I used to be obsessed with Pinterest. I was pinning all the time, I had Tailwind to schedule pins and it used to be the number one traffic driver to my website.

However somewhere along the way I dwindle off, got busy with other things and stopped pinning as much. Of late it’s just been the odd random pin here and there, which honestly isn’t a strategy at all.

This year I decided to take a break from Instagram. I just didn’t feel I was seeing the results for the time spent on it and with very little time available (thanks to having a toddler plus 2 older boys) so my time matters, any work I do has to be worth my time right now. I remember telling people I was going to spend the time I used to on Instagram instead on Pinterest. But then.. I found Substack… oops. And immersed myself in the Substack world and put most all my ‘social media/content’ energy into Substack.

Then this month as I saw a big slump in digital product sales, I felt I needed to focus on my traffic sources, and think again about Pinterest. For some reason it felt overwhelming. How do I make all these pins? How do I write so many descriptions? It felt like a lot of work and I was unsure how to manage all the 90+ products I have and turn them into pins in a way that wouldn’t leave my overwhelmed and confused.

The Strategy

One evening while doing some design work, I flicked on a few Youtube videos in the background on the topic of Pinterest. I decided to see if there was any latest strategiesI should be aware of that might help get me started. Well I came across one simple strategy. One lady described making pins for her pint on demad products and doing a 3 week strategy. 5 products, 5 days a week for 3 weeks and batching out those 3 weeks and scheduling them.
That felt like a real structure I could follow that took away that 90+ product overwhelm. Every 3 weeks I choose 5 products and focus on batching out pins just for them.
Now I wanted to go bigger and not just do a pin a day (15 pins over 3 weeks). I decided to go for 3 pins a day. Which means 9 pins per product, a total of 45 pins for the 3 week period.

That sounds a lot I know, but not when you batch and use AI tools to create SEO descriptions. Now I am not into AI writing my content, but an SEO description, that is just for search purposes to get my pin found, that I don’t see an issue with. It’s not creative, its just glorified keyword tagging.

I am also a verified merchant on Pinterest so I am able to link my products to the pins, and a little tip I heard was to use checkout links so people are taken straight to checkout when they click on the pin to reduce friction of going through a listing.

Designing the Pins

For some reason I put off Pinterest for a long time because designing pins felt daunting. Yes even for me a graphic designer. Why? Because for so long I only ever created content pins, but product pins are a different world and I felt lost on what to do with them or how to make them look. Nothing ever felt right.

So I decided to let go of everything I knew about making good content pins and spent some time looking a product pins on Pinterest and noticing what they do differently. What I found was that for a product it’s not about a good hook headline or really much text at all, its all about the aesthetic. People are not click and buying because of a good hook but shopping with their eyes on Pinterest and looking for aesthetics they love (at least for visual type products).

So I treated it more as creative expression instead of my usual on brand neat text hook approach that works for leading to content. I got creative and playful, and suddenly designing the pins felt easier and I was able to knock out those 45 pins. I got creative and playful with it, but also saved myself some time by re-inventing good layouts for different products simply by using the same layout but changing the style and images.

The Titles and Descriptions

This is where I chose to use AI to help me out, as I said to me this is just glorified keyword tagging and so not really creative, nor something I am good at. It would only hold me back from actually pinning, so essentially hiring a robot to do it was going to help me move forward and get these pins up.
I used a GPT that I found a while back specially designed for Pinterest. I shared with it my full product listing description and an image of the product, so it had all the details necessary to work with. I asked it for 9 variations of the title and description. It came back with different SEO angles for each one, which I thought was a great strategy. It means each time we target differnt keywords and a different angle for why someone might be looking for that product.

It also gave me hashtags, which took a lot of overthinking out of it.

The Schedule Strategy

I decided I wanted to pin 3 times a day 5 days a week for 3 weeks, once in the morning, middle of the day and evening. However I also wanted to spread products out so the same product isn’t posted more then once a day and everything feels spread out. So instead of spending ages trying to craft a schedule, I give these details to ChatGPT and it gave me a nice simple schedule, so I knew how to spread out my pins.
I didn’t stick to it’s suggested times perfectly, as I wanted to try aim at differnt times zones (especially being in Australia) but it gave me the perfect structure of which products to pin each day.

Pinterest Boards

Now with a old Pinterest account like mine (I joined when it was invite only back in 2010) I already have heaps of boards and group boards, so I found I only added two extra boards to support topics around my products, and tried to vary the boards they went on each day to spread them out across a range of boards.

Let’s see what Happens…

So I have my first 3 weeks all created and scheduled ready to start next week. I am interested to see what happens and how long it takes to see results from regular pinning. If you are a regular pinner and have any tips, feel free to drop them in the comments.

I love texture, scraps and getting creative. In my last post in this series I shared how I got out the scanner, began looking through my things for various papers and ephemera and began to work on my first elements pack.

I finally got that first pack finished and listed and even made a few sales. I. am now working on another rather different set and wanted to share more of my process and journey with you.

Creating More Handmade Elements

Beyond just scanning and photographing elements I also wanted to add some unique handmade elements. This is what can give something a lot of personality and feels very human. So I illustrated a few cut little drawings to add to my set using Procreate and making the most of my illustrating skills.

I also got out the sewing machine and free embroidery foot to go back to my sewing roots (I actually studied Fashion design before getting into graphic design) and sewed onto paper creating stitched scribbles. (something I used to love doing back in 2009/10) and also some binding and embroidery stitches with embroidery thread.

I also had a play around with paint and making paint splotches. I feel like so much of this is tapping into old skills and ways I used to love to create when I was first finding my style and experimenting with a lot of different mediums.

Designing Listing Graphics

So I got my first set listed and have made few sales. The main task to get it up was the listing graphics, these are what sell it.

For these it is all about making examples of how these elements can be used. So I loaded all my elements into Canva and starting playing around with different layouts, creating a few different looks and including some photos and text to show how they can interact with your content. These are all about showing the potential. If I only showed a list of what you get (which I did also include) it wouldn’t look as exciting. It’s really about selling what is possible, and showcasing the potential these elements have to help you create beautiful designs.

I also started some Pinterest pin versions although I had a lot of client work come up that got me side tracked so Pinterest is something I want to come back to as I feel it’ll be a big driver of traffic as people love visually beautiful things on Pinterest.

A little side Experiment

Being the crazy creative I am that can’t focus on one thing also started another side experiment and started making illustrations and even hand painted a gingham pattern to make invitation designs as I want to try out the B2C market.

It’s been fun to try out different styles and mediums to create elements, and if these invites don’t take off, I will probably just use the elements created for them and use them for part of another elements set.

Again I think Pinterest will be big for this, so I need to work on a system to make it easy to start sharing more there.

Working On My Next Set

Now the new set I am working on is my ‘whimsy sparkle’ set. This is a challenging one, as it involves a lot more photography then scans and getting lighting just right.

I’ve been trying to capture glitter which is a whole interesting challenge. Trying to get the light to hit it just right and then get the camera in front of it without ruining the lighting and also making sure everything is in focus. It takes a lot of trial and error and taking many shots of the same glitter page to make sure at least one works out.

I’ve also been laying down petal strings in fun way. They of course didn’t want to just sit in position, so I had to get out the hot glue gun to glue it all in place. This then also takes more time to edit. So I start with a photo then have to make small colour/light adjustments, remove the background then I added a black layer under to see it clearly and carefully had to removed the bits of glue in the image. So it’s time consuming but the results are quite beautiful.

My plan for this set is to add lots of sparkly and translucent things like gems, diamonties, clear beads, tissue paper and maybe some water colour backgrounds.

This whole experiment and creative process has been so much fun, it feel more artistic and playful. The downside is that it takes time, and while juggling kids, life and client jobs that keep popping up it’s taking me a while to bring it all to life. I already have plans for more element sets, so I am just keeping at it will share more along the way.

Running a course can feel like such a huge commitment. I’ve watched big course creators completely shut everything down because their life took a new direction, and they just couldn’t justify keeping courses live that they weren’t actively selling anymore.

It’s a sad reality that you don’t hear many people bring up. Most course platforms quietly become a permanent recurring cost. Month after month, year after year, whether you’re continuing to sell courses or not.

If you’re consistently selling, it probably doesn’t seem like a big deal. But what about the seasons when it’s not your focus? Or you’re pivoting your whole business model? Or you just need a break? What if there was a way to keep your courses up and running for your students without the pressure of having to keep selling just to cover the overheads?

Imagine your course business set for life?

When I first decided to enter the world of creating courses, it felt like a big leap of faith. Needing to upgrade a lot of software to get it all running, and wondering if I was choosing the right platforms with the right features to make it all work.

Running a course business (even if it’s only a part of what you offer) can involve a lot of running costs and every time you want to expand into new things and try different tactics, it often seems that comes with new costs. My website builder just upped their monthly fees this month, it always seems the costs keep rising to keep things going.

Imagine the freedom of having a platform where you can build memberships, courses, hubs, freebies, communities and sell any kind of digital product, and you only have to make one upfront investment and then you are set for life. No more worries about increasing prices, about making sure you sell enough to cover costs, guilt free business breaks and the freedom to create and try new offers without financial risk.

This is what Teachery is offering right now.

How Teachery is Different

Teachery gives me the freedom to build whatever I want without the stress of a recurring bill hanging over me. It lets me create the best possible experience for my students. I can build a whole gorgeous world for them to learn in, put together fun little hubs and freebies, and never have to shut anything down just because I’m not actively selling it anymore.

However, t’s not just about what I love as a business owner it’s also about what creates a better experience for my customers and students. And I know that matters to you too. As a student myself, I actually get excited when I see a fellow Teachery user’s course, because I know the experience is going to be smoother and nicer, even little things, like logging in, just feel better.

Teachery also allows so much more customisation freedom compared to anything else out there, so you can make things more on brand and make your course a visual experience.

And what really makes them unlike anything else, they are small. Run by a very clever and creative couple (Jason and Caroline Zook) they pour their heart into what they create and can be so much more nimble then big companies. They listen to what their customers want and are always happy to help out when you have any struggles.

Customise and Make it Your Own

So many course platforms just look bland. If you’re a creative, or you just care about giving your students a beautiful, on-brand experience, it’s honestly kind of depressing to build on a platform that wasn’t made for customisation. The amazing course you dreamed up and spent months creating, now housed on a plain basic site.

You can make your own backgrounds, banners and lesson covers. You can add graphics to the side bar, and any content inside and even add custom code to add extra fun like snow flakes at Christmas. I also live using gifs to add movement to my courses.

What is Coming in Teachery 4.0

There is a reason this is your moment to check out Teachery and stop ignoring it. This is a perfect window to set your course business (or any digital offers) up for life.

Teachery is preparing to launch Teachery 4.0, but before they do you can lock in lifetime access before the price increases and still get all future updates.

The 4.0 update, isn’t just a few tiny tweaks either, it’s a huge upgrade that will literally set up your course business for life, with memberships, communities, easier customisation and a very cool growth dashboard. (As a long time Teachery user, I am super excited about this!)

So what’s coming in 4.0? This update has basically everything we’ve all been wishing for:

• Communities - which I’m genuinely pumped about, because let’s be real, no one wants to be on Facebook anymore, and it’s such a pain sending people off to a whole separate platform

• Memberships - I know this one’s going to make a lot of people happy

• PayPal at checkout - opening you up to way more customers

• Better customisation- as if it wasn’t already amazing!

• And a faster, mobile-friendly rebuild

So if you want to sell courses, digital products, hubs, or a community without stacking on another monthly platform bill this is genuinely the best window to get in.

This is exactly why I need you to stop ignoring Teachery. I’ve been using it for years now, and honestly it feels like the best-kept secret in this industry because not enough people know about it.

