Homepage Featured – 5 Horizons

10 Adobe Tools to Keep an Eye on in 2025

December 20, 2024

This fall our creative team flew down to Miami to participate in the Adobe MAX conference and learn about new design features coming in 2025. Adobe MAX offered multiple days worth of keynote speakers, expert-lead sessions, and networking opportunities for our team to explore.

Similar to 2023, AI was still front and center at the 2024 conference, but the focus shifted from talking about creating content with AI, more towards integrating AI into existing programs and available tools. Here are the design team’s top 10 tools and program updates introduced during their week in Miami that stood out from the rest:

Project Concept––an AI-powered tool that can assist with team brainstorming and project/concept development
Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing––an AI-focused application designed to create larger campaigns for ads and emails
Project Neo––an AI-powered design tool for creating next-level geometric artwork and graphics
Adobe MAX Sneaks––a sneak peek at experimental programs for photos, videos, vectors, and 3D design
Generative Extend––a program to seamlessly add more frames to the beginning or end of a video or audio clip
Premiere Elements––a revamped application for editing video with the magic of AI for transitions, text, and color correcting
Remove Tool––a new Photoshop tool for removing distracting people, items, and objects with generative AI
Style Reference Image Tool––a new Firefly tool for style-matching new generative AI images
Realistic Mockup Tool––a new Illustrator tool to create digital mockups for brand identity and product designs by placing artwork or logos on real-life objects
Bulk Create Social Content Tool––a new Adobe Express tool for quickly generating large batches of social content with generative AI

Our creative team came back full of new ideas and excited about all of the tools, tips, and tricks they learned during the conference––but most importantly, ready to implement everything into their work in 2025.

Education is at the heart of everything we do. If you are looking for a partner who is constantly exploring and learning new technology, we are ready to share our knowledge with you and solve your digital marketing problems. Let’s connect!

Inside 5 Horizons: The Transformative Power of Our Unique Strategist Role

June 6, 2024

At 5 Horizons, our staff roles and responsibilities are a little different than other agencies because we prioritize a holistic approach to digital marketing.

We refer to our Account Managers as Strategists because they do significantly more than just manage client accounts. Our clients rely on Strategists to be their points of contact, strategic partners, placement managers, and metric analysts. They go beyond the job description of Account Manager and offer personalized support, guidance, and expertise. The Strategist role uniquely reflects our hands-on business style and represents the client relationships we work so hard to cultivate.

Hear from two of our Senior Strategists, Kellie Averbukh and James Lynch, as they answer a few questions about the nature of their roles.

What’s the most important part of the Strategist role?

KA: “Communication. Whether it’s kicking off a new client relationship or a new Fiscal Year with a current partner, communication is key. It’s important to understand client goals and objectives upfront to ensure the plans and strategies we create and implement will yield the highest return possible. From there, it’s imperative that we communicate regularly with our clients to be sure that what we’re seeing, media- and analytics-wise, is syncing up with internal KPIs, lead funnels, and sales, so we can optimize if/as needed.”

JL: “Communication. We take our role as a “partner” with our clients very seriously. Their success is directly linked to our success. Understanding the client’s goals and the challenges they face achieving those goals can only be realized through regular and honest communication. We spend a significant amount of time talking to our clients about their short- and long-term goals in order to develop “right-sized” strategies for their success.”

What do your day-to-day tasks look like?

KA: “Prepping for and running client meetings; emails and strategy documents; media presentations and reports; working with our copy, creative, and data teams on new campaigns, while monitoring and optimizing currently live ones.”

JL: “I do my best to spend time every day working on some aspect of all my client’s accounts; developing new strategies for upcoming campaigns, monitoring current campaigns, preparing reports for campaigns that have ended. I also make time to explore new technologies and strategies that will benefit the agency’s clients, as the digital marketing landscape is constantly changing.”

Why is strategy so important for digital marketing?

KA: “Strategy is at the center of digital marketing. Aside from what we want to say (and what the creative looks or sounds like), a good strategy ensures that the right message is reaching the right audience, in the right place, at the right time, at an efficient cost. There are many layers to strategy and it is very important to align and measure them in order to maximize success.”

