Episode Transcript
Brenda Cadman 0:04
So let me tell you about the bane of my existence as a Canva course creator.I am so glad that they are constantly updating and refining and polishing and improving, it's wonderful. As somebody who creates courses that I want to be current so that people can actually use them for reference to learn how to do things. I am always super excited when there are big changes, which is quickly followed by an oh crap. And with Canva create, which just happened in March, there were so many substantial not just additions in terms of features, but also the interface changed dramatically enough that I am in the process of re recording every single lesson in every single Canva course that I have.
Monica Pitts 0:59
You're on mission and you just need more people to know about it. And whether you're brand new to marketing or a seasoned pro. We are all looking for answers to make marketing decisions with purpose. I'm Monica Pitts, a techie crafty business owner, mom and aerial dancer who solves communication challenges through technology. This podcast is all about digging in and going digital. I'll share my marketing know how in business experience from almost 20 years of misadventures, I'll be your backup dancer. So you can stop doubting, and get moving towards marketing with purpose. Hello, again, and welcome back to marketing with purpose. My name is Monica Pitts, and I'm gonna geek out about Canva today with my new friend, Brenda Cadman. I can't wait. You know, it's gonna be so great. I love I love talking about programs. And I'm a complete nerd. And, and I was just telling Brenda, before we came on that I am a Canva user, and I do all kinds of stuff in Canva. It's one of my favorite programs, even though I have the entire Adobe Suite. But I would not consider myself a Canva expert, because I'm constantly like, running into different things or not like I watched tutorials about it, because I don't know, right, but but Brenda is a combat expert, whoop blue, like certified and everything. So tell us about you tell us about your business?
Brenda Cadman 2:27
Well, I mean, Canva came into my life back in 2014. But my main business for 20 years, a little over 20 years was running a website development agency, which I just closed in September, not closed, retired, it was time to move on to something else, it was time to focus my attention on the Canva side of my business. But that was where most of my expertise was in was in, you know, and boy has the internet changed over the past 23 years. What it looked like back in January 2000, when I started dabbling in that world was very, very different. But you know, you go through seasons in your business, and it was time to move on to something else. And I had just stumbled into, not into Canva, but into the idea of teaching Canva in a program that I was in, and I was there to create a course about websites, and then realized nobody was asking me questions about websites. But they were all really curious about how I was creating my, my lead magnets, my checklists, my course slides, my webinar slides, and all of the various bits and bobs that you need as a course creator, and as any kind of business owner who's doing any sort of online marketing. So I started answering their questions. And they asked some more. And I answered some more. And they asked if this is what my course was going to be about. And that's one of those fork in the road moments where you go, yes, yes, it is. And that's a whole new path. But I don't think I would have, I don't think I would have found myself in the teaching position have pursued the, you know, the verified status if I hadn't been experimenting with other things, but you kind of have to listen to what people are asking for him, Follow your instincts, and they'll find yourself in a completely new place than you anticipated. So
Monica Pitts 4:18
you never know. I always tell people that you just have to, like keep your eyes open. Just keep your eyes open, because doors open all the time. And then you have to know too when the doors shutting. And part of that is just being aware and testing your gut. And sometimes when that door shuts, it's okay. And then the next one opens and you're like, hey, this is like way cooler than I thought it was gonna be. So yeah, I'm glad that Canva was that for you.
Brenda Cadman 4:44
Yeah, me too.
Monica Pitts 4:46
So he mo Okay, so, one of the cool things about it is it is really robust and it has a really easy user interface.One of the challenging things about it is that you're not saving all these files in your like computer. So like my normal, we have like a psycho filing system like organization system because you know what you can imagine that there's at least seven people working on a website at any given time in my company. And if you don't have it named right, if your files if you're not File Structures wrong if the file like names are not correct, you're hosed because the next person in line can't find anything, and it's just me. But then I get into Canva. And it doesn't even occur to me to put anything in a folder. I don't really have great naming conventions, I just, it's like a vomit. And I can like never bad.