Pay once, keep it, and get every future update forever. No more recurring monthly fees, which means you can actually build and experiment freely and create something beautiful without the worry of a monthly subscription.

Why Now?

Right now, you can get lifetime access for $550. Pay once, keep using it, and every future Teachery upgrade is included.

On August 15, that lifetime price jumps to $950.

Create unlimited Courses, Products, Communities, Memberships, and more. Sell all your items with our powerful Payment Pages that include Upsells, automatic tax collection, and tons of helpful features to generate more revenue for your business.

My Affiliate Bonus

There is only a small list of things I am an affiliate for, because I only share the things I personally use and love and Teachery is a big one. I have been using it for my courses for YEARS now and LOVE IT.

If it wasn’t already obvious, I’m an affiliate for Teachery and receive a commission when you sign up through my like. I love Teachery and know you will too and I wouldn’t promote it if I didn’t stand behind it!

So if you join through my link I have a juicy bonus for you!

1. Course Creator Mega Canva Templates Bundle (slides, workbooks, ebooks, promo graphics) Everything you need to create graphics for your courses. Learn more

2. Calm Creator Teachery Theme - Make your first course beautiful with ease. view here

3. Goodie Bag Teachery Theme - Build an amazing freebie in Teachery (I have gained over 2000 subscribers with this freebie, now you can make one too) view here

GRAB TEACHERY LIFETIME

I know I have raved on a lot here, but this really is just one of those softwares I absolutely love using in my business and so I get excited sharing it and the amazing things you can create with it. So if you want to have more fun with what you create and ditch the recurring fees, Teachery must just be for you too.

Does opening up Canva lead to hours passing by and a lot of frustration and leaving you wondering why design feels so hard when surely it shouldn’t be this difficult?

I know myself I have had design projects that just seem to come together smoothly and beautifully and make me feel confident as a designer, and then there are those projects that leave me frustrated and questioning my skills.

What Ive realised is there are actually certain roadblocks that can make the difference between a frustrating getting no where design and a smooth sailing gorgeous design that comes together with ease.

Quit Overthinking it

Firstly overthinking. I mean isn’t overthinking what causes a lot of problems in our lives? When it comes to design however overthinking gets us stuck because you are trying too hard to make it the best and most perfect thing, and you get caught up in tiny details. This is when its better to keep things simple. You do not have to wow everyone with the best design ever, you don’t need to be sure that every design rule was covered and its all as perfect as possible. You don’t even need to create the exact thing that will go viral. All your design needs to do is clearly communicate and resonate with the right audience.

Start with simple guidelines or a grid, lay out the required elements neatly, like your text and CTA. Now make sure you have your brand fonts and colours. You can then grab a few various images or graphic elements. These are your ‘ingredients’ which you can now play around with to create a design.
Sometimes duplicating and trying a few variations can help because you aren’t caught up perfecting one design and overthinking it but rather freeing yourself to try a few options then decide which is most effective.

Once you have a design that’s heading the right direction, ask yourself is the heirarchy correct and is the design balanced? Don’t over think, keep it simple, experiment then check those key things are working for a good design.

You can also set up experiment playgrounds. Have a design in Canva where you play with different styles or ideas without commitment, so you can try new things without the overthinking of it needing to be perfect in the moment.

And if you get in a spiral where you are stuck, walk away and come back later, a fresh look at something can shift your perspective just enough to get out of the overthinking and come back with confidence and new ideas that just let it flow as you finish it off. This is something I do all the time, as soon as I feel stuck, I do something else and come back to it later.

You need Boundaries

If you are DIYing your own brand graphics, then you will know just how challenging it can feel designing for yourself. Even professional designers say designing for themselves is so much harder then clients. I think its because there are less boundaries.

We feel the need to express so much of who we are and what we like that the look and feel we want becomes complicated. So like a client we need to create a clear set of boundaries and define what we want to say about ourselves.

Remember no one needs to understand every part of your personality and interests to buy from you. Consider your customer for a moment. What parts of who you are, do they actually care about or connect with.? They don’t need your life story, they need to know if they align with you and if you offer something that will solve a problem they have.

So take the time to get clear on what your brand should communicate, remember its not your diary its your business, curate just the relevant parts of you into it. Then designing gets easier because your have a clear style and feel you are working with and not trying to express your entire soul in one flyer.

Creativity Thrives on Limitation

Too many possibilities just gets you stuck. When there are so many directions you could go, you actually end up going no where. More limitations means better design.
Limitations make better design better because there isn’t the overwhelm of possibilities and various directions, instead you have to be creative within the boundaries of the limitations. So if you feel overwhelmed by the endless possibilities of what you could create, write yourself a breif, make it clear the objectives and limitations.

Your brief can include things like:

• What brand style must it align with

• What text needs to go on it

• What size should it be (what platform is it for?)

• How should it make someone feel?

  The clearer your brief the easier it makes it for you to design without overwhelm.

Don’t try to be Somebody Else

Another thing that can become a big roadblock in design is trying to replicate a style that isn’t naturally you. Maybe its something you admire, something thats popular or trending and you want to try create a similar style. However it’s very different to your natural design style and not really ‘you’.

I get it, you may want to stretch yourself try new things and explore new styles but if it is getting you hung up and stuck, it might just not be you. You are trying too hard to step into a style that just isn’t you or you can’t connect with in any way. When it isn’t you its harder to get that style beyond imitation and copying because you cant embody it or truely feel it.

Not to say you cant design something that is different to your personality and style but unless you can get into that style and really have a sense for it, which is something the pros are good at, you might just be trying to get on the shoe that doesn’t fit and it’ll only lead to frustration.

Getting into Flow State

The starting is the hardest part. Getting into a design flow state is the goal for confidently designing. So if you feel totally stuck, every time you put something on the page it feels off or silly, try these:

• Get clear inspo. If you are just going off instinct or a vague memory, go make a mood board get some clear inspiration that sets the direction and style. You’ll feel more inspired and have a better visual direction to get you started. This also applies if you just have a single reference source. You want to be inspired by it but of course you don’t want to copy it, so bringing in a full mood board of reference it makes it easier to be inspired without copying.

• Experiment and make terrible designs. I call this the ‘pancake method’ (just like the first pancake is often a dud, to get to the good designs and get in a flow with designing sometimes you just have to get something on the page a create some bad designs first. It takes away the pressure to get it right the first time and gets your mind into a more creative state that’ll lead to better work.

• Use a template as a starting point. You might end up deviating a lot from the original but it gives you a start point so you have momentum, you can start making decisions about what is and isn’t working and refine rather then be stuck at ‘where do I even start?’. A well designed template can get you thinking like a designer as you notice things the designer did and bring some of that into your future designs.

  
  It’s just about getting past the starting and getting yourself into a flow state so you get in the zone, once your in the zone design flows and gets easier.

So next time design feels hard try some of these tips to get unstuck and find your flow.

It’s mid winter here in Australia, and I live in one of the colder parts of the country. While that Aussie winter may seem mild to some, with houses not really built for the cold, so we really feel it. This time of year things always feel a bit slow online. Most of the world is busy basking in the sun and enjoying summer and spending less time online and those of us in this part of the world are slowing down and trying our best to get through winter.

There is something about mid year, that leaves us all in a bit of a slump. Maybe you went hard at the start of the year and are feeling exhausted. Perhaps sales and engagement have slowed down and you feel less motivated. Or it could simply be that you just feel the need for rest right now.

The internet never rests however and to keep things running you need to create and design. Social media posts need designing, thumbnails need creating, marketing emails need to be sorted and new products need to be produced. So how can you ease the load and keep going while in that mid year slump?

Make Design Simpler

There is nothing harder then staring at a blank screen. Starting from scratch can feel daunting especially if motivation and inspiration seem to have evaporated. This is where templates will get you through. Templates mean you aren’t starting from scratch and you can design faster.

You can create your own sets of on brand templates. So spend some slow days creating sets of templates for the things you design most to then use again and again or you can purchase templates or even explore the Canva template library to find a starting point. A purchase or found template may even spark fresh inspiration as you have something coming from another designer with a fresh creative perspective to freshen up your graphics.

Make the Most of Creative Flow

On those days you are feeling more inspired and in a creative flow, make the most of that feeling and batch design. This is a great time to batch out your own templates or makes several weeks worth of designs at once. Instead of pushing yourself every time you need something and just not feeling like it, do more in the moments you have momentum. This will feel so good on a slump day, as you will already have something ready to go and it then feels easy to show up and share.

It’s a great idea to have a list on hand of designs you need to work on or templates you need, so in those perfect flow moments you can work on things on the list and not waste time thinking about what to work on but stay in flow and get designing right away. I like to use Notion to keep lists of thoughts and ideas to go back to, it’s an easy way to add things to the list as you think of them and have a database you can return to when you are ready to dive into working on them. It also allows you to add any links, images or reference that might be relevant, so you can build up a great starting place for ideas and things to work on. Ideas and thoughts no longer get lost and forgotten but have a place you can return to them and build upon them.

Find Fresh Inspiration

Everything is feeling the same and stale and it’s making you feel stuck. Often if you keep following the same people and returning to the same places (often with algorithms that keep serving up the same stuff to you) you can start to feel uninspired. Nothing sparks new ideas or gets you feeling ‘motivationally inspired’ (is that even a thing? Well, I have decided it is, you know that feeling when you suddenly feel full of ideas and creative motivation after seeing the perfect thing that sparked your imagination.. it’s that moment).

The best thing to get that spark back is find new places and sources of inspiration that let you see things from new perspectives and from new creative minds. Maybe its a platform your rarely frequent, work from international creatives (I always get really inspired when I stumble on Russian designers for example), magazines, books, art galleries, events, boutiques, new places, random lesser known websites. There are all kinds of rabbit holes and locations you can explore that will take you into new worlds and re-inspire you.

Romanticise the Process

I feel like this sounds like some cliche instagram thing, but it does really help. You need to create an environment that changes your perspective and makes things feel fun again when you have been stuck in a slump. When I had my 3rd son last year, I saw a lady who said she got through those hard newborn nights by making it special. She would have a hot drink in a thermal mug by the bed ready to drink in the night while sitting up for those late night feeds, and she’d make her environment feel cozy and special so it made those rough moments easier. I loved that idea and soon tried making a hot chocolate to keep by the bed and some little snacks as well as a cozy maternity Oodie to make the experience of getting up to feed on a cold night feel a little more cozy and special.

Consider how you can make your work environment feel more special and inspiring. It could be candles, new artwork, special stationary, mood lighting, a fun mug, set up a picnic and have a laptop picnic, fun work snacks or drinks, a cool snack box or tin (I love the snack tin trend).

It might sounds silly, but those little things can give you a motivational boost. It takes you out of a rut in a cold boring environment and transforms work time into something more fun and playful, so you look forward to those moments.

Get Lazy

I get it, you just don’t feel like doing it. You are drained and not in the mood. So let’s get lazy and still put this out into the world. Pull out old work and repurpose it. It could be changing up the design just slightly or changing putting different content into an old design. You could even play a bit of a mix and match remix game. Take an old piece of content and put it on a different old design.

It’s low effort, and maybe not all that amazing, but it still get it done and keep you consistent instead of falling off. You never know some lazy design work might even work really well. Not everything has to be brand new and fresh, its ok to reuse and remix. Remember it’s rare that anyone has seen absolutely everything you have done and even if they did, I doubt they have it all memoized. If anything it just makes your brand identity and voice stranger by reinforcing an exisiting message and style.

It’s always better to put out something that doesn’t feel amazing then nothing at all.

Use the Quiet to Experiment

Before we know it the busy end of year season will be upon us, and you will suddenly feel behind and rushing to keep up. Now in the lull and quiet it is the perfect time to test things. Do some experiments, work on things you normally are afraid to dedicate the time to. Try different layouts or styles in your designs, work on a project you are worried might flop but really want to try, create some templates, brainstorm some big crazy Christmas campaign ideas. Whatever you normally put off for lack of time or fear, now is the time to give it a go.

