I feel like Canva gets a bad reputation sometimes, and I’m here to set the record straight! Canva is one of the MOST intuitive tools for creators, business owners, and designers. Sure, there’s a learning curve when you first start using the platform… but honestly, that’s true with any tool. Practice really does make a difference.
I’ve used Canva for YEARS, and over time I’ve collected a list of hacks, shortcuts, and design tricks that instantly make content look more polished, cohesive, and professional. These are the exact things I use in my own designs constantly… and once you start using them, you’ll wonder how you ever designed without them.
Here are 15 Canva Design Hacks That Are Easy Ways To Polish Up Your Brand
1. Add a White Outline
If you take a peek at my feed, you’ll notice I use this trick in almost every design. Adding a thin white outline around images instantly makes visuals pop and gives that scrapbook-style effect that’s trending right now.
How to do this: If it’s a photo, you want to remove the background from your image → Click Edit (or Effects) → Shadows → Outline → Change the color to white → Adjust the thickness and save.
2. Create depth
One of the fastest ways to make a Canva design look more elevated is by creating depth through layering. Flat graphics can sometimes feel a little one-dimensional, but adding subtle shadows gives your visuals a more dynamic, almost 3D feel.
How to do this: Select your element → Edit/Effects → Shadows → Choose Glow or Drop Shadow and adjust the intensity to your liking.
3. Add a Gradient
Gradients are one of my favorite ways to improve readability in a design, especially when text is layered over an image. A common mistake I see is poor color contrast, where the text blends into the background and becomes hard to read. Adding a subtle gradient overlay behind your text helps it stand out while still keeping the image visible underneath.
4. Quickly Align Elements
If you’ve ever spent way too long trying to line up text boxes, graphics, or icons manually… Canva’s Tidy Up feature is about to save you SO much time.
How to do this: Highlight all the elements you want aligned → Go to Position → Use the alignment and spacing options under Align Elements.
5. Try the Copy Art Style Feature to make designs cohesive
The NEW Copy Art Style feature allows you to take the style from any element and paste it onto another, so they have the same vibe and feel.
How to do this: Select the element you want to copy → click the paint roller icon → Copy Art Style → Click the element you want to apply it to.
6. Use your Canva Brand Kit!
You can save brand photos, colors, fonts, elements, and graphics that are YOURS into your Brand Kit for easy access. This is a simple way to make sure your brand stays cohesive and always feels like you.
7. Quickly Apply Your Brand Colors to Templates
Once you have your Brand Kit Saved, you can easily shuffle your color palette onto ANY template in just a few clicks. This is an easy way to customize a template so that it feels more like your brand and not just another random Canva template.
8. Create Quick Mockups
Do you sell digital products, a membership, an online course, or another resource? You can quickly create mock-ups with the Frames or Mockups tabs under Elements. You can find mockups for phones, tablets, laptops, and more!
9. Group (or Lock!) Your Elements
A great way to prevent accidental edits is by grouping (or locking!) different elements in your design.
How to do this: Highlight the elements you want grouped → Click Group (or use command + G) You can also lock these elements to prevent any accidental edits, one of my favorite hacks!
10. Quickly add shapes and elements
There are a few keyboard shortcuts that I find myself using ALL the time that I need you to know about.
- Press R for a rectangle
- Press C for a circle
- Press L for a line
- Press T for a textbox
11. Find Similar Elements
Ever find an element you LOVE and wish you could find a ton more that look similar? There’s a super simple way to do this.
How to do this: Right click on the element you love and then select Either “View more by ___” OR View Collection (this isn’t always an option!). That will show you more from that collection by that specific illustrator.
12. The STAR feature!
Did you know that you can Star designs, fonts, or graphics that you love for easy access later?
How to do this: Just click on the three dots and Select ‘Star’ from the drop down menu.
13. Round Corners
Canva recently updated to make corner rounding WAY easier than ever before.
How to do this: Select the shape (i.e. rectangle or screenshot) → Look for the rounder corner tool in the top toolbar → adjust the curve to your liking!
14. Create your own Branded Templates
Tired of starting from scratch every time you open Canva? You can save your favorite designs as Brand Templates, so whenever you want to create a similar design, you can go in and use it a a starting point instead of staring at a blank screen.
How to do this: Click on the share button and then selecting ‘Brand Template.”
15. Add texture to your design
There are a few different ways to do this and it adds a ton of dimension to your content. You can search for different textures (i.e. grainy, paper, etc.) under elements OR go to the texture app under the Apps inside of Canva.
If you learned anything from this blog post, I hope it’s that good design isn’t always about something wildly complicated or impossible… it’s about knowing how to use simple tools and hacks strategically. Most content you see that you save for inspiration is just a collection of small details layered together thoughtfully.
The more you experiment inside Canva, the more confident you’ll become with your designs. SO don’t be afraid to play around, test things out, and make some mistakes along the way. Some of my favorite design tricks happened completely by accident.