CB Q&A: Canva ECD Cat van der Werff on trust, experimentation and shaping the future of design

Fresh from serving on the 2025 London International Awards Design and Package Design jury, Canva’s Executive Creative Director Cat van der Werff spoke with Campaign Brief about leading one of the world’s largest in-house creative agencies. From scaling a 130-plus team to embracing experimentation and AI, Cat shares how she’s shaping the future of creativity at one of Australia’s biggest global success stories.

From your first role as brand designer with Canva to now leading 130+ creatives globally – what’s been the biggest lesson in creative leadership?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that perfection is selfish, while excellence is shared.

In a world that moves this fast, obsessing over every detail only slows you down. As Canva has grown, I’ve had to let go of being involved in every detail and learn how to multiply ideas and impact through others. Yes, my team don’t always do things exactly the way I would, but that’s kind of the magic. The work is stronger because it’s shaped by so many different perspectives, skills, and ideas.

For me, leadership has been about shifting from control to trust. It’s not about chasing perfection; it’s about empowering people to do their best work.

How do you keep your team producing bold, award-winning work while scaling so quickly?

Part of the magic of being an in-house creative team is that we’re close to the brand, the product, and the founders. One of our guiding philosophies is to be “unapologetically ourselves”. You can only do that when you’re close to the company’s heart.

Our recent Canva World Tour is a perfect example: we set out to certify one million people with design skills, hosting events across 40 cities, 30 countries, and five continents—including a technicolour bus (we call it the Canva Brandwagon) on a road trip across the US. I love this campaign because it brings Canva’s purpose to life by connecting with our community in real, human ways and taking creativity offline and into the world.

Also, when you’re scaling at speed, you can’t cling to old ways of working. The systems you build for one stage of growth don’t always work at the next, so you have to break things and evolve, often.

A great example is how we recently approached performance marketing. A few months ago, our creative wasn’t cutting through as much as it could. So we scrapped the old playbook overnight. Instead of polished, templated ads, we gave the team permission to go lo-fi—experiment, move fast, take risks, even ship creative without feedback. The results spoke for themselves.

Creativity comes from trust, experimentation, and the courage to try something new.

You’ve spoken about design being for everyone – how does democratising design raise the bar for professional designers?

The more accessible design becomes, the higher the bar gets for creativity.

As a professional designer myself, I’ve seen this firsthand. When everyone has access to design tools, it doesn’t diminish the craft—it elevates what professional designers are uniquely positioned to do: strategic thinking, problem solving, and culture shaping.

At Canva, we call it Craft, then Scale. Designers create the systems, then empower others to use them. This frees up the craft experts to focus on the big, bold, brand-defining work—while spending less time tidying decks or updating PDFs.

What we’ve found is that when design literacy grows across an organisation, so does appreciation for the craft. More people designing doesn’t replace professional creatives. It amplifies their impact.

You recently attended LIA as a jury member on the LIA Design & Package Design jury. What kind of work stood out to you in the category?

The best work wasn’t just beautifully designed. It was meaningful.

The strongest entries were impeccably crafted, but they also went beyond aesthetics. They solved real problems and pushed humanity forward in some way. That’s what great design does: it makes the world a little better.

We awarded the Grand LIA in Design to “Caption with Intention” for the Chicago Hearing Society, and in Package Design to “Glowing Relief” for Alivia Health. Both beautiful examples of craft, innovation, and purpose.

The other work that stood out was a return to handmade craft: paper art, tactile textures, fine photography. It’s in the making that discoveries happen.

Nikka Whisky’s “No Labels” campaign by Dentsu Creative really stayed with me. They removed all the labels from the bottles and projected light through them to create dynamic silhouettes, symbolising the evolving perception of whisky. A message of inclusivity, artistry, and emotional resonance.

In your view, what makes creative work stand out today?

In a world drowning in content, the work that stands out is the work that makes you feel something—whether that’s a laugh, a lump in your throat, or a simple pause in your scroll.

As Andy Pearson from Liquid Death said, “The goal is to be the best thing someone sees that day”. I love that. Because in the end, feeling matters more than polish.

The most memorable work feels like it could only come from your brand—not anyone else. When brands chase trends, they lose their edge. The best work starts from the question: Who are we? What do we stand for? How would we respond? That’s what separates the bold from the blend-in.

How do you see AI changing the way designers work, and what does it free them to focus on?

AI is helping us balance creativity with the need for speed. It’s not replacing creativity, it’s scaling it.

At Canva, AI handles the repetitive stuff so designers can focus on what really matters: the creative work that needs intention, intuition, and taste. Those are things technology can’t replicate.

We also use AI at the ideation stage, mixing human-led storyboarding with AI-generated prototypes. It lets us explore dozens of possibilities quickly, without losing the human touch.

I read something recently comparing AI prompting to Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies card deck. I love looking at AI this way. It’s never the final answer, it’s a spark. It helps you get unstuck and explore unexpected directions.

For designers wanting to push boundaries, what’s the key to thriving in today’s creative world?

The best designers today balance consistency with creativity.

We’re seeing brands move toward more cohesive design systems, bringing clarity and control, but the ones who stand out are the ones who do that without losing their soul.

I love how Amazon’s recent rebrand did this: unifying thousands of services under one design language that still feels human, crafted, and full of personality. That’s a piece of work I’m jealous of!

That’s also where Canva plays a role. Our Visual Suite and integrated AI help teams move at speed and scale, without sacrificing creativity.

In the end, it’s about giving creativity room to breathe. Consistency builds trust. Creativity builds love. You need both.