Page 49 - Print 21 magazine Jul-Aug 2021

Business
Day shows me a typical scenario; an Italian restaurant owner goes into the printers’ website and hits design. Canva opens and he keys in “menu Italian restaurant” and hundreds
of different designs pop up. The restaurant owner then chooses
one, changes the name to his own restaurant, uploads a selection of dishes and prices, and the menu is created. If he wants a picture of the Colosseum with that, no problem,
all included. Once the design is created, Canva preflights, checks for trims and bleeds, checks the image resolution if it’s a customer-loaded image, and even checks the spelling and the grammar of any text input by the customer. Then it sends
the file with the customer’s order shopping cart where he pays and checks out, with the job then going to the printer queue.
For the printer’s customer it means they have the ability to
design, with no design fee to pay for their work, and have access to a huge number of preloaded customisable designs and relevant assets. For the printer it means they can provide their customers with a free self- design option, offering thousands
of templates and millions of assets. For Canva it means its product is in a higher number of locations.
“Our aim is to help print businesses sell more print, and at the same time reduce the costs they have, while getting closer to their customers.”
— Aaron Day, global partnership lead, Canva
There is a cost of course. Canva takes a clip of the price of the overall job, but Day says it is low, and on a diminishing sliding scale. “I know print, and I know how printers work, and how they price,” Day says. “The
percentage cost for a job of 100 will be different to the percentage cost of a run of 1000.”
Day says printers can also be assured that Canva will never contact the client directly. “The system only works for the client for free through the printer’s website. If they went to Canva direct they would have to pay, so they are not going to do that anyway.”
Print businesses interested in partnering with Canva can initiate the process by going to the Canva website and adding /partners to
the address (canva.com/partners). There is a video to walk through, and Day and his team will get in touch with you. There are three levels of partnership depending on the size of the print business. Canva provides full support with engineers and designers based in Australia and operating as ’the success team”. It isn’t for everyone, and Canva does have selection criteria, Day says. “Entrepreneurial printers who have some level of online presence and capability are in our sights.”
As the world’s biggest online design tool, Canva clearly believes in graphics, and in this digital age that does not just mean digital graphics. Day says, “Our aim is to help print businesses sell more print, and at the same time reduce the costs they have, while getting closer to their customers. Our design templates cover a huge range of applications, not just the standard business cards and flyers.
“Print businesses will find that using Canva gives them and their customers an opening into a world of opportunity. They will literally have design options for any type of print imaginable, with millions of images to choose from, and all for free. If you want to design a wine label we have templates, a floor graphic, a brochure, a cap – whatever it is, we have the templates and the elements.”
Day says that it also means that printers who traditionally work
in the B2B sector will now be able
to engage with the B2C market. “Customers will appreciate having the online benefits and will also appreciate being able to go into their local printshop and pick up the job, and talk to the owner.”
Print business owners dealing with a changing business landscape including changing demands from customers may well benefit from a Canva partnership, marrying the best of new technology with the brilliance of print. 21
Print21 JULY/AUGUST 2021 49