I sat in on a Canva workshop recently and walked out thinking, “Yep, we can shave hours off our weekly content workflow.” Kassie Meiler shared a mix of quick wins and advanced features that most teams either overlook or never fully use.
These are my notes from the session, cleaned up and expanded into a guide you can reference anytime you need to create better visuals, faster, without everything looking like a default template.
A few trends are shaping how content performs right now:
Canva is built for this moment, but only if you evolve beyond the basics.
Most teams think Canva is “for social.” It is, but it is also a production tool for nearly everything you publish:
Content You Can Create In Canva
If you build one strong set of assets, you can repurpose them into multiple formats without starting over.
Canva’s mobile app is great, but it is not where most teams should do real design work.
Best Use For Desktop
Best Use For Mobile
Best practice: Upload content through mobile while you are onsite, then edit and finalize on desktop.
If you are still exporting designs and sending versions back and forth, this will save you time immediately.
What Collaboration Lets You Do
Important Sharing Tip For State Partners
If you want partners to customize graphics without breaking your original:
This protects your master file and reduces cleanup work later.
Canva is powerful, but templates can tempt teams into bad design habits. Use these rules to keep content clean, readable, and premium.
Use 2 to 3 Fonts Maximum
Limit Your Color Palette
Two to four brand colors are enough. Use them consistently.
Build A Clear Visual Hierarchy
People scan top to bottom and left to right:
Embrace White Space
Do not crowd the design. Space is what makes it feel professional.
Boost Contrast For Readability
If your text does not pop, it will not perform. High contrast wins.
Keep The Brand Consistent
If every post looks like a different person made it, trust drops. Consistency builds familiarity.
Use color intentionally. People react to it faster than they read.
Blue: Trust, professionalism, calm (common in insurance for a reason)
Green: Growth, stability, money, wellness
Red: Urgency, deadlines, alerts (use carefully)
Orange: Friendly urgency, action, energy (often better than red for CTAs)
Purple: Premium, creative, elevated feel
Black: Sophisticated, powerful, modern
White: Clean, simple, high-end (great for minimal layouts)
Yellow: Optimistic and energetic, best in small doses
Templates are a starting point. They are not the finish line.
Step 1: Swap Fonts, Colors, And Spacing
Make the design yours fast.
Step 2: Adjust The Layout
Rearrange elements so that it does not look like the default.
Step 3: Add Motion Last
Always animate at the end, after layout and copy are final.
Canva’s AI tools are improving quickly. Think of them as a first draft engine, not a final answer.
Canva AI “Magic Design”
You describe what you want, and Canva generates options and layouts. Useful when you are stuck staring at a blank page.
Magic Switch: Repurpose With One Click
Turn one design into:
Reality check: You will still need to adjust spacing, font sizes, and photo placement, but it saves significant time.
Magic Write: Captions, Headlines, Summaries
Great for:
Best practice: Give it strong prompts. Garbage input leads to garbage output. Always edit for your brand voice.
If your team creates content across events, programs, or state partners, Brand Kits are essential.
Store:
This makes it easier to apply a consistent design quickly, especially when multiple people collaborate.
Bonus: Lock elements like footers so they stay consistent across files.
These are the “speed levers” that reduce design time and improve output quality.
Background Remover And Object Remover
Remove:
Layers And Position Controls
Use layers to:
Align, Tidy Up, And Space Evenly
Stop dragging elements by hand.
Use:
This is how you make designs look polished fast.
Transparency Slider
Create subtle background images and allow text to sit clearly on top.
Smart Mockups
Put your design into:
Great for sponsor packages, product promotion, approvals, and “what it will look like” previews.
Animation And Magic Animate
Turn a static graphic into a scroll-stopping asset.
Use Magic Animate when you want Canva to handle page-by-page motion automatically.
This is one of the best workflows for busy teams.
One design becomes multiple platform formats with minimal extra effort.
If you produce repeated content like:
Create can generate multiple versions automatically from a spreadsheet.
It will not be perfect, but it removes most of the manual work and gets you 80% of the way there fast.
Canva includes a QR code generator that is more reliable than many free QR code sites, which often expire or redirect later.
Best practice:
If you are tempted to put animated content inside an email, keep this in mind:
In most cases, use animation on the destination experience, not inside the email itself.
Is Canva better than PowerPoint?
For many teams, yes, especially for speed, templates, collaboration, and exports. PowerPoint still has strengths in enterprise workflows, but Canva often wins for modern marketing production.
Can Canva replace Adobe tools?
For many everyday marketing tasks, Canva can cover a lot. Many designers still use both, especially if they are deeply experienced in Adobe workflows.
Can Canva help plan an annual marketing campaign?
It can help you visualize and present the plan, but it will not automatically build your campaign calendar for you. Create the plan in a planning tool first, then design the calendar and assets in Canva.
Can Canva handle high-quality print design?
Yes, if you start with the correct print dimensions and export settings. Do not design in a small social size and expect it to print cleanly without resizing and adjusting. Canva also offers printing services.