Xantifee has the good habit of going on a inspirational journey to the _in meanwhile very famous_ design festival ‘OFFF’. In this years edition we were going back to the roots, back to where it al began more than a decade ago… in Barcelona (CCCB - Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona).

So also this year we were ready to get inspired. But I think it is safe to say that something went wrong this year. Alto the line-up was again pretty amazing, we didn’t feel very good about the waiting lines at the door of the venue rooms. Every room had a limited amount of people that could come in and even if you got in it was difficult to get a chair. This is really frustrating if you want to change rooms to see different speakers. The organization realized the mistake and officially apologized for this inconvenience. Of course the rain on the second day of the festival didn’t help. But we kept up the good Barcelona spirit and made the best of it.

This year I saw more than 18 hours of great lectures at OFFF but in this blogpost I’m going to pick out the ones that really made my visit to the festival memorable.

First day

 

Unit 9

(photo by ©oneteneleven via flickr)

 

Anrick Bergman from Unit 9 (a digital creative production company based in London, San Francisco, Stockholm and Firenze.) gave an overview of his accomplishments an especially this interactive version of a manga – animé (by Koji Morimoto in collaboration with Studio 4°C) blew me away.

‘It tells the story of Hiro, Koichi and Ren, three kids in Tokyo 2040 who discover that growing up isn’t as fun as it seems at first. The film was commissioned by the French Ministry of Health and DDB Paris, and aims to teach young people in an engaging and innovative way about the dangers of smoking.’ (via: unit9.com)

Experience the animé yourself:
http://www.attraction-lemanga.fr/site/index.php

“Interactivity is a barrier for storytelling and experience” Anrick Says. And I agree with him, most animations with interactivity just stop the story and ask the viewer a question so you get pulled out of the experience to fulfil the task. But in this interactive animé they succeed to take the viewer into a different world without any interruptions. I have to add that you have to be a fan of the genre to fully appreciate this kind of graphics and iconography, but today manga is very popular in the western youth culture. Personally I think the movie had a lot more interactive potential and maybe the instructions where a little to subtle, but the interaction that was there really enhanced the experience.

Watch the trailer:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3phR8UzGno[/youtube]

Read the comic:
http://www.attraction-lemanga.fr/comic/index.html

The making of:
http://www.unit9.com/attraction_making_of

Next Anrick also presented a very funny project they worked on ‘The Xtreme Xrunch Kart’ (Unity iPhone Game). Baby Corrots/William Bolthouse Farms Inc. Came to Unit 9 with the question ‘make young people who sit on the couch watching TV and eating potato chips trade in their potato chips for a bag of crunchy baby carrots.’ Impossible if you ask me but they came up with a hilarious iPhone game that reacts to the sound of a crunching carrot.

‘The world’s first carrot-crunch-powered video game. ‘Xtreme Xrunch Kart’ is a custom made Unity game for iPhone. Use the accelerometer to manoeuvre a rocket-powered shopping kart whilst crunching real baby carrots to enable gravity-defying tricks.’ (via: unit9.com)

The website:
http://www.babycarrots.com/

Watch the trailer:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nqz9sQrFA4[/youtube]

The making of:
http://www.unit9.com/xxk-making-of/

Han Hoogerbrugge

I have to mention the work of Han Hoogerbrugge because I like the way he translated his personal work into commercial work. He makes absurd, manic & neurotic animations and posted one every day to his online projects ‘Modern Living Neurotica’ and ‘Nails’.

“ I don’t like to animate to much, I like to animate only the elements that really matter and I try to use sound as an interactive element” (Han Hoogerbrugge)

This works all very well in a non-profit environment, but it is nice to see his MTV bumper ‘Animal behaviour projected on human behaviour’ and his video clip for the pet shop boys.

