How many times have you looked at an image online and wished you could use it as your own? Whether you’re looking to change the font on one of your own photos or you want to borrow the layout from another designer, it can seem daunting to try to create your own graphics when you don’t have any design experience. With Canva, though, you can easily create images that are right for your brand, no matter what kind of design expertise you bring to the table.
Get Started with a Free Account
It’s important to think about whether you want a free or paid account before using Canva. As an example, if you don’t have much to invest initially in your business, a free account is definitely your best option; it doesn’t cost anything and has the features that you need. That being said, if your goal is to create graphics for social media or fun projects like custom party invitations and birthday cards, then a free account will be more than enough. The only feature missing from a free account is unlimited access to stock photos—but we’ll show you how to get around that below! Get Started with Free Account: Sign Up Here › › Design your own logo: Now, if you’re unfamiliar with Canva, you can learn more about our favorite tools. Click Create in the top left corner of the screen or here to start a new project. One of the first things you’ll want to do is choose a template by clicking Use This Template. Now, click on Edit in the top right of the screen (or click here). The three tabs will be along the top of the screen (Images, Text, and Color). Begin with images because they’re what comprise most of what people see when they look at any design online.
Creating Designs
Create a Design Account on Canva. Click on sign up now and then you’ll be able to edit your designs. Just add your name, email address, and a password. The first thing you should do is connect all of your social networks into one account; if you have an account with Facebook or Twitter, for example, simply log in when you get the prompt.
Next, check out trending graphics; it’s one of my favorite parts of using Canva and you should absolutely be doing it as well! Trending graphics are images that have been created by other users and they can give you some great ideas for what types of images might be popular in your niche.
Finally, start designing! You can drag and drop elements from Canva’s library onto your canvas (the background image) and then adjust their size and color until they look just right. It’s super easy to use once you get going—just play around with it!
Adding Text
If you want to make a social media graphic or an email, use one of Canva’s pre-made templates. Select your desired file format and click into the file with your mouse. Tap in a space and start typing if you’re using a mobile device and press in an open area to start typing if you’re using a desktop. You can drag text around by holding down with one finger and dragging with another. When you are done, press ‘Enter’ or ‘Return’ to finalize your work. If you need more room to type, just pinch inwards with two fingers. For longer text blocks, like quotes or announcements, use one finger to stretch out any part of your image until it reaches a comfortable width. This will help you avoid cramming too much text onto a single line. After you add your content, be sure to press the ‘Done’ button at the top right of your screen. This will finalize any changes and saves them for later use.
A great way to get started is by looking at trending designs on Canva!
How to Save an Image as a Template
While graphic design is art, it can be difficult to take ideas and inspirations and create a pattern from them to use over and over again. But using a template will cut down the amount of time it takes and it can save you some money as well. You can start saving images as templates by heading over to our account homepage. On the account homepage, you’ll see a list of all of your saved images at the top. If you click Import from my computer next to any image that interests you, you can upload that image into your account and make it available for future work.
This will bring up another window where you can select which file format you want to use for your templates (usually PNG or JPEG) and then hit Save. From there, just go back to your main account page and look for all of your new saved images in the My Templates section. If there are any images you don’t want anymore, just hover over them with your cursor until they turn red, then click Delete. Furthermore, any file that is not compatible with Canva (such as PSD) must be saved to another file, before importing them into Canva.
Saving Images to Use on Other Devices
Alternatively, you could save an image to your phone or tablet so you can view it later. This is a good idea as you may lose access to these images at some point in the future. To do this, simply click on the photo and save it from Firefox or Chrome’s drop-down menu (for Chrome users, select save picture as). Then, decide where you want it saved (to your computer, to your desktop, or to your downloads folder), and name it. All you have to do is click OK and that’s it! From there, you can customize your images and share them wherever you want.
Reusing Images
If you’re new to graphic design, it can be tempting to simply reuse images that you find online. The good news is that these images are often easy to use in your designs, even without permission—after all, it’s a public domain photo or graphic. But what if those photos aren’t actually public domain? Usually you would be violating someone else’s copyright by using their photo for commercial purposes without their consent. It’s a safe bet to keep yourself out of trouble and create your own graphics if you don’t have any verifiable claims. Even better, try Canva to create your own original designs from any trending layouts.
