Description:

Canva Create is Canva’s annual event that brings the community together to celebrate creativity and launch new products. In 2025, it returned bigger than ever with Uncharted, a theme that invited people to explore new ways of working, and new tools like Canva Sheets, Canva AI, and other data visualization features.

But charts and data aren’t typically associated with creativity, so it was up to the team to show the world just how inspiring they can be. The challenge was to reframe how and data and productivity could look and feel. At the same time, we needed to generate excitement for the event itself and create something people wanted to engage with. The design system had to be bold enough to shift perception, yet simple enough to scale into something flexible, imaginative, and instantly recognizable with minimal complexity and maximum impact.

So we reimagined the spreadsheet cell as a portal of possibility — dynamic, visual, and full of momentum. This idea came to life across every detail of the event, from the identity to the experience itself. Motion design mimicked cell and UI interactions like selecting and filling, while the venue was designed to feel like stepping into an uncharted world. Spaces, playful activations, and signages all helped transform data into something you could feel.

Rather than rely on legacy data cues, we invented our own. Graphic forms like saturated bar graphs, blooming pie charts, and playful dot clusters became characters with expressions. These weren’t embellishments; they were cues to a new experience that made data feel alive, and most importantly, human.

The system was designed in-house for global rollout. Built in Canva, it empowered all teams to participate in building and adapting event materials. Templates enabled a consistent application across touchpoints and encouraged company-wide involvement.

The brand identity played a key role in making Canva Create: Uncharted our most impactful event yet, with over 4,000 attendees onsite and 2 million+ engaged views of the keynote. The campaign generated 36 million social impressions and saw more than 10 million people visit the event landing page — all within the first seven days. The result was a cohesive experience that redefined how we show up as a brand.