Adobe Project SonicScape
Company Adobe
Introduction Date October 21, 2017
Project Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Project SonicScape is a technology developed by researchers in Adobe’s Design organization, which allows for editing 3D audio in the context of immersive media (virtual reality/360 video). Traditionally, creating fully immersive content for 360 video requires two pieces of hardware – a 360 video camera and an ambisonics microphone. This creates a challenging, time consuming task for editors who must carefully align the audio spatially in relation to the 360 video manually, mainly relying on perception alone. Ambisonics is an audio technology that allows you to capture and playback audio spherically to enable full immersion as it mimics how sounds are perceived in real life all around you. SonicScape presents a simpler, more intuitive and streamlined approach, and takes the guesswork out of the mix. In short, SonicScape is a way to visualize and manipulate ambisonics recording. The technology creates visual cues in the form of particles representing sounds, bringing audio frequencies to life and in space, and creates a seamless, synchronized video and audio editing experience. Users simply drag and drop sounds to where they choose in their immersive video content and have control to make the sounds align perfectly with the direction the sounds are supposed to come from, no matter where the viewer is currently looking in the video. To put this in context – imagine a user is wearing a headset to view 360 or VR content, and they see a scene with a tree to their front and hear birds chirping on their right. The user then pivots to face the birds and, in a 360 or VR setting, the sound should now be coming from the front of the scene where the birds are (instead of the right, which is where the sound was originally coming from). With SonicScape, the editor would only have to drag the visual particles to face the direction the sound should be coming from, only in a matter of seconds. Additionally, traditional ambisonics microphones are great to capture ambiance but sometimes is not ideal to capture crisp details. With SonicScape, users can also drag in new sound clips and place them in 3D space to enhance the complete scene of the 360 videos. SonicScape was created by researchers in Adobe’s Design organization to help solve for real-world problems and is not part of Adobe’s current product offerings. The research project displays a great leap in video editing and provides a tangible vision for what the future of immersive video could look like for users in every industry, from Hollywood video editors to self-starting YouTubers. With the simple and easy-to-use design of SonicScape, users will be able to see and understand their 360 footage as they edit it, import 360 video and audio assets into the scene, change their orientation and easily position text, graphics and sound effects – all in one interface.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Project SonicScape was released as one of Adobe’s “sneaks” at the MAX conference in October 2017. Sneaks are experimental in nature and show off some of the latest technology being developed at Adobe. We share new ideas and technology so that we can get real, immediate feedback from our customers and community about what those innovations mean to them — what’s useful, what can be better, what can be more impactful and meaningful to creative people in their daily lives. Immersive media ultimately presents a new canvas for the creative class, one in which we want to remove all barriers for exploration, and Adobe can help accelerate its adoption. We aren’t creating the content; we are creating the tools that will drive creative expression forward. In doing so, Adobe can power the excitement of what immersive media can be into the innovation of what it ultimately becomes. For editors, it is hard to see, understand and manipulate content in a 360 environment on desktop and in head mounted display (HMD). SonicScape solves this by providing an intuitive authoring environment for both desktop and HMD, which is highly tailored for immersive content editing – and Adobe is positioned to provide an authoring environment that encompasses both video and audio within the same tool. By focusing on visualizing meaningful information from both audio and video content with the emphasis on direct manipulation on canvas, editors can move their content intuitively and have it remain in context – as compared to traditional methods, where editors have had to jump between several different applications or plugins to do this workflow, each disconnected from one another. Here we have a system which lets you do everything you need for 360 content. One of the key features of SonicScape is the ability to visualize ambisonic audio recordings. Spatial audio visualization converts the four channel ambisonic recording into a video in the same format as the VR video (a spherical panorama), where each pixel of the video indicates the intensity of sound coming from that direction. This visual representation of the spatial distribution of audio makes the alignment task much simpler by allowing the user to easily click and drag on the audio visualization to rotate it into alignment with the video.
Who worked on the project?
