Canva for Instagram: Content Creation made EASY | Ronny Hermosa | Skillshare
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Canva for Instagram: Content Creation made EASY

teacher avatar Ronny Hermosa, Your Go-To Canva Guru

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Class Introduction

      1:18

    • 2.

      A Quick Graphic Design Refresher

      2:28

    • 3.

      Select the Right Document Type

      4:27

    • 4.

      Create Instagram Posts (still and animated)

      11:31

    • 5.

      Compose Instagram Carousels

      11:19

    • 6.

      Craft Instagram Stories

      8:05

    • 7.

      Design Instagram Highlights

      8:47

    • 8.

      Create Instagram Reels

      14:43

    • 9.

      Design Reels Covers

      8:15

    • 10.

      Class Project

      0:40

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About This Class

Want to elevate your Instagram game?

In this dynamic course, we'll guide you step by step on how to harness the power of Canva to design eye-catching and engaging Instagram content. Whether you're showcasing products, promoting an event, or simply sharing moments, Canva has a multitude of tools tailored for Instagram that can help elevate your brand's presence. 

This course is beginner-friendly and is tailor-made for those new to Canva. All you'll need is a Canva account (free version works wonders) and a passion to create!

By the end of this course, not only will you have a portfolio of dynamic posts, stories, and reels tailored for your Instagram, but you'll also get the hang of using Canva to design content that truly resonates with your brand and audience on Instagram.

Ronny & Diana, will be your hosts for this course.

A bit about us:

Ronny is a content creator and entrepreneur. He worked at Canva for 2 years and have been creating courses and tutorials about Canva for over 5 years now. He runs a large Facebook group about Canva + a thriving YouTube channel together with Diana. All of these are, of course, about Canva and how to become a better designer with Canva. 

Diana is also a content creator and entrepreneur. On top of the tutorials and online courses she creates, she designs templates for the Canva Creator project. 

Both Ronny & Diana are Verified Canva Experts (Canva's top brand ambassador program), this gives them access to new features earlier and direct access to Canva. 

  • Fundamental graphic design principles tailored specifically for captivating Instagram posts.

  • How to choose the correct document type for different Instagram formats, ensuring optimal presentation.

  • Techniques to design both still and animated Instagram posts that stand out and engage your audience.

  • Crafting compelling Instagram carousels that flow seamlessly and tell a visual story.

  • Creating Instagram stories that captivate viewers from start to finish.

  • Designing highlight covers that showcase your best stories and make your profile pop.

  • The art of creating Instagram reels that resonate with your audience and enhance engagement.

  • Crafting custom reel covers that entice viewers to click and watch your content.

Also, our entire class is peppered with hilarious memes and jokes to keep things lively and entertaining!

So!
Ready to shift your Instagram game from basic to breathtaking?

______________

Class Outline:

  1. 5 Graphic design principles for Instagram posts
  2. Select the right document type
  3. Create your Instagram Posts (still and animated)
  4. Compose IG Carousels
  5. Craft IG Stories
  6. Design IG Highlights
  7. Create IG Reels
  8. Design Reels Covers

Let's do this!

