Transcripts
1. Introduction to the Class: Hello, and welcome to my
new Skillshare class, where I will teach
you how to create a custom Canva frames
inside of Illustrator. My name is Michelle Marx, and I am a professional graphic designer
and surface pattern Illustrator with nearly 20 years of design industry experience. I'll use my skills in
this tutorial to teach you how to quickly
turn vector shapes in Adobe Illustrator
into photo frames that are compatible
for use with Canva. With this skill, you can turn
any vector shape you have created into a fully functional image frame
inside of Canva. For this class, you are going to need two pieces of software. One is a subscription
to Adobe Illustrator, and you'll also need
a Canva account. Now, it doesn't matter
if you have a free or a pro Canva account
because you can complete this process
with either one. You will also need a foundational
knowledge of how to use both Canva and Adobe illustrator so that you can go
through this process. If you're ready to create
your own custom Canva frames, then let's get started.
2. Setup your artboard: First step for this process
is to start in Illustrator. So we're going to
create our artboard, and if you're following
along with me, let's start just by
naming our file, so I'm just going to
put maybe Canva frames. Okay, the size of your artboard, you don't need to be too
fussy at all at this stage. We just need an artboard where
we can create our artwork. So what I'm going to
do is I would like to have multiple frames
in one artboard. Instead of having
multiple artboards. And this will make sense later on when we
import them into Canva. Basically, what I'll do is, I'm just going to
go with an A four. I'm in Australia,
so we use A four, but if you're say in the US, you might use US letter. But honestly, any size
because you can always resize your artboards
from within Canva, and I'm just going to set
it to screen and RGB. Okay, so don't be too fussy at this stage
with these settings because it doesn't really have a huge impact on the end result. So we've got our
artboard set up there. If you would like
to do multiple, then we can always
create new artboards. You can have as
many as you like. But I find just while
we're learning, let's just stick with
one artboard so that it's minimal uploading and downloading and
that sort of thing.
3. Design your vector elements: Okay. In this lesson, we're going to start
creating the shapes or the elements that will
become our canva frames. Now, the key with
this process is that every element that you work with needs to be a vector element, and it really doesn't
matter what shape it is. So the world's your oyster in terms of what you can create. I'm going to walk through a
couple of different ways. I'm going to show you
with basic shapes. I'm going to show you
with the pen tool, the blob brush, and
then the type tool. So let's create those for now. You can create these
along with me. Let's start with
our shapes tool. We've got the square
or rectangle tool, the circular or ellipse, and all the different
shape tools. In one instance that you
may want to create a frame, could be like if you're
creating mock ups for business cards or pages
and that sort of thing. So if we are to create a shape, that is the shape
of a business card. In Australia, our standard
business card dimensions like the size is 9 centimeters
by 5.5 centimeters. Now, it doesn't mean
that I have to create a shape that is the exact size. It doesn't have to be
9 centimeters by 5.5, but the ratio needs
to be the same. What I'm going to
do is I'm going to do 90 point by 55 point, and that's a tiny shape there. But the key is that
my ratio is correct. It doesn't matter
if I resize as long as I resize with
constrained proportions. The other key is that we need to make sure
there are no strokes, so let's go ahead and
let's remove the stroke, and we want to make
sure that we can actually see our fill color. Let me bring my
colors panel over. It's do a nice little teal. Now, one of the
challenges at this point, if you're creating
rectangular shapes is when we bring
them into Canva, Canva is going to recognize
them as a resizable frame. Now, this is typically
not what we want. So to work around that and
avoid problems later on, I'm just going to zoom right in, and I'm just going to curve
the edges ever so slightly. Doing that just adjusts the shape enough so that CVA does not recognize
it as a frame. If it doesn't
matter to you about having those sharp edges, then you don't need to worry, or if you don't mind having
the resizable frame, the only thing is
there is already a frame in there where
you can resize it. If you're looking to create a business card mock up like
this or a page mock up, let's just say that you're looking at doing like
an A four frame. In Australia, we've
got 210 by 297. These dimensions, while it
won't be the full size, the dimensions are correct. If I needed to create
