Keeping Canva On-Brand for Multifamily Marketing

Giving your team the keys to Canva can feel like opening the floodgates of creativity, and that’s a wonderful thing! But just like every town has its unique character, your community has its special brand identity. Letting team members create freely as they hype up new promotions, events, and offers is excellent, but we want to ensure that  your community’s unique sparkle shines through consistently—whether it’s a big announcement or a flyer for the next clam bake. That’s where understanding and using your brand guidelines with Canva templates comes into play.

Know Your Community’s Brand Guidelines

Your brand guidelines are the storybook of your community. It’s about more than pretty colors and fonts; it’s about the feeling you want to evoke, the promises you make, and the personality that makes your community unique. To use Canva effectively, everyone needs to be on the same page with the brand guidelines. (If you want to dive deeper into the why and how, there’s a great resource here.)

Inside your brand guidelines “storybook”, you’ll usually find chapters like:

• Brand Positioning: This is the heart of your story—what makes your community stand out and what you want people to remember you for.
• Brand Attributes: These words describe your community if it were a person. Are you welcoming and warm? Adventurous and active?  Mellow and sophisticated?
• Ideal Resident Profile (IRP): Knowing who you hope to welcome into your community helps you speak their language and create things they’ll genuinely connect with.
• Brand Voice & Tone: This is how your community “sounds” when it writes things down. Is it friendly and casual, like a chat with a neighbor? Or more informative and helpful, like the local librarian?
• Logo Mark & Usage: Your logo is like your community’s signature – there are specific ways it should look to always be recognizable.
• Color Palette: Just like Coca-Cola has its own palette of red and white, your brand has its own set of unique colors.
• Typography: The fonts you use have their feel, too – some are classic, some are modern, and your guidelines will tell you which ones fit your community best.
• Design Elements: These could be patterns, little drawings, or graphic elements that add a bit of your community’s unique charm to everything you create.
• Lifestyle Photography: These photos give people a glimpse of what life is like in your community—think sunny mornings, friendly gatherings, and cozy evenings. And dogs. Don’t forget the dogs.
• Iconography & Illustrations: Sometimes a little picture can say a thousand words, like using an icon to show off the dog park or the community garden.
• Brand Examples: These are like snapshots of how everything should look in real life, from social media posts to welcome brochures.

Using Canva’s Brand Kit

Canva has an incredible toolbox called the Brand Kit, and it’s like having all your community’s essential visual elements at your fingertips. Setting this up is like organizing your favorite art supplies so they’re always ready when inspiration strikes. It’s worth the time you take. Here’s what you’ll want to put in there:

• Logos: Get all logo versions into Canva so they’re always easy to grab and drop into your designs.
• Colors: Enter those specific color codes from your guidelines so everyone uses the exact right shades that represent your brand.
• Brand Fonts (Canva Pro): If your brand uses special fonts, you can upload them (if you have Canva Pro) so that your text looks consistent.

Once your Brand Kit is set, team members have a cheat sheet to staying on-brand. Consistency is important for client confidence (even on the subliminal level).

Creating “On Brand” Canva Templates

The real magic happens when you create templates in Canva that already have your community’s DNA baked right in. Think of these as pre-set canvases where your team members can add specific information without guessing about logos, colors, or fonts. Here’s how you can make this happen:

1. Pick Good Source Templates: Choose Canva templates similar to what your team will need to create (event posters, social media posts, flyers), or consider creating fully branded custom templates and only allow their usage.
2. Bring in Your Brand Elements: Swap out the template’s generic stuff with your logos, brand colors, and fonts from the Brand Kit.
3. Set Standard Layouts: Create a few basic designs for everyday needs so there’s a consistent look and feel, even when the details change.
4. Special Touches: If your brand uses specific patterns or icons, include them in the templates where it makes sense.
5. Give Guidance: When you share these templates, add simple instructions on how to use them and what things should always stay consistent (like where the logo goes or which fonts to use for headlines).

By taking a little time to create these on-brand templates, you’re making it easier for your team. Everything they create will carry the recognizable feeling of your community. It’s like giving everyone the right ingredients and a basic recipe, so even if they add their own flair, the final dish always tastes like home—a uniquely and consistently branded home.