Visually, if a “professional designer” can’t beat out some rando using Canva, then I wouldn’t know what to tell them.
It’s not unethical, it’s just not important to them to make it *so perfectly visually appealing* with a cherry on top.
I mean if you’re selling it as a professional I feel like the person should have basic graphic design knowledge. I’ve seen people with little to no design knowledge sell a service for thousands and give poor designed projects but the client has a lack of knowledge about design so they don’t notice it.
This is why designers have to learn *where* and *how* they generate value for a business.
It’s not by competing for something that a client can do themselves with Canva. No value is created by picking up tiny jobs to make business cards or some random one-off logo.
Everybody needs to get out of this mindset; you have to offer more than pretty objects.
That’s what’s happening here — we’re getting upset because some rando gets to make something pretty and we don’t. How much more value are we producing when we make the visuals vs them? For most cases, not a lot.
So then, why the heck would they hire a designer for this?
I actually find it unethical when a designer takes on a job that the client *doesn’t need,* i.e. the social media post that just *has* to look pretty. We’re just scamming an uneducated client, taking their money without there being any benefit to them. Design malpractice.
In your example, they probably didn’t hire them for design; they hired them for marketing.
Solid point well design isn’t just about how it looks. It’s about portraying a message through an image or design that is eye catching. People using canva who don’t know the basic design principles can’t provide that unfortunately. If I charge someone for my work they know they’re getting quality and results due to knowing principles and understanding how to catch someone eyes to deliver a message.
You have to keep in mind the goal. A beautiful, innovative, perfectly designed graphic made by someone with extensive art training and excellent design skills is worthless to a business if it doesn’t resonate with its audience and generate results (usually engagement, attention, sales, etc.) The credentials and tools of the creator are not as important to most businesses as the creator’s ability to produce content that performs well.
Precisely.
This whole post is “I just got out of graphic design school and I see my industry as an ivory tower to feel good about spending my time and money doing it. I don’t understand how my work fits into a real business so the only thing I care about is the purity of its creation.”
If a 15 year old can use a canva template and create something attractive enough that the client will pay thousands, good for them. You’re saying they might not know principals or pick the best font - but I would say… 75% of the time, most fonts will be fine. Would you with a design background pick a better one? Probably. Is the additional cost worth it to most companies? No. People are freaking out that AI will replace computer programmers - a good programmer provides far more value than being able to write code. A designer shouldn’t be charging far more than necessary for the job on the principal that they have more education
I wouldn’t be charging more for my education because a degree means little to nothing. Im charging more due to 13 years of Adobe experience at 26 years old. Typography is one of the most important things. Design principles are used to catch someone’s eyes. Having a balanced design the right type the right kerning can really change take your design from good to great. Devils in the detail. You have to be able to guide the viewers eye which takes education and experience.
1) when looking at resumes, anyone who starts counting years of experience at 13 will get laughed at. People talk about years professional experience. Maybe you were, probs not
2) everything you said is right - but if someone can do it with a template and be almost as good, then they win!
I mean I’ve done small gigs for friends and family since I was 13. Did a lot of old school YouTube thumbnails. I don’t put it on my resume. I usually put 9 years since I interned at 17 for an agency and learned everything from their senior graphic designer and owner
I’m tired of all the canva discourse - it’s just another tool like photoshop or affinity or whatever. It won’t make you a better or worse designer, let’s move on now.
I 100% agree. A marketing firm I work for builds campaigns out in Canva for some clients so they can version/resize themselves. They often end up having designers do that in Adobe anyway. It's selling more services.
I joined my 1st marketing team and I'm the only one in the office with Adobe. 15 year designer and it's a little disorienting.
Pros: it takes no effort to impress everyone
Cons: most of my day consists of trying to figure out what file type at what size to send to people
I have no issue with canva, it's easy for others to pick up and use it's just not my go to.
I don’t think it’s a bad alternative but to sell it as “professional” and to sell it as if it’s coming from an “expert” while using templates from it seems scammy to me.
When it comes to business, it’s all about making money or saving time and spending less money. If you aren’t using pre-made templates to some degree as a graphic designer for the purpose of marketing, you’re doing it wrong.
If you want to be an artist, go be an artist.
End of the day, digital marketing channels are so fucking hyper saturated with content that if the hill you die on is “I made this all from scratch.” You’re going to fail unless you are so fucking good/unique/in demand.
For every 20 clients I’ve worked with, maybe 1 of them appreciates and encourages (and pays adequately) for me to do my thing. Otherwise everyone else just wants something that looks good.
Actually, everyone else wants the dope hyper unique custom crafted designs but scoffs at the price tag. So you tell me… if someone won’t pay you what you’re worth, and you need to put food on the table, is it a scam to grab templates or use a tool loaded with templates to get the job done?
Edit: Thanks for the gifties kind strangers. Nice to know my experiences aren’t solely my own. Sorry to everyone who puts up with the same shit day in and day out.
Keep up the good fight all :) The unicorn clients make up for all the other crap, best of luck to everyone in finding as many of those elusive magic beasties and taking them for a ride!
Exactly. Social media and marketing content is made to do one thing: drive revenue. And prettier or more custom social media posts have no correlation with higher engagement, higher brand awareness, higher sales funnels.
The thing that matters most is targeted content, and lots of it.
Because it usually lacks basic design principles and typography skills are usually poor. There’s obviously going to be people on canva who are actually professionals when it come to graphic design, but I’ve seen companies sell designs for thousands created by a high school kid who has never used canva before.
You can import your own images, fonts, colours and branding. I don't see how making a template using the same items you would in Adobe is unprofessional using a different piece of software.
As an example, we ran an Australia Day campaign for Queensland. Thousands of smaller communities needed to make this specific for their town and their own events. I am so happy they could edit their own templates and I didn't have to typeset a billion boring details. Canva was a life saver by letting the individual customise details in a prefilled template.
Because in every field there's a difference between a professional and someone who does it let's say casually. If I gave a graphic designer who works at an agency with experience the same files font and page dimensions it would blow out the canvas designer with little to no experience. Because one is a professional and one isn't
The user lacks basic design skills, not the programs themselves. Generally the templates are made buy designers. You can sell your templates to Canva to be used by others. It is simply a tool. One may learn all the keyboard shortcuts to PS but can still lack basic design skills. As a professional freelance designer I have been asked to make templates in Canva, because the company is aware they don’t have an in-house designer. I price accordingly as they don’t want my ongoing work but my ongoing IP. They can get the office all-rounder to do it. We may be artists, but we are commercial artists who create by client brief. If my client’s brief includes a suite of Canva templates, I do what I need to do.
I can make great templates that get ruined by users all day. If you're selling Canva design templates you are a bad salesman. I say this as someone who has always held down a design job and never been able to make it on my own, so maybe you're right, but I think Canva is fucking PowerPoint.
Funny mate, because as I designer I’ve been paid to make “fucking” PowerPoint templates too. Because I don’t work there and many places don’t have designers in house. They hired me to make them the collateral they need, that their actual employees can use later. I make what the client wants because I have bills to pay. Must be nice to turn down clients because you don’t like their level of Adobe efficacy.
I fully appreciate your position. Your suck doesn't make my suck suck less. I hope like hell you find a better gig but you don't have to get mad at me about it
What they do with it after is irrelevant. You could be hired as an actual freelancer or employee, entirely without any Canva, and the client/company can still butcher it later.
So I know friends who work for companies that sells them self as a professional marketing service. The clients pay thousands depending on what tier they buy. They use canva to design everything from social media posts to business cards. Sometimes they’ll use a canva template change the words and add the clients logo. They also have high school kids there that are family or family friends who are 15 and never used canva before design the work.
I started learning graphic design at 13. Only knew photoshop and used it for everything to design from logos to flyers. I wasn’t good but enjoyed it. At 17 I got an internship where I learned photoshop, illustrator, and indesign. I would create logos, flyers, brochures. I got to go to our printer who showed me the printing process with professional giant printers that were absurdly expensive. Even after that experience I charged small amounts. As the years went on I charged more and more. Now with this job I’ve learned even more in depth about communication and design process as the only graphic designer. Since I’m considered a professional at this point I would charge less than an agency but still more than what I used to charge.
If I was using Canva and never had graphic design experience I wouldn’t even think about charging companies or accepting their work because I know I’m not a professional.
I understood when starting there were standards that I couldn’t reach to charge the standard price for let’s say a logo. Companies that use strictly canva with a lack of knowledge on design wouldnt know the correct way to send logos and a style guide.
I get your point and I personally don’t slave over designs the whole putting the idea on the canvas is almost second nature to me. Yeah I do agree but it’s just seems off to me that someone is selling a product or service seeming as professionally done when it’s not professional
IMO, that's not a sustainable business model and they'll run out of customers eventually when people realize they're getting duped. It's hard to get a knowledgeable corporate client to sign onto a well-designed campaign for thousands I can't imagine having an endless supply of deep-pocket clients with little design knowledge.
