[Music] [Music] [Video Narrator] When was the first time you knew you were different? [Music] [Video Narrator] The first time you were misunderstood? [Music] [Video Narrator] Felt left out for not fitting in? [Music] [Video Narrator] Perhaps it was your ideas, [Music] [Video Narrator] your look, [Music] [Video Narrator] who you love, [Music] [Video Narrator] where you're from. [Music] [Video Narrator] Whatever it was, [Music] [Video Narrator] whenever it was, [Music] [Video Narrator] this was the day you began your journey of difference, [Music] [Video Narrator] your journey of using what dawns you must feel [Music] [Video Narrator] building the courage to stand out in a sea of sameness, [Music] [Video Narrator] embracing the foreign and rejecting the familiar, [Music] [Video Narrator] pursuing mistakes of the eye, at secret doors [Music] [Video Narrator] failing and starting over again and again before you break through. [Music] [Video Narrator] It's not an easy path. [Music] [Video Narrator] People tend to shun difference before they celebrate it, [Music] [Video Narrator] but this difference is your ticket for the one journey that only you can take. [Music] [Video Narrator] Wrestling new ideas to life, [Music] [Video Narrator] advancing your craft, [Music] [Video Narrator] learning to gain confidence from doubt, [Music] [Video Narrator] recognizing that nothing extraordinary is ever achieved through ordinary means, [Music] [Video Narrator] helping all of us make sense of this wild, [Music] [Video Narrator] heartbreaking, [Music] [Video Narrator] inspiring [Music] [Video Narrator] and wondrous world. [Music] [Video Narrator] Through the art you dream and the change you seek, [Music] [Video Narrator] your journey makes all the difference. [Music] [Music] [Scott Belsky] Good morning, everyone. How is everyone feeling? Let's do this. First of all, I want to start by thanking Yoli Mayor from right here in Miami for her amazing musical performance to kick us off this morning.
Hopefully that piece sets the tone. Today is all about the creative journey that each of us is on. It's about how we capitalize on our differences, those unique inputs each of us has to make something new, something that moves us. We have curated today with the focus on the art and soul of creativity and the role that community plays in sourcing opportunity and new inputs, and the ways that we can all support each other through the otherwise often lonely journey of making something new. And yes, often being misunderstood along the way. As I was preparing for today, I was really struck by this quote from the poet Mary Oliver "The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave it neither power nor time." Well, all of you have felt that call, but you responded with your power and your time. So today is both a celebration of your determination and courage, and a dose of motivation and inspiration to carry on. Our goal with today's session is to address the current state of creativity, share some of what our team at Adobe is doing to support all of you, and showcase a set of creator stories we can learn from and be inspired by as we elevate our own creative journeys.
So let's start with the current moment. We are now two years into a new era of technology fueled by - yes, drinking game word - AI. Every day I see creative people who are exploring, experimenting, and using this new technology to become more efficient and raise the ceiling on what is possible. And now, obviously, there's still skepticism, and there are good and fair open questions. But a few years into this revolution, the chapters are starting to reveal themselves. The first chapter I have come to call the Prompts Era. The idea that anything can be summoned with just a few words in a Prompt box. And I think we're going to look back on the Prompts Era and actually realize that it fell short, that it perhaps cheapened and undermined the craft of creative professionals, and the ideas, judgment and taste honed over years and decades, that you bring to your work. But we're now turning to this new chapter, called the Controls Era. In the Controls Era, creators are at the center, fully in charge of what they produce with more options, not fewer. Controls don't replace what you do, they bring these new levers, knobs and chisels and these controls provide more cycles of exploration to help you find better solutions. Yesterday, we saw in many ways that Creative Cloud is providing you with more control. Things like the ability to selectively remove distractions layer by layer in Photoshop, automatically snapping objects in an Illustrator file to a path you designate, which is going to save illustrators tons of time and unlock new possibilities. The ability to quickly and easily isolate the subject of a video and then make edits around it, like changing the background. And Project Neo, a new app from our labs which helps you build 3D objects easily from scratch, then use them in illustrations or as fine-tuned Reference Images, Reference Images within Firefly.
Another great example of new controls that raise the game is actually a brand-new product launching this week I wanted to mention called Substance 3D Viewer. It's a free application within Photoshop and a standalone app that makes it easy to take existing 3D assets and work with them in 2D tools. So let's say you're, I don't know, creating in Photoshop a scene with a coffee maker, with Substance 3D Viewer, you can open the 3D file, you can tweak the camera angle or change the lighting to match the scene you're developing, and then drop that object into your project and it will look right at home. You can even use 3D Viewer to change the color or texture of a 3D asset. And if you need to create a new 3D object, you can do that with Firefly integrated right into Substance 3D Viewer. So definitely check that out. That's kind of exciting.
So all these new controls and capabilities are going to change the way we all spend our cycles. Until now, we've spent a majority of our creative time editing and endlessly iterating, and with very limited cycles for ideating to find the best solutions. But as this new era comes to fruition, we're all going to spend less time on this tedious final mile of production and more time on the core of creativity and exploring the full surface area of possibility and creating more and better work. That's what this second chapter of Controls is all about. I believe AI will unlock a whole new category of creative exploration, and we're actually developing tools to outfit you for this new way of working.
Yesterday we introduced Project Concept, a new application in development that helps you gather inspiration, brainstorm together, and quickly create and refine concepts all at the speed of thought on an infinite multiplayer canvas. It's exciting to think about what we're all going to do with more time for these earlier phases of every creative project that now get unlocked. Throughout our careers we've all had these wild ideas that we would love to pursue, but the cost and time, money, or even reputation was just too much to bear. Too often we've all played it safe. I'm increasingly confident that this new era of technology will help us all take more creative risk. Risk to explore and test the far edges of our imaginations, and to try things that previously would have been too expensive or time consuming, or altogether impossible. It's an exciting time.
I want to shift gears and share the latest from Behance, the world's largest creative professional community. My team started Behance back in 2005, and in the earlier years, we were actually so small that when you searched Behance on Google, it responded, do you mean Beyoncé? So I am proud to say that Behance now includes more than 56 million members, and over the last year, people have viewed artists' work on Behance more than 2.3 billion times.
And to Google Behance is no longer a mistake. So for a long time, we referred to Behance as a platform to showcase and discover creative work, but we recently expanded our ambition. We've added to our mission helping members build creative careers. And over the past couple of years, we've added a ton of new features that help creative people get found and make money from their work. Here to show some of the latest tools is Eunsan Huh from the Behance team, and I'm excited to dig in. So Eunsan, how can creators use Behance to get commissions, to get jobs and ultimately get more opportunity? [Eunsan Huh] Well, Scott, since I've got my hands full of my job at Behance, I'll be using our friend and type designer Harbor's profile for this demo. So this is Harbor's profile on Behance. You can see all of the amazing fonts that he's designed over the years, many of which you can actually purchase directly on Behance today. They say that when you want to manifest something in life you should tell it to the universe. But if you're like Harbor and you're looking to manifest some new creative opportunities you might be better off just telling that to Behance. To let visitors to your profile know that you're available for new work, click Edit Availability and mark yourself as available for Freelance Projects. Here you can set your own timeline, select the categories that best represent the type of work you want to be hired for, and adjust the price range.
You can also connect a payment method to get paid directly and securely on Behance and request an upfront payment from your clients before you even begin the work. Plus, if you're a Behance Pro member like Harbor, you pay 0% platform fees on all freelance jobs that you complete on Behance, so you get to keep more of what you make. Sounds good, right? Another way to attract new clients on Behance is by listing a creative service. These creative services are basically like little advertisements for specific jobs that you're available to do. So in Harbor's case, he's got a Branding Package, a Logo Design service, and a Custom Typeface Design service. [Scott Belsky] Awesome. Can you help us all understand how this actually turns into work? Maybe you could take the role of a hirer and help us understand how people finds creators to work with on Behance. Yes. We know just how important discovery is for creatives on Behance. So we've built a dedicated directory to help hires find you. This is our Hire page, and from here, clients can quickly filter through these different creative categories to find the right freelancer for the job. Let's take a look at one of these categories, like Packaging Design. At the top of the page, hires can browse through the different Packaging Design services that are available on Behance. You can actually see Harper's right here. And down below, these are all talented packaging designers from around the world that are available for hire right now. The great thing about our Hire page is that it's not just a directory, it's also a collection of portfolios so clients can take a closer look at the creatives work. All of these thumbnails link back to Behance profiles so clients can see the creative's skill set, their process, and their problem-solving skills. And with community reviews, clients on Behance can hire with confidence. And so what if I have in my mind the need for a very specific type of person for a specific project that I want to do, how do I use Behance to make that happen? [Eunsan Huh] We got you. If you have a specific project you're hiring for, you can create a freelance project brief and see recommended freelancers that match your requirements. And now, with the help of AI, hiring on Behance has never been easier. In fact, it's so quick and easy. We're going to do it together right now on stage. This is an exclusive MAX sneak peek by the way. Now all I have to do is create a short prompt that describes what I'm looking for and Behance is going to automatically generate a brief for me. So let's say I'm a small business owner and I'm about to launch a new coffee brand. So I need to hire a packaging designer.
