What is Canva? A Comprehensive Guide

Visual content plays a crucial role in communication and creativity.

And Canva has been a complete game-changer in how that content is created, both for professional and business use.

What is Canva?

Canva is an online design tool where you can use prebuilt templates or customize drag-and-drop elements to create beautiful designs.

It has emerged as a powerhouse in the world of design, making it easy for individuals and businesses to create stunning visuals without the need for extensive design expertise.

This comprehensive guide explores:

• What Canva is
• How Canva works
• Canva features
• Pricing
• Comparison of Canva with other design tools
• FAQ

How does Canva work?

Canva is an online tool that makes creating visuals super easy. You pick a template for what you want to make, like a social media post or a poster.

Then, you customize it by adding your text, pictures, and colors – all with a simple drag-and-drop editor.

Apply a saved or suggested style.

You can also add more videos, images, and audio from the Elements section.

You can also boost your design further with shapes, stickers, and other graphic elements.

And if you’re working with others, Canva lets you all edit together in real-time, just like Google Docs.

Once your design is ready, you can save it or share it on social media. Canva is designed to be simple and user-friendly, so you don’t need to be a pro designer to use it. Whether you’re a small business owner, student, or just someone who wants to make cool stuff, Canva can help you create almost all kinds of simple, regular designs.

Key Canva Features

Before we dive into the specifics of Canva, it’s essential to understand its core features.

Here’s an in-depth explanation of Canva’s features, how they benefit users, and anchor texts to dedicated posts on each feature:

1. Templates

As we saw above, Canva boasts a vast collection of professionally designed templates for various purposes.

From social media graphics to business cards and infographics, these templates serve as a creative starting point for your designs.

2. Stock Media (Photos, Audio, Video, Stickers)

Canva offers access to a rich library of stock media, including high-quality photos, audio tracks, video clips, and stickers.

This extensive resource simplifies the process of finding the perfect visual and auditory elements for your projects.

3. Background Remover

With Canva’s Background Remover feature, you can effortlessly remove backgrounds from images, leaving you with a clean and isolated subject for your designs.

4. Video Background Remover

In addition to image background removal, Canva allows you to remove backgrounds from videos, providing even more flexibility in video editing and design.

5. Instant Animation

Canva’s animation tools enable you to breathe life into your designs. Add motion and interactivity to your graphics, making them more engaging for your audience.

7. Social Media Content Planner

Organize and schedule your social media content directly within Canva, streamlining your social media marketing efforts.

8. Brand Kits

Create and maintain brand consistency with Canva’s Brand Kits. Store your brand’s colors, fonts, and logos for easy access, ensuring your designs align with your brand identity.

9. Big Font Library and Premium Fonts

Canva offers a wide selection of fonts, both free and premium, to enhance the typography of your designs.

You can also upload your own custom fonts to maintain brand consistency.

10. Resize Designs

Quickly adapt your designs for various platforms with Canva’s resizing tools. Ensure your content looks great on different social media channels and marketing materials.

Mastering Canva – Specific How-Tos

We’ve already seen that Canva offers a wide range of design possibilities. Here are some specific things you can do with Canva.

How to Wrap Text in Canva

With Canva, you can easily wrap text around images and shapes, creating visually appealing designs.

Use the “Text Wrap” feature to make your text seamlessly integrate with your design. Read the step-by-step guide here: Wrap text in Canva

How to Group and Ungroup in Canva

You can group items together for easier handling and then ungroup them to fine-tune your design.

Learn how to do this effectively and efficiently: How to group in Canva

How to Draw on Canva

Canva’s drawing tools allow you to unleash your creativity by creating custom designs. Read more on how to draw in Canva,

How to Convert Canva to Google Slides

Converting Canva designs to Google Slides is a useful feature for sharing your presentations. You can easily convert your Canva designs to Google Slides.

How to Curve Text in Canva

Adding curved text to your designs adds an elegant touch. Read more on how to create curved text in Canva.

How to Convert Canva to PowerPoint

You can export your Canva designs to PowerPoint by downloading your design as a PDF or image and then importing it into PowerPoint. You can also convert Canva into PowerPoint.

How to Erase in Canva

Canva provides an eraser tool to refine your designs. Read more

How to superscript in Canva

While Canva does not have a superscript tool, you can use Canva to add superscript to your text.