Brenda Cadman 5:39
Yeah, you're in very good company. I think that's how the majority of people use it, particularly those who are power users of the program, those who are creating a lot of content, because they're usually focused on the creative aspects. And Canva is a design program. It's, you know, the, the organizational capabilities, that kind of administrative capacity that is inside of it is somewhat of an afterthought to some degree, I mean, to be fair, the organization options that we have now, they're relatively new, still, we've had them for some time, but it certainly didn't exist in the beginning. So there's even if you were as organized as possible, as soon as Canva introduced, the folder features, you know, there's a lot of people who had accumulated a lot of designs and images up to that point, and then just going back retroactively to try to clear it all up, it just feels like a very daunting task. Which is why, you know, so many of the people that I talked to who appreciate and love and want to be organized, haven't done it is because it's just this incredibly overwhelming project. And there's always something else that feels not only feels may very well be much more urgent in your business, and this is something that just gets pushed off and pushed off until it feels like an absolute, you know, organizational pit of despair. And then it's hard to come back from that. But you're I mean, you're in very good company. Most people don't set up a system, they just kind of fly by the seat of their pants, and they scroll until they see something that looks like what they're looking for. And they're probably spending a lot more time scrolling and looking for things than they need to.
Monica Pitts 7:14
There are times where I'm like, am I going to scroll and look for this? Or am I just going to open up recreate it? I know, crazy. And I started like, so we have folders at one point. Yep. But then he would always forget to put things in the folders. And so then they were just out in the gigantic toilet bowl, which was not where they were supposed to go. They're supposed to go on the cabinets, but they go on the toilet. And then I started like linking to Canva files. Like in all of our working documents. That's what we call like our project plans or a link to them from Milla note, which is the program that I use to keep myself organized. So it'll just be like social media Canva file template, and they link out that is like my workaround for it. So I think, though, now that I've told you how incredibly unorganized
Brenda Cadman 8:10
well. And to be fair, I don't I don't, I wouldn't agree, I don't think you're unorganized. I think that organization, there isn't a one size fits all solution, I think it's really important for people to be able to create something that is intuitive for them that they can maintain, that doesn't have a lot of friction when you're doing it. And if you are feeling a lot of friction, it's not the right system for you. But for a lot of people, that means they don't have the right folder structure set up or, you know, maybe there's a need to go through and delete and archive a whole lot of content before they even start creating an organizational structure. Because all this extra stuff is just a distraction. And it's making what could be a more simple task far more complicated than it needs to be. But I do think also, if somebody has a system that is not the same as mine, and it works great for them to be able to find what they're looking for. Fantastic. Keep doing that. Where the challenge can really come in is number one, if it's not working for you, as I mentioned, we need to reevaluate, but also even if it's working for you, if you have a team, if it's not working for them, you have to come up with something that's going to be win win for everybody involved. And I've talked to a lot of business owners who say I don't even know I don't need a folder system. I just I searched for the files when I need it. And that works great. Wonderful. I'm glad that works for you. How's that working for your marketing assistant? Oh, well, they're a little frustrated with it. Okay, do you know how much time you're probably wasting for them by not just dealing with this? It is something that does have a tangible cost, even though it may not seem like it on the surface.
Monica Pitts 9:43
Agreed. Agreed. And they're looking for things when they could be doing something else and thinks, Well, I want 100% Agree 100% And if I had better naming conventions, I might be able to find the like cuz it is like, one of my creatives and I will continually lament over the fact that we just saved things that are needed the most random names like, like, what was I thinking? What was Monica doing? When she saved that file? Under that name? It doesn't even like, doesn't even make any sense. Like, we don't even know. So it sounds like the reason that we need to care about it is because it's going to cost us money. And time it is frustration. So it's like, Absolutely, why wouldn't you do it? Right?
Brenda Cadman 10:27
Absolutely. And then when these things are faster for you to do, and you can knock them off faster, that's going to free you up to take on more business, if you want, it's going to give you more scalability, if that's what you want. I do think it's also important that I'm not here to say you must organize so you can go do more work, it's it's about making things feel more enjoyable, and bringing some more ease into the existing processes that you already have. If that frees you up to take on more business, and you want to do so and you have the capacity to do so wonderful. But if you just want to use that extra time to go, you know, go for a bike ride or binge, whatever season of whatever show you want to watch on Netflix, fantastic. But I think a lot of us are wasting time right now on garbage tasks that are not fun. And I'd like to see more people clawback that time, and it's not particularly hard to do is just a little bit of time that needs to be invested upfront to claw back a lot more of that time back later.
Monica Pitts 11:33
So what are some tips? I mean, obviously don't do what Monica does. What are some other tips that you might give people who are maybe in my position who are literally faced on a semi daily basis with Do I just start over or actually search for this file?
