OFFSET, one of our favourite events of the year, took place last weekend and we were once again blown away by the incredible line-up of creatives who shared their experiences in the industry with us!

The inspiration-filled, creatively-fuelled conference still has us whirring with energy so we're going to do a breakdown of our highlights from this year!

But first check out the opening title sequences for this year, created by Golden Wolf:

Now for the highlights…

We were treated to a whole host of graphic designers this year, starting with Peter Maybury opening the event with an audio-visual filled talk on the progression of his work with print and the influence of music in his design. OFFSET attendees were treated to a copy of his book 'Make Ready' in their OFFSET goodie bags.

Rory Hamilton, from the Boys & Girls advertising agency, gave a run down of their approach to working with client briefs in a detailed breakdown of the Three Christmas advert. We also got to see the various iterations of how the cloud was constructed by Screen Scene in their panel talk.

Annie Atkins, fresh from her role in Grand Budapest Hotel‘s Production Design, shone a spotlight on all the intracies that the Graphic Design department are responsible for and the surprising reality of how little notice they have for the time available to prepare and the short amount of airtime they may see in the end!

“Graphic design is at the bottom of the food chain in filmmaking. You always shoot according to the availability of the actors or the location.”

We saw some snippets from the Grand Budapest Hotel, and were taken through the script breaking down the countless props that were to be designed, including a set of stamps that aren't actually visible in the movie!

Tomi Ungerer hijacked the conversation and stole the show with his quick wit and wry sense of humour discussing his amazing life stories, his childhood experiences of World War 2 and how the circumstances of his early life shaped and fuelled his work.

Born in Alsace, he has lived and worked in New York, Canada, Ireland and Strasbourg imbuing his work with a multicultural edge.

We also got a personal reading from his book 'Fog Island'.

The irreverent creative agency Snask came onstage complete with their own rock band to cue each section of their presentation and showed us how sometimes you need to make enemies in order to gain fans.

Having enemies is a good thing. It proves that you stood up for something sometime in your life.

They detailed their oft times risky attitude and also their love of George Michael who happens to be their recruitment officer ;)

Check out the gorgeous poster they constructed for Malmö festival 2014:

Sue Murphy of Wolff Olins shared her experiences of working in the design industry and how it can sometimes take its toll leading to burning out. She provided some good tips for trying to stay happy in your work.

“Burning out is a common thing that happens in the design industry. No time off, high standards turning into impossible standards, no control and feeling like you're never good enough will ensure you lose all creativity. Look at when you were last happy. This will help you to really hone in on aspects that will ultimately improve your work.”

One of her creative projects was a music meets tech collaboration between IBM and James Murphy where they created musical tracks from Tennis data from the US Open Sessions. Intrigued? Have a listen:

And then finally to cap off the event, our friends at Cartoon Saloon gave a great presentation on the making of their Oscar-nominated Song of the Sea, detailing the lengthy process of getting from concept to finished animation, so you really have to like what you're working on.

We got to see some terrific concept art for the feature and also a sneak peak at some exclusive scenes - keep your eyes peeled for the wonderful 'holy well'.

We'll be sure to check out Song of the Sea when it comes out this July!

OFFSET will be back again next year in April and we very much look forward to it!