Accessibility
Accessibility
Design for everyone
For Canva and our brand, accessibility is one of the most important considerations across every team and community touchpoint.
Accessibility at Canva
At Canva our mission is to make design accessible to anyone, regardless of ability, device, or internet access. We always aim to maintain a minimum AA accessibility level across all our communications, to ensure that everyone who uses Canva can enjoy our brand equally. More information on how we are making Canva ultra-inclusive for everyone can be found here.
When it comes to making our brand accessible there are a lot of considerations, including:
Color
It's important to make sure that our brand colors are used with appropriate contrast, to ensure legibility – especially with type.
Typography
Considering font size, color, alignment, background, and line and letter spacing, are all essential considerations for accessibility.
48
24
Layout
We need to cater to everybody in our audience, ensuring
clarity and legibility when communicating.
Video
Creating for video means considering and catering to
our diverse audience, with clear and correct captions.
Color
When applying our brand colors, appropriate contrast is the most important thing to consider.
To be accessible, text needs to remain legible when used against our brand gradient or playground palette.
Applying color
Accessibility
9:1
4:1
1:1
Always ensure that our brand colors are applied to successfully meet AA accessibility standards. There should be a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 or higher, with any color combination.
To make applying color easier, we've provided a list of successful combinations.
When using text on Canva's gradient, text must be black or white.
Large Copy
Body Copy
6:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
21:1
White on Gradient
Black on Light Gradient
When using Canva's playground palette, use tints with high contrast.
Large Copy
Body Copy
9:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
9:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
9:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
9:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
8:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
8:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
9:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
9:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
8:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
8:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
9:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
9:1
Light tinted text and dark tinted background
Dark tinted text and light tinted background
When using Canva's playground palette, most mid tints are not accessible. Those that are, must be used on white only.
Large Copy
Body Copy
4:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
4:1
Large Copy
3:1
Large Copy
3:1
Large Copy
3:1
Large Copy
3:1
Large Copy
3:1
Large Copy
3:1
Light tinted text and mid tinted background
Mid tinted text and light tinted background
Typography
One of the most important considerations for accessibility is type – everything from sizing and spacing
to background choice affects how our audience interprets our communication.
Using Canva Sans
Legibility
-20
80pt
1
When using our brand font, legibility and readability are the first priorities. Always search for a suitable Canva template, or refer to the Brand Kit when creating new communications.
Sizing
Large
Medium
80 - 96px is the optimal size for large headings and statements.
21 - 28px is the optimal size for body copy and large paragraphs.
Small
12- 18px is the optimal size for small sub-copy.
Sentence case
At Canva, we talk to our users as if they are friends and family. Therefore, we strictly use Sentence Case.
Only the first letter in a sentence is capitalized, unless we are talking about people, places, or trademarked products.
Make work feel like play, with Canva.
Formal sentence case
Upskill Your Team in Moments.
Unnecessary capitalisation
Spacing
Letter and line spacing contribute to the readability of text, particularly on screen. To ensure our
communications remain consistent, always refer to a Brand Template or our Brand Kit for the correct style.
Design
with ease.
With Canva's all
new Magic eraser tool.
Text reads comfortably
Start
inspired.
With Canva's all
new Magic eraser tool.
Text is inconsistent, and difficult to read
Alignment
Keeping communication style consistent is very important to communicating clearly to your audience.
Consistency with alignment impacts your audience's expectations, and how they engage with your communications.
Large Statements
Text
heavy
Your body copy
and important
information here.
Keep large statements centered. We usually try to maintain
a 10% margin around the edge for comfortable reading.
Any information that is long or more complex needs to remain left aligned, grouped together but separate from imagery or data.
Imagery
At Canva, we like to communicate as visually as possible. This means you'll often
combine text and imagery in layouts. It's important to always consider the readability of text.
4:1
Visual dividers
Text
heavy
Your body copy
and important
information here
Large statements look great on background imagery – just make sure that the image achieves a 4.5:1 contrast ratio.
If you're creating information-heavy slides, make sure there's a clear separation between your text and imagery.
No matter who we're communicating to, at Canva we make sure that our messaging caters to everyone.
This means considering how people watch, read, and listen to our everyday communications.
Communicating effectively
Readability
At Canva, we follow the principle of one idea per page. This ensures that whether we're introducing ideas or statistics, there's always a comfortable amount of information for anyone to process.
Statements
Large Statements
4:1
Visual dividers
Keep large statements centered. We usually try to maintain
a 10% margin around the edge for comfortable reading.
If you have text over an image, make sure that it reaches
appropriate levels of contrast.
Visuals and statistics
Heading
here
Your body copy
and important
information here.
- Point one
- Point two
- Point three
- Point four
- Point five
When including a visual, we usually optimize its presence in the layout as much as possible, working with a 5% margin.
To optimise clarity, try to have a clear separation between text and visuals within your layout.
Hierarchy
- Point one
- Point two
- Point three
- Point four
- Point five
1
2
Heading
here
1
Your body copy
and important
information here
3
2
Ideally, our audience should only have to process a maximum of two different information types on any single layout.
Try to work within a maximum range of three pieces of information to ensure your messaging is easy to process.
With the majority of online content being visual and using video, we need to
make sure that our video content always caters to our unique and diverse audience.
Catering for a diverse audience
At Canva, we require that we provide captions where possible, whether live or pre-recorded. They should be completely synchronized, and timing and pace should be comfortable enough so that anybody can understand our content.
Text in videos
Minimum 40pt
1-2 lines
Any text that appears on screen should be
no smaller than 40pt.
All important dialogue and actions within the video need to be captioned. Captions should take a maximum of 2 lines.
Writing and pace
180-200
words per minute
There,
their,
they're
For comfortable pacing and captions, a script should be written at no greater than 200 words per minute.
A script should be correctly spelled and punctuated to
ensure that captions appear synced correctly.
Motion
Ensure motion is comfortably paced, and color contrast is clear.
Avoid poor color contrast, and flashing or strobing colors.
Adhere to 'three flashes or below' as a threshold.
Accessibility checklist
Follow this helpful checklist below to ensure your designs are on-brand and accessible. You can also use Canva’s Design Accessibility checker tool here, where you can find out what accessibility issues are present in your design so that you can fix them without needing to be an accessibility expert. .
Colored text has a contrast ratio higher than 4.5:1
Text is legible, with appropriate size and letter spacing
Text has appropriate contrast to background imagery
All copy aligns to sentence case standards
Text across layouts has comfortable clear space
Layout has a clear and visible hierarchy
Video content is comfortably paced
Motion graphics have adequate contrast
Video content features synchronized captions
Uses a range of very similar colors with low contrast
There's a diverse range of multiple decorative fonts
Text appears over busy, low contrast backgrounds
Copy appears with too much capitalisation
The layout is busy, with lots of competing information
Information appears cluttered and hard to read
The content is fast-paced and hard to follow
Motion is flashing and uses bright strobing colors
Captions are out of sync and misspelled
Color contrast
Large Copy
Body Copy
9:1
Large Copy
Body Copy
2:1
Captions
Our Partners
©2023 All Rights Reserved. Canva®