Canva is a powerful online design tool that helps you create stunning visuals for your brand. Whether you need a logo, a flyer, a social media post, or a website, Canva has you covered with thousands of templates and millions of images, icons, fonts, and graphics.
But how do you ensure that your designs are consistent and aligned with your brand identity? How do you avoid spending hours searching for the right assets or tweaking the colors and fonts every time you create a new design? How do you make sure that your team members and collaborators follow the same style guidelines and create a cohesive brand image?
That’s where the Brand Hub comes in. The Brand Hub is a new feature in Canva that allows you to centralize your brand assets and guidelines in one place, and access them easily within the Canva editor. With the Brand Hub, you can:
- Create and manage multiple Brand Kits for different projects or clients: A Brand Kit is a collection of brand elements that define your brand identity, such as logos, colors, fonts, icons, imagery, graphics, and brand guidelines. You can create as many Brand Kits as you need and switch between them with one click.
- Upload and organize your logos, colors, fonts, icons, imagery, and graphics: You can upload your own files or choose from Canva’s library of icons and images. You can also create folders to organize your assets by category or theme. For example, you can have a folder for social media icons, another one for product photos, and another one for illustrations.
- Apply your brand elements to any design with one click: You can drag and drop any asset from your Brand Kit to your design canvas. You can also click on Apply all to apply your brand colors and fonts to the entire design. This will save you time and ensure that your designs are consistent and on-brand.
- Share your Brand Kit with your team members and collaborators: You can share your Brand Kit with anyone who has a Canva account, whether they are part of your team or not. This will allow them to view and use your brand assets in their own designs. You can also choose whether you want to give them view-only or edit access to your Brand Kit.
- Access pre-designed Brand Templates that match your brand style: Canva also offers a collection of pre-designed templates that match your brand style and help you create stunning designs faster. You can browse through the categories of templates available for different purposes, such as social media posts, presentations, flyers, logos, etc. You can select a template that suits your needs and customize it with your own content and brand assets.
The Brand Hub is available for Canva Pro users only. If you want to try it out, you can start a free trial of Canva Pro here.
How to set up your Brand Hub
Setting up your Brand Hub is easy and takes only a few minutes. To set up your Brand Hub, follow these steps:
Log in to your Canva account and click on Brand Hub on the left sidebar. It will have a crown symbol next to it, which indicates that it is an exclusive feature to Canva Pro subscribers; this means that if you are using the accessible version of Canva, you may not be able to use the brand hub.
Selecting the brand hub takes you to the hub home page, where you can select older hubs to edit, or new ones to create. There may be an option to edit an untitled Brand Kit, or you may want to create one from scratch. Click on Add New in the top tight hand corner to set up a new brand kit.
Give your Brand Kit a name, and then click on the create button. This creates a folder for your brand kit accessible from the side panel and the different options that you can use to create your kit. These are the following ways that you can customize your brand.
- Add Logos
- Design Your Color Palette
- Choose Fonts For Text
- Add Photos
- Add Graphics
- Add Icons
How To Use The Brand Hub
When creating a brand the one of the first things that you will do is create a logo for your brand. You don’t have to start with the logo of course, but it helps with the other options as the logo represents your brand in multiple ways.
For our example, we will add a logo we created in Canva for a fictional company called planet tours, but you can use your logo, of course. All you need to do is click the add new button for the logo section and you will be able to choose an image to download as your logo.
Note that you can upload more than one logo if you want to. When we do upload the logo it is added to the logo section.
Pro tip: When designing your logo, make sure it has a transparent background when you export it as a PNG file. This also leads to the second pro tip: store logos as PNG or SVG files for transparency and high quality. We do not recommend using JPEG for brand logos.
Choose your brand colors and fonts. You can use the suggested colors and fonts based on your logo or customize them according to your preferences. You can also upload your fonts if you have a license for them. Your colors and fonts will appear on the left sidebar of the Canva editor for easy access.
When you do add a logo, the colors from that logo are taken and added to the colors section of the brand hub automatically. Make sure to select the keep option for your color palette if you want to keep using these colors.
At the time of writing, this does not change any of the other areas of the brand hub, like the fonts, but hopefully, in the future, that will change. Our text logo uses a specific text font, and it would be handy to have that used automatically with the fonts for our brand kit.
