Inside Canva Create 2025: Where Design Breathes, Learns, and Listens
By Rafat Fields | Powered to Rise
A Day Built for Curiosity
Sun on my shoulders, music in the air, and colors that felt alive. I walked into YouTube Theatre and remembered why I admire Canva. Years ago, the founders were told their vision would not work. Today, their work helps millions create.
I am not a classically trained designer. Traditional tools were not built for the way my brain learns. Canva opened a door. The conference did something bolder. It invited my hands, my senses, and my imagination to learn together.
Why Canva’s Story Matters
Innovation does not need a US address to scale. Canva’s team built from Australia and grew a global community by refusing the false choice between “powerful” and “easy.” The platform changed who gets to make. That shift shows up in classrooms, clinics, board rooms, and small studios alike. Accessibility is not a feature. It is the future.
Favorite New Launches
Canva Visual Suite
This suite expands Canva’s power by allowing multiple document types and functions to live inside one design file. You can brainstorm on a whiteboard, organize ideas in a sheet, map out a presentation, and create social media graphics—all without leaving the same workspace. For teams managing projects or campaigns, it means planning, content creation, and publishing can flow seamlessly within a single hub.
Canva Sheets
A reimagined spreadsheet that treats content as living media. Imagine bulk content creation that flows: images in cells, drag-and-drop structure, and simple pathways into design templates. For program teams and small comms shops, this means faster production without sacrificing clarity.
Enhanced AI Editing Suite
Background changes, element extraction, text removal, and intuitive controls that make editing fast and forgiving. The best part is not the AI. It is the feeling of momentum when you can try, adjust, and ship.
Text-to-Speech for Voiceovers
Voiceover generation inside your workflow. I look forward to broader and more diverse voice options. Representation in sound matters, especially for public health and community campaigns that should feel local and human.
Canva Code: No‑Code App Building
A runway for educators, students, and teams to prototype useful tools without writing code. The distance between idea and first version keeps shrinking. That is good news for resource-limited teams.
Data Visualization Upgrades
Numbers do not move people until they become stories. The new visualization options pair naturally with Canva Sheets and make insight easier to see and share.
Discoveries Around the Edges
Leonardo.ai
I spent time with Leonardo.ai, an image-generation tool that supercharges what is already possible inside Canva. I've been using this software constantly since the event because the possibilities are limitless! The handoff between platforms was smooth and practical for content teams that live on tight timelines.
LinkedIn’s On‑Site Studio
LinkedIn signaled a clear push toward video-first storytelling. Recording stations and a Canva-integrated workflow made it easy to capture a message and publish where many of our stakeholders already gather.
Event Design: Learning With All Senses
Canva Create felt like a playground for serious learners. After keynotes, you moved into hands-on zones with demos, printing stations, and app partners. One booth taught AI image prompts, printed your design as a postcard, and mailed it for you. A small action with big memory.
The mainstage used what I call “beat-pop moments” so the audience would sit up and remember. Announcements landed with sound cues, visual shifts, and even musical callbacks. The day closed with performance that wove the themes into melody. The message was not only said. It was felt.
Accessibility, Navigation, and Sensory Notes
The venue was beautiful and spread across indoor and outdoor spaces.
I am sensory sensitive and rely on spatial orientation to focus. Short 30-minute sessions left little buffer for travel between locations. Staff were gracious and helpful. My learning is simple. For this venue I will arrive the day before, walk the full route of my planned sessions, and build a directional map that reduces decision load. Preparation is an access tool.
Watch the Keynote
The keynote session is where Canva unveiled its boldest ideas, blending storytelling, live demos, and unforgettable moments of inspiration. If you want to experience the vision that powered this year’s launches—the clarity of Canva Sheets, the creativity of the Visual Suite, and the energy that filled the room—I encourage you to watch the keynote. Take an hour to sit with it. Let the story remind you that design is not just about visuals, but about access, possibility, and courage.
Learn more and watch all Canva Create 2025 sessions on demand →
Tips for Attendees
Arrive one day early to walk the venue and mark your session routes.
Prioritize 3 sessions that matter most and let the rest be a bonus.
Schedule play time. The hands-on zones are where understanding deepens.
Suggestions for Organizers
Offer a printable, high-contrast, large-type map with walking estimates between zones.
Provide a quiet decompression area and clear signage for sensory-friendly routes.
Build five-minute travel buffers into back-to-back 30-minute blocks.
Why This Matters Beyond Design
Our community includes healthcare executives, regulators, legislators, coaches, program managers, advocates, lobbyists, small business owners, and nonprofits. Many of us need to communicate complex ideas clearly to people with limited time and varied literacy. Canva’s evolution reduces barriers in three ways:
Speed to Clarity
Teams can produce visuals that explain policy, care pathways, or program outcomes in hours, not weeks.Access to Creation
Non-designers can lead. Educators and small orgs can build teaching tools that fit their exact context.Memory by Design
Multi-sensory experiences help people retain messages. From clinics to council chambers, retention changes behavior.
A Few Frictions Worth Naming
Caption styling in video needs more depth for those of us standardizing accessible, on-brand subtitles. I expect improvements as the suite matures.
Voice diversity in text-to-speech matters. More voices will make campaigns feel like they come from your neighbor, not a lab.
Closing: The Work Feels Possible
I left Canva Create with postcards in the mail and ideas in motion. Tools cannot substitute for strategy or care. Tools can widen the circle of who gets to contribute. That is the promise I felt in the room. The better I learn to shape ideas with simple tools, the more prepared I am to help our partners teach, influence, and serve. The work feels possible. That feeling is worth the trip.
Pull Quotes
