Do You Use Canva for Print Campaigns?
Do you use Canva for your print campaigns such as flyers or direct mail? If so, there are some things you need to keep in mind when it comes to printing digital designs. Canva provides phenomenal templates and design possibilities—particularly for small business owners and graphic design novices. While Canva is affordable, user-friendly, and accessible, it’s important to understand that Canva operates with a different color system than printers.
Canva, RBG, and CMYK
Canva and similar software operate on the RBG color system, which is intended for use with digital designs. RBG, which utilizes mixtures of light-based red, blue, and green, is essential for creating beautiful digital designs like website banners and logos, social media profile photos, and graphics for images and videos. This color system was developed to produce vibrant colors on mobile phones, tablets, and computer monitors.
Unlike RBG, CMYK is a color system designed for print, which uses inks. Every catalogue, magazine, book, and piece of direct mail you’ve ever touched requires CMYK to produce the colors you saw. CMYK stands for “cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black)”. The CMYK system layers varying concentrations of each of these inks to produce very precise colors in print.
How to Use Canva for Print
When it comes to printing from Canva, one of the biggest issues associated with RBG-based systems is when digital black does not appear true black in print. Fortunately, it is possible to convert RBG black to CMYK black in Canva but this feature does require a subscription and a little tweaking. While working in Canva, it’s important to ensure that your color picker selection is standard black by using the color code “#000000”. Then this file will need to be downloaded as a PDF and converted to CMYK during your printing prompt option.
When working with multiple files, it can be easy to overlook converting RBG colors to CMYK. One alternative to Canva is Adobe’s InDesign software, which operates on the CMYK color system. Another course of action is to work with an experienced graphic designer for all your print campaigns to eliminate any potential issues between these color systems.
How Pel Hughes Can Help
Pel Hughes is a full-service printing company that serves businesses and organizations throughout the United States. We print stunning direct mail campaigns, signs, catalogues, books, and more. We also offer in-house graphic design to ensure that your branded materials look stunning online and in-person. Visit our website and blog to learn more about our services or call (504) 486-8646 to consult with a member of our team for your next project.
