Canva

What is Canva?

Canva is an online graphic design tool. As a non-profit, we have access to Canva Pro for free. There are many offers with this plan, but here are some listed below:

• Brand Kit (which includes fonts, logos, and colors all in one place)
• Access to 100 millions+ assets, such as illustrations, videos, graphics, stock images, audio, and much more
• Premium features such as Magic Resize and Background Remover
• Branded Templates: build reusable templates with your brand colors, fonts, and logos.

How do I get access to Canva?

Canva does not have a central login. There are 10 seats we could invite users to. If you need access, email the Communications Manager or anyone who already has access.

How do I create designs with Canva?

After you log into Canva, click on "Data Visualization Society" on the left, under 'Team". You can start creating designs from templates. You can also start from scratch by clicking on "Create a design" at the top right beside your profile picture.

Use grids to save time on layout design. They're simple to use and very easy to modify. See this video on how to use grids.

Sharing Canva files with the DVS team

When you create a new file, please always make sure to share it with the DVS team. Here is a video on how to share files with the DVS team.

Steps:

• Open your design file
• On the top right click on "share"
• Click on the '+' symbol
• Click on the dropdown arrow beside Data Visualization Society, select "Can edit".

If your file is not shared, then members in the DVS team cannot see your file.

DVS Branding

See the Branding Guidelines when designing DVS graphics.

In Canva, you can find all the fonts, colors in the "Styles" tab. Make sure to select "Data Visualization Society" on the top left as the Brand Kit to use. Logos can be found in the "Logos" tab. You also has access to the "Information is Beautiful" Brand Kit as well.

Images sizes

For landscape, 1600 x 900 is the ideal image size. This fits Twitter, LinkedIn, MailChimp, and to some degree Eventbrite. It's a little bit small for Eventbrite, but if you don't go beyond the margins of the Fireside Chat Canva template, it will fit.

1080 x 1080 is the best size to use for all platforms, which includes Instagram and Facebook. This size works well for Twitter and LinkedIn as well, so it's the safest size when announcing across every social media channel.

How to use folders in Canva

Folders keep relevant files in a consistent location so it's easy to find for future reference. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as drag-and-drop to put design files into folders.

When you create a new folder, you must share it with the DVS Team for it to be visible to other team members. See this Canva article: Sharing folders with people in your team to learn how to do this. To add design projects into folders, follow the steps in this Canva article: Managing folder contents.