I couldn’t find the MTV bumper on Youtube but you can see this and much more in his showreel:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeNghmGBBuY[/youtube]

Pet shop boys – love etc.:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBiaRBUjUs&feature=related[/youtube]

Alex Trochut

This designer / typographer is a true highlight in my OFFF 2011 experience because he is one of those speakers who doesn’t hide his inspirations and references, on the contrary… he explained that his personal visual journey depends on many different influences like, early pieces of graphic design, pop-culture, old packaging design, the Garbage Pailkids , comics, psychedelic posters, darkness vs elegance, geometry and abstraction, optical illusions, Mediterranean influences (Dali, Miro, Mucha,…), manga and the world of ornaments that attract him true the years.

I tried to find some images of his inspirations and his own work so you could see in what way he inspired me to make my own visual journey.

Inspiration

Psychedelic posters

Work by Alex Trochut

Jeans poster for ‘Arcade Fire’

Inspiration

Mediterranean influences (Mucha & Miro)

Garbage Pailkids

Work by Alex Trochut

Print camaign for ‘Fila Japan’

Inspiration

Dark elegance of old drawings and Typography

Work by Alex Trochut

Print campaign for Moir Liqueur & Type illustration for Computer Arts Magazine (UK)

Second day

 

 

The second day we got up very early (in Spanish terms that is ;o) but when we got at the venue it was raining and everybody wanted to get in so the roots was already closed. Fortunately there was a big screen outside streaming the presentation so we stood in the rain to watch the ‘Russian creative panel’ with Vladimir Tomin, Evgeny Kiselev & Arseny Vesnin. I couldn’t really understand everything they said or write anything down and the slides of there presentation were very pail looking on the screen outside but even in this conditions I was really impressed by the work they were showing. So I can’t tell you much about the presentation but I can give you the url to the Russian designers collective and portfolios of Evgeny Kiselev and Vladimir Tomin. Maybe next year I should look for a Russian design festival to go to?

(photo by ©RSNY via flickr)

Johnny Kelly

His work is famous all over the Netherlands because he is the maker of the new intro movie of television show ‘Het Klokhuis’ commissioned by advertising agency Kessels Kramer. But what is so special about his work is that he uses no 3D animation and manages to achieve a beautiful kind of tangibility in his videos.

Het Klokhuis: intro movie

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/9017221[/vimeo]

Check out more pictures from the making of: http://www.mickeyandjohnny.com/johnny/het-klokhuis/

The Seed: a movie about anything

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3715286[/vimeo]

Watch the making of:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/2425610[/vimeo]

“ I love the optical illusion” (Johnny Kelly)
“I’m not really a tidy person but am very organised” (Johnny Kelly)

Well that sounds like an illusion to me ;o)

A movie about the Youtube Play button:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa5NNtFt0TY[/youtube]

storyboard:

“Design is not glamorous it is a lot of hard work“ (Johnny Kelly)

Now this I can relate to. He even made a visual statement about it, commissioned by an agency ‘Soon In Tokyo’ for a new campaign advertising the Barcelona-based design college Elisava. http://www.iamnotanartist.org/index.php

An little taste:

the first stop motion animations are by Johnny Kelly and Matt Cooper but you can send in your own interpretation. (more of there work at http://www.mickeyandjohnny.com)

Exhibition room & Installations:

As always at the OFFF festival there is an exhibition. Many artist show there installations or artwork. Here is a little taste of this years edition:

Mr Kone:

Again I didn’t get into the Bis room in time to see Mr Kone but there was live streaming of the presentation in an extra room the organisation set up over night. Sound and screen were fine but Mr Kone doesn’t speak English, so a translator was put next to him to assist him in his talk. But I’m wondering if they picked the interpreter from the streets of Barcelona 5 minutes earlier because his English wasn’t so good ether… well thank you for trying I guess…

Aldo many people left the room I stayed and enjoyed the rich illustrations of Mr Kone a Mexican artist who suffered much trials and tribulations to get where he is today because of the poor economic state of his country. As a kid he liked the very rich visual culture of Mexico and with this background he developed his own modern Mexican style influenced by other foreign styles like Japanese drawings for example.

Rick Poyor:

a British writer on design, graphic design, typography and visual culture. In his talk about the surrealism in graphic design a felt a bit back in art history class.

