Canva is an incredibly popular creative online design platform that strives to make graphic design accessible to all. Whether you need to make a logo, business card, presentation or poster, Canva has you covered.

The thing that people love about this application is that it is so simple to use. There is no excessive training required, or intricate details that are hard to grasp like there are with other design programs such as Photoshop.

Canva makes everything almost too easy. 

If you have your own small business, then Canva is an essential tool for you. However, you may have some questions, and you could be unsure how it works if you use Canva for business or commercial purposes.

Luckily, we are here to help you, and can answer these questions. 

What is Canva?

Canva is a valuable tool for many artists, freelancers, content creators, businesses and other companies. It is a free tool utilized for online design, publishing and content creation.

With Canva, you can make your own images, branding, graphic designs, posters, presentations, documents, resumes, book covers, social media posts and so much more. 

Can I trademark a logo I made on Canva?

Canva is a great way to practise design techniques, and create your own content, whether it is for posters, social media, or for a logo. There are thousands of templates that you can use, or take as inspiration when you are creating content, or when making your own designs.

The trap that many fall into is that the templates are so convenient and easy to use. Yes this is very helpful, but you could be left with a piece of work, or a logo that is incredibly similar to someone else’s, if not the exact same.

Millions of people use Canva templates, and so you will need to make your design your own if you do not want it looking just like someone else’s.

You can create logos on Canva if you want to, but there may be others that have used the same styles and tools that you have.

It is so common nowadays to scroll through small online brands on social media, and recognize templates from Canva time and time again. 

Whilst you can use Canva to make a logo, it is not a professional design software, which means that you cannot export any designs into a vector format. 

Without a vector format, you will not be able to scale or print your work on enlarged materials without it becoming blurry, or low quality.

 

 

If you are creating a logo for a small, online business, if you are selling your own artwork for example, then Canva is just fine for creating a brand for yourself. 

It is not advisable to use Canva to make a logo for a large business as it cannot be trademarked. As previously mentioned, Canva templates can be used by anyone, and so you will not be able to copyright the logo as it may look like someone else’s.

Unless you modify the template and make it unique, you will have a lot of trouble trying to trademark your Canva logo.

In addition, in the Canva licensing agreement, it shows that your logos cannot use elements from the Canva image library, even if you have used free ones.

This leaves a lot of gray area, and you can struggle with trademarking or copyrighting your logo in the future, so if you have plans to trademark or expand your business, then it may be best to stick to Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator for a logo, or hire a professional. 

Does Canva own your logo?

Canva does not strictly own your logo if you create it, as it is your content.

However, there are some limitations, as Canva and other creators own the different graphics, texts, images, illustrations, patents, logos, photographs, and other stock media on the Canva platform, and so all those intellectual property rights are the property of Canva and the licensors. 

This means that although you could have created your logo from scratch, the images, fonts, designs, and other elements that you used could be owned by someone else, and so it is not your intellectual property. 

How to make a logo on Canva

The great thing about using Canva is its ease of use and accessibility. For most projects, you can just drag and drop items to create a cool and professional looking piece of content.

To create your own logo, or to practice designing logos for fun, you can simply log onto :https://www.canva.com/ and create an account, or use a Facebook or Google account to log in.

At the top of the page, you will see a Design Anything banner, or a button that says Custom size. For making a logo, select the Logo option with a size of 500 px x 500 px.

Once you click on the logo option, you will see a vast range of templates and ready designed logos for you to use as inspiration, or to make your own. 

However, you can start with a blank canvas, and make one from scratch. Simply personalize the colors of the screen with the background color tool, or use some of Canva’s elements to find a suitable backdrop for your logo.

Then, you can add text to show the brand’s name or title, and edit the font, style and color of the text to suit the brand. Drag and drop some shapes, images and symbols from the elements tab, and adjust them with the styles tab on the left hand side.

If you want to import your own images and designs for the logo, then simply click on the upload button shaped like a cloud to add them to your Canva account, and drag and drop into the design.

Save your logo once done, or resize it to use on Instagram posts, Stories, Facebook Ads, banners, posters or other media that you want to use it on, and voila!