Canva, the world’s largest visual communications platform, on 8th August 2024, launched a refreshed brand system, purpose-built for workplaces around the world. The updated identity was designed to scale globally and connect locally, doubling down on Canva’s mission to empower the world to design.
The next decade of Canva
Canva’s first decade empowered millions of people to achieve their goals through design. Now, it’s focused on empowering organizations, too, with design and productivity tools to meet the growing visual communication needs of every workplace around the world.
As the world of work becomes more distributed, the need for stronger visual communication and collaboration has never been more important. Canva’s revamped branding system has been built to not only fuel creativity but also help teams drive productivity with global and local style in workplaces around the world.
To redesign the way the world works, Canva first needed to redefine the way its brand works. This new approach brought with it new questions: Can the brand connect with new audiences without compromising its unique voice? As the brand expands across the globe, can it truly connect locally?
“Canva is synonymous with empowerment – it’s one of the founding principles of our brand and has been true to our mission since day one,” says 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.”
Expanding an iconic brand
From its instantly recognizable gradient to its hand-crafted logo and custom typography, the Canva brand is already established around the world. The goal of this refresh was to simplify and amplify what makes it iconic, then create more space for inspiring visual content that reflects Canva’s diverse community.
“Creativity is different around the world – what’s important to a human resources manager in Paris may not be important to a digital marketing expert in São Paulo,” said Cat van der Werff, ECD. “Our revamped brand system is designed to be hyper-localized and culturally relevant, enabling greater connection with communities around the world than ever before.”
The revamped trademark system includes:
- Building a content platform: The revamped brand system was inspired by Canva itself – a flexible content platform. Core brand assets remain fixed, while flexible brand elements can adapt, allowing the brand to scale globally and connect locally.
- Bridging brand and product: Designs now more closely reflect how users flow through the Canva product—from inspiring scrolling content to drag-and-drop pages to immersive full-screen moments.
- Showcase work in progress: Often, the act of creating is what brings the most joy. Canva’s new system celebrates this, highlighting the design in progress rather than the finished product. A brand in motion, even when it’s static.
- Humanizing Canva’s UI: Custom cursors, comments, and a set of emoji come to life across all brand touchpoints to tell human stories of connection and collaboration.
- Amplifies the brand voice: A new tone of voice enhances the brand’s playful personality, breaking away from the trend of speaking in corporate buzzwords.
- More accessible than ever: A simplified color palette reflects Canva’s belief that autonomy and accessibility go hand-in-hand, with the suite updated to meet strict AA accessibility guidelines for each color.
Created by Canva, on Canva
Large organisations are increasingly turning to Canva Enterprise to power visual work and grow their brands. In a move that demonstrates the platform’s capabilities, their in-house creative team is using Canva’s design tools to scale brand refresh consistently across a team of 4,000+ people in over 40 countries.
This approach allowed the brand to be scalable from launch, with custom brand templates, AI-powered tools trained to write out loud, and a Brand Kit to bring it all together in one place.
“From ideation to implementation, timelines and templates, we used our own tools at every stage of the process. The entire revamp was designed to test our product and demonstrate how organizations can scale a global brand with 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 to the way the brand moves, and Buck to create a custom emoji style that draws inspiration from Canva’s trademark gradients, updated color palette, and playful personality.
