Canva has been a BLESSING to many small businesses as they can easily create professional-looking posts in minutes. For free. BUT, it never fails that come a major holiday, you log in to social media and see the same few Canva templates used by tons of businesses all day long.
So, how do you take advantage of the templates but still get yours to stand out amongst the crowd? Let me tell you! It all has to do with having a strong brand for your business.
Font Your brand should have a consistent font used throughout your advertising, website, graphics, etc. Update the template with your fonts or use a font similar to what's used in your branding. If you don't know your font, upload it into a site like https://www.myfonts.com/pages/whatthefont and let it do the work for you. Don't use more than 2 different fonts if you can help it, and definitely not more than 3!
Colors Upload your brand colors into Canva and utilize those in your fonts and pictures on the template. If you don't have a complete set of brand colors, use a color wheel like https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel to define your colors or add accents to your main color.
Add Your Logo Possibly most importantly, add your logo. Put it in the corner. Fade it into the background. Put it front and center. Just make sure YOUR brand is on there. A good policy for EVERY post because if it happens to get shared, even go viral, you want your logo in front of every set of eyes that sees it.
Photos Change or add a background photo that fits your business. Even if you are using a solid color background, sometimes using a very transparent background image adds a nice touch.
Keep. It. Simple. My #1 piece of advice is to simplify, simplify, simplify. Remove unnecessary graphics and text. Don't feel like you have to use all of the text boxes or elements in a template. The delete button can be your friend. It's a common saying in design that you have reached perfection when there is nothing left of the design to remove, meaning you only have elements and text that serve a purpose and nothing extra.
Of course, there is the option that you use your own custom templates, like these I give my customers, and all of this is done for you! Create your own templates with your colors, logo and a blank area so you can easily create graphics for sales, holidays, announcements and more.
If you haven't nailed down your logo or branding elements, reach out to me and let's get started!