Case Study Club Pro is your safe playground where designers just like you come to share ideas, work on projects, write case studies and launch a kick-ass portfolio — together. Everything you need to get your next big opportunity in UX.
Thank you, Jan. Taking your class was really helpful for me to get a new job. I’m super thankful for your class!
— Jenna Kang
You start off bursting with energy, planning it all out...
But then, everything fizzles into nothing. Hesitation and procrastination strikes.
Whatever motivation you have left disappears. It can even feel pretty lonely at times.
I've been there myself.
My first "get-a-job" portfolio served its purpose getting my foot in the door.
I had to carry around a printed version back then. Knocking on doors, laying it out on the table and present on the spot. It was brutal!
Since then, I've had my fair share of portfolios — all trying to achieve the same thing.
Scoring projects, getting hired or simply just looking for the next big opportunity.
That's what we all want, right? To practice what we know and get paid (well) doing so.
The problem is that when it's for ourselves, we turn into the worst designer in the world (for some weird reason).
It's different. It's personal. Our self-imposed expectations are almost unrealistic!
All of a sudden we're in charge of everything, even the writing. The sort of writing that grabs peoples attention and emerges them in great experiences.
That's exactly what we want our portfolio to be — an engaging and entertaining piece of story.
Most importantly, to show what value you can bring to the table.
Case Study Club Pro aim to be your safe playground where you can connect and share ideas with likeminded people.
A place where you'll get the accountability and support you need to do your best work.
Guiding you to tell your story and get your next big opportunity in UX.
✓ Experiment, fail and succeed in a safe playground
✓ Connect with other likeminded designers
✓ Personal 1:1 guidance from a mentor
✓ Position yourself with confidence
✓ Create an industry standard portfolio
✓ Get your next big opportunity in UX
✓ Access to upcoming cohorts and workshops
✓ Professionals transitioning into UX from other fields
✓ Professionals taking your existing portfolio to the next level
✓ Students trying to get a foot in the door
We run on all the latest tools to help you connect with the community and do your best work (Notion, Zoom, Loom, Miro and Circle.) In addition, we provide you with frameworks and templates that will help speed up your portfolio process immensely.
This is the heart of the Case Study Club Pro community, where all the good conversations and most of our communication will live. The platform we'll use is called Circle, think hybrid between Slack and Facebook Groups — the best of both worlds.
All of our live workshops and reviews will happen over Zoom — a platform most of you are probably familiar with by now. Live elements are central in connecting with others and to get a glimpse into everyones working processes.
The case study framework lives inside of Notion with embedded videos that explain everything in detail. It's a proven step-by-step framework that will help you flush out your process effectively .
Get up to speed quickly with all of your content before investing time into building your website. A huge benefit of using Notion is that you can collect feedback early on so you can start iterating. You can even link your custom domain and launch your portfolio in matter of minutes — saving you a ton of time!
We’re kickstarting the community with a portfolio cohort — A 6-week program to help you get your portfolio in good shape.
Define your design career goals, write your about story and focus in on your positioning.
Pick a project, draft the summary and outline using a proven case study framework (available in text and video).
Draft and revise your first case study and get specific feedback to stay on point.
How to prepare and present artifacts in your case studies. What fidelity is needed?
Launch your MVP (minimum viable portfolio) today or move your content over to a website builder (we support Webflow, Squarespace and Semplice.)
Walk away with actionable feedback you can apply to your work immediately.
We'll continue to host workshops that will move your needle all throughout the year.
Feedback is an essential part of our process. Each week we'll personally review your efforts and provide you with our thoughts to help you move the needle.
Thank you, Jan. Taking your class was really helpful for me to get a new job. I’m super thankful for your class!
— Jenna Kang
I found it extremely beneficial to see a community of people working through their process and I’m so thankful for the content. Thanks for the opportunity to learn from you and others!
— Mary Gower
The community is very helpful to keep transparency and open communication between students. It also helped me to trust my storytelling skills and developing my writing habit.
— Humberto de Sousa
Thanks for your hard work and dedication for making this happen. You guys worked to ensure we were helping ourselves and doing the work — even with the world kinda falling apart and lives being thrown out the "normal" day-to-day. This course grounded me by redefining my design career goals. I would recommend this course to others!