Canva Pricing

Canva offers various pricing options to cater to different needs.

Canva had three primary pricing tiers: Free, Pro, and Teams. It’s worth noting that Canva may have introduced new features or pricing changes since then, so I recommend checking the Canva website for the most up-to-date information.

Canva Free

The free version of Canva gives you access to Canva’s basic design tools and templates.

It also gives you limited storage for your designs and no collaboration features.

The Free plan is ideal for individuals and small businesses with basic design needs. It’s a great way to get started with Canva and explore its capabilities without any financial commitment.

Canva Pro

Canva Pro, of course includes all the features of the free plan, plus more, like the Background Remover, One-Click Resizing, Video Background Remover, etc.

Besides, it offers 200x more storage space for designs, access to millions of templates and elements, and 4 more brand kits than the free version.

You can get Canva Pro for a monthly price of $12.99 or an annual fee of $119.99.

Canva Pro is designed for more serious or professional users. It offers a significant upgrade over the free plan, making it easier to create high-quality designs, collaborate with team members, and maintain brand consistency.

However, the access is limited to only one member.

If you want to add your team members for better collaboration, you have to use Canva for Teams.

Canva for Teams

Canva for Teams is really designed to foster better collaboration and brand management between different stakeholders. It also offers more design storage.

You can add 3x more brand kits compared to Canva Pro, and you also get priority customer support.

The pricing of Canva for Teams is based on the number of members. It ranges from $12.49 per month to $1242 per month per team member.

Each pricing tier offers a different level of features and benefits, allowing users to choose the plan that best suits their specific needs.

The choice between Free, Pro, or Teams depends on your individual or team requirements and the scale of your design projects.

Canva Lifetime Deal

Canva pros and cons

I have been using Canva for years now, so let me share with you the quick pros and cons of using Canva.

Pros of Using Canva

• User-Friendly: Canva is a drag-and-drop editor, and it has millions of templates you can simply customize to suit your needs. This is the biggest plus of Canva, that anyone can use it, with little to no design experience.
• Saves time and money: Not only can anyone use it, but you can also use it to create designs creatively quickly, which is a big advantage if you are a small business owner who has a business to run. Besides, this saves you the cost of hiring a graphic designer.
• Collaboration: It is super easy to collaborate with team members for real-time editing.
• Versatility: You can create almost any kind of design projects, from social media graphics to business presentations.
• Innovative: One of the parts I love best about Canva is that they are constantly adding new design featuresto keep up-to-date with the actual needs of their users. Features like the Canva Whiteboard and Canva Docs make it easy for small businesses to collaborate.

Cons of Using Canva

• Limited Advanced Features: Canva Pro unlocks many advanced features, but Canva is still not as powerful as an industry-standard design software like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. So it is meant for simple designs, not high-level, complex designs.
• Internet Dependency: Canva primarily operates online, requiring an internet connection, which can be limiting in offline environments.
• Limited collaboration with Canva Pro: Earlier, you could have multiple team members with Canva Pro, which was helpful if you wanted to limit your costs. Now, you can only do that with Canva for Teams, which makes it a bit more of a hassle.

Canva vs. Other Design Tools

How does Canva compare to other popular design tools? Here are some comparisons:

Adobe Express vs. Canva

Adobe Express is a simplified, web-based version of Adobe’s professional design software. It offers advanced design capabilities but may be more complex and feature-rich than Canva.

Canva is known for its user-friendliness and a broader array of templates.

Read the full post: Canva vs Adobe Express

Canva vs. PowerPoint

Canva excels in creating various visual content, including social media graphics and marketing materials, while PowerPoint is designed specifically for presentations.

Canva offers a broader range of templates and is more suitable for digital and print media, whereas PowerPoint is tailored for creating and delivering slideshows.

Read the full post: Canva vs PowerPoint

Canva vs. Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a professional vector graphics software with extensive capabilities for illustration, logo design, and complex graphics.

Canva, on the other hand, is more user-friendly and suited for a wide audience, including non-designers. Canva emphasizes templates and ease of use.

Read the full post: Canva vs Illustrator

Canva vs. Figma

Figma is a collaborative design tool that emphasizes teamwork and UI/UX design. It offers real-time collaboration and prototyping.

Canva, while also supporting collaboration, is a simpler tool with lesser control on design features. But it has a broader focus on various design types, making it a better choice for marketing materials and social media content.