Yaniv De Ridder, Lead Senior Experience Developer Michael Cragg, Lead Senior Experience Designer Ben Farrell, Senior Experience Designer Stephen DiVerdi, Principal Scientist Tim Langlois, Research Scientist
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2yACLddnIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grR9DutbMO4
Adobe Scan
Company Adobe Document Cloud
Introduction Date June 1, 2017
Project Website https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/acrobat/mobile-app/scan-documents.html
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Adobe Scan turns a phone or tablet into a scanning tool that makes it easy to create digital documents anywhere, just by snapping a photo. What’s unique in Adobe Scan is that optimizes scanned content through the integration of Adobe Sensei, the company’s A.I. and machine learning-based platform, that enhances boundary detection, auto-crop and capture, perspective correction, and auto-clean to remove shadows and other document/content imperfections. Another differentiator from other scan apps out there is that once the document is scanned, the image automatically uploads to Adobe Document Cloud (it’s free to get an account)., Now anyone can access their scans on any computer, phone or tablet, where they can edit and organize documents, collect signatures and even take advantage of new mobile features in Adobe Sign, the leading e-signature solution that allows anyone to digitally sign and send documents from any device. Adobe Scan, together with Adobe Document Cloud, helps companies achieve digital transformation and meet the needs of today’s mobile workers and the workplace of the future. Documents are the lifeblood of society. The challenge is unlocking the intelligence that lives in those documents, and extracting meaning that can be searched, analyzed and incorporated into digital workflows. Adobe Scan, powered by Adobe Sensei’s intelligent services, represents a critical step towards Adobe’s broader innovation imperative for Adobe Document Cloud. In addition to increased productivity and improving workflow, Adobe Scan supports sustainability goals, as going paperless saves trees and water. The development of Adobe Scan was also driven in part by office workers around the world wanting AI to free them up from menial tasks, allowing them to do more high-impact, creative work. Adobe recently released its “Future of Work: Asia Pacific”(http://adobethinktank.com/Future-of-Work-APAC-2017.pdf) report which surveyed more than 4,702 APAC workers who use a computer daily for work, on their attitudes about work and the future of technology in the workplace. The study found that 94% of respondents across APAC expressed interest in trying artificial intelligence technologies to automate mundane work-related tasks which is exactly why Adobe Scan was created: to make customers’ lives easier through the use of technology. Each update and addition to the app is created with this purpose in mind.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Adobe Scan is designed for today’s digital work lifestyle, which goes beyond simply scanning standard paper files. Users can scan their expense receipts, a slide shown during a meeting and even whiteboards using a smartphone’s camera. Designers worked hard to develop a user experience that’s great for someone wanting to quickly scan a simple document and for people who want to capture a large number of pages with specific editing and cleaning – it works for simple and complex scanning workflows. Adobe Scan also optimizes that digital content with optical character recognition for easy editing in Acrobat Reader DC or Acrobat DC. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in a scanning app is nothing new, but other apps typically require a subscription or paid upgrade for the technology. OCR in Adobe Scan is completely free, converting printed text to digital text in seconds. What was once just a scanned image is now a versatile Adobe PDF you can search, highlight, mark-up, comment on, and share. It’s fast and easy to capture multi-page documents too. In fact, Adobe Scan is optimized for capturing multi-page documents without sacrificing quality. Other free apps limit the number of pages you can scan or they watermark the images. Adobe Scan is different. Scans are stored in Adobe Document Cloud so they’re always available and easy to edit, search and share from both your desktop and mobile devices. Acrobat DC subscribers can do even more with Adobe Scan including edit and organize documents, collect signatures and take advantage of new mobile features in Adobe Sign to digitally sign and send documents from any device.
Who worked on the project?
Adobe Document Cloud team
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2_-jwiIbL0
Adobe Spark – Transforming Ideas Into Stunning Visual Stories
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Since its launch in May 2016, Adobe Spark has empowered anyone with an idea to effortlessly create graphics, video stories and web pages in a matter of minutes—without any design expertise. In the world of digital media, visual content is king. Tweets with images receive 1.5 times more retweets than those without, while Facebook posts with images see 2.3 times more engagement*. Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users **. Petition-hosting website Change.org has found that petitions with visual elements are seven times more likely to succeed***. And studies have found that people will remember 65 percent of information they hear paired with a visual after three days, versus just ten percent without****. But visual content can also be intimidating and expensive to create, especially for individuals and small businesses without design and video experience, and nonprofit organizations or educational institutions without professional designers on staff. Adobe Spark—a series of apps, as well as an integrated web solution, all with a highly approachable user interface—eliminates many of the barriers to entry associated with traditional content creation. From business owners to influencers, content creators and students, anyone who has an iPhone, iPad or computer with an internet connection can use it, free and with no design or video editing skills necessary. Spark Post is a fast and easy way to create stunning graphics. Users can leverage professionally-designed templates and make them their own with