First Impression: Canva

 

Hello again!  I’m back with my first first impression post.  To start things off, I chose Canva.  I’ve heard a lot about this website from my fellow bloggers over on Twitter, so I decided to check it out and see what it’s like.

 

What is Canva?

Canva is a website and app (for both Apple and Android) that allows you to create all kinds of graphics for pretty much anything.  They listed graphics for presentations, social media posts, and invites as just a few things other members have designed.

 

Is it free?

It is!  There are a couple of other plans that you can look through though, to see if those would be a better fit.  Click the link to be directed to their website.

 

The Sign-Up

You can sign up with Facebook, Google, or of course, with your email.  That’s the route I like to use.  If you go this way, they ask you for your name, email, and a password.

Next, it asks you what you do.  I chose Writer/Author, instead of blogger.  I’m just sure if it makes a difference, but honestly, that’s what I associate myself with more (even though blogging is writing).

You can next invite team members to sign up, but I skipped that.

Now, it asks what you want to create.  My choices are:

• Book Cover (oooh!  How exciting!)
• Social Graphic
• Web Banner
• Poster
• Logo
• Presentation
• Resume
• Flyer
• Card
• Photo Collage

At the bottom, you have two more options:

• More design types
• Not sure? Play with Canva

I chose More design types, and I’m so glad I did.  They have quite a selections.  They have something for literally everything.

I chose a Pinterest graphic, because I want to play more with Pinterest.  I also want to see if Pinterest will help with my blog views, and making a graphic is a step in the right direction.

On the side there is a list of templates.  I chose a super simple one.  It’s kind of overwhelming.  There are also free images you can pick as well (just click on Images under the Template tab).

After clicking around a seeing what was offered, I went decided with a simple, one color background that contrasted with the image I chose.  Next, it was time for the font.  I thought about choosing something that I would use every time I made this specific type of post.  I wanted it to be different than something I’d usually choose.

After I had everything I wanted, I stared at it.  It looked so plain.  I liked it though.  But, I looked at other photos and graphics anyway.

But I didn’t like anything.  I realized I liked it as simple as it was.  Maybe next time I’d be a little more adventurous.  So, I clicked download.  It gives you a list of files you can save your image as (PNG, JPG, and PDF).  I chose JPG.  It turned out pretty nice.

 

Pros And Cons:

• Pro- It saves your designs right to your homepage.  And, God bless them, you can make folders.
• Con- You can only make two folders.  Also a con, while your editing your graphic, there’s no undo button.  Well, not that I saw.  Ok, so there’s no undo button, but you can use the typical Command+Z (for Apple).
• Also a con- It doesn’t save your fonts.  So, if you want to know what font you used, you have to go back onto a graphic you already created (or make a list somewhere to document what you did and what you used).
• Pro- you can follow other people.  If you’re on Canva, here’s my profile.

 

My First Impression:

Easy to sign up, easy to navigate, easy to use.  And it’s fun, too.  If you like messing around with graphic design, this is the place for you!  If you want to make your own social media graphics, they’ve got plenty of templates for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, even Tumblr.  Sign up if you haven’t already!

Have you tried Canva?  If so, what has been your experience with it?  Comment your thoughts below!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll talk to you again soon!