Insider’s Guide to Creating Business Graphics Using Canva

Some business sites you visit catch your eye more than others. In fact, it’s possible you may
have purchased something because the visuals were compelling. They told the story of what the
product was in a way that spoke to you.

Business graphics are more important than ever. With the increased use of social media,
business owners need to be able to visualize their company and products in order to create
compelling content that resonates with followers. Businesses without a visual identity will
struggle to connect with their customers, no matter how brilliant their user profiles are or how
original their posts may be.

Visuals are important in marketing these days because they allow you to break down complex
ideas and images into digestible chunks. This helps you audience understand what you’re trying
to say at a glance. Graphics can also help users get a feel for what your brand is all about,
which is why it’s such an essential part of any business’s marketing strategy.

What is a business graphic, anyway?

A business graphic is a visual representation of your company or brand. It can be a logo, a logo
animation, an illustration, or a photo or video—anything to represent your business. The best
business graphics take your brand colors and illustrate how your brand fits into the larger world.

Creating business graphics that show how your logo looks in context can help customers
imagine how your brand operates. You can use many different graphic formats, including
business cards, posters, infographics, and more.

The key to successful business graphics is a combination of creativity, research, and precision.
Using a program like Canva helps you create business graphics easily. You can:

• Create infographics to explain complex topics in an easily digestible format.

• Design attractive logos and branding assets to create a consistent visual identity for your
business.
• Create attractive visuals for your social media posts to engage your followers.
• Create beautiful presentations to showcase your products and services.
• Design custom graphics to use as email headers, website banners, and more.

In this Insider’s Guide to Creating Business Graphics Using Canva, you’ll learn the ins and outs
of creating graphics for business cards, blog headers, social media posts, videos and more!
We’ve also included some resources and templates to help you get started using Canva faster.

Let’s dig in.

Canva Is a Popular Tool
Canva is incredibly popular. One reason is because it offers an easy to use, and visually
appealing platform to create graphics and designs even for the novice or non-designer. With a
large selection of templates, fonts, and images, users can quickly create high-quality content.

Canva offers a wide range of features that make it easy for users to customize their designs,
including drag and drop editing, resizing, and filters.

Unlike a traditional graphic design tool such as Adobe’s Illustrator and Photoshop, Canva has a
much simpler learning curve. This means it’s feature set is more basic than the pro solutions.

Additionally, Canva is free to use (with a paid option) and provides a great way to create
professional-looking designs without having to be a design expert.

Canva is a great tool for creating visually appealing business presentations. You can use it to
create professional slideshows, infographics, and other visual presentations that will help you
stand out in the boardroom.

Canva also provides a great way to quickly create professional-looking marketing materials. You
can design:

• Logos
• Brochures
• Flyers
• Social media storyboards
• Business cards and brand identity
• Portfolios
• Videos
• Banners and ads
• and other collateral that look great and communicate your message effectively.

Canva can be used to create website graphics and banners, giving your website a professional
look.

Canva makes it easy to create eye-catching social media graphics, which are essential for
engaging with your followers on social platforms.

Canva also offers a range of templates for creating documents like reports, resumes, and more.
You can use these to quickly create documents that look great and are easy to read.

Canva is a popular design platform mainly because it is easier to use than many design
programs and it has the main elements needed to create stunning graphics for most business
needs.
Pros and Cons of Canva
Canva is a design tool best suited for online entrepreneurs, marketers, freelances or business
owners who need something easy to use. It’s good for those without graphic design experience.
That said, Canva has many advantages and some disadvantages when it comes to creating
business graphics.

Advantages of Canva

Canva’s design platform has pre-made size templates you can use to create stunning visuals for
a variety of projects. You can use Canva to design logos, create presentations, posters, flyers,
invitations, social posts, and more.

Another advantage of Canva is its library of elements. You can access hundreds of photos,
illustrations, templates, and fonts to help you make your designs stand out.

It's easy drag and drop program allows you to quickly change or add elements to a design.

The transparency tool allows you to make any element transparent.

Canva gives you the ability to add frames or vignettes to any image.

You can easily edit photos once they are added to your design using Canva’s photo editing tool.

Canva’s 3-D mockups allow you to add a design to create a mockup of your product in use. For
example, an image of a person wearing a t-shirt with your design on it.

It’s budget friendly. You can create visuals with its free plan, or their low cost paid plan.

You can collaborate with team members, working on a project together.

With its built-in presentation tool, you can create professional presentations quickly and easily.

Its video creation tool allows you to edit videos, turn a presentation into a video or use their
video templates to create a video. Simply add your own footage or choose from their stock
videos, then add audio and transition effects to create your video.

Disadvantages of Canva

While the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, you should be aware of what the cons of
Canva are.

Image editing tools are very basic with a limited number of tools for editing images. This isn’t a
big problem for most, but if you are used to working with professional design programs this may
turn you away from Canva.

Some features are only available to paid subscribers. This can be frustrating for those using the
free version.
Canva can be glitchy. Sometimes elements won’t line up correctly. Or you might have trouble
saving your work.

