OFFF 15. Full of creativity. Full of experiences. Full of art.

3 Fs, 3 days but a lot more to see and even more to learn.

And this is what this post is going to be about. A little summary of what we saw and brought back from this exciting festival.

First of all, we learned a lot about inspiration. According to our speakers, sometimes you feel that it is nowhere to be found simply because it’s actually everywhere. In other words, inspiration can be found in so many things that you subconsciously don’t seem to notice or think of them as useless not stopping for a moment to focus on them. It could be your favorite player’s jersey. It could be your mother’s handwriting or even something you don’t like that can give you that spark you were looking for. That sign that you have to notice, make yours, enhance and let it inspire you. Inspiration is everywhere. You just have to be open to it.

Inspiration can be found out there but patience is what you must find inside you.

“Start small, be patient, be creative, believe and bigger things will come”.

That’s what most of the featured agencies did and recommended that everyone who starts a creative business should. There were a lot of examples of offices that started with small but very open-minded clients, did great work for them and then a bigger client fished them and allowed them to address their work to a greater audience.

Although the festival and all the speakers had a real close relationship with the digital means and showed a great efficiency in using technology in a very useful and creative manner, they all agreed on one thing. “Sometimes it’s better to do it yourself”. Because the real thing is always going to be better than what you create on a screen with a tool that has only limited potential. It’s only when you craft something from scratch that you can adorn with a sense of originality and real beauty. “You must experiment” and even if you fail at least you get an idea of how your concept works. Fail and then try it on your mac. It will look easier this time for sure.

And since we mentioned real beauty, this is the perfect chance to talk about Stephan Sagmeister. Probably the star of this festival and probably with one of the most interesting keynotes. Sagmeister talked about, actually praised beauty and went on about its importance in every day life. “Beauty can do everything” he claimed and then proved with a lot of real life examples. With cases that showed that whenever beauty intervened it had a great impact and turned things around in a good way. Beauty can reduce even crime rate according to Sagmeister and this is only one example that shows that beauty can be functional.

That’s exactly why OFFF 15 was functional too. Such a beautiful festival, in such a beautiful city, with so many beautiful minds gathered couldn’t be anything less than a huge experience and a great lesson for everyone who is or feels creative.

Visca OFFF, visca Barca!