This post is part of a Sponsored Series from Adobe Students and the Adobe Imagination Challenge
We’re excited to announce that we’ve started working with Adobe to help raise awareness and engagement for the “Adobe Imagination Challenge.” This challenge is designed to encourage and inspire students to express themselves creatively using the incredibly powerful and extensive suite of Adobe software products. Students can create something original and unique using any Adobe software and submit it for a chance to win $10,000! The submissions will be reviewed by a panel of celebrity judges who you can check out below.
You can download a free trial of CS5.5 Student and Teacher Editions from August 22 through October 30 to participate.
Deadmau5 calls it a “global call for creativity”
Interested? Get involved with the Challenge!
How can students show what they love, what they do or who they are? Last week, Adobe announced The Imagination Challenge, designed to encourage all students to creatively express themselves across diverse fields, such as engineering, architecture, science, art or literature.
During the four entry periods from August 22 through October 30, students can download a free trial of CS5.5 Student and Teacher Editions, create something original and unique to them and then upload it to the Imagination Gallery.
Voters will choose one winner during each entry period who will win $10,000. All semi-finalists and winners from the entry periods will also be automatically entered in the Grand Prize judging to win an additional $10,000. For more contest details, visit here.
(Details from Adobe.com)
Now for a true back story on why this relationship with Adobe is especially significant to me…
Adobe & Me: 12-Years of Empowerment
I’ve been a professional web developer for 9 years now, but my first taste of internet publishing came when I discovered the ability to create websites using Yahoo! Geocities back around 2001. Geocities was a “drag and drop” style website tool that allowed anybody to create a website and host it for free.
Back then, the most complex things on my page consisted of comical animated .gifs I’d found on AOL (rocking dial-up at the time) and random funny photos and quotes I’d collected from around the web. I was in my early teens; nobody really had cell phones, no text messaging, Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. It was the only way to mass-communicate other than using AOL Instant Messenger and Chat rooms.
As I began falling in love with publishing online and learning everything I could about it, I soon became fed up with the limited capabilities Geocities had to offer. I was intrigued by the crisp, snappy graphics of other websites I frequented. My page had absurd colors and a variety of font sizes that would make any web designer cringe; I had to figure out how to get my website on par with everyone else.
Friends I’d met playing the online game Counter-Strike had some of the nicest websites I’d ever seen; I needed to know how I could create my own. Their guidance led me directly to Dreamweaver MX and eventually Adobe Photoshop, where each of them explained how I could harness the power of this software to create the professional look and feel of their websites and far beyond. The greatest news was I could educate myself on how to use it.
I was instantly hooked and now equipped with the same tools as big design companies. With enough practice and ambition, I could use this software to compete with the highest paid professionals in my field. Dreamweaver allowed me to create, understand and modify the most complex of HTML and CSS documents. Photoshop enabled me to create professional grade graphics, flyers and photographs. Fireworks assisted me in expressing my creativity and creating engaging website layouts, logos and buttons. To this family of software I owe most of my career.
Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Fireworks are tools that drive my business. I used these products back when it was Macromedia and before I could drive a car. The Adobe family of software products has built my business and will continue to remain a staple in many aspects of my enterprise. For this reason, having College Cures sponsored by Adobe is especially important to me. These products have changed my life and played an integral role not only in the creation of College Cures, but every graphic and website I’ve ever built, sold, shared and loved. It has enabled me to touch and share with people all over the world throughout my social circles and even to people I’ve never had the chance to meet.
Realize how this suite of products can not only enhance your skills and abilities in college and the workplace, but enable you to create powerful and creative media on a professional level. This challenge is a great way to use your skills with these products to win big or get introduced to an amazing new toolkit.
Check out The Imagination Challenge
Happy creating!
