I have been wondering for a while what distinguishes a canvas from a template. 

I regularly get requests to add to my Canvas Collection, but not all images I receive are really in my mind canvases. In fact an email from Rob Healy of Ammeon Solutions, kick started me to writing this short post.

Whilst I don’t have a definitive answer for this, I do hold an opinion. In my mind a canvas is a template with certain properties.

My baseline for a quality canvas remains the original Business Model Canvas:

 

My very subjective view on the core properties of a canvas:

  • Complexity: They go beyond a simple list of areas to explore
  • Structure: The component parts interlock in some way beyond a canvas
  • Navigation: A canvas has certain ways to work through it, due to the structure, rather just a sequence of top to bottom or left to right. Fundamentally an step, by step sequence.
  • Visual form: A canvas is quite “blocky”.

Clearly some templates get quite close to this, the exception being visual templates that are very metaphorical in their design. The Grove style templates are a good example:

GROVEvisualtemplate

 

I did ask Alex Osterwalder, the creator of the very popular Business Model Canvas for his view: 

 

Canvasdefinition noanswer

What do you think, what distinguishes a canvas from a template?