Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My name is Dylan Schmidt. I am so glad you're here today listening, watching if you're on YouTube, my guest today is Roger Coles. He is a Canva expert. And one thing you'll hear Roger and I talk about in this episode is much more than Canva. Canva is just the entry point for the conversation. Roger is in, he knows everything Canva. And one thing I find interesting about Canva is the separation will say between people that are graphic designers, or, you know, they think that Canva maybe isn't like this powerful tool. And I've been on the side of like, I'm not sure if I should dive in learning Adobe or things like that. And when Canva came along, it was like, I don't need to learn those things. Because Canva makes everything accessible and easy. And what I found fascinating through my discussion with Roger is he actually started out with Adobe, and things like that, and then moved to Canva. So I find it interesting how he went from this powerful beast of a program and how then transitioned to Canva. But my conversation is super in depth with Roger, and I think you're gonna really enjoy it. So here is my conversation with combat expert, Roger Coles. Thank you for coming on Digital Podcaster. Roger, how're you doing today?

I'm doing well. Thank you so much for the invitation. I appreciate the DM glad that we could set this up.

I'm super glad to and I if you're just listening, you won't be able to see this. But if you're watching Roger has an awesome background. I have to ask is that a baseball? Next?

It is yeah, this baseball is signed by Darryl Strawberry. And yeah, so I'm I had a chance to hang out with him at a couple events. And so we run in some of the same circles. And that was just like one of the events. He was given out all these baseballs. I was like, yeah, let me get one of those.

Yeah. There was an awesome. I think it was an ESPN documentary about him. It was 2020 I felt like during like the pandemic times, but it might have been right before that. Did you see that? It was I didn't see it. Darryl Strawberry. Who's the other player? That was like, good friends with him? No, I oh my gosh, I'm like a baseball nut and I'm just blanking on that. Okay. That's gonna plague me until I look it up after this. Darryl Strawberry. And there's one more guy. But it was the two of them. And it's just they're capturing their story was just so fascinating. Like they were such icons at the time. Like that was that was that was like a Yeah, before Yeah, for tick talkers. It was great. Baseball players.

His story is is just crazy. You know, so much that he's gone through and the growth that has happened since his career has ended in baseball. He's I really admire him. Great, man.

Yeah, he's, he's, yeah, he's incredible. Besides baseball, I really reached out to you and wanted to chat because you are a Canva. Expert.

And when they say that, they tell me, that's what they call it.

And one thing I love about Canva is a lot of things I love about it. One is the development of Canva. It seems like I think I've been using it on the URL it since early stages and watching it grow and become this full fledged tool. Yeah, I know, at one point it, it was kind of this tool that was, I don't know, it just seemed like you were cheating in a way of using it. That's like my perception of it. Because I'm not Adobe qualified, all that I know how to get around on it. But I've always felt it to be super bloated for like just getting from point A to B. And Canvas stepped in and made it super easy and accessible to just get something done. And so I always kind of found it to be the tool that everyone needed. Because in you know, like, Oh, I know Adobe Photoshop. I know Adobe Illustrator, all these things. And with Canva it was it just made everything easier. Do you have a back? What's your background? And really? Yeah, so

my story is a little bit of a hodgepodge. So I actually went to school, and initially was studying sport management. And then while I was there, I changed my degree. And I graduated with a degree in religion. And then I ended up being a youth pastor for many years, which is where I learned design. So you in youth ministry, you need like registration forms, and you need all this kind of stuff. And so we were just doing that all in house. So the guy who brought me on initially, I was just an intern. He showed me a few things in Photoshop, and I jumped right into it. And I was like, before long I was teaching him how to do things. And then that was around the time where MySpace was around. And so I started digging into a little bit of like, customizing my MySpace paid so little bit of coding and things like that. And so I learned some basic Yeah, just basic HTML, and started building websites. So like, does graphic design, web design all kind of started to come in handy. And so I was using that within that setting, to help the church to help the youth ministry. And then I before long started, had people asked me to do side projects. And so I started doing that kind of work and logo design. So a lot of it was completely self taught with YouTube, Google, just anything I could find. I would literally just Google like, poster grunge poster tutorial Photoshop, and the things I would learn in that you'd pick up Photoshop shortcuts, you'd pick up how to use textures, you pick up how to use just all the different tools within Photoshop, and then there was a site called Creative Live, I'm not sure if it's still if that's what it is.

I think they just actually sold to something I think Chase Jarvis is on. Yeah,

yeah. So I would literally like get on there, you could see a whole calendar of when they were going to be doing trainings and tutorials. And I would set my calendar, just say, if that's what I'm doing that day, from, you know, noon to three, I'm just going to learn how to do different things in Photoshop, or illustrator or whatever. So I was definitely more I came up in the Adobe world. And then Canva got introduced to me. And then I just was like, I'm in love. Yeah.

