Make and Design with Carina Gardner

Today on the Make + Design Podcast, design expert Carina Gardner gets real about what it takes to make a full time living as a surface pattern designer. In Carina’s opinion, there are a lot more possibilities beyond “surface pattern design” and she goes into other ways designers can expand their thinking to give themselves more revenue streams with their work. Carina knows many designers who make...

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina talks about flow state and not just how to find it but how to create it. Carina has discovered that to be the best designer possible producing the best work, she needs to get into flow. Flow occurs when you are so absorbed in the thing at hand that time stands still, you don’t notice the things around you, and you find yourself in an amazing state where...

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina delves into one thing you can do to change the trajectory of your business: becoming incredibly, crazy fast in Adobe Illustrator. Carina gives us a great example on how getting fast in Illustrator increases your pay rate since you can produce so much more work. Carina’s advice is to spend less time in the dozens and dozens of features in Illustrator and...

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina talks about what makes a good Community. The more that Carina has thought about her community, the more she’s thought about what it takes to lead a community. Community makes us stronger, more creative, and more likely to reach our goals.   First, Carina shares her thoughts on finding a community that creates an atmosphere where members are comfortable g...

On today’s Make + Design Podcast, Carina wants to help us become next-level designers because next-level is the level where you get paid for your work. To help us, Carina shares three mistakes that we should avoid. Mistake number one is designing at the same scale all the time. Find out what Carina means by this and why it’s holding you back from leveling up. Mistake number two is keeping your spa...

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina gives us five ways to generate new ideas. Carina tells us the story of going to a movie with her kids that, at first, she didn’t want to go to but that she ended up loving and being inspired by.    Here are the five tips:   Change your environment. Find out what happens for Carina when she changes her environment–whether it’s moving to work f...

Carina is joined on Make + Design today by brilliant business woman Annette Walter. Annette shares her career trajectory with us and then gives us great advice on how to run a business. Anyone who becomes good enough at their trade will eventually need to shift into business administration and leadership. She tells us how we can stay grounded as business owners when we have less time to do the thi...

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 wo...

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 ski...

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 poi...

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 Design...

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.carinagardn...

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: T...

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...

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 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...

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...

On this episode of Make and Design, Carina welcomes special guest and Riley Blake designer Melanie Collette. Melanie talks about the process of getting a fabric line accepted by a major company for the first time. Hear about how, after initially getting no responses from fabric companies, she sat down, studied what made the fabric lines that she was buying special, and then incorporated all she le...

In Episode 107 of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina reflects on the lessons she learned from creating and teaching her new Illustrator Whiz Workshop. Find out how a workshop can help you get through basic tool learning so that you can get to the fun part of designing!   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http:/...

In today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina Gardner talks about how deadlines can help you move faster. Learn the differences between internal and external deadlines, and discover how you can make your internal deadlines as effective as possible.   Carina is going to be launching a new class with time management guru Megan Sumrell on March 1st. The course is all about time management...

On today’s episode of Make and Design, Carina is joined by fabric designer Jill Finley of Jillily Studio, who tells us what inspired her to make her new fabric line for kids. You’ll want to check the YouTube channel on this one so that you can see the fabric! ( https://www.youtube.com/user/carinagardner/videos ) Jill’s fabric line and a book about how she made it, called “Quilted Hugs,” will be re...

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Carina shares some tips about learning to LOVE *your* style. Carina shares how her style has shifted over the years and how leaning into your current style fills your work with authenticity. __________ 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:...

Designers, take note–literally! In this episode of Make and Design, Carina shares how she uses journaling to map out her big ideas and make them happen. She also goes into specific detail about how to plan and map out a project that’s an entire collection of related pieces.    __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: h...

What programs do you use as a designer? In today’s episode, listen in as Carina Gardner chats about her top five favorite design tools that she uses to run her business.    If you’d like to learn Adobe Illustrator, check out the replay from Carina’s Illustrator Whiz Workshop from January at https://www.carinagardnercourses.com/illustratorwhiz .    __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tip...

In this episode, Carina Gardner explains why a designer's online persona isn’t always indicative of a successful brand. Hint: becoming a great designer is better than having a big online following every time. Tune in to find out why! __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY   __________  ...