Canva Components Explained: Design 10x Faster!

If you clicked on this video, most probably you have heard about the new Canva feature Components, but it might be the case that you are still trying to understand what are they and how you can use them in your design workflows. Well, in this video I'm going to explain what Components are in simple language and I'm going to show you a couple of examples that you can start using right now to design faster. Let me first start with the theory what Components are. Canva describes them as reusable building blocks that you can use across different designs. And basically, if you have ever copied and pasted the same group of elements more than twice, it should probably be a Component. The difference with copy and pasting elements is that when you do this action, every element is going to be independent. The difference with Components is that you are always going to have a source and then every time that you copy that Component, all of these instances are going to be linked. So, when you are in the situation that you need to update that element in every single design, you simply go to the source, you update it there, and then that change is going to be automatically updated in all of the instances. And I'm just thinking that if you are watching this tutorial is because you want to get to know the latest Canva features, you want to get feedback on your designs, you want to practice more, you want to improve your Canva skills, and why not? Maybe be part of a Canva community. If this is you, I'm pretty sure you're going to love our Canva-based community that we are launching pretty soon. If you want to get more information about this new community, join the waitlist right now. The link is in the description. Okay, now that we understand what Components are, let's see them in action. Let's say that you have a podcast and that you have a new guest coming up every week. Of course, you would like to have some material to support and to promote that new podcast every week. So, you may want to have something like this, this visual in which you are creating curiosity, you know, you're letting people know, okay, I'm going to film this podcast with this person. Once the podcast is up, you may want to post something different, something like this, telling people that the podcast is ready to listen. And you may want to have as well some Instagram stories, and you may want to change the banner on your YouTube channel if you are also uploading those podcasts there. So, as you can see, four different designs. You may want to have even more than that, but you have this repetitive task every week that takes you a lot of time. Even though you are copying and pasting, you can do it much faster using Components. So, how do they work? I have here a photo. You can see that in every single design that I have here, I have photos that are going to be changing every week. So, I have here this frame. Inside the frame, I have a photo. So, you can see here's the photo and the frame. And I'm just going to simply take the photo, right-click and turn this into a component. So, you can see here, you can change the name of the component. So, I'm going to change it for guest photo and create. Then I'm going to also create a component with the name of the guest. So, I have here the name. You can right-click or click on these three dots to create a component. So, guest name, create. And then I just simply need to adjust here the layers of the design. Okay, so we have our components ready. We have the photo and the name that is going to be used again and again in the different designs. So, I just simply need to go to the other designs and update these elements by the components I have created. So, I'm going to bring here this guest image component here to the design. And then I'm just going to delete the one that I have here in the back. Okay, perfect. And now with the name, let me just go to position center. And now let's go and do it with the name. I'm going to double-click and change the alignment of this name and resize it. Something like that. And then I can delete the one that was on that design before. I'm going to continue doing exactly the same process on the other designs. Okay, I have replaced the photo of the guest and the name of the guest in every single design with a component. So, you can see here all of these elements are actually components. Now, remember that I told you that all of these instances, all of these components are linked across every design? Well, let's say that we have a new guest coming on our podcast and we need to create all of these designs very quickly. So, let's say that Ronnie is running this podcast and he's having me as a guest. So, I have here a photo of myself and I just need to drop it to the source of the component. So, I'm going to drag and drop, adjust the position of the photo. And now just pay attention to these tiny thumbnails below. These are the other designs that have the same component. So, I'm going to click Change All and pay attention to the thumbnails. I'm clicking and as fast as just one click, we have all of the images updated in the following designs. The same is going to happen with this text box. I'm going to change this for my name and then clicking on Change All. You can see that all of the designs have been updated. Now, something important to know about components is that this is a premium feature, meaning that it's only available to paid Canva plans. If you still have a Canva free account and would love to try this feature and all of the premium features in Canva, we have a 30-day free trial of Canva Pro in the description. So, if you get this Canva Pro free trial or if you are using a Canva paid plan, that means that you can create brand templates. And I'm mentioning this because you can create brand templates using components. So, as you were able to see here, I have created all of these designs using components. So, to turn this design into a brand template, I'm going to go to Share and click Brand Template. If you don't see it here, go to See All and type Brand and you will find it in here. So, I'm clicking. I'm going to decide who I'm going to give access to this brand template and then if I want, I can also save this template into a folder. I'm going to publish and close. And now, every time