Laura Elizabeth – Design Fundamentals
Finally master the fundamentals of design in less than 6 weeks
A no-fluff course for developers to learn design principles
30 LESSONS
30 video lessons with downloads and case studies
NO-FLUFF
Super actionable with a
‘no-fluff guarantee’
AT YOUR OWN PACE
Access the course forever with free updates
As a developer, you’re likely involved in design decisions on a daily basis. Maybe you’re being asked to add a new feature to your company’s web app, or you’ve had an idea for a side project that you want to look half-decent. Many tasks you work on involve some level of design skills.
And so design becomes that thing that you can’t seem to get away from. It’s always there: something you wish you could do but don’t know how to start.
I’ve been there. I appreciated good design but could never seem to replicate it, despite having invested over 5 years into design college and university. Every course I took was insightful and technically ‘made sense’, yet when I was left to design something on my own, I hit a brick wall.
Now, after almost a decade of self-taught designing, I finally feel like I can call myself a designer. And the way I taught myself was a far cry from what I learned in design school. That’s why I’ve created this course. I’m going to give you the shortcuts I wish I had when learning design and leave you with a solid foundation in everything from colour to typography to imagery on the web.
This course will help you get to a stage where you can not only be confident in your abilities (and trust me, you have plenty of ability to learn design) but it’ll also teach you all the tricks I’ve learned in the last 8 years of professional design work.
What will I learn?
The goal of this course is to give you a solid design foundation to start building upon. It’s not going to teach you everything under the sun about design but it’ll teach you the most important things you can do to improve your designs today — no matter how “artistic” you are (or, more likely, aren’t!). Some highlights include:
EASY TO FOLLOW PROCESS
My workflow I use for almost every project from finding inspiration to colour and typography
THINK LIKE A DESIGNER
How you can train your eye to spot what’s wrong in a design and, most importantly, fix it
REAL CASE STUDIES
Over-the-shoulder case studies showing how I’ve designed different websites from scratch
VISUALS MADE EASY
Image and illustration treatment that anyone can do – even if you can’t draw a wonky line
6 Modules, 30 videos
You can binge watch all these videos in one go, or come back and reference them at any time throughout whatever project you’re working on.
Planning
Module 1
- Getting your content ready for a design project
- Different design styles and which one to use
- Gathering (useful) inspiration
Layout
Module 2
- Sketching layouts
- Filling in your content
- Spacing and alignment (and why they’re the two most important principles!)
- Common layout mistakes and how to avoid them (3 lessons)
Typography
Module 3
- Choosing body text fonts
- Choosing fonts for headlines
- Making your type look good
- Typographic details
Colour
Module 4
- Choosing a base colour
- Finding your accent
- Using grey effectively
- When your colours look ‘off’
Imagery
Module 5
- Sourcing photography
- Photo editing for web design
- Cutting out images
- Using icons in web design
- Sourcing illustrations
- Using illustrations
- Displaying screenshots
Polish
Module 6
- How to identify and fix problem areas
- Responsive design tips and tricks
- Consistency in design
Have you ever wanted to see first hand how a designer works?
Sometimes the easiest way to learn is just to watch someone work. You’ll pick up tricks that you never thought to look for before! Within the course, you’ll find a number of case studies where you can see how I created each of the following websites from scratch (including all mistakes and mishaps).
CONTINOUSLY UPDATED
As I take on more projects, these case studies will be updated with new, exciting projects.
WITH FULL COMMENTARY
In each video, I’ll be articulating why specific choices were made and highlighting important bits.
I didn’t even know I could come up with something like this. Your course has helped me get the confidence that I can actually create a decent design!
Steve Popoola
This course is for you if:
- You want to master the fundamentals of design without spending years in design school (and don’t necessarily want to think of yourself as a designer)
- You want to build, launch, and sell your own products and not have them look ugly
- You have clients asking for you to add some design polish to the projects you built for them
- You want to learn from “over-the-shoulder” walkthroughs of how designers really design
- You want to stop feeling embarrassed when you give someone a link to your portfolio
This course is not for you if:
- You’re not willing to commit to putting into practice what the course teaches (you won’t learn just by watching the videos!)
- You have the time to teach yourself design through trial and error (it is possible, but it’ll take longer)
- You don’t have the motivation to start learning design just yet
- You want to learn abstract design principles about movement, balance, rhythm …
- You favour standing out and trends as opposed to designing for usability and conversions
Design fundamentals
Stop letting your lack of ‘design voodoo’ hold you back from creating kick-ass products.
Design Fundamentals LIVE!
Have the Advanced Package? Great! You’re going to get access to a LIVE version of this course, hosted by yours truly. Each week for 6 weeks, you and a small group of other developers will go through each module – and I’ll be there to personally critique your work, along with answer any and all questions you have for me. When you complete the program, I’ll send a certification badge that you can display proudly to show that you’ve completed this course.
Who teaches this?
Hey! I’m Laura Elizabeth and I’ve been a designer for almost a decade, I’ve worked on projects for HelpSpot, LaraTalent, RightMessage and Double Your Freelancing. I also speak at numerous conferences around the world (you might have seen me on stage at SmashingConf, Laracon, LTV Conf, Patterns Day and many more).
And now I’m here to help you level up your design skills so you can start creating products that are not only built well, but look pretty darn good!
Frequently Asked Questions
“I’m a developer who can’t design for shite. Will this help me?”
This course is aimed at complete beginners to design… but is by no means slow-paced or patronising. If you’re technically minded and consider yourself creatively challenged this course is for you. We’ll go through a simple step by step process that you can repeat in it’s entirety or pick and choose for any project you work on.
“Is this going to just be a bunch of theory?”
Nope! This course is designed to be super, duper actionable. My biggest frustration with learning design was that the principles all made sense but I was always left with one question: “How do I actually apply this in my work?”. This course has been designed with implementation in mind. After each lesson you’ll have a new skill which you can start using in your projects instantly.
“How long can I access the course for?”
Forever and ever. You’ll have access to all the videos, worksheets along with any future updates we have planned.
“How long does the course take to complete?”
That depends how much effort you put in but typically you’re looking at a minimum of 2 weeks to go through the fundamentals. You’ll likely be coming back to reference any aspects you struggle with.
“What kind of software/tooling do I need?”
This course is deliberately tool agnostic. The reason being, it doesn’t matter what you design in (Photoshop, Sketch, Chrome) – it’s a case of designing in what makes you more comfortable and allows you to focus on the principles, not the tool. That said, we do cover image treatments and vector graphics which will need some kind of software like Photoshop or Illustrator. If you don’t want to splash out on Creative Cloud, all the techniques can also be used in free software like Gimp.
“What if I don’t get anything useful out of this?”
If, for whatever reason, you’re not happy with the course and it doesn’t help you improve your designs, I don’t want yo’ money. Simply let me know within 30 days of when the course gets released and I’ll give you a full refund.
“Laura, will you be available if I get stuck?”
Absolutely! As a student of the course you will get feedback on your designs as you go through the course. I’ll provide every student with at least one full assessment of your design and give you comprehensive feedback on how you can improve. My #1 goal is for you to come out with a design you’re proud of.