I remember during 2020 lock down, the middle of that year I had a lull moment. The days were quiet and slow and I sat on the couch and set up Notion (haha thats twice I mentioned Notion in one post, I promise this isn’t sponsored), I am so glad I did as I otherwise would never found the time and it has helped me stay organised. This really is the perfect time for those kind of things.

If like me you just feel a little lack lustre and are finding it harder to get motivated mid year, I hope these ideas will bring back your spark, keep your creating and maybe even get you ‘motivationally inspired’.

As far back as childhood I remember having a thing for paper and collecting random papers and ephemera. Things like business cards, tickets, letters, nice packaging and stamps. When I was first studying graphic design I had an obsession with texture. My collecting turned into collage creating both physical and digital.
I loved laying up papers, sticking them down and ripping them to make textured edges, painting on layers, stitching on top, and making the most delicious textures I could.

But the arty texture making got set aside as my business grew and the more serious proper graphic design took over. My early client work often had textured elements like watercolour and stitching as well as fabric and paper textures. This was popular at the time, but as trends changed so did my style.

Trying Something New

This year my Canva template sales have dipped on the marketplace platforms. Now this could be a mix of things including:

• I have less time to create new products

• Marketplaces are fickle things (especially Etsy)

• I haven’t been able to promote as much

• More people are using AI to design

• There are more and more people selling Canva templates making it harder to compete on these big platforms.

So it’s not really a surprise. But I want to take action to keep things at a good level and not let it fizzle out. Now of course I could just make more designs, but with a busy toddler that is proving challenging. And with the concern that people are using AI for design I began to wonder if I need to try a slightly different angle and test some new things instead of just trying to produce more of the same.

I considered trying the B2C market instead of just B2B products (which I still may try) but then something occurred to me. People who are looking to buy digital design assets, the people who don’t just turn to AI to whip them up a graphic, are probably also the type that want more human feeling design that is unique and interesting.
So what would help them? Real man made textures and elements.

So I got out the scanner, began looking through my things for various papers and ephemera and began to work on my first elements pack.

Why Texture Looks Good

It seems I’m not alone in my love of texture.As I was working on this project I saw someone mention this study by Biederman and Vessel who argue humans are "infovores". Which has become quite obvious in recent year by our love for consuming content. Our brains are wired to seek out and extract information from the environment because doing so triggers an opioid release in areas of the brain associated with pleasure (specifically regions tied to the visual association cortices). Which means pleasure can also be a reward for successfully interpreting complex visual scenes. i.e we get a pleasurable high out of looking at complex visually rich imagery. The grain, warmth, texture, layering.

Texture = high information density in a small area. The eye has to do real work processing depth and material, which is exactly the kind of moderate-complexity processing the theory says triggers reward. It’s not too complex that it leaves us overwhelmed but not too simple that it bores us. It hits that sweet spot.

What I have Learned in the Process

Creating element packs isn’t as simple as scanning stuff and saving the file. Along the way I have learned a few things both from working on it and from researching what else is out there.

From the process:

1. Scanning wasn’t easy at first. Working out the right settings and figuring out how to cut out and edit in Affinity was harder then I thought it would be. As someone who used Adobe for over a decade, adapting to doing this with Affinity was a learning curve. I discovered the best setting for the scanner were 1200dpi and set to image (not document) and turning off any auto settings. I also found it was often best to scan with grey behind items to make removing the background easier. In Affinity I had to get the hang of the background remover, the image editing and touch up tools and colour grading.
   The first night I tried scanning an item it took me so long I began to wonder if this idea was a big mistake, but I eventually figured it out and the process got quicker.

   

2. You have to edit. A simple scan often isn’t enough for a polished usable element. At minimum you need to remove the background so it has a transparent background. Though often it also requires touching up messes with the cloning tool, removing things the background remover left behind and colour grading to get it to look just right.
   

   

3. 3D things don’t scan well. The trouble with 3D objects is not everything is in focus when scanned. So I made my own light box to take photos of more 3D items like notebooks and pens. I used a wood frame I had and put my soft boxes either side and white paper inside the box. I then experimented with light and positioning to get things just right. I found that shiny objects were the biggest challenge as you need to get the light reflecting off them the right way to get the look you want.
   

   

   

   

   
   

4. Shiny things don’t always scan well either. These are also better in the light box. I managed some diamantés but also found getting the angle just right makes a difference to the results. Shiny things can look completely different depending on where light hits them, so it was just a matter of moving it into different positions in the light box until it looked right.

   

   
   

5. Transparent is something I still need to work on. I tried scanning a plastic sleeve and a semi transparent spotted sleeve, and quickly realised that these are more complex. Trying to scan something transparent and then maintaining the look once the background is removed and transparency lowered seems a challenge and I still don’t think I have got it right. From research it seems scanning it on black is the go, but the best edit once on the computer is where I seem to be stuck. If you have any tips or seen any tutorials do let me know!

   

   
   

Researching other listings:

• The best sets use mixed media ( adding illustration, stitching, scribble, hand lettering) this makes a set really unique and one of a kind, it is more diverse and gives people a range of elements that work well together. So I plan to add more then simple scanned items, including things like illustrations, paint and stitching.

• It is all about Curating. Things need to go well together and fell part of a set, so when you use them in a design they all work in a cohesive way. So as I add elements I have been putting them all together to check colours and style work well as a set and removing items that don’t work for that set or colour grading to make it fit in better.

• Most collections are 100-200 elements. This gives me a good goal for building a set that feels like a good collection of items. My aim is to have at least 150 items in my first set. This is what makes these worth buying vs grabbing a few random things off Pinterest or scrolling Canva elements, it’s a large collection of high quality curated elements so they all work well together and look good making it easy to design with and create cohesive designs.

My first Set so Far

I am still in the process. This post was all about bringing you on this journey with me and documenting what I am learning. My first set theme is around planning and notes. With lots of paper and notebook textures, stationery items, and paper scraps.

I still need to take some more photos, add illustrated elements and maybe scan in a few more stitched elements, but at 120 elements so far I feel like it is coming together nicely.

I just tried Flodesk’s new Flodesk Studio. And if you’re like me and have a tendency to leave your marketing emails to the last minute so that you’re quickly trying to put something together on the day that it needs to go out or that hour it needs to go out, then this is going to blow your mind cuz the way you create and design emails is about to change forever.

Now, if you’re not a Flodesk stay with me, because this isn’t just for Flodesk users. It also allows you to download emails as HTML to import to other platforms as wells.

No other email platform have done anything quite like this. So, this is definitely something very new and it’s going to be really interesting to see how people use it and just how popular it is. And if you’re a solo business owner like I am where you’re trying to juggle so many things, not to mention actual real life as well, having a tool like this can really help you keep consistent.

I know personally sometimes it can feel very last minute rush to try and get an email in. You’re like, what am I supposed to write because, you know, I’ve been trying to do, you know, work for clients, create things for my business, trying to keep on social media and all the other types of things I’m supposed to be doing and I forgot to send an email this week. So you quickly put something together in a rush and often what happens then is something suffers along the way. It could be that your writing suffers or it could be that your design suffers because you just don’t have the time for it. And this is why this studio is going to make such a difference.

How to Get Started in Flodesk Studio

Head to studio.flodesk.com.

If you’re already a Flodesk user, you’ll be able to log in through your Flodesk account. Otherwise, you need to set up an account. And the first thing it’s going to prompt you to do is put in your branding. If you’re already a Flodesk user, it will bring in any exisiting branding you have set up in your account. Whereas if you’re starting from scratch, you’re probably having to go through everything there. If you don’t have the time right now to set that all up or go through it all, don’t worry. You can just skip past that or just add a few little things and come back to it later.

Once inside Flodesk Studio you will notice it feels a lot like other AI type chat platforms where you’ve got a little box here where you can start your chat and then all the things on the side. your past chats. Right now it’s just creating emails, but in the future they’re going to have forms and pages.

The Beta Deal

Right now while in Beta it’s free. They are just getting feedback seeing what people think and the reaction to it.

Beta will run for many months because they are building this with you.

Pricing isn’t decided yet; Studio is free while they learn what you value most. So based on feedback and responce they will later decide how access will work. So right now while it’s beta it is free to use.

A Place to Design not a Person to Hand it off too

A big thing with Flodesk studio is that they don’t want it to feel like your typical AI where you just tell it to do things and it does everything for you. Instead it is a tool to sort of sit there beside you. It feels like a studio. It’s a place that you go to where you can create things and so you’re just using it as an extra assistance to make that process of creating easier. So your design is accelerated. You can put it together a lot quicker and faster rather than it being something that feels very generated.

A big thing with AI is often it can feel like when you design anything, create any kind of graphic, anything that’s generated, it feels AI, it feels generated. And that’s not what they’re trying to do here. What they’re instead trying to do is just make that process of creating and designing emails quick and easy to do. And so behind it, they’ve got real designers that have worked on different elements and things that put together those emails for you.

You have to think of it more as AI powered where AI helps bring this all together quickly, but it’s still bringing human design into it and it’s not just simply AI generated.

Is this really AI, or just templates with my branding dropped in?

Neither, exactly. Their design team hand-crafted thousands of individual component pieces including layouts, blocks, typography, palettes.

The AI’s job is to assemble those human-designed pieces based on your prompt and apply your brand and voice. It’s expediting the process, not generating generic design. If it feels like a designer touched it, it’s because one did.

Set Up Your Brand

So the first thing you want to do to get the best results is of course set up your branding as it will draw from your brand to create emails. This means everything it creates will instantly be aligned with your branding.

The more you put in here for your brand the easier and quicker it’s going to be to whip up a beautiful email that is perfectly on brand.

You will be able to add:

• Your logo

• Your colour hex codes

• Your fonts (and font map according to how each font should be used)

• A profile image

• Brand Voice

• Social Links

• Business address

Start Creating Emails

Start trying it out and see what you think. I think you’ll be amazed at just how easy it is to create a beautiful on brand email. I had so much fun play with it and I can really see this being very useful for getting out beautiful looking emails quickly.

Simply click ‘New Email’ and give it as much information as you can about the email you want to create. Whatever details you have right now, use that as your starting point.

It will then give you 3 initial designs. Choose your favourite to start off with and then begin editing. You can edit the traditional way just like in Flodesk by changing blocks, block settings, colours, text and everything else.
If you find it easier to talk things out, you can keep using the chat to request changes as well. So it allows you to edit however you work best.

They have also added some fun new features like movable stickers and some new blocks.

Design no longer has to be sacrificed when there’s a rush. And if you’re someone that struggles with designing beautiful emails, if you find that whole thing takes you a really long time because it’s just something that doesn’t come naturally to you, how helpful is this going to be? It’s going to make it so easy for you to put something together really quickly and easily. So give it a go. See what kind of results you get. see if it’s something that is really going to help your process when it comes to creating emails for marketing.

This really is a whole new way to design emails.

I am turning 40 this week, and so I was looking for a flourless chocolate cake recipe. A recipe that looked just my kid of thing popped up on Facebook. The image on Facebook was a bit different to the one in the post, and something seemed off about the ingredients images, and then I realised what was going on. This who recipe blog was AI. The ‘baker’ an AI avatar, the recipes written by AI and all the photos AI generated. It was done in such a typical food blogger style, you could easily miss it.

As I hit 40 and reflect on my creativity and business over the years, I can’t help by wonder where on earth we are going right now. Why are we giving away our humanness, our creativity, our unique way of creating and thinking all to a machine. Does everything lose it’s meaning along the way, what even is the point of it all if no human was behind it.

Didn’t we all start blogs to connect with one another across the globe, share our thoughts and ideas and learn from one another? And now its reduced to ‘how can I do the least work and make money?’. Where is the connection, expression or joy in that?

