Now that I am back home from my trip to LA for Adobe MAX 2023, I thought it might be nice to write a little wrap-up of everything that went down while it’s all still fresh in my mind. It was an absolute whirlwind and an experience I will never forget, and quite frankly a massive success all round.

I was fortunate enough to be booked for two talks on the first day of the conference, so I arrived a couple of days early to try and get settled, meet the rest of the team, film some pre-event content for Adobe and attend rehearsals so we could iron out some kinks.

The first talk was the big one. I had the last 15 minutes of the Graphic Design ‘Super Session’ to present my ‘lecture’; Signed Off, No Amends: How to achieve the holy grail of feedback. This whole session was a melting pot of five speakers, all leaders in their fields and included everything from pro software tips, inspiring creative ideas and practical tips to create inspiring work. It was incredibly fast-paced with high energy, so we’d had a lot of meetings about the structure of this session and how it would flow.

During my rehearsal the previous day Chris Do had snuck into the room and ended sitting in the front row directly in front of me to watch my talk. This was beyond nerve-wracking, but I’m so glad it happened, because Chris ended up giving me advice which massively improved my delivery. In short, he told me I was reading too much from my notes, rather than addressing the crowd. Obviously it was hard to do this in rehearsal in front of a few people, but this advice helped so much, and those who had seen the rehearsal told me that I had improved dramatically for the ‘live’ version.

Once the talk was done, I had a mad dash to the Creative Park to meet up with Kristy Campbell for our live Q&A, Agency vs Freelance.

Unfortunately this wasn’t filmed, which is a real shame as chatting to Kristy was/is an absolute pleasure. She had loads of insights for me, and we got into it a little bit. As someone who is at a bit of an inflection point in their business, her insights were hugely helpful.

And in all honestly, I was so amped up from the previous session and how well it had gone that I was a little jittery and struggling to settle myself during the chat. Kristy absolutely saved it and as we went into questions from the audience I had calmed down a bit and got into the flow.

Once this session was done, my obligations as a speaker were over for the rest of the conference. This meant I could enjoy myself, attend any sessions I wanted and explore the floor.

I attended Chris Do’s talk that evening and ended up sitting next to the one-and-only James Martin (@made.by.james). It was so great to finally meet him in person and I later managed to sit next to him at dinner and chewed his ear off for an hour. What a guy.

I could honestly go into so much detail about everything that went down. From meeting Aaron Draplin (and getting a little emotional), to hanging out with team Adobe, and meeting some absoolute heroes in the design industry (and dancing the night away with them), I had an absolute blast.

Fingers crossed they have me back next year!