Canva Review 2020

Looking for a graphic design platform that is easy to use and wouldn’t break your wallet? Check out this Canva Review and learn why Canva might be the tool you are looking for.

Canva at a Glance

Visually content such as thumbnails and social media posts play an important role in the success of your online marketing business because images are what catch your viewers’ attention and not the body of your content. Together with your headline, the quality of your visual contents helps you get the clicks that you need. Obviously, if you don’t get the clicks, then you will have no chance of selling whatever you are trying to sell.

Everyone in marketing knows this. This is why marketers strive to consistently deliver eye-catching and engaging visuals. Consequently graphic designers, freelancers, and even graphic design platforms create a business that focuses on meeting the need, but, unfortunately it comes with huge price tags.

If you can’t afford professional graphic designers, there is a way and that is to D.I.Y. your visual contents. This is a great alternative if you have at least the basic knowledge on how to create graphic design and own a graphic design platform. If you don’t, the task of creating one can quickly become very time consuming, and expensive.

Traditionally, you would need a premium graphic design platform to create decent visuals. Premium graphic design platforms contain all the functionality and feature a professional graphic designer needs. The problem is it is complicated to use and can become very expensive for amateur content marketers.

Alright, here is what we established so far about visual contents

It plays an important role in your content marketing strategy; helps you get clicks/traffic

The traditional way of making it is expensive

Premium graphic design platforms are complicated and expensive

Here is the good news!

Canva makes it easy for amateur content marketers to create their visual content. The good part is, Canva is not expensive and the best part is it can be used for free!

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What is Canva?

According to Wikipedia,

“Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, and other visual content. It is available on web and mobile, and integrates millions of images, fonts, templates, and illustrations.”

Why Canva?

Canva makes it easy for content creators to create stunning and engaging visual content. The best part is you can produce hundreds of thousands of quality content for free!

Here are the other reasons why you need to use Canva!

• You can use it for free
• Its interface is user-friendly
• You can create quality contents in minutes
• It provides a ton of design and templates to guide you high-quality visual contents 
• Suggests optimal image dimensions for high definition visual contents
• It provides tools such as photos, video, elements, etc so you can create an eye-catching and engaging contents
• Drag and drop features make it simple to use
• Its Rulers and Guidelines feature to ensure elements used are positioned well
• Adjustable fonts, colors, transparency, filter, image location to give character and voice to your contents

Who is Canva for?

A common complaint people say about Canva is the editing tools it offers are not sophisticated enough/lacking and the images it produces is not high-def enough.  

That said, I am convinced that Canva is for people, small business, and non-profit organizations that need to produce a simple but great quality visual contents and advertisements. It is also great for students or professionals who are looking to create a stunning presentation on the go. 

Canva is most likely not going to be attractive for professional graphic designers and freelancers, digital artist, or anyone who requires extreme detail and attention to details to their work. 

Personal Take

The Good

I’ve been using the free version of Canva for more than two years now and I am really satisfied.

I primarily use it to create my Pinterest and Instagram content, and I can attest to you that I am consistently producing great quality content even on the free version.

The feature that I love about Canva is it lets you replicate your previous work. I like it because I am trying to produce a consistent theme to my Pinterest and Instagram accounts, so being able to use the same template over and over again makes the looks of my contents consistent.

I also like Canva’s Elements. Elements allow me to place stickers, icons, shapes, etc. to my content thus making my content pop and eye-catching.

I use Canva’s suggested template as my idea source. Although I don’t use them often because I have my own brand identity, it is still a great place to find inspiration when I am stuck in creating my content.

The Bad

There are things about Canva that ticks me off.

For instance, Canva’s auto grid/ ruler makes it hard for me to position my texts or images since Canva automatically adjusts it.

I also need to rely on other stock image websites because the number of photos Canva offers on their FREE account is limited. 

You could easily $2 – $15 per content from purchasing premium elements and photos which are free if you are subscribed to Canva. 

Testimonials

Testimonials are based from Trustpilot.com

The Good

• It is easy to use and user friendly even to tech-challenged people  
• Easily produce great invites, posters, and social media posts. 
• Great platforms to use for marketers 

The Bad

• Will charge you a year’s worth of subscription IF you forget to cancel your 1-month FREE trial and accuses the company to not provide a refund.   
• It keeps charging users even after cancellation of subscriptions 
• Bad customer service

From the reviews that I’ve read, it seems Canva, as a graphic design platform, works really well and as expected. However, the people running it especially its customer service need to get an overhaul. 

Honest Recommendation

I am running a blog and social media and all of my visual contents are made from Canva. I never had a problem but at the same time, I’ve been using the free version. 

That said, I highly recommend the free version which I think is good enough. If you decide to upgrade into the premium account, just be wary of their slow response time and their refund policy in case you want to cancel your account. HOWEVER, you need to consider the fact that Canva has 294,000 paying customers and it seems that most of them have no complaints about the service they are receiving. 

Plans and Pricing