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Using Canva To Create Quick Lesson Illustrations

Post published:June 7, 2022
Post category:Design / Email-Teaching / Online Courses / Podcasting / Resources / Social Video / Technology

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Canva is a great free online design tool with powerful features and royalty-free content you can embed.

You can use it to create images and illustrations for your course lessons or resource materials.

It is easy to use and not as complex as Photoshop, Illustrator, or Inkscape.

Best of all, most essential features and sample content are available for free.

Video Overview

Lesson Graphics

If you use PowerPoint or Google Slides to teach your course, you know that your diagrams are limited to basic shapes and lines.

To enhance your visuals, consider using external tools like Canva to create high-quality graphics that you can add to your lesson decks.

If you primarily teach through 1:1 videos, Canva can also help you design full-screen graphics, sidebar information, or overlay graphics to support your content.

Resource Materials

Canva allows you to create full multi-page guides and checklists.

I prefer to design vertical PDFs using tools like Google Docs or Word and then enhance them with custom graphics made in Canva, Photoshop, Paint.net, Illustrator, or Inkscape.

These visuals can be used for a title page, a decorative footer, or informative graphics that support the main text on each page.

When to Use Canva

I like using Canva when a design is too complex for simple shapes in Google Docs or Sheets but not complex enough to justify a high-end graphics program.

Canva is smart, with great defaults and only the most essential options. Unlike other software that overwhelms with too many settings, Canva keeps things simple and intuitive.

For me, it’s the perfect “Goldilocks” tool—just right for creating intermediate-level graphics that are neither too simple nor too complicated.

Key Tools

The key tools in Canva are made up of:

Template – an example layout with a bunch of elements that you can modify
Background – A background picture for your layout
Text – Text that you can style and position anywhere
Elements – A giant library of pictures and shapes that you can put
Uploads – Your assets like your logo and custom backgrounds
Toolbar – Tools to modify the current item like color, font, position, delete

The app also offers cool drag and drop placement and positioning features. When you move an item, dynamic grid lines appear to help you place it precisely whether centered aligned with padding on the left or perfectly in line with other elements.

Pro Stuff

Just so you know, there is a pro version of Canva. If you’ve tried free Canva and it works for you, and need the extra features, it’s very affordable.

Here are some of the things in the pro version:

More pre-made templates
More image resources that you can drop in
Output PNG files with transparent backgrounds
Better resizing of outputs
Customize and add your own brand fonts

Oh, and the pro features include better team support for sharing and collaborating on designs.

Wrap Up

Canva is free, powerful, and intuitive, with a variety of royalty-free layouts and content that help you create stylish supporting graphics in just 15 minutes.

I haven’t even touched on its video features since my focus is on creating visual aids for course content.

Next time you need a quick illustration, take 30 seconds to consider the complexity of the task. If it’s moderately complex and you have beginner to intermediate design skills, Canva is the perfect place to start.

Get Canva

To start using Canva to create your course illustrations, visit Canva.com to create a free account and start mocking up designs in minutes.

So now, you’re a lot smarter. Thanks for hanging out!

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FAQ Using Canva To Create Quick Lesson Illustrations

Sure, you can use Canva to create graphics for your brand. All you need to do is get a Canva account, select a template in Canva and start designing with it.

Yes, you can use Canva graphics as they are for commercial use, hence you’re not redistributing or reselling them as yours. They have a large library of great graphics you can use for both website design, social media marketing, blogs, etc.

Canva can work to give you basic graphics design content, but it can’t replace the skill and experience you need to be a successful graphic designer. You can only use it for the basics, but not enough to become a professional graphics designer.

Yes, you can draw on Canva using its free drawing tool.This can get you and your team inspired to create exciting projects and new projects. With the drawing tab, you can customize the color, thickness, and anything else you need to create lovely designs.

You can do this by being consistent with your designs, paying attention to each alignment, writing readable text and maintaining a standard quality.