Last updated on May 16th, 2023

In this post, we’re going to go over the exact step-by-step design process we use to bring our designs to life by adding textured font in Canva for free! Textured font is the best way to stand out and get your designs noticed, increasing traffic, email sign-ups, and your blog’s income!

You can only get so creative with your designs until you find yourself off-brand and unrecognizable to your audience.

As a blogger, you’re always looking for ways to get your content to stand out in the sea of sameness.

Or worse, looks more like every other blogger in your niche with each passing day.

What you need is a way to make your words jump off the page. Something that instantly grabs your reader’s attention to where you are all they see.

Yet, is simple to create and won’t bust through your blog’s budget (if you have one at all).

If you’re looking for free Canva templates and business resources, check out our FREE design library now! Just click the button below to get instant access!

Adding textured font to your designs is one of the easiest ways to stand out among the rest.

And when you stand out, you get noticed.

If you’re ready to boost your blog’s traffic, increase email signups and ultimately make more money with your blog, you need to incorporate textured font in your designs.

Please note that this tutorial uses Canva and Preview (Mac-specific software). We’re sorry for any inconvenience!

REMEMBER THIS POST LATER! SAVE IT TO YOUR FAVORITE PINTEREST BOARD! ⬇

WHAT IS TEXTURED FONT?

If you’ve spent any kind of time on Pinterest lately, we’re willing to bet you’ve seen a few pins with textured font.

And we’re willing to bet it was either glitter or metallic. That’s because these two are the most popular font textures on the market.

Why?

They’re both incredibly eye-catching!

Just look at the difference between these two Pinterest pins. Which one would grab your attention first?

Now, glitter and metallic aren’t the only options we have to create textured font.

We’ve seen paper, paint, marble, grit, plastic, fabric, watercolors, brush strokes, even marker!

Anything that gives your design dimension can be considered a texture.

This makes textured font the perfect solution to create jump-off-the-page designs in any niche!

FIND A TEXTURED FONT THAT MATCHES YOUR BRAND

Even though you may want to go with the brightest, boldest texture you can find, you need to make sure it matches your brand.

This is key to establishing recognizability and trust with your readers.

Related Post: How to Easily Achieve Brand Consistency with Your Blog

If your brand is more modern and edgy, plastic or marker textures will pair better than, let’s say, marble.

As for light and airy brands, watercolors are a great match because they’re naturally soft and muted.

There are a ton of different options to choose from on Creative Market and even right inside Canva!

You can search for a specific texture (like grainy or marble) or browse Canva’s entire collection by going to Background from the left menu bar –> Textures.

This is a great option if you don’t have the money to purchase a textures bundle on Creative Market just yet.

However, Creative Market offers texture bundles in their weekly Free Goods every now and then (along with a ton of great design resources)!

CREATE TEXTURED FONT USING CANVA AND PREVIEW

First, you’re going to create a new design, so we have a place to add our text. We like to go with the Facebook Ad, which is 1200px by 628px.

This gives you plenty of working space to play around with different style fonts and see what looks the best.

Related Post: 5 Font Design Tips Every Blogger Needs to Know

Side note: There’s also a really cool (and FREE) font generator to help you choose the best font combinations if pairing really isn’t your thing.

Add a textbox to your blank page and type whatever you’d like to texturize.

Make your textbox fairly large, and be sure to keep the background white. Oh, and don’t forget to center it!

When you’re done, download your design as a PNG.

Next, you’ll need to open up your download in Preview. (Remember, this tutorial is only for Mac users!)

USE THE MAGIC TOOL INSIDE OF PREVIEW

First, select ‘Show Markup Toolbar’, which is to the left of the Search box.

From here, click ‘Instant Alpha’ or what everyone else calls the ‘Magic Select Tool.’ It looks like a magician’s wand, doesn’t it?

This next part can be quite tedious depending on how long your text is and if any of your letters connect, like in the example above.

You want to click on the first letter of your word and drag until the entire letter turns red. Then, hit Delete.

Don’t forget to remove the color from the i’s or exclamation points!

There may be some color lingering, so I recommend trying that same color-removal process again.

Once you have all of the black removed from your text, hit Save.

We’re now going to upload that design back into Canva so we can create our textured font!

As a side note, if you don’t have a Mac computer, you can use pixlr.com to do this as well.

ADD TEXTURE TO CANVA DESIGN

If you haven’t uploaded your texture to Canva yet, now is the time to do it.

Add your desired texture to your blank page and adjust as needed.

Sometimes, we prefer a certain area of a texture more, so we’ll manipulate the design, so it shows through our text.

