What is Canva? Should Your Business Use It?
What is Canva? Well, today I'm gonna share a tool that I use almost every single day. And guess what? It's Canva. This will be a quick Canva tutorial for beginners. I'll cover:
How To Create A Free Canva Account
What is Canva?
Canva is a graphic design program for anybody. And when I say anybody, I mean anybody! The great thing about this tool is that you don't even have to be a graphic designer or really even have an eye for design or design elements to use Canva. The program gives you access to thousands of templates. It's pretty much up to your imagination, you can design just about anything for your business. Sometimes as far as the templates, I even combine elements from different templates to create a whole new design. And it gives you access to everything from stock photos, to fonts, videos, music, even graphic elements and icons that are definitely gonna make your design pop.
How To Create A Free Canva Account
So the first thing you want to do is go to canva.com and create a free account. You can sign up with your Google account, use your Facebook account, or you can even sign up with your email. Once you create a free account you'll have access to over 8,000 free templates including social media posts and templates for presentations. You will also get access to a stock photo library with hundreds of thousands of photos.
What Is Canva Used For?
When you go to the Canva dashboard get ready to unleash the designer in you that you didn't even know existed! When I say you can create practically anything, I really do mean it. In the search bar, you can start typing in things that you're looking for. So say, for instance, I'm looking for Instagram post ideas to create my next Instagram post. There are tons of pre-designed templates to choose from. You can use these templates as-is and just replace basic info like your branding or you can combine different elements and create something brand new and unique to your specific business.
With Canva you can design everything from Facebook posts to Instagram posts to Facebook and Instagram Stories, covers, flyers, presentations, YouTube thumbnails and so much more! You can even design business cards using this program. Invitations, brochures, infographics, that's huge.
Have you ever used Canva? Leave me a comment below.
I'd love to know if you're just researching 'what is Canva?' so that you can maybe use it in the future, or have you used it before and want to learn more about it?
How Does Canva Work?
It's super simple to use. When you log in, you're gonna be greeted with this dashboard. At the top of the page, you've got your navigation menu. So the Canva circle, that'll take you to the homepage wherever you are in the program. Also, you can click the Home button or the Home tab to quickly get back to the home page.
If we click on Templates, you can explore different templates for social media, for personal use, or business use. You create a presentation for your next meeting, a logo, business cards, invoices, proposals, posters, flyers, infographics, and brochures among other things. If you're a teacher, you can create lesson plans, worksheets, and certificates.
You can even create custom backgrounds for your next Zoom meeting. You can do concept maps, greeting cards, and posters, it's practically limitless. It's only up to your imagination in terms of some of the things you can and can't do with this design app.
Features of Canva
So let's take a look at some of the features. You get free photos. Now, again, we'll explore some of the benefits of free vs. paid in a moment, but you get access to hundreds of thousands of free stock photos. You can browse through and pick photos by background, nature, animals, food people, and more! Plus you also get access to tons of different icons.
You've got access to different print product templates that you can create in the app then take it to your printer. Everything from T-shirts to flyers, to business cards. It also integrates well with different apps like Google Maps, Giphy. They've even got cool integrations with YouTube where you can actually embed a YouTube video on your design. And then they've got things like photo editing and charts.
They've also got an area where you can learn a little bit more about how to use Canva and get the most from it. Now, let's explore the left-hand sidebar. There's a 'Recommended For You' section. I think some of this is also based on some of the types of visuals that you've created in the past. So they'll make recommendations for future projects. I really love the fact that they have pre-made templates for various holidays that you can use.
'Your Designs' takes you to all of the designs you've created in the past. There's also a 'brand kit' where you can have a grouping of your brand colors, fonts, and logos so that you can quickly access these assets as you're creating new designs.
There's a content planner and you can also create a team. and create separate folders. So say, for instance, if you've got vacation photos, you can create a folder called vacation photos. Or if you've got maybe past Instagram posts that you've created, you can easily explore go designs that you've created in the past. I love the folders feature!
Canva Free vs Paid
Free Canva Account
Let's talk about pricing plans. Everybody gets a free plan. The great thing about all of this is that you can use it with the free version, even though there are some limitations, there's still a ton you can do with it. With the free version, you've got access to over 8,000 free templates, over a hundred design types, like social media posts, presentations, and etc.
They do limit the types of designs that you have access to on this free account. The free version of Canva allows you to access hundreds of thousands of photos and graphics. If you don't have any budget at all and need a graphic design tool to create some great content for your social media, or anything for business, the free version may be all you need.
Canva Pro Account
The most common Canva account is the Pro version. I would suggest to any business owner or entrepreneur, to invest in your business, and grab the pro version. I personally use the Pro version, and it's got everything the free version has plus many other outstanding features.
One of the great things that you have access to with the Canva Pro account, is the brand kit, which allows you to create a custom folder with all of your brand assets in it. So you' can store your brand colors, fonts, and logos, for much easier access while creating your designs.
Another great pro feature is 'one-click re-size'. This is huge! So say, for instance, I create an Instagram post and I need the exact same artwork for Facebook. With one click you can resize your design to fit! This is a feature that I simply love because it's a huge time-saver for creating social media posts on different platforms.
Other features include access to over 60,000 different templates, the choices are almost endless. Access to 60 million premium stock images, photos, videos, and graphics. You can literally search for anything and you will almost always find something worth using in your design.
Some of the other elements that they have are access to a huge video library. You can find videos for almost anything. They've got aerial shots, backgrounds, beaches, and so many more! It's amazing how easy a program like this is to use. Another great pro version feature is the 'background remover'. This will allow you to easily remove the background from photos.
Canva Pricing Plans
The pro version of Canva is $9.95 a month, billed annually. It's $12.95 per month with billing on a monthly basis, plus you can cancel at any time. If you have a large team, you might want to think about the Enterprise version.
Is Canva Pro Worth It?
Now you may be wondering, should you go free or should you go with the Pro version? So here's what I would recommend. If you're just getting started, go ahead and try out the free version. Whether you decide to use the paid version or the free version, is Canva worth it? In my opinion, 100% yes. And the pro version has enough bells and whistles to justify the expense. What Canva feature would you like to learn more about? Leave me a comment below and let me know.
