Squarespace Design ✹Course
Frequently Asked Questions

👋🏼 Have a question or want us to assess if this is right for you? Email us at hello@ilovecreatives.com

Are you super excited and want to get a head start?

One of the first things we ask you to do is to introduce yourself to the class. Here are some questions you’ll need to think about:

1. Who is you?

2. What is your aesthetic? If you had to pick 1-3 websites that you wish you designed, which would they be? (share links, Pinterest boards, something we can see)

3. What do you want to build in this course?

4. What are you excited to learn more about?

Really think about Question No.2 as this will be part of the course!

Why is this course better than other Squarespace Courses?

Ok, we’re not about to toot our own horn so here’s what our students have to say:

Nicole King said, “Puno’s course takes it way beyond just Squarespace. It’s kind of like you have this really great 🥑guac (the guac are creative ideas on how to build a site), and Squarespace is just the chip to help you seize the guac. Okay, maybe that metaphor needs a little work, but every other Squarespace course I looked at, the output just looked like Squarespace sites. Puno’s style and approach means I’m making something agency level, something I can feel really good about selling to my future clients. Plus, did I mention the format is really fun? Gamification for the win!”

Marcus Garrett said, “It’s a really well-designed course. There are a lot of moving parts from the portal, to Slack [now Discord], to Office Hours. It all works somehow and it feels seamless. You’re getting an amazing value.”

Chelli said, “This course is very different than any other course I’ve seen. I would recommend this course to someone because of the gamification, intimate accountability, freelancing section, and because Puno makes the experience very special. She covers both the design aspect and the freelancing aspect, instead of having to buy separate courses. The fact that this covers both is one of the main reasons why I purchased this one instead of others. This is my favorite course I’ve ever taken! I’m having so much fun with the process and I love it here. So happy I joined ❤️❤️”

Should I take this or a UX Design Course? 

We actually discuss this on 1-800-PUNO Episode 9: How should I learn web design?  

I’m a small business owner looking to build my business’ website, is this course for me?

YES! As a business owner myself, the ability to have control over my website allows me to experiment, build, and maintain my site whenever I want. Also, it took me a while to get to the site that I wanted and because I had the skills to do it, I saved a ton of money.

The time, money, and let’s be real, the patience it takes to make even the smallest change with a freelance web designer and developer can be completely skipped if you can do it yourself. We teach our students to hand off websites their client can change because at the end of the day, that’s why you chose Squarespace!

You can definitely use your own site as part of your Section 3 website. Plus, even when you finish the course, you'll still have access to the Discord community to receive design feedback and any coding help if you want to revisit your design as your business grows.

Should I take this or another Design Course?

First, watch 1-800-PUNO Episode 9: How should I learn web design? This will determine what you should learn based on what you want to build. From there, research other instructors. Are you inspired by their portfolio? Then, take a look at the student work. Do you want to be surrounded by other designers like that? If you're stoked about who you'll be learning from and who your peers are, I think your experience is going to be way more fun!

One thing to add, we don't teach how to use design tools inside and out, but we have videos that show how I use Photoshop and Figma for Squarespace. Spoiler alert: I personally don’t use it too much for Squarespace clients.

I've never designed a website before, is this going to be too advanced for me?

Carol De Lucca said, “I’m a graphic designer and I’ve been using Squarespace before this course, but I often felt stuck or my sites looked too much like the templates; in the end, they weren’t what I envision them to be. Then I decided to take this course and I’M SO GLAD I did it! I’ve learned SO MUCH and I feel much more confident about using Squarespace now.”

Manisha Tolani said, “I didn’t expect it to be this enjoyable honestly, and initially, I wondered how Puno would teach customization. I thought the Level 1 exercise was time-consuming, but after doing it all, I realized there is sooo much more you can do — you just have to get a little creative. I appreciate having my mind opened there.”

Margaret Royena said, “[Puno] has an extensive resource page that I found really helpful and there are some worksheets that really helped out my process for designing. It really has [Puno’s] personal style to Squarespace in it. If you’re wanting to get more experiential website design, it’s worth it.”

