Design and advertising are currently forging a newly symbiotic relationship, with agencies talking about combining disciplines to solve business problems, taking a more holistic approach, and responding to the visual culture we live in. It’s all a way of getting more revenue out of a client too, of course.
But here’s Uncommon Creative Studios approaching design on a different level altogether. They’ve formed the brand identity of the 2026 OFFF festival by inviting creative people to events and collecting biological samples from them, via drinks glasses and other places where they leave a trace. Cultures were then grown and used to produce a visual identity that ran through the whole event in Barcelona.
Pep Salazar, director of OFFF Barcelona, said: “For OFFF, the community has always been the core. This collaboration with Uncommon makes that idea tangible. The campaign doesn’t just speak to designers–it is literally built from them. It’s a celebration of shared authorship and the power of gathering, exchanging, and making together.”
The whole thing was created in partnership with Dasha Plesen (aka the Mold Queen), an artist known for using bacteria as a medium, and accompanied by some serious talk about “reshaping creativity as something grounded in shared agency rather than external forces” because “our future is shaped by those who choose to participate.”
At heart, though, it has the feel of a group of people having fun with an idea and seeing how far they can take it while focusing on a highly professional execution.
MAA creative scale: 8 (if you can endure the Covid flashbacks from the hazmat suits)