text and images, or they can create their own posts from scratch. Spark Video lets users combine video clips, photos, icons, soundtracks and text to create eye-catching videos. Making a video is as simple as adding content, fine-tuning with text and audio options, then saving to a device or posting directly to social channels. Spark Page puts a unique twist on anything you want to communicate, letting users create engaging and responsive magazine-style web stories that automatically adapt to any device, from tablets to phones and computers. All three apps are available on iOS mobile devices. For users who prefer to work on a larger screen, full functionality is also available in the web-based version of Adobe Spark. Additionally, a series of premium features on mobile and web are available to paid subscribers (and are included free with Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions) to further personalize content to align with a user’s brand, such as colors, fonts, themes and custom templates. While great for individuals, these premium features are also ideal for small businesses—empowering organizations of all sizes to create custom content marketing campaigns without the need for a dedicated in-house graphic designer or video editor. To get a visual sense for what Adobe Spark can do, examples of user-created content can be found here: https://spark.adobe.com/gallery/ *Source: https://blog.bufferapp.com/the-power-of-twitters-new-expanded-images-and-how-to-make-the-most-of-it and http://buzzsumo.com/blog/how-to-massively-boost-your-blog-traffic-with-these-5-awesome-image-stats/ ** Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics and http://aberdeen.com/research/10922/10922-RR-Video-Marketing-Difference.aspx/content.aspx ***Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/changeorg-petition_n_5360209.html ****Source: http://www.brainrules.net/vision
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Adobe Spark has a highly approachable UI, allowing users with limited design experience to create professional-grade graphics, videos and web stories quickly and easily. Web-based users are guided through content creation with large, directional fonts and visuals, and they have the option to “learn more” about features throughout the creative process. A bar located at the top of the tool gives users the option to preview projects as needed or download and share their projects at any point. This bar is also the go-to place for modifying project themes, layouts, palettes, music, backgrounds and text. Though each mobile app differs slightly in design and features, they all showcase a user-friendly interface aimed at making the creative process as fast and easy as possible. Users can browse through a plethora of featured templates and inspiration, click to create a new project or view past projects. For example, users can scroll through a style wheel for a myriad of suggestions for fonts, text layouts and colors. And those hoping to include product images or fun design elements can easily do so by importing their own images or leveraging the “search free photos” option. Users in need of additional help can access tutorials and tips by clicking the settings button in the top left corner of each app. Since Adobe Spark is connected to a user’s Adobe ID (or other method of logging in), Adobe Spark projects automatically sync between iOS apps and the web solution, offering flexibility to seamlessly transition between devices and locations as needed. This feature ensures that users are never limited by the devices at hand, and they can access their projects whenever inspiration strikes. Adobe Spark also helps users manage their branded content and projects—including logos, colors, fonts, themes and templates—in one organized, convenient place with a Creative Cloud subscription. Subscribing users gain a host of premium features, including the option to remove the Spark logo from their content and replace it with users’ own branding, and access to live phone and chat support if they have questions or need assistance.
Who worked on the project?
The Adobe Spark Team
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWEVOghjkaw&feature=youtu.be
Adobe Summit: event identity + experiences
Why is this project worthy of an award?
2018 Adobe Summit is a celebration of Experience Makers. "Maker" by definition is a person who create; form; shape. Based on the theme, the event identity should be equally expressive in both digital and physical form. This year the identity consists of two components: digital modular pattern (vector) + physical installation (photographs). You might ask why create a physically installation then photograph it when one can achieve nearly identical result from digital renderings? A bespoke installation is unique. Through the makers’ hands they’ve each added a layer of depth which is one of a kind, hard to replicate with digital renderings. Much like the range of skills required of modern day Experience Makers, the final artwork is blend of a variety of disciplines: 2D & 3D, digital & physical, software skills & traditional crafts, plus a lot of love. The installation was shipped from UK to Vegas for the event. Attendees were able to see, feel and interact with the identity. See how it is made: https://www.behance.net/gallery/62278163/Adobe-Summit-2018-Identity
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The identity consists of two components: physical installation (photographs) + digital grid pattern (vector). The system is flexible for various needs to produce the event experience. - Making of Summit identity: https://create.adobe.com/2018/3/24/wall_together_now_th.html - Main stage stinger: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7wxumgvqcyk7go/Summit2018-Opener.mp4?dl=0 - Main LED event entrance animation: https://adobe.ly/2qmtg8a
Who worked on the project?
Steve Gustavson, Executive Creative Director, Adobe Angela Fisher, Creative Director, Design, Adobe Morgan McManus, Associate Art Director, Adobe Ashley Vong, Associate Art Director, Adobe Nicole Williams, Executive Creative Producer, Adobe Joe Buchwald, Creative Producer, Adobe Deb Fant, Sr. Studio Manager, Adobe Kristine Jensen, Content & Web Producer, Adobe DBLG LDN Almost Everything Pix Productions
View the project video: https://vimeo.com/250443822
Adobe Tools Set the Standard for Creativity and Productivity
Why is this project worthy of an award?
