Creative entrepreneurs need fast yet effective ways to share their work with the world. Thankfully, Adobe kept the needs of the Creator Economy in mind when it introduced Creative Cloud Express in 2021. Formerly known as Adobe Spark, this free online design platform simplifies the process of creating professional-quality graphics, videos, logos, web pages, and more.
Social media influencers, bloggers, vloggers, writers, photographers, and content-creating freelancers can all get a lot out of Adobe Creative Cloud Express. The app is designed for creatives of every experience and skill level. To get the most out of Creative Cloud Express, however, you’ll need to understand its tools and features.
Using Adobe Creative Cloud Express’ best features
After you download and install Creative Cloud Express, sign in (or create a new) Adobe account. It’s best to explore the sidebar and get familiar with the different pages within the platform. If you’ve ever used Spark, it will look very familiar. Clicking the plus sign in the upper right corner will display all the best Creative cloud features, separated by columns for Create new and Quick actions.
Graphics and design
One of the benefits of Adobe Creative Cloud Express is its wealth of graphic design features. And with easy-to-use tools for adjusting colors, adding filters, and manipulating images–even novice graphic designers can create stunning visuals. The key to getting the most out of Creative Cloud Express is to take advantage of the templates.
The platform has a massive library with thousands of templates. These professionally designed selections come preloaded with optimal colors, fonts, and more. Whether you’re creating a social media post, flyer, or logo, you’ll find a good starting point in the various library categories. Using the easily customizable templates is preferable to starting fresh with a blank canvas.
Web page design
Adobe Creative Cloud Express also offers a wide range of features that simplify the web page design process. With customizable templates, drag-and-drop elements, and integrated social media sharing tools, it’s easy to create beautiful web pages that represent your brand or personal blog. If you’re new to making a web page, start by selecting one of the provided themes. You’ll see different options like Crisp, Whimsy, and Vintage to match the tone you’re looking for.
If you already have photos and video to add to your page, Creative Cloud Express has upload options that integrate with pre-set formatting and sizing features. The platform also makes it easy to find and add royalty-free content. The free photos option will search the databases of Flickr and Pixabay. There are also video embed features that make it easy to add YouTube videos to your page.
Adobe Sensei
Adobe Sensei is the artificial intelligence and machine learning technology used by Adobe. It powers a number of features in Adobe Creative Cloud Express, including quick actions. With quick actions, you can easily create a design or video in just a few clicks. All you need to do is select one of the many templates offered on the platform, make some simple edits, and your creation will be ready to share with the world.
Extra features
There are additional noteworthy features to consider. First is full ContentCal integration. ContentCal is a content calendar built specifically for creatives to help plan, publish, and measure the success of content marketing initiatives. With ContentCal’s integration with Adobe Creative Cloud Express, you can add designs and videos to your content calendar and publish them directly to social media or other channels.
There’s also seamless integration with Creative Cloud Library, a desktop application that lets you access and share your creative assets — such as brushes, fonts, color themes, images, and videos — across Adobe Creative Suite applications. You can also use it to create libraries of projects for easy reuse.
While the intuitive interface is easy to use, there’s help if you get stuck and don’t know how to proceed. The Adobe Creative Cloud Express User Guide is packed with resources, knowledge, and links. Here you can search by topic, interact with experienced creatives within the community, and live chat directly with someone from Adobe’s customer support team.
Note: A paid subscription is technically required to chat with a live agent, and although they remind you of that during the connection process, you will still be connected to a live agent whether you have a paid plan or not. The User Guide is accessible at any time from within the platform.
Adobe Creative Cloud Express cost: is it free?
There is no cost for the Creative Cloud Express base app. However, there are upgrade options to unlock more features. If you want to stick with the free version, you’ll get the following for both web and mobile devices:
- 1,000+ templates, graphic design assets, and fonts by Adobe
- Limited access to the Adobe Stock royalty-free image library
- Base-level editing and photo effect features, which include removing background and animate
- Up to 2GB of storage
The $9.99 per month premium plan (note: Canva is $12.95) gets you all of that plus:
- Extra premium-level templates and design features
- The full collection of royalty-free Adobe Stock photos (more than 160 million)
- More than 20,000 Adobe Fonts
- Additional features such as refine cutout, resize, and graphic groups
- One-tap feature for adding your brand content, fonts, colors, and logo
- The ability to convert and export to and from PDFs and other file types
- Users can manage all templates and assets via the Creative Cloud Libraries
- Up to 100GB of storage
The Creative Cloud Express membership also gives you access to the premium features within Adobe Premiere Rush, Adobe Photoshop Express, Adobe Spark Video, and Adobe Spark Page.
Creativity all around
So there you have it: an overview of what Adobe Creative Cloud Express can do for creatives of all experience levels. Whether you’re looking to start a blog, create graphics for social media, or make professional-quality videos, Adobe Creative Cloud Express has you covered.
