Dyizan Academy — A design-skills academy: a staged | dyizanacademy.com

Six stages, one order

Dyizan Academy — A design-skills academy: a staged | dyizanacademy.com

Learn composition first, then typography, grid, color and tools — and finish with a portfolio, in that order, because each stage is the prerequisite for the next. Budget 300-500 hours of deliberate practice: at 5-10 hours a week, that is 6-12 months to a portfolio a professional can review. Every stage below ends with a deliverable and a check you can run without a teacher.

Milestones, not dates

This page is not a school, a course marketplace or an agency portfolio — nothing here is sold, booked or enrolled in.

6in this record

Six stages, six deliverables

Scroll the strip sideways — 6 cards.

Stage 1 · 40-60 h

Composition and seeing

Train the eye before the hand: thumbnail sketches, rule-of-thirds framing on a 3×3 grid, cropping studies. Ends with 30 composition studies you can defend.

Stage 2 · 60-90 h

Typography

Set a 1.25 modular scale from a 16 px base, hold body copy to 45-75 characters per line and line-height 1.5-1.75 on screen. Ends with a typeset page that passes the line-length check.

Stage 3 · 50-70 h

Grid and spacing

Build on a 12-column grid with 16-32 px gutters inside a 1140-1280 px content width, all spacing on the 8-point system. Ends with a layout with zero off-grid elements.

Stage 4 · 50-80 h

Color and contrast

Pair every text color to a measured ratio — 4.5:1 for body text under WCAG AA — and run the palette through a deuteranopia simulator. Ends with a documented palette.

Stage 5 · 40-60 h

Tools and hand-off

Match the tool to the deliverable: vector for logos, raster for retouching, UI mockups at 2×, print at 300 dpi. Ends with four correctly exported files.

Stage 6 · 60-140 h

Portfolio

Write up each project as a case naming the constraints and the checks it passed. Ends with a portfolio ready for professional review.

By the numbers

The short version

4.5:1WCAG AA contrast for normal textLarge text — 24 px or larger, or 18.66 px bold — drops to 3:1; AAA raises normal text to 7:1.
45-75characters per line of body copyThe range holds in print and on screen, and mobile body text should not drop below 16 px.
44 pxminimum tappable target on iOSAndroid sets its floor at 48×48 dp, so cross-platform designs must satisfy both.

What order should I learn design fundamentals in?

Composition, typography, grid, color, tools, portfolio — in that order, because each stage is the prerequisite for the next.

The order is not a matter of taste. Composition trains you to see; typography gives you something to set; grid and spacing give the type a structure; color gives the structure a hierarchy; tools turn all of it into files other people can use. Reversing the order means learning software first and then unlearning the habits it baked in.

Each stage closes with a deliverable and a check you can run alone: a line count, a contrast ratio, a grid overlay. If the check fails, the stage is not done — that rule replaces the feedback a classroom would give.

At a steady 8 hours a week the six stages run about a year; at 10 hours a week the same path compresses toward 7-9 months. The steps below show the sequence with the failure that most often stalls each stage.

  • Weeks 1-6 — Composition and seeing: 30 thumbnail studies framed on a 3×3 grid. Typical failure: the tool-first jump — opening software before the eye is trained.
  • Weeks 7-15 — Typography: one typeset page held to 45-75 characters per line on a 1.25 scale. Typical failure: type by eye — sizes picked because they 'look right' off the scale.
  • Weeks 16-22 — Grid and spacing: a 12-column layout with all spacing on the 8-point system. Typical failure: pixel drift — one-off margins that quietly break alignment.
  • Weeks 23-29 — Color and contrast: a palette with every text/background pair measured. Typical failure: hex trust — approving colors never run through a contrast check or a deuteranopia simulator.
  • Weeks 30-35 — Tools and hand-off: a vector logo, a raster retouch, a UI mockup exported at 2×. Typical failure: the wrong-format export — a logo delivered as a flat PNG.
  • Weeks 36-52 — Portfolio: 4-6 case write-ups naming the checks each project passed. Typical failure: the silent portfolio — work never shown to an outside reviewer.

Stage by stage: hours and deliverables

The six stages: what you practice, how long it takes and what you finish with.
StageWhat you practiceHoursYou finish with
1. Composition and seeingThumbnail sketches, rule-of-thirds framing on a 3×3 grid40-60 h30 composition studies
2. Typography1.25 type scale from 16 px, 45-75 characters per line, line-height 1.5-1.7560-90 hA typeset page that passes the line-length check
3. Grid and spacing12-column grid, 16-32 px gutters, 8-point spacing50-70 hA layout with every block on the grid
4. Color and contrastWCAG ratios, palette testing in a deuteranopia simulator50-80 hA palette with every pairing measured
5. Tools and hand-offVector vs raster, export at 300 dpi and 2×40-60 hLogo, retouch and mockup in correct formats
6. PortfolioCase write-ups, self-audit against the checklist60-140 hA portfolio ready for professional review
The six stages: what you practice, how long it takes and what you finish with.

The path in figures

Each figure is a checkpoint: if a number fails, the stage is not finished.

Modular type scale8-point gridContrast ratioDeuteranopia
The key terms of this guide, drawn to one scale

Objections heard on the way

Can I skip the drawing stage and start straight in a design tool?
You can, but it usually costs more time than it saves. Composition is what lets you judge where an element should sit; without it, tool skills just let you make misplaced elements faster. The stage is only 40-60 hours — the cheapest seeing-training available.
Is 5 hours a week really enough?
Yes, if the hours are deliberate. The benchmark is 300-500 hours of deliberate practice, and at 5 focused hours a week you simply land at the far end of the 6-12 month range. Five unfocused hours, by contrast, barely accumulate at all.
Do I need to memorize all these numbers?
No — keep the checklist, not the figures. The point is to measure your work against 4.5:1, 45-75 characters and the 8-point grid, not to recite them. After a few audit passes the common ones stick on their own.
Why can't I just copy designs I like?
Copying trains recognition, not decisions. A copied layout hides the constraints that produced it — the scale, the gutters, the ratios — so nothing transfers to your next blank page. Copy after stage 3, when you can measure what you are looking at.