If you are involved in the world of social media planning and management, there are a variety of tools that can help you streamline and simplify your work routine without sacrificing optimal and professional results. One such tool is Canva, a platform that will assist you in enhancing the visual aspect of your social media activity. You might have heard of it, but do you know how it works and how to make the most out of it? We will explain it to you 😉.
Canva is a graphic design software created back in 2012 and launched a year later by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams in Australia. Its aim is to democratize design so that anyone can easily create aesthetic works and share them if desired. Canva has a substantial number of employees: over 5,000 worldwide, distributed across its offices in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, the Philippines, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
A mission with which they have already reached more than 220 million monthly active users from 190 countries, who have created over 25 billion designs with Canva. A significant part of the tool’s success is due to the fact that it is based on the classic drag and drop format, which endows it with simple and intuitive functionality.
Furthermore, we are not limited to designing creatives for social media, but we can create all types of works. From posters to brochures or various stationery designs, among many other possibilities, all for free… or almost.
The tool offers four different plans depending on your needs: Free Canva, Canva Pro ($121 per year), Canva Teams ($99 per year per person with a minimum subscription of 3 people), and Canva Enterprise (the price is negotiated directly with the platform).
However, the truth is that the free plan is quite comprehensive. It includes 5GB of storage, offers a wide range of graphic elements, templates, designs, stock photographs, etc., and will help you achieve great results. Additionally, this version allows you to invite others to design and collaborate on your projects, as well as the ability to send designs to print and have them delivered to your doorstep.
As for the paid plans, Canva Pro is intended for a single user, while Canva for Teams is designed to be used by three or more users. Both expand the free offering with more templates, new resources, greater storage capacity, and other additional advantages.
Resources and elements marked with a small golden crown are exclusive to paid plans and cannot be used in the free version.
But we insist that the free version is not left behind and with it, you can create true wonders. It is also worth noting that Canva for Teams offers a free plan for NGOs, which includes up to 50 members (if you add more users, they will receive a 50% discount). Therefore, if you work in one, you just need to contact the tool and request it.
Let us be clear: Photoshop and Illustrator are powerful tools, spectacularly powerful. Incredible software that has brought the possibilities of photo editing and basic design to millions of people around the world. Two great products that, however, have two major drawbacks: they require a certain degree of knowledge to harness their full potential and, above all, they are very expensive.
Perhaps for this reason, a tool like this can achieve so much success. One of its greatest virtues is its ability to adapt to the needs of those of us who work on social media in a simple and quick manner. It offers the ability to create a wide variety of designs and formats, perfect for designing the creatives you need to post on your social media platforms.
From its menu, you can quickly choose what type of design you need: a Facebook cover, a Twitter profile picture, banners… Even infographics are within this tool’s area of application. Moreover, you do not have to worry about the dimensions of your creations since, depending on the format you choose, it will provide the appropriate measurements.
However, the advantage Canva offered in terms of price in comparison to Adobe has been partially diluted. Indeed, by the end of August 2024, the company announced a significant price increase for its Team plans that caused Canva Teams to cost four times more. Later, in October 2024, the company tried to ease concerns by announcing that this increase would not apply to existing users. However, if you are new, we regret to inform you that you will indeed have to pay the increased price.
It is not necessary to have design knowledge to be able to use Canva; it is an intuitive and very simple tool. The first thing you must do is log in or, if you do not have one yet, create an account.
To create an account on Canva, you can do so with Google, Facebook, or your email, among other options. After registering, the tool will ask you what you intend to use it for (teacher, student, personal, small business, etc.). This will help filter the options it provides you with by default.
Once you access your profile, you can start creating. It is very easy as it offers different options in its main menu. Additionally, it allows you to directly search for the type of work you want to create.
If you want to continue with an existing project, you can access them by expanding the left side menu and clicking on “Projects.”
Once you have chosen the format that best suits your needs, you will only have to select one of the pre-designed templates and tweak it, or start with a blank design and employ your creativity, experimenting with the hundreds of designs, fonts, and decorative elements that enrich Canva’s catalog.
Within the editor, there is a main menu located on the left, where you can access various functions. The main ones are:
Additionally, there is another menu that, although more hidden, is also very important. It is the “Assistant”, that divine button with sparkles located at the bottom left corner.
By displaying it, you will find attractive design elements, image recommendations, tools, functions, and designs. You can also perform searches to access the resources you need more quickly.
And the third menu we must be aware of is the top center bar. When selecting various elements of your design, new options will appear, depending on what type of element it is. This allows modifying different parameters (color, size, orientation, position, etc.).
Once you finish, you will be able to download your masterpiece in different formats (PNG, JPG, PDF, GIF, MP4, etc.) by clicking on the “share” button located at the top right bar. The tool automatically saves your designs, so you do not have to worry about your progress being recorded or not. A cloud icon with a check inside, located on the top bar of the editor, indicates this is happening without issues.
Nonetheless, if you wish to do it manually, you simply need to click on “File” and then on the “Save” option.
To start creating a social media image, we just need to select the “Socials” option from the central menu and scroll to see the available options, or input into the search bar what type of post or for which social media you wish to create an image.
If we access the templates, above them, a central menu with filters according to the theme or business you wish to target your post towards will appear.
As with graphic resources and elements, there are templates that belong to the Pro plan. These are identified with the golden crown in the lower right corner.
