Microsoft Expression Design
Encyclopedia
Microsoft Expression Design is Microsoft
's commercial professional illustration vector
and raster
graphic design tool for web images based on Creature House Expression
, which was acquired by Microsoft
in 2003. It is part of the Microsoft Expression Studio
suite. Expression Design is more oriented towards editing XAML
and web graphics rather than print graphics (like Photoshop
and Illustrator
) and does not incorporate all of the raster image editing features of the original Creature House Expression
.
Expression Design was codenamed Acrylic and was originally announced as Expression Graphic Designer until the current name was adopted in December 2006.
07 conference for web developers and designers. Service Pack 1 for Expression Design was released on October 17, 2007.
Expression Design requires the .NET Framework 3.0 as it uses Windows Presentation Foundation
. Expression Design is not available as an individual product, but rather only as part of the Expression Studio suite. Originally Expression Studio was not included in any MSDN subscription, but in 2007 Microsoft added it to the highest level MSDN Subscription. Version 2 was released in May 2008 as part of Expression Studio 2.
Expression Design is available for Microsoft Windows
XP
, Windows Vista
, and Windows 7 on the Windows platform.
A trial version of Expression Design is available. A free copy of Expression Studio 4 (as well as older versions) is available as part of Microsoft's Dreamspark Campaign to eligible students.
Expression Design 4, released as part of Expression Studio 4 added the ability to import Windows Metafile (WMF), Enhanced Metafile (EMF), and Enhanced Metafile Plus (EMF+) files into your Expression Design project.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's commercial professional illustration vector
Vector graphics editor
A vector graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to compose and edit vector graphics images interactively on a computer and save them in one of many popular vector graphics formats, such as EPS, PDF, WMF, SVG, or VML....
and raster
Raster graphics
In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
graphic design tool for web images based on Creature House Expression
Creature House Expression
Creature House Expression was a vector graphics editor initially developed by Creature House in Hong Kong, then Ray Dream, then Fractal Design Corporation and later MetaCreations as a companion to then-Fractal Design/MetaCreations Painter. At the time, Creature House was an independent Hong Kong...
, which was acquired by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
in 2003. It is part of the Microsoft Expression Studio
Microsoft Expression Studio
Microsoft Expression Studio is a suite of tools for designing and building web and Windows client applications and rich digital media contents.- Overview :...
suite. Expression Design is more oriented towards editing XAML
XAML
Extensible Application Markup Language is a declarative XML-based language created by Microsoft used for initializing structured values and objects. It is available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise...
and web graphics rather than print graphics (like Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
and Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Systems. Illustrator is similar in scope, intended market, and functionality to its competitors, CorelDraw, Xara Designer Pro and Macromedia FreeHand....
) and does not incorporate all of the raster image editing features of the original Creature House Expression
Creature House Expression
Creature House Expression was a vector graphics editor initially developed by Creature House in Hong Kong, then Ray Dream, then Fractal Design Corporation and later MetaCreations as a companion to then-Fractal Design/MetaCreations Painter. At the time, Creature House was an independent Hong Kong...
.
Expression Design was codenamed Acrylic and was originally announced as Expression Graphic Designer until the current name was adopted in December 2006.
Availability
The final version of Expression Design was released to manufacturing along with other Expression products on 30 April 2007. The RTM news was announced at Microsoft's MIXMIX (Microsoft)
MIX is a Microsoft conference held annually for web developers and designers at which Microsoft showcases upcoming web technologies. The conference is held each spring at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas...
07 conference for web developers and designers. Service Pack 1 for Expression Design was released on October 17, 2007.
Expression Design requires the .NET Framework 3.0 as it uses Windows Presentation Foundation
Windows Presentation Foundation
Developed by Microsoft, the Windows Presentation Foundation is a computer-software graphical subsystem for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, previously known as "Avalon", was initially released as part of .NET Framework 3.0. Rather than relying on the older GDI...
. Expression Design is not available as an individual product, but rather only as part of the Expression Studio suite. Originally Expression Studio was not included in any MSDN subscription, but in 2007 Microsoft added it to the highest level MSDN Subscription. Version 2 was released in May 2008 as part of Expression Studio 2.
Expression Design is available for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
, Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
, and Windows 7 on the Windows platform.
A trial version of Expression Design is available. A free copy of Expression Studio 4 (as well as older versions) is available as part of Microsoft's Dreamspark Campaign to eligible students.
Expression Design 4, released as part of Expression Studio 4 added the ability to import Windows Metafile (WMF), Enhanced Metafile (EMF), and Enhanced Metafile Plus (EMF+) files into your Expression Design project.
See also
- Creature House ExpressionCreature House ExpressionCreature House Expression was a vector graphics editor initially developed by Creature House in Hong Kong, then Ray Dream, then Fractal Design Corporation and later MetaCreations as a companion to then-Fractal Design/MetaCreations Painter. At the time, Creature House was an independent Hong Kong...
- List of vector graphics editors
- Comparison of vector graphics editorsComparison of vector graphics editorsA number of vector graphics editors for various platforms exist. Potential users of these editors will make a decision based on factors such as the availability for the user's platform, the feature set, usability of the user interface and the focus of the program. Some programs are more suitable...
- Comparison of office suites
External links
- Microsoft Expression product site
- Microsoft Expression Design
- Microsoft Expression team blog - News, samples, tutorials for the Suite.
- Expression Design blog - focusing on Expression Design.