Canva Review: The Go-To Design Platform for Non-Designers

Are you looking to create stunning visual content for your business or personal brand, but don‘t have the budget to hire a professional designer? Or maybe you‘re a marketer or small business owner who needs to frequently produce social media graphics, flyers, presentations and other designs, but you don‘t have the time to learn complex software like Photoshop or InDesign?

If this sounds like you, then you‘ll definitely want to check out Canva. This intuitive online design platform has skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years, thanks to its beginner-friendly interface, extensive template library, and generous free-forever plan.

In this in-depth review, I‘ll cover everything you need to know about Canva, including:

• An overview of what Canva is and what it‘s used for
• A detailed look at Canva‘s features and functionality
• The biggest pros and cons of using Canva
• How Canva stacks up against alternative design tools
• My thoughts on whether Canva is worth it for you

By the end of this article, you‘ll have a clear understanding of Canva‘s strengths and weaknesses and whether it‘s the right fit for your design needs. Let‘s jump in!

What is Canva?

In a nutshell, Canva is a web-based design platform that allows users to easily create professional-looking graphics using customizable templates and a simple drag-and-drop editor. It was founded in 2012 with the mission of "empowering the world to design" and making graphic design accessible to everyone, even those with no prior design experience.

One of the key things that sets Canva apart is its huge library of templates for virtually every kind of visual content you can think of. Whether you need to design a logo, business card, resume, invitation, infographic, social media post, video thumbnail, book cover, or t-shirt, Canva has hundreds of pre-made templates to help you get started.

Most of Canva‘s features are available for free, which has helped it attract over 30 million monthly active users as of 2021. There is also a paid version called Canva Pro that unlocks additional templates, photos, fonts, and features for $12.99/month. Over 500,000 organizations use Canva Pro, including companies like Intel, Zoom, Salesforce, PayPal, and Marriott.

Canva Features

Now that you have an idea of what Canva is all about, let‘s take a closer look at its main features:

Templates

As I mentioned, one of Canva‘s biggest selling points is its huge collection of professional-designed templates. As of writing this, Canva offers over 420,000 templates spread across 100+ design categories like:

• Social media posts & covers
• Marketing materials
• Documents & reports
• Presentations & slideshow
• Events & invitations
• Ads & banners
• Business cards & letterheads
• Calendars & planners
• Album covers & podcast art
• T-shirts & merchandise
• Restaurant menus
• Resumes & invoices
• Certificates & awards
  …and many more.

All of the templates are fully customizable, so you can change the colors, fonts, images, and copy to match your brand. Canva‘s templates provide an excellent starting point for your designs and help cut down the time it takes to create something from scratch.

Drag-and-Drop Editor

Canva‘s intuitive drag-and-drop editor is where the magic happens. Once you select a template, you‘ll be taken to the editor where you can start personalizing the design to your liking.

On the left-hand panel, you‘ll find all the design elements you can add to your page, including text boxes, photos, graphics, charts, frames, shapes, lines, and more. To add an element, simply click on it or drag it over to the page. You can then resize, rotate, flip, or position it however you want.

The editor also includes basic photo editing tools that allow you to crop images, adjust brightness and contrast, apply filters, and change the transparency. While not as advanced as Photoshop, these tools are more than enough for most users‘ needs.

As you‘re designing, Canva will show you helpful guidelines and snap your objects to the edges of the page or other elements. This helps keep everything aligned and consistent.

When you‘re done with your design, you can download it in high-resolution JPG, PNG, or PDF formats. Certain templates, like presentations and multi-page documents, can also be shared online or embedded on a website.

Design Assets

In addition to templates, Canva also boasts an extensive library of free and premium design assets, including:

• Stock photos and videos
• Illustrations and icons
• Shapes and lines
• Fonts and text styles
• Animated stickers and graphics
• Audio tracks
• Photo and video filters
• Textures and patterns
• 3D objects and scenes

Canva offers millions of assets to choose from. While some require a one-time fee ($1 on average) or a Canva Pro subscription to use, there are plenty of high-quality free options available. You can also upload your own photos, graphics, and fonts to use in your designs.

To help you find the right asset quickly, Canva organizes its library into intuitive categories and also offers a powerful search tool that lets you filter by color, orientation, or even number of people.

Brand Kit

If you‘ll be creating graphics for your brand on a regular basis, you‘ll love Canva‘s Brand Kit feature (available for Canva Pro users). This handy tool allows you to store your brand‘s logos, colors, and fonts in one place for easy access.

You can upload your brand assets once, and then they‘ll be available to use in any of your designs with just a click. This helps ensure consistency across all your graphics and saves you time from having to manually import assets each time. You can have up to 100 Brand Kits in your Canva account.

