How Canva Is a Central Technology For My Project

What is Canva?

Canva is a graphic design platform that was founded in 2012.  The platform has rapidly grown to become one of the most popular and widely used design tools globally.  Canva allows users to create professional designs with the assistance of templates or by creating their own designs from scratch. These designs can be published anywhere and on any platform.  I currently have the free version of Canva, but I will be downloading CanvaPro in order to utilize all the necessary features to master my designs.  CanvaPro costs a monthly fee, but it will allow me to create the highest level, professional looking work for my project.

What I Need to Master

The areas of Canva that I will need to master prior to publishing any work are typography, brand books, and logo design. I have some basic knowledge on typography and how to use hierarchy to elevate my designs, but I have not practiced it in Canva yet. I intend on going through the Canva fonts and testing them out until I am able to finalize them to three that match the theme I am going for with my account.  I will create mock posts testing out each of the fonts I am deciding between and include my three favorites in my design book.  In addition, Canva has many tutorials on how to create and pair the available fonts which I will watch in order to deepen my understanding of advanced typography.

Mastering brand books on Canva involves understanding the principles of brand identity and utilizing Canva’s tools to create a comprehensive and visually appealing guide. I plan on doing this by clearly outlining the key elements of my brand including my logo, color palette, and typography. I will determine the tone and voice of my brand’s personality and practice using that consistently throughout my brand book.  I have created a brand book in Canva once before, so I will review that and figure out what element worked and could be improved on in order to take this one to the next level.

The final Canva feature that I will need to master is logo design.  My goal is to establish a unique, modern logo that will stand out, and have a lasting impression on my audience.  In order to achieve this I will need to utilize Canva’s extensive library of shapes and elements to create the basic structure of my logo.  This will require a lot of time spent on searching through Canva’s elements and watching tutorials from logo designers who made their logos through Canva.  Once I have an understanding of the elements and all the features of logo design offered by Canva I will make note of some of my favorites and begin constructing my own logo.  In order to get a feel for designing, I will try out some of Canva’s existing logo templates that they offer for different industries and styles. I will incorporate my fonts and color palettes to these templates as starting points for my design.

How is Canva Social?

Canva incorporates several features that allow users to be “social” by facilitating sharing, inspiration and education within the platform.  The first way in which Canva is a “social” piece of technology is because it allows anyone, of any background to create professional looking content and share it to any platform. Canva is partnered with various social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Users can directly share their designs on these platforms without  having to leave the Canva software. Canva also has a feature that allows users to schedule social media posts.  This makes it convenient for individuals to plan their content sharing.

Canva is also a space that fosters education and inspires other Canva creators. Canva has a “Community” feature where users can share their designs with the global Canva community. This serves as a source of inspiration for others, encouraging creativity and design exploration. Another new feature that Canva has introduced is a Design School with tutorials, courses, and resources to help users enhance their design skills. Users can engage with these educational materials and share their progress or insights. Being able to share your educational process and see where others around you stand fosters inspiration in the design world and a drive to reach the next level.

Affordances

As a designer, Canva offers me many affordances in my content creation journey.  The first affordance is the ability to create professional looking posts in order to establish a professional Instagram platform.  Canva gives me the tools to measure my designs so they are balanced,  use fonts that match my accounts theme, and publish them directly from Canva to Instagram. Canva features a user-friendly interface, making it accessible to both beginners and experienced designers. This platform offers a vast library of professionally designed templates for a wide range of purposes, including social media posts, presentations, posters, business cards, and more. These templates serve as starting points, saving time and providing inspiration for its users.

Limitations

While Canva is a powerful and user-friendly graphic design tool, it does have certain limitations. While Canva offers a wide range of templates, the level of customization can be limited. Users may encounter restrictions when trying to modify certain design elements beyond the template’s original structure. Another limitation to Canva is that since it is a web-based application a connection to internet is required in order to work on content.  If I find myself somewhere where I cannot connect to the internet I have no ability to work on my posts.