Offf Festival 2010
Speaking about French interactive design
This year, Offf Festival 2010 was held in Paris and we were invited to be a part of a panel of French interactive design agencies along with Upian, Soleil Noir and Uzik.
Our four agencies are quite different but what ties us together is a focus on content and a sincere desire to push interactive design in France to new levels. Given we were five, we didn’t have much time to speak, but we did touch upon many interesting topics.
We treaded dangerous territory by bringing up the oh so fun discussion around ‘Flash vs. HTML’ and how we should all just get along
We spoke about how interface is becoming part of the content itself (not only serving it) with examples such as Upian’s web documentaries Prison Valley and Gaza-Sderot. But that it doesn’t have to be narrative, that interface can tell a story in a purely functional environment such as our new contemporary art guide for Paris, Slash.fr.
We spoke about mobile and the web. That mobile must be seen as an extension of the web, moreover a new and exciting interface to the web, not as a different platform altogether. That mobile represents a new layer to progressive enhancement and that we as interactive designers must consider mobile in everything we do.
We touched upon social web and how the web has always been social. That the Internet at its core is social from social servers (servers communicating with other servers) to social content (HTML and the ever so useful hyperlink) to social coding (open source, API’s, RSS and mashups) to social people (Web 2.0 baby).
This of course led us to discuss semantic web and the role of language in making the web social. Ain’t we smart? And staying true to geek form, the term ARPANET was used along with a few references to RFC’s.
We treaded dangerous territory by bringing up the oh so fun discussion around ‘Flash vs. HTML’ and how we should all just get along. And it’s true, we shouldn’t kick a sick dog when it’s down … we should help it die gracefully (hehe).
So in the end, we really didn’t talk about French interactive design. But it was a super nice to get to know the people behind some of the finest agencies in Paris.
Oh, and if you happen to be in Paris, don’t forget to check out Machine Molle at Since (a new Gallery by Upian). It’s a good exhibition and goes until July 23rd.