Then I saw an AD for creating a digital mail club using AI written stories and illustrations. Mail clubs became a trend because people were looking for human connection and real human art. And yet here we are hijacking something special and using AI to reduce it to meaningless money making.

AI isn’t all bad but it’s also dangerous

Like any technology or tool, it has it’s place. AI can be incredibly helpful and for research and science has the ability to help in incredible ways.And yes it can help with productivity, bringing ideas to life that you wouldn’t normally have the skill or resources to build and to help you get unstuck when you are struggling for an idea or solution. I’m not anti-AI (I can see a lot of good use cases for it, and I use it myself for various tasks) but in the race to go all out with AI I think we need to take a step back, slow down and ask some questions. I don’t think we are really assessing the impact of where we are headed. Do we really want to outsource all our human creativity and our visual world to a machine with no emotions or feelings?

Do we want a world designed by one source, that all starts to look and feel the same and feels strangely un-wordly and disconnected? Does human creativity matter beyond commerce? Does it have greater meaning and value then just selling?

When creativity, be it art, design or writing all come from a robot, does it really have any meaning or value anymore? What is the purpose? It’s not to create connection, share our ideas or express ourselves or find community. So all it seems to boil down to is making money and cutting out the human connection in the process. To me that seems very joyless and disconnecting.

Nothing is Real Anymore

Have you seen those Chinese drop shipping ads? They make very realistic AI video sob stories about someone hand crafting a product and crying about people rejecting them and not wanting their beautiful handiwork. However as amazing as the product looks, all you’ll get in the mail is a cheap item from China. I also saw a small business selling hydration powder recently make an AI ad and it was so weird as it felt really off brand for them. Then I think of the AI build recipe site I mentioned earlier. When AI imitates small business, handmade and home baked it all feels very strange.

What is real? Are we now left questioning everything? If something is amazing are we left wondering if its all just fake? How do we discern human creativity and craftsmanship from a convincing AI dupe?

Losing our Ability to Think

It’s often recommended to the elderly to find activities that use their brain to keep them young, keep their brain healthy and live longer. So what happens when even young people begin to outsource thinking and stop using their brains?

We see it already. People who have to turn to Chatgpt to make decisions and get through the day instead of thinking for themselves. While it may seem laughable and silly now, if we are not careful this is how the future could look. Our brains begin to shrink as we use them less and less and we lose our ability to make decisions, think, imagine and create. Our lives become dictated by what the robot tells us to do. Is that not a bit frightening? Not only because we are outsourcing our thinking but also because we don’t know the impact on our brain health.

Will I be that grumpy old lady yelling ‘you don’t need that, use your own brain?’

Feeling Lost as a Creative

I know AI has been around for years now. I know people will say to stop complaining, AI is here so deal with it. Stop being an old grump! I have witnessed a lot of change in my life. From computers becoming more mainstream in the home, to the internet, e-commerce, youtube, email, social media. I watched it all appear and our lives change and adapt to the new technologies. But there is something different about this.

It’s not simply ‘just a tool’. It can be, but I fear we are allowing it to be more then that and that’s my concern.

Right now I am feeling a bit lost. What do people actually need from a creative right now? Do they want my thinking? My designs? My unique style? Me to build AI tools based on my skill and knowledge? or for me to just disappear because I’m not even needed anymore?

Is this the midlife crisis of a creative millennial? Trying to find where my creative skill still fits into this bizarre new system?

Last week I wrote about the importance of having personality and knowing who you are in your brand. As well as the sad movement of businesses using AI shortcuts for marketing and losing who they are in the process.

Often when you think of brand personality you think about your brand voice, your visual style and how you behave in your business. What you might be over looking however, is how your brand personality can inspire the way you market your business and lead to more creative stand out marketing.

This is how you fully max your brand personality. You let it influence more then just who you are and how you present yourself but also the unique ways you attract and connect with people to share what you offer.

When Marketing Feels Dull Bring Your Personality

It’s Sunday night, and you are planning out your week and the marketing you need to do. Instagram posts, youtube video, Substack article, sales newsletter. It gets repetitive and dull. It feels like a churn and uninspiring. Here we go again, another week of trying to please algorithms and ticking off the boxes.

When you approach your marketing instead from a personality point of view, it will unlock stand out ideas and things that get you more fired up and excited to create.

Why? Because its soooo YOU. It feels playful and like you can fully express yourself and what you want to share with the world. It’s no longer about what an algorithm or latest trend dictates, but about showing up in a way that is uniquely you and fun.`

Social Media is Giving the Ick

I have been feeling the ick about social media lately. Not just because of the AI slop or the algorithm but the way everyone is obsessed with copying one another, keeping up and following trends. The need to do ‘whats in right now’ is giving me the ick.

It feels desperate. I feel like it really reached a tipping point this week when everyone and their dog decided the thing to do right now was talk about and try the ‘yapping’ trend. The way everyone just seemed to be scrambling to do the same format and imitate what worked so well for someone else.

I get that we need to be aware of what’s working and the collective psychology of what people need right now, but this just felt more desperate. Like if they didn’t do this style, sit down with a camera and get out their rode or DJI mic stat they were going to fall behind. And what I have seen time and time again with trends, is that when a trend doesn’t fit your brand personality, or you try to hard to imitate and being someone else that is so different from your own personality it feel jarring.

When reels first came out, it killed me to see soft gentle brands suddenly using trending fast paced music. I want to yell at them ‘that’s not YOU, stop that!’

This is why tapping into your personality is SOO important. You should be creating in a way that is authentic to who you are. Not trying so hard to be someone else, imitating your coaches and idols, doing the trends in desperation to fit in.

Now a disclaimer: It’s ok to try trends, test new styles to see what works and push yourself out of your comfort zone to grow and improve. BUT you should be asking ‘is this a better version of me, and becoming a stronger marketer and communicator? Or is this me trying so hard to be something I am not in a desperate attempt to fit in and be seen?’

How Personality Inspires Unique Marketing

When you start with personality it gets you thinking about marketing from a whole different perspective. Instead of thinking about platforms, algorithms and trends, you are thinking about what creative things you can do that allow you to show up in ways that feel most you and allow your talents and personality to shine brightest.

For example if you are an adventurous. Words to describe your brand personality would include Freedom. Curiosity. Authenticity. You are all about adventure. Your brand invites people to step outside the expected, embrace the journey, and explore new ideas or possibilities. It’s raw, real, and ever-evolving.

So what would your approach to marketing me that aligns with your personality?

Your approach would be all about breaking the mould and doing things your own way.
‍You are here to disrupt routine, challenge the norm, and carve your own path. You’re magnetic because of your independence and openness. You’re not trying to be perfect, but true.

Your marketing might look like:

- Organic, imperfect layout design -torn paper, hand-drawn lines, journal style layouts)
-Digital downloads that feel handwritten or travel-inspired (e.g. “Field Notes”-style PDFs)
- Postcards or notecards with natural textures or hand-lettered
-Kraft paper-style packaging or tags with hand-drawn icons
-Trail Marketing- Leave a breadcrumb trail to your brand. Unexpected, curious, memorable.
‍- Found in the Wild/ Wander Drops- Leave items for people to find related to your business. Making people feel like they discovered you by chance. E.g Stickers, postcards, button pins with text saying you found me' and details about business.
- Adventure Tags- Attach your brand to everyday adventure- painted rocks, notes in books, stickers on poles. Think guerrilla marketing.
- Instagram Reel Cover with a Raw, Scrappy Vibe
-Field Notes Mini Zine (Digital Flipbook or Printable)
- Patches with your brand sayings or phrases.
- A branded notebook- a great client gift.
- Branded cap or tote bag design for gifting or wearing in your content.
- Keychain for client gifts.
- Leaving clever posters or tear aways out on the street. More guerrilla marketing.

Discover Your Brand’s Personality and Aligned Marketing Ideas

I can’t list every personality and corresponding ideas here, and you may still feel unsure about what your brand’s personality even is. So I have created a quiz to help you not only define what your brand personality is but also give you ideas to help you approach visual marketing in a more personality aligned way. My hope is that it gets your creative juices flowing and we see more people trying new thing (tapping into what they are best at) and less social media sheep.

TAKE THE QUIZ

Once you have gone through it I’d love to hear what result you got and what ideas it sparked for your marketing.

It can feel like a disaster in the moment. All your plans and vision aren’t working the way you had envisioned. I’m someone who can get really hung up on a plan and completely crushed when things like this happen. I remember as a child planning to buy a specific ice-cream at the canteen at school, and when they didn’t have any left I decided to just go without. The poor canteen lady was trying hard to suggest other things I could get. But it wasn’t my plan so I walked away with nothing instead.

Over the years I have come to realise something that makes me no longer fear the problems. Problems are actually your creative besties. When you see a problem as a challenge to overcome instead of the ‘end of the world’, you actually end up being more creative and come up with even more amazing ideas than if the problem never happened.

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Turning Problems into Ideas

Start seeing problems as opportunities for creativity. Treat it like a creative bestie who just walked in presenting you with a fun creative challenge.

STEP ONE- Define the actual challenge, not just the disaster.

For example I was trying the design a Youtube thumbnail the other day. The photo that would be the perfect screen grab was a bit grainy, blurry and the colour was dull. Despite my photoshop resuscitation attempts, it just wasn’t working out. So you might think the problem is ‘how do I fix this photo?’ but the actual challenge was ‘how do I make a good thumbnail?’.

So I took that challenge and instead of trying to make that terrible photo work, I made a collage mash up of shots that were vibrant and colourful and put them together to tell the full story I had been trying to show in that one not so great photo.

It turned out way better than imagined and inspired a whole new approach to the thumbnails for that channel that now look incredible.

Become a paid subscriber to get the rest of this article along with this months 24 page zine download, Daily Planner Canva Template and a 40% shop coupon to spend in my shop this month.
Every month you will get a digital zine, a Canva template and a coupon. You will also get any bonus articles and article resources.

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I can tell what they are doing… trying all the hooks and tricks that get the views and doing it in a low effort way to test what messages resonate. This might seem like some market research so social media, no real harm, mostly aimed at an audience who have no idea who they are. But I fear it will do long term brand damage.

People no longer have anything to connect with them over, not a real face, not a consistent message, not a cohesive and consistent style, not even a brand personality. They look lost, like they have no idea who they are or who their actual audience is anymore. It’s all just a game off numbers and testing.

I am seeing this more and more. As people scramble to keep up, do what gets views and look for time saving hacks, they lose touch with their identity. They become a commodity and no longer a brand.

They use AI avatars of fake people, they use generated voice overs, they use generic formulas and copy paste scripts that have no soul behind them. It’s not the use of AI, but the fact they have lost all personality and identity in the chase for growth and optimisation.

Reach vs. Connection

It’s that constant chase for reach. But what is the real aim behind digital marketing? It’s not to just get noticed, but to connect with people enough that they become interested in what we have to offer. To invest their time in consuming what we put out and to purchase paid offers, and ultimately to rave about us to other people, and get those valuable word of mouth referral.

So when you consider the real goal, does chasing views and losing sense of who you are really get you there? Does making emotionless AI videos to churn out content really create real connection? Do viral hooks and formulas really build a community of fans who tell all their friends about you? Do people really buy from a brand that seems fake or who has no stable sense of idenity?

It may get you some extra views and followers, and maybe even some sales. But as for a long term sustainable strategy? I just can’t see how you can build a strong brand identity this way.

Views are not the same as belonging. I don’t feel like I know you or get excited to see your new post, when you use random AI avatars and I can’t even tell the content came from you.

Your lack of personality and realness just becomes a major turn off. I don’t trust you and you don’t make me feel anything.

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Chasing Strangers and Losing Loyal Fans

When you treat your brand like a commodity, just trying to get a new customer, new views and pleasing an algorithm designed for reaching strangers instead of fostering community you alienate your exisiting audience.

