MAX SESSIONS Hello and welcome to my Adobe MAX session "Five Ways to Enhance Your Business with Adobe Express." In this session, we're going to explore some tools and features that can help you streamline your workflows and elevate your business. My name is Kit. I am an Adobe Express ambassador, and I'm also the founder of Kitiya Palaskas Studio, which is a craft-based design studio based in Australia. Now, I wanted to start out by sharing a story with you about my first ever professional client meeting. It was also my first ever professional client job, and I was totally green. So I got this opportunity, and I said yes without even really realizing that it was opening the door to my future career. It kind of just seemed too good to be true. I was really, really nervous, and I had no experience with clients, and I didn't know what to expect or how to conduct myself in a meeting like that. So in the meeting, the client started saying all this stuff and using all these industry terms that I really didn't understand. And at one point he said, "So, where are we at with the 'deliverables?'" Now, I had no idea what a deliverable was. I had never heard that term in my life, especially not in relation to, you know, like creative careers. So I did anything that I thought I could do. I did what I thought I should do, and I faked a coughing fit, and I left the room. So in the hallway, as I fake-coughed, I pulled out my phone and I quickly googled what is a "deliverable" in the creative industry. And I did some reading really quickly, and I figured it out, and I went back in there and I just acted like I had known the whole time what a deliverable was and what it had meant. Now, the point of this story is that I was a total novice at that time and I didn't have the tools or the education to know what to do in that moment. But I leant into it and I used my initiative to forge a way through that situation. And you know what? I ended up growing in my experience, and also in my career journey, as a result, which brings me to the most important thing that I feel creatives need to remember in their careers. "Everything is DIY-able." To illustrate this, I want to talk about my career ethos and what drives me as a designer. Now, I believe in the concept of DIY, or do it yourself, not only in my making techniques, but also in how I approach my creative career. This ethos has carried me through the past 13 years of my career and I really want to share it with you. So, the elements of the DIY ethos to me include... Designing your own career path. Creating your own opportunities. Defining your own goals.

And going your own way. Now, remember that story that I just told you? Well, the job was for a film clip for a massive Australian band, and I had been hired to create the costumes for a whole bunch of kids that were going to be in this music video. And I remember I used this gross baking dish that belonged to my housemate, that I found in the bottom of my oven, and some old junk from my garage to create the costumes. I kind of just pulled together what I had around me to get the job done. And it was the first time that I ever felt like a real creative professional when I went on set and presented these costumes and saw the finished music video. It was such a thrill. And even though, looking back, I was so far from professional at that point, you know, we all have to start somewhere. At that time, I didn't know what the future had in store for me or my creative career. I didn't even really consider myself to be in a creative career at that point. I didn't know how to price my services properly, I didn't know how to write an invoice, I had no idea how to talk to clients, what to do on a set. But you know what? I just said yes to everything, and I kind of just learned how to do it all on the job. Now, no one ever taught me how to do anything like this or how to develop a career like this, which definitely came with it's challenges, but at the same time, nobody was telling me that I couldn't do it. So anything was possible. At least that's what it felt like to me at the time. Fast forward to today, and I've been running my craft-based design business for 13 years. Some of that as a solo designer, a freelancer, and now as a fully-fledged creative studio. At Kitiya Palaskas Studio we specialize in prop and installation design, content creation, illustration, and creative workshop facilitation, all using craft-based techniques re-imagined in contemporary ways. And we work for clients all over the world. Our aim, as a creative studio, is to celebrate handmade culture in everything that we do and also to show that craft has a place in the commercial design world. We apply handmade techniques to projects primarily for the commercial design industry, like I said, including advertising, retail events, publishing, and music. I love what I do and I am so proud that I forged this niche career from the ground up on my own, which brings me back to the concept of doing it yourself. How can you apply the DIY ethos to your business today? Well, here's a few quick ways that we have tried and used here at the studio, which I hope will help you get the ideas flowing for your own business. You could create the work that you want to be hired for. I'm a really big believer in putting out what you want to get back, and I really feel like this applies so strongly to the kinds of creative work that you want to be hired by clients for.

