Flux Academy Review from a Designer

Who is the Flux Academy for?

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Let’s start by saying that if you know Ran you most likely have some sort of creative or web design background. Is that right? If so, well, you’re in luck! Flux Academy is a great place to sharpen those design skills and take your career to an exciting new level. 

So yes, the courses in Flux Academy are targeted to web designers, both professionals and in the making, which means that this species of humans will definitely get the most out of the curriculum but what about if you are not a designer? Should you keep reading? Well, yes! You didn’t think I would talk about this just to shamelessly slap an affiliate link here and there and call it a day, right? 

The truth is that while the content that Flux academy creates is mainly for designers, they also offer you the chance to become one.

If you are looking to start a career that will allow you to move around and literally work from anywhere in the world while working with clients also from anywhere in the world (this is the kind of content that we all like here at A Way Abroad, innit?) then look no further than the Core Design Skills Course which will give you a solid foundation to develop your design skills, not just web design, but you’ll learn principles that can be applied to any type of design projects such as branding, packaging, social media, etc.

And from there you can start climbing your way up to financial and location independence through design!

“This course is for anyone who wants to design a thing — no matter what that thing is and who it is for. It’s 100% focused on design principles and how to put them to practice to create beautiful work. We don’t talk about clients and freelancing at all.” - Flux Academy

With that being said, I am a designer so from here on I will talk from my professional point of view and give you my sincere opinion after taking the Webflow Masterclass Course and the 6 Figure Freelance Designer Course.

‍There are more courses on their website and the Flux team keeps adding more and more so you might find something else that interests you. I’ll go over those a little later but first let’s talk about the ones I actually took.

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Webflow Masterclass Course Review

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What is Webflow?

Have you ever wanted to create awesome websites but know nothing about coding? You should know by now that there’s a multitude of online website builders that will get the job done.

Wordpress, for example, has existed since forever (in tech years) and has proven to be the most popular and most commonly no code(ish) tool used when it comes to creating websites. I should know, I used it for years. However, If I went and told you how much I dread working with Wordpress to craft websites we would stay here all night.

There’s got to be a better solution to no-code website development that doesn’t come at the price of your sanity, and that is where Webflow comes in.

Webflow, just like Wordpress, or Wix, or Squarespace (or…)  is a website builder and content management system (CMS) that allows users to take their designs, build them and publish them as responsive websites without writing one line of code. It is a drag-and-drop platform that gives you the power to visually shape your creativity using pre-built elements, some templates, and an amazing community that is constantly creating mind blowing sites, which, btw, you can literally look under the hood and see how they work.

Want to see a pretty cool example of what kind of websites you would be able to make? You're looking at it right now 😉. This very site, A Way Abroad, was built on Webflow.

Webflow has a user-friendly interface similar to other design tools like Photoshop that allows you to customize the design of your websites to the most minimal detail, add content, amazing interactions and manage your website's functionality. The platform also includes powerful tools such as SEO optimization, e-commerce integrations, and form building.

All this makes Webflow sound like a no brainer if you want to have absolute control over every little aspect of your design, but it does come with a caveat; while it’s true that you don’t need to code, you do need to understand how web design and development work and have a clear vision of what you want to create. You don’t design on Webflow, you bring your design to Webflow to flesh it out.

It is an incredibly powerful web design tool, however, with so many features and options available, it can be intimidating for beginners to get started and yes, it has a steep learning curve. Luckily, we have the Webflow Masterclass.

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What does the course include?

During the course you learn the basic concepts and tools that will allow you later to recreate complex websites from scratch.

It is divided into chapters, from the fundamentals to the advanced stuff like animation and interactions, these 12 hours of video lessons will take you from noob to master. Hell, there’s even a dedicated chapter for dealing with clients that talks about how to sell projects to clients, how to deliver projects and how much you could charge.

Side note, the 6 Figure Freelance Designer Course goes into way more detail about client stuff and I will talk about that one in a moment, but I wanted to point out that you get that bit of incredibly valuable information packed inside. Cool? Ok. Now, back to the masterclass.

During the course, you will work on 2 amazing website projects and put your skills into practice within realistic scenarios and super clear explanations. It's a hands on experience broken into easy to follow lessons which allow you to get personalized feedback AND your questions answered if something didn’t go as you expected.

Overall, the course is an excellent resource for anyone who seriously wants to learn how to use Webflow. The Webflow Masterclass is well-structured, engaging, and constantly updated making it a great investment for anyone who wants to improve their web design skills.

This last part is important because Webflow is constantly evolving and updating so, in order to keep its relevance, Flux Academy gives free lifetime course updates for all students! I took the Webflow Masterclass version 1, we are currently on v.3, and I’m more than grateful for these updates that keep on giving. 

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Who is the course for?

The course is aimed at beginners and intermediate designers and covers everything from the basics of the Webflow interface to advanced techniques for creating responsive and interactive websites that you can sell for a premium.

