2019 has proven to be a pretty challenging year and I have been a little quieter on the old blog front as a result. For starters, I have been on a journey towards self-employment since March. A goal that I achieved early October. It has been an extremely exciting development and despite some, let’s say, interesting challenges, I have already grown so much both personally and professionally. Suffice to say, taking this plunge has been the most rewarding life choice made in a while.

So that is my first announcement.

My second announcement is equally nerve-wracking and exciting all rolled up into a ball. I am going to be an Auntie for the first time! This is a role that I will approach with joy and unconditional love. It has been a blessing to see how much my sister already loves her little babe and a beautiful reminder of the importance of motherhood.

In honour of the latter development, I have tried my hand at creating a birth announcement using Canva Pro, my artwork and a font that I was kindly gifted by Font Bundles in exchange for an honest review. However, the opinions expressed in this review regarding the font are independent and my own. Since I haven’t posted in a while, I figured I’d take you along for the ride and put together a tutorial of sorts. Hopefully, you will come away with some practical design knowledge, aside from my frivolous announcements!

Let’s hop to it! 

I wanted to create a versatile, unisex design that infused my artwork, alongside the playful “Meddling Kids” handwriting font *. I must admit, the font has been a lifesaver because I wanted to experiment with a personal handwritten touch. My actual handwriting leaves A LOT to be desired.  There are loads of other fonts free* to use through Font Bundles too. I will be exploring these at a later date.

Creating a Birth Announcement Using a Custom Font in Canva

I started with a blank A6 template in Canva and went with a strip of my most colourful abstract artwork on the left-hand side. It is a celebration after all! Plus there is so much colour that it avoids stereotypical colour choices based on gender.

My first learning curve so to speak was uploading the font to Canva. Due to the requirements of my business, I use Canva Pro. But for those on the free membership, while it comes with many amazing benefits, unfortunately, you can’t upload fonts. It’s also interesting to note that Canva Pro members can use this feature on a desktop or mobile browser. As this was the first time I had done this process, I referred to this guide for insight. Thankfully it was a lot simpler than expected.

Uploading a Custom Font in Canva Pro

From the home screen, select “Brand Kit.” The following screen will load. In the bottom right-hand corner select “Upload a font.” Providing your font is in the correct file format as outlined in the above guide, it should be pretty seamless.

An uploaded custom font can be accessed in the same way as existing fonts. Simply select the text you wish to change, and search in the usual way. Here you can see that “Meddling Kids” appears in the search results.

Here is how the font appeared after I changed it from the basic font. The place holder name is the “Meddling Kids” font. I chose the font colours as once again they’re not stereotypical baby colours. But due to the joys of Canva, this is something that I can go back and adjust if needed.

This is a work in progress snapshot. I wanted to make some adjustments as I felt that the placeholder baby picture needed to be bigger, and I wanted to incorporate some more of my art behind it. A good Canva tip is to group the text together once you are happy with the size and layout, as this makes it easier to change its placement within the context of the full design.

The Final Birth Announcement Design

Here is the final birth announcement design. I centred the text and added more colourful artwork. The process of uploading a custom font to Canva was quite enjoyable, and I am excited to explore more font options through Font Bundles. I think the “Meddling Kids” font added a really joyful element to the design.

Although I can’t get the birth announcement printed and framed just yet, as, well, my little nephew isn’t here yet … I did want to get an idea of how the design would look when finalized. So I created a framed mock-up in Canva.

What an exciting way to mark the arrival of a new family member!

* This is a sponsored blog post, any links included from the brand have been marked with a (*)