Does Canva Work For Printed Banners?

Does Canva work for large printed banners?
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Canva has become the go-to for design needs. It’s easy to use, great for rookies and looks good. Yet, if you try to use it for all your printing needs, you may find yourself with a really low quality outcome. How to know when Canva is ideal or impractical? 

Will My Canva Artwork Design Work For Large Backdrop Prints?

No it won’t.

That being established, let’s delve into the reason why.

Canva creates raster images. That means that the graphics are made out of pixels: tiny boxes of color. Each picture is a combination of thousands of those colored boxes.

Pixelated images are great for photographs or images on your screen. The problem starts once you try to enlarge them as they often appear pixelated and blurry.

Vector images on the other hand can be compared to a blueprint. It’s made up of paths; dots, lines, and shapes that are automatically recalculated when enlarged. This means they will always be clear regardless of the size of the initial design.

Large banners such as stage banners for events require vector images in order to be clear and sharp. Canva has a limited capacity and using it for such files will result in a subpar outcome.

Pro Tip: Use our aspect ratio print size chart to determine the ideal banner size for an event before creating your banner design.

What Kind of Design Is Canva Good For?

Looking to design digital products? Canva is a good start and may be your best bet if you’re trying to DIY. They offer a full range of templates for all your digital needs.

1. Social Media Campaigns

Canva’s platform is user-friendly and extremely easy to navigate. They regularly update their templates with the newest trends and latest designs, allowing users to reach their target audience effectively.

Canva offers brand kits which allows you to use templates optimized for social media campaigns. The Brand Kit enables business owners to easily manage their designs and ensure all social media branding criteria are met.

2. YouTube Videos

You need your YouTube videos to stand out, and Canva offers a wide variety of templates to help you do just that!

They keep growing their library of YouTube templates giving you the possibility to design something fresh or super specific. Canva makes it easy for YouTubers to enhance their channel’s graphics and branding. 

It’s is a great way to make your YouTube channel look professional and stand out. 

Check them out for the full variety of inspiration for the above mentioned options in addition to WhatsApp groups, blog posts, thumbnails, etc. 

Is Canva Good For Any Type Of Printing?

Let’s say you don’t just want to use Canva for your digital needs, can you use it for printing needs too? Let’s explore.

While Canva may be a great solution for creating digital content such as social media posts, YouTube videos, or blog posts, it is primarily designed for digital projects, and is therefore not recommended when designing for professional printing.

Printing Canva Templates

Be aware of the following limitations before choosing to print from Canva.

1. Color Deviation

Images displayed on screens are made up of hundreds of pixels using different combinations of red, green, and blue light. (Commonly known as RGB)

The print industry uses CMYK. 

CMYK includes the color black, which is needed to cancel out the lighter color of paper. This makes it easier to view and read.

Canva, by default, uses RGB. 

As a result, this can lead to color discrepancies between what you see on your screen and what is printed. Many times the colors appear washed out or too vibrant.

2. Embedding Fonts

Printers will generally request that fonts be embedded when submitting artwork.

This translates to mean that you are converting the fonts to lines and artwork, rather than an editable text field. 

This ensures that it appears precisely where and how you intended.

There is no way to embed fonts in Canva which may lead to difficulties and inaccuracies in printing. 

3. Poor Output Quality

Canva is designed and most suited for online use. 

Therefore its output quality is not on professional standards. This may result in low-quality prints that will look blurry or unclear even after using the correct image size, changing the resolution, or downloading in the recommended format. 

So, in a nutshell, Canva printing is generally recommended for simple paper products and small promotional items.

Need to print a large banner? Our top quality printing methods will meet your satisfaction. Contact us to get your quote today!

Chevi Holland

Chevi Holland