The Power of Design: Canva Philosophy
Matt Stevenson
Lessons
Intro to Canva: The Guy Kawasaki Interview
10:43 2The Power of Design: Canva Philosophy
05:41 3Canva Account Setup
10:35 4The Canva Interface
10:28 5Canva: Opening the Drawers
28:00 6Manipulation in Canva
18:43 7More About Your Account
12:12 8Canva for Work Account
25:59Lesson Info
The Power of Design: Canva Philosophy
So my name is Matt Stevenson. We're gonna unpack a lot of what guy just talked about with the the canvas tool. My background. I come from a creative design background. I work at a firm called Fathom Creative in Washington, D. C. We call ourselves a brand creative agency, which means we work with a lot of brands, and we helped them refresh brands, create new brands and help existing ones in juror basically become even better than what they are. If you guys want to tweet at me, you can do so at D. C. M. J s or visit our website founded creative dot com. Or, if you want to participate in a conversation online on Twitter, you can use the hash tag canvas live. So let's some Let's unpack the first little bit of what guy talked about what Canada is. Earlier, I mentioned that Canada is a free, cloud based design layout tool. Okay, it's pretty much five words roughly. First of all, it's free, which is unbelievable. That's it gives you so much. There is a premium version of canvas, which we'll t...
alk about later, and that's called can before work. But we're going to focus mostly on the free version because we want you guys to get in as quickly as possible to start designing some stuff. Um, what kind of problem would canvas solve? Guy talked about a little bit. Um, we need to make design more accessible. There's been this thing that's happened in the world of design, where there's a barrier to entry. And if we want to go to this presentation really quick, I could talk about what that barrier is. Um, so let's take a claim. The client has a need, whether it's an organization or small business. They want to get to the end goal of design, not just designed but good design. But how did they get there? Typically, in the past, it's been through a designer. That was the only way, and the reason it was through a designer was because the designer had tools, tools that the client either did not have or had, but didn't know how to use properly. That was the barrier to entry for design. The client did have some tools, but they were pretty much this just word or power point, things that they were slightly familiar with. But didn't know how to create really great design. Eso this created a problem. Design was not accessible. We want to be able to make this guy into not a professional designer, but we want to empower him with the ability to create design. At the same time, we want to make this person a better designer, so we're gonna be solving two problems with Can. Va. We're going to empower someone who's not a designer, and we're going to show a designer, give them a new tool to be even better and to collaborate more with their clients. Um, so solving this problem requires a software that's going to match the criteria of Canada. It's going to be online cloud based, which means that anyone could access at any time you have to download it. You don't need a fast computer. You don't need a fancy processor. Um, it's got to be useful at multiple skill levels. So can Va can be used by someone by someone who really knows what they're doing when it comes to graphics and someone who, you know, may not have touched a lot of graphics, logos, images before in their life and the last thing is going to do is the tool is going to be simple, and we'll get into this a little bit later. Uh, guy mentioned Weezy Wig stands for what you see is what you get literally. What you're looking at is going to be in. The tool is going to be what's gonna be printed, so no guessing at all. By the end of this workshop, you're going to be able to create top tier graphics for your business, your organization or just yourself. In Canada, you'll have your own canvas account, and you'll know the ins and outs and the workings of just about every tool and every trick that's in there. So we talked a little bit about the past what was going on with the designer client design relationship? Let's talk about what it looks like now because this is causing designers to need to change. We need to be able to keep up with the programs on also realized that our clients are going to have the same programs that we are, which could be a little scary as a designer. I know, I know. Photo shop. Do I want my client to know Photoshopped Maybe that could be a little iffy, because they could do some damage to some of my designs if they get in there and start messing around. But let's take a look at what a tool like Can Va can do for that client designer relationship. Now, instead of going at the design themselves as designers, we're going to use the tool is the center, and we're going to collaborate through the tool in order to get to the good design. So it's no longer going from client to me, a designer to the finished design. It's the client, and I are gonna be working together. That's the best way to, uh, to be familiar to make yourself open to the democratization of design. What guy said design is now for everyone. So we as designers need to figure out a new way, a new paradigm on how to work with our clients in order to get there
Ratings and Reviews
Jake
Pretty good course generally...especially part 2 & 3. Frankly, Canva's early adopters, like Sue Zimmerman (who I heard about it from) & the like...& therefore probably MOST of us entrepreneurs are probably NOT graphic designers by trade. That was the whole point of Canva being created in the first place!!!! That fact was hammered home in the way Matt presented how to use Canva by pro designers in part 4. Unfortunately, Part 4 was very hard to follow at times. When was he in the pro version of Canva & what could be done in the version we all know, love & work with everyday was NOT always clear. Part 4 was waaaaay too fast & very terminology heavy for most of even the in-studio audience. (It was funny.) I wanted to hug the gal that kept trying to reel it in & get on the same page with her questions. Thank goodness. Bought the course right away because I've been using Canva for over a year and need to go to the next level. I hoped to learn tricks for all that I waste so much time figuring out on my own. There were some. Alas, one main Canva glitch with regard to applying a logo over a background (uh...kind of crucial for business owners & a real time waster to work around literally every single time you use the program) that was raised as a question & re-asked by 2 other people AND several times remained completely untouched. Although the question was on topic & appropriate at many times during parts 2, 3 & 4 and a seemingly very popular question, the moderator chose to ignore it. Almost NO questions were taken from the online audience, in fact, despite there being surprisingly few questions online!! Incredibly, incredibly frustrating & disappointing but I don't blame Matt for that. Too bad there seems to be no course materials to go along with this...like the awesome tips Matt went thru one by one. What a perfect workbook or guide that would have been to go with this, in some form. Really too bad. And really surprising. So all in all, a good course with an EXCELLENT instructor (hope he does Prezi too) but some some big disappointments for this non-professional-in-graphic-design-or-tech, which, it seems is a SIGNIFICANT chunk of your audience...right?
Lonney
This was an absolutely great course for a beginner like me. Matt explained everything very clearly and in a pleasant way. I hope he, or someone, does a class on the new Adobe Spark soon. Thanks again; Lonney
Khaled Yasser
I like this course, becuase it is very simple to the users, and canva is the future for quick design I hope everyone can you it.