1.1 Express Template

5 min

Exercise 1.1: Exploring the Express Template with Brand Kit Guardrails

Duration: 8 minutes

Understanding How Creative Teams Build Ad Templates

Before a performance marketer generates a single ad variant, the creative team establishes the visual foundation in Adobe Express. Designers start from an existing brand file (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, or native Express) and convert it to an Express template with specific elements locked and others left editable. They apply a brand kit that restricts color and font choices to the approved palette, and they share the template with the organization so it appears in GenStudio's template picker.

This exercise walks you through the template that the creative team has already built for the Sevoi Resorts paid social campaign. You will see how locked elements protect the brand, how editable fields are designated for marketer customization, and how brand kit restrictions constrain design choices. Understanding this foundation is critical because it is the structure that every GenStudio-generated variant will inherit.

Value for Your Organization:

Brand kits ensure every design starts with approved colors, fonts, and logos

Locked templates prevent accidental brand violations while enabling customization

Creative teams define guardrails once; marketers create freely within them

Style restrictions limit color and font choices to approved brand palettes only

Distributed teams (regional, franchise, partner) can self-serve without brand risk

Layer naming conventions (e.g., {{headline}}, {{body}}) map directly to GenStudio generation fields

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Open the Express template

In Adobe Express, navigate to Your Stuff > Files > Custom Templates (or the shared project folder for Sevoi Resorts campaigns)

Locate the "Sevoi_Meta_Campaign_Layout" template

Note the template preview showing the brand layout with placeholder content and locked element indicators

Step 2: Identify locked versus editable elements

Click "Use template" to open the template in the Express editor

Observe the lock icons on the logo, background gradient, and layout structure

Try clicking the Sevoi Resorts logo; note that it cannot be moved, resized, or deleted

Click the headline text area; confirm it is selectable and editable

Click the hero image area; confirm it allows swapping

This demonstrates the guardrails the creative team has established

Step 3: Review the brand kit restrictions

Open the Brands panel in the left navigation

Observe the linked Sevoi Resorts brand kit showing approved colors, fonts, and logos

Note that the color picker only shows brand-approved colors when style restrictions are active

Note that the font selector only offers Playfair Display and Open Sans

All design choices are constrained to brand-compliant options

Step 4: Make a sample edit to experience the guardrails

Click the headline text placeholder

Replace with: Discover Your Bali Escape

Observe that only approved brand fonts are available

Click the hero image area and select "Replace" to browse the connected asset library

Choose the "Bali Infinity Pool Sunset" approved image

The image fits within the template's defined image area automatically

Step 5: Observe the layer naming conventions

If the layer panel is visible, note how editable layers are named using field conventions: {{headline}}, {{body}}, {{cta}}

These names map directly to the fields that GenStudio populates during AI generation

This is the bridge between the creative team's template design and the marketer's generation workflow

Step 6: Close without saving (preserve the template for GenStudio)

You have now seen how the template works from the design side

Close the editor without saving changes; the template remains available as-is for GenStudio

In the next exercise, you will select this same template inside GenStudio for AI-powered variant generation

Checkpoint

✓ Can you identify which elements are locked and which are editable in the Express template, and can you see how the brand kit restricts color and font choices to approved options only?

Tip: A global consumer brand uses locked Express templates to empower 200+ regional marketing teams across 40 countries. Each team creates localized paid social content using the same template structure, ensuring brand consistency from Tokyo to Toronto. The creative team updates templates once, and all regions automatically have access to the latest approved designs, both for hands-on editing in Express and for AI generation in GenStudio.