SquarePlanet

What SquarePlanet is

SquarePlanet is an online academy for learning UX, UI and graphic design, run from hype4.academy. It is a learner product: you practice design through daily challenges, post your work to a community for feedback, and buy or get access to video courses and books written by designer Michal Malewicz and his team. The course pages describe it as "an educational platform with both paid and free content for designers and developers." The challenge program also goes by the name Square One on the site ("Join Square One to 10x your UX/UI and graphic design skills now!"), and one learner's post calls it Hype 4 Academy.

The homepage pitch is short: daily design challenges and a UX community, with an invitation to "Join over 30k designers." The plans page adds that the academy offers "Over 260 guided challenges" and is "Used at over 30 universities," and the video course page says the courses are "Used by universities and thousands of designers worldwide."

Daily design challenges

The challenges are the core of the product. Each one is a run of daily prompts that you design to, then upload to your profile. The challenge tracks named on the site are Daily UI (90 days), Graphic Design, Information Architecture and Icon design, and learner posts mention Landing Page, App Icon and 3D Design challenges too. One learner describes the Information Architecture challenge as 30 days of sketching user flows for different digital products before designing the screens, and another describes the graphic design track as making semi-realistic physical products with the vector tool only.

The structure rewards consistency. You can follow your own progress day by day, and the site's own blog post on design courses calls the challenges "a much better way to learn because they're PRACTICAL." The same post says "The main 90-day challenge and a couple 30-day ones are completely free," and that the community has passed "over 90,000 completed projects" that newcomers can study. A Featured designers section and a feed with For you, Following and Pro users tabs show what other learners are posting.

Video courses

The Books & Courses page counts 22 items: 16 video courses and 6 books. The video course list covers practical skills for working designers. It includes Boring UI Course ("Learn the UI design fundamentals by creating a consistent, beautiful design component library of your own"), Web Design Course 1 for SaaS products (dashboards, charts, data tables and map views), Web Design Course 2 for landing pages, Responsive Web, "Auto Layout - The Boring Guide", How to Master Freelancing ("Learn how to price your work, get clients and improve your chances"), How to Present Your Work, Create Case Studies for UI Projects, Guide to Portfolio and Resume, Beginner UX Guide, Pro UI Guide, "Bad Design - The Course", and "Design + AI - Get Ready for the Future", which promises to teach "what AI is, how to use it well, what definitely NOT to use it for."

The mobile app pair is the clearest example of how a course is built. UI in Mobile Apps, taught by Malewicz, is a sequence of recorded video lessons with their running times listed: an introduction, common problems, a blockframing exercise, constraints and theme, login and registration forms, lists and cards, navigation, detail pages, map views, modals and popups, a high-level flow, and a final review with accessibility checks, plus a bonus Figma playground exercise. The page says you will learn the Red Square Method for aligning content and that Malewicz shares his workflow from "my 20 years of Product Design experience." It is sold "from $59." Its follow-up, Going High Fidelity, adds effects and decoration, and the two are offered as a bundle, "Both courses together, $20 cheaper!"

There is also an archive of past livestreams and a Weekly redesigns series in which Adam fixes designs sent in by the community and shows the before and after.

Books

The four books named across the site are No BS Guide to UX, Designing User Interfaces, Ducking Designer Guide to UI and UI Design Styles. The homepage promotes Designing User Interfaces as "UNIVERSITY ACCLAIMED" and "The most comprehensive book about UI Design," and the No BS guide under the line "UX FINALLY MADE EASY." Books and courses can be bought on their own; plan members get a discount on them.

Community, feedback and portfolios

Feedback is what separates SquarePlanet from a plain video library. The plans page lists "Professional feedback on your work," a tip database, project feedback you can read and post, and a UI portfolio you build from your uploads. Posts from members thank Michal Malewicz, Adam Moučka and the team for feedback that changed their work, and one shows a first and second version of a design after Adam's notes. The site also has pages to become a mentor or a partner, and it lists partners including Icons8, Penpot, Lunacy and Human Gen.

Testimonials on the plans page are specific. Presto Kaung writes that after the Daily UI prompts, "the improvement in just 3 months is comparable to what I would have learned in two years." Jana says "Thanks to Square One I landed my first job," and Nirmal says "The main benefit to go PRO is the feedback from the team." The homepage claims the bestselling portfolio course "already helped many designers upgrade their portfolios and get their first design job."

Plans and prices

There are two plans. The free plan, which the site calls Free Bird, gives "180 days of free design challenges with lo-fi wireframes and prompts," lets you create a UI portfolio and upload designs, and takes 10% off all paid books and courses.

The PRO plan is $10 a month. It makes every challenge guided, opens "ALL 300+ days of challenges incl. IA, Landing Pages and more," adds an AI bot that gives daily feedback on your projects (in beta, named Michal Bot in the comparison table), and raises the book and course discount to 40%. The comparison table also lists challenge guides, a monthly 10-minute mini-course, design livestream recordings, community membership and paid course access, including the Mobile Apps (1+2) courses. A PRO panel describes this as "Access to ALL paid design video courses ($440+ value) + a special PRO video series," and the blog post adds premium articles and invitations to exclusive events.

The footer links to an FAQ and a refund policy, and the newsletter form gives designingui@hype4.com as the contact address.

Who it suits

SquarePlanet suits beginner and early-career designers who learn best by doing, especially those aiming at UI work for apps and websites. The free tier is generous enough to test the habit for months before paying, and at $10 a month the PRO plan is a low bar for daily feedback and the full course library. Designers building a portfolio for a first job, or freelancers who want help pricing and presenting work, will find courses aimed squarely at them.

It suits less someone who needs a formal, graded credential or a long instructor-led program with set deadlines. The value here is daily practice, critique from a small team and an active community, and a course library that reflects one designer's methods rather than a broad faculty.