If you've been in the blogosphere for more than about 5 minutes, you've probably heard of Canva – the miraculous graphic design tool. And to be clear, I'm not being sarcastic. I actually think it is miraculous. But for the uninitiated, you might not even know all the crazy cool stuff that Canva can do. So today we'll answer the question: What can you make with Canva?
Let's dig in!
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What is Canva?
Canva is an online, drag-and-drop graphic design tool.
You can create pretty much anything your imagination can come up with.
And you need zero graphic design experience to use it.
You can use one of their thousands and thousands of templates. Or you can start with a blank slate and stretch your graphic design muscles.
The tools are all intuitive and easy to use.
And bonus points: there are TONS of Canva templates available on Creative Market for pretty much anything you can think of.
Here are a few (random) things I've made recently (either by myself or with some amazing Canva templates):
I'll let Canva speak for themselves a bit too:
What kind of features does Canva Pro have that the free plan doesn't?
Canva has loads of great features. I'll let you read their own Features page right here to see everything Canva can do.
Features of the Canva Pro Plan
The Canva Pro plan (which only costs $12.99/month) is so, so worth it in my opinion. I can't even tell you how many hours I've spent designing on Canva, and the features just keep getting better and better.
You're missing out if you aren't on the Pro plan, in my opinion.
These are some of the Pro features:
- 100+ million premium stock photos, videos, audio and graphics
- 610,000+ premium and free templates with new designs daily
- Easily save and apply your brand or campaign’s colors, logos, and fonts with up to 100 Brand Kits
- Remove image backgrounds instantly with Background Remover
- Resize designs infinitely with Magic Resize
- Save designs as templates for your team to use
- 100GB of cloud storage
And a lot more.
So, what can you use Canva for?
Um, basically everything.
But to name a few…
Instagram promo posts
If you're launching an online course or a service or a physical product…anything really…it pays to talk about it on Instagram. But as we all know, Instagram is a visual game, so your promo graphics really matter.
Canva has you covered.
Here's an example:
Instagram stories
You can make absolutely any kind of Instagram story graphics on Canva.
PDFs
Canva makes gorgeous PDFs, which is why Canva is great for bloggers, because bloggers always need a new workbook, checklist, cheatsheet, resource guide, ebook, and whatever else. Canva has bloggers covered.
I won't upload an entire PDF here, but I'll give you this drop shadow promo image for a PDF I made on Canva:
Facebook and Twitter posts
To be honest, I spent almost no time on my Facebook page or my Twitter page. They exist and a few thousand people follow them, but I just use SmarterQueue to automate it so I can forget about it.
But, if you're not lazy like me, maybe you are spending time on Facebook and Twitter, and Canva definitely has you covered there.
Facebook ads
The all-important Facebook ad. You can definitely make Facebook ad graphics on Canva.
Pinterest pins
This is where the real magic is. You need sooooo many new pins to keep up on Pinterest these days (does anyone else miss BoardBooster?).
I make all my pins on Canva, usually from templates from Carly Campbell's subscription, which I really cannot say enough good things about. You get 20 pin templates a month (10 on Canva and 10 on Picmonkey), plus access to her subscribers-only Facebook group where she constantly goes live to explain all the newest Pinterest strategies.
This was not a paid testimonial. I just love those pins and that group so much. 😍😍
Anyway, Canva makes phenomenal Pinterest pins. Here are a few:
Webinar slides
I'm in the process of recording tons of videos for next month's launch of Break Into Blogging (btw, sign up for the waitlist at that link and something tells me you'll get a special price…).
And I'm also creating webinar slides for that launch.
So, at first I started off with a pretty plain template in Apple Keynote. But then I made my way over to my favorite place, Creative Market, and I was off to the races. I kept changing my mind about which of the gorgeous slide decks was best, so I ended up with four. 🙄🙄
I won't upload an entire 100 slide deck here, but here are a few examples:
Mockups
As another part of my endless preparation for Break Into Blogging, I also need cool mockups to make my sales page look all snazzy. Can you guess what program I used to make them?
GIFs
Gifs are endlessly amazing, and Canva has you covered there too. Make your own, or use one of their many, many templates.
Videos
I honestly haven't played around with creating videos on Canva that much yet, but the ones I have made have turned out pretty well.
Icons
Canva has thousands and thousands of icons in all different styles and in all sorts of shapes.
Here's a random smattering:
Stock photos
Oh, and the stock photos. I have no idea how many Canva has, but it's A LOT. (And it's WAY more if you upgrade to the Pro plan).
Email headers
Last but not least, I'll mention email headers, mostly because I just happened to have made one yesterday. (Not the most intricate design perhaps, but cute nonetheless.
Phew, this is probably the most image/video-heavy post I'll ever make! Sorry if it takes like an hour to load?
But anyway, the point is, what types of graphics can you create with Canva? ANY TYPE.
I know a lot of you are using Canva too. Show me some of your creations on IG! Just tag @beccakleinco!
PIN IT!
I have used Canva for quite a while now and it has so many great features, which you’ve shared here. It’s a really worthwhile resource to have.
Agreed! Canva is one of my top, top favorite tools.