Adobe Rebuilds After Effects' Roto Brush and Puts Photoshop Offline
Adobe's June 2026 Creative Cloud batch landed June 15, hitting Lightroom, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator in one sweep. The headline moves: After Effects retires its decade-old Roto Brush and replaces it with four AI-precision tools — Quick Selection, Object Selection, Selection Brush, and Refine Edge — that complete the same task in a fraction of the time. Photoshop's Remove Tool now runs entirely on-device with a generative AI model, so it works with zero internet connection.
Kinetic Typography Is No Longer Optional — It's the New Brand Standard
Multiple type and motion trend reports published this week agree: brands in 2026 are designing typefaces *with movement in mind from the first sketch*, not bolting animation onto static vectors after the fact. Letterforms are now conceived to stretch, soften, and react to scroll, sound, and interaction — and the studios landing the best brand work are treating motion as a core design constraint from day one, not a post-production layer.
The Most Confident Thing a Studio Can Do Is Admit It Can't See Itself
Creative Boom's June 2026 "Booms & Shakes" column spotlighted Bolder, a studio that handed complete creative freedom over its own rebrand to an outside team — Monday Nights — rather than attempt it in-house. The two studios discovered a shared belief mid-process: good design doesn't require serious language or a complicated brief. The new Bolder identity landed this month.
Figma's MCP Server Now Spans Every Figma Product and Talks Back to Code
Figma expanded its MCP (Model Context Protocol) server this month across Figma Slides, FigJam, Figma Make, and the new Figma Agent — not just the main canvas. New capabilities include custom font support and a `download_assets` tool that exports any image or icon directly from a design file as SVG, PDF, JPG, or PNG. GitHub Copilot users can now push rendered UI *back* into Figma as editable frames, creating a true bidirectional loop between design and production code.
75% of 16,000 Creators Say AI Is Now Core. Your Portfolio Doesn't Know That Yet.
Adobe's 2026 Creators' Toolkit Report — the largest survey of its kind, covering 16,000+ creators across 8 countries — found that 75% describe AI as integrated or essential to their workflow, and 87% say it has grown their business or audience. This is the first generation entering the industry for whom AI-native workflow is the baseline expectation, not a competitive edge.
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