Canva is a great tool for creating quick and easy graphics. You can make logos, Instagram images, YouTube thumbnails, printed stationery, and almost anything else you can think of.

Canva’s template feature allows for quick additions, reusing similar layouts or elements, as well as utilizing color schemes. Canva’s Brand Kit feature allows you to do that even faster by saving your brand style guide for fast, one-click access as templates or color palettes.

What Is the Brand Kit Feature in Canva?

As a designer, you might’ve created branded style guides for brands and companies, or even branded yourself as a freelancer. These often include a main logo, possibly a supplemental logo, one or two brand fonts, and a color scheme to adhere to.

Using Canva, there is a way to plug in your brand’s style guide for quick use when designing posts or other pieces. The Brand Kit feature allows you to store a color scheme that’s always available, as well as your brand’s logo and selected fonts.

You can add your branding automatically to a variety of Canva posts which saves you time and energy when creating branded designs.

Can You Use Canva’s Brand Kit for Free?

While many of Canva’s great features are available in the free version, Canva’s Brand Kit feature is only available to Canva Pro subscribers.

You can access Canva Pro for free for a trial period. From the browser version, you can get a 30-day free trial. From the mobile or tablet app, you’re offered a 14-day free trial. You can subscribe to Canva Pro for $10.99 monthly.

You can manually add your branding to Canva for free without using the Brand Kit feature, but you’ll have to upload the logo, font, and colors each time you design a post. The Brand Kit feature allows this all to happen automatically. The time you’ll save using the Brand Kit will be worth the money spent on Canva Pro.

How to Set Up Your Canva Brand Kit

After signing in to your Canva Pro account, from the Canva homepage, select Brand on the left-hand menu. This will take you to the Brand Kit setup page.

Name your brand style by selecting Untitled Brand Kit. Then it’s time to add the brand details. As you scroll on the Brand page, there are different sections: Logos; Colors; Fonts. You can upload individually to these sections, but for a smoother process with visual aids, you can set up your brand within one system.

To create your brand harmoniously, select Get started. This opens a new page where you can set up your brand in one place. It provides visuals to show you how your brand could look with each decision you make.

There are five numbered sections on this page:

• Profile
• Logos
• Colors
• Fonts
• Templates

Profile

Under the first section, you should type the name of the company or the brand name you’re creating the visuals for. This is only for your purpose, so you can make up a nickname or use your own name for a personal brand.

If your brand has a website, you can input that in the box below the name. If there is a logo associated with the website, Canva will pull that logo. In the case of using a social media website, it may pull the social media’s logo rather than your brand’s. It’s optional to use a website here; skip it if it’s irrelevant.

Logos

If you included a website and the logo was pulled, you don’t have to re-upload the same logo. But if an incorrect logo—such as the Instagram logo—was pulled, or an incorrect version of your brand’s logo, then you can select the X on the logo file and re-upload the correct file.

Uploading your logo in PNG format with a transparent background will work best. The templates will change color to reflect the colors in your logo. Any size will work, so don’t worry about resizing your logo or chosen image. You can only upload one logo file to the Brand Kit at this point, but if you have a secondary logo, you can add it manually later.

Colors

The Colors panel shows many palettes, including a generated palette based on the colors in your logo, labeled Original Palette. There are also four randomly generated Discover Palettes with a wide variety of random themes. Select a palette to apply that style to the templates.

After selecting a palette, it offers a shuffle option. Selecting Shuffle will change the color order on the templates—for example, if the original was orange on black, shuffling will switch that to black on orange.

If none of the generated palettes tickle your fancy, select Edit next to the top color palette. Each color can be replaced with any color you desire. After selecting Edit, highlight which color swatch to change and use the color spectrum or HEX code to replace it.

Select + to add more colors, and apply color theory to elevate your palette.

Fonts

Next, add a brand font. Select Add a font. You can either scroll through the list of fonts—these will be Canva free fonts, Canva Pro fonts, and any fonts in your computer system—to locate your chosen font. Or you can search for it.

If you already know the name of the font you use, type it into the search bar. Or if you’re having trouble finding what you’re looking for, type a style—like Cursive or Sans Serif—into the search bar to help narrow down your options. See these great Canva fonts if you need inspiration.

Many brands use one main font and a secondary font. Pick two fonts and make sure they work together and offer something unique to the brand. Most designers use a more legible font for body text and a more creative font for titles or names. You can use the Shuffle option if you’re struggling to pick fonts.

Templates

The final menu item is Templates. Canva is the home of template design—you can easily make your own Canva templates to publish—and your brand should follow a template style for the best effect.

Choose between four template style options: Simple; Playful; Minimal; Modern. You can always go back through the other menu items to change things that don’t work anymore. Perhaps your font was too out there to go with your colors or template style. Keep changing things around until your brand feels on point.

How to Save the Brand

Once you’ve ironed out all the details, select Continue and Canva will generate and save your Brand Kit, creating templates for various design purposes. Use your branded templates in the same way as other Canva design templates. You can easily implement your Brand Kit when creating a personal website in Canva.

Note that you can only access your saved Brand Kit while you retain or use a Canva Pro subscription. If you downgrade to the free Canva version, you’ll lose access to the branding. However, you can recreate everything—albeit, more tediously—using Canva’s free features.

To access your saved brand templates, select the Projects tab, then the title of your brand.

If you want to implement your brand into other designs, when changing a color, you’ll have the option of adding your brand color palette to the design.

The same for fonts: change a font in any design, then choose Text Styles and find your brand fonts listed.

Simplify Your Branded Projects With Canva’s Brand Kits

Creating a Brand Kit in Canva is a great way to save time and mental energy for branding posts, designs, flyers, or anything else you’re creating in Canva. It takes only a few minutes to set up, and for as long as you have a Canva Pro subscription, you can easily implement your branding into any template.