‘Adobe For All Week’ is a global, online, Adobe-only internal event, focused on our D&I efforts and initiatives. It is an emotional and very personable event for all attendees, where they can share their story and be their authentic and genuine selves at work.
Clients:
Internal team of event planners, D&I leaders, communication managers
End Users:
Attendees of Adobe For All Week
My role:
Lead graphic designer and visual project manager
Focus Areas:
– Animated Media & Video Editing
– Stakeholder Communications
– Project Management
– Event Keynote Design
– Executive Presentations
– Stakeholder Communications
– Project Management
– Event Keynote Design
– Executive Presentations
Collaborators:
– Graphic Designer teammate
– Animation & Design intern
– Event Coordinator/Keynote Producer
– Communications Manager(s)
– Production Vendor
– Animation & Design intern
– Event Coordinator/Keynote Producer
– Communications Manager(s)
– Production Vendor
Timeline:
~5 weeks from start to finish
Deliverables I managed:
My process (an overview):
– Review event brand guidelines and assets
– Consult past virtual events to understand their structure
– Meet with the client to discuss deliverables
– Create a media deliverables tracker
– Brief my intern on the project
– Produce the deliverables (see below for more detailed processes)
– Maintain constant communication with my primary client
– Shared deliverables to the stakeholders
– Feedback Loop
– Mark items complete in the tracker
– Share files to stakeholders and vendors
I Learned:
In Premiere Pro, the music layer and its visual representation makes syncing and editing clips to the music much easier, rather than hacking it together in After Effects.
I like managing all of the design elements across an event. Seeing & having my hands in all of the parts and talking to stakeholders directly, helps me understand the bigger picture and design better solutions.
Teaching and collaborating with my intern on animation and editing the stinger video, pushed me to be better at my craft, and to communicate slowly and clearly with complex instructions.
What would I do differently:
I would have added animation into the Keynotes, rather than just the static designs. For example, on the agenda slide, I would have animated in the boxes on the right side with the people and gradients, and also had each item on the list appear one at a time.
Sampling of the brand guidelines provided by the Adobe Studio team.
Selection of the general Adobe For All lockup and the event specific "Adobe For All Week 2021" lockup.
Stinger Video
A stinger video opens & closes the show each day. For Adobe For All, the client wanted it to be uplifting and highlight some of the topics they’d be discussing during the event.
Requirements:
– A long edit, 30-40 seconds in length
– A short edit, ~10 seconds in length
– Showcase employee videos (shot & edited by my team)
– Maintain the Adobe and AFA brand
– Use text animations with copy that reflects the topics and purpose of the event
– Edit the visuals to the beat of the audio track
– End on the event call-to-action “Do One Thing Today”
– A short edit, ~10 seconds in length
– Showcase employee videos (shot & edited by my team)
– Maintain the Adobe and AFA brand
– Use text animations with copy that reflects the topics and purpose of the event
– Edit the visuals to the beat of the audio track
– End on the event call-to-action “Do One Thing Today”
Stinger video preceded by the holding screen and looping gradient background I produced
Process:
– My intern and I reviewed the AFA event brand guidelines, provided assets and client requirements.
– Analyzed past event stingers (both the completed video and the Premiere and After Effects files) to understand how they were built and why we thought they worked.
– Determined that a mix of text treatments, keyed employee videos, motion gradients, and editing to the beat would be our formula.
– Spent a couple days exploring, refining and iterating text animations in After Effects to provide us with a collection we could use for storyboarding.
– Storyboarded a sequence for the longer/main edit of the stinger, keeping in mind that each element would only last 1-5 seconds, and that we needed to account ~7 seconds for the call to action and AFA logo tail at the end.
– Multiplied the amount of text animations we had available, by editing copy and changing colors, ultimately creating net new animations without much extra work.
– Quickly assembled animations and video footage to create an animatic to confirm our storyboard would ‘work’ and identify areas to improve on and refine.
– Properly assembled the exported animations and employee videos in Premiere Pro, using the audio track to guide the cadence and placement of visuals, while telling a story through their sequence.
– Shared early versions of the stinger with my intern to discuss my process, concerns, and potential changes I’d like to make.
– Took feedback from my intern and our manager to make a small round of changes (however, our managed LOVED it and his suggested edits were minor).
– Sent the stinger for review to the relevant stakeholders… copy changes were made and the final primary stinger was marked ‘done’.
– After completing the long-form stinger, I broke it apart, swapped in some new elements and used a shorted audio track to produce a short-form version that could be used in alternate places during the show.
– Updated the stinger line items in our Google Sheets media tracker to ‘done’ with links to the export(s).