For decades, Adobe’s applications have been trailblazers, setting the industry standard for creative and productivity software. Adobe Illustrator CC, Photoshop CC, Premiere Pro CC, Acrobat DC and After Effects CC are the software of choice for consumers, creatives and businesses large and small. Over the years, Adobe tools have evolved to meet the needs of its variety of users and the platforms they use. Their designs have been adapted to bring the software’s powerful capabilities to the cloud, smartphones, tablets and more. Adobe tools have been a driving force in bringing artificial intelligence to the creative field with the introduction of time-saving features powered by Adobe Sensei—Adobe’s artificial intelligence framework. Illustrator ushered in a new era of digital publishing and design. Live Traces, released in 2005, transformed graphic design by blurring the boundaries between bitmap and vectors, enabling the ability to map the real world into Bezier curves. The introduction of Artboards in 2007 allowed the flexibility to adapt designs for print or screen, while Live Corners and Live Shapes allowed manipulation of width, height and corner radius properties directly on the objects. Today, Illustrator’s output is everywhere: from the billboards you pass to packages at the grocery store. Since its introduction in 1990, Photoshop has redefined creativity in the digital age. Its design and versatile capabilities have had a profound impact on the creative industry, empowering artists, designers, filmmakers and photographers to express themselves and their ideas visually. Photoshop features—such as Layers, Healing Brush, Content-Aware Fill and Camera Raw—have empowered creatives to produce their best work. With intuitive tools and easy-to-use templates, even beginners can create something amazing. Premiere Pro, released in 1991, gives video editors the power to create, collaborate and streamline video workflows from start to finish. The ability to place clips on the timeline, add effects, transitions and a soundtrack in Premiere Pro opened the door to anyone who wanted to learn visual storytelling. Today, editors can easily work with any media type—from videos shot on cell phones to 8K, HDR, and virtual reality—and export to almost any platform. From YouTube to Hollywood, broadcast TV and beyond, Premiere Pro has transformed the way we create video. Twenty-five years ago, Acrobat changed the way documents were created and consumed. Thanks to Acrobat and Acrobat Reader, PDF content became ubiquitous—a secure, high-fidelity digital content type that just worked (no questions asked) across disparate technology platforms. Adobe Document Cloud continues to evolve for our cloud-connected, mobile first world. The industry standard for motion graphics and visual effects, After Effects turns 25 this year and it’s faster and more efficient than ever. Used by Hollywood’s elite and the masses, After Effects is the tool most designers use to accomplish notable works of cinematic art including the Oscar award-winning VFX team for “Jurassic Park” (1993), which combined aspects of 3D dinosaurs and 2D sketches to virtually preview movie scenes. Today, the animation and creative compositing app allows users to set anything in motion.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Very few software products remain industry-leading in technology and innovation more than 25 years after launch—and Adobe has five of them in its portfolio. Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Acrobat and After Effects remain not only as industry standards: they pave the way forward for creative and productivity software with continuously added new features that harness cutting-edge technology. Adobe’s users play a critical role in the ongoing design, innovation and evolution of its applications. The company’s continued commitment to engage user communities and gather feedback helps shape products’ design and roadmaps, ensuring that the tools meet the ever-changing needs of creatives, consumers and businesses. Illustrator – More than 180 million graphics are created with Illustrator monthly. Today, creatives using Illustrator have unparalleled ability to share, edit and collaborate with their teams through Creative Cloud. The entire evolution of Illustrator’s design and capabilities has been defined by its users; through forums, events and focus groups, Adobe gathers feedback to provide the next thing its users need to create their best work. Some of the most impactful changes to the tool over the years have been under the hood to fulfill users’ requests. Photoshop – Photoshop is one of the most recognized software brands in the world with millions of users across all media: from print, to film, to the web. As a result, it touches virtually all the inspirational imagery that surrounds us every day, from high-impact logos to smartphone apps, product designs and more. Its constantly evolving capabilities and an incredible pipeline of deep imaging science and features powered by Adobe Sensei provide users with everything they need to bring any idea to life. Premiere Pro – From the beginning, Adobe Premiere pushed the envelope for editing technology. In 1994, Premiere 4.0 became the first version to offer full screen broadcast quality with 60 fields per frame. As early as 1996, Version 4.2 on Windows offered the ability to work with 4K frame size, and in comparison, today Premiere Pro can work with files as large as 16K x 10K. Integration with After Effects makes it easy to move between the two apps, giving users a connected editing, motion graphics and visual effects production environment. Acrobat – The Adobe-invented PDF became an international standard in 2008. Today, Acrobat anchors Adobe Document Cloud, where the smartest PDFs are created and document innovations, like e-signatures and mobile scanning, are delivered. This year over 200 billion PDFs will be opened with Adobe Acrobat and Reader. Acrobat supports immersive, reliable document experiences that have changed the landscape of how we share, present and store information. After Effects – After Effects has always been a leading tool in the film industry. From “Jurassic Park” (1993) to “Blade Runner: 2049” (2017), VFX teams have used After Effects to push compositing and post-production boundaries. Outside of film, designers love the flexible tools in After Effects that help them easily prepare dynamic media for interactive projects or to prototype motion and effects in user interfaces for digital products and services.
Who worked on the project?
