Intro to Marketing Design
Marketing Toolkit
Intro to Marketing Design
For an in-depth look at marketing, see the “How-to Guide for Marketing Transit.” The “Guide” has five sections:
As you develop your marketing materials, remember that everything you produce, whether marketing or informational, becomes a part of your brand. Maintaining a consistent look and voice helps people recognize your system, improves trust in your organization as a reliable service, makes you look more professional and competent, and helps build loyal ridership.
Using the templates below can help you maintain that consistency in all your marketing and communications.
National RTAP Canva Templates
Canva is a popular web-based design tool that many of you may already be using. It has thousands of templates for you to choose from, for anything from social media images to posters and brochures. But National RTAP has also created custom templates that more closely match the unique needs of public transit agencies. You can modify these templates to meet your unique needs.
These templates are designed using three styles, or design “families.”
If you stick with one of these design styles, you can create a consistent look for your marketing materials, which helps build your brand. You can change the colors and fonts to more closely match your logo or other existing materials.
You can replace images with your own photos, or with photos from the National RTAP photo library.
Templates
On the pages that follow, you’ll find templates for creating:
- Passenger guides
- Flyers and posters
- Print ads
- Social media
- Online ads
- Direct mail
- Newsletters
- Stationery and branding
- PowerPoint presentations
You’ll also find information about creating bus wraps that represent your brand, website design, and printing info.
Getting Started in Canva
If you’ve never used Canva, you’ll want to start by going to www.canva.com and setting up a free account.
To learn basics of using Canva, check out the Gettingstarted with Canva tutorials in Canva Design School or their Canva for Beginners series. There are also great tutorials available elsewhere online, such as on YouTube. If you’re struggling to understand a certain feature, a simple online search such as “rotating text in Canva” will usually point you to answers.
As you become more familiar with Canva, you may notice that some features are only available to users with a paid “Pro” account. Consider whether these features may be worth the price for your agency.
Video Tutorial –
Using the National RTAP Templates
Once you have an understanding of Canva, you may want to watch the video below that shows you some details about using the National RTAP templates in Canva.
Next page: Posters/Flyers
Updated December 16, 2024
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