JL: “Every client has a unique set of goals and objectives. Having the ability to recommend and apply the right digital strategy is critical to the success of the campaign. One strategic approach for one client is not necessarily going to work for another, even if their business models are similar. We pride ourselves on being tuned in to our client’s needs and developing unique strategies that work to meet those goals.”

What’s your favorite part of being a Strategist?

KA: “My favorite part of being a Strategist is being involved from A to Z. From day 1 new client introductions to year-end or campaign-end results and analysis, it’s really rewarding seeing campaigns (and even brands) evolve. It’s so fun seeing a billboard, TV spot, or Facebook ad live in market and thinking, ‘Hey! We worked on this!’”

JL: “Well-crafted, thoughtful strategies are like good recipes. If you use all the right ingredients, in just the right amounts, with the right amount of time and attention, the result can be exactly what you expect it to be. As an avid home cook, I bring the same amount of thought, preparation, and passion I use in my kitchen to my development of strategic planning and execution for my clients. Sharing the results of a successfully executed marketing campaign with our clients/partners can be as exciting as pulling a perfect cake or beautifully baked loaf of sourdough from the oven. Bon appetit!”

Kellie and Jim work with 5+ clients each, providing personal support and guidance for clients of different sizes in various industries. They make up two of six members of our Strategy Team who deliver the highest quality of client service and build trust for long-lasting relationships.

Strategy is at the center of our approach to successful digital marketing. How can we help you reach your goals? Connect with us to learn more.

The Inside 5 Horizons series includes stories and perspectives from our amazing team. Get a glimpse into our company culture by hearing from the unique voices of our copywriters, strategists, project managers, and more.

Summer Social Media Ideas for Higher Education Institutions

June 5, 2024

With students being away for the summer and the campus looking empty, higher education social media managers often struggle to come up with content ideas to keep their accounts active. Though the overall online engagement drops in the summer, there are still ways of curating lively feeds and encouraging student and alumni engagement.

If you find yourself short on inspiration, here are our summer social media ideas for higher ed marketers:

1. Student or Alumni Features

Whether it’s photos from eye-catching vacations, study-abroad experiences, internships, jobs, or alumni meet-ups (with bonus points if people are wearing your school’s colors), featuring familiar faces on your social media channels can make your community feel more connected during the summer break.

2. Campus Highlights

The students might be gone, but the natural beauty of your campus is most likely just as vibrant. With lush green trees and flowers in bloom, summer is the perfect time to show off the unique natural features of your campus, reminding your online audience of how welcoming it is.

3. Get the Students Involved

Students want to have a say in what their campus life is going to look like in the new academic year. By creating polls or contests surrounding event planning or artistic programming, you can encourage audience participation and engagement in a manner that’s fun for students and insightful for you as a higher ed marketer. This approach will help you identify ahead of time which programs or events the students are most excited about, giving you plenty of time to come up with the best promotional strategy.

4. Use the People Around You

Though most campuses look rather empty in the summer months, some schools still offer summer classes and host volunteer groups and sports teams. Use this time to create “behind the scenes” content featuring student athletes, tips on staying involved on campus between semesters, and staff highlights (important people for incoming and transfer students to know, such as academic advisors, and international student and student activities coordinators, among others).

5. Viral Trends

Though school life slows down in the summer, the internet does not. Trends will continue to emerge and cycle throughout the summer months, and you should be able to stay on top of the ones that align with the type of content your school usually publishes. With limited resources, summer trends are a good test of creativity for marketers and social media managers.

6. Facilitate Back-To-School Excitement

This idea is better suited for later summer months, when you can start creating content that generates anticipation for the upcoming semester. Create a hashtag new students can use to share their acceptance letters, and feature some of them on the school’s social media accounts. As the students prepare to return to campus, this is also a great time to show off how the staff gets the school ready for the Fall. Highlighting what students can look forward to in the new academic year is a great way of cultivating excitement and school spirit.

