Are you a small business owner who knows that you need great design to be competitive in your industry and attractive to customers, BUT you don't have the budget to hire a designer yet?
I get it. Trust me.
How would you feel if you had the skills to take care of your graphic design needs for the next 3 YEARS, and save THOUSANDS of dollars and HUNDREDS of hours, allowing you to invest more time, focus, and money back into your growing business?
Pretty darn good, right?
So here’s an offer:
I’m going to shorten the learning curve for you.
I will teach you how to personally create beautiful graphics for your business in a simple, time-efficient, and cost-effective way.
Introducing
DIY graphic design for small business owners
• Save thousands of dollars
• Maximize your income-producing hours
• stop wasting time teaching yourself
• Build client-winning credibility
Sound like a plan?
But first, we gotta talk about the elephant in the room…
Good design is EXPECTED now.
It only takes 5 milliseconds for people to form an opinion of a visual (website, graphic, social post, flyer).
It's either "YES" or "NO" in a split second, They stay & give you a chance or move on.
Good design is no longer just a differentiating factor, it's the price of entry to even be considered as an option for potential customers.
Good design gives you credibility, sets you above the competition, makes you stand out from the noise, and can aid in increasing your income by winning you new business.
You may have already taken any one or more of these steps to solving this problem for your business:
Hire a designer
Binge watch Youtube tutorials
Dive into Photoshop and try to figure it out on your own
Download apps on your phone (You know, the kind that are loaded with ads and leave a watermark logo on your images?)
You may have even taken a workshop on design programs
Chances are these may have left you feeling more confused, overwhelmed, dissatisfied, or broke than when you started.
You probably can’t afford to outsource all your design to a professional yet.
This is mainly for two reasons:
1. Limited financial resources
You’ve got to be very strategic where you invest your money. (Ex: if you’re a gym owner, do you hire a designer or a new trainer? – No contest; you’re going to invest it in a trainer who can expand your business.)
2. Your brand identity is still fragile or in-development
You’re still teaching this baby to walk, and you need to keep your hands directly on each visual and word that your company puts out there.
As a designer, I can’t tell you how many business owners I’ve met who have wanted to hire me but just aren’t in a place where they can yet.
1. HIRE A DESIGNER
Saves you time and energy, but not money.
PROS:
You get top-notch professional work that is on a higher-level than you could produce
Time-Efficient
Professional expertise
Saves you mental space
CONS:
You will have to spend even more time educating them on your business and customers so everything they create is “on-brand”.
Money Trade-Off
Expensive
You have a Middle-Man
You have to manage them
2. DIY / BOOTSTRAP IT
Saves you money, but not time and energy.
PROS:
Cheaper - Most of the time it’s FREE to learn online
Hands-On Experience
Control / Direct Access to your customers/fans
Go at your own pace
CONS:
You’re ALREADY bootstrapping your business itself! - Building a business is HARD. You’re maxed out on time, money AND energy.
Time + Energy Trade-Off
You’ve got to spend time you’d normally use for paying client work
Takes FOREVER
Easy to Get Lost / Overwhelmed
Questionable/ Low-quality teachers online
Now, you have a 3rd option:
I will teach you the 10% of the software that will allow you to create 90% of the designs you need for your business.
Spend less time stressing and more time doing what you love.
Portable Design Academy is a 5-module online course teaching Adobe software & design strategy for non-designers.
The curriculum is in the form of screen-shared video walkthroughs
Simple and convenient digital “school” platform - Access from phone, tablet or computer
Short, digestible lessons you can immediately apply to your business
Unique teaching style is EXPERIENCE-based, not just theory. — Meaning, I teach you the skills you need by having you actually CREATE something with the tools, rather than simply telling you what the tools do.
Go at your own pace — Rewatch as many times as you need
Lifetime access to the Academy
Here’s how portable design academy stacks up against the previous two options:
For a much smaller investment than hiring a pro, you can dramatically reduce the amount of time and energy you would spend on creating designs for your business.
“I learned so much from Nathanael! He taught me the inside scoop of working with Indesign to produce the coolest publications!
Seriously saved me tons of money by teaching me how to use the program myself along with a few design tips to make it all come together amazing.
HIGHLY recommend you get in touch with him if you want to elevate your own knowledge of producing quality documents and graphics for your business without having to splurge on hiring a designer to do it all for you.”
DOROTHEEA DRAGOMIR
Owner & Event Coordinator | Kamea Events
Let’s put things in perspective between your 3 options:
Portable Design Academy can easily equip you to cover your basic design needs for the next 3 years.