For my prompt, I'm going to use Packaging Designer for a coffee brand $3,500 ASAP. And now, based on those seven simple words, Behance has created a complete brief. We've got a title for this project, it's selected the correct category, budget range, and time frame. And down below it's added some additional flourishes to make this brief a little more robust. Now, instead of just looking for any packaging designer, we're looking for somebody who has experience working with food and beverage brands. And if they use Adobe tools, that's a nice little bonus. I can also attach visual references to give the freelancers a better idea of what I'm looking for. This brief is looking pretty good, so let's go ahead and create this freelance project.
Now Behance is showing me all the recommended freelancers that match the specific requirements of my project. I can see that many of these designers have experience working with food and beverage brands, which is exactly what we asked for, and some of them even have experience working with coffee packaging designs, which gives me a lot of confidence that they can help me with my project. Just like the Hire page, I can take a closer look at any of these projects. And this one by Insigniada looks particularly interesting to me. They've created a whole coffee brand inspired by Behance. So, Scott, if you ever want to expand our business into the coffee industry, I think we found the perfect creative studio for that job. [Scott Belsky] Interesting. [Eunsan Huh] In the meantime, I'd like to hire Insigniada to work on my project because I can see that they have a ton of experience working with coffee brands, so they would be a great partner for me. I'm going to send them the brief. And if they're interested in taking me on as a client, they'll send back an official proposal and our collaboration can begin. [Scott Belsky] Well, it's pretty cool that with this, first of all, it's nice to make the briefs clearer and better for all of us. So that's kind of nice. It's also pretty cool that there are these instantaneous recommendations, from all of the Behance portfolios. That's really cool. So last question.
Earlier this year, I know that the team launched Behance Pro, which features a number of advanced features for professionals that are using the platform. Maybe you could just show a few quick of the cool latest features there, and then we'll move on. [Eunsan Huh] Yes, I'd love to. One of the most popular requests we've gotten from our community is for more profile customizations. So with Behance Pro you can personalize your profile by enabling dark theme, adding a custom button, and hiding public areas of your profile. You can also create sections to organize your work. So for Harbor, let's create a section called Display Fonts. This is going to help him merchandise his work. After I've created the section, all I have to do is drag and drop the relevant projects into the section. But that's not all. With Behance Pro, you also get access to advanced project settings so you can pass or protect your work and schedule projects for automatic publishing. Last, but certainly not least, we've added an advanced analytics dashboard so pro members like Harbor can see who's interacting with his work, where those visitors are coming from. And it looks like Harbor's quite an international phenomenon, with visitors from Brazil, France, Korea, Indonesia and beyond. He can see the sources of that traffic, as well as top keywords that are leading to his project views like liquid font, Y2K font, bubble font, all valuable data that he can use to create his next bestselling font. [Scott Belsky] I love this, I feel like it's we're trying to help every creative understand the funnel that leads to them, which of course then informs their careers and other things they do to promote their work. So, Eunsan, very, very awesome, thanks for joining us. [Eunsan Huh] Thanks for having me.
[Scott Belsky] So those are just a few of the many things the Behance team is doing to help members grow their careers. And we have a lot more coming, so keep an eye out. Now, the core of Behance has always been about building creative community, but we recognize that community doesn't just happen online. I mean, how great is it on days like this morning, just to get together with peers and like-minded builders and creators in one place? And so we want to make this happen on a more regular basis all around the world. And that's why, as Ashley mentioned yesterday, we started a new partnership with Creative Mornings. I am super happy to be joined this morning by Tina Roth Eisenberg, an old friend. You may know her as Swiss Miss, the founder of Creative Mornings, Tina? Welcome to MAX. Come here, so good to see you.
[Tina Roth Eisenberg] Hi, Scott. [Scott Belsky] It has been, like, 15 years, something like that. [Tina Roth Eisenberg] Yes. [Scott Belsky] So it's mind blowing. Just how many cities now hold their own Creative Mornings. Can you just share a bit of the story, like, how did this all get started? [Tina Roth Eisenberg] Yes, I would love to. So I moved to New York 25 years ago as a freshly minted graphic designer, fulfilling my dream of New York. And I moved there, and I tried to find my people and realized just how hard it is to make friends. And so, and a few years in, I kind of took matters into my own hand and I had the idea for Creative Mornings, and the idea was just to invite the creative community in for a breakfast and a talk. And it really hit a nerve. And so I kept doing it, and eventually friends from around the world asked me if they could do the same and bring Creative Mornings to their city, and I said yes, and now here we are. We are entirely volunteer led. We gather 20,000 people every month in 69 countries, in 200+ cities. [Scott Belsky] Amazing. Congratulations.
We now have this partnership. There's just so much going on in the creative industry now, so much opportunity, so much change. What's Creative Mornings role in this, and where do you see Creative Mornings bringing us in the future? [Tina Roth Eisenberg] Well, we're just going to continue doing what we do best. And that is reminding us all that we're all creative and to continue creating a loving human connection. And, Scott, I have to say, the fact that we are volunteer led, that we're around the world, that we're completely free borders a bit on the line of a miracle. And so for us as a grassroots organization, entering this partnership is a really, really big milestone. And I want to thank you in the name of all of our volunteers around the world for just really seeing us. Thank you.
And I want to invite you all to look us up. We're in all the corners of the world, come to one of our events, there's also virtual ones, and make a new friend, and you might feel less alone. [Scott Belsky] Awesome. Tina, thank you so much. [Tina Roth Eisenberg] Thank you.
[Scott Belsky] So there is, just again, so much changing in the world of creativity right now. And we're just so excited to work with Tina and Creative Mornings to help facilitate conversations about where creativity is going and what we should all be thinking about.
Let's talk about one of the other keys to succeeding in a creative career, attribution. When you make a great piece of work, you want people to know that you made it. A big part of that is pride, that's understandable, but the value of attribution goes far beyond that. Attribution leads to opportunity, and that may be a commission, a job, a chance to partner with an artist you admire, or the opportunity to exhibit your work to a larger audience.
For hundreds of years attribution was easy. You signed your name in the corner of your canvas, or you engraved it on the pedestal of your statue. But in the age of digital art, attribution is far more difficult. Most digital art isn't signed, and it's way too easy for an image or illustration to just spread all over the world with no connection to the creator who made it. And if you do commissioned work for an agency or a company, getting public credit for it is rare. But for the sake of your career, people need to know what you are capable of. And that's one reason that we developed Content Credentials. Now, Content Credentials are an open source, cross industry standard that allows anyone to securely attach information to a piece of digital content. The organizations behind Content Credentials now have amazing industry support. More than 3.700 members, including Microsoft, Amazon, BBC, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Nikkei, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. I could go on and on. Now, Adobe has been working on this for over five years, but I know Content Credentials are new to many of you. So let me just take a very quick look through for you of how this works. So let's say you finish something that you're making in Photoshop. You can now choose to add Content Credentials and choose what information to include. That could be your name and what you did in Photoshop to edit it. Credentials are also integrated into other Creative Cloud apps like Lightroom and Illustrator. If you are a photographer, many leading camera makers like Leica, Sony, Fuji, and Canon will let you apply Credentials as you shoot new images. And if you use Firefly to generate an asset from scratch, Credentials are attached so that everyone can know that content was made and was AI-generated.
Content Credentials stick with your digital files so that people who come across your work can find out more about the piece of content and who made it. And they persist even if that work is screenshotted. And if you want, you can now include links to your Behance portfolio and your other social channels so that people can see more of your work and get in touch with you.
Some of you may have already started applying Content Credentials to your work, which is great, but we know that most of you probably have hundreds of gigabytes of legacy content with no credentials. And that's something many of you have told us, like, what do I do? Well, that's why we recently launched a private beta of Adobe Content Authenticity, a free app that helps you apply Content Credentials en masse to your digital work. You can choose individual files or folders full of work and apply Content Credentials all at once with the push of a button.