The summer months can also be used to evaluate your school’s social media presence, looking into statistics and taking note of what type of content performs best. Learning from those findings and taking inspiration from the ideas above can result in a summer full of engagement!

At 5 Horizons, we are experts in higher education marketing. Contact us today for extra social media insights or advertising assistance.

How Do Podcast Ads Work?

May 23, 2024

Though radio advertising is still going strong in 2024, podcast listeners are projected to reach 504.9 million this year. With such significant audience numbers, businesses might want to consider podcasts as a platform for their audio advertising if they haven’t already. Here is everything you need to know about adding podcasts to your marketing strategy.

Types of Podcast Ads

With three main advertising formats, brands of all sizes and industries have the opportunity to connect with engaged audiences. Organizations interested in advertising on podcasts should consider the following ad types.

Host-Read Ads

Host-read ads, also known as host-read sponsorships or sponsor reads, are presented by podcast hosts themselves. These reads frequently embody the energy of the podcast, creating a seamless experience for the listeners and captivating their attention. Though brands usually provide the messaging, podcast hosts can put their own spin on it, while still preserving the essence of the ad. Such sponsorships are usually 60 seconds long and tend to cost more than the other types of podcast advertising.

Pre-Recorded Ads

Pre-recorded ads, also known as announcer-read ads or pre-produced ads, are a classic type of audio advertising. Advertisers supply the commercial messages read by voice-over artists, not podcast hosts. These ads play during commercial breaks in the podcast and range between 15 and 30 seconds in length.

Branded Content

The least popular of the three types, branded content ads integrate promotional messaging as a branded segment or episode within the editorial content of podcasts. This ad format is popular on social media and can be used effectively in podcasts that get recorded and uploaded to video platforms such as YouTube or Instagram Reels.

Benefits of Podcast Advertising

Over the last few years, podcast ads have proved to be effective. Research shows that 60% of listeners pay close attention to the messaging of podcast ads, with 80% of listeners reporting that podcast ad reads didn’t negatively affect their experience. Here are additional benefits of podcast advertising and the reasons why you should consider adding this channel to your marketing mix.

1. Direct Audience Targeting

With an array of niche podcasts, you can place your messaging within one that aligns with your brand’s industry. That way, you can guarantee that listeners would already be interested in the products or services you’re providing, increasing the chances of them taking action.

2. Unique Ad Format

When podcast hosts read the ads, listeners tend to pay more attention. Their trust increases because it’s human nature to respond to authentic conversations, even if they’re guided by a specific messaging. The hosts’ casual banter and relatable anecdotes make the audiences feel more receptive to promotional messaging compared to a more traditional voice-over ad (which can also be effective!). According to the IAB study, host-read ads bring in 55% of generated ad revenue.

3. Buildable Reach

When you buy an ad spot on a podcast, it’s usually a one-time charge per episode. However, the ads are permanently embedded into the episode, meaning that your messaging will be heard by any listeners who discover the podcast or want to return to it in the future.

Is Podcast Advertising Worth It?

Yes. With podcast advertising getting people’s attention and motivating listeners to take action, adding this medium to your advertising budget doesn’t have to mean dropping other channels. If you can balance audio ads with a mix of static or video formats, you can build a comprehensive advertising strategy that reaches your target audience through multiple touchpoints.

Need assistance with finding the right podcast, booking your ad, or tracking your results? 5 Horizons can work with you to make sure your messaging appears in the right place and airs in the most optimized format. Contact us today to discuss how we can support your audio ad needs.

How to Establish a Successful SEO Strategy

May 9, 2024

Over the course of our Demystifying Search Engine Optimization (SEO) blog series, we learned about the different steps you can take to improve your SEO efforts. If you’re still wondering what the best SEO strategy is for 2024 and beyond, here are the main takeaways from the series.

1. Make technical SEO a priority

In the abundance of content, it’s easy to shift your focus from the foundation of any successful SEO strategy—technical SEO. It’s integral for you to keep your website architecture, internal linking, structured data mockups, and site loading speeds in check, ensuring a positive user experience and readability for Googlebots.

