Free Canva Courses

Free Canva courses on SkillUp address the single most common barrier to creating professional visuals: not knowing where to start. The Canva for Beginners course is designed for learners with no prior design experience and covers practical, immediately applicable skills from the first lesson.

• You learn to navigate the whole suite of tools in Canva. It covers everything from selecting and customizing templates to typography, color theory, and layout principles that make designs look professional.

• The course covers real, usable design formats, including Instagram posts, LinkedIn banners, business presentations, YouTube thumbnails, infographics, resumes, and marketing flyers, with a hands-on exercise.

• Brand identity modules teach you how to build a consistent visual presence using Canva's brand kit features, so every asset a business produces looks cohesive rather than cobbled together.

• Our Generative AI for Marketers course extends this further by showing how Canva AI, ChatGPT, and Jasper can be combined to produce campaign content, ad copy, and social media posts faster than manual design alone.

Our free Canva courses cover both the design and AI-assisted dimensions of visual content creation.

• Canva for Beginners – 1 hr

  • Canva tool essentials

  • Web design fundamentals

  • Social media design

  • Presentation design

  • Brand identity creation

  • Typography and color theory

  • Photo editing

  • Animations

  • Video editing basics

  • Custom template creation

  • Print design

  • Digital marketing materials

• Generative AI for Marketers – 1 hr

  • Generative AI in marketing

  • AI-powered campaign content creation

  • Social media posts and ad copies using Canva AI, ChatGPT, Jasper, and Copy.ai

  • SEO and content strategy with AI

  • AI marketing strategy and best practices

The Canva for Beginners course on SkillUp covers Canva's core design features and the practical skills most users need for professional visual content creation.

• Social Media Design

  • Create Instagram posts, LinkedIn banners, YouTube thumbnails, and platform-specific content

• Presentation Design

  • Build visually engaging presentation decks using Canva templates and design tools

• Brand Kits and Brand Identity

  • Set up brand colors, fonts, and visual consistency across designs

• Typography and Color Basics

  • Understand design fundamentals like font pairing, hierarchy, and color usage

• Photo Editing and Animations

  • Use Canva’s built-in editing tools, effects, and simple animations

• Video Editing Basics

  • Learn introductory video creation and editing features within Canva

• Custom Templates and Print Design

  • Design reusable templates and print-ready materials

• Canva AI and Magic Design

  • Explore AI-powered design features and automated content generation tools

• Canva Pro and Canva for Teams

  • Understand features available across the Canva Free and Canva Pro environments

Our course is updated periodically as Canva releases new features, so learners access current tools rather than outdated content.

Canva is applied differently depending on the professional context. But the basic flow is the same, such as picking a template, customizing, adding brand elements, and exporting. Our Canva for Beginners course builds this workflow via hands-on projects on each one of these use cases.

• Social media content: Canva's pre-sized templates for every platform (Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, X) eliminate the manual sizing work. They give social media managers a repeatable production system for daily content at scale.

• Marketing materials: Design flyers, email headers, event banners, product launch graphics and digital ad creatives in Canva faster than you can in traditional design software

• Presentations: Canva offers a presentation builder with animated slides, speaker notes, and the option to present straight from your browser. It is a powerful alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides for non-technical audiences

• Brand identity:  With Canva’s brand kit feature, your logo, brand colors, and typography are stored. So every asset you create is automatically on-brand without needing to manually reapply it. This is a particularly useful feature for small businesses or solo marketers who are managing multiple channels

Understanding the three versions helps you get the most from the courses.

• Canva Free

  • Includes access to thousands of templates

  • Offers basic design tools

  • Provides a limited brand kit

  • Supports standard export formats

  • Best for individuals, students, and freelancers starting out

• Canva Pro

  • Includes the full template library

  • Offers unlimited brand kits

  • Provides background remover and Magic Resize

  • Gives access to premium elements

  • Includes advanced AI features and priority support

  • Best for freelancers, small business owners, and active content creators

• Canva Business

  • Includes everything in Canva Pro

  • Offers shared brand kits across team members

  • Provides team templates

  • Supports approval workflows and admin controls

  • Best for marketing teams, agencies, and businesses with multiple designers

Our Canva for Beginners course on SkillUp teaches skills that apply across all three versions.
Note: You do not need Canva Pro to complete the course or apply what you learn.