Back in July I visited Paris and attended the Offf Festival , a mini creative festival (yeh! the clues in the name) that focused on animation, illustration and advertisement. The festival took the form of multiple presentations from the very best of the best within the creative industries. Highlights were the following:
Tara McPherson
McPherson is just one of those lucky people whose career has snowballed to propel her to illustration rock stardom. She’s effortless endearing, churns out work, and has a well defined style – she’s the complete package! Her presentation was definitely the highlight of the show for me. I always get ‘child dizzy on too much lemonade’ syndrome when I see a famous illustrator break down their style.
Julien Valée
Ok, you know when you see someone’s work and you can’t believe you’ve never heard of that person before. That was the vibe with this guys work. All hand made with a little visual/digital trickery thrown in for good measure. I was flagging a little on that day, so actually fell asleep part way through the presentation; however Valée’s charming work soon dragged me back to full consciousness.
Non-format
Again I’d never heard of these guys, yet I’ve been exposed to their work many times without ever realising it. As an ex-intern of the AOI, I was shocked to discover these were the guys behind the logo for Varoom! (AOI’s illustration magazine) – They’ve been under my nose the whole time! Kjell Ekhorn put together a witty and amusing presentation that broke down the life cycle of a new style of work, going from being a hot original concept to a forgotten relic of a past trend. One core reason behind Non-format’s success is that they know when it’s time to start afresh, scrap an old style and break out a new one.
On the artwork front, things have been slow – as ever my full-time job takes precedence over my personal commitments. However I’m still slowly working my way through some new images which I’m hoping will pop up on this blog at the end of August.
