One of my favorite brushes for my digital palette is Canva. I like it because it is free to use, easily shared, remixable, a user-friendly joy to use, and so very handy. I have always thought of Canva as one of those perfect hothouses for creative work– any age and skill level.
It provides a healthy balance between templates and free rein. What I hadn’t realized before was how much it is designed for the informal learner. There is a sweet course-in-a-blog that I outline in the Scoop.It embed above. There’s a blog for newsy/teach-y stuff, tutorials to get you started in the world of design and teaching resources. I especially like the design post below: 10 Menu Design Hacks Restaurants Use to Make You Order More – Design School
I also plan on adapting one of their lesson plans on using Canva to create what amounts to a social media ad campaign. How handy is that!
Lately, I have been trying to exercise my creative muscle as part of my ‘pense-betes’ motto, “Don’t Just Derive, Create and Thrive”.
Don’t just derive, create and thrive.
I acknowledge that part of everything we do is ‘derived’ from what someone else has done, but I also want to promote the idea that we can step out onto the creative cloud by putting the stamp of our own lives on the tools, ideas, and acts already out there. I was inspired to do this by blogger James Altucher’s post, “The Ultimate Guide to Exercising our Creative Muscles”.
His post is an inspiring outline of how he does a creative workout by writing down ten or more ideas every day. That’s it. He says the practice helped save his life. So what are the ideas about? Anything. Do they have to be all good ideas? No. It is quite unlikely that any of them will be, but without pushing that capacity, we all know what happens–we descend into the world of the xerox, of the routine, of the solely derived.
Here is a hackpad with my ten ideas for today:
And here is where to go if you want to add your own to each day’s version. I am making this a priority for the next month. Every day. Wander through, lurk about, report on, or create your own list here or elsewhere. Just let me know how your month of ideas is progressing. And read Altucher’s post for more ideas and further discussion on what to do with these ideas going forward.
