Having a strong and consistent branding is essential for your business – whether you're just starting out or you're an established business trying to grow even more. Creating a brand kit makes all of your content creation easier, from social media graphics to digital products to blog posts and media kits.
A brand kit is a collection of assets (such as brand logos, fonts, and colors) that represent you and is a mini-overview of your business. This ensures that all of your branding materials have a consistent look and feel, so you can make a lasting impression on your audience.
Putting together a professional and beautiful brand kit doesn't have to be intimidating – and you don't have to be a graphic designer!
In this blog post, I'll give you a step-by-step tutorial on how to create your brand kit in Canva. Canva has so many features and is so user-friendly!
Note: This tutorial uses the free version of Canva. However, at the end of the post I'll share some reasons why upgrading to a Canva Pro account is definitely worth it and why I'm a happy Canva Pro subscriber.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at not cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see our full disclosure for more information.
What is canva?
Canva is an amazing, powerful graphic design tool that's available online or as a mobile app to use on your desktop or mobile device. But – I find this process much easier on a laptop or desktop with a bigger screen!
1. Determine Your Visual Style
The first step in creating your brand kit in Canva is to determine your visual style. This means deciding on the look, feel, and overall aesthetic you want to convey through your visual branding.
Are you:
- modern and minimalist
- classic and sophisticated
- boho chic
- bold and bright
- soft and feminine
- quirky and animated
You'll want to choose a style that represents you, but that also appeals to your target audience. I market to moms, and the vast majority dream about beach vacations like I do. So – I hope my colors are appealing!
So think about your style, your personality, your quirkiness and what makes you unique.
Here are some brands from friends online that totally convey their unique style:
- My biz mentor Sadie Smiley – bold and bright.
- My friend Andreia at Spreadsheetables – colorful and approachable.
- My friend Samantha at The Traditional Housewife – feminine and welcoming.
2. Create Your Brand Colors
It’s time to create your brand color palette! Have fun with this! Your brand should make you happy every time you look at it.
If you're stuck here, just think about what appeals to you. I love starting with a picture and drawing inspiration from it. For instance, the colors for Lake House Mom are based on a beach photo from a trip to Anna Maria Island that I took with my family.
Do you have a favorite picture that inspires you? From a vacation, from your hometown, or maybe even a piece of clothing or a view out your window.
Canva has an amazing color palette tool that can pull a color palette from a picture! Just upload your own or something from a stock image site that you think is beautiful.
Here's the colors that Canva pulled for another website of mine. Pretty magical, right? So simple to create a cohesive brand palette.
If you don't have a picture you want to use, you can choose from a variety of color palettes in Canva's library. You can edit anything you find, so don't feel like you're stuck if you only like 3 of the 4 colors!
Then, a good rule of thumb is to narrow it down to three to five colors that you will use as the main colors for your brand. Your brand kit should include a guide to the exact colors you will use, including the HEX code for each color.
Have your amazing color palette chosen? Fantastic. Let's move on!
3. Select Your Fonts
After you've chosen your brand colors, it's time to move to the next step in your brand kit: selecting your font styles. So. Much. Fun!
For fonts, you'll want to choose two complementary typefaces for headings and subheadings that will work well together – usually one print font and one script font. Then, choose a font for paragraphs and longer written text. As with all these style decisions, consider your brand’s personality when choosing fonts.
It's also important to consider the legibility of your fonts, particularly if you plan to use them for body text. Make sure your font choices are easy to read and don't strain the eyes.
Pro tip: Canva has a TON of amazing fonts to choose from, and inside the text tool are lots of font pairings to inspire you (or use) if you feel stuck.
Side note: If you want to take a trip to font wonderland… my friend, you need to visit Creative Fabrica. Land of unlimited, amazing fonts (and clipart, and AI art, and craft patters, and KDP book interiors, and… and…). For the price of a Starbucks per month, you get unlimited downloads!
But you need Canva Pro to add custom fonts. More on that below.
4. Create a simple logo
Don't let logo creation be a stumbling block. If you get stuck on things being perfect (like I do) then the simplest thing is to take one of your chosen fonts and make a simple text logo.
I know I could lose HOURS trying to tweak and perfect a logo – hours that feel productive but don't move the needle forward in my business at all. I made a simple text logo for my blog and it's certainly not stopping my blog growth! Don't be afraid to start simple.
Canva's logo maker is fun and easy to use – if you love designing and won't get too caught up in endless edits!
Be aware that because the logo maker tool and graphic elements are free for any Canva users, you cannot copyright or trademark logos made with Canva's logo maker. But you can use them on social media, your blog, your marketing materials, and anything else you like!
5. Put it all together.
Let's talk about how creating your own brand kit will make your life easier!
My brand board lives on my desk in a page proctor within easy reach at all times!
- No more searching for your color HEX codes
- No more remembering your favorite font names
- A cohesive look for any brand elements you design, from social media images to blog graphics to printed marketing materials
6. Upgrade to Canva Pro to make life easier.
There are quite a few benefits upgrading to a Canva Pro account for your small business.
put your brand kit in canva
All that work you just did on your brand identity? You can upload it all into Canva.
Your logo, colors, and custom fonts can all be uploaded into your brand kit on Canva. You can even have multiple brands! The magic of this is that whenever you go to create something for your business, from social media graphics to videos to printables… your colors and fonts will be right there waiting for you to create with!
Right now I have three different brand kits in Canva. I can have as many as I want, and switch between them even while I'm in the midst of creating a design, from the text selector pane. Sometimes I create a new brand kit just for creative inspiration when I'm stuck on a different project (I'm weird that way).
Yes, there is an extra cost: Canva Pro accounts are $12 monthly. But here are some other reasons why a Pro account makes sense for your small business:
The background remover tool.
So easy. This tool allows you to remove the background from photos… AND videos! YES – videos. Talk about a game changer.
lots more graphic and video elements.
Canva's entire library of elements is open to you as a Pro user!
Note: there has been some ongoing confusion regarding using pro graphics for commercial products to be sold (like printables and print on demand). Canva's license is not the clearest and I don't think they originally saw the scope of how people would use their tool.
I recommend reaching out to Canva support directly to ask about using graphics for your creations so you are 100% clear.
Or, you can skip the confusion regarding usage and use the non-pro/free graphics from Canva, or get any clipart you can image at my favorite place, Creative Fabrica.
save png files with transparent backgrounds.
No need to go to another online graphic converter tool to get transparent backgrounds. Canva does it for you, with one click!
Here's a little pic I made by layering clipart. I saved it as a PNG with a transparent background so I can use it anywhere and there won't be a white block around it (like there would be if I downloaded as a JPG).
Just choose PNG from the download dialog, and click the checkbox for transparent backgrounds.
SCHEDULE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA.
Yes! Canva Pro has a social media scheduler now! You don't need to pay for another tool to schedule social media posts.
Design in Canva and schedule right from there! EASY PEASY!
I hope this tutorial has inspired you to make your brand board, and to dive into Canva Pro (use my affiliate link there and get a 30-day free trial!) and upload your brand kit there to make all your creating faster and easier!
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