In this section, you will find selection on graphics design platform, a focus on Canva and on licences.
Graphic design platforms
To easily create your own promotional material
There are multiple online design and photo editing tools that you can use to bring your images to life. We selected Canva, which is extensively used, but it is just one of the tools on the market. If you explore the web you can find many more such as Stencil or Desygner.
Focus on Canva
Canva is an Australian graphic tool website founded in 2013 that enables to create customizable graphs, prints and presentation slides with professional layouts, templates, frames, voice icons and more.
Canva comes with a drag-and-drop design app which makes it super-easy to create professional designs and illustrations
Pro and cons of Canva here by Capterra.
You can create several types of designs including:
- Social media posts (Facebook posts, Instagram posts, Twitter posts, etc.)
- Documents (Presentation, letters, resume, etc.)
- Personal (Birthday cards, photo collage, photo book, etc.)
- Marketing (Logo, business card, poster, banner, brochure, etc.)
- Ads (Banner ads, Facebook ads, etc.)
- Education (Worksheet, lesson plan, table of contents, class schedule, etc.)
- Book covers
- Events (Invitation, announcements, wedding invitation, etc.
Of course all the above mentioned tools have also the Pro version so anytime you can upgrade it and get even more benefits.
Focus on licences
- Copyright
The creator has the exclusive right to use the asset however they like. They can publish, distribute, commercialize, and license out their work to others for free or for a fee. These are the rights being claimed when you see “All rights reserved”.
- Public domain
Once a copyright expires or if the owner forfeits the copyright protections, the asset enters the public domain. This means anyone can use, change, re-purpose, or commercialize the work however they like without any kind of permission needed.
- Royalty free
Royalty free assets are still protected by copyright because they are not in the public domain. Being royalty free does not mean that an asset is free of cost. Typically, you pay a one-time fee or subscription fee to gain access to the asset and then you’re able to use it however you like or according to the terms of the license. For royalty free assets, you can generally use them commercially however you’d like without paying royalties to the creator, but the owner still retains the copyright.Royalty free licenses usually have specific terms of use spelled out that prohibit the user of the assets from claiming them as their own works, prevent transformation of the work, and specify where the asset can be use. Royalty free licenses do not maintain a history as to use.
- Creative commons
Creative Commons is a relatively new type of copyright license. The idea behind Creative Commons is to allow artists to share their works with the online community without a price but with certain conditions so that the original creator gets credit. Creative Commons assets are still protected under copyright laws unless they’ve been placed in the public domain, but the terms of the license are clearly and uniformly defined.
Glossary in pills
- Ads is the diminutive of “Advertisements”
- Pro (version) is the diminutive of the adjective “Professional”
