When people start setting up their Brand Kit in Canva, the temptation is often to make it as detailed as possible — more categories, more labels, more structure. That’s usually when setup starts to feel like a project in itself, and the Brand Kit becomes another thing to manage rather than something that makes designing faster.
Your Canva Brand Kit is meant to reduce decision-making while you design, not add to it. The goal isn’t a perfect structure, it’s a structure that stays usable as your business grows.
Out of the box, the Brand Kit starts with Canva’s default categories: Logos, Colours, Fonts, Brand Voice, Photos, Graphics, Icons, and Charts. Canva now also gives you the flexibility to create custom sections and categories, so you can group reusable brand assets in ways that better match how you work. That flexibility is useful, but it’s also where overcomplication tends to start.
If you haven’t set up your Brand Kit yet, my tutorial on how to set up your Canva Brand Kit covers the full process from the beginning. This post is for the next decision: how much structure you actually need once your assets are in place.
At a Glance: The best Canva Brand Kit structure is the one that makes your reusable brand assets easier to find while you design. Start with Canva’s default categories, add custom sections only when they make broad groups of assets easier to navigate, and add categories only when a section has become too crowded to scan quickly. Keep campaign assets and one-off project files out of your Brand Kit unless they’re part of a recurring brand system.
Start With What You Actually Reuse
The simplest way to keep your Brand Kit manageable is to focus on reuse. Assets that belong here are the ones you come back to repeatedly — logos, colour palettes, fonts, core brand photos, and reusable visual elements. If something isn’t reused across your designs, it probably doesn’t need to live here.
That becomes a useful filter whenever you’re deciding what belongs: will I actually reach for this repeatedly while designing? If the answer is no, it belongs elsewhere in Canva. My post on what imagery belongs in your Canva Brand Kit goes deeper on how to make that call for visual assets specifically.
Use Fewer Sections Than You Think You Need
Custom sections are helpful when they represent broad types of assets, but a small number of clearly named sections is almost always easier to work with than a long list of specific ones. If you find yourself scanning the Brand sidebar trying to decide where something belongs, the structure is already doing too much work.
For many small businesses, the default areas for logos, colours, fonts, and brand voice are enough for core brand assets. If you add custom sections, they tend to work best for broader collections — Brand Photography or Reusable Graphics, for example — areas where you’re storing enough visual assets that extra structure genuinely helps. You don’t need a section for every type of content you create, just the assets that define your brand visually.
My tutorial on how to create custom sections in your Canva Brand Kit walks through the process in detail.
Add Categories Only When You Need Them
Categories are most useful when you notice a real problem — scrolling too much, visually filtering through too many assets, or repeatedly missing what you’re looking for. If everything is already easy to find, adding categories won’t improve your workflow. It’ll just give you more places to check.
Let categories be a response to a genuine need rather than a preemptive organizing step. Inside a broader Reusable Graphics section, for example, categories might make sense once you’re storing enough background patterns, illustrations, and icon sets that they’ve become genuinely hard to scan. Before that point, a single section is enough.
My tutorial on how to create custom categories in your Canva Brand Kit covers the process when you’re ready to add them.
Signs Your Brand Kit Structure Has Become Too Complicated
It’s not always obvious when a system has crossed from organized into overcomplicated.
A few things worth watching for: if you hesitate before adding an asset because you’re not sure where it belongs, if you find yourself checking multiple sections for the same type of file, or if maintaining the structure is starting to take more effort than actually using the assets — those are signs the system has become more detailed than it needs to be.
Simplifying is almost always the right move at that point, not adding more structure to compensate.
Keep Campaigns and Projects Out of the Brand Kit
Your Brand Kit is not the right place for campaign assets, seasonal content, or one-off project files. It works best when it contains assets that define your brand regardless of what you’re working on — the elements Canva can surface repeatedly while you design.
Campaign and project assets are time-bound. Once a campaign is over, those visuals are either archived or irrelevant, and leaving them in the Brand Kit makes it harder to scan and easier for outdated content to linger. Those assets are better managed through folders and projects elsewhere in Canva.
Two exceptions are worth knowing: a recurring annual campaign with its own consistent visual identity, and a large event or initiative where you’re producing enough reusable content that a dedicated structure genuinely speeds up the work. In those cases, a separate Brand Kit or dedicated structure may make sense, especially if the assets will be reused often enough to justify keeping them separate.
Let Your Structure Evolve
You don’t need to get this right the first time. Your Brand Kit is flexible — you can add sections, rename categories, and simplify things later as your needs change. It’s far easier to build gradually than to untangle an overly complex setup down the road.
If something starts to feel heavy or annoying to maintain, that’s usually a sign to simplify rather than add more structure. The Brand Kit that serves you best isn’t the most detailed one, it’s the one that stays out of your way while you work.
If you’ve reached the point where your Brand Kit does need more structure, my tutorials on how to create custom sections in your Canva Brand Kit, how to create custom categories in your Canva Brand Kit, and how to add custom cover images to your Canva Brand Kit will walk you through the next steps.
