Unlock Smile Design Secrets with Christian Coachman's Ultimate Course
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Christian Coachman hands on dental training in Sao Paulo Brazil

Master the fundamentals of smile design

To become a truly great modern smile rehabilitator, there are five fundamental parts of the smile design process that matter most. Going beyond the debate of digital versus analog, this course shows you how to:

1. Analyze smiles

2. Instruct labs to design and manufacture what you want

3. Evaluate designs and restorations done by the lab

4. Communicate changes precisely

5. Fine-tune designs and restorations yourself in the mouth

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on the critical link between arch width and airway.
Your patients ask for a "wider, brighter smile."

But what if the key to delivering a truly stunning and healthy result wasn't just in the veneers, but in the very foundation of the arch?

What if you could diagnose a hidden health issue with one simple measurement?

This free class will shift your perspective on smile design forever. Discover how to become the go-to diagnostician your patients need by connecting the dots between beauty, function, and health.

DESIGNING SMILES WITH APA COACHMAN DESIGNING SMILES CHALLENGES DESKTOP

The Missing Link in Restorative Success

You may have exceptional clinical skills, but if you cannot visualize and control the final result with precision, your hard work is often compromised. Lacking a structured smile design process creates three major clinical obstacles that undermine your restorative excellence:

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❌ The "Artificial" Trap

The patient’s primary measure of success is the visual outcome. Without artistic mastery of natural shapes and optical illusions, even technically perfect restorations can look bulky or fake, creating a painful disconnect between your clinical effort and the patient’s satisfaction.

❌ Planning in the Dark

Treatment planning without a precise design reference is like building without a blueprint. It forces you to make decisions based on guesswork rather than clear visualization, increasing the risk of functional compromises and the need for stressful mid-treatment adjustments

❌ The Communication Gap

If patients can’t see what you see, they can’t fully trust the destination. Failing to present a compelling visual design breaks the emotional link between the patient and the treatment plan, causing hesitation and a lack of confidence in your proposed solution.

DESIGNING SMILES WITH CHRISTIAN COACHMAN LOGO SMALL

Through hands-on in-person training and online learning, this course teaches everything you need to know about the smile design process to become a truly great modern smile rehabilitator.

Check out course dates

Identifying what is visually harmonious according to esthetic norms.

Directing the creation of smile designs

Executing analog or digital designs, including diagnostic and restorative work.

Assessing smile designs created by others.

Providing precise feedback so others can execute the vision.

Manually adjusting designs in software, on physical models, or directly in the mouth.

Listening, interpreting, explaining, and convincing the patient regarding their smile design.

Propel your success with smile design like so...

DESIGNING SMILES WITH APA COACHMAN 1 LEARN
Learn

Reserve your seat and join us in-person for a value-packed hands-on two days in Madrid, Spain, as well as attend the theoretical 12-class online program.

DESIGNING SMILES WITH APA COACHMAN 2 IMPLEMENT
Implement

Assimilate the wealth of knowledge, resources and hands-on mastery shared by Christian and understand what is necessary to become a great modern smile rehabilitator.

DESIGNING SMILES WITH APA COACHMAN 3 ADVANCE
Advance

Enjoy the results of implementing the proven smile design principles, esthetic know-how and hands-on training in your daily clinical practice.

DS 2025 HANDS ON SQUARE English
Designing Smiles Hands On Madrid May 2026 Madrid, Spain May 22, 2026 - May 23, 2026
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DS 2025 HANDS ON SQUARE 2 English
Designing Smiles Hands On Madrid October 2026 Madrid, Spain Oct 2, 2026 - Oct 3, 2026
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What dentists and technicians say about the course

... shift anatomy and perception...

“I think any dentist who wants to get a better understanding of how you can shift anatomy and perception without necessarily having to make massive changes, how you're able to blend things and hide things so that they look nice, I think that's the perfect dentist to come to this course. Anybody who just wants an understanding of how to improve these little details and touches that really can make the big difference in a case, that's who this course is geared towards.”

Dr Reynolds Lawnin
Texas, USA

...the artistry of smile design...

“Any dentist that likes the artistry of smile design and likes to communicate well with their lab could highly benefit from this course. There were definitely some things I have learned that I never realized when I'm looking at teeth all day individually. Like, you know, when you're stepping back and looking at the big picture and the smile frame”

Dr Kristen Donohue
Virginia, USA

... Designing Smiles course is an absolutely essential ...