This is what threw me the most. Seeing someone who’s brand I felt I really loved, supported and connected with, and for them to suddenly lose sense of who they are in the chase for growth.

I suddenly felt disconnected, no longer interested, no longer excited to be part of the community or support them or share them with others.

In trying to be more broadly appealing, stripping away their identity, I felt I no longer knew them. What was once something I felt I identified with and felt a connection to became generic and dull. Their is a kind of grief that happens as a loyal customer. You feel that brand you once loved isn’t there anymore. It’s sold out to robots, trying to please machines by using machines, and forgetting the real humans that just want to connect with the human behind the brand.

Identity is Your Greatest Asset as a Small Business

Please, please, don’t forget who you are.

This is what gives small business it’s edge. What makes people buy from you instead of the big companies. It’s not because you had the reach and were ‘just there’ easily available (you’re not amazon), they buy from you because they feel a connection to you. Your personality, your identity, your world, your values, your weirdness and unique way of doing things. They want to connect with you and support a real human, a human they feel they can connect with in some way.

I’m not saying you can’t use systems or tools to help you create more easily and efficiently, but not at the cost of your identity.

Brands that stay weird, specific, and themselves are the ones who will stand out in coming years. They have put something no person or machine can copy into their brand… themselves. As everyone else becomes more carbon copy generic looking (just look at all those identical looking ChatGPT generated flyers on Facebook!), you will stand out by simply embracing who you are and staying true to that.

Resist the Pressure

There is a pressure to have bigger numbers. Get more followers, get more views, churn out more content. For a small business however, engagement and sales matter more then social media numbers, and fewer devoted followers will give you are much more sustainable authentic business then reaching masses who feel no real connection to you and don’t see you as a real person.

Have you ever seen someone go viral only to regret it? Suddenly all these people flood in who don’t know them and feel no connection to them and they start leaving nasty comments or complaining or causing problems for the businesses. All these new followers end up harming the brand because they have no care or connection to the brand and it ends up causing more harm then good.

Really think about what actually matters and what you are actually trying to achieve. We can get so caught up in the numbers game that we lose sight of this.

It’s possible the short-form video era is quietly destroying the thing that made small independent brands worth caring about. It’s making us lose sense of what matters, and lose the connection that makes small business so special.

Identity Clarity

If you are sitting here thinking, this is great, but how do I actually know what my brand personality is and my identity as a business owner?

These journal prompts will help you work through your own identity and how you can bring your personality to your brand.

Read more

My last post about things you didn’t know you could do in Canva went well, so I decided to come back and share some more fun Canva secrets.

Canva might be the beginner level software in the graphic design world, but this doesn’t mean it you are heavily limited in what you can achieve with it, in fact what I love is how fast it makes design. For high output designs like social media posts it is actually far more efficient then it’s bloated pro counterparts.
So let’s have some fun playing around in Canva.

1- Find the closest Font in Canva with Grab Text

Ever found a graphic that had a font on it you loved or you collect a mood board with the perfect feel for what you want to create and want to see if Canva has any fonts with a similar feel to the fonts you have referenced? There is no need to scroll through all the fonts testing and searching for hours. Select the image that has the text you like and use ‘Grab Text’. Canva will find the closet match in it’s library, so easy!!

To use : Select image>edit>Grab Text> select the text you want> wait for it to convert to a real font in Canva

2- Copy whole pages from one file to another

I do this all the time but it’s probably something a lot of people don’t realise you can do in Canva. Instead of selecting all the elements from a page, copying it into a new page and doing that again for every page you want to copy from one file to another, you can simple copy whole pages into another file making it quick and easy to bring pages from other files over into the one you are working on.

To use: Go to the document you want to take images from> choose grid view> select the pages you want to copy over> right click and select ‘copy’> go to your new files> change to grid view>select the page you want the copied pages to come after> right click and paste. You can also rearrange your pages while in grid mode.

3- Make Canva do the Laborious Work for You

Ever needed to change a word over several pages or do some other boring, non-creative laborious job? Get Canva to do it for you. A lot of people think Canva AI is all about making AI graphics and images, but it can actually just do some work for you too.

The other day I had a page where the spelling of a word was wrong and repeated 18 times over all over the page. Instead of manually changing each one, I used ‘Ask Canva’ and asked it to make the update for me, and to my surprise it did it! This is a huge time saver when those annoying tasks come up.

To use: While in your file click ‘Canva AI’ in the top left of the screen> tell it what you need it to do to you file> sit back and watch it do the work for you.

4- Make any Graphic into Your Brand Style

You have been scrolling through elements for hours. You really want an image of a particular item, but nothing matches your brand style. Don’t worry! You can match any graphic or photo into an existing style using ‘Copy Art Style’. This is a great way to keep everything looking consistent and on brand and always find the right image to fit your design. You can use this on elements inside Canva or apply to your own photos.

To Use: Select a Graphic in the style you want> click the paint roller icons>choose copy art style>click the image you want to turn into the style and wait for the magic.

5- Create A Repeatable Group of Elements

If you find you need to use a group of elements again and again across pages or documents there is no need to go find it, copy it and paste it every time anymore. Canva now has components, which are a group of elements you can grab and add to your page, just like grabbing. a logo from your brand kit. This could be useful for things like a product mockup that has lots of parts making it up, and product logo made of several elements, a group of graphics you use often for backgrounds or page embellishments.

To Use: Select all the elements together>right click>Create Component>you will now find it in your brand kit

6- Sign a PDF Document

Next time you need to sign a contract or need to send a document off to a client to sign, don’t worry about needing a paid or fancy service. You can use Canva. And this isn’t some dodgy work around, Canva have their own dedicated tool for signing.

To use: Head to canva.com/features/sign-pdf

Let me know if any of these surprised you. Happy Creating!

For a long time graphic designers have mocked Comic Sans. However its initial purpose is right there in the name, it is meant for comics. It fits its purpose perfectly, yet it became hated due to it’s mis-use. It was used to communicate formal office messages, business flyers and funeral Order of Service booklets. The message and communication misaligned and we threw blame at the font.

Any font can be used well if used in the right context to communicate the message it was intended for. The more misaligned the more it bothers us.

The principle doesn't just apply to Comic Sans. Every font you choose for your brand is communicating something, whether you intended it to or not.

That Font Said Something

Fonts choice matters. Fonts say something and if you get the message wrong it can cause confusion and give people the wrong impression about your brand. You could be accidentally attracting the wrong people and putting off the right people by making the wrong font choices.

Fonts do a great job of positioning a brand, so simply picking a trending font or your latest favourite probably isn’t the most strategic way to pick the right fonts for your brand.

A font will communicate your brand positioning, its feeling/vibe and can build trust. So what you choose matters.

How to Choose Fonts that Align with Your Brand

Raise a hand if you have ever stumbled across a brand or a font and fallen head of heels with a font and rushed to download it to use for your own marketing graphics and branding? It’s easy to fall in love with a font, but that doesn’t make it your perfect match.

STEP ONE

First you need to be clear on what you are communicating and who too. Where does your brand sit in the marketplace and what impression do you want to give people about your brand?

For example are you playful or sophisticated? Affordable or luxury? Trendy or traditional? Bold or gentle?

All these things play into the decision of the type of fonts best for you.

STEP TWO

Find a variety of fonts that communicate your message, start with a range of options so you can test them out.

Unsure about this step? Keep reading and we will break down what to look for in a font.

STEP THREE

Test the fonts. Try them on graphics and on web and see how the look and perform in real use. Sometimes a font may appear perfect but once tested you realise it doesn’t quite work the way you hoped.

STEP FOUR

Pair your final choices. You need to pair fonts that communicate the same message but have some aspect of contrast, like a serif with a san serif or thick with thin. It doesn’t have to be polar opposite, but does need to contrast in some way, if two fonts are two similar they compete and end up looking messier. Often the easiest formula is a serif with a san serif.

How to Speak ‘Font’

Once you understand how fonts play a part in your branding, and how they can position your brand, attract the right audience and add to the feeling and vibe of your brand it is easier to narrow down your font choices.

Not only do fonts help communicate your brand feeling, but they also aid in making your message and words easy to read and understand, they enhance your written message.

So to help you better read fonts, lets look at what different styles communicate:

Old Style- Stable, traditional, established and old world. They look dated. They can work for brands that are selling products or services that are related to the past, such as selling antiques, history research, or restoration services.

Transitional- This style of serif is generally a better option for branding then old style, as it feels a little more modern and refined but still has a very traditional feeling. These fonts feel dependable, mature, classic, serious, traditional, professional, respectable, reliable and formal, sophisticated.

Neoclassical & Didone Serif- A little more fashionable then transitional. They have a much more modern feel and can be bold or delicate depending on the weight and contrast. They are trendy, fashionable, high-end, elegant, glamorous, luxurious, welcoming, chic, exquisite, feminine, creative, expensive, classic, warm and friendly.

Slab Serif- Slab Serifs are friendly, bold, creative, modern, impactful, evident, loud, energetic, authentic and ethical. These serifs have a little more oomph and strength to them. They are attention grabbing, which can make them a good font for a bold and fun, cheerful brand or for more masculine brands.

Clarendon Serif- These fonts feel modern but more approachable and have a feeling of strength, and playfulness. It is more modern, creative and bold. Clarendon have a little more personality then traditional serifs and they are easier to read as there is less contrast. They feel a little more masculine but also work for feminine brands that want to feel more playful, youthful or bold.

Glyphic Serif- These serifs feel more modern and sleek. They are less traditional looking serifs, and start to get closer to a sans-serif look, but with more personality. They feel modern, refined, sleek, sharp, smart and edgy.

Grotesque Sans-Serif- These fonts feel very clean simple and well designed. Helvetica is one of the most famous grotesque sans- serif fonts as it can work well in so many situations and is very well designed. These fonts can feel minimalist, sophisticated, sensible, stability, natural, straightforward and versatile.

Square Sans-Serif- These sans-serifs feel defined and dramatic. They can also feel more narrow, authoritative, candid, masculine, objective, technological or scientific, speedy and innovative.

Humanistic Sans-Serif- With their contrast in stroke weight, they feel more approachable, soft and friendly. They can also look more trendy, designed and elegant. They have a little more personality and character then other san-serifs.

Geometric Sans-Serif- These heavier and more rounded san-serifs, feel more youthful, fun, approachable, playful, modern, chic, progressive, likeable, friendly. They also suggest user friendliness, and a brand that makes your life easier.

Formal Script- These scripts are very elegant, romantic, affectionate, delicate and formal. They can be very fancy and elaborate so in branding they shouldn’t be over used. Generally they work best for headers or in a logo. They shouldn’t be used for body copy or long sentences. You may also want to test legibility, as some may have letters that are hard to read.

Casual Script- These scripts are more easy going, laid back, casual scripts. They are friendly, approachable, playful, kind, sociable, warm, welcoming and informal.

Calligraphic Script- Beautiful calligraphy style fonts are artistic, creative, modern, trendy, feminine, soft and natural. Calligraphic fonts are increasingly popular as they can be very unique and creative.

Handwritten Script- These scripts are very casual, creative and full of character. They feel more hands on, creative, handmade, personal, artistic, unique, playful and imperfect.

There are also an array of decorative fonts like bubble, blackletter and typewriter. These are distinctive, dramatic fonts, and there is a wide variety of styles including grunge, graffiti, textured fonts, bubble fonts, vintage and so on. I wouldn’t advice going down the decorative font path for branding, unless your brand really lends itself to this style and it would still be wise to use in moderation depending on readability (it can lend it self to logos, for a stand out unique look).

Decorative fonts tend to have a cultural and historical era feel to them, which can be useful for special events or themes.

