161: Canva Account Chaos? No More: Tips to Get Organized
Is your Canva account a hot mess? If so, you’re in good company!
In this episode, I chat with Brenda Cadman, a Canva expert with a ton of know-how in helping small business owners organize their Canva accounts into effective organizational systems to streamline your workflow.
We also touch upon the latest Canva features such as Magic Expand and Magic Grab that utilize AI technology to enhance your design capabilities. And Brenda doesn’t want us to overlook the foundational Canva features like the brand kit, which are essential for creating consistently on-brand marketing materials.
Brenda's got a free gift for her Canva organization roadmap, that you’ll definitely want to check out. So, grab your earbuds and get ready to level up your Canva game!
Note: This episode contains affiliate links which means I may get a commission if you try them and purchase. However, none of the fees have been increased to compensate me and I only promote products that I love and believe in.
Mentioned In This Episode:
Get Your Canva in Order: Chatting with Brenda Cadman on Taming Canva Chaos
In a world where visual content reigns supreme, Canva has emerged as a game-changing tool for creators and small business owners. However, with the ever-growing number of designs, images, and projects, organizing one's Canva account can become a daunting task. In the latest episode of the Creator's MBA Podcast, Dr. Destini Copp sits down with Brenda Cadman, a Canva verified expert, to explore the art of taming the hot mess that Canva accounts often become. Brenda, with her decades of entrepreneurial experience and expertise in Canva education, shares valuable insights on how to optimize Canva for greater efficiency and creativity.
The Canva Conundrum
For many, a Canva account can quickly spiral into a hot mess of unorganized designs and images. With constant creation and iterations, the clutter can become overwhelming. Dr. Destini and Brenda chat about the common challenges faced by Canva users, including the proliferation of designs, the lack of organization, and the sheer magnitude of content that needs to be managed effectively.
Taming the Hot Mess
Brenda emphasizes the importance of creating an organizational system within Canva to ensure that users spend less time stressing over disarray and more time being creative. She shares her insights on the necessity of establishing a filing system and developing organizational habits from the outset. Brenda's advice on creating folders right from the beginning and ensuring that projects are named and categorized aligns perfectly with her goal of simplifying Canva navigation and usage for small business owners.
Navigating the Canva Essentials
As the conversation unfolds, Brenda delves into the fundamental aspects of Canva usage. She sheds light on the importance of focusing on the basic navigation, customizing templates, and utilizing the brand kit. Her advice to new Canva users emphasizes the need to resist getting overwhelmed by the plethora of features and focus on developing a strong foundation in using the platform efficiently.
The Power of AI in Canva
The evolution of Canva is evident in its integration of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance user experiences. Brenda discusses various AI-powered features, such as Magic Expand, Magic Grab, and Magic Replace, and highlights how these tools can significantly support creative endeavors. While embracing these innovative capabilities, Brenda also stresses the importance of utilizing such features to bolster the creative process, align with brand aesthetics, and promote efficiency.
The Path to Effective Canva Usage
In her parting tips, Brenda emphasizes the significance of not overlooking the foundational features of Canva in favor of the flashy elements. She encourages users to dive into the brand kit and focus on essential organizational elements to harness the true potential of Canva. Her emphasis on being intentional, efficient, and brand-consistent in using the platform serves as a guiding principle for creators and small business owners looking to elevate their visual content.
Conclusion
The Creator's MBA Podcast episode featuring Brenda Cadman sheds light on the art of transforming Canva chaos into organizational excellence. Small business owners, entrepreneurs, and creators seeking to maximize their Canva usage can glean valuable insights and actionable strategies from Brenda's expertise. As the visual content landscape continues to evolve, Brenda's wisdom and practical advice provide a roadmap for navigating the complexities of Canva while fostering a structured, efficient, and creative approach to design.
