These days, if you’re using images in your marketing techniques, you are already doing well compared to many other businesses in your industry. So the question now is: how you can stand out with your images? Well, you can create images and designs with online design tools.
Image design tools are often used by professional graphic designers to create posters, digital images, blog headings, infographics, presentations, etc. One may consider these tools as a graphic designer’s best friend since they spend most of their time scrunched over it, making sure all elements are what their clients want them to be. These tools can be a bit intimidating if you have zero knowledge about graphic design, or if you’re a newbie in the world of creating digital images. Luckily, there are tools such as Canva that’s perfect for both beginners and experts in the realm of graphic design.
What You Need to Know About Canva
Canva is a web and mobile-based design platform that allows its users to create customizable presentation slides, prints, and graphs. It offers a library of professional voice icons, frames, templates, and layouts so people don’t have to start from scratch. Canva for images was created with the intention of transforming simple photos into social media graphics, logos, invitations, and posters, thus making it a wee bit more than just desktop publishing software.
Members can access Canva for image libraries without paying a fee. While they can already do so many things with what’s available at the free level, a wider array of options can be unlocked should they wish to pay for an upgrade. It’s something worth looking into especially if you want to have a strong online presence and an increase in conversions.
So this blog is a walkthrough about how where you should begin with Canva and make the best use of this amazing design tool.
Getting Started
You can jumpstart your Canva experience by creating an account via your email address or by signing in with your Google or Facebook account. You’ll also be asked to identify what kind of user you are so it can recommend the right design elements. Once you’ve got everything down pat, you can start working on your project. It’s that simple.
How to Select Your Designs
Once you create the account you can choose your design type from the Canva main page itself. There are different dimensions available for social media posts, infographics, cover images, flyers, and more. If you are using graphics for your blog and need a “custom size” you can use available custom dimensions.
Working on Projects
The app makes things a whole lot easier for its users by providing templates. Once you’ve picked a category, you can then choose the theme that you want for your project. There are free stock photos available should you need to use one, but you also have the option to upload your own photos.
You can also play with other design elements such as filters, icons, shapes, clipart, fonts, etc. while creating your project so you can see what works and what doesn’t. It doesn’t take much of an effort to figure out how to navigate around the app because of its drag-and-drop controls and beginner-friendly interface.
Make sure you are not using all the elements in balance and nothing is overused.
You can follow these simple tips while using the elements:
- Adjust alignments in the text and keep them centered as per the need.
- Keep your design unique and simple.
- Use elements but do not overuse them.
- Just resize, add color, and content placement in order to see what works the best.
- Take the opinion of others.
Speaking of beginner-friendly, there are tutorials that you can browse through in case you feel lost. It’s worth noting that support isn’t exclusive to those who have premium memberships.
Fonts Play an Essential Role
Fonts have the most impact on your image designs. The design tool Canva suggests that an image should not use more than two fonts in design otherwise design will look disorganized. Canva is easy with fonts too. It has lots of pre-set combinations of fonts to choose from.
An Essential Tip – While using fonts it is important that you think about “font readability” first. Thus it is recommended to use fonts that are easy to read and keep users involved with your message. As Canva is often referred to as an easy tool so once you start practicing and keep creating your graphics and images you will get to learn about the best fonts to use. Then you’ll be creating brilliant and appealing images in no time.
Canva Typography
Like we discussed the use of fonts, making use of typography is also important. Typography is the technique of assembling and choosing fonts and types that make your designs reader-friendly and alluring to the eye. For example, classic-looking serif typefaces seem fitting for the blog of a traditional book while there are times when you make the look fancy according to the mood to your audience.
Some other easy to look typography to use are:
Design on the Go
If you’re in a rush and you don’t have the luxury of time to rummage through the design elements in the library, you can simply use the search function to find what you’re looking for. You can also explore an array of options via the Text tab. You can move the elements around your canvas to see what layout, colors, and elements together. Once you’re done, all you have to do is save your project and you’re good to go!
You get a preview of your work as you go when you use Canva. This makes it easier for you to fix what feels a little bit off. Most users say that it’s intuitive to use, and rightfully so. Your intuition serves as your compass when you navigate around this image design tool.
What is “Canva for Work”?
Though Canva is mostly referred to as a free tool for bigger businesses Canva for Work (Canva Pro) is also available. There are several ways you can use Canva Pro to grow your business. It can help you create images for your marketing campaign easily, without much editing. You can also access millions of stock images, illustrations, vectors, icons, and templates. Many features are limited in a free Canva account but if you are using Canva for work it provides you a lot of features when it comes to tweaking a template.
Canva Pro Price is very affordable and you can try Canva Pro for 30 days at no cost.
So if you are a marketer, industrialist, blogger, writer, teacher, student, designer, or anyone who has to deal with design and graphics regularly, you can make use of Canva for Work for the best design results.
The Final Words
Canva is a good starting point if you want to get a feel of what designing images are like and are too scared to delve into complicated software such as Adobe Photoshop. The features are impressive, easy to use, and fun to play with once you get the hang of it. It’s an option small business or bloggers who want to stand out should definitely consider. Anyone looking for learning something new then Canva is an amazing DIY tool.
No matter where you are on the image design spectrum, you’re sure to enjoy Canva. It’s simple enough so newbie won’t be overwhelmed, but it also offers limitless options that professional graphic designers can play with. It’s everything you want an image design app to be.
