Canva

Comments: Canva makes it super easy for business to create graphic designs without being graphic artists. The template sizes are there for you, ready for any social media format for posts and for ads. That is an incredible time saver. No messing around with other imaging software to layout text on images, filters to create these. While more features are now under a pay wall, there is a considerable amount offered by Canva that you can use on your own and share with teams. That makes it easy to get updates/feedback on designs by adding people to your teams. Also, you can set a style guide which is available under the section Your Brand. Overall, Canva has put a lot of excellent effort into the tool.

Pros: Canva offers a quite a lot in the free version of the software, what I love most is the functionality wrapped in a beautiful web app. You can create images that are sized for different social media channels like Pinterest, Facebook Banners and posts, Twitter, Instagram. They have a very large selection of free templates you can choose from and customize. It's easy to change text size, colors, position, and once you get used to the layout of various boxes/blocks (text, background, effects) you'll see how much you can vary, from colors to transparency. I love that it's easy to duplicate a design and create variations of the same template.

Cons: You used to be able to create a graphic in a certain size, i.e., for Pinterest and then at top left select the Magic Resize option. That would let you take that graphic and have it resized for something completely different, like a Facebook banner ad. It was really excellent to have that included in the free version, and it's a bummer to see it completely gone. I get it, companies need to make money. It would be nice to see it available to create at least one time something like three different sizes from one template to show how easy it is to use as a tool, and add to the incentive to purchase a subscription. If you're creating a design and want to pull something in from a previous design you created, you can't access those earlier designs unless you upgrade your account. It feels like it can get a bit slow, it's a good idea to check how many Canva tabs you have open because each time you click on a new design, you open a new tab, which will consume your resources. Keep an eye on how many designs you're working on as they'll open new tabs which can consume resources.

Comments: At my company, we create social media graphics, promotional graphics, and ads all the time, for ourselves and for our clients, and Canva makes it incredibly easy and fun. They're constantly adding new features to keep it all fresh, and their customer support is excellent. The "Pro" package provides everything we need to create professional, high-quality graphics we're proud to share with our clients and the world. Using Canva is more play than work!

Pros: Canva is incredibly easy to use, even if you've never worked with any kind of design software. It provides everything you need to design high-quality graphics of all kinds, whether you know anything about design or not. Their "Design School" videos and articles are useful for people new to design, but also for sparking ideas and jumpstarting creativity for experienced users. I use it myself, my company uses it, and I recommend it to all my self-publishing clients.

Cons: I have only two minor quibbles, and the way Canva goes, they'll probably have them fixed by the time this review comes out: I wish Canva kept a temporary list of the fonts tested in a particular design (even if they weren't chosen), and I wish the stickers were searchable, or appeared in search results. In both cases, I end spending a LOT of time scrolling.

Comments: Overall, Canva has been a blessing to our small company. What once took us hours of design work now gets 90% of the way there in less than 10 minutes. This is the definition of business leverage, and I applaud Canva's efforts to make design work easy, fun, and often inspiring. The fact that it's not as flexible as, say, Adobe Illustrator, is admittedly an apples-to-oranges criticism. The iLife comparison above is an apt one, as it empowers the 99% of the population who want to be able to create really nice designs without having to rely on niche industry-specific software. Canva is to design as iMovie was to video editing—it democratizes the field and allows anyone to look like professionals to the average consumer. This is nothing short of magic and Canva is invaluable to our business as a result.

Pros: Simply put, Canva makes anyone look like a design rockstar. In our industry (real estate), it's shocking how ubiquitous Canva has become in less than 5 years, and that is 100% attributable to the fact that it's easy to use and comes stock with hundreds of pieces of design inspiration. It's not often that you can a single piece of software raises the bar for small business advertising and marketing, but Canva definitely fits that bill.

Cons: The flip side of raising the bar is that, well, the bar for quality is now raised and Canva isn't always the best about helping its users rise above this new "average." For instance, the pre-built designs are so good that you see them everywhere now, and you can spot a "Canva-like" design a hundred yards away. This wouldn't be a problem, except that Canva actually makes it hard to customize designs too much. I know that's a strange thing to say since, literally, you can customize any part of a Canva design, but the software seems to fight you every step of the way. I suppose, in a way, this too is by design. Canva takes its inspiration from early Apple iLife suite of software (iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, Garage Band, etc)—you can make some awesome stuff in 5-30 minutes, so long as you're willing to conform your design vision to theirs. Going beyond that surface level of customization, you'll begin wrestling with the software and get diminishing returns.

Comments: It's not bad for someone with no design experience as long as they are willing to pay more for printing. For the higher cost of printing you could pay a professional such as myself to design for you and print at a lower cost and higher quality. The application is bad for the overall marketing industry because it has lowered the quality standard and impact of advertisements being created by business owners who think they understand marketing, design and printing. I recently said to one of my clients who owns a high end auto detailing business and tried to create some marketing materials on his own, "I don't now how to properly wax and detail my vehicle. I would probably ruin the paint job somehow if I were to do it myself. That's why I hire a professional. I wouldn't expect you to be able to handle a design, print and marketing job either because that's not what you do." In short, stick to what you know and leave the rest to professionals. It will cost you less in the long run.

Pros: It's very easy to use and offers a ton of design content for free. You don't necessarily need to search outside of Canva for images but you can if you want. It's great for designing simple social banners or marketing materials quickly but there is a catch. They are trying to sell you printing services and their pricing is not competitive with quality printers.

Cons: I recommend Canva to clients who need to create social media marketing images. I have worked with clients who need me to print postcards, flyers or brochures that they designed on Canva and there are issues. Canva is trying to sell printing services. Their design templates are sized and setup for the printer companies they outsource to. If you design on Canva and download the files to send to a professional printer then those files are not setup correctly and require alterations to be printed. That's if there is room for alterations, but not all designs will allow for easy alteration so therefore the customer is forced to print on Canva at higher costs.

Comments: I use Canva to design graphics for my business. It is very easy to use, and I didn't have to invest time to start learning stuffs like Photoshop. Using Canva I only need to drag and drop, and edit the elements I want to use.

Pros: I've been using Canva for some years, and it has been amazing. There are reasons for which I love Canva, and they are as explained below: 1. Ease of Use: I was looking for an easy to use drag and drop graphics design software. Of all the options I saw, Canva was the best for me. 2. Easy learning curve: I didn't have the time, and technical willpower to learn graphics design softwares like Photoshop. I was looking for a software I can start using immediately, and Canva filled in the gap. One can start using Canva immediately by just dragging and dropping some design elements. 3. Availability of templates: Canva has pre made templates that can just be edited to suit one's desire. This was a plus for me, as I never had to start learning how to design those stuffs from scratch. 4. Cloud storage: I love it that I can design a work on my phone or PC and be able to access it from anywhere. My works are stored online on Canva's server. 5. Free elements and templates: I love it that Canva has some free elements and templates I can start working with immediately without having to spend some money. 6: Can synch with multiple devices: I love it that I can start a work using my PC, and then finish it with my mobile phone when I'm away from the PC.

Cons: The only problem I have with Canva is the cost of some elements and templates. Since I'm operating on a lean budget, I needed to work with free softwares. Some elements, and the very beautiful ones, on Canva are premium elements. One will have to buy them to be able to export works done with them. For someone that have the budget, this is not an issue as Canva is an amazing software.