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Transcript:
Dr. Destini Copp [00:00:02]:
Hey there. I am super excited to chat with you today and I have a special guest and I will tell you that, a little bit, the reason why I brought her on is because I need help in this area too. So I am super added to have this conversation. I know you're gonna get a ton of value from this conversation. Today, I have Brenda Cadman with me. Brenda has taught thousands of small business owners through her courses and in particular, she loves to help them tame their hot mess chem accounts by creating an organizational system that ensures they can spend less time in Canva and more time doing what they love. And I would say that describes my Canva account perfectly. It is.
Brenda Cadman [00:00:47]:
A lot of Canva accounts.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:00:50]:
I've had my Canva account since, I don't know, 2017, 2016 I don't even remember to be quite honest with you, and it is a hot mess, and I have thousands and thousands and thousands of designs in there. And quite frankly, it does need to be organized. So we're gonna definitely chat about that, but, Brenda, before we get into all the questions I have for you today. Can you tell the good audience just a little bit more about you and how you help people?
Brenda Cadman [00:01:17]:
A Sure. Well, as you mentioned, I am a Canva verified expert. I actually ran a website development company for, a Gosh. I guess it was 22 years. I've been an entrepreneur for over 24 years. I retired that website development company in 2020 a choose September 2022 because I did want to focus all of my time on creating Canva education and content and, helping especially with the organization piece of it. And as much as I'd like to be able to do everything, I can't run a web agency a and do this, so I made a choice, and I have not looked back.
Brenda Cadman [00:02:02]:
It it is hard. And, you know, it it's possible a If you have a lot of support, and I wanted to keep things simple and really follow my heart. And it was a decision that I had been a I've been contemplating and trying to execute on for a couple of years and finally just, you know, pulled the plug on the whole thing and said, I'm done. I'm gonna hand off these wonderful clients to somebody that I know will take very good care of them, probably better care of them than I could have. And I'm gonna go do this thing that is calling to me, and that was, like a Like I said, September 2022, and I have absolutely loved being able to full you know, fully throw myself into the Canva education space in the meantime and now being able to put a lot of the time into the digital organization site side of it as well.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:02:50]:
A well, I will say that Canva is one of my favorite software tools out there. I think it is so easy to use, so easy to learn even if you're a complete beginner and you don't consider yourself a graphic designer, which I'm not by the way. I'm I'm a marketing expert, but I have no graphic design skills, but it it really, you know, in terms of tools out there, I really do think it's one of the must have tools that all all small business owners like us, like everybody who's listening or watching this, particular video or listening to this podcast, I really think it's a tool that we all need to have. And I know that there's people listening here, maybe they've been using Canva for years or maybe they're just getting started. So we're gonna kinda weave in some different type of questions here. But for those who are just dipping their toes into this tool, learning more about it. How would you suggest that they get started?
Brenda Cadman [00:03:51]:
It can be really easy to get overwhelmed because there are so many features, a And that's one of the great things about Canva is they are constantly iterating. They're constantly refining features, adding new features, a lot of AI kinds of options available now. A Canva's magic studio is certainly something they've put a lot of time and energy into promoting, but I think it's really important not to lose sight of just getting a Comfortable with the fundamentals, you know, being able to understand basic navigation and how to create some of the the a foundational pieces marketing pieces in your business. So if you are starting using Canva because you want to create, you know, a a checklist a or a guide or something you're going to use as a lead magnet for your business. Just focus on being able to create that. Focus on learning how to find a template, a How to set up your brand kit and customize that template and how to download it so you can share it with your audience. And, yes, later on, you can learn all these neat a apps and features and, you know, magic expand and background remover and all these various things that will definitely come in handy at some point, but I think a Not getting overwhelmed by all the bells and whistles is one of the things I would really caution watching out for because it's very easy to get sucked into that rabbit hole.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:05:04]:
And I do wanna circle back on that. So don't let me forget. I do wanna hear some of those new and snazzy features because quite frankly, I don't even know that I've paid much attention to them myself. But a let's say somebody's just getting started. They're doing everything that you're saying. What can they do initially in terms of organization in Canva so that their account doesn't turn into a hot mess like it is right now.
