Here are 10 tips to design FASTER in Canva! Ready, let’s do this! Hi my lovely people, it’s Natalia and welcome
back to my channel where I help you create better content and grow on social media! Let’s jump right in… 1. Use Shortcuts The best way to be faster at doing anything
is to use shortcuts and it’s no different in Canva. When you master them, they speed up your workflow
and you end up claiming hours of work back simply because you click much much less. The key here is to use them as much as you
can even when it feels uncomfortable because that’s the only way that they become second
nature to you. You can effortlessly switch between tools,
duplicate elements with a stroke of a mouse and navigate layers seamlessly. The whole process becomes smooth and you work
in a rhythm that helps design effortlessly. And at the end of the day, you want your focus
to be purely on creativity, and not on managing the platform itself. Start with the basic ones that you know from
other apps like CTRL+C for copying, CTRL+X for cutting and CTRL+V for pasting, then move
on to other useful ones like CTRL+G for grouping (more on this in just a moment so keep watching!),
CTRL+B, CTRL+I for bold and italics. And speaking of, don’t go to the left panel
to add text to your design. Just press T and a text box pops up! Zoom in and out of the design by using ctrl
+ scroll up/down or Ctrl + +/-. One of my favorites that really speeds up
the workflow is CTRL+D which lets you duplicate quickly or, better yet, you can just select
something and then hold ALT and drag the element. When you’re in need of a shape, again, don’t
go looking for it yourself, just click C for circles, R for rectangles (or squares), or
L for lines. There are also super useful shortcuts for
positioning which normally takes a few more clicks
so it’s best to speed it up. CTRL+ opening square bracket [ brings your
selected element forward, while CTRL + closing square bracket ] sends it backward. If you add ALT to both these combos, you’ll
bring it all the way to the front or send it all the way back, respectively. You can also Tidy up three or more selected
elements quickly with Alt + Shift + T. To upload images, whether from your drive
or a browser, just drag them into the editor or again, CTRL+C and CTRL+V them into Canva. When you’re creating content consistently,
every minute spent in Canva counts and shortcuts can really help you flow through designs quickly
and efficiently. Now, the second way to do this is to 2. Use a Brand Kit A quick disclaimer here, a Brand Kit is a
Canva Pro-only feature but the majority of this video will work for a free user as well
so stick around for the rest of the tips and I actually have a Brand Kit alternative coming
up in a moment too. As a Pro user, all of your crucial brand elements
belong in one place, because there’s no better way to keep a cohesive brand image
and design quickly. It’s your one stop shop to make sure your
graphics echo your brand identity flawlessly and it’s super easy to set up. From the homepage, in the Brand Hub, you can
add a new Brand Kit and fill it with all the crucial elements of your brand like your logos,
color palettes, fonts, images, icons and graphics. This then becomes a repository for those key
brand assets that you can easily access from the left panel within the editor, making your
design process so much quicker. Not only is it all organized in one place
so that you can grab your essentials from there easily when you create from scratch,
but it’s also allowing you to smoothly adapt any templates from the Canva library to your
brand guidelines. As an example, you don’t have to click and
change each color individually, you can simply go to the Brand tab and shuffle the colors
by clicking your palette. Those little actions that you perform every
day add up very quickly and you don’t even realize how much time you’re wasting on
them while designing. By the way, if you want to test the power
of the Brand Hub and see how it speeds up your workflow among all the other incredible
features, check out my link in the description box which gives you 45 days of Canva completely
for free! Another way to design much quicker and manage
your branding efficiently is to 3. Use Folders Have you ever spent time scrolling through
your Uploads tab and couldn’t find that one photo that you really needed for a design? If so, chances are you’re not using Folders
and it’s slowing you down BIG TIME. When your Canva account is organized with
folders, your process becomes so much faster. Think about it. When every single visual asset has a place,
it’s much easier to design quickly because you’re not wasting time on looking things
up. The two folders I recommend for everyone to
have are Brand Assets and Personal Photos if you have a personal brand, or Product Photos
if you’re selling products. The Brand Assets folder is a great alternative
to the Brand Kit, because you can keep your crucial files there without having to rely
on Canva Pro. It may not be as convenient and as efficient
as a Brand Kit, but it’s still very useful and makes your design quicker. You can upload an image of your color palette
in there and by using the Apply Colors feature, make templates match your color scheme. To do this, just add your palette from the
particular folder through the Projects tab, then right-click it and hit "Apply Colors
to Page”. It acts the same way as your Brand Kit palette! What I love about this feature too is that
when you pull elements from a particular design, it gets added to the left panel of the editor
below this line here and makes it accessible with one click. This becomes so useful for content creation! As an example, I constantly use photos of
