If you’ve been curious about gradients in Canva but weren’t sure where to start, shapes are the most straightforward place to try them. The controls are simple, the results are immediate, and it’s a good way to get familiar with how Canva’s gradient tools work before applying them elsewhere.
This tutorial walks through how to apply a custom gradient fill to a shape, including how to choose your colours, add additional colour stops, and select a gradient style. Once you’ve done it once, the same approach carries over to text, borders, and backgrounds.
Gradients themselves are available on the free Canva plan, but if you want to save a custom gradient to your CanvaBrand Kit for reuse across designs, that’s a Canva Pro feature. You can start a free trial here if you want to get that set up as you go.
Transcript
Shapes are one of the most straightforward places to use custom gradients in Canva, which makes them a good starting point if you’re learning how gradients work.
Start by adding a shape to your design, and you can find shapes under the Elements tab, or use keyboard shortcuts. For example, you could press R on your keyboard to add a rectangle, or C to add a circle.
Once the shape is selected, click the colour option in the floating toolbar, and then you’re going to want to click the plus sign under Document colours. In the colour panel, switch from the Solid tab to the Gradient tab, and you’ll notice that Canva will automatically apply a two-colour gradient to the shape.
From here, you can click on each gradient stop to choose your colours. If you want a more complex look, you can also add additional colour stops to create a multi-colour gradient.
In terms of the gradient style, below the colour stops, you’ll see a set of preset gradients and you can click through the available linear and circular options to choose the one that gives you the look you want.
At this time, you can’t create custom gradient styles in Canva, but you do have control over the colours, their order, and how many colour stops you include.
