The Legalities of Canva

What About Canva?

Canva is, without a shadow of a doubt, currently one of the hottest tools available for small business owners. Odds are, you know someone with a Canva subscription (you may even have one yourself!). Canva is a wonderful, affordable tool that is easily accessible, and its ease of use makes it a valuable tool for even the most novice of users.

Canva has taken graphic design and made it accessible to everyone, no matter their skill level.

Who It’s For…

Non-designers who still want to create visually appealing, quality content
People who don’t have the time to learn complex programs like Photoshop
People with devices that cannot support heavy programs like Photoshop- these programs can take up massive amounts of storage, and bog down your device

What About the Legalities?

This is -undoubtedly- where things get tricky.

Via Canva:

Creating logos you can register as a trademark

If you’d like to create logos on Canva that you can register as a trademark, there are two ways you can go:

1. Design an original logo from scratch in Canva

In creating a unique logo in Canva from scratch, you can use basic lines and shapes from our Free library. You can also use all of our fonts.

However, you cannot use stock content (e.g. photos and graphics) as we only provide a non-exclusive license to this content. Elements in a logo need to be exclusive to you. Other Canva users are free to use the same content, which means that using stock content for your logos isn’t suitable for use in a trademark.

Learn more about Canva’s licenses here in Licensing explained.

2. Upload your original logo to Canva

You can upload your own logo design to Canva. This might be a logo you designed yourself or one you commissioned a graphic designer to create for you. After uploading your logo, you can use Canva to create branded collateral for your business, like social media content, business cards, flyers, and so much more.

So…what does that even mean?

Well…it’s complicated. You can create it, but you don’t own it (even if you pay for Canva Pro!). You have created your design -a logo, for example- but you have done so using their stock images and vectors (lines, shapes, etc.). You are not the owner and therefore do not have exclusive rights to that logo you’ve just created. Canva does not currently support the ability to buy exclusive rights to a logo built in Canva, though it is something they say could come to the site sometime in the future.

Still Struggling?

That’s okay! Give Woodchuck a call today! We’d be glad to help you navigate the ins and outs of graphic design!

I Have a Question for Woodchuck!

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The incredible thing about the internet is that we can work anywhere!
Woodchuck Arts is geo-located in Pickerington, Ohio, but we serve clients all over the United States.

info@woodchuckarts.com
724-910-1871
Cultivate Pickerington Business Center
19 N Center St, Pickerington, OH 43147