Vantaggi
I wrote for Canva's "Design School" blog for over a year. As an online publication, it became very successful very quickly, attracting a lot of visitors/users to the website and a lot of social media attention—in large part due to the hard work of the freelance writers who supplied it with valuable content. - As to pros, it was rewarding attracting a large audience and interacting with readers. - The compensation started off quite fair (but didn't stay that way as more and more requirements per assignment were added, while the compensation didn't change sufficiently to reflect the increased time and effort).
Svantaggi
- Expectations were high, which isn't a con in itself, but editors didn't have a good understanding how much work and time was required to produce the kind of ultra-specific (and carefully researched, and visually curated) results they were asking for. - Communication could be poor (both in terms of frequency and clarity) and, at times, passive aggressive. Editors would sometimes give contradictory instructions or suddenly change directions mid-deadline on a piece they'd already assigned. They often seemed unwilling to compromise. Communication between writers and editors was conducted strictly via email and a project management platform, and it was sometimes hard to get in touch with editors (who were writers' only contact and source of new assignments); if they were busy or the company was getting ready to launch a new product or service, they would just disappear for a few days or weeks without warning or explanation. - Deadlines weren't always reasonable for the scope of each project. - Perhaps this is due to the company's rapid growth, but everyone I had contact with seemed to be "flying by the seat of their pants," as the saying goes. Poor organization, poor communication, constant changes to processes, style guides, etc.: no one seemed to be able to make up their minds about how things should be done. The editor role had a high turnover rate; I worked with three different individuals in the course of of a year. As the last straw, all the freelancers were notified (with very little warning) that the writing team was being dismantled as Canva took its content strategy in a new direction. I shouldn't have been surprised given the haphazard approach to content strategy and management that I had already observed.