CS4 is the second rendition of Adobe's "mnemonic" desktop product identity system. Visual improvements to the growing system were many - sharper, crisper, brighter. The refined minimal aesthetic maintained the unifiying thread started in CS3 as the company's organizations continued to wrangle in the post-Adobe-Macromedia aquisition. This release also marked the first introduction of what would become Adobe's new corporate typeface, Clean.

 

Hosted services, platforms, and web destinations brought dozens of new products and brand families to challenge and stretch the system's visual language across now a hundred unique identities. Every new product (or service, or destination) requires a unique desktop mark, one which families with an appropriate slice of our desktop brand system (Creative, Enterprise, Platform), can make it through legal clearance, and navigates the spiraling negotiations with developers and engineers and marketing managers. And then the production work begins on the sometimes 100-deep secondary icons for folders, files, and resources.

 

Desktop technologies are growing as well; in addition to Vista's 256px icons, Apple now wanted 512px. The two platforms still had dramatically different gamma settings requiring separate unique production files. 

A strong evolutional tie from the first generation to the next was a brand and experience requirement. The mnemonic system is still a critical tool in the efforts to merge Adobe and Macromedia product brands along with new growth in the Flash Platform and web-based products.

The system extends well beyond the veneer of app icons and splash screens. The identity is carried across everything from installer workflows down into the deepest corners of the application's plugins and preference files.

Project management, production coordination: Bob Murata. Design and production help: Mike Levin. Honorable mention for his contributions in the wake of massive internal dysfunction: Tom Hobbs.
CS4 management, creative direction, political air-cover: Josh Ulm, Michael Gough. Type team: David Lemon, Robert Slimbach.