Héctor Ayuso is the founder of OFFF, a creative festival that was born in 2000 as the “Online Flash Film Festival” and is now a worldwide community involving thousands of the world’s best creative minds. Designers, engineers, programmers, artists, photographers… all sorts of artists and makers are invited to share their passion for their creative process and inspire the talents of other creators. OFFF Festival is an inspirational space where Héctor connects himself with artists and the public to develop a creativity triangle, powered by the belief that “Together, we can make anything”. Since its beginnings, OFFF has been pioneering in merging the areas of visual design and digital music. With its opening credits, it has not only gained international recognition (including a Cannes Lion) but demonstrated the possibilities of motion graphics as a narrative force, often showcasing the best opening titles from the movie industry.

Since its beginnings, OFFF has been pioneering in merging the areas of visual design and digital music. With its opening credits, it has not only gained international recognition (including a Cannes Lion) but demonstrated the possibilities of motion graphics as a narrative force, often showcasing the best opening titles from the movie industry.

We asked Héctor to give us his insights on the ever-changing panorama of contemporary visual design.

Now that new digital media and streaming platforms are challenging the movie industry, what are the new frontiers for mograph storytelling?

I think we are gonna be hearing from new voices, younger and bolder challengers that are more confident and ready to take risks. We all, the creative industry, hasn’t changed enough.
Sometimes change is hard and we get easily distracted. So we need to do away with egos and open the door to those new voices. They will break the frontiers of new ways to tell stories.

The 2020 covid crisis forced OFFF to transform itself for two years into an online-only festival. What were the lessons learned from that experience? Is the phygital world changing the role of designers and visual artists?

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. That’s a great sentence that should make us all think. It’s up to you about what?
We’ve learned a lot from an open and honest conversation with our global creative community about what they think, feel and want to do. We are all feeling the pressure, but creativity won’t stop, so it’s on us to step up, stand for something and act on it. That’s what we are doing with OFFF or any other project we are working on currently. Lots of new and exciting things are coming next year, beyond OFFF.

The pervasiveness of connected creative culture harbors the risk of a copycat aesthetic. With motion typography becoming more and more trendy, originality seems to dilute as creators influence each other and visual trends become cliches. Can you give us a shortlist of projects or creators that represent a personal and diverse voice in the field of motion typography?

It’s not about originality anymore, or trends, how its communicated and idea is the real deal now. So is time to reconsider the ways we communicate and the tools we trust to do it.

Lucas Hesse // www.lucas-hesse.de

Brandon Fretwell // instagram.com/brandon.fretwell

John Burgess // www.john-burgess.com

Sawdust // www.sawdust.works

Image Courtesy of OFFF! Barcelona, Lucas Hesse, Brandon Fretwell, John Burgess and Sawdust.

This is an extract from the 2022 Type Trends Lookbook, developed together with the educational team of Typecampus and including a series of 9 interviews with renowned designers and type experts who discuss the present and future of type design and the visual industry.
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