Old school graphic design software is iconic and complicated. People either love it or hate it or a blend of both. Yet no matter what, it holds a powerful nostalgia that novices and professionals are fond of.
Early or outdated renditions of design programs have surely pushed some graphic designers to nearly throwing their computer out the window. Interestingly, some long for the earlier versions that were more simple and more effective.
An Australian woman with a creative flair and love of design believed graphic design tools could and should be more accessible. She felt they could be far more intuitive and just as impressive as traditional heavy-duty programs like Adobe Illustrator.
Creative confidence
In 2013, Melanie Perkins launched Canva — a beautiful and user-friendly graphic/visual design platform that has approximately 200 million users worldwide.
Perkins is critically acclaimed for her entrepreneurship and innovation that has benefited businesses of all shapes on a global scale.
Raised near the abundant sun-soaked beaches of Perth, AUS, Perkins’ deep love of learning and creating was clear in her childhood.
She was always picking up a new art project from making jewelry by hand, baking up a storm, or working with textiles. Her mother was a teacher, and her father an engineer, giving Melanie an appreciation for both creative personal expression as well as technical application.
An entrepreneur at heart
At 14, Melanie launched her first business selling handmade scarves. It was beyond a fun side hobby. An entrepreneur at heart, she learned how to market and advertise her products, impress customers, and handle finances—all before finishing high school.
Perkins wasn’t focused on becoming a hot shot CEO or gain wealth and fame. She was extremely curious, inquisitive and observant. Identifying problems and inefficiencies is natural for her.
As a University of Western Australia student, Melanie began mentoring fellow students on how to use complex design software like Photoshop and InDesign. She realized quickly that the learning curve was steep to the point of being unnecessary and counter productive.
Slow progress and stalled productivity bothered her. Melanie believed that “You shouldn’t need a degree in design to create a school project or a social media post.”
A living room business launch
In an interview with The Verge, Melanie explained:
”We really set out to fill a huge gap in the market, and this gap was that people that wanted to create an amazing design and turn that into something awesome didn’t really have any tools unless they went and learned really complicated software that would take a very long time.”
Without a tech background, major connections, or a startup playbook, 19 year old Perkins took a risk by launching Fusion Books with her boyfriend, Cliff Obrecht.
The company, which humbly started from her mom’s living room, offered a platform students could use to digitally design custom yearbooks. The tools were simple, straight forward and user-friendly.
Early wins set the stage
Fusion Books went on to become Australia’s largest yearbook publisher, further fuelling Perkin’s ambition.
At the time, many design platforms existed but with limited scope in the content each could create. Some were only made for Instagram posts, others for only work/school presentations or video and so forth. This forced users to subscribe or purchase for multiple different design tools to fulfill their needs.
Perkins’ wanted to provide a platform that consolidated all of these different content bundles into one place. One home.
She told The Verge:
”When we were starting out, it seemed crazy that people would have to go and design a different product for a presentation and a whiteboard and a social media graphic and printed products and presentations in videos and websites.
Every single product that they wanted to create would be something completely different, which seemed ridiculous. What we’ve done with Canva is build one unified platform that enables you to create all of these things with absolute ease so you don’t have to go and learn a new tool each time.”
Struggle & Success
For three years, Perkins and her husband/business partner struggled to secure investor interest. They met a lot of skepticism and rejection but remained relentless in bringing Canva to life.
On their journey, they met former Google engineer Cameron Adams, who recognized the not just the potential but immediate value of Canva.
In 2013, Canva took off and now stands as one the most popular design programs in the world.
Users can access Canva for free and Canva Pro is available for US$12.99/month. Of course, the upgraded package grants greater design capabilities. Pro is free for all registered nonprofits.
Recently, Canva released an Enterprise membership, signaling the company’s growth.
The icing on the cupcake
Part of Canva’s success is rooted in meticulous organization between the core prodution team, in Australia, which Perkin’s calls cupcakes and satellite offices in countries around the world, beloved called “the icing”.
Perkin’s best explains the metaphors as such:
”Our product team is very centralized, and I’ll give you a metaphor that we use internally, which is about having cupcakes and icing…
We want to have the same cupcake for every platform for every country and then different localized nuances for each of those, so different icing for different countries, professions, and industries.
We spend a lot of time making sure that most of our effort is going toward having a really solid cupcake that is able to be expanded and can serve all of these different needs — and that it’s very consistent.”
AI: Friend or Foe?
Perkins and her team are dedicated to adapting, growing and learning as the world around us continues to digitalize and change. In response to questions about how AI might impact her business, she stated:
”Canva’s vision has always been to enable you to take your idea and turn it into a design, and reduce the friction between those two points. I think because that has always been our ambition, we were very early to start to adopt AI in our product.
The first really big piece for us was with Background Remover [Canva acquired AI background removal tool Kaleido in 2021], and we’ve continued to invest heavily in this space ever since.”
The trifecta of progress
When asked by Wired if she felt AI is an existential threat to Canva, Perkins simply said no and outlined Canva’s three-pronged approach:
- Integrate world’s latest and greatest technology, integrate it and ensuring it offers a seamless user experience.
- Invest deeply in critical areas. Canva heabily invests at the forefront of AI.
- Sustain a flourishing app ecosystem. Canva allows companies to integrate into its platform, enabling task automation, smooth media uploads and streamline workflow processes.
At its very core, Canva’s mission to is to help users bring and build an idea to fruition.
Perkin’s stated: ”Canva sits in the middle of the Venn diagram, right between productivity and creativity, and there was nothing on the market that really filled that gap…
[We] will continue to enable people to take their idea and turn that into reality in the end product and have very little friction between those two things,”
To learn more about Canva and Melanie Perkins, click here.
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