This post was co-written by Anna Nordon and Amanda Sampol

At the Casual Academic Conference Technology Showcase, LX.lab Designer Anna Nordon and Operations Coordinator Amanda Sampol looked at Canva as an accessible design tool for academics and students.

 

What is Canva?

 

Canva is an online graphic design tool that gives you access to a wide range of open source photographs, graphics and fonts. This tool is free and easy to use for:

 

  • Creating professional presentations
  • Co-designing graphics
  • Accessing open source images
  • Getting students to be more creative with assessments

 

The process of designing something is often overlooked because design software can be expensive, hard to access and overwhelming at times. However, Canva is an accessible design solution that can help staff create online or printed resources for subjects; infographics to communicate complex ideas, slides for engaging lectures or promotional material for your department. Students can also use Canva for creating reports and professional slide decks for assessment, resumes and more. The sky is the limit!

 

 

Helpful resources

 

Did you know that all UTS Staff have access to a range of official templates created by UTS’ Marketing Communications Unit (MCU). These include but are not limited to infographics, posters, letterheads, report documents and powerpoint presentations. You can also use UTS’ official colour palette to create Canva graphics more closely aligned to the UTS brand.

 

Looking for more open source images? Feel free to check out ‘The best things in life are free images’ post on futures. And make sure to take a look at our slides from the showcase.

 

This post is adapted from a presentation for the LX.lab Technology Showcase, part of the 2018 Casual Academics Conference. Check out more resources from the Technology Showcase here.

Join the discussion