Adobe Express: Creating a brand

This knowledgebase article provides a comprehensive guide on using Adobe Express to create a brand, add brand-related content, apply brands to projects and share them publicly.

Contents
  1. What is an Adobe brand?
  2. Setting up a new brand
  3. Building the brand
  4. Sharing a brand
  5. Applying a brand to a project
  6. Make and save a brand template
What is an Adobe Express brand?

Adobe Express includes a useful feature that allows the creation of consistent branded content. Creating a new brand allows you to set the brand logo, brand colours and brand font. Creating your brand(s) will produce distinct looks and feels for Adobe Creative Cloud Express projects.

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Setting up a new brand:

To create your brand, you will need to sign into Adobe Creative Cloud Account and launch Adobe Express (https://express.adobe.com)

On the homepage of Adobe Express, select Your Stuff, and select Brands.

Image showing how to navigate the user interface to access the brands feature.

If you have previously added a brand, you will be presented with the following menu. On the Brands menu, select the Create a new brand option to create a completely new brand or select on any of the brands that you might have previously created to update them.

Image showing the 'Create new brands' button that must be selected to create a new brand.

To create a new brand, click on Create Brand. Give your brand an intuitive name (this is especially useful if you intend to set up multiple brands to help differentiate between them). Click Create once you have entered the brand name.

Image showing setting an intuitive brand.

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Building the brand

Once the brand configuration page has loaded you will need to upload and input the various brand identity assets that will define your brand.

Image showing the user interface in which the various brand assets are configured and/or uploaded.

These include:

Logos: If you have an organisational logo you want to use, click Upload your logos to upload the logo file and using the standard menu navigation, browse to the saved logo image. You can upload multiple logo images simultaneously or one after the other (using the + plus button). If multiple logos are uploaded, you may need to configure which is the primary and which is the secondary logo using the Options button and then the Edit tag button.

Image showing how to add additional assets when setting up the brand. The image shows an arrow pointing to the plus button.

Colours: If the organisation has a pre-set colour scheme as part of its overall branding strategy or if you are setting up a brand and have chosen a brand colour you can add it here. Multiple colours can be used to define the brand however as above a primary and secondary colour will need to be set. If you are not sure what the exact colour of your brand is, you can use the colour picker in Express.

Image showing the colour picker tool being used to selected a specific colour on the screen and letting how it can be used to identify the hex or RBG value. Image showing the colour picker tool being used to selected a specific colour on the screen and letting how it can be used to identify the hex or RBG value.
Click on the colour picker option. Hover over part of the screen that has the colour you wish to identify.

You can select a specific predefined colour if you know its hexadecimal or RGB value by switching to the Custom menu, selecting the correct colour identification code type and entering it into the value input box. In the example below the RBG value ‘134 117 55’ has been input and selected by pressing the button to the side of the value to set. Click save to finish.

Image showing the Add Colour pallet being used to identify a custom colour.

If however, you do not know the specific hex value of the colour you would like to use you can install the Google Chrome browser extension that will inspect a web document and identify that hex value of that colour called ColourZilla.

Image showing the use of a Chrome browser plugin called "ColourZilla" to identify a specific colour on a webpage displayed in the browser.

Fonts: If your organisation has a specific font that should be used for its brand you can add it here.  Click on the Search fonts to select a font from the extensive list of available fonts or click the Add your fonts button to navigate to and import your custom font previously set up.

Image showing the selection of fonts to be included in the brand setup.

The ‘More fonts’ options allow you to select fonts from different languages and different categories.

Graphics: If you want to include a specific graphic in your brand you can upload one or more images here. Click Upload your graphics to upload the image file and using the standard explorer menu navigation, browse to the saved image. You can upload multiple images simultaneously or one after the other (using the + plus button).

Image showing the selecting of graphics to include when setting up a brand.

Templates: It is possible to create a series of template assets that can be attached to a brand. When you add a digital asset to a brand or library, anyone who has access to the brand or library will be able to start a new file from this template.

Image showing the selecting of templates to include when setting up a brand.

It should also be noted that at any point during the setting up of the brand using the steps listed above you can preview the brand using the Preview window shown on the right-hand side of the screen.

Image showing the Preview window that shows a preview of how your brand will look once completed and applied to assets in Adobe Express.

Once the identified assets have been created, the brand set-up is complete.

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Sharing a brand

A brand can be shared in multiple ways:

1. Invite staff by name.

Click on the three dots (more options) and select ‘Invite people…’

Image showing how to share a brand with other users.

Enter the name of the user you are sharing the brand with. You can also add a brief message explaining what the asset you are sharing with them is and possibly why. You can also set the access permissions to the asset to ‘Can edit’ or ‘Can view’. Finally, click the Invite button to share.

Image showing how to share a brand with other users.

2. Invite to the library.

Click on the ‘invite to library’ button, click the three dots in the upper-right corner, and then click Invite.

Image showing how to share a brand with other users.

You can also add a brief message explaining the library you share and why. You can also set the access permissions to the asset to ‘Can edit’ or ‘Can view’. To complete the process, click the ‘Invite to view’ button to share.

Image showing how to share a brand with other users.

Shared brands can be accessed via:

  1. Email: Check your inbox for an invite to access a shared brand.
  2. In-app notification: Check for the bell icon on the upper right corner of your screen & accept the invite.
  3. Link: Based upon the access permission granted, you should be able to view only or edit.

To leave a brand that has been shared with you 

  1. On the homepage of Adobe Express, go to Brands.
  2. Hover the mouse over the shared brand and select the three dots.
  3. Select Leave.

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To apply branding to a project:
  1. Open your project
  2. Go to Your Stuff (left of the screen)

Image showing how to access Brands and Libraries via the 'My Stuff' menu item.

  1. Select Brands & Libraries

Image showing how to access 'Brands' and 'Libraries'.

  1. Select the brand.

Image showing how to select a 'Brand' from those previously created.

  1. View the previously added brand components and select those you want to import into your project.
Image showing all of the associated 'Brand' variables such as, Logos, fonts, graphics etc.

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Make & Save a Brand Template:
  1. Go to Brands & Libraries > Select the brand to work with

Image showing how to select a Brand.

  1. With the selected brand now open, click Create a Template.

Image showing how to create a 'Template' from a brand.

  1. Give the template a name & save it to either the same brand library or choose/create a different brand.

Image showing how to save a newly created template based on a band.

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Contact Us

If you would like to discuss any of the above in more detail, contact the Digital Learning Specialists who can arrange bespoke coaching and mentoring sessions. They are contactable at elearning@tees.ac.uk.  You can also review the following resource produced by Adobe here.