2. Set concrete goals

A successful SEO strategy is personalized to your brand or organization, so consider asking yourself: what are my SEO goals for this year? From optimizing your on-page SEO to centering your efforts around local SEO, take the steps that will directly help you achieve your personalized goals rather than a broader definition of SEO success.

3. Stay on top of SEO trends

SEO strategy is a continuous journey. While today marketers are preoccupied with the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in SEO, tomorrow might bring a new trend that will make everyone pivot their SEO efforts. Keeping up with SEO updates and best practices is essential, as long as you also continue making evergreen SEO strides, such as producing high-quality content and working toward specific SEO goals (e.g., increasing return site visitors).

Remember: you don’t have to do everything all at once. The internet is full of numerous “musts” when it comes to SEO, that’s why it’s vital to hold awareness and curiosity when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Consider implementing bite-sized steps toward improving your SEO strategy and come back to our Demystifying SEO series whenever you need a refresher on SEO basics. For more expert tips and exceptional SEO services, contact 5 Horizons today.

The Future of SEO: 2024 SEO Trends & Beyond

April 25, 2024

As our series on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes to an end, it’s important to look ahead. While SEO is constantly evolving and changing, here are the latest predictions on what might be on the horizon for SEO in 2024 and beyond.

1. Increased Emphasis on Artificial Intelligence (AI)

In our previous blog on how AI and SEO interact, we mentioned that AI is not going to take over SEO. However, AI’s influence on future SEO trends is undeniable. With predictive analysis getting further developed as a feature, AI can identify emerging trends and topics before they become mainstream. This would allow businesses to use AI not only for keyword research but also for content recommendations and generation, as AI gets trained to better identify the user intent behind each search. AI’s growing capabilities and accuracy would help businesses stay ahead of the popularity curve, producing unique content that can become relevant in the near future.

2. Changes in Search Result Layout

Expanding on the topic of AI, the use of AI-powered chatbots for search will likely continue to grow. With an increased use of software such as ChatGPT and Bing’s Copilot to perform searches, Google is continuously optimizing a chatbot of their own—Search Generative Experience (SGE). SGE lets users ask direct questions and displays results in a different format compared to the classic list we are accustomed to seeing on search engine results pages (SERPs). SGE presents results in complete sentences and provides users with examples, getting rid of the need to click through multiple links with information.

This trend is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, brands who aren’t able to rank highly in SERPs now get a chance to have their content displayed on SGE; on the other hand, there’s an assumption that SGE will reduce organic traffic for many short-tailed keywords because users will be able to get a complete AI-generated answer as their search result. As Google rolls out SGE updates in the future, some businesses might consider adjusting their SEO strategies to account for AI chatbots.

3. The Reign of Zero-Click Searches and Featured Snippets

With SGE chatbot’s potential to disrupt the current list format of search results and Google continuously favoring quick how-to lists and direct, short answers to the users’ questions, businesses should start optimizing their content for featured snippets. Known as zero-click searches, this type of content appears in featured placements or “People Also Ask” section of SERPs, allowing users to find the information they were looking for without clicking on any external links. As harmful as they are to website traffic, featured snippets aren’t going anywhere, and we predict they will only keep getting expanded. For that reason, brands should aim to secure visibility in these prime search positions and provide concise, valuable information that satisfies user queries upfront.

4. Continuous Prioritizing of Search Intent Clusters

Over the last few years, SEO has been centering the individual search intent. With long-tailed keywords getting more traffic than short-tailed keywords, Google has been prioritizing search intent clusters—groups of related queries that indicate specific user intents or needs. Search results will continue getting hyper-personalized for consumers’ behaviors, preferences, and context. Moving forward, SEO strategies should hone in on thoroughly understanding each brand’s target audience and create highly tailored content and user experiences.