Brenda Cadman 11:53
I mean, I like to everybody's situation of what they're starting with is going to be a little bit different. But I do think that there are some general steps that everybody can kind of go through regardless of what you're using Canva to create. And the first step really is to carve out a bit of time and go through and do a realistic purge, like Is there stuff in there that copies of templates that you thought you might use that you never ended up using, or you copied one of your designs, and you didn't end up needing it, or there's just a really old project from six years ago, and you know, you're never going to need it, let's clear out some of the garbage that we don't need. I used to be a professional organizer, many, many moons ago, I did specialize in filing systems and taming paper, and one of the first things you're going to do when you're creating a filing system is you're going to get rid of the garbage, there's a bunch of stuff, you're going to trash in there that there's no point creating a system to organize content that you do not need. And the same approach is going to apply in a digital environment as well. I don't want you to try to come up with a folder category for designs that you don't even plan on ever using again. So there's that side of it deleting the stuff that you really know you'll never need. But also, if there are things that you think you might want as reference, at some point, maybe there's a presentation you did five years ago that you think you might be able to pull from later on. Or there are components that are slides within it that you might want to integrate into a new presentation, create an archive folder, regardless of whether you're on the free plan for Canva, or a paid plan, you're going to be able to create unlimited folders, you're going to be able to nest folders, 10 levels deep. So that gives you a lot of flexibility to create whatever folders you need to support the content that you have. So go through do a delete, archive, all the things that you really are not using currently get all of that off your Canva desktop, and let's see what we're left with. And it's going to be much more manageable at that point, there's probably still going to be a lot of content, particularly if you are a bit of a Canva power user. But it's not going to be quite as much to work through. And then it's a matter of taking an inventory of what you have and figuring out what those categories are. How can I chunk this down into content, you might have a social media folder, you're probably going to have, you know, some will have a CLIENTS folder, some will have a presentations folder, or a blog and website folder, depending on what your business is and what you're creating in Canva. That's going to vary. But it's just a matter of starting to chunk it down into easy to digest chunks. And if you think of it a little bit like how you might approach the navigation of a web site, you're not going to list every single page in the menu, you're going to start thinking about what are these categories of content and then you can start filtering it down. So when somebody goes to browse for a page on a website, just the same way they're gonna go browse for a design in their Canva account. You start at the top and you filter you narrow it down. And while you're browsing to find what you're looking for, and of course naming conventions are important because even the best filing system, occasionally, you're not going to remember where you stuck that one presentation. And I'm as guilty of that as anybody else. Sometimes you need to hop into search and figure out what what was the key word I used, and then you can find it. And clearly, you need to put it in different folder if you couldn't find it.
Monica Pitts 15:20
So I really have like, a, like a picture, like I exported a picture of the filing structure that we're supposed to use within a client file, and then the naming conventions, and I saved it on a board and my Milla note. That way, I can refer back to it because even though like I was involved in creating it, and we've been using it for like, probably the last, like 15 years, that doesn't mean that I remember it like I don't, I don't always have to save that type of file. I don't always work type of work. So I don't, I don't remember it, I don't remember it.
Brenda Cadman 15:56
But you've come up with a system to give you the prompt that you need to find it. And that's what this is about. It's not about having the absolutely unfathomable system or an infallible system rather, that will always make it seamless to find what you're looking for. That's the goal, the reality is that, you're probably still sometimes going to have to take a pause and go, Okay, what am I looking for? Okay, yeah, it should be in there, and then you'll dig down and you'll find it. But it's gonna make it a whole lot easier than having to scroll through that Canva homescreen, to find the one design that probably looks like a host of other ones, and then spend a whole bunch of time opening all them up trying to find the right presentation in the right dimensions, not a good use of time. And then the other thing I would suggest, though one folder, I think everybody does need to have, regardless of who you are. And what you're doing. And Canva is I mean, if you're using it for business, you're going to need to have a photos folder. I don't want people using the uploads folder, this is a massive mistake that I see people using, don't store all of your images and uploads and I think that's kind of intuitively where people think they are supposed to go. But you can move your images into a custom folder system. And that's gonna make it a lot easier. If you have a whole lot of images. If you've broken that down into categories as well, it's gonna make it a lot easier to retrieve those because otherwise, you're gonna end up in the same boat, as many of my organization clients that their uploading the same image half a dozen 10 times because they cannot find it from when they uploaded it six months ago, because it's way at the bottom of that uploads folder that now has 1000 2000 images in it. So if you create a categorized folder system for your photos, and get it out of upload, start treating uploads, like the in tray on your desk, where if it's in there, you got to process it and get it into a system or get rid of it or do what you need to do with it. But that is not your long term reference system.
