One Graphic designers tend to have a love-hate relationship with Canva. On one hand, Canva helps total beginners dip their toes into the world of graphic design. On the other, many graphic designers feel that Canva is siphoning away clients who could benefit from working with them.

We think there's a middle ground. Canva can be a tool that supports a better relationship between client and designer by bringing the design process front and center. When clients and designers work collaboratively, clients come away with a better understanding of why design choices matter for branding and how the creative process works. 

This doesn't cheapen the art of graphic design – instead, it makes it more accessible. Here are 5 reasons why we think Canva is a great client tool for designers:

1. It Demystifies the Design Process

   Graphic design is a specialized skill, and it seems super complex to people who haven't mastered it. Canva helps break down basic design for a general audience. Does it replace professional graphic design software? Definitely not. In the same way that writing a text message doesn't make someone a professional writer, using Canva doesn't make someone a designer. 

   But Canva's templates and drag-and-drop features offer clients a glimpse into basic graphic design concepts, which can help streamline communication for design projects.

2. It Reduces Editing Time

   Collaborating with clients on a cloud-based platform like Canva means you can spend more time focusing on design components and less time copy editing. They didn't hire you to check their grammar, but many designers end up serving as mini-copy editors when they catch errors. With Canva, your client can make these little changes, which frees up your time to focus on design and keeps projects on schedule!

3. It Helps Clients Articulate What They Want

   Every designer has been there – a client says they want their brand to be "professional, but fun." This can mean 10 different things to 10 different people. It's hard to create designs that effectively communicate a brand's voice with so little guidance! 

   Enter Canva. Your client can search and sort templates by the keywords "professional" and "fun" and find examples that illustrate what they're looking for. Having a handful of concrete examples to work with saves the designer and the client time by preventing tons of design revisions down the road.

4. It Provides a Brand Kit

   Graphic designers know how important appealing fonts, colors, and images are to the customer experience. Canva lets designers and clients decide on each of these branding components collaboratively and save their choices within a customizable brand kit. This way, your clients can play around with templates and content ideas without straying from their established brand basics.

5. It Offers Much More Than Design

   Canva has expanded its templates beyond visual components like social media posts, logos, and banners. Now, Canva offers video and audio recording and single-page websites. There's something to be said for convenience! Working with clients using a platform that can serve as their web host, design tool, and media recording studio is a huge timesaver!

Looking for help with branding and design? Hausbeck Brand has you covered! Check out our services page, or shoot us a message to get the conversation started!