Portrait of Vanta Smith, course instructor

Meet your instructor

Hi, I’m Vanta Smith — a developer who designs, or maybe a designer who codes. Over the past 10 years, I’ve worked on everything from early-stage startups to large-scale design systems.

This course is the one I wish existed when I started blending code with design. It’s practical, opinionated, and focused on real UI problems: spacing, typography, layout, responsiveness, accessibility, and polish.

Whether you’re a dev who wants to level up your design eye, or a designer learning to ship real components — this course is for you.

Why I built this

Most design courses ignore the realities of development. Most coding tutorials skip design entirely.

This course lives in the middle — where UI actually gets built. I created this to help you become the kind of builder that teams love: thoughtful, fast, and detail-oriented.

From graphic design to design systems

  • 2013

    Started as a graphic designer freelancing for local brands.

  • 2016

    Transitioned to front-end development and joined a startup as the first designer-developer hybrid.

  • 2019

    Led design system work at a SaaS company scaling to millions of users.

  • 2022

    Began mentoring devs and designers on how to build accessible, production-ready UI.

  • 2025

    Launched this course to share everything I’ve learned — from pixels to code.

Awards & Recognition

  • 2021

    CSS Design Award – Best UI — Recognized for crafting an intuitive and scalable design system used by over 1M users.

  • 2022

    Smashing Magazine Contributor — Published a widely shared article on bridging design and development workflows.

  • 2023

    Figma Config Speaker — Presented a talk on component-driven design for developer-minded designers.

  • 2023

    Awwwards – Honorable Mention — Awarded for a personal portfolio showcasing innovative UI with high performance and accessibility.

  • 2024

    Google Developer Expert Nominee – Web Technologies — Nominated for contributions to the front-end ecosystem and educational content in design engineering.

  • 2024

    GitHub Star Program Recognition — Highlighted for maintaining open-source UI libraries focused on design system scalability.

  • 2025

    Netlify Jamstack Innovation Award — Recognized for pushing the boundaries of performance-first design on the modern web.

Follow & Connect

  • X @mike_andreuzza
  • GitHub michael-andreuzza
  • LinkedIn Michael Andreuzza
  • Personal Website michaelandreuzza.com