Canva turns designers’ inside jokes into cheeky larger-than-life billboards

Canva is showing off its playful side with a bold new out-of-home (OOH) campaign that transforms billboard space into a live demo of its signature design tools, with features exaggerated for maximum impact.

The campaign, created with newly appointed UK agency Stink Studios, highlights how Canva empowers users of all skill levels to design with ease and flair, blending humour with real, everyday use cases.

The work rolled out across London’s Waterloo station as part of Canva’s broader push to spotlight its creative capabilities in large-scale, attention-grabbing formats.

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One billboard shows an oversized Canva logo breaking free from its frame, a literal answer to the classic creative request to “make the logo bigger.”

Another squeezes landscape-format content awkwardly into a portrait space, illustrating Canva’s magic resize tool in action.

Elsewhere, a 3D Forest e-bike appears to have been dragged and dropped onto the billboard, nodding to Canva’s intuitive interface. A special build styled similar to a whiteboard erases parts of the ad to reveal the structure underneath, a clever reference to its background remover tool.

One execution even charts the chaotic path from “brief lands” to “humble standing ovation,” visualising the often-messy creative journey.

The campaign was developed collaboratively by Canva’s in-house marketing team and Stink Studios, with a design language that flexes across physical and digital formats while staying true to Canva’s accessible, witty brand voice. OMD handled media, while Talon and Grand Visual were responsible for special build constructions.

The Waterloo takeover builds on Canva’s wider London OOH push, which kicked off in May with a standout installation at Old Street. The display featured a giant Canva workspace animated with hundreds of collaborative cursors to spotlight its real-time design functionality.

Digital rollouts will run across YouTube and LinkedIn throughout the summer, as Canva continues its creative expansion in the UK. Stink Studios is set to work with the brand on a broader campaign extending into 2026.

"Our latest UK campaign features some very special builds, letting the Canva product loose in the real world. This is all about showing the power of Canva with a touch of our playful spirit and a dash of British tongue in cheek humour. Our hope is that these billboards make passersby smile half as much as they did when we were designing them," said Tom Carey, creative director, Europe, Canva.

In tandem, Melissa Cosneau, marketing director, Europe, Canva said, "Gallery-wide takeovers like this are rare, which is exactly why we saw the opportunity to do something extraordinary. By transforming a high-traffic transit space into a fully branded environment, we’re not just creating visibility, we’re creating impact."

"This is about media as theatre: from large-scale special builds to subtle contextual touches, we’ve used the space not just to advertise, but to tell a story. This gallery takeover is a conversation starter, a selfie backdrop, a shareable moment, crafted to live as powerfully in the environment as it does beyond it," she added. 

Meanwhile, Cameron Temple, executive creative director at Stink Studios said, "Canva tools are enabling the world to become more creative, and creativity should be fun. This work is designed to bring that to life in the most Canva way possible, by bringing a smile to people's faces whilst showing off the power of the product. When you're starting out in advertising, this is the sort of work you hope you'll be making." 

Canva isn’t the only brand leaning into billboard theatrics. In May, Singapore-based consultancy ballsy kicked off its global debut with a provocative OOH campaign for travel eSIM brand Jetpac, hunting for “travel virgins".

Billboards across London and Los Angeles carried eyebrow-raising lines like “Virgins wanted” and “Time to pop your cherry,” directing passersby to a microsite via QR codes.

Meanwhile, Samsung Malaysia turned heads with cryptic digital billboards featuring bizarre search queries such as “why body itchy after thrifting” and “what does cat food taste like", paired with a classic Windows blue screen. The stunt, which appeared across Klang Valley, Penang, Ipoh, and even East Malaysia, puzzled netizens and sparked speculation across TikTok and Xiaohongshu.

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