We describe the design of the NanoMAX beamline to be built among the first phase beamlines of the MAX IV facility inLund, Sweden. NanoMAX will be a hard X-ray imaging beamline providing down to 10 nm in direct spatial resolution,enabling investigations of very small heterogeneous samples exploring methods of diffraction, scattering, absorption,phase contrast and fluorescence. The beamline will have two experimental stations using Fresnel zone plates andKirkpatrick-Baez mirror optics for beam focusing, respectively. This paper focuses on the optical design of the beamlineexcluding the experimental stations but also describes general ideas about the endstations and the nano-focusing optics tobe used. The NanoMAX beamline is planned to be operational late 2016.