Canva ranks high among the most flexible, all-around, and easiest graphic applications to work with to churn out unique and captivating designs. You don’t have to be an expert to create engaging content, even if it is your first time using the application. All you need is a little nudge in the right direction – Canva help, so to speak.
What Is Canva?
Canva is a fully customizable design tool with tons of easy-to-use features for creating a vast range of engaging content. You can find just about anything you need as far as designs are concerned, from marketing materials to invitations, social media, presentations, documents, and more.
Canva comes with plenty of templates that let you create professional-level designs without hassles. But in case you can’t find something that works for you, you can create a custom project. The best part is that you can create designs in Canva in just minutes; plus, you can do this for free!
But even the easiest tool can seem difficult to use if you don’t know how it works. For this reason, this will give you a sort of Canva help to guide you through the basics for designing your content.
Choosing Your Design Dimension
Start by choosing a design type from the homepage. Canva has done all the “heavy lifting” for you by setting the optimal dimensions for each type of design or document you want to create. Don’t worry if something doesn’t suit you perfectly; you can adjust it later.
Tip: Write down a rough outline of your design before you start working. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it can speed up your design process.
There are literally countless designs anyone can create using Canva. But to keep things simple, let’s assume your dog is missing and you want to create a missing dog flyer. You can click Flyer from the Canva homepage or search for it from the search bar.
A blank flyer with the standard dimensions is opened. You can now add background, elements, photos, or text, depending on what you are trying to achieve. Alternatively, you can select a template that suits your message and edit or adjust the content. By default, a new design in Canva is set to templates, so you can quickly choose one that appeals to you.
The above screenshot is for a blank flyer. By scrolling down and selecting a lost dog flyer template, the screenshot below is achieved in mere seconds.
All you need to do now is edit the details, such as your dog’s photo and name, where it was last seen, your contact details, and any other relevant information you want to add.
If you are sharing the flyer online, you can add animation to bring your design to life. Simply click on the animate button on the top of the flyer and choose from the options available.
Choose a Background
Backgrounds add depth to your design. Your background could be an image or a color, but whichever you choose, remember to keep it simple, especially if you want to add illustrations or text to your message.
You can add a background to a blank page or change one that comes with a template. There are a couple of ways to do this:
- Click the background icon from the list of tools on the side panel. It is the last tool on the list.
- Click the background button at the top of the page. It is the first icon (before the animate button).
Add Elements
Typically, your design will include one or more elements, such as photos, illustrations, text, or icons. Combining these in a visually appealing way is the key to creating fantastic content. Like choosing a background, make sure you keep things simple with your elements.
Make sure the elements in your design are properly composed, balanced, and centered. You want to leave ample space at the edge of the page and ensure that elements are not too cramped or too close together.
Tip: Every element can be resized, reshaped, or removed. Play around with placement order, size, and color to find out what works best.
Here is another thing to keep in mind. It is okay to have “white space” in your design. It doesn’t have to be white but try to leave a few areas on your design blank – no text, photos, shapes, or other elements. This creates simplicity and adds a touch of professionalism to your design.
Use Good Font Combinations
Apart from elements, nothing mars your design more than the wrong combination of fonts. Too many designs can make your work look noisy and even messy. It’s like shouting at the top of your lungs when you’re holding a conversation with someone sitting right next to you!
While there is a huge selection of fonts to choose from in Canva and the option to upload custom fonts, it is best to work with only a few fonts per design. In fact, Canva suggests limiting fonts to only two in any design.
Keep in mind that your page already has a background and other elements. You don’t want your audience to find it difficult reading your message, so stick to a couple of complementary fonts.
Don’t worry if you can’t figure out what fonts work well together. Canva comes with tons of font combinations for you to choose from. Simply click the Text tab on the side panel and scroll through to find a preset combination that works for you.
Tip: Vary the size of your fonts. One typeface in different sizes can appear like more than one font.
Conclusion
With Canva, you can get right to designing whatever you want without spending countless hours learning how to do so. However, you may not get things as perfect as you want without some practice, but with some Canva help and as you keep working on different design ideas, you will definitely get better.
