8-hour Workshop · On-site · In-person
Design Principles
Overview
In this live full-day, in-person workshop, you'll learn how to write and apply design principles that help teams make better design decisions. We'll work on defining principles clear and consistent enough that your whole team can work from one shared design philosophy.
You'll leave with practical techniques for writing, validating, and building principles into your workflow, and a method you can reuse on a product team, a design system, or in your own practice.
Live, in-person workshop
On-site, wherever you are
One full day, or two half days
4 to 12 participants
Certificate of completion
What changes after this workshop
- Design critiques get more focused. Your team has shared language to point to, so discussions stop going in circles.
- Decisions get made faster. With principles as guardrails, fewer of them need to escalate.
- New team members ramp up faster, with a clear foundation to learn from and build on.
- Your design system holds together conceptually as well as at the component level.
- Stakeholders get on the same page because everyone works from the same North Star.
What you leave with
- A draft set of design principles, written and refined during the workshop
- A principle-writing rubric you can use for future iterations
- Real examples of how your principles apply to your own product
- A rollout plan for introducing principles to the broader team
- Critique prompts to use principles in design reviews
- A certificate of completion for each participant
Workshop alumni include designers and design leaders from a long list of great companies.
Choose this workshop if...
- Your team debates what "good design" means and rarely reaches consensus
- You're building or evolving a design system and need conceptual guardrails
- You want to onboard new designers faster with a clear foundation
- You need shared language that crosses product, design, and engineering
Not a fit if...
- You're looking for a ready-made principle set to copy. We help you build your own.
- Your team doesn't have the authority to actually adopt the principles afterward.
- You need deep user research methods. Check out our Empathy workshop instead.
Presentation
Split Up
Full Group
Sharing Sessions
Kick-off
Introduction to Design Principles
Kick-off
Case Studies
Session 1
Case Study Deep-Dive
Session 1
Keywording & Heuristics
Session 1
"Should Be" Mapping
Session 1
Regrouping Keywords
Break or continue next day
Session 2
Recapping Session 1
Session 2
Revisit Case Studies
Session 2
The Chosen Ones
Session 2
Formulating Principles
Session 2
Your Principles, Your Practice
Wrap-Up
Q&A
Facilitator
For more than a decade, we've argued for design that cares about the people who use it.
We've worked with companies like Unity, GetYourGuide, Shopify, Coinbase, and many others. What we learned there shapes our own design work and what we teach designers at every level about making things that mean something to their users.
Incomparable
Designer · Teacher · Public Speaker
Within two weeks, our critique sessions changed completely. We stopped arguing about taste and started referencing our principles. That shift alone was worth the investment.
Allison Lee
Head of Design, Magic Eden
After the intro call
Tailored agenda
We send you a customized agenda based on what we discussed, along with a quote.
Review and confirm
You review, request any adjustments, and confirm the dates that work for your team.
Workshop day
We show up ready to go. You just need a room and your people.
Straightforward, transparent pricing
Before you pay a dime for the workshop, we schedule a 30-minute intro call to learn what your team needs and tailor the content to it. That way the day is spent on the problems your team actually has.
Travel costs
Based on the distance between your location and your facilitator.
Up to 10 participants
Workshop cost
$6,000 USD
Travel
Variable
Total
Starting from $6,699 USD
11 to 20 participants
Workshop cost
$6,000 USD
Travel
Variable
Larger group
+ $1,000 USD
Total
Starting from $7,699 USD
Written follow-up
After the day, we send a document of what your team agreed on, applied to a few screens from your own product. It's part of the fee.
Credited toward a partnership
Start a design partnership within 60 days and we take the workshop fee, minus travel, off your first invoices.
Any questions in the room?
You probably have a few questions by now. The common ones are below, and we can go through anything else on the intro call.
We spend 30 minutes learning about your team's challenges, goals, and context. We'll recommend the right workshop, answer your questions, and explain how we tailor the content. We won't pitch you, and if it's not a fit, we'll tell you.
After the intro call, we adjust the case studies, exercises, and examples to match your product, team size, and specific challenges. You'll receive a customized agenda before we lock in dates.
Very little. We'll send a short pre-workshop questionnaire to gather context. On the day, you just need a room, a whiteboard or sticky notes, and your team. We bring everything else.
Most workshops work best with a mix of designers, product managers, and design leadership. Some teams also include engineers, researchers, or key stakeholders. We'll help you figure out the right group during the intro call.
Yes, but the format changes. For groups larger than 20, we split into parallel tracks with multiple facilitators or run consecutive sessions. Pricing changes with the format, and we can work it out on the intro call.
We strongly recommend in-person workshops. The hands-on exercises and group dynamics work best when everyone's in the same room. That said, we've run hybrid sessions for distributed teams. Reach out if you'd like to explore options.
The travel fee covers flights, accommodation, and local transport for the facilitator. It's one flat fee based on your region, so there are no extra expenses or receipts to review.
We invoice after you confirm the workshop date. Payment is due before the workshop takes place. We accept wire transfers and can accommodate most payment terms. If you need a PO or have procurement requirements, just let us know.
We don't allow full recordings, since much of the value comes from open discussion and participation. After the day, you get a written document of what your team agreed on, applied to a few screens from your own product, along with the templates and frameworks we used.
Yes. If your company requires an NDA before the intro call or workshop, send it over. We're happy to sign reasonable confidentiality agreements.
Cancellations more than 14 days before the workshop receive a full refund. Between 7 and 14 days, we offer a 50% refund or full credit toward a future date. Less than 7 days, we don't offer refunds, but we'll work with you to reschedule if possible.
Yes. Each workshop participant receives a digital Incomparable certificate. For a small additional fee, we provide sealed, card stock physical certificates.
Full-day, in-person workshop
Anytime · Wherever you are
Facilitated by Incomparable
On this page
Book a 30-minute intro callNo commitment. We'll tailor the agenda to your team.
Not the workshop you were looking for?
We also run these workshops on rotation.
8-hour workshop
From $6,000 + travel