Creating Great Graphics Are More Accessible Than Ever!

While there are definitely some factors that play a role in whether you can design your own graphic images for your website and social media, it’s easier today than ever before. Services like Canva provide templates and tools that allow you to create images in a much shorter period of time and a much smaller learning curve.

While I did go to school for graphic design and I feel that education was really helpful in gaining a foundational understanding of what makes good design, I love that tools like Canva have pre-made templates that you can start with and just change out your images and colors so they are branded for your business. If you don’t need to go crazy making changes, in a matter of minutes you can have a design that’s quite nice and ready to use. And did you know you can even create GIFs with Canva?

Their paid for version is worth it to me, even though I also have and pay for Photoshop. I love how you can organize things in folders and save your branding fonts and colors right in your account so they are easily accessible for everything you do. Photoshop definitely has it’s benefits like flexibility but if you aren’t doing this a ton, the learning curve can be a big deterrent for using it. For most, Canva will work well.

Of course, I wouldn’t feel like I was giving you the entire picture if I didn’t share a few BIG don’ts in terms of Canva and there are a few…

Do NOT try to make a logo in Canva. Logo’s should be done in a vector-based program for quality and scale. Canva doesn’t provide these pieces. If you need something quick and easy that is a temporary fix, go for it. But understand at the foundation, it’s not the right tool for logo creation.
Always pay attention to size of the document you are creating in terms of making sure it’s big enough for where and how you plan to use it.
Pay attention to the images they have in their library. Not all are free.
Pay attention to their terms of use. Just because the tool is free and there are free images in there doesn’t mean you can use whatever you create wherever you want. You still need to abide by their terms.

But, by far, Canva is one of the best tools I’ve found for ease and quality. I have also found some great resources out there. Here’s a few of my favorites.

Nicholette Styles has templates you can purchase and use as well as a blog full of helpful tips.
Nicholette also has a YouTube Channel (so worth the watch).
And then there is her Facebook Group, The Canva Community.
And one more Facebook group I love, Create with Canva.

Now, go create and enjoy!