Data visualization and storytelling

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3 reasons why visual communication is key to business growth

Insights from Canva’s Visual Economy Report to elevate how your business communicates

The growth of digital media has led to a visual revolution, transforming our world and creating a desire for engaging and easily shareable visual content — both in our workplace and leisure time.

Visual content is changing the ways we live, work, and communicate. In a world where content is overly abundant, the ability to tell memorable, engaging stories has become crucial for capturing attention and standing out from the crowd.



In an effort to understand this changing landscape and the impact it is having on businesses today, Canva commissioned ​Morning Consult, a global decision intelligence expert, to ​survey 1,600 ​business leaders ​from the US, UK and ​Australia. To craft a compelling report that effectively communicates their results, they utilized Flourish to visually represent their findings in The Visual Economy Report.



Three key findings

As people are being exposed to larger amounts of digital information every day, their attention spans are getting shorter and more difficult to grab. This trend is a growing challenge for any content creator who wants to engage their audience.

Global leaders have reported a decrease in attention span for text-based presentations at work due to the popularity of visual-based social media (26%), graphic design platforms (27%), and video communication software (25%).



“Visual communication has become a strategic imperative for business leaders”

Canva Visual Economy Report

To stay competitive it’s vital to communicate information visually, as it leads to higher engagement, growth, and better business outcomes. However, creating visually appealing content can be challenging for many leaders, who struggle with the complexity of available tools and worry about keeping the content consistent and of high quality across platforms and teams.



Visual storytelling is a powerful tool for any business. Clearly visualizing content and data supports decision-making; it helps teams quickly identify trends, patterns and outliers that impact their work. The beauty of data storytelling is that it can be adapted to fit a variety of situations and audiences, using tools like Canva and Flourish. Whether presenting to executives, collaborating with teams, or communicating with clients, data storytelling can be tailored to bring clarity and make insights digestible.

In fact, the Visual Economy Report found that 86% of global business leaders are in favor of using data visualizations when creating plans and presentations, with nearly two-thirds (61%) using visualizations at least twice a day.

“Data is now the world's most valuable asset.”

– The Economist

Data visualization is extremely important in today’s data-driven and visual landscape. Visualized data empowers individuals of all skill levels to understand quickly and with ease. And with tools like Flourish, it is now easier and quicker than ever to create a compelling data narrative – with no need for complex coding skills or hours of your time.

Transform your visual communication with Canva and Flourish

Whether you aim to produce an immersive interactive report, animate data elements into your company presentations, or weave compelling data stories into your social media channels, the seamless integration between Canva and Flourish provides an end-to-end way to craft your own storytelling experience.

Getting started with Flourish is easy. We have a full library of ready-to-go templates that can be quickly embedded or added to a Canva design. Why not create a chart now and give it a go?



Get started with Flourish now »