Collaboration Tools

While Canva is great for solo users, it also offers some useful tools for collaborating with a team. With a Canva Pro subscription, you can invite team members to view, edit, and comment on your designs in real-time.

This is super handy for getting feedback and approval from clients or colleagues. You can also set user permissions to control what each person can access and edit.

Canva‘s collaboration features are fairly basic compared to more robust tools like Figma or InVision, but they get the job done for most users‘ needs. One downside is there‘s no version history, so you can‘t revert back to a previous design if someone makes an edit you don‘t like.

Mobile App

In addition to its web app, Canva also has mobile apps for iOS and Android devices. These let you create and edit designs on the go, which can be a lifesaver if you need to whip up a quick graphic for social media or make a last-minute change to a design.

The mobile apps have most of the same features and assets as the web version, although some of the more advanced tools are not available. The user interface is also optimized for smaller screens and touch controls.

While I wouldn‘t want to create an entire design from scratch on my phone, the Canva mobile app is super handy for making quick edits or creating simple graphics in a pinch. The app is free to download and use.

Canva Pricing

One of the great things about Canva is that it offers a generous free plan that gives you access to most of its features and assets. With a free account, you can:

• Access over 250,000 templates
• Use over 1 million photos and graphics
• Collaborate with team members in real-time
• Download designs as PNGs with a transparent background

Of course, there are some limitations. Free users can only access a subset of Canva‘s templates and design assets, and certain features like Brand Kit and the Background Remover tool are off limits. You‘ll also see Canva branding on your designs.

If you need access to all of Canva‘s features and assets, you can upgrade to Canva Pro. This paid plan costs $12.99/month ($9.99/month if billed annually) and includes:

• Access to over 420,000 templates
• Access to over 75+ million premium stock photos, videos, audio tracks and graphics
• Ability to upload your own fonts
• 100 Brand Kits to store your brand assets
• Ability to remove image backgrounds with one click
• 1TB of cloud storage for your designs and assets
• Priority support from the Canva team

In my opinion, the free version of Canva is sufficient for most casual users and even some business owners and marketers. But if you‘re using Canva frequently for your job or business, the Pro plan is definitely worth the investment.

Canva Pros and Cons

So, is Canva the right design tool for you? Let‘s recap some of the biggest advantages and disadvantages of using Canva.

Pros:

• Very beginner-friendly and easy to learn, even if you have no prior design experience
• Huge library of customizable templates for almost any kind of graphic or document
• Intuitive drag-and-drop editor with alignment guides and snap-to-grid features
• Millions of free and low-cost stock photos, graphics, and fonts available
• Real-time collaboration tools for working with a team
• Generous free plan with access to most features and assets
• Affordable Pro plan with additional templates, photos, and brand management tools
• Mobile apps for designing on the go

Cons:

• Limited design customization compared to professional tools like Photoshop or InDesign
• Some templates and graphics can look generic or overused
• Many of the best templates, photos and features require a Pro subscription
• Can‘t export designs in vector formats like SVG or EPS for further editing
• No version history or ability to revert changes in real-time collaboration
• Some bugs and glitches, especially with more complex designs
• Customer support can be slow to respond

Canva Alternatives

While Canva is an excellent tool for beginners and casual users, it‘s not the only design platform out there. Here are a few alternatives to consider:

• Adobe Creative Cloud: The gold standard for professional designers, Adobe CC includes industry-leading tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. However, it has a much steeper learning curve than Canva and requires a monthly subscription.
• Figma: A powerful web-based interface design tool that‘s popular with UX/UI designers and teams. Offers advanced collaboration features and prototyping capabilities.
• Sketch: Another popular tool for interface and web design. Only available for Mac.
• Easil: Similar to Canva, Easil offers a wide selection of templates and design assets for social media, marketing, and more. It has both free and paid plans.

For most non-designers, I‘d recommend sticking with Canva or a similar beginner-friendly tool before investing in more complex and expensive software. Once you‘ve outgrown Canva‘s capabilities, you can always graduate to a more advanced platform.

Is Canva Worth It?

After thoroughly testing and reviewing all that Canva has to offer, my verdict is that it is 100% worth it for anyone who needs to create stunning graphics quickly and easily.

Whether you‘re a social media manager, small business owner, online entrepreneur, teacher, or just someone who enjoys crafting beautiful visuals, Canva will save you countless hours and headaches compared to trying to design something from scratch.

The templates, drag-and-drop editing tools, and extensive asset library make the design process a breeze. And with both free and affordable paid options, Canva is accessible to everyone regardless of budget.

While Canva does have some limitations and is not a replacement for professional design software, it excels at what it was made for: Empowering everyday people to create great-looking designs without any prior experience.

If you haven‘t given Canva a try yet, I highly recommend signing up for a free account today. It just might become your new favorite tool in your marketing and content creation arsenal!