Living Outside the Box
In the design and development world, we strive for creative problem-solving, pushing boundaries, and breaking into new frontiers. We are constantly striving to think outside the box.
This culture is a lot of why I chose design for my career path.
And yet…
What if, instead of thinking out of the box, we try living outside the box?
From October 20-22, I attended 14 design sessions of the Adobe Max 2020 Creativity Conference.
I witnessed Adobe’s design tools in action:
- Creative Cloud (learning, sharing, collaborating, history and intellectual property of documents)
- Photoshop (Neural Filters, sky and color replacement)
- Fresco (patterns, pencils or multicolor)
- XD (new sharing possibilities and responsive resize)Illustrator (color pallets, fonts, and iPad integration)
Throughout the conference, I heard beautiful ideas infusing clever strategies. Creativity and inspiration, empowerment and equality, inspiration, collaboration and meaning, learning and leveling up skills, pushing categories, technology, and boundaries, and going to the next level.
Going to the next level in every way wasn’t just an idea- Adobe’s tools equip teams to convert ideas into amazing achievements.
Design From The Heart
I decided to study design for two reasons.
First, it allows me to spend my professional hours enjoying almost every minute of the work I do. I’ve had amazing opportunities to contribute with 729 Solutions on projects that are revolutionizing culture and creating progress in the world.
Second, my design skills equip me to support organizations whose values resonate with mine. I partner and collaborate with Espirales Consultoría de Infancia and Aldeas Infantiles, helping those who are helping children who have lost their families or have suffered violence. We are creating resource guides that cover different topics: affection, limits, and awareness, promoting safe environments, and trauma in childhood and adolescence.
Access to resources, education and communication of services, and bringing tools and ideas to the people that need them are all made possible by design tools. Adobe’s design process and culture of creativity solves problems in the professional sphere, and it is these same skills and tools that can bridge the gap for these heartaches and needs worldwide.
Design Beyond Frontiers
I celebrate the possibility of collaboration brought by technology. My colleagues and I are all around the world, and we make a great team working and solving things together (without frontiers). Just a few days ago, I watched in real-time on my screen as a colleague worked upon and improved a document that I had created that morning. What a wonderful way to work!
Creating meaningful work begs the question: What do we do with all this productivity?
Let’s not be productive just for productivity’s sake.
Living Outside the Box
What does it really mean to go to the next level?
What do we want to accomplish?
How do we live outside the box?
Adobe’s creative toolset elevates the design standard for our professional endeavors. Imagine the impact our design and creativity could have on the heartaches worldwide.
To me, this means not only doing my best (at work, in my personal and social life, and helping and collaborating with others). It also means giving people the respect they deserve as humans. Whether through a smile or a nice word, real support, or empathetic listening, no matter what kind of day I’ve had, I can take the sincere time to be present to another human being.
I think this is the best way of going to the next level, living outside the box, and designing a world with less heartache.