Adobe has announced the call for entries for the twelfth annual Adobe® Design Achievement Awards (ADAA). Each year we look forward to this prestigious competition, which recognizes the incredible work of students from around the globe — work that is produced using Adobe software, and advances creativity through digital technology. The competition attracts the best and brightest among student graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, animators, digital filmmakers, developers, and computer artists.  For 2012, we will also continue to recognize teaching excellence through three categories of competition designed specifically for instructors in higher education.

The ADAA competition is free to enter and open to students, faculty and staff of higher education institutions worldwide. Students are invited to compete in 13 categories that include Game Design and Development as well as Application Development and Mobile Design. Almost 25,000 students from 73 countries have participated in the ADAA competition since it began in 2001 and the number of submissions just keeps rising. Last year we received a record-breaking 4,600 entries from students. They have told us they believe “design is about making this a better world for all of us.”

2012 submission deadlines are January 27, April 27, and June 22. Entries will be judged by a panel of international design experts.   In October finalists will be invited to attend the ADAA awards ceremony in Los Angeles, California where winners will be announced and awarded Adobe software and cash prizes.

For more information, check out the press release or visit the ADAA website. Visit the 2011 ADAA Yearbook for a look at the 2011 ADAA ceremony in Taipei, Taiwan. Also, don’t forget to check out our Facebook page or follow us @AdobeEDU for the latest updates about the awards.

How can students show what they love, what they do or who they are? Last week, Adobe announced The Imagination Challenge, designed to encourage all students to creatively express themselves across diverse fields, such as engineering, architecture, science, art or literature.

During the four entry periods from August 22 through October 30, students can download a free trial of CS5.5 Student and Teacher Editions, create something original and unique to them and then upload it to the Imagination Gallery.
Voters will choose one winner during each entry period who will win $10,000. All semi-finalists and winners from the entry periods will also be automatically entered in the Grand Prize judging to win an additional $10,000. For more contest details, visit here.

Adobe is also proud to partner with four celebrity judges renowned for not only using technology to express themselves but also to connect with their fans and readership:

Deadmau5 (@deadmau5): Known for his unforgettable live sets, Deadmau5 pushes the technological boundaries of his stage show while he assembles tracks on the fly using cutting edge computer technology—including software that he’s helped write himself.  Deadmau5 has been nominated for a Grammy Award, won multiple Beatport Music Awards, International Dance Music Awards and Juno Awards, headlined festivals including Lollapalooza and Outside Lands, and is the first electronic music artist to headline and sell-out London’s 17,000-capacity Earl’s Court.  Regarded for his brand, creative image and large “mau5head” worn on stage, he recently hosted a contest on his website encouraging fans to design his next “mau5head.”

Jake and Amir (@jakeandamir): Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld are the writers/actors/editors behind the Webby award winning internet series “Jake and Amir” on CollegeHumor.com. The duo has released two videos a week for over four years, with each episode now averaging more than 500,000 views. “Jake and Amir” has won several awards
including the Webby’s People Voice for Best Web Series in 2010 – and has been named one of PCMag’s Top 15 Web-Only Shows. Their series has also appeared on television on MTV’s “The CollegeHumor Show.”

Rivers Cuomo (@riverscuomo): Rivers Cuomo is the lead singer, lead guitarist and principal songwriter of the alternative rock band Weezer.  Cuomo has also worked as a solo artist, a writer, an artist manager, and has collaborated with many artists including B.o.B., Simple Plan, Mark Ronson, Sugar Ray and others.  Rivers is multi-instrumentalist and renowned as a prolific songwriter who embraces experimentation like in 2008 when he started a video series on his YouTube channel called “Let’s Write A Sawng,” an online songwriting collaboration between Rivers and his fans across the globe.  The final version of the collaboration, titled “Turning Up The Radio,” appeared as the first track on Weezer’s “Death to False Metal” album.

Scott Dadich (@sdadich): Scott Dadich is a vice president of digital magazine development and leads Condé Nast’s digital magazine efforts, a role central to the publishing mainstay’s
evolution into a 21st-century media company. Prior to that, Dadich was the creative director of Condé Nast’s WIRED, and during his tenure, become the only creative director in history to have won both the National Magazine Award for Design and the Society of Publication Designers Magazine of the Year award three years in a row.

Check out the judges’ videos at Adobe YouTube Channel and hear Deadmau5, Jake and Amir, Rivers Cuomo and Scott Dadich talk about inspiration and the art of creativity.

So what are you waiting for? Get your creative juices flowing and win big!

Yesterday Adobe launched the beta of Muse (code name) a new Mac OS and Windows app that promises to let graphic designers create websites as easily as they create layouts for print.  The response has this time been pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good – 120,000 downloads from the Adobe Labs website.  Actually those are astonishing numbers and show that designers really need something like this.   I bet those other Muse guys would like 120,000 downloads in one day!

The app was developed by some of the folks that built InDesign, which has become the standard for page layout and is now leading the charge towards digital publishing.  

We’ve also seen some commentary, in the forums, from the web developer community regarding Muse. Just a reminder folks that Muse was created for graphic designers to enable them to design and publish professional, unique HTML websites without writing code or working within restrictive (ie boring) templates.  It is something that designers have been asking for and will not impact the continued innovation across our other web development tools and technologies.

However we are taking constructive feedback from all constituencies into our product plans, as Muse matures.   So keep it coming designers, developers…

Just as Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences, educators are changing the world through innovative teaching. From creating inspiring curricula to bringing dynamic, media-rich content into courses and assignments, educators go above and beyond to prepare students for today’s global workforce. But creating those amazing learning experiences for their students is not an easy task. To encourage educators to share their successful teaching materials and help each other get ready for the new school year, the Adobe Education Exchange launched the 2011 Educators’ Choice Awards. Starting this week, educators can win great prizes by simply submitting their best projects, lesson plans, curricula, and tutorials. Prepare to be inspired!

The 2011 Educators’ Choice Awards will recognize and reward Adobe Education Exchange members who submit the most innovative teaching and learning materials. The community will choose the winners of the awards by rating and voting for one another’s entries. Educators can submit entries in four categories including:

• Higher Education Digital Arts and Media
• Primary/Secondary Digital Arts and Media
• Higher Education Cross-Curricular
• Primary/Secondary Cross-Curricular

Grand prize and runner-up winners will go home with prizes like laptop computers, tablets, digital cameras, and the new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 to help them continue to create innovative learning experiences for their students.

For more information on the 2011 Educators’ Choice Awards or to enter, visit: http://www.adobe.com/go/AdobeEDUAwards. For inspiration and examples, join or sign in to browse the resources on the Adobe Education Exchange. Also, be sure to follow @AdobeEDU and #AdobeEDUAwards for the latest updates about the awards. Get your creative juices flowing, submit your great teaching materials and win big!