By Dani Beaumont
With Creative Cloud Libraries, you can publish common design elements to a library, then reuse them quickly and easily from project to project. This can be really handy when you're working with a team of designers or just managing your own work.
I was looking for some design inspiration earlier today and I happened upon this free UI kit by Rahul Tailor. I've downloaded the source file and made a few changes to the overall design. I'm now ready to extract the colors and character styles. So for that, I'll open up the Libraries panel, and then I'll navigate to this brand artboard. To sample or extract the colors from objects on the design canvas, all I need to do is select them, then here in the Assets panel in the Color area, click on the plus sign towards the right. I'll do the same for character styles by clicking on this set of typographic elements. Then again, in the Assets panel, I'll click on the plus sign, this time in the Character Style area.
Once I have these added, I can give them custom names by double-clicking on the label, and then changing that default name. I can also reorder them in the list, just by pressing and dragging them up and down. If I prefer, I can sort the entire document asset list by clicking on the Sort Options drop-down, then selecting Sort By Name. This makes things easier to manage for sure, but as my design becomes more and more complex, a single list can still become difficult to navigate. Another way to organize the content is to create subgroups. I can easily come in and select all of the icons here in the Components area. And in the right menu, choose New Group from Selection. Subgroups can nest within one another. So I can even break down the icon group into specific types of icons.
Once I have things organized the way I like them, I'm ready to publish them to a Creative Cloud Library. All of the sort order changes and subfolders I've just created will be applied to the cloud library in the same way I applied them here in the application. To publish the library, all I need to do is click on the Publish button in the upper right-hand corner of the Assets panel. In the library's manager, I can come in and save out this document to the cloud. I'll click on the Publish button here on the right to do that. XD is letting me know it's going to save it up as a cloud document. I'll click on Continue. From here, I can assign a friendly name so that I know what's in this library that I'm creating. I'll go ahead and call it GetFix_Brand_Kit.
Once I have that published up to the cloud, I can start to use it going forward. One thing you'll notice is, here in the lower area of the library's manager, I have the ability to open any library that I've created, or that might have been created by someone else and shared with me. These remain persistent so that I can use them from project to project. I'll go ahead and leave the defined set that I have here and close out that panel.
I'm now ready to start a new project. So for that, I'll pull down on File, and I'll select New. You'll notice in this new document that here in the document assets area, I no longer have any of the colors, character styles, or components. That's because this is an empty document; I haven't created any yet. If I want to leverage that UI kit that I just created, I can come here in the panel and click to the left side of the document asset's title. This takes me up a level to see all of the libraries that I have open from the library's manager. There's my GetFix_Brand_Kit that I just created. I'll go ahead and open it. And from here I can start to build out my new design.
Now, as I work with my UI kit, I may want to make some additional improvements. It's really easy to keep my library in sync with any changes that I make. All I need to do is come to any component I might be working with. And in the right menu select Edit Main In Source Document. XD's going to go to the cloud and open up my library for me. I can come in now and make changes to any of the details that I've defined. So, let's come in and, say I wanted to make a dramatic change, like change the color that I'm using throughout my design. I'll come on in and make that rather broad stroke global change and change those colors out to something a bit more orange. Notice that I get an indication here towards the bottom, letting me know that I've changed out my library. And because it's a Creative Cloud Library, I need to republish any of the changes that I've made there to the cloud. To do so, I just need to come here towards the top. And notice the very small blue icon letting me know that I need to republish my content. When I click on that Publish button here in the library's manager, I have the ability to update the library.
Now if I switch back over to my working document, what you'll notice here in the document assets area is, I get an indication that the Cloud Library has changed. I can come in and preview the changes that have been made and decide if I want to accept them one by one, or actually accept all of the changes that I did make there in the cloud.
Well, that's about it for this quick introduction to publishing and consuming Creative Cloud Libraries. I think you can see how seamlessly you can integrate a shared library into your everyday work. I encourage you to give it a try.
Publish common design elements to a library, then access and reuse them quickly using Creative Cloud Libraries. In this tutorial, you’ll see how you can sample design elements (from your projects or free UI kits), to extract colors and character styles. Select an object and then click the plus sign in the Assets panel to sample commonly used colors and typographical styles. Enter descriptive names, sort elements as desired, and create subgroups to help organize library items. Nest subgroups within subgroups for further categorization.
