Canva, the popular online design platform, announced several new features and a new business-focused subscription at its first international Canva Create event in Los Angeles on Thursday. The platform has unveiled its biggest redesign in over a decade, which includes a new homepage and editing experience for all users. Furthermore, the company also introduced a new Canva Enterprise subscription aimed at large organizations. The design platform has also released multiple new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered features within Magic Studio and Visual Suite.
Redesign of the Canva platform
One of the main topics of the event was Canva’s decision to revamp its platform including the home page and editing suite. The company says the new user interface is designed to speed up work processes and improve productivity in the workplace, and they highlighted the following changes coming to the service.
- New contextual editing toolbar with one-click access to background removal tools and Magic Studio AI tools on the front
- A new customizable homepage where users can favor brand designs, folders and templates
- Organizations can pin company or team content to the top of the home page
- Improved search interface with more filters
- Easier navigation that allows teams to move between projects and access assets and resources
“We’re excited to introduce a renewed Canva experience and a suite of new products that will empower any organization to design. As demand for visual content grows, navigating organizational complexity is more challenging than ever. We democratized the design ecosystem in our first decade and now look forward to unifying the fragmented ecosystems of design, artificial intelligence and workflow tools for every organization in our second decade,” said Melanie Perkins, CEO and co-founder of Canva in a prepared statement. .
Canva says the new homepage and editing toolbar will be available to the first million users who can find a secret portal hidden on the Canva homepage. For everyone else, the redesigned platform will be available in August.
Powered by Canva Enterprise
Canva Enterprise
Photo credit: Canva
Canva Enterprise was also announced as a new subscription service aimed at large organizations with brand management, administration, reporting and complex security requirements. Canva claims it will enable businesses to create large volumes of designs and templates, as well as tools for internal collaboration at scale. Furthermore, it also comes with admin tools to secure brand assets. Some of its features include:
- Scalable cloud storage that offers enough space to store designs and ensures secure access to the organization’s employees
- A centralized account with consolidated design, content production, collaboration and AI tools for easy subscription management
- Security tools such as Canva Shield, SSO, SCIM and MFA to protect the organization’s data
Canva Magic Studio gets new AI features
Noting that Magic Studio has been used more than 6.5 billion times since its launch in October 2023, Canva unveiled six new features for its AI-powered editing suite at an event on Thursday.
Canva AI editor
Photo credit: Canva
- Magic Media: It’s an AI-powered text-to-image generator that can create graphics, icons, and illustrations
- Magical Design: Can generate high-quality presentations
- Resize and Magic Switch: Can convert designs into any custom document with a text query
- A style and layout tool to apply brand colors and templates to your entire design with one click
- An improved AI-powered photo editor
- Highlights feature that cuts and selects aesthetic clips from long videos
- Enhance Voice: Enhances audio and reduces background noise in videos
Improvements to Canva Visual Suite
Canva has also introduced several new features to the Visual Suite. Users can now track changes and collaborate on past edits, gain access to asset libraries and templates approved by Amazon Ads, Google and Meta, an auto-fill feature that allows businesses to import data from third-party platforms such as Salesforce and MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and Bulk Create which allows users to upload a CSV or Excel file to quickly update images, text and graphics in different designs.
Canva work sets
Canva workplace features
Photo credit: Canva
Expanding its product to meet the needs of the workplace, Canva introduced a series of customized tools called Work Kits for different teams such as marketing, human resources, sales and creative departments. Work kits are customizable and can be branded using Canva’s brand kit.
Canva courses and Affinity
The company also introduced Canva Courses, which provide interactive courses that help users learn and improve their design skills in formats such as presentations, documents and videos. Progress on Canva courses can also be managed from a central dashboard.
Affinity, the full-stack desktop design application recently acquired by Canva, has launched a new version of the platform with new features such as variable font support, a stroke width tool, and support for ARM64 chipsets. The company also announced that qualified educators, schools and nonprofits can sign up for a waiting list to get free access to Affinity. The company will provide free licenses to eligible candidates in the coming months.
