Create shareable graphics

Design better social media images quickly and easily with Canva

107

REQUIRES

Canva, iOS 8.1 or later

you will learn

How to create images that can be quickly shared on various social networks

IT WILL TAKE

10 minutes

Sharing graphics on social networks can be a daunting task, even if you think you know what you’re doing. Whether you’re posting to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, your images should to be different sizes and dimensions to avoid getting cropped awkwardly.

Canva is a free app that aims to make the process a little easier. With a few taps you can create ready-to-publish, shareable graphics for use on a number of different social media channels. Just pick which site you want to publish to and Canva gives you a ready-made template designed for that platform. It’s quick and easy, and the base version is free, although you can pay to unlock new layouts and backgrounds on the Canva website, as we’ll see.

At the moment, the app is mainly geared towards Instagram, with almost 100 graphics templates for this social network (there are about 50 for Facebook and Twitter). Once you’ve picked a layout, you can choose from a range of graphical elements (doodles, frames, banners, and more), text styles, and filters. Each of these is customizable, allowing you to change the size, color, font weight, and opacity with a few quick taps.

The iPhone app makes creating and editing graphics quick and easy, but if you want more control over the designs then head to the Canva website ( canva.com). This has a larger selection of layouts, including presets for printouts, cards, infographics, email headers, and more. There’s also a wider array of fonts, graphics, and badges to use in your designs – but, as mentioned, you have to pay for some of them.

There’s a surprising level of depth and control to the app, and even more on the Canva site. Still, if you find the designs are a little too “trendy” for your tastes, you can upload your own photo backgrounds, remove the image filter and take a pass on the heart doodle.

The site has hordes of other options. In short, Canva is a neat little design package in its own right.