CANVA DESIGN SECRETS that make you look like a PRO 🤫 (6 Next-Level Canva Hacks)

Whether you're using Canva to create digital products to sell, social media graphics or business assets, basic amateur designs just won't cut it anymore. Design tools are more available than ever, which means the real difference now isn't what tool you use, but how you use it. And if we're honest, that's the exact reason why some Canva designs appear super polished and professional while others still feel very DIY. As someone whose business literally depends on the quality of my graphic designs, I've learned a thing or two over the years about how to truly level them up. And that's exactly what I'm sharing in today's video. I'm spilling the tea on six advanced Canva design secrets that most users never learn. The exact steps that make your designs look intentional, elevated, and like they were created by a pro. All right, the first technique we're going to talk about is the pop out effect. This is where you're going to use a photo and make the subject of the photo appear that it's popping out of the frame. So go ahead and select the photo you want. Once you have it selected in your project, you can click the top floating toolbar where it says edit, which will bring up your editing menu here to the left. You've got lots of editing options here, but you're going to want to come under where it says magic studio and scroll over to choose magic grab. Now this is a Canva pro feature. You can tell because it has a little crown symbol in the bottom, right corner of the thumbnail. Anything that has a crown on it inside of Canva is for Canva pro users. So if you're on the Canva free plan, you won't have access to this, but if you have Canva pro, you'll be able to use this. And if you don't have Canva pro yet, I do have a free 30 day Canva pro trial linked in the description box below. Feel free to click on that and use that to try out Canva pro completely for free for 30 days to see what all of the more advanced features and capabilities with Canva pro can do. So choose magic grab. Then you're going to want to select what you want the tool to grab. So you can see as I hover over the image, it's automatically selecting my flower, which is what I want it to grab. But if it's not selecting what you want, you can always change it to brush mode where you can brush over the image that you want it to grab. You can click on it with the click feature or choose foreground, which will automatically use AI to select everything in the foreground. Once you have what you want to grab selected, you're going to click grab. And now it's basically separated that subject from the background. So I can freely move this flower around and I can even resize this, which is the key to this pop out effect. I'm going to click the corner to drag this and size it up. And I'm going to continue sizing it to where it looks like it's popping out of the frame itself. I can slide it over and reposition of course, wherever I want it. But the key here is to keep the bottom of it aligned with the photo underneath. So it's only popping out on the top and sides, giving it that really polished look. Now, this is great if you're creating any kind of product or social media graphic possibly that you want to add some text to. I've got a lot of great negative space here that's open on the side. So I can go a step further and add a text box to say whatever I want it to say over here. This is a quick and easy way to just use canvas AI magic grab tool to make your design look more professional. Now next up, we're going to talk about text and photo layering. So I've got another photo here that I'm going to work with. This technique works best when you have a clear subject of a photo and a clear interesting background. And we're going to create some texts that appears like it's going above the background, but behind the subject of our photos. So the first step here is to select the photo we want and click the little icon above where it says duplicate. So we have two copies of this exact same photo. I'm going to move the duplicate over here. And while my duplicate is selected, I'm going to come up to the top where it says background remover. Again, this is a camera pro feature. So you will have to have camera pro to use the background remover. But when you choose this option with one click, it instantly removes that background and leaves me with just the coffee cup that I can then move around freely. So I'm going to leave this coffee cup over here for now and work with my original photo. The next step for this is to add your text. I'm going to come to the left where it says text and add my text box. Of course, you can always resize this, change the font, change the colors of your text. You're going to write whatever words you want. I'm just going to say sale for mine. Now this is not readable right now because it's a dark color. I'm going to choose a lighter color to contrast this dark background. And I'm going to go ahead and just work with this text until it's the size font and color that I like. And I'm going to position it where I want over the background. Now I just want this word sale going all the way across the background in multiple lines. So I'm going to select that and duplicate it with my little duplicate button here. Again, I'm going to drag the second one over to position this next to the first. I want there to be a little bit of space between both, but once I've got it positioned, right, I'm going to use my shift key to select both at the same time and choose the group option. Now these are in one group that I can move around together and I can also duplicate this group as a whole group. I'm going to come up again to the duplicate button and I've got this text duplicated. So now I can bring this up, align this, choose the right spacing where I want this to land. And once I'm happy with where that is, I can then choose both groups together with the shift key and click group again. So this has created one large group of the word sale. I'm going to continue this process of duplicating and grouping my text as I move down the photo. Now I want this second line to be aligned differently than the top one. I don't want them all in a perfect line. So I'm going to just kind of offset that a little bit. And once I'm done with that, I'm going to group these together and duplicate that group and continue on down duplicating and arranging my text where I'd like it to go. So here I've got the words all the way down there in front of my background photo. And now I'm going to simply drag my coffee cup from the duplicate photo over on top and line it up completely over the original coffee cup. Now you can see the words are still on top. So I need to send those back to be behind the top coffee cup. So I can come up here to position. This is where you can see where all of your different layers are. So if you want something to appear on top, you can click to drag the subject of your photo all the way up to the top. Or you can also do this by right clicking on the layer itself, coming down to where it says layer and choose bring to front