I have been working in the library as a library page for almost half a year; library pages are Dana Hall students who work at the library and help the librarians with tasks and work. Yes, we are the students who sit at the round table, look at the computer and check out the study rooms for you. If you asked me about my favorite task, though, I would answer without a second thought: making a poster. If you are a member of the Dana community and have been inside the library, you probably have seen at least one of the posters above. In fact, there are so many cute posters made every week for different events and displays that I couldn’t choose just one.

Canva, a poster-making-website, was introduced to me at the time I almost lost my job.

I was asked to highlight the fields I was interested in on the “skill preference” survey that was given to me during the library page training session. I skimmed through the columns and saw the choice of “design.” As a person who is always involved in all kinds of art activities, I gladly highlighted this section and thought this would be about designing posters in traditional ways, with the help of paints and brushes.

Then, I was asked to make a poster on my first shift. The librarian assigned me this task like it was as easy as picking up a pen from the floor; while I, an “experienced” page who had been working for 10 minutes, stood in the same position and blanked out for a minute. tried to keep an awkward smile on my face so that the librarian wouldn’t think of me as incapable of completing such an easy task. In fact, I actually planned to rush back to my dorm and bring all of my art tools when the librarian wasn’t paying attention to me. Maybe it was obvious that I was standing in front of her clueless because I didn’t know what to do, but I was afraid to ask. The librarian kindly led me to the computer and opened a website. Canva was introduced to me as a go-to website which librarians and pages use to make posters.

I fell in love with Canva the first time I used it because it was so easy to use. I’m sure that a lot of you desperately want to know how to use this website now. So let me explain the most important steps and you are all set to become a digital poster master!

1. Go to www.canva.com and create an account .

Hint: You can use any email account to register.

2. There are templates to select: all types of design models

Hint: They even have instagram post models

3. On your left hand side, there are six different elements: Templates, Elements, Text, Upload, Background, and Folders.

Hint: Even though you might need the last two for advanced poster-making skills, the first four were adequate for my poster-making career.

4. Play with Canva and you’ll be a master in no time.

Other Hints:

• Templates provide you with big and basic styles; you can find any illustrations, photos or lines you want to use as decorations in the “Elements” section.
• Of course, you would want to have some information on your poster, and text allows you to have fun with thousands of types of fonts.
• Want to have your own photos on the poster? No problem! “Upload” is where you go. Upload anything you want and adjust the size later.

Canva is the first digital tool I used for making a poster. I completely fell in love with it as soon as I made my first digital poster. Not only do I love Canva, but everyone else who works in the library uses it! So try it, and you might be the next poster-making master at Dana.