an A four page frame, this is how I would do it. Very importantly, adjusting
the corner just so that it changes the shape
enough so that Canva doesn't recognize
it as its own frame. That's using the shapes tool. Now we can also create circles. However, there are already circular frame shapes
inside of Canvas, I doubt you'll need to use that. Here's where it gets quite fun. Let's use the pen tool
to create custom shapes. Using the custom shapes. The pen tool is what creates your vector because they're made from curves and corners
rather than pixels. Whatever frame, whatever
shape you want to create, you can create it
from inside of Canva. Let's maybe play a
little bit with both. Maybe I want to have a curved
corner. Where I want to go. Maybe that. I've used a
combination of my pen tool and the shapes to create
a nice corner frame. If let's say you
you had an image where you wanted
to trace over it using your pen tool or
even your pencil tool, you can create any of
those shapes using that. Another tool that you
might want to use is the blob brush tool
because maybe we just like the idea of
having a blob shaped frame. Which is pretty cool. I'm
just going to make sure that we are completely filled in because I can see a few
additional spots there. The key is just making sure that the frame is shaped
to your liking. There's the blob brush tool. Let's say you want to
create some letter frame. I'm going to take the type
tool and I'm just going to say letter M for Michel. No. Let's go S for skill share
because we're having fun. I'm just going to
increase the size. Now, one thing you want to pay attention to with the frames in using fonts as frames. Typically, when we're using
letters as our frame, we want them to be
nice and thick. We want to choose like
a nice bold font. Let's say, Monsat is going
to have a nice thick one, where are we got
extra bolt or black? Let's choose the black one.
We have our letter tool here, our letter frame here. However, we want to make sure that we don't leave it as type. We want to create outlines,
we want to expand it. Before you turn them into your
frames, just right click, create outlines, or
object, expand, and. Now you can see how it's
been transformed from the type into a vector shape. That's very important
for this process. As you can see, there
are many different ways that you can create shapes
to use inside of amber. Just go ahead and have
fun with it and actually, I'm going to even create one of my favorites using
the Blobrush tool, which is a monstera leaf. Okay. I'm going to use the
eraser tool just to create the leaves
in the monstera. This is very rough, but I just want to show you that he can just really
enjoy this process. I have fun with the process. So we've got our drawn
shape, we've got our letter, we've got our business
card, page frame, and in the order there. In the next lesson, I'm going to talk to you a
little bit about borders because sometimes
you might like to have a border around your frame.
4. Working with borders: All right. In this
lesson, I want to talk to you about dealing with borders because you
might want to create a frame that has a
border within it. So I want to walk you through the process
of dealing with that. So let's say we want to
take our letter shape, our letter frame, and we want to add a black border around it. So using illustrators tool, just add the stroke to the
width that you would like. And I'll just turn it into black so that I can
actually see it. Just make your adjustments
to your stroke. If you want the sharp corners or perhaps you want rounded
corners to the stroke. Just apply the settings
as you would like to see because in your frame, where you can see
the teal color, that's where the frame will be. The black will remain
a black border around your frame if we
take these following steps. After you've applied
your stroke, we want to make sure that we expand we want to make sure that we expand the stroke so that it is not a stroke, it is just an extension
as a separate shape. What I'm going to do is
go to object, expand, then I'm just going to use my shape builder tool to connect both of
the strokes together. I'll just turn it
into black like that. Now what I've got here is I've got two separate elements
grouped together. If I ungroup them to
show you, ungroup. See, we've got the S shape and then we've got the
black border around it. This is how we want
to deal with it. Now, if I if I group
them together, it is going to remove one of the elements
in the next step, which will make
sense to you then. Let's just make sure
that we want to ro them. We want to select the border, and we want to make sure
that it is sent to the back. Okay. Just those two
key things to remember, make sure you expand
the stroke so that it appears as a shape
rather than a stroke, and you want to
send it to the back and make sure that
it is ungrouped.