Meet Your Teacher

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Ronny Hermosa

Your Go-To Canva Guru

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Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Class Introduction: Instagrammers gonna here, I'm back to teach you about creating eye catching content for Instagram using Va exclusively. Here's what's on the menu. First we'll go over some important graphic design principles, like using negative space and maintaining visual consistency. These tips will make your Instagram profile look polished and professional. Next, you'll learn how to select the optimal dimensions for different post formats like square portrait and landscape. Proper sizing prevents unwanted cropping and distortion. At this stage, we'll be ready to design. We start with some static and animated Instagram post, focusing on tips to grab your audience's attention. I'll also show you how to craft compelling carsos and stories to boost engagement. You'll discover how to showcase your best stories with highlights on your profile. We'll even create reals and irresistible custom covers for them. After watching all these lessons, you will have the skills to quickly design post stories and Als that represent your brand and connect with your Instagram community. Let's get to work. 2. A Quick Graphic Design Refresher: Some Instagram posts just stop you from scrolling down and some others don't. Why is that? When it comes to crafting, eye catching Instagram posts, there are some design principles that can take your visuals to the next level. Let's dive into five tips that will make your Instagram fit a professional visual masterpiece. Maintain visual consistency, that is number one, be consistent. Define a visual style for your posts by using color schemes, filters, fonts, and overall aesthetics that perfectly align with your brand. This way, your followers will instantly recognize your posts and associate them with your unique brand personality. Embrace negative space. Remember, sometimes less is more. Instead of cramming your post with loads of text or elements, give your content some room to breathe. Embrace negative space, those empty areas around your visuals and text to achieve a clean and balanced composition that allows your content to shine high quality images. Select high resolution, clear, and beautiful, composed images that instantly grab attention and effectively convey your message. Say no to pixelated and blurry visuals that want you justice for your post. Instead, strive for high quality images, and don't settle for any less design for mobile. Keep in mind that Instagram is all about mobile browsing to make your designs pop on smaller screens. Here are two simple tips. Tip number one, make sure your visuals and texts are aligned to digest. Tip number two, be careful with tiny details as they might get lost in the visual size does matter. Be mindful of Instagram's recommended dimensions. Paying attention to detail maintains the visual integrity of your posts and keeps them from any awkward cropping or wonky distortions. Nail the size and format and your Instagram feed will radiate professionalism catching the eye of every scroller passing by. Get ready for the next lectures where we'll explore this topic in more detail. 3. Select the Right Document Type: Make sure your content looks great on any device. And within the Instagram feed, you'll want to optimize your post dimensions and here's how to achieve it. First of, let's talk about the square format, which is a popular choice on Instagram To ensure your posts appear exactly as you envision them, aim for a size of 1080 pixels by 1080 pixels. This square aspect ratio prevents any unwanted cropping or distortion, allowing you to maintain the visual integrity of your photos and graph. That said, Instagram supports other formats too, like landscape, and portray landscape format with dimensions of 1080 pixels by 566 pixels is great for showcasing wide angle horizontal shots. Though this format is not recommended, and I'll tell you why in a minute. On the other hand, portrait format sized at 1080 pixels by 13 50 pixels works wonderful vertical images, providing ample space to display captivating content. Portrait format seems to be very popular nowadays as this covers more space in the feed. But I recommend you to explore and experiment with the different formats to see what works best for you when trying these formats out, adjust your composition and design elements to make the most of the available space. Oh, and one last tip. Don't forget that Instagram's display can slightly variate across devices. So be cautious about placing crucial information or important elements near the edges of the frame. Keep them towards the center, and that way they won't get cut off on certain screens. As you can see, I am now in Canva because I want to show you how to find the templates to create your own Instagram designs. This is actually pretty easy. You can go to the social media tab and then select Instagram. Here you'll see the following options. You see the Instagram Post Square, Instagram story, Instagram Ad Square, Instagram Real animated, Instagram post and Instagram story Ad. If you click on any of these options, you will create a blank document. If you scroll down, you will see templates with the same format. You will see Instagram posts, Instagram stories, Instagram ads, and so on. If you want to use any of these templates, simply click on the thumbnail that you like. Campa will open a new document in the editor. Let me go back to the previous page, because as you can see, as for the post format, there are only two options. We see the Instagram post square, which is 1080 by 1080. The other option is an animated Instagram post which is also square, 1080 by 1080. What about the portrait and landscape mode? For this, we are going to type Instagram post on this search bar. Here we'll see two different options for the Instagram post format. We'll see the portrait one and the square one. If you want to create an Instagram post using the portrait format, select this option. This will take you to the search result, and if you scroll down, you will see only templates using this Instagram portrait format. Let me go back to the home page, because when we typed Instagram post, we see portrait with square. But what about the landscape mode? For this one, we need to create a custom size document. We are going to click on this button on the top of the screen. We're going to enter 1080 as the width and 566 as the height, then create new design. Now that we know how to select the right document for our Instagram post, we are ready for the next lecture where we are going to start designing. 