Which is fascinating, because Photoshop is obviously this robust program that can do absolutely anything. What made you drawn to the simplicity? It's, it seems to me like and I don't really know, Photoshop, that well, despite what my resume says. And Excel while we're at it, I'll be honest. Um, but what what made what drew you to Canva? To? It just seems like a step back, I guess, for someone that knows Canva, but doesn't know Photoshop as well,

right? Yeah, I think what happened is I would work with many clients who would want small changes in whatever I would design for them. Or it was something that they were going to need on a weekly basis if they had a podcast or something like that. And they wanted to swap out who the guest was, or they wanted to change the episode title. You don't want to have to constantly come back to your graphic designer and ask them for hate, can you just change the name and just the photo. So I was like, let me just dabble with Canva, because they're not going to learn Photoshop, because I could give them the PSD files, but they're not going to know what to do with it. But Canva is a little bit more intuitive. And so if I can just give them the Canva template, they can make those tweaks so really became more about helping my clients, and about saving me time, because how do you even invoice for something like that, like someone wants you to do something that will take you two minutes to do? Are you going to invoice them for that? No, I mean, it just feels a little shady you get because some people have a minimum of like an hour of work. I'm not gonna charge you for an hour if it took me two minutes to do this. And so that's like, you just feel

like you charge full price for this. And it's like, it doesn't feel right.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm not gonna track my time for something so small. So really, it was born more out of just the desire to help clients and make it easy for them. And then I started to find that more and more people wanted those kinds of templates. Because back in 2020, the start of 2020, or the end of 2019, I released a podcast pack thinking like I think podcast is just gonna keep on growing. And I released it on, on creative, yeah, as I'm talking to. So I released it on Creative Market, and it exploded, like I had so many sales from that product that I was like, wow, there really is like power in being able to give accessible templates for people, especially within a specific industry like this. And so I started dabbling more with creating templates, not just for clients, but more general templates like podcasting or real estate that people would be able to modify and not have to source that to a designer, if they didn't have the budget for a course like I'm in that world. So like, of course pay me. But then I also started to feel bad for those small businesses that just don't have the budget for that. But they still need their business to stand out and look good. So as they're growing their business until they can get to a point to pay someone to do some custom work for them. These are really good solutions.

Yeah, that's wonderful. There's, there's so much great stuff you said right there. So one thing I have to tell you is like I'm weird Roger, like a I scrolled Creative Market, like people watch Netflix. I'm not a big TV watcher. I just love scrolling Creative Market because the inspiration on there. And like, I'll add so much stuff to my cart, I'll buy a couple of things. But I'll just be adding stuff to my cart because it feels like I get a good pulse on like, the design and things like that. So are you still selling templates on Creative Market?

Yeah, I haven't really put anything new up in the last couple of months. But it's only a partner. Yeah, I'm still on there. So I'm still earning. And it's part of my over the next. I do my years in 12 week increments. So it's basically quarterly. But I try not to think about like in December, I want to be doing this, I'm just like, these are the things I want to accomplish in the next 12 weeks. So during these 12 weeks, it is my goal to release 10 digital products that I will put on Creative Market. And most of it is just that I don't even know how many templates I have on my Canva profile, just being able to tweak those and turn them into a product so I can put them on Creative Market for people who don't want to subscribe to Canva Pro, because a lot of my templates, most of my templates are Canva Pro. So if you have a pro membership, you can use them. If you don't, then you're not really going to be able to use them for something, sometimes you have to pay for that. So

what are the hesitancies of I use Canva every day what I can but I see people will comment, oh, this is for Pro users only. I understand money is a is a like it's not Yeah, not everyone can afford everything. But to me, Canva has been one of those things. It's like currently, as of this recording, I believe it's 1299 95 a month. And to me, it's one of those like, take my money I will I would cancel and many other subscriptions before I give up Canva pro but do you see like what the common objections to someone upgrading to Canva Pro is?

