Typically when I do Canva tip videos, they are very short and sweet. They’re often around two to three minutes and they focus on a very specific problem or question or challenge. And that is what I’m known for creating.
But I wanted to do something a little bit different for you today, and that is to give you a tour of Canva’s new glow up interface.
Resources Mentioned
- Free Trial of Canva Pro (Affiliate Link)
- Clean Up My Canva (Course)
Transcript
Not all of you will have this yet. In fact, it’s a fairly small percentage of Canva’s users that currently have early access to Canva Glow Up. Only a million users have access at this point, which obviously is a very small fraction of Canva’s user base.
You would be one of the first million to have early access if you used that little shortcut, that little secret that was going around after Canva Create on May 23rd.
And that was the little trick to click seven times on “For You” on your Canva homepage and it opened up this portal to a new Canva interface. Now, if you don’t have it yet, don’t worry, you’re going to get a little glimpse of what to expect, but you will get it and that will be in the not too distant future.
At this point, my understanding is that Canva is planning on rolling it out to 100 percent of users by the end of August 2024. That could change. That’s always subject to change. But as of this recording, that’s my understanding on the timeline. So if you don’t have it yet, you probably will in the not too distant future.
And if you do already have Canva’s Glow Up, if you are loving it or not loving it, I do encourage you to give feedback to Canva about your experience, about what you’re liking, what you’re not liking.
With that in mind, I would encourage you to also consider though, how much of the potential discomfort you might be experiencing, how much of that is related to a new interface and the learning curve that always comes with learning something new.
But also how much of what you’re experiencing is just a user experience problem. You know, a feature that was very accessible at one point is now harder to get to, and it’s really slowing down your workflow.
If those are the kinds of problems you’re experiencing, absolutely let Canva know, and you have a specific place here where you can do that.
In the lower left hand corner of your Glow Up screen here, you’re going to have this little Glow Up icon, and when you click on it, you can either give feedback on the Glow Up, or you can learn more about Canva’s Glow Up.
So definitely let them know.
I have actually seen already changes happening, so that’s another caveat I should make what you see here. I would imagine for the most part is what it’s going to look like when you get Canva’s Glow Up if you don’t already have it.
But little things can and likely will change. They already have since this was initially pushed out. There have been features that were problematic in terms of where they were located and in terms of how they work.
And I’ve already seen changes and improvements to those concerns, so that’s great. It indicates that Canva is listening. They want to fix these problems. They want this to be a really good user experience. So that’s why providing feedback is really, really critical. It’s the only way they’re going to know about it.
So, you know, feel free to share what you think about it on Threads or Facebook or whatever social platform you’re on, but please make sure that you are also letting Canva know directly because that’s the only way they’re going to be able to compile this information and know what needs to be fixed.
So with that said, I do also want to highlight that if you go to your settings area — so let’s go there now — if you go to the settings page, if you scroll down to the bottom of that, you’re also going to see this area called The Glow Up.
You can also provide your feedback through this area, but more importantly, you’re going to see this option here, this toggle that will be turned on, you can turn it off. So if you have decided that you’re not ready to make the leap to the new interface, you don’t want to have to use it until it’s actually fully rolled out to everybody.
You can turn it off and you should be able to turn it back on again if you want to do that. So you have that option. You’re not being forced into it. Simply having upgraded to get early access does not mean that you’re now stuck there and you can’t go back. You can, at least until everybody has access to it.
At that point you will need to be on the new layout and you won’t be able to go back to the old interface.
So let’s talk about the changes you can expect.
One of the things I want to highlight is that a lot of the features that were talked about at Canva Create are not actually new. And it was very interesting sitting in the audience in the theater watching the keynote presentation live, because there were features that were mentioned there that my seat mates thought were brand new.
They weren’t aware of them. They hadn’t realized that these options were available to them. And I was realizing, wait a minute, these have been there for some time. So there wasn’t a lot of really new stuff but I will highlight some of the new things that have have come out as part of Canva Create.
