Canva 101- *if you are a canva beginner start here
How to open a FREE account with Canva
How to create your very first designs
Canva has a helpful Step by Step guide to designing from scratch here. Youtube has lots of teaching videos on Canva - this one from ‘the Mom Boss’ (23 mins) is easy to follow and popular - and I’ve done a quick intro in my video below. NB I’ve included a super cool canva trick that allows you to colour match colours from images - jump to timestamp >> 13 min 20 seconds if you just want that!
Video demonstrating how you can save time by creating a ‘batch’ of images in one go. This one shows me doing some for facebook as an example
Walk through of creating a batch of images which are the right size for instagram
Behind the scenes of batching of a range of images to use for Harland Works … emphasis on saving time by doing a few in one go
More sources of help for beginners on using Canva:
Canva has mini courses in its free Design School that are quick and good: for example this one on Social Media Mastery.
But its Youtube channel is even better! You can get short fun guides to a whole range of great things to do in Canva eg how to create a consistent instagram feed - he doesn’t use templates but he does show you how to use repeating elements in your posts which makes your grid 'fit together’ nicely and has the virtue of being good for batching (ie you can create lots of images in one go = saves you time!)
Next steps - using branding in your images
Once you’ve got going with images you will probably want to understand how to apply your branding to your images. Key elements in visual branding include: the colour palette you use; the fonts you use and your logo. In case you are new to branding, I’ve included a link to a recording of a talk that Vardeep of the Branding Fox did for Harland Works. She gives a whistle stop tour of branding with 7 mistakes small business owners make … and you can avoid!
In the Week 2 handout you’ll find links to resources to help you find fonts and colours. If you want to create logos in canva you totally can (although designers would recommend you get it done by a designer). Here’s a fun video of two Canva designers making a logo in 5 mins. Here’s a more serious tutorial about how to build a brand board in Canva - Socially Nina does a fun ‘brand board’ tutorial.
