The ANDERSON creative team recently had the opportunity to attend Adobe MAX, one of the largest creative conferences in the world. We packed our bags and headed to sunny Miami Beach for three epic days of inspiration. This creative whirlwind included over 12,000 inspired attendees, 227 trailblazing speakers, and 178 interactive sessions.

Here are some favorite takeaways and fresh ideas we’re already weaving into our creative process here at ANDERSON.

Top Takeaways
Keynote Speakers

• Devon Rodriguez, Visual Artist: Devon’s journey highlights how failure can serve as a stepping stone. After a decade of perseverance, he turned a mentor’s suggestion into a fundamental part of his brand. Devon’s success is built on resilience, positivity, and a genuine connection with his subjects. Today, he is the world’s most-followed artist on Instagram.
• Emonee LaRussa, Motion Graphic Artist & Director: Emonee believes in the importance of taking breaks to boost productivity and prevent burnout. Her method centers on intentional progression—structuring time effectively and building a supportive environment for lasting success.
  Jason Naylor, Artist: Jason is known for his vibrant colors and infectious optimism. But, he often felt unable to fully claim his work while collaborating with big brands, which inspired him to go independent. Now, his mission is to spread love, good vibes, and make a meaningful impact through his art.
  Session Speakers
• Valentina Vee, Director of Motion Pictures: Valentina is a filmmaker at heart and a wonderfully talented video editor, director, and cinematographer who specializes in maximizing creative efficiency within Adobe programs. Her work focuses on highlighting underrepresented stories from her community. She did an incredible job of demonstrating how her Premiere Pro tips and tricks help her workflow.
  Nol Honig, Designer, Director, Animator: Nol is a returning speaker and one of today’s most inspiring motion graphics artists and video editors. His impressive work, including contributions to the 2012 Obama reelection campaign and Saturday Night Live, proves that combining talent with diverse projects can help build a rewarding career.
• Jesús Ramirez, Graphic Artist, Finisher: Jesus makes working on film and television promotional art look effortless. His workflow in Photoshop, demonstrated in various art files, was incredibly powerful (and fascinating!) and demonstrated how he skillfully blends traditional and modern art techniques.

Content Credentials + Transparency

• With the continued use of AI in the creative world, measures are being taken to ensure authenticity is at the heart of everything. The Content Credentials system ensures that creators get proper credit for their work. At the same time, Adobe Firefly is designed to learn and get inspiration solely from licensed work rather than from freely available material online.
• Adobe is actively integrating metadata into digital content to enhance transparency and credibility. This metadata includes information such as AI-generated elements, original creators, and other crucial details. By incorporating this, Adobe continues to lend credibility to Firefly as a leading AI program.
• This technology will help keep Adobe Firefly honest, prevent misleading content such as deep-fakes, and make it very easy to find the source of generated content. The ethics of AI usage have been hotly and rightfully debated for years, and Adobe has made it clear that they are taking steps to increase trustworthiness while using their new tools.

AI as a Creative Tool – Not a Replacement

• As AI begins to streamline the creative process—aiding in brainstorming and concepting, resizing production templates in seconds, and enabling photo editing with a click of a button—content creation is expected to increase by five times, driving up demand along with it.
• AI can never replace or replicate the human qualities that fuel creativity. As creatives, we can use AI to become even more imaginative when we are concepting and brainstorming, assisting us in creating things we initially thought were out of reach, especially for smaller agencies. The time-saving aspects of AI in the creative process help our small team become more efficient and flexible to the fast-paced nature of agency life.
• The growing demand is doubling job growth in creative industries, leading to a greater need for innovative roles. Recognizing this, ANDERSON is already taking steps to expand our team. Click here to learn more about us and explore if you’d be a good fit!

AI Meets Video

• At last year’s conference, the AI focus was primarily on introducing new tools. But this year, the emphasis shifted to how generative AI and Adobe Firefly will continue to enhance video production and motion graphics. Exciting new features were unveiled, such as expanding video clips using the Generative Expand tool in Premiere Pro, manipulating audio with the Remix tool, and streamlining workflows between Illustrator and After Effects.
• A lot of the elements and tools introduced in the Sneaks event and Opening Keynote are now available in Beta versions of Creative Cloud programs. These tools will be incredibly useful in saving time moving forward because the efficiency of our work and the programs we use will help reduce costs and shorten client timelines even more.
• Tools such as Generative Fill in Photoshop and Remix in Premiere Pro will continue to aid video production for our agency. In the past, completing projects took significantly longer because we had to spend extensive time in Photoshop trimming, cropping, or manipulating imagery and customizing music tracks for videos. But with these new tools, we can reduce that time to a fraction. This efficiency frees us up to focus more on ideation and concepting—affording our team the time we really need for the brainstorming part of the process. This is a game-changer when it comes to generating innovative ideas!

Adobe Express Capabilities

• This year, there was an even larger emphasis on Adobe Express and its capabilities for non-creatives. As a collaborative tool, it expands creative access for marketers, social media managers, and even clients by automating complex processes into one-click Quick Actions.
• Express makes it easy to set up templates while maintaining brand standards. Its locking feature safeguards the brand’s strategic elements across campaigns, ensuring that only designated areas can be modified. This gives designers confidence that their work will remain intact in critical spots.
• AI integrations also make this program highly flexible, allowing users to resize a single template to fit all formats with just a click. What used to take days to produce individually can now be transformed in seconds for platforms like Meta, X, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and more.

Adobe Certification

• This was the first year MAX attendees could earn Adobe Qualified credentials through exams at the conference. The entire team participated, with Sara and Allie becoming certified in Adobe Illustrator, Allie also earning certification in InDesign and Photoshop, and Carson achieving certification in After Effects. We are proud to announce that the ANDERSON creative team is now certified as Adobe Professionals, reinforcing our credibility as a team and an agency.

After such an invigorating experience, the creative team returned feeling empowered and inspired to make our ideas bigger and better. Prioritizing professional development through conferences like Adobe MAX is crucial for both personal and agency growth. ANDERSON is only as innovative and creative as the humans that make up our team. By investing in our skills and professional development, we can introduce fresh ideas and ways of thinking that ultimately elevate our team efforts and provide the best solutions for our clients.