Sarah Liberthorn said, “At my last agency, I was in a team of 8 creatives but only a few were actually designers. In the Squarespace Design Course, it was so nice to be with other designers in a non-competitive environment. Everyone was empathetic and helpful, and literally the world’s nicest people! Also, being able to ask people questions about code can save you hours of research time.”

I don't have any coding experience, is that OK?

That's perfect! We teach you how to hack the Squarespace features and blocks so that you don't have to code, but we also show you some CSS. In Section 3, you get a bunch of code snippets and resources. Most of our students have never touched CSS!

Jennifer Grimm said, "I JUST FIXED MY NEWSLETTER BLOCK AND I FEEL LIKE A WIZARD!"

Margaret Royena said, “I went into the course with really basic knowledge of CSS and it really helped me stylistically. I was also worried about that, but each lesson was step-by-step and very approachable!”

I don’t want to be a freelancer, is this still right for me?

Justyn Warner said, “I have had a few clients ask where I learned my skills from and I would tell them about this course. I would explain how awesome it is in just understanding how to design for yourself. You don’t have to get into freelancing just to be a better designer. Also, I definitely recommend this to other artist friends because I think its something that everyone show know. You can never learn too much and I think you should always be learning and finding ways to make your business better, especially until you can can afford a team of people to assist.”

Do you go over the full client process in the course?

From Puno: “Yes! We show everything, from what I put on my website to my actual on-boarding emails with a client (eg, asset collection and contracts). More importantly, I show you how to track your time so you don't get burnt out!”

From Mindy: “So many hot tips about freelancing. Worth. Every. Penny. Especially because with that newfound knowledge, it’ll be no time before you make that amount back. Personally, I think of it as a short term investment that’s gonna make you serious bank. 💎"

From Nicole King: “The tips Puno gives a long the way about her workflow is a game changer and worth the price of admission alone.”

I’m not a graphic designer, is it possible to offer clients website design without branding services?

From Puno: “This is a great question. And the short answer is YES. Now here’s the complex answer. Squarespace clients typically have lower budgets and can’t really afford a full blown Brand Identity like what we teach in Graphic Design Course.

Depending on the client (does this seem fun?), my financial situation (if I need the cash), and where I’m at (do I want to do this?)… I’ll make a decision on whether or not I want to do the extra rounds for branding. For the most part, especially for the clients that don’t have budget, I assure them that we can find a good text-based logo with a custom font that would save them a lot of money and time. It’s your job as a designer to guide the client! If you really think they need a logo, but you don’t have the chops — you can always subcontract someone on ilovecreatives. That’s what I did!

For designs, I’m a pretty minimal gal and get more minimal depending on the budget. If the budget is really low, sometimes I’ll just go straight to Squarespace. If it’s a lil higher or I just need to do it to work designs out, I’ll do a few over-the-fold homepage designs or style tiles in Figma. If the budget is big and/or I can upsell, I’ll do the all the things!

If you’re the kind of person that wants to offer branding services and be the person that does it — I highly suggest taking the Graphic Design Course after the Squarespace Course. Why after? IMO, there are more people who need a website than people who need full brand identities. Imagine being in a room and asking “Who needs a website? Who needs a brand identity?” The former would have way more enthusiasm. For me, the website is the gateway to all these other services you can choose to offer: graphic design, branding, copywriting, photography, social media, email… there’s so much!”

Nicole King said, “I realized that I need to know web to succeed in design. Branding projects really don’t exist without them anymore. In fact, I feel like websites are really the gateway to all of the other design work I’m used to (packaging, events/experiential, etc.).”

I’m a little worried about finding my first clients. Do you go over this?

From Puno: “Finding client work is a valid question! Here’s what we do in the course:

• Portfolio. This is HUGE and so important for getting work specifically with Squarespace. Part of that is making sure that your portfolio reflects the aesthetic of clients you want. This is where our Section 3 design critique and the Discord channel come into play.