Then you can add your brand icons, imagery, and graphics. You can upload your own files or choose from Canva’s library of icons and images.
You can also create folders to organize your assets by category or theme. Your icons, imagery, and graphics will appear on the right sidebar of the Canva editor for easy access.
To add a new folder, select the Add Folder button at the top of the brand kit. This opens a small window where you can choose an existing folder or project to add to or create a new one. If you select New Folder, it will open another prompt for you to name the folder.
Select the Add To New Folder button. It will generate the folder where your brand kit will be stored.
Optionally, upload your brand guidelines document or link to an external website where you have them stored. This will help you and your team members follow the best practices for using your brand elements. Your brand guidelines will appear at the bottom of your Brand Kit for easy access.
Your Brand Hub Is Saved automatically when you add something new to the hub.
Using Folders With The Brand Hub
To Access any folders you have created, you must go to your projects page. The easiest way to do this is to return to the home page for the Canva website. From here, go to the side panel and choose the projects option instead of the Brand Hub.
The projects section is where you can access any media you have created on that Canva account. To access specific folders, return to the side panel, and under the All section, you should be able to see any folders you have created and access them.
By the way, if you go to the top corner of an asset created in Canva through the projects page or the home page, you can access another menu to move that design to a new folder.
When in a folder, you can select any design that you want, and it will open the canvas window for you to edit that design.
Creating A Banner For Your Folder
Even your folders can be stylized using Canvas tools. When inside a folder, you will see a few options in the top corner.
From here you can share your brand kits, add new folders and designs, rename your folders, and more. One option located here is the ability to create a Banner that makes it easier to distinguish folders from each other.
To create a new banner, select the icon of three small dots to open a new menu. In this menu, you will be able to rename your folder, but more importantly, for us, create a new banner. This will open a new window within the same page, giving us access to the canvas.
We can select from one of the menu banner templates that Canva provides for us. Choose a template design that suits your folder and its contents.
You can then begin to edit the banner however you like, as you would for any other design. Like other templates, all elements of the design are editable, and we can replace, add and change elements to our leisure.
For our example, we will use the text prompt box and type in earth. This should narrow our design choices down a bit to match our brand better. We find one we like the look of and left-click to add the design to the canvas.
For now, we are happy for it to act as the banner, and can always change it later, so to confirm the banner, click on the save button in the top corner, and after a minute or so, the banner will be added on top of the folder.
How To Share Your Brand Hub
You can share your Brand Hub with anyone with a Canva account, whether they are part of your team or not. This will allow them to view and use your brand assets in their designs.
If you want to share the Brand Hub, first of all open the Brand Hub using the left sidebar and select the Brand Kit you wish to share.
Then go to the window’s top right corner and click on the share button. This will open up a new menu. From this menu, choose if you want to share fear an e-mail or by creating a URL link.
Depending on the option you choose, enter the e-mail addresses of the people you wish to share with, or copy the link and send it to them directly via e-mail or social media.
The most important point is how much access you want to give them to the prime kit. You can decide whether or not you allow them access to editing the brand kit itself or if you only want them to be able to view it, in which case you would choose view only.
When all the settings are your preference, click the Send or Copy link buttons, whichever will be visible depending on whether you are using e-mail or just want to create the link.
How to access pre-designed Brand Templates
Canva also offers a collection of pre-designed templates that match your brand style and help you create stunning designs faster. To access these templates, follow these steps:
- Go to Brand Hub on the left sidebar and select the Brand Kit you want to use.
- Click on Templates at the top of the screen.
- Browse through the categories of templates available for different purposes, such as social media posts, presentations, flyers, logos, etc.
- Select a template that suits your needs and click on it to open it in the Canva editor.
- Customize the template with your own content and brand assets.
- Save and download or share your design.
The Brand Hub in Canva is a powerful feature that helps you create consistent and impactful designs for your brand. It allows you to centralize your brand assets and guidelines in one place, and access them easily within the Canva editor.
It also enables you to share your Brand Kit with your team members and collaborators and access pre-designed Brand Templates that match your brand style. With the Brand Hub, you can save time, boost productivity, and grow your brand better together.
If you want to try out the Brand Hub in Canva, you can start a free trial of Canva Pro by using this link.