Yeah, I think that some of it is just the the price point. I know, it doesn't seem like much. Yeah, but I remember that being something back in the day that before I got Canva Pro, I just use the free version of Canva for as long as I could. And then I just started seeing some of the benefits of obviously, like background remover is a big one. But then unlimited folders is another big one for me. But for someone like my wife, who is going to use it a little bit here and there for her business, she's like, I don't really need access to all of that stuff. I just need to be able to like whip up a template. And there are so many great Canva creators that have joined the Creator program that are creating free templates that we're starting to see some people going, I don't know, you know, like, should I just stick with free? Or should I upgrade to pro My recommendation is always do pro if you can, because there are so many you get access not only to more templates, but more photos to audio to all of the different features like background remover, unlimited folders, a full on brand kit, you can actually create multiple brand kits now. So there's so many benefits to Pro that I highly recommend it but I also remember being in a place where 1299 felt like it's just one more thing. Is it something that I really really need? Yeah. And then it got to a point where yes, it became a necessity and I was like it just makes sense for me to pull the trigger and go ahead and grab this subscription.

Yeah, and I think you get something like five seats. If you have a pro membership then you can get five seats included in that, too. So if you wanted to add somebody, you could add them I think and they could use the benefits of pro right add

people to your team. So if you're a business and you do have a social media manager or something like that, you want to add them to your team so that they have access to your brand kit so that they can create custom templates for you. That is a really handy feature. Yeah,

I love that and couple things that Edmund ism not even things I was planning on asking talk with you about is just like I just find the whole space so fascinating. So I'm a big fan of digital products. This episode will come out after I've already started. But I'm doing a masterclass teaching a masterclass called product pro masterclass. And it's all about creating and selling your digital product. And it's alive like three part workshop. And one of the things that I teach and I educate people on is obviously creating and selling digital products. And templates are one of my favorite things, templates, checklists, things that you can create in Canva. Yet, but what's fascinating to me, because they're so useful because I use them like I just said, I scroll Creative Market, and I've looking at stuff and like, Ooh, I want this template. Do I want this thing? One of the things I find interesting though, is like you could create something in Canva save it and then sell it on Creative Market that someone is accessing through Canva. And I know that because I've heard from people that they're like, why would anyone pay for that because you could just get it for free. through a similar template, or you can make your own all that stuff. Yep. But, like, without me saying it, because I've said it before, like, why would someone do that? Roger, I would someone pay you for something they would already make?

Well, yeah, I mean, the reality is that they won't, they won't make it, which is why they're looking for a template in the first place. I work with so many people, even a copywriter in my mastermind group. And she, she writes copy, but she can't design at all, she doesn't know how to lay things out in a way that is going to communicate visually what she's trying to say because she's a she's a genius with words. And so she wants the visual communication of those words to look good as well. So in that case, she bought a template, but even then, she had no idea how to customize that template. So she actually hit me up was like, Roger, help me please. Like, I don't know how to, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Her headings were all jacked up. Like she didn't understand some of the visual hierarchy. And so I went in and tweaked a bunch of things for her. So the benefit of buying a template is that hopefully you're buying from a professional designer who does understand all of the design principles that make something easily communicated visually. And I yeah, I always say, yes, you can, you can create it. But if you don't have the basic understanding of design principles, or you don't have the time to do it, and you can find a template that already exists from a pro designer who has done all the work for you. Do

it, save yourself the hassle, right? There's no, there's already so many things, if you're gonna like, make money online, there's already so many things you have to do. Like, if you can save time, and it costs you a fraction of you know that time like, it's funny, like, he'll be like, I'm not gonna pay for Canva Pro, but then they'll, they'll be like, I'm like, Okay, how much do you charge per hour for whether your coach or consulting, whatever you're doing, like, oh, I charge at least minimum $75 an hour? And it's like, cool. How long did it take you to do this thing in Canva? That you were getting around Canva Pro? Took me two hours. Okay, so it just took, you know, the perspective of the time. Yeah. cost associated, there's just, um, yeah,

I was gonna say even designers are like, I mean, that's why Creative Market exists. It's resourcing a lot of designers. You know, my even I can create some of this stuff. But if there's something specific that I don't want to create an illustrator, like, I need a pack of UI elements or illustrations or something like that, yes, I could make those. But they're already done here. Someone else has already done the work for me. And they specialize in that type of design. So yeah, take my money, please. Yeah, um, I was just watching someone that was doing a Canva tutorial, and she was showing people how to sell products, digital products, and so she has her Canva open. And I can see in the left toolbar, you can always see like, recently used, and there's two of my templates that were recently used by her, because those two templates were product mockups. So she could literally take the templates that she makes the design the social media posts, and click and drag them into the mockups that I've created. So here's someone teaching you how to sell your own digital templates using the digital template mock up.

Not your stuff, though, right? What's not selling?

