Hot Take: Why I Hate the New Canva Update

And How I Turned It Off

At the annual Canva Create event this past May, Canva unveiled a major redesign, presenting it as “Canva: For Work.” I discovered this as I traversed my For You Page on TikTok. I saw a video from another graphic designer who said that Canva’s new features were only available to a select few who knew a secret backdoor entrance to the software. (You can learn about their nifty secret entrance and get a bite-sized version of this blog in visual form by checking out my TikTok video on the topic.)

Canva’s Redesign: Great in Theory. Terrible in Practice.

I was super excited about the update. I use Canva every day for work, so to hear that they were doing a redesign geared for people using it professionally really got my hopes up! As a tried-and-true Canva lover, my only critique of the platform has been that sometimes the software leans toward being rudimentary. I find there’s not enough customization, and I can’t do as much with it compared to Adobe products and some other design software programs.

But hey, that’s kind of their shtick, right? Canva’s simplicity stands as one of its biggest strengths. It is known for being user-friendly and easy to operate.