• How to find Clients. We'll talk about networking and ways I pro-actively reach out to people. My first year of Squarespace Freelancing, 59% of my clients came from networking and 41% came from referrals. You can hear more about it in my Keynote Presentation at the Squarespace Circle Conference.

• ilovecreatives Approved. We have a list of all the students that have been ilovecreatives approved and spread as much work as possible with ilovecreatives Studio. Our first goal is to help you pay off the course with actual clients, but if you're a rockstar it's really easy for us to recommend you for work. For example, one of our students has already made well over $10K from referrals. We're always happy to work with you and give you very specific feedback on your portfolio!

• On-going help. You have access to the course and the community for forever! Chat with a few other students as well and start being “top of mind”.

I need to stress, if you don't have a solid portfolio that matches the type of people you are trying to work with ... it doesn't matter how you find them! Start thinking about what type of clients you want and what type of aesthetic they gravitate to. Then, create the most epic portfolio ever. ✨”

Gawoon Chung, said “You will learn so much from this course, regardless of your skill level, and leave with tons of useful design tips and tricks (even new opportunities)! Don’t miss out!”

Margaret Royena said “It was all I needed to get dope clients from Instagram who already have or are interested in building and maintaining their sites on Squarespace!”

Is it worth learning so much about one platform?

From Puno: “I don’t see Squarespace going anywhere anytime soon. According to Wikipedia, in 2017, Squarespace raised an additional $200 million in funding, boosting its value to $1.7 billion. You know who else raised that much? Shopify! Have you seen Shopify’s stock since they IPO’d? 📈💰Wait, so am I saying that I should learn Shopify? If you want to! Personally, it wasn’t for me as my platform of choice. I feel like Squarespace customers value design and control. Shopify customers do, too, but I know more small businesses that can afford Squarespace budgets. Plus, in the beginning, I didn’t want to manage big eCommerce projects. I do it now with ilovecreatives Studio, but it’s a lot more stress than building a Squarespace site. CSS and hacking features is actually a lot of fun for me!”

Nicole said, “I had been looking at taking some online university courses for web design and business, so my biggest concerns with this course were ‘would it be stupid of me to invest time and money into specializing in online one platform, and not being generally trained’. I’m not only comfortable with my decision, but it was the smartest thing for me to do.”

Is the course content dripped over time or do we get access to everything right away?

You get content as you progress through the levels, but you can finish the levels as quickly as you want. So, it's kind of both? You'll have access to the course forever so if you ever get behind, no worries.

What kind of work can I expect to create?

From Puno: “It depends on your goals. Most students are here to freelance, but some people want to use this course to build their own websites (eg, George McGraw built his non-profit's site: https://www.navajowaterproject.org and increased donations by 60%)!

If you're here to freelance, I would highly suggest using this time to create work that you want to. We've had some people use client work, but I would only recommend doing that if (1) you submit your work before you submit it to the client and (2) if you think you have absolute creative control. You get design critiques from me, so don’t waste it if you can’t take the feedback!”

Sam Zauscher said, "I have to send a client 2-3 different comps this week which will ironically interfere with going full speed here. Sure, I could use the site comps for level 3, but if I only have this limited window for having feedback from such a killer group I'd much rather use it on a few spec sites I'd love to design / go wild with."

Does this course cover Squarespace version 7.1? Also, what is 7.1?

Yes, yes we do (including the Fluid Engine editor)! And good news — if you want, you can learn 7.0 and 7.1 in this course. Squarespace 7.1 is the newest version of the website builder platform. The previous version is 7.0. While Squarespace is supporting their 7.0 version indefinitely (2014 - 2020); they released a new version called 7.1 in early 2020. The goal was to minimize the confusion between templates. However, it’s still pretty confusing. 😅

Most Squarespace sites that exist today are built on 7.0, but there are plenty of sites that are still on Version 5.0 (2008-2012). So don’t worry, if you have a site built on 7.0 or even 5.0, your site is fine and won’t be deleted or anything crazy like that.