Brenda Cadman [00:05:28]:
Well, I think getting familiar with the projects a Area right from the get go is important. And when you're starting using Canva, it's you know, you might feel very it a Might feel very manageable to just create your designs to be able to scroll and find what you're looking for if you only have a handful of them to look through. But a When you do start using it on a regular basis, you you are gonna find those designs and images start to pile up very, very quickly. And scrolling and searching to find a Something you created 3 months ago, 6 months ago is suddenly going to be causing a lot of frustration. It's gonna eat up a lot of time. So I do a Highly recommend creating folders right from the get go. You will change your folders over time. It's hard to know what system's gonna work for you in terms of creating kind of a Canva filing system, or I like to call it a Canva filing cabinet.
Brenda Cadman [00:06:16]:
Until you know what you're gonna be creating and needing to organize, but create a Some sort of structure from the beginning, even if it's just a few folders so that it doesn't get wildly out of control. That's really gonna kinda not only a help you stay on top of things from the beginning, but it's gonna start creating those organizational habits and start getting you into the routine of once you create something, moving it into a a folder and just those sorts of behaviors that are far more difficult to establish later on once you've gotten really used to just creating content on the fly. So I like to encourage creating folders right from the beginning and make sure that you are, you know, naming things right from the beginning. Don't leave it named as a copy of template x y z. If you copy something thinking you're gonna use it and then you don't end up using it, delete it before you forget a why that's there, and then you end up just leaving all of these extra clutter bits around because you you don't remember what they were for, and you don't wanna accidentally delete something that you didn't mean to. A So staying on top of it right from the beginning is going to be, really beneficial in the long term.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:07:17]:
So I do have a lot of those copy of x y z templates in my account, so I'm definitely guilty of that. And I I just I don't know this off the top of my head. I'm sure you do. Can people create project folders in the free version of Canva, or do they need the paid version?
Brenda Cadman [00:07:33]:
You can create it in the free version. Once upon a time, not that long ago, but it's been a while now, you were only able to create 2 custom folders on a free plan, whereas you could have unlimited on the pro plan. That was one of the big reasons to upgrade to pro. I mean, there's a lot of reasons to upgrade to pro, a But that was one of the foundational reasons that I used to emphasize. But some time ago, they did remove that limitation, and now you can have unlimited folders on both the free a Subscription and the pro subscription. You can nest folders 10 levels deep on both. There are some differences in terms of organizational capabilities between the two plans. For a For example, you know, storage capacity, you're only going to have 5 gigabytes on a free plan, whereas you'll have a terabyte of storage space on a pro plan.
Brenda Cadman [00:08:14]:
And there's some limitations around the number of items you can have in folders and things like that. But just down to the actual number of folders that you can create, there is no difference between the plans.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:08:24]:
So what would you say to somebody like me that has this huge hot mess of a Canva account? And, I really don't even know where to a start where where my resources would be best used to start organization. I I meant to go in to kinda see how many designs I have. I know it's I've I've gotten those, you know, kind of those badges or whatever from Canva. I a Yes.
Brenda Cadman [00:08:48]:
A lot. You have created 2,000 designs. Yeah.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:08:51]:
It is. It was a lot more than that. It was
Brenda Cadman [00:08:53]:
more than that. Yeah. It was
Dr. Destini Copp [00:08:54]:
a lot more now. So there's a lot of them in there. So what would you suggest to somebody like me who has this monster, quite frankly, on their hands, and a I'm trying to figure out what to do with it.
Brenda Cadman [00:09:04]:
Sure. Sure. And there's a couple of questions that I would throw back that are going to help dictate a The steps to take. 1st would be, do you have the bandwidth to do this? A Do you have the bandwidth to actually organize this? Do you want to go through and create a system and move everything to the folders? A Because if you if you wanna take care of it, great. We're gonna figure out what that path looks like. If you don't, if the, if you the reason you're not organized, there's a lot of people the reason they're not organized despite a wanting to be is every time they look at their account, they just have this sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach, and and the idea of dealing with it is just too much. A So for those folks, I think what can be helpful is to just, you know, lump select everything, move it into a folder called, you know, a Future problem or, you know, maybe lump it into years or something big chunks so that you can start fresh. A Because if you don't have the bandwidth to actually go through and put some sort of filing system order to the files that you have already, a Let's at least get you started moving forward, and then maybe you can chip away at that backlog over time.
