This is completely my own opinion not a paid review.
If you are looking for a free program to help with materials such as signs, pamphlets, presentations, and social media plus so much more, I recommend using Canva. I enjoy working with the program. It is pretty simple to use once you start playing around with it. I have used it on my phone, tablet and computer since it is all connected to an account that gets set up. There are still some aspects of the Canva I haven’t tried yet but I will like to just haven't needed to yet.
As with any program that has a free version and a pro paid version there are some drawbacks to using just the free version. The free version has an incredible amount of content to work with. I have found more positives and negatives. I'll keep using the free one until I absolutely need to get the pro version.
Pros:
- Lots of free content to work with
- Easy to work with once you have some practice
- Tons of templates to get you started and build off
- Categories to help you get what you need such as Instagram stories and posts, posters, banners, signs, social media, videos, flyers, presentations and more that I haven’t used myself
- If you upload an image it creates a colour scheme to work with
- You can send projects you made to be printed professionally right from Canva
- Easy to download and print right from your own printer
Cons:
- If you purchase an item or pay to have a watermark removed it can be only used for that particular project
- You can’t filter by free or pro-paid content or I at least I haven’t found a way to
- I found that images and colours that look like they can be altered to suit your needs sometimes can’t
- You can’t do scheduled posting on the free version which is a bummer.
I have looked into getting the pro version and it isn’t too expensive. For what I have wanted to do and what I need working with the free version has been fine. I start off with a blank page or template and work with tons of free images. It is easy to add or remove pieces from the templates. There is an option to be able to add another person(s) to the account to have them contribute from elsewhere. I believe there is a limit to the number of people on the free version. For me, it doesn’t matter it is just me and my husband and if I need him to do something I just give him the device.
Projects created using the program
Using just the free images and blank pages I have created my own crafting planner. It helps me keep track of blog posts, and ideas, it has a calendar, inventory shopping lists and more. I have looked for a planner for what I needed and couldn't find it so I made my own using Canva. I was able to create the planner using my desired colours, shapes and images.
I do craft shows and having professional signage is important. I was able to create nice simple signage that had the colours I wanted and match the particular item I was making the sign for and keep the signage similar. Once designed I saved it, printed it and was done. It was completely free all I needed to do was buy a frame to put it in.
Also for the craft shows I wanted to have a professional vinyl banner for the front of my table to display my business name “Pink Knight Creations”. I chose a banner that I liked and uploaded my logo and the program created a colour palette for me to work with. After everything was set I send clicked have it printed. The process was super quick and easy. It came fast and I was super impressed with how it turned out.
When I need a quick Instagram story or picture for a post I can pop open the app on my phone or tablet and create one pretty quickly. It makes it easier to get information out there and makes it look pretty at the same time.
Overall I am happy with this program and will continue to use it. I'm debating getting the pro version but I haven’t decided yet.
If you have any questions or comments pop them in the box below I would love to hear from you!
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