Hi Alice! Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at frankie. I am the creative director of frankie. I look after the visual aesthetics of frankie magazine, making sure everything is in frankie’s tone of voice visually. I reach out to our visual contributors and make sure what we use in the mag is exciting and what our readers would like to see.

Where do you find creative inspiration? Outside in nature – not looking at a screen! I like getting outside, going and looking at stuff I wouldn’t normally look at, going to a gallery, reading about something not related to work or watching movies.

What was your creative inspiration for this issue? This issue is our autumn issue, so we wanted it to feel nice and cosy and comforting. The visual inspiration is the colours you can see in the changing Australian landscape. We also reference moments like having a cup of tea or curling up at home with a book – we're trying to capture that essence visually!Tell us about the cover of the mag and what makes it a little different. We worked with the wonderful Georgia Perry! We wanted a cover that evokes a sense of cosiness so hopefully the reader can see themselves in the cover and get a feeling of “I want to be doing that”. Georgia created the pattern in the shirt with Adobe Firefly-powered Text to Vector Graphic tool in Illustrator – it really adds to the retro, autumnal feeling of the illustration.

Why did you choose Georgia Perry as the cover artist? Her style is really warm and inviting, which is what you want in a front cover! She’s also at the forefront of her field and experimenting with AI in her own time, so we thought it’d be interesting to see how she plays with Adobe’s generative AI tools within the frankie parameters.

What’s the actual process of designing a mag like? We have an editorial day where the design and editorial teams come together to share ideas. From that, the editor decides the run sheet of the magazine and I collaborate with her the whole way through on the imagery, illustrations and layouts. The whole process from brainstorming to being on the shelf takes about eight weeks.What tools do you use to design the mag? We think of the ideas first! We sketch them on paper and make a plan, then we jump into Adobe InDesign, which is where we create the layouts. We use Adobe Photoshop for our image retouching and colour correcting. The Generative Fill and Generative Expand tools in Photoshop have been useful for making quick edits to a photo such as extending a wall in a photo that's slightly too short for the page or remove dirty marks on a surface etc. If we’re creating bespoke graphics we use Adobe Illustrator or pen, paper and a scanner. Once the magazine is completed, it’s time to market it. We jump into Adobe Express to roll out some of the marketing assets a little bit easier – the simplicity allows more people in our team to be able to do it.

So many people have been talking about AI recently. What are your feelings on using AI in the creative industries? I think it's a really interesting tool and something that we definitely can't ignore because it's everywhere. I think everyone’s still sorting out a lot of the ethics around AI and you do have to be careful when it comes to using it. It'll be really interesting to see what the intersection of AI and design looks like in three to five years – it’ll probably be a lot less scary then and there'll perhaps be a few more ethical rules around how things are created and generated. Computers are getting smarter all the time but I think it's important to remember that people are the ones with the unique ideas and they can do things that computers can't. So long as AI is used as a tool and with a purpose in mind I think it can be useful.Do you have any tricks for moving past creative roadblocks when they strike? Put down what you're doing and go and do something else. I know that can be hard when you have deadlines but continuing to stare at it will not unblock you. You have to go for a walk outside or if you can't do that, work on a different project or something that's a bit more process-driven (like filing or image resizing or something with a more defined answer). This will give your brain a break, then you can go back to it refreshed.

What are you most proud of in this particular print issue? We have a really cool mix of content in this issue – interesting stories and fun photoshoots. We also used a few new contributors, so that’s very exciting! It’s always exciting to debut new creatives in the mag.

Do you have any tips for up and coming designers? Continue to look at different stuff – not just the stuff that you like, but things you haven't seen before or maybe even that you don't like! Really have a look at it and try and understand why they designed it like that or what purpose it's serving. This can expand your thinking and help you get outside of your own bubble. Also talking to other designers and people in the creative industries is helpful. This industry can feel very siloed sometimes but when you start talking to other people, lots of people's experiences are the same. It’s so good to be able to talk about your work and get different points of view.

This chinwag is presented in partnership with our pals at Adobe. To level up your work, take a peek at generative AI tools like Generative Fill, Text to Image and Text to Template the free all-in-one editing tool Adobe Express powered by Adobe Firefly.