You're not selling my stuff. But, you know, it helped her to save time as she was packaging up her products to be able to use a mockup template that I had created. It's so

genius. Yeah. And it's not like sneaky, too. And that's the thing. Like, I know, someone out there listening is thinking, like, that doesn't sound ethical or something like that. But it actually, it's, it's, it is still I in my opinion, it's totally cool. Because, you know, it's not, it's not like you're selling something it's not. And you are like, people will be like, Oh, you're a podcaster Cool. We'll like then though, they'll talk about all the stuff that like there's, there's a spectrum of podcasting, right, there's people that want to they all they care about is the audio quality and sound treatment of a room and all that stuff. And my whole thing is, it's a conversation, if you can hear it clearly cool. More the time should be spent on marketing, aka growing your show. So you actually have listeners, and when you grow your show, and you actually have listeners, it's easier to monetize, which then allows you to get help to make the show and the treatment of the all that stuff. But other than that, it's just an expensive hobby. And nobody's listening. And you might as well just be talking to yourself. Right? So yeah, and so it's like, but yeah, when you when you do all that you got to get help and getting help through templates is one way of doing that, you know?

Yeah. 100% I think the main thing with digital products and this is something that we're seeing a lot in the industry within Canva Canva is really cracking down on this. So if you're looking at getting into this kind of work, if you're listening or watching, just be mindful of the terms and conditions that Canva has in place because they are cracking down on this kind of stuff. Etsy is rampant with a lot of people who just take a template from Canva and maybe change a color, change an image and then sell it. That's actually outside of the terms of service, you're not able to just take a template from Canva. So my encouragement is always like, if you're going to sell the work, if it's going to be sold Instagram posts, for instance, yeah, use a blank canvas, start with a blank canvas, create whatever it is that you need for your audience, and then package it up and sell it.

Yeah, that's, thank you for saying that. That's a great thing to note. I also want to speak to the person that goes, there's so much templates already in Canva, that they go, you know, why would I pay for him when there's already all these things? I will say, and I'm not a Canva. Seller, I do. Remembering now I do have. I do have a product that has Canva templates that I made in it. So I guess I do sell templates, but not is directly because it's part of a package podcast thing. As a consumer, as a consumer and audience person that spends a lot of time on on social media, and websites and all that digital marketing space I have for years. And not just because I'm like super familiar with it. I know other people notice this too, because of their behavior. People know when you're just using a template and barely edit that thing. Yeah. It's so obvious. Like I'm saying this is like, not the expert like you, you know, but I'm just saying that anyone who's like, there's already so many templates, it's so obvious when it's a Canva template, and you just change one color. Yeah, versus going on Creative Market and getting a template. It is. It is so night and day difference. And your audience goes, Wow, this is incredible. Yeah, nobody's going wow, this is incredible when it's a Canva template that was tweaked to colors. And they posted like I'm a graphic design artist now. You know, like, so I just it just, it just a hot button for me, Roger, when people are like, I made this thing, you did not make that thing. You just click the button. You changed it from tan to darker tan. Yep, put in a inspirational quote and posted it. So yeah. Yeah. So I just, I just say that in your if it's not that you asked or needed it.

I think it's helpful for social media managers that, you know, they don't need to, like I try to think of two different audiences when I'm creating designs, I like to think about what are some designs that I can create, that already have the strategy in place so that a social media manager could get on Canva? Find this and immediate download it? Maybe they could change the colors, download it, and then post it for their client? So I tried to take some of the guesswork out, because I think that's a lot. That's a struggle for many people, not just social media managers. But yeah, what do I post? How do I find the content that is going to engage? So I experiment on social media, I watch what other people are doing on social media, what seems to be successful and get engagement during different seasons. And then I'll find ways to recreate that in a template so that someone could jump on Canva download it and hopefully see the same success or engagement on their accounts.

Yes, I love that. Um, two things. I didn't realize I was like, I knew I was gonna be just in Canva, talking with you about Canva. But then like, the more we talked, the more I'm like, there's a lot to talk about. I didn't process that beforehand. One, there is a difference too. And I've seen this is like what you think is beautiful, and what the audience can like, understand when they're scrolling something on social media, because fancy fonts are hard to read. And I know, on your own Instagram, you post these, like, easy to follow fonts and helpful tips about that. Second, what do you mean by seasons? I'm curious. Yeah, so

