Canva Craft separates layout planning from image rendering

Canva’s first in-house image model is available in Dream Lab and its public API, with design editing central to the pitch.

Canva has introduced Craft, its first image generation model built by Canva Research. The October 22 launch makes it available through Dream Lab and the public Connect API, adding an in-house model to the company’s design workflow.

Craft uses a planning stage before rendering. Canva says the first model describes the composition, including object placement, scale and lettering; a second model turns that plan into an image at up to 2K resolution across more than 30 aspect ratios.

Designed for a composition that can change

The company says its training includes human-made design templates and that outputs can work with Magic Layers to become editable elements. Those are useful distinctions for a design task, where adjusting a headline or moving one object may matter as much as generating an attractive first image.

Canva reports strong results on DesignArena. Leaderboard positions are a snapshot of a particular evaluation and should not be treated as a guarantee for every brief, language or brand requirement.

Typography is part of the model’s brief

Canva says Craft can produce text in 55 languages and was trained with millions of templates, including posters, presentations and typography-heavy designs. Its evaluation involved professional designers comparing more than 25,000 image pairs. The company says it prioritised designer judgement when automated measures disagreed.

The Connect API identifies the model as `craft_v1_2k`. Canva’s newsroom labels its MCP route as coming soon, separately from the editor and API. The distinction is useful for teams planning an automated design workflow: a model’s availability and a particular connector’s availability are separate milestones. Editable placement and lettering make this release especially relevant to reusable marketing layouts.

Sources

- [Introducing Canva Craft](https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/canva-craft/) — Canva - [Connect API: Canva Craft is now available](https://community.canva.dev/t/connect-api-canva-craft-is-now-available-for-image-generation/8999) — Canva Developers