Offf Barcelona 2014 – Let`s feed the future
Every year, a wide range of design events take place around the world. This year was all about OFFF Barcelona for us!
OFFF was born a decade ago as a post-digital culture festival: this year’s edition covered illustration, photography, branding, animation and motion design, art direction, interaction and service design
OFFF 2014 hosted 45 speakers, each an expert in their particular area of design, all in 3 long days: lectures took place in two different rooms of the Museu del Disseny de Barcelona with presentations overlapping each other, making it quite difficult to track and catch everyone of our picks, which was sad, as there was a lot worth listening to!
Let’s start with Lorem Ipsum and Atelier: Atelier is an education centre and innovator in the field of design and visual arts – Lorem Ipsum is a group of Atelier alumni from last year – the OFFF Teaser and the OFFF Opening Titles that we all took notice of, as well as the entire OFFF campaign, was created by them and the Atelier teaching staff
Polynoid followed, speaking about their career path from film school to their recent collaboration with Microsoft and Nike
Mucho demonstrated some really nice branding projects, such as Kostrok, the Sunrise packaging, their City Guides – walking us through each site from a creator’s perspective, where each selected site is branded by an architect or designer – and Falado – the typeface created for Ibercamera
Aaron Becker and Filmography, a boutique production studio specializing in title design for feature films, live action direction, animation and visual effects were next
Chip Kidd, the Meryl Streep of book design, talked about his book covers, the story behind “You better not cry” and the evolution of his mantras
The last speakers of the day were Fleur & Manu, art directors for many video clips – this one is absolutely worth a mention: Gesaffelstein “Pursuit” – highly recommended to anyone interested in film direction, as it really brings to life how much effort this kind of work demands
The second day of OFFF started off-key for us, as the lettering workshop was reason enough not to catch Oliver Jeffers, hands down our favorite children books illustrator! Not to be missed: Oliver Jeffer’s World
So, the first presentation we actually caught was Pomme Chan‘s – a really kind designer from Bangkok giving her first lecture on “what if’s” and how her very own answers to those questions lead her from illustration and hand lettering to pattern design, interior design and fashion design, with clients ranging from MTV to Marc Jacobs and Nylon Magazine
Second Story speaking about interaction and immersive digital productions were definitely one of OFFF’s highlights: they presented their multi-awarded project Triumph of the Winter Queen and other really interesting works
In-between presentations, we also managed to watch a short documentary film by director Mireia Pujol, tackling the delicate subject of migration and asylum seekers throughout the European Union, with personal stories of struggle: Diary of Hunger – watch it and feed your thought!
Alex Mathers then took over – a young, self-taught illustrator who jumped from his studies in geography to “geo-graphics” not that far away! The most important thing Alex pointed out in his presentation is that, as a self-taught professional, he experienced all the challenges of the profession in a very distinct way, which he decided to turn into a web platform about self-promotion: the Red Lemon Club
Robert Peters – the only speaker to use Powerpoint in OFFF 2014! – lectured us about design in general and captivated us with his Solace House
Between lectures, Casey Neistat was a much-needed break: a very talented person, famous in HBO circles, with fantastic work such as the “Make it Count” video for Nike and a lot more
Another highlight of OFFF 2014 was Danny Yount, the American graphic designer who produced the opening titles for blockbusters like Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man 3 – his “Rules I try to live by” is an essential toolkit for young designers
Our third and last day started with Lotta Nieminen, a young illustrator and graphic designer from Finland living and working in New York, followed by Kate Moross – the creative director who loves color – quoting her: “Inspiration is for Americans, it is the worst thing in the world, so cheesy! What gave you inspiration? It is pizza feeding so many designers and developers at three o’clock in the morning”
Probably the most essential presentation of OFFF 2014 was given by Eric Spiekermann, who was the only speaker to mention service design and agile creativity, the agile development method applied to the design process – he also spoke about his love of typography and attempted to answer questions such as “Who needs so many typefaces?” and “Is there life before death?”
Next up was Steve Simpson and his famous illustrated barcodes
The last highlight of the festival was Aaron Koblin with his agency’s unique blend of interaction design and coding – making use of the very latest HTML5 and Processing goodness – showcasing work for the music band Arcade Fire such as The Reflector application and other pieces such as Unnumbered Sparks
All in all, OFFF 2014 lived up to its reputation as a meeting point for many designers – young or old, famous or green – from all over the world, giving the stage to the crème de la crème of all digital design areas! With a little improvement on the logistics and commute to avoid missing out on the good stuff, it’s a go for us for 2015 – see you all there.
