Hire the best Canva Graphic designers

Brands need a never-ending supply of fresh content to keep their audiences engaged. Canva designers use the graphic design tool to create content ranging from presentations and brochures to social media graphics for their clients. Canva has a library of templates, design elements, fonts, and graphics that designers can customize and edit rather than having to design each element from scratch. 

When hiring a Canva designer, you want to make sure that you find the right fit for your brand. Designers have their own personal styles and specialties. Finding and hiring the best Canva designer for your projects starts with understanding the role, assessing the demand and your budget, and writing a well-crafted job posting. 

Canva designers are often independent professionals who work full time, part time, or by project for their clients. This guide will help you find the right Canva designer for your brand’s content needs. 

Writing a Canva designer job post

Attracting the perfect match starts with writing a compelling job post. When creating your Canva designer job posting, you’ll need to detail the type of content and designs that you need and outline what you’re looking for in a designer. 

Follow this outline to help structure your job posting and make sure you include all of the key points. 

Job post title

Effective job posts are simple and straightforward. Your Canva designer job post title should let candidates know exactly what you’re looking for, like these examples: 

• Canva specialist. Searching for a designer to create marketing materials for print, including brochures, posters, and mailers using Canva. 
• Canva template designer. Hiring a Canva expert to design branded templates for our newsletters, social media posts, and newsletters. 
• Canva presentation designer. Need a designer to use Canva to create presentations and infographics for our company. 
• Social media designer (Canva). Seeking a designer to use Canva to produce weekly social media graphics for our Instagram and Facebook accounts. 
• Canva design consultant. Looking for a designer to help us develop a visual identity and set up a brand kit on Canva. 

Project description

When writing your Canva designer job post, make sure to include the following elements: 

• Scope of work. Outline the project and specific deliverables, including the types of content needed. 
• Project length. Estimate the project’s size, hourly requirements or amount of deliverables, and whether or not you’ll need ongoing support. 
• Background. Specify if you’re looking for candidates with certain backgrounds or specialties, like social media.
• Budget. Provide a budget and indicate whether you prefer an hourly or fixed-price contract. 

Canva designer responsibilities

Include the main responsibilities for the Canva designer role or project. Here are some examples:

• Creativity. Interpret briefs and rough concepts and turn them into ready designs. 
• Template customization. Design and tailor templates based on client’s needs and add to content library.
• Build brand kit. Set up brand kit in Canva based on brand guidelines.
• Layout design. Create layouts for downloadable and printed content like eBooks, posters, brochures, and flyers. 
• Copywriting. Create finalized designs (presentations, brochures, social media posts) with copy included based on briefs, reports, and other materials provided. 

Canva designer skills and qualifications  

Let candidates know if you’re looking for any specific requirements or qualifications, such as: 

• Canva expertise. Advanced Canva skills and demonstrated professional experience with the tool. 
• Graphic design. Knowledge of design principles and best practices (information hierarchy, layouts, color theory, typography) and how they apply to different content formats. 
• Social media proficiency. Experience creating original designs and templates for social media channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. 
• Project management. Ability to manage multiple projects at once and collaborate with copywriters and sales and product teams to produce designs. 
• Branding experience. Provide branding consultation to develop the company’s visual identity. 
• Familiarity with Adobe Creative Cloud. Experience with Photoshop and Illustrator to support occasional graphic and photo editing needs beyond Canva’s capabilities. 
• Print-ready experience. Prepare designs and graphics for print and coordinate with the printer as needed to make adjustments.                                                

Upwork’s job description templates can help you get started with your job post.

Helpful information to know before you hire a Canva designer 

When hiring a Canva designer, understanding the role, market demand, and average rates and costs can enable you to make better-informed hiring decisions. The following sections will dive deeper into the role of a Canva designer: 

What is Canva?

Canva is a graphic design tool for producing graphic and video content. What separates Canva from design software like Adobe Photoshop or Indesign is that designers don’t have to start from zero for each project. 

Canva has templates, graphics, and other elements designers can use and customize. This tool features a drag-and-drop interface. Canva’s AI tools can quickly generate videos, images, and copy from prompts to save the designer time and assist with mock-ups. 

If you need complex custom graphics, layouts, visual effects, or heavy image editing, you’ll likely need a Canva Designer with advanced Photoshop skills or consider hiring an Adobe Photoshop Expert. 