Shantanu Narayen, President and Chief Executive Officer
View the project video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTKXqQRP-4Y
From Online to In-Store: Personalized Retail Journey Powered by Adobe & Microsoft
Company Adobe & Microsoft
Introduction Date January 14, 2018
Project Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
In the past 18 months, a narrative has developed that brick and mortar stores in America are dying. Headlines about the death of the mall are constant and foster a sense that the industry is on an inevitable downward spiral and that only Amazon and Alibaba will seemingly prevail. This narrative is misguided, but it’s very much a reality that retailers need to innovate to remain competitive. Personalization is the holy grail in retail and traditional retailers must adapt and leverage technology that creates fluidity and personalization across online and in-store. Through Adobe’s partnership with Microsoft and the companies’ cutting-edge machine learning technology (Adobe Sensei and Azure Machine Learning), retailers are empowered to deliver precisely this; bringing customers in-store via digital touchpoints. Let’s take a look at what’s possible: Imagine you’re at home watching TV and see an ad for a new pair of shoes that catch your eye. You ask a voice assistant, such as Cortana, to pull up the shoes. Through Adobe’s content management offering Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Target for personalization and Adobe Sensei, the shoes are pulled up, along with other product recommendations like a complimentary purse and a similar pair of shoes. Based on where the shopper is in the journey and situational context, the recommendations will adapt automatically. You can also obtain information such as pricing, material, etc. – all via voice and without leaving your couch. And that same personalized content can be leveraged on any connected device, meaning you can switch from your mobile to tablet to desktop and receive a consistent experience across each device. Before purchasing, if you want to try on the shoes in-store, you can open the app and geolocate the closest store. Upon arrival, there’s a digital screen featuring other shoppers who’ve shared their images and reviews of the latest spring line. From that screen, you can quickly search to see where the shoes are located in the store and how many are left, making it easy to find as a consumer and driving the purchase for the retailer. Customer relationship management data from Microsoft Dynamics 365, such as previous transactions or online product views, is combined with Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Target to create and deliver highly personalized and engaging experiences across any device. Adobe Target’s Auto-Target uses advanced machine learning to serve the most tailored experience to each consumer based on not only his/her individual profile but also the behavior of previous visitors with similar profiles, to personalize the experience. This gives consumers the feeling that everything was designed for them individually – a true differentiator for retailers.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The innovations here are twofold – first, Adobe’s internal innovations in marketing technology and machine learning, and second, the innovations generated through its partnership with Microsoft. Adobe’s partnership with Microsoft is a deep, native integration of the companies’ technologies, which creates a unified view of the customer and enables retailers to personalize experiences across all touchpoints a consumer has with their brand. This is a feat that shouldn’t be taken lightly. A complete customer picture has long been one of the biggest challenges brands face, leaving consumers disgruntled with a disconnected experience.
Who worked on the project?
• Dave Welch, VP, Microsoft Solutions, Adobe • Michael Klein, Director of Industry Strategy, Retail & Travel & Hospitality, Adobe • Dina Apostolou, Director, Microsoft Business Applications
View the project video: https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/3555fa08-1f2a-434f-a095-a634d9731e5f
Lightroom CC – All-in-one Photography Service
Company Adobe Systems Inc.
Introduction Date October 18, 2017
Project Website http://adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Launched over a decade ago, Lightroom quickly became the industry’s leading application for editing and organizing photographs. With the shift to an increasingly mobile-centric world, and with recent major improvements to smartphone cameras, Adobe has once again transformed digital photography with an all-new Lightroom CC. Released in October 2017, Lightroom CC is an intelligent, cloud-based photography service that addresses the needs of today’s photographers by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and Adobe’s powerful imaging technology. Lightroom CC was designed with three guiding principles: • Powerful Yet Simple – Lightroom CC brings the same powerful image editing technology that photographers have had for years with Photoshop and Lightroom, but delivers it in a more intuitive interface that makes getting started with photography and image editing easier than ever. • Seamless Experience Across All Devices – Lightroom CC syncs photos and edits across desktop, mobile and web. This allows users to easily move across devices—begin making edits on your smartphone, and seamlessly continue your workflow on a tablet, laptop, or desktop computer. Photos and edits are all where you’d expect them to be. • Cloud-based – Everything users do in Lightroom CC is synced to the cloud. This means that you can access and work with your photos from any device (including multiple computers) and can easily share photos with others. All your photos and the work that you do with them will be automatically backed up, always. Developed to offer powerful capabilities and natural workflow across all devices and platforms photographers use, Lightroom CC sets the standard for image processing, management and storage.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Lightroom CC breaks new ground in photography software design, offering photographers a highly intuitive interface and a superior, consistent experience across platforms and devices. Designed from the ground up to focus on photographers’ needs as they move between devices, Lightroom CC provides nearly identical functionality that enables editing in full resolution across mobile, desktop, and the web. Original images, edits and metadata are stored in the cloud, and changes are automatically synched across devices. Scalable storage options offer safe and secure back up of full-resolution photos—including raw files. Lightroom CC also makes it simple to share photos on social media, create custom Lightroom web galleries that can be shared via a link and share work via Adobe Portfolio. Lightroom CC is also designed to create a seamless yet powerful experience for photographers of all levels. As beginners get started, they can easily access built-in help tutorials by hovering over features. The service features a progressive design language that keeps some advanced capabilities hidden so the interface remains clean, simple and intuitive. But for advanced photographers who desire more control, the tools and capabilities they need are easily accessible. Additionally, Adobe Sensei artificial intelligence-powered features make previously tedious organizing and editing tasks effortless: • Save time by automatically applying searchable keywords to objects in photographs—without the hassle of tagging. • Quickly start edits with the Auto feature, which compares your photo to thousands of professionally edited images and intelligently implements adjustments based on a photo's light and color characteristics. • Use the Best Photos feature in Lightroom CC for web to eliminates the time-consuming and sometimes monotonous task of sorting through a number of similar photos. The feature automatically identifies and groups similar photos, and then selects the best photos from each. Finally, one of the most powerful features of Lightroom CC for mobile is its in-app camera, which enables users to harness the full power of their smartphone cameras by shooting in raw HDR—previously only possible with a DSLR or mirrorless camera. Images taken in raw HDR mode offer a greatly increased dynamic range with the ability to edit and share right away. Additionally, when shooting in Lightroom CC, photographers can adjust settings such as white balance, custom shutter speed and ISO, or apply a preset before capturing a photo.