The design options can be limited, especially if you are looking for something specific.

Canva can be expensive. If you aren’t a pro user (paid subscriber), you must purchase certain
templates, elements or other premium features that can add up quickly. For instance, many
graphic elements are one dollar each. If you use many of these premium graphics, it could get
costly.

Depending on your needs and your experience is one of the factors that will play into whether
Canva is an advantageous program or not. Look at what it can do compared to what are some
of its drawbacks when choosing to use it.

How Canva Works

Canva is an online design platform. It makes it easy to create beautiful designs for various
projects.

Canva can be used in a web browser or through their downloadable app (for Mac, PC,
Chromebook, iOS, or Android).

In the basic sense, Canva is a design tool. But its more than that. Canva provides the platform
to create, modify, share, and save your designs to be used repeatedly.

It provides a wide range of customizable templates for flyers, posters, social media posts, logos,
presentations, videos, and more.

The drag and drop editor let you move elements around a template. You can simply drag and
drop elements from the library of images, icons, fonts, and shapes to create your design.

You’re also able to easily edit the colors, fonts, and layout of your design to make it unique.
Many of these elements are royalty free for you to use.

Canva allows you to collaborate with other people on your team to create amazing designs
quickly and easily.

The steps are simple:

1. Login to your Canva account.

2. Choose the type of design you want to create. You can choose to start with a template
or create from scratch.
3. From there it’s a matter of editing, switching out and moving items to fit your needs. Add
images, photos, icons, and fonts. Upload your own or use Canva’s library of elements.
4. Save your design and then download or share from Canva to social media.
Canva is an all-in-one design tool for creating, saving, and sharing designs. Using it is as simple
as drag-and-drop elements into a premade template or as complex as starting from scratch to
create your own unique design.
Paid vs. Free.
Canva’s platform opens a whole new arena for businesses. But as with everything, it comes at a
price. Canva offers different versions for different budgets or needs.

Canva has a great free plan if you are on a tight budget. On this plan you get:

• 250,000 free templates.

• 100s of design layouts to choose from (social media posts, presentations, letters,
brochures, etc.)
• Thousands of free graphic elements and photos.
• 5 GB of cloud storage for keeping your design assets on Canva such as uploaded logos,
photos, etc.
• Options to purchase single pro features.
• Ability to add members of your team and collaborate with them.
• Option to save your work in folders.
• The option to export your created designs into various file formats.
• No time limit. You can use the free plan indefinitely.

Perfect for anyone wanting to design anything.

The Canva Pro plan is $12.99 per month or $119.00 per year for one person. It offers everything
in the Free plan plus:

• Additional stock photos and graphics (100+Million).

• A brand kit feature that allows you to upload your logo, brand colors and fonts.
• A social scheduling feature.
• Access to an extensive audio and video library.
• More Canva templates to use, over 610,000.
• The magic resize tool that lets you repurpose your existing designs to different platform
size specifications.
• The background removal tool, perfect for removing backgrounds for headshots.
• The ability to create fully customizable templates of your own.
• More storage, up to 1 TB.
• Better customer support.

The Canva for Teams plan allows teams of up to five members for $14.99 a month. Each
member enjoys unlimited access to all the pro (or premium) features. So, depending on your
needs and budget, Canva has a plan for everyone.
Creating Custom Templates & Reusing Them
Whether you use the free or paid version of Canva, you can use templates to create your
visuals. But do you realize that you can create your own custom templates and it is a good
idea? It not only saves you time, but it also helps you stay consistent in your brand design.

Creating templates in Canva is done in a few different ways. Though it’s done by saving your
designs as templates. No longer just for pro users, the create a template feature is available for
all Canva users.

Step 1: You can start with a blank canvas or template of the size you need.

Step 2: Change the background color. On the editor page, tap on the blank canvas to choose it.
Click the color picker box that appears in the editor toolbar to choose a color.

Either use a color given by Canva or use your brand kit colors if you’ve already added them. Or
choose a different color using the color picker or hex code.

Another option is to choose a patterned or textured background. Do this by going to the

elements tab and searching for backgrounds.

Step 3: Begin adding elements you want as well as any text.

Step 4: Once you have everything the way you want it you can then save it as a template or
duplicate the page to create a new template. To save your design as a reusable template, click
on the share button. Then click on Brand template, then add to folder. Choose the folder you
want to save it to. Then click publish.

To use your templates, open up the folder you save it in. Choose the one you want to use. Tap
it to select the template. If you have more than one template saved in it will ask if you want to
apply both/all pages to the new design. Check the ones you want to use.

Now you can begin editing new design from the template.

If you’ve already created visuals you want to use as a template, save them as a template the
same as above.

Tip! Create several designs per template so you have a variety to use that can be quickly
changed for new visuals. For example, create 5 to 8 Instagram posts, or 7 Pinterest pin styles.

Having templates to reuse helps you be more productive and quickly put out more content.

