How to get started with Canva?

Canva is a great tool for creating professional designs for your business. You can use it to design your logo, YouTube banner, social media promotional posts, digital PDFs, and so much more!

To get started, you’ll want to create a free account on Canva. You can upgrade at any time to a pro account for additional features, but the free version is a great place to start and includes a plethora of features in itself.

This step-by-step guide to designing from scratch in Canva will walk you through creating a design from scratch in Canva, quick tips to make your designs look good, choosing the correct dimensions, creating a background, and adding text or images.

You can also watch helpful video tutorials here that will help you set up your brand kit and start designing. 

Some important sizing for your designs: 

• Youtube Channel Art: 2560 x 1440 px
• Facebook Cover Photo: 851 x 315 px
• Twitter Header: 1500 x 500 px
• Instagram Square: 1080 x 1080 px
• Instagram Stories: 1080 x 1920 px
• Pinterest Pin: 735 x 1102 px

Our guest expert Tony Rulli created an excellent tutorial showing how to design free and paid ads within Canva. You can view his tutorial here: Canva Tutorial: How to Create Your Ad Images

Our Startup Society team also created this Canva Tutorial: How to use Canva to Create Your Social Media Images

Begin designing with these simple steps:

1. On your homepage, you can click the “Create a Design” button on the top right corner. You can choose from a template or customize the size you want to work with.

2. Then it will bring you to the designing page. The left bar has options to use templates, upload photos, choose from different elements, text, and many more. 

3. We recommend playing around with the features and seeing what you like.

4. Once you’re satisfied with your design, you can name it and use the “download” button on the top right to save your image on your desktop.

Happy creating!