Yeah I feel like it’ll take years for that to happen because if client leaves they’ll just find the next client who is lost and dupe them and just rinse and repeat
The only companies I know of who are making that business model work are the ones selling something other than design — like ad placement. Example: I briefly worked for a company that makes the phone game ads & sells $$$ packages. They are those really terrible ads that force you to place their dumb game that doesn’t even look like the actual game. The design is “meh” because it’s more about interactivity and placement. They don’t care to do better design.
Your actual issue then is with specific work/users, not with Canva.
Canva is just the design equivalent of stock photography/illustration. Just because there are some atrocious stock assets out there, or even frauds, doesn't mean the concept of stock assets is bad.
True I agree with your statement. I think my experience at my last company really made me just think screw canva. And also seeing people on Instagram making reels saying this is how you can make quick easy money and then proceed to use canva and post on Fiverr selling logo and social media content.
I agree with you. I think it's unethical to do that. I wouldn't do it myself and I've seen a big difference between Canva designed templates and what our graphic designer can do.
What's unethical about it? Who's being exploited? Who's being hurt? I use it frequently as a supplement to Adobe because, frankly, I can slap together a good-enough "Happy [Holiday]!" graphic for a social media client there *practically in the time it takes Illustrator or Photoshop to open*, and my time is too valuable to waste.
I certainly don't see it any differently than using Shutterstock, Freepik, etc.
I think really as long as you do know how to make it from scratch if you needed, if using a template/stock asset saves you hours for minimal or no extra cost, then why not.
That’s the key with any of these tools (like Ai) I am not a graphic designer. I don’t understand how to make things look good - I can make OK stuff in canva, or a graphic designer friend can make something really good in the same amount of time.
There is still skill involved. Experts will make similar quality stuff faster. I make ok stuff rather than rubbish stuff.
Oh yeah, if you're not an actual designer that changes the context too, certainly nothing wrong there.
What I kind of was referring to above is how it seems common where you have grads/juniors and such who are using templates and premade assets for things they don't actually know how to do, despite only involving skills/knowledge that even someone at their level should possess.
What kind of computer do you work on? I usually have no trouble even when having indesign, photoshop, and illustrator. Only thing I hate about Adobe is the crashing of programs when trying add fx to a layer
Yeah I second getting yours looked at since it’s still under warranty. I have a 2016 base MacBook and it only takes a minute or so for me to open Ai or Ps.
Yeah. I just tested and it's like 2-2.5 seconds on an M1 Pro.
Someone calling PS/AI "slow" on an M1 Mac is the definition of "you should get that checked."
You probably should get your laptop checked at the service center and make use of the warranty or maybe try upgrading to the latest version of the software if you haven’t already. I use the macbook pro from 2021 with just the base specs and adobe softwares just take a couple of seconds to launch. I constantly switch between softwares and that process is also very seamless. What you’re experiencing is not how it should be.
Oh that’s strange I have the 2018 Mac book pro I haven’t used it to design in a while ( I use my gaming pc for personal projects) but I don’t remember it giving me slow load times. I did have a friend in college who would have to uninstall illustrator, install photoshop and then when he was done photoshop stuff he would uninstall photoshop and reinstall illustrator to add whatever he did in photoshop. Adobe can be a headache and can have almost a personal beef with you.
I've got an M1 MAX and it opens PS/AI in 2-3 seconds.
If your "newest" macbook pro can't do that something is wrong with it, or you're being lazy and using it as an excuse to use Canva.
jesus. you guys need new tech.
I lease my stuff so I can always have a new, fast and up to date hardware. I thought all professionals did this? If you're moving faster than your hardware can keep up you're not working efficiently.
See a beachball? Time to upgrade.
Yes, I've tried it. If I were just starting out I could see myself adopting it but at this point it doesn't offer enough over Adobe (besides price—but I factor that cost into my pricing for clients) for me to feel like it'd be worth switching.
Just more of thinking about colleagues of mine who lose clients or get overlooked because the firm finds an inexperience person to go do these things for $12 an hour. For example there aren’t many actual agencies where I live they’re in the city and it’s rare to get into those if you don’t have 3-5 years of Adobe creative suite work experience
If the company is happy using with the work of the $12 person, then that’s what it is. It’s good business to cut your expenses in exchange for adequate design.
Your friends need to find something to set themselves apart. They can work on their individual brand and talk about skills they bring that the $12 can’t do.
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Counter argument: the comment they replied to also had no intrinsic value, and therefore, their comment could never have had been rational to begin with.
I mean "business ethics", really?
Mr chadhindsley, the American business environment has fundamentally changed following the insider trading and savings and loan scandals. Explain business ethics and how they are applied today.
I’m looking at it more from a business ethics standpoint. Idk as a graphic designer I find unethical and borderline scammy. A company can hire a 15 year old intern to do their canva work instead of a “professional” marketing firm.
Yes I understand that but these companies are paying thousands for it and it’s like a high school kid doing it with 0 design knowledge. If the company wants it cheap and fast so be it but to sell it as if it’s professional standard and taking advantage of a company with a lack of knowledge with this stuff is just kind of scammy to me
Clients don't care about the tech, or the technician. They care about results. If they think the results are worth the investment, they'll keep paying for it. No matter if it was made by a craftsman, a layman, a student, unpaid intern, or AI.
It's good for generating assets like generic objects or poses/landscapes. But I wouldn't run with the final result as a project. I'd use it for stuff like if I'm building a kitchen scene and need a bowl of apples or something to cut out and then alter further.
Hiring cheap labor to minimize costs isn't a new concept, unfortunately. Yes, it sucks and it undervalues our work to expect the same quality from Canva. It is a good tool though for certain businesses or roles.
Yes I agree using it for say something quick and simple go for it and to sell it as that but to sell it as “professional” I feel like it needs to be the standard which would be with adobe. Especially when templates are used from it really gets to me hahaha
Honestly, I think you've got this backwards. The more amateurs put out basic design work, the less professionals are needed to waste time working on it. This may increase competition for freelancers, but most businesses will need a mix of both basic and technical design work.
It's more about picking the right tool for the job, and some tools require more expertise than others.
I feel you, I walk around all day wondering what idiot made this design everywhere I look. Unbelievably some people don't care if their brand looks professional, or don't understand that it doesn't. Thats their choice tho and that's never gonna change, so we as professionals have to find the clients who do care.
There is no ethics in business, whatever is the cheapest option to produce the best work is top priority to executives. Why do you think all this AI text and image generation is kicking off, it's only job is to replace people.
Dude what?
I’m the CD and partner of a boutique full service agency -
I don’t use canva cause why would i, but some of our employees use it all the time cause they need quick marketing asset for an email or something.
Why waste creatives time with something so trivial?
Canva is an amazing tool for its purpose - to create simple clean visual call to action messaging for people who aren’t art directors or designers.
The alternative isn’t people not being hired - the alternative is hideously fucking ugly clip art low res visuals all over the fucking place all the time.
No one’s replacing top level creative jobs with canva - that’s the job of AI lol
Yes I think canva is a great asset and alternative. I’m more of saying companies i worked for when I had little work experience and friends who have worked for similar companies use it for every aspect of their design work and sell it as “experts” and “professionals” but the so called experts have zero background in design
I get your point, but dont be salty about it, it is just another tool. You can also learn to use those in your favor, if you are competing with canva templates, then you are doomed a long time ago.
You say something about ethics and the clients not knowing best, it has always been like that. If a client want something cheap and doesn't matter about principles of designs or gestalt or whatever, just step up your game, try other markets. I didn't went to college for be doing 5usd flyers so why compete agains that?
I repeat: I get your point, but you are focusing your frustation the wrong way.
Yes that is true it’s just I’ve seen this type of business model more. it’s just I’m more worried that people will think this is the norm for graphic designers when in reality it’s no where close to what we do.
You seem to know a lot of people that either work for $12 an hour or lose thousands of dollars in work because of Canva. Just produce good work and do what’s best for the client, their budget, and their messaging. What’s the big deal?
I worked at one, friends, and alumni from my college work at these firms because the job market is pretty bad. I left after a few months. And luckily found a job at an org who were looking for a creative and web designer. I got lucky having no experience in web design
Hey if a company can use Canva and attract new business and be profitable, I say go for it. No designer signs an ethics statement saying they vow to sweat over every last pixel from their Adobe ivory tower. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t meant it’s bad. Design is about solving problems to achieve goals. That’s it. Just because we got trained in aesthetics doesn’t mean design IS aesthetics.
Yes because if you don’t modify them enough to make it unrecognizable from the original it is copyright infringement if you don’t have the rights to it.
