What is Canva?
Canva is a free graphic design template software tool featuring a simple drag and drop interface. The ability to produce professional images quickly and efficiently is this program’s bread and butter. Even those with minimal graphic design experience will find it easy to create beautiful designs.
Canva is a free graphic design tool which is available on both Canva for windows, & Canva android version, it is the best graphic design software free available on google Canva.
Since launching in 2012, Canva has accumulated over 10 million users and it’s easy to understand why. Users can create almost every type of visual content, including:
- Blog post images
- Social posts, ads, cover photos, banners, and icons
- Pinterest graphics
- Email marketing visuals, hanging banner, Canva wedding invitation
- Infographics, custom banner, customized canvas banners, vector graphics
- Canva invitation, Canva slides, Canva collage, Canva posters
- …and more
Signing up for a Canva account gives you immediate access to pre-made templates, images, and icons (thousands are completely free and others cost $1/each), and hundreds of fonts.
Everything you need to create great visuals for your small business is right at your fingertips.
Getting started with Canva
Choose a design or select custom dimensions
When you start a new project, you’ll either:
Choose a design
Create your own using custom dimensions
Important: In the free version of the program, you can’t edit the dimensions of your document after-the-fact, so make sure you start with the size you need.
Explore endless customization options
You have so many templates to choose from and customize to fit your needs. You can change the size and color of fonts and add background patterns or images.
This free tool also provides multiple design elements to choose from, including:
- Grids – Grids help you develop creative compositions. They can be used to stretch images across your entire design or place multiple images together in one design.
- Frames – Frames can be used to decorate your photos with bevels and borders.
- Shapes – Think squares, triangles, circles, and more! These can be used for borders around your page and text.
- Lines – Lines come in various designs—from solid to dashed or even chevron. Lines are great for emphasizing your text.
- Icons – Icons are graphic images to help spice up your design. From common signage to popular symbols, you have many options to choose from.
- Charts – Use the charts element to display bar graphs, pie charts, comparison charts, and more in your design.
Share your design from within your account
You can share your design with up to 10 members of your team and give them permission to either view or edit the design from within the site. You can also share your design to your Facebook or Twitter accounts directly from Canva.
Free vs. paid account
You heard us mention the “free” version of the program, so you might be wondering what you’re missing out on with the canvas pro paid plan.
The biggest difference in the paid version of the program is the ability to:
- Resize your designs
- Upload custom fonts
- Organize your photos with folders
- Access additional photos, illustrations, and templates
Our advice: Since the free trial plan has so many features, you’ll probably never feel the need to upgrade!
Best practices for creating compelling images in Canva
Here at Future Vision Computers, our Canva course lives by the rule “show, don’t tell.” Just like your written content, your visuals should aim to follow this rule by finding the balance between sensory details and quick messages.
Keep our best practices top of mind every time you create a design.
Consider your brand
Your brand is the personality of your company and how your customers view you. Whether you’re creating visuals for Facebook, a feature image for your blog post, or a graphic for Pinterest, make sure it fits with your brand:
- Use company colors in the design (use your company style guide for reference!)
- Consistently use a certain style of image or use an image filter to tie together multiple photos from different sources
- Choose fonts reflecting your brand identity (ex: bold, traditional, elegant, playful)
- Place your logo consistently (same location and size)
Use eye-catching images
The images you use in your design will affect its overall look. If you’re using your own photo, make sure it doesn’t look blurry or pixelated. Look for images that fit with your design or topic, catch attention, and aren’t too busy. Whenever possible, use a .png file rather than .jpg.
Our Tip: If you’re using stock images, always give necessary credit to the photographer. Or choose photos that can be used for free (without accreditation) from sites like Pexels, Unsplash, or Pixabay.
Take advantage of layouts
As much as possible, avoid starting from scratch on a design. One of the benefits of this tool is the many design layouts to choose from. Using a premade layout to inspire your design will not only save you time, but it will also help ensure you create an effective and beautiful graphic.
Don’t forget about readability
On the site, you’re likely viewing the image at a much larger size than it will be seen by potential customers. Keep this in mind as you create your design. Here are a few other step by step tips for ensuring readability:
- Change the color of your text to help it stand out– on dark backgrounds, use light text; on light backgrounds, use dark text
- Use colored shapes behind your text
- Adjust the transparency or add filters to your background
- Change the letter spacing or line height of your text
- Don’t overdo it with too much text or too many icons, backgrounds, or elements
- If you’ll be promoting the graphic on Facebook, ensure the proportion of text to image isn’t above 20%.
6 Canva tools to make your designs better
Try the grid tool shortcut
The grid tool helps perfectly align your text, icons, or other elements on your design. To show the grid, hit “command/control” plus “;” on your keyboard.
Add a box around your text
If you need your text to stand out a bit more, try adding a box. Use the keyboard shortcut “option” plus “shift” plus “b”.
Use font and color pairing tools
The font and color choices you use in your designs matter. Take advantage of the font and color pairing tool to help you select options that work together. These are especially handy when you’re starting a design from scratch.
- Font-Pairing Tool
- Color Combination Chart
Crop your images
Resize and scale your photo and help transform your design with the cropping tool. Not sure how to crop in Canva? It’s easy and there’s even a great tutorial online.
Enroll in the design school
If you’re looking for inspiration or just want to continue learning how to use the program more efficiently and effectively, check out Future Vision Computers. This school offers a growing collection of articles, tutorials, and tips. There’s even a library of design courses for you to choose from.
Try the app!
If you need to create a quick graphic on-the-go, download the app. You have all the same design features on the Canva app that you do on the desktop version. You can create awesome designs whenever (and wherever) works with your schedule.
