Make and Design with Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina gives us a list of three ways that you can start thinking differently from the competition in order to make it as a surface pattern designer. A surface pattern designer is a designer who focuses on creating 2D designs. Fifteen years ago a surface pattern designer would have been called a graphic designer. The new title is fun though!   Tip #1: See the world in shapes. Design is a learned behavior and anyone can learn it. Listen in to see what carina means by “see the world in shapes,” a vital skill to becoming a professional surface pattern designer.   Tip #2: Shift your style mindset to disrupt the marketplace rather than to copy the marketplace. Find out how producing something that’s different can set you apart from the competition.   Tip #3: Pay attention to negative space. What is negative space and how can you create great negative space? Carina walks us through it (hint: does your negative space attract eyes to your designs or detract from them?). About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY   Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina takes two steps back from her usual tips and strategies about design to talk about how to become a designer. Carina gives us two nuggets of wisdom when it comes to becoming a designer: First, you have to know the software that professional designers use to produce their work. Learn what these are as Carina walks through the most important skills and softwares you need to become a designer. Second, you need to find a marketplace. Hear what Carina has to say about how to find a market that works for you and your style! Carina also gives us a link to a resource with SEVEN additional tips on how to become a designer.   About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY   Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional

On this episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina is joined by Etsy expert, coach, and her sister SuiKim Friedmann. You may know SuiKim as “Kim” because that’s the way she originally branded herself. With fun banter as only sisters can pull it off, Carina and SuiKim discuss the origins of their names and SuiKim overcoming the fear of having a name that is unique. Find out what the tipping point was for SuiKim in her decision to move from www.kimcrafts.com to www.suikim.com when it came to branding her business.    You can find SuiKim’s work at www.suikim.com. Who gets their first name as a domain name? Awesome!   Find her on InstaGram at suikimfriedmann.  __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY  __________ About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp  Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina talks about her three favorite tools for doing design work right now. Give it a listen to learn the three tools that Carina finds essential to design work (Spoiler: one is hardware, one is an item you might find around the house, and one is an accessory for an iPad Pro). Carina also talks about what those who join her new Accelerated Designer Workshop Series will learn this year. Check out the workshops at https://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designerworkshop!   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY  __________ About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp  Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina tells a story of a recent realization: she didn’t have any testimonials from community members on her website! The testimonials that came in were eye-opening. Listen in to this episode to learn about ways that having a community can help keep you motivated in your design career. If you’d like to join our community then go to www.carinagardnercourses.com/bootcamp. We can’t wait to see you there!   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY  __________ About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp  Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina tells about how she found early success in her design career because she spent almost as much time on her previews as she did on her product. A preview is simply a marketing tool, a visual layout used as an icon to sell a product. Listen in to get two tips on how to create great digital previews!   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY  __________ About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp  Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional

Time management guru Megan Sumrell joins Carina on today’s episode of Make and Design, and explains why they’re launching a course called “Time Management for Designers.” For Megan, good time management skills free designers up to unlock their creativity. This course sets designers up so that they can feel like the sky is the limit in terms of how they design. Megan and Carina talk about how they teach in the same way, giving learners step-by-step, bite-sized, doable chunks. They’re super excited to share an outline of the content and bonuses you’ll get with this course, which launches March 1st!   Tune in to get the exclusive coupon code to save over 50% on the course!   The course can be found at https://www.megansumrell.com/creatives.   Megan can be found at megansumrell.com or on Instagram at megansumrell.   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY  __________ About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp  Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional

In today’s can’t-miss episode of the Make and Design Podcast, the multi-talented Katie Ann Powell tells us the story of how she learned to have confidence by overcoming fear. She shares insights into how getting into pageants after high school helped her develop as a person, and tells us the things she’s learned from some of the amazing experiences she has had so far. Katie Ann was First Runner-Up in last year’s Miss Utah pageant and currently serves as Miss Greater Salt Lake. She uses her voice to teach personal finance.    Katie Ann is the host of the “Full Confidence Ahead” podcast (https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/ba132a0f-4531-4ec0-89ee-184fa7dc2ada/full-confidence-ahead) and can be found on Instagram at katieann_powell and contacted by email at katieannpowell@gmail.com.   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY  __________ About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp  Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional

In today’s episode of Make and Design, Carina talks about how “batching” is a HUGE strategy for managing all the things we have on our plates as designers. Learn the three ways that Carina batches her work and how batching makes your products more marketable.   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY  __________ About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp  Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional

On today’s Make and Design Podcast, host Carina Gardner offers advice on one of the questions she gets most: how does a designer leverage Instagram? Find out why you can’t judge whether someone has monetized their work based on the number of followers they have on Instagram and the best way to approach Instagram as a designer.    __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY  __________ About Carina Gardner: Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.   Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.   Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp  Watch this episode as a video at https://www.makeanddesign.com/ Get my free gift to you here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/intentional