A Quick Guide to the Canva October 2025 Updates - and what it means for councils

What’s New in Canva and How Councils Can Use It

If you have never used it before, Canva is an online tool that helps your council create designs and documents easily, even if you have no design experience. You can use it to make posters, flyers, newsletters, social media posts, presentations or videos - and much more. Everything works by dragging and dropping templates, text and images into place.

Canva has recently had one of its biggest upgrades yet, making it even more useful for councils and clerks.

Here is what is new and how you can use it.

Everything in one place

Canva now brings together almost every type of design work you might need to do: newsletters, emails, websites, videos, forms and reports.

That means instead of switching between lots of different programs or juggling Word, Publisher, PowerPoint and Photoshop, you can do everything from one screen.

If you manage your council’s website or social media, this is especially helpful. You can design something once and then quickly resize it for your website, print, Facebook, Instagram or the council noticeboard.

A free professional design app

Canva has added something called Affinity, a professional design tool that used to cost money but is now free

If you have ever tried to create an annual report, newsletter or consultation leaflet and struggled with layout or image quality, Affinity gives you more control without needing to be a designer.

For smaller councils, this means you can produce high quality printed materials without expensive design software.

Smarter design help from AI

Canva now includes built in AI design tools that can save you time and help you get started when you are staring at a blank page.

You can type something simple like:

“Design a poster for a community litter pick in March”

Canva will then create a full design ready for you to edit with your council’s logo, date and details.

It can also match colours and fonts to your branding and reformat your design automatically for different platforms.

It is not about replacing your creativity or judgment, just helping you spend less time stuck on layout and formatting.

Easier teamwork and consistency

If more than one person helps with your council’s communications, Canva now makes that collaboration simpler.

You can share templates, store logos and colour schemes, and make sure that every design uses the same fonts and layout.

This is especially helpful when councillors or volunteers also help with communications. They can create materials that look professional and consistent without accidentally changing the style.

Why this matters for your council

For councils, Canva’s latest updates mean less time struggling with documents and more time communicating clearly with residents.

It gives you a single place to manage newsletters, posters, social media and reports with tools that anyone in the council can learn quickly.

If your council already uses Canva, explore the new features like Affinity and the AI design tools, and update your brand kit with your logo, colours and fonts.

If you have not used Canva before, now is the perfect time to give it a try. You do not need any design experience, just an idea and a few minutes to explore.

Canva’s new tools will not take away the important local knowledge and experience you bring to your role, but they can give back something that is often in short supply in local government: time and clarity.

We would love to hear how you are using Canva in your council. If you have found that it saves you time or makes communications easier, let us know at hello@breakthroughcomms.co.uk.