Cutting edge design, rather than technological superiority, has largely been credited with making Apple the most profitable company in the world. Publishers around the world spend millions making their stories look better than that of competitors, and now Adobe is putting professional design tools in the hands of the everyman with the iPad app Slate.
Slate is a free iPad app that lets you create elegant Web content without any design experience. Slate simplifies the creative design process by allowing users to apply predefined professional designs, which include fonts, layouts and colors, to their images and words with just one tap. That way, bloggers, report writers, students, teachers or storytellers of any kind can focus on their story without worrying about the look and feel.
"In today's digital world, everyone wants to share engaging Web-based stories that stand out, but often people don't have the right tools to easily create something impactful," Paul Gubbay, vice president of product development at Adobe, said in a statement.
Links to Slate stories can be shared across the Web in the same way as any URL, and the design is dynamic, meaning that it will adapt to whatever screen it is being viewed on, whether it be a tablet, phone or full-size display.
Adobe is pitching the product at nonprofits, and the designs include built-in call to action buttons such as "Donate Now," "Volunteer" and "Learn More." Slate is available as a free download in the Apple App Store but requires an iPad 2 or higher and iOS 8 to operate.
Slate was released roughly a year after the release of Adobe Voice, a similar iPad app used for creating animated movies. Like Slate, Voice features a selection of design themes that can be applied to audio and video to create interesting stories, and it's getting an update too. There's an improved text overlay to help text stand out over busy backgrounds, new motion graphics, refined font layouts and categorized video examples that make it easier to find content. Voice creators can now also track the number of times their videos are viewed and shared.
