Recently, Canva announced the launch of the “Canva Button” that allows the Canva design manager to be accessed within your favorite tools.

Our TabSite software for contests and growing leads is thrilled to be one of the early release partners!

What is the Canva Button?

In short, Canva access and power within web-tools like TabSite!

Instead of just offering an ‘Upload’ button and expecting users to figure out the rest, the Canva Button enables a website’s users to easily create graphics without leaving their webpage.

Canva notes, “We want this to be accessible to everyone so the Button is free and can be implemented with just a few lines of code.”

Within TabSite, for example, users can create custom images for their contests, sweepstakes, and more, starting with pre-built templates designed by Canva for TabSite users.

Canva lets users create their own graphics via a simple drag and drop process of several elements, using a database of professional stock images, fonts and design layouts.

How Does it Work?

Here’s the TabSite integration available in each app.

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The key is that Canva has pre-built a series of templates (and is adding more all the time) just for specific uses like a TabSite Sweepstakes.

Clicking the Canva button launches the Canva designer right in TabSite so the user experience is great. Users never leave the page. They simply customize an image and save and that image is integrated into the location in TabSite they had selected.

Once Canva loads within the TabSite App setup, there are a number of 810 x 610 templates ready to customize and use!

So what do you think of the new Canva integration in TabSite?

Does it sound like a great way to build custom images for your contests and promotions?

Go for it with a free trial of TabSite today!

canva, canva buttonJuly 21, 2014

Each week we sit down at Canva and go through our social media plan for the week ahead. It’s a great way to prioritise what we’ve got coming up — launches, blog posts, events — and helps ensure that we have great visual content to share with our community.

The most important thing with visual branding is consistency. It’s easy to set yourself up for design success with a little bit of planning and a regular routine.

In this post, I’ll share some of the techniques we use to manage our visual content at Canva. You can use them to step up your own visual content strategy for social media.

Batch your content

Batching content will help organise your time. This is a great tip that comes from social media blogger Donna Moritz. Donna suggests creating multiple graphics at the same time. You might like to set aside time at the beginning of the week to design graphics for all your social posts. It’s something we do at Canva.

We have a Google Spreadsheet that’s shared with our marketing and design team. It lists all the upcoming social media posts, blog posts and events we have coming up so that we can plan our content creation.

Create a style guide

Documenting your branding guidelines helps ensure consistency. It doesn’t need to be complicated. Be consistent in your use of fonts, colors, photo filters and logos. It can be helpful to record examples of how your branding should be used. That might include example posts that you would share on social media, or sample layouts.

Creative Bloq has some great examples from well-known brands.

Optimise for each platform

Each social media network has a different need. Remember to get the sizes right when posting each social network. Make sure your blog is set-up with Facebook Open Graph and Twitter Cards so that visuals from your posts display when they are shared online. On Pinterest, opt for longer form graphics, as these have the highest engagement.

Practise, practise, practise

Your graphics will get better and better, the more you practice. We’ve spent lots of time building up a library of great tutorials at Canva. They cover topics such as branding, layout design and choosing color palettes.

The more you design, the more confident you’ll become with your graphics. Sometimes another set of eyes can help too. Ask a friend to have a look at your graphics and provide some feedback.

Do a content “audit”

Every now and then, it helps to do an audit of your content. What images are working best on social media? Have you found that particular designs perform the best? This can also be a good time to think about any branding choices you’re making.

Sites like Designspiration and Dribble can be good sources of inspiration. Be sure to think about your overall branding. It may even be time to refresh your logo and create some icons that you can use consistently in your social media graphics.

Have you tried any of these tips? Have they worked for you? Share your comments below.

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brand design, canva, visual imagesMay 20, 2014