Adobe's Create The Web Conference

Generally speaking, most companies that make the tools and applications used throughout the web design industry are pretty quick on the uptake when it comes to changes in browser technologies & web standard compliance.

One company that has always been at the forefront of this web development evolution is Adobe. Yesterday I attended the Create The Web Conference in Sydney where I got to get a first hand look at new applications in production/development that not only give users powerful new web experiences but also makes our jobs as web designers a bit easier in the process.

With mainstay products like Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash being used all over the web world, Adobe pretty much defines ‘industry standard’ but with the focus shifting more and more towards mobile web & responsive design, Adobe has launched the Adobe Edge suite of products with the aim to make the creation of modern mobile/web design - and its integration with today’s browsers and devices - as simple as possible.

The Adobe Edge product suite includes:

• Adobe Edge Animate - for creating interactive & animated web content
• Adobe Edge Reflow - for creating responsive web layouts
• Adobe Edge Code – a code editor for HTML, CSS and JavaScript that's built in HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• Adobe Edge Inspect – preview and inspect web designs on devices
• Adobe Edge Web Fonts – accesses TypeKit’s web font library to increase typographic design without sacrificing stability or performance
• Adobe PhoneGap Build – creating mobile apps with HTML, CSS and Javascript

I’m especially excited to get my hands on Animate and Reflow. With a noticeable shift away from Flash recently, Animate looks to fill the void by using a variety of HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript features whereas Reflow uses these features to tackle the ever-evolving topic of responsive design.

With Animate and Reflow, I was especially impressed at how shallow the learning curve looked to be. Even people unfamiliar with the mechanics of HTML5, CSS3 or JS should be able to pick it up pretty quickly as you're still designing graphically with the respective code being generated in the background. Those familiar with the other Adobe interfaces will be pleasantly surprised by a number of shared shortcuts and panels styled like the Photoshop and Illustrator interfaces you're already used to.

Reflow looks to be a game changer in the responsive design space too. With an easy-to-use visual media query tool you can customize multiple layouts based on the device you're viewing the site on be it desktop, netbook, tablet, or mobile. The CSS is generated in the background ready for you to plug into the final development and since you're essentially designing within a browser, you can rest safe in the knowledge that everything you see will be browser compliant.

So there you have it. Exciting times ahead in web development. For more information on the Adobe Edge suite go to http://html.adobe.com/