Here’s a cost comparison for basic design services (Example: Social media graphics, website graphics, flyers, promotionals, small advertisements — NO big projects) between Hiring a Designer, Bootstrapping/ DIY, and PDA for 1 month, 1 year and 3 years.
NOTE: This is assuming that you are PROACTIVELY marketing and promoting your business for growth (which you should be).
Cost over time for design
*DIY cost is in billable hours spent.
“I own a small brick and mortar boutique in Portland, OR with my daughter. For a little over a year we had been wanting to take our shop online but had so many things holding us back. Budget, time and content creation to name a few.
We were extremely nervous to hand off too many tasks to a web developer, nervous they wouldn't understand our vibe, nervous they would create a site that didn't look and feel like us.
We wanted to maintain a certain level of control and make sure our heartbeat and DNA remained connected to the website. We're very hands-on and wanted the knowledge and skill set to maintain our website and perform necessary updates with confidence. After consulting with Nathanael we knew we had found the perfect solution to move forward with our business goals.
We hired Nathanael for his one-on-one training sessions, and to build out the back end of our website. He compiled our site goals and helped us prioritize them based on his expertise of what was necessary and our budget. He helped remove all the little stressors we were having and filtered everything into a timeline and a process. He removed things from our plate that were simply not in our scope of knowledge and added them to his end of the project. It was easy to move forward when we knew exactly what was expected of us and exactly what we could expect from him.
I appreciate that Nathanael stretched us to do tasks that we didn’t feel were in our scope of knowledge but they weren’t in our budget either. It forced us to grow, learn and throw away excuses.
We chose to do website training and Photoshop training for our one on one sessions. We are doing all our own photos and photo editing for our site. [With NO previous experience]
We feel like we still have a lot of practice ahead of us, but the best quote Nathanael would say when we were working together was, “B-minus work can change the world!” I completely agree with this! We have to do the best we can do with what we have to work with and that is exactly what we are doing at Breighela James!
Nathanael was patient with us and helped keep us on task to make our deadlines! He made everything easy on our end. We focused on what we are good at and he focused on what he is good at and gave us a ton of encouragement and valuable feedback along the way.
We are so happy with the outcome of our project and our clients have all given incredible feedback on the end product. We have so much more to learn and can’t wait to do more training with Nathanael in the future!”
AUBRI GEGA
Owner | Breighela James Boutique
I’ve spent the last 12+ years designing for both small businesses and global brands.
I’ve done work for some of your favorite companies:
My experience has taught me what it takes to make a business stand out amidst all the NOISE and succeed.
I’m a designer, but I’m also an entrepreneur and business owner who comes from a family of entrepreneurs (My dad painted signs and murals for 20+ years.)
I know how many hats you have to wear to make things work in your company: creative, marketer, accountant, manager, manual laborer, networker, custodian, IT/tech-support… the list goes on.
Doing everything by yourself can feel overwhelming, ESPECIALLY when you’re in the first years of your small business.
I created this course because many of my business-owner friends asked for my help:
They came to me asking,
“How much would it cost for you to design this for me?”
But they weren’t at a place where they had a big enough budget to hire me to do a full-blown project for them.
I didn’t want them spending money that would be better suited investing into other parts of their business, and yet, I didn’t feel comfortable just passing them off to go find some random designer just because they were cheap, or referring them to some faceless online marketplace where they could buy a generic design template that didn’t support their brand identity and heart.
I also didn’t want to see my friends pouring dozens of hours into teaching themselves how to do design, which can lead to overwhelm and takes away time they could’ve spent supporting themselves making money with clients.
“As a marketing department of one, I feel I can miss out on the natural growth that comes from working on a larger team along with the shared knowledge that is automatic and often taken for granted. Along with that, there are tools in the software that I might use so infrequently that I’ve forgotten how to use them when I need them most.
I don’t want to outsource all of my marketing, what I need from time to time is just a brush-up on my skills.
I brought on Nathanael as my Adobe tutor. I was prepared with three open files I had recently created and a list of my challenges and questions for Nathanael to help on.
Not only did we knock out a half-dozen skill reminders and tools that will save tens of hours on future projects, but in under an hour, we identified numerous other devices and shortcuts as well. And for the next sixty minutes, he walked me through other shortcuts, skills and software details that would help me in the future.”
JOHN SCHREIBER
Owner | Myoptic Optometry + Modern Eyewear
I began offering small, one-on-one design coaching sessions as a way to meet them in the middle.
I would charge $200 for a highly-focused 2-hour block of time where I’d break down the essential elements, skills, shortcuts and tricks for using design software so they could rapidly gain the skills they needed to build and market their businesses.
But I quickly discovered that this idea wasn’t scalable.
