If you run your business online, then I am sure you know how important it is to promote and market your business on social media. The same goes if you are a content creator or social media influencer.
But what if you do not have any experience in graphic design? And what if you do not have the time, money, or resources to study graphic design or hire a graphic designer to do everything for you?
If that is your worry, then Canva can do all of that and more! With that in mind, I have here a Canva tutorial for beginners and a quick overview of what Canva is and its features.
Why do you need to use Canva?
If you are not aware of what Canva is, it is basically a free-to-use online graphic design website that you can use to create social media posts, marketing materials (flyers, posters, etc.), infographics, presentations, and more! Heck, you can even make your own brand logo on the platform.
Canva makes it easy for people who have no experience in graphic design to be able to make beautiful and aesthetically pleasing graphics.
Another good thing about Canva is that it is easily accessible on all of your devices. You can design on your laptop on their website, or use the Canva mobile app! But my favorite feature of all is the thousands of templates readily available for users to use.
So, whether it’s for professional or personal use, you’ll be creating beautiful graphics on the platform either way!
Start designing: Step by Step Canva Tutorial
Now, on to the fun part. I will now tell you how you can create eye-catching graphic content for your blog, Instagram, website, and more through Canva’s website.
Step 1: Choose a dimension or template
If you want to start from scratch and really customize everything, you can first set the dimension of the image you want to use. Just click “Custom Size” and you can choose from pixels, millimeters, or inches.
On the other hand, if you want your life to be easier, you can just search for the type of graphic you want, and you will be given a lot of results of visually appealing templates that are ready for you to use.
Step 2: Choose a background
If you decide to start from scratch, then you can go ahead and choose a background image. You can change the color from the color palette for your background or stick to white.
You can also opt for a background image. Canva has a lot of high-quality, royalty-free images you can use. Just click on the side panel and choose Background.
Step 3: Add your other design elements
Canva is a treasure chest full of free graphic design tools you can use including fonts, icons, illustrations, frames, and more! Now all you need to do is experiment with the layout and placement of your elements.
You can choose a stock image or upload your own photo.
And then, you can choose from a wide variety of fonts. Canva has already font combinations available for you.
Design tip: try not to overload or overcrowd your image with design elements as it can be too busy and not visually pleasing to the eyes. Also, always make your text prominent and easy to read. Use complementing colors as well. This makes the readability better in general.
Step 4: Finish and Save
You can save your final product into different file types. You can download your Canva file into PDF, PNG, JPG, GIF, and even MP4 Video!
If you want to start all over again, you can simply make a new page on the same file you are doing or create a new workspace or file.
Canva for Pinterest Pins
If you are a blogger and online business owner like me, then I am sure you will know how important Pinterest is for our website traffic and growth. One way to promote your blog posts or products is by uploading pins on Pinterest.
However, you can’t just upload any image. Don’t forget that Pinterest is all about beautiful images and users go on there to find inspiration or answers to a question.
With this, I highly recommend using Canva for your pins. Canva features ready-made beautiful Pinterest templates so you can have a different design per pin if you want.
But if you also want to start making your own pins on Canva from scratch, then I highly recommend making vertical pins with a ratio of 1000*1500 pixels. I also recommend making your texts easy to read and the alignment should be at the top or center of the image.
You also have to make sure that your image brightness is good enough for the image to appear high-quality. And never forget to add in your website link or brand logo or name in the pin!
If you want some ready-made beautiful templates you can use specifically for Pinterest, then I have here 20 Pinterest Templates for Canva you can check out! Rest assured that these were made with the Pinterest algorithm and Pinterest users in mind 🙂
Final Thoughts
Believe me when I say I started using Canva with no graphic design experience at all. As long as you have an eye for good design or you know what looks good or not, then you can easily make your own graphics to use for your business or brand.
If you found this post useful, you might want to save THIS PIN below to your Pinterest Marketing board to check the post later when new updates are announced.
I’m Anastasia and I’m a full-time blogger, online entrepreneur, and Pinterest marketing strategist. I help digital entrepreneurs and bloggers drive targeted traffic from Pinterest either through my online courses or through Pinterest consultancy.