Once we have found the right template for us, click on it and then on the “Customize this template” button. And you can start designing your post!
If you have ever wondered how to create your brand’s graphic corporate identity with Canva, the first step is to go to templates and enter the word “logo” in the search bar. After doing this, the platform will show you a multitude of CI templates (some paid and others for free).
As always, you can select the filters you want in the central menu if you want to view only templates in a specific theme or scroll through all the template options.
Then you just have to unleash your imagination and modify the chosen template. You can play with fonts, shapes, colors, and add or remove any elements you wish until you have a CI that reflects your brand’s values.
With this tool, you can design all kinds of infographics, from timelines to ideas for presentations, educational or advertising infographics, among many other options; the only limit is the one you set. To do this, type “infographic” in the search bar.
After this, access the infographic templates, filter, and select one to get a starting point or open a blank canvas to unleash your imagination. And start creating.
Among the many creative possibilities offered by this platform is the ability to design a website for free. To do this, you have two options: either select the “website” option or enter the words into the search bar, both in the central menu of the home page. The first will open a blank canvas in Canva’s editor, while the second will direct you to a template section before you start designing.
Creating a website with Canva is straightforward. You will have access to over 3,000 templates created by professionals and enjoy the platform’s wide array of editing tools. Furthermore, while you can pay for a personalized domain, you have the option to use a free domain with the structure “.my.canva.site.”
If what you wish is to navigate among the more than 2.2 million templates offered for free to inspire yourself and discover all the possibilities of format and compositions available to you, you can access them through the left menu on the home screen by clicking on “Templates”.
Within this section, you will find a wealth of suggestions, popular searches, trends, options inspired by your last design, new arrivals, etc.
Like many other platforms, it did not take long to integrate artificial intelligence into its system to offer a more complete experience to its users. Thanks to this, it presented its Magic Studio AI tool suite. Among the functions encompassed in this suite, are one based on generating visual content and another on text creation.
Within Canva’s own editor, you can use an AI generator of images, graphic elements, and videos to create unique works to include in your compositions. This function can be found within the left side menu of the editor.
The options for generating graphic and video elements are in beta phase. Moreover, it is worth highlighting that the video generation model can create videos lasting up to 4 seconds and it is based on Runway technology. Free Canva users are limited to 50 uses to generate images and elements and 5 uses for videos.
Using Magic Media is quite simple, you just need to select the section of what you want to create with the function and type the description of the image, element, or video you are going to generate. Moreover, the tool itself provides some inspiration ideas. And if you scroll down, you can select the style of your work and its aspect ratio (square, horizontal, or vertical).
Once all the parameters are set, all you need to do is click “generate” and the tool will create four options. Unlike other tools, you do not have to choose just one of the four for your design; you can insert one, two, three, or all four, you just need to click on them.
In case you are not satisfied, you can select the “generate again” option to create new images based on that same prompt, or “back” to provide new instructions.
To create this tool, the open-source algorithm GPT-3 was utilized. It is important to mention that in this case, the free plan includes a fairly limited number of uses.
Magic Write is available in Canva documents and in the design editor. To use it in the document editor, you must open a document from the central menu or search “document” in the search bar. Once inside, this feature will appear in the top center menu. You can also press the plus (+) symbol that appears next to the header and select the “Magic Write” option.
After this, a text box will appear where you have to enter a description, in five or more words, of the topic you want this AI to generate a text about. Once you have written the instructions, press the “Enter” key and prepare for the magic.
When the text is generated, you can edit it as you please and make all the modifications you desire in the document, both in terms of style (color, typography, structuring…) and content, adding more text or removing parts of the existing one. And of course, you can make use of this tool as many times as you wish.
To use it in the design editor, you need to go to the “Text” function or the Assistant and select the “magic writing” option. After this, the rest of the process is the same as in the previous case.
Background Remover: select an image and easily remove its background. Thanks to the AI, this tool is capable of appropriately respecting the limits of the elements it separates from the removed background. This function is only included in paid plans.
Generate backgrounds: select an image and describe the new background you wish to apply. The AI will be responsible for generating an entirely new environment for the featured elements. For example, make a frog go from being on a lily pond to being at a birthday party.
Magic Eraser: with this tool, you can remove any unwanted elements or details from an image by brushing over the area you wish to clean. At the moment, it is not available in the free version. This function is also unavailable for free accounts.
Magic Capture: allows you to select and separate any object or subject present in an image. This way, you can edit it individually, change its position, insert it into another image, or modify its size. To use this tool, you need a paid plan.
Text Capture: replicates the same capacity as the previous tool but only applying it to texts integrated into images. This function is only included in paid plans.
Magic Editor: you can add or replace any element in an image. Simply identify, by painting with the cursor, the area where you want to add something and describe it so it appears.
Magic Expansion: this function allows you to expand the limits of images or transform a vertical shot into a horizontal one, thus recreating what is outside the original frame. To use it, a paid plan is required.
Translator: automatically translates the text of your designs to more than 100 different languages, making it easy for you to broaden your designs’ reach. It can be accessed from the “Assistant,” and the free plan gives you a limit of 50 uses.
Like this but…: within the writing assistant Magic Writing includes this option. By selecting it, the tool has the capability to adapt the text to a specific tone, facilitating the task of writing content consistent with the essence and tone of your brand in any design or document.
Photo: Depositphotos
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Δ