic designer Patricia Ryan will guide you through InDesign's myriad features and capabilities to get you up and running quickly. And by the end of the weekend, you'll be able to lay down an Inner Glow, an Outer Glow, and a Drop Shadow with the best of them. So you can legitimately say you spent the weekend working on your tan.

"What's your major?" You'll ask the chipper student sketching the web of cracks in the South Street Seaport pavement on a balmy winter day in 2009. "New York City!" She'll reply, beaming and shifting her well-designed, 100% recycled tote bag to the other shoulder. Thanks to new programs in environmental studies announced today by The New School and Parsons The New School for Design, undergraduates will soon be able to embark upon interdisciplinary study in urban ecosystems and sustainable design, with the help of the urban ecosystem to end all urban ecosystems—New York City. Think of it as urban policy and design thinking teaming up to solve environmental problems unique to cities.

"The urban ecosystem and sustainability may be the most important areas of environmental study in this century," says Joseph Westphal, university provost and director of The New School's Tishman Environment and Design Center, which will administer the program. "We need to prepare the next generation of leaders who will help shape a sustainable world for future generations." The program will accept its first class of students in the fall of 2009, and they'll be able to choose from bachelor of arts (concentrations in urban ecosystems or public policy) or bachelor of science (sustainable design or urban ecosystem design) flavors. Both degree programs include fieldwork, internships, and collaborative final projects. New York City may never be the same.

If you were among those that got all tingly at last month's Mediabistro Circus session on user interface design, have we got news for you. The Steven Heller-helmed MFA Design braintrust over at the School of Visual Arts has just announced a new advanced degree program in interaction design. Beginning in the fall of next year, the two-year MFA in Interaction Design will focus on the critical role of the designer in creating useful and usable digital products and services. The department will be chaired by Liz Danzico, an expert in information architecture and usability, who conceived the program with Heller. "In its most basic form, interaction design involves a conversation between a person and an interface," notes Danzico. "Whether it's a website, a mobile phone, or a kiosk at the airport, great interaction design starts with an understanding of people." And speaking of people, click "continued..." for a taste of the impressive faculty members—encompassing web and graphic designers, writers, and design researchers—who have signed on so far.

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As you've probably come to infer from our recent flurry of posts touting new educational offerings for designers, school is far from out for summer. Today we bring you news of the freshly launched learning initiative of our friends at Graphics.com, who are now offering on-demand video tutorials and online courses on topics of interest to the design community. The first course starts on Monday (we hear there are still a few slots available) and focuses on project management with the tempting, aspirational title "On Time, On Budget, and Worth It" and School of Visual Arts (SVA) professor Daniel Schutzsmith at the helm. Over six weeks, the class will take students through the life of a project, from sales to client retention.

Because the daunting, consultantspeak ring of "project management" makes us a little uneasy, we asked Dynamic Graphics editor-in-chief Tami Terrell, who also serves as editorial director of Graphics.com/learning, to elaborate. "Historically, project management is a topic that designers request more information about. And no matter the business, it has to be sound financially to be able to work to its fullest potential creatively," says Terrell, adding that students will hear tips for easily adjusting their workflows without adding significant costs. "The idea is to get a handle on the day-to-day and your finances so you have the time and skills to grow your business."

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From HOW editor Bryn Mooth comes news of the magazine's one-hour online seminar (because we refuse to use the word "webinar") on design career development set for tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m. EST. The first in a new series of HOW online seminars, "Planning Your Design Career" is targeted at designers who dream of owning their own firm, aspire to lead an in-house creative team, or just want to sharpen their business knowledge. Mooth describes the seminar leader, Jeni Herberger, as "super engaging and down-to-earth," and armed with plenty of real-world advice. One of the more intriguing lessons promised by tomorrow's session is "How to identify your hidden career goals" (come out, come out, wherever you are!). Interested? Click continued... for a magical code that will get you $20 off the $69 registration fee.

