How to Set Up Your Canva Brand Kit
Overview
Canva’s Brand Kit feature is one of the easiest ways to keep your business’s branding consistent across all of your marketing materials. In this training, you’ll learn how to set up your logos, colours, fonts, and brand imagery inside Canva so you can quickly apply them to any design.
Whether you’re working with a professionally designed brand or creating a DIY starter brand, this session will help you streamline your workflow and ensure every design looks polished and on-brand.
Canva Training Transcript
Brand consistency is one of the easiest ways to create a polished and professional look for your business, and Canva’s Brand Kit feature makes it simple to maintain that consistency across all of your marketing materials. If you’ve ever found yourself manually reapplying your brand colours or trying to remember which fonts you used last time, the Brand Kit is about to make your life a whole lot easier.
Why is a Brand Kit Important for Business Owners?
When you’re consistently using the same fonts, colours, and design elements across all your marketing materials (whether it’s Instagram posts, lead magnets, or your website) it helps build recognition and trust with your audience.
Without a Brand Kit, it’s easy to make small but noticeable mistakes, like using a slightly different shade of blue or defaulting to a generic font that doesn’t match your brand identity. These small inconsistencies can add up, making your brand look less polished.
By setting up a Brand Kit in Canva, you’re not only saving time but also ensuring that every design you create is visually aligned with your brand.
And a quick note: Canva’s Brand Kit feature is available exclusively for Canva Pro and Canva Teams users. If you’re currently on the free version, you can try Canva Pro free at BrendaCadman.com/pro.
If you decide not to continue after the free trial, any Brand Kits you create will still be there if you upgrade again in the future.
What You’ll Need to Set Up Your Brand Kit
Before setting up your Brand Kit in Canva, it helps to have all your brand assets organized. The specific items you’ll need will depend on whether you already have a professionally designed brand or if you’re creating a brand from scratch.
If You Already Have a Brand Created by a Designer
If you’ve worked with a professional designer or branding specialist, you’re already ahead of the game. Having a professionally designed brand means that many of the decisions about colours, fonts, and logo variations have already been made for you, making it easier to get set up in Canva.
Before setting up your Brand Kit, ensure you have all your essential brand assets organized. Start with high-quality PNG or SVG versions of your logo, ensuring you have variations such as a full-colour version, plus a white or light version for dark backgrounds. Additionally, having different orientations, such as a stacked and horizontal version, can also be helpful.
Next, gather the exact hex codes for each of your brand colours to maintain consistency across all your designs. A hex code is a six-digit alphanumeric code that represents a specific colour. For example, pure black is represented as #000000, while white is #FFFFFF. Using hex codes ensures that you are applying the exact same colours across all your marketing materials, preventing unintentional variations that can make your branding look inconsistent.
Identify the fonts used in your branding. If your brand uses specific fonts that aren’t available in Canva’s library, you’ll need to upload the font files (typically in .OTF or .TTF format).
Finally, compile any brand-specific imagery, such as graphics, icons, or photography, to complete your cohesive brand identity within Canva. These could include your brand photos, headshots, custom patterns, branded textures, or unique visual elements that set your brand apart. If your brand uses specific iconography or stock images consistently, having them stored in your Brand Kit will streamline your design process and ensure visual uniformity.
If You Don’t Have a Brand Yet
If you don’t have a professionally designed brand yet, that’s okay! Canva provides everything you need to create a simple and effective starter brand that aligns with your business.
While investing in a professional brand designer is incredibly valuable when your business is ready, many new business owners begin with a DIY approach using Canva, so they can establish brand consistency early on.
A professionally designed brand is created based on strategic decisions that ensure long-term success. A designer will consider your brand personality, brand values, brand voice and ideal audience, carefully selecting colours, fonts, and imagery that align with your messaging and positioning in the market.
However, if you’re in the early stages of your business and not yet ready to invest in professional branding, you can still build a cohesive and visually appealing presence using Canva. In my How to Create Your Brand in Canva video, I walk you through selecting a colour palette, choosing fonts that match your brand style, and designing a basic logo to get started.
This isn’t a replacement for a professionally developed brand, but it’s an excellent option for those who need a functional, visually consistent brand identity while growing their business.
And you can find a link to that video training in the description below this video.
How to Set Up Your Brand Kit in Canva
Once you’ve organized your brand elements, you can then add them to your Canva Brand Kit for easy access in all your designs.
Start by navigating to the Brand section in Canva, which can be found in the left-hand menu on your Canva homepage.
If you’ve set up your Canva brand kit in the past, either fully or partially, you may already see an initial brand kit option here that looks partially branded with your logo and/or colours.
