Graphic design: Canva, the best tool for everyone

Canva is one of the most popular graphic design tools, due to its convenience and the possibility to create different kind of projects.

Do you need more reasons to start using this graphic design tool? Here you are a list of its benefits:

• It has a free version
• It doesn’t require specific skills or experience
• It offers multiple templates and fonts
• Its interface is user-friendly
• It allows to work in team

Are you ready now to learn more on this tool? Keep reading our article!

What is Canva

Launched in 2013 by Melanie Perkins, Canva represents an online graphic design and publishing tool that gives to anyone the possibility to design anything and publish everywhere.

Since its year of birth, this platform has had a huge growth and today its value amounts to $6 billion.

What can you create with a graphic design tool

As we anticipated, one of the advantages of Canva is that it offers endless possibilities. In fact, as soon as you enter the graphic design tool, there is an area called “Templates” that is divided into the following sections:

• Social media
• Personal 
• Business
• Marketing
• Education
• Trending

In each section, you can choose the type of project that you want to create (Instagram posts, resumes, presentations, newsletters, worksheets, videos, etc.).

How to use Canva: a short tutorial on the graphic design tool

The first time using Canva can be a little confusing, but it is actually very easy and fit for everyone. Anyway, we want to help you taking the first steps with this graphic design tool and show you some tips and tricks. Let’s start!

As soon as you enter Canva website, you will need to create an account: click on “Sign up” and start the registration process or log in with Google or Facebook.

Once you are in, you just need to click on “Create a design” and choose among the suggested ones or search for what you need.

By following the previous steps, you will land in the creation mode. On the left, you will find a menu with the following sections:

• Templates
• Elements
• Uploads
• Text
• More

“Templates” allows you to choose among hundreds of templates and you can even search for what you need. Once you have found what you need, you will be able to modify each element.

“Elements” gathers all the types of graphic designs that you may need: lines, shapes, graphics, photos, videos, audio, charts, frames, and grids. If they are elements designed by Canva, you will have the possibility to change the colours.

“Uploads” is where you will find all the images, videos, and audios that you will upload on the platform, and you can also record yourself.

“Text” allows you to add headings, subheadings, and body texts to your project or to choose among already designed ones that you can modify too.

“More” gives you the possibility to connect Canva with other tools or social platforms.

In addition, you will have the possibility to resize the project, share it with other team members, download it in any file type or print it.

How to modify the graphic design of elements and texts

Once you have chosen a template or created your own graphic design project by assembling different elements and texts, you can start to modify them. Let’s see how to do it.

Click on the element that you want to modify, and you will have the possibility to:

• Change the element colours (only if they are Canva designs) by choosing a default colour or inserting the code of the colour you want
• Crop the element
• Flip the element horizontally or vertically
• Animate the element
• Change the element position
• Copy the element style
• Change the element transparency
• Add a link
• Lock the element (in this way it won’t move while you modify other elements or texts)
• Duplicate the element
• Delete the element

On some elements, especially photos, you can also add filters to change the colours or modify other parameters (contrast, brightness, etc.).

If you want to modify a text, instead, you just need to click on it and the following options will appear:

• Change font, size, colours, and style (bold, underlined, etc.)
• Change alignment
• Add bullet points
• Change the spacing between lines
• Add effects
• Animate the text
• Copy the text style
• Lock the text
• Add a link
• Change the text position
• Change the text transparency
• Duplicate the text
• Delete the text

Graphic design tips and tricks on Canva

Now that you know how to use Canva, we want to give you a few graphic design hints to become an expert and start bragging yourself!

1. Secret codes: insert the secret codes in the search bar to find elements with the same style (an example of secret code is BADeGZOX6Sc)
2. Filters: you can filter elements by colour by clicking the filter icon and selecting the colour palette in the search bar
3. Display ruler: by clicking on “File” in the creation mode, you will find an option to enable the ruler, which can be useful to line up things or create custom margins
4. Gradient background: if you search for “gradient” in the element section, you will be able to add gradient elements and make them become a background by simply making them as big as the background
5. Animated GIFs: create your animated project, then click on “Download” and select “GIF” to see your project become a GIF.

Additional features on Canva

We have described the “graphic design” part of Canva, but there are some more features available on this tool that could be particularly useful for a company or a startup:

• Brand kit: here you can save the colours, fonts, and logos of your brand to always have them at your fingertips
• Content planner: you can schedule the contents of all your social media to have all of them in one place
• Team: you can create a team to make it easier to share projects or brand kits

Subscription plans

Canva can easily be used for free, but if you want to have access to more features for your graphic design projects, you can choose between the Pro version and the Enterprise version.

The Pro version costs 11,99€ per month or 109,99€ per year. It can be used by up to 5 people and the additional features offered are:

• More than 100 million images, videos, audios, and premium graphics
• More than 610.000 templates
• Background remover
• Automatic resizing
• Saving of projects as templates for the team
• 100 GB of cloud storage space
• Planning of contents on 8 social platforms

The Enterprise version, instead, doesn’t have a fixed pricing since you need to request it. In this case, the additional features offered, besides the ones of the Pro version, are:

• Definition of the corporate identity through logo, colours, and fonts
• Control of your teamwork
• Management of what your team can modify
• Unlimited storage space
• Single sign on (SSO)
• Company-level assistance 24/7

Conclusions

Along this article, we gave you an in-depth description on what is Canva and how to use it to realize all your graphic design projects in an easy and quick way. 

However, if you feel like you need to learn more or want to become a professional of this tool, we recommend following the courses and tutorials offered by Canva. In fact, by clicking on this link you will be able to choose among different courses and tutorials and you will also find a blog to always stay up to date!

If you are interested in graphic design tools, please read also: Graphic Design: a list of 30 tools and the best 10 for us

Be curious! Do not limit yourself and do not stop at our proposal of tools! Check out our article Software Discovery platforms: the top 9 for us to find the one that best suits your needs.