He tried to give an answer the question “Why are we talking about surrealism? Isn’t it old and dusty?” (Rick Poyor)

“We are in a time of grids, we live on the grid, we are gridnicks. I offer you a way to go off the grid” (Rick Poyor)

His presentation mainly showed us how other designers and artists let there unconscious mind flow in to there work bases on a exposition he curated: ‘uncanny: surrealism and graphic design.

For more detailed information about his talk I like to recommend this article and a video of the same talk given at OFFF: http://www.manystuff.org/?p=7793

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/15994948[/vimeo]

I’m not sure what Im going to do with this information but in the meanwhile I’ll just snoop around in the cabinet of curiosities of graphic design: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/

“Surealism lives!” (Rick Poyor)

Marian Bantjes

 

If you only know the most famous work of Marian Bantjes You would expect a cute and Juicy Dutch lady to come on stage followed by 2 unicorns and a glitter rainbow. But don’t be fooled Marian Bantjes is with her 10 years of practice as a typographer and 10 years of practice as a graphic designer an established Canadian graphic artist.

“Unicorns and rainbows follow me around, thanks to the valentines I made. To many people focus on this god damn Valentine things. I’ll allow it to call my work ‘organic’ NOT ‘swirly’.” (Marian Bantjes)

 

 

Why is her work so appealing? Structure is calming but there is something about floating forms that attract us and we can’t help it. In all religions there are a great amount of ornaments and details. In this complexity we often feel wonder! Marian is convinced that this sense of wonder and a spark of the unknowing is what makes something appealing. So Religion taps in to the feeling of wonder,  it is designed. Also art and decoration has a big history of showing that something is important by surrounding it in ornament.

Her latest project is a book called ‘I Wonder’. “It is nice to be the editor, the designer and the writer!” (Marian Bantjes)

“ My work draws people in like religious things give us the sense of wonder.” (Marian Bantjes)

“I’ll shoot them on my kitchen table in natural light and than I sweep them of the table and have a big pasta dinner.”
(Marian Bantjes)

For more work go to http://www.bantjes.com/

Thirth day

Picking the correct room was a complete hell to me I could not choose between the variety of great speakers in the Bis, Roots and Openroom. So I decided to just hurry up after lunch, find me a seat at the roots and stick with it because changing between rooms was not really a wise thing to do unless you like standing up for 6 hours. Luckily the sun was out and lots of people went out to enjoy the day sitting outside.

Keetra dean dixon

The roots is packed, people are even sitting on the floor just in front of he stage. Everybody is waiting for the next speaker and than a cute little girl from Alaska came on stage…

“You can’t look up my skirt, right?”

After working at ‘Future Farmers’ for a long time Keetra became a designer and artist working under the handle FromKeetra and in collaboration with the Rockwellgroup Lab. ( lab.rockwellgroup.com). Her often frazzled NYC based workshop pushes its focus towards non-commissioned work, but occasionally finds the lure of a shiny client job too seductive to resist. (via: http://www.itsnicethat.com/authors/keetra-dean-dixon)

Graphic design, motion design, architecture, playground design, installations, stage design, … this charming funny girl does it all and she does it well! One of my favorites is the ‘blood puddle pillow’, the extruded letters of ‘SENSitive’ from the “It just came out that way.” Series and the ‘Anonymous hugging flees wall’.

 

“ It sounds a little touchy feely, it is a bit touchy feely…” (Keetra dean Dixon)

I also like the ‘Wonder Kept: Wonder Capsule Series’ These little capsules are placed in the street and left there for someone to open them. When you open them a funny sound plays and just after that the capsule records the reaction op person who opened it. So every time someone opens the capsule after that will hear a reaction full of sincere wonder.

“I invest in the Fantastic”, “Insert a bit of wonder and vulnerability into the world” (Keetra dean Dixon)

She occasionally works for a client like the design of this swatch watch:

“padammmm “, “Ooooe pretty… give!” (Keetra dean Dixon)

more work at: http://www.fromkeetra.com/

Erik Spiekermann

I was looking forward to this talk, I never saw a lecture by Erik Spiekermann _shame on me_ and he didn’t dissapoint. This Funny German looks quite serieus but when he opens his mouth a flow of very fast & funny remarks come out. He talked about how he sees his work and the job of a designer.

