OUGD402 - OFFSET Sheffield

Offset

Offset Sheffield was a design conference held at the crucible theatre on the 21^st and 22^nd of October.

The conference was held across two stages with 60 speakers appearing. The conference held talks by individual practitioners about the work they make and the companies they work for but there were also several talks about designers based in the north. These talks were thought-provoking because I have always assumed that graphic designers work in London. They discussed several successful agencies which are based in Sheffield such as DED Associates and Made North and Sheffield’s creative co-op, ROCO.  

Friday 21^st October

The Dots

The first talk I went to was by a company called ‘The Dots’. This is a creative network that works by championing work rather than profiles, unlike linked in. it also gives creatives the opportunity to show the working behind their designs. This helps when it comes to employability as companies are keen to see the thought process behind work. The site has over 4000 companies registered to find talent and users can follow companies they would like to work for and other designers that inspire them.

I found this talk really helpful and I think this network will be really useful especially when I am a graduate. In response I have set up my own account on The Dots so I can follow companies and designers that I am interested in.

The founder of the Dots, Pip, left us by explaining that the creative industry is a very small place, don’t burn bridges just work hard and be nice to people.

Moving Brands

The second talk I went to was by the leaders of Moving Brands. They started the talk by saying that Design has become too refined and clean. Design is a messy process that ends up beautiful.

They went on to talk about several jobs they have worked on. Some were successfully produced, however, some jobs didn’t make it past the first pitch. This was because they were the ‘wrong people for the right reason’.

Moving Brands use films when pitching to capture a feel of an idea. They also encourage their clients to be collaborate and ‘get messy’.

They encourage designers to be unapologetically experimental and beautiful with what they create. This is shown in the beautiful exterior the company designed for Stella McCartney’s flag ship Chinese store.

I really like the attitude this company has towards the work they produce. They encourage specialists but are also open to those from different disciplines such as product design to cross over into the creative discipline. They encourage designers to be ‘playful and seemingly pointless’ I think it’s a good way of producing original ideas and encourages people to step out of their comfort zone.

MPC

MPC is a visual effects studio based in London, Vancouver, Bangalore, NY, LA, Amsterdam,

Montreal, Paris and Shanghai. It is made up of 3 sectors: creative, film and advertising.

MPC is best known for its work on block buster movies like the jungle book and x-men but have also worked on projects like Adidas’ ‘Boss Everything’ and Reebok x Palace Skateboards ad which are very different and show the broad range of outcomes the company can achieve.

Its impressive to hear about how successful the company is and what they have done to expand from visual effects in films into advertising and other creative practices. It was interesting to know that the animators that work on projects within MPC use software that has been developed by MPC itself. For example, in Cushells ‘Kenny Koala’ advert all of the fur on Kenny is generated using a software created for only the companies use.

Pentagram

Pentagram is a firm made up of 21 partners who all run their own small team. This allows partners to grow but also stay close to the work they are producing.

This talk was led by Pentagram partners Luke Powell and Jody Hudson-Powell who discussed their sources of inspiration.

Their inspiration ranged from band t-shirts to science fiction to Edward Johnston’s typography

This talked showed that inspiration can come from anywhere and even if you don’t need to explore a certain spark of inspiration for the job in hand, it is good to explore it anyway as it could lead to new ideas.

Saturday 22^nd October

Florence Blanchard

Florence Blanchard is a French painter, muralist and screen printer based in Sheffield.

She has created many pieces around the city including the painting on the doors of the Leadmill and the exterior of the millennium gallery.

Her work is hugely inspired by her training as a scientist as well as the cities she has lived in, including New York. She comes from a graffiti background and most of her work is found in urban spaces.

It was great to see science strongly informing the art she has created. I also have an interest in science after studying physics at A-level and it will be interesting to see if I can incorporate this in my work.

Shane Griffis

Shane talked about the importance of personal projects and stepping out of your comfort zone. He talked about how the details of his work are very important and he also discussed how sharing passion projects online can ultimately lead to firms hireling you to make work that you enjoy making.

DROGA5

this was the final talk of the conference, and by far my favourite. Alex and Felix from Droga5 talked about the work they have created but also the work that goes into what they make and how they deal with clients.

First they discussed the postmodern trend in advertising of ads being self-referential, absurd and ironic. However, Droga5 prefer to work with companies that take themselves seriously. They like to include vague and complex elements to their advert as it makes them more interesting, even though it goes against the idea of mass communication. Including vague elements work because meaning is connected to wonder, not knowledge and mystery is essential to fascination. Including complex ideas works because life is not simple, the complex makes it more believable

They went on to talk about the work that goes on behind the scene. It took 722 meetings to create the latest Google ad.

They talked about how difficult it is to pitch a concept, it has to be pitched to the partner, the creative director and the client. It is difficult to talk about work that doesn’t exist. To cope with this, they use referencing, prototyping and conceptual thinking. They left us with the idea that language is a tool with a lot of limitation and not everything has to be talked about.

This conference was very helpful to me, it showed the huge diversity in work that is created across the industry. it also gave me an idea of the kinds of companies there are and what kind of firm I would like to work in in the future. I look forward to my next conference.