We have just purchased 19 licenses to Adobe Creative Cloud for all of our staff here at emc design. There has been some controversy over this move by Adobe to change their sales model from a physical product with specific licenses per application to a complete cloud-based subscription model. But we think there are some clear advantages.

  • We now have access to all of the software applications that Adobe produce, including all of the digital tools such as Dreamweaver, Muse, DPS and more.
  • All of these will be the latest (and future) versions (as well as keeping our old versions), so we will always be in a position to be 100% compatible with clients.
  • All of our staff can use any of the applications at home which increases our flexibility for remote working and gives staff the option of working at home when deadlines are tight. As well as giving our staff access to newly available tools which furthers our scope for experimenting and pushing the creative boundaries.
  • The subscription comes with generous, secure cloud storage to assist remote working (although our studio is still server-based).
  • We will have access to all of Adobe’s training videos to add to our existing training programmes for staff – to help them learn the new software and improve their knowledge in existing software.
  • It makes it easier to manage licenses and install applications, something we found out to our cost when we had to quickly re-install 5 new Macs following a break-in. Staff can just log-in with their own Creative Cloud passwords and download what they require. Simple.

We think that Adobe will bring out more and more tools within the digital sphere to enable designers to generate digital content without coding. This puts digital production tools into the hands of more of our designers. Having more designers able to work with programmers in this way brings added value to content as well as be able to ensure consistent design and branding across all components of a course.