Are you a graphic design master that can create amazing images to pin to Pinterest in the blink of an eye? No? Me neither but I have been introduced to a tool that can help.
Canva is a sleek and easy to use online graphic design platform that can help you create those eye catching images that we’re all after to use on our sites and to pin to Pinterest.
Canva even offers help with your design needs in the offline world such as slide presentations, business cards and posters. You can choose from customizable predesigned layouts or create your own.
The platform is FREE to use and included are hundreds of fonts, design elements and backgrounds. They also offer premium elements including over a million stock photography images and each high quality photo or premium element only costs $1!
In this week’s episode of the podcast I chat with Canva CEO Melanie Perkins about the features of Canva and how it can help you achieve professional design results without being a graphic designer. Great news for the blogger or business owner using Pinterest as a part of their social media marketing.
Speaking of social media, there are several FREE customizable templates for Facebook cover images available on Canva. Melanie revealed that there are plans to release templates for other social networks in the near future, hopefully Pinterest is one of them.
Features of Canva:
- A simple new way to design. Easily turn your ideas into designs for Web and print. Search and drag simplicity.
- Search and drag simplicity. Search Canva’s integrated library of stock photographs, graphic elements and cut-out images then drag-and-drop to create your design.
- It’s online and free to use. Canva is entirely online so there’s no expensive software to install.
- Choose from one million images and hundreds of fonts. Design with 1 million photos, graphics and fonts, or upload your own.
- Collaborate with anyone, anywhere. Canva lets you share and edit your designs with friends, clients and coworkers.
(Canva press release)
A few examples:
For the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting with Canva had have created several designs for previous blog posts and Podcast episodes. The graphic above was created in just a few minutes based on predesigned layout that I customized.
- A Look at Pinterest Contests – Should You Pin it to Win it?
- Lessons From Sony on Pinterest
- 5 Tips for Finding Success on Pinterest
A look at Canva:
Additional tools:
During our conversation Melanie discussed the importance of a business have in a consistent color palette. This can help present the business in a more professional manner and make design easier. Most large brands have a go to color palette that can be seen in their products and advertising small businesses can do the same. Think Pinterest red and white, Facebook blue and white or UPS brown and yellow.
There is a science to coordinating colors, artists and designers have the ability to find them but lucky for us the internet has free tools to help.
Design Seeds has a great slider tool. Simply adjust the sliders to a color and it will bring up photographs that include coordinating colors.
Color Scheme Designer is a bit more technical and precise bust still easy to use.
Be sure to stay up with the latest Canva news on Twitter @Canva and follow Canva on Pinterest for design inspiration.
What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to creating your Pinnable images?
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19 Comments
Thank you Cynthia! Such amazingly helpfull content for busy moms and everyone who is interested in growing their Pinterest visibility. I love the way you get answers to many of the questions I have. You are an amazing educator!
Is there any way to receive an invitation to join Canva? I am new to Pinterest but have so much to share with women. Better Pins would help me create better help.
Anca, I’m so glad you’re finding it helpful!
To get on the list for Canva simply go to Canva.com and enter your information. I’m not sure how long the waiting list is but it’s well worth it.
Best of luck with your new Pinterest account. I’m here to help 🙂
I can’t wait to check this out. How do you feel it compares to picmonkey?
Holly, like PicMonkey it’s easy to use but it offers sooo much more in the way of design. Lots more banners, overlays, and fonts and it’s great to have the stock photos right there if you need them. What PicMonkey offers that Canva doesn’t is image correction such as color correction and they don’t have filters or effects. I can see my self using both services adjusting the photo in PicMonkey and creating a great layout with it in Canva.
BTW, did you catch the last part of the podcast? Thanks for inspiring this week’s Pinterest tip.
-Cynthia
Yes thank you for that Cynthia… Both for elaborating and for the shout-out! Great info.
Thank you so much, Cynthia, for bringing Canva to our attention. It’s incredibly exciting to think of being able to use a tool this easy for what has always been such a difficult and time-consuming process (creating professional-looking images for our various online platforms).
Naturally I signed up! I’ll be working on the re-design of my blog over the next month, so I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that the wait-time will not be TOO long.
My pleasure, Linda!
I hope they get you started soon. I can’t wait to see how you blog turns out. Keep me updated. 🙂
Yay, Cynthia!!! I got my invite today … and the timing is perfect! (I’m hoping to really get going on my blog re-design by next week). I can’t wait to see what Canva can do!
Linda, I hope Canva has helped with your blog. Are you ready for the big reveal?
Thanks for asking, Cynthia … I’m working hard on it and making progress! (So many ideas and so little time)!!!
Thanks for sharing about this tool. I’m definitely going to check it out. I’ve wished a thousand times that I had some web/graphic design skills, but I’m hopelessly clueless. Maybe this will be the starting base I’ve been searching for forever… Thanks again!
Hi Shirley, Canva has been such a big help for me. Thanks so much for stopping by.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I can use photoshop but take ages to align everything and decide on font etc. This will save me loads of time!
Great Te! Saving time is so important.
Thanks, Momekh!
Thank you for the introduction to Canva!
[…] and even allows me to upload my one pictures into the creation. Thanks to Cynthia Sanchez from the OhSoPintersting Podcast for telling me about […]
I love Canva! It’s a perfect tool for quick nice design.
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