Adobe Creative Cloud Express (formerly Adobe Spark) is a task-based, web and mobile product used to create and share rich multimedia content – from social media posts and stories to invitations to marketing materials like logos, flyers and banners.
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Adobe Illustrator
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Illustrator CC is a vector-based graphic design software.
$20.99
per month
Pricing
Adobe Express
Adobe Illustrator CC
Editions & Modules
Free
$0.00
Premium
$9.99 / $99.99
per month
Teams
$9.99
per month per user
Yearly - Billed Monthly
$20.99
per month
Monthly
$31.49
per month
Yearly - Billed Upfront
$239.88
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Express
Adobe Illustrator
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Contact Adobe directly for Enterprise pricing plan details.
I needed to create quarterly safety training posters. In the past, I have used Canva. But in Canva's free version, your options are limited. So off to AE I went. I was able to find four templates to help me create my four posters. I found templates that looked like a movie poster, and the results were so professional looking. It was easy to add my own pictures from my computer to further personalize the posters. I loved them so much I made them into movie poster size printouts, sprayed some liquid glue on a styroboard, and hung them up around our offices. Our employees loved them too, and it drummed up more people to attend my sessions.
Indicated and suitable for companies and agencies that work with the creation of materials for social media, digital graphics and printed materials. Suitable for any scenario and for those who want to produce high quality material without image pixelation. A scenario not very suitable would be the use without proper knowledge of the tool, it would be interesting to see the tutorials and guides available by Adobe
Canva has a better interface, in my opinion... I like that this one is friendly to Adobe users, but I would likely recommend Canva to someone who's never used design software for a complete beginner.
Removing the background from images doesn't always work well. I almost always need to switch to Photoshop for this.
The touch screen interface could be better; graphics on mobile apps are tough in general but specifically, the iPad interface could use some improvement.
Illustrator Files can get large/cumbersome when you begin to incorporate high resolution photography, especially if you 'place' the photo instead of linking to it's source file
Typography can sometimes be a challenge, especially if you working on different machines that may not always have the font you need installed or sending the file to a commercial printer
OLDER versions of Illustrator can be a bit temperamental about being backward compatible though this issue has been greatly reduced with Adobe's move the Cloud Based subscription model
Not great for large print layouts (books, magazine etc) you're better off to move the project to Adobe InDesign in that case.
I use it daily for almost all my marketing needs. So far it is the program that has the most and best to offer for what I need and is the easiest to use
While Adobe Illustrator CC is one of the only true design software out there, it really stands heads above the other products. It's clean UI and menu structure is easy to navigate.
The overall usability of the software was strong. The application, especially relative to other Adobe services like Photoshop that can demand a lot of knowledge and skill, was highly easy to use. At the same time, that also speaks to the somewhat limited amount of customization opportunities that allow content designers to truly create content that is dynamic, engaging, and different than the standard stuff that floods our vision every day.
There's a bit of a learning curve to this software vs other similar tools that can take some time to learn and get familiar with but the amount of functionality that Adobe Illustrator CC offers is quite large compared to simpler tools.
Because adobe is so widespread the community support is amazing. I have never actually used adobe support short of their website, but I go to youtube a lot to get my questions answered. You can google any problem you have and not have any issues finding an answer. In my opinion, community support is much more meaningful and helpful than support directly from the company
I normally already know how to do whatever I'm trying out, but the documentation (as well as a simple Google search) makes any question quick to resolve. The Adobe boards themselves are a fantastic resource, especially for resolving questions between new programs and iterative releases.
For users already in the Adobe ecosystem, Adobe Express is a great tool to consider for it's modern, professional templates, impressive stock image library and the easy drag-and-drop tools. I mostly do most of my work on desktop, but I know Canva is generally better for mobile usability and its got more third-party integrations that may be important to some users.
I chose Rhinoceros 3D because it is accurate to make drawings in it and it is better to make drawings in Rhinoceros 3D and then put them in Adobe Illustrator. But while printing or scaling it is much easier to put it in Adobe Illustrator. This makes the whole printing aspect of it much easier.
It has allowed us to complete more demos and projects in less time by being so flexible.
It has positively impacted our efficiency in delivering creatives such as YouTube thumbnails, event poster designs, Instagram story posts, etc to clients in a timely manner no matter where work takes us.
I would say the ROI has been seeing more projects completed and invoiced per month. I would estimate overall a 20% increase in volume on deliverables.
