The world has since changed since Canva made entry into a market that had mostly left design work to design people through
hard-copy software discs and application suites that were only decipherable by nerdy graphic designers. Its work was revolutionary – simplifying the design process to a few clicks and making it so accessible that laypeople could put together semi-professional designs very quickly and avoid using designers (that may have charged them a fortune). This cost-saving blueprint skyrocketed Canva’s usage so much so that 9 years post-launch, it amassed 99 million new users.
While this isn’t a Canva ad, their success has been undeniable as their impact on the entire design industry. But somewhere, someone bogged down by a design project is probably puzzled about whether to ring up a designer or go the way of the world and use Canva from start to finish or may even be so confused about which option is better. We hope to take away some of this confusion by explaining these few things.
Context: This is the scenario you are currently in. What kind of project is it? A new one? Are there new users, customers, or audiences? Or are you speaking to people already familiar with what you are doing? Do you have an established visual identity that the world can recognise you with? How important is it to appear unique?
Cost: How much would a designer amount to? Is this something you have budgeted for? How much would Canva cost for the very thing you want? What would you be sacrificing? How much impact will the choice between the two (Canva or your designer) have on the overall goal you are trying to achieve?
Duration: How long would your need run for? Are there critical deadlines or targets that must be met? What happens if the deadlines aren’t met? Is the situation something you can handle?
Know-how: Have you had to produce a digital design before? How much time do you think it would take to learn how to (if you don’t know how)? Will you be confident in what you make? Or will this added task distract you from what you actually want to do? What’s most important to you: communicating effectively to your world or adding design as a new skill? (we mean this in the most unjudgmental way). Where would you have the most impact, talking to your audience directly or working in the background? How curious are you about designs? Will that affect how quickly your project needs to proceed?
These 23 questions we have asked isn’t to confuse you in any way. The clearer you know what to do is, the higher your impact in the end will be – which is why we exist – to value your wishes. We can’t conclusively say one option is better than the other as our individual situations are very different. You could be a social media manager who needs to send out content very quickly and often and may not be patient enough to wait on a graphic designer’s work, so, mass-producing with free Canva templates may work just fine for you. No sweat. Conversely, you may be a bakery that needs a themed recipe page and persuasive newsletter sent to your Muslim patrons throughout Ramadan to keep your sales up and find that a graphic designer who understand this context would communicate better, again, no biggies.