You could actively, and regularly pitch to your dream clients, rather than waiting for them to come to you. You know, I always feel like I don't have the opportunity anyway, so, I've got nothing to lose by asking for it, and if for some reason I get rejected, or it's not the right time for that client to want to work with me, then that's fine because I didn't have it in the first place, but at least I tried.

You could design and build your own website. There are so many ways to do this these days, and it can feel really, really empowering to know that you have a place on the Internet that you completely own, that you made yourself. You could develop your own systems and workflows for admin, marketing, client management and creativity that really and truly suit the unique way that you like to work and create. Why slot into somebody else's way of doing things if you have the chance to shape that for yourself instead? I often find myself jumping between the roles of the creative, the client liaison person, the studio manager, the marketing manager, the admin person, and so many more roles that are common in a business. I'm sure you can relate to this. The thing is, when you have the right tools to help manage all the tasks that inevitably come with running a business, it can really streamline your workflow and truly allow you to do it all and do it yourself. One of the tools that we use all the time here at the studio to do just that is Adobe Express. And today, I wanted to share five ways that you can use it to enhance your business, including creating a strong visual identity, leveraging AI to do the work for you, boosting your team's communication and collaboration, working seamlessly across multiple platforms, and leveling up your marketing. When you have a strong visual identity as a brand or a business, it creates recognition with your clients or customers. When people see the stuff that you put out into the world, they'll be able to recognize it and instantly associate it with you, because you've put in the work to make yourself recognizable. One tool that can help you do this is the Adobe Express Brand tool. You can upload your logos, brand fonts, icons and colors into the Brand tool, and then when you're working on a design, you can drop them into your projects instantly. Adobe Express will also pull up your brand colors and fonts when you're customizing your designs, so that you can easily create consistency across all of your assets. Another way to create a strong visual identity in Adobe Express is to design a suite of marketing assets for your business that all look consistent visually. Adobe Express has thousands of beautiful and professionally designed templates for all sorts of purposes. A great way to start is to find one that you like the look of and then customize it to make it your own. You can change the imagery, switch out the fonts and colors with your brand fonts and add flair to make your design stand out using the Design Asset library or by accessing your own motifs straight from your Creative Cloud libraries. When you've got a design that you're happy with, you can easily recreate it in different sizes so that you have a suite of assets to use, reinforcing that brand identity across all of your platforms. Something that I have been absolutely loving recently is experimenting with AI and exploring how I can use it to complement my creativity and help me run my business. Adobe Express has some really exciting AI tools that use the power of Adobe Firefly to really elevate your designs. For example, if you can't find the right image to match your marketing asset, you can just generate one using the text-to-image tool.

Having this feature available right within your design dashboard makes it super easy to create the images you need while you're also designing your artwork. As a creative that works between the analog and the digital space regularly, I often find myself jumping between multiple Adobe apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro, but it can be kind of challenging sometimes to keep track of changes and updates to my digital assets, so that I have the most up to date versions for what I need and need to use in each of the platforms.