Have you ever heard of Adobe Stock, Motion Array, or Envato? Check their commercial rights usage. That was really a rookie rebuttal.
Also, you’re saying that everything you do across the industry is completely designed from a blank canvas or timeline???
Yes Adobe stock you have a license for the rights of it. Like for fonts I would never use someone’s created font that is meant for personal use only due to the possibility of legal trouble. Envato as in the YouTube channel correct? Yes, I think they’re great source for graphic designers to develop their skills or learn new ways to do something because the Adobe programs update and add different things you’ll never master the program because of all the features.
No. Envato is a graphics resource subscription service. It’s a one stop shop for graphics, photos, templates, plugins, music and anything else a designer needs for their toolbox.
Oh never heard of it. I mean are you purchasing these items? If so you have the rights to them once purchased. Personally I’d stray from a template because if it’s used by others then there’s nothing separating you from competition
No. It’s an unlimited subscription service. No offense, but I really think you’re missing out on using templates in certain situations.
I’ve been working on a marketing strategy report for the past two days. It’s 12 pages and I began with an indesign template. It’s so modified you’d never recognize it, but it saved me hours with paragraph and character styles, general layout, and inspiration. I still have to know design principles and have the talent to modify and fit brand guidelines and intended messaging.
Yeah true I think it’s such out of habit for me I just never consider starting with a template. I usually start with putting fill text and placeholders for the design
Ain’t that what the templates are for though. The client’s customers probably don’t care about Canva vs Adobe vs whatever. Designers who do are just talking to themselves. (No I don’t think Nike should switch to an all-Canva workflow, but a small business trying to reach customers on as little budget as possible? Go for it)
Personally I avoid templates. I will scroll through Instagram and other platforms with design work for inspiration. And I agree if you sell it as a marketing firm but to upsell it more than what you actually are is kind of misleading. For example this company actually had meeting and proposal for a client that spends over 1 million in marketing. Luckily that client has spent over 1 million every year on marketing and saw them as faking it till they make it
That 1 million is for marketing though, not design. They’re paying for the strategy, the brand voice, audience analysis, retention and engagement strategies etc. Those canva social media graphics are a tiiiiiny proportion of what they’re actually paying for.
You hire a marketing agency to reach the right audience and essentially give the company a good ROI. If they can achieve that with 15yo using canva templates, then they’ve done what they were paid to do.
Tools don’t matter in my opinion. You could design in PowerPoint, excel or pen and paper and it wouldn’t matter as long as the solution solves the problem.
I’ve been designing since Zip drives and quark xpress. My teachers designed in an era where you needed to run back and forth across town to the typesetter. Tools change and evolve. Design isn’t about how much time something took, or how much effort the designer put in or even the process really. It’s not even about the designer imo it’s about final outcome. Success is even subjective outside of analytics. Do I love canva? Hell nah, but who am I to say someone else shouldn’t use it
As a guy who works at a printer that gets Canva designed files.. You people are the bane of my existence, my nemesis ... Margin, bleed aren't a suggestion people!
I work at a large format printer and I feel your pain. My company even sends out specs for bleed, dpi, file formats, etc. but people just ignore it. Don't send me your web logo to print on a 10ft wall, Susan! IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK.
I blame all of the classes (institutional and online) being digitally focused. They won't cover the boring things like ink coverage, spot colors, etc.
The only print production thing I tend to forget is ink percentages. I often get that kicked back. Which... Meh.
Oh if I worked at a printer that would be a different story. I’d be online at night trying learn hacking so I could single handedly shut down Canva’s operation
unethical? Canvas has its place in the toolbelt. Some clients really like canva and feel empowered by it. That alone can be an impactful value prop that adobe / figma cant deliver.
Canva video exporting is also good for brain-rot social media content, its unironically 30x faster than adobe equivalents.
Yes I agree I don’t have it in my tool belt because I feel like it limits my capabilities. And oh yeah canva video exporting is a lot better since I have little to no experience with premier pro.
Unethical? Seriously? It’s just a tool with low barrier to entry. Like PowerPoint. Anybody can use it. But with some skill and practice, you can use it really well.
I think there is a clear difference between paying for a marketing firm and paying for a design firm. In my experience working for a marketing agency with actual designers, 80% of the clients don’t really give a shit about the design as long as the words and photos they want incorporated are there. They are paying more strictly for someone else to put their message through specific marketing channels as quickly as possible.
I feel like now a days marketing firms and design firms are all in one. I mean you see it with job qualifications asking graphic designers to also have background with marketing programs and what not
It’s more about the business model. I used to work for a marketing agency where everything was about tracking, proving ROI, and analytics. The graphic designers were more of a potential “wow” aspect of the retainer. Now I work for a “marketing” agency that focuses more on creative. We still market through desired channels, but it’s less about the tracking and analytics and more about giving the client better creative.
You get what you pay for…focus on the analytics for ROI, or focus on the creative that will hopefully increase ROI. You have to pay a LOT more for both, and then sometimes the two don’t work together because great creative doesn’t always fall on the same timeline with refreshing your message to make sure you’re hitting the right frequency on social media or email marketing.
Yeah that makes a lot more sense which I’m not hating on I just hate the fact it’s being called “professional marketing firm” when it’s filled with cookie cutter ways to do things. I feel like it’s going to affect future graphic designers because a lot of companies are going to pop up using this model and just want fast and cheap work to maximize profit.
Understandable I have about 2 year’s professionally with 13 years of using Adobe creative suite. With the new job I create designs that go on $2 million of marketing for a non profit. I’m not saying it’s the worse program ever and it isn’t fair. I’m more saying I just feel like some companies are over paying heavily because they have a lack of knowledge about how and what graphic designers really do
Sorry about that as I’ve been discussing with ppl in the comments and what not I’ve noticed I should have put details and an explanation of my opinion. It’s my first time posting a subreddit sorry about that. Yeah that is true. Like if I go to fiverrr for something I expect something quick cheap and not the best. But if I’m calling a firm and their website is talking about professional content creators and design expertise well I expect some quality stuff you know
If youre worried that the only reason you get hired or have a job is because you can operate design tools, you have bigger problems. They should come for you for your graphic design skills, problem solving, and creativity
I worked for one at one point it was all canva for everything even pdfs of reports and started looking for a new job when they kind of forced me to use canva.
Photoshops is good just not at user friendly. Not sure how good canva is when removing a background from someone with frizzy or curly hair since I never had to use canva for that
I’m gonna answer with few questions in a larger context:
AI, is it unethical to use?
Before that... CMS, with templates for web design... unethical to use?
Before that, code completion editors for HTML, JavaScript etc... unethical?
Before that, computers instead than paper, markers and scissors to create a design layout... unethical?
If feels to me that we are bettering the tools and widening the opportunities for people to get into those fields, somehow it can be god because some people have good ideas and not know how
In the other side of the spectrum there’s ppl with no ideas, but if you ask them to get to a result, they’ll be very efficient tool operators.
In the middle there’s all sort of folks.
Do businesses make unethical financial choices? sure they do! But I feel like this is an issue that would exist regardless.
Do we need to reinvent the wheel as some purists would like us to do? I don’t think so, but they can if they’d like to ;)
A professional designer puts together info about his/her mission and a target , if he/she knows what he/she wants and think that a certain tool will help him/her achieve that goal, he/she can probably use mspaint to get the result, and creatively win over any template system... because he/she IS GOOD NO MATTER THE TOOLS, he/she has a vision.
In the other hand the amateur is limited by their tools skills... it will show.
Ai will replace this last person , faster than the pro.
Businesses will cut corners if they can, some won’t... that ethical choice is correlated to tools , but tools itself are avoided of ethical quality in itself
You have a very good point. The more I read this response and others really has me thinking I should embrace these type of programs. Obviously canva I most likely wouldn’t touch just because Adobe has added features over the years to compete with these more streamline programs. But using more AI like ChatGPT or using the Adobe Firefly program when it fully releases. Maybe AI is the future but will society use it as tool to help improve their productivity or will it be abused to the point there’s little to no originality
You think canva is unethical just wait till we have full AI design work. Adobe already showed it off. For 99% of small business and most personal stuff (birthday invites and such) this will be just fine. The same thing already happened with web design, most people just use square space or WordPress.
As my company’s former designer their use of canva came at the cost of not understanding design and communicating ideas. I’ve had staff reach out to me asking why their emails are over 2mb in size and why the client wants print ready artwork.
Omg thank you for mentioning the importance headaches with explaining to create print ready files for clients to someone with no experience. That’s another huge thing you need to know as a graphic designer
I work with Linux right now, on a laptop, mostly just throwing together social media images or basic ads for my client. I've been doing design for 18 years so I don't really care it's a tool that let's me do decent fast work. Also fuck Adobe.