5. Augmented Reality (AR) and Visual Search Optimization

With AR technology on the rise, it’s only a matter of time before SEO practices will need to pivot and adapt. We expect that businesses will have to enhance their online presence by optimizing images and other visual content for search engines. Because Google crawlers notoriously need help understanding the content of each webpage, businesses will need to provide explicit clues about the meaning of their pages, the process known as implementing structured data markup. This step will become essential in providing context for AR experiences. Additionally, as Google has been optimizing its search results for voice assistants, the same approach may extend to visual queries, requiring SEO practitioners to consider factors such as image recognition and object detection.

If you’re wondering whether SEO is still relevant in 2024, rest assured that it is and will continue to stay so while adapting to shifting consumer needs. For businesses aiming to maintain online visibility and engagement, it’s vital to stay in tune with the changes in user behavior, especially when it comes to their target audience. By anticipating and promptly adapting to emerging trends and innovations, businesses can position themselves for success in 2024 and beyond. To further stand out amid the competitive digital marketing landscape, contact 5 Horizons to discuss how we can help bring your SEO strategy to a new level of excellence. You can also read the blogs in our Demystifying SEO series to better understand and learn the ins and outs of SEO.

How AI and SEO Interact

April 11, 2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay, but what role does it play in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? With Google recommending writing content for people and then optimizing it for search engines, what room is left for AI?

These questions are on the minds of many marketers and internet users, as AI has been changing our digital search landscape. Search results are now highly customized, as they’re being influenced by the user’s intent, past behaviors, devices, locations, and other factors. While the increasing popularity of generative AI such as Chat GPT or Google Bard has once again confirmed that SEO is an ongoing process, it’s crucial to keep up with the ways AI and SEO interact.

How do you use AI for SEO?

So, how does SEO work with AI? The best way to answer this question is to rephrase it and give yourself more agency: How can you use AI to improve your SEO strategy? This way, it becomes clear that AI is here to help you enhance your SEO efforts and not do them for you. For instance, instead of misguidedly prompting generative AI to write all of your content, consider incorporating the following alternative ways of using AI for SEO.

User Experience (UX) and Content Optimization

Since user experience is a priority when it comes to an SEO strategy, you can use AI to analyze user behavior and the type of content you publish. AI can then provide you with insight and suggestions on the areas that need improvement. Implementing this recommendation is a great way of using AI to make your content SEO-friendly and diversifying it to improve your UX, which will result in better SEO rankings.

Virtual Assistants Implementation

Both voice search assistants and chatbots can benefit your UX, but they go a step further. Chatbots are a form of AI that provides instant help to your website’s visitors, increasing customer satisfaction, return site visitors, and engagement rates.

With the popularity of AI voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, voice search inquiries have significantly increased. Since SEO is always evolving, it’s important to consider voice search when building your strategy. Optimizing your content using long-tailed keywords can be an essential step, as it accounts for users speaking in complete sentences when searching the web for content.

Keyword Research

AI tools can increase your productivity and SEO performance by finding, analyzing, and implementing keywords into your strategy. Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool or Copilot can provide insights into keyword opportunities and adjustments, as well as suggestions for keywords to use in your content.

Is AI going to take over SEO?

The short answer is no, AI is not going to take over SEO. Even though generative AI offers an opportunity to create content that’s optimized for SEO, search engines still prioritize content that’s written for users. The human touch is essential to current SEO practices, even while AI continues to influence and change the SEO process.

Keeping this in mind, it’s important to acknowledge that AI has already substantially transformed SEO and digital marketing with predictive search, enhanced result accuracy, and a constant stream of information. Understanding AI’s continuous influence on SEO will provide businesses and organizations with a necessary competitive advantage.

Staying up-to-date on technological advancements and their impact on SEO is one of our many talents. Contact 5 Horizons today to discuss conducting an SEO audit to help your organization thrive, or follow our Demystifying SEO series to learn more.

Get to Know the Googlebot

April 2, 2024

If you work in digital marketing or have ever tried marketing your products or services, you have most likely heard one of the phrases “Google crawlers,” “Google spiders,” or “Googlebot.” But what exactly do they mean?

Google crawler (sometimes referred to as a spider) is a generic term for any program used to automatically discover and scan websites by following links from one web page to another. Googlebot is the main crawler used for Google Search.