4. Create Instagram Posts (still and animated): Before we start designing, let's keep these best practices in mind. Aesthetics, get noticed and stay true to your brand. With eye catching designs that draw people in viewer experience, think about your audience. Make it easy for them to consume your content. Use clear fonts, short and concise texts, and visuals that everyone can understand. Space. Embrace the magic of negative space to create a clean and cluttered look that makes your content easy to read and leaves a lasting impression. Now that we're ready to design, let's go to social media and then Instagram. I'm going to create a square Instagram post, as these seem to be the most popular option nowadays. Under templates and Instagram post, you will see a carousel showcasing different templates. You can review more options by clicking on this arrow. If you cannot see anything that you like, you can click on oil or continue clicking on this arrow. This will take you to the result page, which has thousands and thousands of different Instagram post templates the search result. You would like to pay attention to the following icons. There are some templates that do not have any icon on top. Like, for example, these five options right here. On the other hand, the template that we have on the right hand side next to the other five templates that I just highlighted, this one has a crown icon or label. When I hover on top of this label, it says Pro. This label means that this template is available only for Cava Pro subscribers. Let me scroll down because you will also find another type of icon that you would like to pay attention to. Let's take this one as an example. This one has a play icon. This means that this template, in particular has an animated element, or it has a video in it. When you hover on a template that has this play icon, you will see the video or the animations it contains. I'm going to select a template that is completely free to use, that is static. I'm going to select a static template because I want to show you how to add animations to it. I'm going to go for this one. In order to create a new document, you simply need to click on the thumbnail of the template that you like and then click on Customize this template. We are now inside the editor and we are ready to customize this design. I'm going to start by giving a name to this document because at the moment it has a generic name, you can change the name of your document on the gradient bar on top on this design in particular, we have an image in the background, we have a shape element, and then we have an icon and two textboxes. I'm going to show you how to change and customize every single element that I just mentioned. We're going to start by changing the image in the background. We're going to go to elements on the left hand side. From here we have different categories of elements. We'll see lines and shapes, graphics, stickers and photos. I'm going to use the photo section. I'm going to click all from here. If you have something in particular that you want to use in the background, you can use the search bar or you can see, please scroll down if you find something that you like, you can also click on these suggested labels below the search bar. In my case, I'm going to click on the one that says background. I'm going to add an image that I like in here. I'm dragging and dropping. Now if you want to change the position of the image that is now in the background, simply double click and now you can drag the image to position it wherever you want. Click Done and you are ready. Now let's change the color of the shape that we have in here and the icon. By selecting the shape, you will see that you have a different menu on the white toolbar. You are going to select color from here, you can either click on this plus icon and play around with these sliders. If you have the hex code for your branded colors, you can add the hex code in here and then hit Enter. You can also add gradients to your shapes or elements in Cavas, so you can click on Gradient and generate different gradients. In here, you have, by default, two different colors, but you can add more than two. Now let me go back to the solid color section, because in here you have one more option to grab colors from your design. You have a color picker. When you click on this icon, you will be able to select any color available on your screen. There are also some other options. You will see that below there is photo colors. You can click on any of these colors auto generated by Canva from the image in the design, and see if you want to use any of those. We have a selection of solid colors and gradients. Now to change the color of the icon, I'm simply going to select the icon. I already have the color window open, so I'm going to change the color straight away from here. Now to customize the text boxes, we need to select the textbox that we want to customize and then use the tools available in this white bar. If you want to change the text inside the text box, click one more time and then you have access to the textbox and you can write your own text. Our design is ready to be downloaded, but what if you want to add a simple animation for it to grab your audience attention? This is pretty simple. If you want to add any animation to your static design, you can click on any of the elements on your design. In this case, I'm going to select the background. And this will display this button that says Animate. You're going to click here. And now you have access to either page animations or if you have selected a specific element on your design, you will also see elements animations. Or if you have selected a text box, you will see text animations. Let's see what we have. Under page animations, we have four categories. We have combinations, basic, exaggerate and photo movement. If you want to preview the animations on your design, you can hover on the different options available in here. Select the animation that you prefer. And now we are ready to download the post. Click on the Share icon that you see on top of the screen, then select download. From here, you have two different options. If you want this post to be animated, you are going to download it as an MP four video. You're going to leave it as it is. This is the suggested option that Mva offer us. And then hit download. If you want to download this design as an static image, click on Share, go to download, and then you can either select Jpeg or PNG. We're going to go for PNG and then hit download that I have the files downloaded to my computer. I'll show you how to post them on your Instagram account. From a desktop, you're going to log into your Instagram account and go to your profile. From here, you are going to click on the Create button on the left hand side. You can drag your file in here or select from computer. I'm going to drag the video, the animated post in here. Because I selected a square format, I don't need to do anything else in here. But if you decided to go for a portrait mode, you would like to click on this little icon and select original. In my case, my design is one by one, so I'm going to leave it as it is. Then next, you can select a cover photo from your video, or you can upload one from your computer. I'm going to go for one in my video. As I really like this design and I think it's going to look good on my feet. Then I'm going to select next. You would like to enter a caption in here. If you want, you can add a location and then hit Share. Your post is now available on your Instagram account. Something that I want to mention in here is that even though we created a post, a video post, in this case, Instagram will automatically share it as a real coming back here to the editor, because I actually want to change the colors on this design for it to match our brand identity. This is pretty simple and I'm going to do it quick. I'm going to select this shape on color, and then I'm going to add the hex code on this search bar. I'm going to select the first box that we're seeing here. This is the color from this hex code. And then I'm going to change the color of these elements to white. Finally, I'm removing the colors from the background because it doesn't match the vibe anymore. It doesn't match my brand identity. By selecting the background, you can go to Edit, Photo, Adjust, and then move the saturation slider all the way to the left. You can play around with other settings if you want. And that's it. I think with just a couple of clicks, I was able to transform this design into one that really fits my brand identity. 