Back in 2014, Peg Fitzpatrick and Guy Kawasaki penned a post for the HubSpot Marketing Blog that approached the topic of visual marketing equally the "next big thing." But since then, it's gone to "here to stay." After all, articles with an prototype once every 75-100 words tend to go 2X social shares than articles with fewer images.

But in the previous article, Kawasaki -- chief evangelist for Canva, a remarkably unproblematic online platform for graphic design -- stressed the importance of including shareable images in blog posts , and regularly creating custom, relevant visual content for Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram posts. Admittedly, following that communication is easier said than washed. It'south time-consuming and requires multiple tools. That is, without Canva.

It might seem similar you need myriad resources to create merely 1 custom graphic: Photoshop to edit an epitome, InDesign to lay information technology out, VSCO for filters, and a multitude of stock photo sites. But Canva combines all these editing and publishing tools -- plus a comprehensive image library -- in one online design platform. Even amend, information technology comes equipped with a drove of templates that can be practical to a number of unlike industries. Download our full collection of blog design examples here to inspire your own  blog design.

But whether you lot're creating a Facebook banner for your retail store, or an infographic for your police firm, you might wonder where yous should begin with Canva. That's why we put together this walkthrough of how visual marketers -- at any knowledge level -- tin can employ Canva. Using an animal shelter's promotion of its weekend adoption fair equally an example, we'll guide you through the eight steps of creating visual content with these tools and templates.

8 Steps for Creating Visual Content With Canva

i) Brainstorm with a content marketing strategy.

While we don't think you take to get through the whole process of creating Gantt charts and editorial calendars -- though they tin can keep y'all organized -- it's important to identify your content goals, and the platforms that will best suit them.

For the beast shelter'south weekend adoption event, the main purpose is to let people -- like social media followers -- know well-nigh the issue, and make them want to share it on social media. In this case, we want to create a mail service to share on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, and a visual that would piece of work as a poster to impress and display locally.

2) Scan the templates library to notice and create the right content.

Canva has a collection of specific, professional templates for a broad variety of content. The templates page is arranged into categories -- types of content -- and subcategories for themes or topics. For example, you tin can choose between templates for posters and or presentations, based on the content marketing strategy your formulated in the previous footstep. Plus, each one is already optimized in the correct dimensions for things like banners, headers, and cover photos for specific sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

image00-16.png

Keep in listen that these templates are meant to exist your springboard to showtime designing. For many creative professionals, from writers to designers, starting with a blank canvas tin can be one of the biggest challenges. With these templates, you don't have to create your content from scratch, or rent a professional designer only to create your day-to-twenty-four hour period graphics.

For our animate being shelter example, we'll start with this social media graphic template:

image02-10.png

In the next steps, we'll show you lot how to edit this template using Canva'due south drag and drop design tools.

3) Detect the right visuals to become with your post using Canva's built-in photo library.

Visual content is 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. And since we want our pet adoption fair to get a lot of engagement on social media, like comments and shares, we have to include the correct kind of visuals in its promotion. Using Canva'southward congenital-in media library, we'll expect for a picture of a cute kitten to catch people's attending -- and hearts.

To start, type a keyword or two into the search bar, and cull from any of the photos or illustrations -- that means no more Google image searches. The extensive photo library hosts a broad variety of subjects and themes, similar abstract images, textures, landscapes, people, and animals. Once yous've institute the perfect image, just drag it over to your design, and drop it where it needs to go.

Canva Image Library

Canva also allows you to upload your ain images and use them on your design, which is perfect for calculation your logo and other branded visuals to content. (Yous'll notice the text has inverse in the image below -- we'll get to that in our next step.)

Add logo

four) Marry image and text through typography.

Now that we've got a cute kitten image to describe attention, we demand to give our audience some details almost the adoption fair. And since we're already working with a template, we tin but edit the placeholder text and add together in the right details.

Custom text

The best social media content is a marriage of visuals and text -- call back the statistic we cited earlier virtually the shareability of copy that includes the right corporeality of imagery. However, making sure your font complements the rest of the visual content tin exist tricky. While some professionals accept years of feel to help them pair fonts, Canva provides a shortcut: The font pairing tool.

