Stop 13 · Marketing Tools & CollaborationTopics · 2/7

Design Tools for Marketers (Canva, Figma Basics)

In short

You don't need to be a designer, but you will need to make a quick story graphic at 9 pm or give useful feedback on a designer's file. Canva and basic Figma get you there.

Enough Canva or Figma fluency to produce simple on-brand graphics yourself, and to understand and give feedback on designer-produced work — you don't need to be a designer, just conversant.

The blob decorates a round lavender cake with a piping bag over a flower stencil.

Think of it like this

Decorating with a stencil

A home baker doesn't need art school to make a pretty cake. A stencil, a piping bag and the right colours do most of the work. Canva templates and brand kits are your stencils. Figma is the pro bakery kitchen, where you mostly look, comment and make small tweaks.

Watch it happen

Canva or Figma: which one for which job?

Canva

Templates for posts, stories, slides
Quick resize to other formats
Great for marketers making assets

Figma

Designers' tool for UI and systems
Comment right on the design
Marketers mostly review and tweak

Make everyday social graphics in Canva. Review landing pages and big campaigns in Figma with your designer.

The big ideas

What you need to know

Set up a brand kit

Save your logo, colours and fonts so every new design starts on-brand.

Hierarchy first

One main message, big and clear. Supporting text smaller. Don't fill every gap.

Right size per platform

Feed posts, stories and banners need different sizes. Design for the place it will appear.

Feedback in Figma

Leave comments pinned on the exact element: 'CTA hard to see on mobile', not 'make it pop'.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Squeezing five messages and three fonts into one post.

Do this instead

One message per graphic. Two fonts at most. Leave breathing space.

Oops

Giving designers vague feedback like 'make it more premium'.

Do this instead

Point to the specific element and the goal: 'headline should be readable at thumbnail size'.

Your mission

Make and review one graphic

~35 min

Quick check

Which is the most useful feedback to give a designer?

Go deeper

1Create a simple social graphic in Canva using a brand's color and font guidelines.
2Explore Figma's inspect mode to understand how to leave specific, actionable design feedback.
3Learn which small graphics you can reasonably make yourself versus when to loop in a designer.