This month, Filipinos all over the world celebrate Buwan Ng Wika, or the National Language Month. Many of us grew up seeing festive celebrations in our school and community during this time of the year. We join “Sabayang Pagbigkas” or Speech Choir competitions, wear our best Baro’t Saya and Barong Tagalog to events, and watch out for the best group to perform Tinikling, Pandanggo sa Ilaw, Binasuan, and other Filipino folk dances. We make posters, write Filipino poems and essays, watch local documentaries, and so on. Now is a great time to celebrate being Filipino.
Many Kabayans would be delighted to know that the online design platform, Canva, launched its Filipino-themed content collection packed with local templates, fonts, illustrations, and photos that will definitely fire up the Pinoy pride within.
Canva brings its users a vibrant and hyperlocal Filipino font collection inspired by geography, language, culture, and local flavor. It now has Kawit, a brush font reminiscent of the curves and flourish of old Philippine emblems, Maragsa, designed after the sharp edges of accent marks used to correct the pronunciation of Filipino words, Dangwa, a curvy brush typeface inspired by Filipino signmakers and a whole lot of other fonts. This font collection showcases the talents of Filipino typographers whose fonts were inspired by geography, language, and other cultural elements.
For other Pinoy celebrations, Canva got you covered with their exciting and imaginative template themes and design elements like Araw ng Kalayaan or Independence Day collection featuring Filipino heroes, and information on voter registration; Holy Week collection showing home-based activities during the lent season like Virtual Visita Iglesia; and Flores de Mayo, shows two styles of paper doll-inspired mix and match elements featuring traditional Filipiñana attire and props.
It’s always summer in the Philippines, and even if you’re stuck at home, you can still enjoy and have fun by exploring the Staycation collection featuring summer vacation at home; and mix it up with Philippine Summer, a collection of household items in the typical Filipino home like suka at toyo (vinegar and soy sauce), kalan (stove top burner), Sto. Nino (statue of the child Jesus), and more.
Show off more Pinoy pride with bespoke Filipino content like the Minimalist Lines Philippines elements featuring traditionally Filipino symbols like the flag, tricycle, and jeepney; Valentines Filipino Food Pairings featuring popular staple Pinoy food pairings like kape at kanin (coffee and rice), and kape at pandesal (coffee and pandesal); and Lined Pinoy Fruits and Vegetables showing Pinoy fruits and veggies like dalanghita (Mandarin Orange), guyabano, chico, duhat (Java Plum), and durian.
You can add local flair to any design by simply typing in the keywords ‘Filipino’ or ‘Pinoy’ for hundreds of truly local elements. You may also change the language setting to Tagalog to get access to Canva’s growing collection of exclusive Filipino templates.
As if these aren’t enough, Canva will roll out yet another set of Filipino templates, fonts, and elements. Watch out for more localized templates, more fonts by Filipino typographers, PH Travel Collection with photos of Philippine landscapes and local sceneries, and PH Food Collection with photos of various Filipino dishes.
For more information, visit canva.com.
