Preface

This book will help you to use Canva, set up your branding, and create consistent, well-designed graphics for your business. But what is Canva? And why should you use it? Well... Canva is a graphic design platform that has grown significantly in popularity in only a few short years. Its aim is to make design accessible to everyone, regardless of your design ability. On Canva, you can create any number of designs for work and home on the platform, on both desktop and the mobile app, using pre-made templates or creating them from scratch. It also allows you to edit both video and images, create animations, schedule content to social media, and create presentations for work. There is a growing number of apps being incorporated into Canva, giving you so much more flexibility and scope for growing your business. Canva, above all, is a very visual platform, simple to get to grips with, and great fun to use.

Who this book is for

This book is ideal for aspiring designers, social media managers, virtual assistants, service-based businesses, and solopreneurs with basic experience in Canva who are looking to advance in a new skill, while creating their brand and perfecting their social media and marketing materials on a budget. A basic understanding of Canva, such as knowing how to set up a free Canva account, create a basic design using a template, add images and text boxes, and change the color of fonts, is assumed but not essential.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Setting Up Canva on Desktop and Mobile, looks at what Canva is, setting up the platform, as well as the difference between Free and Pro accounts and creating folders to help you get organized from day one.

Chapter 2, Discovering and Editing Templates, helps you discover how to find and use Canva templates, as well as how to start one from scratch.

Chapter 3, Tools and Features for Using Elements and Images, helps with understanding the use of elements and backgrounds and discovering the full range of editing tools available for imagery within a design.

Chapter 4, Designing Eye-Catching Graphics through Useful Features, teaches you how to use the features that define Canva and allow you to create amazing eye-catching designs.

Chapter 5, Exploring the Awesome Creative Tools for Branding, looks at branding, how it is built, and what we need to create our own brand, as well as getting your branding set up in the Canva brand kit.

Chapter 6, Expert Hacks to Create Your Own Professional-Looking Designs, provides five tutorials for you to have a go at, which will help you to use and understand backgrounds, grids, frames, color, images, text, and graphs.

Chapter 7, Five Graphic Design Principles You Need to Know, outlines design principles that will help you to create amazing-looking designs.

Chapter 8, Creating Your Perfect Logo, shows you how to create a logo and sub-logos and understand the use of elements within a logo.

Chapter 9, Making Social Media Graphics with Canva, shows you how to create five different-style graphics needed for social media and business use.

Chapter 10, Leveraging Video and Animation within Your Business Marketing, teaches you how to use video and animation within Canva for your business needs.

Chapter 11, Downloading and Sharing Your Designs, shows you how to download and share your designs so you can get your business out there.

Chapter 12, Tips and Tricks for Printing, shows you how to print your designs through Canva or a third-party printer, as well as creating multi-page documents for book design.

To get the most out of this book

For this book to have the greatest impact, it would be best if you had a basic understanding of Canva and what the platform is used for.

You may already have a free Canva account set up and can create a basic design using a template.

You may know how to add an image, add text boxes, and change the color of fonts, but beyond that, you are looking to learn more.

Software/hardware covered in the book	Operating system requirements
The Canva platform	Any operating system will work An internet connection is required A computer, laptop, or tablet will work best
Canva Pro	A Canva Pro subscription will be required to use any of the Pro features

For certain aspects of this book, you will need to have a Canva Pro account, for example, to use the Background Remover tool or the vast majority of the Smartmockups tool, as mentioned in Chapter 3, Tools and Features for Using Elements and Images. To use any other Pro elements and images, a Pro account is required. I have tried to include as much content as possible that is available on a Free account.

After you have completed this book, I would love for you to continue on your Canva journey, creating graphics and growing your business. I have a free Facebook group for Canva users, full of support and advice, that you are welcome to join: www.facebook.com/groups/createoncanva.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/sVTuR.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “Click the Share button, then for sharing options, click more.”

Tips or important notes

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Get in touch

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