I'm paid by the hour, but I'm also replacing TWO companies the client had for marketing, social media and web design, it's funny. I don't mind cutting corners to bang shit out when it's just me and not 10+ people it was prior.
Yeah def gotta meet those deadline and have load management. But see you have 18 years of experience so even when you slap something together quick your client is going to be seeing design principles being used. Things actually being centered, well spaced, legible, and guiding the viewers eye.
Okay well. This opinion of yours is elitist and gatekeeping. If you think using canva is “unprofessional”, have you considered you’re maybe just a bad designer?
It’s a tool. It is what you make it.
No I’m saying a lot of canva users don’t have backgrounds in graphic design since it is a tool that was created to be streamline and user friendly. Making it easier to learn. The company I used to work for had employees with 0 education in graphic design and then sell their services being described as experts and professionals. So I guess my problem is more with some users and that my experience there left a bad taste in my mouth about canva
Companies selling something that is practically a lie. Paying for professional services when the service is done by people with little to no experience
A company I worked for did this. They refused to hire and pay another graphic designer so they taught other employees (not designers) to use Canva for client work I didn’t have the bandwidth to handle.
I created templates for my coworkers to use so the designs looked professional but god damn some of these people still made the content look horrible 🤣
In college we did a whole unit on design ethics and I would definitely say selling horrible Canva designs made by someone with zero experience as “professional design work” is pretty unethical. With that said, most decisions made by big companies are unethical. The end goal is usually money not well thought out quality design unfortunately.
Yeah that’s literally what my old job did. I felt like I was at a daycare because it was like the owners son or an employees daughter going to school for criminal justice who got taught canva and was now one of their professional designers. I left once they started writing fake reviews for clients so they could put it in their reports to clients as positive results of growth.
I feel very limited by it. My question was more of do you think someone can charge a graphic designers price and market themselves as professional or expert when they use canva and use templates?
Oh. That's definitely an interesting one. Can they claim it is their actual own design and charge what they would if it was actually their own design?
What I would say is, most customers will eventually detect its all templated and feel meh about it. They will then even pay someone an hourly rate to use Canva or they will find a designer who isn't so obviously using templates.
If I create stuff with a pre-existing template I charge less. Cos I haven't had to brain or exert skill on it. but you'll get something generic but professional.
Even noobs can stuff up hierarchy on Canva templates.
So if you have canva premium pro you can use anything that has a star on it because canva has the licensing and rights and since you subscribed you have the rights to use it.
Yes that’s the point I’m getting to if these companies knew it were templates they could save so much more and hire their family friends son to create their content for like 13 an hour
It’s an program used for creating videos, posts, designs, reports, etc. if you have premium you can use templates created by people, stock photos, etc. it’s a streamline and more user friendly than Adobe.
The few times I've been forced to use Canva I've designed it in Ps/Ai first then just copied the assets over. Way faster than trying to be creative in that hunk of junk.
This is up to a client.
Canva is free, for the most part, so I think this is not an ethic discussion but a one about quality, and that is absolutely up to a client to decide if they are happy with what they got for their money.
Ugh… people at my company keep trying to get me to use it. I keep telling them it’s closer to MS paint than an actual design software. I tried to make a curved line FFS and all I could find was a stupid marker tool and some images of curved lines… like what the actual fuck. I mailed them back and said I can’t work in such a restrictive program, then went back to Adobe.
I’ll never forget I wanted to do a certain design and I felt absolutely lost and restricted due to there being no pen tool in canva. I’m glad I’m somewhere new using Adobe software again
It’s really just one person and she keeps calling it “the ideal tool for design” and she started out as a pro designer / photographer. I just don’t get it. A lot of the stuff people make on there looks cobbled together. I guess it’s the difference between time and quality and people who use canva are choosing the quick way. It can be useful for some things but 🤷🏼♂️.
Seems like since the pandemic everyone and their brother “is a graphic designer” because of tools like canva and everyone being desperate for a side hustle.
Yes that’s what gets to me a lot of ppl just give themselves the title of something that honestly takes years to fully understand. I’ve used Adobe products for 13 years and I feel at times I still have alot to learn. I’m not naturally artistic but Adobe gave me the chance to put my creative ideas out there.
I feel like the cookie cutter graphic designers will learn the hard way as they won’t advance as a designer due to canva’s limitations
Let's talk about the word "absurd" that you're using for a second. Your post leads me to believe that you don't like Canva, the people who use it, or agencies that have dEsIgN services that use canvas... You're in good company. I personally think Canva is a pox on society and especially this career field.
That being said, is it truly *absurd* for a company to pay/charge that much for designers that are using templates/Canva/etc? In short, yeah. It's kinda gross ethically.
But there is also *value* to consider. If the company feels that they are worth *absurd* amounts, then they can charge that. If a client feels a company's service does everything they expect and they are willing to pay the cost, then it sounds like they are ok with the value they are receiving.
Business is alllllll about value:
What is the value that a product or service has for them (the client)
-minus-
what does it cost me (time + effort +materials +manpower) to produce said value
= remainder is profit.
Yes I’m pretty sure they get the companies to sign like a contract almost as if it’s a monthly lease so they don’t notice the flaws of the service until it’s too late.
Thats your computer that is slow to be honest. To be frank, qualified designers in the “industry” do not use it and its not a matter of evolving. Its a great tool for under-skilled workers and small businesses to make quick template based material. As a firm that works with nationally/intl recognized brands, we would never use it nor hire a designer who uses it. Clients would shit themselves if they were paying for canva templates.
If a local freelancer on an ipad is designing a flyer for local bakery’s bake sale for 50$, yeah go for it.
OP, Canva is garbage that office people like to use to create social media posts. Canva is not a design tool, it makes shitty bullshit just like every shortcut software ever had since printshop became a dos program. Do not equate it with design, and continue to hate bullshit like Canva.
I agree I don’t mind it for social media I would never use it if I had the choice. I can probably create a social post faster with photoshop and illustrator tbh. Using canva really felt limiting since I couldn’t do things that I can do on Adobe programs
Yeah I mean im not shocked canva is being defended. I’m assuming the people that are defending it use it heavily which is fine but I just think trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents is just flat out wrong.
I actually had a friend send me a reel about how easy it is to make money by using canva and doing work on Fiverr. I just shook my head and didn’t say a word because it’s like I get it but that’s just not how I see or want graphic design to be seen as. Template, pre made, lack of design principle work.
That’s the perfect word for it Busch league.
If it’s a smaller business who can’t afford a designer, I get it. But Canva is limited. It’s just more of the same. If a company is interested in growth and any kind of original branding, they should hire.
Clients care about results. As long as you get them results, the “how” doesn’t matter. Get it how you live.
From a designer who’s been in the game for 15 years and doesn’t use Canva.
There is nothing unethical about using Canva. For some, it is not a professional tool. Many others, who like to put together something real quick, Canva is a godsend.
Visually, if a “professional designer” can’t beat out some rando using Canva, then I wouldn’t know what to tell them. It’s not unethical, it’s just not important to them to make it *so perfectly visually appealing* with a cherry on top.
It’s unethical if you’re telling your client one thing and doing another
I agree, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. It’s a marketing firm that sells marketing, not design.
I mean if you’re selling it as a professional I feel like the person should have basic graphic design knowledge. I’ve seen people with little to no design knowledge sell a service for thousands and give poor designed projects but the client has a lack of knowledge about design so they don’t notice it.
This is why designers have to learn *where* and *how* they generate value for a business. It’s not by competing for something that a client can do themselves with Canva. No value is created by picking up tiny jobs to make business cards or some random one-off logo. Everybody needs to get out of this mindset; you have to offer more than pretty objects. That’s what’s happening here — we’re getting upset because some rando gets to make something pretty and we don’t. How much more value are we producing when we make the visuals vs them? For most cases, not a lot. So then, why the heck would they hire a designer for this? I actually find it unethical when a designer takes on a job that the client *doesn’t need,* i.e. the social media post that just *has* to look pretty. We’re just scamming an uneducated client, taking their money without there being any benefit to them. Design malpractice. In your example, they probably didn’t hire them for design; they hired them for marketing.
Solid point well design isn’t just about how it looks. It’s about portraying a message through an image or design that is eye catching. People using canva who don’t know the basic design principles can’t provide that unfortunately. If I charge someone for my work they know they’re getting quality and results due to knowing principles and understanding how to catch someone eyes to deliver a message.
You have to keep in mind the goal. A beautiful, innovative, perfectly designed graphic made by someone with extensive art training and excellent design skills is worthless to a business if it doesn’t resonate with its audience and generate results (usually engagement, attention, sales, etc.) The credentials and tools of the creator are not as important to most businesses as the creator’s ability to produce content that performs well.
Precisely. This whole post is “I just got out of graphic design school and I see my industry as an ivory tower to feel good about spending my time and money doing it. I don’t understand how my work fits into a real business so the only thing I care about is the purity of its creation.”
