Contrary to what some Apple superfans might believe, Steve Jobs didn’t come up with the slogan “Think Different” (his ad agency did). But in many ways, he lived it. One of his most-repeated convictions was that creativity is all about connecting things and that the people who do the best work are the ones who’ve had more experiences, tried more tools, and looked more broadly (and deeply) than everyone else around them. He admired and embodied the idea that real creativity involves crossing boundaries that others treat as fixed.

So I’m going to ask you to “think different” as you read this issue.

Our feature article is an invitation to cross the line between the digital realm and real life. Kat Kremser makes the case for packaging design as not just a viable specialty but a future-proof one: the kind of three-dimensional, regulation-aware, physically grounded work that resists AI-driven automation in ways that flat digital design does not. If you give it a shot, someday you might experience that uniquely satisfying feeling of walking into a store and seeing something you designed sitting on a shelf.

Jobs was also famous for using tools in ways their makers never anticipated. That spirit runs straight through Myra Ferguson’s piece on Premiere. If you think Premiere is strictly a video editor’s application, think again. Myra shows how you can use it to generate cool effects, from light leaks and glitches to filmstrips and flipbooks.

Next, Laura Coyle reviews Astute Manager Pro, which soothes one of the most heartburn-inducing moments in any Illustrator workflow: resetting preferences. It may not sound like a big deal, but when you reset, Illustrator reverts to factory defaults, and your carefully built workspace disappears. That little oopsie could cost you a lot of lost time and aggravation. Astute Manager Pro backs up your entire Illustrator environment (preferences, workspaces, shortcuts, brushes, and swatch libraries) and restores everything with a single click. For teams, it also keeps shared assets synchronized across machines. It’s exactly the kind of brilliant solution I’d expect from the people who brought us the amazing Astute plug-ins for Illustrator.

We’ve got much more on the topic of Illustrator: Quick Wins offers a set of articles and videos for advancing your vector-drawing skills. The Community Calendar includes an upcoming webinar on graphic styles and a YouTube livestream on 3D lettering in Illustrator.

Snippets is your source for fun and useful stuff for designers.

And be sure to check out our most recent YouTube videos for great tips you can use in InDesign, Acrobat, Photoshop, PowerPoint, and Premiere. Enjoy!