Download and Publish!

It’s time to let your design leave the safety of your screen and head out into the world.

This step often comes with an emotional toll — even for seasoned professionals.

If you’re sending work to a client or manager, you’ll quickly learn that critique can feel soul-crushing when it’s framed in purely subjective terms. The truth is, you’re not a mind reader. That’s why asking open-ended, practical questions (like the critique prompts we covered earlier) can make all the difference. They encourage useful feedback that helps you refine the design to meet their idea of “good” — without losing sight of the core purpose. This also helps avoid ambiguous (and unhelpful) feedback like “make it pop.”

If you’re publishing the work yourself (online), our pro tip is simple: always check it once it’s live. Whether it’s a story, social post, or email, glitches do happen — links break, fonts shift, images distort. A quick post-publish check saves you from future headaches. If you’re publishing online, you’ll want to preview and test where ever it might be viewed.

Pro tips: For email, make sure you send a preview to Outlook - it’s special needs when it comes to HTML email design. For web, preview responsiveness on both desktop and mobile. For social, check how your design looks on different channels: Instagram, Facebook, Story etc.

If you’re sending a project to print, make sure you’ve exported your file correctly:

  • Select PDF for print in CMYK colour mode.
  • If you’re using bleed, tick bleed and crop marks.
  • Print PDFs typically need 300 DPI (PPI) resolution for crisp quality. Canva will do this for you automatically - all you need to do is ensure your images and graphics are the correct resolution for print when you upload them.

For digital use (email, web, or screens):

  • Export in RGB colour mode.
  • Choose PDF Standard (smaller file size, usually under 2MB to keep inboxes happy for flyers or multipage docs).
  • For images, PNG will default to RGB.
  • For motion graphics or video, export as MP4.

Finally, once your design is published, take a moment to celebrate. Give yourself a pat on the back, enjoy seeing your work out in the world!

✨ Coming up, we’ll dive deeper into specific media: from social media feeds and grids, to email design, and the ultimate brand document.