MAX and the Future of Creativity and Design
There’s nothing like the energy at Adobe MAX—with more than 10,000 creative minds coming together to discuss, share and connect around creativity and design, it really feels like we can do anything. And right now, there’s a lot to do!
If it seems like the world is becoming more design-aware and that we are becoming more discerning about product experiences, you’re right. In our recent State of Create study, most respondents told us they believe businesses that invest in creativity are more likely to foster innovation, be competitive and provide better customer experience. At the same time, the explosion of devices and demand for high-quality, personalized experiences places greater demands on designers – something we call content velocity. This, coupled with new technologies such as VR and 3D that are becoming major catalysts for creativity, put the creative community at the center of massive shifts in the communication landscape.
What’s New in the Creative Cloud
Today we announced the 2017 release of Creative Cloud. To make sure the Creative Cloud stays at the forefront of innovation and continues to meet the top challenges designers, photographers and filmmakers face today, we have focused on three guiding principles:
First, our cloud-first approach ensures your assets and edits are all in sync across devices, allowing you to create where and when you want, with the latest, full fidelity version of your content.
Second, we help you address the demands of increasing content velocity by providing a marketplace for design content that helps you work faster.
And third, it’s all built with a hyper focus on experience —so our members can do their best work faster and easier, and the tools simply get out of the way so the focus can be on creation.
This is the essence of this release. Much of this is available today, with more updates available over the coming months:
- The Adobe XD Beta is the only all-in-one tool for designing and prototyping mobile apps and websites. We’ve fine-tuned it with new workflows that make iteration, exploration and collaboration easier than ever. It now offers layers and symbols support, commenting on shared prototypes, and mobile apps for iOS and Android with real-time design and prototype
- Project Felix is a new app that empowers the creation of photo-realistic compositions combining 3D and 2D assets. It is a strong complement to Photoshop, and it’s easy to use, even for those who aren’t a 3D expert.
- Video Updates: We’re pushing video effects further than ever before with the new Cinema 4D rendering engine in After Effects, a VR feature in Premiere Pro that seamlessly detects and applies content settings, and Character Animator that brings characters to life using your own artwork and expressions. With every one of these improvements, we’ve kept workflow efficiency in mind, making it easier to co-edit and optimize video delivery across social channels.
- Desktop Design App Updates: We’ve added over 85 new features to our core desktop apps like a universal search bar in Photoshop and stock templates, and we’re enhancing control of design with updates like Pixel-perfect artwork in Illustrator, an enhanced Properties Panel in Photoshop and a modern new interface and fast, flexible coding engine in Dreamweaver.
- Mobile App Updates: We’ve increased the creative power and workflow efficiency for the Creative Cloud mobile apps, and all are now available on Android.
- Adobe Marketplace: We are adding a new class of photography to Adobe Stock through a partnership with Reuters, the largest independent news agency and source of editorial In the next few months, Reuters’ complete coverage of all major news, sports, business, entertainment and lifestyle events will be available – directly through Adobe Stock. That means Adobe Stock customers will have access to an archive of 12 million images and 1.5 million videos, while 2300 images and 200 new videos are added per day. We also announced Typekit marketplace, a new way to find, buy, and use more than 10,000 premium typefaces from the world’s leading type foundries.
- And finally, we announced Adobe Sensei, a new framework and set of intelligent services that automate mundane tasks, allowing creatives to spend more time on inspiration and design.
Community at the Core
As we look ahead, Adobe’s role extends beyond the tools we build. We have the privilege and responsibility to support up-and-coming talent. After all, community is the core of Creative Cloud. Whether it’s partnering to drive the direction and development of our apps, or sharing and discovering new work, our creative community helps make a better experience for everyone.
That’s the idea behind Behance, a global online community where eight million people can showcase creative work and be discovered. And we’ve recently launched the second year of our Adobe Creative Residency, a year-long program that gives select individuals the opportunity to learn and grow by focusing full time on a passion project without having to worry about competing priorities. All that we ask in return is that the residents share their experiences – both good and bad – with the community so that everybody benefits.
Community is also a centerpiece of innovation. Adobe’s role is to push boundaries through innovation that unlocks creativity. That’s because we know that creativity isn’t defined by a single process. Our customers don’t want to be limited by one tool, app or way to work and they want to explore new ways to capture ideas and make them a reality. We rely on feedback from the community to do this – a fundamental principle behind how we innovate. We are building tools such as Adobe XD in the open so that we get direct feedback along the way, which ultimately helps us deliver a better product experience for everyone.
For more on what we’re sharing with the creative community at Adobe MAX this year, watch the Adobe MAX keynotes or learn more on Adobe.com.
Learn more about Creative Cloud updates by product:
This story originally appeared on the Creative Cloud blog.