Case study · Business · 2015 – now
Pixel & Bracket: a design school that runs on search
I turned teaching design into a business: four YouTube channels, Skillshare courses, a tutorial site, and a product. 334,000 subscribers and 71 million views — built on evergreen, search-first content rather than virality.
The idea
“Pixel” is the creative, right-brain half; “bracket” is the analytical, left-brain half — code, animation, digital signage. The channel started in 2015 as a place to answer the questions I was getting at work. It became a business in early 2016.
The bet was simple: most people don’t want a personality, they want a definitive answer in under three minutes. If you make the clearest answer to a question people search every day, YouTube and Google will send you traffic for years.
Content strategy
- Search first. Topics come from keyword research (Semrush, Mangools, autocomplete) compiled into spreadsheets of ranked title ideas — not from trends.
- Evergreen library. A stable back-catalog where a nine-year-old Illustrator tutorial still pulls views. The top videos have 1–1.8M views each.
- Efficient production. A honed process from script to upload so a tutorial can be recorded, edited, thumbnailed, and published in a fraction of the usual time — increasingly automated with my own tooling (see AI Systems).
- Segment the audience. Dedicated Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign channels consolidate audience segments and let each channel’s algorithm learn one thing well.
- Follow the demand. The catalog evolved from Adobe to Figma, Canva, Framer, and web builders — and lately to high-volume consumer “how to” topics (Google accounts, iPhone settings, Facebook) where search demand is enormous.
The channels (Sept 2026)
The business
Pixel & Bracket LLC is a real company with multiple revenue streams: YouTube ads and channel memberships, Skillshare courses and teacher referrals, affiliate partnerships (Canva, Framer), a WordPress tutorial site (pixelandbracket.com) with a free project-file Vault, and — since 2025 — ConvertSave, which the channels now funnel to directly.
Tools & setup
- Screen Studio
- OBS
- Premiere Pro
- Descript
- Illustrator
- Figma
- Semrush
- Mangools
- Google Search Console
- WordPress + Rank Math
- Elgato Wave DX / XLR
- Apple Studio Display
Contact
Want to work together? Say hello.
Open to senior product design roles, founding-designer conversations, and select collaborations.