myself in designs, removing backgrounds and adding outlines like this to help reinforce
my personal brand and my Photos folder is always there when I need it. No unnecessary clicks, no browsing for ages,
just a moment and I’ve got them ready. Come to think of it, I could also just remove
all the backgrounds for my key photos, add those outlines, export as transparent PNGs
and upload them to a separate folder to shorten the process even further. Without being organized through folders like
this, I would design much slower. It’s worth thinking about those actions
that you perform repeatedly when designing to optimize your workflow as much as you can. If you want to learn how to organize your
Canva account to work for you, make sure you watch this video next since I’m showing
the whole process there, including setting up your folders! To access folders from the Editor, you have
to go to the Projects tab and that’s another goldmine to help you design faster in Canva
so… 4. Use Projects My favorite way to speed up my design process
is to draw from my previous designs to not have to start from scratch each time. Say I’m designing an Instagram post to promote
a lead magnet but I’ve already created a promo graphic to go on the landing page. Why reinvent the wheel when I can just source
some of the graphic elements from this previous design. I can simply go to Projects, find this design,
click to apply it to a page and then rework it to what I want. It’s a significant way to create faster
in Canva since it works for whole designs as well as smaller parts. I can use a graphic in different dimensions
and repurpose it for a different platform, I can grab a background I’ve recently designed
to form the basis of a new graphic, or I can simply use it as a template. And speaking of templates, that’s another
way to make your process much faster in Canva. 5. Use Templates And this point is two-fold. First of all, the fastest way to design is
to use the templates from the Canva library. This is literally why they’re there and
you don’t need to start from a blank page each time. They’re easy to customize to match your
brand image, they’re already nicely balanced, have an established font hierarchy and you’re
working with designs that were built by experienced creators and approved by Canva. My tip to not spend too much time looking
for that perfect template is to use the extensive search capabilities of the Templates tab from
the homepage. It allows you to search by keywords from the
search bar, browse by purpose here on the left, or by keyword here at the top and then
you have so many options to filter the results. You can also star your favorites like this
to then quickly pull them up when needed from the editor using your Starred folder which
you can find easily by going to our trustee Projects tab under Folders. The second part is using your own brand templates. As a Pro user, any design you create, you
can save as a brand template. Once it’s ready, simply go to Share in the
top right corner and click Brand Template. If you can’t see it, go to More here and
search Brand Template. Mind you, there’s a similar option called
Template Link which is used to share your Templates with others which they can then
use in their own Canva accounts so that’s a different feature. I use my Brand Templates to save time and
batch-create content. Whenever I finish mapping out my content for
a month, two weeks or a week, whatever timeframe suits, I know exactly how many of the different
types of posts I have to create. Say, for a months-worth of Instagram content,
I have to design 4 carousels, 4 simple faceless Reels, 4 single infographics and 4 talking-head
Reels (which means 4 Reels covers to design). There’s no need to start 16 different designs
from scratch. I can go into my Canva account and choose
from a variety of different templates I created over time for each of these post formats. Since my Canva is organized into folders,
I can go to a designated folder for that content type like Carousels and just pick one. It may seem like a lot of work at the beginning
but it's definitely a huge huge HUGE timesaver in the long run. Besides, as your online presence grows and
you get more confident creating posts, you’ll build a bigger library of templates for yourself
so the more content you create, the quicker it becomes. 6. Use Grouping Group your elements to design faster. When you create a group, you don’t waste
time by selecting things accidentally or moving every single item separately. The quickest way to group is to select your
elements and hit CTRL+G so once you’re done aligning a bunch of elements that work together
like a cluster of text boxes, your social media icons or, like in this case, pages of
a workbook, just group them to not mess up the work you’ve already done. They then act as a unit and you can balance
the whole design much quicker. I can make all the elements smaller, bigger,
move them around with no hassle. By the way, if you have many different elements
in a design already and can’t simply select what you want, click on any element, go to
Position in the top panel and switch to the Layers tab or just hit Alt+1. From here, you can select what you want by
holding CTRL to select individual elements or CTRL + SHIFT to select a range. From there, just right-click to group, or,
again, just go for CTRL+G. 7. Use Styles This little brush icon in Canva is slept on! It copies styles for you which saves so much
time when designing. Simply select an element like this text box,
tap the Style icon, and apply it to another text box. But hold on, you can do it for multiple elements
too. I’ve got this list right here and changed
my mind about the font. No worries, just select again, go to the Brush