5. Compose Instagram Carousels: Now use your skills to create awesome carousels to hopefully increase the engagement on your Instagram account. To optimize the impact of your carousels, follow these four golden rules, or shall I say our homemade step method, Striking start. Your first slide should be captivating and grab attention right from the start eye catching images or intriguing texts that awaken your viewers curiosity and have them want to swipe and discover more. Tea. Take your viewers by the hand. Think of a clear structure and guide your viewers through the slides by using arrows, numbers, and other visual indicators. So they go with the flow of your carousel. Nice and smooth. Keep it easy and simple. Remember, attention spans are precious and short, so keep your slides concise and focused. Break down information into easily digestible chunks to maintain engagement and understanding. P Powerful conclusion. Your last light should leave a lasting impression. You should use it wisely, some of your content, and highlight key takeaways from previous lights. It's also the perfect place to add a call to action or invite your viewers to interact. We're back to Kava because we are about to create our own seamless carousel. With the help of templates on the Va home page. Go to the search bar and type seamless carousel. Click on C, all on the search result. You will see that most of the templates will have more than one page. When you hover on top of any thumbnail, you will see the following pages of the template appearing. You can also click on any template and preview the following pages in here. I'm going to scroll down until I see the design that I want to use for this project. Click on the thumbnail that you like and then customize this template. Now in the editor, I'm going to click Concrete View to review my Carousel. In a seamless carousel, what is important is not to move the frames that we have in between two pages. Like for example, the frame that we see in page one and page two, the frame that we see in page 3.4 and the one in page 4.5 the idea is not to move these frames, and also the elements that we see in between pages, we have some other elements, like, for example, this shape that is in between page 2.3 page 3.4 4.5 and 5.6 Having this in mind, we know that we can change the fonts, the color of the elements, and also some elements that are not in between pages. Let's start customizing our seamless carousel. I'm going to go to page number one. I'm going to start by changing the text on my design and also changing the fonts. If you want to apply the same font to all the text boxes on your carousel, you need to do this. You're going to select one textbox, Go to the Font menu, select the font that you want to use on your design. Then you will see below that if you click on Change All, you will change all the text boxes that have the font Black Mango into Monserrat. This one will change all the text boxes on your documents. Not only page one, but all the pages. Let's click Change. All. You will see that all the text boxes on my design has been changed to monserrat, semi bald, which is the font that I selected. I'm going to change the text in the following pages, and I'll come back to show you a trick to change the colors in the whole design with just a couple of clicks. And also to make it look on brand. Here's the trick to change the colors on your design. With just a couple of clicks, you're going to select any element on your design. Let's select this arrow to color. And select the color that you want to apply on your element. And you will see the Change All button appearing below. You will change this color to the new color on the whole document, we're going to do it. Click Change All. You will see that all the elements with this light brown color have been changed to the hot pink color. You can change the remaining colors on your carousel by following the same steps. But I do have another trick that you are going to love. If you are a Cava subscriber, go to the brand B on the left hand side. If you have more than one Branket, you would like to select it by clicking on this drop down menu, which is going to open this pop up window. From here, you are going to select the Branket that you are going to use on this design. I'm going to go for this one which is already selected. And then to change the colors on my whole document, I'm going to use one of these color palettes. I'm going to use the first one. I'm going to click just one time and see if I like the color combination. If you are not happy with this color combination, you can continue clicking on this shuffle button and Cava will show you different options. I'm going to go for this color combination and then I'm going to click on Apply to all pages. Let me go to the Great view to show you how this carousel is looking. We changed the aesthetic with just a couple of clicks, and now this is looking on brand. I just need to change the images in the frames and adjust the color on a couple of elements that I seeing here that are in black. And I need them to be in pink, so the carousel looks seamless. Back to page number one. And then I'm going to open the elements tab to use the photos in the library. If you want to use your own photos, go to Uploads and use the Upload Files button. I'm going to use the photos in the Campa library on this project. Let's go back to Elements. Click on Sell. Next to the photos section in here, I'm going to search for businesswoman hire. From this selection of photos, I would like to find more photos like this one. I'm going to click on the three dots. Then I'm going to click on this link that says View More. By now we're seeing the photos available from this creator. And then I can search again for Businesswoman. Now I can see more photos with a similar aesthetic and also with the same subject. Now I just need to drop and drag the images into my carousel. Going to try with this image. Then as I told you, we are not going to change or move the frames that are in between pages. I'm going to do the same process and I'm going to drop the same image in the frame that we have on page number two. I'm dropping like this. We will have the image split into page one and page two. I'm going to continue following the same process. I am done with my sign and I am ready to download it. I'm going to click on Share Download. I'm going to leave this option as PNG. I'm selecting all the pages and then download. Once you have your files downloaded on your computer, you would like to go back to your Instagram account, click on Create, then we are going to drag, drop, or select the files from your computer. I'm going to drag and drop all