Powerpoint showing still frames of different animations that my intern & I created early in the process. Several of these made it into the final stinger, and some were used solo as transitions.
Our final storyboard for the Stinger video before compiling it in Premiere Pro.
View of the final stinger in the Premiere Pro timeline. I found the visual view of the audio layer very helpful to map to the beat & tempo.
Interstitials
Interstitials are used in our virtual events to transition between two speakers or segments of a Keynote. They provide a short visual break and breather for the audience, presenters and production team behind the scenes. They are similar to a stinger, in that they are branded to the event, include text animation and branded elements, but they are only a few seconds long.
Requirements:
– Provide interstitials of varying durations: 3 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec
– Include text and video elements from the stinger
– No transparency in the exports
– Audio was required, and visuals edited to the beat preferred
– Quantity of interstitials delivered was left up to me
– Include text and video elements from the stinger
– No transparency in the exports
– Audio was required, and visuals edited to the beat preferred
– Quantity of interstitials delivered was left up to me
The timing of animation:music was paramount to making these text based interstitials successful.
A few of the longer form interstitials we produced, which were commonly used at the end of topic segments, versus just in-between speakers.
Process:
– Referred to past event media packages and what those interstitials looked like, as the client loved our past work and wanted something similar.
– Setup the media tracker using google sheets, with file names, descriptions of what the asset should be, duration, status, source file info, designer assignments, and links to the exports. My intern and I worked from this and updated it hourly as we worked through concepts and exports, kept us organized.
– Utilized my text explorations and ideations (from creating the Adobe For All Stinger) to identify animation builds that would work well in this shorter, solo format.
– Created new compositions in After Effects, editing the copy, gradients, video masks, and keyframes to time to the shorter audio tracks.
– Refined keyframes with the graph editor to add more energy and smooth out the movement.
– Shared the template starter file with my intern, for her to produce and export several of the transitions. I reviewed and made adjustments as needed.
– Updated the google sheet tracker with descriptions for each of the 8 interstitials and links to the files; shared with my production vendor so they could start building the show.
The project panel in my After Effects file to create the animations for Adobe For All Week. Lots of source files, precomps to keep me organized, and final comps for export.
On the left: sample of one of the precomps that includes the text animations and keyframes.
On the right: sample of that same animation in the final comp that combines the text precomp, background precomp, and music.
Virtual Show ‘Container’
In the age of digital events and Zoom, all things need to be considered, even the background within the digital meeting system. Rather than the standard gray background, we wanted the attendees to feel they were immersed in the live event, and to offer a new + engaging element rather than just a beautiful background.
Requirements:
– Include the AFA lockup and Adobe logo
– Use AFA colors and gradients
– Provide backgrounds that work with slides and picture-in-picture video, and just speaker video feeds
– Use AFA colors and gradients
– Provide backgrounds that work with slides and picture-in-picture video, and just speaker video feeds
Video player design that I pitched to the team, with spots for slides/content and the speaker's video feed
Process:
– Started with a layout in Photoshop I’ve used many times for branding internal digital meetings, with the event lockup top left and adobe logo bottom right
– Chose to use a light gray BG for when the slides/content were up, so they don’t compete with each other. Something flashier would be okay for when it’d just be the video feed up, so the event gradient was perfect there.
– Created layouts with new + engaging elements for the audience, with live chat callouts and schedule reminders.
– Distributed the mockups to my stakeholders and our Studio team for review and consideration. Unfortunately, the Studio team required that I strip back some of the gradient treatments and shape elements, to opt for a simpler look.
– Shared my photoshop files, mocked up exports, lockups and logos with the production crew to recreate the more complex ‘callout’ layouts in the back-end of the virtual meeting tool
– Produced video loops of the gradients (in After Effects) that had subtle movement & would change from one gradient to another, to use instead of a static option.
– Confirmed the plan of use for the backgrounds and callout designs with our production vendor, all files were tracked, links posted in the google sheet tracker and shared out.
My photoshop document showing a few of the layouts that I proposed.
The final backgrounds used in the live event (shown here) were simplified from my original proposals, but the gradient background has subtle motion where it changed colors over time.
Adobe For All General PPT template
For all events at Adobe, we create a branded PPT template that can be used by the event planners, communications teams, and non-keynote speakers. By creating this and being proactive at sharing it, everyone is representing the event with properly branded visuals, and continuity across the event communications starts from the beginning.
