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Adobe launches Spark 'visual storytelling' web app, updates companion iOS apps

Adobe's Spark family provides browser-based and mobile tools that allow anyone to create engaging visual content for deployment on social platforms.
Written by Charles McLellan, Senior Editor
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Adobe has provided free iOS apps for creating visually rich social media posts, web-based stories and animated videos for a while, in the shape of Adobe Post, Slate and Voice respectively. The creative software giant has now updated these mobile apps and integrated them with a new web app called Adobe Spark, renaming the iOS offerings Spark Post, Spark Page and Spark Video.

According to Aubrey Cattell, head of next-generation products at Adobe, "Standing out on social media, creating engaging visual content -- that's pretty hard. Most people know what they want to achieve, but they lack the design skills, and the time, to create beautiful content that'll look good on any device. That in turn makes it hard for them to stand out online and drive deeper engagement with their audience."

You can use the new Spark web app to create all three types of content -- social posts/graphics, web stories and animated videos -- on desktops, laptops or any other platform that can run a browser. You can log into Spark via Facebook or Google, or with your Adobe ID, whereupon your projects will sync between devices.

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The Adobe Spark web app, after logging in (via Google, Facebook or Adobe ID).

Image: Charles McLellan/ZDNet

Here are examples of a Post, a Page and a Video under construction in the web-based Adobe Spark:

Social post/graphic (Post)

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Image: Charles McLellan/ZDNet

Web story (Page)

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Image: Charles McLellan/ZDNet

You can see the full Spark web story that's under construction in this screenshot here.

Animated video (Video)

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Image: Charles McLellan/ZDNet

The companion iOS apps allow you to kick off a project on an iPhone or iPad, sync it with the web and, if necessary, complete it on a larger device in Adobe Spark. Here's the animated video shown above in Adobe Spark, running in Spark Video on an iPad:

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Spark Video running on an iPad.

Image: Charles McLellan/ZDNet

Adobe Spark is available for free (in English only) at Spark.Adobe.com, with paid-for versions planned in due course. Spark Post, Page and Video are also free and can be downloaded for both iPhone and iPad from Apple's App Store.

Adobe has also announced a couple of Spark-related partnerships. The company will provide tutorial content for Facebook Blueprint users on how to successfully market themselves on Facebook and Instagram using Spark. Adobe is also teaming up with social change platform Change.org to co-create training materials for petitioners and change agents.

Read more on Adobe

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