Canva has opened its first South African workspace in Rosebank, Johannesburg, to support its Africa adoption roadmap. The company now focuses on driving repeat-led platform use through universities, community organisations, informal businesses, and independent digital creators.
The Rosebank office hosts Canva’s nine-person South African team and represents the company’s most significant operational investment in the region so far. Local staff now lead user training, creator support, and market-level product alignment through direct engagement, strengthening a strategy built from within the market.
South Africans have rapidly embedded Canva into daily communication. Over the past year, users produced more than 77 million designs, including student portfolios, proposals, retail signage, brand prototypes, and community posters. The volume shows strong, sustained reliance on Canva for fast idea development and visual communication across sectors.
Multilingual Access
Canva continues to expand its localisation framework across Africa. The platform now supports nearly 20 African languages, including recent additions Zulu and Afrikaans. Language accessibility plays a direct role in creative speed, tool confidence, and sustained use. By prioritising linguistic familiarity, Canva helps users think, write, and design in the same flow, without translation delays or workflow breaks.
Universities also remain central to Canva’s Africa rollout structure. Through Canva for Education offered at no cost to students and educators the platform reduces procurement delays and accelerates lecturer student collaboration within existing academic workflows and digital learning environments.
Opening the Professional Creator Pipeline
Canva’s 2024 acquisition of Affinity changed software access expectations. The company now offers the full Affinity suite for free download without feature limits. This decision widens experimentation for freelancers, student design groups, and early-stage creative entrepreneurs previously constrained by software costs.
In parallel, Canva has started a formal internal evaluation of Linux compatibility following sustained demand from technical and open-source communities. Executives have described Linux support as a likely future step, expanding access for developers, engineers, and Linux-based creative collectives.
Local Currency
With pricing aligned to local currencies, education-led adoption models, and expanded tool access, Canva aims to strengthen Africa’s creator economy one where design increasingly drives learning, collaboration, micro-business growth, and new digital income pathways.