Monica Pitts 18:00
Do you Okay, so we'll take these pictures of us around the office and then we'll use them for our social media stuff. And then I'll be like, oh, yeah, that was a great picture. I remember this picture. I remember it, no idea where it is in Google Drive. None. It could be anywhere. It could be on someone's desktop, it could be on someone's phone, it could have come to me from slack, it just got uploaded into Canva. And then I'm just like scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. And I and I'll be looking for the same types of pictures over and over again. Yeah, this. You're so right. I didn't know it can use folders.
Brenda Cadman 18:34
Yes. Yeah, not just your designs, you can put your images in there and your videos, you can't put audio into folders yet that you have to stick with the audio tab under uploads. But I want to see your uploads folder Inbox Zero. It is possible.
Monica Pitts 18:49
Oh, wow, I want to do this. I'm doing this with everything from now on, I'm gonna have to look up how to do it, because I don't know how to do it. But like, I'm excited. Like that would actually really help me because there's just certain pictures, I did realize that there was like, finally I got smart. And I was like, oh, there's a logos tab. I can upload logos into logos. Yep. Okay, that is very helpful. Because before I was I would make a logo for like, say an event that we're doing, like a workshop. And then I would just upload it in uploads. And then you know, when I'm doing the event the next time I can't find the logo and then I have to go find the Canva file and then I have to go export it and create it and do all the things all over again. It's very painful
Brenda Cadman 19:38
embrace embrace the brand kit, the brand hub now. Yeah, yeah, that's where you want all your stuff
Monica Pitts 19:45
we updated our brand fonts. And I never updated them in Canva. And so I just had to change them every single time manually. And then one day I was like, why are you doing
Brenda Cadman 19:53
Why are you doing this safety the thing you need to do once, over and over
Monica Pitts 20:00
Hey, I'm also Okay, so my other stupid like it took me, I don't know, at least a year that I did this. Okay, so I've got a board and Milla note that has all of our brand colors in it. And every time that I needed one of our auxilary brand colors like our extra palette colors, I would just open up my Melano. And I would just copy out the hex code, and I paste it into Canva. And then I was like, Wait a second, you can put all those brand colors in Canva, not just not just your two main colors, but all of them.
Brenda Cadman 20:30
Like, you can have 100 brand kits in Canva if you're on Pro. So if you have an event, you can that has its own suite of brand assets, you can do that, if you're working with clients create individual brand kits for each of the clients that you're working on. And then it's easy to switch back and forth between them. So you have those colors, and the fonts, and the logos, and the graphics and the icons and the patterns all at your fingertips and you don't have to go searching for it. It's just sitting there in a nice little hub for you, as soon as you need it. And you can bounce between your different clients,
Monica Pitts 21:07
can I have more than two fonts?
Brenda Cadman 21:09
you can have? Before you could have three. And now you can have they've added I think we're up to like nine different settings they've added in things like caption fonts, quote, font settings, title subtitles, before it was just heading, subheading, and body. And now they've added a whole wide variety of them, should you want to use them, you don't have to if you don't have that many fonts, but they really expanded it and added a lot more of these brand ingredients that you used to have to store in custom folders. So now within your brand kit, you also have the graphics, the photos, and the icons. So you can get all of those various little bits that you use in your creative process all housed in one single place that you can go find them in.
Monica Pitts 21:54
That's magical tip, I have a third font that I'm always paid, like, I literally can't even remember what it's called, I have to find another file with it in there.
