We are not all Photoshop pro’s!
Professional graphic designers can whizz through Photoshop to create super intricate images. But many of us just want to create simple quick, easy, and eye-catching graphics.
Introducing Canva!
This amazing graphic design tool is very popular for its easy drag-and-drop feature and HUGE library of templates. They also have a whole host of stock images, videos, fonts, and other elements. You can do a lot with a free account so it is a great place to start designing.
We’re huge fans of Canva at Waikato Printing Company! Their range of ready-made templates for print products includes brochures, posters, business cards, invitations, and CVs. This makes it super easy to beautify whatever it is that you need to be printed. The templates also size your image to the correct size and ratios so they are ready to print. It’s a great tool that allows our customers to create, download, and share their designs with us to get high-quality finished print products.
Over the past few years of working with Canva, we have learned a few tricks that will make it a lot easier to send your file to us:
Use only high-resolution images
Canva already comes with thousands of stock images. Simply click on the ‘Photos’ tab and search for the image you need. You can also upload your own images to use, including your own logos and images. If you are going to download an image from the internet, avoid low-resolution images. When printed, these images will be pixelated and will make your final prints look bad.
Add a bleed to the page
Bleed is the idea of extending the content of the page off the end of the page. Why do you need to add bleed? So that when it is printed, it can be trimmed to look borderless, and have ink all the way to the edge of the page. Canva has recently added this feature, and it is very important you do this when you are planning to print something.
Consistency is key
If you are creating designs for a business it’s a good idea to save your brand logo, colours, and fonts into a ‘Brand Kit’ on Canva. You can even upload your own fonts if they aren’t already on Canva. This saves your branding online and saves you time hunting for logo images or colour codes every time. It also helps customers easily identify your brand.
What can be printed?
As mentioned before, Canva has a HUGE selection of print templates including business cards, letterheads, brochures, postcards, sale cards, and more. Waikato Printing Company can print all of these products for a high-quality finish.
How to send your Canva design to Waikato Printing Company?
Easy – once you are happy with your design, hit ‘Download’ and select ‘PDF Print’ as the file type. Once you have downloaded your file, find what you need from our range of print products. When you have selected your order specifications, upload your PDF and submit your design to us. Sometimes, our design team will request to be ‘invited’ into your Canva design to make small corrections before we print your order.
Now is the time to jump in and start playing around with your first Canva designs. There are so many things you can customise and make your own and it is really fun to play around with. Get started today!