We teach you both versions in the course because we know there are clients asking for both!

Which Squarespace version is better for freelancing — 7.0 or 7.1?

Neither version is better than the other. The whole goal of learning both is so you can see which version works better for your workflow and/or sites you want to build. Here's a quick explanation from our Squarespace Template Comparison Tool:

We tell our students to learn both if they’re planning on Squarespace freelancing. There are a ton of sites still on 7.0 and migrating between versions is … not easy. You essentially will have to recreate the entire site with a new trial. Most clients aren’t willing to pay for that if there aren’t huge benefits. Also, you’ll lose all your site analytics. 😬

Here's what Erin Fitzsimmons says about learning both versions:

“Knowing how to design and build in 7.0 and 7.1 is important because it will make you a confident designer. Especially if you are going to be offering Squarespace Website Design as a service you need to know both versions so you can take on any job that comes your way. Some client's sites will already be on 7.0 and they might want to stay there whereas other clients will want 7.1 because it's the newest version. Learning both versions of Squarespace shows you are a capable designer who can adapt to new UI changes and shows you are willing to learn new things to improve your skillset.”

From Cass Aggett:

“I was pretty nervous starting with 7.0 at the beginning as I'd only worked with 7.1, so it felt weird and really difficult haha. I'm glad I persevered though because I've had more clients wanting updates to the 7.0 sites than I'd even considered, thinking I'd only be doing new sites.”

From Puno:

“I have clients that are still on Squarespace 7.0 and are not planning on paying for complete migrations. There’s absolutely no benefit for them to move to 7.1, so I think it’s important for students to know how to use 7.0 in the event they have clients in the same boat! I’ve talked to the team at Squarespace and they assured me that 7.0 won’t be going away as they know the majority of their customers are still on 7.0.”

What is the Discord community about?

We often hear that our Discord community is one of our students’ favorite parts of the course! We trade design tips, give/receive critiques, and share potential opportunities. We're huge fans of open-source learning, which is why we encourage all students to post their questions in our Discord channel. With such a supportive community working through material together, someone else might have the same question (or answer!) as you do. Plus, you’ll be making tons of design friends your first day!

Tanasha Juarez said, “One of my favorite aspects of the course is definitely the community. With the setup that is currently in place (i.e. Slack [now Discord]) there are no tiers or hierarchies built in which was extremely helpful for me as a beginner. I’m not sure if it was intentionally built that way, but all conversations are open and inclusive which has been HUGE for me as a novice. [Cookie] rewards are genius as well. I think those were vital to the foundation of support, inclusivity, and conversation. The conversational style of Shawn, Gabriel, and Puno has been insanely refreshing also. I’m a big online class taker and as you know it’s easy in those situations to get into a top-down conversational style but the way all of you stay relatable in tone makes it feel like chatting with friends.”

This is what Hawne Zhu had to say about our community: “Puno’s great at teaching Squarespace and she’s super fun, but the community is really the best part of the course. It’s so helpful to have people who are on the same project to discuss with when you run into obstacles.”

Is the Live Office Hour 1-on-1 or a group call?

From Puno: “The Live Office Hour is a live group video call (recorded if you can’t make it). If I wasn't able to answer the question in the live call, I usually just take it to Discord and answer it there. I haven't had any complaints about the call feeling too noisy. In fact, some people say this is their favorite part of the course because they get to see how I figure something out.

You'll have an extremely active & supportive community that is there to help answer any questions you might have. However, if you are trying to implement javascript or something really advanced, we feel that's a bit out of scope from the course. In most cases, we try to show you an easier solution so that you can work towards that 2 hours a day life. 😉”

Zippy Burman, said this about the Live Office Hours: ”Puno's live Q&A's are one of the best parts of the course. It's refreshing to watch the process…It's raw and unfiltered! Watching her process and hearing questions from other students (that I would have probably never even thought of) has helped me understand even more how to ‘hack Squarespace’.