the images from my Carcel. Then I'm going to make sure that they are in the correct order. Then I'm going to hit next. Next, add my caption location if you want, and hit Share. Then your carousel has been published on your Instagram feed. Now let me show you a little trick. If you want to upload your carousel directly from your mobile phone, you would like to install Canva on your phone and make sure that you are using the same account and the same team where you created your carousel. If you just created your carousel the same way as I just did a couple of minutes ago, your design may look like this. It doesn't have a thumbnail yet, but I can recognize it by the name. It says Carousel, Instagram. I'm going to tap on the three dots and then hit download, then click download again on this purple button. Once you have your files downloaded on your phone, you would like to click on this plus icon and then select this button that says Select Multiple. You will see that automatically this image has been selected as the first image of your carousel, the cover. But the cover is actually this one. I'm going to tap on the cover and then select this image, because this one actually should go. I'm going to tap in here and tap again until we see this number disappearing. Now I'm going to continue taping on the images in order. This one is page number two. Page number 345.6 Now tap on. Next, make sure that your carrousel looks perfect. Tap next, add your caption and adjust the settings the way you want and heat share. Your carousel has been posted on your account. 6. Craft Instagram Stories: Did you know that stories are an ancient form of communication that has been used for thousands of years to transmit knowledge, culture, and history across generations. Well, nowadays, Instagram stories are great for sharing those genuine part of the moment experiences of yours. It's like giving your audience a sneak peek into what goes behind the scenes of your brand or your daily life. That doesn't mean that everything has to be spontaneous. You can also prepare and craft some stories in advance for those days when you don't have time, you feel uninspired or when you are planning to launch or promote a product or service, ensuring that you have valuable and on brand content ready to share when you need it. Let's create a simple animated Instagram story like this one. And then I'll show you how to create one like this using an interactive Instagram sticker. For this project, we are going to use Cava from our phone. We're going to go to social media, Instagram. Then we're going to scroll down until we see Instagram stories and Select See Oil. From here, you can find thousands and thousands of templates that you can use for your Instagram stories. But let me give you a couple of keywords in case that you want to use the specific Instagram stories. You can use the search bar on top to find Instagram stories and then type questions next to it. Then tab, search for Instagram story questions. I really like these templates because this has been designed to add the question sticker on your stories. You will see that some of them ask you to place your sticker in a certain area of the design. Another key word is polls. You will type Instagram story and then polls. Next idea is Instagram Story quiz. You could also try slider. If you just want to share images, try college. If you have a limited time offer or a lunching coming up, try condom. What about if you want to share an inspirational? Let's type Instagram. If you like any of these templates, tap on the one that you like. Then you can edit it in the same way as we did it on Desktop. Of course this will look a little bit different on mobile because we have less space on the screen. But you can find everything that you need under this plus icon to make this process faster. I'm going to use again, the brand. I'm going to select this color palette. I just tap one time. Let me close this window to see how the design is looking. It's looking great. I'm going to tap one more time. Okay, one more time. This is cute. I think I'm going to use this one. We can download this image as it is by hitting this download button, But if you want to get people's attention, you can animate this design. You will see the animated button at the bottom of the screen. You see it now because I have the background of my design selected. If I didn't have anything selected, we wouldn't see any menu below tapping on the background. I see the animated button here. I'm selecting it from here. I can try different animation modes. I'm going for the tectonic option and then I'm going to tap on the shared icon on top of the screen. Download and then download again. Open the Instagram. Up from here, you would like to select your story. Select the video that you just downloaded from Cava. Click on the arrow that you see below, Select your story and then share. Then done, your Instagram story is ready to be viewed. Coming back to Canva, because I want to create a story using an interactive Instagram sticker. I'm going to search for Instagram story slider. From here, select a story that has a similar sticker that you can add on Instagram. I'm selecting this one right here. As you can see, this one has a section where I can add a slider sticker. I'm going to quickly change the aesthetic of this design to make it more on brand. I'm going back to the plus icon, opening Brand Hub, shuffling the colors, changing the fonts adjust if necessary. Once your design is ready, select download on Instagram. Because you already have a story active, you would like to click on the plus icon below. Select Story. From the menu below, Tap on the little square that you see at the lower section on the left, select your Instagram story and now tap on the sticker on. I'm going to add a slider. Now I'm going to change this icon for a hand pointing down. I'm going to move this slider to the left and then click on the plus icon. Select the MOG that you want from here. You can also change the color of your sticker by clicking on this color wheel icon. I think black looks good on my design, so I'm going to click down. Then you can play around with the size of your sticker. This time I'm going to select your story right away. My story has been published now your audience can play around with this interactive sticker and select one of the options below. 