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Can van der Werff is the executive creative director of Canva, leading the brand’s in-house creative agency. She first joined the company in 2018 as its first-ever brand designer. Prior to joining Canva, she held senior design positions at companies including M+C Saatchi’s design and experience firm Re and Frost Collective.
Favorite project you’ve worked on? It’s so hard to pick just one, but a recent favorite is our “Love Your Work” campaign. It was by far our boldest and funniest yet. We pushed ourselves creatively, made some big swings, and had a lot of fun doing it, thanks to our amazing partners including director Damien Shatford and the brilliant Lorraine Bracco, who plays this no-nonsense “work therapist” staging an intervention for outdated presentations. The campaign follows a Canva champion on a mission to set her teammate free from using tired, cluttered slides. With Lorraine’s help, he confronts his slide attachment issues and learns that work can actually look and feel a whole lot better. It’s packed with humor and heart, but ultimately it’s about showing that with the right tools, anyone can step out of their comfort zones, and create work that’s visual and they’re truly proud of.
What’s your favorite ad campaign? It’s not a traditional campaign per se, but Air New Zealand’s safety videos transformed a boring mandatory airline message into entertaining moments of joy blending Kiwi humor and storytelling. Many other airlines have followed suit since. Most people will remember one they did for The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, but the first was from 2009. It was called “Nothing to Hide”—because their prices were so low, so the flight crew were all naked with their flight uniforms body-painted on!
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One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: My homeland is a little place called Whakatane in New Zealand, though I’ve called Sydney home for the past 15 years. New Zealand might be on the other side of the world, but I think it really punches well above its weight when it comes to bold creativity, and I try to get back as often as I can to stay connected with the local creatives.
What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I’m most optimistic about the power of AI in further democratizing design. What we’re seeing is a major shift where AI takes on the repetitive, lower-stakes work, which then frees up designers and marketers to collaborate on the more higher-impact, strategic parts of a project. It’s also broadening who gets to participate in the creative process. With AI, someone in HR, sales, or education can bring an idea to life visually, without needing to be a trained designer, and that unlocks more perspectives, creativity, collaboration, and ultimately, more impact.
My least? The overreliance on performance-driven content at the expense of what makes a brand unique. Metrics matter, but when every piece of creative is optimized into oblivion, we can lose the magic—the emotional connection, the creative storytelling, the boldness that actually makes a brand memorable. Creativity needs room to breathe. Without it, you end up with work that’s technically effective but completely forgettable.
What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? I love listening to On Strategy Showcase. It’s one of the few podcasts that truly goes behind the veil of a piece of creative and dissects it with openness like what landed, what didn’t and why. The conversations are refreshingly honest, and I always walk away with something tangible to bring into my own work.