But if it’s the first time you’re setting it up, you will likely see a blank brand kit for you to start with, and when you open it up, all of the brand ingredients that make up the brand kit will be empty, ready for you to upload your own content into them.
You’ll see the Brand Kit page is broken down into 7 sections: your brand logos, your colours, fonts, brand voice, photos, graphics, and icons.
Adding Your Logos to Your Canva Brand Kit
When you create a brand kit for the first time, you’ll see that you can click to add your logo, or simply drag and drop your logo image file .
And if you upload logos to your brand kit that you no longer need, you can easily delete them by hovering over the logo, clicking on the 3 dots, and choosing delete.
So let me show you where you’re going to find those logos when you are creating a design in Canva’s design editor.
You’re going to be able to find those logos inside of the Brand area, which is available on your left hand navigation.
And inside that brand area, you’ll have access to all of your logos at your fingertips.
Adding Your Colours to Your Canva Brand Kit
When you create a new brand kit, Canva will likely have already created an empty colour palette underneath this “colours” area.
I can rename it by hovering over the title and clicking on the pencil icon, and then I’ll give this palette a new name.
And then you’re going to add your colours, by inputting your colour hex codes, which you should have already compiled in advance of creating your brand kit.
If you need to remove any of the colours, hover over the colour you want to delete and then just click on the X button.
If you want to make a copy of a specific palette, you can click on the 3 dots, and choose make a copy, and you’ll also see that you can copy it to another brand kit.
Note that at this time, you cannot re-order your colours later, so try to add them in the order that you want to have them to appear in the palette.
Then, once you have your palette set up, when you open up a design, you’ll see that you can easily access your brand’s colours directly from the colour selection tool. And if you have multiple colour palettes, they’ll all show up here as well.
Adding Your Fonts to Your Canva Brand Kit
You’re going to be able to select the font that you want for each font style, and you’ll also be able to change the size and formatting of it.
But if the font that you use for your brand fonts is not in this list, you also have the ability to upload fonts.
So I’ll upload this Aurellia Script font… and you’ll notice that when you upload a new font, Canva is going to ask you to confirm that you have the rights to use it.
So if you’re using something that you’ve downloaded without paying for it and it was a custom font that you were supposed to pay for, or for example, if it’s supposed to be for personal use only, not commercial use, then you need to make sure that you have the proper licensing for it.
And then it’s going to upload and it will be added under uploaded fonts.
Let’s open up a new design so we can make sure that font is there…. And when I go to change this font, I’ll see that new Aurellia Script font listed right here.
Adding Your Brand Voice to Your Canva Brand Kit
Your Brand Voice is how your business sounds in written and spoken communication. It’s what makes your content feel like you — whether someone is reading an email from you, watching one of your videos, or listening to you on a podcast. Your brand’s voice should be consistent across all platforms so that no matter where your audience encounters your content, they immediately recognize and connect with it.
For example, my own Brand Voice is warm and educational. I want my videos, emails, and course materials to sound the same as I would if I were being interviewed on a podcast or presenting a live training. That consistency builds trust with my audience because they always know what to expect from me, whether they’re reading something I’ve written or hearing me speak.
How Canva Uses Your Brand Voice
Your Brand Voice in Canva isn’t just a helpful reference, it also integrates with Canva’s Magic Write feature, an AI-powered writing assistant. When you document your Brand Voice in your Canva brand kit, Magic Write will use your tone and style preferences to generate text that aligns with your established voice.
How to Add Your Brand Voice in Canva
In order to add your Brand Voice to Canva, go to the Brand section and locate the Brand Voice area. Click “Add Your Brand Voice” to start defining how your brand communicates. You’ll have space to document key elements, including:
- Brand Personality – Describe how your brand should come across in writing. Is it warm and conversational? Confident and authoritative? Fun and playful?
- Tone and Style Guidelines – You can outline specific preferences, such as using casual language or keeping things more formal. Do you use emojis? Short and punchy sentences?
- Key Phrases and Messaging – List words, phrases, or taglines you want to use consistently (or words to avoid).
- Audience Considerations – Define who you’re speaking to and how your messaging should resonate with them.
Example Brand Voice Statements
For example, a health & wellness coach might have a brand voice statement like this:
Our brand voice is encouraging, supportive, and uplifting. We speak to our audience like a trusted friend, using simple and relatable language that makes healthy living feel approachable. We avoid strict or judgmental language and instead focus on small, achievable steps that empower people to take control of their well-being.
Or, a boutique marketing agency might define theirs this way:
Our brand voice is bold, strategic, and insightful. We are confident and knowledgeable, delivering expert marketing insights with a touch of wit. Our messaging is professional yet approachable, using industry language in a way that feels engaging rather than overwhelming. We challenge conventional thinking while making complex marketing strategies easy to understand.
