Inkk Academy · For Designers and Professionals

The tools changed
overnight.
The craft didn't.

Learning the tools is easy. Judgment is the hard part. That's what the Academy teaches.

Everyone thinks AI is a magic bullet.
It isn't.

AI generates. It does not judge. It will produce imagery that misses the mark, chase a strategy that goes nowhere, and build layouts that look plausible and communicate nothing. Every output needs someone who knows what good looks like, and why.

The skill the industry needs right now isn't prompting. It's knowing when the output is wrong and knowing what to do about it. That's craft. That's what the Academy teaches.

AI is a tool. Like every tool, it produces exactly as much as the person holding it knows.

This website, as well as The Inkk Spot, exist because of craft. Every decision — what the tools generated, what got thrown out, what got fixed, and what got built — required knowledge that no prompt can replace. Color theory. Typographic hierarchy. Visual judgment. Strategic clarity. The ability to look at a result and know whether it's right. That process is the curriculum.

This course teaches you to use these tools the way a professional does: with a clear brief, a disciplined eye, and the craft knowledge to catch what they get wrong. Each tool — ChatGPT, MidJourney, Lovable, Firefly, Claude, Claude Code — does one job in this workflow. Knowing what that job is, and when to take back control, is the skill. You leave with a live site and the knowledge to build the next one on your own.

What Survives

What you'll actually learn.

AI Tools ChatGPT, MidJourney/Nano Banana, Lovable, Figma Make, Claude, Claude Code. How each one fits into the workflow, what it's good for, and when to stop trusting it and take over.
Design Fundamentals Color theory, typography, visual hierarchy, branding, imagery. The knowledge that makes every tool decision a sound one. Without this foundation, the output is noise. With it, it becomes work.
Production Skills Photoshop, Figma, Pinegrow, HTML/CSS, accessibility, SEO, hosting. The full stack from concept to live site. Not watched. Done. You ship a real site at your own domain.

Who This Is For

Designers who want to understand AI without being replaced by it. Strategists and researchers whose thinking is strong but whose visual language hasn't caught up. Anyone who has been told that AI will do the hard part, and suspects, correctly, that this isn't true.

The cohort is intentionally small. Ten students maximum. Every student gets a personal design review with me at the moments that matter most: when the brand direction is set, and before the build begins. This is not a course you watch. It's one you do, with someone watching.

You don't need a coding background or a fine arts degree. You need to be willing to do the work between sessions. That's where the real learning happens.

Ten seats per cohort. When they're gone, they're gone.

The Curriculum · Starting Here

Two courses.Eight sessions. One live site.

Each course runs live: two weeks, four sessions, 75 minutes each, plus office hours. Real work happens between sessions. Not as homework, but as the actual deliverable. You arrive at each session with something built. You leave with it improved. By the end of Course 2, you have a production-quality site at your own domain.

Course 1 · Two Weeks

Brand
Yourself.

Brand strategy, visual identity, and the tools to execute both. You leave with a complete brand system and a design direction that is genuinely yours, not a template that got generated for you.

Define your Brand Visual design principles · Brand foundation
Design It Color · Typography · Midjourney · Logo
Guide the Strategy Strategy · Site map · Wireframes
Make It Yours Layout principles · Lovable · Figma export
Between Courses Content interviews · Imagery · Wireframes · Figma Make

Course 2 · Two Weeks + Bonus Session

Make It
Real.

You arrive with a Figma file and home page you're ready to build. You leave with a live, production-quality site. Between those two things is a process most designers have never seen. Now you'll know how to repeat it.

Build your Home Page Accessibility · Design Systems · Claude · Figma MCP
Show your Story UX vs Branding · Case Studies · Claude Code · Live Server
Put It All Together Tokens · Code review · WCAG · Mobile
Make It Real Domain · Hosting · QA · Live site
Get Found. Get Hired. AI SEO · Search visibility · Portfolio as proof

View Syllabus

The Workflow

Eight steps. Every tool chosen for a reason.

Each tool in this workflow does one job and hands off to the next. You will learn not just how to use each tool, but why it belongs at that step, what it tends to get wrong, and how to correct it. That knowledge is what separates a designer who directs these tools from one who just follows them.

Define Your Brand

Who are you really? Visual design principles and brand foundation. Every decision downstream depends on this foundation being right.
Design It

Translate brand personality into color, typography, and imagery direction. MidJourney and Firefly generate. You direct and correct. These tools will miss the mark repeatedly. Knowing what to ask for, and when to reject the output, is a skill you practice here.
Guide the Strategy

A structured ChatGPT agent pressure-tests your positioning. Clear boundaries keep the conversation focused. Map and wireframe your site's structure.
Make It Yours

Structure and direction only. Lovable will not get this right on the first try, and that's expected. Stop when the direction feels right. Export and refine in Figma.

Own It in Figma

Fix what the tools got wrong. Add what only you know to add. This is where the design becomes yours. When the home page design is locked, it becomes the reference for every page that follows.
Prepare the Content

Claude interviews you about each page. It creates content documents and wireframes. You move the discussion into Figma Make. Everything is ready before the build starts.
Build for Production

Claude reads your Figma design directly and builds clean, semantic HTML with a professional CSS architecture: design tokens you control, visual rules that cascade, structural patterns that hold.
Make It Real

Production checklist: WCAG contrast, spellcheck, SEO, AI SEO, image optimization, responsiveness. Domain, hosting, live. Don't rely on the tools to catch everything. This step is yours.

About Coleen Sallot

Thirty years.
One conviction.

I'm Coleen Sallot, founder of The Inkk Spot and Inkk Academy. I've been through every shift in this industry: print to web, desktop to mobile, now AI. The craft is not obsolete. It's the differentiator.

Over 30 years I've designed and built across healthcare, logistics, and enterprise. At Magellan Health, I centralized design across 80+ properties into the organization's first design discipline. At FedEx, I led experience design for six years across billing, Global Air Freight, claims, and FedEx Ground. I went back for my MFA because my designs kept falling short for the people who needed them most. That led to Mythos, a therapy game for children with trauma, and BrandForge, an AI-powered brand intelligence platform. I also mentored 100+ designers through Thinkful's UX program.

Education: MFA, Experience Design · Miami University
MS, Education · California State University
Certifications: WCAG 2.1AA · Certified Usability Analyst · IDEO Human-Centered Strategist
Teaching: Teaching Assistant & Mentor · Thinkful, 2020–2024 · 100+ designers mentored
Practice: 30 years · Healthcare, Enterprise, Logistics, Consumer, Entertainment
Work: Mythos · FedEx Global Air Freight · PTKids Teletherapy · and more

See the work at The Inkk Spot

First Cohort

Get on the list.
Course 1 Starts on Oct 26.

Before that, join me live for a free Lightning Lesson on Sep 24: what's actually broken about portfolios right now, and what actually proves the difference. Sign up below and you'll get the Lightning Lesson details first, then early access when Course 1 enrollment opens.

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The tools changed overnight. The craft didn't.

Everyone thinks AI is a magic bullet. It isn't.