Graphic design is no longer just a designer's job. Social media managers, entrepreneurs, marketers, teachers and content creators have to produce visual content every day. But not everyone has the time or budget to learn Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. That is exactly the gap Canva fills. As someone who has used Canva almost every day for two years, I know both the power and the limits of this tool very well. In this guide, I'll share all the finer points of creating professional visuals with Canva.
What Is Canva and Who Is It For?
Canva is a browser-based graphic design tool. Its drag-and-drop interface lets you make professional-looking designs. It includes thousands of templates and millions of stock photos, icons and graphic elements.
I first discovered Canva two years ago while managing an Instagram account. Until then I had been preparing visuals in Photoshop, and each one took me about thirty minutes. With Canva, I started turning out the same quality in five minutes. That time difference is a huge advantage, especially for people who produce content daily.
Canva is for social media managers, small business owners, content creators, teachers and students, marketing professionals and, really, anyone who needs to produce visual content.
Core Tools and Interface
When you first open Canva, it asks what you want to do. There are options like an Instagram post, presentation, poster, logo or YouTube thumbnail. When you pick one, templates in the right size appear in front of you.
The left panel has tabs for templates, elements, uploads, text and background. Your workspace is in the middle. At the top are the undo, redo, share and download buttons.
First tip: when choosing a template, don't look for one that fits your purpose exactly. It's faster to pick one that's close in color and structure and swap out the content. I usually browse through about ten templates, pick the closest structure and replace the content entirely.
Creating a Brand Kit
The first step in professional visual production is brand consistency. Canva's Brand Kit feature makes this very easy.
Add your brand's colors, fonts and logo to the Brand Kit. From then on, you can access these elements with one click in every design. I work for three different brands, and each has its own Brand Kit. When I prepare a client's visual, I select that brand's kit and all the colors and fonts load automatically.
I once did a project without creating a Brand Kit, and the result was a disaster. I had used different shades of blue in some visuals and different fonts in others. The client rightly complained about the inconsistency. Ever since, the first thing I do is create a Brand Kit.
On the free plan, you can create one Brand Kit. The Pro plan supports up to a hundred Brand Kits.
Social Media Visuals
Social media graphics are where Canva is used most. Sizes optimized for each platform are ready to go.
For an Instagram Post, there's a 1,000-pixel square template. For an Instagram Story, there's a 1080x1920 vertical template. For a Twitter Header, there's a wide 1500x500 template. For a LinkedIn Banner, there's a 1584x396 template. For a YouTube Thumbnail, there's a 1280x720 template.
Carousel posts are lately the content type that earns the most engagement. Making a carousel in Canva is very easy. Create multiple pages and design each page as a separate slide. End the last page with a save or share call to action. I usually make carousels of five to ten slides, and they get three times more saves and shares than single-image posts.
A practical tip: when making a carousel, the first slide has to grab attention. Use a headline or visual that will stop people as they scroll through their feed. Numbered headlines like "5 Productivity Tips" or curiosity-provoking ones like "Did You Know?" work well.
Creating Presentations
Canva's presentation feature is a serious rival to PowerPoint. It has thousands of presentation templates, and the visual quality is very high.
Last month I prepared an investor presentation. I started in PowerPoint but wasn't happy with the visual quality. I switched to Canva and turned the same content into a much more impressive presentation in half an hour. Although its animation features are limited, its visual design quality is far above PowerPoint's.
You can present Canva presentations directly in presentation mode. You can also export them as a PDF, PowerPoint or video. The video export feature is especially interesting because it lets you turn your presentation into an auto-playing video. Sharing a video presentation on LinkedIn gets five times more reach than sharing text.