The Adobe / Macromedia merger created a massive product brand and identity strategy challenge: two distinctly different companies became one, with the combined product offering somewhere in the neighborhood of over a hundred unique identities, which all must evolve into a cohesive and functional interoperable system (which in turn must also represent Adobe as a proud parent brand.) As a result, Adobe has the single biggest visually integrated brand system in history.

CS4 updated and refined the desktop system introduced for the Macromedia-integrated Adobe CS3 era. Visual improvements to the ever-growing system were many - sharper, crisper, brighter - but this release also marked the official yet quietly in-progress introduction of what would become Adobe's new corporate typeface, Clean.

CS3 was an epic renovation of every Adobe and Macromedia product identity found throughout the desktop. The primary challenges were to develop a system which would successfully merge the Macromedia and Adobe product lines in a way which would tie the product icons together to work side-by-side harmoniously.