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Canva as a platform is designed in such a way that even if you have zero graphic design skills and zero creativity, there's no reason why you can't use it.
There are so many templates in Canva for social media, email headers, videos, for ebooks, workbooks, checklists, planners, infographics, t shirts, flyers,
I design email signatures in Canva, fully branded to my clients’ style guides.
Even if you used exactly the same design, and a lot of email signatures tend to have the same design, it will be a photograph on the left-hand side, perhaps in a circle or a square. There might be a colour behind it. The person's name in a script font, or if they don't use a script font, it would be one of their brand fonts. Underneath would be their job title, for example. You could have their phone number, their email address, their website and then their socials.
Some people have a link to their lead magnet or a disclaimer. For legal firms or anything like that, they would have a legal disclaimer underneath.
You can add in links via a Google Doc. If you just want the clickable links and they only work on your laptop signature. You can create them here in a Google Doc.
If you want the full HTML version, then you need to get somebody who knows how to code.
What else can I use Canva for, Jo?
Some of the other things that you could use it for is your social media graphics - your squares, which will work for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
You can do a YouTube banner and YouTube thumbnails. I've done a YouTube intro for mine as well, which is extremely basic but I’ve added music and animation.
I've picked up things over time, but also know the benefits of using amazing templates in my business. I invested in a couple of memberships, where I get templates, either monthly or quarterly or they're just all sitting there and I use those a lot. I also invested in memberships for a stock photography.
There's no reason why you can't design whatever you need in Canva.
You can definitely use the free version.
However, I highly, highly recommend that you think about upgrading to Canva Pro.
The main reason for me is the brand kit. Putting your brand kit in Canva makes life so much easier. Because you've got all your fonts in one place, or your logos or your watermarks, or your colors, and any elements or images they use on a regular basis. Then, when you open a design your colors and the first ones that pop up.
I work with a lot of different clients, so I can have a brand kit of colours for each person.
What I do is I create a new brand kit, and call that we'll say we'll call it my company, we'll call it Live Virtually. I will add in the colours using HEX codes and I will add in details of the client but add their fonts at the end.
Live Virtually – Jacline & Montserrat
I know when I'm working with that client, these are the brand fonts that I use.
That is a little hack that I've thought of.
Rather than going into their folder and finding something that I've created for them,
One of the other things I've created is a journal - magazine style for a networking group that I'm part of.
This was printed by a local printer and wasn't printed by Canva.
The journal that we had done from the printer came out spot on. It was so good. We created every single page in Canva – around 30 pages. We used quotes, but we also used stock photography from the free stock photography sites such as Unsplash, Pexels or Pixabay.
When you're using the photography within Canva, or within one of these stock photography sites, you do need to check out the legal jargon, to check that it's OK for you to use those images and whatever it is that you're using.
So please be aware that you need to do that. I'm not a legal professional and I'm not qualified to give advice but please do your due diligence before using stock photography from the internet.
There's another little hack that I've started using as well for ebooks. Most people these days have got something written down that they would like to put into an ebook, whether that's for a lead magnet as a freebie or whether that's for a paid product. I use Microsoft Word, I also use Google Docs. But for this, I prefer Microsoft Word, and the reason for that is the formatting. Because you can put their styles and you can put their fonts and you can put their colours in and then it's just a case of clicking a button.
You can do them all on Canva. I have done them from scratch.
Use an A4 (or US letter) size document, format that document and maybe add in a couple of images into the Word document.
I also create pages in Canva, that you can use as separators.
I would create a front cover and intro page, any of the section pages, the thank you page with a call to action, and maybe a back cover that has websites. When you're in Canva. And you're downloading as a PDF, you can add external links. For example, if you've got links to a website or social media pages, or YouTube videos, or you know, whatever the external links are - you can add them in Word (or Google Docs) as well.
Then download your PDF in Canva. Download your Word document as a PDF. I use Adobe but you can use that PDF Escape to combine the two together, then you would just have to move some of the pages around so that it fits with the design of your ebook.
I also create email banners that you can use in your email service provider, or you can use them in your Google or Outlook etc.
I do my podcast cover designs on Canva as well as YouTube thumbnails.
My membership is hosted in MemberVault and I've created all of the headers and the teaser pages and things like that.
Most things apart from the actual writing, and the copywriting, everything else has been created in Canva.
I hope this gives you an insight into what you can use Canva for in your business.
I've had a couple of people ask me about 1:1 Canva training. I have a special offer at the moment, where you will receive two hours, Zoom coaching 1:1 with me on whatever it is that you would like to learn on Canva.
You will get the recording of the Zoom, some templates (squares, templates, stories, or if that's not what you need, we can tweak that to suit).
The cost is $250.00 AUD, which is an absolute bargain for somebody who wants to learn one on one.
If that's something that you're interested in, send me a message and we can have a chat.
That’s all for this blog.
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Big love, chat soon xx