The Dos and Don'ts of Canva
Within the last few years, Canva has soared in popularity, especially with small business owners. Canva is a free, user-friendly design software that allows users to create their own graphics from scratch or modify pre-made templates from their library. From our experience in working with small businesses, we believe Canva is a great tool for entrepreneurs that have minimal design expertise & tight budgets. However, Canva does have its limitations and there’s plenty that should be left to the professionals. In this post we are going to round up our top Do’s & Don’ts of Canva. Let’s start off with what we give the green light:
DO: Canva Pro
Canva pro is the paid version of Canva that gives users extra features and a pro licence. The subscription costs $150/year and allows access for up to five users. This is great if you run a small team or like to frequently work with a designer. Canva Pro allows users to create a brand kit so you can easily upload your brands custom fonts, colour palettes, logos, and graphics. You’re also able to create your own branded templates to reuse within your team and even schedule your social media content across 8 different platforms. The pro plan is not required to use Canva, but it is worth the upgrade and is a much more affordable option compared to professional design programs like Adobe Illustrator.
DO: Stay on Brand
Your brand is made up of curated typefaces, colour palettes, logo, and sometimes graphics such as patterns or icons. It can be tempting to use all the flashy designs Canva has to offer but using a mix of different templates, fonts, colours, and patterns makes your brand look messy and is confusing for your followers. Here is an example of a brand identity we designed for Kindra Sowden.
By using the same colours and fonts, each piece of your brand and marketing will look like they’re a part of the same collection, even if the design is different. Lianne Charlene Creative always provides clients with a brand guide when a branding project is complete. Save those colour swatches, logo files and fonts in your Canva brand kit so they can be easily accessed the next time you need to create.
DO: Utilize Templates
When we say templates, we mean CUSTOM templates! We love designing custom branded templates for our clients! They’re unique to your business and will stand out from the pre-designed Canva templates that are repeatedly used. Custom templates are one of the easiest ways to guarantee your graphics are consistent, polished and professional. Instead of starting from scratch each time you need a graphic, you can use the same template and just swap out the content. Custom templates not only ensure brand consistency and recognition but also speeds up your workflow. We call this a win-win!
DON’T: Use too many fonts, colours and design elements
Less is more when it comes to design. Having too many colours, fonts and graphics is unnecessary and creates visual clutter. Tip: If you are creating content to communicate a message, make sure your text is legible and easy to read with ample breathing room. Graphics, patterns, or shapes should not compete with your main message. Stick to two or three colours and ensure there is enough contrast between text and background colour.
DON'T: Design your Logo
A logo is a graphic that identifies your brand and should not be frequently changed or modified. Logo design requires extensive research, ideation, and strategy to create a logo unique to your brand, values, and audience. Canva doesn’t allow users to save out vector files of logos (confused? read our blog post on file formats) When you don’t have a vector file format, it puts serious limitations on your brand, and you’ll most likely end up paying a designer to redo your logo down the line.
File formats aside, there is also copyright and legal considerations when you use Canva. As per their licence agreement, Canva owns all logo templates and graphics in their libraries. This means if you need to trademark your business in several years, you cannot trademark the logo because Canva owns it. To avoid these issues, we strongly suggest investing in a professional designer to create your logo from the start.
DON'T: Design Print Materials & Signage
There are limitations on how large you can create or scale documents in Canva. Print projects, especially large format and signage, should be created by a professional graphic designer. Designers frequently work with print shops to ensure that your document is the correct size and formatted to the printer’s specifications. In other words, we make sure your printed materials aren’t blurry or printed in the wrong brand colours or fonts. At Lianne Charlene Creative, we work with a network of vendors who speak the same creative language. With any print project, we always include printer coordination so you can leave it to us to work out the technical aspects. If you’re lucky, we might be able to get you a sweet vendor discount too!
Working with small businesses is our passion and we love finding affordable solutions, and that means embracing Canva as a tool. We can create custom branded graphics and templates for clients to use in Canva, so you’ll have the peace of mind that your materials are always on brand and follow best design practices.