Whether you design a resume, presentation, or logo in Canva, there are two main ways to start your new design project: from scratch or using a template.

On your Home page, make sure you’re on the Recommended for you tab on the left sidebar. The top-half of this page shows a list of design formats with different canvas sizes for you to choose from. The bottom-half of the page displays your recent designs.

Choose a design format

When creating a design project, you can choose a preset format or set a custom size.

To choose an existing format, select a design type from the For you section or select More… to view additional options.

To create a canvas from scratch, select the size of your canvas and click Custom size to adjust the size and define a measurement unit.

The unit options are pixels (px), inches (in), centimeters (cm), and millimeters (mm).

• Use pixels(px) when designing graphics meant to be viewed online, such as for your website or social media channel. Pixels should be used for .png, .jpeg, .svg and .mp4 file formats.
• Use inches(in), centimeters (cm), & millimeters (mm) when designing documents and graphics meant to be printed. This unit should be used when exporting designs to PDF.

Click Create new design to launch the Designer.

Select a template

Whether you select a ready-made design format, or set your own size, the Designer will start you off on the templates tab on your left sidebar.

The list of templates that appear are based on the size and measurement unit you set for your canvas.

For instance, in this example we set a custom size of 1920 x 1080 px. So, the template suggestions will display graphics like slide decks or desktop wallpaper that are 1920 x 1080 px. 

Click to apply any design template to your canvas. One of two things can occur:

1. The template you choose will apply directly to your canvas.
2. The template you choose has multiple page variants within it. You can select one or more variants to apply to your canvas.

Add an element or stock photos to your canvas

Templates are made up of elements which include photos, vector art, text, and any other object you apply to your canvas. 

Switch to the elements tab on the left sidebar. Browse through the categories and choose an element to add to your canvas.

Upload and import media

To add your own images, videos, and audio to your project, click the Uploads tab on the left sidebar, and click Upload media to upload files from your computer, or using cloud storage services like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Dropbox. You can also start a webcam recording of yourself and add it directly to your project once you've completed recording.

Add text to your canvas

To add text to your design, select the Text tab on the left sidebar. Choose from the heading options at the top, or scroll to browse hundreds of font presets.
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Did you know? You can upload your own fonts to Canva with a Pro or Enterprise plan and create a brand kit where you can set your heading variations. In the screenshot below, we set up a custom font for our heading, subheading, and body text.

Select a text object to add to your canvas.

You've got the basics down

Your designs in Canva include basic components like canvas size, elements, media, and text. Putting these togåether to create a whole picture for your audience is what makes Canva an intuitive design tool since all these items are in one place. We recommend that you create a canvas to practice with so that you can test different elements, text, media, and other items that will help you make incredible design pieces.