Icon, and then drag to select the range and apply. So effortless! It also works with images, videos and shapes
so you can copy your Effects, filters, corner rounding, borders and so much more! By the way, I regularly share Canva tips like
this on my channel so hit that subscribe button to never miss a useful trick! 8. Have copy ready One of the best design tips I can give you
as a content creator and a marketer is to always start with copy. Your messaging is so important and it’s
much easier to design with text ready, not the other way round. Design should always serve as a way to get
your points across in an engaging, visually striking way so preparing your copy beforehand
is so important. This is the reason why my general workflow
for content creation always begins with writing first, then designing after. Based on the content map for a given time,
I write my scripts and captions, planning out what text I’ll have to include on my
graphics. Then, jumping into Canva becomes much easier
because I can quickly design around it. Sure, I have to make my copy slightly shorter
or longer from time to time, but it’s still a much better process than to start with the
design. Otherwise, you go into Canva and instead of
just focusing on creating the visuals, your brain has to switch between two distinctive
tasks - designing an engaging graphic and writing an effective copy. This is inevitably going to slow you down
so optimizing this process is so important. Also, make sure not to add too much text on
your graphics and videos since they should be super easy to digest for the viewer! 9. Use the same design This is one of my favorite ways to design
quickly, always have ideas ready and it may be slightly out of left field. When I know I’ll be producing a lot of similar
individual graphics for the same purpose, I just use the same design instead of creating
a new one each time. I simply add new pages or copy them over to
adjust. Probably my two most used designs here are
for my Reels Covers and for these YouTube title animations which you’ve seen all throughout
this video. I find it so much more efficient to design
by copying because I reuse the same types of templates all the time and it’s so much
quicker this way. While my carousel templates make more sense
as standalone designs since they have multiple slides, graphics like covers are repeatable
and help me maintain a consistent feed on Instagram too. Moreover, when I record Reels on the fly,
I don’t have to pick and choose, and then create covers, I just jump in my aggregate
design, switch to the Thumbnails view here at the bottom, and see what I like for this
one. This allows me to design super fast, especially
when I only have my phone. Mind you, there’s a limit to how many pages
and elements you can have in one design, so once you can’t add any more, just create
a new design, copy one page over and keep going. I know this may not be for everyone but this
is my way of optimizing my workflow even more for creating similar designs and especially
when creating content. One downside is that I’m much less likely
to get those cute design milestone badges that people often share in Canva groups so
if you’d like achievements like this, then definitely skip this tip ;) 10. Use AI It won’t be a surprise to you in 2023 that
AI has the power to speed up and simplify tasks that normally require a ton of time
and effort. Luckily, Canva is developing its amazing AI
toolkit and it would be a shame not to use it to your benefit. Here, I have a few of my favorites. With Magic Expand, you can extend an image
beyond its borders which is so useful because you can correct clumsy cropping, add more
space to tighter shots, or, probably most importantly, turn a vertical image into a
horizontal one and vice versa. This saves you a lot of time browsing and
searching for the perfect images to give you enough negative space to fit your text. To do this, select a photo of your choice,
go to Edit Photo in the top panel and Choose Magic Expand. Then, select the aspect ratio like Whole Design
here, Click Magic Expand and choose your favorite out of the generated images. A fantastic way to design faster in Canva
is to use the Magic Assistant. It’s hidden here under this little magical
icon and gives you access to the most popular actions and features quickly. My favorite thing it does though is that when
you scroll down, it suggests graphics or photos to match the vibe of your design. For example, if you’ve used a photo from
the library in your presentation, it can show you others that look very similar or are from
the same photoshoot! No need to scroll and scroll to find the perfect
ones! Within the Assistant, we have Magic Write,
which you can use to create copy for designs quickly. You can use this one to generate something
new like a list of tips, or a paragraph talking about a specific point but I want to show
you the suggestions when I select an existing piece of text and then utilize the Assistant. Now you have a few cool options like summarizing
or expanding which is great for when you need a bit more or a bit less text for your design. You can use Rewrite to paraphrase, fix any
mistakes, and change up the tone a little bit. As a Pro user, you can also add your Brand
Voice description to your Brand Kit and then use your own brand voice from the Brand Tab
in the editor, making your text even more custom and relevant. Frankly, there are so many other great AI
features in Canva so make sure you watch this video right now to see how Canva Magic can
improve your content creation even more. Subscribe to my channel for more Canva content
and marketing strategies and hit the thumbs up if you’ve enjoyed this video. Can’t wait to see you… next time!
