Canva is one of our favourite tools here at Daisy Digital. For those unaware of Canva, it is an online design tool with so many cool functionalities, and a must use for any business in need of design and content creation – which is most of us right? We highly recommend it for small business design projects, like social media posts.
Canva has two tiers of accounts; a free and a pro version. The free version of Canva gives you access to most areas and is more than enough for most small businesses. There are some design pieces and elements in Canva that come at a very small price, but this is generally for the more complex items. You can pay for these on an element-by-element basis with the free account, or you will have access to all pro items for free if you choose to have a pro account.
Canva can be used to create invitations, posters, Instagram or Facebook images, business cards – basically anything your creative mind desires in PDF, JPG or PNG form.
How to use Canva:
After you have created an account, you will be brought to the Canva homepage. You can select your design template of choice from this page which will be formatted into the exact shape and sizing that you will need for your project (ie. If your wanting to create something for Instagram, it will give you the square template). If you have a specific size or shape that you need that Canva doesn’t offer, you can set your own “custom dimensions”. You can start creating using a blank canvas or use one of Canva’s many pre-designed templates. Then upload your own images, photos, logos, icons if/where needed and get creating!
You will see the Canva toolbar on the left-hand side of your screen where you’ll find a library of photos, elements, text, backgrounds, videos, icons and shapes- a lot of which are free. When hovering over the image/element you will either see “FREE” or a crown, which refers to the paid items. For the items that cost, generally they are $1 each and give you access to that library item for a period of time.
Once you have finished layering items and your design is complete, you can download it in your chosen format in the top right corner. Canva will also save your design automatically on its platform so that you can use it as a template or come back to it if you don’t finish your design in one go.
A few extra tips:
- Can’t find the free images you want in Canva? Find it elsewhere and upload to Canva (Unsplash is a great image resource https://unsplash.com/)
- Use your brand colours and logo on all of your designs so that there is continuity across your communications
- Share all your designs with your team so they have access to download, edit and replicate
Canva is a pretty great tool, and something we admit to using often for our design and content creation – even the odd sneaky birthday invitation of our kids upcoming party – when we’re feeling really creative.
Check it out if you get a chance. Once you Canva, you won’t go back! 😉