The role of a Canva designer 

Canva designers are graphic designers who specialize in using the Canva tool. Many designers choose Canva to create templates, presentations, social media graphics, and printed materials over other tools and software. Canva designers typically work from home. 

These are some of the primary responsibilities of a Canva designer: 

• Brand consistency. Follow established brand guidelines when creating content. 
• Presentation creation. Build corporate presentations for clients based on data findings, reports, and copy provided. 
• Video editing. Take raw video footage and edit it for social media use. 
• Print preparation. Make sure marketing materials are ready to send to the printer with the correct bleed area, crop marks, and margins. 
• Feedback implementation. Incorporate feedback and make design revisions as needed. 
• Brand guideline development. Help develop brand style guidelines for brands and create layouts and templates on Canva. 
• Concept development. Take rough sketches and ideas and turn them into designs and graphics. 
• Content adaptation. Resize, format, and adapt designs so they follow best practices for each social media platform.  

Canva designer demand in 2024

Brands need templates, layouts, social media content, and more to engage their target audience, keeping the overall demand for graphic designers steady. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts the job outlook for graphic designers in 2024 to grow 3% from 2022 to 2032, keeping pace with the average job growth rate for all occupations. 

Around 22,800 graphic design jobs should become available annually as workers change occupations or leave the labor force and retire. As brands look for more cost-effective and efficient solutions to meet their graphic needs, this may drive the demand specifically for Canva designers. 

Canva’s development of time-saving tools and AI integrations may also increase the hiring demand for Canva designers for brands that need quick turnaround times.  

The most common projects for Canva designers

Canva designers use the tool to create a wide variety of visual graphics and content for their clients with different levels of customization. These designers can use preexisting templates and layouts or create their own. Clients most often hire Canva designers for projects like these: 

• Social media graphics. Design posts, reels, and stories for social media channels to increase engagement.
• Presentations. Develop professional templates and custom presentations for clients based on the data, reports, and other materials provided. 
• Marketing materials. Design layouts and produce graphics for marketing assets like banners, blogs, newsletters, infographics, and landing pages. 
• Brand kits. Build custom brand kits in Canva, including fonts, icons, logos, color templates, an image library, graphics, and templates to maintain brand consistency. 
• Promotional materials. Generate high quality print-ready branded promotional materials like business cards, flyers, brochures, and other signage.
• Ebooks. Convert written content into a visually engaging ebook with graphics and charts. 
• Custom templates. Create customized templates (presentations, documents, social media) for different uses that clients can finalize with copy.
• Video content. Edit video footage to create ready-to-post professional videos that meet client specifications.

Industries hiring Canva designers

Businesses across many different industries are looking to hire Canva designers to create the content they need, such as: 

• Influencers. Social media influencers work with Canva designers to create content on Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, and other platforms. 

• Marketing and advertising. Marketers and advertisers hire Canva designers to make templates, layouts, and content to streamline their processes.  

• E-commerce. Companies and sellers use Canva designers to promote their products online with banners, product image templates, ads, and social content. 

• Education. Canva designers help educators produce online instructional materials like presentations, course modules, ebooks, worksheets, and other printable learning aids. 

• Startups. Startups look for Canva designers to design pitch decks, presentations, social media graphics, and other marketing materials to attract investors and customers. 

Average cost of hiring a Canva designer

The average cost of hiring a Canva designer depends on the size and difficulty of the project and the designer’s skill level. These are the typical rates for Canva designers on Upwork: 

• Beginner. $15 per hour

• Intermediate. $25 per hour

• Expert. $35 per hour 

A Canva designer may charge more if they need to use other programs, such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, to produce the graphics. 

When evaluating Canva designers, make sure you have a clear vision of the content you need and the style you want, then compare it to the designer’s portfolio. A Canva designer’s portfolio will demonstrate their skill level and design experience, helping you decide if they’re the best fit for your project.  

Find your ideal Canva designer  

Using compelling graphics and content is how you promote your brand and engage your target audience. Whether you need a corporate presentation to pitch to investors or social media graphics to fill out your content calendar, you can meet your deadlines with Canva designers on Upwork. 

Understanding the role, from the job responsibilities to common projects and costs, can help you start your search off strong when hiring a Canva designer. Bring your ideas and briefs to life and get the content you need whenever you need it.