Who worked on the project?
Adobe Digital Imaging Team
View the project video: https://edelmanftp.box.com/s/7ldv0tg50bxbrctatcfxldiuklnnfrou
Modern authenticity: Adobe talks to media and entertainment leaders about being real in a digital world.
Company Adobe
Introduction Date February 8, 2018
Project Website https://landing.adobe.com/en/na/industries/media-entertainment/ctir-3862-modern-authenticity/index.html
Why is this project worthy of an award?
In September 2017, Adobe held an event called Adobe Think Tank in conjunction with Advertising Week in New York. The Think Tank is a multi-day event that involves an all-day roundtable discussion with industry luminaries as well as a series of short, on-the-spot interviews with high-profile attendees of Advertising Week. As the focus of this event was “The Future of Advertising,” the participants were leaders in the media and entertainment industry. While the bulk of their conversation was very ad-centric, in watching the conversations unfold, we realized there as a larger media and entertainment story that was worth telling about how brands are coping with the demand for greater honesty and authenticity. The challenge, however, was to capture the scope and excitement of the Think Tank — which is driven by the personalities of the luminaries who participate — but to focus in on this specific story. The result was “Modern Authenticity,” which uses curated audio clips from more than twenty participants to tell explore what it means for media and entertainment brands to be real in a digital world. The experience has both desktop and mobile versions and presents the content in a beautiful, usable, and unique format.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Audio is an underused format on the web. Where it does show up, it’s often a novelty or used only to present optional content. In “Modern Authenticity,” audio content is the star. It allowed us to lean into the personality of our experts and recreate the inspiration of the multi-day Think Tank in a smaller, more intimate way. As a web experience, we think “Modern Authenticity” stands out not only for its unique use of audio, but for the power of its storytelling and its responsive, beautiful, and usable design.
Who worked on the project?
Adobe: Josh Souter, Adam Morgan, Matthew Rayback, Steve Gustavson — Creative direction Kat Peterson — Content strategy Chris Jensen, Jeff Severtson — Audio Stephen Montague — Project management Write On Network: Kim Grob — Creative direction Amanda McPherson — Writing We Like Small: Mike Kern — Creative Direction Kari Juip — Production
View the project video:
Reimagine San Jose — Adobe’s Headquarters Re-design
Company Adobe
Introduction Date August 23, 2016
Project Website
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Time-capsule phone booths, themed cafes, interactive art, local living rooms and a “Peace in a Pod" Somadome—these are just some of the ways Adobe reimagined its headquarters to not only reflect the vibrancy of its brand, but to ultimately bring people together and inspire innovation. In 1994, Adobe established its headquarters in San Jose, CA, and has since become the largest tech employer downtown, with over 2,800 current employees and plans to continue expanding. In 2013, Adobe decided to reimagine its space— giving it new energy and a fresh look, while reinforcing the company’s founding values of being genuine, exceptional, innovative and involved. Adobe’s three-tower campus was a blank canvas with 20 years of history, which gave design firm Gensler an opportunity to do something really unique. The goal of the renovation was to create a workspace that would spark collaboration and creativity, and would reflect the rich history of the site, the company and its products. In the three years leading up to the office redesign, Adobe did a lot of research—internally with their workforce and externally with experts—on what makes for a great workplace. According to the Gensler U.S. Workplace Survey, innovative companies are five times more likely to have workplaces that prioritize both individual and group workspace. Additionally, innovators are at least three times more likely to have access to, and use, cafeterias, coffee shops and outdoor spaces, and report two times more choice of when and where to work. With this in mind, Adobe moved forward to create a space that would allow employees to be their best everyday—taking into account creativity, productivity, and health and wellness— while keeping sustainability top of mind for a LEED Platinum Certified workspace. The cornerstone of the project—the employee community space in Adobe’s West Tower—was unveiled in August 2016. Since then, Adobe has also unveiled remodeled work floors in its West Tower and will continue to update spaces with the latest workplace design innovations. Today, Adobe’s flexible, inclusive work environment is filled with natural