And with the Content Authenticity app, you can also tell GenAI companies that you do not want them to train their models using your content.
So let me say this is an important step. Now we're not naive. We know that it's still the Wild West out there, and some companies are not going to respect your wishes. But more and more companies that we are talking to are committed to following artist preferences, especially some of the more popular models out there. And so we are excited about this.
Now, these days when people encounter a piece of digital content, they often wonder whether they can trust it. Content Credentials really help people answer that question by showing the provenance of how an asset was created and by whom. Finally, I want to say that I do believe, over time, Content Credentials will serve another important purpose. As companies and brands just churn out more content and flood the zone, Content Credentials will serve as the proof of humanity behind creative work. Just as the human story behind art has always helped us appreciate it, perhaps the Credentials will become one of those artifacts of humanity that make your work more valuable, more authentic, more engaging, and tell the story of the person behind it.
We are now going to shift the spotlight to some of you and the inspirational stories behind a few brands and artists that are making a difference leveraging the power of courage and creativity. Let's kick off right around the corner with a Miami based brand, using design and storytelling to destigmatize some of the most uncomfortable parts of parenting.
[Chelsea Hirschhorn] I know, you have to get up now. I had zero idea what I was getting into when I became pregnant. Does any mom for the first time really know? [Eric Hirschhorn] There wasn't readily available information about what this stage of life was really like? It was all of these beautiful portrayals of kids in social media. And that's just not what it's like. [Chelsea Hirschhorn] I know, baby, hold on. My neighbor, who's this lovely Swedish woman, noticed that I was pregnant with my first. She left the NoseFrida in my mailbox. At the time, it was called the Näsfrida in Swedish. I think there was a post-it on it, that said, trust me, you'll need this. About three months later, I was navigating baby's first cold. Do you want to clean your boogies out? If their nose is stuffed, they can't sleep, they can't eat. And I had this aha moment, sort of a heroic feeling, which is so few and far between as a parent. [Chelsea Hirschhorn] Clean up. [Eric Hirschhorn] Do you have your shoes on? [Chelsea Hirschhorn] I went on this crusade to fix a very broken category. [Music] [Chelsea Hirschhorn] I started to create a product line that was really a map to my personal parenting experiences. [Eric Hirschhorn] The group of parents that work here come every morning with their own set of challenges, and those experiences are infused into our marketing, our design, in our communication, our product development process. [Chelsea Hirschhorn] Perfect sticky snaps. Oftentimes, we're sitting in a room and we're thinking about an authentic, honest way to reference a part of the body or a feature of the product in a way that will introduce some levity or lightheartedness. [Eric Hirschhorn] We wanted to be the brand that lifted the veil and talked about the realities of parenthood. [Chelsea Hirschhorn] We had faced a lot of early rejection, building the FridaMom brand and trying to bring it to market. You can dial down the opacity so I can see more of the controversial work. Eric had this genius idea to harness the rejection and leverage it to our advantage. [Eric Hirschhorn] The more we were centered, the more emboldened we became. [Chelsea Hirschhorn] I'm not really that intimidated by an initial No. [Eric Hirschhorn] Me neither. The airport board is afraid of nipples. Yes. We always think of design as a business tool. [Chelsea Hirschhorn] You want this to be the hero. [Eric Hirschhorn] Whether it's graphic design or video editing withith Premiere. It is inside of everything that we do. [Eric Hirschhorn] At the end of the day, we're solving the grossest parts of parenthood. There's a humor in it all that you have to find. Reflecting back ten years in, birthing this brand into the world, to have played some small part in the way that women's health is prioritized. Those are details we all attach. I take a lot of pride in that. [Music] [Scott Belsky] The innovation room. I like that. Thank you, Team Frida. So using rejection and being misunderstood as a source of fuel seems to be a theme among creative teams that break new ground. And we have some more incredible stories and spotlights ahead. Now, I am really excited to pass the baton to my colleague Stacey Martinet, who will host the incredible sessions ahead. Thanks everyone again. [Music] [Stacy Martinet] Adobe MAX, what is up? [Music] [Stacy Martinet] Yes!
I want to thank Scott for reminding us that each of our individual stories and journeys is unique, and not without its challenges. And I think what so many of us have learned time and time again, it is that our community that keeps us moving forward. And that's what MAX is all about, connecting. So before we get to our amazing, inspiring speakers, I think we should take a minute to get to know each other, the Adobe MAX community. So I need you to be loud. I need you to be proud. I need you to represent Miami Beach. Are you ready? Okay. Creativity makes the world go round. It is a global community. So I want to hear who traveled all the way from Australia. All right, Aussies in the house. Who is joining us from India? Thank you. Germany.
Front row seats. France.
Fabulous. The Netherlands.
Yes. Where are our Japanese community members? There you go.
How about Brazil? Amazing. Colombia.
Okay. If you're Canada or the US, where are my West Coast people at? How about my East Coast peeps? Nice. It's good to be here on the East Coast. And finally, finally, how many of you are here for the first time at Adobe MAX? I love it. Welcome.
Today is going to be an inspiring lineup of speakers who are going to show us what it means to tap into the own personal truth and create from the heart. So let's get started. Our first speaker, Devon Rodriguez. Yes.
An inspiring artist and painter from the South Bronx of New York City. My New Yorkers here? Thank you. Devon is currently the most followed visual artist on social media, an incredible achievement that speaks to his authenticity and the connection he builds with people through his art. He is best known for his hyper realistic portraits, often created on the New York City subway, capturing not just the faces but genuine moments of humanity. And all my New Yorkers know that if you've taken the subway in the last year, that is no easy feat. It makes Devon even more incredible.
He has already brought his signature magic to MAX. So he has, instead of sketching subway riders, turned his attention to our own attendees. He posted a stunning portrait of one of our fellow creatives, Magdiel Lopez on Instagram. So please check it out. His mission is to spread joy, positivity and with a simple premise of keep smiling. So let's give a big, enthusiastic, MAX welcome to Devon. [Music] [Devon Rodriguez] Hello everyone! How's everyone doing? So my name is Devon Rodriguez, I'm from New York City. Anybody from New York City out there? Let's go, New York. Thank you to Adobe for inviting me to talk about my life and my work. I'm so honored to be here. So my story began in the South Bronx. Anybody from the Bronx out there? Let's go. I grew up in a little neighborhood called Mott Haven, and I always had a pencil in my hand, always. I was always into art. My whole entire life, I would get in trouble for covering my whole entire notebook with just drawings. And my teacher would tell my mom, like, can you tell him to stop drawing all over the notebook? And I was always around, like all the creative kids and a lot of the creative kids in the Bronx during middle school were into graffiti. So I used to go with them to the art store and buy all of this spray paint. And I used to tag walls all over the Bronx. And my grandma used to be so mad, but I was just obsessed with it. And then, I got arrested when I was 14 years old. So after getting arrested, I knew that I needed a different avenue for art. I didn't want to be in trouble, I just wanted to become an artist. So I applied to the High School of Art and Design, but I got declined because my drawings, honestly, were not good at all. The portfolio requirements were to do 10 to 15 pieces of different subject matter like portraits, still lives, figures, cityscapes, landscapes, and to use a variety of media like watercolor, acrylic, charcoal, graphite. But I didn't even know what various media even meant. So I just grabbed a pencil and some crayons, and started drawing and then obviously wasn't good enough. And I got denied.
So then I went to my zone high school, called Samuel Gompers. And this was like one of the worst high schools in the South Bronx. The graduation rate was low, the violence was high. But I met this one teacher named Jeremy Harper, and he ran the art program, and I told him, like, hey, I didn't want to be here. I wanted to be at Art and Design High School. And he was like, well, show me your portfolio. And so I showed him my portfolio and he was like, these drawings absolutely suck. Of course you didn't get in. And he was like, if I reviewed this portfolio, I personally would've denied you right away. So he was like, but don't be discouraged. I'm going to mentor you for six months, and I'm going to teach you the ropes because he went to the School of Visual Arts, so he knew what kind of portfolio they want to see. So he took me under his wing for six months. And I was drawing portraits, still lives, everything that I needed to do. And I was just very diligent, because I got humbled by Art and Design. So I was serious this time. And so then, I reapplied and I got accepted into the High School of Art and design for 10th grade. Thank you.
