How to find the right fonts, colors, and brand elements to create a brand guide for your brand in Canva.
Welcome to the second lesson in my “Create your own brand in Canva course”
In Canva you can create a whole brand board where you insert your logo, your graphic brand elements, your brand colors and your brand fonts. A brand guide is crucial for you to always work fast and know where to find things. As your business grows and you might need to hire a marketing assistant or a freelancer and it’s important that you have a brand guide where they quick and easy can go find the right colors, fonts and elements to create content for you, so you stay cohesive with your brand.
Let’s start with the colors:
How to find the right colors for your brand:
We have already found some colors that we like and added them to our mood board. Now we add them to our brand kit in Canva but first let’s refresh what kind of colors a color palette should include:
- Pick 1-2 main colors
- Get a light complimentary light color for the main colors
- Have one light base color
- One very dark tone
- Get an eye-catching accent color you can use for CTA’s and buttons on your website and newsletters.
📌 PIN THIS FOR LATER
Now you open Canva, first you open your mood board where you have your colors ready. Then you open another Canva window by going to the menu in the left side and click on brand under the tools menu.
Here you can create a branding kit that always has your brand colors and fonts ready to use. Click on the “+ add new” in the right corner and click on brand kit. Name your Kit. Here you can upload your logo, we will get to that later. For now you can scroll down to colors.
Now you open the fan with the brand board and click on the color square and here you pick your colors. Click on one of the small color squares first and then on the color in the top bar.
Now you can pick one of the colors from the images by clicking on it. Do that with all the 5-6 colors you want for your brand.
When you have done that you click on the color and the + sign, now you can copy the color code and insert it in you brand kit. Do this with all the colors you want in your brand kit.
Now let’s find you some cool fonts…
How to find the right fonts for your brand:
Finding your own fonts in Canva can seem rather overwhelming because there is so many of them. And using the right fonts for your brand is so important to add the right personality to you brand.
- Start with opening a new design in Canva. It could be an A4 page. Write down your business name, name and maybe your catchphrase.
- Then you try to experiment with it in different kinds of fonts. Decide on 2-3 fonts.
- A headline font. In this case, I go with a serif font called: The seasons
- A subheading style. I often find a script font for that, to jazz up social media graphics. This one is called Brittany
- A body style font for all of the text on your home page and other places with a lot of text. Here I go with a san serif font called Open sans light
If you are very unsure, go with some classic fonts. It can be tempting to go with something fun, but you will get tired of that and it can leave the wrong impression. But definitely spend some time playing around with it
Go to your branding kit and add the fonts you want to be part of that your brand. You do that by going to the font section, click on the + add new.
How to find the right brand elements for your brand in Canva:
Now we need to find some brand elements that we can use on your social media graphics , in your brand pattern, on your website and on your business card.
Go to the canva main page and search for brand board. Canva has a lot of templates you can use.
Pick one you like, delete the element in there so you start fresh with a blank page and start adding your fonts and colors to your brand guide like I have done here
Now you go to the elements bar in the left side, click on graphics. Since we are creating a boho-inspired brand we search for boho leaf or boho elements in the search bar.
If you only want free elements you can click on the right side of the search bar and scroll down to the bottom. Check off “free” under price. And then it will only find free elements, but if you are serious about your business I would definitely recommend you to invest in the paid version of Canva. it will be one of the best investments you can make.
Now pick 3-5 graphic elements you like and that resonate with your branding. Make sure that they all have the option to change colors on them, so you can change them to your brand colors.
Try searching for different terms like: boho elements or boho sun or Boho aesthetic. add them to your brand guide and change their colors into your brand colors
Now we have some of our brand guide in place. if you still don’t have brand photos, then search for some in the photos section and use them to create a vibe on social media and on your website until you have your own brand photos.
Now your brand guide is almost ready, all we need is a logo we can insert into it. Let’s go design a logo.