Branding is very important for any startup to distinguish yourself from competitors and communicate your values. But as a startup founder, you’ve got a hundred and one things to do each day. Also, you haven’t got much of a budget to dedicate to hiring a dedicated branding expert. Don’t worry! Here are some ways you can get high quality graphic design at a low cost.
Top tool for doing it yourself: Canva
Canva is possibly the best thing since sliced bread. It allows anyone to easily create high quality designs, regardless of their level of creativity or technological competency. It has a wide range of free templates available ranging from social media posts and logos to letterheads and presentations.
Canva’s editing interface is really easy to use. There is an extensive library of free images (some cost $1 USD), but you can also upload your own images. Designs can be easily shared with members of your team via a shareable link. Just be aware that you won’t be able to have multiple people editing at the same time. In saving your design, there are various download formats available (JPG, PNG, PDF) or you can even post your design directly to social media.
In terms of pricing, there are both free and paid options. The free option is good enough for most purposes. Just note that it won’t allow you to resize your design, so you’ll need to manually create new versions of the same item to be used for different platforms.
The paid option called ‘Canva for Work’ is around £10 per user per month, and you can try it for free for 30 days. A cool feature is that it allows you to save colours, logos and other templates for your brand to ensure consistency across your marketing materials. Also, the Magic Resize tool allows you to easily change the dimensions to suit your needs. If you’re a registered nonprofit, you might be able to get ‘Canva for Work’ for free!
Besides the design editor, Canva also has other helpful tools such as a free online photo editor, a font combination finder, and design tutorials to help you make the most of its features and create visually stunning designs.
What if you don’t have the time to do it yourself?
Outsourcing design work can free up time for you to focus on important strategic tasks. However, hiring a digital agency can be expensive and trying to communicate with professional freelancers can be troublesome if there are time differences and language barriers.
Did you know that there are many young freelancers in your local area with experience in graphic design? They are tech-savvy digital natives who are willing to work at affordable rates in return for valuable experience. Being able to meet with them face-to-face enables you to have greater oversight over your project and build greater rapport than you could with a remote worker. Hiring a local young freelancer is also a great way to find talent that you could potentially recruit to join your team in the long term!
A little Canva example from us 🙂
Creating beautiful designs for your brand does not need to be difficult. Check out Canva or get in touch with a young graphic design freelancer and take your brand to the next level.
Keep up the great work!
Rachel, CrowdSkills