So he told me they only accept ninth grade as a tenth grader. So you got one last chance, I grew up in the hood and I was like, I got to get out of here, my art got to take me out. So I was so happy. So then I came to Art and Design, and I came with a vengeance, and I was like, I got to practice so much because they didn't want me, so now I'm going to show them. This was a self-portrait that I did a year before I met Jeremy Harper. And he was like let's do a portrait lesson after all your practice. And then, we can look at your improvement over a year. So this was a self-portrait that I did in Jeremy Harper's class. And then this is part of my portfolio that got accepted. And then the next year, I did another self-portrait assignment at the High School of Art and Design. So I did this one in pen and ink, and after this one I noticed I got a nice progression. So I'm just going to continue doing self-portraits for the rest of my life. Not only to document my improvement, but also the moment in time I was in life. Then this is 2013. I had joined the APR program where they taught us oil painting, so I did this self-portrait.
Then it's 2014, that's when I graduated. And then, this was me in high school. And I turned... Jeremy Harper, I felt so appreciative of him because in 2010 he taught me about drawing people on the subway, and he was like, if you want to get good at doing portraits then you got to do a variety of people. And New York City's a melting pot, so I remember he took me on the subway, and he just started drawing this guy, and I was like, hold up, mister that's kind of weird. I'm like, wait, you're not going to tell him anything? And he's like, no, this is art, this is pure. If you want to practice noses, you got 100 different noses on the train. If you want to practice lips you got all kinds of thin and thick. So I just followed his lead, and I started to draw portraits on the subway. And then in high school when I learned how to do oil paintings, I started to take photographs of people and do paintings of them. So these are just some strangers. I don't even know if they know that I painted them ten years ago, but maybe one day they'll find out.
This was an art show. And I was just... Thank you.
So I was just inspired by everyday people on the subway, and I just wanted to draw everyone and anyone. So I graduated high school, 2014, and then I went to FIT for a year.
Shout out to FIT. And then, I ended up dropping out a year after. My grandma was so disappointed, but I was like, Abuela, listen, I'm going to use Instagram to blow up. And she's like, no gas on Instagram, get your degree. And I was like... Anyways, so five years later, TikTok, I joined TikTok during the pandemic.
Everyone was talking about TikTok. There were the 16-year-old dancers becoming millionaires and getting into these mansions. I didn't want any of that, I just wanted attention on my work. And so I joined TikTok, I had 35 followers in the beginning, and I was just trying so many different formats. I was posting my commission work, and I would get like 400 views, and I was, I guess it's because nobody knows the person that I'm painting. So then I was like, let me do celebrities. I would get a thousand views and then I would do varnish videos, and I would get like 1500. And I tried 30 different ideas, and it was all around a 1000 to 2000 view, and I was just like, I want millions of views, I want to get out the Bronx.
Then after trying so many different formats, I had this idea to draw people on the subway and I was like, let me just follow the thing that Jeremy Harper taught me. I'm so grateful that I ended up getting rejected from the High School of Art and Design, because not only it lit a fire in me, but it also gave me this random idea to draw people on the subway from Jeremy Harper. So 2010, he gave me that idea 2020 I started doing it, and I got this idea at 2:50 in the morning these are my notes that I have on my phone, and I wrote TikTok about the idea of drawing people on the subway, and I didn't execute this idea until two weeks later. So August 10th, I did my first video, which was this one, and to my surprise, it ended up getting 5 million views. So with the 5 million views, I started off at 35 followers, then I ended up having 100,000 followers from one video and I was just like, wow this is powerful. And my friends were telling me, you made it, you made it. And I was like, no, I didn't make it until I do the second one and it works again. So I was like, please, I hope the second one works out, gets another 5 million views. I ended up getting 21 million views and another 300,000 followers. So now day two drawing people on the subway, I have 400,000 followers. And I knocked on my grandma's door and I was like, Abuela, soy famoso, I'm going to be famous, And she was like, how do you know? and I was like, trust me, trust me. The algorithm.
So this is one of the videos. This was one of my most viral videos. This one got 130 million views. And just drawing people on the subway and getting their reactions.
[Music] So I noticed that the more interesting the person, the more views I would get. I would try to find these interesting characters all over New York City, we have all kinds of people. And then after doing the subway reactions for three years, I wanted to learn the stories behind the portraits. So I wanted to do a longer format where I go up to strangers on the street, and then I ask them about their life story and as the portrait develops that I'm painting, their story develops at the same time. So I started that idea like a year ago, and then that ended up going viral. And here's an example of that. Your tattoos are so cool. My name is Devon. I'm a local artist, I would love to paint your portrait. [Maxelle Talena] Let's do it. [Devon Rodriguez] Wow, I love your tattoos. What's your name and was one of your biggest dreams in life? [Maxelle Talena] My name is Maxelle Talena, one of my biggest dreams in life. Honestly, if I could get paid doing literally almost anything creative. [Devon Rodriguez] I love your tattoo, by the way. [Maxelle Talena] Thank you. [Devon Rodriguez] So well designed, I could tell you're such an artist. [Maxelle Talena] I have a bunch for friends who passed away and stuff and those are really the only thing meaningful. But a lot of it is just trusting my friends that are artists. [Devon Rodriguez] What message do you think the world needs to hear right now? [Maxelle Talena] I think that positivity and loving yourself is not enough, even if you're in the marginalized community. How much of your own comfort are you willing to sacrifice to help somebody around you, to help another person that you don't know you don't really know anything about that needs it? [Devon Rodriguez] Maxelle, thank you for sharing your life with me. This is my interpretation of your life.
[Maxelle Talena] Thank you so much. [Devon Rodriguez] Thank you so much. [Music] Keep smiling.
Thank you So I find all of these characters and I just ask them about their life, and they just share everything with me. And since then it's been a year, then all these celebrities wanted to be a part of it. So then I got to interview Arnolfd Schwarzenegger, Will Smith, and two weeks ago I got to do Oprah Winfrey, and I couldn't believe it. I'm like, how am I interviewing with Oprah like, it's kind of weird. I'm just the Bronx kid, it's crazy.
And so to artists starting out, my advice would be utilize the resources you have. When I first started and I was with Jeremy Harper, all I had was a free metro card from school and a sketchbook and a pencil. And I feel like a lot of people think they need all these fancy tools.
Just utilize what you have. Also develop your craft. Before I even thought about TikTok, I took ten years of just practicing and practicing and practicing and I was just really obsessed and with just mastering realism. And then I would say to love what you do. I feel like a lot of people see someone successful as something and they try to copy them, but I feel like that leads to burnout. I would do this job for free, for no followers. So, it keeps me going, and I never get burnt out. Also, I would say to market your work, you could be the best artist in the world, but if nobody sees it, then nobody would really know. So, what I did is I love storytelling, and I know people like listening to people's stories and people like people's reactions, so I found a way to mix my art with other things that are less niche than just realistic portraits. Thank you so much, everyone. This is so fun.
Thank you, thank you. [Music] [Stacy Martinet] Devon, thank you so much. Love what you do. I loved him. Let's give him one more round of applause.
Next up, we have the incredible Emonee LaRussa. Two-time Emmy Award winning motion graphic artist and director whose work has left an unforgettable mark on the music and entertainment industry. Her impact goes far beyond the art she creates, personally understanding the hardships of being raised in a household that didn't have access to a computer, she created the non-profit Jumpstart Designers to bridge access to those who need it. She is deeply committed to making creativity accessible to all, especially for young artists. And we are so inspired by the work she's done with us at Adobe.
After, Emonee we'll have a video spotlight on Norman Teague. Norman is a Chicago based designer and educator focused on vital projects that address the complexities of urbanism and communities. In his new exhibit with the MoMA, Jam Sessions, Norman and his team use Adobe Firefly to imagine a world where iconic objects from the MoMA's design collection were created by a more diverse chorus of voices. So please join me in welcoming Emonee to the MAX stage. [Music] [Emonee LaRussa] My name is Emonee LaRussa. I am a two-time Emmy Award winning Motion Graphics Artist and Director.
I started my career working in the music industry, creating animated graphics and concert visuals for artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Nas X, Kanye West, H.E.R, Christina Aguilera and many more.
Over these past few years, I've grown out of the music industry, working with companies like Adobe.
Intel, the Super Bowl, Saturday Night Live, the Grammys and more.
I'm here today to talk about how I built my value within myself as an artist and hope to inspire you to do the same.
Let's go back to how I got started. When I was younger, I was absolutely obsessed with music videos. Yes, that is me dressed as Alicia Keys and Sade.
My favorite part was being dramatic and staring out the car window, pretending like I was in a music video, and my husband of 20 years just cheated on me. I'm like 11.
