How to use Graphic Alphabets in Canva

In this tutorial, we’re going to show you how to use graphic alphabets in Canva. We will also go over how to easily assemble them in a design for print-on products. Graphic alphabets are sets of letter illustrations in a digital style. They can be used for a variety of print projects on shirts, frames, posters, quotes, and much more.

We’re going to use this comic alphabet illustration set from Design Bundles to design a comic-style shirt. If you would like to use a different alphabet illustration set, we have a lovely selection of alphabet clipart available.

Step 1 - Upload the Graphic Alphabet

We have already downloaded and unzipped our purchased files. Next, we want to upload our graphics alphabet to Canva. From the side panel, click on Uploads > Upload Media and locate the file from your computer.

We want to spell out Design Bundles on our design, so we will select the required letters. We will use the SVG file so we can change the colors later on. Then click Open.

Step 2 - Edit the Graphic Alphabet Letters

From the uploads panel, select all of the required letters for the design. To keep a uniform size, we clicked and added all the letters to our canvas first before resizing them.

To resize the letters all at once, click and drag your mouse over all the letters. Scale them to the desired size by dragging the corners in or out.

Arrange all the letters across the canvas to spell out DESIGN BUNDLES.

Step 3 - Change the Graphic Letter Colors

Before we change the letter colors, we want to make sure everything is perfectly aligned. Do this by selecting/highlighting all the DESIGN letters. Then click Position from the toolbar > Tidy up. Do the same to BUNDLES.

This letter clipart has five colors. We want to change them to different shades of blue. Select one letter then click the first color tile on the toolbar. Then click a new color from the left panel. We chose this cobalt blue.

After the color change is applied, we can quickly change the rest of the letters. A nifty button called Change all can replace all the instances of one color with another color in a design.

After clicking the Change all button, all the brown parts of our letters were changed to cobalt blue in just one click.

Do the same to the rest of the design until all the letters are changed to different shades of blue.

Step 4 - Add a Comic Element

To find elements from the Canva library, click Elements and type the keywordon the search bar > enter > graphics. We want a comic burst icon for our comic art so we typed that in for our keyword. Scroll through the choices and click the one that you like. We chose this yellow burst.

We want that burst icon to be behind our letters, so we right-clicked the element and selected Send to Back.

Step 5 - Add a Background to the Design

To add a background, click Elements then type the word in the search bar > enter > graphics. We typed “comic background”. Scroll through the different options and click on the one you like. We chose this burgundy comic background with a striped effect.

To set this as a background, first scale it up by dragging the white handles out until it fills our canvas. Next, right-click > Send to Back.

Our design is done but we want to make our shirt print more appealing. The next step is completely optional but we will be adding a frame to our design.

Step 6 - Add a Frame to the Graphic

First, we need to download our design as either a JPEG or PNG file. Click on the Download button top right. In the options, we chose PNG for higher quality then click Download.

Now go to the editor panel on the left, click Elements > Frames > See all.

Next, choose a frame by scrolling down to see all the available frames. We’re going to select the brush stroke frame as seen in the image below. Once clicked, it will be added to our canvas. Scale the frame until it fills the canvas by clicking on it and drawing in or out from the corners.

Step 7 - Add Graphic Design to the Frame

We will need to upload our saved graphic alphabet design to Canva.

From the uploads panel, simply drag the design and drop it into the frame to automatically clip it to the frame.

Take a look at our finished comic art.

This is just one of the many ways you can use graphic alphabets in Canva. You can now download your design and add it to any product for print.