Is Canva Taking over the Design Industry?
- By Shargeel Sheikh -
- Nov 29, 2022
If you are a working professional in the contemporary digital industry, you must be aware about Canva. A user-friendly graphic designing tool that has been making waves across the globe.
This month, Canva reported that it has accumulated around 100 million globally registered users with a valuation of USD $26 billion. The company has business headquarters in 8 countries at the moment.
Canva has introduced a number of new features, but the one in the latest headlines is the text to image tool that will generate customized free image as described by the typed text by the user.
According to the website of the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, the tool Canva recently has reported to be successfully penetrating the competitive Chinese market. With more than 30 million registered users in China and around 3 million active users, Canva one of the few Western products that is successfully making an impact, in a market which is widely known for its proverbial resistance against international brands.
Moreover, the brand has been stated as the biggest rival to Adobe and Microsoft in the global market. It is being talked about, been vilified, and is being seeing as something that will supersede professional designers in the industry.
Moreover, Canva has been successful in acquiring some of the biggest corporations as its clients. This includes Amazon, Zoom, American Express, Salesforce, and even PayPal.
This is a concerning question to the highly well-versed adobe designers who go through professional certification and experience over the intricate Adobe suite.
This brings their careers to a burning question: Will a day come when they’ll be replaced? At least majorly if not entirely?
Professionals are loving Canva, or are despising it, but they can’t seem to ignore it.
But the question is, how Canva is making an A-game in the market? How this online tool is distinguishing itself from a thousand others and bringing competition to the long dominating mavens?
Canva started out in 2012 Australia by three people: Cameron Adams, Cliff Obrecht, and Melanie Perkins. Adam is the chief product officer of Canva while Oberecht is working as its chief operating officer. Malanie Perkins meanwhile helm Canva as the chief executive officer.
The online tool precedes a typical struggle story of an idea, struggling to become recognized and be invested upon the market. It was rejected by several investors before finally finding the right whale to invest.
The story still seems inspiring, according to what the CEO says atleast:
“I think having one of the values that we have explicitly stated at Canva is to set crazy big goals and make them happen. And I happen to be very inspired by crazy big goals,”
-Perkins said in an interview with the Startup Daily blog.
But what makes Canva distinguished to people, I’ve researched and have come with these 5 points.
It is Affordable
Let’s face it, Canva ‘s biggest advantage is its surprising affordability. A single user can subscribe to its package with as low as $55 USD for the month. Now compare this to a professional designer which one would be hiring for at least $4,000 -$5000 in the USA or PKR 50,000 at least here in Pakistan.
Not to mention, the maintenance a graphic designer comes with: A super-power wonder woman type PC, Adobe Suit paid subscriptions which can be up to $100 per month least combining all the necessary tools and along with the salary subject to a raise with every adding project.
Even though there’s a far cry between Canva’s rudimentary tools and concepts against the high level of expertise and functionality offered by the Adobe tools, a number of new businesses are unable to afford such expenses and would prefer functioning with the basic services which are currently being offered with Canva.
A friend of mine runs a digital agency and was struggling to pay the costs of a professional graphic designer. Things changed when he bought Canva and started doing designing from his own laptop. He says he saved extra cost and designs with much more independence. He wishes to hire back the designer when his agency will expand. But for now, he’s relishing with Canva. That makes me wonder, there are millions like him around the globe dealing with the same issue.
It is User Friendly
Another known feat of Canva is its overwhelmingly simple user interface. 15 years old can use it and can create something astonishingly creative. While tools like Adobe take months and years of professional learning, Canva is something one can start using right off the bat and still can produce some mind-boggling content.
The tool comes with ready-made curated templates for almost anything. Whether it’s a social media post to designing a thumbnail, to printing for a garment to even a business or wedding card, there are myriads of templates to choose from.
Users in Canva can select any template they like and tweak it to their desires. The super easy interface allows the users to explore different options without becoming perplexed about any command. It’s simple to use and diverse to explore.
