Most people think lecture notes are throwaways. Something a professor scribbles before class and forgets about by the weekend. That’s how mine started, too.
I teach twelve different courses every year in design and technology. That means twelve subjects where the landscape can shift between semesters. Software updates. New accessibility standards. Industry best practices that weren’t best practices six months ago. Unlike teaching literature or mathematics, where the fundamentals hold still for decades, design and technology education requires constant refreshing. You can’t teach what you haven’t verified is still true.
So I started building structured study documents for myself. Comprehensive notes to refresh my knowledge before each course, double-check my sequencing, and catch anything that had changed in the past year. They weren’t meant for anyone else.
Then something interesting happened. I shared the Typography primer with my students as a supplemental study aid, and the response surprised me. They weren’t just using it before exams. They were referencing it during projects, pulling it up in class, treating it as a working reference alongside the textbook. Students who struggled with terminology suddenly had a resource that explained things the way we actually discussed them in the classroom.
That first primer grew into a library of over 100 study aids covering typography, color theory, layout, photography, web design, creativity, InDesign workflows, and more. Each one is built from the ground up as a narrative teaching document, not a glossary or a cheat sheet. They walk through concepts the way I would explain them to you if we were sitting together in my office. And because I rebuild them every year, the information stays current. That matters in fields where yesterday’s workflow might already be outdated.
I also produce Spanish-language versions for my bilingual students. Not translations. Each Spanish primer is constructed from the ground up in Spanish, because real comprehension requires thinking in the language, not decoding from English.
What you’ll find below is a growing selection from that library. Each primer is a deep, structured guide designed to be read straight through for the big picture or referenced section by section when you need it. Whether you’re a student preparing for a project, a working professional refreshing your foundations, or just someone curious about how design really works, these are for you.
Available Primers
- Typography — A comprehensive guide to typographic practice, from letterform anatomy and how reading works through hierarchy, editorial layout, typeface classification, and accessibility. Nine parts, 68 sections.
- Study Smarter, Not Harder — The science of effective learning. Retrieval practice, spaced repetition, interleaving, and the evidence-based strategies that actually work. Thirteen sections.
- The Case for Creativity Training — Why creativity is the most in-demand leadership skill, what the research shows about training it, and why most professionals never receive it. Seven sections.
- What Creativity Actually Is — Moving past myths to the real frameworks. The Four P’s, the Four C’s, Amabile, Csikszentmihalyi, and what “novel and appropriate” actually means. Seven sections.
- The Neuroscience of Creativity — How the brain generates creative ideas. Default mode, executive control, and salience networks. The neuroscience of insight, incubation, and why walking helps you think. Eight sections.
- Creativity in the Classroom — From the NACCCE Report to project-based learning, design thinking, and the maker movement. How schools can teach creativity and how to assess it. Eight sections.
- Making Design Memorable and Actionable — The cognitive science behind designs that stick. Memory encoding, attention, emotional resonance, and the principles that make visual communication effective. Ten sections.
- How the Mind Sees Design — The visual processing pipeline from retina to recognition. How the brain constructs meaning from visual input, Gestalt principles, and the neuroscience of seeing. Eleven sections.
- How People See and Process Design — From sensation to perception to action. Eye tracking, cognitive load, visual search, and the full pipeline of how people actually engage with designed artifacts. Ten sections.