Our Time At OFFF Festival 2023

We escaped the miserable weather of England for some glorious Spanish sunshine. OFFF festival 2023 is the place to be, a festival that definitely thrives in the city buzz of Barcelona. The venue, The Disseny Hub is not one to be messed with, spread over four floors there was certainly enough to get the creative juices flowin’ not to mention the market hosting a number of stalls chockablock with independent artworks, publications, homewares, and more. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day to see it all.

Panic studio gave the opening speech for Barcelona 2023, they took us on a personal journey and gave a real insight into their story and what it takes to make it.

Cutting right to it they share what they have learned over 8 years so you can get it right and learn from their experiences.

“Listen to your dicks (or hearts) and follow your passion. It takes balls to start your own thing and might not go smoothly at the beginning. It’s ok to do whatever. For some time. Get yourself started and also figure out where you fit. The important thing here is always to pull it off. Every time. On every project. With no exceptions. There is no dream world of “getting famous overnight with some viral shit that breaks the internet”. Take it from us who tried it. Back in 2016, our gifs were top-viewed weekly on Dribbble. Behance featured our gif collection. Still, only clients who wanted these great projects with us, but cheaper, were reaching out. It seemed like everyone had 5K for the project – no matter the complexity, length, or even currency. It was time to take another turn on our journey and break free from the low-budget projects. It became our mission.”

To see change and shape your path they encourage you to shout out about what you’re good at, if you get fucked – learn to roll with it, fake it til you make it, walk the talk, and go the extra mile and most importantly, stay true to yourself. They finished their talk by giving us a preview of their latest short story “Berthold gone wild” and we walked away truly inspired, ready to take the world by the balls and crack on.

AI being the main focus of the weekend. Artist David Carson reminded us how important it is to still create in the physical world and that analog methods will always prevail.“Collage has been a big part of what I’ve been doing for a while. Clients seem to like it, it makes them feel like there’s a person behind the work, that there’s a human feel to it… If you put who you are as a person into your work you’re going to enjoy it a lot more. You don’t have to put all of it into each project you do but a little bit can definitely help”

Collecting weird collage materials with his seven-year-old son from around the city, Carson explains, I am very proud, last year he (his son) asked me to teach him about design. Well, we can honestly say we are very jealous. With one of the best art teachers anyone could ask for David gives us a glimpse at some of the advice he offers. “Don’t mistake legibility for communication”… he jokes “Which one are you gonna dump at?”

Honesty no matter how brutal was the running theme for KesselsKramer this year. It was nice to have such an open, no-bullshit talk on the advertising world, a world that due to social media algorithms, AI, and the human need for consumption has become diluted and, for lack of a better description, horseshit.

We are reminded sometimes the truth is all you need. “Not everyone likes advertising but if you tell the truth, (in advertising) sometimes, something good comes from it.”

Honest questions, honest answers: “If you can’t explain it to your children or feel bad about it when you try, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.” And just like that… *mind blown*. It’s eye-opening, something so simple but a great way to get your morals in check. You don’t have to accept a job if it doesn’t align with you or what you do.

Honest confessions: “We never tell the client but with any brief that comes in, if a client wants an ad or film, there has to be a dog in it.” We don’t see anything wrong with that, the more dogs the better, IMO.

We caught up with Gijs after the talk to find out more…

G: Yes, so we do other things outside of client work, but not necessarily to make money. The gallery (KK Outlet) for instance never made us money, but it was beneficial in a way that we grew our network and engaged with the community and followers of KesselsKramer.

M: And finally, I know you touched briefly on this during your talk but we wanted to know, what exactly is a standard day in the studio for you?

G: So I live 5 mins walk from the office, I take my kid to school, and then I walk to the office. I’m the first one in and I put on some very loud music, as loud as possible, and it has to be hard-core punk rock music. And then I know the first person that comes in because they complain about the music… it’s a great way to start the day, as a ritual.

M: Haha yes yes, a complaint is a great way to start the day!

G: Exactly, and also it’s important to put a little bit of sand in the machine, people have their kind of routine and if it becomes to much of a routine, too perfect, people forget that as a creative agency, routine is hell.

M: It’s good to shake it up a little bit

G: Definitely, I think most of the time people work very autonomously, we have 12 creatives in Amsterdam, and they are super responsible and super talented and we work as a team on each project, we don’t work on multiple projects with multiple teams. So I will check in on projects and do organic check-ins with the team instead of doing a planned review meeting where we all just sit in a room. I like to walk past and have natural conversations about where everyone is at.

M: I love that, the rigid structure of some workplaces can be really uncomfortable. We have always been in admiration of your agency and what you have achieved. We can’t wait to see what other projects you work on and hopefully, we can work together in the future. It was great catching up with you, we will let you relax and enjoy the rest of OFFF festival.

The goody bags this year included an awesome publication. TURN, is a collection of tales from the fearless and unapologetic. A journey unlike any other where we, the voice of the ones who refuse to be silenced, found solace in the chaos and embraced the twists and turns that life had to offer. We are the artists, the dreamers who have stared into the abyss and turned its darkness into a masterpiece. We’ve walked through fire, faced our demons head-on, danced with them, we’ve felt the claws of fear, and sometimes lost, but through it all, we’ve emerged stronger than ever before.

Together, let’s make our messes matter and turn this chaos into something beautiful 🙌

“Life is full of beautiful moments, but it’s also full of difficult and messy ones. We believe if we were all more honest and real, we’d all feel less alone in our fears and insecurities and find that they’re surprisingly universal among creatives. All these thoughts and feelings inspired us to create a book for OFFF 2023. We believe if we start talking out loud about these challenges, our community could be able to improve their recovery from their current struggles, use friendly advice from a peer, or at least feel less alone about their fears and insecurities, regardless of whether you are part of the creative industry or not.”

Credits:
• Concept & Editorial: Héctor Ayuso / Marcel Ziul
• Creative Consultant & Content Advisor: Beatriz Martínez
• Cover Concept & Tape Design: Vasava
• Printed by: Nova Era Barcelona
• Pictures on the inside cover and back cover pages: David Kirscher

It was a great weekend where we were able to catch up with old friends and colleagues and make new ones! We can’t wait to see what OFFF 2024 has lined up for us all, it’s going to be a tough one to top.

Photo credit: Chris Milne, Santi Puig, Ellie Koepke