Adobe Express: Get Started Guide

Adobe Express is an online and mobile design app for creating graphics, videos, and web pages. The app follows a “freemium” model where you can access certain basic features for no cost, although logging in with your Smith credentials will provide you the premium, upgraded version.

Step 1. Go To Adobe Express

Visit express.adobe.com and log in with your Smith email (including the @smith.edu). When prompted, complete your login with your Smith username and password.

If you want to use Adobe Express to create a short video, you can follow along with the Create a Digital Narrative with Adobe Express instructions. Otherwise, continue on this page to learn about the different ways to make content in Adobe Express, whether that is a zine, poster, social media post, etc.

Step 2. Get Started with a Blank Canvas

Depending on what type of final product you are creating, you can choose from a variety of templates and pre-sized designs. However, sometimes the easiest way to get started is to create a new, blank canvas at exactly the dimensions you need.

To do so, select the Create new “+” button from the upper lefthand side of the home screen, and then choose Custom size:

Then, change the Units to whatever makes sense for your product, and fill in the desired Width and Height accordingly. For example, to create a blank digest size zine page, you would fill in 5.5 in as the width and 8.5 in as the height:

Now you’re ready to begin editing!

Step 3. Get Started With the Editing Interface

Rename your project something different than the default title in the upper lefthand corner of the screen. Note that Adobe Express will save your project automatically as you work.

Step 4. Add text & Media content

Look to the toolbar on the left-side of the page to add different types of content, including Text and Media.

Text

The Text tool will allow you to browse templated text options, or choose Add your text to create a text box on the page for you to start adding text from scratch.

Once you have a text box on the page, you can select that text box to edit it and change its properties. With the text box actively selected, the left-side menu will now offer you related text-editing options.

You can change the formatting of your text to ensure that it is readable over the background. Out of the text menu, you can select Effects to change text color, add a drop shadow, or add a shape behind the text.

Once you have settled on a style for your text, I recommend you copy and paste the text boxes from page to page, editing each one for content only, to avoid having to re-create the style choices every time.

Media

The Media tool can be found under the “+ Add Content” option in the toolbar. There, you can choose between the Photos, Videos, and Audio tabs, which will present libraries of Adobe stock material, as well as an Upload from device option to import your own saved files.

Once you upload a media file or select an item from the stock library, it will populate on the slide.

You can then edit/adjust the properties of each file if you first select the item on the slide. Notice that the left-side menu will update with the related options for that item, while it is actively selected, just like a Text item:

As you add content to your slide, the layers panel to the right side will become useful if you have to re-order or change the stack of the items on your slide. To change the order, click and drag a layer in the panel to the top or bottom of another layer in the panel.

Step 5. Exporting Your Final Product

When you are ready to export your project, choose the Download option in the upper righthand corner and select the File format works best for your product. PDF would be suitable for a zine, PNG for an image, and MP4 for a video, etc.