May 19

Offset 2014

We’re going back a month or two for this one but I was at Offset recently, held 21st-23rd of March and I wanted to do a quick ‘those who rocked’ note about some of the speakers. Just as a bit of a background, Offset is a creative industry conference which has been running for about 4 years, (I think it was first held in the Sugar Club on Leeson Street), and has exploded out to roughly two and a half thousand attendees in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre down in the docklands. Oh, and one other key thing, it’s amazing. This is the second year I’ve headed down for it and I have to say it totally lives up to the hype. Three full days of creative industry speakers, some local, some international and a few breakaway stages for 1:1 interviews and other bits and pieces.

Offset 2014

These peeps were my own personal faves from this year (and all the delegates are great, I guess there are some that are more relevant than others) and I just wanted to have a record of them and recommend them to yourselves. You can go to the Offset website and watch each of the speakers back which I would highly recommend if you’re too povo to attend in person. This years aren’t up yet but you can get 2013s speakers, I’ll stick a recommendation for a few from last year to watch back.

Mike Perry:
Gave a super interesting hour about getting his own personal vision of a multi purpose art space in Brooklyn but I guess he’s primarily an illustrator. He talked about using KickStarter to fund his project initially, (which sounds like the equivalent of Fund It here) and fundraising generally, and how fun it was, how hard it was, how difficult it was to close the project. His ethos: ‘Keep Wondering – Keep Wandering’.

Pensive…

Mike Perry Studio

Jessica Walsh:

Really amazing speaker who is a partner at the design agency Sagmeister & Walsh who do brand identities for the Tate Museums and any other amazing clients you could think of. I guess the main things that she touch on were fear, feeling fear or risk in your career and pushing on regardless. She illustrated this by showing the announcements they sent round to clients announcing her partnership with Stefan Sagmeister where they were pictured naked in the office. Yikes, that’s really trying to ignore feelings of discomfort. She also talked about making stuff rather than relying on photoshop or technology to create ad campaigns. I liked the take on actually doing stuff with your hands instead of relying on software to create. Watch it back for yourself, it’s all in the telling!

Jessica Walsh

Okay last one;

Jon Burgerman:

Jon Burgerman was really funny and self-effacing, I thought he was great (although I do wonder about his name…stage name or real?). I suppose he’s primarily an illustrator too, like Mike Perry. You’ll have to watch this when it’s listed. Basic ethos: Define your own world!