Here’s what you missed at the Adobe Max Creativity Conference…

Bright and early on the 23rd of April, three members of the Cravens team, myself (a junior copywriter), an art director and a designer, all found ourselves at Battersea Park for the Adobe Max Creativity Conference, eagerly seeking inspiration. From fascinating keynote presentations to engaging hands-on activities like designing our own crests on an FA Cup shirt and relishing in Louis Theroux’s anecdotes, the whole day was undeniably inspiring. 

One standout moment of the keynote was Annie Atkins, the graphic artist behind iconic films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel, Indiana Jones and Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies. Whether it’s fake love letters or prison escape maps, we got to hear all about the incredible level of detail that goes into her prop work and how her team breathe life into movie scripts using a blend of analogue and digital techniques.

For those of us in Adland, filmmaker Margot Bowman’s talk was especially interesting. She delved into her process of creating Adobe’s Women’s FA Cup Campaign, which sought to inspire the next generation of young girls and women who dream of becoming pro football players, increase fan engagement, and elevate the awareness of the competition.

Among the conference highlights was the announcement of the new Adobe Firefly Image 3 Mode, promising higher-quality images, better prompt understanding, and faster creative expression. We got to see firsthand how the growing role of generative AI can be applied to crafting our own compelling content for brands. 

It wasn’t even 24 hours later when we were back in the office testing out Adobe’s latest AI innovations ourselves. Firefly’s generative AI proved incredibly useful in visualising a set build for an upcoming shoot. Within minutes, we generated a plethora of mockups, providing our client with a tangible representation of our creative vision for the set build. 

In the ever-evolving landscape of AI, the Adobe Max Conference showed how important it is to keep up to date with AI capabilities so we can effectively and efficiently use all the tools available to us. Because it’s not AI that’s going to take all of our jobs; it’s the people that know how to use it that will.