First, pick your starter font. And then, this handy tool shows you the best font combinations for your chosen typeface, likewise as real-life examples from the web.

CanvaFontPairing

5) Heighten your paradigm with a filter.

Filters are a keen tool for easily irresolute the tone of an paradigm. Plus, applying a custom filter across your various posts can help to create a theme and tie your campaign together, boosting consistency and recognizability.

To add a filter, select your epitome, click on the filter button, then cull from any of the 14 custom filters bachelor in Canva. Utilize the slider to control the intensity of the filter. There are likewise advanced options that allow you lot to play with different settings like brightness, contrast, and saturation, or to add effects like a vignette.

Canva filters

6) Resize your whole design to fit various platforms.

Nosotros're washed creating our visual. That was quick, correct? Now, we have to post share it across various social media networks, and impress our poster. That also means we might have to resize for those various outlets -- but rather than going dorsum and re-designing the entire visual according to the dimensions required by each one, we can utilise Canva's Magic Resize tool.

The Magic Resize tool is available for Canva for Piece of work users -- a paid plan starting at $12.95 per month. But if you're using the free tools, fear not, as we've included some alternative resizing directions below.

That said, Magic Resize is quite a fourth dimension-saving feature that lets you copy and resize ane design into formats for diverse channels. Just click on "File," navigate to "Magic Resize," then choose the dissimilar formats you want to use to adapt your visual. Then, click the "resize" button, and you're washed.

Magic resize

Users of Canva's free tools tin can withal resize their designs by creating a copy of the original visual. Click "File," "Change Dimensions," and select the format to which yous'd similar to resize the design.

Canva Change Dimensions

7) Interact with a team, or post the visual to social media.

Canva allows y'all to collaborate with your squad or design partners on a visual, within the same platform. But click on "Share", navigate to "Link," and choose the "tin edit" option to generate a link that allows others to edit your design. Alternatively, y'all may choose the "can view" option to allow someone to see your design, without the ability to edit information technology.

Otherwise, yous can post your final pattern directly to Facebook or Twitter. There'due south also an embed choice, which generates the lawmaking to embed your pattern into your web log or website.

Share Design

For other channels, or if you lot want an offline copy of your blueprint, yous can download an image file in a JPG, PNG, or print-set PDF format. For our animal shelter visual, nosotros'll download the flyer version of the design as a loftier-quality PDF file, to heighten its printed appearance.

Download canva PDF

8) Learn to create ameliorate designs with Canva's gratis, interactive courses.

Nice work -- you lot've fabricated a not bad design, with amazingly simple tools. But maybe you want to learn more almost design -- and Canva'south Blueprint Schoolhouse is only the place to do it.

The Design Schoolhouse is a resources hub for learning the basics of design -- everything from essential design tools, to typography, to photo editing, to consistent branding. Some of the near pop offerings are Canva's 30 "Design Essentials" tutorials, covering fonts, layouts, and images. Plus, yous can track and share your progress as you brand your way through the different lessons.

Canva Tutorials

Starting with the following tutorials tin help you hone your skills in some of the visual content design steps we've covered today:

  1. Marrying Text and Images
  2. Brilliant Backgrounds
  3. Choosing the Right Font
  4. Enhancing Images
  5. Fantastic Photo Filters

It might besides be worthwhile to check out the daily Design School blog, which takes a more than in-depth look into specific subjects, like designing for social media, creating improve email headers, design principles, and even design psychology.

Canva design blog

Draw Inspiration

Despite the options nosotros've covered here, there are actually many more designs and tools to explore in Canva. In add-on to promotional visuals like the animal shelter example we used, you can create presentations, infographics, brochures -- and a lot more.

1 of Canva's almost differentiating factors, notwithstanding, is that the above steps are pretty much the aforementioned across these different types of documents, thanks in large part to the fix-made templates. And so don't allow visual content design intimidate yous. It'south more than than achievable -- and nosotros can't look to see what you come up with.

What are some of your favorite visual content creation tools? Let us know in the comments.

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Originally published Apr eighteen, 2017 6:00:00 AM, updated Apr 18 2017