Canva Announces Major Updates to its Design Ecosystem

Canva has introduced a series of updates to make its design ecosystem more attractive to professional teams and workspaces. According to Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins, "We democratized the design ecosystem in our first decade and now look forward to unifying the fragmented ecosystems of design, AI, and workflow tools for every organization in our second decade." The redesigned homepage and editing experience debuted on May 23rd for the first one million users who discovered the secret portal on the Canva homepage, with general availability slated for August.

The updates include AI-powered style matching for brands, customizable folder displays on the Canva homepage workspace, and the ability for teams to "star" designs, folders, and brand templates for easier access to specific projects. Canva Docs now has a "suggestion" mode for editors and colorful new highlight blocks for text emphasis. Co-founder Cameron Adams stated that these updates aim to reduce organizational complexity and "app sprawl," offering companies a one-stop creative shop to replace multiple dedicated design, AI, and workflow tools. "The next decade for Canva is about integrating all these solutions into one platform," Adams told The Verge. Read the article on the Verge.

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Here is a sample output from the latest AI Canva tools. I created a document of the slide show using “Transform into a Doc.” This powerful tool immediately lets you transform media from various formats into a document. In this case, the document shares the highlights of Canva’s Magic Studio. This is the unedited output, and will give you insight into just some of the new AI-tools from Canva. It’s like Magic!

Discover Magic Studio

Explore the innovative tools of Magic Studio designed for photo editing, graphic design, and content creation.

Key Features

Background Remover

• How to Use:

  1. Select the photo.

  2. Click Edit > BG Remover.

Magic Grab

• How to Use:

  1. Select the photo of the astronaut.

  2. Click Edit > Magic Grab.

  3. Move the astronaut onto the moon.

Magic Eraser

• How to Use:

  1. Select the photo.

  2. Click Edit > Magic Eraser.

  3. Brush over the birds.

  4. Click Erase.

Resize & Magic Switch

• How to Use:

  1. Click Resize & Magic Switch.

  2. Select Transform into Doc.

  3. Select Summary > Transform into Doc.

Magic Write

• How to Use:

  1. Select the text box under the title.

  2. Click Magic Write > Custom prompt.

  3. Use the prompt, A newspaper article about dancing penguins.

  4. Click Generate.

Magic Media

• How to Use:

  1. Click the Elements tab.

  2. Select Generate your own > Graphics.

  3. Enter the prompt: A gold leaf.

  4. Click Generate graphics.

  5. Drag a leaf onto the book.

Styles

• How to Use:

  1. Click the Design tab.

  2. Click ‘...’ on a template.

  3. Click Apply style to page.

Highlights

• How to Use:

  1. Select the video.

  2. Click the icon > Highlights.

  3. Select the highlights you want to include.

Magic Design

• How to Use:

  1. Click the Design tab.

  2. Enter the prompt: A presentation about why we should get a cat.

  3. See all the generated presentations.

From the Canva Presentation

Example of AI-Generated “Cat Presentation”

Example of AI-Generated “Cat Presentation” slide with additional prompts

Magic Animate

• How to Use:

  1. Click on this page.

  2. Click Animate > Magic Animate.

  3. Select the Recommended style.

Quick Takeaway

This significant software update provides creators and businesses with many tools. Canva’s AI still has a way to go to fulfill user expectations. While some of the tools are better than others, each still reduces time in production and gives users more creative ability. Let’s see what Adobe Express comes up with to offer in comparison.

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