F*CK PHOTOSHOP - OFFF Design Festival 2015

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By Sam Del Prete - Senior Designer

Last week I was lucky enough to go to OFFF, a Design Festival in Barcelona, for the chance to listen to a host of inspiring speakers and see their amazing work.

Sunny Barcelona or rainy England? It wasn’t a difficult choice.

For me personally, it was like kick starting the engine all over again. A real inspiration overload. The main takeout from the trip though, was that designers, 3D artists, illustrators, writers, film guys - you name it - are no different to you and I.

We all start on the same playing field with pen and paper. A lot of us use the same tools but it’s our thinking that makes us unique. “Design is a mental illness” as one speaker said.

Another theme that came up again and again was the need to experiment and create self initiated work because “what we know gets in the way of what could be”. It’s easy to try something new and follow instructions but we will only ever end up with the end product intended for us.

We follow step-by-step instructions on how to build a robot, follow a design tutorial or write code for a project. Rather than seeing something being born, we simply see it break if we don’t follow it as intended.

To get away from this repetitive process, we need to step out of our comfort zone and into the unknown. We simply need to challenge ourselves. Children are yet to be held back by these boundaries and are rapidly developing their skills and exploring the unknown world. I have yet to see a child scared by technology as the older generation is.

The new generation of kids haven’t been caged in by the processes that I have become accustomed to over the years. Watch a child interact with a new toy, they won’t even look at manual. They will find other ways to use it.

So what can we take from this? If we allow time to reinvent ourselves and our work our creative output will tenfold making us much happier and a more beautiful world to live in. Because after all, there are no short cuts when it comes to brilliant ideas.

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