Definitely the interface of the homepage and the editor are the biggest differences that you’re going to see. But I will mention a couple of the additional changes that have come up. But I just want to make it clear that there’s not a ton of new features available on Glow Up that you don’t currently have access to on the previous version of Canva.
So let’s talk about the homepage here.
It’s a little cleaner than what was there previously. It certainly had a lot of options on the Canva homepage in the previous version, which was one of the biggest complaints because there were too many choices. It’s very overwhelming.
So they’re trying to streamline that and clean it up and make it a cleaner and more enjoyable navigation and user experience on the homepage.
You’re going to find you’ll have this search bar at the top, so you can search for your content or you can search for templates here.
And then you’ll have this banner.
And below it you’re going to have all the different options from Canva’s visual work suite so you can choose what kind of design you want to create.
Now “Instagram post” is coming up first I believe because those are the the kinds of designs I’m often creating the most and it is feeding me what it thinks that I need, but you’re gonna find all the other options here. You can also choose to create a custom size design. You can upload one of your own files to start with.
And then if you’re looking for more, you can click on more and you’re going to be able to search and find everything that you could possibly need in terms of what you want to create for a design. And then you’re going to have this list of all your recent designs, the same way you have on the old version of Canva.
So that’s all very similar. There’s nothing Earth shattering here and that’s actually a good thing because I don’t think anybody would want this layout to change so dramatically that they have to start from scratch learning where everything is. It’s a bit of a new packaging but really some of the the basics, most of the fundamentals and foundational components of the layout are pretty much the same.
You are going to find, on the left hand sidebar here it’s the same sort of options you are already accustomed to. We’ve got the home page here, we’ve got Projects which may be is basically set up the same way it was on the previous version.
Templates is a little more built out now. One of the things that was released to Canva Create are these work kits.
And really, these are not new features, so much as they are collections of templates that particular departments in a company might need. It’s trying to make it more usable to present the kinds of design options that are available to you, to let you know what you can create for particular needs.
It’s just trying to make the user experience a better one for larger companies that might be integrating Canva into their marketing and their sales and their human resources and their creative, which were the four main areas that Canva focused on during Canva Create. So Work Kits is new in here.
And you’re also going to see your starred content. This used to be contained in a folder that you accessed in Projects. You’re going to find your starred content under Templates now and then the rest of the options are pretty much the same.
Brand is going to look basically the same. I can still choose from my brand kits here. You’ve got brand templates and controls.
And then you’re going to find all your apps here.
Otherwise, I mean, that’s pretty similar to what you already have so that shouldn’t be too difficult to navigate.
What is new here is this “Your Starred” area that we’ve got on the left hand side, and this is where your folders are going to go if you star your folders, which is not new functionality, but they’re trying to make it more usable.
I have starred all of my primary top level folders to make it easier for me to navigate to those regardless of where I am in Canva. You might decide that you want to add something different. This will be an area that I’m incorporating into changes in the Clean Up My Canva course, because I think this can be used very effectively as part of Canva organization techniques.
But I’m still playing around with that a little bit and not quite sure what best practices will be for that yet. I will keep you posted on that though.
What I do want to note here though is that you can’t move these around once they’re starred. So try to star them in the order that you want them to appear. I believe I started with the last one and then it just stacked them on top. So there was a little bit of trial and error to get that layout correct.
I definitely want to see some improvements made there in terms of the ability to move those items around to make it more effective. This is going to be new for you, but it’s not a big change. It’s just a little something to get used to.
Otherwise, that is basically the changes you’re going to see on the homepage, it’s pretty straightforward. Your trash is still down here at the bottom as well.
I think where the bigger change is… not I think… I **know** where the bigger change is and that’s in the editor itself. So we’re going to create a design and I’m going to show you how this is looking a little bit different, a lot different actually.
So it’s been designed to be cleaner. It’s lighter. You’ll notice you don’t have the black background on the left hand side anymore. It’s trying to be lighter and airier. Some folks will like that, some will not. I think that’s a personal preference. I don’t mind it. I don’t really have a feeling one way or the other.
