Canva: Modern Graphic Design Learning

One of the things I quickly learned after finishing my undergrad degree was that most jobs looking for people with my education also wanted them to have graphic design skills. It was very defeating to feel like my four years of learning had not properly prepared me for these roles, but then after speaking with a mentor or two along the way I realized this was not a normal skill people needed to know.

It wasn’t until I took on a marketing position where I was able to work with someone who had many more years of experience in the field than I did that I learned about Canva. She told me this is how she learned about graphic design and encouraged me to explore this app. While in the position I used this mainly to design graphics for social media posts. Over the years, I also started using Canva to create resumes, cover letters, thank you slips, invitations, posters, and many more materials for both personal and professional reasons.

What makes Canva so great?

Templates

Users have access to hundreds of templates created by Canva and other users. I use these as a starting point for my designs, but users can easily just use the template and switch out photos, logos, etc. Users can look for specific-sized templates by typing in terms like “Facebook post” to filter the templates down for what they might be looking for. Recently, Canva made updates to include templates for different types of documents, slideshow presentations, videos, websites, infographics, and more which gives users over 30 categories of templates to choose from.

Share/Format Options

Once users create a design, they can choose to share their creations via different formats. There is the option to download the creation as a photo (JPG, PNG), document (PDF), video (MP4), or GIF. Designs can also be shared directly to social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or Tumblr). Users also have the option to order prints of their designs so they can be directly sent to the user. This option works for business cards, stickers, canvases, posters, t-shirts, bumper stickers, envelopes, tote bags calendars, notebooks, and many other options. This could be very helpful for someone looking to create merchandise or print materials that coincide with saved designs for businesses. There are over 70 ways, besides the ones talked about previously, on how the designs can be shared once completed which gives users a variety of options that may help.

Canva Team

Canva will let users add members to their team for collaboration on different designs. There is a limited number of team members for the free version, but this can be helpful for smaller businesses looking to keep their materials accessible to others. You just input an email and Canva will send an invite to the future team member that helps them create an account and gain access to the team.

Organization

Canva automatically keeps everything organized for users which is great for people who may need help staying organized. It also saves time for people who know how to organize as well. I find it extremely helpful because users can star specific designs that are used often, all designs are put in a projects folder, all materials users upload to Canva are in their folder, etc. It helps the app stay user-friendly by making things easy to find.

Business & Education Resources

A huge reason I would recommend this app to anyone, especially new marketers is because Canva spent time building resources for their audiences. There is a business section dedicated to resources that will help business owners see how they can use Canva to maximize their effectiveness. Users can learn how to build their brand, how to best interact with their audience, examples from different industries to show ideas, and even learning how different departments can use Canva.

There are also resources available for teachers and students. For teachers, Canva talks about how to integrate the app with their Learning Management System, tutorials on how to create different things (social stories, posters, worksheets, etc.), and how to become part of their Education Creator program so users can access all of the teacher resources they need for free. Canva’s section for students and higher education talks about how the app can help students take their projects to the next level.

Learn

One of the most impressive things about this app that is free for any user is the extent they are willing to go to for users to learn. Canva created a tab called “Learn” that lets users have access to a Design School, blog, help center, and events. The Design School seems to be set up like LinkedIn Learning where each course has several videos as the lessons. Users can share these courses via social media for others to complete as well. The blog is a great resource for any users interested in learning about graphic design. Different sections for the blog focus on different topics such as marketing, branding, design, non-profits, etc. The help center is an online community where users can search for what they need help with to find common answers or help. For more in-depth help users should contact Canva. Lastly, users can attend free virtual events that are hosted by Canva to encourage group learning on subjects like the foundations of graphic design, how to create a social media campaign, how to effectively edit photos, and more.

The best part about all of these functions of Canva is that they are free to every user. Canva does offer Canva Pro plans where users can pay $12.99 a month or $150 for the year. You might be thinking, If I can get all of this for free then why would I pay for more? Let’s dive into paid services.

Brand Center

This is an incredible resource for any professional marketer, especially freelancers. Users can create different brand kits for each project they are working on. A brand kit comes with a color palette selection, logo upload, and font selections (heading, subheading, body). Once a user creates a brand kit. A user can create several color palettes and upload several logos that may be needed for different background colors. After a user completes a kit, they need to choose what type of designs fit the brand (playful, modern, etc.) and then brand templates are created using information from the brand kit. A team can access a brand kit and controls can be selected so when working on projects for that brand, team members only have access to colors and fonts that fall under that particular brand.

Content Calendar

I would say this feature is worth the money users can pay for pro by itself. Instead of having multiple accounts from different businesses to coordinate posting for different social media accounts, users can use Canva for all (or most) of them. Using the scheduling feature lets users plan out different posts for different accounts, schedule the day/time, and connect designs created in Canva to the post. Having this feature can save marketers a lot of time by not having to create the design, download it to a certain format, save to a safe place on the computer, upload to a separate software, create the post, and finally schedule it. Everything can be done right from one app.

Pro Access

When users pay for Canva they also gain access to certain graphics, templates, etc. that would have individually cost money. When a user has the free version, they can use the pro graphics and such but would pay the fee for using those graphics when they go to download the design. Sometimes I would use the pro features to plan out my design, then delete the pro options and create my own. It’s a lot of work just to avoid paying a small fee for a paid plan. There are also editing tools that can make designing much easier such as the background eraser. This will erase the background of any image in just one click. Users can also access the resizing effect. You can create a Facebook post-sized template and then resize it to a Twitter post to help with uniformity in the different posts. These are just a couple of examples of the different editing tools available.

It's pretty easy to tell by my analysis that I love this app which might create some bias in my opinion. To help readers make an educated decision on using Canva, I’ll also talk about some downsides.

• I have been using Canva for four years now and they have been increasingly adding more things to the paid version that is BETA tested on the unpaid version. This could greatly mess up a marketer’s flow if they don’t have access to something suddenly that they were using regularly.

• There should be a way to separate a business profile from a personal profile while keeping them connected. Like how Netflix lets you jump between Netflix Kids and Netflix. I started using Canva as a personal account and have recently started making much more professional material with it. Now, all of my designs are located on one account which makes it look cluttered to me.

• I found some difficulty with syncing up my Instagram for the content calendar because it has to be connected to a Facebook page. Then I found some trouble getting my Facebook page to connect. Once I would figure out the Facebook page my Instagram would disconnect which led to a cycle of connecting and disconnecting. Eventually, I made it work, but there isn’t a tech support team to help with that kind of stuff which can be frustrating.

Computer vs Mobile

This app is available in both a web version for your computer and a mobile app. Users have access to all tools from both ways of using the app. I prefer using the computer version to create designs and schedule posts. The mobile version has been helpful if I need to download a project and print, email, or post it from my phone. I have also noticed edits that need to be made quickly, so the convenience of having the mobile app is great for those instances.

Overall, I would highly suggest any marketers, business owners, or anyone interested in learning graphic design to use this app. In my opinion, the benefits far outweigh the cost even if you only use the free version.