Once you have your texture right where you want it, upload and add the text you just edited in Preview.

You can also drag the text around to find the perfect spot. This text will be totally custom to you, so have fun and get creative!

When you’re done, download your design as a PNG once more.

BACK TO PREVIEW FOR THE FINAL EDIT

Once we have our second design opened in Preview, you’re actually going to be doing the opposite.

Instead, you’ll be removing the background of your design instead of the actual text.

Click anywhere on the white background and drag until it’s completely highlighted.

Ensure you don’t accidentally highlight any textured font you just created. (We say that because it’s happened to us a few times!)

Once that’s all said and done, crop your image to remove the extra texture around your design. Then, hit Save one last time.

ADD TEXTURED FONT TO A PINTEREST PIN USING CANVA

We tend to add textured font to our Pinterest pins the most because we’re finding it harder and harder to stand out.

Pinterest is, unfortunately, becoming oversaturated and we found textured font to be the easiest way to overcome this.

Related Post: Anatomy of the Perfect Pinterest Pin Design for 2022

You can also use your textured font on YouTube thumbnails, social media graphics, and more!

Our textured font now acts like any other image we’ve uploaded to Canva.

We can rotate it, change the size, or move it anywhere on our page design.

Side note: If you’re looking for an easier way to design pins, you can find new pins every single month in our DiyDesign Creators Vault!

It’s such a simple and easy way to make your designs pop. And, get noticed!

Not to mention it gives the I’m-a-graphic-designer impression when in reality it was the I-spent-5-minutes-using-Canva kind of day.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Because you’re using textured font to grab your reader’s attention, try to use it sparingly. What we mean is one to two words at most.

It can easily make your designs noisy and difficult to read if used too much. There are some things in design where less and more, and textured font is definitely one of those things!

Another thing to note is the style of font you use. If it has extra details, you’ll end up spending quite a great deal of time removing the color in Preview instead of going with a simpler font.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to try a few different variations (as long as it matches your brand) or just manipulating the image to create a different look.

This can be done by rotating the textured image or simply by changing the size.

Now, get out there and start creating eye-catching designs using DIY textured font!

WATCH THE VIDEO!

As always, showing is easier than explaining, so please watch the video below. Resources discussed in the video will be linked beneath it and make sure to join our Facebook group!

RESOURCES DISCUSSED IN THE VIDEO:

• Canva
• Creative Market
• Free design library
• DiyDesign Creators Vault

If you’re looking for free Canva templates and business resources, check out our FREE design library now! Just click the button below to get instant access!

TRY CANVA PRO FREE FOR 30 DAYS

Start your FREE Canva Pro trial today and unlock ALL of their incredible time-saving features that’ll cut your design time down to just minutes.

To be honest? It’s the best $12.99/mo OR $119/yr we spend on our business because that time we save with every single design is put back into making MORE money in our business!

WANT TO REMEMBER THIS LATER? SAVE IT TO YOUR FAVORITE PINTEREST BOARD! ⬇

Last updated on May 25th, 2018

I think back to my very first attempt at blogging. I did a LOT of things wrong; it almost makes me want to laugh.

One of the biggest mistakes I made? Not having a brand.

But honestly, I’m not the only one. I see it all the time.

Bloggers don’t take the time to brand themselves.

Why would you need to brand your blog? Aren’t “brands” big companies like Nike or Target?

A brand is a style; it’s a theme for your business. It’s your businesses attitude. Most importantly, it’s YOU (if you were converted into colors and fonts).

But what branding can do for you is where most people fall flat. Branding your blog can:

• Save you a ton of time
• Help with publicity
• Increase your traffic and conversions
• Make you more money

Here’s the thing, if all your pins have a consistent look then people will know exactly where that pin came from before even seeing the logo (think of that big red bullseye… We all know it’s Target without seeing the word Target, right?)

If your pins have a consistent look and you use the same templates each time you make a pin for your blog post, then you will end up saving a ton of time.

Same goes for anything you design. If you already know what colors, fonts, and style to design your project with- then you have already cut out half of the design process!

And no, your readers won’t get bored. In fact, the opposite will happen.

People will start recognizing your designs on social media and start clicking through more. They will become familiar and familiar is good!

You will appear professional and as a result, will see an increase in your numbers and get more opportunities, like sponsored campaigns. 

But here’s what a brand is NOT: a brand is not just a color. A brand is not just a font. It’s not a pattern or a shape or a website. Your brand is YOU. It’s a personality.

You need your brand to be everything you are, it needs to speak to you so much that you will want to get it printed on a blanket and wrap yourself in it.

