This isn’t going to end well… right?!
ADOBE MAX 2024 - WRAP UP
The conference started out with a bang as flashes of color and movement made their way across the screen. As presenters moved on and off the stage the tone was clearly set for Adobes focus through the conference. Over the past few years the main focus of these conferences have been the power of AI and how it can make your workflow much smoother. So, it wasn’t a surprise that day one of this year’s conference included much of the same agenda. However, it was a surprise at how much conversation revolved around the use of this new tool. In years past, the conversation consisted of new advances around AI, but there has always been this conversation about big picture use of it. There have always been questions. Question like, “Is creativity dead?” Or questions such as “will I have a job on Monday?” It was promising to hear a swath of speakers address these exact questions in this year’s opening keynote. One speaker spoke to the effect that these tools are not met to replace the act of creating, but rather are in place to take some of the strain off to be able to be more effective. There was almost a renewed reverence around the act of creativity. In the age of social media, the name of the game is content creation; and the winners are the ones that can create the most as fast as possible.
In my breakout sessions there was so much conversation around going back to the basics of doing. Aaron Draplin demonstrated a simple manual technique to achieve two perfectly aligned shapes that don’t overlap even by one pixel. He spoke on the importance of maintaining that accuracy in your designs. I enjoy that all of Draplin’s designs start out on paper or in Adobe Fresco. They start out as manual pen strokes that later are converted into vector art. Artist Cey Adams spoke on the importance of working with your hands and how he still makes old school collages with a razor blade and magazines. You may recognize some of his work from album covers and logos for Dave Chappell, Jay-Z, The Notorious Big, and DMX.
It was wonderful to partake in classes about how to do specific techniques or even diving back into tasks that I thought I was good at. It goes to show you are always able to learn something new even if it’s something little. It can be a way to make a task shorter or even just a fresh way of doing something.
It will be interesting to see how the next 5 years develop in the creative space. I genuinely think the entrance of AI in the creative world is dangerous to the overall process. It won’t cut out all jobs but it is definitely going to cut out the middle man. I hope I’m wrong. Not to mention if our clients get their hands on this stuff.
I would hate to see the act of making something begin to get watered down. As sappy as it sounds creativity is sacred to me, even when creating a simple flyer or a sign to direct the flow of people. There’s thought that goes into, and intentionality. Maybe there is still hope in the “hand drawn”. A program was introduced this year showing how you can take simple sketches and scribbles and convert those into an illustration. Maybe that is okay…. There is so much clarity and confidence in a project that comes from sitting and imagining what something can look like. And filling sticky notes with shitty sketches and pages full of descriptive words and phrases that just might come together into something tangible. At this point I consider myself an old school creative. I remember the days of zooming in on individual pixels when masking and compositing. I must admit that it does feel good to hit “select subject” and 99% of the work is done; and fairly accurate I might add.
