Hello everyone! I’m a designer on a comms & marketing team. Self-taught, and work exclusively in the Adobe ecosystem (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop).
My teammate, who manages social media, designs in Canva. And right now, we don’t have any good processes for collaborating, sharing resources and assets, etc… I’m just beginning to think through this topic, so I’m really open to anything. How do you collect, organize, make available? In either direction - Canva to Adobe or vice versa?
I think you will find most here do not use Canva. The professional standard are Adobe products. Some are just starting to use Affinity software. But, rarely have I heard anyone talking about Canva … in a good way 
The graphics needs of social media managers are usually uncomplicated. Typically, they involve little more than a constant stream of new images — sometimes dressed up with graphics of one kind or another.
At my previous job, our social media manager used Canva and was primarily self-sufficient in producing what she needed using that platform. She wasn’t a graphic designer, so when she needed something that extended beyond what she could do herself using Canva’s canned solutions, she asked one of the designers on the team.
There were never any coordination problems in this arrangement. It didn’t require any special procedures to organize, collect, or manage. Playing it by ear as needs arose worked just fine for us. For that matter, it worked so well that I’m wondering about the problems you’re running into.
My experience with Canva is very limited. I just recently watched a course on it and started using it (as little as possible) for a client that insists some projects be done in it. They’re a marketing rep that sometimes designs ad concepts in Canva and then asks me to recreate them in all the sizes needed for a digital campaign. So far I don’t think there’s really any workflow for easily going from one to the other. I’ve tried downloading files as pdfs and svgs hoping I could pull apart the layers but usually just get garbage.
The one thing I’ve seen that I could recommend would be to connect your Dropbox or Google Drive account via the Uploads section. If you have a shared folder in one of those you could use it to share assets. My client at one point mentioned that she has Canva set to save her files automatically to Dropbox but I haven’t found that option.
Canva also has a Team option for sharing files that allow you and other team members to work on the same files in Canva. Probably not what you’re interested in, but it’s the only real collaborative tool I’ve noticed.
Agree, while Canva is great for quick designs or beginners, it doesn’t offer the depth and control professionals need. Adobe remains the industry standard, and Affinity is gaining traction among designers looking for a solid alternative. Most pros prefer tools that provide precision and flexibility, which Canva often lacks.
If you want to be able to work in the Adobe environment but share things with SM managers, have you looked at Adobe express? You can create collateral in Adobe software, export it straight in to an online Canva-type environment that any monkey can play with. It is set up to do exactly that. I haven’t used it much (not a massive fan of online software like this, for the same reasons as most pros). However I have a hotel client who wants to be able to edit their own SM posts, but designed nicely and within their brand language. Currently a receptionists do it in canva and it looks like a school art project. Ultimately it comes down to education, so I am going to have to some training. Software isn’t the issue, though adobe express will make the workflow more solid. I just need to sit on them to do it properly and get the staff to understand that it’s about communication, not finger-painting self-expression.
Anyway, in short, have a look at express. For the pro environment it is likely to be the easiest solution when you have to work with non-pros. On the upside, it’s a step up from, ‘Can you put it in Word, so we can edit it?’!!
Good luck
It’s ok to say ‘no’.
Giving non-creatives any controls outside of MS Office, Word, Powerpoint etc. is disasterous.
Just tell them no. And they have to go through the Creative Department.
The reality is some smaller, family-run businesses simply don’t have the budget, so perhaps better that a designer creates the brand and guidelines and the day-to-day mundane stuff can then be done by the in-house staff – usually the stuff you wouldn’t want to be doing anyway and is not the best use of skills – as long as they run everything by the designer first until they have learned enough to fly solo – but even then, within very tight brand constraints.
For me it suits with my plan to drop clients like this anyway. I’ve said I will be available to help on the bigger stuff, but if they can do the mundane in house anyway, suits me. Much as I failed against it for years, some design is now regularly being seen as in-house admin. I think it will come full circle, like DTP did, when quality drops, along with revenue. However, in the meantime, it is far better to have the internal output curated and policed, than them having free-rein with Canva and clipart.
That’s a fair point.
Typically, I just let them do what they want in PowerPoint, no need for Canva. Most people are already familiar with it, and it avoids the illusion that design is drag-and-drop clipart and gradients.
Then I would get it back, tidy it up or more often, redo it properly.
But once you give design rights out to others, it’s a slippery slope.
That said, whatever works for the team. But a clear and efficient workflow makes all the difference:
Encouraging that kind of process saves a lot of back-and-forth.
The number of times I got a Word doc back five times because the content kept changing… lesson learned.
Now, it’s: You sign it off first. Then I touch it.
That workflow should be standard everywhere, saves everyone’s time and sanity.
Of course there are exceptions to every rule/workflow.
But I’d draw the line at others taking on the work you are employed to do.