OFFF is a three-day celebration of creativity in the incredible city of Barcelona. Located at Museu del Disseny, OFFF runs across three stages and makes the most of the sun with outdoor food vendors and exhibitors.
It’s an event that’s been on our wish list for a while, so we were delighted to find a gap in the schedule and secure tickets to attend.
Attracting well known influential figures, the 2018 line-up included big names in graphic design, motion design and art — all sharing their experience in overcoming creative challenges.
Our highlights included Eleanor Harding (Senior Product Designer at Twitter) and John Evans (Facebook’s Director of Design Systems and Tooling), both presenting their challenges in achieving consistent design for the social media platforms whilst scaling. The sites have developed custom software for prototyping to reduce duplication and smooth collaboration between teams. Some of the packages demonstrated were similar to those found in Sketch — a tool we use to design custom digital products for clients.
Away from the main stage, Sarah-Grace Mankarious (Art Director at CNN International) presented the challenges of telling stories in an era of ‘fake news’ and intense journalistic scrutiny. Sarah is responsible for special projects with a remit to encourage people to see the world from a different perspective. Examples shown included the award winning animated series, Colorscope, and her International Women’s Day project with Anna Ginsburg that questions our perceptions of female beauty.
French artist-designer Camille Walala presented one of the most engaging sessions at OFFF. Camille’s love for bright bold patterns is evident throughout her work — whether she’s commissioned to paint the exterior of a building or build an interactive experience. Her enthusiasm and energy was infectious, with similar positivity from James Victore who presented his project for New York City Department of Probation to turn depressing probation locations into motivating spaces to inspire. Both an example of how environmental design can have positive changes to user behaviour.
OFFF definitely gave us a lot of inspiration to take away, with plenty of thought of how we can change the way we work — whether it’s through systems for digital design or creating nudge through microtargetted design.
We were incredibly thankful to our Airbnb hosts, Eli & Agus, for being so hospitable, and to Carlos, Pedro and Afro at Picca-Dilly (237 Carrer de la Marina) for looking after us with plenty of food and drink in the evenings!
We can’t wait to return to OFFF in 2020!
