Graphic designers are always looking for new and interesting apps to help with their work, and Canva is the latest cloud tool to fit the bill. Canva is designed for people who have no interest in Photoshop yet need attrative graphic design and illustration for their work. If you can work in Canva, you can sell your services to a whole new audience.
Here’s a quick guide to the brand new Canva site. It’s still in beta at the time of writing this review, but it’s slowly bring opened up to new members.
What Is Canva?
Canva is essentially a graphic design toolkit boiled down to its simplest components. Users can combine text, images, layouts and more into quick graphics for practically any purpose. It’s of particular interest to marketers because its presets support sites like Facebook and Twitter, so you can quickly knock up a header image that will fit.
Canva is built on presets, but you can expand the library of images for a small fee. You’re not limited to the Canva selection; you can upload your own graphic design work and play around with it on the Canva site. Canva supports your creativity with layouts that can be adapted, or you can start from a blank canvas and build your design from the ground up. There are thousands of fonts available for designers to use, and Canva says that its images are compatible with popular graphic design software. (We assume that this comment refers to Photoshop).
Sharing Graphic Design Work
Need to get approval on your design or show off your ideas before they’re developed? Canva makes sharing simple. Just send your ideas to the client before paying for the content you need from the Canva library.
The really clever thing is the fee system on Canva; it’s free to share and create, but you have to pay to download the finished image. That means graphic designers can protect themselves; their clients could be asked to sign off a creation before its paid for to ensure they’re 100 per cent happy with the work. Only then can they use it on the web or in print. If they don’t like a font or a component image, you can swap it out before you’ve paid for it, keeping your client happy in the proces.
Going One Step Futher: Making Money With Canva Content
Graphic designers can also make money from Canva by uploading their own design work. Every time a Canva user chooses their uploaded content for a graphic, the original designer gets a cut of the licensing fee.
If you want to join Canva’s rapidly growing designer network, it’s easy to get started. But remember: your content will be jostling for attention among more than a million other library items. In order to make serious cash, you’ll need to spend time developing quality content.
Canva is prioritising access to professional graphic designers; the information is on its Designers page. There’s also a page for illustrators and photographers. Get started now.
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By Sam Wright
Sam Wright is a creative writer with an interest in new gadgets and apps. He writes on behalf of Brand Republic.