I really love this new feature in Adobe Express, which uses the Linked Assets tool to facilitate real time editing of design assets in Photoshop while you are still inside Adobe Express, which is pretty cool. Here's how you use it. So I've got this asset here that I created from paper and photographed, ready to use to add flair to my Adobe Express designs. But I want to bring up the handmade nature of it a little bit more, so, it speaks better to my brand. So I'm going to add a drop shadow to the asset in Photoshop. Now, if you've uploaded the file as a PSD file to Adobe Express, you can simply click on the Open in Photoshop button, which allows you to add the Drop Shadow and do anything that you need to do, any edits, etc. to the same file within Photoshop. Then, back in your Adobe Express design dashboard, the file will automatically update to the most up-to-date version, including all of those edits that you just made in Photoshop, without you even having to re-save and re-upload a new file. I love this tool. It saves so much time and it keeps my files super organized and up to date, which is great for me because I am naturally quite a disorganized designer. If you're a creative professional, chances are that you're going to be liaising regularly with clients, customers, collaborators, and even members of your own team if you've got one. In my opinion, strong communication skills are essential for building harmonious working relationships. And having the right tools at your disposal to help facilitate and maintain strong communication when you're working collaboratively is also a must. I often work on design assets simultaneously with my marketing coordinator here at the studio, and I might start with the design to set the creative direction, to set the esthetic and the vibe and then hand it over to her to add copy, details, make edits, etc. You can easily share designs with your clients and teams from within Adobe Express by using the Invite button to give them access. This is great if you want feedback from a client on a work-in-progress design or if you want to add editing notes for a team member to implement. You can use the comment feature to chat back and forth about the design until you've got it just right. And it's great to have all your notes in one place right within the design itself, so that you don't have to jump in and out of your emails to communicate about the project or find that little piece of feedback that someone gave you, like 20 emails ago. You know what I mean? Something that really surprised me when I started my business was how much time it takes to do marketing. I didn't realize how consuming it would be and how much time it would take to, like, really get it right, you know. Sometimes, for me, doing marketing feels like a whole full time job on top of my existing job. Can you relate to that? For me, the key to managing our marketing tasks is automation. We try to work in advance, creating things in batches for our marketing platforms and then scheduling as much as we can to go live automatically while we're busy doing other things like eating snacks. Adobe Express has a really handy content scheduling tool that can help you do this. You can sync your marketing platforms with the scheduler so that you're all logged in and ready to go. Once you've got your design asset finalized, all you have to do is hit Share and then Schedule post, which opens up the content scheduler for you. And then you can choose where you want to post it, and when. You can add your caption, you can preview post before setting and forgetting. I love that this app is basically a one-stop shop for your entire marketing workflow, all the way from designing the asset through to hitting posts to your social media. I've just shared five ways that you can enhance your business using the handy and powerful tools in Adobe Express. Now, of course, there are so many other ways that you can use Adobe Express to level up your design, marketing and collaboration workflows, and I encourage you to jump on in there and explore them for yourself. Now, I want to leave you with this last thought. You have the power to carve your own amazing and niche career and build a business that is perfectly matched to the way that you want to create and work. If the structure doesn't currently exist, you can build it yourself and equip yourself with the right tools to help you on your journey. I hope you feel inspired and empowered to carry this DIY ethos through to your own creative careers.

Now, if you found this talk helpful or useful, I would love for you to share it with a fellow creative professional, colleague or friend that might benefit from it too. And if you want to keep up to date with what we're doing here at Kitiya Palaskas Studio, you can follow us on social media @kitiyapalaskas or sign up to our newsletter community.

Thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with me here today and chat about all things to do with Adobe Express. I hope you enjoy the rest of your Adobe MAX experience. Take care. Bye.

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SPEAKERS

  • Kitiya Palaskas

    Kitiya Palaskas

    Craft-based Designer and Adobe Express Ambassador, Kitiya Palaskas Studio

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ABOUT THE SESSION

As creative entrepreneurs we often have to juggle multiple responsibilities in the day-to-day running of our businesses. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a suite of tools that could help us enhance our design, marketing, and collaboration workflows? That’s where Adobe Express comes in. Join Kitiya Palaskas, craft-based designer and Adobe Express Ambassador, for an exploratory session on how to leverage the powerful tools in Adobe Express to take your creative business to the next level.

We’ll explore:

  • How to use Adobe Express as a one-stop shop for your creative business marketing
  • Handy tools for collaboration and teamwork
  • How to design a suite of assets for your business using Adobe Express templates
  • How to add flair and personality to your Adobe Express designs
  • How to integrate other tools in Creative Cloud into your Adobe Express projects

Technical Level: General Audience

Type: Session

Category: Collaborating with Your Team

Track: Social Media and Marketing

Audience Types: Art/Creative Director, Business Strategist/Owner, Educator, Graphic Designer, Illustrator, Social Media Content Creator, Marketer

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By accessing resources linked on this page ("Session Resources"), you agree that 1. Resources are Sample Files per our Terms of Use and 2. you will use Session Resources solely as directed by the applicable speaker.

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