Design An Awesome Retail Store Flyer Using Canva
Does your retail store have an exclusive sale or special event coming up? Whether you want to bring in new customers or fill your store for an opening party, using a flyer to promote your store is a great way to generate attention.
While most professional designers use software like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop to design flyers, you can create a similar flyer yourself at no cost (or, if you use stock images, an extremely low cost) using online design applications like Canva.
Here we will show you how to design an eye-catching, engaging, and effective retail store flyer using Canva. We’ll use a fictional retail store – a vintage clothing store called “Vintage Den” hosting an opening party – as our example business.
Let’s get started with our canvas
Create an account at Canva.com and choose Real Estate Flyer from the list of pre-made canvases. This canvas measures 8.5” by 11” as standard, making it a useful template for retail flyers.
If you’re designing a smaller flyer or larger poster-size one, click the "use custom dimensions" option and enter your desired dimensions.
Adding a background and title
Canva includes a huge selection of background textures and images. These range from free textures ideal for flyers like ours to stock photos taken by professional photographers that are great for use in advertising.
We’ve added a grunge-style background to our flyer to match our vintage clothing theme. We’ve also changed the background color to white to provide more visual contrast and make our text easier to read.
Select Text from the menu on the left of Canva’s interface and choose Add Text. This will give you a large title that can be inserted onto your canvas. Enter your text and choose a font that suits your business – in this case, we’ve picked a small caps font.
We’ve also added a subheading using the same font in a smaller size below our main title, giving people more information about the event. Drag your text into the middle of the canvas and Canva will make it snap right into the middle of the canvas.
Adding your description, location and social media
Now that we’ve added a heading and subheading, it’s time to add some details about our event. Add a paragraph or two explaining your event (if you’re promoting a sale, talk about the products on offer) and share why it’s worth attending.
Select a large font size (the same font size as the subheading is a good idea) and list the date of your event. Below the date, include your retail store’s location and, if it’s hard to find, some driving directions or the nearest public transportation.
Below your store’s location, add your website URL and email address. We’ve added our store’s social media information – in this case, just a Facebook Page – to make it easy for people to sign up for our event using Facebook.
Images, graphics and other finishing touches
From an informational perspective, our flyer is complete – it tells people what we’re promoting, when it’s taking place and how to get there. Despite being complete, our flyer is a little bland and visually uninteresting.
Click Search on the left menu and enter a search keyword to bring up graphics and images related to your topic. We’ve added a branch graphic to our poster to give it some additional visual appeal and make it more than just text on a page.
If your graphic covers some of the text on your page, click Back in the text menu to push it behind other page elements. You can also rotate graphics so that they come in from the side of the page, making your flyer feel more balanced.
Now your retail store flyer is ready to print
Congratulations – you’ve created a great looking retail flyer without having to hire a professional designer or use complicated software. Choose “Download” from the top menu and save your flyer to print and display.
Next, all you need to do is upload your design on QuantumPostcards, then select your paper weight, finish, and quantity, and your printed product will be on it's way to you within just one business day.