Other factors to consider-

• Font weight- A bold font feels dominant, gallant, significant, reputable, powerful, highlighted, emphasised, strong, noticeable, drawing attention, whereas a thin font feels delicate, fine, elegant, soft, romantic, gentle, defined and refined.

• Height and width- Wide extended fonts feel smooth, mature, luxury, fluid, memorable, commanding and respectable. Tall narrow fonts feel expressive, commanding and confident. They are also influential and busy.

Will they think of you?

A final thing to consider which is powerful yet overlooked is people beginning to associate a font with your brand. If you choose a font that isn’t overly used and too common and use it consistently making it your own people will actually start to associate that font with your brand.

This means it is a good idea to fond something that is less common in your industry and isn’t the latest hot trending font. It doesn’t have to be one of a kind, just not over used. Then make it your own, use it in your own style and be consistent in your usage.

The next time you scroll past a sea of identical AI flyers, you'll know exactly what's missing. Intention. A font chosen with purpose, for the right audience, communicating the right message, is one of the simplest ways to make your brand unmistakably yours. And unlike Comic Sans at a funeral, it'll be remembered for all the right reasons.

You stare at a blank screen, then grab the phone scrolling for ideas. The ideas aren’t coming. You feel stuck. Nothing feels right. You are just copying trends and trying to fit other peoples ideas into your own message.

You blame the endless content churn, the burn out, the exhaustion of running a business alone. You feel creatively stuck. Is that you spent too many hours scrolling and not enough quietly thinking up your own ideas, partly yes. However something bigger is getting you stuck, that even when you take that social media detox or have an analog day you still can’t seem to get the creative momentum going.

What no one talks about when they list all the ways to create content, dream up new offers and build a business you are proud of is the need for a strong purpose.

Purpose is the Energy behind Creativity

You can get inspired looking at what other people are doing, or by spending time around other business owners, but without your own strong purpose you are borrowing the purpose filled energy of others to get your creative high, before crashing back down into a creative rut.

When filled with purpose you have an energy source that fuels ideas and momentum. Everything has a reason, you have direction and meaning. It is so much easier to work on something that has a clear direction and meaning behind it. You know what the goal is and the message you want to share.

Lacking this purpose means it all deep down feels a but meaningless. You end up focussing just on ‘what will go viral’ or ‘what will sell right now’. This kind of thinking feels empty. It’s a constant chasing of numbers and nothing more. It eventually leaves you drained and lost, questioning ‘what am I even doing?’

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Have you just lost sight or was it never there?

Having a purpose, doesn’t make you immune to creative slumps. Sometimes we get caught up in other things and lose sight of the original meaning and other times we just grow out of it, it no longer holds the meaning it once did. In these cases we need to reconnect or adjust to bring back the spark.

The biggest reality check however is if there was never really a purpose. If you dig deep on why you started it all or where you are currently taking things and realise it was about nothing more then, what can make me some money?. The sad truth is that you have started something with no meaningful purpose and eventually got yourself to that point of feeling lost because there was nothing driving you beyond numbers.

Other People can Feel it

When your brand is built without purpose, but just a chasing after fame, fortune and vitality, people can feel it. I was reading this post this morning about Meghan Markle and her many brand building attempts. What struck me is just how much other people feel that something is off when a business lacks purpose. It doesn’t sit right, it feels forced and people can tell.

Off the Record

Meghan Markle’s Never-Ending Rebrand Is Officially Exhausting

Yesterday it was raspberry marmalade. Last month it was AI affiliate fashion. Before that it was another rebrand. At this point, Meghan Markle isn’t building businesses so much as continuously rebuilding the brand of Meghan Markle…

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4 months ago · 138 likes · 57 comments · Aliza Licht

This is a setup for failure. When you don’t have a purpose that keeps you driven, and everyone else feels something is off, your brand can’t stand for long. People connect with meaning and stories not just random products. Sure you may make some sales, but you won’t build a strong and long lasting memorable brand.

How to find (or rebuild) your purpose

You don’t need to crash and burn your business if you have lost sight of your purpose or never had a solid one. We can reconnect with it or build it in, to give you more of a real “why” that directs you future creativity.

Journal Prompts:

1. Why did you first start this? Go beyond your first answer and dig a little deeper, keep asking why.

2. Who are you trying to help and what difference are you making in their life?

3. What would you be doing even if nothing was going viral or bringing in good money? Tap into what lights you up for your own personal joy and the things you happily help friends with because you care about helping them.

4. What actually matters to you? What kind of causes or values are very dear to you that hold real meaning to you. Consider what you get fired up about or frustrated over. You want to find that passionate emotional connection.

5. Now one I don’t think many people talk about when it comes to purpose and business… what feels like you. I think too often we try to be what we think we should be to be successful or to fit in to an industry, but it’s forced and not really truely us. So really sit on this one for a bit, what feels naturally you. It’s not forced or playing a part but just naturally feels like what you were always meant to do.

6. Do I have more own ideas or am I always just borrowing and imitating everyone else? What do I really want to be creating?

How to re-direct when it wrong

So you poured out your heart in your journal, you realised you have outgrown a purpose you once had but no longer hold or you never really had one to begin with. Where do you go from here?

1. Decide if it is salvageable or if you need a complete pivot. Sometimes the base of our business is solid but we got caught up in some offers that weren’t quite right for us or messaging that didn’t really align. Audit what you have and ask ‘does this align with my purpose and what was the reason for this?’ and weed out the things that just aren’t a good fit and fill that space with new more aligned things.

2. Inject more purpose into your messaging. You may have simply lost sight along the way, and tapping back into that purpose can get new ideas flowing and strengthen a message that is actually meanigful.

3. Create reminders to boost that creative energy. It’s easy to get caught up in the every day tasks of running a business that we no longer focus on the purpose. It could be as simple as making some posters or a post it note and hanging up some messages in your work space to remind you of the purpose behind what you do. Giving you a daily reminder of what it’s all for.

4. Check in every time you create something new. To avoid losing sight again, every time you go to create a new offer or create anything significant, ask yourself, ‘Does this align with my purpose or am I doing this for the wrong reasons?’

Next time you find yourself staring at that blank screen, reaching for your phone, wondering why nothing feels right, you’ll know it wasn’t a creativity problem but a lack of purpose. Purpose isn’t just one of those silly branding exercises that gets stuffed away in a folder after writing it. It’s the very engine that drives your creativity and builds a strong brand.

So take the time to go through the journal prompts and get clear of what really matters to you then audit your brand against it. Go back to your why, let it lead, and watch how much easier everything else in your business becomes.

You need idea, but just can’t think of anything. So you go in search of inspiration. You save some stuff, and yet it still feels like a struggle. Ideas feel forced and nothing really lights you up.

Creative thinking doesn’t come from, an endless filling up. It comes from emptying.

Boredom is the key to creativity.

When stuck with nothing but your own thoughts your brain has breathing room to think, bring things together, create and ideate. However it’s not as easy as saying.. just turn off the devices and get bored and the ideas will magically flow to you.

You need to find your creative flow state. Discover what works best for you and really tap into that.

I have actually seen a number of articles on this topic recently. However they all focus on the need for boredom to active the create part of the brain (which is very important for creatives) and ways to allow for space and boredom, but not on finding what works for you.

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Finding your own Creative Flow

Our brain is like a computer and has different modes, however it also comes in different brands and builds i.e your personality and lifestyle.

So in order to enter what is called ‘Default Mode Network’ which is your brains ‘create’ mode, you need to turn off input mode. Your brain can’t focus on creating when new information and input are coming in. This means being bored, operating on autopilot and doing only the mundane tasks that your body can do without even thinking about it.

However to really optimise and get your best creative flow going, it isn’t by trying to get bored as much as possible and throwing your phone away, it by uncovering the factors that combined put you in the greatest creative flow state so you can be more intentional about have creative thinking times as part of your routine.

When my oldest kids were little, my prime time was going for a walk. They were quiet in the pram, I was out in nature and fresh air, no devices, no input. Just a nice quite and often long walk (like 40 minutes). Why this worked? It combined quiet, not worry about the kids, fresh air, nature and time. I was energised, had no distractions or worries and could simply think.

Right now I have a toddler, and my days are quite busy and noisy. Nap time is usually work time for me, and walks usually involve chats with my older sons. So where do I find that thinking moment? When I am putting my toddler to bed. Dark room, quiet, no distractions and he takes a while to drift off allowing time. I have noticed this time is when I get my best ideas.

Boredom is a skill I have cultivated over many years. I would work on get stuck in mind to pass time when stuck waiting for public transport, sitting in a car with nothing on and a long trip ahead or working at a shop on a quiet day with few customers.

I recently told my boys ‘you have a whole super computer inside your head’. I think we forget that. It can make up stories, play games, imagine and create anything you want in your mind.

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Social media can turn you into a machine. You need to churn out content, get those graphics make, make sire you cover each of your content buckets etc etc.. But as you get lost in the endless weekly cycle, you may begin to lose sight of what you are actually trying to achieve with a graphic.

Beyond just I want to share this piece of content and I fingers crossed this one gets more likes then my last post. Your graphics need to be part of a more strategic plan. So let’s stop and think for a minute. Why are you even creating that graphic?

Knowing the goal of your graphic

Everything you design has a purpose. That’s the whole point of design. Design is functional, it’s not art. When it comes to graphic design it’s all about communication. Your graphics need to be communicating something and to someone, otherwise you are really just creating business art, not proper marketing material.

It’s easy to get lost in chasing viral trends, hot aesthetics, and just the weekly churn of staying consistent and visible, that the goal can slip away and become forgotten.

So before you plan out your next lot of content and graphics, slow down for a moment to reconnect with the goal.

1. Who is it for?

   Do you clearly know who it is your are actually trying to communicate with? Not some vague idea or the hope that it will just attract people like you. I mean clearly have a picture of who this person is. What stage are they at? What are they experiencing? What do they crave? What do they need and want? What speaks to them?
   The better you know this person, the more powerful your visual communication. You actually attract and connect with the right people instead of random people who like your style but aren’t the right fit for your offers.
   

2. What are you leading them too?
   I see a lot of people chase virality, looking for the perfect hooks and trending styles just to get more attention, grow the likes and follows and simple chase metrics, but not necessarily the metrics that matter. While growth is important it’s not the only metric we should be chasing to see business growth. A lot of the time what we actually need is to lead people off the discovery channels towards our email list for further nurturing or to a product to sell to them.
   You need to get clear on what you want to lead people to and the balance of leading them to follow, be nurtured or to buy something. (Because you never want to be too top heavy on one)

   Keep in mind any big events you have like launches, speaking events or collabs. Every graphic should have some kind of call to action and be leading people somewhere. Otherwise you are wasting your time chasing eye balls without leading them to anything tangible that grows your business.
   

3. The bigger picture. Each graphic and piece of content shouldn’t stand alone as a single masterpiece. Everything should be singing and humming together in a marketing ecosystem. They all build upon one another and work together to paint eh picture of what your brand is all about. Like giving your audience little glimpses into what you are all about and what you offer and when viewed together paint that overall picture of your brand.

   Ok that was a lot of fanciful talk, the point is, your graphics need to all align with your brand and all feel part of the same business. They also need to work together as a team. Say someone finds one lovely carousel that draws them in, they then go look at what else you have, something else prompts them to sign up, another thing tempts the purchase. All these pieces worked together to warm someone up and sell.
   This is where strategy comes into it. Are you warming people up to an idea, then temping them with the offer before more hard selling to them? Think about different angles you can take based on where they might be at or concerns they may have. Try different ways to draw people in and show off your offer and different ways. Not everyone will be won over the same way so you need different angles that work together to build a bigger picture story.

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Design with Intention

Before you open Canva or pick a template, you need to know the answer to four things that answer the bigger question of what you are trying to achieve.

