Creative Director Affinity

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Where and how you can work

The buzzing Canva London campus features several buildings around beautiful leafy Hoxton Square in Shoreditch. While our global headquarters is in Sydney, Australia, London is our HQ for Europe with all kinds of teams based here plus event spaces to gather our team and communities. You'll experience a warm welcome from our Vibe team at front of house, amazing home cooked food from our Head Chef and a variety of workspaces to hang out with your teammates or get solo work done. That said, we trust our Canvanauts to choose the balance that empowers them and their teams to achieve their goals and so you have choice in where and how you work.

About the team

Affinity is a professional suite of creative tools including photo editing, vector illustration, and layout design - built for speed, precision and power. Since joining Canva in 2024 the team has been reimagining Affinity to bring even more innovation and performance to creative professionals around the world.

Affinity gives professional creatives the freedom to craft with industry leading tools and then scale their impact within the Canva ecosystem. Together, we're making world class creative tools more accessible than ever while maintaining the control and quality professionals demand.

About the role

The team needs an experienced Creative Director with deep expertise in brand design and advertising across a range of marketing tactics and a passion for elevating professional creative communities. The job is to lead concept to delivery on global campaigns, brand assets and creative content that resonate with pro designers, art directors, photographers, illustrators and other craft obsessed creators.

Success in this role will require hands on creative leadership, proactive ownership of high impact deliverables, clear communication and the ability to set and maintain direction under pressure. You will be expected to work in ambiguity, navigate shifting priorities with resilience, and create clarity for your team at every stage of the process.

The role will need to lead on a large range of projects from brand identity, brand system building, campaigns, product editorial, product launch, UI storyboards, social content, art direction, experiential activations and more.

The Creative Director will work closely with our Global Canva Creative & Brand team to ensure adoption of best practices and alignment to ways of working.

The role can be based in London remotely with regular visits to Nottingham office.

Affinity Creative Leadership

• Lead the creative direction for Affinity's advertising for our Pro Creative audience
• Oversee the development and execution of integrated campaigns across TV, digital, social, OOH and performance channels
• Create bold culturally relevant campaigns that connect with audiences and drive growth
• Embed insights, trends and data into creative work to increase impact

Brand and Campaign Excellence

• Raise the bar on storytelling and design to help Canva stand out in a competitive market
• Shape messaging and creative platforms that resonate locally and stay aligned globally
• Encourage experimentation and learning from what works (and what doesn't)
• Drive innovation across formats and platforms from traditional media to emerging channels

Product Launch Creative Ownership

• Define the creative direction for how the Affinity product shows up in marketing
• Ensure consistency across all channels: product editorial, product launch, UI storyboards, social content, art direction, experiential activations and more.

Agency and Production Management

• Manage Affinity UK creative resourcing across in house agency and specialist partners
• Shape and evolve our global agency partner model to enable seamless collaboration and top tier execution
• Work closely with central ops to scale creative systems while maintaining quality and speed

Team Leadership and Development

• Build and lead a high performing Affinity creative team in the UK
• Create a culture where people feel safe to take risks, grow and do their best work
• Provide mentorship and creative guidance to regional creative teams
• Champion inclusion, collaboration and regional empowerment across Canva global creative teams

Cross functional Partnership

• Collaborate closely with marketing, growth and product leaders in the UK and globally
• Sit on the Affinity Marketing Leadership team
• Translate business goals into creative strategies that deliver results
• Align global and regional teams to ensure consistency without losing local nuance
• Triage creative requests across all of Affinity marketing & ensure the team is set up with clear briefs

What we're looking for

• 12 years in senior creative leadership roles across both agency and in house
• Proven success leading major advertising campaigns
• Experience mentoring and managing creative teams across multiple markets
• Strong understanding of the Pro Creative community
• Expertise across brand and performance creative across digital and traditional channels
• A standout portfolio that shows excellence in storytelling and advertising craft
• Strategic mindset with the ability to connect creative ideas to business impact
• Empathetic mentor with a collaborative people first approach
• Confident communicator and presenter comfortable influencing at all levels
• Thrives in fast paced global environments
• Culturally aware and globally minded with a passion for creating resonant work across markets

What's in it for you

Achieving our crazy big goals motivates us to work hard, but you'll experience lots of moments of magic, connection and fun woven throughout life at Canva too.

• Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too
• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers
• Annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support wellbeing, social connection, office setup & more
• Flexible leave options that let you recharge or take time to give back

Remote Work: Yes

Employment Type: Full time

Vacancy: 1

Key Skills

• Marketing
• Logo Design
• Trello
• Adobe Creative Suite
• Martech
• Adobe Photoshop
• Social Media Management
• Adobe Illustrator
• Copywriting
• Customer Relationship Management
• Experience Design
• Adobe InDesign