Adding Your Brand Imagery to Your Canva Brand Kit
Your brand’s imagery plays a key role in creating a consistent and recognizable visual identity. Canva’s Brand Kit allows you to upload and store essential brand visuals, making them easily accessible whenever you’re designing.
What to Upload to Your Brand Kit
Inside your Brand Kit, you can upload:
- Branded Photos – These might include professional headshots, product images, or signature brand photography that you use frequently in your marketing.
- Custom Graphics – This could be branded textures, patterns, or illustrations that you incorporate regularly in your designs.
- Brand Icons – If your brand uses specific icons to represent services, product categories, or brand elements, you can store them here for quick access.
Adding these visuals to your Brand Kit ensures that they are always at your fingertips when creating new designs, eliminating the need to repeatedly upload or search for them.
How to Upload Brand Imagery to Your Canva Brand Kit
Uploading your brand imagery is simple:
1. Navigate to the Brand section in Canva.
2. Locate the Photos, Graphics, or Icons sections within your Brand Kit.
3. Click “Upload” and select your images, or drag and drop them directly into the designated area.
4. Once uploaded, your images will be available whenever you create a design, allowing you to easily apply them without searching through multiple files.
What Should Go in Your Brand Kit vs. a Custom Folder?
While Canva’s Brand Kit is a great place to store core brand visuals, not everything needs to live there. Some assets make more sense to keep in a custom brand assets folder instead.
Your Brand Kit is usually best for:
- Logos, colour palettes, fonts, and imagery that is used across all of your designs for brand consistency.
- Photos, graphics, and icons that are fundamental to your brand identity and are used repeatedly across your marketing materials.
A Custom Folder is typically best for:
- General stock images or background textures that you like to use but that aren’t essential to your brand identity.
- One-time-use or campaign-specific images that don’t need to be in every design.
- A broader library of supporting graphics that you might use occasionally but don’t need cluttering up your Brand Kit.
By keeping your brand imagery organized within your Brand Kit and custom folders, you’ll streamline your design process and ensure that every piece of content reflects a consistent, polished brand identity.
Using Multiple Brand Kits in Canva
Let’s finish up this video by talking about one of the lesser known features of Canva Pro, and that is the fact that you can create multiple Brand Kits — in fact, up to 1,000 of them. This is incredibly helpful for anyone managing multiple visual brands, enabling users to keep branding organized and easily accessible without mixing up different brand elements.
Why Would You Need Multiple Brand Kits?
There are several scenarios where multiple Brand Kits can be beneficial. If you run multiple businesses or have different projects that require distinct branding, creating separate Brand Kits ensures that each one maintains its own unique identity.
For business owners who serve multiple clients, such as virtual assistants, social media managers, graphic designers, or marketing agencies, having individual Brand Kits for each client simplifies workflow and keeps brand assets easily accessible without confusion.
Additionally, if your business has sub-brands, product lines, or multiple divisions that require their own visual identity, separate Brand Kits allow you to maintain consistency within each segment while keeping them organized in your Canva account.
How to Create Additional Brand Kits
To create an additional Brand Kit in Canva, start by navigating to the Brand Kit section within your Canva account. Once there, you will see an option to create a new Brand Kit. Click on this option and follow the same process as setting up your first Brand Kit, uploading your logos, setting your brand colours by entering their hex codes, selecting the appropriate brand fonts, and adding any essential brand-specific imagery.
How to Access Multiple Brand Kits in a Design
So how do you access multiple Brand Kits within a design?
Let’s open up a test design and take a look.
I can access any of my Brand Kits via the Brand section in the left-side navigation. This is where all of my stored branding elements are conveniently located for easy access.
If I want to apply specific components from a Brand Kit, such as my brand colour palettes, I can do so through the colour picker. I’ll start by selecting this shape and clicking on the colour picker option. When I do, my primary Brand Kit appears by default. However, there is a small downward chevron next to it, indicating that I have additional Brand Kit options available.
Clicking on the chevron reveals a list of all my Brand Kits, displayed as thumbnails. I can scroll through them or use the search function to find a specific Brand Kit by keyword. This makes it easy to switch between different brand identities when working on multiple projects or clients.
By setting up multiple Brand Kits, you can ensure that all of your branding assets are neatly categorized, making it easy to switch between them as needed when designing different materials.
Final Thoughts
The Brand Kit is one of the biggest reasons to upgrade to Canva Pro. If you want to try Canva Pro for free, you can sign up for a trial at zero cost at BrendaCadman.com/pro.
Now that you know how to set up your Brand Kit, take a few minutes to get yours organized. It will save you a ton of time and make your designs more cohesive in the long run.