Design Lead – Education

Role Overview

• Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.
• Establish Education’s long-term creative strategy across Product and Marketplace.
• Manage and mentor a team of Content Creatives (prompters/designers, illustrators, motion storytellers)
• Ensure quality while expanding Canva’s production funnels to scale education content
• Oversee end-to-end content creation from concept to execution
• Ensure all content meets learning, cultural, and accessibility standards
• Collaborate with the Learning Experience group and i18n to align content to real classroom needs
• Partner with Product teams to deliver new content features that support educators and learners
• Build scalable creative frameworks and guidelines tailored for K–12 audiences
• Establish creative frameworks, critique rituals, and quality standards that elevate craft across Education and influence adjacent content teams.
• Defines what “great” Education content looks like at Canva
• Builds reusable systems adopted at scale
• Recognised go-to for craft standards in Education
• Sets a clear and compelling creative vision for Education content that aligns multiple groups and establishes a shared language across Product, Curriculum, Marketing, and Content.
• Drives alignment during ambiguous problem spaces, helping teams converge on clear creative direction and decision-making.
• Sets expectations for responsible and effective AI use within Education creative workflows.
• Advocate for inclusive, age-appropriate design and representation
• Use insights and data to iterate content effectiveness and relevance

Requirements

• 6-10 years experience in a similar creative leadership role and a strong creative background with ability to develop creative strategies and direction for varied user types
• Experience leading content creation with AI tools in creative workflows
• Experience leading content creation across multiple formats (static, motion, interactive)
• Experience translating data/user insights into creative decisions
• Experience working with diverse stakeholder (and/or external partners)
• Experience coaching, mentoring, and developing junior creatives (not just managing)
• Experience with accessibility standards and inclusive design practices
• Experience contributing to hiring and team-building
• Experience designing for educational contexts, especially K-12 Education industry background highly desired

Benefits

• Equity packages
• we want our success to be yours too
• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers
• An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing, social connection, office setup & more
• Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good, take time to recharge and supports you personally