dip, just different trends. So I'm watching you know, it was who knows? At what point your listener is going to hear this, it's going to become very outdated if it's years into the future. But within the last six months, there was that red flag tweet that was going viral, everybody was like posting something about their industry that when they hear it, it's a red flag, or they're working with a client, and they say this one thing, red flag, and then there were all those red flag emojis in it. So that was something that you know, as a designer, someone in social media world, your antenna kinda like perks up and you go, this is trending right now, how can I resource someone who may not be able to do this on their own? Or maybe they don't care about getting on Twitter and typing it and hitting post and then screenshotting it you could just go straight to Canva type red flag, tweet, and customize it right there. So that was like an easy way that I'm watching the trends that are happening and then trying to resource people like as quick as I can because that trend is going to fade you know Yeah, it's it's all right. No, and I mean maybe people are still still doing the red flag. But that was so so hot for a few weeks and then it started to die off. So always trying to find so when I say seasons, I guess I really mean like trends are Throughout the year, just looking for those things that really start to resonate with Instagram users or people on Facebook. LinkedIn is a little bit of a, you know, it's a whole new world for me. I'm just dabbling on LinkedIn right now. I haven't quite fully grasped that world. But yeah, I'll see if I can crack that code.

Oh, good. I know, you've heard this, I think, yeah, LinkedIn, their UI. gives me anxiety. It's just like, click, it might be a Facebook. Well, Facebook, too, I guess. Because it's always notifications. It's like, yeah, everything you've missed in the world. But LinkedIn to me does the same. It's like, and then the bots are like, crazy. Hi, I'm always getting messages. Hey, Dylan, you didn't respond to my last message. And like, because it's a robot. Right? Yeah, real message. Exactly. But I hear great things about organic reach and all that stuff on on LinkedIn. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm like, still kind of going in there a little bit more hesitantly, I guess, but also about seasons, it kind of makes me wonder to do you do you pay much attention to when it comes to colors, and creating content around seasons?

I do I pay attention to the design trends. You know, of course, 2022 rolls around, and everybody's talking about these are the design trends, you're gonna see this year, fluorescent color palettes and stuff out there. So that's one of the trends I think, later released their design trends. And that was one of the things that they talked about. So real vibrant, bold colors. But the the thing that you have to keep in mind is while that might be trending, if there's a brand who has invested all this money into their colors, and logo brand assets, they're not just going to change everything up and all of a sudden have like vibrant, bold colors, because it's it's not on brand for them. So the but if they're creating their brand this year, and they're paying attention to those design trends, you know, of course, my advice would be like try to think long term, not just like you can always rebrand. But if you get caught up in a trend that's only going to last for three months, then you're going to have to rebrand every three months, you don't really want to do that. So yeah, yeah, so I pay attention to those kinds of things. And I'll experiment with them to, to see if this is something that really is resonating with people. And, you know, in a different season. So neutral colors are, it seems like people gravitate towards that simply because even though in Canva, you can customize everything, you can customize the colors and the fonts. But sometimes people just can't see their brand in those colors, even though they could they could change them. And so the neutral stuff gives people a little bit more space in their minds to see how they can transform it. If I show you something that's like maybe a light tan or beige color, or I show you something that's bright neon green, that might feel a little just way too out there for your brand. And you're not going to open the template because it's you can't see yourself in the template. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's all an experiment of just trying different things. And there are different brands that like their whole vibe is vibrant, and bold, and colorful. So they are gonna want those kinds of color palette. And so

yeah, that makes sense. And it's interesting, because I guess someone like me, it's different for company, in some ways when they have that, but like, as I say, maybe a solo person like myself, the colors that I choose are pretty close to the colors that I wear. Yeah, like, I took me way too long to figure out like I would buy this loud, vibrant stuff, sometimes with like, allowed patterns, and then I would never wear it. And I'd always be like, I don't ever wear this. I'm never drawn to that. And I'm always drawn to like the blank, neutral stuff. And then finally, I was like, oh, that's because that's not like, that's just not me, that's just like, I like it as an art piece. But like actually wearing it and living it doesn't really fit with how I want to express myself to the world. And I think there's seems to be something to be said about that in the content, as well to kind of like Does that match? Is that the right, you know, color for the mood that you're trying to convey? You know, because yeah, fluorescent colors seem quite loud compared to just the tan background or something. Right? Yeah.

And you know, everything like the colors should match the brand voice. So, you know, if you're, and that's where a brand strategist really come in handy. Working with someone who understands that or can kind of draw out of you those things that you don't even know. Yeah, you're drawn to these types of things, but you don't really know why. But then a brand strategist is going to help you to own who you are, and try to help you understand your audience because there are times where maybe you like that, but is that completely against what your target audience is what's going to resonate with your target audience? And I think that's attention for a lot of I struggle with that same exact thing. You probably you see that in some some of my work because I know the kinds of templates that resonate with people And yet, you see a lot of blue and red on my on my page.

Yeah, that's what I like, I think what I think of your page, I think blue and red. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, but a lot of the templates that I create, they're not blue and red, because I'm trying to make sure that everybody has what they need. So for my brand, it works. But I do think that people will often feel that tension between the things that they like, and the things that will resonate with their target audience.

