Adobe Enlists Poster Posse Member Orlando Arocena For A Commission Of EPIC Proportions!

The Poster Posse consists of a virtual smorgasbord of diverse creative talents from all over the globe.  Young and old with different styles, techniques and experience, but the ONE thing they ALL possess is passion.  Art is subjective but it is also meant to be consumed by all your senses, appreciated, elicit conversation, evoke emotion or in the case of Orlando Arocena, provoke questions like, “How in the bloody HELL does he do that?”  Recently Adobe held their Adobe Max convention in Los Angeles.  It ran for three full days and attracted speakers that included, Actor/ Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Comedian/ Singer: Weird Al Yankovic,  Documentary Filmmaker: Lee Hirsch, Photographer: Amy Vitale as well as artists including James White, Zombie Yeti, Hydro 74 and more.

Here is how they described their event:  We bring together a mix of people—from creative leaders, designers, broadcast and video pros, tech and business strategists, photographers, and more. No matter what the role or the industry, everyone is focused on building great creative experiences. This shared energy and passion sparks new ideas, drives new partnerships, and breaks new ground every year.  As the landscape continues to shift and change, MAX will remain the ideal place to learn about creating for new devices and screens, using new tools, and discovering approaches and formats. Adobe MAX keeps you informed and relevant.

Orlando was in attendance and given the unique opportunity to deliver a visual image that every creative individual on the PLANET would see…on a daily basis!  He was tasked and commissioned to customize the opening start up splash for Adobe Illustrator CC2014.  I would have found this extremely daunting but Orlando’s passion for his craft left him eager to embark and complete this journey.  Here are some work in process shots as well as some words about the project from his BEHANCE PAGE.  If you haven’t been there, we STRONGLY suggest you give it a thorough look because there truly is some stunning stuff in there.

Directional Quote:
” Adobe is asking for an Arocena – over the top – vector “

Idea Statement:
Pay homage to the evolution of the Adobe Illustrator splash screen by incorporating signature elements from its history and utilize them in a relevant manner that reflects the style and personality of its creative audience.

Although this first vector submission does a great job of leveraging all of the signature AI icons, unfortunately- Botticellisi’s “Venus” , we collectively felt that her provactive pose may present an issue…Therefore, I quickly suggested to replace Venus with something even more important and even more vital.  Let’s have the character pay reverence to the # 1 tool that is synonymous with vector… The PEN TOOL.

The end result is what you see below and by now, if you work in a creative capacity and utilize Adobe Illustrator CC, you have seen this every day since it was released last week.  We had the pleasure of watching Orlando work this past week at the Poster Posse headquarters.  Earbuds in, music going, talking to himself as he goes and once every hour or so, he comes up for air and modestly says, “Come take a look, what do you think?”  What we think or more accurately, what we KNOW is that the man is beyond gifted.  What we saw blew us away.  Stay tuned because he gave us a look at a new project that we will be debuting later this week.  Like the image below it’s pretty incredible.