Work Smarter Not Harder on Your Communications - 4 Design Tips

When I tell my clients to worker smarter not harder, initially they think I’m going to give them some communications hack to cut corners! But that’s definitely not the case.

I love process and practice, it’s what makes excellence in any field.

So in this article I’m going to share with you how to make your design work smarter for you to ease the stress when working on campaigns.

I’m going to cover creating graphics templates in Adobe Express.

1. Get your brand assets in order

Make sure you have a folder with all your brand assets saved in Adobe Express to include:

- Brand colours (also known as pantone colours)

- Fonts

- Logo (different versions, which background, coloured background, transparent background)

- Imagery (owned and any stock imagery you have access to)

- Tagline/s for relevant campaigns

2. Give each campaign a unique look and feel

While you have agreed branding guidelines, there should be some room for manoeuvre when it comes to add pops of colour on specific campaigns. This can be done to draw attention online to specific messages. Our client, EPP Group have a great approach to this, have a look at the playlist in their YouTube Channel. Each campaign has a different look and feel but reflects the master brand.

3. Set up your brand templates

Using Adobe Express, set up your campaign templates. Think about all the different types of graphic sizes you will need, for example:

- Social media

- Website banner

- Ezine banner

- Audiogram

- Video frame

- Blog post featured image

- YouTube thumbnail

WATCH ▶️ TUTORIAL VIDEO: HOW TO CREATE A GRAPHIC TEMPLATE IN ADOBE EXPRESS

4. Share the templates with your team

Now that you have set up your campaign graphic templates, give access to your team. They should be skilled in using Adobe Express and how to simply edit template graphics.

You can take advantage of the FREE Adobe Express plan, sign up here.