Thank you for saying that. That is a great point. Yeah, people will be like, but I like it. And it's like, well, your last posts have zero engagement and nobody's, but they all like that other color you used or something, you know. So it's like, why don't we just follow the data? I love that so much. One thing you mentioned earlier, when we're talking, and I just want to say it for myself is I've never said this to anybody. Sounds like it's gonna be super important.

I know, we make some sound effects, like a drumroll right here. So

I have three kids I've never met. No, I'm just kidding. You are the father. When it comes to design, and looking ahead, one of my favorite places to look is actually mega churches. Like the church branding standpoint, there's something to be said, for church branding. It seems like a weird thing to say. But since you mentioned that, that's almost that's pretty how you got your start in a lot of ways. Yeah, I had, I had to mention that. I'm like, do you? Do you know what I'm talking about? If that makes any sense?

I think so. Yeah, I've definitely seen like some trends emerge from church. And I don't think that's abnormal. If you look at history, that like the cultural center for many communities came from the church, the music that was written, and there was just so much already, at that was central to the church creatively. And so maybe that maybe that's a historical thing. But I also do have friends who are in church, creative world, some of them at large churches, and there is a lot of creativity that's happening within that. And I think within any industry, where you're constantly trying to think about how can you get out this message in a creative way? Churches, obviously, they're cranking out messages every single week. And if you have multiple services, you've got maybe your main service happening Sunday morning, you got to use service happening on Wednesday evening or whatever. There's a lot of messaging that's coming out. So you're constantly having to come up with creative copy creative designs. So it could just be maybe what you're seeing is that it there's more opportunity for that creative muscle to be exercised. Because you brought like Gary Vee, same kind of thing. There's so much creative muscle that is getting flex because of how much messaging he's putting out his creative team. You know, I don't know what your audience might think about him. But if you look at what he's doing on social media, he is doing so many things. Yeah. And he was one of the first people I remember really breaking out of the beautiful grid, because he's just pushing out so much content. It's like you don't have time to keep things beautiful, because you're posting three to five times a day. And there's just a camera following him around recording him saying all these things that with my mom around whatever. And that Yeah, put it put it up, you know, post it, get it up, get it online. So yeah, I don't know, I would be interested. Why do you think that is like seeing mega churches and the creativity that that you're seeing come from them?

I think from a branding perspective. And yeah, just like a branding, messaging marketing, sales perspective from church. It seems like one of those things that it's like, just looking at it from a purely like, not like a religious standpoint, just looking at it from like, I don't know what the same point would be but looking in you studied religion to dissect me. But looking at it from like a business standpoint, I guess. It's just interesting that because they're their product is community. And they're selling something that like Twitch streamers are trying to sell and create and things like that. And people are trying to sell almost a similar thing in some ways. Maybe like, I don't know, whether they realize it or not, they're like, some people are trying to make themselves almost, let's say, cult leaders or something, but like this figure, this public figure, and they're trying to create that and it's like, that's what churches are doing. And they've been doing this for as long as humans have been around. And they have to use the same media platforms that we use because they're that's where everybody is so watching churches and how they do things and I'd say mega churches because they have the budget for like more kind of pushing the creativity and you just find small if I find smaller churches, obviously are like kind of following the lead for following the lead of these mega churches ish to how things are communicated. what are best practices. Things like that. And it. You know, there's, I guess, also being in Los Angeles, there's different types of churches, you know, there's churches that you honestly wouldn't even know to church you think it's like a club or something, because it's so trendy. Yeah. And those I think have become a little bit more common in other places. But there is in Hollywood, there's like this church on a corner. And it just you would never know it's a church. Like it's cool in a lot of ways. But it's just it's It's Hollywood. Its Hollywood showbiz baby. But, you know, it's just like, and I love it, though, looking at the branding of it, the colors the, the way, and it's similar to in a way, like, I'm not comparing the message of what's happening at a church to a podcast, by any means. Because it's a different, there's a different end result. Yeah, you know, but the consistency that churches have to maintain the community that they've, they have to drive towards, I think there's a lot to be learned from there. And it just gets me excited. This is weird. But for years, I thought it like church marketing, like, inspires me in it gets me excited to do a better job through like branding and things like that. Yes. Because you have like, you're able to market a message that is not new to anybody. There's no new message that's going to be at church that's like, alright, like, you know, like, I mean, other than riffing on the same the current events with like, a lens of the past. But it's not like it's like, oh, we just got a new religious update. I mean, yes, in a way, because your community I know, there's like, breaking it down. You know what I mean? But it's not like there's a new iPhone, or something where it's like remarketing around this thing. Yeah. And we're gonna pass around the tithing plate now if there i service. But, yeah, so that's, yeah. Good Doctor. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's just, you're the perfect person to talk to go off on this and then look up Hillsong and be like, what's Hillsong? Up to you? Every now and they'll check in? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That, yeah, and the music and the branding, all that good stuff. Okay, so one of the things I really wanted to ask you and we just have a little bit of time left, is what are some of the common mistakes, you see people who are trying to do it on their own versus, obviously, what you create in your templates, but the common mistakes that they may might not be aware of when they're creating something, let's say for social media? Yeah.

