Oh. My. Gosh - I love it!

Canva  is an online design and publishing tool which makes graphic design simple for everyone. It makes it possible to design anything and publish anywhere. It’s so popular that there are more than 10 million users across 179 countries. 

So, what does it do? I’m glad you asked - it helps you easily create beautiful documents & designs for any occasion and purpose. It allows you to easily design everything from greetings cards to posters, and websites to calendars. It can practically help you do the kinds of things that previously, only a graphic designer could do.

I use it:

at work 

• I design appealing presentations that I use for my professional learning sessions

in my photography business

• I’ve designed my business cards, banner, posters, instagram stories, facebook ads and announcements

for fun

• I use it to design invitations, social media posts etc…

And here’s a little tidbit - the company was founded on 1 January 2012 in Sydney, Australia by Melanie Perkins (now age 30). In its first year, Canva had more than 750,000 users. In January 2018, Perkins announced that the company had raised $40 million and it was valued at $1 billion. In May 2019, the company was valued at $2.5 billion. As CEO, Melanie is leading a team of over 650 employees across three offices in Sydney, Manila, and Beijing.

Canva has more than 65 000 editable and customisable and beautifully designed layout templates that you can use, or you can start from scratch and completely design your own. There are literally millions of stock images, illustrations, icons and fonts from which to choose. You can use it on your desktop or in the mobile app. It’s accessible to practically everyone with Internet connection. It has a super user-friendly drag and drop tool that’s a breeze to use.

If you want to start using Canva there are a range of articles, workshops, lesson plans and learning opportunities covering topics ranging from the fundamentals of graphic design to practical everyday business projects. For absolute beginners, check out Workshop One.

Have fun!