How to Make Gif Stickers for Instagram using Canva

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Everyone knows how popular gifs are. Giphy has 700 million daily users and serves up 10 billion gif impressions daily. Gifs are so popular that Facebook is paying $400M to acquire Giphy.

Here’s a simple step by step tutorial on how to use Canva to make your own gif stickers for Instagram.

1. Apply for a brand account on Giphy

In order to have your gifs seen on Instagram, you need to have a verified brand account. As long as you run a legitimate business, this is a fairly straightforward application and you can apply on Giphy’s website here. Giphy even provides tips on how to submit an application. The basic requirements include a company email, a company website and links to your company social media profiles.

If you fulfil the requirements, it only takes 24 hours to get a branded account approved.

2. Design your gifs in Canva

Here are some tips to design eye catching gif stickers on Canva.

You will need to create 2-3 versions of the same graphic which we will alternate for the gif. In each graphic, you will need to move the text or the designs slightly, so in the alternating sequence, it looks like the text or graphic is moving.

Canva design using Hit and Run font and some accents (rays, zigzag).

Here are some additional tips:

  • USE BIG FAT BOLD FONTS – thin lines don’t work well in stickers (sometimes the line may disappear or part of the font may disappear) 
    • Good fonts to use: Hit and Run, Capture It, Archivo Black, Permanent Marker
  • USE LIGHT OR PASTEL COLORS. You can can alternate black and white or alternate between different pastel colors
  • USE ACCENTS. In Canva, you can search accents using keywords like rays, lines, decorations, handdrawn, zigzag, quote, accent
  • INCLUDE YOUR CORPORATE LOGO. Find a space to incorporate your logo for branding. It’s okay if it’s very small.
  • USE DIFFERENT ANIMATION STYLES. you can use techniques like Strobe, Tilt, Rotate, Pulse to create your animation.
    • Strobe: Alternate the colors to create a strobe effect.
    • Tilt: Tilt your graphics 45 deg left and right. Make sure you tilt the accents so they move too.
    • Rotate: If you use a circle, you can rotate the colors (e.g. use 3 colors)
    • Pulse: To create pulse effect, expand and contract the graphic to make it look like it’s growing bigger and smaller

Once you’re done with the design, download it from Canva in PNG format with transparent background. REMEMBER – this is important!You must check “Transparent Background” when downloading.

3. Go to ezgif.com and go to the Gif Maker section

  • Upload the entire zip file (or as many individual PNG as you like). 
  • Rearrange PNG (make sure that the first PNG is the clearest one e.g. white text not black text, because that is what will appear on Instagram) 
  • Click on “UPLOAD AND MAKE A GIF”
  • Keep all the default settings (Delay Time: 20 is okay), but check “don’t stack files”
  • Click on “MAKE GIF” 
  • Download the gif

The end result is this!

via GIPHY

4. Upload to giphy.com

Upload your gif to your branded account on Giphy! It should appear on Instagram within 24 hours.

Wasn’t this easy? You can view all of the branded gifs we designed for a client on their Branded Giphy Channel or simply search for “levelsingapore” stickers when using Instagram.

Tag me on Instagram @debbiediscovers if you used this tutorial to make gifs / stickers fo Instagram!

P.S. Besides gif stickers for Instagram, did you know that you can design and print your own physical stickers using Canva’s Sticker Maker? They’re easy to create and customise and printed on high quality, eco-friendly prints! Design your own or use one of Canva’s sticker templates!