Create your free Figma and Canva accounts and set up a project folder

Before you can design a single logo, you need somewhere to design it and somewhere to keep it. This lesson gets both sorted in under an hour, so that for the rest of the course you open your laptop and get straight to work instead of hunting for files named logo final final 2.png.

Why these two tools

Figma and Canva are both free, both run in your browser, and together they cover almost everything a small-business branding job needs. You will use them for different jobs, so it helps to know which is which from day one.

Rule of thumb for this course: draw the brand in Figma, deploy the brand in Canva. Your logo, colour palette and guidelines document get built in Figma. Then you use Canva to show the client what their brand looks like on an Instagram post, a business card, or a delivery bike sticker.

Step 1: Create your Figma account

1. Go to figma.com and click Get started.
2. Sign up with a Gmail address you actually check. Avoid your school email — you may lose access after graduation.
3. When Figma asks what you do, choose Design and select the free Starter plan. Do not start a Professional trial; the free plan is enough for this entire course.
4. Verify your email.

Once you are in, download the Figma desktop app too (there is a link under the Help menu, or search "Figma desktop app download"). The desktop app handles poor network better than the browser tab and lets you use your own installed fonts, which matters when we get to typography.

A note on the free plan: Starter gives you 3 Figma design files per team and unlimited personal drafts. That sounds tight, but there is a simple work-around we use below.

Step 2: Create your Canva account

1. Go to canva.com and sign up with the same Gmail you used for Figma. One email for both keeps your logins simple.
2. Choose Personal or Small business when asked — it only changes which templates it suggests.
3. Skip the Canva Pro trial for now. You can always start it later, in the week you actually need background remover for a client shoot.

If you are a student with a valid school ID, check canva.com/education — many Nigerian institutions qualify for Canva for Education, which unlocks Pro features free.

Step 3: Set up your folder system

This is the part most beginners skip, and it is the part that will save you when a client messages you eight months later saying "abeg, send me that logo again, the printer needs it."

We will build the same structure in three places: your laptop, Google Drive, and Figma.

On your laptop

Create one master folder. Everything branding-related lives inside it.

Branding/
├── 01_Course_Practice/
├── 02_Client_Projects/
│   ├── Mama_Nkechi_Foods/
│   │   ├── 01_Brief/
│   │   ├── 02_Research/
│   │   ├── 03_Sketches/
│   │   ├── 04_Exports/
│   │   │   ├── Logo_PNG/
│   │   │   ├── Logo_SVG/
│   │   │   └── Guidelines_PDF/
│   │   └── 05_Invoices/
│   └── Ikorodu_Barbers/
├── 03_Portfolio/
└── 04_Templates_and_Assets/
    ├── Fonts/
    ├── Mockups/
    └── Proposal_Template/

The numbers at the front force the folders to sit in the order you actually work in, instead of alphabetical order. Use underscores instead of spaces — spaces cause broken links when you share files online.

On Google Drive

Recreate the same Branding folder in Drive and drag your finished exports there at the end of each work session. If your laptop is stolen or your hard drive gives up (and in Nigeria's power situation, drives do give up), your client work survives. The free 15GB is plenty for brand files.

Install Google Drive for desktop if your data plan allows it, so syncing happens automatically. If data is tight, do a manual upload once a week instead.

Inside Figma

Figma organises work into Teams → Projects → Files. On the free plan you get one team, unlimited projects, but only 3 files per project. So:

1. In the left sidebar, click the + next to your team name and create a project called Client Projects.
2. Create a second project called Course Practice.
3. Create a third called Portfolio.

Each project can hold 3 files. That means one file per client, and inside that single file you use pages (the tab list on the left when a file is open) for each stage:

File: Mama Nkechi Foods
├── Page: Moodboard
├── Page: Logo Explorations
├── Page: Final Logo
├── Page: Colour & Type
└── Page: Brand Guidelines

One file, five pages. You will never hit the 3-file limit if you work this way.

Inside Canva

Canva lets you create folders on the free plan. Go to Projects → Folders → Add new, and make two: Client Deliverables and My Portfolio. Drop every design you make into one of them immediately, before you close the tab. Canva's "Recent designs" list gets messy within two weeks.

Step 4: Name files like a professional

Adopt one naming pattern now and never think about it again:

ClientName_AssetType_Version_Date

Examples:

MamaNkechi_Logo_Primary_v3_2025-04-12.svg
MamaNkechi_Logo_Icon_White_v3_2025-04-12.png
MamaNkechi_BrandGuidelines_v1_2025-04-18.pdf
IkoroduBarbers_ColourPalette_v2_2025-05-02.png

Write dates as YYYY-MM-DD. It looks strange at first, but it makes files sort themselves chronologically, and it removes the confusion between the Nigerian 12/04 and the American 04/12.

Never use the word "final". Use version numbers. Clients always ask for one more change.

Step 5: A five-minute test run

Prove the whole setup works before you move on:

1. In Figma, open your Course Practice project and create a file called Toolkit Test.
2. Press R and draw a rectangle. Fill it with any colour.
3. Select it, then in the right panel click Export, choose PNG, and click Export.
4. Save it to Branding/01_Course_Practice/ on your laptop as Test_Rectangle_v1_2025-04-12.png.
5. Upload that file to the matching folder in Google Drive.
6. In Canva, create a blank Instagram post, upload the PNG, and place it on the canvas.
7. Move the Canva design into your My Portfolio folder.

If all seven steps worked, your pipeline is live: design in Figma, back up to Drive, present in Canva.

Try it yourself

Set up both accounts and the full folder structure, then pick a real small business near you — the barber down the street, your aunty's frozen foods shop, the printing shop by the junction. Create a client folder for them using the exact structure above, and inside 01_Brief, write a plain text file with three lines: the business name, what they sell, and who buys from them. That folder becomes your first project when we start briefs in the next module.

When you are done, screenshot your Figma sidebar showing the three projects and post it in the class group so we can check your setup.