7. Design Instagram Highlights: Instagram highlights are like a collection of your best stories that you want to show off to your followers. They give you the chance to put the most interesting and the most important content right on your profile. Right here. People can easily find it and enjoy it whenever they visit your profile. Let me give you some examples of smart highlights you can use. Who are we? Who am I? Not everyone who visits your profile knows who you are or what you do. Introduce yourself and let people learn more about you and your brands. Events and collaborations capture events you have attended or hosted, as well as any exciting collaborations with other brands or influencers. This helps build your credibility, reach more people, and show your active involvement in the industry. Testimonials and reviews display positive testimonials and reviews from happy customers. This social proof boosts trust and confidence in your brand, Showing others that you deliver great products or services. Faqs and customer support Gather commonly asked questions and provide helpful answers. This way you can address common concerns and offer support. Plus you save time by proactively addressing increase promotions and discounts. Feature limited time promotions, discounts, or exclusive offers in a dedicated highlight. This creates a sense of urgency and encourage your followers to take advantage of these special deals. Product or service showcase include eye catching images, detailed descriptions, pricing, and any special offers or promotions. And this gives potential customers a comprehensive overview of all the goodness you have to offer schedule. This will come handy, especially if you provide services. Share your availability or working hours so your audience knows when they can reach out or book appointments with you. All these Instagram highlights can include icons, shapes, colors, or text depending on the brand and content you want to share. And of course, you'll find it all in Va. So let's create our own highlights. We're going to start by searching for Instagram highlights. You will see that in this search result, you have almost 700,000 templates. It can be overwhelming to try to find the right Instagram highlights for you. Here I have a couple of different categories that you can go for. First, you have highlights that contain only texts, like the ones that I'm showing you on screen right now. Another category that you can have into consideration are photos or textures or patterns. And lastly, but not less important, we have icons and illustrations. After scrolling for a while, I found this template and it is the one that I'm going to use for my highlights here. I want to give you a little tip when you are scrolling down the search result, trying to find the perfect template for your Instagram highlights, I do recommend that you go for a template that already has icons that you are actually going to use. In the case that you are going for icons or illustrations. In this case, we create content so I could use the icon to promote our videos. We sell courses, so I could use the icon to promote our courses. And then this icon, I could use it to showcase some of the testimonials from our students. There are some other icons that I can see I can use on my Instagram highlights. So that's why I have chosen this template. Also, remember to select a template that goes along with your brand style. We're ready to start customizing this template. This kind of templates usually have a cover in the first page, it will be this one. And this page, we need to delete it if we want it before downloading. This one is actually just showing us all the icons that this template contains. The images that we are actually going to use for our Instagram highlights are going to be the pages right here. Now to customize this template, we simply need to select our elements. If we want to change the colors, use the tool bar on top to change the colors from here. If you have a vapor account and you have already set up your brand hub, you can go to the brand hub on the left hand side, select your branket. Then by simply clicking on a color palette on your Branket, you will be adding your branded colors to the icon. I have finished customizing the colors on the Instagram highlights, and I just need to delete the two pages that I'm not going to use. It will be page number one. I'm going to select these three dots, then delete page. Going to do the same for the last page. I'm also going to change the name of my document. Now, I will open my Cava app from my mobile phone using the same Cava app, so I can find the same document. Here we are on our mobile app. This is the document that we just created from our computer. I know that this is the document because this is the name I gave it, this image that we're seeing here. It's going to take a while to update. Don't worry about it. Simply tap on your document to open it. As you can see in here, we have the icons that we just customized by simply tapping on the download icon. We are going to download all the images to our camera role. Now go to your Instagram profile and go to Story Highlights. And tap on this little arrow. For you to be able to create a new story highlight, you need to have uploaded an Instagram story that you want to store on this highlight. Then you're going to tap on this plus icon. Select the story that you want to store on this highlight. Select Next, then you're going to edit cover. From here you are going to tap on this icon and then select the image that you want to have as the cover of this Instagram highlight Select. Done again, if you want. You can give a name to your highlight tab, Add, and your Instagram highlight is ready on your profile. You can continue adding more highlights by following the same steps. I chose the same color for the background of these highlights, and as you can see, the icons also only have black and white. So for the sake of this tutorial, I was selecting the same Instagram story for each of these highlights. But I do recommend that you select an Instagram story that is associated with the highlight that you are creating. If you don't have an Instagram story ready to be able to store it on your highlight, do not create the highlight yet. Only create the highlight after you have created the content or the stories that you want to store on that highlight. 8. Create Instagram Reels: I'm sure you already know that Instagram reels are currently one of the trendiest types of social media content. You can film and edit reels directly on Instagram, but you can really make them look unique and on run by editing them on Cava. I'd also advise you to keep this in mind when creating your reels. Start with a clear concept and structure in mind. Write the script or at least bullet points to guide what you want to mention or show in your real. Make a list of the shots you need to illustrate your content effectively. Then only film the footage you need and proceed to the editing stage. The concept of my reel is very clear to me. I'm going to promote my Canva profile and at the same time I'm going to provide value because I'm going to tell my audience where to find Trendy Instagram template. I also have my script ready and next to the script I have a list of shots that is going to help me through the filming process. Now we're ready to film the material we need for this real. Once you have all this footage ready, we are going to cava to edit our real ready. Let's create a real cava. Let's start by following the structure I just mentioned. We're going to start on the video section and then we're going to create an Instagram real blank document. Next step is to upload the videos that you want to use on your Instagram reel. In case that you want to use your own videos, go to Upload, Select Upload files, Select the videos that you want to upload to Va, and then click open. While I was waiting for my videos to be uploaded to Ava, I split my screen so I was able to see the script of my Instagram Real. And then to the other side, we can see what we are doing in Va. I'm doing this because I would like to record my voice. I want this real to have a voice over. And I'm going to record my voice here in Va. That's why I would like to have my script here visible so I can read