As long as I still have all the components that I need here on the left hand side, then I am fine, and there are no changes really in terms of the options that are available. You’re still going to have design elements, text, brand, uploads, draw, projects and apps. So that’s the same. The look of it is a little bit different.
What is *quite* different is the fact that a lot of the options that you’re accustomed to having up in this top menu area have now moved into a floating kind of contextual toolbar. So depending on what you select in a design, it is going to change the options that are available in this floating toolbar.
So for example, if I choose an element, I can go to edit, and this is going to give me any options for editing that element. Same thing with the photo, so I can do all the photo editing that I need on the panel that opens up there. Background remover is only going to show up if you are choosing something that background remover is available for.
If I choose a background, or if I choose a shape, that’s not going to be available because it doesn’t make sense. Whereas the shape options do show up if I choose a shape. So you’re going to find that these options are changing depending on the the item that you’re selecting, the element that you’re selecting in your design.
This is going to take some getting used to, but there have already been improvements in place. Initially, when it launched, there were some issues with the color and the fonts, and now that is automatically triggering this side panel, so you know, it does work better than what was there.
This is going to take some getting used to, I think, for a lot of folks in terms of the panels opening on the right hand side here, not just having everything on the left.
Speaking of the left, you can also, it’s pinned right now, but if I want to get rid of it and have a larger space, I can get rid of that. So this is where you’re going to need to get, more accustomed to the changes — it’s in this floating toolbar.
If you’re looking for something that you think should be there, some sort of feature, and you don’t see it, that’s when you want to click on this little chevron, double chevron arrow thing here to see all. And that is going to give you all of the options.
It’ll remove the floating toolbar, and then it’s going to give you all of the options that are available to make changes to the component that you selected. Also, don’t forget the little three dots here, because if you’re looking for something and you can’t find it, you may find that that little three dots option is where it’s hiding.
So for example, one of the little features that used to be available up here in the top menu area was the info icon. It’s just a little “i” and it gives you all the details about an element that you’ve selected, and that’s really important for a lot of people who are designing in Canva, because they want to be able to see if they can find more elements like that, or figure out who the creator of that element was.
In some cases, they may just want to be able to move a given element and save it into a folder.
So where has that icon gone? It is one of those things that’s under that three dots. If you scroll down here, you’ll find it down here.
You can also apply colors to a page, for example, if I wanted to take the colors from a photo, let’s actually do that with a different photo right now.
Let’s go into photos and randomly choose this one. Say I wanted to change the colors of this design to use the colors from this photo. Again, if I click on the three dots, I can apply the colors to the page and immediately that is going to change. So don’t forget to check for that three dots if you’re trying to find a particular feature and you can’t locate it.
Something else that is new, if we go to the design option here on the left hand side, we’ve got the templates and the styles. That’s the same as you have on the old version of Canva, but if you go to styles now and scroll down to the bottom, one of the options you can use is to apply the design of a previous design to a new template or a new design.
So for example, let’s say that I wanted to apply the style of this header image here to this design. If I hover over it, I can “use style.” It will automatically apply the same sort of look and feel to this new design. So that may make it a lot more efficient for you if you want to apply the look and feel you’ve already created for your brand kit to a new design or template.
Those are really the biggest changes of what to expect in terms of the interface of the editor. It is that floating toolbar and a few other features. But there have been some additional changes to some of the other features available in Canva. As I mentioned at the beginning, not a lot of new features.
They’re really more enhancements, so for example, Magic Studio, Canva’s AI options. There is one new AI feature, which I will show you, but for the most part, it’s just some adjustments, some upgrades.
So for example, if we go to Magic Media. Let’s pull that up. Previously you would just be able to generate images and videos. Now you can also generate graphics. That’s new. And you should have access to that in the old version of Canva as well. These aren’t just limited to the Glow Up environment.
Also, if we go to Magic Grab, previously you would only be able to grab the foreground, component. Now you can grab any component in it.
So let’s add a new page and I’ll show you what I mean. We will add, let’s see, let’s add this picnic basket here, and if I now click on edit, this is where you’re going to access the magic studio features. And you’re going to see now that there’s this option to click and I can click on different options here.
