Designing for co-creation

How can brands enter the co-creation era?

Here are four ways to design with participation at the center — and how Adobe Express can help bring it to life.

1. Use prompt-driven participation

Audience engagement can be as simple as a question in the captions or as advanced as a dynamic interactive digital feature.

We’ve seen brands like McDonalds, BMW, and Peanuts weave participation directly into creative assets — swipe to reveal answers, tap and hold to unlock a prompt, or screenshot your pick.

At CES, Samsung Ads’ Courtney Howell shared how interactive storytelling was powering the company’s partnership with the Jonas Brothers. “A new interactivity tool called Fan Mode gives fans the opportunity to vote during the live stream on what song they want to hear next,” she said. “We’re thinking of different ways to engage the consumer while they're watching.”

Fans aren’t passive viewers — they're active collaborators.

Quick tips: Create tap-and-reveal or screenshot-driven prompts quickly in Adobe Express using:

• Animated elements for motion cues (“tap to reveal”)

• Captions over multiple frames that invite comments and interactions

• 1-Click Apply Brand so prompts stay visually consistent

• Export in vertical formats to share across TikTok, Reels, or Shorts.

2. Turn comments into on-screen text

Don’t just show up in the comments — use those conversations as part of the creative brief to re-incorporate feedback, questions, and comments directly into the content itself.

Platforms like Instagram and TikTok now let creators reply to a comment in video form. But brands are going further by turning comment threads into narrative design elements.

Saie used years of “please make this  product” comments as the hero of a launch announcement, turning fan demand into a full campaign reveal.

And Popflex Active founder Cassie Ho regularly incorporates community comments, questions, and complaints into the design of her social posts — and talks about how the feedback sparked product changes.

Involving your audience isn’t only good marketing — it builds loyalty and trust.

Quick tips: Turn comments into scroll-stopping visuals in Adobe Express using:

• Generate Template so you can drop text or screenshots directly into your design

• Animations to highlight key comments

• Mixed-media templates to combine screenshots + stylized text

• AI-powered Remove Background to integrate user avatars cleanly

3. Invite audiences to remix and reimagine your content

Fans want to play in your world, so give them the building blocks.

Brands like Disney and Lionsgate are using fan edits, fan fiction, and Wiki site updates to inform everything from social content to real business decisions. Lionsgate leaned into Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping fan edits so directly that the studio reached out to Elle Fanning after fans repeatedly cast her online.

“Everything they’ve put out shows a deep understanding of the fans,” Lore founder and fandom expert Zehra Naqvi said. “When you show that deep knowledge, it can transcend the need to do traditional marketing.”

Listening is no longer optional — it’s a strategic advantage.

Quick tips: Make your content intentionally remixable:

• Use Adobe Express’ Remixable Templates for social campaigns or mood boards

• Share brand kits for superfans (stickers, logos, color palettes)

4. Use collages to reflect your audience — or let them build their own

Collages capture remix culture at its most visual — layered, chaotic and highly expressive.

On Pinterest, collages are its most engaging format. In fact, Gen Z saves and creates collagesat dramatically higher rates than other users. The rise makes sense: Collages let audiences curate their identity, passions, and aesthetic — and remix a brand’s world into their own.

For brands, collages serve a dual purpose:

• Represent your audience by incorporating diverse fan imagery, cultural touchpoints, or community submissions.

• Empower your audience by giving them assets — textures, stickers, images — they can assemble into something unique.

When audiences are invited to make something themselves, connection deepens.

Quick tips: Make collage creation turnkey:

• Use Collage Maker Quick Action for fast drag-and-drop layouts

• Pull assets from Adobe Stock or Generate Image

• Apply Photoshop Filters for cohesive visual style across source photos

• Release your own collage starter pack as a Project