Yeah. So you know, if they, if I'll give, I'll give you two answers here. So if you are using a Canva template, one of the mistakes that I see people make is that if they have not already set up their brand kit, it's going to take them a lot more time. And those things that they're posting on social media may not be consistent with their brand. So step one, set up your brand kit. Even if you're on a free version of Canva, you can set up your brand kit, but you only get like three colors. And I'm not sure if you're able to upload fonts, I think that you would have to have a pro account to upload fonts that are outside of Canvas font library. So setting up your brand kit would be the very first thing that I would recommend. And then using the styles tab, once you get once you open up a template so that you can find your brand kit and customize those colors. That'll be the first thing. The other mistakes that I see outside of if you're going to use a template would be people tend to use too many fonts. So limit your fonts to two to three fonts. And don't make those two to three fonts all really out there. We're not using Wingdings, we're not using like three different script fonts, like, think about legibility on social media, because you really only have a second or less to hook someone in. And if they can't read what is on your graphic, then they're going to immediately swipe on by they're just going to keep on scrolling. And so two to three fonts. And less is more. I know that when you're posting something, I used to work with a radio station, and they would want all of these details to go in the graphic. Hey, Roger, he wants you to do this. And these are all the details. And I was like these all all these details will not fit in a 1080 by 1080 Instagram post. So what are the most important things that people need to know? Let's think about like what the hook is, what's the thing that's going to be visual hierarchy, what's going to be the biggest thing that people need to see that's going to hook them in for why they should read two or three other lines of texts that are on this image and then thinking through is it going to be photo centric, so describe whatever the event is that's happening if it's an Easter egg hunt, and you just have Easter egg hunt on there. Maybe we throw an Easter egg somewhere in the graphic because now we've got a visual image that connects with the typography the the messaging through text. So that's a that's another hint or another Another tip that I would give and leaving whitespace. So when we talk about whitespace, sometimes you fill up the entire image, and it actually makes it very difficult to read. So even if it's even if you haven't used five fonts, but you have elements by elements, I mean, like an illustration, squiggly line, those abstract blob shapes or something like that, then they're taking up so much, that there's not enough room, you're not going to be able to understand what you're reading. And you can think about it like going into your living room or into your bedroom, you don't have furniture everywhere, right? Things are kind of spaced out that kind of organized so that when you walk in the room is breathing. And we don't want to become a hoarder on Instagram, right? We've probably all seen that show. It's just there's cat litter, and there's magazines from you know, 100 years ago, stacked up really tall, and there's cans of food, don't do that to your designs, leave some whitespace because it's going to make it a lot easier. So whether that's around the borders, whether that's in between lines of text, think about your line spacing, all of that stuff is going to make it easier for someone on social media that scrolling by to maybe stop for just a second to look at what you're posting.

And would you say, the little texture around the edges or around the things? Because I know people especially on Canva, it seems, or they'll be like I added these little asterisk looking things, the little squiggly lines, little blobs, things like that. Would you say that? Even if they reduce the transparency? They do or don't I guess? Does that affect the whitespace?

Yeah, I mean, anything that's in there transparent or not? If it's taking up visual space, it's taking up visual space. So I usually will design something and then at the end, go what is there anything here that doesn't need to be here? Because sometimes being more minimalist being more simplistic is actually going to be better? So yeah, yeah, that'd be the final step of your design. What is here that should not be here, or that does not need to be here.

That's huge. And that's honestly the most important thing. If you take one thing away from this conversation, I mean, you look at someone like everyone goes, I want to look, it's look like Apple's brain, Bing or something, you know, and then it's like, you look at apples, and it's like, very a lot of whitespace, you know, yeah, they took away everything. Yeah, left an apple. Yep. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Roger. It's been a lot of learning. And I didn't know I had so much interest in Canva. But, and I well, I actually knew, but it's it's not like you can talk to people about their passion for Canva. So often. How are you working with people currently? What's that? Yeah.

