October 29th, 2015, by Hayden Wagner

Recently I was an attendee at the 2015 Adobe Max conference, held in Los Angeles, California. Adobe Max is a three day conference for creative industry members, featuring Adobe software updates and releases, new creative products, and sessions dedicated to software tutorials, design techniques, and other creative workflow information.

There were around 7000 attendees at the conference this year. The keynote addresses were held in the Microsoft Theater each day. The first keynote session focused on new Adobe software features for “CreativeSync”, photo editing, graphic design, video production, and web/UX design. A second keynote introduced four creative professionals and gave the audience a glimpse into their creative process. The third keynote session was Adobe “Sneaks”: a presentation filled with experimental Adobe technology and software features.

In addition to these keynotes, there were booths for design, technology, and workflow based firms. These booths allowed attendees to get more familiar with creative industry firms and try some of their products. There were models and working hardware to showcase new 3D printing techniques, mobile touchscreen computing, 360 degree imaging and editing software, drone technology, real-time digital publishing, and more. The Community Pavilion also offered areas to mingle and network with many different types of industry members from all areas of the world.

The third major aspect of the Adobe Max conference were the daily sessions: presentations that were given onthe entire spectrum of creative applications. There were many sessions held simultaneously in rooms seating 50 – 300 people; attendees chose the sessions that they wanted to attend and signed up for them in advance. Of the many things I experienced the sessions were the most important and meaningful aspect of the conference: they allowed industry professionals to quickly give tutorials and answer questions about their workflow and the techniques they use everyday in their profession.

Adobe Max was a very eye-opening and worthwhile conference; students interested in a media related field can benefit greatly from the learning and networking opportunities offered every year at this conference.

Watch keynotes from the conference here.