// Development
Canva Website Clone Development
// Development
Canva is a graphic design platform used to edit photos, create graphics, presentations, emojis, stickers, animation, and other visual content for advertising and posts on social networks. Later, we’ll tell you how to develop a Canva clone — a web platform with similar functionality and design.
At this stage, you should get a clear understanding of what exact product you intend to develop, what goal you’re going to achieve and what target audience you’re going to attract with its help. Decisions, which you are making during this process, will define how all other development stages will be taking place.
Here is what you should think about when launching your project:
A wireframe is a schematic representation of the appearance of the website, which is being created, where most elements are presented as blocks. Due to the wireframe, a web developer and a client can understand what the user interface of the platform will contain and how these elements will be placed and where.
At this development stage, designers create all graphic content such as background, logos, buttons, animation, pictograms, videos, and the like. A color scheme, a set of fonts, and typographics are being determined. This choice is made on the basis of the niche and target audience’s preferences, i.e. data, which were collected at the stage of definition of the concept of the web platform, which is being created.
All that is being brought together in the mockup (or a page template). Mockup is a static representation of a fully completed design of a website interface in the form that the ordinary platform visitors will see it in. The purpose of the creation of a mockup is the demonstration of the navigation structure, completed website design, and its contents to the client and the target audience.
Once everybody is satisfied with the mockup, the website prototype is usually created. That’s basically an interactive mockup, where all animations, transitions, videos, and links are working, but the website features aren’t. Due to the prototype, you can understand how the site will look like and how the end users are going to use it, which in its turn will allow receiving more accurate feedback.
Writing and compilation of textual content usually go hand in hand with other stages of website creation. Home page and advertising texts should outline a concept of your site by text (what platform is it and what a user can do with its help) and its main advantages in comparison with the competitors. You also have to create a textual website design: names and descriptions of all icons, sections, features, and elements of an editor – starting with tools and ending with templates of figures.
Copywriters and editors write texts. Thereat subject matter copywriters should write the text for the interface of the editor (and apps). An ordinary copywriter (with the involvement of an editor, proofreader, and a market specialist) can write text for a home page, email messages, and advertisements.
Once you’ve determined a concept, architecture, and design, you can start coding a Canva clone. Usually, when developing websites they create the main page and then add all other pages to it according to a sitemap. Then developers implement CMS, various frameworks, and image editor – the main component of such online platforms as Canva. After that, you need to add interactivity and website functionality.
While you can create front-end (website pages) with the help of website builders or WordPress, which cheapens and accelerates the development, you can create an image editor and some other important features of a Canva clone only with custom development. And you should entrust it not to a freelancer but a development company because an image editor is too sophisticated software for an individual to develop.
This article describes in detail where to look and what things to pay attention to when choosing a technical partner: «Choose a custom erp software development company».
The approximate composition of a development team:
Integration with social networks. It’s needed in two respects:
Image loading. Aside from the opportunity to take photos, users should have the possibility to upload images from their devices and various external platforms like Instagram, Discord, Twitter, Google Drive, or Dropbox.
Photo editor. It’s obvious that after an image is uploaded, a user will edit it. Here’s what you can do with it:
Unusual filters. Many apps for image editing became popular due to their unique filters. For instance, Prisma, which turns photos into real paintings. Let us mention Deep Nostalgia, which animates old photos, or Remove.bg, which removes the background from the photos in one click.
Possibility to create stickers, gifs, emojis. You can also implement the possibility to create your own bright stickers and animated images from your photos. What could be cooler than emojis from the photos of your classmates, colleagues, or family members?
Inspiration. You can also follow VSCO’s lead to create a special section for users’ inspiration for new creativity. In this section, you can show beautiful pictures, photos, stickers, presentations, and other graphics created by your site’s graphics editor.
Website settings. In this section, a user is able to customize the website interface and specify his preferences related to the work in the editor: default template, project storage space, saved templates, and the like. Instructions on licenses, guides for photo editing, data display settings, posting images on social networks can be added.
Chat communication. There’s no point in making something like Instagram out of your Canva clone, but added possibilities of communication between users might come in handy especially if your image editor has the possibility of collaborative work on projects. In addition, it will be useful to add the possibility to comment on other people’s work and rate it if this work is public.
Gamification. All popular photo editors make the process of image correction a sort of a thrilling game hereby involving users in closer cooperation. For example, you can turn photo editing into a game to participate in «a competition of the day» and gain votes from other users.