Brenda Cadman [00:10:18]:
If you do want to actually tackle this, the next question would be, are you gonna be the one to do it, or do you have a team member that you could, a you know, pass this off to or do you want somebody else to do it for you? I occasionally will do this where there's, you know, particularly with teams, but a Sometimes solo entrepreneurs as well who they're just like, I I can't find anything. Could you please take care of this? Hand it back to me in order, and I'll take it from there. But a lot of folks wanna do it themselves. So it it's just a matter of getting a a realistic assessment of what you want to do at this point. A And then if you do wanna put the effort in, you need to start carving some time out. Maybe it's a couple of days to tackle this. Maybe it is smaller periods of time over a longer, a Calendar portion. So really understanding what you're capable of doing without tearing your hair out is gonna be really important.
Brenda Cadman [00:11:14]:
And then from there, you can start going through and doing an initial purge of the things you know the files you know that do not need to be there and you don't need to archive.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:11:24]:
So let me ask you this. Let's say we I you know, somebody has some sort of a naming system, right, on their on their, you know, whatever they've created in Canva. Is there a way to go in and, like, bulk select and put those particular images in a a folder. Would that be a faster way to kinda go through and organize it? So
Brenda Cadman [00:11:44]:
you can go through and, a You know, click and drag and select multiple files or click multiple files and then bulk move them. A But you can't yet, and this is one of those little features that I really hope gets refined in the not too distant future because folks do ask about this. A The the sake, if I search on a term, can I do organization on those search results? For example, if I wanted to find everything that had a particular a Client name in it or a particular, styled stock prefix to it that I can grab them all in 1 chunk. Unfortunately, those organizational capabilities in Canva don't yet extend to that results page, but that is something I'm hoping that they will, a Yeah. Modify in the not too distant future because that would make my life a little bit easier as well.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:12:32]:
But you can do it based on the how you've named the images. Right? A Is that what I'm hearing?
Brenda Cadman [00:12:38]:
You can based on if you are reviewing it and you're actually looking at it and you are pinpointing by looking at it that the names you know, okay. A That one's a style stock, and you can select multiple items. You don't have to move them 1 at a time. But if you wanted to search on it by name and then a Bulk organized the search results that you can't do yet.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:12:58]:
Okay. So that brings me to my next question is, what tips a few have for naming our designs because I think that seems to be a critical thing that we need to focus on, right, initially, or or going forward if we haven't been doing that.
Brenda Cadman [00:13:11]:
A Well and I mentioned earlier, you know, getting rid of those copy of, those kinds of things because that's just not gonna tell you anything about it. It really comes down to being, a focusing on having keywords in it so that you can find them when you search on them, but also just being descriptive. A If you have it it's very easy to have a a suite of images in Canva that a on the outside, those thumbnails, they all pretty much look identical. And if you have not distinguished them in the names so that you can easily know, oh, that one's my Instagram post. This a This one's the presentation. This one's the the one that I'm gonna put, on LinkedIn. You're gonna end up spending a lot of time opening things up a and having to assess each time which one it is. So if you make a point of just being really descriptive in the name from the outside, a That's gonna save you a lot of time.
Brenda Cadman [00:14:04]:
It does require a little more effort up front to remember to take that step of naming it. A Again, it's just about establishing those habits. So if you are copying let's say you're copying a template, name it right away. If you're then duplicating something that you've created because you're gonna resize it a to another social media dimension, rename it at the time that you do it because it's so easy for that to slip away from you really quickly.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:14:28]:
So I'm gonna change gears on you a little bit. We're gonna move from organization and you mentioned it a little bit earlier, so I wanna circle back to that. And I know that, they're constantly innovating. They're constantly coming up with new ways to make our life easier. They're integrating AI into it. Yeah. What what are some of the, latest new features that you absolutely love that we may not be using today that we should, you know, dig into.