I always thought it would be an absolute dream to be in the music industry, but I had one big problem, I don't know how to sing. I know how to sing, it's just not good. So I needed to figure out a different way of making it. That's when I found my love for making music videos. When I got into high school, I took some film classes, and any time I could make a video emplacement of a homework assignment, I was living. And yes, this is actual homework assignments that I submitted.
Some of my best works.
I think the thing that made me have so much passion for it was just the constant validation from friends and family, and the reactions to my videos. I was just like, wow, I want to do this forever.
That passion that I had pushed me to want to go to film school. When I first pursued my degree, I really wanted to be a cinematographer and use motion graphics and visual effects. It was just like an added plus to my creativity. Within a few months of going to film school, I got my first official cinematography job at a local gym in Sacramento. I even got 120% in my cinematography class.
I felt like I was on such a great path to becoming a cinematographer, but then I started to realize that no one had ever asked me to be their cinematographer. In fact, it felt like everyone was being asked except for me. So I thought maybe if I get on set as a gaffer, then they'll get to know me, then they'll learn I have a deep passion for wanting to be a cinematographer. But I couldn't get respect there either. When I went to go grab something, some guy would walk up and say, oh no, I could grab that, that looks too heavy for you. It's just like a C stand in a sandbag.
The more time I spent, the more I had realized, wow, no one respects me. I was told directly to my face that I don't deserve respect for the way that I dress at school. I was also told that the only reason why I'm getting good grades and winning awards is because the teachers feel bad for me because I'm a girl.
The thing that I had relied on for my passion was that validation, and I couldn't find it.
So if no one was going to believe in me, I needed to believe in myself. I knew I had value, and I knew I deserved more. That feeling of knowing that you have value is so incredibly powerful. It had such a huge impact on my day-to-day life, giving me that fuel to be motivated to push through. It gave me that craving to become better. It gave me trust and confidence in myself and what I was creating. It built the foundation of my work ethic.
Knowing your value is one of the strongest tools you can have. So having that, instead of quitting film school, I decided to push more towards my motion graphics and visual effects and be able to utilize my cinematography eye to create better compositions. If people didn't want me on their set, I would just make my own scenes.
And you should be happy to know that before I graduated college, I was hired as a full-time cinematographer and motion graphics artist at CBS news.
Thank you.
And a few years later, one of the same people that said one of those horrific quotes to me earlier, they ended up working under me at that job.
Not only was that moment eye opening for me, because I had found such a deep love for motion graphics and visual effects, but it also taught me that I needed to seek validation within myself more than validation from others. But with that, I quickly learned that if I was doing nothing to reassure that idea of believing in myself and my value, that that feeling would just go away. Like, I needed to actively work towards actually validating that feeling. Differentiating the difference between delusional and intentional.
For anyone who has ever experienced anxiety or depression, you know your brain can trick you into thinking the wildest things. A lot of them are not true, most of them are not true. There was actually a point in my life where I had this constant fear of throwing up in public. It had gotten so bad that I started to avoid eating things and eventually going out in public. I talked to my therapist, and she goes, wow, when was the last time you threw up from anxiety? I was like, never.
When was the last time you threw up at all? I was like, like two years ago from food poisoning. She goes, huh. And if you ever needed to throw up, you probably could just make it to the restroom, right? Yes.
From that moment on, I never felt that level of anxiety around throwing up in public again. But why? Why this sudden change? Because for weeks I was telling myself that I was fine, and I wasn't going to throw up. The difference was, she had to use logic and evidence to strengthen my belief that I was fine, and I wasn't going to throw up. This is called putting your thoughts on trial. It's a cognitive behavioral therapy technique that is used to evaluate the evidence to validate a thought. When you can actually validate an emotion with logic and reason, you could change your perspective on that thought. For so long, I was literally changing my day-to-day life and habits and who I was as a person because of this thought. So it got me thinking. If a thought can change my way of life in a negative way, couldn't a thought hold the same impact in a positive way? And as amazing as it would be to just say, I believe in myself, and it just like, magically works. Unfortunately, it doesn't. I don't think I can convince myself that I'm the greatest tennis player in the world, knowing damn well I've never played tennis in my life. Now, we need to put our thoughts on trial. Just like proving my negative thoughts to be wrong, I'm going to use the same technique to prove my positive thoughts to be right. Using logic to validate the feeling. Because I know that knowing that I have value is so impactful to my life. Now, I need to intentionally work to believe in that thought and to do things in my day-to-day life, to create that evidence to validate it. But this is not an overnight task, nor is it easy. I'm here trying to prove that I have value to my biggest critic, which is myself. So I'm going to need solid evidence to prove that I do have value. Here are the two things that I say that give me that belief and the evidence that I use.
You put in as much time as you possibly can to become great.
Now, when I say this, I do not spend every waking moment of my life working. What I mean is being intentional about my time and building my structure around my work life, and what I'm able to give.
As of right now, my time consists of 40-hour work weeks. I take a daybreak every three days, and I take a 5-minute break every 25 minutes of work. Oh, and here's the thing that trips people out the most. I get a full night's rest, yes. In fact, actually, I get nine hours of sleep every night. Yes.
I make it to where my work doesn't exceed these numbers. No more, no less. Sometimes I have the motivation, just work just a few more hours. No, it'll be there in the morning. I need to be strict and consistent. And for anyone thinking, Emonee, you're taking so many breaks, how does this prove that you're putting in time. I need everyone here to understand that taking breaks are productive. You need to implement non-work time into your day.
This structure that I have built over the past few years of my career is based on my limits and where I can push myself. I learned that the structure was sustainable, and if I do more, I know for a fact I will burn out and all that positive reinforcement burns with it too. Because burnout is a passion killer. I'll never forget the moment I was trying to get my big break in the music industry, and I was doing a lot of fan art at the time, all while working my full-time, 40-hour week job at CBS News. At this point, I was working 60 to 72 hour-workweeks. One day, a piece I made for a title creator was found by Columbia Records on Twitter, and within a few weeks, I quit my full-time job at CBS News and was now working as a full time freelance artist for one of the biggest record labels in the world. I was then offered the opportunity of a lifetime to create a music video for one of my favorite artists.
Here was the ask. I needed to direct and animate a 2.5-minute-long music video. Not too bad. In four days.
And one of those days was strictly dedicated to revisions. Mind you, it's just me and three random animators that I found online. But we made it work.
Leading up to this project, I had absolutely no structure with my time management. The way I worked was, I got up, I got off when I physically couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. It's terrible. For this project, I ended up working 16-hour days for four days straight. Then the music video went live. I celebrated that night. I went to bed so happy that I just completed this project.
Until I woke up at four in the morning thinking that I was dying of a heart attack. That was my first ever panic attack. And it was not pretty. There's nothing more embarrassing than going to urgent care thinking that you're going to die only for a doctor to tell you you're totally healthy and you're in fact, not dying. I'm like, can you just lie and say I have high blood pressure or something? Like that true walk of shame out of there. My issue was that there was absolutely no structure in place for my time management. Life is so unpredictable. So every now and then when I get an opportunity like this, that passes my limits, it's only manageable, when I am intentional about the rest of my time.
I don't regret taking on this project. I regret that I didn't take better care of myself leading up to it. After the project was completed, instead of feeling valued, I focused on how I wasn't good enough and how no one would ever want me on a music video ever again. I wish I had someone to tell me how important it is to find my limits and to stick to my structure, so when life throws me curveballs, I can actually handle them. Now I know. So I'm able to remind myself that I'm putting in as much time as I possibly can, because I am. When I'm working on a sustainable flow, I am more productive and there are more days that I wake up completely motivated to want to create. I'm also intentional about my consistency, so it becomes an everyday practice that reinforces those positive thoughts. So find your structure and what you're able to give. Figure out your limits and build a foundation that becomes habitual and allows you to ensure your value. So the second thing that I say as evidence in my trial is you are getting better every year.
Another part about being intentional about my time is what I'm doing in it. Yes, working is great, but that doesn't take up all of my time. I'm actively looking to build progress in my craft. This means taking time to learn from others, watching tutorials, watching workflows, researching techniques. I dedicate time in my work hours to learning new skills and trying out different methods. In my opinion, watching tutorials and courses are going to be the fastest route of progression. I also have dedicated days in my calendar for concepts and ideas, where I spend the whole day looking at different art mediums and different processes of work. But maybe you don't have a full day. Breakdown what you do have. Just be intentional about dedicating time to learning. Researching techniques and seeking inspirational content has turned my work into my passion and hobby. It is so cool to me to be able to look at successful people in my field and try to understand how they got there. Before I worked towards believing in my own value, I hated looking at other success because it felt like a reminder of where I wasn't. I would compare myself to the point of destruction, but after actively working towards patience in my progress, I can look at other artists and feel inspired. It's like every one of them has their own blueprint, and over the past few years, it has helped me curate my own. Learning from the successes of others helps us grow.