that places that duplicate coffee cup in front of all the text. So it gives it the appearance that the text is running behind the coffee cup subject, but in front of the background, this is a super fun technique to just level up your designs. And you might even have people wondering how you did that because it appears like the coffee cup is just part of this background photo. Now, if you're loving these hacks and want even more beyond just the six that I'm mentioning in this video, I've compiled an entire list of my top 18 favorite Canva techniques. I've put it all together in a free guide that you can download. I've got the link in the description box below. So definitely grab that for free when you're done here watching this video. All right. Next up, we're talking about custom text creation. Now, of course, inside of Canva, you have your text tab, which you can add text and change things like the sizing and the color and choose a fun font. But there are apps within Canva that can do even more than what's built in just in this general editor. So if we come to the left, we can come down to the app section. And the one we're going to use here is called Typecraft. So search for that. This is what it looks like. We're choosing this app to use and with the Typecraft app, you can enter the text you want. So let's say happy Tuesday. We can choose the font we wanted in the color, lots of different options for editing here. But the main thing is here where it says warp effect. We can do a custom warp, which will give us the preview here. And when we click on any of these dots and drag them, it's going to add that warp effect to our text, wherever we're dragging these anchor points around. So we can play around with this and literally create a custom text that nobody else has. Now that was under the distort warp type, but there are also options here for warp and shape. So with the shape, for instance, you can choose any of these preset shapes to have your text go in and you can continue editing things like the font scale and the shape scale. If we come back to the main area here on the app, you can also choose if you want it to have an outline effect. And once you have it the way you like it, you can click to add it to your design and it will add it here in your project, which you can then continue to resize and move around how you like. It's just a little bit more of an advanced way to customize your text even further beyond what's built into the editor itself. All right. Our fourth technique we're going to talk about is the use of gradient overlays. So I have this brand photo of myself. This may be something I want to use for social media or for a promo image for a launch I might be doing. So I'm going to start with the product I want, and then I'm going to come over to the left where it says elements, and I'm going to choose a simple rectangle. So I'm just going to add this square or the rectangle on top of my photo, and I'm going to stretch it to fill over the entire photo. Now because it's a solid color, I can't see through to my background photo, but if I come up here to the transparency slider, that's the one with these little checker boxes, I can use the transparency slider to move it to the left and make that square more see-through. So it allows me to see more and more of the photo that's behind. So I don't want it to be completely transparent. That would be kind of pointless, but I'm going to leave this at about half transparency. So around 50. Now it's still that solid cream color. So the key here is to change this from a solid color into a gradient. So with that box still selected, I'm coming up to the top color option and over on the left menu where I see the colors, I can select this one with the plus sign that says add a new color and switch it over from solid color to gradient. Now you can have multiple gradient colors. It starts with two, but you can always add more with this little plus button. For now, I'm just going to stick with the two and I'm going to change these colors to just white and black, just so it's the most drastic difference that you can see very clearly for this demo. We've got the white coming in here on the left and slowly fading into the black color through the gradient and the black is more solid here on the right. You can see this style because this is the one that's selected here under style. So you can see it starts with one color on the left and fades into the other on the right. Now you can change this style. You can do top to bottom. You can do have one color coming in from the top left corner. You can do a radial style, which means one color is in the center and it's fading out to the other color around the edges and corners. So you can do really any of these for this demo. I'm going to choose the one that is top to bottom this one. So now you can see the whites coming down from the top, the blacks coming up from the bottom, and then I can continue to play around with my transparency if I want this to be a little more or less transparent. It's going to depend on what you're using this image for. So let's say I wanted to add some text to the bottom of this. I might want the gradient colors to be a little more solid and less see-through so that I can contrast my text a little more. So I'm going to leave it right about here. And then I'm going to add my text by coming over to the left where it says text and I can add my text there or now I'm just going to put my name. Of course, I want to change this to a contrasting color. So since I'm putting this over the black part of the gradient, I'm going to put this text in white and bring it right down here and you can see the finished product there. So we've got this beautiful combination of the background picture with the transparent gradient on top and text. It's just a great example of how you can use layers in a creative way to uplevel your designs even more. Now, real quick, if you're finding value in this video, would you consider hitting that subscribe button so that you make sure you never miss any of our new content? We release new videos every single Tuesday and also comment below and let me know what your favorite thing to do or design on Canva is. I love chatting with you and getting to know you and I'd love to stay connected and have a little bit better insight as to how you're using Canva in your daily life. All right, next up, we're talking about cohesive colors. It is so important in graphic design to work with colors correctly and have the right idea when you're putting colors together, they need to be cohesive and certain shades work better together than others. So one app I love for helping with colors is the shade app. So I'm going to come to the app section and type in shade. It's just this one right here that has the colors on it. And this is going to give me an entire color palette based on one original color. So it's going to be lighter versions of that color and darker versions that all work really well together. So I can choose what color I want to base it on just by clicking here or inputting the hex code if I know that. And once I've got the