Brenda Cadman 22:02
And we need to upload this and set it clean up your brand kit to but that's part of organization I mean organization is not just sticking things in folders, it's about how do we create a more efficient workflow? How do we find ways to save time when we are working in Canva. If you have, for example, if you're creating a lot of different presentations, and there's a variety of different slides that you might be using create a master slide brand template in Canva, then you can just make a copy of it anytime you need. Open it up in the grid view. So you can see all the pages, delete the pages you don't need. And then you're off and running. It's all contained in that single place. Rather than having to open multiple pages copy one slide over from here and another from over there. It's about finding these little efficiencies in order to not spend so much time going down the Canva rabbit hole, it can be a fun place to go. But we all have a lot of other far more important things to be doing. Not just in our business, but in our lives. Do you really want to spend it searching for Canva images? No, I don't. And really, this is what I do for a living. So
Monica Pitts 23:16
when I mean, like I think about it, you know, like a website, we have a stylesheet. And we have these code snippets that we're always using. And we have reusable blocks and templates and page templates and post templates and all these different things that we put together for clients so that way they can do it really fast. And then I get into Canva and it's like a kindergartener just like wandering around and making pretty things. You know? Look at my noodle necklace. It's like, I colored everyone of these noodles by hand. Yeah, but okay, so funny horror story. Back in the day, we had this client, they hired us to do this really big booklet. We don't do booklets anymore. We, we did for a little while, because we had a booklet designer that was like one of our web designers loves doing booklets. So then we sold that work, but we don't have one on staff right now. So no, we don't do this. Anyway. So we gave it to a new designer. And she put it all together in InDesign, and didn't use a single style. And everything was put together in blocks. And so then the client was like, I just want to make the font a little bit bigger. And I was like, Oh my gosh, we're gonna have to touch every every single one. Yeah, all of them. And it's not just gonna like flow to the next page. I can't just like Oh, my I my heart sunk so hard. And then I was like, alright, so learning this lesson the hard way. Gotta make ourselves a stylesheet for our InDesign files, anyway. Yeah, totally. Okay, so, one thing I wanted to ask is so when we use Canva for our social media graphics, we don't. We gave up on saving them into like Google Drive, which is like our shared drive that we use We don't download them and put them in there. Like we just we download them, they live in our downloads folder until they get uploaded to social media. And then Canva is like basically the only folder that we have with those in there. Do you think that's, that's usual? Or do you think other people are like, do you suggest that people save those graphics too? I mean, I don't know,
Brenda Cadman 25:18
Again, everybody's gonna have their own preferences. For me, I don't keep them, I don't keep a downloaded copy, because I'm making changes so often on things that chances are, the copy of download is is gonna get outdated. Anyways, the only exception is if there's something I have, that I am posting on a regular basis. And I don't want to have to download it every time, I will. In that case, perfect example, I run a Canva Facebook group, I do a new member, welcome every Friday. And those graphics are standardized. There's like a set of four or five variations of it that I just cycle through. And I'm not making any changes to them. So I have those saved on my desktop, because I just want quick access to be able to, you know, upload those when I'm doing the the welcome post, that's a use case where it would make sense, if there's something you're referring to regularly, then you might want to have a copy of it somewhere that you can access more easily. But honestly, other than that, I'm pretty much just leaving it on canva, because that way, if I need to go make a quick change, I know that the most current copy is always there. And it's very quick and easy to download it when I need it. And that way you don't have multiple copies of things, you're not having to wonder later, is this the most current version, that's just going to add a little bit of additional frustration and friction to the process that I don't think is necessary. So
Monica Pitts 26:38
my my next question for you, is, okay, so when I am making so. So I sometimes I want Canva to work more like say, a, an XD document or illustrator where I can like take an item. And I can export just that. And it will only be the size of the item, there's no like extra space around the image, I can't tell you the number of times I've wanted to be able to tell Canva cropped this to the size of the thing in the in the file. So I find myself, you know, I'm like, Okay, I want to have these icons, I want to see them all next to each other. So I put them all next to each other. And I see them, okay. And then I like export it, and then I'm going and I'm like copying and pasting them into a new file, or I'm uploading them into WordPress, and I'm dropping them there. And I'm like, I just gotta know, is there a way?
Brenda Cadman 27:33
While we're talking, I'm opening something because I don't know if it has that flexibility. See, you talked about earlier about the fact that you're having to still do tutorials and all that. Let me tell you, as experts, tech, you know, technically verified experts, we're always still trying to figure out what's been added what has been changed, because we don't often know until we stumble across it. And I'm just checking because I feel like I have seen an option. See, I'm not seeing it now. I think there are certain things, you know, we're gonna put a pin in that I think there might be something coming on that but it is not forward facing right now. So we are going to my answer for now is going to be can't do that at this time.
Monica Pitts 28:21
It's okay, you know, what's crazy is I feel like if you're using a good program, things are always changing. It's the ones that don't ever change that it's worrisome. Like we just launched our better than DIY website program where we like help people build their own WordPress sites, I recorded all the tutorial videos using all the normal plugins that we use. And literally, like the day before we started, like teaching them how to use them. These plugins that had not updated in years like not not the user interface, the unit user interface did not change in years changed. And yet they made great changes, but I was not ready for them.