5. Create clipping masks: Just checking in
through our process. What we've done
so far is we have created a set of shapes
that we are going to turn into frames that we
can use from inside of Canva. So basically, we've got just
a set of vector shapes here, and our next step is to create
clipping masks for these. This is where we're basically going to turn each
of these elements into the format that Canva
will recognize as a frame. So what we need for this step is to have
our shapes ready, but we also need to
place an image file. It does not matter what image you use because we're
going to remove it anyway. So basically, I'm going
to click File Place, and I'm just going to choose just an image that
I can place here. This is just a patent
tile that I've got. It needs to be a PNG or a JPEG. Have your image here. You can use a photo.
You can even just do a screen grab and paste
it into Illustrator. It doesn't really
matter as long as it is a raster image file
that you can use. In this step, what we
need to do is place the image so that it covers the each individual
shape we have. But we need to send it
to the back so that you can see the shape in
front of your image file. Okay? It's not going to work. If the image file is
in front of the shape, it must be behind it. In this step, we
want to highlight. We want to select both
the image and the shape. Right click, make clipping mask. This here is essentially
blocking out everything outside of the shape through this clipping mask. I'm going to just repeat
that process because I need a duplicate of my image, and we're going to
repeat this process for each and every
individual shape. I will select both elements, right click, make clipping mask. I want to repeat that for
every shape that I have, select, make clipping mask. Select make clipping mask. We do it for the monstera
make clipping mask. When you're dealing with
the one with the border, we need to be careful here. If I select all of it and
make the clipping mask, you'll notice that either the
letter shape or the border, it depends on which one is
first is going to be deleted. If I'll just step back, If
I highlight the border, make the clipping
mask out of that, then where you can
see the image, that's what we turn into
the frame in Canva. That's not what I'm looking for, might be what
you're looking for, but it's not what
I'm looking for. I would like the teal portion of the S to be what
creates the frame. I will select that, select my image frame as well, and then make clipping mask. You can see that I've got my frame shape with the
blue border separately. Okay. So this step is
the most vital part of this entire process because where it has
created the clipping mask, that is what's going
to transform it into a frame once we import
these into Canva.
6. Import elements into Canva: So now we've got our elements, and we have prepared
the clipping mask. Now our next step is to export them out of illustrator
and import them into ba. So let's just do a
few checks first. Let's make sure that we've
got clipping masks on everything and make sure that any elements that
have two parts to it, let's say we've got our S shape or our element
that has a border around them, or perhaps you've got a element where it's got
multiple colors to it. Let's say you've created
a You've created a square frame and you've
chopped it in half and you want one part to be color and one part to be framed. So making sure that they are grouped to get
they are in place, like it's not wonky or
anything like that, and just make sure that
they are ungrouped. We want them to be separate. And that's just just a couple of checks before we actually
export the file. Once you're happy with them, let's go ahead and
turn this into a PDF, so we're just going to go file, and we are going to save it. Let me just bring that over. We are just going to
save it as a PDF file. The settings themselves, it
doesn't really matter what your settings are just as long as you are saving it as a PDF. So again, the settings,
it doesn't really matter. It can be small as
file size or it could just be what
you've got on screen. It doesn't really really matter. So let's just save the PDF. Then we can come
over into Canva, and you'll start
on the dashboard. As I mentioned earlier, it doesn't matter if you're using the Canva free
or the Canva pro. It also doesn't really
matter if you're using say, at time of recording, it's July. Canva is still rolling
out the new interface. What you're looking at might
look slightly different. This is my training
account and I think it might still be
on the old interface. But most of the buttons and
the application is the same. It doesn't matter what version you're using whether it's free, pro, new, old, the
process is the same. Essentially, what we
need to do here is upload our PDF into Canva. You can just go ahead and
click, load, Choose Files, and then find the Canva
frames that you just made, the one you just exported
out of Illustrator, and you'll see it will appear
here in your recent design. It basically creates
a new artboard inside of Canva for
you to work with. Go ahead and open that up. And you saw the quick flash of the hallmark
Canva frame image. Basically, all of the elements
that we just created in Canva in Illustrator are
now appearing in Canva. We've got one more step to go. For each one, just
click on the element, right click and detach image, and then just delete your image. Do that for each one. And you can see now
you have got frames. Just having a look
at our S shape, you can see that both
elements are separate. But you can now group them together so you can
move them in unison. Each one of these
now is acting as a frame fully functional
frame inside of mva. If I come across two
elements and I'll just find something.
