Hello again from Lisbon. Eventful day here for the opening of OFFF 09. In typical Portuguese fashion, it started late, but not to worry right? This years theme is “Fail Gracefully”, so all is well.

The day started out with a presentation from Neville Brody. A sort of sage of the graphic design world at this point. He spent much of his time pleading for and predicting a new age for design. Asking designers to once again be provocateurs, destroyers and re-creators of culture. In essence to “make trouble”. I like it! Interesting point of view. The current economic crisis does present us with a new age perhaps. One in which our priorities shift. Maybe he is right. He has a pretty good track record anyway.

He focused quite a bit unsurprisingly on typography. His point was that it is indeed language, but just as important a “visual language”. Also, the idea that language is a contract between people. We agree to certain standards, and then apply them in order to communicate. The fun pat comes when we try to bend and break those rules. How far can we go and still communicate effectively? How far do we have to go to actually create something new and fresh?

Multitouch Barcelona – These guys showed of some of their recent work. They even have a large Space Invaders interactive game here on a large screen. They talked quite a bit about making technology human. A theme we should all pay more attention to. When we claim to be user centered designers, what does that really mean? Are we appealing to the very human elements of fun, delight, surprise, and creation? Check out the demo here and above. I think you will agree they have kinda nailed it.

United Visual Artists

Do yourself a favor and check out the work on UVA’s website. Not the traditional interactive agency, but something quite apart from the rest. Yes they do some corporate work, but only to pay the bills so they can create amazing experiences for music videos, concerts and events. They don’t stop at designing either, they write and build their own tools in order to accomplish the things they dream up. One in particular was really impressive. The result is shown in some screens below. Its the result of a 3d animation engine that creates real time HD video in sync with a 10 minute Massive Attach song. My guess is that it wans’nt done on a couple laptops :)

Again this year, the thing that strikes me the most is the passion with which people talk and share their work. Also, there is almost never talk about who is a designer, and who is a coder. The line is really blurred. The result of this is pretty self-evident. Great stuff!