Running a student organization at Drexel is no small feat. The precarious balance between classes, co-op and other extracurriculars leaves little to no time to spend hours meticulously crafting the perfectly designed informational Instagram story or flyer. But be real —good design still matters. Polished social media posts to attract viewers (quite important in the case of a newspaper), and eye-catching flyers to put around campus are a necessity.
Recently, a debate sparked among The Triangle staff about the usability of Canva, and here we are now, telling you why we love it. If you or your club is not already using it, you are really missing out.
First, Canva is incredibly easy to use. While we all would love to learn the fancy software of Adobe, time is a luxury at Drexel, and once you learn that an entire YouTube tutorial is required just to make a simple graphic, other avenues are explored. Canva involves two simple steps: drag and drop. Even for a person with no prior experience in creating graphics (me), Canva contains over 250,000 free templates for nearly any need. Whether that be the professional resume that you need to make in the next two hours to apply to co-op or the social media post you need to post on your club’s Instagram promoting the next event, the templates that Canva has are versatile and the extensive library of stock photos, videos, graphics and audio tracks make all of that possible.
Beyond the practicality of Canva, its collaborative features also facilitate teamwork in real time. Multiple people have the ability to work on the same design and simultaneously edit and leave comments, which eliminates the need to be in-person or email back and forth to get the job done.
Student organizations crave an aesthetically pleasing Instagram feed with consistency in their visual identity and Canva’s pro (but also useful, free) brand kit helps cultivate that. As long as there is a standard set for the logo, color and font, cohesiveness is not a problem.
And the best part? Canva is free. Most Drexel clubs do not have extra money to burn on a subscription when there is a more practical and more cost-effective option to make professional-looking graphics with just a quick Google search.
But, in argument of using the tools common in the industry, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign are absolutely powerful tools and useful skills to have. However, they are not exactly user friendly — especially for students with no prior experience in digital graphic design. These programs, justifiably so, are built for the use of professional graphic designers and require hours of tutorials or instruction to simply understand the basics. But for an average student juggling lab reports, essays and meetings, spending that much time navigating through layers and menus is just not realistic.
Sure, adding “Adobe” to your resume might be beneficial for you, but for others, getting the job done quickly and conveniently is the main focus. So if you have time and the passion to learn Adobe or Photoshop in general — absolutely, go for it! But if creating a graphic or presentation slide is just another task you need to check off your never-ending to-do list, Canva is your best bet.
Beyond that, one of the biggest challenges that student organizations at Drexel face is the constant turnover of members and leadership. With students potentially leaving and returning every six months for co-op or different graduation cycles, the social media manager or team has a very strong likelihood of changing very frequently. In the case that a club were to rely on Adobe, each new team member would have to re-learn the software entirely from scratch, which takes time away from the core activities of the club. Canva immensely simplifies this process and facilitates a smooth transition between leadership and members, so new members can start right away and focus on what really matters at a student organization — growing the club and engaging with the community at Drexel.
The final verdict is that we have nothing but respect for the people who take the time to learn Photoshop and other design platforms — it is an incredible skill to have. But life at Drexel is chaotic enough, why make it harder? Sometimes choosing the more convenient, beginner-friendly option is not taking an easy way out — it is working smarter. There is no need to go down unnecessary rabbit holes or add more to an already overwhelming workload. Perhaps one day (looking at you, one whole week of spring break), I will actually sit down and learn Adobe. But for now, I have midterms, assignments and the never-ending grind of Week eight to get through.