Adobe MAX 2023 Wrap-up

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.

Watch the entire Super Session here. If you want to watch my talk, skip to 42:00, but I urge you not to as there is some great content from my co-hosts.

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!

I picked up two Best Brand Awards

Last night, I won an award for my logo design work. But as the results came in, I found myself struggling to celebrate.

Awards are a bit of a sticking point in the design industry. They often cost a fortune to enter, and if you’re shortlisted you might find yourself facing significant fees for a table at the presentation.

I’ve freelanced at agencies who have entire teams dedicated to award entry. And sometimes the design work that is entered is a long way from what was actually used in the end result for the client. Also the ‘peers’ who judge the work often have… questionable experience.

As a freelancer, there aren’t many awards that I can enter. So the decision to enter was not taken lightly. It’s a significant outlay for my business, but I did it because I am still of the opinion that awards are important. They promote innovation and force us to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the design space.

For me, it’s also nice to have my work validated from someone other than my mum! But when you’re printing out your own award certificate for your home office, it does lose a little of the glitz and glamour!

What are your thoughts on this? Have you won an award and did winning actually have a measurable effect on your business? I’ll report back on whether it did for me.

N.B. I picked up the ‘Award of Excellence’ at the Best Brand Awards 2023 for both my work with Nectir and Engage Electrical. I was also awarded ‘Runner Up’ for Kyler Engineering, Uncle Jessy and Gaming Buzz.

How I became Adobe Certified

Do credentials really matter?

On a weekday in June 2023 I cleared my desk of all clutter, unplugged my monitors, left my phone in another room and sat an exam in my office under full test conditions. An online proctor required me to show my surroundings with my webcam to ensure I wasn't able to cheat, and I was recorded the entire time as I sat the 'Graphic Design & Illustration using Adobe Illustrator' exam. I am 38 years old.

Like a lot of people in my industry, I didn't study to become a graphic designer. Yet here I am, nearly 15 years after pivoting into the industry, teaching people how to use programs like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and giving away my knowledge in the software to new (and sometimes seasoned) professionals.

In a world filled with 'experts' selling online courses and running paid bootcamps, it's important to check the credentials of who you're actually learning from. Reputation, trust and credibility is everything in the education space. And I realised that other than my experience in the industry (even though I've worked for some huge institutions) I didn't actually have any credentials!

So I am pleased to announce that I am (finally) an Adobe Certified Professional. Is it a trifling piece of paper? Maybe. But it does feel good to get a little validation every now and then.

And let me tell you, a few of the questions/tasks in that exam threw even me, so even I couldn't get a perfect score. Although 950/1000 isn't bad. 🥴👍

Address redacted

I'm speaking at Adobe MAX!

How do you like my new headshot?

Last week I found out that I'm going to be a headline speaker at this year's Adobe MAX in LA. Panic-stricken, I had to take my own emergency headshot with a jury-rigged ring light, a tripod and wireless remote.

I re-touched my own image with a little help from Adobe's new generative AI in Photoshop (shameless plug 😘), and now it's sitting on the home page, right next to Aaron Draplin and Chris Do (two of my heroes).

Check out my speaker profile here, and keep your eyes peeled for more information on my talk and where you can watch (if you don’t feel like flying to LA).

I won an award!

In January 2023 I won an award for one of my logo designs. 

Awards are something of a sticking point in my industry. A lot of design agencies refuse to enter awards, usually because they cost an arm and a leg to enter. And if you get nominated you’ll often have to buy an expensive ticket or a table to an awards ceremony.

However, I was recently referred to an award, specifically for logo designers, that is inexpensive to enter, but is still judged by industry figureheads (so if you win it still feels like a big deal).

It’s called the Logo Wave, and six months prior I submitted a few of my logo projects.

The award is judged in ‘waves’ with the top 5 logos for each wave receiving the Logo Wave award, and I was lucky enough to scrape in 5th with my logo for Uncle Jessy. This particular wave was judged by some pretty impressive industry names, including Jacob Cass (Just Creative), Bill Gardner (Logo Lounge) and Jeroen van Eerden.

You can find my entry here, as well as the entire project for Uncle Jessy here.

My first live stream with Adobe

Well that was fun!

I was lucky enough to be asked to run a live stream design tutorial with Adobe over on their Adobe Live page. I’ve run plenty of live streams before on my TikTok and Instagram profiles, but never with a partner and a co-host (Flyn Tracy).

You can watch the two-part replay now where I bring a Jack Sparrow quote to life in the form of a t-shirt design.

Part 1.

Part 2.