Brooke Hopper, Lead Designer for Drawing & Painting at Adobe, on Serving the Needs of Creatives Digitally

Brooke Hopper is the Lead Designer for Drawing & Painting at Adobe, speaker, and champion for creatives, designing better, more efficient experiences for some of the most talented people in the world so they can focus on what they do best, creating. Currently, she is exploring the future of drawing and painting and working to bring that vision to life.

Maryam Gamar (BT): I want to start off with the first moment that you realized you were an artist. What was your first memory of art and when did you decide to pursue it as a career?

Brooke Hopper (BH): I am really lucky because my parents encouraged art from the very beginning. When I was younger, they put my brother and I in summer art classes, so art was a very big part of growing up. But along the way, my parents were like, “I’m not really sure how much money you can make as an artist.” I grew up in a very rural town in Kansas, where not everyone had Internet at that point, and I was not familiar with graphic design. UX design certainly wasn't a thing by any means, so I decided to go into finance—I thought that's going to be the smart, practical choice. 

I spent two years of my undergrad taking finance and business classes. It was great, and I could have gone on to become a finance major. I was good at it, but I just wasn't happy. I went to the career counseling office and took one of these tests where you mark down all of your interests. And it came out as a lot of art like theater. I had a good friend who was like, “I've heard of this major and it combines computers and art: graphic design.” So without even looking into it, I switched over to a graphic design major, and I've never looked back. 

Even though I went on to get my graphic design degree, I ended up doing the business minor. I actually think that that has been a big part of my story because I'm able to understand the business side of things from a graphic design perspective, from the client's perspective, from a profitability and business strategy perspective. And so I think that just kind of opened my view a little bit. Yes, aesthetics are amazing, let's focus on solving problems from a design perspective, but also taking a look at it from the business perspective. 

BT: Can you explain what the Lead Designer’s roles at Adobe are?

BH: When you work at Adobe, you get to make tools for the most creative people in the world--that is one of the coolest jobs you can ever have. It's also the scariest job you can ever have because it puts a huge responsibility on you to make sure that the tools you make are easy to use. I'm working on Adobe Fresco, which is actually Adobe’s only focused drawing and painting app. We've tried to make it simple and easy to use. A lot of what my work as a Lead is making sure that I'm looking at the future and I'm anticipating needs before people who use the product actually have those needs, or realize they have those needs. Therefore, a lot of this is strategizing for the future and looking at those features that might be one to two years down the road. Then, there is a big part of the day to day stuff, which is making sure that we're tying up all the loose ends and making sure the experience feels right. 

“People tend to think of creativity as something flashy, cool, and aesthetically beautiful but really, creativity is approaching a problem in a new way.”

BT: You mentioned how you minored in business and that worked well with your art career. At Adobe, how do you balance the corporate and business side of things with the creativity?

BH: One of the things that I love the most about working at Adobe is that there are a lot of opportunities to be creative. One of the pro-bono initiatives that I am involved in, and that I absolutely love, is called Open Books: middle school students spend a summer writing a book and then they partner with designers at Adobe. We design a book cover for them, and help them publish it.

I always have opportunities to exercise creativity from a graphic design perspective, but then also exercising creativity just directly in the app: innovating on new ways to do things and thinking about how to simplify. People tend to think of creativity as something flashy, cool, and aesthetically beautiful but really, creativity is approaching a problem in a new way.

BT:  Well, I'm glad that you mentioned the rest of the world, because my next question is about how the Adobe suite is used all over the world. When you're developing software and tools, how do you assess the needs of creatives in different areas of the world and how to best serve them?

BH: That is an awesome question, and that's actually one that we are actively looking at all the time. We're based in the United States, and it's easy to look at what's around you and solve that problem. But there's so many different styles of illustration that are popular in the world.

Japanese have anime, and the style that’s popular in Germany or Qatar or Russia is completely different from what's popular in the US today. I'm always in constant contact with artists, chatting with them, making sure that I understand how they're working, what they want to do and solving for that. Not just solving for the problems they tell me about, but also reading between the lines and understanding how I can solve that in a creative way or in a way that makes them work better and not work harder. 

BT: Due to COVID-19, people have been working and studying from home in the last few months. How do you think the pandemic has affected digital art and usership? 

BH: Oh, man, it has had a crazy impact. I do know that the numbers of people who are looking to exercise their creative abilities have skyrocketed during this time, which is really cool. People have a little bit more time on their hands and not able to be outside as much, so people are looking for ways to be creative in a different way than they have been in the past. 

I also think that we're going to a shift as this goes on. More specifically, how will this event affect esthetically visual design? How will it affect industrial design? For example, I think out of this, we’ll see a lot more doors that open automatically. I think that there is a chance that we’ll see things spread out a little bit. People are used to being spread out, so visually maybe Websites are going to have a little bit more white space and things are going to feel a little bit more airy just because the thought of having things close together will be too much. I think it'll be really interesting to follow that and track how things change from the beginning of the year in January or even slightly before that to even just the end of the year.

BT: Do you think that moving forward, traditional art forms like painting and sculpture will become outdated in favor of digital art? Or do you see all art forms continuing?

BH: I have an almost two-year-old daughter. If she is going to draw with her markers or draw with the iPad, then I'm giving her the iPad because I don't have to worry about trying to clean marker off the table or off the walls. However, as we move more digitally, there is a sort of affinity to the tactile nature of traditional materials. While people say paper is going to go away completely or books are going to go away completely, that's never going to be the case. People are always going to want something tactile that they can hold and touch and feel. And we've even seen that come full circle: people create things digitally and then they 3D print them because they want something tactile. 

BT: Do you have any advice for readers who are pursuing a career in digital art or design?

BH: This is going to sound a little bit cliche, but make mistakes. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Put your work out there, and don't be afraid to reach out to people who you admire. I have gotten the most out of my career just by reaching out. I really admired Michael Beirut from Pentagram, and when I was looking for an internship fresh out of college, my dream was to work at Pentagram. Through some crazy sleuthing, found his email address, and I emailed him. I put a lot of thought and time into it, and I wanted to make sure that it came across really well. Surprisingly, he replied back.

If you're really dedicated and you're really serious about this, then reaching out to the right people can only help. What is there to lose by just putting yourself out there, even if it may be scary? Even today, as a lead for Adobe's creative apps, I still have to work to put myself out there. One of my big things is I need to always be in contact with really great illustrators and artists. So for me, that's the thing that I have to push myself to do now: just always being willing to put yourself out there. 

“If you’re really dedicated and you’re really serious about this, then reaching out to the right people can only help. What is there to lose by just putting yourself out there, even if it may be scary?”