This is an excerpt from “Canva vs. Adobe Express” to be published in Issue 44 of CreativePro Magazine, June 2025.
When it comes to using your own branding, Canva and Adobe Express are similarly capable.
Allowing users to have built-in branding was a foreign concept to Adobe at one time. In 2022, Adobe took a step in that direction with Style Packs for InDesign (Figure 1), which let you save brand-based typography preferences that you could apply within a document for headers, subtitles, body, and tables.
FIGURE 1. InDesign Style Packs were Adobe’s first attempt to allow you to predefine typography elements based on a brand. You can apply styles to an entire document with one click.
Sure, Style Packs added some convenience, but when Canva added the ability to save a cohesive branding section inside the tool, it was life changing. Adobe Express soon followed suit to make a similar option available.
In both tools, these premium features enable you to save color palettes, logos, fonts, assets (photos, icons, and more), and a brand voice guide. You can share that brand with other members of your team to ensure everybody is using the same guidelines, and you can also save multiple brands, which is great for agencies that do client work.
One huge limitation with the Canva Teams version is that only the account owner can create new brands. In other words, as the Canva account owner, you can share a brand with other team members, but those team members can never create and share their own brands with you or anyone else. Your Canva team members would actually be required to create entirely separate Canva Pro accounts of their own just to be able to utilize the brand feature for their own brands inside of Canva.
In 2024, Adobe updated Express so you can apply your entire brand to your design with one click. Canva has offered this feature for some time.
If you haven’t noticed, Adobe is doing a good job of taking cues from Canva when building new features into Adobe Express. It’s a little late, but at least Adobe is trying to keep up.
This article was last modified on May 29, 2025
This article was first published on May 27, 2025
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
