design talk. It’s like an inspiration pick-
me-up,” adds art director and OFFSET
Dublin regular Meg Hyland. “I love
hearing about other people’s processes,
their failures and their successes. It
makes my own shortcomings seem a
bit more bearable and my achievements
more concrete.”TEACHING IS LEARNING
As a speaker, preparing a talk can also
help you understand your own art
practice, says upcoming OFFSET Dublin
speaker James Burke, global creative
director and founder of Acrylicize. “In a
strange kind of way, when you’re forced
to sit down and focus because you have
to make a presentation, you have to
make sense of your thought process and
it makes you analyse and scrutinise what
you do and why you do it.”
James has given talks across the
country and finds the experience
rewarding. “The story is relatively
unique – me being an artist and also an
entrepreneur and a business owner,”
he says. “I like to let people know that
there are opportunities out there and
you don’t need to be great at everything
to be successful. If I can help to make
people in the audience think about
what they’re doing in a more positive
way, then that’s what makes it worth
it for me.”
“Originally it was doing something
that scared me, because I’d never
considered myself being able to be a
speaker,” says Aardman Animations
designer and director Gavin Strange. “It
was a chance encounter with a stranger
that led to my first talk at an Apple
store in 2008. It showed me something
I could do that I never considered, and
that felt really special. I wanted to run
with it and see if I could continue. I
wanted to get better at it and learn to be
a (hopefully) good speaker.”
A regular on the festival circuit,
Gavin is a good example of how public
speaking can lead to other creative
opportunities. He gave talks at eight
events in 2019, including Forward
Festival in Hamburg, Promax BDA in
South Africa and Birmingham Design
Festival. “Speaking at OFFF in BarcelonaO
F
F
S
E
T
D
U
B
L
I
N
Situated in the centre of Dublin’s thriving
creative quarter, OFFSET is for anyone
who’s curious about design and creativity.
Whether you’re a student, lecturer or
intern, right up to creative directors and
agency owners, there’ll be something at the
festival that’s sure to catch your eye.
Celebrating design in all its forms,
OFFSET is committed to a multi-discipline
approach to curation, inviting the most
interesting and exciting practitioners from
the fields of graphic design, photography,
animation, illustration, fashion, film,
industr ia l desig n a nd a r t, says festiva l director
Lisa Haran. “Right from the start we wanted
OFFSET to be a fun, playful, energetic, useful
and personal event that celebrates the great
work being done by creatives from around
the world and how important the creative
process is to our world.”
“OFFSET is a very chatty festival and you
get out what you put in,” says art director
and festival regular Meg Hyland. “I always
come armed with a stack of business cards
in my pocket and usually come away with an
opportunity or two a few weeks or months
later. It works both ways. I’m an art director
by day and love when I get to recommend
someone I’ve met at OFFSET over the years.”
Meg recalls one year where a tweet
asking for a very special volunteer led to
an unexpected encounter. “After naively
answering the call I ended up being zipped
into a nine-foot inflatable costume from
the lovely people from Friends with You,
and danced in said costume on stage to
techno music for what seemed like forever
to introduce their talk. My friends couldn’t
believe it was me. There’s footage online!”KEY INFO
- Dates: 3-5 April, 2020
- Location: Dublin, Ireland
- Fields of creativity
covered: graphic design,
fashion, animation, film,
illustration, print, type,
motion, photography,
advertising, fashion,
architecture, sound - Year founded: 2009
- Attendees: 2,500
iloveoffset.com
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