Graphic Design Tool Canva Review

My Canva Desktop Application Home Page

As a PR professional, you utilize a number of applications and tools in the creative process. Many PR professionals use graphic design for their work on a regular basis; I know I do. If you use graphic design as much as I do then you are accustomed to design platforms such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, but for those who are new to the graphic design world and need a quick and user-friendly application to get them started, Canva is an excellent graphic design tool. Canva is simple to use for everyone, whether you have zero design skills or you’re a design expert. The app includes templates for design beginners, but it also contains a large catalog of images, fonts, colors, video, and sound clips readily available for experts to use to bring their inspirations to life, and you can design just about anything—the sky is the limit. I have used Canva for a variety of projects such as social media posts, infographics, meeting presentations, logo creations, as well as graphic elements for videos and client websites.

My Canva Mobile Application Home Page

One great thing about Canva is that the application is available across multiple electronic devices, which is something I can’t do with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I use the Canva design application on the website on my MacBook when I am at my home office, but when I am on the go and need to do a quick graphic for a social media post, I also have the app downloaded on my iPhone and my iPad. Canva also allows for group projects. If there are several people in charge of a graphic design project, all designers can log in and collaborate on the same design. It’s great!

Another advantage to using Canva is that the application comes in a free account option, which is not a trial period. If you choose the free account, it is free for life. There's a good selection of templates and images to use for the free account that is a great foundation for beginning graphic designers. If you are interested in the advanced features, you will need to upgrade to one of Canva's paid accounts. The paid accounts grant the user access to an unlimited variety of design tool features and the ability to have multiple users on the account for team projects. The paid account is reasonably priced, and they offer monthly rates, which is perfect for individuals starting a new PR business as well as a yearly rate which is perfect for large PR firms with an established budget for specific PR resources. Canva Pro is $12.99 monthly or $119.99 a year with up to 5 users and there’s Canva Enterprise which is $30.00 a month per user with a minimum of 25 users. Canva Pro comes with a 30-day free trial, which is great for small businesses trying it out, but Canva Enterprise does not because it is catered to large scale organizations with multiple designers. Right now, Canva Pro is the perfect paid account option for the Cummings League.

I will say, one of the downfalls of Canva is that it is hard to transition from one device to the other when working on a project. For instance, I may start a design on the website, but another PR duty pulls me away momentarily. While away, I do my best to multitask, which means switching to a mobile app version of Canva to work. Canva automatically saves your design work, but the images that you’ve uploaded may or may not be there, depending on when the save took place. It’s an easy fix most times; just log out then log back in. But for those times when you will need to upload images again, the mobile upload feature does not work the same as the web upload feature, which is a simple drag and drop. You must choose a selection of images from your phone and if the image that you want to use is not on your phone then you have to first save it to your device from your computer’s location. Having all Apple products does make this process simpler, I will admit, which allows me to airdrop images from my Macbook to my iphone or ipad and vice versa. But for the most part, I think Canva is a must have PR app for PR professionals of all types. To check Canva out for yourself visit canva.com.