Canva is an online graphic design and publishing tool that allows users to create quality content for free. Whether you need to create a presentation for work or market your products with social media graphics, Canva offers various templates and elements to help you get started.
If you want to develop or improve your current skills, this article lists beginner, intermediate, and advanced Canva projects to help you learn the nitty-gritty of the platform and master its concepts. Through project-based learning, you will be able to build a Canva portfolio to help kickstart a career in graphic design or digital marketing.
Five Skills That Canva Projects Can Help You Practice
Canva is typically used by companies to create engaging content to attract prospective customers. If the career path you choose involves visual content creation and graphic design, gaining Canva skills and having an in-depth understanding of the tool can be an advantage in job hunting. Listed below are some of the skills you’ll practice through Canva projects.
- Branding. One of the most vital skills for a designer to have is branding. This ability allows you to present the idea, concept, or product to the audience in a way that adheres to the brand identity, values, and strategy.
- Video production. With more people consuming digital content in this internet-driven world, video production skills are becoming more in-demand. Designers must have a keen eye for detail, creativity, and a passion for creating and editing video content.
- Typography. Digital design and content aren’t only made up of pictures and videos, but also text. Typography is one of the fundamental skills that a designer should have since it helps them create and compose readable and aesthetically pleasing messages.
- Color theory. This skill helps designers select, mix, match, and contrast colors effectively. It’s the understanding of the messages that colors communicate and the visual effects they provide.
- Data visualization. Converting data or information into graphs, charts, maps, and other visual content is a skill useful in many professional industries. Data visualization is vital in making data much easier for the audience to understand.
Best Canva Project Ideas for Beginners
Regardless of experience level, Canva is incredibly easy to navigate and doesn’t require formal learning. Below are some of the best Canva projects that will allow beginners to gain hands-on experience and develop necessary skills.
Build a Professional Resume
- Canva Skills Practiced: Typography and color theory
If you’re pursuing a career in the design field, building a professional resume that’s captivating and creative can earn you brownie points. For this Canva project, you will have to think outside the box to emphasize the vital areas of your resume. You will need to use uniform colors, the right font, alignment, and arrangement of elements to grab the attention of recruiters.
Design a Business Card
- Canva Skills Practiced: Color theory and typography
The old-fashioned, physical business card is still a necessity in this digital age. One of the best ways to develop your skills in graphic design, composition, color theory, and typography while marketing your or your client’s business is by designing a business card. You can add the company name, logo, address, number, and even social media channels.
Create a Digital Mood Board
- Canva Skills Practiced: Visual communication
Creating an inspiration board or mood board is another easy project for beginners to discover Canva’s features. It can be about an idea you have for a new product, the interior design of your dream house, or even a movie pitch. Think of it as a collection of visual materials, like illustrations, colors, fonts, and textures, to define and communicate the concept of your project.
Design a Holiday Event Poster
- Canva Skills Practiced: Print design and layout
For a fun project idea, you can create an event poster for the holidays. It can be a Thanksgiving dinner for your team, a Black Friday sale for a business, or a Christmas party for a company. This Canva project will help you develop your sense of space, color, composition, and the ability to understand the target audience.
Make an Instagram Carousel Post
- Canva Skills Practiced: Layout and color theory
This Canva project idea is perfect for anyone who loves curating their Instagram feed. This guided project will help you to take it up a notch by making an Instagram carousel and adding layers, graphics, and text. You can even make it look like an editorial piece from a fashion magazine.
Best Intermediate Canva Portfolio Ideas
If you already know the basic features of Canva and can create simple design pieces, it’s time to level up your skills with intermediate Canva projects. Learning how to handle more complicated challenges can help prepare you for tasks you may encounter while working in the industry.
Create an Engaging Newsletter
- Canva Skills Practiced: Print design and visual communication
For a newsletter to be effective in converting leads, it must be eye-catching and engaging to clients. It must be easy to read and have the perfect blend of text and graphics. Too many pictures will make it seem less personal and more promotional, while too much text will make your readers lose interest quickly. Practice finding the right balance.
Make a Fashion Magazine
- Canva Skills Practiced: Print design and color theory
Bring out your inner Vogue editor-in-chief persona with this fun Canva project. You can upload your own background or use the stock photos from their extensive library. When making a magazine using Canva, be sure to play with all of the platform’s elements. You can use various shapes, colors, and fonts, to emphasize some of the headings and body of text.
Prepare a Visual Information Graphic
- Canva Skills Practiced: Data visualization and visual communication
This intermediate-level Canva project is an excellent activity to prepare you for a job in the marketing and business field. Visual information graphics serve as an excellent visual aid for showing data. For this challenge, try to create an infographic with a projection and analysis graph to present the information.
Create a Presentation about a New Product
- Canva Skills Practiced: Interactive media and visual communication
Instead of using PowerPoint or Google Slides, consider creating a company presentation using Canva. For this project, try to create a compelling presentation about a new product release. Make sure you’re consistent with the frame, grid, and font throughout each slide. Keep it creative and professional.
Create Animated Social Media Posts
- Canva Skills Practiced: Animated elements and interactive media
Even with only the free version of Canva, you can level up your social media posts with animation. In this project, you can play with animation stickers to make your post stand out. Canva also offers an option to animate texts, photos, and other elements to make them more creative and unique.
