OFFF13 and The Digital Decade Exhibition

Designcollector celebrated its 10 years by setting a contest for Graphic designers to come up with their view on the past Digital Decade. The exhibition of 15 finalists took place at OFFF Festival in Barcelona this June with the help of the sponsor Depositphotos. We were happy to meet there one of the finalist Nicolas Monin-Baroille and a member of our jury multi-talented Sara Blake that has a speech at OFFF and mentioned our collaborations few times from the scene!

That was my 4th time visiting OFFF Festival and I am happy to support it since 2008. As you may know someone's kids grow fast, and I can say the same to the festival. OFFF become a mature and balanced event still keeping its head in a playful and experimental mode. That is why it is non-format and still flexible as someone can not expect from a large event. That is why I love it and it keep me high till the next year.

Based in the heart of Barcelona - freshly built geometric-porn architectural DHUB building, OFFF is beating faster pushing the fresh blood from all continents. Same as Barcelona - the melting pot and a cross-point of the continents the festival taking much from the venue by placing the unforeseen experience as a center of the concept. You never can predict what you will get and share during the event, this keep you motivated and really open for the new experience whatever introvert person you might be.

This year was special for us not just because we did the Designcollector Jubilee exhibition there but the fact we met a lot of artists we have contacted through the years online. It is a special moments we love to keep in mind and share with everyone. I was really happy to meet Sara Blake and was flattered to hear the words about our collaborations (here and there) from the scene during her presentation. Worth to mention she was one of jury for "The Digital Decade". I met Hector Ayuso - OFFF director and really happy that he helped us to make an exhibition at OFFF and would like to thank OFFF manager Judit Farre for the massive help with printing the posters and etc. Surely, I'd like to thank Dot Lung - PR Manager for everything she did for us.

As Behance Ambassador in Russia (first and ex) I was mad to meet Matias Corea (the core team member of Behance) there speaking about new corporate opportunities one can get profits because of their merge with Adobe team. Hence the Adobe presentation sounded like all classic coporate speeches "Love Adobe and we will make you happy, amen" but guys did great progress with new Adobe CC features pushing Behance features on top so you can even post projects to your profile from Photoshop.

I really enjoyed the sessions from PLENTY, Sougwen, Sara Blake, James White, North Kingdom, Jessica Walsh, Serial Cut, Karlsson+Wilker, Vault49, GMUNK, McBess, Fi and many others. The venue hosted few exhibitions "Show Us Your Type", also one from Fotolia's Ten and ours. The festival venue was divided onto Roots where all main presentations took place, Openroom with more curated stuff, Marketplace and Cafe zone. I really missed the spirit of Lisbon's festivals in 2008-09 where OFFF had Loopita for experimental music and other areas for great interactive installations with huge recreation zones but as I said, the festival is growing and changing and maybe that is the way it comes.

[box]As for the OFFF 2013 I'd put the motto "Get out from the machine and do everything by your hands", from CG effects that are not actual CG but paperwork to handwriting and illustration without any digital touch. Trend is here, believe in your hands and train your imagination![/box]

Come to OFFF 2014 at the end of May and you will get your dose of inspiration, new experience and connects. Stay tuned on http://offf.ws/

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