In our recent workshop, we dove into Canva—the all-in-one graphic design tool beloved by all who know it. With input from our attendees, I demonstrated how to create six cohesive social graphics ready for Instagramming. And I barely scratched the surface of Canva’s capabilities in those two hours. Still, I covered a lot of material (including my favorite tricks and resources!), and these three takeaways are my favorite points I hit.
Takeaway #1: Knowing your brand makes everything easier.
I’ve written before about the importance of your author brand’s color palette, but in this workshop, I demonstrated how to actually use those colors, along with chosen fonts.
Branding is more than the colors and fonts, of course. It’s also your logo, your tone (think copy and captions), and your relationship to your readers (how you run your author business). But knowing the visual building blocks will help tie everything else together!
Takeaway #2: Canva is more than meets the eye.
As I’ve already alluded to in this blog post, Canva can do more than help you arrange text boxes and shapes. There are three big things that set Canva apart from its competitors:
- The wide variety of file types you can create
- Built-in scheduling for socials
- All the apps—third parties have added capabilities far beyond what Canva can do on its own, like creating dynamic flipbooks
I only had time to gloss over the first two points, but I did get to briefly peruse the apps during the workshop (there are 16 different QR code apps, if that tells you anything about how many there are!). But there is so much more that I didn’t get to touch and more apps are always being added, which leads me to my final point.
Takeaway #3: Treat Canva like play, and you’ll learn more.
I know that Canva can be overwhelming for first-time users. I also know there is a strong inclination to learn what you need to know to make Canva do what you want, then stick with what you know.
That’s the opposite of how I believe users should approach Canva. Instead, my advice is to open a blank canvas without any expectation of creating something usable or pretty and just play. Click on all the buttons. Disassemble templates. Fearlessly dive deep into the toolbars. Try to make something in every available format—graphic, video, doc, whiteboard, website, all of them. The more familiar you are with Canva, the better you’ll be able to use its features to their full advantage and the less likely you are to get frustrated when you do try to create something specific.
All that may sound time-consuming. It definitely can be! But it’s also fun, and it’s a strategy that’s served me well during my eight years of Canva usage. I plan to use it for many years to come.
Ready to learn more?
I’m already considering how I may add on to this workshop with mini lessons. My first idea was bookmarks, but I’d love to hear what else you’d like to see. You can get access now to the live workshop’s replay, and you’ll get any new bonus mini lessons when they drop!