that I need to create a new set of images for this upcoming podcast guest, I just simply need to go to this brand template. So, use this brand template and I will have a document for each of these guests. Okay, so I am here in a copy of this brand template. You can see here it's a copy of and then I'm just going to go to the source. This is the component source and I'm going to replace this image for a photo of Rodney. Adjust the positioning and then change all. Pay attention to the thumbnails and that's it. I'm going to change his name as well. Change all and that's it. Just a couple of clicks and I guess maybe a couple of minutes and you have all of these images ready. Now, let me show you another way in which you can use components. Let's say that I have here this slide or it can be a section on a Canva website and I want to create different speaker cards or guest cards. So, I have here a simple shape, two text boxes and a frame. I'm going to select all of these elements. Go to this menu and then create component. Okay, I'm going to rename this component guest card create and now that I have the component in here, I can simply click on this component to create a copy or you can also simply take the source Ctrl C and Ctrl V. You can see that the copy of this component also have this little tab that is telling you that this is a component. Okay, I'm just going to work with these four cards in here and I'm going to add some images. So, let me quickly just add this photo here. Let's add one of Ronnie as well and let's go to the library. Search for portrait just for the sake of this example. Perfect. Okay, so we have names. As you can see, I'm giving a different name to these cards and then, of course, we can also customize the title and give a different title to every single card. Now, let me show you what I'm going to do here. Let's say that I'm not so happy with this green in the cards. So, I'm just going to select the shape in the background, go to color, change it for white and as you can see, I already have this option that says change all and when I click here, remember that all of these cards in here are linked. So, when I click change all, the color changes for every single card. You can also do it here with the color of the name. Click change all and your cards get updated. Something else that you can do with these components is that you can turn them into brand components. So, let's say that I want to have this card handy for any kind of design that I'm going to create in the future. So, by selecting the component, I'm going to click on the three dots and then go to component and you will see that here we have publish to brand kit. I'm going to go for this option. I'm clicking here and then you have this window appearing. From here, you can name the component, you can select the brand kit where you want that component to go and you can select as well the category. So, I'm going to go for graphics, publish to brand kit and then the component is ready to be used whenever I need it. So, let's say that I need to create a new slide on this design and as you can see, I already have my brand kit opened. It is already opened in graphics and I have my asset or my component in here and with one click, I have it at hand. And now, let me just create a new design from scratch. I know that we are already working on this design where we created the card before. So, I don't want it to be confusing. I'm going to go to file, create new design. Let's say that this time I want to create an Instagram post, something completely different. And now, if I go to brand and go to the category where I saved my component, I can find it in here and I can bring it to my design with one click. Let me just change the color in the background so you can see that the card is exactly the one that I created in another design. And now, let's say that I need to change this component from the real source. Not this one in here, but the actual source. So, I'm going to click on source. This is going to open this new document and then from here, I'm going to, again, change the color in the background. So, I'm going again for this green color and then, why not? I'm going to add a stroke here to this frame. Okay, we're ready. And then, I'm just going to click on publish updates. You will have here a message that says publish update to all existing designs. When published, your team will need to apply updates for each design. Existing designs won't change unless updated. So, publish updates. And now, I'm here back to this Instagram post that we just created. And let me just reload the page. And when I click on the component, you will see that we have this button right here with a red dot. When I click update, it will update for the latest version of this component. And some other ideas on how to use components can be on Canva websites like, for example, on title bars, navigation headers, and the branded footers with legal text. We already worked on speaker cards, but you can also use components on product cards, team bios, and pricing tables. But you can also use components on things like CTA buttons, banners, dividers, icon sets, and branded badges. And from now on, I do recommend that you pay attention to your workflow. Do you see that you are doing repetitive actions like copy and pasting the same elements again and again? Or maybe you are creating the same set of designs every week or every couple of days? If this is your case, you may want to start using components. So, what do you think about this tutorial? Did you like it? Do you want to hear more about components? Or do you think you already have a clear idea on how to work with it? And I'm also very curious to hear from you. How are you thinking of using this feature now that you understand how it works? I gave you already a couple of examples, but it will be very interesting if all of us start sharing those ideas that came to mind while watching the tutorial so we can keep learning together. And remember that we are launching a Canva-based community pretty, pretty soon. So, if you are interested in getting more information about it, you can sign in in the waitlist right now. And I'm also leaving another tutorial here on screen that I'm pretty sure you are going to love. I think that's it for this tutorial and I hope to see you in the next one. Bye!