Lessons
Intro to Canva: The Guy Kawasaki Interview
10:43 2The Power of Design: Canva Philosophy
05:41 3Canva Account Setup
10:35 4The Canva Interface
10:28 5Canva: Opening the Drawers
28:00 6Manipulation in Canva
18:43 7More About Your Account
12:12 8Canva for Work Account
25:59Lesson Info
Interface Tips
So we're gonna talk about interface tips. The very first thing that I usually get asked when talking about the little bit more advanced interface are keyboard commits. Some of you guys came up. We're talking to me about things on the IPad you really don't get. You don't have keyboard commands available to you. That's okay. They designed things a little bit differently to work with touch than they do on on the desktop. But for the desktop, we do get some keyboard commands if we'll make this link available. But if you go to design school, got canvass dot com slash blawg is pretty Long slash Canada dash shortcuts Dash Infographic The easiest way is to just Google canvas shortcuts, and this is the very first link. Um, this outlines in a really cool graphic. All of the need tricks that you can do in Canberra. Ah, lot of these are similar to other keyboard shortcuts that use and other programs. I'll give you an example if we're in a design and let's say I can't really see this type, but I do...
n't want to change the size of it because I like the way it looks in the Lamb Command plus Ah, we'll zoom in and command minus. We'll zoom out. If you want to see what your zoom level is like, you're not sure if this is the actual size canvas tells you down here. This little 50% I'm at 50% of the actual size. So if I want to look at this for what it is, which is 800 pixels Bay under picks is that I can either click the plus and minus here or use command plus and command minus. There are a ton of really cool shortcuts, things like undo typically his command Z or if you're on a PC, of course, it's, uh, man that tells you how long it's been. Easy peasy all see, he thank you, um, selecting all. There's also even key commands from moving things up and down. They're not required. There are always different ways to do things other than key commands. That's kind of a rule for any tool. We never want to assign something just the key command, because people don't know where to find it. They would have to look somewhere else in order for you how to do something so anything that you see a key command for. You can also do just in the interface. But these air some some great tricks, especially if you're adept debt clicking around, Um, in addition to the key commands. Uh, let's go in a little bit and talk about version ing. We've mentioned this a couple of times. How do I control versions? How do I make sure that what I'm working with is can be saved so I can come back to it later if I want? Or I could make a difference version of that murder to try some stuff out. There's two ways to do it. The first way to version control is to create a new file. Um, a great way to do that. Well, I mean templates. I'm sorry. So if I go back to my stream, let's say I really like, uh, I really like this guy here, but I want to try a different background image. I can click on the wing menu and make a copy. Now this piece that was the original was called unexpected quote. The one that I made a copy of was called copy of unexpected quote automatically what cannabis doing is telling you, please rename your file, uh, whatever syntax you want to use, whether it's V one or dash, you know, a. Make sure that it's consistent and that you use it everywhere and that it's all the same. Syntax. What's the old joke like? Designers have files that like final, final absolute filing. Finally, do not touch this file forever. Uh, you know. Yeah, right. We don't want to run into that situation. So when it says copy, Uh, that's telling you, you forgot to rename your file again. The way to rename a file is to go into it and click on the file name up top, and we'll call it unexpected quote. I like to do V to just lets me know it's the second version of it, and then I could change it around and do whatever I want on. It works out. It doesn't mess with the old file. It all that's one way to do it, uh, the other way that we can control our versions and let me just go ahead and delete that so I delete and hide the other way we could do. This is inside the same file This works very well in canvas because we have pagination. So if I go into this design, I can remember I can add a new page. And if it's a single page design like I know that this design is not gonna be more than one page in itself, it's just gonna be a graphic that I post, um, I can create other pages and use them as layout variations. So, uh, let's go back. So if this if this is my first version that I ever did and I wanted to do another version, I can click on the copy symbol here, and it copies that page and then I could change the background, you know, change the text. Uh, that's my son's name. Hey, buddy. Um, and it's a You can see a stream in one file off all your different versions. It's a really great way to keep things compact and concise, because currently there is no option to organize your creations in folders. This option is only going to be in the can va for work account eso the basic account. The free account won't have the option to save things into folders to organize things eyes there. Any limitation to how much how much file space you're using? Not that I know off. I know other online cloud based tools do have that, and they'll tell you when you reach it and there may be. But I don't I was never reached it. I've never been in a scenario where I've created too many pages were too many designs as of yet, but we'll see.
Ratings and Reviews
Jake
Pretty good course generally...especially part 2 & 3. Frankly, Canva's early adopters, like Sue Zimmerman (who I heard about it from) & the like...& therefore probably MOST of us entrepreneurs are probably NOT graphic designers by trade. That was the whole point of Canva being created in the first place!!!! That fact was hammered home in the way Matt presented how to use Canva by pro designers in part 4. Unfortunately, Part 4 was very hard to follow at times. When was he in the pro version of Canva & what could be done in the version we all know, love & work with everyday was NOT always clear. Part 4 was waaaaay too fast & very terminology heavy for most of even the in-studio audience. (It was funny.) I wanted to hug the gal that kept trying to reel it in & get on the same page with her questions. Thank goodness. Bought the course right away because I've been using Canva for over a year and need to go to the next level. I hoped to learn tricks for all that I waste so much time figuring out on my own. There were some. Alas, one main Canva glitch with regard to applying a logo over a background (uh...kind of crucial for business owners & a real time waster to work around literally every single time you use the program) that was raised as a question & re-asked by 2 other people AND several times remained completely untouched. Although the question was on topic & appropriate at many times during parts 2, 3 & 4 and a seemingly very popular question, the moderator chose to ignore it. Almost NO questions were taken from the online audience, in fact, despite there being surprisingly few questions online!! Incredibly, incredibly frustrating & disappointing but I don't blame Matt for that. Too bad there seems to be no course materials to go along with this...like the awesome tips Matt went thru one by one. What a perfect workbook or guide that would have been to go with this, in some form. Really too bad. And really surprising. So all in all, a good course with an EXCELLENT instructor (hope he does Prezi too) but some some big disappointments for this non-professional-in-graphic-design-or-tech, which, it seems is a SIGNIFICANT chunk of your audience...right?
Lonney
This was an absolutely great course for a beginner like me. Matt explained everything very clearly and in a pleasant way. I hope he, or someone, does a class on the new Adobe Spark soon. Thanks again; Lonney
Khaled Yasser
I like this course, becuase it is very simple to the users, and canva is the future for quick design I hope everyone can you it.