Canva already provides COUNTLESS of graphic templates for social media posts, blogs, newsletters, PDF, and pretty much anything else that needs to be designed. It is the PERFECT solution for when you need to create a quick graphic on the fly. The quality of the stand-still graphics is awesome, but I wouldn’t recommend it for website backgrounds or images that need to be greater than 1000x500 pixels.

In another recent launch, Canva released animated graphics a few months ago and while the idea of this sounded great… the quality of these animated graphics was…well…… terrible. When I downloaded my graphic, after spending over an hour playing with the elements and making it perfect, the quality was not good enough for posting. All that work was literally for nothing. I fear that this will also be the case with the video editing functions. In fact, the graphics were so bad that I have developed a conspiracy theory of sorts.. more on this further down.

Here’s what they are promising

While graphic quality is important, video quality is everything and even more tricky to accomplish. If they can’t do this well… maybe they shouldn’t be doing it at all.

Let me explain..

If Canva pulls this off, it will not revolutionize the marketing and graphic design industry again, but it will also be a game-changer in the video editing industry as well.

Canva already allows the average person, who is not well versed in specialized software like Illustrator or Photoshop, creative freedom through its easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface. It is still a well-kept secret that many small-business owners, marketers, and virtual assistants (VA) use on the daily. By adding video functionality with the same user-friendly interface, templates, elements, and even stock videos for use, the creative opportunities will be almost limitless. It is no wonder that they were recently valued at $3.2 billion...that’s BILLION with a B…. at their most recent valuation and were able to raise $85 million “for a big business push”. I think we can all guess what that big business push is.

Now, I’m not completely hating on this new product offering. It’s definitely an amazing concept. My biggest concern is the quality of the videos that will be produced. In my opinion, Canva was never meant to replace illustrator or photoshop, contrary to popular belief. For example, you shouldn’t use it for logo creation or web design— yes, there are some people out there selling small business owners Canva created logos. Don’t get me started *eye-roll*. I’m positive that the features it will offer for their video editing will be just as limited as the ones available for graphics.

Going back to my conspiracy theory

I’m starting to think that the animated graphic functionality was just a giant beta test of the video editing software.

Now, hear me out.

This makes sense for a couple of reasons. First of all, the quality of the graphics was truly horrible. There’s NO WAY that was a “finished” product. Second, it was a super soft launch. I don’t think anyone really heard of it until the new feature popped-up on our dashboard. This would be a really smart strategy to test a product since Canva didn’t promise that it could create animated graphics. It just kinda let us play with it.. Like for fun. No one signed up for Canva or upgraded to Pro to use this feature. This will definitely be different with video.

How I really feel

Honestly, I want to love this and for this to be AMAZING. Like I said above, my only hesitation with this new product is the quality of the content that will be produced by it. If I am right and the animated graphic function was a beta-test, I hope they got the feedback they needed and, more importantly, fixed it before they release video. Something I learned in business school is that we, business owners, have to learn not only how to fail, but also how to fail-fast. Meaning, Canva needs to be receptive and adaptive to the feedback it has and will receive regarding its features. If it isn’t, this could be a flop. Let’s hope it’s not!

Let me know if you’re excited for this new feature and how you plan to use it in the comment section below :)

xoxo,

Jasmin