There are even hundreds of animated templates for presentations and video commercials. The options are endless and once you explore them yourself, you‘ll realize the opportunities and the options the tool has with a much simplistic approach.
Canva also comes with hundreds of audio music files to choose from. This allows users to integrate the music they find most suitable to an animated visual without any serious confusion as compared to other professional design software tool.
I would like also like to add some words from the famous tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki about Canva in an interview with TechCrunch:
“Macintosh democratized computers; Google democratized information; and eBay democratized commerce. In the same way, Canva democratizes design,”
He prides on Canva that has democratize or empowered design to everyone without the need to gain expert knowledge and certification. Its simplicity makes it democratized.
It Generates Fast Output
When one requests a simple design from a professional designer, or a video from an animator, chances are that it would take hours for them to craft the finish product and email you back with a WeTransfer. Well, not with Canva. The designs one creates consume 25% of the average time of something created from Adobe Photoshop or Premier Pro.
This makes Canva fast and reliable to use. When we get things fast, we become accustomed to it because of the speed with which it yields the final output.
The CEO of Canva Melanie Perkins says in an interview with Startup Daily:
“I think having one of the values that we have explicitly stated at Canva is to set crazy big goals and make them happen. And I happen to be very inspired by crazy big goals,”
She believes everyone has super crazy goals, or strategy, or ideas, which need to be executed as soon as possible. Canva empowers them to transform their big goals and ideas into reality with minimum time and effort.
“That was a huge initiative as well as a considerable engineering effort. But now we really can empower the whole world to design,” she reiterates in the same interview.
It is More than a Design Tool
Throughout these years, Canva has gone through seismic changes with its features and offerings. They all convey one message: Canva is more than just your ordinary design tool.
Apart from creating still and animated visuals, Canva has turned into a virtual workspace where employees could effectively communicate and share visual progress. This can range from concepts, visual inspirations, to infographics and now even documents.
The virtual whiteboard concept is making strides in the industry. With players such as Miro, Lucid, and Figma are in a race to sweep the market, Canva is offering a fierce competition by transforming itself into a virtual workplace with core features as a design tool for organizations.
With Canva more than being what it is known for, the brand has become a player on a bandwagon to take down big tech players that are Adobe, Microsoft, and Google etc.
It is Powered by AI
I use Canva often and I have never seen a more smooth and accurate background remover than of Canva’s. It cuts out the background the way you want it despite the fact that you give zero command to it on how exactly to cut out other than just to hit the “Background Remover” icon.
A phonemical thing Canva has recently introduced is the video background remover. The function is an utter blessing for startups and freelancers who lack the budget of professional editing tools and equipment.
The features of Canva are powered by core AI which understands the requirements and delivers overwhelmingly accurate results.
The cut-out output of these elements is awe inspiring. The borders are smooth and the object is exactly the one which you would have wanted in the first place. The flawless results have gained applause across the internet, making Canva a must have tool.
As mentioned earlier, the tool has also recently introduced its text to image editor tool, the newest feature generates customized images on a random user demand.
Next time if you think AI will not replace the human creative professionals in the upcoming time, try using Canva.
Adobe has acquired Figma for $20 billion USD. The initiative is being known as a result partially for Adobe’s strategy for stepping into the virtual whiteboard industry and partially because of the rising competition- competition like Canva. Microsoft meanwhile has introduced its own Designer tool for visual graphic works.
This all signals at one thing: Everyone can see Canva ascending and fear it may overcome them either with design tools or with workplace collaboration tools.
But will Canva replace Adobe professionals and other professionally trained visual designers?
The answer is NO.
I can see Canva being preferred for small businesses and SMEs as an efficient budget friendly tool who could get the job done easily. However, the level of intricacies and option offered by suits such as Adobe makes them far valuable than Canva.
But I believe these trained professionals with powerful tools expertise will mostly be employed by large corporations, who could afford them with a vision of upgraded branding.
Canva on the other hand will cover a market share made mostly of small and medium enterprises with limited budget and scope.