Let's stop judging Canva users

As a business owner, there is often pressure to use the biggest and best programs on the market. In this post, I talk about why it is okay to use simple and convenient programs and why we have to stop judging Canva users in the small business industry.

---

Accessibility info:

Words: 619 | Time to read: 3-4 minutes

Disclaimer: There are no affiliate links in this article. I am not getting paid to promote these links.

---

Canva Create… the event of a Canva Lover’s dream! A little while ago, Canva hosted their annual Canva Create event where they showcased a bunch of new features for the design application. If you read my post about the best tools I use in my business, you’ll know I have an ongoing love affair with Canva. The simplicity; the templates; the user-friendliness… a winner when you are looking for a design app that doesn’t require Adobe experience, a degree or an extra ten grand in subscriptions.

This year’s Canva Create event introduced some new AI features like Magic Design and Global Translate, and some creative features like Magic Edit. However, I want to talk a bit about the Brand Kit and how it has changed the way I design for my socials. The Brand Kit allows you to upload specific fonts, colours, images, and logos; pick and choose what your team can change and work from; and the holy grail – brand templates. Essentially, you can create your own template in any size and use it over and over. The first thing I did was of course an IG post template that used SDA colours and fonts. Not only does it save time but it also brings a certain uniformity to the IG feed. I also created an IG story, a pin, an FB post, a blog header and a few others that I don’t use as regularly. Another cool feature is Bulk Create. This lets you make many versions of the same design with small differences, like names, dates, numbers or images.

Now, I could go on forever about how useful Canva has been for my business, but I want to chat about the stigma surrounding using a program like Canva instead of InDesign or Affinity. I have nothing against those applications but the reason I don’t use them for this purpose is because of their complexity. I have basic experience with InDesign and I’ve never touched Affinity because as a business my needs involve quickly creating social media content, showcasing previews of my designs or products, and throwing together headers and covers for random things I left to the last minute. In short, I don’t need an app with hundreds of tools and an interface that I bet rivals the CIA login screen – I just need quick, simple, and effective. I might also add that with the enhancement of the Brand Kit, I’m getting even more bang for my buck.

Business owners, especially when starting out are often intimidated into using the more expensive, more feature-rich platforms which is so daunting especially when you need to be the owner, the marketer, the accountant and six other things all before lunchtime every day. A new business-owner doesn’t have the time to learn what every InDesign tool does… and that’s okay! What I’m saying here is that it is more than okay to use the resources that are not built for the leading expert in whatever industry you’re in; you can use the web-app that children use for school projects because at the end of the day, it saves time, money and effort while giving you the same outcome – usable content – even if it is not the same quality and complexity of something coming from a graphic designer using InDesign, it works well enough for an Insta post.

Now while I am not saying that there is no space for fancy programs and the art of graphic design (because there definitely is!), I am saying that we need to be mindful of judging business owners for using resources that work better for them.

I hope that you find the resources that work the best for you!

All the best,

Nita, SDA Founder and CEO