What does a Googlebot do?

The data Googlebots find as they crawl from link to link gets stored in a collective index. This is the index that online search results get pulled from, which makes it one of the biggest reasons you should care about Google crawlers. Due to the nature of the Googlebot software, the way your website uses text links becomes significantly important. Streamlining the process that allows Googlebots to crawl from page to page will help your website rank accurately on the search engine result pages (SERPs). This means that a good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy always keeps Google spiders in mind to help them easily digest your website’s relevant pages.

How many Googlebots are there?

While Google has 16 types of crawlers designed for various purposes, there are two most relevant types:

Googlebot Smartphone: a mobile crawler that simulates a user on a mobile device.
Googlebot Desktop: a desktop crawler that simulates a user on a desktop.

Both of these crawler types attempt to understand and experience websites the way humans do, which is why it’s vital to keep user experience in mind when optimizing your website.

How do you improve your website for Googlebots?

The main thing you need to do to optimize your website for Googlebots is making sure your image links, navbar, anchor text, and any other links are working properly. The easier it is for this software to sift through your content, the higher your website’s crawlability.

When you can’t guarantee successful crawlability yourself, 5 Horizons can help. We make sure that the most important pages on your website do not get blocked, and that Googlebots have the most streamlined path of crawling your website through site maps, fresh content, and internal linking.

Here at 5 Horizons, we keep Google spiders in mind when building or helping you with your websites. Contact us today to learn more about our offerings.

Bite-Sized SEO for a Limited Budget

March 21, 2024

Since Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn’t a one-and-done process, it can easily overwhelm an organization’s resources. SEO is so much more than keyword research and content generation, and there are bite-sized efforts anyone can take to enhance their organic search results. Here is what the experts on our team recommend:

1. Focus on Local SEO

Local SEO is one of the higher-impact, lower-cost items. If you have a brick-and-mortar location and set business hours, this is a must. At its most basic, this step involves reviewing Google’s guidelines for local SEO and making sure your Google Business Profile, as well as Meta, Bing, and other platforms where your listing appears, are accurate, complete, and kept up to date. Consistency is important, so this is a place where you might consider paying the small monthly fee for a service that monitors and manages your listings to ensure your company information matches across all directories. Read one of our previous blogs in this SEO series to learn more about putting your business on the map with Google Business Profile and other tips on implementing a local SEO strategy.

2. Reframe Your Approach to Content

Quality content is important for SEO rankings and creating an engaged user experience. Focus on leveraging your team for ideas. Encourage them to track questions that clients and customers ask, as those can become topics for future content pieces. For those with the resources to generate relevant content themselves, 5 Horizons offers site reviews, competitor gap analysis, keyword research, and creative brief development to inform your content creation. Tip: If you don’t have the resources to write new content yourself or hire somebody to do it, try featuring your social feed on your website. This may require some up-front development work, but as long as your social channels are updated frequently, this can provide fresh content to encourage audience engagement.

3. Monitor Technical SEO and Website Performance

It’s vital for you to continuously look at and promptly adjust your website’s technical performance. Technical SEO can be monitored in Google Search Console, which will give you insights into major technical issues, such as broken links (404 pages). Page Speed Insights is a great resource that looks at Core Web Vitals, which are important web page performance metrics that can help you identify problems such as slow loading speeds and poor mobile performance. These services don’t cost anything and can help you significantly optimize your website.

Even when resources are limited, SEO is an important part of your web presence. Applying even a few additional steps to your existing SEO efforts could increase your search engine rankings and help you connect with your target audience. At 5 Horizons, we work with different SEO budgets and customize our approach for each client. Contact us to discuss how we can help your business grow, and read other blogs in our Demystifying SEO series.

Exploring New Features at Adobe MAX

March 20, 2024

Starstruck by Adobe MAX 2023 and Excited for the 2024 Conference

Last fall, our design team had the incredible opportunity to attend the Adobe MAX conference in sunny Los Angeles. Aside from the selfie-worthy expo hall and talented list of speakers, Adobe MAX also showcased an impressive number of innovative systems and programs.

