Canva: The Good, The Bad, and (how to avoid) The Ugly
I often get asked by solo-preneurs—who insist on wearing all the hats in their business—if I use Canva. The honest answer is, “aww, hell no!” But it doesn’t mean YOU shouldn’t use it.
I often get asked by solo-preneurs—who insist on wearing all the hats in their business—if I use Canva. The honest answer is, “aww, hell no!” But it doesn’t mean YOU shouldn’t use it.
THE GOOD
Canva is a highly-accessible, affordable, user-friendly design interface with a library of templates designed by actual graphic professionals. These templates can be used to design business cards, postcards, flyers, and even websites, and save you time by providing a starting point for your project.
It is also a one-stop-shop for fonts, clip art, photos and graphic elements, to help you customize your design. Built with teams in mind, everyone can work on a single project together, like too many cooks in a kitchen. ; )
Canva is great for:
creating social media posts/campaigns
digital presentations
editing photos and videos
laying out flyers + invitations
sharing comps of an idea
THE BAD
In the 90s, a company called Paper Direct* marketed pre-designed templates for creating your own beautiful flyers, certificates, and business cards, that you could print from your desktop. You’d order their pre-printed paper and add your own text in a word template. The paper was perforated, so you could tear your business cards apart and hand those flimsy things out, if you dared. These cards did nothing to elevate a brand’s visibility—or credibility—for that matter. In some ways, Canva makes the same promises to its users by suggesting anyone can (and should) be a graphic designer.
However, the overused, generic templates, trendy fonts, and poor print resolution can undermine your brand with the same cringe factor of a perforated edge on a flimsy business card.
When NOT to rely on canva:
Designing logos as canva doesn’t have the depth or versatility of a professional design program. You also might not be able to trademark a logo created in canva unless you use your own, unique elements.
Creating large collateral can be problematic when designed in Canva, as the app doesn’t allow for vector graphics. Large posters or signs may lack adequate resolution for sharp, unpixelated output.
When you want originality in your brand, you’ll be limited by the selection of templates and design elements, resulting in a copycat look where everyone’s DIY graphics have a canva look. Compared to professional design software, the tools for fine-tuning text, applying precision color, creating vector graphics, and utilizing complex layering are just not adequate.
Trendy fonts, and generic, overused templates can water down your brand if relied on too heavily in canva. The look ends up being no one’s brand but canva’s.
(How to Avoid) THE UGLY
If you are a canva D.I.Y.-hard, here are some ways to avoid graphic design pitfalls:
Beware of hyper-trendy fonts. Brands should espouse a sense of timelessness—not a moment in time. And, for the love of typography, learn how to pair fonts, and don’t use more than two in a single piece.
Understand the grid. Graphic designers use invisible column grids, manuscript grids, baseline grids, and modular grids as a way to organize information. Without them, a piece will lack flow, and appear chaotic.
Consider information hierarchy and use it wisely so the most important text is biggest, and the least important, the smallest.
Stay consistent with your brand colors, fonts, graphics style, and photo styling. Nothing says unprofessional like ad-hoc, random elements.
Pay attention to resolution and design everything full size. A photo at 300 dpi on a letter sized page, is going to be 75 dpi when enlarged for your 32” x 40” poster. Better to start with your artboard in the final size, so you know before it’s time to print, if your images will render smoothly.
Canva can be a great tool, if you take the time to learn some basic design rules, and stay consistent with your brand within the platform. If you find yourself spending hours putting together a simple marketing piece, or if you decide that playing graphic designer isn’t the highest use of your time, reach out!