Online design tool Canva now has features that help maintain a consistent company image, and also to speed up production of presentations, brochures, business cards and so on.
Canva is an online service designed to let anyone produce professional-looking designs for posters, presentations and social media graphics.
We previously mentioned it in the context of designers being able to make some extra money by offering their designs, photos and other images to less skilled users. Canva's model is to let people use the service for free, but pay to use any design resources included in the final product.
For businesses, one problem has been that Canva has not provided a mechanism to enforce the use of a consistent style.
That changes with Canva for Work (out now), which provides a way to set up assets such as templates, logos and other images, fonts and even colours, which are then available to other team members.
It also includes a "magic resize" feature so designs can be easily repurposed, perhaps converting something originally intended for print use to an image that can be shared on social media, plus a commenting and collaboration capability.
Canva for Work has been beta-tested by some well-known businesses including Lonely Planet and Yelp.
"Canva for Work is genius!," said Yelp marketing manager Alex Dawson. "We regularly use it across Australia and New Zealand to come up with creative on the fly that looks professional and on-brand. It’s simple and easy to use, which is perfect for non-designers like me!"
The additional features do come at a price: Canva for Work costs $9.95 per user per month, but the basic service remains free.
"Canva is extremely popular with individuals who create things like social media graphics, presentations, and business cards. It has saved them time, money, and allowed them to create graphics that look professional without needing to learn the expensive desktop design tools," said Canva CEO Melanie Perkins.
"Over the past two years, we've found that brands often struggle to an even greater extent with the same issues. Canva for Work takes Canva to the next level, by empowering companies to share design templates, fonts and digital assets, and to collaborate on the design process."