I can also click on a different component if I wanted to select something else. So for example, it’s now selected the basket there. This one, it already detected as being a separate item.
Actually, you know what? We’re going to choose a different image here. Let’s get out of Magic Grab. I’m going to delete that and let’s add one more page here.
Let’s try this one because this has lots of options in it, all kinds of different components that I might want to select. And now we will go to edit and we’ll go to Magic Grab again, and you’re going to see it’s able to detect that these are all different components. And if I wanted to be able to move this basket out of here, or this basket (let’s say I wanted to add some more text here), I’m going to click on there.
It didn’t naturally select that one as an item to remove, but if I click on it, it does. I’m going to grab that one. And like it says, grab a cup of tea, you might need to wait a moment. And now it has removed that item.
You may find that you need to make some modifications on whatever it kind of puts behind it. So if I just wanted to delete that item, if I wanted to put something here, it might leave a weird mark thing behind it. AI sometimes makes really weird decisions about what is behind that.
So for example, let’s do it one more time and I’ll show you what I mean. We’re going to do Magic Grab again, and then if I choose this one and I wanted to grab it, it’s not necessarily sure what would be behind that plate. Obviously, I might want it to look like just the rest of the mat that it’s sitting on, but AI can get confused sometimes. So if I delete that component, you see it leaves a really weird kind of spot behind it.
So, it’s not perfect, but this can be a useful tool when you are designing and now you can select multiple items. That’s giving you a lot more control over the design. Some improvements are needed, but that’s definitely a very interesting, kind of fun step in the right direction.
What else is new?
Blend, that is a new feature. So you’ll be able to access Blend if you select more than one image at a time. I am going to choose this nice beach background. Now let’s say I wanted to put the chair from this image into this image. I’m going to just kind of resize that, crop it a little bit. So I want it to go there.
Now I’m going to select the two items together. You can do that by holding down the shift button when you select your items. and then I’m going to click on the double arrow there and you’re going to see that the blend option now becomes available. And when I click on that, I’m going to choose to blend the images.
Canva’s AI is going to go into action here and the results may be good and they may not be good. We’re going to find out together because it’s a little unpredictable. Sometimes you get some really good results. Sometimes they can be quite peculiar looking.
That’s not bad, let’s try that one and you’ll see it’s made it all a single image now. It’ll give me a few different options that I can choose from that are all a little bit different in how they rendered.
So this is a kind of a cool tool as well. In my experience, it doesn’t work with people, so trying to combine people into an image doesn’t work well, but if you are trying to add an object into another photo, this could be a useful tool.
There are other features that were new from Canva Create that I will be covering in separate tutorial videos.
So, for example, in whiteboards you now have an AI powered sort that’s going to allow you to clean up your whiteboards with a click. It’s going to help you to sort multiple stickies and ideas that you have on a whiteboard into topic or by sticky color or by subject matter.
It’s basically designed to help you organize your ideas more effectively and efficiently. So we’ll be looking at that in a separate video.
And then when it comes to video and audio, there are now tools to help you create video highlights and to enhance the voice in a video. So for example, if you have a video where there’s a lot of kind of noise in the background and you want to clean up and enhance the voice portion of it, there’s a tool available for that now.
And I will cover that in a separate tutorial video.
But for this particular video, I just wanted to give you an overview of the changes to look for. Hopefully you can see that there are changes to the environment here, there are some new features, but it’s nothing earth shattering.
And I think that’s actually a good thing because I think a lot of folks have been concerned that the change to Glow Up was going to be huge and really difficult to adapt to.
And while there is admittedly, there is a learning curve, there are features that need to be improved in terms of how you interact with them, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that those are things that Canva is going to improve before this rolls out to all users.
But at the end of the day, a lot of the stuff is still the same in terms of how you would intuitively interact with it.
So hopefully you’re either feeling a little more familiar with the layout if you already have Glow Up or you’re feeling a little less stressed about what to expect if you don’t yet have Canva’s Glow Up.