Consider:

1- What is the message I want to get across today? Maybe you realised people have a certain question, a thought has been playing on your mind you think your audience need to hear or you want to make something about your brand or offers clearer. So before anything else, what do you want to communicate, because a graphic is more then words, we also want to consider how our visuals support that message.

2- Who is it for and what stage are they at in the buying journey? It’s not only important to be clear on who you are targeting, but also segmenting exactly where that person is at based on your message. So if your message is overcoming an objection. That person is already aware of you, a warm buyer, but just has some hesitations. Or if your message is aimed at beginners you need to think about the person who is only just getting started. This way you tailor your visual communication to the right person.

3- How do I want to make them feel? You don’t want a cold emotionless corporate graphic. And please no AI flyers (they all feel EXACTLY the same). You should consider how you want that person to feel, such as calm, uplifted, encouraged or excited. Bring that emotion into your use of fonts, colours and elements as well as the overall flow and layout.

4- What action do I want them to take? Remember we don’t want a meaningless graphic just for the likes. What action are you leading them to? Do you lead the eye towards it, is it clear and does everything naturally flow toward that goal?

Putting it All Together

Let’s make this real. Say you're a launching a new offer. You excitedly start designing a graphic to tell your audience all about it. Your graphic isn't just a pretty announcement. It's speaking to someone who's been sitting on the fence, and its job is to create enough desire that they click the link. You have spent the last few weeks creating visuals and content that has explained what is coming, that has addressed concerns and questions. Now it’s available and you want to really push them that final step to join.

So the message- The offer is now open. This is who it is for and this is what you get and how it will transform you.

The who- That ideal person the offer was made for who has been warmed up and just needs that last push and encouragement to buy.

The feeling- This needs to feel exciting, you want them to feel the FOMO, and think wow this is so exciting and I can’t wait to join. It should also feel empowering, so they feel like it’ll help them reach their goals.

The action- To purchase. The graphic should make it super clear where and how to buy and that is available right now.

When you design with intention, the weekly content churn starts to feel less like a machine instead meaningful and purposeful. You feel like you are actually working towards something instead of just designing fo the sake of keeping up appearances.

In the early 2000s as a teen we saw crew socks and mum jeans as peak ugly.

You know how hard it was to rewire my brain? Very.

There is a lot of science behind my we follow trends.

The herd mentality can play powerful tricks on your mind. Just like sheep who mindlessly follow the head sheep without question, humans have a tendency to follow what everyone is is doing without question.

Then their is the chameleon effect, where we mimic what we see around us. Its a way of bonding and connecting socially.

Its our subconscious way of trying to fit in and be accepted socially. We may even initially think ‘that silly or I don’t like that’ but as we are exposed more and more to others following it, we find ourselves coming around to it and even loving it.

And there is the exposure effect, where repeated exposure increases liking. When a trend takes off we are exposed to it over and over, and with time we begin to warm to it. The first time you see it it might not spark interest, but that repetition builds likability.

This also ties into familiarity. When something feels familiar we like it more. We are more unsure about the unknown but have a fondness towards what is familiar to us. So when we grow up with trends, experience and use trends and are exposed to them over and over, they feel familiar and comfortable and therefore more appealing to us.

Where do we get the idea of good and bad aesthetics?

Taste it would seem, is subjective. While you could argue a case for good design design using good and bad design principles, an overall style or vibe really is just about personal taste.

I see people talk about cultivating good taste, but who defines what is good? Is it simply more quality, more refined, more high end or is it just another thing we have made up and can’t actually be quantified?

So much seems to be the decisions of others. The publications, the designers, the trend reports, the influencers, the celebrities. It’s like that scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Miranda is explaining how everything we wear is decided in that room.

The role of class, cultural capital and gatekeepers like fashion houses is powerful in deciding what people consider tasteful. Industries overlap as well, what is pushed in fashion will have a flow on effect into interiors, graphics and homewares.

"Good taste" historically, has often just meant the taste of whoever held the most cultural influence at the time.

It makes you wonder, are your tastes really your own or something that was decided for you? At the very least it has been influenced by others in some way.

Why do you like that?

Which leads to the question… why do you like that? Consider what appeals to you right now. And even more eye opening, what do you find ugly at the moment? Is it something that seems dated and out of fashion? Remember that that what seems dated now, was once considered the height of fashion.

It’s a funny concept when you really think about it. The fact that people can be head over heels for something, and just the passing of time can completely change how people perceive that exact same thing. It didn’t suddenly become poorly designed or low quality, all that changed was our perception of what looks good and what doesn’t by the trends and influences around us.

Yes things can get boring over time and we crave new and exciting, but I think it more than just the search for fresh visual stimulus to get us excited. We don’t purposefully choose something just to fit in, instead it slowly warms itself up to us until we can’t resist it.

How we are Warmed up to a Trend and convinced what to like

We all have different personal tastes, yes, But we also have different influences. The things that we surround ourselves with, the people we listen to, the media we consume and the values we hold. All this plays into what we are convinced to love and what we find ugly (yet another person may love).

You’ll noticed different generations even have different aesthetic preferences, and this is because we have different influences in our lives and different imprinted ideas about what is cool and of good taste.

Going back to the socks. As a teen, we were so convinced the high socks were soooo ugly and nerdy, that the idea of not wearing ankle socks was a very hard habit to break. The herd mentality of our youth can imprint heavily and it can be hard to retire the thinking.

Recently I have been seeing the rise of the whimsy trend. Now some things really are quite cute and remind me of things I was into in the early 2000s. But some of it I struggled with at first. To me it seemed ugly and dated. It was too much like my childhood. That’s old fashioned and rather ugly I thought.

Thats what inspired this post. I realised that the more I exposed myself to the whimsy design trend, saw people using it well and making it seem fun and cute, I slowly began to soften to it. It was a combination of the exposure effect, a bit of influence seeing creative people I admired using the style and experiencing it. I started designing templates in the style to play around with it, and by doing that I began to make it my own and really experience it, not just see it on others.

This is how we are warmed up to the idea of something being aesthetically pleasing. Yes sometimes you love a style the moment you see it, but many times with trends, it takes exposure and the right influence to warm you up to it and convince you it’s good. It may even take experimenting with it to make your own mark on the style and put a bit of your own spin on it, so it feels more you and familiar.

De-trending your view of aesthetics

Now I don’t think we need to be deliberately rebellious and avoid all trends and follow our own style with blinders on. Trends can be fun, they can expose us to new styles and allow us to try out new things.

What does matter?

Firstly knowing what you genuinely love and don’t love. And being content with not always fitting in and following the crowd. If something you love goes out of style have the confidence to not care. On the flip side if you really don’t like a trend, and its just not very you, just ignore it.

It’s not all about you though. Be aware of what is influencing the people you are marketing too, so you can tap in early to what they do and don’t like. If you run a business, trends do matter. It informs us what people are into right now and what will sell. This means really knowing your customer well and only tapping into trends you know will excite them.

You want to be aware of the difference between a trend you can play with, and something that requires a deeper investment that may actually not be right for you (e.g changing your whole brand to align with a short term trend or kitting out your studio in all new furniture based on a seasonal trend). If the trend is going to cost you a lot in time or money it’s important to look more carefully at it and consider the longevity of the trend and if its really the right fit or you getting swept up in the crowd.

When you think something is ugly, decode why you think that. Is it because of ‘trend rules’ you follow or is it just really not your personal taste. Like my sock example, I have noticed I have weird mindsets about what is ugly based on the aesthetic rules of my teen years and early 20s. You may have unintentionally trained your mind to see things a certain way. Sometimes playing with something you deem ugly can allow you to test the waters with it without commitment.

Finally have an awareness of how you are being influenced. There is nothing wrong with being influenced and following trends, but it is important to be aware of what is happening so you can make decisions based on your own values and personality and not just blindly following others. It’s simply about the habit of questioning rather then blindly following and making conscious decisions. This is particularly important if it affects your business, bacause any aesthetic changes need to align with your brands message.

Whenever they make updates I always see people complaining. I get it, change is hard, especially when you are juggling so many other things and don’t have all day to get familiar with the newest changes. It messes with your workflow, and leaves you frustrated when you suddenly feel lost in a once familiar place.

This latest update hasn’t dramatically shifted the interface, but there are a few freshen ups you will spot especially in the edits panel. So don’t fret, I am here to hold your hand and guide you through the updates and show you how it will actually improve your workflow and save you time.

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How Canva AI 2.0 will make your design flow easier

Canva AI has had a huge upgrade this year, being there main new feature of 2026. These updates have made their AI now a more competitive AI tool, and less of just an experimental feature.

1. You can now connect other Data. If you have data in Notion, Gmail, Google Drive, Zoom, Hubspot or a few others, you can now connect them to google AI and allow it to pull data from those places to inform your requests. No more going through all the data yourself or jumping back and forth between software.
   Think: Using AI code to build a tool from your data, or design slides based on client emails, or a fun team magazine based on slack chats.

   

2. You can schedule tasks. Need a weekly summary report? You can not only bring in the data but also schedule it to do it when you need it. I think this would be great for saving time by lining up a series of prompts and scheduling them out, so you can bulk prompt and then get on with other things and the AI can work in the background to create for you. Used well this could be a huge time saver and great for batching tasks.

   

3. It now has memory and research. Bringing it more up there with other AI tools, Canva AI now has memory and you can create books to build a memory library. This way you aren’t starting from scratch all the time. (again saving time). They have also added research, so you can get it to do the hard work of finding information for you to inform your designs.

p.s Try Canva Ai 2.0 by typing ‘Activate Superpowers’ into the AI text bar.

Efficient Print Design that Reduces Steps

If you like designing merch, printed promo material or just need to quickly print off documents you create in Canva, they have made the whole process a lot more efficient.

1. The Print Shop. Canva have upgraded printing with Canva to make it super efficient and easy. Just select the item you want to get printed, add your design and see how it will look on the product live and once you are happy send it off for printing. No measuring page sizes, downloading templates or guides, reuploading designs. Just a quick seamless process.

   

2. Print at home directly from Canva. Printing off a document used to be tedious through Canva. You’d have to download it as a pdf, wait for the download, go open the files and finally send to the printer. Now you can directly send to your printer all within Canva.

   Share>See All> Use my Printer

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Save time Working with Images and Graphics

Need images fast, caught in a pinch and feeling stuck on what to add to a page or tired of coping and pasted a collection of elements over and over? Canva has added more features to again speed up your workflow and make design easier and more efficient.

1. Components. If you have ever found yourself trying to find an old file, to copy and past a collection of elements from one file to another in Canva, this will be a big time saver for you. You can now create components, allowing you to easily grab those design elements you use again and again.
   Select elements>right click>create component

   

2. Image Upscale. Ever find the perfect image but it is too small or blurry? This simple tool let’s you quickly improve the quality of an image so it becomes usable.

   Select image>edit>upscale

   

3. Work offline. Next time you are stuck waiting around in a place with poor or no internet, you can now keep on working on your Canva designs. While this feature has some limitations and you can’t access new elements, it is a great way to keep the flow going even when you are out of range.
   File>Make available offline

   

4. Decorate. You are in a rush, you need to get that webinar done by tomorrow, but a few page just look too…basic. You can’t think what to add and you don’t have time to play around. This is where decorate will save the day. You can let it come up with something itself or give it some prompts if you have a general idea of what you need and it will create a few ideas for you. Boom page done!
   Select page>Decorate>describe>select the one you like best.

   

   

5. Copy Style (upgraded). Originally copy style only let you copy the style of a graphic. Now you can apply a graphic style to a photo! This is amazing because you can create branded graphics from photos. Think images of you, brand mascots, objects anything you need can all be transformed into a style that matches your brand. This makes element creation easy and unlimited. Instant brand illustrations!