Downloading Your Final Designs

When you are done creating your visuals, no matter what they are, you are ready to download
or share them. You have several options in Canva.

1. Save your design.

2. Click the share button in the upper right of the screen. Here you will find your options.
 Click download. Select the file type you want to download your design as: PNG, JPG,
PDF, MP4 video or GIF. PNG and JPG are the most common file types. In the pro
subscription you also have the option of downloading as an SVG file.

a. For PNG files, choose if you want a transparent background and which pages
you want to download. Click the download button to start.

b. For JPG files, choose the size and quality as well as the pages you want. Click
the download button.

c. For PDF, select your option choices. The click download.

3. Save them to a folder on your computer.

You can also share your design directly to social media. This saves a step in the download
process. You will need to have each platform connected to your Canva account. Click on the
Share button. Go to the Share on Social tab. Click on the arrow. Choose which platform you
want and fill in the information.

Downloading your designs in different formats is available in Canva. Your options depend on
what the visual is used for.

How To Create Videos & Presentations

Aside from creating static visuals you can also create videos and presentations in Canva.
Canva is a good alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint for presentations for businesses to create a
slideshow quickly and easily.

To Create a Presentation:

1. Click on the presentation tab. You can start with a predesigned template or with a blank
template. Find a template under the templates tab or choose from blank presentations
under layouts.

2. Add as many layout designs as you will need for your presentation by clicking on the
plus (+Add Page) at the bottom of the page or duplicate the current design by clicking
the duplicate page (2 square boxes with a + sign) icon above the chosen slide.

3. Add colors, elements, text to your slides the same as you do for other visuals using the
“Uploads,” “Elements,” and “Text” sections.

4. Add notes for your presentation by clicking on “Notes” at the bottom of the screen you’re
editing.

5. You can engage your audience by incorporating embedded charts, graphs, and
visualizations. Choose from animated and interactive visualization templates such as dot
plots, heatmaps, bar or line races, drill-down sunbursts, flow charts or word clouds.
 6. Edit the timing of audio tracks, transitions, animations and more so everything works in
sync perfectly.

7. Once you are happy with your presentation, save it and then download it. Click on the
“Share” button at the top right of your screen. Click on download to download as a PDF
or choose to save as a PowerPoint File. Or you can share your presentation online using
the “share” button.

There is also an option to present and record the presentation. This allows you to turn it into a
video you can share to YouTube or elsewhere.

Doing a live presentation? Use the Presenter View. This keeps you on topic and on time with
the slide previews and controls, presenter notes and a time all in one place.

To Create a Video:

1. Click on the Video icon under the search bar on the home page.

2. Mouse over the video type you want to create. Click on the magnifying glass/Browse
templates to see the available templates.

3. Preview each one by hovering your mouse over it and clicking on the three dots. Select
“Preview this template.”

4. To use the template, select Customize this template. Or begin with a blank template.

5. Add a video to the design. You have access to all stock videos for Canva Pro or you can
add your own videos by clicking “Uploads.” Then click on the uploaded video to add it to
your design.

6. Trim, split or resize the clips to fit your template.

7. Add text, transitions, graphic elements, and animations to make your video story stand
out.

8. Finally, add music, audio tracks, sound effects, voice overs or narration to the video. Be
aware that not all of these are available on the free version.

You can also record yourself. When making your design, go to the uploads and select
“Record Yourself.” This takes you to the recording software part of Canva.

9. When your satisfied with your video, download it as an MP4 to your computer or share it
directly to social media account, email a link or embed it on your website.

Creating presentations and videos right in Canva is a fantastic way to boost production time
within your marketing. With the ease of Canva design tools, you’ll quickly have presentation or
video ready to share.
Using Grids to Create Design Layouts
One way to create business graphics is to create a collage of images of sorts using Grids. From
vision boards to color palettes to social media posts, Grids are an easy way to bring your ideas
to life.

To use Grids:

1. When you start a new design or open a design in Canva, click on the elements tab.
Scroll down until you see grids. There are many to choose from, so scroll until you find
one that will fit your needs.

2. Click on the grid to add it to your design (it doesn’t matter the size or shape of your
palette; the grid will adjust to fit it).

3. Add images, videos, or colors to the grids. You can add text and other elements on top
of the images.

4. Save and download or share your finished product.

Grids are a great way to create business graphics to share on social media, with your team or to
use for product development.

Templates and Tools

We’ve included a set of tools and templates to help you get started faster using Canva for
business graphics. They include:

• Canva’s Most Useful Features for Business checklist

• Creating Ebooks/Presentations Checklist
• Creating Business Graphics Worksheet
• Design from Scratch Template
• Creating Templates to Reuse How-to Guide

What’s Next
Now that you know how easy it is to use Canva for creating business graphics it’s time to dig in
a start sharing your visuals with the world.

Creating social media graphics, storyboards, business identity visuals, flyers, presentations,
videos, banners, ads, and about anything visual can be created in Canva.

Begin by deciding what business graphics you need, gather your text, and begin creating. It’s
that easy.