light and modern, vibrant design that reflects the brand. The open floor plans include a variety of communal areas and alternative work spaces to help draw employees together, inspire collaboration and innovation, and transform the everyday work experience. And the company’s on-site cafes are no exception with design-focused names like Layers, TemPLATES and Palettes, which nod to the company’s signature products like Photoshop and Illustrator. In addition, understanding that being healthy can contribute to a happy, productive team, Adobe’s new office space includes a wellness center. The center is free for employees and holds group fitness classes like spin, yoga and kickboxing, and includes a meditation room and a “Peace in a Pod" Somadome for a guided meditation experience. Other on-site services for employees’ convenience include vehicle detailing/maintenance, dry cleaning, bicycle repair and rentals, haircuts and massages to name a few. The result of Adobe’s three-year redesign? An office that highlights its creative, innovative and collaborative culture.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
At Adobe, it’s not about providing an environment that makes it easier to stay in the building and get work done. Instead, it’s about the casual interactions that lead to collaboration and innovation. Adobe and Gensler began the redesign the same way that employees begin their work day—with the lobby. Realizing that those first steps into the building can set the tone for the day, Adobe created a vibrant lobby that inspires energy right off the bat. This space includes a coffee bar, a workplace support center, a tech café for IT help, an Adobe store for new swag, local living rooms where employees can hang out and games for when they need a break. Every detail—down to material and color choices used—were carefully curated and inspired by Adobe’s values. The redesign continued to the cafes, making them feel more like the kitchen in a house—a place where people gather and feel comfortable. While the sandwich shop is cleverly named “Layers” (a tie to the popular Photoshop feature), another is named “Palettes” (a nod to Silicon Valley's history as an orchard) and incorporates actual palettes, green houses, and plants into the farm-to-table style café. TemPLATES café focuses on global comfort food, and employees can even sharpen their culinary skills here with lessons from the executive chef and team building activities. The work floors also went through a total renovation, from closed offices to open spaces where employees can interact and draw ideas from one another. On each floor, employees were in the driver’s seat for the design. For example, the Photoshop floor wanted to dedicate the space to the milestones of the iconic product. The design team asked: “How do we show off what Photoshop can do, and what digital imaging means?” The finished product is a floor that sparks the imagination of employees and visitors alike, celebrating the full scope and diversity of creativity. Examples of unique and innovative design elements include: • Time-capsule booths that represent milestone years for Photoshop, like its 1990 launch. In this room, visitors can use the very first version of Photoshop on a Macintosh Classic. • A blue anamorphic hallway—an experiential piece of art that was carefully designed and laid out on the walls so that it unfolds in different ways as one walks down the hall. • A stained-glass window of a Photoshop 1.0 toolbar. Other unique elements like this can be found around the office, including an “upside-down room” and 3D art displays where employees and visitors can take and share “instagrammable” photos. In the end, Adobe created a space that shows off its creative, innovative, and collaborative culture by putting a heavy emphasis on inspirational design and aesthetics that reflect the vibrancy of the brand. Links for reference: • Adobe Photoshop Floor Renovation: http://blogs.adobe.com/adobelife/2018/04/04/adobe-photoshop-floor/ • Adobe’s “upside-down room”: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bcu9Va7nIHU/?taken-by=adobelife • Adobe’s 3D art displays: https://www.instagram.com/p/BbusYa2HtNI/?taken-by=adobelife • Gensler U.S. Workplace Survey: https://www.gensler.com/research-insight/workplace-surveys/us/2016 • Adobe's Office Expansion Plans: https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-unveils-plans-for-us-site-growth/
Who worked on the project?
Jonathan Francom, VP, Employee & Workplace Solutions, Adobe; and Natalie Engels, Design Principal, Gensler
View the project video: http://news.adobe.com/multimedia/Workplace; https://techcrunch.com/video/touring-adobe-headquarters/
Running on Experience
Company Adobe
Introduction Date September 21, 2017
Project Website https://landing.adobe.com/en/na/products/marketing-cloud/ctir-3108-running-on-experience/index.html
Why is this project worthy of an award?
