Adobe Max 2020 and Why You Should Attend Next Year

Adobe Max, a creative conference for designers, takes place in Los Angeles every year and features new software updates, new tech, and new skills for designers. The software suite expanded over the last 10 years to a whole creative collection of programs for everything from video to image editing and now sound and animation. Why should you attend?

Competitive Edge

The conference can give you a competitive edge over other designers in our industry. Let’s face it, no one wants to talk about this, but your designer tool bag can give you a competitive edge in the job market today. It’s a competitive market with everything going on. Covid has changed the scene for many people. I used to believe that having a stable job was the way to go. Now it feels more and more like companies are moving towards contract work for designers. Nothing is for sure. Any extra skill or training you can get is an advantage today! Adobe Max hosts many different sessions on advanced design skills for all of their software making you a more efficient worker.

Networking

I used to look forward to networking at Adobe Max every year to meet other creatives. Adobe Max attracts people from different professions. The conference attracts people from many different areas in the creative field. It also attracts non creatives. I have met business owners attending just to find a designer they wanted to hire. I’ve met photographers learning about Lightroom, and I’ve met other designers from around the world. It’s a great opportunity to meet someone who has a different specialization. I enjoy the melting pot of professionals. I’ve learned a lot just from a conversation with another professional. I also noticed people from the education industry attend Adobe as well.

Adobe Max can be a great opportunity. However, this year Adobe Max is all online because of Covid-19. This means you have to seek out networking opportunities in different places, because everything is different about the conference. No longer can you connect with people sitting next to you, network at the Max Bash, one of the biggest tech after parties. the Max Bash was a big deal for everyone attending the conference. You would mingle at a party with live music and food. They have definitely tried to provide the same quality of a conference this year despite being restricted. I can’t really blame them for not opening up more opportunities for networking given we didn't know until the last minute that this conference wouldn’t be live. They include a chat box for each session, so you can ask questions. I don’t find the chat box to be good place to network, but you can use the hashtags for the conference, or find conversations on Twitter to hop on. Using the hashtag on Twitter has been a great networking opportunity. This allows me to find people who are speaking about the conference or anything relating to it. There are also custom hashtags for software upgrades from the Sneaks. These are a great opportunity to find someone interested in the same thing.

Discovering A New Job

You never know where your career might lead. The great part about Adobe Max is that you can discover a new field, specialization, or skill that leads you in a new direction for your career. If you would have asked me 4 years ago, I would have never thought I’d be working in production. Production is a specialization not spoken about at the college level. When you go into design, you pick particular specializations like higher order needs such as typography. No one tells you that you might be doing technical things with PDFs along with typography.

You might also receive a job offer. This happened to me twice at one of the conventions. I was offered a job by a very well know farming machine supplier in the midwest, and by an educational institution. You never know what job you might land at an event like this! The reason that can happen is because at these events employers find qualified candidates for jobs. They already know because the event is expensive that either someone invested in sending them to the event, or they are investing in their career. They also can tell through conversation that a candidate is qualified to do the work without going through standardized HR questions in interviews.

Adobe Max is a must attend for most creatives. I’ll admit that there have been years when I was more enthusiastic about the sessions, the Max Bash, or other parts of the convention left one to disappoint. However, the benefits outweigh the reasons to not attend. You get an insiders look at new features with the software, the opportunity to meet other creatives, and possibly land a new job. If you want a creative edge in the design field, Adobe Max is the place to be.

Please consider supporting me on Patreon. You can also find my Instagram here.


Andalee Hyatt