So there's a couple of different ways that I'm working with people. One obviously is like my Canva profile. So you can go to canva.com/my/my Social designer. And there's I literally, I have lost count of how many templates that I have there. But there's well over I think 600 right now. And then there's carousel templates, WhatsApp, these are ones you can purchase. Yep, yeah. So there's some, some of them are free. So in the last couple of months, I've been doing a lot of free templates as well. So if you're free or Canva Pro user, then you can grab them from there. But there's carousels, there are Instagram posts, there are Instagram stories or Facebook ads, there's a lot of stuff there for people to sort through. And then the second way would be custom templates. So the best way to hit me up there is you can go through my website, but I'm having a lot of people just DM me on Instagram at my social designer for custom work custom templates. So if they if they get in Canva, and they're like, Ah, I don't want to have things that everybody else has, I want something custom for my brand, then that's something that I offer as well. And then the last way that people can work with me is Canva training. So I do Canva coaching calls. And it's fun because my last one I actually worked with a brand strategist who created the entire brand. And they said we want our client to understand how to use the brand that we've created for them to create templates in Canva that are on brand, because we all know that the horror of creating something for a client and then you go back a month later and you like what have you done, but beautiful baby, it's Troy. And so that was a really cool conversation, really cool coaching call, because she's on the call with me, the client is on the call. And he's starting to see how all of this can come together to take the branding that they've created for him and how he can customize these templates to fit with that new branding. So those are the three ways and if you want Canva coaching then there's a link in my bio on Instagram at my social designer that you can click Dining booked directly through there.

And I'm looking at I didn't even know canva.com/my Social designer, I don't even know you could link like that. And I'm looking at like scrolling through, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to dive into this. If you're listening you, you have to go to canva.com/my Social designer. And I never say that on like, this podcast, like, you got to do this, you have to go through a scroll even if you've never used Canva. Because the looking at like, your work is just, it's just mind blowing. Like, it's mind boggling of all the stuff you've made. And the fact that it's all like something you could copy to your own Canva account and customize is so fun.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm an official Canva creator, they invited me into the program about a year and a half ago, they email me and said, Hey, we love your work, we'd love to invite you into this beta program that we're creating for Canva creators where Canva users can come directly to the site and grab your work. So you'll find some of that stuff in the library. But if you're looking something for something specific, that that would be the other recommendation is if because there are so many designs, and Canva eventually is going to give us the ability to create some kind of collections where it'd be easier to filter through that page. But for the time being, if you're looking for something specific, like a carousel, then you could type in in the search on Canva carousel plus my social designer, make sure that plus is there all one word, my social designer, and you'll be able to find any of the carousel templates that I've made. And you could do that with any other keyword.

Amazing. And I've already I'm scrolling through and I've had certain people pop up that I've seen use your designs now. And I'm like, Oh, I didn't know these Rogers designed like, yeah, that's weird. It's and they didn't even edit the color, but it's still awesome. I still thought it was awesome when I saw it, too. But we didn't even change anything.

Yeah, I had a toggle post that kind of went viral within Canva. And I've seen a lot of people use that Lewis Howes has used a couple of the templates for like the greatness podcast, I mean, not him, but whoever those people are, you know, so yeah, I mean, I love being able to have that opportunity. And, and honestly, I, my big thing is helping people to save time and look like a pro. Because whether you have zero budget, or a million dollar budget, your stuff should still look good. And Canva gives you the ability to do that.

Thank you again, Roger, for coming on the podcast today and speaking with me. I'm gonna of course link everything Roger in the show notes. You've got to follow him on Instagram. And I mean it when you say you got to check out that Canva link, because the amount of designs you'll probably see the designs on there and go wow, I didn't know Roger, design that because you probably seen it around social media on Facebook, Pinterest, any social media site? It's really cool. So I think this is one of those episodes that in a few years is gonna look back on and be like, Wow, that was really cool. Was able to chat with Roger. I mean, I'm looking back on it right now. And that was really cool. So what else we got going on? We got some, well, we just had an event pass. It's currently happening for Digital Podcaster. It's called the product pro masterclass. It's really cool. It's going to be a three part live session. The registration is already closed for that. But I want to let you know, a couple of things we got going on, on things like that. So if you want to stay up to date on events, live workshops that I got going on, things like that, make sure that you are part of the email list. You can get on that a couple different ways. But check the show notes. If you download any of the free giveaways I've got then you can get on the email list that way too. Simplest way is going to digital podcaster.com/ 365. And you can get on their notifications weekly newsletters to try to add value to the newsletter that way too. But yeah, I hope you're doing well. I hope your 2022 is off to a great start so far, and I'll talk to you soon.