Barcelona design festival OFFF turns 15! Scattered thoughts from the festival.

Held for the 15th time this spring, the Barcelona design festival OFFF, subtitled “Finally Fucking Fifteen!”, had the air of a teenage anniversary. The visual identity created specially for the festival, the festival book printed in a small run and the themed, staged interstitial clips carry such broad meaning that they would inspire a creative worker in any visual field. Especially some very sincere speakers, who talked about their work through examples from their personal lives. Very familiar situations, humane values, surprising technical solutions (Bradley G Munkowitz – help, he was sitting next to me!!!). Many times I caught myself simply thinking: look, very famous creators and very famous projects have the same problems too. I thanked my lucky stars that I had diligently gone to the cinema with my children over the last few winters and had already seen most of the best science fiction films with visual effects from start to finish. The explanations of what went on behind the scenes of their production were now easier to grasp. And also… You don’t have to be big to do big things for world-famous brands. While here at home large advertising agencies are preferred whenever possible, the speakers’ talks showed that the most famous big corporations, as clients, are in fact also open to creative firms of one or two people – the advantages being originality, fresh thinking and the creators’ motivation. No surprise at all – they’re doing the right thing! Do it honestly and do it well – that’s what counts. If you can’t show cat pictures in your talk, you may not be the best speaker.