CC-BY Michelle Pacansky-Brock (made with Canva.com)

One of the things I am loving the most of about our creation-centered culture is how much easier it is getting to create beautiful content! But I still find myself longing to be able to create dreamy looking graphics for my online classes, blog, and more — without spending a lot of money on fancy tools and lots of time on figuring out how to use them.

So, falling head over heads for Canva.com wasn’t too difficult for me.  Canva is still in beta — so don’t get too excited, as it’s not yet open to the general public — but you should definitely know about it if you are a content creator with a flair for the visual. It touts itself as “amazingly simple graphic design,” which it is for the most part. There’s a learning curve, yes, like any tool.  And who knows if I’m doing things right but so far I like what I’m making and that’s all that really matters to me.

I sent a Tweet to the kind folks at Canva requesting to be included in their beta and they set me up with an account.  Here are a couple of banners I created for a new online faculty development class I’m teaching this quarter. What do you think?

Canva includes templates for getting started with business cards, Facebook banners, posters, cards, blog graphics, flyers, and more! Collaborating with others on a project is simple too. Happy creating!