Canva – the graphic design tool at a glance

It’s great how easy you can let your creativity run wild today. There are many helpful tools that allow you to work quickly and professionally – especially in the field of web design, graphics and fonts. Fortunately, you no longer need to be a graphic designer to create attractive layouts for marketing purposes. It is important for you to be able to do a lot “in-house” and be flexible with it – especially as a DIY artist. Canva is an example of one of these tools. It is well-used by self-employed people, is an integral part of offices and is popular among creatives around the world. Canva is an easy-to-use tool for creating a Facebook post or designing flyers and posters.

Canva – a design for everyone

 Let’s start with a bit of history. Canva was founded in Sydney on 1 January 2012 by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams. Perkins, who worked as a private graphic design teacher, saw how hard it was for her students to work with complex programs such as Adobe Photoshop, and thought: “It doesn’t have to be this difficult”. The solution? Canva. The idea was so successful that in the first year over 750,000 people used the program monthly. Since then, the company has grown steadily. It took over the German stock photo provider Pexels in 2019 and strengthened its cooperation with Pixabay. Meanwhile, Canva has become a serious competitor even for the market leader Adobe.

The platform is aimed at people who do not have extensive training in graphic design but still want to create appealing designs. With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and a wide range of templates, images, graphics, and fonts, both individuals and companies use Canva to create social media graphics, presentations, and marketing materials.

A design tool for beginners and professionals

 Canva is, according to the creators, equally suitable for beginners as well as for experienced designers. This is also due to the user-friendly interface, which is easy to use without a great deal of design knowledge (that’s true). To begin with, it can be helpful to explore the platform a little to make the most of all the options.

First steps: either choose a template from the Canva library or start with a blank page. The graphics editing mode is simple, and the menu bar shows what you can add to your layout, such as pictures, text, and audio files.

Editing in the design editor is also simple: use drag-and-drop to modify all elements, integrate custom uploads, customise colours and fonts, and add effects and animations. Right-clicking on the elements reveals further editing options. The finished works can be shared via link or downloaded in various formats.

Canva features and highlights

Canvas’s greatest strengths include a huge selection of professionally designed templates that are easy to customise. This diversity helps people with little time or experience to quickly create professional designs. Collaboration through Teams is also particularly practical: through real-time editing, multiple users can work together on projects and provide direct feedback.

For businesses, Canva offers advanced features such as brand kits and approval processes that facilitate compliance with brand guidelines and efficient management of multiple projects. The Pro Version of Canva offers additional benefits, such as premium content and tools such as the background remover, while the Enterprise Version offers enhanced security and manageability for larger businesses.

In summary:

Our experience with Canva shows that it is a good solution for most design projects. The user-friendliness and wide range of templates make the platform attractive. The ability to work in a team in real time and the Pro Version, which costs €11.99 a month, are affordable for small businesses and the self-employed. However, Canva may be somewhat limited when it comes to very complex design projects, as some features and content (e.g. advanced image editing, 75 million graphics, stock photos and fonts) are only available in the paid version. However, the free version is generally very useful. It offers access to over 250,000 templates, numerous free photos and 5 GB of memory.