Do you really save money using templates? Convenience comes with a price.

To begin: yes, you do save money using templates.

In the beginning, templates save you all the time and money that would have been spent making something from nothing. You plugged in your copy, sent off the post, and went about your day.

The key here is that you do save time and money using templates. Your templates, however, do not have to be stock.

What do you lose when going stock?

If you are a local brand or business, none of this may affect you. You may not even be sure what I’m talking about. To quickly apprise: tons of easy-to-use, customizable templates and easy-to-obtain stock imagery online make creating your graphic posts quick and professional-looking, with next-to-no design or tech skills required. While many apps on the market provide these services, Canva has been the name-to-know for some time now.

Depending on your business, having the same template as your competitor may not bother you. Having the same stock imagery on your website may not impact your reputation, and the need to own your content frankly isn’t on your mind.

Then you… template it up. Stock imagery it up. The unique characteristics of your brand and branding are just as useful to you as a burnt-out lightbulb.

For all you national and international brands, this one is for you. Templates are costing you, not saving you.

Your potential market and potential audience are big. You are either big, or working towards it. The unique branding and positioning of your company have helped to make it competitive… in combination with your superior product and service, of course.

You aren’t unique if you are using stock templates.

Smiley Face Media and plenty of other great creatives offer custom templates. We can create them, manage them, and make as many variations as you need - in perpetuity. We can customize them for different categories of communications, different sizes and orientations for various use cases, and can continue to innovate them for freshness and consistency.

Filling out custom templates is no more complex than stock templates. Once your graphics are designed, it’s the same plug-n-play experience.

Did you know that you don’t own your materials created on Canva? That’s right - you can only use them for specific purposes.

Making images printable oftentimes requires them to be vectorized. If you use Canva, that is not an option. It must be designed in a program like Illustrator.

In a world of sameness, why blend in? Of course, there’s standing out in a a good way and then there is standing out in a bad way. Bad designs are a sure-fire way of standing out in the wrong way, so if it’s Canva or crap - use Canva.

If you have the option for custom graphics, do it. You’ll be glad that you did!