Why I Upgraded to Canva Pro
If you love Canva but are unsure if you should upgrade to Pro, I’m sharing what convinced me to finally take the plunge for Pro.
Graphic design is a skill essential to business. Between logo to product labels, business cards to flyers, graphic design is necessary for many applications, and the growth of digital marketing has only emphasized the need.
Working with a graphic designer on all of these needs may be beyond your budget, and if you need a social media post designed in a pinch, your designer’s turn-around time may not be in line with your timeline.
That’s why it’s helpful to learn how to be your own graphic designer! And it’s way easier than you think.
There are many free design platforms that are cloud-based, intuitive to use, and come with a variety of templates to get you started. The most popular – and my favorite! – is Canva.
It’s easy to find tutorials and courses on how to use Canva, as well as basic design tips. (You can find my free Canva tutorials here.)
Prefer to watch a video instead of reading the post? Click below!
Stock Photos & Graphics
Canva offers a selection of stock photos and graphics (called “Elements”). While there are plenty of free options, there is significantly more variety allowed to Canva Pro users.
While Free users are allowed to access Pro photos and graphics, each element must be paid for before downloading. The cost is usually $1. If you use the same Pro photo or graphic in another design however, you have to pay for it again.
Templates
Templates are an excellent starting point when designing, and save so much time (just make sure you adjust them to your branding).
Just like with photos and graphics, Canva Pro users have access to even more templates.
Extended Brand Kits
Canva has a section where you can upload your brand colors and fonts, making it easy to customize the look of templates. Canva Pro accounts are able to create up to 100 brand kits.
Remove Image Backgrounds with Background Remover
This is one of my favorite Canva features! If you want to remove the subject from the background of a photo to use in other designs, this tool makes it quick and easy. (I find the same process on Adobe Illustrator much more cumbersome.)
In the tutorial below, I’ll show you how!
Ability to Resize Designs
Let’s say you created a beautiful design that you’re proud of and ready to download, only to discover that you used the incorrect canvas dimension.
Instead of having to copy to a new canvas and manually resize every element, Canva’s Resize feature automatically adjusts everything on your canvas with just a few clicks. You can either resize the canvas or have a new canvas created with the new dimensions.
Other Helpful Canva Pro Tools
Converting to CMYK
You can now convert Canva designs to CMYK!
Our computers - and anything tech-based - uses the RGB color system. Printers, however, use CMYK.
In order to print a design from Canva that looks as accurate as possible, be sure to download your file in CMYK.
Ready to get started on Canva? The tutorial below will guide you through the set-up of a free Canva account.
Click here to try Canva Pro free for 30 days! Pricing for Canva Pro can be found here. (I currently pay $119.99 per year.)
Ready for a Canva deep dive? Check out my Create With Canva online mini course. It provides a tour of the backend, how to set-up your Canva account to save you time when designing, all the design functions included with Canva, and more.