When Convenience Beats Creativity in Design

A few months ago, I was walking to the hawker centre near my place to pick up dinner. Just a short walk, but enough time to spot one of those banners the Town Council hangs near the void deck. This one was for a Chinese tuition class. And just like that, I got PTSD-level flashbacks. The kind only someone who’s survived weekend Chinese tuition in Primary School can understand.

But what actually caught my eye wasn’t the trauma. It was the design.

It looked like it had been thrown together on Microsoft Word. I tilted my head slightly and spotted another banner, just above it, but this one was clean, polished, well spaced. It looked like someone had spent time on Canva. And that’s when it hit me. It really is that easy now.

The second moment came when I was in Saigon. I was out of office, when ChatGPT dropped its latest update. My TikTok feed quickly turned into a mess of panic and excitement. Designers frantically explaining why they’re still relevant. Tech bros celebrating the automation of yet another industry. And of course, people generating Studio Ghibli portraits of themselves for less than the price of a bánh mì. I didn’t have the time or space to write anything back then. But now that I’m home and caffeinated, here’s my rant.

The Canva Paradox

It’s hard to avoid Canva these days, especially if you’ve ever had the thankless task of designing literally anything under a tight deadline. Love it or hate it, you can’t deny its impact. Since its launch in 2013, Canva has amassed over 150 million monthly active users worldwide.

Think about that number for a second.

150 million people, churning out billions of designs each month. Flyers, presentations, Instagram posts and CVs. You name it.

Thanks to Canva, design has become absurdly accessible. In the past, visuals were something you paid an expert to create. Or if you’re adventurous enough, you’d have a go at it with Microsoft PowerPoint. Now, anyone with Wi-Fi and a vague idea can whip up a passable graphic in minutes. It’s democratised design, raising visual literacy across the board. Suddenly, everything both IRL and online has gotten noticeably better-looking.

From Scarcity to Sameness

Take Singapore’s political posters. In past elections, they were simple, flat colours, rigid layouts, typefaces. But you knew why. The tools were limited, and that constraint forced designers to be resourceful. There was often as much story behind how those posters were made as the message they were trying to deliver.

Now, things look different. Newer campaign banners feel busier, more complicated. They are technically more polished. But the moment I see one, I can’t help but think, this could’ve been made on Canva. Because even though the designs are passable, they rarely feel personal or intentional. When anyone can make something decent in minutes, the magic wears off. It stops being a craft, and starts feeling like output.

That’s because when you first open Canva, you are immediately nudged towards a template. You start typing “Instagram post” into the search bar and boom, thousands of sleek and ready-made options pop up. Then you simply pick one, tweak the headline, swap in your own photo, agonise briefly over the placeholder text and click download.

The Death of Differentiation

Templates are undeniably convenient. But convenience can also be a creative killer. Because these ready made layouts push you into filling empty boxes, you rarely stop to think about whether you actually need those boxes in the first place. Does your brand message really need that random body paragraph in the corner? Probably not, but the template said so.

Multiply this scenario millions of times over and what you get is an ocean of visual sameness between businesses. Everyone is pulling from the same limited pool of templates. The result? A market flooded with lookalike brands.

And within a single brand, things get even messier. When individuals create designs in isolation, picking whatever template fits the task at hand, the larger picture falls apart. Forget about consistency. There is no throughline, no narrative, just a scattershot of good-enough visuals. This is how brands lose the plot. Their positioning, messaging and visual identity slowly unravel. Not because they lack taste, but because they have placed too much faith in templates and too little in strategy.

Even worse, easy access breeds a false sense of expertise. With a few Canva posts under their belt, people start thinking they are designers. As if design is just picking a nice font and a couple of colours that go well together. But real design is strategic. It’s knowing what to say, when to say it and how to make someone feel it. Templates do not ask those questions. They just hand you the gaps and tell you to fill them.

Convenience Is Everywhere but At What Cost

When ChatGPT dropped its latest update, the internet exploded. Not because it was buggy or broken, but because it came with a shiny new toolbox that made the tech bros foam at the mouth. You could now generate and edit images, analyse data, search the web in real time, and speak to it like a voice assistant. This wasn't exactly ideal timing while I was out of office in Saigon.

Cue the usual panic. This is the end of designers. The end of artists. The end of creatives. The panic only makes sense if you see creativity as surface-level decoration. And this is where Canva comes back into the picture. Because the anxiety around AI is really an extension of the same thing Canva normalised. Speed over substance. Convenience dressed up as creativity.

This isn’t new. People said the same thing when Photoshop was released. When digital cameras hit the shelves. When the internet let anyone start a blog. Every wave of tech that makes it easier to create gets mistaken as a threat. But easier does not mean better. It just means faster. And faster without thinking is how we end up with brands that feel hollow.

I’m not against convenience. These tools helps move things along. But I’m against convenience being the thing that shapes your brand. You’ve stopped being strategic and started being efficient. This might work for some businesses, but not all. AI and platforms like Canva can accelerate the process. But differentiation is a human job. That still comes down to clarity, intention and actual creative thought. No one’s automating that just yet.

Convenience as a Tool, Not a Strategy

I’m not advocating for some bizarre, masochistic ritual of making things harder just for the sake of it. Convenience has its place. It helps keep operations smooth. But when businesses let convenience shape their entire strategy or visual identity, they’re surrendering control.

Creative blocks are uncomfortable. No one enjoys staring at a blank screen or feeling stuck on the same idea for hours. But those moments matter. That frustration is a breeding ground for original thought. Being forced to pause, to sit with uncertainty, is exactly where genuine creativity thrives.

When I hit a wall, I don’t jump straight onto Canva hoping to find a nice template that’ll make my problem vanish. I dive into books like New Utilitarian by Victionary, or rummage through knick-knacks I’ve gathered from my travels. I force myself to sit with the discomfort until inspiration hits. Sometimes it takes minutes. Sometimes it takes days. But it’s my discomfort. My autonomy.

The obsession with done for you solutions means fewer people develop the skill of pulling themselves out of creative ruts. When you’re always outsourcing your discomfort, you never learn how to get inspired. You lose your ability to think.

Convenience as an operational tool is smart. But convenience as a brand strategy is a disaster. It flattens your brand into something generic. It strips you of meaningful differentiation and leaves you indistinguishable from everyone else who’s “just looking for something quick”.

So here's the challenge. Evaluate where convenience sits in your business right now. Ask yourself if it's merely a tool you use or if it's quietly replaced your strategic thinking. Because convenience can get you somewhere fast, but genuine insight is what will make you memorable.