I want to help you take design into your own hands.
I believe in you.
I believe YOU can create effective, professional-looking designs — all you need is a little foundational knowledge and a guiding hand.
Even if you've struggled in the past.
And yes, even if you don't think of yourself as "creative."
I also believe...
- Black Lives Matter.
- Women's rights are human rights.
- Trans rights are human rights.
- No human is illegal.
- In science. Climate change is real.
- Diversity makes us stronger.
- Love is love.
- Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Kindness and compassion matter.
Most designers write and create for... other designers
I'm passionate about learning and education. But over the years, I've found that designers typically write and create for other designers.
Many designers love to rag on clients and their "stupid" suggestions — which has always really annoyed me. I hate the elitist attitude. No one comes out of the womb knowing how to design — we all learned somewhere.
So why can't our clients learn, too? Why can't an entrepreneur or a writer or a social media manager learn how to make their stuff look just a little bit better?
I believe that basic design competency can be learned by anyone who is willing.
And I don't think it has to be that complicated.
So I'm taking on this challenge — to translate what I learned in design school + over a decade of professional experience into plain English.
"I think that we talk to ourselves, about ourselves, way too much. We have conferences where we talk to ourselves, we give each other awards, we publish each other's work and words, and basically, we pat each other on our backs."
— Steff Geissbuhler, Partner, C&G Partners (written to Debbie Milman as part of her book How To Think Like A Great Graphic Designer)
HOW I'M DIFFERENT
I create practical graphic design resources for busy entrepreneurs and creators
Over the past decade, I've wrestled with many real-world business constraints and seen firsthand how different that is from what I was taught in design school.
In design school, I had months to create a single poster. In the real world? We need to knock out a multi-touchpoint marketing campaign in like a week.
Graphic design books are filled with tutorials on how to design business cards and flyers. But where is the advice on creating worksheets to go with an online course, or how to find stock photos that don't suck?
That is what I'll be creating and curating here.
"Simply put, if you're serious about your business, branding is a must and Danielle's coaching is the best and most cost-effective way I've found to level up my branding."
Sam Gavis-Hughson
Founder of Byte by Byte, a company which helps software engineers successfully interview for jobs at top tech companies
Say goodbye to website shame.
Look like the professional you are
Even though you know your website is “good enough” and your business is running just fine, do you secretly cringe every time someone looks at it?
If someone compliments you on your site, does your stomach sink because deep down, you know it could (and should) be so much better?
If you feel like your design looks amateur — even though you’re a pro at what you do — you’re in the right place.
I can help you uplevel your brand in a way that allows YOU to create professional-looking designs (without slowing you down or adding thousands of dollars to your overhead).
Does this sound like you?
You’re the type of entrepreneur who takes your big ideas and executes quickly.
You built what you needed to on the fly. Your rapid-fire, agile movement helped you succeed.
Which was perfect when you were just getting started with your business.
But now that you’ve been in business for a while and you’re ready to scale up… you’re realizing that things are a bit of a mess.
When you step back and look at all you’ve created, you realize that…
... your website looks different than your ebook
… which looks different than your course slides
… which looks different than your lead magnet landing page
… which looks different than your social media graphics
… which looks different than…
You get the idea.
You don’t want to invest a fortune on custom-everything design… and ending up with a bunch of files that only a professional designer can update.
You still want to be able to move quickly... and not wait 3 weeks for a designer to create an ebook for you.
And, you don’t have the time to learn everything there is to know about design… and, honestly, you don’t care about the nitty-gritty details of typography and color theory.
Bottom line — You just want things to look better.
I get it.
After working with online entrepreneurs, small business owners, and some big corporations over the past decade, I want to empower you to take design into your own hands.
“Within a few hours, Danielle helped me create a new brand, design strategy and plug-and-play templates that I can use throughout my business — from my website, Ultimate Guides, to slide decks for my partnerships and webinars.
Now I know EXACTLY what to do to create professional-looking designs in minutes (or, even better, I can just delegate it to my assistant).”
