My last project with Adobe as Director of Experience Design, and before I jumped to Google, was this amazing app, "Adobe Experience Design CC" - formerly known as "Project Comet". At Adobe, we took a look around and it became painfully clear that the entire industry was messed up; designers were using a patchwork of disconnected apps to design, animate, preview and prototype their mobile apps. Losing market share to Sketch as the community began moving away from Photoshop, we saw an opportunity for Adobe to simply do it right. By focusing on DESIGN and PROTOTYPING (that's it!), we present to you Adobe XD CC. Download it and give it a go! Much more to come from my former team. Much love to you, team.
Killspencer
I love to travel... and I love bags. I also love to connect with fellow designers, especially in disciplines foreign to mine. I discovered Killspencer earlier this year, and I really dig what they are doing there in Los Angeles. Check out this jet-black, all-leather weekender. Structurally sound... like a big box, but with a certain softness. Beautifully designed. Bravo @killspencer!
Abu Dhabi is the pitts.
I am a lifelong tifosi – the Italian word for "fan", but most often used to especially describe Ferrari fans.
So with a layover in Abu Dhabi on the way home from a business trip to India... HELL yeah I am stopping by Ferrari World for one hot minute. Or 11.7 seconds, as it were...
Stephen Gates + Me + Adobe MAX
Lookout. Stephen Gates and I are leading two days of workshops at Adobe MAX in LA this October. Gates is the guy in the Apple Watch commercials who made all of the SPG hotel doors open up with a flick of the wrist.
Title of the workshops? "Beyond the Lightbulb". (Genius level branding from Gates).
Here's a description. Swing by and say hello when you are there. :)
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Creatives are too often led to believe that great ideas come with a light bulb, but that simply isn’t true. Great ideas take thought, work and a lot of trial and error to perfect. Don’t miss this interactive workshop in which Stephen Gates, senior creative director, and Geoff Dowd, director of Experience Design at Adobe, will walk you through how they create concepts, designs and prototypes for ideas in any medium.
This session will cover:
- Different ways of concepting your ideas
- The difference between concepts and executions
- Analog and digital sketching exercises
- The best ways to prototype and test your ideas in any medium
TEACHER, FRIEND.
This is Mary LaPorte. Professor of Graphic Design at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, my alma matter.
Lately, some have said that design school isn't required to be a designer. I kinda disagree. Mary taught me "Graphic Design 101". Instead of jumping into the latest trend, Mary guided me through the basics of a corporate identity, beginning with positive and negative space, continuity, simultaneous contrast and more. A logo wasn't a logo; it was an identity.
I could be wrong, but I think in that class – our first Graphic Design class – we actually had to engage with a paying client. Wow. You should see the horrible crap I designed for some local chiropractor at age 19.
But this is exactly why a design degree matters. Sure you could sit alone in your apartment and hack your way through your own freelance world, Squarespace, Slack, a stolen copy of Photoshop and all... but there is no surrogate for a professionally trained coach – someone to guide you through the complexities of commercial design.
It's worth noting that Mary is VIP, having taught the likes of Hiroki Asai, Executive Creative Director at Apple, Jennifer Sterling and many more. This is what the pursuit of a design degree can provide you: expertise.
This is Mary LaPorte, my teacher, my friend.
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