About Paths

Always a designer.
Always a student.

Learning design on your own can mean spending as much time deciding what to study as studying it. I built Paths to make that decision easier.

The person behind the paths

I’ve taken the
scenic route, too.

I’m Darian Rosebrook, a Staff Design Technologist in the Pacific Northwest. I started teaching myself design in 2015 after almost landing a web design job at a small fishing company. Community resources, client work, and plenty of practice became my education.

In 2017, I founded Compass of Design. Over the next two years I published more than 100,000 words, created over 120 resources, and ran challenges and workshops for a community of almost 600 designers. Teaching helped me understand my own work more clearly.

Since then, I’ve built design systems at Microsoft, Salesforce, Nike, eBay, and Verizon. At Qualtrics, I helped define the Design Technologist role. That work taught me to connect the details of making with the needs of a team.

Paths brings those experiences together: career guides to help you choose what to learn, essays that explain the ideas, and exercises to put them into practice.

Darian Rosebrook
Darian Rosebrook
Designer, builder, perpetual student

“If I’m not documenting it, I’m likely prototyping it, teaching it, or systematizing it.”

— Darian Rosebrook

The learning approach

Practice with a purpose.

Start with a specific question. Finish with work you can examine, discuss, and improve.

  1. 01

    Notice a skill to develop

    Compare a piece of your work with a reference you admire. Name one specific difference you can practice, such as hierarchy, research synthesis, or component behavior.

  2. 02

    Choose a learning guide

    Find a career path that fits your experience and goals. Use its topics and prerequisites to decide where to begin and what you can already do.

  3. 03

    Make something

    Try an exercise with a clear deliverable: an interview plan, a component, a prototype, or a brand system. Adapt the project to a problem you care about.

  4. 04

    Evaluate and repeat

    Use the exercise criteria to review your result. Ask for feedback, revise your work, and choose the next skill to practice.

Try it for yourself

A place to begin.

Find a skill to practice

The Skill Gapping guide helps you compare your work with a reference and choose a useful next step.

Choose an exercise

23 projects with instructions, deliverables, and evaluation criteria across design disciplines.

What would you
like to learn?

Browse career paths