Yes, I know, there’s a big number of people selling websites out there but when it comes to quality, you can definitely tell when something was made using an outdated Wordpress template and when something is bespoke, and the latter gets to charge much higher.

Stand out, sell quality over quantity, and you will work much less (one) but also with people that will appreciate your work for its high actual value and will pay you equally so. Do this for yourself but also for the internet. The amount of terrible, cookie cutter, outdated websites out there is too damn high!

Check out the Webflow Masterclass by Flux Academy.

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6 Figure Freelance Designer Course Review

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Let me start by saying this: my freelance career can be clearly divided between the before and after the 6-Figure Freelance Designer Course. This course was a game changer for me.

Why? Well, when you graduate from design school you come out ready to redesign the world around you. And you could do it. You know how to design now, the world is your canvas, there’s just one little detail, though; Who’s gonna pay you for that? (Some) Design schools teach you and give you all the tools you need to create beautiful, useful, interesting things but tell you (almost) nothing about how to sell them, and that, my friend, in the real world is an actual problem.

After all, a girl’s gotta eat. 

I’m sure that if you are a freelance designer, or have designer friends, you have seen or heard about them fighting for scraps on websites like Fiverr, selling at the lowest possible price and very often regretting their life decision once the real world bills start piling up. Did that hit too close home? I know, I’ve been there.

The feeling of despair when you literally don’t know where to even begin, when you’re on your own Googling, “How to find decent design clients,” cry-laughing at all the relatable memes from design humor and finding nothing useful. Not only do you have to compete with virtually every other designer (I still love you, internet) but also with every other son of a bitch out there that calls themself a designer because they took a YouTube binge on “how to make money using Canva” and are destroying the value of design in people’s minds… That’s too much, man!

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Why does this course exist?

There’s a way out of freelance designer hell, dear reader, and it doesn’t have anything to do with your design skills. Don’t get me wrong, of course you have to be good (psst, Flux can hook you up with the Core Design Skills Course), but the way out of the aforementioned unholy predicament relies on finding the right type of clients to work with and stop saying ludacris things like “Anyone can be your client”.

Stop that.

In the real world, there are clients for virtually anything, yes, and you can also do virtually anything (skills depending), yes, but if you want out of FDH then it’s up to you to find your ideal type of client in a particular market whose needs and budget align with what you do and charge. Then you have to create a connection with them to be able to work with them. Otherwise, you waste a lot of time (therefore money) on those that will never buy or those that don’t need an incentive to buy. Yeah, we weren’t told how to do that.

Introducing 🥁The 6 Figure Freelance Designer Course.

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What does the course include?

This course is essentially a recipe. A step by step guide that walks you through the process of building a sustainable system around your freelance practice to turn it into a successful business.

Let’s face it, the fun part about being a creative is the creation part, not the sales or the negotiations. I know some weirdos out there actually get a kick out of that but us creatives not so much. Unfortunately, it is indeed a fundamental bit of running a business. It is a hard pill to swallow but the truth is that without a reliable system you can’t tell when or from where your money is going to come, if any, or, conversely, you can’t deliver consistent good work to your clients without sacrificing a lot (time, relationships, opportunities) along the way.

So, to put an end to this, the lovely team at Flux put together the 6 Figure Freelance Course and man does it work.

Let me dissect it for you.

Inside of this course you will find a meticulously planned program divided in modules that you will have to follow throughout the course of 12 weeks. You can do it at your own pace and finish earlier if you want to, but I wouldn’t do that. You see, the weekly structure works around you and the current state of your business by giving you just the right amount of information and actionable steps to advance at a steady pace. With no rush, but without stopping.

“I don’t have a business, I’m a freelancer” I can hear you saying, which incidentally is addressed in one of the first lessons: if you’re a freelancer, you are a business, treat it as such. That’s just a little initial mental shift that will do wonders for the way you think and act from that point on. 

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Working through the modules

In the first week you will start by defining your niche and decide who you want to work with (what a luxury) by offering a clearly defined value proposition. How do you know that? Well, follow the steps in the module 😉 because every single week you will have an assignment that, when completed, will open the door for the next module.

Each week your homework will start compiling and paint a bigger picture as you advance.

All the exercises and homework are thought to be applied to your real life. No imaginary textbook scenarios, you will be working towards building your own business systems and arsenal (for lack of a better word) from day one, and that alone is worth way more than any other class out there.

“What if at any moment I get stuck? If my problem applies to my own business, how can I get an answer from an external person?” I can also hear you saying. Worry not. That is accounted for.

One of the things I liked the most about this course is that, at the end of every week, you join a group call with every other student in your class hosted by Ran himself where you can bring up your questions and get a direct answer from him. This is another huge point for the course! Personalized answers applied to your personal issue in real time? Hell yeah!

Oh, and in case you want to discuss your frustrations and share your wins with other fellow students and network a bit on your own, you have access to the private Flux community where conversations about every topic in the course are happening, all moderated by specialized coaches.

