Adobe Photoshop’s user base is among the most fanatical and educated of any software program, and they are found to head to long-form content on platforms like YouTube for things like detailed tutorials. Any educational Instagram and Reels content thus had to draw on elements of fan service and nods to designer insights in order to generate shares and top-of-mind awareness.
One user behavior we observed among our own designers was mnemonic tricks to remember the seemingly infinite number of Photoshop keystroke shortcuts. No matter how many they generated, there were always gaps in their memory. How could we fill those holes?
Well, we found our answer. Strap in, baby. It’s earworm time.
This video’s thesis is immediately clear: it is a quick and easy mnemonic jingle to remember all of the single-stroke Photoshop keyboard shortcuts.
With Photoshop's expansive features, it’s easy for creative professionals to forget even the tricks they once knew. It was our own professional designers’ difficulties remembering Photoshop keystroke shortcuts that inspired this video, intended for new and seasoned users alike.
Rather than alphabetizing the strokes—after all, the keyboard is not alphabetical—we decided to lean into humorous rhymes for increased memorability. Our copywriters generated a script and then hired a pianist they had a collaborative relationship with to ensure the song was as. catchy. as. possible. Indeed, if there was anything displeasurable about the making of this video, it was the full month spent with this song stuck in our heads.
With the memorability of the song as the focus of our work, we relied on simple visual pairings to underscore the lyrics, and a highly stylized set to meet the visual expectations of the Photoshop brand. You’ll find darling graphic representations of every tool, as well as finger choreography carrying us through each stroke.
Oh, and you bet we used our pianist as the hand dancer. Those skills are wholly transferable.
This was one of our most engaging pieces of content on Photoshop’s social accounts. On Instagram, it earned 142K likes and 48.6K shares, while on TikTok, it reached 893K views, 101K likes, and 36.8K saves. The shares and saves stood out the most to us because they signaled that we created something designers found valuable enough to revisit and pass along.
Commenters highlighted the usability of the content. And perhaps the biggest compliment? They requested similar videos for other Adobe products. Sorry, friends—we can’t post Illustrator jingles to the Photoshop page, but who knows what the future will hold.