I needed a way to help more than one person at a time that wasn’t limited by how many hours I had in a day.
So I created this online course to take you from confusion, overwhelm, and burning time & money to a place where you can confidently connect to your customers, stand out from the crowd, make more money, and say,
“Holy crap, my company looks freaking amazing! And I DID THAT!”
“When it comes to the idea of all the little details that it takes to keep a small business running smoothly, let alone trying to stay relevant with marketing, it can be overwhelming. As gym owners at CrossFit Attollo, our primary focus is our members, but we also want to stay current in our marketing, and social media outlets.
Nathanael is a true professional and mastermind of creativity, and has made this process smoother by showing us some incredible time-saving tools that will allow us to better brand ourselves, communicate more effectively, and highlight our members, all while staying relevant and saving us time and energy.
Nathanael was able to give us the confidence and hands on experience to take our business to the next level. If you are a small business owner looking to take your business to the next level, we highly recommend using Nathanael, who can help save you time, and energy, which has allowed us to have more peace of mind.”
SAM & BROOKE VELAZQUEZ
Owners | CrossFit Attollo
Stop wasting money hiring designers before you're ready. Stop wasting dozens of hours teaching yourself. Hire a pro to teach you exactly what you need and start winning in your industry.
Enroll in Portable Design Academy Today
THIS VIDEO-BASED Go-Your-Own-pace COURSE WILL BE 5 MODULES.
I will teach YOU THE MOST RELEVANT AND PROFITABLE SKILLS FOR creating next-level graphics to grow your business using THESE PROGRAMS:
Adobe Spark Post - Create beautiful graphics on your PHONE for social media & other outlets
Adobe Photoshop - Edit photos, create cool text effects, collage, bring the pictures in your head to LIFE.
Adobe Illustrator - Make logos, artwork that never pixelates, and digitize your own art FAST.
Adobe InDesign - The BEST for making custom-branded documents, promotions, & presentations.
Branding Your Brain - How To USE all these skills with an eye for good design. Brand strategy and expert guidance from an industry pro.
Create stunning graphics—in seconds.
Stand out from the crowd and engage your audience with eye-catching posts using your mobile device. Spark Post is the perfect “get your feet wet” step into having great design for your business. This mobile and web-based app allows you to quickly create amazing designs from scratch or using one of hundreds of templates.
With Spark Post, you can promotional, social media, and print graphics WITHOUT A COMPUTER! You will start feeling confident after just a few minutes of learning.
This module includes the following content:
Intro - Welcome to class & Setting up your Adobe Spark Account
Start quickly with beautiful designs
Create your first Spark Post
Make your text pop
Brand your design by adding your logo
Creating Social Media Graphics
Turn your Post into a Printable Graphic
Creating an Animated post
Editing Spark Posts online
Choosing Color Palettes
Choosing the right template for the job
Downloading free images and icons
Have FUN taking control of your photos and graphics at a deeper level.
Just “Photoshop" it! — This program has become the equivalent of saying “work your magic” these days. I’ll show you how to use it to take your photos to the next level, make cool and clean compositions, create graphics for web and print, and lots of other tricks you’ve probably wondered, “How’d they do that?” so many times.
This ain’t just a “How to use the tools” module, ALL of this is taught in a hands-on style, within the context of actual skills you’d need to make projects for your real business.
This module includes the following content:
Intro - Welcome to class
Creating a New Document
Getting Familiar with the Photoshop workspace
Resizing & Cropping Images in a Snap
How to correctly and tastefully use a drop shadow
How to cut out an object to layer on top of another image
Creating a simple announcement graphic with images, text and shapes
Saving your artwork in different formats
Resizing & Cropping Your Document for web/print/social
Simple photo editing for portraits and people
Easily Color Tone Your Photos
Super-Fast Black & White Photo Editing
Compositing multiple images - Bringing it all together!
Documents, posters, flyers, presentations... NO PROBLEMO.
This is quite possibly my favorite program. With InDesign, you can start making projects that are immediately usable for your business. This module is about giving you the power to take your visuals to the next level. I’m talking FREEDOM guys.
You may be familiar with other programs like Word or Powerpoint, but InDesign is the ultimate page layout program. Imagine it’s your digital desk, where you have the freedom to move things around, layer them, and arrange the visuals of your graphics—WITHOUT all the rules and restrictions that other programs have.
