This basic exercise — no words, no pictures — will help you develop sensitivity to visual relationships. To balance. To dynamic imbalance. Clumping. Visual decision making.

This design class will also help you begin to learn to position a headline, body copy, captions, and artwork for example, for brochure design to enhance a marketing goal.

This design class will help you design small-space ads, stationery, sales sheets, flyers, brochures, maybe a simple Web page. With a short in-class assignment, we'll focus on creativity, concept development, design, and also discuss writing and marketing. We won’t spend much time on how to use software — plenty of other companies specialize in software training.

If time permits, we'll apply your lessons to a current company project. Sound too easy? We've seen students mature in one lesson.

You will also learn the one most important design aspect of a page. And it's completely under your own control. But you must first master the basic lesson with the black shapes.

If things go quickly, you might be given our famous "relationships" typo-anagram-graphic exercise.

(*You really want dynamic imbalance.)

The full-day session for executives is more structured than this one, which is designed for desktop publishers and neophyte in-house designers or production artists. This is looser. We'll do some work. And:

You'll meet heroes of advertising and design over the last 60 years, and compare them with current printed samples you think are good.

Do you know the names Paul Rand, George Lois, David Ogilvy, William Bernbach, Mary Wells, Julian Koenig, Milton Glaser?

How about Cassandre, Leo Lionni, Seymour Chwast (say "kwahst"), Paula Scher (coincidentally Mrs. Chwast), Saul Bass, Helmut Krone, Paul Davis, John Alcorn and his son, artist and musician Stephen Alcorn?

Or Bob Gage, Ed McCabe, Amil Gargano, Bradbury Thompson, Vance Jonson, Ellen Shapiro, Massimo Vignelli, Sam Scali, Louise Fili, Larry's idols: Herb Lubalin and the great and intimidating Lou Dorfsman?

Or creative firms like Pushpin, Pentagram, Landor or Lippincott?

Or lettering greats like Tom Carnase, Tony DiSpigna, Michael Doret, Raphael Boguslav, Ed Benguiat (say ben-gat)?

You'll meet some of them through their work — beautifully designed and stylish–yet–timeless work which never looks dated and is not affected by visual fads.

This class will help you design small-space ads, stationery, sales sheets, flyers, brochures, maybe a simple Web page or two. We'll do some basic creative assignments. In class. On paper. On-screen. Your choice.

We'll focus on creativity, concept development, design, and also discuss writing and marketing. We won’t spend much time on how to use software — plenty of other companies specialize in software training. Software ain't talent!

later this year or next, when you are ready for the multiple–session approach, ready to head into the wind of more advanced design classes,

click here.