MANILA, Philippines — Canva Philippines held the Negosyantrends Expo 2023, its largest in-person event for entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners, on August 5 at the Music Hall of SM Mall of Asia. The event featured one-on-one consultations with brand and design experts, interactive stations, and design activities aimed at helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
The expo was headlined by Reese Fernandez-Ruiz, president and co-founder of Rags2Riches; Andre Chanco, head of product and co-founder of Yardstick Coffee; and Cara Paguio, senior creative for photography at Canva and owner of the local beachwear brand Guppy PH. It included insightful discussions on starting and managing a business, building a brand, implementing innovations, and nurturing communities, among other topics.
“Negosyantrends marks an exciting time for Canva Philippines. It is our first in-person event since the pandemic and a testament to our strong commitment to Filipino entrepreneurs. It’s inspiring to witness how Canva has empowered businesses, and we look forward to what this new chapter holds for us,” said Maisie Littaua, head of marketing and growth at Canva Philippines.
The expo featured interactive stations such as the Design Playground for an immersive Canva experience, the Brand Classroom, where attendees received a 15-minute consultation with a brand expert, and Sari-Sari Street, where select businesses showcased and sold their products. Attendees also enjoyed games and were able to take home printed items designed on Canva.
Unleash creativity, collab and design content for your biz
When COVID-19 hit, Filipino businesses turned to social media to reach their customers. With Canva’s design solutions, businesses of all sizes were able to build their brands, create engaging content, and publish them all within the platform.
“During the lockdown, Canva helped us a lot in developing our branding, designing our product labels and packaging, ads and social media content, and on overall business visibility. Canva is our go-to tool for designing our new products, collections and content. Now that Canva has upgraded features, that would help the users more,” shared Soyscape PH owners Christopher Banaag and Mark Calica.
Chanco shared how their team leveraged the power of social media to connect with their customers: “The number one thing we did for two years was to be the loudest online. Being able to engage digitally with existing customers saved Yardstick during Covid.”
Canva also offers customizable templates you can update with your brand colors, fonts and logos. Choose from Canva’s media library of over 100 million visual and audio assets. Canva Pro users can also access features like Magic Resize, Background Remover, Folders and Brand Kits.
For businesses with a group of two or more, Canva for Teams enables you to collaborate together, streamline your workflow, keep projects organized, and stay on-brand with Brand Kit, Shared Folders and Brand Controls.
Canva’s Visual Suite consists of an array of features that provide end-to-end design solutions for business owners.
- Canva Docs lets your team create visually engaging documents, from business proposals to reports and even checklists.
- Whiteboards allow teams to collaborate, brainstorm, and plan on an infinite canvas.
- Canva Presentations let you create presentations that will surely captivate your audience.
- Online video editor allows you to create professional and engaging videos, complete with animation and speed controls.
- Canva Websites makes it easy to design a responsive one-page website, perfect for landing pages and event invitations, especially for those who need a website without coding experience.
Leira Dumalay, owner of Baked Goodies by Leira, highlighted how Canva makes designing easier for business owners like her: “I love how Canva is accessible to everyone. They have pre-made designs that businesses can use to make their projects. I also love that Canva listens to their users to improve their services.”
Empowering Pinoy entrepreneurs through design
In 2020, Canva Philippines launched Canva for Negosyo, which provides entrepreneurs with free branding and graphic design resources, marketing toolkits, photo collections and video tutorials.
The Canva for Negosyantes community on Facebook has since reached over 60,000 members and continues to be a platform for many business owners to share ideas, collaborate on designs and provide insights to each other.
“As Pinoy entrepreneurs take their businesses online, we want to be right there with them,” Littaua said. “When it comes to design and branding, Canva for Negosyo is the Filipino business owner’s partner in creativity and productivity for their digital presence.”
