First impressions really matter.

Considering the web is 95% typography — understanding how to use type effectively is a fundamental skill to making stuff on the web.

Whether you're a designer who wants to understand type better or a developer who's got zero knack for design, the hard truth is, the typography still matters.

If you imagined design not as some fantastical artistic endeavor that only "creative types" could tackle, but instead, like a suite of techniques, tools you could use together that could ultimately help make something you put online both functional & attractive — well shoot, you have to admit that typography is a fundamental, important piece to making something look good & work on the internet.

If there were a programming language to design — it'd be type.

Seriously, everything is text. And that means all the important things you're looking at on a daily basis (or that users interact with) need to be both readable, and look good:

• Your logo needs good typography
• Your marketing needs good typography
• Your app's UI needs good typography

No one really realizes how gigantic of a part good typography plays in leveling up not just the attractiveness of your marketing stuff — but the functionality of your products. Words & langauge are an unbelivably huge part of UI design, and the text on your marketing page can make-or-break whether someone signs up.

It's literally everywhere, especially on the stuff people need most. Type is crucial to good design; good design these days is crucial to good products & brands.

And people are getting more and more discerning about good design — and less and less trusting when they encounter bad design. Good design is mandatory now.

But... how are you supposed to learn design & typography?

If you went to art school, you probably learned a lot about typography, and not a lot of how to use it effectively.

Lots of theory. Theory you don't use when you're in the heat of a new project.

And shoot — if you didn't go to art school, you're forced to either:

• Do it yourself without training and risk losing eyeballs due to not having the chops
• Buy pre-made themes & templates, or use Bootstrap's newest version — all of which make your projects look exactly like everyone else's
• Spend a fortune on hiring someone else to design for you, losing money & maybe not even getting something like how you hoped it'd look

Now, learning it on your own by trial & error is for sure an option. We're all smart here, and we're all excellent learners. But let's be honest — at best, there's only a few intro-to-design courses that exist out there.

And more importantly, most of 'em don't show you how to do it; they tell you exactly which fonts to pick, exactly which colors to choose — with no explanation why or how it actually works, so you can do it yourself after.

No one teaches it practically. Like a programmer would.

Learn design like you'd learn in a bootcamp — with projects.

So we're beta testing a unique program designed for both newbies to type & those who want to jump in and refresh by doing. And we're building it in a way where it actully makes sense, even for those who have never gotten it before.

• Project-based so you can practice actually making stuff, instead of spend your days learning theory you'll never use
• Short, hyper-focused lessons, with snippets to show you practical scenarios in a real-world context, with good/bad visual examples
• Explaining the reasoning behind design choices so you can make decisions yourself without relying on themes, css frameworks, and boring templates

Even if you're not trying to grow yourself a unicorn horn in the workplace/your freelance career, you'll have the language & tools needed to call designers on their stuff (politely, I hope) — help make great suggestions and contribute.

Which ultimately means you increase your flippin' value at work or to your clients, compared a sea of other peeps who haven't learned design at all.

That skill is gonna pay for itself ten-fold.

Making design approachable.

Between the experience I have working as a freelance designer and the experience I have working as a self-taught freelance developer, including teaching & designing curriculum for one of the top web development courses around the world — I've come to realize two things:

One, that design is actually not that different from development — if you approach learning it the right way.

And two, in the same way that there have been so many new avenues in the last few years to learn how to write code — you deserve to have access to the same great strategies pro designers use so you can make your own stuff look great, too.

Designers should be able to code, to understand the strengths, limitations, and patterns they need to work with. So you can understand what you're designing for / how it works.

For the same reasons, developers should be able to design. If that's something you agree with, but haven't known how to learn it on your own, you're in the right place.