Using Canva

How do you create interesting content when all you have is photos & video on your phone? An easy online tool is Canva.com.

Canva is a cloud-based graphic design tool used to create marketing content for companies of all sizes. There are two options ‘Free’ or ‘Pro’ which is $18 per month and includes features such as drag-and-drop design video and photo editing with access to custom fonts. You can create you David Reid Home Franchise brand kit which means you never have to worry about using the wrong fonts or colours.

You and your team don’t need to be graphic designers, so Canva is a great option as it takes a process that is normally time consuming and makes it time efficient. For businesses looking for an easy social media graphic design tool it is a great inexpensive option.

Designing graphics for Instagram, Facebook, and any social media platform is easy with their drag-and-drop tool. Canva can help you manage and create your social media videos and graphics as they automatically have the correct sizing for each Social media platform.

You can create cover images – reels – stories – reviews and testimonial posts. The Canva editor is intuitive to help you explore and experiment with design tools at your own pace. Canva has thousands of templates to help you start inspired.

Start by creating an account or signing into Canva. Canva’s top menu. 

• The Home button is always there to help you return home 
• Templates is full of thousands of designs organised into different categories to help you easily find what you need. 
• Features shows you photos, icons, print media, apps and more to help you design. 
• Learn has blog articles, short tutorials, and in-depth courses to help you learn more about design. 
• Pricing shows you how to go Pro (you can use free or pay $17.99 for all the options)

Canva’s side menu

• There’s another Home button for you in case you need to reset after a deep dive somewhere. 
• Your projects where you can find and organise your designs. You can create folders to keep things tidy and share individual designs or folders with collaborators too. 
• Templates takes you to thousands of designs to help you start inspired based on search words. 
• Recommended tab shows you things you may like based on your designs. 
• Shared with you page makes it easy to find collaborative designs. 
• Trash has any designs, images, or videos you’ve deleted.

Using and customising templates

One of the best resources for new users is the library of templates. Expert designers make templates and show you good design principles in practice and what’s possible with Canva. Once you find a template you like and that aligns with the David Reid Homes brand guideline, open it in the editor and you’ll see that all the design elements can be edited to best suit your design needs.

Using search and personalising the editor

Use keywords in the search bar to quickly find new elements and templates or browse your own designs and uploads. Improve your workflow by customising the side panel in the editor by clicking MORE at the base of the side panel then choose which content you’d like to add for quick access.

Using and editing elements

Canva has a huge library of design elements – most a free, some are for Pro accounts and some have a small fee. In the side tab, click Elements and use the search bar to find elements, scroll sideways through different categories, or scroll down to see some example elements for different categories. Double click, or click and drag, to add the element to your design and customise as you need.

Finding fonts and using text

While there is a whole world of fonts to choose from in Canva it is important that as a Franchisee you need to stick fairly closely to the David Reid Homes Brand Guides. However to add text to your design, go to Text in the side panel. Search for font styles in the search bar or use one of the preset text styles you’ve created in your Brand Kit (if you have a pro account to easily click and drag a heading, subheading or body text. You’ll find more text editing options if you click the three dots at the right end of the text editing menu.

Uploading and using media

Upload photos and videos via Uploads in the side panel. Click and drag media directly into a design and customise it from there. Your uploaded media will appear in the Uploads tab.

Saving and organising documents

Canva autosaves your design as you go. If you want to manually save your design to a specific folder, in the top menu click File, then Save to folder, then choose your desired folder. You can also create a new folder there too.

When it come to content remember whether its is photos, carousel posts, reels, long form video or 20 second stories it must be either:

• Educational content – Creating value-driven educational content is a great way to get started on reels—especially since people are encouraged to share and save reels. Here are some examples of educational content: Five things to do before you start to build, layout ideas or plans, and top three things to look for in a good builder. Think of tips and advice that your audience wants and needs.
• Products or services – Reels are primarily seen by non-followers, which means this a great way to promote your business to new people. Share how-to’s, before and afters, vlog-style videos with your products—anything to catch people’s attention.
• BTS (Behind the Scenes) – People want to see more relatable and raw content on social media. BTS videos are a great way to be more personable and to build rapport with people. Share things like your business story, a day in the life at your company, or funny, relatable clips of you and your team.

Keep these tips in mind:

• Keep the videos short, simple, and easy to follow.
• Include captions and text overlays for accessibility.
• Use trending sounds in the background (when possible).
• Include keywords related to your business in your videos, captions, and hashtags.
• The goal is to connect with them through your imagery:
• Provide value through education, humour, or inspiration.
• Build trust through customer reviews or user-generated content.
• Encourage interaction so users will save, share, and like your posts.

Next Lesson: Capturing Video