— Tiffany Do
The community helped me connect with designers from all over the world. Everyone happily shared their experience with each other and it made us go faster and further together. I thank Jan for all the hard work and I hope other people can have this experience!
— A Jung Lim
It was refreshing, motivating and encouraging for me as I was able to set up a portfolio website and get feedback on my first project. It was a great experience.
— Dalveen Mahal
Thanks so much for putting this class together Jan. I truly appreciate your thoughtful feedback, advice and encouragement.
— Steven Weigh
Jan kept the class moving quickly to establish momentum, but still flexible enough if "life" happened and you needed more time, since most of us are working designers. I would sincerely recommend this class to any designer needing that bit of a push to get started and heading in the right direction.
— Chris Piedra
Jan was an awesome mentor, he understood the pain points of each student during covid-19 and helped each of us individually. In my case I felt a real connection and value. The workshops were always useful with great takeaways. I highly recommend it!
— Lilibeth Bustos Linares
We're excited to have you onboard as a founding member of Case Study Club Pro! To get in on the fun, here's the step-by-step process:
Step 1
Apply to become a founding member.
Step 2
After the application deadline, you’ll get invited to join.
Step 3
If you feel it’s a good match — accept the invitation and sign up.
After the initial 6-week portfolio cohort, we're going to continue to host workshops on a regular basis to help you reach your next goal.
Here are some of the ideas we’ve been playing with:
Monthly Case Study Club
We pick a case study and invite the designer to talk about the process in detail (think book club, but for case studies).
Monthly Method
We pick a topic/method/framework once per month and learn how we can put it into practice.
Monthly Challenges
Small bite-sized challenges that will move yourself forward such as outreach to potential employers, getting testimonials from past clients, LinkedIn grooming etc. Everyone comes together to share their experience of what worked.
Member Spotlight
Showcase members on the website and in the newsletter. Case Study Club has over 16.000 members and over 30.000 visitors to the site per month.
As you can see, there's no shortage of ideas. The goal is to have everyone come together as a group to figure out what's next, with the help of workshops and good old conversations.
I was lucky to discover my passion at an early age, designing my first website in 1996 (fan site for a punk rock-band called The Clash).
As a professional, I’ve been at it for over 10 years. Working in agencies, huge corporate companies, and even freelancing and now (in my final from) as a consultant.
Since 2015 I’ve been running Case Study Club with over 16.000 members (from companies such as Adobe, Google, Apple + many more) and have developed a portfolio program with over 100 happy designers.
Now I want to take it to the next level and make this THE place designers come reach their goals — together!
I hope to see you on the other side!
Will there be a cost to joining Case Study Club Pro?
Yes, there's a cost if you choose to accept your invitation to join. For our founding members the cost is a one time fee of $290 — Including lifetime access to everything inside Case Study Club Pro!
Should I start from scratch or modify what I already have?
I’d say keep everything you’re happy with and modify the rest. If it’s already working for you the way you intended, then you’re set. Implement what you’ve picked up that could improve your current state. Unlike movies, the second version of your portfolio often makes better sequences.
Are we heading to build an actual website to launch?
The idea is that you should have a website to (soft) launch with at least one completed case study. That way you’re making incremental improvements, instead of waiting for the perfect moment (or until you’ve finished it all). Now, you’ll be kickstarted into action.
I don't feel like I have enough "good" work... Can I still join?
A lot of designers think they need 10x projects in their portfolio. That's not true. In fact, some of the most successful UX portfolios I've seen only have ~3 projects in it. It's how you present your work and position yourself that matters.
One of my jobs in this community is to help you find out what makes your work unique and what to focus on. You don't need a massive project, spanning from A – Z. It could be parts of a project, say you make a case study about how you got from E – F. Everything will be clear once you see the approach.
What if I join and don't like it, can I get my money back?
After you've accepted your invitation and joined Case Study Club Pro, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you don't like it for whatever reason, I'll refund you every cent. No problem!
Feel free to email me anytime jan@casestudy.club. Looking forward to chatting with you!
All the best,
Jan from Case Study Club