it while I record myself. I also want to see the list shots that I'm going to use to illustrate each section of my video. This is going to be pretty handy now. If you want to record your voice inside Va, these are the steps you need to follow. Go to the upload section in here, you will have this button that says Record Yourself At the moment, this button is only available on desktop, so that's why I'm editing my video from a computer. Hit the record yourself button. We are inside the recording studio and I'm going to deactivate the camera because I only need the audio. I'm going to click on this drop down menu and then select No Camera Here before recording. I do recommend that you read out loud your script before recording. This will allow you to read your script with almost no mistakes or hopefully with no mistakes at all. I already practiced my script, so I'm going to go ahead and record myself how to access new Cava templates for Instagram posts every week. Go to Canva.com Diana Unos. We constantly publish new Cava templates following the latest trends on this profile. Hit that follow button to stay in the loop and never miss out on our newest creations. Whenever you need new templates, simply head two templates and click on the creators you follow. Whenever you need new templates, simply head two templates and click on there. Whenever you need new templates, simply head two templates and click on creators. You follow two axes, latest. Whenever you need new templates, simply head to templates and click on creators you follow to access our latest designs instantly. Okay, I'm done. I made a couple of mistakes, but do not worry. We can edit this audio to remove those mistakes. For now, I'm going to save and edit this recording. And let me show you what do we have in here right now. What Vd is to create a little video with our voice. We don't have a video image, but we do have the audio. How do you access new templates for insta? Every week. Now what I want to do is to separate or this video into the different sections that I have created in my script. I'm going to play my audio and then I'm going to hit the keys to start splitting my video into the different sections that we have here. On the right hand side, there is a little section with silence at the beginning of the video. So I'm going to crop that little section out. How do you, this is the first sentence that I have on the first section of my script. So I'm going to leave the guide where that sentence ends. And then I'm going to hit, this is going to split my video. Now I have the first section of the video separated. I'm going to do the same process for the following sections. You can also split your video by leaving the guide wherever you want to split the video. Right click and then split page. I have arrived to the section where I made my mistake. I'm going to listen to this whole section. I'm going to split this page into two, leaving out my mistake. And then I'm going to delete the mistake. Whenever you need new templates, simply had two templates and click on the creators. Whenever you need new templates, simply head two templates and click on creators, you follow two axis latest. Whenever whenever you need new templates, simply head to templates and click on creators you follow to access our latest designs instantly. This is the section that contains my mistake. To delete it, you can simply hit the delete key or right click and delete page. We have cleaned our voice over. Now it's time to add the videos to our reel. The first shot is my face. I created a little video where you can see myself pointing up. And that is because I'm going to add some text on top of the video. Let's add this video on the first page. I also need to trim this video out because there are some sections that I won't use now. We need to do something important here. We need to check the length of our voice over. By clicking on this icon or this video. We can see that this section should be 4.8 seconds. How to access new? I'm going to copy this length and then click on the main video. Go again to the length section and paste the new length in here. Hit Enter, and you can see that now we have a limited selection of this video that we're going to show on the real. You can see I'm pointing up, let me see which section I'm going to use. I make the same gesture a couple of times. I'm going to select the best section of all. Great. Once your selection is ready, click done, then we can increase the size of this video to cover the entire page. I'm also going to mute the audio of this main video because I only want the voice over to be heard. Now let me play the video to see how this is looking. How to access new templates for installer post every week. The next step is to add elements or text boxes that you want to have. On top of this video, I'm going to add some text boxes. So I'm going to go to the text section, add a text box, and then I'm going to customize this text. If you want to add some elements, go to the element section, search for the element that you want to add, and then place it on your video. Now I want to add some animations to the text boxes and the elements that we have in here. To do so, I'm going to select the text boxes, go to animate, and then select the animation that you want to add to that element. This is how the first section of this real is looking how to access newtemplates for installer post every week. I'm going to continue adding the following videos to the next section of my Instagram brill. And then I'm going to show you how to add transitions in case that you want your video to look more dynamic. Here we have a little problem. My voiceover is 6 seconds and my main video is only 5.4 seconds, meaning that the main video is shorter than the voiceover. This is going to do is that we are going to hear the full voice over, but then we are going to see the main video in loop because I am clicking on the following button. It will be weird if at the end of this section we see the button again as follow. Let me play the video. So you can see that at the end we have just a couple of frames in which we can see the follow button again, that follow button, to stay in the loop and never miss out on our newest creations. You see, we see the follow button again. Solution, because this was a short video and it was easy to do, is that I filmed this section again and I applauded it to camp. Here I have the new section. This one is 7.8 seconds. I'm going to trim it. It fits the same length as the voice over, which is 6 seconds. Now let me show you how the new video looks. Hit that follow button to stay in the loop and never miss out on our newest creations. As you can see, this new video fits much better. This section, I am ready to create the final section of the video. This reel is ready to be downloaded, but first I want to show you how to add some transitions in between the different scenes. Place your icon in between the two scenes, and you will see two little icons appearing. Click on this icon. This will open the transitions window, and then from here, you can review the transitions. And by clicking on the one that you like, you will apply the transition on your video. Now my reel is finally ready to be downloaded. I already changed the name of my document and I'm opening Campa on my phone. This is the