The Official Microsoft Expression Design Support Team Blog

The question has been asked several times on the forums as to how you can take an existing bitmap image, bring it into Expression Design, and designate the areas or colors that you want to be transparent, then export as a web-safe file. So let's talk...

This is a sort of different post - this one contains content. Digital numbers in a .Design file free to download and use as you see fit. Enjoy! Click to download digital_numbers.zip File Size: 14.58 KB Preview:

This is another one of those “How do you do that in Expression Design?” blogs. Consider the following goo: It’s green, bubbly, disgusting and was drawn completely in Expression Design using a combination of different live effects. It’s really easy to...

Let's take a moment to ponder a banner image. It's kind of bland. And not too much going on. By the way, that font I'm using is called 'Pupcat'. Let's do a couple of things to spice the banner up a bit and make it more appealing. We will add a texture...

It's just as easy to work with your hand-drawn art in Expression Design as it is any other well-established vector drawing program. Perhaps more so with Expression Design because of the simplicity of the user interface. In this blog entry I'll go through...

I’ve seen a few posts from people saying their colors did not match from Expression Design version 1 or 2 to when they were viewed on the web. And when I say “did not match” I’m talking a fairly significant difference in hue. I happened upon an odd little...

I was going through the help files for Expression Design recently. They contain a lot of great information on how to get around the product and how to accomplish certain tasks. And then I read the help topic on creating custom strokes. Hrm. Kind of vague...

We have recently been able to clarify a confusing topic regarding pressure sensitivity support in Expression Design. The topic has come up in the forums a couple of times and we finally wanted to put this question to rest once and for all: Does Expression...

I need to post this because I've gotten this question in email a few times. The information here was gathered from the MSDN Product Comparison page located here . Here's a table which should help identify which Expression products are available for each...

Let's do some more special effects. Today's blog post will discuss how we can take some ordinary circles and turn them into a nice looking ripple-on-water effect. So go ahead and open Expression Design and create a new project. It can be any size but...

In the last blog post we briefly talked about the attribute dropper tool which allows you to copy styles from a source object to a target object. The way to use it is to hover the mouse pointer over the source object, which is the object you want to copy...

In this Microsoft Expression Podcast we'll be taking a look at one of the new features in Expression Design 2, the Slice tool! This podcast covers general usage of the slicing tool and how it can be beneficial to the graphic designer. Podcast 4 - Design...

Masks or masking is the ability to show the content of one picture within the confines of another. Imagine you have a large photo and you want to take a portion of that photo and put it in a nice wooden frame that you bought. You have two objects, the...

In the last regular blog I mentioned that we would examine some pathing operations in Expression Design. As you probably already know, pathing is just a means of combining, transforming, negating, spindling and mutilating vector objects. You can end up...

Recently I wrote an article which describes in detail troubleshooting steps to resolve problems one may encounter when attempting to launch Microsoft Expression Design. I'm also publishing here on the support blog to make people more aware of how to troubleshoot...

One of the first things that frustrated me about Expression Design was the (seemingly) lack of ability to align my objects and text blocks where I wanted them. After all, this seems a fairly rudimentary expectation, right? So I drew a rectangle - a nice...

In this Microsoft Expression Podcast we'll be taking a look at some simple animation, starting with Expression Design and taking our art into Expression Blend, then using Blend's robust timeline to animate our artwork for web page use. In this second...

Lately we are seeing more setup issues with Expression Design on the Expression Design forum than we normally do. The intention of this article is to assist you as much as possible if you do have a setup issue. If the issue cannot be resolved  here...

In this Microsoft Expression Podcast we'll be taking a look at some simple animation, starting with Expression Design and taking our art into Expression Blend, then using Blend's robust timeline to animate our artwork for web page use. Podcast 2 - Animation...

I know it's been a while since the last blog post and I apologize. I've been writing another round of training and tending to some studies for another product that I will be supporting. I will still be supporting Expression Design and producing blogs...

When I first started using ED, it wasn't immediately clear to me how to save a style and then apply it later. What I mean by this is let's say I have an object, a circle, among a whole page of circles that I've set my stroke width, color and a gradient...

The Official Microsoft Expression website contains great information on the Expression studio products and frequently asked questions (FAQs). Here are some additional FAQs taken directly from customer interaction with the product. These FAQs assume you...

This is the first Microsoft Expression Design video podcast. This is a re-rendered and re-worked podcast that makes use of zoom points for improved viewing on a mobile device. The content of this article is about taking your work from Expression Design...

Hello, all! I have been out of pocket writing internal support training for version 2 of Expression Design these last 3 months and also taking some training. Regular posting to the blog will now resume, in earnest! :)

Greetings designers! Have we got something that's sure to make you salivate all over your light table - Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Expression Design is finally here! Well, not here here, like not on this blogsite, but as sure as you can click a mouse...