Radical Design – Coming Soonish from Jack McDade

Who’s behind this course? What is this course? Why is this course?

I’m Jack McDade. I designed and created Statamic, designed Laravel.com, Laracon (a few times), Justin Jackson’s highly acclaimed site, and a whole pile of others.

I think the web has become too boring. There are too many fill-in-the-blank websites full of derivative content, lacking in personality. I've made a living zigging when everyone else zags. Design helps a site or brand stand out and be remembered, and applies equally to your personal portfolio or sophisticated, high-profile client project.

In this course I'm going to help you take your work from bland to grand. Bleak to chic. Boring to really quite very remarkably good. I'll turn you into a designer.

It's time to call bull@#$% on bad advice, show you shortcuts over here, delightful detours over there, and give you permission to get weird. This course is gonna get real. It’s gonna get practical. Silly and serious at the same time, even. I’m gonna teach you everything I know before I forget it all and have to mow grass for a living. Again.

- Slurrrrp

To the leftUp above is a person with a donut head drinking a cup of coffee.

Down below is a list of things you will & will not learn as a part of this course.

You Will

You will learn how to design sites and write content that will be remembered.

You will learn ways to be original, unique, and make your designs stand out. Boring sucks.

You will learn how to design quickly and efficiently so you can get on with the other 71 things on your todo list.

You will learn how to develop a unique style of your very own.

You will learn how to be excited about design instead of dreading it.

You will learn how to use humor in your designs.

You will learn how to use all different design tools & apps.

You will learn important fundamentals.

I will hide content behind explosions.

You Will Not

You will not learn how to get popular on Dribbble or how to be featured on Behance.

You will not be bored if I can possibly help it. Design is a crap ton of fun.

You will not learn how to copy Stripe.com. It’s been done a thousand times. You don't want first reactions to your work to be "Okay so this is basically a total Stripe rip-off. I'm out.”

You will not learn how to prepare files for print work. That’s not my thing.

You will not learn how to write fluff content to make your boxes have the same amount of text in them for balance-sake. That’s called noise and it gets in the way of your message.

No, I’m not Jamaican, but this course is kinda like that awesome scene from Cool Runnings. You’re not gonna learn how to design exactly like Jack McDade (that’s me!), Dann Petty, Steve Schoeger, or Rogie. You’re gonna learn how to design like you. I'm here to release your inner spirit designer. Mine is a pygmy Tony Hawk wearing a Steve Urkle mask and red Baywatch shorts. Who is yours?

You’ll learn how to take advantage of stock assets in creative ways, how to remix anything and everything to create original concepts, blend old with new, and tap your hobbies, interests, and personality for inspiration.

design is boring without this.

We’re gonna work on your Fundamentals. We’re gonna get radical. And when I’m done with you, you’re gonna be a force to reckon with. Or at least your side-hustle will have a kickass and memorable landing page you’ll be proud of — and that alone is worth the price of admission.

It's worth noting that this course isn’t focused on a specific design tool like Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD. I’ll cover some of the basics in each and jump into Photoshop too because every designer should always also always have Photoshop and if you disagree with me that's okay, I'll win you over by the end.

Okay, so you want to know what's included in this course? Of course you do.

It's not a book, and it's not a step-by-step video course either. It's a self-guided, Choose Your Own Adventure™ style hub that dives deep into many different areas of design. Yes, it includes (many) videos, articles, and tutorials, but also downloads, example design files, elements, components, hand-crafted SVGs, and all sorts of other good stuff. I’m going to share all my resources, secrets, and my personal treasure trove of hot links (the bookmarks, not sausages), font recommendations, and more.

I'll show you how to design in a few popular and timeless design styles (Brutalism, Swiss, Minimalism, and Hasselhoffian) to get you going while you develop your own individual style.

You'll also get access to the private Radical Design Discord server so you can collaborate, share ideas, give each other feedback, and all that stuff. I'll be in there every week or so to help in any way I can.

Huge “value add” right here.

Plus, I'll be regularly updating this course and the included resources. It's like the giving tree. It'll just keep giving.

Horn Tooting

I don't love tooting my own horn so I enlisted the help of some other people to do it for me.

“I'm often asked ‘where do I go after Refactoring UI to continue learning about design?’ Jack is the only person I know with a wicked sense of design that also understands how developers think.”

Steve Schoger Designer, Refactoring UI

“Jack McDade taught me that turtles can breathe out of their butts. Oh, and he’s also THE stand-out designer in a world of internet same-same’s. Jack has a knack for mashing up his unique style with what each website needs in terms of it’s own visual language. Stop thinking about turtle butts and buy this course already!”

Paul Jarvis Author of Company of One

“My friend Jack is multi-talented. He rolled a CRT monitor through Times Square better than anyone I’ve ever seen. But he’s also truly a master at unique, powerful designs that have lovable personalities.”

Taylor Otwell Creator of Laravel

“Nobody proves how different two Tailwind sites can look better than Jack McDade.”
(Yes, there's going to be a lot of Tailwind in this course!)

Adam Wathan Creator of TailwindCSS

“Multiple times I’ve been looking at a website and thought, ‘Who designed this? It’s so dope!’ I’ll look in the credits and EVERY SINGLE TIME it says: Jack McDade.”

Justin Jackson Cofounder of Transistor.fm

Here's a little bit more about me and my background. Perspective matters.

I've designed literally hundreds of bad websites & dozens of really good ones. I spent my time in the trenches to get good at this. I've had to make the logo bigger 410 times. I've been forced to work with both Comic Sans and Zapfino on the same project. I used to round corners with 4 separate gifs. I’ve been a designer for 15+ years in a whole pile of roles and companies. I've been...

A cog in a huge marketing agency machine
The "Director of Interactive" at a growing agency working 80+ hour weeks
Part of the Design System Team at (the shortlived) GE Design out of San Francisco
A freelance designer focused on branding startups and MVP UI design
The designer behind everything in the Laravel ecosystem for a while
The owner of my own small agency, Wilderborn
Currently running a fulltime, bootstrapped indy product — Statamic.

So yeah, I've been there and done that.

But Wait There's More!

When you purchase Radical Design you’ll get instant access to the course, dozens of videos and tutorials, all the bonus resources, and updates for forever and ever and ever.

Each purchase includes a buddy pass for you to give to a student. They’ll have the same full access to everything forever, just like you. If you don’t know any students, you can donate the pass into a first-come-first-serve pool of all students.

You get a buddy pass to give to a student!

If you don’t like this course you can have your money back. Life is too short for buyer’s remorse and there’s always something else important to spend money on. Like fonts and Stranger Things lunchboxes. If you don’t think this course is worth whatever you end up spending on it, so be it.

Ridiculously low risk refund policy

This landing page is long.

I know, and there's so much more I want to say but I'll save it all for later. All except this closing remark: If you're worried you're not "good enough" or "creative enough" — let me tell you now that you are. I can teach design to just about anybody who can use a mouse, trackpad, or alternative accessibility-focused input device who is willing to put a little time into it. It's a learnable skill. You can do this.

If you're even remotely interested at this point and are willing to share your email address, I'll keep you in the loop.