The easiest way to create email signature banners in Canva

Why pimp up your email signature banners with Canva?

A banner is a distinctive visual element of an email signature that improves the overall looks of your electronic communications. Pure aesthetics aside, a banner can serve a number of purposes like:

• Featuring your branding (e.g. logo, tagline, company colors).
• Promoting product launches, special offers, or events.
• Acting as a Call-To-Action (CTA) button to make your recipients go to a dedicated landing page.

Given this versality of an email signature banner, you might be interested in changing its looks and contents from time to time. That’s why we’d like to share with you some professionally designed banners that you can edit on your own in Canva and then use with selected email signature templates.

This new feature is not only about offering you greater flexibility. It also opens you up for multiple marketing opportunities like:

• Promoting your brand by adding your logo and brand colors.
• Easily updating the banner with specific slogans or CTAs.
• Making your communications more attractive thanks to a more personalized and targeted banner.
• Increasing your recipients’ engagement thanks to easy and more frequent banner updates.
• And more.

Updating a banner with an intuitive & free Canva editor is easy-peasy.

Have a look at our inspirations first to decide which template and banner to choose.

How to (re)design banners in Canva for email signatures?

To edit email signature banners from our professional graphic designers in Canva, follow these simple steps:

1. Click this link to access the project with the banners in the Canva web app.
2. By default, you can only view the banner designs using the arrows. To open them as an editable copy in your Canva account, click Use template for new design.

3. Sign in (if you’re an existing user) or sign up to Canva using a chosen social media account, email service, etc. To see more sign in/up options, click Continue another way.

4. Whatever you choose in the previous step, the Canva editor will open showing all the six banners you can edit.
5. To modify an existing element of a banner, click it and:
   • use the options above the editing area to fine tune the settings of the element (e.g. font size). Use the frame around the element to move or resize it – the editor will help you align it with other elements by displaying visual cues.
   • (for text only) click inside the frame to enable cursor and use your keyboard to edit text.

If you make a change that you don’t like, you can always use the Undo/Redo arrows on the colorful bar at the top.

6. To delete an element, click it and choose the trashcan icon from the popup menu.

7. To add a new element, use the tabs in the left-hand menu. Keep in mind that some features might require the non-free Pro account (these are marked with the crown icon), and certain media might be subject to separate terms and conditions (e.g. cannot be used for commercial purposes). You’re most likely to explore the following tabs:
   • Elements – to add ready-made visual elements like shapes, images, etc. to your banner.
   • Text – to add new textual elements.
   • Uploads – to upload images & other media, e.g. your logo, to use in the banner design.

8. All your changes are saved automatically, so you do not need to worry about losing your progress.

If you still feel you could use a tutorial, explore those learning materials showing how to use Canva step by step:

• Getting started with Canva
• Canva for Beginners

How to add the Canva-updated banners to email signatures?

Once you’ve updated a banner or banners according to your liking, now it’s time to put these into your email signature templates.

Downloading the banners

1. While in the Canva editor, click File and choose Download.

2. Select which banners (pages) you want to save to your disk using the Select pages dropdown menu and click Download. Canva will generate a ZIP archive with the selected banners.

3. Unzip the banners and upload the resulting PNG files to your own server/website or a common file hosting service like OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. Hint: Do not use Google Drive, because it doesn’t allow you to link to external services. In other words, images from Google Drive won’t work well in email signatures. Learn more

Adding email signature banners in the generator

1. Open one of the email signature templates (see our email signature inspirations) in the free email signature generator.
2. Copy the link to an updated banner:
   • If you’re using your server/website, simply copy the link to the banner image, e.g. https://my-company.com/images/banner1.png
   • If you’re using a file hosting service, use instructions from this article to get the direct link to your banner.
3. If you’re using a file hosting service, use instructions from this article to get the direct link to your banner.
4. In the generator, click Graphics in the left pane and paste the link to the banner in the Banner URL text field – the email signature preview will be updated with your Canva-customized banner.

4. (Optional) To make your email signature banner clickable, paste the landing page’s web address in the Banner linking to text box just below.
5. Customize other aspects of the template and click Apply your signature to add it in your email app. See detailed instructions
6. Repeat steps 1-5 if you want to use another Canva-updated banner with another email signature template.

Suggested reading

• 15 good email disclaimer examples – get your own email disclaimer
• 7 best email signature designs for 2024 – get inspired!