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The mediabistro.com mothership continues to heed your cries for more design courses, and the last weekend of this month (June 28-29) is all about Adobe Illustrator. In two content-stuffed days in New York City, Mac-based designers will get up to speed on Illustrator under the expert guidance of art director and graphic designer Patricia Ryan. By the time you head home on Sunday, you'll be an old pro at creating vector images and be able to use a bezier curve with the best of them. All we ask is that you use your newfound colors and gradients knowledge for good. As Spider Man's graphic designer cousin Gene once said, "With great special effects and filter skills come great responsibility." Register or learn more here.

Avoid overly tan models, especially those wearing floral patterns. Instead, focus on multi-ethnic babies and "scary nature." These are just a few tips gleaned from the thousands of lessons taught at the School of Stock, an online educational initiative launched today by the online photo community PhotoShelter.

"We talk to buyers all day and we talk to photographers all day, and we hear pretty much the same thing from each side," PhotoShelter COO Emily Hickey told us this morning. "Buyers are always saying, 'Stock photography is dated and there's a very thin selection in key areas.' And from photographers, we see what they submit, and it's obvious that they have no idea where the demand in the industry really is." Created to bridge the gap is the School of Stock, an online guide to help photographers of all levels understand what stock photo buyers want—from lighting and captioning to specific shots such as "kids being bullies"—and how they want it.

So what are photo buyers most desperate for? "There are some key messages that apply to all of the categories, such as using diverse models," said Hickey, who also emphasized the "insatiable demand for lifestyle photography." The site also highlights the results of the company's industry survey, which reveals rampant discontent among stock photo buyers. Survey respondents indicated the worst categories in stock photography, in terms of quality and breadth of available imagery, were healthcare (88%), multicultural and diversity lifestyle (86%), senior citizens lifestyle (86%), and consumer technology and products (84%). And don't even get them started on the dearth of photos of multi-ethnic senior citizens in hospital settings playing video games. Good luck finding those!

Although newly flush with Avery Dennison labels and grant money, all is not well at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. A piece in today's Los Angeles Times sums up the tensions, which start with widespread grumblings about the private college's planned $50 million design research center, designed by Frank Gehry, and extend to criticisms of changes wrought by current president Richard Koshalek. While administrators point out that the new building would address the school's problem of workspace overcrowding, an online petition launched by alumni "cast[s] Koshalek as an empire-builder...and asks trustees to ignore 'the legacy needs of one man' and 'take immediate action to again make education the school's top investment.'" Mike Rios, director of issues for the Art Center student government, told the LAT, "Right now, the entire school is in an uproar."

Earn the grudging approval of The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy (at left) without even leaving your house. Next Monday, mediabistro.com kicks off a four-week online course in comic book and graphic novel writing. Taught by comics writer, consultant, and publicist David Seidman (whose credits include Simpsons Comics), the course will show you the entire comics-making process, from devising a proposal and writing word balloons to surviving Comic-Con International and handling Hollywood. By the end of class, you'll have created a plot and script for a short comics story and be ready to impress even the most jaded holder of a master's degree in folklore and mythology.

Pasadena's Art Center College of Design should never have to buy labels again. The school announced today that it has received two multi-year grants totaling $2 million from global label giant Avery Dennison Corporation and its philanthropic arm, Avery Dennison Foundation. The funds will be used for design research at the College's Color, Materials, and Trends Exploration Laboratory (CMTEL) and to endow scholarships, operating and capital improvement, design projects, and faculty initiatives.

The $1 million corporate grant, the largest in the company's history, makes Avery a founding partner of CMTEL, the research facility founded in 2006 to focus on color trends and emerging material technologies. "We are looking forward to our increased involvement and direct participation with CMTEL," said Avery Dennison president and CEO Dean A. Scarborough in a press release issued today. "As we are convinced that the benefits will extend far beyond traditional studio experience, creating real-world opportunities for materials science in industrial and consumer applications." And so when you soon find yourself craving exotically textured, scratch-and-sniff, mood-matching Avery labels (that, alas, you still can't get to line up correctly in your printer), you'll know why.