PlatformsFeaturedAPAC

Canva unveils new hub for brand design, new AI-powered tools 

MARKETECH APAC - March 24, 2023

Sydney, Australia Canva, today’s top all-in-one visual communication platform, has announced a new suite of brand management features and AI-powered design tools, built to help teams and organizations of all shapes and sizes to communicate visually and produce content at scale. 

“Ten years ago, we launched Canva driven by a vision to empower everyone to design anything, no matter their skills or experience,” said Canva Co-founder and CEO, Melanie Perkins. “Today, we’re thrilled to advance that vision by introducing a whole new range of features, focused on empowering brands to scale their creative outputs. As technology continues to advance, we are reimagining the design process by making it even easier to take what is in your head, get it onto a page, and out into the world, faster than ever before.”

At its most recent ‘Canva Create’, the platform’s dedicated event for announcing new product features, it has unveiled the new ‘Brand Hub’. 

Canva says the new range of tools and features was developed out of the augmented demand it saw for teams to produce incredibly high volumes of content which are often targeted at a global scale. May it be social media graphics to presentations or video content to documents, the visual communications imperative is at an all-time high, says Canva. 

The platform expands the capabilities of the Visual Suite with ‘Brand Hub’, specifically aimed at helping teams and organizations create with efficiency and stay on brand.

To serve as ‘the home for every brand’, Canva’s ‘Brand Hub’ offers the following: 

  • Brand Kit: Allows teams to create a Brand Kit with the right assets in their immediate arsenals such as logos, colours, fonts, icons, imagery, graphics, and brand guidelines.
  • Magic Replace: Allows teams to instantly update brand assets across one’s entire company with a single click.
  • Brand Templates: Allows teams to design and share Brand Templates for them to quickly create on-brand, compelling content. 
  • Brand Folders: Allows teams to set up Brand Folders to keep branding organized and accessible. 
  • Brand Guidelines: Allows an organisation’s brand guidelines to be automatically and contextually surfaced within the Canva Editor. 
  • Brand Controls: Allows teams to set brand controls and gain the confidence that they are always designing on-brand content. Admins are able to limit fonts and colours, eliminating the need to check hex codes or look out for unapproved fonts.
  • Approval Workflows: Allows admins can use approval workflows directly in Canva, ensuring designs are reviewed and approved before being published.

Aside from the new ‘Brand Hub’, Canva is also supercharging its Visual Suite by unveiling a collection of new AI-powered tools that aim to accelerate the design process whilst unlocking unprecedented capabilities. 

The new features are as follows: 

  • Magic Design: Simply upload an image then select a style, and Magic Design will create a curated selection of personalised templates ready for download to further customize. 
  • Magic Edit: Add or replace anything in an image. Identify where to add something, describe it to Magic Edit, and watch as it appears.
  • Magic Eraser: Clean up unwanted details in images with Magic Eraser. Brush over the area and watch as the distraction is magically removed. 
  • Magically generate new Presentations: Prompt the editor and watch as Magic Design generates a range of presentations with an outline and content on each slide.
  • Canva Assistant: Unlock the best of Canva with the tap of a button. Search for eye-catching elements, get recommendations for images and layouts, or generate custom AI content to elevate your designs.
  • Beat Sync: Automatically match video footage to the soundtrack.
  • Translate: With the click of a button, automatically translate the text in designs to over 100 different languages. 
  • Magic Write: Create content from a simple text prompt in seconds. Canva’s AI-powered copywriting assistant is now available across the entire Visual Suite including Presentations, Videos, and Websites.

Furthermore to the new ‘Brand Hub’ and AI-powered visual suite, Canva is debuting an array of highly requested features from its global community as well as sprinkling ‘extra magic’ into existing ones.

Here’s the list of the new capabilities:

  • Draw: Allows for freehand drawing, underlines, or annotations. 
  • Layouts: Allows to add content to a page and be recommended layout ideas for a design. 
  • Styles: Allows to develop a signature look and feel by matching current designs to previous work. Users may find inspiration by browsing suggested colour palettes and font pairings. 
  • Layers: Allows to adjust elements without affecting other parts of designs. Users can see all elements in one place – whether it’s text, shapes, images or video.
  • Gradients: Allows to quickly add gradients to any background, shape, table cell, or frame. 
  • Precision Position Tools: Allows to customise positioning, alignment, spacing, and sizing with ease. Users can select one or several elements, then open the new Position panel and customize everything from one place. 
  • Alt Text: Allows to create alt text for media, images and elements that describe what’s happening, providing extra context for those with visual impairment or accessibility needs. 
  • Smart Design Imports: Allows to drag and drop any file straight into the editor to transform it into an editable Canva design. Design Imports are now easier, faster, and more precise than ever. 
  • 953 New Fonts: 953 of the world’s most popular fonts are now available including Arial, Avenier, Courier, Helvetica, and Times New Roman.

Canva has been continuously bolstering its capabilities with customised value propositions for every type of creator. Just within the same month, the platform has also launched a new subscription offering for college universities. 

Called ‘Canva for Campus’, all college and university institutions across the globe can now obtain free access to Canva for their students when they begin purchasing Canva for Campus licenses for staff.