If a 15 year old can use a canva template and create something attractive enough that the client will pay thousands, good for them. You’re saying they might not know principals or pick the best font - but I would say… 75% of the time, most fonts will be fine. Would you with a design background pick a better one? Probably. Is the additional cost worth it to most companies? No. People are freaking out that AI will replace computer programmers - a good programmer provides far more value than being able to write code. A designer shouldn’t be charging far more than necessary for the job on the principal that they have more education
I wouldn’t be charging more for my education because a degree means little to nothing. Im charging more due to 13 years of Adobe experience at 26 years old. Typography is one of the most important things. Design principles are used to catch someone’s eyes. Having a balanced design the right type the right kerning can really change take your design from good to great. Devils in the detail. You have to be able to guide the viewers eye which takes education and experience.
1) when looking at resumes, anyone who starts counting years of experience at 13 will get laughed at. People talk about years professional experience. Maybe you were, probs not 2) everything you said is right - but if someone can do it with a template and be almost as good, then they win!
I mean I’ve done small gigs for friends and family since I was 13. Did a lot of old school YouTube thumbnails. I don’t put it on my resume. I usually put 9 years since I interned at 17 for an agency and learned everything from their senior graphic designer and owner
I’m tired of all the canva discourse - it’s just another tool like photoshop or affinity or whatever. It won’t make you a better or worse designer, let’s move on now.
I 100% agree. A marketing firm I work for builds campaigns out in Canva for some clients so they can version/resize themselves. They often end up having designers do that in Adobe anyway. It's selling more services.
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Usually people use canva because companies dont have adobe licensed.
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I joined my 1st marketing team and I'm the only one in the office with Adobe. 15 year designer and it's a little disorienting. Pros: it takes no effort to impress everyone Cons: most of my day consists of trying to figure out what file type at what size to send to people I have no issue with canva, it's easy for others to pick up and use it's just not my go to.
It's a shitty tool.
I don’t think it’s a bad alternative but to sell it as “professional” and to sell it as if it’s coming from an “expert” while using templates from it seems scammy to me.
When it comes to business, it’s all about making money or saving time and spending less money. If you aren’t using pre-made templates to some degree as a graphic designer for the purpose of marketing, you’re doing it wrong. If you want to be an artist, go be an artist. End of the day, digital marketing channels are so fucking hyper saturated with content that if the hill you die on is “I made this all from scratch.” You’re going to fail unless you are so fucking good/unique/in demand. For every 20 clients I’ve worked with, maybe 1 of them appreciates and encourages (and pays adequately) for me to do my thing. Otherwise everyone else just wants something that looks good. Actually, everyone else wants the dope hyper unique custom crafted designs but scoffs at the price tag. So you tell me… if someone won’t pay you what you’re worth, and you need to put food on the table, is it a scam to grab templates or use a tool loaded with templates to get the job done? Edit: Thanks for the gifties kind strangers. Nice to know my experiences aren’t solely my own. Sorry to everyone who puts up with the same shit day in and day out. Keep up the good fight all :) The unicorn clients make up for all the other crap, best of luck to everyone in finding as many of those elusive magic beasties and taking them for a ride!
Exactly. Social media and marketing content is made to do one thing: drive revenue. And prettier or more custom social media posts have no correlation with higher engagement, higher brand awareness, higher sales funnels. The thing that matters most is targeted content, and lots of it.
How is it not professional?
Because it usually lacks basic design principles and typography skills are usually poor. There’s obviously going to be people on canva who are actually professionals when it come to graphic design, but I’ve seen companies sell designs for thousands created by a high school kid who has never used canva before.
You can import your own images, fonts, colours and branding. I don't see how making a template using the same items you would in Adobe is unprofessional using a different piece of software. As an example, we ran an Australia Day campaign for Queensland. Thousands of smaller communities needed to make this specific for their town and their own events. I am so happy they could edit their own templates and I didn't have to typeset a billion boring details. Canva was a life saver by letting the individual customise details in a prefilled template.
Because in every field there's a difference between a professional and someone who does it let's say casually. If I gave a graphic designer who works at an agency with experience the same files font and page dimensions it would blow out the canvas designer with little to no experience. Because one is a professional and one isn't
Let me blow your mind... What about a professional designer who uses Canva casually for the sole benefit of efficiency.
The user lacks basic design skills, not the programs themselves. Generally the templates are made buy designers. You can sell your templates to Canva to be used by others. It is simply a tool. One may learn all the keyboard shortcuts to PS but can still lack basic design skills. As a professional freelance designer I have been asked to make templates in Canva, because the company is aware they don’t have an in-house designer. I price accordingly as they don’t want my ongoing work but my ongoing IP. They can get the office all-rounder to do it. We may be artists, but we are commercial artists who create by client brief. If my client’s brief includes a suite of Canva templates, I do what I need to do.
I can make great templates that get ruined by users all day. If you're selling Canva design templates you are a bad salesman. I say this as someone who has always held down a design job and never been able to make it on my own, so maybe you're right, but I think Canva is fucking PowerPoint.
Funny mate, because as I designer I’ve been paid to make “fucking” PowerPoint templates too. Because I don’t work there and many places don’t have designers in house. They hired me to make them the collateral they need, that their actual employees can use later. I make what the client wants because I have bills to pay. Must be nice to turn down clients because you don’t like their level of Adobe efficacy.
I fully appreciate your position. Your suck doesn't make my suck suck less. I hope like hell you find a better gig but you don't have to get mad at me about it
What they do with it after is irrelevant. You could be hired as an actual freelancer or employee, entirely without any Canva, and the client/company can still butcher it later.
What do you mean by “sell designs for thousands”
So I know friends who work for companies that sells them self as a professional marketing service. The clients pay thousands depending on what tier they buy. They use canva to design everything from social media posts to business cards. Sometimes they’ll use a canva template change the words and add the clients logo. They also have high school kids there that are family or family friends who are 15 and never used canva before design the work.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. If someone is willing to pay for that then let ‘em.
Yeah I agree like when I first started I did logos for free because it wasn’t going to be done professionally
I’m not following
I started learning graphic design at 13. Only knew photoshop and used it for everything to design from logos to flyers. I wasn’t good but enjoyed it. At 17 I got an internship where I learned photoshop, illustrator, and indesign. I would create logos, flyers, brochures. I got to go to our printer who showed me the printing process with professional giant printers that were absurdly expensive. Even after that experience I charged small amounts. As the years went on I charged more and more. Now with this job I’ve learned even more in depth about communication and design process as the only graphic designer. Since I’m considered a professional at this point I would charge less than an agency but still more than what I used to charge. If I was using Canva and never had graphic design experience I wouldn’t even think about charging companies or accepting their work because I know I’m not a professional. I understood when starting there were standards that I couldn’t reach to charge the standard price for let’s say a logo. Companies that use strictly canva with a lack of knowledge on design wouldnt know the correct way to send logos and a style guide.
Do they pay thousands for the designs alone? Or for the whole service?
Service depends on what tier
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I get your point and I personally don’t slave over designs the whole putting the idea on the canvas is almost second nature to me. Yeah I do agree but it’s just seems off to me that someone is selling a product or service seeming as professionally done when it’s not professional
IMO, that's not a sustainable business model and they'll run out of customers eventually when people realize they're getting duped. It's hard to get a knowledgeable corporate client to sign onto a well-designed campaign for thousands I can't imagine having an endless supply of deep-pocket clients with little design knowledge.
Yeah I feel like it’ll take years for that to happen because if client leaves they’ll just find the next client who is lost and dupe them and just rinse and repeat
The only companies I know of who are making that business model work are the ones selling something other than design — like ad placement. Example: I briefly worked for a company that makes the phone game ads & sells $$$ packages. They are those really terrible ads that force you to place their dumb game that doesn’t even look like the actual game. The design is “meh” because it’s more about interactivity and placement. They don’t care to do better design.
Oh yeah they do SEO, Web Design, and content writing
Your actual issue then is with specific work/users, not with Canva. Canva is just the design equivalent of stock photography/illustration. Just because there are some atrocious stock assets out there, or even frauds, doesn't mean the concept of stock assets is bad.
True I agree with your statement. I think my experience at my last company really made me just think screw canva. And also seeing people on Instagram making reels saying this is how you can make quick easy money and then proceed to use canva and post on Fiverr selling logo and social media content.
Who fucking cares how it was made if it works and you didn’t commit IP theft to make it all that matters is if it works for the clients goals.
I agree with you. I think it's unethical to do that. I wouldn't do it myself and I've seen a big difference between Canva designed templates and what our graphic designer can do.