After you define your niche and who you want to work with, next stops are:

• Craft the irresistible messaging for your company
• Create a unique website for your business and update your social networks (you wouldn’t think that the Webflow guru would leave making a website out of the process, would you?)
• Build a clients magnet (yes, marketing)
• Define your pricing strategy, sales, and negotiation (admit it, you could be better at this)
• Outreach to find clients faster in existing platforms
• Now for the big one: finances 😣. How to look under the hood of your business and make sure you are profitable and many other business operations that most likely you had absolutely no idea that you would even have to think of, like client relationship and delegation.

Can't you just feel like your business would have a much more robust foundation after going through all that? That's because it will.

Who is this course for?

This course is aimed at designers that want to see their freelance career take off and don't really know how to make it happen. Listen, you know you can be a master designer, but if you can't reliably find who to sell your work it's very unlikely you will see much business growth if any.

So if you're actually serious about getting serious, this goldmine of a training is the perfect place to start. After having taken the course you will have so much clarity on aspects of your business that you didn't even thought of before. After all, we like to design, that's what we're are good at, and we can have a hundred ideas and dream of making bank being creatives, but without a solid marketing and business system to support you... you get the idea.

At the end of the course you are sure to have your mind blown around 3 or 4 times, given you followed the instructions and do the homework and participate in the calls. Not only that, you will have an absolute solid foundation and structure for your business that is already working out of the gate. There’s even people that start working with clients before finishing the course and bring specific client questions up to be addressed. That is an awesome value.

Check out the The 6 Figure Freelance Designer Course by Flux Academy.

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What's Possible After These Courses

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So, what changed after I graduated from these courses? I found my way out of freelancer hell, my friend. I’m no longer chasing whatever single soul draining little gig I can find, I’m much more confident in my business, I have no fear negotiating 5k, 8k, even 10k projects.

I’m making more money, I have more contacts I can rely on and I can, without a doubt, tell you that it would have taken me forever and probably cost me my business to do all this on my own.

Sure, all this information is out there, scattered and hidden behind different types of media; books, seminars, coaches, college, even free sources, and you could try to collect it by yourself but this is not intuitive stuff and will take a lot of time, resources, and mental health. And if you’re doing that, who’s bringing in the money?

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Pros & Cons for Flux Academy

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To wrap it all up, let’s make a good ole’ pros and cons list:

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Pro: Digestible content

One of the strengths of every course is its structure. The courses are divided into short, digestible modules that cover specific topics to the detail. Each module includes a series of video tutorials where Ran and other experts demonstrate and guide you through the content as you learn.

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Pro: It’s easy to follow and apply

Ran’s teaching style is clear and engaging. He explains concepts in a way that is easy to understand, even for those who are new to the topics. He also provides plenty of examples and practical exercises to help students apply what they have learned to their own projects, none of that fictitious scenario bullshit that you later have to decrypt to apply to your projects on your own.

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Pro: It’s made for the IRL

One of the most impressive aspects of Flux Academy is its emphasis on real life project-based learning. Students are not only taught theoretical concepts but are also given the opportunity to apply what they have learned by building real-world projects in real time. 

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Pro: Updates (applies mostly for the Webflow masterclass)

Another benefit of this course is that it is constantly updated. As Webflow evolves and new features are added, Ran and his team update the course to reflect these changes. This ensures that students are always learning the latest and most up-to-date information about Webflow. The best part, you have lifetime access to those updates so make sure to check back in from time to time.

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Pro: The community

Another great feature of Flux Academy is its community aspect. You have access to a private social media platform exclusive to Flux students where they can connect with other students, as well as instructors, and receive help and feedback on your projects. This creates a supportive environment where you can learn from others and create your own network to collaborate on future projects.

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Con: Can’t overlook the price tag

One potential drawback of Flux Academy is its pricing. The courses are relatively expensive compared to other online classes. However, the quality of education provided by Flux Academy justifies the price tag, and the platform offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so students can try the courses risk-free. Not only that, but you can also divide the payments, so that softens the blow a bit if needed.

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Will I See You at Flux Academy?

There it is, kiddies. My honest review on Flux is that I have nothing but good things to say about it.

The peeps at Flux Academy are incredibly friendly, experienced and knowledgeable, and they are passionate about teaching. They are always available to answer questions and provide guidance to students, making the learning experience more personalized and effective. And, if collecting diplomas is something you enjoy, you’ll be happy to know that, at least for the Webflow Masterclass, you will be able to get just that.

But woah, woah there, you have to earn it by building an entire test project by yourself applying everything you just learned. After that, you will receive your shiny new certificate.

You can now go get’em, tiger.

Browse all courses offered by Flux Academy.

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This article was contributed by Rafael Tudela. As the husband of Kat, the A Way Abroad founder, we've let him in as an honorary contributor since he's pretty cool to shed his light on being a freelance web and product designer. Hero photo by Roberto Nickson.