It's truly inspiring. I think we use platforms like Instagram and Pinterest to create our own world of creative inspiration. My feed consists of creators of all different art mediums. Truthfully, I've never felt more inspired. I believe that if you could surround yourself with things that inspire your creative path, your motivation will skyrocket. This is where manifesting comes into play. I'm such an advocate for manifesting because I have the evidence to show that it works. That's my high school newspaper, it's most likely to win an artistic award. And that is me with my Emmy.
Manifesting is just this practice of bringing something into reality through focused thought, intention and belief. One of my favorite techniques of manifesting is creating vision boards. This is my vision board for 2024. It's a combination of different art illustrations I saw online to help remind me of my goal.
Here's my 2023 vision board, where I had set up that I want 50,000 followers on Instagram. I ended up making 209,000 followers that year.
Here's my 2022, where I set out that I wanted to do an in-person art gallery for my non-profit. We raised almost $200,000 from that event.
Every year for the past four years, I've made these reminders because I see the impact it has on my life. These were just thoughts, and now they are part of my reality. Did you know that adults can have thousands, if not tens of thousands of thoughts a day? The difference between it staying out there and becoming a reality is intentional actions towards it. When it's in your face, you're forced to consider what would it take to make this happen? It's a reminder that you got this. And when you value yourself, saying that has so much more weight.
Being in this industry for over a decade, I have learned so much about myself and what I want from this career. Because I value myself, my work flourishes. I give every project 100% because I feel 100%. I truly wish that someone had told me sooner that focusing on a better version of myself gives me the tools to give the best version of myself to the world. There are days that I may feel unmotivated and uninspired, and that's totally fine, because I have the evidence to say you are getting better every year and you are doing as much as you possibly can. Please be patient. Show yourself as much love as you do to others. Be intentional and actively work towards creating that value within yourself. My name is Emonee LaRussa. Thank you so much for intentionally giving me your time. Thank you.
[Music] [Norman Teague] We have this ongoing saying in the studio, what if African Americans were welcomed to come to America as kings and queens? [Music] How different would the world be? [Music] My name is Norman Teague. I'm a Designer and an Educator here in Chicago. I make things, sometimes it turns out to be furniture. Sometimes it leans more towards sculpture. My favorite material to work in has always been wood. I can carve into it and sort of infusing it this language that feels familiar to me from an ancestral standpoint. That will go this far and then I stack this. [Daniel Overbey] Experimentation is the process. We are driven by iteration. We usually start with a sketch, and then we model them out digitally, allow the analog to influence the digital and the digital to influence the final [Norman Teague] the MoMa show that I'm guest curator for this year is titled Jam Sessions, and Jam Sessions is really a show that's about reimagining a past. [Daniel Overbey] What would the MoMA's collection look like had black designers been offered the same opportunity as the celebrated Bauhaus designers in 1920, 60, 70? [Norman Teague] Firefly gave us the ability to visualize our thoughts, the what ifs of the canons that have been developed. If we had influences like George Clinton and the Harlem Renaissance. [Daniel Overbey] Firefly turned itself into a brainstorming catalyst, generating different kinds of chairs that won't exist, can't exist, have never existed. We just wanted to push the envelope and see what would it look like if there was fur growing out of the surface of this chair? Or what would it look like if there was an afro growing out of the surface of a chair instead of leather? [Norman Teague] We took a lot of respect out of the randomness of it. [Music] [Norman Teague] Part of why I look back to African traditions is because it's one of the things that I feel like I don't see within the canon of design. I was excited to see these connections between jazz and hip hop as a young person, like Jazzmatazz, Guru. It was an epic mixture of two genres coming together and relating to new groups of people. [Daniel Overbey] Norman has a very jovial and playful style. There's this exploration that is very apparent through his work. [Music] [Norman Teague] When you're exploring things, experimentation is a key force that you were just like, oh s**t, I didn't even think about that. The MoMA show came to me, and I was really hoping that I could continue to tell stories, share that with as many people that I can. Just mixing all of that together is ultimately what I'm looking at in this imagination process. And now we are a week out before I get in a car and drive to New York. Most of the work that we're doing for the show is prototypes. They're a significant way of allowing people to understand the way that our studio thinks and learns from the prototype editions prior to getting into that. In fact, there might even be some pink foam. There will definitely be some pink foam in there. Outside of the box is definitely a way to look at it. How we could reimagine the what ifs of the world. How this might just allow us to rethink that past with people of color as a part of that. [Music] [Norman Teague] Hopefully a young black girl or boy would see this and understand that there's somebody out here telling a story that's very relative to your story, and they're happy at it. [Music] [Stacy Martinet] Emonee, give it up.
Thank you, Emonee, for reminding us that we have to take care of each other, and we also have to take care of ourselves and make time and space for the process. I cannot wait to see what you do next. And thank you to Norman and the MoMA for your partnership on this incredible work. The exhibit will be in New York, so if you will be there, please take some time to go see it.
Jason Naylor, wow. Maybe some of you have met him in the Creative Park already. He is going to blow your mind. He is an award-winning artist, designer, creative director based in Brooklyn, New York. He works in both digital and traditional media, and his work ranges from typography to illustration to large scale murals.
He is recognized for his vibrant color palette. His designs and positive words reflect his zeal for life, his quest for joy, and his love for love. So let's give him the warm MAX welcome, the one and only Jason Naylor. [Music] [Jason Naylor] It's so good to see my own s**t on this screen. Miami.
I'm so happy. I've been coming to Miami for seven years to paint walls in Wynwood.
This is my first Adobe MAX, so not only am I attending today, I'm standing up here doing this, Devon and Emonee.
It's hard to come up here and follow those two.
But I'm really happy to be here. Thank you to all the people at Adobe for bringing me here. I'm Jason Naylor, and I'm an Artist. So I'm here to tell you a little bit about myself and my story. And it all starts here. I was born in Salt Lake City. Yes, I was raised Mormon, Mormons, let's go. Who's there? You know, whenever I say I'm from Salt Lake City, the first question, of course, and yes, I was raised Mormon. What does that mean? I was raised in a big family. This is me as a kid, looking really cute with my art supplies. My mom's an artist. When I was young, I wasn't necessarily playing soccer. I was drawing and painting. I'm one of seven. There's me with my devious little smile. And big Mormon family, what does that mean? Raised with family values, expectations to fit in, to look like everyone else, to dress the same, to go to church, be a good boy and all that s**t.
This is a page from my high school sketchbook. Obviously, I was doing art, here's a little window into my future. I didn't get arrested, so that was convenient.
Then I went on a mission. I went to Brazil for two years as a missionary. And as a missionary, you learn values and ethics and I learned this whole concept of one day at a time. You learn about trust and vulnerability and sharing and openness, and I was not the best missionary. I was kind of like a rule breaker. So, like, sneaking out at night and making out with girls and stuff, which, when you're 19 years old, doesn't seem like a big deal. But when you're a Mormon missionary, not necessarily what you're supposed to be doing. So, the general M.O. of a missionary is this we are all alike unto God. And that didn't really feel good for me because I didn't want to be like anyone else, you know, I'm not like you guys, I'm my own person.
And then I came home from Brazil, I went to BYU. Who went to BYU? Anyone? All right, well. Have you heard of the honor code? At BYU, there's an honor code, which is a list of rules, including a dress code that you have to adhere to, which means you can't have any facial hair, you can't wear tank tops as a guy, you can't drink, you can't have sex. All these things. And also, if you do and your roommates turn you in, then they'll be rewarded. So it's a complicated place to be for someone like me. So I didn't really feel like I fit in or belong there. Great school, good education. I made it through, and I moved to New York. So I left this white picket fence land of salt Lake City. And in New York you can just do whatever you want. You can be whatever you want to be, and no one really cares because there're too many people. You could just walk down the street naked in New York and someone might look, but they wouldn't give a s**t.
I didn't try it, though, but, you know.
So I got to New York, started working for this makeup company.
MAC was super cool at the time, I don't know if it is anymore. It was a hundred years ago. But this is me. And finally, I could dress the way I wanted. There's no dress code. Started getting tattoos, wearing eyeliner, and listening to punk rock music, living in the East Village. And it was interesting because I felt like for the first time in life, I fit in. And I also learned that all this time wanting to stand out, and look different, and be weird or whatever the f**k I really am. It was kind of just me fitting in with the other misfits and there was some comfort to that, it felt good, and I felt like I belonged. So I started exploring in my work.
