How to Design, Upload, and Sell a Digital Design on Etsy

I'm going to show you how to make a digital design using Canva, and how to sell it on Etsy.

To do this you need a computer that has access to the websites canva.com and etsy.com. You will also want to have a design idea in mind. There are many you can choose from including thank you note, wedding table numbers, logos, business cards, and social media templates. I am going to be using the example of a thank you note.

First, open a browser in your computer and go to the website canva.com.

You'll have to either sign up or sign in with an email and password depending on if you've used the website before or not.

Once you are signed in or signed up, there should be a purple "create a design" button in the top right corner of the website. You are going to click that button.

After clicking the "create a design" button, your screen will show various design dimension options. You will want to choose the custom size option located at the bottom of the option list.

After choosing the "custom size" option, make sure you switch the pixels (px) to inches (in).

For a thank you note, which I am using as an example, you will want to change your width to 7 and your height to 5. You won't need to type inches after the numbers as you've already changed your units. Your width and height might vary depending on what type of digital design you decide to sell. Make sure you find reasonable dimensions if you decide to do a different design.

Once you are directed to the tab where you can edit your design, you will want to name your design. You can do this by clicking the title where it says "untitled design" and change your name to fit your product.

If you would like to select a background color for your design, simply click on the design rectangle and move your mouse up to the top where there is a white box. Click on the white box and you should get a color palette where you have the option to either look up a color or choose your own using the color selector.

If you want to add graphics to your design, go to the elements section on the left side of the Canva website. There are many graphics you can choose from. I chose a smiley face, but you do not have to. You can look up whichever graphic applies to your design. You can also change the color of some of them depending on what graphic you choose. You will do this by clicking on the graphic so that there is a square around it and then moving your cursor up to the box where the color changer is.

To add your text, move your cursor over to the text column on the very left side of the screen near the column you got the elements in. You will be given the option to choose a heading, a subheading, or a small body of text. I chose a heading, but you can choose whichever text style fits to your liking. You can also change the font and color of your text. To change the font, move your cursor to the "Montserrat Classic" button and it will give you a list of fonts to choose from. To change the text color, click the text so that there is a box around the text. Then, click the color changing box to change to the color that fits your design.

To save your design, go to the "share" button in the top right of the website. There will be a number of options you can share it to, but the option you will want to choose is a white "download" button. When you click that button, you will get the option to save as a PNG image. Keep that option as is and press the purple "download" button. After you are done downloading it as a PNG, you will want to save it as a PDF Print. You can do this by clicking that share button again, clicking on the down arrow next to where it reads "PNG" and you will have the option to save as a PD print. Click that option and then press the purple "download" button again. Then they will be saved.

Open a new tab in your browser and look up etsy.com to log into your shop.

Once you get into the Etsy website, you will want to sign into your Etsy shop account if you're not already and once you are done, you will click the little shop logo button in the top right hand corner of the website.

After clicking the little shop button, you will want to go into the bar with shop options on the left side of the website. You will want to choose the listings option. You will get the option in the far upper right hand corner to "add a listing" with a plus sign on it . Press that black button to start editing your listing.

You will need to add an image to your listing so people can know what it is that you are selling. If you click the camera button you can insert the PNG IMAGE you downloaded before. Make sure you insert the PNG image and not the PDF print.

After inserting the image by selecting the correct file, you can scroll down to the thumbnail editor and edit your thumbnail to what you want people to see when they see your listing.

In order to publish your design, you have to enter in some information about it. I cannot give you specifically what you need to say for every question the website asks about your design because I don't know what your design is or how you want to present it. I can give you some guidelines as to how you should set up your information. You need to name your design, say who made it, what it is, and when you made it. You'll need to choose a category to describe your design and everything after that is optional until you get to "Renewal Options". The reason you need to be specific with your choices here is because Etsy will give you two options, digital and physical. You will need to switch it to "digital" in order for the listing to work the way you want it. The automatic and manual options just depend on how you want to restock the item after it sells. You will need to give a good description of your design and explain to the potential customers how they will get an email from Etsy containing the PDF print you will be attaching soon. You will need to add a price and under the section digital files, you will click the white "attach a file" button. Attach the PDF print file and then press publish in the lower right hand corner.