Throughout my high school career, if there is one platform I have used consistently, it has been Canva. Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content through a variety of features, including thousands of pre-designed templates. In this article, I will talk about why you should start using Canva immediately as well as how and when to use Canva.
First off, let’s talk about why you should use Canva:
- You don’t need any design skills whatsoever. I personally have very little artistic ability, and I am still a proficient Canva user. My lack of designing proficiency makes Canva all the more useful for me because I am able to very easily make use of their pre-designed templates, elements, backgrounds, and styles.
- It’s easy to use. The set up of the website/app is such that is intuitive. Even if you aren’t the most tech-savvy individual, you will be able to easily figure out how to make use of the different Canva features. Additionally, even if you decide not to use their pre-designed templates, you can still upload images to use as the background or select an image from their site. Also, remember practice makes perfect; the more you use Canvas, the better you’ll get at using it. I’ve been a Canva user for over two years now, and I am still uncovering features.
- The possibilities are endless. I primarily use Canva to create graphics for Instagram posts and stories. However, there is so much more than you can do with Canva. They have designs for a variety of social media platforms, including Youtube, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. They also have designs for calendars, letters, resumes, planners, all of which are super useful for high schoolers.
- Teamwork. You can create a shared workspace and share designs and images with team members. You can establish a consistently used brand kit that saves your desired color palette and fonts so that you can easily access them from the shared workspace.
- It’s (mostly) free. I have a free account on Canva. There is a paid Pro version of Canva that unlocks many useful features, such as background remover (which conveniently transforms your pictures to pictures with transparent backgrounds). However, the free account still has more than enough features for most individuals.
Now that you know why you should use Canva, let’s talk about when using Canva could be beneficial. Many high schoolers are involved in high school clubs and organizations (read Research Rationalized’s article about getting involved in clubs/organizations for information!) and frequently need to produce advertisements and promotional material. Canva is a great tool to use in this case. Also, clubs/organizations often have Instagram or Facebook accounts, and Canva can be a great way to create fun, interesting graphics and posts to engage with the club/organization members and increase member activity.
In my personal experience, I have used Canva in many different ways: I used it very often in my position as PR officer for Bay Area Society for Neuroscience Youth as well as in position as President of the SHS Neuroscience Club. I also used Canva to make a promotional flyer for Brain Camp for Kids. In addition, I used Canva to create many different graphics and images that you see on the Research Rationalized website!
Overall, I think that Canva is a great tool to be aware of as a high schooler. It has definitely helped me quite a bit throughout my high school journey, and it may just help you navigate your own high school endeavours better.