Canva is a versatile and easy-to-use tool for creating visual communications, and it also works directly in FirstView’s MediaCloud. This means you can design, publish and update your digital signage content from one place, without moving files or extra steps. Content production for digital screens is made easier when you can edit the content in Canva, and the changes are automatically saved to the screens as well.
In this blog, we’ll explain how you can use Canva to create content for digital signage. You’ll also get ideas for what kind of content Canva is best suited for.
Read detailed instructions for implementing Canva integration on our website»
Read also the blog: Smoother content production with Canva »
Canva’s ready-made designs or a look that matches your own brand?
When designing content for digital signage, you can start quickly with a ready-made designs, or build a completely custom look that matches your brand. Both options have their advantages.
If you are just starting out in digital signage content creation, ready-made designs can be a lifesaver and help you get started. The ready-made structures of the designs make it easier to create content, as you can write the necessary information and add images in pre-defined places. With ready-made designs, you don’t have to spend time fiddling with visuals, headings, or element placement. You can also customize those designs to suit your own needs by changing colors and fonts to match your brand, for example.
Another option is to create your own designs. This can be done either on your own, if you have a little visual eye, graphic skills and attention to detail. Personalized, branded Canva templates can also be commissioned by an advertising agency or external graphic designer!
Canva also allows you to save brand elements, such as brand colors, fonts, and logos, for your entire team to use. This way, everyone who creates content has access to consistent elements. This way, the visuals remain consistent, and new presentations can be created with minimal manual work. You can add, edit, and share brand elements with your team from the Canva side menu:
Tip! To ensure that every piece of content supports your brand, you can create ready-made designs in Canva for use with MediaCloud. This way, your content will remain visually consistent, even if there are multiple creators.
What kind of content can you create with Canva?
You can use Canva for almost any visual digital signage content. A quick announcement, a campaign ad, an event announcement or a data presentation – everything is easy to do. Canva is therefore suitable for creating a huge variety of content. When the purpose is just to quickly inform about a schedule change, the day’s lunch or the cancellation of the work team’s badminton session, a simple announcement can be created with Canva in a couple of minutes. On the other hand, the extensive toolkit offered by Canva includes a large selection of different features and tools that also enable creative content production and impressive brand communication. Whether the purpose is to create stylish marketing content, attract the attention of passers-by in the public areas of a building, or share important information in a visually interesting way, Canva offers a great framework for utilizing your own creativity.
When you want to share important information quickly, choose a simple template and focus on clarity of message. If your goal is to attract attention and build brand awareness, take advantage of Canva’s wide range of templates and creative tools. What are some practical situations where Canva can help you create content for info displays? See examples below of how Canva can adapt to different needs!
Canva in internal communications
Clear internal communication keeps teams informed and creates a shared understanding of everyday issues. Info screens are the perfect tool for this, as they reach all employees – even those who don’t sit in front of their emails.
It is important to keep internal communication and information clear and straightforward. Now you don’t need flashy colors or moving images, but easy-to-understand information. Internal communication themes can include, for example, schedules, instructions, and communicating common operating procedures. Current information and news need to be delivered to digital screens efficiently and with minimal effort. With Canva, you can create ready-made templates for recurring announcements, such as weekly bulletins, safety instructions, or personnel news. Changing information is quick to enter into ready-made templates, and when the visual appearance remains the same, communication looks consistent and strengthens the company culture.
If your communications department has specific graphic guidelines, it’s also easy to save the elements in a Canva brand kit. You can add colors, fonts, logos, and your own image library to the pack that you want to use in your communications. You can also create multiple brand packs: for example, a simpler pack for internal communications and a more impressive one for marketing.
Tip: Create your own, simplified brand kit for internal communications so that your news are clear and easy to update.
As an example of internal communication, you could use digital screens to announce the schedules of your employees’ weekly winter golf training. That’s also easy to do with Canva’s ready-made template.
Impressive ads, brand communications and campaigns
Visually appealing content is eye-catching, which is why digital signage is an effective brand-building tool. Campaigns, product launches, and customer communications are taken to a new level with Canva, as all materials remain on-brand and polished. With Canva, you can quickly create campaign templates that work in-store and in your corporate lobbies. When your communications look good, they’re memorable and make your brand more recognizable at every touchpoint.
When producing impactful visual content, it’s also important to pay attention to the displays you’re using. Color reproduction, black levels, and brightness all affect how visual content works in practice.
Read also: Checklist for purchasing digital signage screens »
Video content and animations for screens
Movement is eye-catching, especially in spaces where people move quickly. With Canva, you can create animated presentations, eye-catching video content, and moving background elements that instantly grab attention.
Video and animation content is perfect for lobbies, hallways, and customer spaces where you want to communicate events, offers, or services. Canva’s simple and intuitive video editor makes creating a moving image a breeze, even if you’re not a video production professional!
Remember: Motion doesn’t have to be complicated. A simple animation like a fade or scroll is often enough to grab attention.
Make data visually interesting
Numbers and reports can easily go unnoticed if they are presented as mere tables. With infographics, data comes to life when presented visually. With Canva, you can create visually clear and engaging data presentations. You can easily turn an Excel spreadsheet into a graph or infographic that tells you the essentials at a glance: production status, sales targets, customer feedback or even energy consumption.
The data to be presented can be entered manually, imported into Canva as an Excel spreadsheet, or imported directly from, for example, Google Analytics or Hubspot.
Presenting data may be necessary, for example, as part of operational management or internal communications. Data visualization makes information understandable and helps staff track developments in real time. When numbers turn into patterns, they also begin to come to life and inspire.
Digital signage content as part of effective communication
Info displays are an effective and impactful part of a company’s internal and external communications, and Canva makes content production for digital signage easier than ever. Ease of content production and management is also an important factor when choosing a digital signage software.
Whether it’s a newsletter, campaign, video or data visualization – the most important thing is that the message is clear and visually appealing! Canva makes this easy and MediaCloud ensures that your content ends up on screens at just the right time.
Would you like to try out the Canva integration or see how it works in practice? Contact us, we’ll be happy to help you get started!
