Edit and Design like a Pro- with Canva
Graphic Design like a Pro with Canva
Want to know a little secret? Our crew uses Canva on the daily. Yup. It is true. From our website banners, to email newsletter imagery, and even some of our main website imagery designs, we turn to Canva around 80% of the time. The other 20% we leave to our intern who hits Photoshop like he’s entering for a chance to win a prize. Canva is our go to because it is simple to use, has so many graphics we simply can’t get enough of, and has evey size, vibe, design need any team could want.
Canva in short- is an all-in-one graphic design tool that can help you design, edit, and share images, videos, graphics, and ideas across teams and publish to be used for your marketing, events, personal, or professional use.
“Canva is an Australian graphic design platform, used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents and other visual content. The app includes templates for users to use”
With a seamlessly integrated app and website, anyone can start designing from their phone then pick up where they left off on their computer. With Photoshop, Illustrator, and other “Big Name” design programs, with a steep learning curve (and price point), Canva offers even the non-tech savvy, and tech savvy designers a chance at their graphic skills. Our crew has been using Canva for designs since we started in 2019, and we wanted to highlight why it is one of our go-to design editing apps.
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
When we first started using the *free edition of Canva, we found there to be thousands of templates and “ideas” to kickstart any of our needed designs. The app and website user interface is really simple and straightforward. Right on the screen you can see an organized view of the projects you can start, some inspiration of design ideas you can model off of (or flat out take), and the style or “type” of design these are good for: e.g. Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and even Blog Posts and Letterheads.
Templates, templates and more templates
Assets for days
Easy to navigate user interface
Designs for any social media platform known to man
Fonts, colors, graphics- all fully customizable
Canva features go on and on, and we could go on and on, but that is a lot of “on” to do ya know?
Our Initial Crew Impression: Canva can turn any “non-designer” into a Pro.
TESTING IT OUT
Like any App or Website, the promises come before the actual real-use case for the product…So how does Canva stand out for our crew?
-User Interface-
When we first dove into Canva’s user interface, we could not have landed on a more easy to use platform. Right from the start, you can easily get inspiration, find any projects you have worked on or are working on, and easily find the right dimensions for any project you need. For our crew, we wanted to start with some blog style sizing, throw in a few banners and even design some graphics to showcase our brand. The user interface is easier than an Apple product.
-Features-
With their FREE version, you can edit pretty much all the same things- minus access to some of the better graphics. Our crew took some of their editors and used it to create the “look” for our “the lists” page on the website. The editing features give you the freedom to design cool and unique elements and replicate it for an ongoing segment or feature for any project you have.
Canva features so many, well, features that it is hard to name them all. With their templates, tutorials, guides, free tools, editors, upload and download functions- all it needs is your creative ideas!
-Product Outcomes-
Quality is king. With Canva, you can export the designs in some of the highest of quality files. From PNG to JPEG, MP4 to Powerpoints, there is nothing you would need to export to that Canva did not support. We at times will download files as .png for our branding kits, our main page, or even a post header and the details are crisp, clean, and render at really high end values. When we make our “1 minute review” videos (Yes, those are made on Canva), we get high quality exports and at the touch of a button we can re-size them to match Instagram Stories, or other mediums we need. Once, we even made duuude shirts, printed them with Canva and had one of the softest fitting custom shirts this side of the interwebs.
Overall we find Canva to be a simple, effective, and fun design tool for us and for other brands we know. Not everyone can muster up the budget for an expensive graphic design team, or even knows where or what to start with. That is why Canva is perfect- you can search for what ideas you want to bring to life!
STANDOUT FEATURES
The ability to find creative assets, design like a pro, export to multiple file formats, and change or modify on the go or at your desk, Makes Canva a standout program alone. But, we do have more features worth geeking out over!
The easy to navigate platform takes no time to become familiar with. No long learning curves here.
With tons and tons of free assets and features, you can really use the platform before committing to a paid membership
If you have a brand team, want to create a brand vibe, or are looking for inspiration, Canva has all you need to do just that!
Canva lets you export in so many ways, there is no reason you can’t have any visual in any format, for any project
The fonts, images, templates are all available to use in your project and come with licensable usage
We could go on about our thoughts but you’d probably tune us out. We get it.
BONUS FEATURES
Canva is unlike other platforms because they do not just let you test drive before buying, they sort of let you take the car home. With both free and upgraded plans, you access really only what you need- when you need it. We started with the Free plan, but as our team grew we expanded to the Pro package and now we can share assets, designs, make changes, and use free images and premium templates to elevate our design game.
Canva Overall duuude Factor: Canva is the one-stop graphic design shop we use!
Price: FREE for basic plans!
BRAND INFO
Canva is an Australian graphic design platform, used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents and other visual content. The app includes templates for users to use.