“I wish I had this course in the beginning of my career. The Designing Smiles course is an absolutely essential course for somebody who wants to pursue esthetic and cosmetics in dentistry”

Dr Karen Baghdasaryan
California, USA

The course has exceeded my expectations ...

“The course has exceeded my expectations. What I really wanted out of it was the ability to talk to the lab and have better communication with the lab so that I could actually work as their team member to make smiles better. And not only have I now learned some of the language and now know what to look for when building a smile, but I've got some techniques myself so that even if I'm making temporaries or transitionals in the mouth, I'm going to be significantly better at it.”

Dr Mark McCullough
Ottowa, Canada
DESIGNING SMILES PROFILE PICTURE CHRISTIAN COACHMAN

Course director & speaker

DSD Founder, Christian Coachman, is going back to his smile design roots to share with you his 20 years’ experience as a dentist, technician and smile architect.

Before founding Digital Smile Design, Christian traveled the world as a master dental ceramist, working alongside some of the best dentists in the world to design their patients’ smiles.

Through this course, Christian will share everything he has learned over the years as a high-end dental ceramist and digital dental lab owner to help dental professionals improve their smile design skills for better communication between clinician and lab.

Hands on program

By purchasing a ticket to the in-person course in Madrid, you'll also get access to the on-demand program included in the ticket price.

DESIGNING SMILES WITH CHRISTIAN COACHMAN COURSE PROGRAM DAY 1

Day 1

DESIGNING SMILES WITH CHRISTIAN COACHMAN COURSE PROGRAM DAY 2

Day 2

On-demand program

Class 1: The Why

  1. How important is smile design

  2. Smile designer know-how and skills

  3. Is smile design under control?


Class 2: Smile design evolution

  1. Smile design evolution
  2. Smile design moments and methods


Class 3: The guidelines I

  1. The art of smile design
  2. Orofacial nomenclature
  3. Dento-gingival
    1. Dento-gingival parameters
    2. The papilla factor & pink esthetics

Class 4: The guidelines II

  1. Dento-gingival
    1. Occlusion vs. smile design
    2. Intraoral references for smile design
    3. Morphopsychology & smile design

Class 5: The guidelines III

  1. Dento-facial
    1. Natural head position & facial asymmetries
    2. Denture & orthognathic influence
    3. Facial thirds & profile
    4. The lip factor
    5. Buccal corridor
    6. Facial flow


Class 6: Smile design and treatment planning

  1. Smile design and airway
  2. From design to planning
  3. Smile design quality control
  4. Ten steps of the smile frame


Class 7: Digital natural restoration

  1. Natural libraries & digital smile donator
  2. Smile test drive analysis & communication

Class 8: Overcoming compromises with optical illusion

  1. Real size and shape vs. perceived size and shape
  2. Closing black triangles
  3. Improving space distribution and interdental proportions restoratively
  4. Managing different gingival levels and zenith
  5. Incisal and interproximal embrasures

Class 9: Overcoming compromises with optical illusion (cont.)

  1. Managing space distribution by understanding the visible vs. invisible areas
  2. Managing space distribution by understanding the light reflection lines (LRL)
  3. Visual comfort vs. discomfort
  4. Fixing cant/shift
  5. Buccal corridor and ridge deficiency

Class 10: Extra class - Dentist-lab synergy

  1. Restorative planning and the new lab role
  2. DSD Direct
  3. Guided tooth prep
  4. Soft tissue copy-paste concept

Tutorial: Using Keynote for smile design and quality control

Tutorial: DSD App smile simulation & case discussion

Tutorial: Step by step smile frame and drawing exercises

Bonus: DSD Lab Reality series with Christian Coachman

  1. Planning the white and pink interface on an implant bridge with artificial gingiva
  2. Restoration quality control photo protocol
  3. Redoing a single restoration of a full arch rehabilitation
  4. Tips on how to improve the visual analysis of details on anterior restorations
  5. How to evaluate and design an ideal implant
  6. Modifying line angles to change width and length perception
  7. Modifying the tooth line angles for a more natural shape
  8. Discerning asymmetry through image fragmentation
  9. Real shape versus perceived shape
  10. Fixing the illusion of cant
  11. Design tips for a complex full mouth rehabilitation
  12. Analyzing the cant, the axis and symmetry of central incisors and how to fix it.
  13. The archives
  14. Improving the perception of tooth proportion
  15. Hiding black triangles
  16. Gingival outlines and zenith challenges
  17. Anterior implant bridge limitations
  18. Tooth width perception and rotation
  19. Tips on how to improve the harmony of the case - buckle recession
  20. Artificial pink design

