Cut down on your design time with these 5 tips every bloggers should know! We have all heard of Canva at this point, and more than likely used it for one thing or another. Canva is a GREAT tool for anyone to make designs in. While a lot of the program is pretty straightforward, there are also some tips that can help make your design time quicker and more efficient!

We’ll be going over these 5 Tips today:

Tip 1: Keyboard Shortcuts

Tip 2: Lock Items in Place

Tip 3: Search for similar photos or elements

Tip 4: Make your photo stand out with effects

Tip 5: Create a Mockup

Bonus Tip: Change all fonts at once

Canva Tip 1: Keyboard Shortcuts

Much like your day to day controls on your keyboard, Canva uses those same principles!

You can use your keys for basic needs that you will probably have in your design. This will save you time from having to search the elements for these items. In addition to that, the shapes that you get from using your keys are scalable, not just a solid shape you can’t adjust.

All you have to do is open your design and hit the correlating key needed.

T=Text

R=Rectangle

C= Circle

L=Line

Reminder: You can also use the basic principles in canva, like copy and paste.: cmd + C, V, etc

One thing about Canva that can be tricky is grouping items together so they don’t separate or move apart.

Here are two ways to group items together.

Use your mouse to grab the items that you want to keep together OR holding the shift key, use your mouse to click on each item individually.

To group items together using keys, grab each item and use: cmd/ctrl + G

Canva Tip 2: Lock items into place

This tip is great if you are working with multiple elements at once and don’t want to accidentally move the wrong one!

All you have to do to lock into place is using the padlock at the top of the screen!

See, super simple!

Canva Tip 3: Search for similar photos or elements

Have you ever found a graphic or photo that you LOVE and want to use more of? Canva will suggest similar items for you in the elements section, however you can also look up that specific artist and see their whole collections!

The little “i” button at the top will tell you all the details related to that graphic or art.

This is helpful for creating a cohesive design or brand!

Pst, bonus tip: you can also search keywords; ie; aesthetic, retro, artistic.

Canva Tip 4: Make YOUR photos stand out with effects

Have you seen a super cool photo that someone has used in an ad, or post, or flier, or just on Instagram? Did you know that Canva allows you to edit your photos right inside the app?!

You can remove the background of a photo in one click. Choose your photo and use the edit image in the toolbar. From there you will select what kind of filter you are going for.

 You can add filters/effects to your photo to add some pizazz or fit a certain theme as well. All of these are in the sidebar section under Edit image

 Be sure to hit “apply” once you choose your edit! Talk about upgrading your photos! This is a huge help when creating a stand-out photo or graphic!

Canva Tip 5: Creating a Mockup

This is another game changer! Canva allows you to create mockups, in just one click! (sensing a theme here?!)

Mockups are what you use to showcase a website, a t- shirt design, a social media post and so forth. If you want to create a gripping graphic that is showcasing a website, you simply just need to go into edit image,  smartmockups, select the computer graphic and it will automatically create this for you! It’s that easy!

Diana just released a more in-depth post about creating a Canva Mockup using two different ways: Smart Mockups and Elements. Check it out here!

Canva BONUS TIP - Change all fonts at once

Okay, this one may not be relevant for you or you may already know it…as you may already know a lot of these, but you’re still reading so hey, here is another tip!

When you are changing your font, you can actually change all fonts at once. For some reason, this one took me way longer than it should have to figure it out!

This tip is extremely helpful if you use Canva for big projects like books, packets, anything that has a lot of words really. Having the same font on each page is vital, so this tip can really save the day!

If you’re like me and about four pages into a project realize you aren’t really vibing with that font anymore and want to change it, you simply go into fonts and find one you feel more at peace with…but wait, now you have to change all the fonts!

Simply look at the bottom of the font section and you will see that there is a change all feature! You can click on that and it will switch all of the words that were in the first font to the second font! SO much easier than going page by page.

Hopefully these tips help you on your Canva journey! There is truly so much you can do in Canva now, it feels like magic! These little things can save you so much time!