Exploring AI tools for the holidays: Canva

Welcome back to another edition of 'Exploring AI Tools'!

In this article, we will be covering Canva, a popular web-based graphic design tool that simplifies the process of creating professional and visually appealing designs for many different things, from your child’s school project presentations and reports, to professional decks that you can use at work.

We encourage you to try it out after reading about the tool here. Let's dive in!

What is Canva?

Canva is a design tool that enables users to create a variety of visual content easily. It's essentially an online platform that simplifies the process of graphic design, making it accessible to people who aren't professional designers. Users can create things like presentations, flyers, social media posts, and more, using a simple, intuitive interface.

The reason why Canva has become so popular is that it’s incredibly easy to use, while being versatile enough to assist with all sorts of graphic design tasks. For example, it offers a wide range of pre-designed templates and design elements (like images, fonts, and shapes), which users can customise to create their own designs.

This makes it ideal for creating visually appealing content quickly and without needing to learn complex design software. That’s why it's commonly used in both personal and professional contexts, for tasks ranging from making school project posters to business presentations.

Canva’s AI-assisted tools

Canva actually didn’t have any AI features when it was first introduced in 2013, and in fact didn’t receive any such upgrades until relatively recently. Now however, it hosts a sizable array of AI-assisted design tools within their ‘Magic Studio’ that makes the creation process much easier and faster.

There’s plenty of applications within the Magic Studio to assist you in all things graphic design, but here’s three of their more interesting ones as a preview.

Magic Write: This AI-powered writing assistant helps in generating text for various projects, such as presentations, social media posts, or website content. If you’ve heard of or used ChatGPT before, you’ll likely understand how this works.

This powerful tool can assist your child in developing their writing skills and can also be used to brainstorm ideas, create summaries, or generate creative writing prompts.

Magic Animate: This feature animates entire designs with just a click, adding motion to graphics and presentations. It's not only a fun tool for students to bring their projects to life but also a great way for their parents to create engaging content or presentations.

The simplicity of Magic Animate allows for the creation of professional-looking animations without needing complex skills or software​​​​, which is great for those of us who seek to capture even a small fraction of the magic that professional animators possess.

Beat Sync: For parents and children interested in video projects, Beat Sync is a standout feature. This tool automatically aligns video clips with the beat of a chosen soundtrack, simplifying the video editing process by quite a lot.

Like Magic Animate, it can be used for creating engaging school projects, family videos, or any other content that requires a musical element. Even aside from that, Beat Sync is especially fun since it takes one of the more challenging aspects of video editing and makes it accessible for users of all skill levels​​​​. If you’ve always dreamed of starting a YouTube channel as a hobby, now’s the chance!

Conclusion

We hope you've gained some understanding of Canva and its new suite of AI-powered features at this point. Remember, the beauty of Canva lies in its simplicity and accessibility, which makes it easy for you and your child to create designs and videos, whether for work or for fun.

We therefore encourage you to explore these features and discover how they can add value to your daily life - we’re sure that there's lots of new and exciting things to discover within the tool. Have fun creating!