Canva, the world’s largest visual communication platform, today launched a refreshed brand system purpose-built for workplaces worldwide. The updated identity was designed to scale globally and connect locally, doubling down on Canva’s mission to empower the world to design.
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Empowering Canva’s Next Decade
Canva’s first decade empowered millions of individuals to achieve their goals through design. Now, it’s focussed on empowering organisations too, with design and productivity tools to support the growing visual communication needs of every workplace in every part of the world.
As the world of work becomes more distributed, the need for stronger visual communication and collaboration has never been more paramount. Canva’s refreshed brand system is built to not only fuel creativity but also to help teams drive productivity with global and local flair in workplaces across the world.
To redesign the way the world works, Canva first needed to redefine the way its brand works. This fresh focus brought fresh questions: Can the brand connect with new audiences without compromising its unique voice? As the brand scales globally, can it truly connect locally?
"Canva stands for empowerment—it’s a founding principle of our brand and one that’s been true to our mission since day one,” said Cat van der Werff, Executive Creative Director (ECD) at Canva. “Because design isn’t just about aesthetics. Design is the vehicle that enables people to achieve their goals. Doubling down on this idea became the anchor for the entire brand refresh.”
Scaling an Iconic Brand
From its instantly recognizable gradient to its hand-crafted logo and custom typeface, Canva’s brand is already established globally. The goal of this refresh was to simplify and amplify what makes it iconic and then create more space for inspiring visual content that reflects Canva’s diverse community.
“Creativity looks different around the world—what’s relevant to a human resources leader in Paris may not work for a digital marketer in São Paulo,” said Cat van der Werff, ECD. “Our refreshed brand system is designed to be hyper-localized and culturally relevant, allowing for greater connection with communities around the world than ever before.”
The refreshed brand system includes:
- Building a platform for content: The refreshed brand system was inspired by Canva itself—a platform for flexible content. Core brand assets remain fixed, while flexible brand elements can be tailored, allowing the brand to scale globally while also connecting locally.
- Uniting brand and product: Design layouts now more closely mirror how you flow through Canva’s product—from inspiring content scrolls to pages that drag and drop, to immersive full-screen moments.
- Demonstrating work in progress: It’s often the act of making that brings the most joy. Canva’s new system celebrates this, spotlighting design at work instead of the finished product. A brand in motion, even when static.
- Humanizing Canva’s UI: Cursors, comments, and a suite of bespoke emojis come alive across every brand touchpoint to tell human stories of connection and collaboration.
- Amplifying brand voice: A fresh take on tone of voice dials up the brand’s playful personality, bucking the trend of speaking in corporate buzzwords.
- More accessible than ever: A simplified color palette reflects Canva’s view that empowerment and accessibility go hand in hand, with the suite updated to meet AA's strong accessibility standards for every color.
Built by Canva, in Canva
Large organizations increasingly turn to Canva Enterprise to supercharge visual work and grow their brands. In a move demonstrating the platform's capabilities, their in-house creative team uses Canva’s design tools to scale the brand refresh consistently across a team of more than 4,000 people in more than 40 countries.
This approach meant the brand was scaleable right from launch, with custom brand templates, AI-powered tools trained to write in voice, and a Brand Kit to bring everything together in one place.
"From ideation to implementation, timelines to templates, we used our own tools at every stage of the process. The entire refresh was designed to put our product through its paces, proving ways organizations can scale a global brand using Canva,” said Cat van der Werff, ECD.
The team also partnered with creative agencies, Vucko to define an updated motion system, digging deeper into how Canva can bring personality and humanity into how the brand moves and Buck to create a custom emoji style that draws on Canva’s brand gradients, updated color palette and playful personality.
Redesigning How the World Works
For the past decade, Canva has championed the democratization of design, helping millions of people bring their creative visions to life, whether they consider themselves creative or not. With more than 190 million monthly active users and annualized revenue exceeding $2.3 billion, Canva's growth is a testament to its impact.
About Canva
Launched in 2013, Canva is a free online visual communications and collaboration platform with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design. Featuring a simple drag-and-drop user interface and a vast range of templates ranging from presentations, documents, websites, social media graphics, posters, and apparel to videos, plus a huge library of fonts, stock photography, illustrations, video footage, and audio clips, anyone can take an idea and create something beautiful.
Downloadable Assets
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Contacts
Fenot Tekle
comms@canva.com
