Canva – Your Key to Great Pin Design OSP Episode 034

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.

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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?