Brenda Cadman 29:01
So let me tell you about the bane of my existence as a Canva course creator. I am so glad that they are constantly updating and refining and polishing and improving. It's wonderful. As somebody who creates courses that I want to be current so that people can actually use them for reference to learn how to do things. I am always super excited when there are big changes, which is quickly followed by an oh crap. And with Canva create, which just happened in March, there were so many substantial not just additions in terms of features, but also the interface changed dramatically enough that I am in the process of re recording every single lesson in every single Canva course that I have. And it's just the nature of teaching a platform that is trying to stay current that is always trying to innovate it and make things easier and listen to their users and add in the function, the functions and the features that people are asking for, it is going to change. And that is why I think it can feel particularly overwhelming, not just I mean, you talked about earlier, the fact that it's an intuitive interface, and I feel like it is. But for a lot of people, it doesn't feel that way, it feels very, very significantly overwhelming because of all the things that you can do, and they don't even know where to start. But when you layer on top that things are constantly changing and evolving and moving around in the interface that can make people a little bit terrified of using it. Sometimes that learning curve never seems to flatten out very much. So I think that's just the nature of it, which is why it's important to not feel like you have to learn how to use every feature within it just what do you ultimately want to create, and then focus on the particular components that you need to create that and don't worry about all the different bells and whistles, I mean, there's tons of AI features in there. Now, I don't use 90% of them, because I don't need them to do what I need Canva to do
Monica Pitts 31:09
well and Canva Docs is a new thing that they came out with, like I don't know, months ago, but I was like, Oh, this is really neat. But I never really used it short of using the Magic Text prompt and and a little bit because it's kind of fun. Are there are there other Canva things that people don't know about that are like huge time savers, like maybe your favorite one or two that you would share with us?
Brenda Cadman 31:36
I think the biggest one that's been added that didn't get the fanfare during Canva create that a lot of the other kind of AI driven updates did is the fact that they've added layers. And that is something that people have been asking for for ages, it is one of the things that was keeping people on Photoshop, for a lot of projects that they could have done in Canva. But they found difficult to do. Because, you know, up until now, if you wanted to access something in the back of a design, you would probably have to break it in order and pull everything out of there to try to get to the back. But now what you'll see is if you go to your design, if you're in the Design Editor, and you click on the position, option in the menu, you're going to see two tabs under position one's called a range and one's called layers. And if you go to layers, you can see every component in there and you can drag it around easily to reorder things or get access to it. And a lot of people have not known to look for that. But it is there now and it is a massive time saver, and frustration reducer. So that's a definitely one to go look for.
Monica Pitts 32:44
That is awesome. You just wow, Mike, I can't tell you how many times I've had stuff like so layered up and you can barely get to that back element. And you're like just click, click no click, click, click no click click Group lock No,
Brenda Cadman 32:59
or there's two things that are stacked on top of each other. And one is just slightly larger than the other and you're trying to grab it behind it. And it's so frustrating. Now, you could just quickly pull up in the layers, you'll see all of them and you can just, you know, grab it, whip it up into the where you want it to go. And it's so much easier about that.
Monica Pitts 33:20
That is excellent. Okay, so then the next thing that I want to ask you about for the designer designers out there is I noticed that there's like this new kind of Freeform tool
Brenda Cadman 33:29
Draw.
Monica Pitts 33:31
Yeah, because we've never had that before. And I think that has been, especially for logo and that kind of art. I feel like I need that pen tool from Illustrator. It doesn't like I can't operate in logo design universe without it. How's that going? Like? It seems a little clunky to me still.
Brenda Cadman 33:51
Yeah, I feel like there's some refinement necessary in transparency. I haven't played with it a whole lot. So draw there actually was a beta app that was hidden down under the apps, more tabs sort of area in the Design Editor. But it was a far more basic rudimentary version of what there is now. This is far it's much more flexible than it was. I'm told from Creative creator friends that they have gotten in there with the iPad and with their, their stylus and it has worked well to do that. So I think that if you're trying to control it, you probably actually want to go get your, your pen tool and yeah, that that's going to give you a lot more control. I am not a graphic designer. So it's not a tool that I spent a lot of time really implementing back to what I said about find the tools that you actually need within Canva to create what you need to create. But I do think that it's far it's head and shoulders above what it was in the beta version, but I do think also it you know, it's tricky to control for me personally Anyways, if I'm trying to do that through the trackpad on my laptop. It's not gonna go real. Well, I think you're gonna have to use a tool that gives you more control over creating what you want to create. But you have the flexibility now to use that app integration to create custom sorts of illustrations and icons.