This module includes the following content:
Intro - Welcome to class
Creating a New Document
Getting Familiar with the InDesign workspace
Get Started with 10 Beginner Tips for InDesign
Making Beautiful Documents with Images, Text & Shapes
Packaging your file for print and sharing
Saving your artwork in different formats
Making a booklet/magazine-style layout
Design your own business cards and letterhead
Create a simple, reusable template for website graphics
Create a beautiful, modern, kick-butt presentation
Behind The Scenes of My Client-Winning Project Proposals
“I took an amazing crash course through Nathanael for the Adobe Illustrator program. My husband and I are just getting started in our letterpress business and I wanted to be able to offer services catered to designing as well as printing.
He knew exactly what to teach me to help advance the learning curve, going through individual tools step by step and readily answering the millions of questions I had for him. I had a very clear vision of what I wanted to accomplish in our training session and it FAR exceeded my goals and expectations. I am SO thankful to Nathanael for everything he taught me!
His training courses are absolutely ESSENTIAL to anyone looking to further their knowledge in graphic design, creatives looking to step up their website/graphic game, and anyone who is looking to create beautiful, custom content for their business. Massive thank you to Nathanael!”
LIZA JAMES
Photographer & Letterpress Studio Owner | lizajamesphotography.com
Super-clean graphics, logos, icons and illustrations.
Super-simple.
With Adobe Illustrator, you can create your own logo, infographics showing your creative process to clients, custom icons for your website, or one-of-a-kind slides for brand presentations.
You can quickly and efficiently use Illustrator to create one-of-a-kind graphics that you can scale from the size of a penny, to the size of a banner, or a building, with ZERO pixelation. Not to mention that Illustrator allows you to get multiple ideas out on the page FAST so you can keep the creative juices flowing.
This module includes the following content:
Intro - Welcome to class
Understanding the difference between Raster and Vector graphics
The Pen Tool - aka: The “Elder Wand” (for you Harry Potter fans)
Tracing calligraphy, and digitizing your images in a snap
How to add custom textures to an illustration or logo
Creative Typography hacks for non-designers
Create your own Logo - aka: "The video that’s worth this entire course"
Saving your artwork in different formats
Create a custom icon set for your brand
Design your own business cards and letterhead
Design a special event poster that doesn’t suck
Quick brand presentations for when you’re in a pinch
In this module, I’m going to teach you how to THINK like a designer, even if you don’t consider yourself a super creative person.
“Sure, learning the programs is great, but HOW do I make it look good like you do?” - I had a client ask me this, which motivated me to go the extra mile beyond most other design courses on the market.
I’ll be sharing you the tips, tricks, and strategies I use when creating client work. I’ll show you the simple and strategic changes that will take your ideas from “BASIC” to “PRO”.
This is the module that brings it all together and will teach to use everything you’ve learned with confidence.
This module includes the following content:
The biggest design mistakes businesses make (and how to avoid them)
What is branding and how do I use it for my company?
The 10 Principles of Good Design for business owners
How to gather the best inspiration for your projects
Plug-And-Play tips for great layouts
Understanding typography and using your words to make magic
Getting the best images for your biz
Understanding Colors and how to pick them for your brand
Choosing winning Fonts to make your designs more impactful
How to “Bake” a design - the process for prepping a smooth-flowing project
The Essential Elements: Ignore these at your own risk
How do I know when I need to hire a designer?
👩💻👨💻 FREE access to the PRIVATE Portable Design Academy community group (a $997 value)
Where you can ask questions, get unstuck and keep your momentum, get support as you go through the course, get feedback from other students, build relationships with other small business owners, and get exclusive updates. — This group alone is worth the price of the course.
📄🔑 Cheat Sheets for Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign (A $500 value)
The Top Tools for each program
Keyboard Shortcuts - learn shorthand shortcuts to speed up your project workflow
“THIS, Not THAT” Shorthand Design Tricks
📐 Project Templates (A $500 Value)
You get all the original design files from the projects that I’m creating in the video lessons to look at and learn from.
⏰ Office Hours (A $600 Value)
Each week for the first 6 weeks after launch, I'll be hosting a 60 minute office hours session. These sessions will be your chance to ask specific questions in a live Q&A format. If you can't make it for the call, no worries, I'll be providing recordings of each call. Plus, you can always email your questions in so they'll be addressed on the call.
💎 Beta Extras
Since this is a beta group, I'll be adding additional content based on group feedback. What exactly will these extras be? I have no idea! Extras could include additional worksheets, templates, videos, or anything else that I believe will make the course more useful to you.
TOTAL VALUE of Bonuses: $2,597
A $15,000 course for $997.
It's important that you know the enormous value you'll get in this program.
These numbers are not inflated. They're a legit, honest, professional estimate similar to what I would charge my clients — since you cannot purchase components of Portable Design Academy separately.