Instagram real document that we were working on. By tapping on this thumbnail, I'll be able to access my video now. Tap on the shared icon on top of the screen. Download file type mp four, video, select all pages, and then hit download. Go over your Instagram profile and hit the plus icon. At the bottom of the screen, you will see a little menu that you can scroll down below and make sure that real is activated. Select the video that you just downloaded from Cava. Select Next, you can further customize your reel with the Instagram actions if you want. When you are ready, select next. From here, we just need to write a caption and add a cover to our reel. But we don't have a cover just yet. What do we do now? You guessed it. Let's start the next lecture and the sign, that amazing custom, real cover we are missing, then we'll be all set to post on this real. 9. Design Reels Covers: With all the great work you have done on your reel, you want your cover to be just as amazing? No, you want your cover to be irresistible. Let's do this right, And remember these three simple tips. First, clear and legible text. If you decide to include text on your real covers, make sure it's easy to read, even when it's displayed in a small size. Use concise and attention grabbing headlines or captions that give viewers a sneak pick of what to expect. Also, make sure to position your text within the screen safe zone. Second, relevant imagery. Choose visuals or images that accurately represent the content of your reel. Here too, go for high quality pictures or screenshots that showcase the key moments or highlights from your video. Third, eye catching thumbnails. Create captivating thumbnails that encourage viewers to click and watch your reels. Intriguing visuals or compelling text. Overlays are great to make your covers stand out. Go over the search bar and type Instagram real cover. Click on CL. From here you can scroll down to discover the templates available. And then once you find the visual or the template that you prefer, click on the image and then customize this template. We're going to change the colors so they are aligned to our brand. Change the phones, change the text. Add our own photos if we want and then download. You do the process, select the elements, go to the color icon, change the color, and then if you have ca vap and you have set up your Branket, go to the brand hub and select the color palette that you want to use on your Instagram real cover. If you want to use the fonts on your branket, go to the sign styles and then select Brand Ponds. Remember to customize the text. I have uploaded an image that I want to bring to the background, so I'm dragging and dropping my image in the background. There is a shallow element in here that I actually don't need, so I'm going to delete it. And then by selecting the background, I'm going to add some transparency. Because I want to be able to see some of the templates, but I don't want this background to compete with the text that we have in here. I also have an image in my brand hub that I want to use. It is this one under Photos. By clicking on the photo, I bring my image to the design. And here's a tip. Once you add another photo to your design and you move it around, Mva will automatically take it and bring it to the background. We don't want that. We want the image to be in the design but not in the background. My solution is that every time that I need to move my photo, I press the key command or control. Cava knows that it doesn't need to go in the background of the design. Now remember that we need to be conscious of the safe areas while designing Instagram Real covers. To do so, we are going to click on File View Settings, and then show rulers and guides. Mine are already activated. Now let me show you a little trick to be sure that all the elements that you are putting on your design are visible. I'm going to press R to bring a square to my design. Now I'm going to position this square right at the corner. I want this square to be 1080 by 1080. You will see some numbers appearing on the tag that we see on the right hand side. Here is where we need to pay attention to make sure that our square is 1080 by 1080. Once we see the right number, we are going to release our mounts. And then right click on the square, and we're going to make sure that is a line to center and middle. Now we're going to create some guidelines. I'm going to bring this line over here, right at the edge of the square. And I'm going to create another guide that matches the other edge of the square. We don't need the square anymore. This was more of a guide, so we can delete it. Now We can see the safe area on our design. This is what we are going to see most of the times on our Instagram feed. In this case, I believe this textbox is way too high and I'm going to bring it down now. I can play around with my photo. Going to bring this shape in front of me. I'm going to select the shape, go to position, go to layers, and then bring this shape above my photo like this. We can hide this cut from the photo. I'm making sure that this shape is below our guideline. It doesn't appear on my feed. There is just one more elementary one to add to my design. And then we'll be ready to download it. I am ready to download this Instagram real cover. Remember to change the name of your document. Let's move on to our phones. This is the Instagram real cover that we just created because this is an image, not a video like the Instagram real. We don't need to go inside the document to download it. We can download it from here by tapping on the three dots. Download we're going to leave the file type as PNG and then download. Now that we have our real cover ready, we can come back to this stage where we can add a cover. Remember that we already followed all the posting process for this Instagram real and we got stuck in this section because we didn't have our cover ready. I have my video, I have the copy of my captioning here. I just need to add the cover by clicking on Edit Cover. And then add from camera roll, We can select the Instagram real cover that we just created. Select Done. Then if you have all your settings ready, select Share. That's it. Your Instagram reel is published on your profile. If you want to see how your Instagram reel cover looks like, you can go over your profile, view it from here and also from your real feed. I'm really happy with how this cover looks like, but if you want to change an old cover or if you want to change something from this cover, you can go to your Instagram real select the three dots. Go to edit. Select cover. From here, add from camera to select a new cover. You now mastered the art of creating amazing, professional looking visuals for your Instagram. Congratulations. 10. Class Project: Or need through the art of creating stunning Instagram content. From uncovering graphic design principles to crafting reals and stories. Now let's apply your acquired skills to this project. Your task is to craft an Instagram post that captures attention. Recall all that you have learned from this course, and choose from static images, animated content, or engaging carousels to create your post. Once your creation is published, it's showtime. Share your post on your Instagram account to impress your followers and showcase your creative talent.