This week was one of the more frustrating weeks for me with PR Pubs. As someone who prides themselves in understanding the Adobe Suit (at least to a working extent), I have secretly thought less of and judged anyone who said Canva was their primary tool for graphic creation. This without a doubt came from my ill-informed understanding of the simplicity and weak application of the web-based application. Needless to say, when I saw all of our work this week was coming from this program, I audibly laughed to myself. I distinctly remember logging onto Canvas Monday, seeing the Canva tutorials, and thinking to myself, “well this should be a waste of time”.
Needless to say, I was wrong.
Our “Social Media Sprint” assignment creating four distinct, social media specific publications using only Canva was a much more exciting project than I anticipated. Before even setting foot on any tutorial, I was incredibly impressed with Canva’s interface and branding. The simple, clean design really caught my eye and made we want to like this program I was being forced to try against my will. Without a doubt my favorite aspect of this website is the water-like animation Canva makes when it’s uploading a picture to your workstation. Very small, I understand, but it is so much more enjoyable than watching a typical load bar and it makes those infuriating few seconds not terrible. After the initial struggle of figuring out the mechanics and interface of Canva, I quickly began to really enjoy the production tools. As a former Adobe purist, I can really see the application of Canva from a professional standpoint. What took me maybe 5 minutes to create in Canva would have easily taken me at least 10 in Illustrator, Photoshop, or InDesign. Although you don’t have the flexibility of being able to make minute changes to individual elements within your document like you do in Adobe products, the big-picture minimalistic approach to Canva’s tool allows really anyone to create professional looking content with pre-loaded templates incredibly quickly.
Overall, I am proud to say that I am no longer an Adobe purist. Do I still prefer “The Suit” to Canva? Probably. However, I have a newfound appreciation for an application I wrongly mocked for over a year.
