During my final semester at university, I only had one class, which left me with a lot of free time by the end of the semester. It was then that I realized I had been paying for the Adobe Creative Suite without really utilizing it.
In my previous job, which required a fair amount of design work, I never formally learned how to use Adobe software, as it was never part of my curriculum. Typically, when we placed orders for media posts and designs, it would take a considerable amount of time for the designers to provide a rough draft, which often led to significant delays. Over time, I came to understand that this was a common practice in many corporations. To increase efficiency, I decided to take matters into my own hands. By learning to do the design work myself, I could create content in one afternoon, saving countless hours otherwise spent in meetings and discussions.
However, after returning to school, I hadn’t used these skills for a long time. Recently, I decided to revisit Adobe software and discover the new features that had been added over the years. To my surprise, the software environment has become much more user-friendly.
I chose to design a recruitment poster for the American Marketing Association. Over the past few years, I had been dissatisfied with the content creation team’s use of Canva. While Canva is an excellent tool that significantly lowers the barriers to design, the materials it produced often felt generic and lacked uniqueness, giving off what I describe as a “plastic” feel.
I set out to design a poster with a specific contrast—I aimed for a vibe reminiscent of the 1950s. My inspiration came from the vintage photographs displayed around the university. I wanted to capture that old-school vibe, offering something fresh in an environment where similar light modern designs are repeatedly seen.
This project was purely a fun art endeavor without much utilitarian purpose, as I doubt we could ever use it as official communication material. The AMA prefers to adhere to a specific design tone, and this poster doesn’t fit that criterion. Nevertheless, it was a fun and good practice run for my design skills, and I might continue exploring this.