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Manager canvassing for Canva!

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    • #14406678
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Hey there, my boss wants me to check out Canva because “everyone is using it!!!” I don’t think they necessarily want ME to start designing with it, but they’ve been getting work from other artistes that they want me to work on.
      The designs I’ve gotten so far are not only awful, they would be ridiculous to send to a printer. I don’t want to get into how much work I would need to do to make them accessible.

      I’m getting to be looked upon as someone who is difficult to work with because I’m reluctant to delve into the pros and cons of accepting files created in Canva (among other time-wasting issues). Can anyone out there give me any good reasons to bother with it? Besides the few cons I wrote about, what are the absolute worst things about it, especially for print and accessibility?

      Thanks!

    • #14406680
      Kathryn Lloyd
      Participant

      *following*
      I completely agree with you.

    • #14406684
      Maurice Williams
      Participant

      Canva is very interesting, they are definitely trying to disrupt the way things have been done between designers and clients. I’m looking for a job now and in at least one listing, Canva experience is there as a desired thing! Even our parish priest is creating all his own ads in Canva for the church bulletin. No comment on the quality there :)

      This sort of DIY attitude towards design seems to be the new thing, people who used to hire designers have these options that are ‘good enough’. Canva boasts almost 200 million users vs 30 million for Adobe CC. There’s a big price difference of course, but that’s still a lot of people who have convinced themselves that they can get reasonable work done in Canva. Plenty of developers out there have noticed and come up with their own DIY design platforms (Adobe Express, Penji, VistaCreate, etc)

      Canva continues to improve–I just looked and they now have a video editor. There’s information there about professional PDF accessibility features like tagging and reading order. I’m sure these things are rudimentary compared to Premiere Pro and Acrobat but the Canva people are relentless at getting better.

      I have no answers for you, I would hate to have to deal with Canva documents. In a way it reminds me of my most recent job where we’d get PowerPoint-designed posters to fix for print and Word-designed sales PDFs to remediate before uploading to the Web. Often the only solution was to recreate in InDesign, not sure if you have that option.

    • #14406686
      David
      Member

      Canva is a bad place to learn the ropes of graphic design, especially when it comes to the requirements of print. I can’t tell you how many so-called Canva aficionados have designed a logo in Canva and when they send it over to me in PNG to use in a 30 foot banner don’t know what I’m talking about when I ask them to send the logo to me in vector rather pixel-based format. Add to that, cookie cutter ease of laying out a project is no substitute for talent and experience — whether it’s learning the ropes in Canva or Adobe CC, beginners all seem go through their expected “bevel & emboss,” “drop shadow” and “comic sans” phases.

      • #14406708
        Anonymous
        Inactive

        Who’s Victor, and how is he going to get that logo to me?

        Ah, those effects. I miss the one that was in vogue in the early 90s which made the bottom right hand of the page look like it was curled up.

    • #14406707
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I can’t see any other way to make this work other than recreating it in InDesign. While I’m sure it’ll lose some of its unique aesthetic, I’m sure it’ll also be a faster fix.

      They want me to somehow present a solution in order to delegate design/production work and “make my life easier”. When I get assigned a project, they’re excited for me to “work my magic” and make it look consistent with the quality I’ve been producing for 15+ years.
      Now they’re wanting my other colleagues to pitch in. While I’m the official designer, keeper of the print jobs, and we have a communication team that all projects are supposed to be vetted through, some people have actually produced pieces without my knowledge which have been printed with incorrect logos, typos, edges cut off, etc.

      I know I’m going off on a tangent, but while I do have an option to recreate in ID, they thing I’m yanking their chain and dawdling if I take the time to do that. Because, as you know, when we work our magic, it only takes clicking our heels three times and we’re home free. Or it just takes doing it in Canva because it’s a frigging miracle! Ugh… I used to like my job.

      • #14406731
        David Blatner
        Keymaster

        Not sure if this helps, but I think Markzware.com now has a tool or service that lets you convert Canva files to InDesign.

      • #14406795

        It’s explained at https://markzware.com/products/convertmarkz/ with a video at https://youtu.be/lJX_EouU-Q0
        Exports to InDesign, IDML, Affinity and others, via an app within Canva then via the Markzware site.

        Looks useful, wish I’d known about it for a translation project recently.
        Also, I don’t believe you can get hold of the native Canva files, so you’re at the mercy of their servers. Is that right?

    • #14406824
      Mike Rankin
      Keymaster

      I’ve explored Canva a little bit to see if it’s something we should cover here at CreativePro. The things I’ve noticed that could be problematic for prepress are rasterized type and missing bleeds. Also, it seems to not downsample images when you output to PDF, so some might be too high res to look their best in print.

      And of course, there is zero consideration for accessibility.

      Someone who thinks design is just making things look “pretty” or “cool,” will think Canva is miracle solution. And it is a frictionless experience. Hence the 200M users. But it isn’t a substitute for an experienced professional who designs with intention and their own unique style.

      • #14406840
        Maurice Williams
        Participant

        Completely agree Mike. There are a few PDF accessibility features though, I wonder what your thoughts would be on this page:

        https://www.canva.com/help/pdf-accessibility-features/

      • #14406842
        David Blatner
        Keymaster

        Yes, I know that Dax Castro and Chad Chelius have been working with Canva in recent months. Looks like there has been some movement, which is good news. You can learn more about #a11y stuff at our event coming up (which Dax and Chad were the program chairs of): https://creativepro.com/design-accessibility-summit/

      • #14406853
        Mike Rankin
        Keymaster

        OK, that makes more sense for a company with global ambitions. I was didn’t see any mention of accessibility when I was creating stuff and the PDF I made failed a simple check. But now I see that was my fault for not adding alt text. Thanks, Maurice!

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