After its last edition, which had to be a virtual one, OFFF (Barcelona International Festival of Digital Creativity, Art and Design) comes back to its on-site version with all tickets sold out and one of the strongest line ups of its history: more than sixty first-rate speakers and some leading names of the creative international industry such as DixonBaxi, Paula Scher, Port Rocha, Refik Anadol, Stuart Landfield or Timothy Goodman, among others.
In this year’s edition, Llull tightens up its collaboration with the festival, and it is inviting five professional studios from different geographical origins, leading within the digital design field, with the goal of researching on creative processes with OFFF audiences. These are the five studios: David Carson Design (Los Angeles - New York), Territory Studio (London), Burton Rast (San Francisco), Musketon (Belgium), and Lobulo Studio (London).
With their great expertise, reputation and international standing, the guest studios will develop mentorship sessions for Catalan designers, on diffusion and creative digital processes; they will hold master classes, workshops, and they will foster network possibilities during the three days of the festival. They will establish communication channels and internationalisation tools for the Catalan graphic and digital design field. From the iconic creative David Carson, who will lead a workshop where the audience will create their own poster using the collage technique, to the talks by the colouristic creative Musketon.
The line up for OFFF’s 21st edition also includes the participation of Catalan and Balearic studios and designers such as Vasava (with offices in Barcelona) and Studio Roses (with headquarters in Palma); or the presence of Malika Favre, a French creative located in Barcelona.
Meeting point for local and international creativity
As every year, OFFF gathers the greater community of professionals from the design and creativity fields, both local and international; and it hosts conferences, workshops, master classes, art installations, and creative sessions, all in various spaces of the Disseny Hub Barcelona such as the Roots room, the Open Room, the AND room… Or the Adobe Creativity Hub, the new Agora space that is hosting the master classes.
The festival allows free access to the Fun Zone, the outdoor spaces of the Barcelona premises located in Glòries, with a gastronomic proposal and a live streaming of the conferences. Besides the collaboration with the Institut Ramon Llull, OFFF has the institutional support of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Ajuntament de Barcelona, and Disseny Hub Barcelona.
The festival’s closure will take place in May 7th with Main titles, directed by GMUNK, one of the best visual directors globally; and a mapping over Barcelona’s Casa Batlló created for the occasion by the artist Refik Anadol, who has a great international standing.
The 5 guest studios
►David Carson (Los Angeles – New York)
David Carson is a prominent artist, graphic designer and art director. His unconventional and experimental graphic style revolutionised the graphic design scene in America during the 90’s. He was art director of the magazine Ray Gun, where he introduced innovative typos and many different layouts. He is claimed to be the godfather of ‘grunge typography’, which he used perpetually in his magazine issues. He is winner of the AIGA Gold award in graphic design, nominee to the 2019 Emmy, TED talker, and the first graphic designer giving a master class on the topic. David, who incarnates the philosophy Art-Is-Life, is consumed by design and forced to inspire other creative to be expressive and unique. His aesthetical ethos has always focused on the question “why not?”.
►Territory Studio. Marti Romances (London – San Francisco)
Based on a great experience in narrative design for films, games and brands, Territory Studio combines creativity with technology to create compelling experiences for the future. Their work is linked to the love for crafts and creativity, the passion for history, and the eye of a designer to solve problems. They are distinguished by a unique and refined design intelligence, experiences that bring us closer to the future and a team of multidisciplinary, ambitious, focused and proactive copywriters.
►Burton Rast (San Francisco)
He explored and enjoyed a variety of disciplines through his twenty-year career, from creative direction, visual design and motion graphics, to filmmaking, creative coding and photography. Burton worked in a start-up, he collaborated both with clients and with agencies, and he spent seven years in IDEO as main designer and project manager. Currently, he is working as UX manager in Google.
►Musketon (Belgium)
Musketon is the creative alter ego of Bert Dries, a visual artist and illustrator from Belgium. Working primarily with vector shapes, Musketon developed his own detailed, bold, and colourful style. His artwork often focuses on pop culture and its impact on the human experience. They are moving and powerful, sometimes satirical, sometimes nostalgic, but always funny, full of vibrant colour and reflective details. Mazda, Nike, The Chainsmokers, Coca-Cola, and MTV are some of his clients.
►Lobulo Studio. Javier Rodríguez (London)
Javier Rodríguez a.k.a. Lobulo is a craftsman, animator, director and lecturer. Master in the creation of things, he uses touch craft techniques to create photographic set images and animated films, working both with live action and stop motion. He made an impressive portfolio through the creation and construction of radical and vibrant craft paper. The artwork of Javier a.k.a. Lobulo shows a variety of unique creative collaborations, as well as more than 10 years of experience working for various design and marketing studios. His effort, talent and dedication to crafts are present in each piece; big or small, formal or informal, always showing emotions, always sending a message.
