Creativity is often described as transcending traditional ways of thinking — and for the next generation of digital artists, innovators, and creators, that definition takes on new dimensions. Armed with generative AI and a joyful optimism about the role of creativity in the world, these young visionaries are blending art and technology in unprecedented ways, turning algorithms into collaborators and inspiration into limitless possibilities.
As a new wave of creators redefines what it means to be creative, Adobe is excited to support young artists across the globe through the Young Lions Competition (YLC) at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and Adobe Digital Edge Awards (DEA). These two competitions celebrate the talent and ingenuity of today’s rising innovators in art and communication while helping them build their careers through industry connections and a strong skill set in Adobe tools. In honor of their accomplishments, Adobe also provides $10,000 in Adobe Certified Professional exam vouchers to the Digital Edge Award winners to help them demonstrate their creative skills and stand out to employers. For these exams, Adobe partners with Certiport, the leader in performance-based testing, and industry experts to design exams that connect students’ skills to in-demand jobs.
This year’s winners found inspiration in generative AI as a tool, a metaphor for diversity, and a canvas for exploring human values. Learn how the artists behind five of this year’s winning entries harness creativity across disciplines and continents, proving that magic happens when technology and passion collide.
Seeking the Soul of Technology
In the design world, we sometimes dwell on controversial aspects of AI. However, the winning DEA entry in the Art and Design category reflects a longing to turn away from this dystopian view by showcasing how AI can make us even more human. “Soul,” the work of students Arunima Walimbe and Shruti Jain of California College of Arts, is a speculative design concept for smart wallpaper that uses AI to create a personalized experience, helping people discover and embrace the soul of their home.
AI also helped Walimbe and Jain visually communicate their idea through storyboards generated in Adobe Firefly that combined existing images in fresh ways — a theme of their creative process.
(Source: Behance)
“I’m like a collage of a lot of things,” says Walimbe. “I was a science kid, and I combined that with my creative side. So, my style has a lot to do with collage making — combining things to tell a story.”
For Jain, creativity is about problem-solving and connection. “I come from a family where four generations live under the same roof, and I have seen how technology creates a generation gap,” says Jain.
I want to use my creativity to help digital immigrants like my family members understand technology.
Shruti Jain
Spreading Wonder by Combining Art and Science
Debasmita Banerjee has loved drawing and painting for as long as she can remember. However, as a Ph.D. student in physics at the University of Central Florida, she didn’t have much time for art — until she realized she could use it to tell the stories of science. In her winning DEA project in the STEM category, “Quanticle,” Banerjee’s twin passions for art and physics unite.
Banerjee discovered sound effects called “photon” and “electron” in Adobe Premiere, which she used along with Adobe After Effects to animate the wealth of real-world examples in her educational video “Quanticle.” It’s all part of her dream of making STEM education accessible to people everywhere, including villages like those in her home country of India.
“Art is an expression of science and nature — they’re two sides of the same coin,” says Banerjee. “Trees have a pattern in them that can be explained. You see math in the pattern of leaves or snowfall. Nature and art are very integrated.”
Art is an expression of science and nature — they’re two sides of the same coin.
Debasmita Banerjee
The Raw Joy of Creativity
Billy Nhiwatiwa and Ethan Brown believe that when they bring joy to their creations, it shines through in the finished work — including “Billy Wilder — The Man Behind the Picture,” their playful campaign that took home gold in the YLC design category. Their idea to disguise a logo behind other design elements using Adobe Illustrator is a prime example of how the British flatmates and creative partners love to make people smile with a clever design twist.
So much in everyday life is slightly mundane. We try to find that bit of something that makes you smile. It might be tiny, but it’s beautiful when creativity unlocks that.
Ethan Brown
The goal of spreading happiness also guides their client work. “I get a lot of joy from diving into the heart of a brand, stripping it down, and making it feel authentic and approachable — encouraging people to be more authentically themselves,” says Nhiwatiwa.
Creating Diversity and Possibility
For Berlin-based copywriter Inna Tabachenko and art director Lisa Glonti, AI wasn’t simply a tool used to create their silver-winning YLC film entry, “Successful Generation.” It was the overarching metaphor for the film’s entire message, which involved hundreds of diverse images of a “successful man” created using Generative Fill in Adobe Photoshop, a Firefly feature.
In the film, each new prompt generates more possibilities, suggesting endless ways to define success — and yet, Tabachenko points out, AI can only reflect what humans feed it.
As immigrants from Ukraine and Georgia, Tabachenko and Glonti are especially attuned to the ways culture can impact art and design, and their experiences with war and occupation have developed deep stores of empathy that inform both their creativity and their close working relationship.
“Design is part of everything we do as humans,” says Glonti. “We’re not just thinking, we’re also feeling, and our culture and art are a reflection of this.”
Creativity is a constant evolution in which we combine things in new ways to become better.
Inna Tabachenko
Evolving the Definition of Success
What does it mean to be a “real person,” particularly in the age of social media and AI? Jiayu Cao (Fiona) and Linghui Dai (Vicky) of Havas Creative, China, explored this question in “Who is the Successful Man?”, the YLC media category gold winner. Their interactive project used CAPTCHA images to “verify” and challenge viewers’ ingrained ideas of success while enabling them to make new image selections that helped evolve the gallery for good.
(Source: Cannes Lions)
Cao (pictured left) is inspired by her belief that art and design are the eyes of the world, helping people see what’s in front of them — in this case, images of diverse human experiences, sourced from Adobe Stock and Firefly, that encourage us all to rethink our perceptions of achievement.
(Vicky Dai, pictured right.)
AI is merely a tool, a derivative of the human world, and when it reflects problems that exist within humanity, we need to take this seriously. AI perpetuates stereotypes, but humans have the power to break them.
Fiona Cao
Get inspired by the complete list of winners of the 2024 Young Lions Competitions and Digital Edge Awards.
Then, learn more about how Adobe Express and Adobe Firefly give you new playgrounds for exploration and creativity — all designed to be safe for commercial use.