Make and Design with Carina Gardner

Do you ever wonder how to fit it all in with only 24 hours a day in a busy world? On this episode of Make + Design, Carina gives her tips on doing consistent, meaningful design work—especially during times of the year that are full of distractions—every single day.   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepu...

Trends are AWESOME. So how do you, as a designer, ride the wave? How do you plan a year out to be on trend by the time the product you’re designing today comes out in a year? Carina gives you all the tips on trends in today’s Make + Design.   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY   _________...

Where does freelancing fit in with launching a design career? In this episode of Make + Design, Carina breaks down all the reasons that freelance work can be a vital part of learning to design, getting experience, and learning to work with clients. Listen in for great tips on how to be successful with freelancing.  __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Beco...

Surface Pattern Design work is a hot field in the marketplace right now. So how do *you* get a career in surface pattern design started? Tune in to this episode of Make + Design to get Carina’s expert advice on where to start! As usual, Carina gives you real-world examples that help you become the best that you can. __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Bec...

Everyone loves free stuff and the internet is full of chances to get free stuff. But are the endless freebies available online really getting you what you need? On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina discusses the drawbacks of relying on free stuff and gives concrete examples of how investing in yourself (and an inexpensive course) will help you level up much more quickly. _______...

The name “surface pattern design” keeps coming up. Have you ever wondered how it differs from regular graphic design? In today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina breaks down the difference between the two and gives you tips on how to become the designer you’ve always wanted to become! __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer...

Lots of people “flirt” with the idea of becoming a surface pattern designer or paper designer. Fewer people commit to the idea and even fewer make it their Plan A. Where do you fit in?   __________ 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 desig...

You can build small habits into your day to make the design process easy. On the other hand, you may have habits that also hinder you. Carina talks about some of the small habits she has that both help and hinder her in the hopes that you can also build amazing habits and get rid of the bad ones!   __________ Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pa...

Carina talks about the 5 levels you can hit as a designer. You could be at any one of these stages, but the goal is always to get to the next level! Identify where you are and where you want to be!   __________ 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...

Carina welcomes her friend Crista Grasso on the podcast to talk about strategy, systems, and team! As designers we are always looking for ways to up level our business and Crista knows alot about taking companies from single entrepreneurs to growing and scaling.   Listen to Crista’s practical tips for building systems in your business and thinking strategically!   You can find Crista Grasso at htt...

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina talks about Imposter Syndrome. She finds that Imposter Syndrome only pops up when we compare ourselves to others. In that way, it’s not really Imposter Syndrome, it’s Comparison Syndrome. Have you ever had a moment when you look at someone else’s work and you think, “Wow. I’m not as good as them.” The feeling that gives us often makes us feel like an imp...

Carina’s sister and Etsy expert SuiKim Friedmann joins the Make and Design podcast today. The sisters laugh a lot and discuss which version of Pride and Prejudice they like the best.  They also take a deep dive into what it takes to set up an online coaching and mentoring program. This includes talking about how gratifying it is to see help people along in building their own careers. Their discuss...

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina talks about three powerful design strategies that will help keep you motivated and leveling up. These are strategies that will help you get paid for your design work.    Strategy one: you need to work smart and hard. You need to be going out of your way to work smart. As you do, you will get better at design to the point that design work can...

Today on Make + Design, Carina takes a quick look at the differences between Photoshop and Illustrator and gives some of the reasons that good designers use both tools. Photoshop is super useful for everyday things like editing photos. Illustrator is the main tool for professional designers though.    The first difference that Carina goes into is the difference between pixels and vectors. In Photo...

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina welcomes master of negotiation Susie Tomenchok. With years of experience negotiating deals for some of the largest companies in the world, Susie came to the realization that negotiation goes on all around us in every facet of life. Susie tells us about one of the opening stories in her new book, “The Art of Negotiation without Manipulation,” where her ki...

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina talks about the progress that designers make over time. She talks about taking a somewhat embarrassing (for her!) trip down memory lane when she recently searched for herself on the internet. Over 15 years of search results, she saw a lot of progress in her design work. She had a similar experience when she taught college, seeing the huge improvement tha...

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...