We’ve all heard about AI and have already seen and felt the effects of how it is changing our day-to-day lives. As creatives, we continue to be told how it’s coming for our jobs and that we should be fearful. At Freestyle, we believe that nothing can replace human creativity and we can embrace AI as a powerful tool that can change the way we work, our processes, and can optimize communicating our visual ideas with coworkers and clients.
Members of our creative team had the pleasure of attending Adobe MAX virtually in October. The conference is an annual event for creatives, a convergence of innovation and inspiration that sets the tone for the future of digital creativity. In 2023, the event took a quantum leap forward with the introduction of groundbreaking AI tools that promise to revolutionize the way we create and interact with digital content.
One of the key themes that echoed throughout the conference was the integration of artificial intelligence into Adobe’s suite of creative tools. From Photoshop to Illustrator, Adobe showcased how AI is not just a buzzword but a transformative force, enhancing the creative process and unlocking new dimensions of artistic expression. Here are just a few of the tools the company announced during the conference:
Highlighting New Adobe AI Tools:
Generative Fill: Revolutionizing Image Adaptation
We’ve all seen Tik Toks using this Photoshop tool to put pants on a dog or changing human hands to be stalks of kale. While this tool can (and should be) be used for personal giggles, the Generative Fill tool is also changing the way designers adapt images to fit across the spectrum of sizes needed in today’s digital landscape. What once took hours of formatting, rendering = and painting in backgrounds to resize a square Instagram post to a vertical Instagram story, now takes minutes thanks to this new tool.
ReType: A Typographer’s New Best Friend
The font gods have heard our prayers. Adobe Illustrator has introduced a new tool called ReType that allows you to find a font from a photo, give suggestions for fonts based on your work, and even turn vectorized type back into editable text. No more banging your head on your desk trying to remember the name of that font you outlined in your document 4 months ago. Retype single handedly saves the mental health and sanity of typographers everywhere..
Recolor: Instant Palette Transformations in Illustrator
Adobe has also introduced Recolor as a new tool in Illustrator. This tool offers color palette suggestions based on prompts you put in. What started out as an illustration of an astronaut in a dark vast space, is now a space explorer in a lavender haze (maybe listening to Taylor Swift?). This tool allows you to quickly change the entire color palette of your vector artwork in seconds, letting you focus on the details of the illustration.
Adobe Firefly 2: Elevating AI in Image Generation
During the conference, Adobe also released version 2 of its AI Image generator, Firefly. While the first version was impressive, this artificial intelligence now has more knowledge, improved dynamic range, and better photographic quality, all while still seamlessly integrating with your Adobe Creative Cloud Libraries. Not a replacement for photographers and Illustrators, but a starting point for concepting and efficiently getting ideas on paper, Adobe Firefly 2 is just another powerful example of how AI is evolving the way creatives work.
AI as a Collaborative Partner in Design
While many have voiced that AI is a lazy hack, we maintain that it is a powerful instrument that we now hold in our toolbelt. When concepting for a new campaign or project, instead of spending hours illustrating or putting together a concept to communicate visual ideas, AI allows us to more efficiently create a rough draft to show a team or client. Because of the time saved, we now have the space to potentially show a client several options before moving forward with one idea. This tool also helps creative teams to communicate more effectively with each other. In one demonstration during the MAX conference, they showed how an art director can now use these programs to quickly piece together a mood board to share with the team so that everyone is on the same page for a project. AI is not replacing creatives, it’s simply making them stronger.
While artificial intelligence still has its quirks and kinks, it can aid teams in many ways. As we look to the future of design, photography, video, and more, we are embracing AI as a tool we can leverage to be at the forefront of the marketing industry.
Missed out on Adobe MAX this year? Most sessions can still be viewed here.