Adobe Express Introduces Add-Ons for Developers
Adobe Express add-ons extend the functionality of Adobe Express to unlock new creative workflows for users.
We’re excited to announce that Adobe Express is taking another step to open up its ecosystem to developers. Last year we launched the Express Embed SDK to simplify common creative tasks wherever creators work, whether that’s an Adobe app or a third-party website. Now we’re inviting you to apply to participate in our developer beta and extend the functionality of Adobe Express by building add-ons. Adobe Express add-ons enable more efficient and creative workflows, unlock innovative tools and features, and customize the workflow for Adobe Express users.
As a reminder, Adobe Express is an all-in-one content creation app that makes it fast, easy, and fun to design and share standout social media posts, videos, images, PDFs, flyers, logos, invitations, webpages and much more. There’s a growing need for communicators, consumers, and creative pros alike to create engaging design assets as quickly as possible. To further that vision, we’re committed to building a robust developer ecosystem that empowers you to make Adobe Express even more versatile and increase the creative velocity of its users.
The key benefits of Adobe Express add-ons
As a developer, you will be able to add new capabilities and integrations to Adobe Express that extend the existing feature set and improve the experience for a wide range of users. Adobe Express add-ons let you reach users right where they create, inside the editor as part of the add-on panel.
To make your job as easy as possible, you can leverage web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build native-feeling user interfaces with Spectrum — the same design system that powers Adobe Express. The result is that Adobe Express users will be able to streamline their production workflows and generate content even faster than before.
“Adobe Express’s combination of broad audience appeal and multi-media creation capabilities offers a unique opportunity for developers looking to expand their reach and impact by creating add-ons,” said Ari Fuchs, Director of Product, Extensibility team.
Add-ons you can build today
The first set of APIs are available now in our developer beta and enable add-ons to:
- Import content from anywhere. For example, add images and video assets to the user’s document with click and drag-and-drop gestures.
- Integrate with various services. Generate and send renditions of the current page or the entire document to external services (including your own) in a variety of formats.
This is just the initial set of capabilities that add-ons can use. We’re planning additional capabilities coming soon — including the ability to analyze and edit the user’s document with powerful content authoring APIs. There will also be an add-on marketplace that will enable your add-on to be discovered and used by all Adobe Express users.
Add-ons you can use today
Adobe Express users will be able to easily find add-ons in the add-ons panel in the editor within Adobe Express.
We worked closely with an initial set of partners to create a few high-quality add-ons as reference implementations. These include:
- Attention Insight: See the design through users’ eyes with an AI-driven analytics tool that empowers marketers to optimize design performance pre-launch.
- Auto Icon: Access 160,000+ icons from popular fonts, emoji sets, material design icons, and more.
- Bueno NFT: Transform designs into NFTs.
- Brandfetch: Get instant access to millions of official logos, colors, fonts, and more right from Adobe Express.
- Color Designer: Improve your work with colors. Generate tints, shades, color harmonies, and a stepped gradient.
- Color Blindness Simulator: Check your designs against a color blindness simulator to help with accessibility.
- Free Stock Search: Search, download and import stock assets from a variety of providers for free.
- Media Grab: Grab and import images from the web.
- Spacefill: Make auto-generated tiling and cell patterns.
- unDraw: Access beautiful illustrations you can use without attribution or cost.
- 3D Illustrations: Enhance your content with a powerful 3D library.
The Adobe Extensibility team is also working on storage add-ons so users will be able to quickly add assets straight into their Adobe Express projects and improve team-wide collaboration. Dropbox and OneDrive are now live with Google Drive coming soon.
“I kicked off the add-on development by watching videos of people using Adobe Express to understand the user persona and use cases. Then I read through the official documentation, set up the environment, and started the first “Hello world” add-on really quickly. As a designer, I must say that it was super easy to understand and set up everything,” said Aleksandar Tasevski from Mighty Tools (creator of the Media Grab add-on).
How to get started
Now it’s over to you! To get started, check out the Adobe Express add-ons developer site and fill out the sign-up form for early access to the developer beta. Join us at Adobe Developer & Partner Days (June 27 + 28) to learn about key developer priorities for Adobe Express and Creative Cloud in 2023.
Many of the first extensions that we’re adding have been built by recipients from the Adobe Fund for Design, which provides product grants to those pushing boundaries and helping us shape the future of design and creativity. The fund prioritizes teams and individuals from underrepresented communities — be it by race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic background, disability, or otherwise. Consider applying today.
We’ll be launching new resources soon for developers and creative builders who want to build add-ons for Adobe Express. Stay tuned for updates. We can’t wait to see what you’ll build on the platform.
