# How to Design a Course Completion Certificate Students Will Actually Share > Design a course completion certificate in Vonza’s drag-and-drop editor: seven layouts, six colour themes, your logo, seal and signatures, and auto-issue rules. By Uyi Abraham (Founder and CEO, Vonza). Published 2026-10-28, updated 2026-10-28. Category: Course creation. 4 min read. Canonical: https://vonza.net/blog/course-completion-certificate A certificate is the one piece of your course a student is likely to show someone else. It ends up on a wall, in a job application, in a social post. That makes its design worth an hour. Vonza’s [certificate designer](https://vonza.net/course-certificates) is a drag-and-drop editor with sensible starting points, so the hour goes on the decisions that matter rather than on alignment. Here is how to make one that looks finished and issues itself. ## Start from a layout, then choose a colour theme Open a course, go to Certificates and create a certificate. The Design tab offers seven starting layouts: Navy Wave, Gold Chevron, Corner Frame, Classic, Elegant, Modern and Minimal. Each is a full composition on a landscape canvas, with the title, the student’s name, the completion line, the date and the signature lines already placed. Next, pick a colour theme: Navy & gold, Emerald, Burgundy, Black & silver, Royal blue or Plum. A theme sets the main and accent colours across the whole design, so a layout you like in navy becomes a burgundy one in a click. You can also keep your current colours or pick any colour for a single element. Borders come in seven styles, from Corners and Classic to Wave, Chevron and Bars, or none. A few rules of thumb: - **One accent colour.** The theme already gives you a main colour and an accent; resist adding a third. - **Match the brand of the course, not the whim of the day.** If your site is emerald, the certificate should be too. - **Light paper prints better.** Every theme uses a white or off-white background for that reason. ## Set the words The Text tab adds a heading, a subheading, a line of text or script text. Keep the heading to the thing it is: Certificate of Completion, Certificate of Achievement, or the name of your program. The subheading is where you say what was completed and for whom. Fonts are limited to six on purpose: Cinzel, Playfair Display, Lora, Montserrat, Pinyon Script and Great Vibes. The two scripts are for the student’s name or a flourish; the serifs carry the heading; Montserrat does the small print. Pick one serif and one script and stop there. ## Let the details fill themselves in The Details tab holds the fields that change per student: Student name, Course name, Completion date and Serial number. Drag them onto the canvas and style them like any text; they fill in by themselves for every student. The student’s name is required and cannot be removed, which is as it should be. Two decisions here: - **Completion date.** Show the day it is issued, or a date you pick. Issue date is right for self-paced courses; a fixed date suits a cohort that graduates together. - **Serial number.** Switch it on. Each certificate gets a running number, which is what makes a certificate checkable when someone asks. ## Add your logo, signatures and a seal The Images tab takes uploads: your logo, one or two signatures and a seal. A transparent PNG is best, so the paper shows through. If you have no seal, the built-in decorations include a medal, a seal, a laurel, a ribbon, a flourish and stars, drawn in your theme’s colours. Two signatures read as more official than one. A signature from the instructor and one from the school or program lead is the common pattern. ## Preview, then publish the template Preview shows the certificate as it prints, with sample values in the fields. Check it at arm’s length: can you read the heading and the name from across a room? If not, make them bigger and remove something else. The editor needs a computer or tablet; on a phone you see the design but do not edit it. Publish the template to make it the active one. A course keeps several templates, so you can draft a new design while the current one is in use and switch when it is ready. Certificates already issued keep their files. ## Decide when it is issued Certificates issue themselves. In Settings, pick the rule: - **Course completed:** every lesson finished. - **Payment completed:** all payments of the plan made, whatever the progress. Right for courses on instalments. - **Also when all quizzes are passed:** the certificate waits until every quiz in the course is passed, which is the rule for anything that certifies knowledge. Set pass marks on the [quizzes](https://vonza.net/course-quizzes-and-assignments) first. You can also certify students by hand from the Certified students tab, download any certificate as a PDF, and revoke one if you must; the student can be certified again later. ## What the student sees In the [student portal](https://vonza.net/student-portal), a course shows Complete the course to earn it until the rule is met, then the certificate appears under Your certificates with a PDF download. A course bought on instalments shows a reminder to complete payment before the certificate is issued. ## A checklist before you publish 1. One layout, one theme, one serif, one script. 2. Student name, course name, date and serial number all on the canvas. 3. Logo, seal and two signatures as transparent PNGs. 4. Readable from across a room in Preview. 5. The right issue rule for how the course is sold. ## Frequently asked questions ### Can I make a certificate without a designer? Yes. Pick one of seven starting layouts and a colour theme, drag your logo, seal and signatures on, and the student’s name, course name, date and serial number fill in for every student. ### When does a student receive the certificate? You choose: when every lesson is finished, when all payments of the plan are made, or only once every quiz in the course is passed. You can also certify students by hand and revoke a certificate. ### What format do students get? A PDF they download from their portal. The fonts you chose are embedded, so it prints the same everywhere.