3 Lessons From Dann Petty’s ‘How To Stand Out As A Web Designer,’ Course

In this article, I want to share 3 of the biggest lessons I learnt from Dann Petty’s course ‘How To Stand Our As A Designer.’ I came across the course after I saw this tweet circulating and so I thought I would give it a go.

Generally, when you try out courses that people are offering for free (with optional donation), they are not that valuable at all. It’s more of an easy way to get people’s emails but I checked out Dann’s website and YouTube channel and his content seems legit so I went for it. I was blown away by the quality of the content though (more on that in a bit!).

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However, this one is seriously powerful by sharing what Dann believes to be the best advice that I tell every web designer. First of all, who is Dann Petty?

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Who is Dann Petty?

As Dann says on his website, he has spent

• 15+ Years in Silicon Valley and Lived in San Francisco for over a decade working with just about every major tech company.
• 20+ Years Freelancing and has worked for Billabong, Facebook, Apple, Nike, North Face, Mini etc
• 2X Book Author Author of the popular books: That Portfolio Book + That Freelancer Book.

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What Does The Course Consist Of?

This course is split in to 8 different videos which are between 10 - 25mins long with powerful lessons in each one.

1) How To Tease Continuation

2) Power Of The Main Lockup

3) How To Pack A 1-2-3

4) Always End With An Action

5) Simple Alignment Over Grids

6) Ending With An Action

7) Double Check Consistency

8) Typography Musts

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3 Fundamental Lessons

1) The Main Lockup

The main lockup tells the user what you do, for who and what action you want the user to take. This includes the main headline, the subheadline and the Call To Action. This is well known and commonly used so users are used to seeing this when landing on your site. Although there are experience websites which don’t necessarily follow this structure, the vast majority of B2B and B2C do and for good reason! Dann explains that the CTA in this main lock up should include the most important action you want the user to take.

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2) Stop Overcomplicating Your Grids!

Dann explains that one of the biggest giveaways of an inexperienced designer is inconsistency of alignment (checks the webflail website nervously to check alignment and sees misalignment to change…). Something feels off when you look at a website that has inconsistency of alignment even if there is beautiful imagery and typography. Dann talks about ensuring that you have a simple grid system that you can fit the content in and ensuring that the content fits within that system.

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3) Always Ending With An Action

Dann teaches that ending with an action is crucial for the user to know what to do after they have finished scrolling through the page. It’s important so that the user knows what to do when they get to the bottom. Are they signing up for a newsletter? Are they trying your product for free? Are they seeing the store? Make it clear for the user what action they are meant to take!

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Thoughts On The Course

Dann is an energetic and entertaining teacher who has clearly mastered his craft. I thoroughly enjoyed going through his course not just because of the content but Dann had clearly thought about focussing on less points but thoroughly covering them which is great for someone that is at the start of their design journey. (I'm NOT an affiliate by the way - just a guy that's consuming courses) If you’re interested in knowing more about the course, have a gander here:

How To Stand Out As A Web Designer