Brenda Cadman [00:14:59]:
Well, I would say so everything in the AI side of things is kind of where the excitement has been, a and where Canva has been, you know, adding a lot of different features. Their background remover that has been around for quite some time, it is now considered part of that a Magic suite of of features. But that certainly while it's an old an oldie, it's still a goodie, and that is probably one of the a The AI features that I still use the most, but there are new options available. For example, there's one called Magic Expand, and that can be very helpful a If you are let's say you have an image that you want to use you're using on an Instagram, feed a Image, and you want to stretch it to work for, an Instagram story. We're going from 2 different you know, slightly different dimensions. A And while you can stretch and crop an image to a different dimension, sometimes it just doesn't work, and you kinda wish that, a I wish it was a little taller here or there's a little more below it. With Magic Expand, it's gonna use AI to basically fill in the gaps and a Give you options of what that image could look like if it was actually a taller version, for example. Now a As you'll see across a lot of AI features, sometimes the results it gives you are spectacular.
Brenda Cadman [00:16:18]:
Sometimes they're kinda weird. A They're a little bit wonky, and they they you know, especially anything involving people and hands and and that you can get some pretty creepy results. A But I have also seen some really remarkable options come back. And it's nice to have that flexibility to for AI to fill in some of the information that you kinda wish was there but wasn't. They also have one called magic, grab that you can actually remove the text out of an image. A so if you needed to change what it said or just remove the text altogether from a photo, you can often do that now. A There's magic replace, magic edit. There's all these different kinds of photo editing options that allow you to tweak your content to be able to, you know, achieved what you what you would like your final product to look like.
Brenda Cadman [00:17:07]:
But I do think it's important. Use these a Features to support what you're creating. Don't use them for the sake of using them. I think you always form always needs to follow function. Let's a Choose the features that are actually gonna support what you're trying to create as opposed to just making them flashy.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:17:26]:
Well, you mentioned several there that I wasn't even familiar with. So I'm definitely gonna gonna check those out.
So any last minute tips us here today, Brenda, for the audience.
Brenda Cadman [00:17:40]:
WE talked about organization, and it's not one of the sexier pieces of Canva, but I think it's really foundational a Especially if you're using this as something to support the creation of marketing and course materials and client materials for a business. A So don't overlook some of these found out foundational features that they may not be the fancy flashy bits that attract our attention, but they are really important a for being able to use this tool in a a very intentional, efficient, you know, time conscious sort of way.
Brenda Cadman [00:18:13]:
Along the same lines, something like the brand kit is going to be another one of those features that if you don't have that set up, yours you're wasting too much time a Tracking down your brand assets, and you're also probably not creating consistently on brand a Imagery and and marketing for your business, and that's a really critical piece if you're gonna be using this to support your marketing. So make sure we don't overlook those a really foundational things, in lieu of fancy, flashy bells and whistles.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:18:42]:
Well, those are some great tips, it, Brenda. Thank you so much for joining us today. I wanna let the audience know where they can find you so you can you, kinda give us a rundown on that, and I believe you have a free gift for them also.
Brenda Cadman [00:18:55]:
Sure. Everything I have to offer free and otherwise is at brendacadman.com. I am on social in a few places, admittedly neglected to a degree that I'm not, super proud of, But, hopefully, that will change in 2024. And then as far as a free gift, I do have a you know, if organization is something that you want to tackle for your own Canva account. I have the Canva organization road map. It's gonna walk you through kind of a simple framework of steps that you can take a If you're trying to figure out how do I actually tackle this clutter and create something that's a little bit easier to navigate in the future.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:19:31]:
A and we'll make sure all of those links are below in this either podcast episode or the video if you're watching the video. So you can connect with Brenda either on Instagram, go to her website, download her free gift. And, Brenda, thank you so much for joining me. I love chatting with you about Canva, one of my favorite tools out there.
Brenda Cadman [00:19:49]:
Wonderful. Thanks for having me.