I have been writing a lot about the benefits of a print on demand business (you can see links to all my print on demand blog posts at the bottom of this post) but how exactly do you create print on demand designs? In this blog post I am going to show you how to create print on demand designs for free using Canva in this step-by-step guide.
What is Print on Demand (POD)?
Print on demand, sometimes called POD, is where you can sell your own custom designs on different types of products.
Instead of ordering lots of items in various colours and sizes and holding on to stock (with a big financial outlay) these items are printed on demand from third-party providers.
The ‘on demand’ bit means that when an item sells it triggers an order from your supplier, who take care of everything else for you.
There are lots of items that can be sold using print on delivery, especially if you jump on the current trends. These print on demand products include:
- T-Shirt
- Hoodies
- Face masks or face coverings
- Mugs or cups
- Bags
- Stationery
- Smart phone covers
- Stickers
- Prints
- Tote bags
And many more.
This side hustle is free to start, with no financial outlay until you have received your first order. The only thing that you need to invest to start off with is your time.
What is Canva?
Canva is an online platform that empowers users to create professional-looking designs with ease. Whether you’re a seasoned designer or just starting out, Canva’s user-friendly platform makes it simple to produce visually stunning content with the drag and drop interface.
One of the key strengths of Canva is its wide range of templates, which are perfect for creating everything from social media graphics to business presentations. These templates can be customized to fit your needs, allowing you to create unique designs that truly stand out.
Beyond templates, Canva offers the flexibility to work with custom sizes, ensuring that your designs fit perfectly into any format you require. This makes it an ideal design tool for creating everything from custom designs to print-ready files for marketing materials or personal projects.
You can get a basic Canva account for free, and you can create print on demand designs in Canva using the free version.
Canva also has a paid version, which unlocks even more helpful features. With Canva Pro, you gain access to an expanded library of assets, advanced editing tools, and the ability to save designs as print-ready files, making it easier than ever to produce high-quality, professional designs. Whether you’re using Canva for personal projects or professional endeavors, it’s a versatile tool that caters to all your design needs.
I use the pro version of Canva, however this tutorial will cover how to create your design for free.
Why is Canva Perfect For Print on Demand?
There are so many great reasons that print-on-demand sellers use Canva to create their digital products.
Canva’s user-friendly platform is one of the main reasons it’s perfect for print on demand.
The drag-and-drop interface allows you to create designs quickly without needing any prior design experience, and without learning any complicated software such as Adobe Photoshop. You can easily add and adjust elements, change colours, and apply filters with just a few clicks.
Canva also simplifies the process of creating custom designs by offering pre-set dimensions for popular POD products, so you don’t have to worry about setting up the correct sizes manually.
Possibly the best reason to use Canva for print on demand is that you can get started for free and you don’t need to use the paid version of Canva to create designs for print on demand.
How to create print on demand designs in Canva
I am going to create another cat design for my test Etsy store, and use this blog post to show you how I do that.
First of all, sign up for Canva or log in.
Then click on new design>custom dimensions and type in 5000 by 5000.
I now have a blank area to create my design in Canva.
Using the menu on the left, select elements and search for your design ideas.
Any of the designs showing the crown in the bottom right hand corner and not free to use unless you have Canva pro. I do have Canva pro and I love it, but for the purpose of this post we are going to stick to completely free design elements.
I have chosen an element to include in my design, and now I am going to add some text. To add text on the left hand menu select text.
From here you can choose normal text, or text with an effect. If using a text effect make sure you select a free one.
Canva is very intuitive to use so it was easy to drag and drop my text, change the colour and change the size to a design that I like.
At the top be sure to rename your design so that you can easily find it later.
Once you have a design that you like, click on download and download as a PNG. This might take a moment since we created such a big design.
Tip: if you have Canva pro then download with a transparent background to skip the next few steps.
We now need to give the image a transparent background.
Although the background looks white on Canva, without a transparent background the white background will be printed on your products. Without making the background transparent, this is how they will look:
You can use any transparent background maker online. For this tutorial I am using online PNG tools.
Here you can see how it looks with the background removed on the right. You can play around with the settings to get it right – I have just noticed that I managed to remove the pink in that cat’s cheeks.
And there we have it – our design is complete and didn’t cost us a penny to make in Canva.
Can you use the Canva templates to create print on demand designs?
The last thing you want to do is run into legal issues, so can you use the Canva Templates to create print on demand designs?
No. And yes.
Here’s what Canva have to say:
‘At Canva, we create templates for our users. However, we also welcome people who’d like to create and sell their own Canva-made designs as templates that others can use on our platform.
This means that while you cannot resell templates that we created, you can create your own templates to sell to other Canva users.
Note: Changing the content of a Canva template without completely changing the design is not creating your own work and is not allowed.
You cannot use the templates on Canva and sell the designs.’
Canva have some amazing templates to inspire you, but you will need to change them up if you want to sell the design for print on demand.
This can include:
- Changing the layout
- Chaging the colours
- Changing the font
- Adding Canva elements
- Removing Canva elements
It is a good idea to use the Canva templates to inspire your designs (which you can find from the search bar), but then go on to create your own designs from scratch.
Get started With Print On Demand
I know what you are thinking – where do you get started? How do you create designs? How do you choose a supplier? Where do you list your items for sale?
The good news is that I have covered all of these topics and more with my print on demand series:
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