Advanced Canva Project Ideas
Canva offers users plenty of advanced tools, elements, and templates to play with and customize. Moreover, you can discover even more options and content types when you subscribe to Canva Pro. If you want to get the most out of the platform, it’s best to develop your skills and practice using the platform through advanced Canva projects with Canva Pro.
Build a Website
- Canva Skills Practiced: Branding, data visualization
Whether you’re using Canva Pro or the free version, you can create a website that’s compatible with desktop and mobile devices. For this project, create a landing page that shows short information about the company, the services it offers, and the contact page. You can upload it as a standard website with a navigation bar or a single page.
Design a Product
- Canva Skills Practiced: Branding
Before the development starts, designers typically create a digital product and use it as the model to show administrators, stakeholders, or CEOs how the final form will look. For this project, try to design a product using the Canva elements. It could be a mug, t-shirt, or even stickers.
Create a YouTube Introduction Video
- Canva Skills Practiced: Video production
Canva is also an excellent platform for creating video content on YouTube. As such, you can practice your video production skills by creating the introduction portion using Canva. In this project, you will create a short video with animations and music to enhance your brand’s identity. This can be added to your following videos and incorporated into your YouTube thumbnail.
Create a Branded Invoice
- Canva Skills Practiced: Branding
Whether you’re a freelancer or own a business, keeping a record of your invoices and payments is essential to smooth operation. This activity requires you to design your invoice using your company logo, adding all of the necessary details, and aiming for a professional, easy-to-read, and memorable design.
Create a Facebook Video Ad
- Canva Skills Practiced: Video production
As social media platforms have gained a huge user-base, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have become a hub for marketing brands, products, and services. In this project idea, you will use Canva to create an advertisement for your product or service on Facebook. Challenge yourself by adding animations and music to make it more engaging to viewers.
Canva Starter Project Templates
Canva allows its users to create all kinds of content from scratch. Their free and paid version offers thousands of templates, including video, website, invitation, and resume templates to make it easier for people to create and design quality content. Listed below are some of the best starter templates to practice with.
- Marketing proposal template. If you work in marketing agencies, PR firms, or advertising companies, you can use this marketing proposal template to create your pitch to a client. It includes a customizable section for the company background, the project idea, objectives, and delivery timeframe.
- YouTube channel art template. Content creators at YouTube can use this template to make their channel stand out. It’s free and fully customizable, so you can tailor it to your style and update it anytime.
- Video template. You no longer have to allocate a huge budget to produce videos and market your products. With this template, you only need to make a few simple edits before uploading it on your social media platforms.
- Website template. Instead of having to write code to create and design a website, the templates on this page allow you to design and publish a simple and functional website. Without the hassle of coding, you save time and can fully concentrate on the creative aspect of your website.
- Invitation template. This template can be used for event invitations. Instead of spending money on wedding, birthday, or any other kind of party invitations, you can create your own. It’s customizable, which allows you to produce the same results you would hire someone for.
Next Steps: Start Organizing Your Canva Portfolio
After developing your Canva skills, it’s time to organize the visual design projects you want to showcase. Your portfolio is your opportunity to display your hard work and impress potential clients and employers. To ensure your Canva portfolio can effectively represent your strengths and capabilities, it must be well-crafted, polished, and organized.
Display Your Best Work
Your Canva portfolio should only include your best work. Keep in mind, your professional portfolio isn’t an album of your design journey, it’s meant to show clients and employers what you can produce, now. Depending on your professional goal, you might want to include simple and advanced visual design projects to showcase your versatility.
Include Variety in Projects
Your portfolio should include a diverse range of projects. However, this is dependent on your professional goal. If there’s a particular company you’re seeking employment with, your portfolio style should match and complement theirs. Alternatively, if you’re pursuing freelance work, you want to include a wide range of styles and abilities to reach as many clients as possible.
Ensure Easy Navigation
Regardless of whether your portfolio is digital or physical, it should be easy to navigate. You can categorize your projects by style, type, or industry. If your portfolio includes a variety of projects, you can organize it by social media content, video productions, events, and so on. Potential clients and employers should be able to appreciate your abilities without struggling with navigation.
Canva Projects FAQ
As a graphic design tool, you can make all kinds of projects using Canva, including social media posts, video productions, book covers, business cards, or corporate resumes.
"Career Karma entered my life when I needed it most and quickly helped me match with a bootcamp. Two months after graduating, I found my dream job that aligned with my values and goals in life!"
Venus, Software Engineer at Rockbot
Canva makes your work easier with its extensive library of templates, fonts, shapes, and stock photos. It’s quick and easy for anyone to create illustrations, presentations, graphs and charts, or any other project. There’s a creative tool for just about everything.
According to Canva’s licensing, copyright, and commercial use terms and policies, you can use all free Canva content for personal and commercial use. But if the photos, videos, music, or other Canva elements contain an identifiable trademark, place, or person, commercial use may have limitations. Unaltered media are also not allowed for redistribution or reselling.
Yes, you should definitely add Canva to your resume as it’s becoming an increasingly in-demand skill. It can give you an advantage when looking for career opportunities in digital marketing, graphic designing, and even administrative roles.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
