creating social images with canva

Featured Images on

Canva Training

Marice Sy

Featured Images Must Be

Simple (so they’re easy to make)

Beautiful (to attract audiences)

Informative (to support content)

Legal (to keep us out of trouble)

Image Specs

1720 x 1066 px72 dpi

INSPIRATION

A Good Photo#1

Decorative Text + Photo + Overlay#2

#3Icon / Illustration + Background

#4Icon + Text

#5Collage

#5Text Driven

Hall of Nope

Good image, but low res. Good image, wrong dimensions.

Good image, but add a vignette.

Wrong dimensions, image does not inform the content.

Hall of Yup

Simple, high-res image that informs the content it is advertising.

Simple, informative, beautiful, and totally legal.

Subtle vignette helps the white background.

Informative and beautiful

Yay Kristin!

Featured Image Checklist❏Your featured image is sized at 1720 x 1066

❏You do not have all-white edges on your image.

❏The image is bright, friendly, and beautiful.

❏The text in your image is legible.

❏Your featured image informs the content.

❏You have attributed the photographer/icon maker in your blog post.

Royalty-Free Stock Photo ResourcesPexels (https://www.pexels.com/)Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/)Gratistography (http://www.gratisography.com/)Little Visuals (http://littlevisuals.co/)New Old Stock (http://nos.twnsnd.co/)Picjumbo (https://picjumbo.com/)Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/)SplitShire (http://www.splitshire.com/)Superfamous (http://images.superfamous.com/)Stockvault (http://www.stockvault.net/)

More ResourcesFlickr Creative Commons (https://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/)IMCreator Photos(http://www.imcreator.com/free)You can also check out https://blog.bufferapp.com/free-image-sources-list for a free list of more stock photo options.The Noun Project (https://thenounproject.com) is a great resource for free icons, although many of them require attribution.

When you download a PNG that requires attribution, simply crop out the attribution line and credit the maker at the bottom of your blog post and in the Featured Image description.

Writing a blog?Noice.

Read the Blog Checklist first.

Canva Tutorial

A Quick intro to the Canva Interface

Setting Up Your Featured Image1.Click “Use Custom Dimensions” in the upper-right.

2.Enter 1720 x 1066 px3.Click “Design”!

Uploading Your Own Image1.Click “uploads” on the left sidebar.

2.Drag + Drop your image into your browser, or click

I want to collaborate on designs!1.Great idea!

2.Click on “share” on the upper-right corner

3.Enter the email address of the person with whom you want to collaborate

4.Tick “Share/email as a collaborative design”.

5.Here’s Canva’s tutorial on how to do that.

Canva is really intuitive.You really don’t need an instruction manual to learn how to use it.The best way to learn how to use it is to play around with it for a

few minutes. To guide you on your way, here is the Canva Tutorial Page.