Any single one of these modules on their own is worth more than the cost of the entire course.
there are even some trainings that are worth the entire value of the course if you were to hire a designer (ex: Design your own logo).
Why? Because the cost of hiring a designer to create the projects for you, or the value of your billable time spent doing it yourself, would be significantly greater than the cost of this entire course.
Here’s an estimate of what this course would cost if you were to hire me to create everything personally, as well as train and coach you:
Total cost of 1-on-1 training/consulting: (20 hours @ $100/hr) = $2,000 value
Total cost of design projects in course if you were to hire me: $9,875 value
Total value of Bonuses: $3,097 value
When you add it all up, that’s a total real-world value of $14,972.
But, because I’m super excited to welcome you into Portable Design Academy, and I’m deeply passionate about making great design accessible to passionate entrepreneurs like you, I’m giving you the opportunity to enroll in the course at the special introductory price of just $997.
Get Started Now 🚀
Choose the payment plan that works best for you.
(Low monthly)
(Best Value - SAVE $185)
“I’m so thankful for people that know what the heck they’re doing! I just went from feeling like quitting to feeling like I’m soaring thanks to one guy who is INSANELY excellent with what he does. If you are a business owner you need Nathanael!!!
When I started Free Girl Boutique, I started as a rep for another company, but got the rug pulled out from under me when they dropped all their reps (Including our websites).
Since then I’ve had to figure out how to keep my business going from A-Z and it’s been a lot to figure out! Building my website from scratch has been my #1 😭😤😡😫😵 and I realized I just couldn’t do it all on my own.
Enter Nathanael.
O.M.G y’all. – This guy is YOUR GUY if you need any help building your brand. From website to design to social media… he is a WEALTH of knowledge. He just gets it. He opened up my eyes to SO much more and gave me 10x more value than what I originally expected. – Dreams coming true over here!”
ALISHA DEWEES
Owner, Free Girl Boutique
The goal of this course isn’t to add “Professional Designer” to the already long list of roles you have to play for your small business.
The goal is to rapidly shorten your learning curve with the skills you need to brand/market your business well so that you can spend more time actually DOING the business you love so much.
It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, this course can help you win — whether that’s event planning, Youtubing, owning a clothing boutique, running a letterpress studio, selling eyeglasses, being a model + Instagrammer, or running a Crossfit gym.
Entrepreneurs are some of the bravest, most hardy, most inspiring people on the planet—that’s YOU I’m talking about! And the first few years can be TOUGH, cause you’re doing it all YOURSELF.
But you don’t have to be alone anymore.
Many people QUIT, but not you. That’s why you’re here in the first place.
Let me be your trusted guide and teacher. I genuinely care about seeing you SURVIVE those first tough years so you can THRIVE for years to come.
❌ Stop wasting dozens of hours trying to teach yourself. Invest more time into developing your craft and less time bootstrapping new design skills.
❌ Stop spending money you don’t have to hiring a designer for things you could do yourself. Save your money for hiring a professional for the next-level projects, and get empowered with the skills to personally express your company.
❌ Stop missing out on customers because you business doesn’t look as good as the competition.
❌ Stop feeling like your creativity is limited.
❌ Stop using goofy apps and limiting programs, and learn how to simply use professional software without the confusion and guess-work.
❌ Stop outsourcing your brand voice to someone who doesn’t know your culture or community of customers and fans.
❌ Stop feeling confused, overwhelmed, and frustrated when it comes to graphics.
❌ Stop choosing between investing in your business, and investing in beautiful graphics. You can have BOTH.
“Nathanael's trainings are so refreshing and informative! I always look forward to them because I can expect to walk away inspired with more than what I bargained for.
His insight and perspective on life and what he does are so helpful and relatable. This guy is one of the wisest people I know. His teaching skills are out-of-this-world, which gets me excited when I have the chance to share what he’s up to with others that I know!
Nathanael is super personable and easy-going; learning from him feels just like talking to a loving older brother. You can see his heart in what he does, and feel the joy and excitement it brings him when he shares his thoughts and process with others. He’s genuine, and it’s just so noticeable in the way he speaks and how he lights up while helping people out and shortening their learning curve, wherever that may be.
I've personally been impacted by him in starting up my blog, and going through some tough seasons of my life. What you see is what you get. – His blog is inspiring in all ways, and there’s really something special we can all learn from his tactics on crushing everything we set our minds to!”
NATA SARAFINCHAN
Model, Instagrammer, Blogger | natasnutshell.com
Enroll in Portable Design Academy Today
Choose the plan that works best for you.
🤷♀️Need Help or Have Questions?🤷♂️
I’m happy to answer any question you might have and help you make the wisest choice for you.
