Software download guidance and support

AutoCAD Course – AutoCAD
Revit Course – Revit
Interior Design Course – AutoCAD
Computer Graphics or Graphic Design Course – Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign)
Motion Graphics Course – Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and After Effects)
Web Design – You do not need to download any program prior to the course start, your teachers will guide you through downloading any programs you will need.
Digital Illustration – Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, (Clip studio will downloaded later in the course)

Find below step-by-step instructions to download the software.

For Computer Graphics, Graphic Design or Motion Graphics Courses:

Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, and After Effects

You will need to download Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign for Computer Graphics or Graphic Design
Premiere and After Effects for Motion Graphics
The only legal way to obtain the software is via the Adobe.com subscriptions which give you to use all the Adobe software online.
Adobe.com do not offer the option to buy it outright any longer.
Anyone who offers to install it on your computer (for free or for a minimal charge) is likely to be installing a copied version.

Instructions:

Sign up for a monthly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud.
The student edition of Adobe Creative Cloud costs $19.99 per month for the first year (price will be different for subsequent years).
To sign up for the student edition, you will be asked for the name and address of your school. Please note that Design Alive does not appear on the list of schools on their website, and it is usually sufficient to write Design Alive, Manchester UK.
If you require a student letter, you can request a student letter here.
Adobe’s US number for purchase by phone is 800-585-0774.

You will need to make an account with Autodesk.com
You will need a student letter to download the software, please use this form to generate a student letter.
Check your computer has the correct specs needed. An i5 processor minimum is needed as well as a graphics card. For more specific specs check here.
Do not download the 30-day trial as you will have to uninstall the trial once your 30 days expire and reinstall the student version as per these instructions.
While AutoCAD is available in both PC and Mac platforms since the interface on a Mac is different and the locations for the icons are located in different places, we don’t recommend learning on a Mac as the teacher uses a PC. (Once you know Autocad, you’ll be able to use your MAC)
Revit is not available in MAC version so if you are a MAC user, you can try to install a virtual PC environment and see if you can install Revit there. Your computer technician may have to help you with this.

Autocad can be downloaded via this link. Please download version Autocad 2023
Revit can be downloaded via this link. Please download version Revit 2024
Design Alive Manchester UK (or Design Alive) is listed under University/ Post Secondary school (institution type)
You MUST choose the correct institution type or you won’t find Design Alive on the list and we do not know how you can correct it if you choose the wrong institution type
The area of expertise is architecture.
Only select the current month of start date and NOT a future month or you will get an error message We’re experiencing some problems accessing your Autodesk account. Please try again later.

Common Autodesk software download Issues

A known error caused by Techloq filter is that when Autodesk ask you to select a school from a dropdown list, no schools show up, please contact your filter if this is the case.
If you do not have a filter and Design Alive does not appear, you can try selecting any school and on a subsequent page it may allow you to add design alive and upload proof.
If once you have downloaded Autocad and it’s asking you for a serial number it is likely your filter is blocking the program recognising you have a student version. You will need to be in touch with your filter company to add Autodesk to the approved lists. Techloq and NativUSA have known issues and removing the filter whilst installing the program is advisable.
If you are experiencing other error messages then you may want to try to download through the virtual agent https://ava.autodesk.com/ who will give you an alternative link to download the software.
Autodesk does not have any phone support at all and their chat support is not always very helpful. If you experience issues with your download, we suggest you first contact Design Alive as we are VERY familiar with alot of known errors and should be able to assist you, please complete the form below and include a screenshot of your error and we will do our best to help you.
If you experience the following Autocad error messages then use the link under the image to solve the issue.