(A live six-week course · Cohort 04)
A six-week course on the part of design nobody teaches: the decisions underneath the work.
For designers whose work is competent and knows it could be undeniable.
6 WEEKS
LIVE, NOT RECORDED
14 SEATS
FROM $960
06
Weeks, live. Every session taught in real time, never a recording.
14
Designers per cohort. Capped, so every critique is yours.
03
Cohorts run since 2024. Every one sold out before it opened.
(01 · The premise)
Most designers plateau at competent.
You can build the thing. It works, it ships, it looks fine. But fine is where careers stall, and the distance between fine and undeniable is not talent.
It is a set of decisions nobody ever walked you through. Where the baseline sits. Why that grey is wrong. When to break the grid and when breaking it is just noise. Craft is not a feeling. It is a stack of choices you can learn to make on purpose.
That is the whole course.
(How the course runs)
CRITIQUE FILES
COURSE PORTAL
COHORT CHANNEL
ASYNC FEEDBACK
Fine is where most careers stop. The work ships, nobody complains, nothing moves. Everything above that line is decisions, which means it can be taught.
(02 · Curriculum)
Six weeks, six decisions.
Mod / 06
(Week 02 · Type as structure)
Week 01
The invisible grid
Why every layout you admire is sitting on a structure you cannot see. Building one, breaking one, and knowing which you are doing.
Week 02
Type as structure
Optical alignment, baseline rhythm, and the difference between a typeface you chose and a typeface that is doing work.
Week 03
Colour without guessing
Building a palette from constraints instead of taste. Perceptual lightness, warm and cool neutrals, and why your greys look muddy.
Week 04
Hierarchy under pressure
What survives when the content triples and the deadline halves. Designing systems that degrade gracefully instead of collapsing.
Week 05
Motion with a reason
Easing, duration, and restraint. Animation as a way to explain what changed, not a way to prove you can animate.
Week 06
Shipping without dilution
Defending the decisions that matter, conceding the ones that do not, and handing off work that survives other people.
Every module ends with one piece of work and one live critique of it.
(03 · What you leave with)
Proof, not notes.
Out / 03
01 / 03
Three finished pieces
Not exercises. Three real artefacts built under critique, each one carrying a decision you can defend in a room.
02 / 03
A system of your own
Your own documented type scale, colour ramp and spacing rhythm, the thing you reach for on every project after this one.
03 / 03
Written critique on everything
Every submission comes back annotated. Not a grade, not a vibe. The specific decision that failed and the reason it failed.
(Studio, Copenhagen)
(04 · Who teaches it)
Ilya Sørensen
Founder, RASTER
Fifteen years designing interfaces, the last six of them running a two-person studio in Copenhagen that takes on more work than it should.
I taught myself the way most of us did, by copying things that looked good and slowly working backwards to why. That took a decade. This course is the shortcut I did not have: the same decisions, named, ordered, and argued about out loud.
I teach every session myself. There are no guest lecturers and no teaching assistants, which is the entire reason the cohort is capped at fourteen.
(05 · What students say · sample copy)
I had been designing for nine years and never once been told why something was wrong, only that it was. Six weeks in and I can finally name the thing I was missing.
Cohort 03 student
Product designer
The critique sessions alone were worth it. Getting your work pulled apart by someone who can articulate exactly which decision failed is rare and genuinely uncomfortable in the best way.
Cohort 02 student
Studio founder
I stopped moving things around until they looked right. I now know why they look right, which means I can get there on the first attempt instead of the fortieth.
Cohort 03 student
Design lead
(07 · Before you enrol)
Things worth knowing.
How much experience do I need?
Is it live or recorded?
How much time will it take?
What do I actually walk away with?
Why is the cohort capped at 14?
What if it is not for me?
(08 · Enrolment)
Cohort 04 opens 12 October.
(When it runs)
Tue + Thu
Two live sessions every week for six weeks. Twelve in total, and you are expected at all of them.
18:00
Central European Time, UTC+1. Pick a cohort that suits your hours; we run one in an Americas slot each year.
90 min
Long enough for real critique, short enough to stay sharp. Replay posted within 24 hours.
(Cohort seat · early rate until 12 September)
$960
Rises to $1,200 after 12 September. Paid in one instalment or three, whichever suits. Full refund to the end of week two, no explanation needed.
12 of 14 seats left
(Studio seat · four available)
$1,450
Everything in the cohort seat, plus two private one-to-one sessions and a full portfolio review in week six.
Studio seats are allocated in order of enrolment
4 of 4 seats left
(Every seat includes, both tiers)
Twelve live sessions across six weeks, taught in person by Ilya
Individual written critique on every piece of work you submit
A private cohort channel that stays open after the course ends
Replays of every session for ninety days
The RASTER reference: the full system, documented, yours to keep
(09 · Next cohort)
Cannot make October?
Cohort 05 opens in February. Leave your email and you will hear about it before it goes public, which is usually how the fourteen seats go.
(Everything is a grid)