color I want, I can see my palette preview here. So it's giving me six different shades of this color. So basically versions of that color that would all work well together and complement each other. Well, so when I'm ready, I can click to add the palette to the design and that adds it right here in my project. Now, of course, I don't want my final project to have this in it, but since it's part of my project right now, I can reference these colors when I'm working with my other elements. I've just added some text and graphic elements that I might want to change the color of. So I'm going to select what I want to change the color of come up to the top where it says color. And then in my color menu that it brings up to the left, I'll see these different shades pop up in the document colors because it's showing up currently in my document. So then I can just with one click change that element to any of these shades of blue. I can do the same thing with my text when I come over to the document colors. So this is just an easy and quick way to make sure I'm staying on brand and with the exact color palette that I've chosen and ensures that I'm using colors that all complement each other and work well together. And when I'm done, I can simply delete that from my project and have my finished design. Now another great color tool I love when deciding on color palettes is canvas color wheel. So if you just Google canva color wheel, it'll bring it up. This is what it looks like. You can choose from the color wheel, different colors that you want to start with, and then you can change your color combination from complimentary to monochromatic analogous. They've got lots of different options here. So if I choose, let's say analogous, this is going to give me three different colors based on the one I originally chose that work together. Complimentary is going to be just two different complimentary colors. So I can just play around with this and see what I like, what colors go well together. I can even click and drag these around on the color palette to see all of the different possible combinations. And when I find one I like, I can click to either create a graphic with it or export the palette. Now having cohesive colors is super important, especially when you are selling digital products. Now, if you're someone who's like, I like the idea of selling digital products online and making passive income, but I really have no clue where to start or how to even grow a successful business, then I've got you covered friend. I've got an entire digital product starter guide. It's a free guide that I put together with the basics of what you'll need to know to get started growing and profiting from selling digital products online. It gives you all the must know information for digital products, everything from types of digital products you can sell to different tools that you can use to create them information about file types and resolution, all of the techie stuff broken down, super simple. So I've got that linked in the description box below. You can grab that for free and use it as a shortcut for your digital products journey. All right, moving right along to our next technique, which is the blur and frame effect. This one's going to combine the use of the blur tool to make our photograph that we're working with blurry, but then choose a specific focal point of the photo to be clear and have a really fun shape. So let me show you what I'm talking about. I have this really cute photo of a coffee cup to work with. The first thing I want to do is duplicate this photo. So I have two of the same photo. Now I'm going to come over to the elements library on the left and choose a frames. So scroll down to where you see the frame section. There's a ton of different shapes. So if you're not familiar, basically a frame on Canva is just where you can choose what shape you want and drag your photo into it. So it'll automatically cut your photo into that shape. So for instance, I'm going to choose this one right here. I think that is a fun one and I'm going to put it onto my project and I'm going to go ahead and drag in my second duplicate photo right over that frame and it should just snap into the frame like that. So now I can double click on the frame and drag this around to place the coffee cup where I want it. I'm going to come back and continue editing that frame in a minute, but for now I'm just going to move it over here because the next step is to select my original photo and blur it. So I'm going to come up to where it says edit on the top and choose the blur option under the effects menu here to the left. So when I click blur, it'll let me either use a brush to blur a certain part, but for this one, I want to click over to whole image cause I want this entire photo to have a blurred effect and I'm going to increase the amount of the blurriness using this intensity slider. So there you can see my original photo is pretty blurry now and I'm going to then drag my frame onto where this coffee cup is showing. I'm going to have to work with this a little bit to resize it where I want it and get it looking exactly like I want it to. So it looks natural. Now if you are having trouble getting this shape to stand out a lot from the background, like you can tell a little bit right here, but it's still kind of blending in. You can select the background photo and use the transparency slider at the top to make it a little more transparent, which will then cause the difference to be more drastic. You can see that frame is popping out more. Or the other option is to add just a square from the elements library like we've done before and use it as an overlay. So you would then stretch your square out over the background photo, choose the color you want it to be. If you want it to be colored, right click to choose layer and send backward. So you want it to end up over the background photo, but under your framed photo and then use the transparency slider to bring that down so it's a little more see-through and there you've got a good contrast with your frame. Now, pro tip here, when you're working with the sizing and alignment of this frame, you want to use any lines that may be in your photo to make it look natural. So I'm going to use the line that I see going across with this railing that's showing, and I'm going to line that up as best I can from the background photo to the framed photo. I want that railing to be lined up so it looks natural. So there I've got my frame and my background photo. I've got a good amount of negative space over here that I can add some text. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. And you can just play around with your text, add any effects you want, but that's the basic idea of the combination of using the blur effect with a fun frame. It's a great way to level up your designs and pull attention on a certain focal point of your photo. Well, there you go, friend. Make sure you click the link below to grab your free Canva Pro 30 day trial and to get your free Canva hacks cheat sheet, as well as your digital product starter guide. Happy designing.