For the fourth year in a row, Killer Infographics will be heading to Adobe MAX to learn about the latest innovations in design, catch up with colleagues, and present a new session about the power of visual campaigns.
Here’s an overview of Killer’s participation at Adobe MAX in the words of Co-Founder, CEO, and Chief Swiss Army Knife, Amy Balliett.
In 2013, my business partner (Nick Grant) and I were invited to speak at Adobe MAX. It was one of our first large conferences since launching Killer Infographics in 2010 and an exciting opportunity to share our learnings from years past. The event quickly became one of our favorites, and we are honored to have been welcomed back year after year to continue the conversation with attendees from all walks of life.
I speak at dozens of conferences each year, but Adobe MAX is unlike any other. The conference provides sessions for all levels of design, ensuring even the most advanced person can walk away feeling empowered and excited to apply what they’ve learned. Each year, Adobe uses the conference as an opportunity to share its latest innovations with Creative Cloud, announce partnerships with large tech giants such as Microsoft, and invite creative celebrities to share once-in-a-lifetime keynote conversations.
What began as a valued speaking opportunity has quickly become a tradition here at Killer Infographics, and our Adobe MAX presentations chronicle the evolution of our company.
In 2013, when we first spoke at Adobe MAX, our presentation was titled “Infographic Design: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” This 60-minute session was very appropriate for Killer at the time because our core offering was infographic design. We began the session by explaining the value of infographics as well as a few important rules to follow. We then displayed myriad infographics—both good and bad—and dissected each with the help of the audience. The goal of this session was to set a bar for quality infographic design by sharing best practices and showing how these best practices are interpreted in the wild.
We were excited to be invited back to speak in 2014 to expand upon the rules we had touched on the previous year while evangelizing the foundation of infographics: the basic rules of visual communication. We developed a session called “10 Rules of Infographic Design” and presented each rule by first showing an example of the rule being broken and following it with an example of proper presentation. This was an important step in Killer’s evolution, as we had expanded our service offerings to include animated motion graphics and interactive infographics and wanted to share what we had learned about visualizing information across all three mediums.
Last year, we took things a step further by presenting “The Future of Visual Communication.” Notably, we removed the word “infographic” from our session title entirely. The visual communication industry had reached a tipping point, and infographics were just one of many tools required to connect with audiences. We wanted to bring attention to that fact, so we focused on the science behind visual communication, showed lessons from case studies, and shared our predictions for the future, which focused heavily on the need for visual campaigns.
This year, our presentation is my favorite so far! Following tradition, we are focusing on a topic near and dear to who we are as a company and how we have evolved: “How to Create Visual Campaigns that Captivate, Educate, and Impact.” Today’s consumers crave custom, quality, visual content of all types. An infographic, when produced correctly, is a powerful tool used to help brands speak visually to their target audience, but it is just one of many tools in the visual communication tool belt. At Killer Infographics, we develop targeted visual campaigns for our clients that incorporate myriad services including eBooks, social media assets, animated video, interactive content, and more. While our foundation rests in one of the purest forms of visual storytelling—the infographic—we also understand that simply producing infographics won’t yield success for most brands. Given the shift in demand with today’s audiences, we feel that it’s important to share how to manage this new focus. And what better place to share this information than at Adobe MAX?
Our mission statement declares how we believe that visual communication has the power to impact positive change. Because of this, we chose to donate up to $100,000 in visual campaign services to one nonprofit in 2016. At Adobe MAX, we’ll share that campaign with attendees in a presentation that unveils our step-by-step process for producing successful campaigns. Just as Adobe MAX seeks to empower creative thinkers of all kinds, our hope is to help empower designers with the tools needed to produce quality visual content that can make a difference. It has been predicted that 84% of communication will be visual by 2019, and this means that design skills will be in high demand for years to come.
In addition to our session (which will be held at 8:15 AM on November 3rd and again at 4:15 PM on November 4th), we also will be participating in the first ever MAX Marketplace on the afternoon of the 3rd. We’ll be selling our posters and post cards at a 15% discounted rate. Don’t worry about having to travel home with anything you buy—we’ll ship it directly to you at no additional charge!
If you’re attending Adobe MAX, please reach out ahead of time to let us know! We can grab a drink, meet up at the expo hall, or find each other at the MAX Bash to exchange a “hello” and answer any questions you have while taking in the San Diego sun!
