Between August 2-3, the International Convention Centre in Sydney played host to the Adobe MAKE-IT conference, a gathering of close to 2,000 creatives and design professionals from Australia, New Zealand and beyond. While I was unable to attend the sessions on August 2 as the sessions were sold out, I was lucky enough to attend the conference on August 3 thanks to my employer – Openbook Howden Print & Design – providing me the leave at very short notice, for which I am truly grateful.

Speakers on the day of the conference included several creatives in differing fields including an animator using a variety of media; a conflict-zone photographer; a craft-based designer; a social media “disruptor” and author of the “Sharpie-art Workshop” book; and a self proclaimed “digital hipster”. Other speakers included several Adobe staff, including Adobe evangelists Paul Burnett and Photoshop guru Julieanne Kost.

While there were no jaw-dropping announcements about product releases or upgrades, Adobe did provide glimpses of ongoing upgrades and projects such as Project Felix, Adobe Character Animator, Adobe XD, Lightroom enhancements, Adobe Stock improvements, and a revamp of their Youtube site to make easier to follow tutorials.

The conference also provided me an opportunity to catch up with several speakers who had presented sessions the previous day, and whom I have met before at various CPN conferences such as PEPCON, The InDesign Conference and CreativePro Week.

As someone who uses InDesign for most of their work, I was a little deflated that the software barely had a mention during the conference. Nevertheless, programs that were more familiar to the rest of the audience such as Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects – applications I also use regularly – featured predominantly.

It was great to see so many people both in attendance and watching online, and hope that not only that the event can return next year, but with greater scope to be the “Mini-MAX” event for Australians who can’t necessarily make it to Adobe MAX in the USA.