We recently connected with Camri McAvoy and have shared our conversation below.

Camri, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

From 2007-2019 I was a freelance graphic designer and loved designing brand identities and all sorts of marketing materials for small business owners, but by 2019, I was getting burnt out by the freelance model and wanted something different.

I love learning about new design tools. I’ve used everything from MacPaint when I was a kid to Adobe InDesign when I was part of a design team producing monthly magazines in Chicago. Most recently, I taught myself Canva and SquareSpace. Canva is fascinating as it’s changed the game when it comes to making design accessible to non-designers. Most solopreneurs and small businesses can’t get away with hiring a professional designer for just a brand identity package anymore. They find they need visuals for everything from their many social media accounts to creating an ad that runs in a local chamber of commerce directory. The cost of hiring a professional designer to do all that work doesn’t exist in many budgets, so business owners have to bootstrap design.

After I realized that Canva is actually a really neat program (it’s difficult for a lifetime Adobe user to admit), I knew what I wanted to do next – educate and work alongside small business owners to help them improve their DIY design projects. I noticed that even small businesses with professionally designed brands were missing opportunities to strengthen brand recognition when it came to the visuals they had to design themselves. They were doing the best they could, but some important pieces were missing. I knew what was missing and knew I could help.

In 2020 I created Designed and Organized LLC. Instead of designing client work alone at my computer, I now help small businesses learn how to design social media and marketing pieces on their own that stay in line with their existing brand. I do this through workshops and 1:1 design coaching sessions.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I worked as a graphic designer in the magazine industry and quickly learned that although design is a creative act, when you have to get a magazine out the door on a strict schedule you learn how to deliver even when you’re not feeling creative on a particular day. People expect their favorite businesses to produce new visual content on a schedule that can be intimidating if you haven’t spent your career as a graphic designer.

There are lots of easy to use tools available to small businesses. When a business owner and I work together, I help them build confidence that the decisions they make align with good design practices. Most importantly, they learn processes that make it easy to deliver their messages in an on-brand way, even when they’re not feeling creative. That’s why my business is “Designed and Organized.” Organization is as important as design to produce visual designs that keeps your customers engaged with you and your brand. Seeing someone go from frustrated and confused to glowing with a “I can do this” design confidence is fantastic, I love it.

Have you ever had to pivot?

The path I took from freelance graphic designer to design coach didn’t happen overnight. There were lots of iterations between freelance and where I’m at now. When I started to look for a path outside of freelancing, I tried a few different ideas. In the beginning I would land on an idea and then execute it fully only to realize late in the process that the existing market was saturated or non-existent (hello & good-bye digital planner Etsy shop). I didn’t know those early tries were experiments, at the time they felt like failures. Looking back at it, I can see what I learned on each new project and how I got to where I’m at now.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

It wasn’t an easy decision to move away from a freelancing career to pursue something new. Creating a workshop from scratch and thinking about delivering that workshop was stressful. It would have been easiest to stick with freelancing but I knew there was something missing. Trusting myself enough to know that I’d find the right path, even when there were setbacks and wrong turns, was one of the biggest challenges of my career.

I know that I’ve found a good fit though because it not only “feels right”, but I’m enthusiastic about opportunities to talk in front of groups and work with non-designers wherever they’re at in their design journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.designedandorganized.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/designed_and_organized/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/designedandorganized
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camrimcavoy/

Image Credits
Art of Her