How to Kickstart your DIY Design Skills with Adobe Spark
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How to Kickstart your DIY Design Skills with Adobe Spark

DIY Design is a must for small business owners, social media managers, and entrepreneurs. Time is the most valuable resource we have for our businesses. Being practical with project management and smart with our money has never been more important. We can't always afford to work with a professional for our marketing and design needs. Enter Adobe Spark.

Adobe Spark

I'm so excited to share this brand-spanking-new suite of apps with you! Adobe Spark includes three powerful, yet easy to use, pieces: Spark Post, Spark Page, and Spark Video. Adobe says “Spark is a one-stop content creation shop for making a variety of media that will wow your audience on any device.”

One of the best things about the Adobe Spark products is that they are free. You don't have to have paid Creative Cloud subscription to use them but they will tie into other Adobe Products such as Lightroom.

They are all web-based on can be found on one site: Adobe Spark The apps are currently for iOS only working on iPhones and iPads. (sorry Android fans)

You can create media on your laptop and it will sync automagically to your iPhone for posting. How awesome is that? It's perfect for social media posts – especially Instagram where you can only post from a mobile device.

Fun features of Spark Post

Adobe Post has morphed into Spark Post. Watch this quick video to see it in action.

One of my favorite features is the scroll wheel to spark new ideas for you. Put in your text and choose your color palette then use the scroll wheel to show you live design options. How cool is that?

Another favorite feature is that you can quickly resize your designs with a scroll bar on the side which makes it easy to create the perfect size graphic for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest from your original design.

Adobe Spark

 

Make cool things with Spark Page

No coding skills? No problem with Spark Page.

There's lots of fantastic ways to use Spark Page like creating a media kit or building a dynamic invitation. You can design your Spark Page and share on social media or embed directly on your blog like this example I created. Click the photo to see a live Spark Page.
Wedding De-Stressing Event

Find super success with Spark Video

Video is by far the most expensive and challenging media to create. It takes a lot of time, editing, and skill to put together a brand video. Until Spark Video!

I was able to make this really professional video myself within a half hour using Adobe Spark Video. It really blew my mind.

One of the coolest things is that you can record the audio in tiny pieces and change them with one click. So if you make a mistake, you don't have to re-record all the audio, just the one section that you'd like to update.

You can download an MP4 of your Adobe Spark video and upload to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. It's pretty slick!

spark video

All the photos and music within Adobe Spark Video are available for use in your videos without a charge and you're legally allowed to share them for your small business or brand.

I have so many great ideas to use this for. Here are a few:

  • Create a welcome video for your YouTube or Facebook video channel
  • Showcase your products
  • Share a promotion or sale
  • Teach people how to do something

Check out the Facebook Live DIY Design Workshop that I held to show how I would use these three products. I created a faux event for an imaginary local small business to gain awareness and registration for their event.

Here are the nuts and bolts of Spark from Adobe:

  • Adobe Spark, a web application with companion mobile apps, is the easiest way to create and share impactful visual stories.
  • Already a user? Don’t worry—your projects are still here. Your same login works, so you can continue editing or sharing your stories.
  • Adobe added a #SparkMade gallery highlighting some of their favorite projects from users.

Get started by going to Adobe Spark to try these amazing design tools for yourself. I know you're going to love how easy to use they are and how professional your results are!

I am an Adobe Ambassador and have been compensated for my participation in the Adobe Spark product launch. Although this post is sponsored, all opinions are my own.

Adobe Spark (5)

 

9 Comments

  1. Thank You for this AWESOME Post and tutorials!! Also – Thank you in advance for the sleep I will NOT be getting tonight because I will be up “Sparking”

  2. Awesome products! Really help me with my social media projects. Easy, fast and really powerful. Happy sparking!

  3. Love this. Gonna try this tool to sparkle my social media marketing efforts. Thanks for the awesome post.

  4. Hey Peg,

    Thanks for bringing this spark into my life. It is so very easy to use; it’s unbelievable.

    Thanks to you, I’ve lost a few hours sleep, but I’m not mad because I’ve gained so much more. It’s been great for creating images for tweets. Absolutely love it!

    One question, though: can links be added to the Spark Page?

  5. Hi Peg,

    I found where links can be added, and how easy it is to create videos! It has solved many of my design problems especially as it relates to finding images. As a result, it cuts my designing time in half.

    But I’m at a loss on how to add a link to anchor text.

    1. Hi Peg,

      I did and got a response from Ben a member of their support team.

      And he said, “Post creates a JPEG image, and there’s no way to embed a clickable link in a JPEG? That is typically done in the text accompanying the post.”

      So I’ll just work with it as is. Hopefully, they’ll make an update for this feature sooner or later.

      Have a fabulous week Peg! And thanks again.

  6. We are always looking for new fun ways to make things. Love your tutorials. They always inspire us to try something new!

  7. “Sorry Android Fans” — we’re users, not just fans, and we’re kind of used to Adobe crapping on us like this; not happy about it, just used to it.

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