Bonus: Is smile design under control? The real challenges of a smile rehabilitator

Go to Designing Smiles On-demand

BONUS features for course participants

DESIGNING SMILES ICON 1 Calendar

12-Month Mentorship with Christian Coachman

Course participants will join an exclusive mentoring group on WhatsApp for 12 months where they can share cases, ask questions and receive guidance from Christian Coachman.

DESIGNING SMILES ICON 2 Webinar

3 Webinar Sessions

Christian Coachman will host three exclusive webinars for course participants to present clinical cases and share his top smile design techniques.

Frequently Asked Questions

The professionals who will benefit the most from this course are:

  • Smile Rehabilitators

  • Lab Technicians

  • Restorative Dentists

  • Ceramists

  • CAD designers

Christian Coachman says: “I believe we are all beginners when it comes to smile design; there is so much room for improvement.”

Christian Coachman believes that mastering ideal smile design and orofacial harmony is the starting point of interdisciplinary treatment planning and is vital to succeed in modern esthetic dentistry. The problem is that designing smiles in harmony with faces is complex and subjective, and requires artistic skills that we usually don't learn in dental school or at dental technician courses. And to make matters more complicated, many of our cases are not ideal. As a result, it’s important to become great at developing the best smile design possible for the reality of each case.

The course outcomes are as follows:

  • Develop your artistic skills and master harmony

  • Learn smile design principles to improve handmade or digital procedures, wax-ups, direct and indirect restorations

  • Learn modern orofacial and smile design principles

  • Understand morphology, real shapes and perceived shapes

  • Design smiles in ideal and compromised situations

  • Learn functional design and restorative design

  • Achieve esthetics with 3D technology

  • Understand the most common restorative and smile design limitations in real cases and how to use artistic principles and optical illusion to overcome them

  • Deal with space distribution limitations, gingival level limitations, gummy smile, ridge deficiencies, tooth position, and shape and size limitations.

  • Overcome diastema or black triangle

  • Overcome functional limitations

  • Create efficient dentist-lab communication protocols

No, these topics will not be covered. This course is focused on dento-facial esthetics and the artistic skills to create harmony.

Yes. Dental Academy USA designates this activity for 32 hours continuing education credit. Dental Academy USA is an ADA CERP Recognized Provider. This continuing education activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the standards of the ADA Continuing Education Recognition Program (ADA CERP) through joint efforts between Dental Academy USA and Digital Smile Design.

The Designing Smiles course is for all decision makers in the smile rehabilitation process.

If you’re a doctor, you’ll learn how to improve your smile design skills to communicate better with your lab, how to adjust things in the mouth, reshape mock ups and provisionals, make important modifications in final restorations, how to express your analysis of lab work and ask for modifications.

Even if you outsource your smile designs to the DSD Planning Center, it’s important to understand that DSD facilitates decision making – we don’t take the decisions for you.

So this course will help you to improve your smile design skills to communicate better with your lab.

Learning Hub

WEBSITE COURSE DESIGNING SMILES MADRID TRAVEL GUIDE

Madrid Travel Guide

Plan your trip to Madrid with these recommendations from people who know the best places.

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COURSE DESIGNING SMILES course guide

Course Guide

Get the official Course Guide for an overview of the Designing Smiles course.

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DESIGNING SMILES WITH APA COACHMAN Drawing the smile curve

Drawing the smile curve

Part of the smile design process, Christian Coachman explains how to draw the smile curve.

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DESIGNING SMILES WITH APA COACHMAN NEXT STEPS
Your next steps with the Designing Smiles Course

Check out our current on-demand program, while we define our 2026 in-person dates:

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This course takes place in partnership with:


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This course is sponsored by:

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Continuing Education Credits

Digital Smile Design is proud to offer 32 Continuing Education (CE) Credits for this course through our collaboration with Dental Academy USA, a PACE Approved organization affiliated with the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) #420360. The AGD represents a prestigious community, dedicated to the support and advancement of general dentists, by providing valuable resources aimed at enhancing their practices and the quality of patient care.