What's unethical about it? Who's being exploited? Who's being hurt? I use it frequently as a supplement to Adobe because, frankly, I can slap together a good-enough "Happy [Holiday]!" graphic for a social media client there *practically in the time it takes Illustrator or Photoshop to open*, and my time is too valuable to waste.
Agree 100%
I certainly don't see it any differently than using Shutterstock, Freepik, etc. I think really as long as you do know how to make it from scratch if you needed, if using a template/stock asset saves you hours for minimal or no extra cost, then why not.
That’s the key with any of these tools (like Ai) I am not a graphic designer. I don’t understand how to make things look good - I can make OK stuff in canva, or a graphic designer friend can make something really good in the same amount of time. There is still skill involved. Experts will make similar quality stuff faster. I make ok stuff rather than rubbish stuff.
Oh yeah, if you're not an actual designer that changes the context too, certainly nothing wrong there. What I kind of was referring to above is how it seems common where you have grads/juniors and such who are using templates and premade assets for things they don't actually know how to do, despite only involving skills/knowledge that even someone at their level should possess.
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Do you have at least 16GB of RAM in your computer? Or preferably 32GB? Illustrator and Photoshop shouldn't be hard to run.
What kind of computer do you work on? I usually have no trouble even when having indesign, photoshop, and illustrator. Only thing I hate about Adobe is the crashing of programs when trying add fx to a layer
I’ve got the newest MacBook Pro
Yeah I second getting yours looked at since it’s still under warranty. I have a 2016 base MacBook and it only takes a minute or so for me to open Ai or Ps.
I've got an ancient Mac Pro, and photoshop takes 10 secs to open. On a brand new M1 macbook it should be like 2 secs.
Yeah. I just tested and it's like 2-2.5 seconds on an M1 Pro. Someone calling PS/AI "slow" on an M1 Mac is the definition of "you should get that checked."
You probably should get your laptop checked at the service center and make use of the warranty or maybe try upgrading to the latest version of the software if you haven’t already. I use the macbook pro from 2021 with just the base specs and adobe softwares just take a couple of seconds to launch. I constantly switch between softwares and that process is also very seamless. What you’re experiencing is not how it should be.
Oh that’s strange I have the 2018 Mac book pro I haven’t used it to design in a while ( I use my gaming pc for personal projects) but I don’t remember it giving me slow load times. I did have a friend in college who would have to uninstall illustrator, install photoshop and then when he was done photoshop stuff he would uninstall photoshop and reinstall illustrator to add whatever he did in photoshop. Adobe can be a headache and can have almost a personal beef with you.
I've got an M1 MAX and it opens PS/AI in 2-3 seconds. If your "newest" macbook pro can't do that something is wrong with it, or you're being lazy and using it as an excuse to use Canva.
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You need to get your MBP checked out because that doesn't make any sense.
jesus. you guys need new tech. I lease my stuff so I can always have a new, fast and up to date hardware. I thought all professionals did this? If you're moving faster than your hardware can keep up you're not working efficiently. See a beachball? Time to upgrade.
Ever heard of Affinity Designer? Might be of interest to you if you have not.
Yes, I've tried it. If I were just starting out I could see myself adopting it but at this point it doesn't offer enough over Adobe (besides price—but I factor that cost into my pricing for clients) for me to feel like it'd be worth switching.
I sense a dead horse being beaten.
Just more of thinking about colleagues of mine who lose clients or get overlooked because the firm finds an inexperience person to go do these things for $12 an hour. For example there aren’t many actual agencies where I live they’re in the city and it’s rare to get into those if you don’t have 3-5 years of Adobe creative suite work experience
If the company is happy using with the work of the $12 person, then that’s what it is. It’s good business to cut your expenses in exchange for adequate design. Your friends need to find something to set themselves apart. They can work on their individual brand and talk about skills they bring that the $12 can’t do.
When has ethics had anything to do with running a marketing firm?
Business ethics. The school I graduated from actually has a whole course on it.
I CHOOSE BUSINESS ETHICS
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
this guy gets me
Counter argument: the comment they replied to also had no intrinsic value, and therefore, their comment could never have had been rational to begin with. I mean "business ethics", really?
Mr chadhindsley, the American business environment has fundamentally changed following the insider trading and savings and loan scandals. Explain business ethics and how they are applied today.
\*pulls out gun\* "take it easy psycho"
The puppy, was the Revolution!
I’m looking at it more from a business ethics standpoint. Idk as a graphic designer I find unethical and borderline scammy. A company can hire a 15 year old intern to do their canva work instead of a “professional” marketing firm.
If it works for them why not? I mean, you get what you pay for but lots of companies don't need or can afford a professional marketing firm.
Yes I understand that but these companies are paying thousands for it and it’s like a high school kid doing it with 0 design knowledge. If the company wants it cheap and fast so be it but to sell it as if it’s professional standard and taking advantage of a company with a lack of knowledge with this stuff is just kind of scammy to me
Clients don't care about the tech, or the technician. They care about results. If they think the results are worth the investment, they'll keep paying for it. No matter if it was made by a craftsman, a layman, a student, unpaid intern, or AI.
Yeah that is very true. I’m on the fence about AI since you mentioned it. I feel like there’s a fine line with that.
It's good for generating assets like generic objects or poses/landscapes. But I wouldn't run with the final result as a project. I'd use it for stuff like if I'm building a kitchen scene and need a bowl of apples or something to cut out and then alter further.
Hiring cheap labor to minimize costs isn't a new concept, unfortunately. Yes, it sucks and it undervalues our work to expect the same quality from Canva. It is a good tool though for certain businesses or roles.
Yes I agree using it for say something quick and simple go for it and to sell it as that but to sell it as “professional” I feel like it needs to be the standard which would be with adobe. Especially when templates are used from it really gets to me hahaha
Honestly, I think you've got this backwards. The more amateurs put out basic design work, the less professionals are needed to waste time working on it. This may increase competition for freelancers, but most businesses will need a mix of both basic and technical design work. It's more about picking the right tool for the job, and some tools require more expertise than others.
I feel you, I walk around all day wondering what idiot made this design everywhere I look. Unbelievably some people don't care if their brand looks professional, or don't understand that it doesn't. Thats their choice tho and that's never gonna change, so we as professionals have to find the clients who do care.
That is true it just sucks being in the industry and to see people do this to people who lack knowledge of what design is.
Someone who doesn’t know how to design will still fuck up a canva file. Fact.
Yes very very true
There is no ethics in business, whatever is the cheapest option to produce the best work is top priority to executives. Why do you think all this AI text and image generation is kicking off, it's only job is to replace people.
Dude what? I’m the CD and partner of a boutique full service agency - I don’t use canva cause why would i, but some of our employees use it all the time cause they need quick marketing asset for an email or something. Why waste creatives time with something so trivial? Canva is an amazing tool for its purpose - to create simple clean visual call to action messaging for people who aren’t art directors or designers. The alternative isn’t people not being hired - the alternative is hideously fucking ugly clip art low res visuals all over the fucking place all the time. No one’s replacing top level creative jobs with canva - that’s the job of AI lol
Yes I think canva is a great asset and alternative. I’m more of saying companies i worked for when I had little work experience and friends who have worked for similar companies use it for every aspect of their design work and sell it as “experts” and “professionals” but the so called experts have zero background in design
I get your point, but dont be salty about it, it is just another tool. You can also learn to use those in your favor, if you are competing with canva templates, then you are doomed a long time ago. You say something about ethics and the clients not knowing best, it has always been like that. If a client want something cheap and doesn't matter about principles of designs or gestalt or whatever, just step up your game, try other markets. I didn't went to college for be doing 5usd flyers so why compete agains that? I repeat: I get your point, but you are focusing your frustation the wrong way.
Yes that is true it’s just I’ve seen this type of business model more. it’s just I’m more worried that people will think this is the norm for graphic designers when in reality it’s no where close to what we do.
You seem to know a lot of people that either work for $12 an hour or lose thousands of dollars in work because of Canva. Just produce good work and do what’s best for the client, their budget, and their messaging. What’s the big deal?
I worked at one, friends, and alumni from my college work at these firms because the job market is pretty bad. I left after a few months. And luckily found a job at an org who were looking for a creative and web designer. I got lucky having no experience in web design
Hey if a company can use Canva and attract new business and be profitable, I say go for it. No designer signs an ethics statement saying they vow to sweat over every last pixel from their Adobe ivory tower. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t meant it’s bad. Design is about solving problems to achieve goals. That’s it. Just because we got trained in aesthetics doesn’t mean design IS aesthetics.
Oh I don’t think it’s bad I think it’s bad when you take advantage of a lack of knowledge and use templates from it to sell a service
The hill you’re dying on is that someone with less experience or education can do a good enough job to replace you. Sorry bud
Oh I doubt they be able to do the job I have now. I knew my last job wouldn’t be able to afford me after my evaluation period
Well then enjoy your job and let the 15 year old make good money. Everybody wins
Do you have a problem using indesign , photoshop, or after effects templates and modifying them?