With a new conference to look forward to in November, the design team shared their highlights, their favorite sessions, and the new tech that’s on the horizon:

1. Game-Changers for the Creative Industry

Some of the most exciting parts of Adobe MAX 2023 were the generative AI technologies shared during the keynote sessions. These updates offer the potential to revolutionize the way designers work, unleashing imaginations and simplifying complex tasks. A few of those impressive updates included:

Adobe Express

An all-in-one web app for print creation and social content, Adobe Express is a time-saving tool with simple animation capabilities. Another bonus is that it works seamlessly with other Adobe programs.

After the conference, our team started using Adobe Express as a stepping stone for creating some of our design work. Files can be locked and shared easily with other teammates to review in and out of the agency. Our team also shares design templates across departments, so project managers and strategists can quickly make text or image adjustments on projects with tight deadlines.

Adobe Firefly

Adobe’s AI program possesses the ability to generate images in a specific style, which can be fine-tuned utilizing examples or selected from existing references. Firefly can be used to add, remove, blend, or expand content in images. It is designed to be safe for commercial use and requires clever prompt writing to guide the bots to produce the best images, vectors, or patterns.

Our design team is still determining how they want to integrate Adobe Firefly into their work. It has limitations with generating faces and hands, perfecting realistic lighting, and relying solely on user input. This has huge potential to be used for expanding images to fit horizontal or vertical placements.

2. Sessions that Stood Out

The conference gave our design team a platform to connect with other creative professionals and exchange ideas and experiences. They attended various sessions, collected information, and shared their findings with each other. Here were their favorite sessions:

Laryssa’s Pick

“Powerful Personal Branding: Unmask Your True Identity” by Chris Do, Founder and CEO of The Futur

Chris Do delved into the captivating world of comics, pop culture, psychology, and storytelling to uncover powerful personal branding strategies. He spoke about assembling a team of collaborators who will help you achieve your mission.

Do explained the importance of creating a striking visual identity and how to remain consistent and authentic across all channels. He encouraged designers to identify three key points to focus on when developing their personal brand:

Identify your allies, sidekicks, archnemesis, rogues gallery of villains
Craft a compelling origin story, and discover your hidden superpower
Design an eye-catching visual identity and find your two-word brand

Melissa’s Pick

“For Type Lovers: A Guide to Animating Typography” by Zipeng Zhu, Founder of Dazzle Studio

“How do you go about making every day a razzle-dazzle musical?”

During their inspiring session, Zipeng Zhu, a queer immigrant artist, shared their story of an evolution of self, and how that manifested in their work. When they first immigrated to NYC from China, they aimed to blend in instead of standing out, but quickly realized their strength lay in the colorful exuberance in life and their creative work.

“We were all that kid that stayed up late making a poster, or making a zine — when did that become not fun?”

Showing off a mesmerizing collection of animation work, Zhu reminded us why we get up in the morning to create—whether it’s for a client or simply for the fun of making something for ourselves.

3. A Peek into the Future

Adobe MAX 2023 has given us a tantalizing peek into the future of creative technology, and we’re excited to see how these innovations will shape the world of design and creativity in the years to come:

Project Stardust revolutionizes image editing through object-aware AI. It automates complex image-editing tasks, making it accessible to users of all skill levels. The user will be able to edit objects instead of layers, developing natural, photo-realistic results.
Project Fast Fill brings Firefly’s generative AI to video to ease the addition, removal, or expansion of content in images with text prompts. It also offers an initial look at what human-prompted generative AI could enable inside Adobe video editing tools including Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Project Dub Dub Dub uses generative AI to auto-dub content in more than 70 languages and over 140 dialects, making content accessible to a broader audience. It can translate and match the speaker’s voice, tone, cadence, and acoustics of the original video. This instantaneous update saves a labor- and cost-intensive process and can be done in mere minutes.

Our design team absorbed as much information as they could at Adobe MAX 2023 and are very excited to see what Adobe MAX 2024 brings.