For eight years, Adobe has surveyed digital marketers around the world for an annual trends report. But usually these data reports are very dry with a ton of numbers and stats. This year, we turned it into an experience. We gave it a story and created an interactive HTML experience with a ton of clickable discovery moments. It’s still a very deep dive into stats, but it doesn’t feel heavy. Instead, it’s a great piece of content that moves you from chapter to chapter and keeps you engaged. It's a blend of art and science and offers a modern way to experience data from a study in a more engaging experience.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Running on Experience is more than just beautiful design. There’s a surprising depth to the amount of data. Throughout the experience, statistics and numbers are displayed in a variety of creative and entertaining ways. As you click deeper, the experience understands and remembers your preferences. For example, if you care about a specific industry, once you select that industry, that story will follow you along throughout the experience. But the other industries are always available if you want to peek into a different area and see how it compares. This was important as we needed to direct this experience to a variety of audiences, but make it feel like it was built for them specifically. We also wanted to make the navigation simple but have depth. Like adding a small red dot to areas of interest. When you click on a red dot, it opens up more options to read a quote or learn more. This is how we let the user know that they would find more depth whenever they see a red dot. In order to teach the behavior, the first red dot would pulse and open on scroll so you knew it was there. In addition, a simple iconic nav on the side helped you quickly move to a new section or know where you are in the total experience, so you know how much content is available. The experience also has plenty of eye candy with videos that interact with the stats and headlines. But one of the greatest success moments is how the data is organized. From the original report that had overflowing amounts of numbers, we were able to simplify each graph to tell a simple story, while allowing a ton of extra data to be understood without clogging up the art. For example, some show trends over time and how that compares to many other variables. Or we show how the industry compares around specific topics with a range of advanced to non-advanced on a maturity scale, while showing existing compared to past data, and still have it read in a simple graphic way. Whew. Let’s just say it took many meetings with data analysts and designers in order to get a simple design that says everything but isn’t overwhelming. The end result is a very complex data survey that feels like anything but. It’s a smooth and simple storytelling experience that leaves you feeling informed. A perfect mix of art and data.
Who worked on the project?
Steve Gustavson – Executive Creative Director Josh Souter – Design / Creative Direction Adam Morgan – Copy / Creative Direction Matthew Rayback – Copy / Creative Direction Stephen Montague – Project Management Lena Dibble – Content Strategy Stefanie Condie – Content Strategy Michael Kern – Creative Direction Alex Bell – Design Tyson Rider – Photography Ryan Gass – Videography Ryan Dearth – Videography Ash Warren – Development Dan Will – Development Kari Juip — Production
View the project video:
The Next Mobile Decade
Company Adobe
Introduction Date February 23, 2018
Project Website https://landing.adobe.com/en/na/products/experience-cloud/ctir-3861-mobile-study/index.html#/
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Over the last ten years, mobile technology has changed everything. That’s obviously true for consumers, but it has changed the business landscape as well. For this project — which was designed to share the results of a large study Adobe conducted of mobile leaders — we wanted to “show” instead of “tell” the power of mobile technology. Since we wanted to help enterprise business leaders understand the role mobile is playing with the peers, it was important that we deliver our data in an innovative and compelling mobile experience. In “The Next Mobile Decade,” we turn the traditional enterprise research report on its head, instead delivering a mobile experience that’s as fun to use as it is informative. For this project, before you are able to view the research, you have to customize your experience. In the beginning, we walk you through a number of decisions, such as how you like AR and a handful of other interactions that use the power of your mobile device to find your preferences. Then when you finally see the report, it’s customized to your mobile preferences. This hand’s on experience gives you instant understanding of mobile technologies rather than just talk about them in a report. And by making it an involved experience, we push the limits of what a report can become in the future.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Beyond the unusual delivery of a research report in a mobile experience, “The Next Mobile Decade” pushes boundaries in a number of ways. Because we wanted the experience to be as accessible as possible, we developed the whole experience as a mobile website, instead of an app. In this mobile web environment, we were able to take advantage of a number of innovative mobile technologies, such as simulated augmented reality, accelerometer use, and customization based on the way the user interacts with the site. It's a pioneering experience in in-browser mobile technology that takes personalization to the next level. Machine Learning that creates a profile about you based on your interests. It uses measurements using the accelerometer, behavior, and interaction speed to determine the size and depth of report that you might enjoy. We use an AR color experience to provide even greater personalization. And powerful graphing API that allows a large variety of data interpretation. These technology innovations become part of the experience and can be adjusted and customized for every person. So, no report is the same. And everyone understands how mobile technology has changed over the past ten years. By pushing the limits of what’s possible in both mobile web technology and with research data, we think we’ve put together a mobile website pushes beyond all expectations. We recommend you view this experience on your mobile device, not desktop. The whole experience is built for mobile.
Who worked on the project?
Adobe: Josh Souter, Adam Morgan, Matthew Rayback, Steve Gustavson — Creative direction Lena Dibble, Robert Watson — Content strategy Loren Micalizio, Jeff Severtson — Video Stephen Montague — Project management Write On Network: Kim Grob — Creative direction Alex Fuller, Kim Smart — Writing We Like Small: Michael Kern — Creative Direction Kal Nguyen — Design Elan Bartholomew, Kyle Cummings, Luke Jensen, Anna Larson — Development Kari Juip — Production
View the project video:
