Self-paced · or a 6-week cohort

Composition.

The craft of laying things out, taught properly.

A six-week course on visual composition for designers and developers who can build anything but can't quite make it look right. Grids, type, colour, and the judgement to break the rules.

4.9 rating 38 lessons 9 hours3,400+ students
Composition course

What you’ll walk away with

Build layouts on a grid — then know when to break it
Pair and set type like you mean it
Construct a palette that actually works
Use whitespace as a tool, not an afterthought
Develop an eye for the details that read as 'polish'
Ship a portfolio piece you're proud of
  • Why composition is a skill, not taste8 min
  • The grid, demystified16 min
  • Hierarchy: making the eye move14 min
  • Whitespace as a material12 min
  • Optical adjustments the ruler can't see10 min
Dana Maxwell

Your instructor

Dana Maxwell

Design Director · formerly at Aldermere

Dana has spent fifteen years making things look inevitable — identities, books, and interfaces for names you'd recognise. She teaches the way she wishes she'd been taught: with reasons, not rules.

From the last cohort

I'm an engineer who always 'designed' by copying. Six weeks in, I finally understand why things work. My side projects look like products now.

Sam O.

Software Engineer

Worth ten times the price. The type module alone fixed habits I'd had for a decade.

Lena R.

Product Designer

Dana's critiques were brutal and exactly what I needed. The portfolio piece got me the interview.

Theo K.

Design student

Self-paced

$290

The full course, forever, on your schedule.

Choose Self-paced

Cohort

$690

Everything, plus live feedback from Dana.

Choose Cohort