Branding your blog is a lot more than picking out some colors, it’s setting yourself apart from the rest. What do you have that others don’t? What makes you different? What are you saying that others are not? Identify that thing FIRST.

Then, once you’ve figured out what makes you uniquely you, come up with your brand board. Get it on paper (digitally) and put it into your business plan.

Here’s how to make a brand board:

Before you start

Get access to our free design library and download the editable Brand Board template. This is a free template I made to help you set up your brand board in Canva. You can click right here to get access or fill out the form at the bottom of this post.

Your logo

Start with your logo. If you don’t have the funds to pay someone to make a logo for you, you can try your luck on Fiverr or make it yourself in Canva. Please note that you can not use any of the design elements that Canva has available to make your logo, you can only use fonts.

You can, however, purchase a logo design pack on Creative Market (look with ones that have PNG files if you don’t have Adobe illustrator) and use Canva to compile them into your design. Or simply create a text-only logo.

You can also search Creative Market for fonts to use in your branding. They have some really awesome bundles available which can help you save money.

Once you are happy with your logo, save it with a transparent background and add it to your brand board.

Alternate logo and watermarks

Once you have your logo,  it’s ideal to create alternate ones. When you get your logo professionally designed, the designer will likely give you your logo in 2-3 different ways. You’ll get your full logo and then perhaps a circle or “smaller” version. Think of your logo as your full name and the alternate logo is your initials. 

I also like to create an all-black and an all-white version of my logo so that it’s easier to use as a watermark on my social media images.

Inspiration & Style

This is one of the most important sections of your brand board! This is where you are going to choose about 3 different images (ideally stock photos) that truly describe your brand.

These images need to be your entire essence! Your style, your attitude, everything that makes you, YOU (and your brand) all rolled into an image.

They need to be so YOU that anyone who looks at them can tell exactly what the personality is for your business.

Once you have your three images chosen, upload them into Canva and drag and drop them into the frames provided on the template.

Brand Fonts

I usually suggest having at least one premium font that is specific to your brand. This is essentially so that your brand stands out. Everyone is going to use the free fonts provided on Canva and Google. Your premium font won’t be.

I’m not saying you’ll NEVER see it anywhere unless you hire someone to design a custom font (you definitely don’t need to take it that far) but it will definitely be used a lot less than a free one. Here are 5 tips on how to use your typography in your design! 

If you are looking for a way to save on fonts, check out Creative Market and Font Bundles. Sometimes they even have premium fonts for free (usually each week is a different font).

If you get serious font overload, check out our Font Combination cheatsheet in our design library. These are all fonts that come with Canva. If you have a premium font, you can use the cheatsheet as a guide and compare your font to similar looking fonts (If that makes any sense at all)!

Brand Patterns

This step is optional. Unlike the style images, these patterns would be used in the things that you create. So, you would see these patterns incorporated into your website, social media images, products, etc. The pattern doesn’t have to be overwhelming or take over the entire design, just a little hint of it would do just fine.

This works really well if you want to make sure your brand is really recognizable. Using the patterns over and over would get you that familiarity with your audience and anyone that has seen your website and brand.

Choose no more than two different patterns. You can purchase patterns on Creative Market, Etsy, Stock sites, etc. or you can hire someone (like on upwork) to design a pattern custom to your business.

Add your patterns to your brand board and you’re done!

Your brand is a personality, not a color

I can’t say it enough. A brand is so much more than a color palette or website design. Yes, you want your style to be consistent. Yes, colors and fonts are the exterior of a brand – it’s what people see.

But your brand itself is the personality of your business that you want to convey to others. It’s how you talk to people, it’s how you express yourself, it’s your attitude. Even your audience will recognize your branded graphics and pins, instantly! Check out Simplifying DIY Design’s Pinterest board for inspiration! 

So set up your brand board right now! Make sure everything you do from this point out is branded and consistent and I guarantee you will see business growth.

The difference it has made for me since I have really stuck to a branded style is amazing. 

GET YOUR FREE BRAND BOARD TEMPLATE NOW!

Just fill out the form below and get access to our design library. You will not only be able to use our brand board template but you will also have access to our other done-for-you templates, step-by-step design tutorials, and other tools like cheatsheets, planners, trello boards, and more.

This template is available in our FREE Design Library! Fill out the form below to get access!

When you sign up to our email list you'll get instant access to this canva template, PLUS you'll get access to all of our tutorials and tools in our design library as well!

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Want to remember this post? Pin to your favorite pinterest board! ⬇