Let's just go fen. If we've got photos, we can drop videos into it, but just click and drag your
photos into each frame, and you can see where we've set the clipping mask is
where the frame exists. For each one, we can just
go ahead. Then pop it in. With our background color here, you can change the color of
the background if you wish. If we select it,
choose the color, we want a pink background
or blue or gradient, it's fully fully functional. With these frames,
because we're still deal we're still
dealing with a vector. It doesn't matter where I
mentioned in the beginning, it doesn't matter of the size as long as your
dimensions are correct. We can resize them and it's going to be nice
and crisp and clear. So you can really use
them for whatever. Now, from this point, there may be a few
different things that you want to use these for. So you could be creating
these for a client to use. And to transfer ownership
of these to your client, let's just detach each image. To transfer these to the client, you want to create
a template like a template link where you can transfer
that to the client. Then that way, you've got
a copy of the frames, they've got a copy of the frame so that if they ever lose them, you can transfer
it back to them. You may want to turn
these into say, you might want to
turn it into a mock. Let's just say
office desk, right. Let's say we want to
create a mock up, for instance. We can copy. So click and copy the frame
and then paste it again. We can resize to drop
the piece of paper in. There you've got your
mockup, you might want to add a drop
shadow as well. You can also copy and paste. If if I want to create a
completely different template. Let's say I want to create
a social media template. I'm going to control C or
command C to copy this one. And then I'm going to
go to a new design, and I'm going to paste it in. Okay custom size. Let's just do an Instagram post. So Remember, I've still
got it on my clipboard, so I'm going to control V
or command V to paste it, and maybe I just want to add
that beautiful edge to it. Okay Let's go Let's
go gold foil. Oops, I mean the wrong one. Elements. Golf foil. Maybe I just want to add
a bit of goldness to it. Because that's a photo. Here we go. You can use them. You're not just limited
to the one design, you can copy and paste them
into other designs as well. Another thing you might
be doing is you might be wanting to sell these as
custom frames on Etsy. Your next step is basically
just to lay them out, maybe put some, like some
little tags on this. This is nine by
5.5 business card. This is a full frame monster leave just
to give them labels, or you might want to have move them so that you've
got one per page, or you might want
to resize the page. But basically, the frames are here for you to do what
you like inside of Canva. Unfortunately, at this point, you can't save them to a brand
kit or anything like that. You can't save the elements to pull them from
the elements tab. I don't know if that's going
to change in the future, but at time of recording, it's not an option
for us at the moment.
7. Your class project: I really hope you enjoyed
learning this new skill. And I tell you what, I think
it opens up a whole lot of new options from within side of Canva when you can
create your own frames. It's great for maybe
you want to sell them as digital products or
creating them for clients. It's so beautiful if you're a graphic designer
or a brand designer, and you want to bring your
skills from Illustrator, which is quite
advanced software, and your clients are
probably not using it, but you can use your skills from inside of
Illustrator and you can bring it into Canvas so that your clients can work
with it as well. Now, for your project for
this class, I would really, really love to see
a screenshot or an image of your frame side by side with the frame in use. So what I would love for
you to do is lay out any of the frames that you've created, create a duplicate. If you've got colors in them, let's perhaps change the colors. Then I would love to see
you drop an image into it. So screenshot that because I'm so excited to
see your creations. Now, this process works
really, really well. But occasionally, there'll
be a few little nuances like creating rectangle
or square shapes, and then Canva doesn't quite
recognize it properly. So if you encounter any
problems like that, please do let me know because I can help you troubleshoot them. So let me know in the comments,
we'll start a discussion. So don't forget to go over
to the project section and upload your project so that I can see your
beautiful creations. Thank you so much for
joining me for this class, and I really hope you enjoyed
learning some new skills.
Michelle Marks, Graphic Designer