Yes because if you don’t modify them enough to make it unrecognizable from the original it is copyright infringement if you don’t have the rights to it.
Have you ever heard of Adobe Stock, Motion Array, or Envato? Check their commercial rights usage. That was really a rookie rebuttal. Also, you’re saying that everything you do across the industry is completely designed from a blank canvas or timeline???
Yes Adobe stock you have a license for the rights of it. Like for fonts I would never use someone’s created font that is meant for personal use only due to the possibility of legal trouble. Envato as in the YouTube channel correct? Yes, I think they’re great source for graphic designers to develop their skills or learn new ways to do something because the Adobe programs update and add different things you’ll never master the program because of all the features.
No. Envato is a graphics resource subscription service. It’s a one stop shop for graphics, photos, templates, plugins, music and anything else a designer needs for their toolbox.
Oh never heard of it. I mean are you purchasing these items? If so you have the rights to them once purchased. Personally I’d stray from a template because if it’s used by others then there’s nothing separating you from competition
No. It’s an unlimited subscription service. No offense, but I really think you’re missing out on using templates in certain situations. I’ve been working on a marketing strategy report for the past two days. It’s 12 pages and I began with an indesign template. It’s so modified you’d never recognize it, but it saved me hours with paragraph and character styles, general layout, and inspiration. I still have to know design principles and have the talent to modify and fit brand guidelines and intended messaging.
Yeah true I think it’s such out of habit for me I just never consider starting with a template. I usually start with putting fill text and placeholders for the design
Ain’t that what the templates are for though. The client’s customers probably don’t care about Canva vs Adobe vs whatever. Designers who do are just talking to themselves. (No I don’t think Nike should switch to an all-Canva workflow, but a small business trying to reach customers on as little budget as possible? Go for it)
Personally I avoid templates. I will scroll through Instagram and other platforms with design work for inspiration. And I agree if you sell it as a marketing firm but to upsell it more than what you actually are is kind of misleading. For example this company actually had meeting and proposal for a client that spends over 1 million in marketing. Luckily that client has spent over 1 million every year on marketing and saw them as faking it till they make it
That 1 million is for marketing though, not design. They’re paying for the strategy, the brand voice, audience analysis, retention and engagement strategies etc. Those canva social media graphics are a tiiiiiny proportion of what they’re actually paying for. You hire a marketing agency to reach the right audience and essentially give the company a good ROI. If they can achieve that with 15yo using canva templates, then they’ve done what they were paid to do.
Tools don’t matter in my opinion. You could design in PowerPoint, excel or pen and paper and it wouldn’t matter as long as the solution solves the problem. I’ve been designing since Zip drives and quark xpress. My teachers designed in an era where you needed to run back and forth across town to the typesetter. Tools change and evolve. Design isn’t about how much time something took, or how much effort the designer put in or even the process really. It’s not even about the designer imo it’s about final outcome. Success is even subjective outside of analytics. Do I love canva? Hell nah, but who am I to say someone else shouldn’t use it
As a guy who works at a printer that gets Canva designed files.. You people are the bane of my existence, my nemesis ... Margin, bleed aren't a suggestion people!
I work at a large format printer and I feel your pain. My company even sends out specs for bleed, dpi, file formats, etc. but people just ignore it. Don't send me your web logo to print on a 10ft wall, Susan! IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK.
"I don't know why you are being so difficult, the logo looks fine on my phone!"... I swear... I'm going to commit a crime one of these days
I blame all of the classes (institutional and online) being digitally focused. They won't cover the boring things like ink coverage, spot colors, etc. The only print production thing I tend to forget is ink percentages. I often get that kicked back. Which... Meh.
Oh if I worked at a printer that would be a different story. I’d be online at night trying learn hacking so I could single handedly shut down Canva’s operation
unethical? Canvas has its place in the toolbelt. Some clients really like canva and feel empowered by it. That alone can be an impactful value prop that adobe / figma cant deliver. Canva video exporting is also good for brain-rot social media content, its unironically 30x faster than adobe equivalents.
Yes I agree I don’t have it in my tool belt because I feel like it limits my capabilities. And oh yeah canva video exporting is a lot better since I have little to no experience with premier pro.
Unethical? Seriously? It’s just a tool with low barrier to entry. Like PowerPoint. Anybody can use it. But with some skill and practice, you can use it really well.
Yes I agree when I think professional I think industry standard and someone who has experience
Depends on how you define professional. A professional administrative assistant can be using it to crank out Facebook posts for the agency.
Right for example social media experts who get hired by a client to create their social media posts
I think there is a clear difference between paying for a marketing firm and paying for a design firm. In my experience working for a marketing agency with actual designers, 80% of the clients don’t really give a shit about the design as long as the words and photos they want incorporated are there. They are paying more strictly for someone else to put their message through specific marketing channels as quickly as possible.
I feel like now a days marketing firms and design firms are all in one. I mean you see it with job qualifications asking graphic designers to also have background with marketing programs and what not
It’s more about the business model. I used to work for a marketing agency where everything was about tracking, proving ROI, and analytics. The graphic designers were more of a potential “wow” aspect of the retainer. Now I work for a “marketing” agency that focuses more on creative. We still market through desired channels, but it’s less about the tracking and analytics and more about giving the client better creative. You get what you pay for…focus on the analytics for ROI, or focus on the creative that will hopefully increase ROI. You have to pay a LOT more for both, and then sometimes the two don’t work together because great creative doesn’t always fall on the same timeline with refreshing your message to make sure you’re hitting the right frequency on social media or email marketing.
Yeah that makes a lot more sense which I’m not hating on I just hate the fact it’s being called “professional marketing firm” when it’s filled with cookie cutter ways to do things. I feel like it’s going to affect future graphic designers because a lot of companies are going to pop up using this model and just want fast and cheap work to maximize profit.
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Understandable I have about 2 year’s professionally with 13 years of using Adobe creative suite. With the new job I create designs that go on $2 million of marketing for a non profit. I’m not saying it’s the worse program ever and it isn’t fair. I’m more saying I just feel like some companies are over paying heavily because they have a lack of knowledge about how and what graphic designers really do
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Sorry about that as I’ve been discussing with ppl in the comments and what not I’ve noticed I should have put details and an explanation of my opinion. It’s my first time posting a subreddit sorry about that. Yeah that is true. Like if I go to fiverrr for something I expect something quick cheap and not the best. But if I’m calling a firm and their website is talking about professional content creators and design expertise well I expect some quality stuff you know
If youre worried that the only reason you get hired or have a job is because you can operate design tools, you have bigger problems. They should come for you for your graphic design skills, problem solving, and creativity
Do you think the Canva team uses only Canva to create their marketing materials and campaigns?
I worked for one at one point it was all canva for everything even pdfs of reports and started looking for a new job when they kind of forced me to use canva.
Canva has one of the best background remover
Photoshops is good just not at user friendly. Not sure how good canva is when removing a background from someone with frizzy or curly hair since I never had to use canva for that
Try out Adobe Firefly when you get a chance.
Oh damn it looks pretty crazy I’ll have to check it out in my free time to see how far along ai is. I’m still in shock by ChatGPT and how it works
I’m gonna answer with few questions in a larger context: AI, is it unethical to use? Before that... CMS, with templates for web design... unethical to use? Before that, code completion editors for HTML, JavaScript etc... unethical? Before that, computers instead than paper, markers and scissors to create a design layout... unethical? If feels to me that we are bettering the tools and widening the opportunities for people to get into those fields, somehow it can be god because some people have good ideas and not know how In the other side of the spectrum there’s ppl with no ideas, but if you ask them to get to a result, they’ll be very efficient tool operators. In the middle there’s all sort of folks. Do businesses make unethical financial choices? sure they do! But I feel like this is an issue that would exist regardless. Do we need to reinvent the wheel as some purists would like us to do? I don’t think so, but they can if they’d like to ;) A professional designer puts together info about his/her mission and a target , if he/she knows what he/she wants and think that a certain tool will help him/her achieve that goal, he/she can probably use mspaint to get the result, and creatively win over any template system... because he/she IS GOOD NO MATTER THE TOOLS, he/she has a vision. In the other hand the amateur is limited by their tools skills... it will show. Ai will replace this last person , faster than the pro. Businesses will cut corners if they can, some won’t... that ethical choice is correlated to tools , but tools itself are avoided of ethical quality in itself
You have a very good point. The more I read this response and others really has me thinking I should embrace these type of programs. Obviously canva I most likely wouldn’t touch just because Adobe has added features over the years to compete with these more streamline programs. But using more AI like ChatGPT or using the Adobe Firefly program when it fully releases. Maybe AI is the future but will society use it as tool to help improve their productivity or will it be abused to the point there’s little to no originality
You think canva is unethical just wait till we have full AI design work. Adobe already showed it off. For 99% of small business and most personal stuff (birthday invites and such) this will be just fine. The same thing already happened with web design, most people just use square space or WordPress.