Requirements:
– Include: AFA Week theme slide, title slide, content slides, and closing adobe logo slide
– Build off of the corporate PPT structure
– Plug-and-play formatting, to keep it easy for the non-designer end user
– Follows Adobe For All brand guidelines
– Build off of the corporate PPT structure
– Plug-and-play formatting, to keep it easy for the non-designer end user
– Follows Adobe For All brand guidelines
Process:
– Combined the latest corporate and 2020’s AFA PPT template together as a starting point
– Reviewed the AFA event brand guidelines, provided assets and previous years’ templates to confirm my creative direction
– Edited the layouts to include the proper event lockup, color gradients, and cleaned up the master slides to not include excess, unused slides
– Saved the deck as the 2021 AFA PPT template, uploaded to our team files and shared a link to the deck with our stakeholders
Daily Program Keynotes
The primary portion of the event is the daily keynotes. They include Adobe employee speakers and influential guests who share their stories with the audience. I only supported the Adobe speakers and their content for the 5-day event.
Requirements:
– An agenda slide that can be updated each day with the date, schedule, employee images, and the daily theme
– Build from the AFA PPT template
– Update speaker’s original slides from bland to colorful & representative of the brand
– Track changes and own the master decks
– Build from the AFA PPT template
– Update speaker’s original slides from bland to colorful & representative of the brand
– Track changes and own the master decks
The daily agenda slide layout was easily editable by changing the text to fit each day's content.
Samples of the title slide treatment for guest speakers and internal speakers. It was important to the stakeholders that the employee version had images of our employees.
Process:
– Reviewed the event summary decks provided by the Event & comms teams, to understand the event schedule, show flow, their goals, speakers and topics they’ll cover.
– Built a strawman deck for the week’s worth of content, following the show flow, with slides for titles, agendas, and videos, along with notes to the production team. This helped me see what slides and visuals were actually going to be needed from me.
– Contacted with each speaker to get an ETA for their script or slides, discussed my role and how I’d be supporting them
– Explored potential design ideas for slides, using placeholder content
– Reviewed speaker talk tracks & their notes [suggesting what visuals they’d like to see]
– Sourced employee and company imagery from stakeholders
– Experimented with layouts for mixed media slides (i.e. that had pictures, text and statistics)
– Separated each day’s content into it’s own deck once content starting coming in from the speakers, to keep things organized (i.e. AFA21_Monday_v1, AFA21_Tuesday_v1, etc)
– Cycled through the design and feedback loop with the speakers, making edits to their copy and visuals as needed, since I now held the ‘master’ that would go to production
– Held multiple meetings each week with my Keynote Producer to keep her up-to-speed on the speakers, how their content looked, questions, and timeline for delivery
– Final slides were approved and posted for the production team to insert them in the show flow
Here is an example of how I received information and potential content for this event. I went through this PPT of detailed information to understand their goals, who's presenting when, illustrative concepts they want, etc, and build a simplified and designed deck with the relevant information.
A completed day deck looks like this: with production notes to help with running the show, and title and content slides that I designed to match the stylings and guidelines for the event.
Executive Keynote Design
With the timing of content being written and confirmed by Executives and their comms team, their keynotes were the last AFA deliverables to complete for the Adobe For All event. I was responsible for the Chief People Officer’s and the Chief Talent, Diversity & Inclusion Officer’s keynote slides.
Requirements:
– Use the AFA brand and elements to their fullest potential
– Make our executives look good
– Clearly communicate their content via text and visuals
– Share decks for review in a way that’s easy to track comments and changes
– Make our executives look good
– Clearly communicate their content via text and visuals
– Share decks for review in a way that’s easy to track comments and changes
It took me 3 days & 5 rounds of edits to build the Chief People Officer’s slides
A redacted sampling of Gloria Chen's, Adobe CPO, slides for Adobe For All Week.
Process:
– Read their talk tracks & looked at their strawman slides, to get a sense of the concept(s), and sourced previous decks & slides we’ve made on those topics. This way, I didn’t have to start from scratch, it saved me time, and I knew it’s more likely to fit within the executive’s style preferences.
– Designed their slides with already existing AFA slides in mind (to make sure I didn’t duplicate layouts exactly) and made efforts to include special elements, just for them.
– Consistently shared versioned PDFs for review, with each Executive and their comms team, to mark up with comments
– Communicated directly with the executives and collaborated with their comms teams across time zones to make design edits
– Completed decks were posted and shared with the production team to slot into the show flow & they drove slide advancement live during the event.
Slides for the recap of the show lead by Brian Miller, Adobe's Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer.
“I wanted to take a second to recognize Alexa for all of her amazing work on slide design for Adobe For All. We gave her finalized content so late and she turned it around beautifully and in record time. She would even pick up my frantic calls late at night (and in a different timezone!) to change a slide or two from [the Chief People Officer's] section. I was so proud to work with her.”