Q&A with Libby Nicholaou from Adobe

Libby is responsible for the Adobe Creative Residency, which offers creatives the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a year out of work, fully paid, to pursue whatever creative projects they’ve been sketching and daydreaming about for years, all with the support of Adobe.

The program began in the US and, for 2017, is accepting applications from creatives in Germany and Canada too. Next month, one of their current creatives will be holding a workshop here at our Berlin office, so we caught up with Libby to find out more about the program.

How long has the Creative Residency been running, and what inspired Adobe to start it?

The Adobe Creative Residency has been going since 2015. Each year we've grown the program. The first year we had two residents, one graphic designer and one illustrator. We are now nearing the end of our second year with four residents and are looking to the third year with a group of six. Each new group of residents brings unique ideas that inspire the creative community.

We started the Adobe Creative Residency to champion talented people using Creative Cloud. We see many impressive projects by the creative community on Behance and want to help them grow.

Why Berlin? And are there any new cities planned for 2018?

And now it’s expanded internationally—why Germany in particular? This is a very big year for the Creative Residency! We are accepting applicants from all over Germany for 2017. People in Canada are also welcome to apply.

Germany is a good fit as one of our first international countries due to its rich reputation for design. Of course you know about this and continue to contribute to it at Edenspiekermann.

Are there any limits to who can apply, or the kinds of projects they can undertake? There aren’t hard limits but we look for people who are passionate about creativity and sharing their creative process, people who are interested in developing their creative skills and career, while sharing their process, successes, and failures with the community.

Residents can undertake a variety of projects. They just need to use Adobe Creative Cloud in their workflow. Otherwise they are free to pursue the wildest projects—the more original the better.

What would be your one-year dream project?

My one year dream project would be to travel the world, documenting my experience through photography, writing and drawing. I love experiencing different places and their cultures. It’s neat to see the impact it has on my life. Also, I recently bought my first digital camera, a Fuji xT10. Before, I was taking all my photos using an iPhone camera, and the Fuji camera improved my photography game 100%. I’ve resumed journaling and drawing again too, which are great for travel. Practicing all these things while exploring the globe would be wonderful.