Anyone who’s planned an event on social media knows how frustrating it can be to find the perfect banner, to say nothing of the right poster should you wish to advertise around your neighbourhood.
Enter Adobe Systems’ Post, a free new iPhone app that aims for nothing less than bringing professional graphic design to the masses.
“This past year, we’ve been talking to many small businesses, non-profit organizations and entrepreneurs and the message is clear: consumers need a simple app to create professional looking graphics so they can better engage with their social media followers,” Adobe’s principal product manager, Thibault Imbert, said in a blog post on Dec. 16.
But while the app is intended for social media posts, its eye-catching 1200 by 1200 px creations are ideal for a variety of purposes, from Facebook banners to website headlines to delightfully viral-ready photos of coworkers like Jeff Radecki, our web developer and “winner” of this year’s Ugly Christmas Sweater contest at the ITWC Christmas potluck.
In addition to inviting users to upload their own photos, Post includes a staggering library of royalty-free images, allowing users to design their own layouts using a variety of text and design features that can result in magazine-quality layouts within five minutes (the five examples shown here were created in 30).
Meanwhile, amateur designers in a hurry can start by using a range of pre-made templates, though the program is intuitive enough that it will automatically centre headlines, or even switch between upper and lower case based on what looks best given the available space.
Sadly, the program isn’t perfect. Though free, it does not allow users to change the size or shape of the background, there’s currently no way to remove the #AdobePost tag on the bottom-right corner of the images produced, and as of this writing Adobe doesn’t appear to be offering a paid option that would do so – potentially limiting Post’s usefulness for the very business owners the company’s developers have said they would like to assist.
