Finnish blogger Kasper Strömman: Journalist to the MAX

Last week I visited the Adobe MAX Creativity conference as the only Finnish media representative.

Many of my regular readers might know that the Kasper Diem blog was recently voted Blog of the Year in Finland. So clearly I have a strong grasp of the concept of blogging. However, journalistic endeaveours feel like an altogeher different thing. That’s why I had to adopt a newfound journalistic attitude for this trip. And a sign found on the floor.

Looking at snowy pictures on Facebook from back home it has to be said that the fact that the conference was held in California really wasn’t a dealbreaker of any kind. Not at all.

And as I found out San Diego is located pretty much as south as you can get in the US, right on the border of Mexico the deal only got better. 25 degrees in November never hurt anyone. Although the local weather lady called it “sweater weather” on the news.

Inside the San Diego Convention Centre the air conditioning was keeping that nasty sweater weather in check though, and the scale of the event started to dawn. The centre itself felt endless, and there must have been a hundred different design themed lectures. The main arena seated 10,000 people. And at that point I hadn’t even discovered the massive fair where different companies were showing off their services. “Yes” you might now say, “but that’s simply the way things are in America. Everything is bigger over there”. The speakers at the event did seem genuinely impressed though looking out over the vast sea of people. And as I were told this was the biggest Adobe MAX to date, this made total sense.

However, as a seasoned graphic designer I simply must address the issue of the event logo though. Because is it just me, or would the letter X make much more sense if it was made of two triangles instead of three? Just sayin’. ( I give it 3 points out of 5)

The keynotes at the event were naturally of a very high standard, as expected. Here are my three highlights.

1. Bart Simpson Voice actor Nancy Cartwright (middle) does look like Bart Simpson in real life, not to mention her voice, which also sounds like Bart Simpson. Also when speaking in a normal voice. Bart Nancy was at the event showcasing a technique for creating live animation Adobe Character Animator. In fact, earlier this year the Simpsons aired an episode that was created via Character Animator in real time.

2. Adobe makes a lot of programmes
I am going to be painfully transparent here for a moment. At the Kasper Diem blog I’m still using a version of Photoshop bought back in 2009. Some of you might remember it, it was called CS4. A lot has apparently happened after this version of Photoshop. While many of the programmes showcased at Adobe MAX were geared towards professional designers (such as ourselves) our favourites were actually the free Spark apps which can be used to create fancy looking posts for social media. You can in other words expect to see a lot of these in the future on our instagram account.

3. Tarantino would never watch a movie on his phone. Except Frozen. During this key note we learned that the way Quentin Tarantino got into film making was working at a movie rental place, and constantly wrote when there were no customers around. Sounds easy enough, but surely this was the short version of how things really panned out.

Tarantino also let us in on the fact that he has a music room furbished in the style of a record store where he constantly finds inspiration by listening to old vinyl records. Somehow this doesn’t surprise me. Finally the acclaimed movie maker confirmed that he indeed will retire from film making after he has finished his tenth movie, so in other worlds after two more films. And after that he has only one wish – to be remembered “as the greatest film maker that ever lived – and a great artist.”

So, all in all a pretty exhausting four days, and then I haven’t even mentioned the Thursday evening bash, which in effect was a 10,000 people outdoor festival. I mean, there were desserts served on a conveyor belt, for crying out loud. And not one but two festival stages. So are we attending next year?

It is impressive Adobe can gather that many creatives from all around the World for that many days, and I was really inspired being at MAX. So Adobe, we really need to talk. After all, after this trip I do consider myself the best journalist that ever lived. And a great artist. So I would love to go again.

This trip was sponsored by Adobe, who wants to be very clear about the fact that none of the opinions presented above do in any way reflect those of Adobe. Which is totally understandable.

Read more from Kasper Strömman on his blog Kasper Diem (in Finnish).