Fabrik vs Canva for Evacuation Plans

You can produce a visually attractive diagram in Canva that looks like an evacuation plan. However, Canva's evacuation templates use generic icons rather than ISO 7010-compliant symbols, which is the international fire safety standard. For internal informational use this may be acceptable; for any plan reviewed by a fire marshal, AHJ, or audit body, using ISO 7010 symbols is important for compliance.

Canva's icon library includes some safety-related icons, but they are designed for visual appeal rather than compliance with ISO 7010 specifications (exact colors, shapes, and code numbers). For ISO 7010 symbols with the right codes, colors and shapes, a purpose-built tool helps: Fabrik includes 250+ safety symbols, with the ISO 7010 evacuation (E), fire (F) and mandatory (M) families.

You can upload an image of your floor plan as a background layer in Canva, but there is no concept of scale or accurate dimensions — you are essentially drawing on top of an image. For an evacuation plan that must match the actual building geometry (important for travel distance calculations and fire marshal review), an evacuation plan tool that preserves the imported plan's scale is more appropriate.

If your business has fewer than 10 employees and is not in a regulated industry (healthcare, education, assembly) where formal compliance is required, Canva may produce an adequate internal document. For any business with an OSHA 1910.38 EAP requirement or operating in an NFPA-regulated occupancy type, the absence of ISO 7010 symbols and compliance templates is a meaningful gap.