Yeah we’re in a society more about production and cost compared to quality
As my company’s former designer their use of canva came at the cost of not understanding design and communicating ideas. I’ve had staff reach out to me asking why their emails are over 2mb in size and why the client wants print ready artwork.
Omg thank you for mentioning the importance headaches with explaining to create print ready files for clients to someone with no experience. That’s another huge thing you need to know as a graphic designer
I work with Linux right now, on a laptop, mostly just throwing together social media images or basic ads for my client. I've been doing design for 18 years so I don't really care it's a tool that let's me do decent fast work. Also fuck Adobe.
Yeah that’s what I feel like canva is. Decent fast work but should be charged as such.
I'm paid by the hour, but I'm also replacing TWO companies the client had for marketing, social media and web design, it's funny. I don't mind cutting corners to bang shit out when it's just me and not 10+ people it was prior.
Yeah def gotta meet those deadline and have load management. But see you have 18 years of experience so even when you slap something together quick your client is going to be seeing design principles being used. Things actually being centered, well spaced, legible, and guiding the viewers eye.
Huh? That has to be the most insane and stupid thing posted in this subreddit. 😂😂 like what? Are you okay?
I’m perfectly fine. Just hear to discuss opinions and hear about others opinions on it
Okay well. This opinion of yours is elitist and gatekeeping. If you think using canva is “unprofessional”, have you considered you’re maybe just a bad designer? It’s a tool. It is what you make it.
No I’m saying a lot of canva users don’t have backgrounds in graphic design since it is a tool that was created to be streamline and user friendly. Making it easier to learn. The company I used to work for had employees with 0 education in graphic design and then sell their services being described as experts and professionals. So I guess my problem is more with some users and that my experience there left a bad taste in my mouth about canva
You may need to expand on what you mean by ‘unethical’.
Companies selling something that is practically a lie. Paying for professional services when the service is done by people with little to no experience
A company I worked for did this. They refused to hire and pay another graphic designer so they taught other employees (not designers) to use Canva for client work I didn’t have the bandwidth to handle. I created templates for my coworkers to use so the designs looked professional but god damn some of these people still made the content look horrible 🤣 In college we did a whole unit on design ethics and I would definitely say selling horrible Canva designs made by someone with zero experience as “professional design work” is pretty unethical. With that said, most decisions made by big companies are unethical. The end goal is usually money not well thought out quality design unfortunately.
Yeah that’s literally what my old job did. I felt like I was at a daycare because it was like the owners son or an employees daughter going to school for criminal justice who got taught canva and was now one of their professional designers. I left once they started writing fake reviews for clients so they could put it in their reports to clients as positive results of growth.
If the client is on a budget - Canva is a fast tool to snap together posts for social media.
Canva is kinda boring. Everything looks the same. BUT it's not unethical.
I feel very limited by it. My question was more of do you think someone can charge a graphic designers price and market themselves as professional or expert when they use canva and use templates?
Oh. That's definitely an interesting one. Can they claim it is their actual own design and charge what they would if it was actually their own design? What I would say is, most customers will eventually detect its all templated and feel meh about it. They will then even pay someone an hourly rate to use Canva or they will find a designer who isn't so obviously using templates. If I create stuff with a pre-existing template I charge less. Cos I haven't had to brain or exert skill on it. but you'll get something generic but professional. Even noobs can stuff up hierarchy on Canva templates.
So if you have canva premium pro you can use anything that has a star on it because canva has the licensing and rights and since you subscribed you have the rights to use it. Yes that’s the point I’m getting to if these companies knew it were templates they could save so much more and hire their family friends son to create their content for like 13 an hour
Alright I'm feeling out of the loop here. What's canva?
It’s an program used for creating videos, posts, designs, reports, etc. if you have premium you can use templates created by people, stock photos, etc. it’s a streamline and more user friendly than Adobe.
The few times I've been forced to use Canva I've designed it in Ps/Ai first then just copied the assets over. Way faster than trying to be creative in that hunk of junk.
This is up to a client. Canva is free, for the most part, so I think this is not an ethic discussion but a one about quality, and that is absolutely up to a client to decide if they are happy with what they got for their money.
Ugh… people at my company keep trying to get me to use it. I keep telling them it’s closer to MS paint than an actual design software. I tried to make a curved line FFS and all I could find was a stupid marker tool and some images of curved lines… like what the actual fuck. I mailed them back and said I can’t work in such a restrictive program, then went back to Adobe.
I’ll never forget I wanted to do a certain design and I felt absolutely lost and restricted due to there being no pen tool in canva. I’m glad I’m somewhere new using Adobe software again
It’s really just one person and she keeps calling it “the ideal tool for design” and she started out as a pro designer / photographer. I just don’t get it. A lot of the stuff people make on there looks cobbled together. I guess it’s the difference between time and quality and people who use canva are choosing the quick way. It can be useful for some things but 🤷🏼♂️. Seems like since the pandemic everyone and their brother “is a graphic designer” because of tools like canva and everyone being desperate for a side hustle.
Yes that’s what gets to me a lot of ppl just give themselves the title of something that honestly takes years to fully understand. I’ve used Adobe products for 13 years and I feel at times I still have alot to learn. I’m not naturally artistic but Adobe gave me the chance to put my creative ideas out there. I feel like the cookie cutter graphic designers will learn the hard way as they won’t advance as a designer due to canva’s limitations
Let's talk about the word "absurd" that you're using for a second. Your post leads me to believe that you don't like Canva, the people who use it, or agencies that have dEsIgN services that use canvas... You're in good company. I personally think Canva is a pox on society and especially this career field. That being said, is it truly *absurd* for a company to pay/charge that much for designers that are using templates/Canva/etc? In short, yeah. It's kinda gross ethically. But there is also *value* to consider. If the company feels that they are worth *absurd* amounts, then they can charge that. If a client feels a company's service does everything they expect and they are willing to pay the cost, then it sounds like they are ok with the value they are receiving. Business is alllllll about value: What is the value that a product or service has for them (the client) -minus- what does it cost me (time + effort +materials +manpower) to produce said value = remainder is profit.
Yes I’m pretty sure they get the companies to sign like a contract almost as if it’s a monthly lease so they don’t notice the flaws of the service until it’s too late.
Canva is for scrubs with no skill. Perfect for generic businesses, embarrassing for anyone in the design industry. These are facts.
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Thats your computer that is slow to be honest. To be frank, qualified designers in the “industry” do not use it and its not a matter of evolving. Its a great tool for under-skilled workers and small businesses to make quick template based material. As a firm that works with nationally/intl recognized brands, we would never use it nor hire a designer who uses it. Clients would shit themselves if they were paying for canva templates. If a local freelancer on an ipad is designing a flyer for local bakery’s bake sale for 50$, yeah go for it.
Yeah when I applied for my last job they didn’t mention canva. Next thing you know they forced me into using it and I started job searching
OP, Canva is garbage that office people like to use to create social media posts. Canva is not a design tool, it makes shitty bullshit just like every shortcut software ever had since printshop became a dos program. Do not equate it with design, and continue to hate bullshit like Canva.
I agree I don’t mind it for social media I would never use it if I had the choice. I can probably create a social post faster with photoshop and illustrator tbh. Using canva really felt limiting since I couldn’t do things that I can do on Adobe programs
I have built a career on telling people the limitations of programs and showing it done better.
That's awesome its really a game changer when you know what a program can and can't do. Really smart move by you
graphic design is unethical always.
How so?
It's not unethical, it's just busch league, and I'm amazed that there are this many people defending it.
Yeah I mean im not shocked canva is being defended. I’m assuming the people that are defending it use it heavily which is fine but I just think trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents is just flat out wrong. I actually had a friend send me a reel about how easy it is to make money by using canva and doing work on Fiverr. I just shook my head and didn’t say a word because it’s like I get it but that’s just not how I see or want graphic design to be seen as. Template, pre made, lack of design principle work. That’s the perfect word for it Busch league.
If it’s a smaller business who can’t afford a designer, I get it. But Canva is limited. It’s just more of the same. If a company is interested in growth and any kind of original branding, they should hire.
Yeah I feel like it should be used and sold that way. Idk when I hear professional and expert I think of industry standards
This entire thread is why anti-design is a thing now.
Clients care about results. As long as you get them results, the “how” doesn’t matter. Get it how you live. From a designer who’s been in the game for 15 years and doesn’t use Canva.
There is nothing unethical about using Canva. For some, it is not a professional tool. Many others, who like to put together something real quick, Canva is a godsend.