Social and content design

Member lesson

Templates a team can fill

Lesson 7 of 11 in Social and content design.

Checked against the makers' documentation on 9 October 2026.

Lesson

A template is a design with most of its decisions already made, so the person filling it makes only the ones that are left. Building one starts with a split. A locked part is anything the brand depends on staying the same: the wordmark, the margins, the background, the type styles and the position of the headline and the picture. An open part is a slot to be filled, usually the words and the photograph. Everything that is not deliberately open should be locked, because each loose element is one more place for the brand to drift on a busy afternoon.

the systemshopfrontall of itphonethe mark alonea vanreadable at speeda formalmost nonedesign the smallest one first and the rest survive
One system reaching a shopfront, a phone, a van and a form, each needing a different amount of it.
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  1. Question 1, locked

    In Canva, what does Lock position only do to a headline's text box?

    • Fixes its position, style and content
    • Fixes its position and style, and leaves the words editable
    • Fixes the words and lets the box move
    • Hides the box from other editors
  2. Question 2, locked

    Why does the lesson say a carousel needs three templates and not one?

    • Instagram asks for three file types
    • Canva limits a template to five pages
    • The first, middle and last slides do different jobs
    • Each slide must be a different shape
  3. Question 3, locked

    Canva's help says anyone with edit access to a design can lock or remove locks on its elements. What does the lesson conclude?

    • Locks in a shared design guard against slips, not against people
    • Locks are pointless and should be left off
    • Only the owner of a design can change its words
    • Templates should only be shared as PDFs

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