   Select a graphic in the style you want>copy style>copy art style>click on photo

   

6. Shape Effects. Poor old shapes were pretty basic on Canva, but now they have added some effects, like shadows and glows so you can bring your shapes to life and make them more dynamic in your designs.
   Select your shape>effects>choose an effect and adjust settings
   

7. Personal Brand Kits. I am yet to experiment with this one, but Canva have added brand kits within brand kits. While mostly something for teams, I can see this also being a helpful tool for making sub-brands, such as branding specific products.

Ok Substack is telling me I am using too many images, so no more pictures, I am just going to describe the new video updates.

Create Videos more Easily

The constant content cycle and feeling like you endlessly need to make video can be made a little easier thanks to Canvas video updates.

1. Captions. Canva have now added more caption styles for your videos, giving you more freedom to create captions in a way that suits your brand and message and make more interesting videos.
   
   Start with a video page>insert your video>click captions in the top menu>choose a style>choose colours>generate captions
   

2. Photo to Video. This one is really fun. You can now bring any image to life with a 5 second video, yes even images of people. This is really helpful when you need video footage, a bit of b-roll, but all you have is photos. Turn those photos into videos and now you have some footage. This can be used on both photos and illustrations, so you could even make cartoon style videos.

   
   Select image>edit>image to video>select smart to let it do it itself or custom to add your own prompt> generate 5 second video.
   

3. Generate Music. This one isn’t out yet, but I am excited about this, because it means if you need some music or a sound effect and can’t find anything just write you can generate something.
   

4. Magic Video 2.0. I will admit I was not a fan of the original magic video, as AI doesn’t always get the vision, but with new improvements, this tool can really help you make videos fast. Have a bunch of footage ready to go? Hand it over to magic video and let it do the cutting and assembling to make video creation quick and easy.
   
   Create a video document>templates(on the left panel)>magic video>upload your footage and describe what you want to create
   

5. Video Hooks. There is now a template library of video hooks with tips and guidance on using, making it easy to create short form videos that catch attention or find a starting point when you are out of ideas.
   
   Templates>Mobile Video>Video hooks

There are of course more updates, including to email, sheets and forms. I just wanted to focus right now on what will save you time as a business owner creating graphics and visual content for your business, so the updates feels a little less overwhelming and a bit more empowering to make your day easier.

I have made plenty of pivots and detours over time. Trying things like selling natural skincare, illustrating for magazines, selling handmade bags, teaching design, designing for clients, selling scrunchies and ebooks. I’ve followed a lot of interests and a big thing I have learned is the power of passion and joy for something.

There were times I was super eager and into something at the start but over time realised it wasn’t my true passion, more a side hobby interest.

If you don’t love your business it shows.

You could follow a perfect design process and create a perfect looking brand, but if you don’t love your business or have passion for what you do, it will feel soulless and people feel feel that lack of energy behind it.

It’s something so many underestimate. You passion, drive and joy for what you do affects everything. Even an imperfect looking brand will shine brighter if there is strong passion behind it.

Joy is contagious. When you put passion, and joyful energy into what you create others feel it. It draws people in and makes them feel more passionate and joyful about your brand too.

The Subconscious Sabotage of Lack of Joy

When things feel misaligned or you are burned out or simply chasing something that not longer lights you up you might not even notice it, but you’ll be sabotaging yourself.

You won’t put the same energy into your business. You’ll just tick along, make do and put out ‘good enough’. You are just keeping things ticking along but not passionately taking it to its full potential.

It can be subtle, you may think ‘but I work so hard and put so much effort in’. Unfortunately effort and hard work aren’t like passion and joy. They get work done, but the work doesn’t carry the same energy.

It shows up as work thats done, but not your best. Your best ideas aren’t coming, theres a lot of flops. People don’t feel that spark and passion from you. You don’t chase opportunities and second guess everything.

You just don’t love it, and it sabotages your success.

Tapping into the Joy

I get it, we don’t always radiate with joy about our businesses. We have off seasons, burn out and slumps. Maybe you are dealing with personal things behind the scenes, struggling with balance or just feeling a bit lost after years of doing the same thing.

This is when you need to reconnect with that joy to infuse it back into your business and reignite the passion, so it shines through all you do.

1. You don’t feel proud of your brand and it needs a facelift.
   When you are suffering from brand shame, it holds you back. You aren’t proud to share your brand, you hesitate when someone asks for your website or social handle. It leaves you stuck, because you want to grow your business but you also feel ashamed to share it.
   You may love your what you have built and what you do but a misaligned or low quality brand identity may be sucking your joy.

   When you are proud of your brand identity, you chase opportunities and you can’t wait to share your work. You feel more motivated and take your business more seriously.
   
   These quotes from my clients says it all:

   “I am so proud of my brand and website and can't wait to share it with the world.”

   “I feel so much more inspired! The blog has gotten a fresh, new start, and so have I. Now I feel much more motivated to blog, and I have started doing it again almost on a daily basis, which I haven't done for the last years. Now I really want to focus on my blogging and make a business of it!”

2. You aren’t clear on your values or have lost touch with them
   Brand values are so much more important then people give them credit for. They are the driving force behind every decision you make in your business, and literally affect everything.
   - Your choice of materials and packaging- based on your values
   - Your choice of words, tone of voice and messaging- based on your values
   - How you react and respond to things- based your values
   - How you show up, look and choice of visuals- based on your values.
   - Who you attract to your business- based on your values.
   
   If you are not clear on your values, only have fluffy meaningless values or made up some values based on what you think ‘you should’ value, you will feel stuck. Nothing will feel quite right, your business will feel off and the people you attract won’t feel right.
   
   When you truely believe in your brand values and build a brand around them, you will for more joy about your business. It will feel aligned and you will attract the people who light you up and make you all the more passionate about what you do.
   

3. You have disconnected with your why
   You forgot why you even do what you do. You got so busy in the doing, keeping up with marketing and chasing growth, that you forget what it even matters to you. It’s easy to lose sight as the years go on and you get caught up in all the busy work of it all.

   Then you find yourself lost and questioning it all. You wonder if you are even took the right path or why you made certain goals.

   It steals your joy, because your’e not even sure why you are doing it.
   
   If you feel this way its time to return to your why. Why did you start this in the first place? Why did it matter to you?
   

4. You forgot how you felt when you first started.
   The years roll by and like a long marriage, you forget those early butterflies and joy. It doesn’t mean you don’t love it or it’s not important to you, you just got so caught up in the everyday routine and lost touch with the emotion.
   

   Journal out how you felt when you first started your business. What was that spark? How did it light you up? Why did it fire you up and have you eager to work?

   Reconnecting with these feelings can help light the fire again. Think of it like taking your brand on a date. Reminisce about those early days and bring back the spark.
   

5. You need something fresh to reignite the spark. (A new platform, new product, special project or series)

   There is something powerful about newness. It gets you out of a rut and routine and reconnects you.

   I always find this reignites a lot of joy because it takes you back to ideation, creation and thinking about what you want to create and doing it in a way that feels fresh and exciting.

   It could be trying a new marketing platform, creating a new product or offer, doing a special content series, hosting an event or working on some other special project.

   It allows you to feel the excitement of something new without starting a whole new business. If breathes new life into what you already have and allows you to try new things and find new ways to achieve your mission.

   It will have a flow on effect that reignites your whole business and will inspire new takes on other aspects of your business as well.
   

6. You need to find a new path.

   If as you went through any of these, in an attempt to tap back into he joy and realised your feelings toward your brand have changed since you first started or that what was once important no longer is, or even you choose this path for the wrong reasons, it may be a sign that the lack of joy is actually a sign you have taken the wrong path.

   As I said at the start, joy is so important. If this business isn’t right for you or your current offers are draining you more then bringing you joy, it will show and it’ll only hurt your brand and hold you back.
   
   

Joy matters. People feel it and it shines through everything. So tap back into that joy and you’ll find it makes a huge difference not only to your brand and graphics but every aspect of your brand and business.

Delight and whimsy are a strategy right?

All the advice out there for designing a website is focussed so heavily on strategy. Leading to the sale, getting people on your list. But what happened to building an experience, delighting your reader and inspiring people?

Sure there are some fancy sites out there, but they are often fancy to show off their skills and portfolio or to win awards.

But where is the middle ground? Building a website that is business focussed but delights the reader along the way.

Think of Your Website like a Brick and Mortar Store

Selling online can be fun. Adding whimsy and delight to your online space creates an experience. Much like when you walk into a physical store.

Real physical shops don’t make you give over your contact details the moment you walk in. You don’t linger longer in a store that is covered in sales signs and marketing messages.

Sure plenty of stores employ strategy. They leave small items near the checkout so you buy more, they invite you to join their loyalty program and put sale items up near the front to draw you in.

But those stores you linger longer in, that you dream of going back to, that you tell all your friends about. Those stores go further then simple marketing strategy. They use thing like music, scent, window displays and decoration. They create an atmosphere and experience.

Thats what I wanted to bring to my website… an experience. To make it playful and whimsical so you linger longer and get immersed in it.

But I’m not a Developer

So I knew I wanted to add more interaction and movement. I use Webflow, and I know a bit of basic code, but adding more interaction seemed a bit over my head. Luckily we live in a tine where creatives can bring whatever they can imagine to life, because we have AI to guide us on the technicals.

So that’s exactly what I did. I designed what I wanted each page and page section to look like. And one by one I shared a section with either Claude or ChatGPT (sometimes both, as sometimes one method wouldn’t work but the other had a better solution) and explained to it what interaction or movement I wanted to create in Webflow and it gave me the instructions on how to build it out.

To me this is what AI should be used for, not to take out creative thinking, but help bring our creative thoughts to life by providing the technical skills that previously held us back. This way we can bring all our ideas to life instead of feeling stuck by our limitations.

Most interactions were build with either Webflows built in interactions or GSAP. I am a tiny bit obsessed with GSAP, its kind of amazing what you can do with it.

Bringing Creative Whimsy to my Website.

So let’s take a look at what I created and all the fun little elements I added.

1. A fun cursor. There is certainly no strategic reason to make a fun cursor, but its so cute!! For this I choose some cute retro pixel graphics related to graphic design. It instantly says ‘this site is fun, explore and play around as you scroll’

   

2. Subtle Movement on Hover. Instead of static boxes for links, I wanted them to feel more alive. I gave them subtle movement as you hover over them. It makes them feel more 3D and like real bits of paper. I also made the pen wiggle as you hover over it for a bit of fun.

   

3. Objects that move when you hover over them. This is pure surprise and delight. Your mouse hovers over an object and it wiggles or bounces. It invites exploration, you want to see what moves and text different objects on the page.

   

4. Scrolling Animations. Things that move as you scroll. Part story telling part invitation to keep scrolling. The ‘I’m Tabitha Emma’ section is about bring different aspects of who I am together in a brand and the ‘design bridge’ section is about how I have brought all my past business experiences together to better help business owners.

   

   
   

5. Floating subtle movement. This more subtle movement makes an images feel a little more alive and less flat and boring. It also gives it a feeling of gentleness and calm.

   

6. Move object around the page. I love this for the section about my templates as it invites you to make it your own. Just like the templates are a base design for you to make your own, allowing you to move the around the place gives they sense of DIY ownership. That you can reimagine the elements I give you. It also allows you to interact with the templates giving you a feel for them and a sense of working with them.

   

7. Cards scrolling on top of each other.
   For my values section, instead of a long page of values to scroll through I made it feel more like a collection of cards that scroll over each other, like going through a file flicking through each page. This feels easier to read, more playful and creative.

   

Overall I think it tells a story about my brand. It’s a place to create and be inspired, to guide you through an evolving creative process. It’s about piecing together elements and inspiration to create designs and most of all about DIY creativity. It’s not pure gimmick but whimsical story telling that invites exploration and play. And of course sparks creativity in the people I want to support in their DIY creative process.

Of course if you want to see the full site and explore for yourself, you can find my site here.