My First Adobe MAX Adventure

My First Adobe MAX Adventure San Diego 2016

Arrived in San Diego Monday evening at sunset

Yay! I'm finally here!

I have been looking forward to this conference for months!

Pre-conference workshop Mac lab

I attended the pre-conference workshop "Jump-start Your Designs: Mobile Sketch Walk." Robert Generette III was the instructor. We learned to use Adobe Capture by walking around the beautiful piers of San Diego and taking photos with our mobile devices. We then transferred our photos as textures and brushes into Photoshop and Illustrator, using a shared library so we had access to everything captured by the whole class, and we created some amazing images.

Mobile Sketch Walk

Capturing textures, brushes and color themes for use later in the lab.

San Diego from the pier.

This will make an interesting brush!

Lunch time on the deck for pre-conference attendees.

One of my creations using a photo I captured earlier: Bird of Paradise.

Day 2 - Breakfast with 10,000

Who has ever heard of a Pretzel Bun Breakfast Sandwich?

Wednesday breakfast ending, time for Opening Keynote!

On our way to the Welcome session. This is why it is a good idea to arrive early and pre-register.

Getting ready for the Opening Keynote on Wednesday morning.

Adobe's Bryan Larkin talks about the future of design.

Adobe products: there's an app for that!

My first session was on portfolios with Terry White

Terry White, Adobe evangelist, taught a great session on using Adobe Portfolio - a free benefit for Creative Cloud users!

Amazing session with Richard Harrington on creating cinemagraphs really inspired me to start creating them. This was the first time I had ever heard of cinemagraphs!

Animate CC: Taking It to the Next Level with Simon Widjaja & Daniel Connerth

Community wall for all to illustrate!

Going down the escalator, art is all around us.

Sponsor Welcome Reception at the Community Pavilion. Food and drinks available, along with a variety of creative activities.

DAY 3

Another breakfast with my fellow attendees.

Soaking up a little San Diego sun!

Getting ready for Thursday's General Session/Day 2 Keynote.

I was so inspired by two amazing and artistic women...

Photographer Lynsey Addario

Artist Janet Echelman

Amazed and impressed by writer/director Quentin Tarantimo

San Diego's Convention Center is beautiful!

Typical Richard Harrington pose

Morgan David de Lossy and Lasse Behnke gave a great workshop on how to create and submit original photos for Adobe Stock. Lasse showed some examples of his amazing composite photographs.

A composite photo and its components.

The upper deck of the Convention Center.

View from the upper deck.

In order to get to some of the workshops we had to cross through this lovely area.

Time for Sneaks! Previews of Adobe coming attractions.

Sneaks host: Jordan Peele of Comedy Central's 'Key & Peele'

On our way to max bash

I followed the crowd to MAX Bash, wondering what it was all about...

Waiting in line...

Finally, entering Embarcadero Marina Park South, in a very festive atmosphere.

Beautiful moving art decorated the entire area.

Janet Echelman's enormous net-art (is that what she calls it) was suspended above us. I was enchanted by it.

The art changes with the wind and with the lighting. We stood beneath it and just stared at it.

Directly beneath it

From a distance

Amazing how form and colors change

Meanwhile, in another part of the marina, more art and lots of food!

Seafood appetizers, remains of roast pig, and shrimp with grits.

I had to go back and look at this captivating, changing, moving art piece several times.

Artists had opportunities to decorate surf boards.

Enjoying good food and good music

Final Day

First workshop on Friday: I Didn't Know Illustrator Could Do That - using plug-ins from Astute Graphics.

Astute Graphics: Sebastian Bleak & Nicholas Van Der Walle

Another session with Robert Generette III - a fun & functional way to use mobile drawing apps.

Ahhhh, the beauty of San Diego!

Diane Burns taught us how to create animations in InDesign. Who knew that could be done?

A quick break before my final session, enjoying the view from the upper deck.

Making Your Presentations Pop: Using After Effects to Make an Impact with Luisa Winters was a session that had a great impact on me! Immediately I wanted to start using the techniques she demonstrated. I took lots of notes so I could replicate these amazing animation effects. My final workshop was certainly one of my favorites!

Adobe MAX, the Creative Conference, was without doubt the most useful conference I have ever attended. So many sessions, workshops and labs were happening at the same time, I was only able to get a small taste from the entire menu of learning opportunities.

I suggest that every creative person who uses Adobe products attend this conference in the future. I learned so much this week. I hope I will be able to go again.

Tip: register early and select your agenda early so you can participate in some of the workshops and labs.

Bye, San Diego!

THANK you, Adobe Max!!!

Created By

Dana Pride

Appreciate

Credits:

2016 Adobe MAX, San Diego, California