Creative Cloud Libraries: Putting All Your Assets at Your Fingertips and Making Collaboration Easier Than Ever
Adobe announces new and expanded features for Creative Cloud Libraries at Adobe MAX 2019.
Creative Cloud Libraries is the perfect companion for capturing, organizing, and sharing your creative elements inside your favorite Creative Cloud applications, and now, it’s more intuitive and collaborative than ever. Adobe is excited to announce new features that make Libraries easier to manage and accessible to more people than ever. Whether you want to share creative elements with other designers, your creative teams, or even business stakeholders, the new Creative Cloud Libraries increases the efficiency of your workflow and the workflows of everyone within your project group or organization (and across your applications, thanks to full support on your favorite Creative Cloud mobile and desktop apps).
Creative Cloud Libraries features have been an integral part of collaborative work since their announcement at Adobe MAX in 2014, when they were first integrated into Creative Cloud desktop and mobile apps. We’ve been listening to your feedback, and are continuing to make the improvements you’ve asked for to help you work more efficiently than ever. We’re excited to announce the latest updates today.
Full integration with Adobe XD: Easier UX workflows from concept to development
We know that XD users work in collaborative environments with designers working in other Creative Cloud products, and that they sometimes need to share creative elements across different facets of a project. In this release of Creative Cloud Libraries, we have made it easier than ever for XD users to access and add creative elements to Creative Cloud Libraries for cross-application workflows. (Note: those building design systems for XD should leverage Cloud Docs at this time for use within XD workflows.) The newly expanded libraries gives you the ability to place elements created within Adobe XD for use in XD as well as in other applications, such as Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign. It also allows you to leverage Library assets that you create in other applications, such as Illustrator, directly in XD.
Create new libraries, make changes to existing libraries, and share branded elements with the other designers working on your project, all without leaving XD. Whether you are a product designer or a graphic designer, the expanded Creative Cloud Libraries provide both versatility and control over design systems and project workflows.
XD designers are also able to add graphics with full color support (including alpha transparencies and gradients), character styles, and components to shareable libraries, all of which will be accessible across the Creative Cloud ecosystem of applications. This means you can design prototypes faster and efficiently and foster increased collaboration with project teams, all the while maintaining full brand consistency in your design work.
The new CC Libraries in Adobe XD.
Manage Creative Cloud Libraries in the Creative Cloud desktop app
Previously, Creative Cloud Libraries could only be managed through the Library panel in individual Adobe applications or the Creative Cloud web app. The overall experience of managing files was limited due to the overall size of the library panel within the app. With the new Creative Cloud desktop, you will be able to view more of your library content and easily drag and drop creative elements from library to library. Gone is the constraint of a smaller side panel; the larger workspace canvas allows you to easily review creative elements and manage your libraries with all of your designs right in front of you, as well.
The Libraries view in the new Creative Cloud desktop.
With the larger workspace canvas also comes the ability to store up to 10,000 elements in each library (up from the previous limit of 1,000). Enterprise users can take advantage of the new storage limits by creating asset libraries for asset management and usable style guides of logos (different versions and resolutions), color palettes, and stock photography repositories.
Creative Cloud Libraries now work in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
You’re now able to share Creative Cloud Libraries with non-creatives, like business groups, account managers, and certain project stakeholders, via Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. This allows you to build on-brand documentation and presentations, and it means you can officially stop sending creative elements such as logos via email.
With this new Creative Cloud Libraries integration, you can give colleagues and co-workers the ability to access project logos, character styles, and other creative elements without ever leaving MS Word and PowerPoint. And, as they will only have “read” permissions, you don’t have to worry about changes being made to your Library elements. Access our help guide to get started with using Creative Cloud Libraries in MS Word and PowerPoint.
Expanded Support for gradients in Adobe Photoshop and XD, and Capture
Creative Cloud Libraries now supports even more of your creative work with the addition of gradients. Color gradients are (currently) supported in libraries for Photoshop, XD and Capture. Before gradient support, designers needed to carefully create stops and configure gradients manually in each app. Allowing for gradient interoperability will speed up designers working across apps.
Library packs
If you’re new to Libraries, don’t worry — we’ve built Library packs for you. You can find them behind the plus button in the top of the left panel of the new Creative Cloud desktop app by choosing “follow public libraries.”
Get started in Creative Cloud Libraries
These new features are now available in Creative Cloud Libraries, and you can get a look at all of them in action by opening up one of your project files in Adobe Creative Cloud app, then selecting Window > Libraries. (In XD, you must select File > Open CC Libraries.) You can create a new library, by clicking plus (+) in the Libraries panel to add labeled folders, or just dragging elements or folders into the panel to add them to your library.
With every new project, you are under increasing pressure to deliver more content in a shorter amount of time than ever before, without sacrificing quality or creativity. Ensuring brand consistency and messaging across projects, platforms and teams is time consuming.
Creative Cloud Libraries was developed to address those pain points, and help you and your teams work more efficiently while staying aligned and on-brand by working with the same creative elements.
For more on Creative Cloud Libraries and what it can do for you, read our blog post Keep Your Assets on Hand and Your Projects On-Brand with Creative Cloud Libraries.
