In recent years, design has become an essential skill. With the rise of social media and the advent of ever-more-powerful smartphones, people are using their imaginations. The latter help them to create gorgeous designs in a variety of different mediums like Canva.
Gone are the days when designers were required to learn esoteric Adobe tools. Also, they don’t have to spend hours perfecting their craft on their desktop computer. These days, it’s possible for an artist with little more than a smartphone and some simple, intuitive apps to put together a high-quality design quickly.
This article offers tips and tricks for using Canva. Canva is one of today’s most popular tools for quickly creating professional quality graphics. It provides some of the best practices gleaned over years of professional design experience. Read on, then bookmark this article and come back to it as a handy reference for your next project.
What’s the objective of Canva?
Canva is changing lives by helping people create anything from business cards to websites. It has simplified graphic design so that anyone can make beautiful designs both quickly and easily.
Perhaps you’re wondering how Canva can make such a big difference to your design career. Or perhaps you’ve already tried it. If so, then you know that it can be compelling when used by professionals who know how to use it properly.
At its core, Canva is a tool that allows you to create new designs and edit existing ones quickly and easily. It uses professionally designed templates and materials which are easy to understand and edit. This makes it perfect for anyone who wants to have a logo designed or a page created in no time at all.
The design software is not very complicated. The goal of this article is to give you an in-depth guide to using the tool. Thus, you can quickly and easily kick-start your own design business.
1. Finding the Right Template
Before you get started with design, you need to find a template that best suits your needs. This can be a bit of a delicate balancing act: with so many templates on offer. You’re going to want to decide on one that really fits your ideal project. When using Canvas for the first time, it will help to search for the following features:
Fonts and Colors: Using a professional font can make all the difference between an amateurish-looking design and one that looks professional. Finding the right font is a matter of testing different combinations until you find one you like.
A good tip is to try out different fonts in Canva by selecting something that’s not too similar but still consistent, like Helvetica Neue or Century Gothic Bold LT. When it comes to color, you have the option to use one of the app’s pre-selected palettes or to use your own.
If you’re using a pre-selected palette, you should make sure that it’s in line with your professional brand, rather than choosing a wild color scheme. For example, if you’re creating an advertisement for your business then you might want a palette that contains muted colors so that it doesn’t look out of place when published online.
2. Downloading Canva
Canva is currently available as a web-based application, so the way to get it is to go to the website and download it.
3. Launching Canvas
The process for getting started with Canva is simple: click on start canvas, enter your email and password then begin creating your first design!
4. The Basics: Copying an Image from a Website
When you start off with Canva, it will look like an empty sheet of paper. This is because all you have is a blank canvas and no designs in place whatsoever. To get started with a design, you need to get some designs in place by pasting in an image from a popular website like Flickr or Google images.
The first thing you need to do is click on the “insert image” icon which appears when you have created your blank design. This will cause a pop-up box to appear along with a variety of different sources. You’ll need to select the “clipart library” option and then choose from one of the many categories that are listed.
5. Adding Text to Designs
The text tool in Canva looks like an old-fashioned typewriter, so it might seem a little unfamiliar at first. This tool allows you to add text in three different ways:
— By adding text from a pre-defined source
— Through using the app’s own font styles
— By using a pen tool (more on this later)
All three options allow you to quickly and easily add text to your design. The “clipart library” option is handy if you have some text already available, but if not then the second option is used as an alternative. You can also combine both. To do so, simply highlight the text you want to include and use the second option, which will cause another box to appear where you can browse for similar images of fonts.
Using this tool, you can quickly and easily add text to your design. You can either use the app’s default fonts or search for fonts that are more suitable for the project.
6. Changing Fonts and Colors
Once you’ve added text, you’ll need to make some changes to it before it is ready for publishing. To do so, click on “edit text” in the top menu bar at the top of the design window. This will open up a new menu where you can change font styles, colors and alignment as well as whether your text should be italicized or not.
The default font style is usually a serif font with black text, but this can be changed in your edits. If you are creating a logo or other design that doesn’t heavily rely on text then sticking to the default styles will be fine. However, if you want to make sure that the text looks good then it’s best to use fonts and colors that go well with your brand.
You can also change the color of your text by clicking on the edit tool in the top menu bar at the top of your design. As mentioned before, this is where you can choose from either Canva’s pre-set palettes or create your own custom color changes, including shades of gray and black.
7. Customizing Your Design
Once you have added images and text to your design, you might want to change the size or order of items in the layout. Before doing so, it’s a good idea to use the “blue handles” that appear when you select an item. These will allow you to move things around within your design. These handles are also useful if you want to resize an image, as they allow you to resize them at all corners without having to worry about disturbing the rest of the design.
Using these blue handles is a handy shortcut for editing your designs without needing to get rid of and add things again. However, if you do find yourself having problems with alignment then there is another feature that might be useful: grid view.