"What does not kill you makes you stronger". A motto that Stephy Fung has engraved in her heart. When it came time to choose a university career, he opted for graphic design. “I thought I was going to dedicate myself to the world of advertising and work for brands.” The pandemic changed everything. “Being at home 24 hours a day, there was little room for fun. He felt like he had already done everything and that overwhelmed me. I set myself new challenges and, with the knowledge I had as a 3D artist and learning new ones, I started designing online clothing for avatars and video games and entered the world of digital fashion. I found my place. "I became strong," says Fung, who these days is starring in some of the presentations at the OFFF festival in Barcelona, which brings together the main voices of the creative industry from the five continents until Saturday at the Disseny Hub and which once again returns to hang the sold out sign.
“If last year what was talked about the most was artificial intelligence, in 2024 we can assure that this will be consolidated as a creative tool,” says Pep Salazar, co-director with Héctor Ayuso of this event that “has become a benchmark in Europe” and that aims to “be global.” In a way it is, because visitors from 85 different countries and more than 70 internationally renowned speakers in the fields of creativity, design, visual art and digital culture have come to the Catalan capital, as well as young creatives from the main schools in Catalonia willing to present their projects supported by The Next Us platform, focused on the training and dissemination of emerging talent.
Above all of them, Noa, the digital avatar that greets you at the entrance, offers information to the visitor. “She is educated with AI and is capable of maintaining natural conversations and answering questions autonomously and coherently,” explains Sebastián Soriano, co-founder of Lowkeymoves, the company behind its creation. There are several who come to ask the time at which certain talks take place. A small percentage, on the other hand, views it with suspicion, like Joanne, who claims “squeezing your mind as the most effective method to obtain new ideas.” In fact, at the stop that she shares with some colleagues at the festival market, she claims with a sign that the products sold there are “made by real humans and not by AI.”
Borja Martínez, director of the Lo Sentiment studio, specialized in identity, packaging and editorial, is also in favor of everything cooked over low heat. “We represent a very artisanal style of visual identity creation and digital design, as we do much of our work by hand. We are very aware of new technologies and we do not lose sight of them, in case we can take advantage of any of them and so as not to be left behind. But, for now, we are dedicated to doing what we call artisanal intelligence.”
For New York designer and muralist Timothy Goodman, whose art has populated packaging, shoes, clothing, books and galleries around the world, “AI is a challenge because it cannot feel love, pain, loss or suffering. I mean, you can't feel what it means to be human and there's a real burning desire for connection in the world right now. “I think the greatest joy you can have as a designer is connecting with another human being through your work.”
Mike Alderson, from ManvsMachine – the studio responsible for the LIFFFE/FFFORMS creative campaign for OFFF 2024 – does not believe that this is incompatible and sees it as more interesting to focus on AI as “another tool from which we can extract a benefit, as we have been doing for years with other technologies, software, cameras and even digital pencils.” Of course, although he is in favor of “not panicking”, he is also very aware of how important it is to “not lose focus”, nor dehumanize the creative process.
Jessica Hische, a renowned artist specialized in lettering, admits that she “has the issue very much in mind.” She doesn't use artificial intelligence in her work, but she does leverage it to brainstorm. Although there is something that worries her and that she will discuss on the stage in the coming days: “that less and less is paid for the work done and fewer specialists are hired. AI will get better and better at creating images, this is undeniable. And, if the budget is getting smaller and smaller in companies, and this is something that has been happening systematically in recent years, things will end up being solved internally, without even considering whether to hire an employee. Of course, if the most extreme prophecies and conspiracy theories do not come true, then we are saved. Any change is scary. She gave it back in the day with the calculator itself. But let's be fruitful and know how to take advantage of the opportunities that are given to us. “We might be surprised.”
