Canva or Graphic designer? Decide for yourself.
I feel the need to address a pretty colossal elephant in the room. This feeling is something that has been eating away at me for a few years now and has become so in your face that I can no longer ignore it.
I am tired of people reducing my industry to what feels like a two-week short course. With the social distancing, working from home, and the self-isolation that is gripping our culture, I am seeing an influx of posts on social media with people asking what they can do to fill in all their spare time or what they can do to cover their loss of income. When you read through, the replies are littered with suggestions for learning Graphic Design on youtube or Digital Design on platforms such as Udemy or LinkedIn Learning.
I understand that humans are inherently creative, and I am impressed by people wanting to learn how to use platforms such as Canva and Squarespace to fill the gap in their marketing or social media needs. It's great that people are feeling empowered and that they want to learn; it's not the fact that people are educating themselves that bothers me. What I do take issue with is the claims that you can become a Graphic Designer by using templated platforms or that you can complete a short course in four weeks and bam, instant Graphic Designer. This sentiment reduces my fourteen years of experience to my neighbour having Photoshop, so I'll get them to do it for me for free.
I have a love-hate relationship with Canva; it is remarkably easy to use with beautifully designed templates and empowers people to realise their ideas. But it also gives people the impression that "creating pretty graphics is easy; all I have to do is update this template and voilà". What they don't see is the hours of design thinking and creation that go into the initial template they're adapting with their images – created by, you guessed it, an actual Graphic Designer! I love that it empowers small business owners that are just starting their new venture with the tools to create beautiful graphics for marketing their business. But it also creates a market saturated with objectionable stock imagery and logos that look almost identical – that's templated design for you.
Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting through a presentation for small businesses and the resources that are there to help them chase success. It was a brilliant presentation filled with so many helpful tips. I enjoyed it right until the presenter explained they ran a workshop that taught small business owners how to use Canva because design services are so expensive. I patiently sat through the rest of the presentation – another 20 minutes – feeling the eyes of my fellow participants boring into the side of my head. Once it came time for questions, I raised my hand and introduced myself "Hi, I'm Lauren, and I am a Graphic and Digital Designer". At that moment, the presenter was reduced to an apologetic mess, realising that she had reduced my industry, business and job to unnecessary costs. I'm not going to lie; a little part of me rejoiced in her uncomfortable, stammered apology.
For years I have been faced with having to justify my existence in workplaces, being hired to create designs, and then having managers with half a sniff of Photoshop experience opening files and changing things without considering the design consequences. Contrary to popular belief that designers "just make shit look good", there are reasons behind why we place elements at certain levels or use specific fonts or colours for logos. A lot of strategy and even psychology goes into what we as designers create. Think about it; we have to consider how you, the users, are going to respond and click through a website or how a particular colour choice will make you feel. Design influences behaviour. Universities across the United States are now offering courses in Design Psychology. Here in Australia, the Queensland University of Technology has a unit on Design Psychology for Interior designers focusing on how people react to the environment around them. I would challenge that these principles also relate to human behaviours online, such as clicking buttons for specific outcomes. Or the influence that design has over making a final purchase, people are aesthetically driven, and if something looks expensive, there's an impulse to buy.
I am all for this new wave of information sharing; people want to learn from the professionals and the people on the ground every day, which is amazing. What I would like people to stop doing is to stop marketing these masterclasses as "become a Graphic Designer in four weeks." Or telling people to use their time in isolation wisely by watching youtube tutorials to enter a new career as a Digital Designer. It gives people false hope that they come out the other end as qualified professionals. Empower people to create graphics in Canva but also consider that the uniqueness of your design is severely limited by the template you choose.
I also want you to consider the ripple effect it has on the thousands of talented designers out there who are now scrounging for work because people deem design costs unimportant. The number of freelance designers I see crying out over cancelled contracts and clients pulling their retainers is staggering. Their livelihood is tenuous at best, and you encouraging your mate to learn graphic design in a couple of weeks is a slap in the face of an industry that prides itself on its creativity and strategy. You're not paying for the designer as a tool to complete your idea; you're paying for their approach and their use of psychology to engage your market better. You're paying for all the years of study, blood, sweat, tears, and self-improvement. While everyone is getting behind small businesses, get behind the Designers that make the world a colourful place.