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How Canva uses disruptive innovation

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 //This post was a part of my accepted 2022 Application for The Knowledge Society for its Global Virtual Program 

Tell us about a company engaged in disruptive innovation that a few people know about.


Canva is an Australian graphic design platform that allows users to use ready-made templates to make social media graphics, presentations and other visual content. Earlier, graphic design required knowledge of professional softwares such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign which meant that a majority of content creators such as bloggers could not produce illustrations. These softwares offered various tools and effects to customize the graphic illustrations. Their target audience were design professionals and social media users and hobbyists formed a niche audience.  Canva utilized ready-to-use templates so that individuals can assemble the designs and customize their illustrations. Canva allowed people to creatively express themselves and share their work on the internet. The feature of templates had been offered by softwares such as Microsoft PowerPoint. But Canva focused on this key feature to help users with little design knowledge to assemble creative pieces.


Earlier used by freelancers and social media users, Canva has established itself in the business world as well. It’s main model was aimed at creative individuals but with the availability of a premium service, it makes itself useful for businesses as well. ‘Canva Pro’ allows teams to design together. “As the world becomes an increasingly visual place, the existing tools provided by Microsoft and Adobe no longer meet the needs of companies where everyone has to create high quality graphics and express their ideas visually. We couldn’t be more excited to announce ‘Canva Pro’, which we believe will transform the way every company works,” said Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Canva. There are now over 200,000 companies and organizations represented on Canva, some with up to 180 employees using the platform. 


A survey by Canva of 500 small and medium businesses owners in the US revealed these facts:


·        79% of business owners find designing marketing materials time consuming


·        87% said that they wished design was more efficient at their company


·        78% of companies said that people who are not professional designers create social media graphics, customer facing presentations, and other marketing materials


·        60% of people said they were not confident that all of their marketing materials reflected their brand guidelines.


Canva’s graphic-design templates help people create a wide variety of designs, from posters and invites to business cards and web ads. The company’s core product is the flexible slideshow-maker Presentations, which lets users edit slides on mobile devices (and optimize them for small screens) and add videos, maps, and social media posts; and share them via live URLs. These presentations provide people with the interactivity of social media, making presentations a vibrant medium for portraying information. This tool allows companies to set their own templates with controls for colors, fonts, and logos, helping to maintain brand identity across large workforces, replacing the need for designers to develop a design theme and identity from scratch. Canva has more than 1 million people using its paid products, and more than 1 million presentations are created each week.


From students and teachers to employees, it has given them a visual medium to express ideas creatively.  Initially, the service appealed to freelancing social media users and served as a substitute for core designing platforms. But over time, Canva has started to cater to a wide variety of users such as a broad spectrum of companies, from large multinationals and franchises, to design agencies, startups and even real estate agents who want to ensure consistent branding across their marketing materials and documents. Thus, Canva has expanded to target its competitors’ market share, namely, Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Microsoft PowerPoint. With the adoption of various technologies such as Machine Learning algorithms to suggest designs and templates, Canva has successfully executed its 7 year plan to disrupt the design world. Had it launched a platform to target professionals, it would have faced fierce competition from established giants. But choosing to serve a narrow spectrum of users, it has been able to carry out sustained progress and has established itself as a graphic design platform preferred by professionals and enthusiasts alike.



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