The work that I was doing at MAC was really interesting and colorful, and I was given a decent amount of creative liberty from my creative director. I was working on these mini brand projects that were all very colorful, fashion shows, working with photographers and makeup artists and doing cool work. I also got a taste for large scale, and there was a lot of environmental graphics that I was working on for fashion shows, and I realized how much I enjoyed seeing my work at scale.
Something that started to bother me a little bit while working in a full-time job was ownership, and what does that mean? When you work for a company and I say this with love to all of you, when you do the work, you don't really get to put your signature at the bottom of it. And that's something that I realized that I needed and wanted.
This is an example of something that I created. This is a logo for a collaboration enacted with Milk Studios.
And I really like this piece. I think it's f*****g cool, but my name is not on it. And so what did I want? I wanted to sign my work. So I started thinking about quitting my job, and that's scary.
Leaving the comfort of the paycheck and just doing my own thing. And I thought about it for a while and finally said yes to myself.
The yes is like, take the risk. Believe in yourself, do it. And I did it. I quit my job, left my comfort zone, started doing my own work, and that sounds great and all, but it's very difficult to work for yourself. And so I started to think about why am I here? What am I doing? And also thinking about, why am I making these creative decisions in my work? Like I'm trying to just do my own work, be my own artist, express myself and why am I choosing these colors, or why this design or why paint what I'm painting? And at the same time, I love murals. I wanted to do street art and paint murals, and I was trying to figure out how. And so I was thinking about what do artists really do and what do they like to paint? What do they like to create? And it comes down to this, if you love something, if there's something that is special to you, that's what you should put in your work. Don't just make work that looks cool or looks pretty, make work that reflects the thing that you're passionate about and that you know about and that you love. And for me, I have all these family values that I was raised to be this positive, kind, happy person. And I am, I'm generally a pretty happy, positive guy. And so I started making work about that. I was like I love happiness and kindness, and I love positive quotes and refrigerator magnets. Let's say, you got this and so I just started making work and I love fitness and motivation. That's the stuff that I started making. I don't need to paint pictures of lizards or something, even though I love them. So I just started making work about what was in my heart.
I was doing digital work at the same time that I was trying to figure out how to do more murals. And it's hard to just paint murals unless you want to get arrested. And so I was doing digital work, trying to find mural jobs and at the same time putting my values into my work. And I love color. I don't like to wear it, but I like to put it into the work and so I was kind of like working on this idea that color is the lens, color is like the angle that I want to use for the work that I'm making. And in a way, color became this icon that represented diversity. And so I could use my work to represent inclusivity and diversity because of the color, like color represents everyone. And then at the core, there's love, right? Everything that we do has love in it. Everything that I do has love in it. And I realized that there was power in the storytelling, in the messaging that I was putting into the work. And I was expressing myself. I didn't necessarily do it because I wanted people to enjoy the work. I did the work for me, but I realized that people enjoyed the work because the messages were resonating and maybe the colors resonate, maybe the design resonates, but really the message resonates and there's power to that. So there was a mural contest and the prize for the contest was a wall, a mural wall in New York City. And I came across this quote, when you live life colorfully, people talk about you. What does that mean? I don't really know, but it struck me because I love colorful things. Like a color to me represents diversity. So when you live life in a diverse way, I started thinking through this quote and it kind of turned into like, be yourself, live life colorfully means just be you. So I entered that for the mural contest, and I won the contest, and I got this mural wall, which is on 16th Street and 6th Ave in Manhattan in New York. And you can get online and look up what's the foot traffic on any given street in New York City. So I discovered that 10,000 people passed this wall every single day, which is f*****g crazy. 10,000 people like seeing my work every day all of the sudden. Thank you.
One of those 10,000 people is my girlfriend now. And at the time she didn't know who I was. But I was there painting, and she lived across the street. So, I kept getting requests now for murals similar to the one that I had done. So I kept doing murals with messages, the messages matter. And this particular one, love comes in every color, I was so obsessed with the concept of these messages. And I didn't even put this hashtag on the mural, but I had looked it up. There're 500 posts of people that thought this should be the hashtag, and just shared it, and it's the power of social media. Like people started to see my work that way. And so I realized there was power in what I was doing and thinking about storytelling, thinking about messaging and thinking about, maybe it's pretty, maybe what I'm doing is colorful and happy and whatever, but I think it actually is making people feel good, and that's powerful. So I did this Instagram poll, how it looks versus how it feels. And Instagram knows all. So how it feels matters most. The message is what matters most. And I realized the value of the messaging in my work and the storytelling in my work. The color is important, the style is important, maybe the scale because it's on a big wall is important. But really what resonates with people? The message. So I just leaned into this kept painting as many murals as I could get my hands on and now, I had this portfolio of murals. So it was easy for me to approach somebody and ask to paint their property. And it was also easy for me to get paid work because people were reaching out saying, come paint our wall and I kept doing the positivity, the messages, putting up work on walls that express something that I thought was valuable both to me and to other people, and the difference in the work that I was doing from graffiti and other street art is that with graffiti you put your name on the wall, which is what I wanted in the beginning. I just wanted my name on everything. And then I came to learn that what mattered and what I wanted to put on the wall was something that would actually make the world a better place. And so I kept doing it, getting established in New York City, getting big commissions, traveling to go paint in other places, which is so exciting, and getting big ad campaigns with murals in them - this is a diamond company - and mural festivals. People invited me to come paint, like, just do whatever you want. We have this building, and you just paint whatever you want, and it was so dreamy to me because it's like sitting at a computer every day for MAC cosmetics to this.
This is all I dreamt of. I just want to paint whatever I want to paint. And I want people to be happy because of it.
The walls got bigger, and I had to prove that I could scale up my work even more. And challenges in how do you actually get the work from your iPad to this? And then with the messages, I wanted to evolve. Lately I've been thinking about how can I tell the story without any words? This piece is called Together and it's all about what can we do if we put our hands together.
The buildings kept getting bigger. This is my largest mural to date in which I started playing with characters, and the little white character is called Anyone, and it's like a blank canvas character. And the little Anyone figures that are on that wall are my height in real life. So that's how big that wall is. There's a larger version of Anyone.
I've been playing with effects, spray paint is such an interesting tool, and I only use spray paint. So what can you do with spray paint and these glowing kind of like, ethereal, magical effects are easy to do with spray paint, I learned. So I've been focusing on that a little bit. And with the messaging that I've been doing with my work, there's a lot of power to it. And so I've realized that I can use my style and my storytelling and my values to support causes that matter. Now You Are Not Alone is a mural project that I'm part of, and it's all about mental health. And it's a 501(c)(3), I'm on the board as well, but also, I paint with the project. And if you'd like to paint with a project, please talk to me. But it's basically, we engage artists around the world to paint murals that say you are not alone. It's all branded with this color palette, which is obviously not my color palette. But the point of the project is to remind people and to raise awareness about mental health, and so that anyone who is living with mental health challenges might walk by this large-scale mural and see this message, and it might be able to make their moment a little bit better. The project is amazing, and it's powerful to me that I can use the work that I've done to make an impact for something that's so meaningful like this.
Excuse me. Another message that I love is OPN UR Heart. And this is my favorite message. You see this heart in a lot of my work and the open heart has a kind of an identity into itself. And I'll tell you the story quickly, I'm running out of time, but we're going to keep going.
The heart was a heart that I originally painted on a wall, and I didn't like it, so I painted this little black heart over it. And I kept doing it because I thought it looked cool, but quickly it turned into the Open Heart, which was not there's a black heart on it, or there's a hole in it, there's a room for more love, there's this heart and there's space. There's space to grow, there's space for evolution, there's space for more love. And the beauty of it is, the more love you give, the more love you have for yourself. And so Open Heart became its own identity, and Open Heart has led me to all these exciting things, including brand collaborations. Open Heart has lived as fine jewelry, Open Heart has lived as a wheat paste campaign in New York City.
MAC Cosmetics, full circle, calls me up. Hey, let's do a lipstick and look at who's signature is on it.
That one felt good.
The Open Heart has lived on watches, it has lived on wheelchairs for charity.
Thank you.
Open Heart has lived as NFTs. Weird world.
Open Heart has supported drinking. Yeah!
Open Heart lives as a toy, which you can get in my merch booth. There're a couple left. Open heart has led to sculptures around the world. This is in Macao.
