Adobe challenged us to inspire the creative community with a social series showcasing the versatility of Adobe tools in a way that feels as creative as what the brand has to offer. In other words: Not. Another. Tutorial. Please.
Our concept was simple, yet powerful: Show Adobe tools doing things no one would expect. For example, everyone knows you can customize fonts in Illustrator, but who’s ever tried to make a font out of actual pretzels? Of course Illustrator is useful for interior designers, but what if we used it to design custom miniature benches?
With each entry in this series, we aimed to elicit the same head-scratching response from the creative community: “Wait, you made *that* with Adobe?”
In order to truly understand creatives – who they are, what they like and what drives them – we had to observe them in their natural habitat. First, we built a big glass enclosure and filled it with Macs and iPhones preloaded with the full suite of Adobe products. Then, we placed our creatives in the enclosure and began to observe.
Research complete, our strategy was built around a key insight: Creatives are drawn to the unexpected. But like anyone, they need inspiration, too. Our series was thus designed to inspire creatives to think differently about how they use Adobe tools.
To showcase out-of-the-box uses of Adobe tools, we of course had to partner with out-of-the-box creatives. That’s how we ended up with @emmaorhun making a pretzel font, @bridgetmccartyminis making miniature benches and @giulihartz designing temporary tattoos.
By balancing entertainment with practical takeaways, the series invited viewers to explore Adobe’s tools in ways they hadn’t considered before. The content wasn’t just visually stunning – it was crafted to empower creatives to experiment with the tools themselves, encouraging them to push boundaries and rethink what Adobe can do.
The design ethos was unmistakably Adobe: creative, vibrant, and innovative. But the execution ensured the content lived where creatives already are – scrolling, saving, and sharing ideas on social.
Believe it or not, every single person who viewed one of these videos audibly gasped, “Wait, they made this with Adobe?”
Additionally, these videos received a combined total of 41 million views and 600K engagements across TikTok and Instagram. Quantitative data – so neat, right? The qualitative data is pretty neat, too. Some of our favorite comments on these videos include, but aren’t limited to: “omg wait love this idea!! didn’t know i could turn sketches into drawings like this on illustrator 😮🫶🏾”, “Wait wait wait I CAN MAKE TEMP TATTOOS AT HOME WITH ADOBE?????? 😲😲😲” and “Now this is super creative 🔥🔥🔥”.
