Three artists share tips for how they carve out more time for creativity

It’s Nice That has created three brand new episodes of our Tips & Tekkers video series, this time supported by Adobe Express. The series follows three creatives, as they explain how the new all-in-one design, photo and video tool helps them with content creation and promotion. Over the course of the three videos, these creatives share valuable insights into the many ways that this app can speed up various daily processes, turning mundane, laborious tasks into quick and easy steps.

Featured in the series are illustrator and maker Naomi Anderson-Subryan, who demonstrates how to use the background remover; tattoo artist and illustrator Poppy Crew, who shows us the perks of the social media scheduler; and illustrator and ceramicist Hal Haines, who talks us through the advantages of the image resizer. To view the videos in full, head over to the It’s Nice That TikTok account.

Naomi Anderson-Subryan

In the first new episode of the new series, London-based illustrator and maker Naomi Anderson-Subryan walks us through how she prepares for an art market. This involves completing a stock take of her pieces for sale, pricing them, gathering materials for packaging them up, and planning interesting ways of displaying them. It also involves advertising her attendance at the market, making sure that her followers and fans know she will be there, and what products they can expect to find.

One way Naomi promotes this is through photographing her pieces and making simple yet engaging videos that highlight the work and the relevant information, such as the date, time and venue. Using Adobe Express during this process makes the task of removing the background on the video and incorporating text into it much easier. “I find it incredibly useful for turning any video content I’ve captured into quick and fun content I can share on my socials,” Naomi explains. “You can upload and edit your videos directly within Adobe Express – with the ability to trim, split and rearrange the order of clips. Plus, adding text and removing backgrounds is super easy with no faff, and helps make the content look clean and polished.”

Adobe Express’ background removal feature not only gets rid of the background, but it can also provide a new one for you to enhance your image with; or you can add it to a collage of other images to make a flyer, poster or infographic. Once that’s done, you can make use of an extensive range of free design assets, including text templates, icons, shapes and more, allowing you to fully customise your image or video. “I find editing video content especially a little daunting, but Adobe Express has lots of cool built-in features that you can use to simplify the process,” says Naomi. “And it helps leave more space and time to get creative and have fun with it!”

Poppy Crew

Episode Two features tattoo artist and illustrator Poppy Crew, who explains the ins and outs of running a tattoo practice. The London-based creative shows us her daily ritual of sketching new designs in her sketchbook, digitalising them on her iPad, and then creating a flash sheet out of them, so that her followers can see what designs are currently available.

Next, Poppy shares her designs on her social channels, as well as various videos and images that she has taken of the design and tattooing processes. She explains that this behind-the-scenes content is great for posts, Reels and Stories, keeping her feed fresh and up-to-date. Of course, drawing and doing multiple tattoos a day means she has a lot of potential content, and it’s here that Poppy says Adobe Express comes in handy. Using the app’s social media scheduling feature, she organises multiple posts across multiple channels, all in one place, ensuring that she stays on top of her content and that nothing is left behind. “Adobe Express really benefits the efficiency of my creative practice, making the admin side of the job run much more smoothly,” she says. “This, in turn, benefits every other aspect of my practice, as it gives me more time in the day to do the fun, creative parts.”

Crucially, the Adobe Express Content Scheduler has accessibility at its core, allowing users to plan out their social media strategy with ease. After using the app’s other features to create and edit content, it can then be simply dragged and dropped onto the calendar, and quickly re-organised if your plan changes. As a result, time spent moving between different apps and programmes is minimised, and that extra time can be put toward more important things. “Adobe Express definitely helps me to spend more time on valuable work and less time on the computer,” Poppy says, “and having more time on the creative side helps me to do work that I’m a lot happier with too.”

Hal Haines

In the final episode of this new series, East Sussex-based illustrator and ceramicist Hal Haines guides us through the often-daunting process of setting up a webshop. Though he began his own three years ago, he recently decided to redesign it, and talks us through the various aspects that need considering. First is the layout. Hal opted for a free-form version that enhances the visual appeal of the site and makes the overall experience more engaging. Next is the copywriting, which he says should be kept short and sweet, prioritising the important stuff like the dimensions of the products and the care instructions (“Please never put my work in the dishwasher,” he says). Finally, all of the updates need to be shared on social media, and Hal explains that caption copy can be fluffier than web copy, but the aim is still to be informative.

For Hal, promotion of content is where Adobe Express truly comes into its own. After shooting photographs of his work for both his website and social channels, he goes straight into the app to begin editing the images using the Image Resizer tool. Here, he can adjust the dimensions of the shots, and make use of built-in presets for platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, speeding up the entire process. “Since starting to use Adobe Express, I’ve found that being able to create all of my social media posts in one space is very helpful, and I can do so on desktop instead of craning over my phone,” he says. “It’s also helped to integrate this part of running my business into my other computer tasks and removed the temptation to go on Instagram while I’m in the studio.”

Despite being called an Image Resizer, this new tool by Adobe Express has more potential than the name might suggest. It also offers a range of other clever image-editing and content-creation options, from filters that can alter the mood of your image to design assets such as text, shapes and graphics. Users can even transform their images into animations with just a few simple clicks. As with Naomi and Poppy, Hal finds this intuitive way of working to be one of the greatest benefits offered by Adobe Express, enabling him to grow his practice by focusing on the parts that matter most. “Making my social posts on one platform and scheduling them all on a Monday frees up my time to tackle the unexpected admin that pops up throughout the rest of the week,” he says, “and it gives me more time to create.”

Visit the Adobe website to learn more about Adobe Express, and how you can use it to transform your workflow.