The Bob Ross of Adobe
The Bob Ross of Adobe
Making big decisions doesn't necessarily get easier with age and experience, but your body will guide you — sometimes painfully — towards what's right.
Recently, I resigned from Adobe. Photoshop was an app that helped me kickstart my career as a designer and illustrator. Its brush engine became a playground for me, eventually leading to an acquisition of my brand, KyleBrush, and an invitation to join a team of friendly people who wanted to build a drawing app that combined vector and pixel workflows (Project Gemini, later Fresco).
Because of my Adobe MAX keynote painting demos, a few colleagues even referred to me as the “Bob Ross” of Adobe. He’s a hero of mine, so you can imagine how nice that felt.
(Don’t worry. I’m not crazy enough to actually compare myself to a legend like Bob.)
Anyway, the company was a positive force in my life, both directly and indirectly. I am very grateful for the opportunities I was given.
Everything changes, as the saying goes, and this certainly applies to technology companies. As Adobe’s business changed, I found myself feeling disconnected, discouraged, and sometimes even dispirited.
First and foremost, I’m an artist and a fairly prominent member of the illustration community. Having this strong sense of identity was certainly helpful in guiding me towards resigning from my job.
But also, my body told me very plainly, through pain, anxiety, insomnia, and fatigue that there was no other acceptable course of action. I have learned the hard way that my body knows best.
As usual, my body was right. I noticed a positive physical change mere minutes after resigning. Soon, I had no more anxiety or stomach aches, felt lighter, had more energy, more patience … and very importantly, I could feel my creativity rushing back into my spirit. No more slump.
Looking ahead, I’m excited about reconnecting with fellow artists, and focusing on doing what I love most: drawing and building tools for those who draw.
To my close colleagues at Adobe, I am sincerely glad to know you and to have worked with you. I made some good friends during my almost-seven years with the company.
I realize some of you might be saying, “Kyle, that’s all well and good for you, but some of us don’t have options.”
You’re right. I acknowledge that I am extremely fortunate. And to those of you who are feeling stuck at the moment, let me say this: I sympathize.
Please don’t lose hope, though. Small actions, done consistently over time, can lead to real change. Working towards a goal for 45 minutes a day will add up to 16,425 minutes in a year. What you accomplish over the course of that span of time could well be enough to open up opportunities that ultimately improve your situation: a new skill, a promotion, even a new business altogether.
I believe this kind of change is possible for many people — not all — but many.
Returning for a moment to Bob Ross, I want to single out one of the special things he did for me as a child. Through his 30-minute demonstrations, he simultaneously demystified the act of painting while still making it look like a magic trick. First, there was nothing on the canvas, then, in an impossibly short span of time, there was a landscape. But he told us how he did it, every step of the way.
To this day, I find this duality part of what makes art so special to me, as somebody who actively creates it. Even though I’m conscious of, and highly focused on the decisions I make, and the order in which I make them, while drawing, it’s still magical to see the art materialize on the page.
Nothing, then something. Presto.
If you are a person using Midjourney, you might read those last few sentences and say, “Oh, that’s like me! I type something and then an image appears. Nothing, then something. It’s the same.”
You’d be wrong, though.
Thanks for being here. I look forward to sharing more about my next adventure(s). I appreciate your continued support and encouragement, and I wish good things for all of you.
Hey, PS - I’m on Cara, now. Follow?
Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other, remember to be kind, and I’ll say, Ciao for now.
Hey Kyle. I posted a direct message to you on slack regarding your post about resigning from adobe. I’m going to post it here hoping you will respond with your insights.
I have so much respect and love for the adobe mission of supporting artists. But, I feel as though they’ve lost their way. Adobe Illustrator for the ipad is awful and basically unusable as is photoshop. Fresco is the only useable app for ipad and gratefully it excels. I have been using character animator which requires building puppets in either photoshop or illustrator. I am able to create those puppets in Fresco but when I want to work in vectors I have to move to Affinity Designer and export either from affinity or Fresco to adobe desktop (illustrator or photoshop) which then has a round trip feature for editing when using character animator. I don’t understand the purpose of any ipad software if adobe has created web based versions which don’t seem to work (in my experience) with the ipad. There seems to be an effort to do the same with adobe express which appears to be in direct competition with Canva who now owns Affinity. Meanwhile my neck hurts everytime I sit at my desk to use my desktop imac and software. It would be so much easier to do everything on t,' he ipad. Apple’s greed is only partly to blame. They could design the iPad Pro to run the desktop versions. Or… Adobe could write software for the ipad. I don’t know who to direct these thoughts to, but am certain you do.
Hi Kyle: I was initially shocked to learn of your departure from Adobe. Over the past twenty years I worked for and with Adobe on and off, mostly during the early years of InDesign. Although I miss the income and many great people at Adobe, I understand how one eventually needs to break free. Many thanks for your contributions to Adobe and to Fresco, which I still believe is one of their more successful projects. One question: will you remain committed to Fresco, or are you planning to move to other software?