Like the rest of us, you’re probably sick of the recent media hand-wringing over rising tuition fees (£9,000 a year and spiralling unemployment ). If so, you’ll be pleased to hear the good news drifting out of Albert Road’s latest offering, Bonzo Studio.

The Bonzo team are the sort of people who don’t get mad when tuition fees explode out of the realms of possibility, or when the new economy seems to demand a never-ending supply of new skills that Uni might not provide. No, the Bonzo team are the sort of people who look at the current world of economic and job-related crazy, and get creative.

“Lately everyone who comes into Bonzo is talking about the same stuff,” said Karl March, the Studio’s owner and founder. “People are nervous about the rising cost of university and students, graduates and freelancers alike are very worrying about whether they’ve got the right skills or enough skills to make a living.”

Bonzo has a reputation for being ahead of a trend, and Karl began to speak to local freelancers and teachers about how the Studio could play a part in meeting the changing needs of the current times. What they came up with was Pick N Mix Learning, allowing students, graduates and freelancers across a range of areas to choose the courses that best suit their needs.

From September 2011 to May 2012, Bonzo is offering over 40 individual workshops across these areas:

Screen-printing / Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator / HTML and CSS / Book-making / Drawing portraits and faces / Photography – including DSLR; Long exposure night photography and light painting / Logo Design and Iconography / PR skills for freelancers

In addition, the Bonzo team have created a set of 9 learning packages which bring together courses for graduates and freelancers (of all creative disciplines), photographers, web designers, painters and artists, writers, and illustrators. There are different classes and learning packages to suit all abilities and full details of Pick N Mix classes and learning packages can be found on Bonzo’s website and at EventBrite.

Bonzo’s approach to Pick N Mix Learning has people from Portsmouth and beyond rushing to the Studio, and places are selling fast. But don’t worry, there’s still time and the courses go through to next year, with more and more being added all the time. “I make my living as a graphic designer,” says Mark Persaud of Divine Aesthetic, whose work is featured and sold in the Bonzo Studio Shop, “But I learned the hard way, and there’s no doubt that it’s a struggle in your early days as a freelancer.”

“If Karl, Bonzo and Pick N Mix Learning had been around when I left University, they would have saved me a lot of time, and possibly helped me make a lot of money, a lot quicker!”

Guest post written by Sarah Louise Cheverton, Freelance Writer and Researcher