Last week I had the amazing privilege to attend Adobe MAX with my coworkers. There’s so much to say about it, it’s hard to know where to begin. I guess to just narrow it all down, I’ll just list my top 3 takeaways from this experience.

1) Adobe Product Knowledge
Holy moly! Being there first hand to hear about the new features Adobe has in store is pretty awesome! There’s nothing like sitting in a room full of other creatives gushing over the latest program update (and with an open bar). Sometimes it would just be simple things like color matching, but others would be advanced image searches through the photoshop canvas itself! The keynotes/sneaks also had a slew of cool guests, including Quentin Tarantino and Jordan Peele.

If you would like to relive some of the keynote moments, check them out online.

2) Sessions
I felt like I was in school again when I was choosing my sessions. They had so many to pick, but you only had a few slots to fill. One of the ones I enjoyed the most was called “The Future of Typography is Human” with Gemma O’Brien. She gave a good argument about how even though we are leading into a digital future, people are still seeking the human hand in creations. The rest of the sessions were great to attend too. Some just gave some great Adobe program advice, like handy shortcuts or explaining the inner workings of a program, while others gave insight into specific topics like animators from Nickelodeon or comic book/graphic novel creators. All of the sessions are available online for you to view for free, so check them out!

3) SWAG
If there’s one thing you take away from a convention, it’s FREE SWAG. And LOTS of it. The vendor/community booths at this convention were unlike any other I’ve experienced. They had a lot of interactive ones where you could create something and take it home with you. Those ranged from screen printing shirts, letterpresses, 3D printing yourself, and creating coasters with Adobe Capture. I’m so happy that my coworkers and I were able to do the coaster one. (You can see my creations below). Aside from the cool projects that you could take home, they had super cool paper samples, bags, adorable notebooks, stickers and art prints. I don’t know if you can tell, but in the bottom left corner of this picture I got a large poster from a Netflix booth with original poster art for Stranger Things. The artist was there to sign it too!

Anyway, that’s my small wrap up of my Adobe MAX experience. I hope I get the chance to attend again in the future!

P.S. I got to meet Aaron Draplin and buy his book!