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Get to Know Canva, a Free Graphic Design Program

Design surrounds us and helps us communicate. Forbes listed graphic design right after social media on its list of the Top 10 Best Freelance Careers. Being in the public relations profession, design is one of the most important skills to have. You never know when your boss will ask you to resize an image or to design an advertisement. As a graphic design minor, I’m familiar with the Adobe programs, but decided to explore a new design program called Canva.

Canva can be used to design blogs, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers and so much more. The best part about this program is that while Adobe products cost anywhere from $100 to $1000, Canva is free!

This program makes it easy to create pieces and save them either as JPG or PDF. Canva gives you full control of dragging and dropping, and removing and adding elements onto your canvas. They have a library of over 10,000 fonts that you can use completely free. Canva teaches you about color by giving you a palette of colors to match your color scheme. Plus, it comes with graphics already designed, making it easy when you want to make an infographic.

While the Adobe Suites software is still the number one choice for designers, it takes time to understand the program and know the shortcuts. If you are wanting to be able to quickly whip up a masterpiece, it is worth checking out Canva.com.

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Jamie Warner is a senior at Roger Williams University. She is majoring in public relations and minoring in graphic design and marketing. Warner is the president of the Roger Williams University PRSSA Chapter and competed on the RWU PRSSA Bateman team this past year, winning honorable mention. She also presented at the PRSSA 2013 National Conference in Philadelphia. In her spare time, she loves traveling, taking photographs and being a social media junkie. Follow her on Twitter @jamiebwarn.