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How to Use Canva Templates as a Portfolio

How to Use Canva Templates as a Portfolio

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If you’re looking to create a stand-out portfolio to showcase your abilities and achievements in graphic design, then you’ve probably heard of Canva!

This rapidly-expanding Australian company is committed to making online design easy and affordable. 

They know that a great design is essential to a great portfolio, so they’ve crafted a huge range of portfolio templates for you to work from.

In this article, we’re going to cover:

  • How you can use Canva’s templates for your portfolio
  • How to create a portfolio using Canva
  • Our best tips for creating your digital portfolio.

Keep reading to find out how to use Canva’s templates to create your portfolio!

Ways to Use Canva Templates for Your Portfolios

Presentation Templates

Canva makes presenting your work and your identity as a creator simpler than ever! 

You can display your best work and your success story all in one place with the use of Canva portfolio templates.

Take viewers on the journey of your career path from humble beginnings to the present day, showing potential employers what you’re capable of.  

Portfolio Website Builder

Once you have built your portfolio, it can be easily translated into social media content or a website. 

This can be done with the click of a button using the website option, which you’ll find in the ‘Publish’ tab. 

Canva’s Magic Resize feature can also adapt your portfolio content into a size and format suitable for a website.

Then, just choose your layout and other customizable options to make your website true to your brand!

How to Make a Portfolio with Canva 

Launch Canva

Go to Canva to begin your journey. Their help center under the ‘Learn’ tab tells you all that you need to know about using Canva and its array of features. 

You will need to create an account to proceed with your creation of a portfolio. This is free and unlocks a wide range of features. However, you can enjoy unlimited access to innovative features by purchasing a Canva Pro membership.

Choose Your Template

You’ll immediately be inspired by the range of templates available to suit you and your brand. In the search bar, type “Portfolio”. 

Here you’ll find over 10,000 eye-catching templates for you to choose from!

You can filter this search to find exactly the kind of portfolio template you need, whether it’s modeling, photography, design, or more of a resume style.

From all of the available options, you’ll find a template that matches your vibe in no time at all. You can even mix and match pages from different templates.

Add Logos, Fonts, and Colors

There are over 60,000 logo templates that you can choose to work from! Or, if you have something specific in mind, you can design one from scratch. 

When you pick a template, it will show you the font used as well as the color scheme that is continued throughout. 

By clicking on the color palette, you can see the hex codes of each color used. Noting these will make it easy for you to use your favorite colors from any template in your final design. 

A lot of these templates are 6–8 pages long, but you can adjust this number to suit your specific needs. 

Once you have decided on a template, font, and color scheme, you can begin inserting your own informative content.

Get Customizing 

Though templates are a helpful start to the creation of your portfolio, the freedom of customization is what makes your design and portfolio uniquely you. 

You can customize your portfolio with the use of fonts, colors, animations, and audio clips. 

But the most important customization is the insertion of your own personal and professional information.

Choose images and text that represent your best work, and what you aspire to achieve in your future work. 

If you are just starting out in your field and don’t feel that you have great experience to add to your portfolio, there are ways around this. 

You could consider performing some free work in return for some content to add to your portfolio – as well as a sparkling reference! 

Save, Publish, or Print!

With Canva, there are plenty of ways for you to share your portfolio with the world. You can save it as either a PDF, JPG, or PNG to pass on to individual parties. 

You can also publish it as a website or onto your social media, or even have it printed through Canva’s high-quality printing service.

Tips for Creating The Best Digital Portfolio 

Showcase Your Top Work

Though you might be tempted to include your entire career’s work within your portfolio, it is important that you keep things concise. 

The key objective of a portfolio is that it displays what you can do to the best of your ability, simply and quickly. 

You need to be highly selective in the process of choosing what images and information to include. 

Remember: you must cater to a short attention span on the internet! After all, Ppeople want to consume information in bite-sized, easily digestible pieces. 

Increase Brand Awareness with Logos and Names

Make your brand memorable with a clever and catchy name, as well as a bold logo that will stand out against the rest. 

Ensure that your brand name and logo are at the forefront of your portfolio — they should be the first thing that the viewer sees. 

Create a Lasting Impression with Animations

With Canva, you can show off your creativity in all sorts of ways!

Why not create animations that will elevate your portfolio above the rest? It’s quick and easy to execute, and the results are highly effective.

You can choose an animated template by selecting ‘animated’ within the ‘style’ filter of your template search. 

Just remember to keep animations and other such features to a tasteful minimum, so that it doesn’t distract from what you’re really trying to showcase. 

Enhance User Experience with Smooth Navigation

You want potential employers or clients to be able to navigate your portfolio as smoothly as possible. Managing this will mean that their first impression of you is pleasant and stress-free. 

If navigation of your portfolio is difficult and information is not laid out in a cohesive manner, then your skills will instantly be called into question. 

With Canva portfolio creation, you choose how your portfolio is laid out, viewed, and navigated. This gives you control over what is seen first and in what order. Adapt navigation to best suit what it is that you’re showcasing!

You can also add features such as audio bites to enhance the user experience. 

Keep a Hard Copy for Your Records

When you click ‘Publish’, you can choose to download a copy of your portfolio in either PDF, PNG, or JPG form. 

You can then either print this yourself or have your portfolio professionally printed through Canva. 

Canva offers excellent printing services that are sure to cover any portfolio printing needs you may have. They print posters, T-shirts, business cards, and invitations.

Printing a hard copy of your portfolio through Canva will ensure the best quality and durability so that you know your work is well and truly safe. 

Adapt Your Design for Multiple Platforms

With the Magical Resize feature, you can adapt your Canva portfolio easily and effectively to fit the social platform of your choosing. 

For some portfolios — such as photography and modeling — it is essential to be active on platforms like Instagram so that it reaches your right target audience. 

Images and layout when using this tool will be adjusted automatically for a seamless transfer of content that maintains its style and integrity. 

Add Case Studies for Extra Insights

For many job applications, potential employees want to know specifically how you solved a real-life problem to bring about positive results. 

Canva has templates designed to showcase this information in an effective way that communicates key information with ease. 

This is through the use of case studies, which give you the chance to take viewers on a journey through this experience. 

You can use an entire page for this purpose and include images, animations, and audio to paint the full picture. 

Establish a Cohesive Brand Identity Kit 

Canva has features that can ensure your brand is clear and cohesive throughout your work. 

You can explore their brand management tools, which can all be used as part of your brand kit to maintain a consistent tone and style. 

Your brand kit is an easy-to-use style guide for perfecting and protecting your brand identity. 

Canva’s built-in brand control features actively prevent any off-brand content from being published without your awareness. All of these features can be found under the ‘brand’ tab. 

In Summary 

Canva is an excellent resource for those who want to really sell themselves. A portfolio made with Canva is one that will stand out from the rest for its precision and detail!

Animations, audio clips, and a range of other add-ons will make you look like a design whizz, and make your portfolio so memorable that it leaves a long-lasting impression.

Eliminate the stress of perfecting finer details as Canva’s brand management tools do the work for you. Colors, fonts, and style will be cohesive all the way through, giving the impression of a professionally designed portfolio!