Canva Fundamentals

Canva Fundamentals Learn Canva fundamentals to create custom graphics

DijitalMaestro

L ESSON 1

Canva for Campus Banners

Canva is a free online resource to create graphics for a variety of purposes like social media and web pages. Canva helps to easily and quickly create graphics.

We will learn the fundamentals for using Canva. In this lesson we will create an image banner for a web page, but the principals we learn can be used to create images that can be used on any print or digital media.

L ESSON O UTLINE 1. Create A Free Account 2. Create A Custom Image Size 3. Adding Images 4. Adding Text 5. Adding Decorative Elements 6. Background Color 7. Custom Background 8. Download A Copy

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Go over to the Canva web page at www.canva.com.

Canva helps to easily create your free account. You can click on the Connect with Facebook button or fill in the information to register with an email. If you already have an account, click the link below the green sign up button to login.

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For this lesson, I will use my email to create an account.

That’s all there is to creating your Canva account.

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Canva provides some nice tutorials. I encourage you to go through these tutorials. Click on the show me how it’s done button for a short lesson.

At the end of the short demonstration, you will be taken to the Beginner’s Challenge to acquire the basics skills for creating Canva graphics. Go through those steps if you want. I’ll wait.

Now that you’re back, click on the Home button.

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Canva has several templates to help get started.

For the web page banner, I will need to create a canvas with specific dimensions, so I won’t use one of the templates. Click on the use custom dimensions link. This link can be found on the right side of the page.

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A page will open where we can enter the dimensions for our custom graphic.

I’ll enter 800 for the width and 200 for the height. I’ll leave the units set to px, which stands for pixels.

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Click on the Design button to create the custom template.

The design page will load with your template. The white box outlined here with an orange box is your template.

You won’t see an orange box outline, this is just my way of framing the white box for you.

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The left panel has templates to help layout images on your banner. These templates are nice but we can do better. We’ll create a banner to advertise our Halloween school party.

Canva provides a bank of images to use in our graphic. Click once in the search box and let’s search for Halloween.

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Several images will display based on the search keyword.

Drag and drop an image onto the banner.

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Click and drag on the center of the image to move it around.

As you move the image, these purple dotted lines will appear to show the center of the background. In this case it is showing the vertical center.

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Use any of the corner handles to resize the image. The image will resize proportionally.

Some images can be customized. In this case, the Jack-OLantern colors can be changed.

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To change a color, click on the color well and select one of the preset colors in the palette that displays.

The color change will automatically be updated on the image and the palette will remain open in case you want to select another color.

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let’s add another image.

I’ve resized the image and changed the color from orange to black. The handle at the bottom of the image helps me rotate the image. Click and drag the rotate handle either left or right.

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Rotate the image to fit your needs.

Photo images are also available in the image panel.

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Most photo images are not free and most images cost $1.00.

We don’t have to use one of their images. In Canva we can upload one of our images.

Click on the uploads option. We can drag and drop images from our computer or use the upload button. In this example, I’ll click the upload button.

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Find an image on your computer to upload.

The image is placed into your upload folder in Canva. The image will always be there for when you need to use it again.

To use the image in the banner, drag and drop it onto the banner.

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Place, resize and rotate the image as needed.

Arrange the images on the banner as needed.

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Let’s add some text to the banner. Click on the text option.

Canva provides three basic text templates, but these can be modified.

Drag and drop a text element onto the banner.

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The text box will automatically highlight the text so it can be replaced with your own content.

Click on the font menu to select a different font.

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Click one of the fonts to apply it.

You might need to adjust the text box. Click on one of the handles to resize the text box.

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Click on the font size pull down menu to select a size.

Click on one of the font size presets, or enter your own.

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Click on the font color button to change the text color.

A color palette will display with some suggested colors.

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Click on a color to apply it to the text. If you don’t like one of the suggested colors, click on the “+” option for more colors.

A color wheel will display.

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Click and drag the color pointer on the wheel to a desired color.

Move the saturation slider to increase the color darkness.

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The color in the circle represents the color to be applied.

Canva helps by providing color feedback at multiple locations, including the text itself.

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To finish applying the color, click once outside the text box.

The new color is added to the palette.

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Add more text and images as needed. The background for our banner is white. That’s okay, but I think another background color would look better.

Click on the background option. The background panel has the familiar color palette we’ve been using. Below this color palette we have some background image options.

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Let’s change the background color by clicking one of the color options in the palette.

This color is good, but I think that another color might work better. Let’s use one of the background images.

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I’ll use this dark image.

Canva applies the image as a background and automatically changes the color of our text to a color that contrasts with the background. In this example the text changed from black to white.

I like the background but it’s too dark and makes the Halloween Party title difficult to read. I don’t want to change the font color for Halloween Party.

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I’ll select a light textured image.

That looks a little better. In Canva you can combine background images and colors to give different effects and styles.

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I’ll combine my textured image with a light green.

Notice how the texture and color combine to give us a different feel.

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Now that we’re done with the image, we can download a copy to our computer or get a link to the image. Let’s download a copy. Click on the Download option.

A publish box opens with the option to get a link for the image or to download the image as either and image or as a PDF document. Click on the image option.

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Canva will prepare the image and then download it to your computer.

The image is named after the title we used in the design. The image is also saved in the PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format. This format is becoming a standard for web graphics.

You can now use this image for your web site banner.

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Copyright ŠCopyright 2014 by Alex Reyes Cover design by Alex ReyesBook design by Alex Reyes This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of

this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

Every effort has been

made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is provided without warranty, either expressed or implied. Neither the author, nor any distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.The author has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, the author cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Š 2014 xxxiv