adobe max creativity conference

Role: Design Direction, Illustration & Animation

Pre-Event Social Content: Instagram Story content for all Adobe channels (Adobe, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.) created to increase engagement, drum up excitement, and increase sign-ups leading up to the event.

Insight

When the global pandemic made in-person events impossible, Adobe faced a major challenge: how to translate its iconic creativity conference into a fully digital experience, without losing its energy, accessibility, or sense of wonder. Adobe MAX 2020 needed to rally the creative community in a time of uncertainty while delivering on its promise of “Creativity for All.”

Max Sessions: A suite of designs produced to highlight noteworthy speakers and performances at the conference.

Idea

We transformed Adobe MAX into a bold, virtual-first event that celebrated creativity through playful, high-impact social content. Our approach leaned into Adobe’s witty tone and rich visual language to surprise and delight audiences at every phase: pre-event hype, live interaction, and post-event engagement.

Engage at MAX: Adobe MAX is known to be a highly collaborative and social event–these social posts were created to build confidence, dispel myths, and showcase ways in which Adobe would be actively engaging attendees in this virtual state.

Execution

I led the design of social content across all stages of the event, driving visual cohesion, accessibility, and energy. I created original illustrations, animation, and flexible templates to scale across platforms and teams. Every asset was designed to feel joyful, unexpected, and deeply human, embodying the spirit of the creative community Adobe champions.

Giphy Stickers: Adobe Evangelists are rockstars of each of their respective design disciplines (photography, video editing, design, etc.). I created animated illustrations of each of the evangelists for attendees to use during the event. I also created a suite of different animations for each of the twelve Adobe software icons, as well as animated type treatments of commonly used words or phrases.

Working at the speed of culture: As I attended the conference I quickly designed and produced content based on hallmark moments as they happened live. These meme-style GIFs were posted immediately on Adobe’s many social channels and were reposted by the artists, actors, creatives, etc.

Quote Cards: Created during live event speaker sessions to highlight memorable quotes and increase attendance and engagement. Many social posts were reposted by the speakers themselves.

Outcome

Adobe MAX 2020 became a record-breaking virtual event, with:

21M+ total video views
2.2M+ visits to the event site
50M+ social interactions
481 speakers, including 50+ global celebrities and musical guests
464 sessions, labs, and workshops over 11 days

The work set a new bar for virtual creative experiences, and showcased how design could help Adobe not just adapt, but thrive in an entirely new format.