Also, thank god for playback! (1) It's great for anyone who's unavailable during that hour to watch in real-time, and (2) Watching the videos back is like a gold mine of extra knowledge!”

What if I miss the Live Office Hour?

From Puno: “No worries! It’ll be recorded and added to the resources library. If you have any questions you want me to answer, feel free to add them in Discord, and you can watch the recorded clip to get your answer(s).”

What does this course focus on?

50% technical (Squarespace and CSS)
40% design confidence
10% client - freelancing

From Puno: “A lot of people think that learning the ropes of freelancing is the key to getting client work. For me, it’s your portfolio. I recommend designers all the time and sometimes it falls flat because their portfolio doesn’t convince the client that they can make a Squarespace site, not look like a Squarespace template. You don’t have to have a ton of sites or a crazy, unique portfolio, but you do need to have one solid site that clearly showcases you’ve got design chops. That last part is subjective, but we’ll give you our opinion and what works for us.

The biggest goal for me is to give you confidence. Once you have that, you'll have the motivation to keep iterating on your designs and playing with ideas.“

Nayade Bermudez Brito said, “I love how transparent Puno is, and how helpful both Puno, Gabriel & the whole Community are!”

Is this course fun?

YES. Haha, but for real, we went out of our way to make sure the content is super engaging and full of information. We want to ensure that your brain AND your stomach (because of belly laughs?) are fully exercised. TBH, this online course world can be really weird and fake and you knowwwwww … that’s not us. We want to be the good weird. ✌🏼

John DuPre said, “Puno is an awesome goofball which is super refreshing in this space and learning from/interacting with her is a fun time. I am also pumped about the community that will develop here. I have a feeling that Puno’s outreach methods attract a certain type of awesome human and I can’t wait to connect with the crowd accumulated here!”

Why is the course $899?

From Puno: “Fair question! We really thought hard about the amount of education you receive with the course. Most students take about 44 hours over 2 months which comes to $20 per hour. Additionally, if you plan on freelancing, you can charge from $500-3000 for most Squarespace sites. Obviously, budgets can be larger than that depending on scope of work, but most of my clients are around $3K. If you are building your own website, that’s about how much you’ll be saving. Plus, you won’t need to hire anyone for on-going maintenance! Another way to think about it is, my hourly rate is $150/hr. That’s about 6 hours of face-time with me and I gotta say, this is a much better way to learn from me. 😉”

Mindy said, “I think it’s absolutely worth the money. I’ve actually gotten way more freelance projects because of it so I’ve definitely made my money back.”

Nicole said, “It was a little tricky convincing my husband that it was a good investment. The cost is a little high (especially with the damn Australian conversion rate) but the return on investment is huge. I gained so much information in the first lesson, and it didn’t stop when I reached the trophy. With the Slack [now Discord] channel and access to the office hours, I’m always learning and know I have continual support.”

Catherine Dunn said, “I realized investing in myself is priceless. Plus, I’ve already learned WAY more in Level 1 to up my SS game. It really breaks down the SS platform so that you FULLY understand how to use and manipulate it vs picking templates that feel right and working within them. Plus, Puno and the videos are just as entertaining as informative.”

Do you have a payment plan?

Yes! You won't be able to "graduate" the course until all the payments are made, but you can work through all of the content. Here’s the payment plan.

What is your refund policy?

We are happy to do a partial refund within 7 days of purchase if you mistakenly purchased the course and have not started watching any of the videos. Once you start watching the videos, we won’t be able to refund your purchase.

How to convince your employer for education reimbursement.

Did you know that $5,250 of education assistance benefits are tax-free per employee (US only)? That means your employer wouldn’t have to be taxed on this course. See Employer-provided educational assistance.

If you’re unsure whether or not your company offers education assistance benefits, just ask! Here’s a sample letter template we created to open up the conversation with your boss. Feel free to change it up and make it your own.

👋🏼 Have a question or want us to assess if this is right for you? Email us at hello@ilovecreatives.com

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