Creating a mood board using Canva

- [Instructor] If you're just starting out as a designer, it takes time to figure out what tools will work best for your needs. So signing up for pricey software straightaway often isn't practical, but I have a solution: Canva. Canva is a free graphic design app that has an impressive range of features. Here's a mood board I created using Canva. It was easy to make, and in this movie, I'll take you through how I did it. First, go to canva.com. Once you're all set up with a free account, the first thing we'll do is click on templates. Now under browse by category, select photo collages. Then select mood boards. Canva has lots of great mood board templates, but we're going to scroll down and select the "All Shades of Blue & Green" template. Then click use this template. So here's the workspace interface. On the template, when you click on a cell, its editable properties appear on the upper left of the workspace. On the far left are elements you can use to customize your template. We'll start with imagery. You can add your own imagery by clicking uploads and inserting files. In this case, let's use Canva's stock photo library, go ahead and click on photos. I kept with the template's plant theme so let's type in plants. Choose an image and drag it over the frame you want to place it in and it will insert itself. Double click it to align the photo the way you want it. To delete an image, click on the frame and delete. To move an image, right click and select detach image. Then you can pop it into another frame. You also have options for tweaking your images. One I think is important for mood boards is tint. Often you can find an image you like, but its tint doesn't coordinate well with your color palette. You can adjust the tint so it looks more cohesive with your palette. Now we'll add to our color palette. Click on a frame and then click on the color icon on the upper left. Here you can type in your own colors or select a new color. Canva also automatically generates palettes based on your imagery. We can add font ideas for your mood board by clicking the text icon and adding a text type and then selecting a font. Finally, we can customize the template itself. Elements allows you to add features to your template. For example, if you wanted to use circles to display your color palette, instead of using the template's grid, just drag in a circle and position it. You can duplicate any part of your template by using the duplicate button. Elements also has imagery suitable for simple logos. Once you're happy with your mood board, it's time to share it or export it. To share it, click the share button and type in an email address. To export it, click the download arrow and select a file type to save it to your files. There you have it, a quality mood board you can share with your clients using Canva. Sign up for a free account, play around with it and see what you can create.