Many years ago, I was reading the latest issue of MacUser magazine and came across an opinion piece by the editor that has stayed with me my entire career. 

At the time, the world was very different; the internet was in its early stages, technologies such as downloadable software, the cloud, messaging apps, tablets and even email in some cases were things in some far away, promised future. 

The comment that struck me went something like this:

“When you can walk up to a Mac and say, ‘create me a new flyer, with a similar layout as that one I did last Thursday, with the fonts from campaign 12, suggest some appropriate imagery and just pick some nice colours’, that’s not progress, that’s the death of creativity…”

TLDR; Not all progress is good or desirable and maybe the Luddites had a point (look it up). 

I’ve always had that statement nagging me in the back of my mind, and I knew that as technology progressed there was a chance that the future that MacUser warned us about would steadily and inevitably become true. 

To explain, you need to understand that working as a freelance designer is all about “knowledge-gap” filling. 

If your client has a gap in their knowledge then you can fill it, charge for it and make a career out of it. 

But, once that gap is filled, it’s gone forever. 

Gaps are filled by progress. 

Examples of progress are everywhere and everywhen. 

• The desktop publishing revolution allowed unskilled people to do the work that skilled people used to charge for. 
• Inexpensive printers hit the printing industry hard and destroyed the small-run single colour print market. 
• Photo-inkjet printers put photography printers out of business. 
• Websites like SquareSpace and Wix are hitting web designers, who don’t bother even quoting for static 6 page websites anymore. 
• Logo creation websites have effectively driven down the cost of logo design to next to zero. There’s no point even bidding. 

Slowly but surely that future is coming and the latest attack is from a company that indirectly protected us from it, Adobe Creative Cloud Express. 

A web-based cookie cutter design emporium where you pick from some templates, change the text, press a few big colourful, buttons and your design is done. 

And so is your freelance designer. 

The reason it exists is because of Canva. 

I’d heard about Canva. 

I don’t like Canva. 

I’d heard because I was constantly losing out to clients saying “we’ll just do it in Canva”. 

I was being asked by clients to do work in Canva so they could edit it themselves later. 

I lost work because clients were asking their untrained marketing departments to use Canva and not pay a freelance designer. 

I got work because clients started work in Canva and then asked me to finish it off (I usually just redid it in illustrator). 

So Canva is gaining traction. 

Enter stage left – Adobe with their offering. 

It’s basically a carbon copy of Canva. A “me-too” moment to try and draw Canva people into the Adobe ecosystem and stop Adobe people moving to Canva. 

But I’m not here to review these 2 competing services. 

I’m here to comment on what they mean in the wider context of the design industry. 

These knowledge-gaps I spoke of are becoming harder and harder to find. 

One gap that been protected is good, solid, competent creative design skills. 

Despite all this ‘progress’ clients would always pay for good design (at least the ones worth having). 

Progress in efficiency, speed and cost are worth pursuing. 

Progress in creative efficiency is not because people misunderstand what creativity actually is. 

It’s apps like Canva and Adobe CCE that have made this worse. 

Here’s an example:

That cereal box you see every morning. 

Look at the logo, look at the where it’s positioned and how it dominates. 

Look at the name, see how it’s positioned to draw your eye down to the illustration. 

Look at the illustration, see how it compliments the age group and blends or contrasts with the colour scheme. 

Now look at the sides and back. See how the less important text fills the space. 

See how that dense, large amount of info has a hierarchy and invites you to read it. 

Every side of that box, has had care and attention paid to it. 

Yes, even the small print on the side. Even the nutritional information. 

It’s not easy – and it’s not meant to be. 

All those decisions, all those choices were made by a trained designer, who understands colour, branding, contrast and hierarchy. 

That’s creativity. That’s layout. That’s design. 

In our brave new Canva world an untrained person will just pick from some templates, type a few phrases, paste in the boring stuff on the back and press done. 

That’s not creativity. That’s not layout. That’s not design. 

Adobe is not immune to this either. Look at the Photoshop splash screen. 

Some may say, “hmm that looks nice”. 

But this hasn’t been designed. 

A photo that has been made monochrome. 
Click. 

Paste in some flowers. 
Click. 

Paste in some leaves.
Click. 

Change the colour. 
Click.

Invert some things.
Click.

Anyone can do this with zero effort. Click. Click. Click.

A few more years when Canva and it’s competitors are voice activated, we will be eerily close to that future that MacUser warned us about, creativity is dying – death by a thousand clicks.

Canva and it’s competitors are not creativity. 

They are the death of creativity.