Exciting Canva Updates for Brands & Gen Z Designers
Photo Credit: Canva Create 2022
At Kenga, we’re huge fans of Canva. We use it to design everything from our social media posts to our quarterly Kenga Magazine, which currently reaches over 4000 unique readers in 69 countries across 5 continents.
Canva helps to simplify and democratise design to help everyone unleash their inner designer. That's a mission we stan, as we’ve come to learn that the new generation of Gen Z designers are far too idea-loaded and impatient to spend weeks learning the nuts and bolts of more complex design applications like Adobe Photoshop. Hence, Canva.
For brands looking to reach Gen Z audiences, good design must be at the forefront. As an aesthetic-driven demographic, Gen Zs are first attracted by visually appealing designs before peeking any further to engage with the material itself. We’ve found that Canva presents a way to create sugar sweet designs with vibrant elements and artefacts that appeal to young people.
So what shiny new features popped out of Canva’s bag of tricks during the 2 hour-long Canva Create 2022 that we think Gen Z designers and design enthusiasts would love?
1. Image background remover, but make it video.
Canva has brought the magic of its one-click image background remover to video. This sort of editing action has been mostly only available to the Adobe C-Suite gang. Now, Canva users can simply upload a video, remove its background and instantly isolate the characters or objects in the video. As if that wasn’t enough, you can also dial it up with new 3D animated backgrounds, add transitions like Match and Move, throw in your own soundtrack and your motion masterpiece is ready. Video background remover is only available with a Canva Pro subscription, but it's easily THE most exciting new thing to come to Canva for many longtime users.
2. Goodbye UI design course, hello Canva Websites
Need to design your website? Say less. Canva announced that its users can now design and build a website from scratch. And guess what? It’s a fully customisable template that you can edit however you like, so you don’t need to spend hours trying to crack the code on coding. The best part is the Preview feature, which lets you live-view what your new website design looks like on a tablet, computer, or phone screen before you hit publish on any new changes.
But the best best part is that you can launch your new website right from Canva with their all-new Publish feature. Choose from a free Canva domain, buy your own, or link to an existing one you already own. Bing bong!
3. Time to do presentations like a boss
You’d think Canva would stop at letting you create pretty presentation slides. And you’d be so wrong. Canva Create 2022 saw the release of a more powerful way to not only create captivating slides, but to reimagine the way we give presentations altogether. Now, you can use your phone as a smart controller during your presentation. Even better, Canva now lets you record live videos of yourself to add to your slides; you know, for when you can’t give the presentation in person. This way, your intended audience can play through your slideshow, and watch you deliver solid points on key topics in your slides, without you even being there. It’s giving very virtual…very remote…very ‘on a beach somewhere but still killing that presentation, and impressing your boss in the office’ vibes.
While some of these features are still currently in Beta, the experience of using them feels powerful and intuitive. In one fell swoop , Canva has given more people more powerful yet simpler design tools to expand the range of capabilities for designers and makers at all levels of experience, and has proven once again that it is more than just an app for making posters and invitation cards.
Canva won. What’re you waiting for to get on their vibe?
#TheFutureIsVisual
P.S. This is not an ad. We are just genuinely obsessed with Canva and all the power it grants us to design our wildest ideas at lightning speed.