“I am not an artist, I work for people, I am not a slave, I don’t  work for assholes, but when I work for someone I represent them and I’d kill for them… metaphorically speaking” (Erik Spiekermann)

“Give my a brief, a deadline, a budget and some pressure or I go have a coffee.” ” (Erik Spiekermann)

He had some tips for today’s designers:

“Collect, Sketch and Read! I have 6000 books in 2 x 6 meter high bookshelves”

“Sometimes it takes some tequila to get my brain out and working“
“Every designer collects things, I don’t collect stuff I just have shit, sellers full of it!”
“Take things apart!“
“Cool is relative”

“These days you start with mobile, first make your online project fit for iPhone”

Spiekermann has 3 studio’s in Germany and has some radical idea’s on how a studio should work. For example he only hires nice people because an asshole will always be an asshole but nice person with a basic portfolio can learn things. Also he doesn’t allow cardboard cups near his office, you should take the time to drink a good cup of coffee. For many years now he has a very specific idea about how the perfect studio should be build and divided.

But maybe even more shocking to some people is the fact that he doesn’t do free pitches!

“Pitching is loosing your virginity, it is loosing your idea. The only thing we do for free is making a rebrief. That means analysing the brief and telling the client what they really want, because the people who write the brief don’t know what they really need”

“No, you can’t have a 10% of! Just pay us!”

Some examples of his work:

http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/designer/erik_spiekermann/
http://edenspiekermann.com/de/

( Online font shops: www.fontfont.com, http://www.fontshop.com & http://new.myfonts.com/)

 

Typeface for national railways of Germany

tegut… gute lebensmittel
(supermarket) “I don’t believe if it is cheap It has to be ugly” http://edenspiekermann.com/de/projects/tegut_gute_lebensmittel/

 

TCHO chocolate
“Who doesn’t like a chocolate client? You have to test the product” (Erik Spiekermann) http://edenspiekermann.com/de/projects/tcho/

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/7065683″[/vimeo]

 

 

Utrecht city theatre

http://edenspiekermann.com/de/projects/utrecht-city-theatre/

Postpanic:

And to close the festival we got a making of presentation about the opening titles that were specially made for OFFF 2011 http://vimeo.com/24868133 but I’m not going to going to dive in to it because alto the graphics and CGI are amazing the visual translations of the theme ‘the Year zero’ is a bit obvious.

So I rather show you 2 movies Postpanic made as self promotion because they are much less obvious and reminds me of the presentation by Rick Poyor ‘Uncanny: surrealism and graphic design’.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/7592311[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6529814 [/vimeo]

Extra:

Be sure to visite the OFFF website: http://offf.ws/bcn2011 and check out the other great speakers!

The hilarious brothers of ‘Brosmind’ also talked in the Openroom at OFFF. I didn’t go because I already saw them not so long ago at ‘Multimania’ in Kortrijk. Check out there work at: http://www.brosmind.com/

Here is a picture of there talk in Kortrijk:

On Twitter:

 

StephanRitter Stephan Ritter
RT @iki_xx: “You life would be much richer if you would be willing to risk more” – Stefan Sagmeister #offf #offf2011

 

epologee Eric-Paul Lecluse
What’s the most memorable thing from #offf2011 you ask? I think it’s the pain from sitting on the marble floor three days in a row.

 

BenStott Ben stott
The OFFF portrait #OFFF2011 twitpic.com/5a3mn3

 

Heuserkampf Kai Heuser
Dear @Offfest, the organisation is a DESASTER! How did you actually plan to fit in the people? #OFFF2011

 

 

@LBRNRodrigo Lebrun
Alex Trochut’s talk was the best so far. Showed clearly the difference between using people work as inspiration and outright copy #OFFF2011