Canva – for those of you who don’t know – is a pretty cool tool for non-graphic designers to do graphic design. It’s really user-friendly, and there are tonnes of templates to choose from. And the Canva logo design tool is pretty smashing.
However, if you’re looking to create a logo for your business or personal website using Canva, you might want to be aware that you might not be able to use it anywhere following a recent update of their terms and conditions.
Under the list of Prohibited Uses in their most recent T&C update, Canva has stated the following:
You may not do anything with the Stock Media that is not expressly permitted in the preceding section. For greater certainty, the following are “Prohibited Uses” and you may not:
use any of the Stock Media as part of a trade-mark, design-mark, trade-name, business name, or service mark, whether registered or not;
You can check out Canva’s full Free Media License Agreement here if you’d like to double-check.
So having read that a few times now, it looks pretty open and shut that the lovely logo you made for yourself on Canva is no longer something you can – legally at least – slap on the side of your van or stick on your website.
To be fair, even before this came to light you probably shouldn’t use Canva to build your logo. For starters, most of the Stock Media is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This means that anyone can use it – commercial or not – as long as they provide attribution (e.g., “Image courtesy of ”). Granted, this isn’t always an issue (e.g., if you’re using an image from Flickr), but it’s something to keep in mind when creating your logo.
In contrast, logos created using Canva’s professional templates are typically copyrighted and are only licensed to the individual who creates them. So while you can share them with others as long as they’re credited (e.g., “Created by [username]”), you can’t use them commercially without getting written permission from the template’s author(s).
If that wasn’t enough, professional logos also tend to be more visually appealing than their DIY counterparts. This is because they’re designed by experienced graphic designers who know how to take advantage of stock media and create a stunning finished product.
We’re big fans of DIY here at DSP, however we also recognise that sometimes you really do get what you pay for. True, there are a lot of things in life that you can just get stuck in and try it out… but there are also a lot of things for which you should always pay a professional. Something like dentistry, for example, always springs to mind.
Much like web design, designing a logo is an art form that takes minutes to learn and years to master. Here are but a few of the things you’ll need to consider when coming up with an eye-catching logo:
1. Logotype
2. Branding
3. Iconography
4. Typography
5. Layout
6. Colours
We could go on, but frankly, it’s getting a bit boring telling you what NOT to do. So let’s change tactics here and tell you what you SHOULD do.
Speak to Digital Starter Pack. I know, I know – we’re the go-to team you think of when it comes to web design, experts in our field and regularly producing amazing websites. But we also know more than a little bit when it comes to logo design. Take our own logo, for example. Who do you think designed it? Made what we call the eyecatching “Swirl” motif, a d, s and p locked together in a pretty nifty colour palette? Clue: it was us.
We’ve made all sorts of logos for all sorts of brands, from web designers and mobile casinos to cleaners, plumbers and even fishing lakes.
So if you’re having a bit of a panic now that you know you can’t carry on using your Canva logo, just get in touch. We’re here to help, whatever the kerfuffle you might be facing!
Call us on 01603 339029, send us an email to hello@digitalstarterpack.co.uk or just use our snazzy little contact page right here. Let’s talk!