There's an interesting installation that Open Heart got to live in in China. And Open Heart lives on all my merch. Again, come see me, booth 1156. That's my plug, that's my little plug. I'm happy that I got to talk to you guys. This is f*****g amazing. And I want to leave you with this. Open your heart, what does it mean? Open your arms, open your mind, open yourself. Welcome people into your life. Spread love. Be kind, be yourself. And at the end of the day, I spend all my time trying to be different. And the truth is, what made me different is what makes me special today. So I don't know if I'm different or if I'm just fitting in with a bunch of misfits. I think we're all kind of misfits. So let's go, open your heart.
[Music] [Stacy Martinet] That was amazing. Jason, your signature lipstick, amazing. Thank you so much for opening your hearts with us. Let's give one round of applause to send off Devon, Emonee, Jason and Norman. These are icons in our MAX community, and I know they're inspiring so many of you that you're going to be up here next year. Now, it's been quite a year, and as we talked about yesterday and today, the world is changing and very quickly. But the role of creativity is more important than ever. So I want to take a minute to give a shout out to some of the newest members of our creative community, the UK and US students who were recognized by the Adobe Digital Edge Awards. These are university students who are making their projects themselves, and they are taking them to the next level with Adobe Creative tools. And we all have a responsibility to support and lift up this next generation of creative professionals. These winners are here in this room today, so I'm going to ask you to please stand so that we can give you the recognition you deserve. Digital Edge winners.
Awesome.
Keep doing what you're doing.
We wanted to give the Adobe MAX platform to more incredible voices of the community this year. So we introduced the first Adobe MAX Creativity Awards. We had more than 1300 submissions, and we were blown away by the artistry, the storytelling, the personal struggles, and personal truth in all of them. So without further ado, let's give out some awards.
It is my great honor to recognize Lia, a motion and graphic designer from the Dominican Republic who is now in Barcelona with the Digital Design Award for most detailed and flawless execution of digital design. Her work for a Spanish art and design collective struck the judges for its beauty and its clarity of vision. The mission is to address the gender gap in the creative industry by highlighting the work of Latin American women. To conceptualize and develop her designs, Lia combines the power of After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. A round of applause for Lia.
Now, give it up for Anton for the Experimental Award for the most creative and unconventional use of Adobe tools. Anton used Firefly as a magic wand to allow designers to turn any shape into any object. His approach to generative AI introduced a game changing method for creating typography that also ensures the authenticity and originality of the designer's work. Hundreds of artists have since started using it and his methods to create their own typographic designs. Anton also runs a program called the Design Academy, where he shares his knowledge with aspiring graphic designers. Congratulations, Anton.
Thomas wowed the world with his use of unique and original color palettes to make visual effects. His work has earned him the Use of Color Award. He played with colors, lights, and shadows in Photoshop to create kimono, a series of dreamlike scenes combines detailed fantasy with Japanese inspired digital paintings. From his studio in the south of France, he creates stories and concepts for film, entertainment and design industries. A round of applause for Thomas.
Gabriele reminded us that animation superpower is that possibly no other medium can hold innocent humor in one hand and power and empathy in the other, to connect with an artist. An Italian motion and graphic designer, he evoked the spirit of playfulness with his cheerful music video called Mom how fresh I am. The pun filled short film is catchy, fun and most importantly, effective, proving that great storytelling doesn't always need to be so serious to make an impact. Every element in the music video was designed in Illustrator and animated in After Effects. Congratulations, Gabriele.
[Music] [Stacy Martinet] The Mixed Media Award is for exceptional skill in blending multiple medium forms into a cohesive and compelling piece. The winner is Los Angeles based Manal. She led the global brand and completed 360 marketing campaign for VidCon. It's so fresh, it's so fun, and it inspired us. Using After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and Frame, she developed more than a thousand assets for this year's conference, spanning advertisements, merchandise, on stage graphics, photography, posters, and more, a round of applause.
And the storytelling award goes to Kevin, a Korean Canadian director, telling the most engaging and powerful story. His film What Did They Say? focuses on an immigrant child who grows up having to translate for her mother. Created for NextShark in celebration of Asian, American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Kevin's film went on to receive viral recognition and garnered more than 30 million views online. His main editing tools for What Did They Say? was Premiere Pro, used with Frame to encourage a seamless collaboration between himself and his team. A round of applause for Kevin. [Music] [Stacy Martinet] Before we wrap up, we have one more award that I could not be prouder to give. The Creative Impact Award, celebrating a non-profit that is leveraging creative tools to build a better society. I first learned about the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children from John Penn, an Adobe colleague who has devoted his career to enabling the center with the best technology Adobe has to offer. I had the opportunity to visit with NCMEC, as we so called them inside Adobe, last spring.
Now I don't want to date myself, but back in the 1980s, I remember milk cartons that had advertisements in the U.S. with photos of kidnaped children.
NCMEC has become a little more high tech since then, and it was mind blowing to be in the center with the people working tirelessly every day and bringing a little more high tech.
Thanks to innovations in emerging technology, NCMEC has evolved the methods for tracking and finding missing children. They are leveraging bleeding edge image technology to age progress missing children. Forensic artists start with high resolution image of a child and family reference photos through a powerful combination of art and science. They use tools like Photoshop to merge features and reference photos with knowledge they've gleaned about how children's faces develop and age over time. Since the program began in 1989, the center has age progressed more than 7500 images of long-term missing children.
Incredible.
This year, they're celebrating their 40th anniversary, and for 40 years they have worked tirelessly and under celebrated to help recover more than 400,000 children, some missing for years and even decades, and reuniting them with their family.
And if reuniting all of these children with their families was not enough, their Netsmart program now provides tools and education for children, parents, and teachers to help us all raise children who are safer and more savvy online.
I'm proud to present them with our first ever Adobe Max Creative Impact Award. Congratulations and thank you to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for all you do.
Congratulations to all the award winners today. Every day you inspire us at Adobe to push our technology further.
And everyone here at the creative community is inspired by your storytelling and your passion. Hi, Scott. [Scott Belsky] Wow, that's a lot to unpack. I mean a couple, I guess for me, a few takeaways real quickly. I mean, Devon served as a New Yorker the subway for inspiration I can identify with, but also reinforcing that responsibility we have to market our own work. Emonee, I was struck by her analytical approach to how she, like what's going on under the hood is just so amazing to me. And also reminding us that we can't derive our value externally, like we have that self-derived. And then, Jason, I mean, my goodness, like kindness is killer. And remembering that standing out to fit in with misfits. I just love that. How about you? What are your highlights? [Stacy Martinet] It's hard to pick.
I think just hearing from everyone their journey, no one ended up where they initially start, but they ended up exactly where they come to realize they should be. And I think that's the beauty of MAX and the process. [Scott Belsky] I agree, I guess the journey of difference definitely takes us to unexpected places. So let's see, what do we have ahead for one of us? Well, first of all, let me just real quickly, one part of our community that I want to take a minute to acknowledge are the designers, engineers and the extended Adobe team who work tirelessly to improve products, to ship what we have for MAX and to take all of your feedback for one minute or one second, Adobe folks, stand up. To the Adobe team.
[Stacy Martinet] Team Adobe!
All Adobe. All Adobe. [Scott Belsky] So, I know you speak on behalf of the team, but we look forward to meeting up with a lot of you in the pavilion. Feedback is always welcome, be gentle. What else do we got? [Stacy Martinet] Definitely stop by the Creative Park if you haven't already, there are sessions, there are our sponsors doing amazing things and take time to connect and definitely check out some of the merch, like what Jason has. [Scott Belsky] 100% I'm getting one of those t shirts, by the way. Sneaks, so who's been to Sneaks before? Yes, you will know that Sneaks are a really unique thing, where we go and we find engineers in all the crevices of our labs doing these crazy things, and we say, hey, we're going to put you in front of 11,000 people. That's tonight. You won't want to miss it, it's always fun. And it's hosted by the one and only Awkwafina. [Stacy Martinet] Awkwafina. [Scott Belsky] That's going to be cool.
[Stacy Martinet] And after Sneaks, we'll get to celebrate creativity and dance the night away at MAX Bash with our special headliner, T-Pain. [Scott Belsky] T-Pain. [Stacy Martinet] You got to buy me a drink. [Scott Belsky] T-Pain. I don't know. [Stacy Martinet] Thank you, thank you. And some breaking news. Yoli is going to do a little set before T-Pain comes on. So we'll get to have more of her amazingness. [Scott Belsky] Awesome. [Stacy Martinet] Well, that's our show for today. [Scott Belsky] Enjoy your stay too. Thank you again. - [Scott Belsky] See you for Sneaks. - [Stacy Martinet] See you back for Sneaks