Anyone who owns a business, runs a blog, or has a side hustle has heard of the wonders of Canva. Instead of creating documents and designs from scratch, business owners pick from the thousands of templates Canva offers to advertise, invoice, and promote in whatever way they need. The free graphic design site is extremely easy to use and ideal for amateurs who want professional-looking logos, business cards, and presentations. It’s the ultimate tool for brands looking to curate a cohesive social media presence with as little effort as possible.
If you’re a small business owner, freelancer, or entrepreneur of any kind, Canva is simply a really great resource for creating high-quality materials at no cost. 
Before we get into what templates you should be snagging to make your life easier, here’s a brief introduction to Canva and how it can help. 
Canva is a treasure trove of highly customizable design templates, most of which are free. Its extensive library of templates includes everything from graphs and gift certificates to posters and project plans.
Creating a Canva account takes only a minute, and then you’re off to craft graphics of all sorts with total ease. First, you pick a template for your project and change fonts and colors. Next, upload images and logos, then download what you’ve created. Your projects will be saved to your Canva account so that you can always access them for edits. 
More than 600,000 templates
Brand Kit aligns all your fonts, colors, logos, etc
Background Eraser replaces the need for Photoshop
Multiple users
Much of what Canva offers can be accessed for free, but premium plans offer even more robust design resources. Some templates are only available with an upgraded account (these are marked with a tiny yellow crown on the lower-left corner of the template). The premium version of Canva has lots of additional features and gains you access to over 600,000 templates, millions of stock photos, thousands of fonts, and unlimited folders. 
One of the best features of the premium plan is the ability to create your own brand kit. The Brand Kit allows you to upload your specific brand colors, logos, and signature fonts so that all of your designs are cohesive and instantly accessible for you to customize any template. This works well with the Content Scheduler feature, which allows you to connect up to eight social media platforms, including Instagram and Pinterest, guaranteeing you’ll be on top of publishing well-branded content across multiple channels. The ProPlan’s Background Eraser is ideal for anyone who isn’t skilled with Photoshop but needs to make basic photo edits. 
As your business grows, you can expand your team and add up to five people to Canva with a ProPlan. This is massively helpful when the workload is too much, and you need to delegate. Everyone on your team has access to the premium features and can share their creations with other team members. This also means team members can collaborate on projects together. 
A ProPlan upgrade costs $119.99 for the year. If you’re unsure whether the premium package is worth the price tag, there’s also 30-day free trial.
There is a free Canva mobile app, which is well-designed for business owners on the go and makes it easy to edit templates anywhere. Creating a pin for Pinterest or filling out an invoice is as easy as texting. Or, if you’d rather, you can search for specific images and templates by speaking into your phone, thanks to Canva mobile’s Siri capabilities.
It might seem outdated, but every business owner seems more legitimate when they have business cards. Having business cards at the ready comes across as prepared and professional – two things every entrepreneur wants. They’re vital for networking and getting essential information, like where to buy your goods or book your services, directly into clients’ hands. Business cards should include your business name, an email address and phone number, and social media handles.
Portfolios, media kits, pricing booklets, and more – there’s no end to what the presentation templates offered by Canva can be crafted into. They can also be used for more traditional slideshows in place of Google Slides or PowerPoint presentations. If you have a ProPlan, you can have multiple people collaborate on a single project. Presentation templates have multiple layout designs that work for almost any business need you might have.
Invoicing is part of owning a small business or a side hustle. Creating invoices, especially for the first time without anything to go off of, can be a pain, but they’re a necessary evil. Business owners send invoices to request payment from clients and keep track of their sales for inventory. It’s such a critical part of running a business, but there’s no need to overcomplicate it. Templates for invoices will save you time creating your own, and you can add your logo for a thoughtfully tailored look. The only downside is that you have to download your invoice every time for your records or duplicate it in your Canva library before you edit it. Otherwise, only the most recent edit will be saved.
A logo is the foundation of your brand identity. It grabs customer attention and makes a first impression. An eye-catching logo is crucial for brand awareness, but hiring a professional to design a custom logo for your business can be costly. Not to mention, it takes time to convey your brand identity and vision to a designer so that they can make exactly what you’re looking for. Canva has thousands of attractive logo templates that can be customized using your preferred colors and fonts. Your logo design can even be used to further create merchandise, like stickers.
Pinterest is one of the best ways for businesses, especially blogs, to get noticed. People “pin” images to virtual “boards” that organize everything from travel ideas to DIY projects. Every pinned image is linked to a site, which drives traffic to a webpage. This is also a fantastic way to show off branded images you may have of your products or services, as Pinterest is a highly visual platform.
Keeping orders, deadlines, and important dates straight is the key to avoiding overwhelm. It’s also believed that keeping a calendar massively helps decrease anxiety and helps manage stress. Go with a minimal calendar template to lessen distractions, or print off a more colorful design that includes a to-do list and space for notes. Calendar templates are also beneficial to bloggers and social media creators looking to plan out their content.
Topics Careers
Tara Tadlock is a freelance contributor for Mashable.

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