#offfbarcelona

As promised in my earlier post, I’m sharing my OFFF 2017 favourites list. If you’ve missed it this year, this might be a nice recap but also can cause you fomo. So here’s the disclaimer. 

Before I get into the list, I want to apologise for my extreme slowness. OFFF happened at the beginning of April. And here I am two months later. Even though my festival notes have been sitting in my notebook since then, I just couldn’t get myself to put them onto the screen. But in any case, it’s better than never, no? And I promise I’m working on it.

So there you go. Here’s my favourite OFFF 2017 moments:

Favourite discovery — Mr Kat

Check him out! This guy is amazing. He’s one of the many showcasing works in 3D this year, but I think he's one of the few to use his tools very well in a fresh and creative way. He basically makes super polished robotic cats surrounded by food. He says that he developed this style through personal work, and got commissioned for it later on. It’s also quite witty with weirdo vibes. I also very much enjoyed the visuals he did for the closing party. 

Favourite naughty boys — FOREAL

These guys from a tiny town in Germany are also a 3D crew, who made lots of naughty stuff (mostly dicks and balls). I liked these guys because they were really like themselves, just having some fun, playing around (and making dicks and balls). They also showed a few super lame client work they did. Huge respect for keeping it real. 

Favourite biggest regret — missing Wasted Rita’s talk

Every single one I asked has told me that Wasted Rita was their favourite talk from this year’s conference. So well done Wasted Rita. Naturally, I regret missing her talk, even though I also don’t regret it, because during her talk I was instead talking to Anthony Burrill. I still regret missing Wasted Rita’s talk though, but I also don’t regret it. She’s cool. Really really cool.

Favourite celebrity moment — meeting Joshua Davis

My headliner for OFFF 2017 was Joshua Davis. At the end of last year, I told all my co-workers that my new year resolution is to learn Processing. Hence I have spent many late nights watching Joshua’s Processing tutorial in my dark bedroom, while my brain melted into my keyboard. I like and aspire to his work and energy. He’s a bit of a legend. 

So by the end of the first day, I was chatting with Bradley—a.k.a. GMUNK, as Josh walked up to us to say goodbye to Bradley. At that point, I was highly starstruck that I unconsciously yelled his name. Bradley was then forced to introduce him to me. Josh was super nice. He quite randomly started telling me about that time that he was bargaining really hard for a backgammon set in Grand Bazaar that he walked out on the seller and the guy had to run after Josh to accept his price. At that point, I was thinking how random this story was and that I didn’t really care about what happened, but I also loved that we were like best friends now, telling each other random stories like this. Joshua Davis is insane. We’re friends now. And his talk was great. 

Sorry if I embarrassed you, Bradley.

Favourite biggest jealousy — Gary Baseman

I wish I was as talented and sassy as Gary Baseman.

Favourite speaker (and the cutest) — GMUNK

OK, GMUNK is actually a stand-up comedian. Everyone in the room cracked up the entire time he was on stage. He’s an amazing public speaker. Not that he needs it though. In fact, his work would speak for itself, even if he was the dullest speaker ever. But combined with his super funny presence, his talk was I think one of the best, by far. I’ve also observed the audience quite a lot, and they seem to agree. On another note, Bradley is so nice, he might be the nicest.

Favourite person — Anthony Burrill

Oh, and Anthony Burrill is the best. He really is. I signed up to speak to him and show him my work during his Adobe Live Stream. (Thanks so much for that, Adobe and Michael Chaize). I was very particular with Anthony indeed. I think along with Jonathan Barnbrook and a few other, Anthony Burrill is a contemporary British design hero. He makes very traditional, typography heavy graphic design using mostly letterpress. And the level of feedback he gave me for my work was insane. Very thoughtfully precise and incredibly mature. I loved the streaming, and we had a chat afterwards too. He’s very polite. And he told me that he was quite nervous during his talk. I think it was awesome. I’m happy to have met him.

That’s it. Tell me what you think, how your experience has been, and if you agree with my list.

April 2017 will be remembered in my 10 years of being a designer. I went to OFFF and it was my first time. I am different for it now. 🙏

OFFF—as you all know, don’t you—is the biggest graphic design festival in Europe. 🔥 Taking place annually in Barcelona, 3 full days of overwhelmingly interesting talks and workshops by some of the biggest names in contemporary design scene from around the world brings together best of the best together. It sounds quite ambitious and I had very high expectations prior going. And to be honest, they were really met. Every single talk I’ve been to was just very very good. I learned, I changed. By the end, from all the amazing speakers, great crowd and lots of new work, I was so inspired, I wanted to run home and get to work immediately. 

To start with the best, my favourite thing about OFFF was being surrounded by designers from everywhere, from every interest and experience level. It was 3 days of a creativity boot camp. I felt like belonging to a community, a creative network, a big brother/sisterhood, a cult, a secret society, a geek party, a school trip, a homecoming, a reunion, a gathering, a je-ne-sais-quoi. 🌈 Everyone involved shared, listened, wondered, asked, learned and geeked on design. 👩‍💻 👨‍💻  This is a great feeling that you might often be missing in your day-to-day work environment, as things like dealing with client requirements or deadlines get in the way. I stepped out of my comfortable bubble and being connected to a larger network. It reminded me of my school days, when I was appreciating everyday design in its purest form (both studying architecture and later on communication design). I’m again proud to be sharing the scene with these amazing contemporaries, who I can massively learn from. And this was my favourite thing about OFFF. 🦄

Being exposed to work by studios from all parts of the world allowed me to compare local differences. For instance, design landscape in London is much different than New York. Same is true for the rest of Europe. My experience is that London studios tend to get involved in a range of client work, whose size and industry vary hugely. As a result, you as a designer can really isolate your practice into a specific field. In Europe, especially in places like Berlin for instance, on the other hand, design is more strictly separated between commercial and artistic work. My feeling is that stereotypically these two don’t quite touch, let alone overlap. Of course, this is solely a feeling of a few days as an outsider, and I’m curious how insiders feel. 

After seeing so much work, a lot of discussions happened around graphic design trends of 2017. The biggest one by far is 3D. I think any current design studio is already incorporating that into their practice one way or another. And if any individual designer is thinking about getting into it, don’t. The people who’ve been tackling it are seriously already on another level. For reference, check out Velvet Spectrum and Foreal (These guys are super fun, they were my favourite). I think in general it’s not wise to try and catch a trend at its peak. This inevitably makes you a follower. Every creative should rather follow their own strength 💪🏻💪🏼💪🏽💪🏾💪🏿, and maybe one day their strength will be trendy too. Many great designers, like Stefan Sagmeister, encourages you to not try to find your style anyway. It’s harder to get rid of it later on than adopting it in the first place. So we will be indulging in great 3D work in the coming months. Be aware and enjoy. — By the way, you may wonder, what 2016’s trend was. Some people say it was gradients, but I think it was animation. 2015 was definitely Google’s material design. And maybe it was the Yves Klein’s blue for 2014 💙. What do you think 2018 graphic design will be about?

In general, visiting conferences like OFFF opens your eyes to the bigger picture of design. You should always stay interested in what’s happening in every field of your discipline. However, be also aware of analysis paralysis. Remember that your job is not to constantly research. So please don’t fall into the comfort of this, constantly looking at people’s work, having self-doubt and criticising your work. Or don’t get lazy and only consume. Your job is to produce. You’re an artist. So once all is over, go back to your studio and make stuff. 👩🏼‍🎤👨🏼‍🎤

I’m working on a follow-up to this post, listing my OFFF 2017 favourites—stay tuned!