Monica Pitts 35:16
That's awesome. Because I mean, I'm a mouse user. So I guess that's why the pen tool in like Illustrator is a friend, because you can do that with a mouse. And but the second that you said stylus, I was like, or pan, I can't remember when you said, I was like, Oh, that would make it so much better. Yeah, yes, I could see that. You could see how that could work. Because otherwise now, okay, well, um, as we wrap up here, any last piece of advice that you want to share with our listeners, I mean, it could be about Canva. It could be about business in general, whatever you feel like your parting piece of wisdom.
Brenda Cadman 35:50
I mean, I think we touched on it with the don't feel like you have to learn everything in it. And I mean, also don't feel like we talked about that learning curve, it's a massive program they have, I forget how many staff members how many employees Canva has now we're talking probably 1500, people potentially don't quote me on that I don't actually know the number. It's a lot of people. And a lot of teams who are constantly trying to create the next feature or improve the features in Canva, you're never going to know all of it, don't try. I think it's important to just rely on those of us, I am one of currently have 44 verified experts in the world, we each have kind of our area of expertise. Mine is organization, I have friends who really know the video side of it, or really know the team's side of it. You have experts out there who can help you learn to do the specific things that you want to do. So take advantage of those resources. YouTube is also an incredible resource, although, you know, things out date very quickly, unfortunately. But there's a lot of resources out there, just take the pressure off of yourself, I think is what I would want to say shift your mindset about feeling like you have to go in there and create custom designs, you have templates at your fingertips. So so many templates at your fingertips. Just focus on learning the basics, understand how to set up a brand kit in Canva. Understand how to find templates that work with your brand, and then learn how to apply your brand kit and Canva to those templates, and you're gonna be able to create really professional looking content very quickly, that you can use to support your business.
Monica Pitts 37:28
I love so I use the templates all the time, because I'm like a figure out how to do it real fast person. And my designers will be like Monica. Oh my goodness, this is the cutest thing that you just made. And I'm like Canva can blade like, change the colors? Like yes, yes. Canva has beautiful templates that my designers think I made myself which is super,
Brenda Cadman 37:50
I'll never tell
Monica Pitts 37:53
you it's okay. Everybody knows now. Where can people go online to learn more about you and your business or like if they want to take a course with you to learn how to use Canva
Brenda Cadman 38:07
best thing is just to go the website, Brendacadman.com. You'll kind of find everything there. And if you want to see every offer every freebie every course every service that is available, if you go to Brendacadman.com/everything is just gonna lay it all out for you in a nice little menu. So you don't have to go poking around the website too much.
Monica Pitts 38:27
Brendacadman.com/everything, I may have to actually steal that idea that is so good.
Brenda Cadman 38:33
I have everything I have to give props where it's due. Elizabeth Goddard is an online business owner who really has championed that idea. And I learned that concept from her so I can't take credit for it. It is a fantastic idea though.
Monica Pitts 38:49
It is fabulous. Well, thank you so much for hanging out with me, Brenda, and I enjoyed geeking out. It's so much fun.
Brenda Cadman 38:56
Oh I love it.
Monica Pitts 38:58
I hope that everybody else like learned a thing or two. Whenever we started talking about doing this episode, I was like, What are we going to talk about Canva without having a video showing people? And then Brenda said organization and I was like, Oh snap. Yeah, what designer doesn't need that, right? Like because every marketer needs some level of organization. So thank you for adding these nuggets of awesome to our goodness. All right, friends, thank you so much for listening. And until next time, go forth, and mark it with purpose to get a copy of the show notes, and all those links that we just heard from our guests, head on over to Mayecreate.com and mayecreate.com. And of course, I have to tell you the things that all podcasters are supposed to tell you at the end of your episodes like if you thought this was awesome, you could subscribe and then I would like get to tell you when I have new stuff for you to learn and new episodes and new people to meet new stories to tell. And of course, I would really love it If you left your review, so head on over to Mayecreate.com. For those show notes, mayecreate.com. Or maybe even contact my team about building that next website. We can do it for you. And we even have our better than DIY website program that teaches you to plan and build your own website. So head on over to Maycreate.com mayecreate.com I'll meet you over there.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
