Watch the digital landscape evolve through these stunning short films

This year marks a milestone for OFFF Barcelona. It's the 15th anniversary of the epic three-day design conference, and plans are in place to make it a party to remember.

Over the past 15 years the crew have invited some of the industry's most exciting creative names – new and established – to create the main titles for the three-day design fiesta: Gmunk, Joshua Davis, Julien Vallee, The Mill, Postpanic, the list goes on…

A lot's changed in the last decade and a half. New tools, technology and trends have revolutionised the digital landscape, as OFFF's archive stands testament to.

Like a 15-year timelapse, the titles make for fascinating viewing, charting the rise and fall of Flash and capturing moments of motion brilliance crafted around the world.

We've collected some of the most interesting ones here for you to look back through…

2014: The Mill

Creative director Ash Thorp joined forces with musician and filmmaker Anthony Scott Burns to transform OFFF Barcelona's main titles into a stunning short film, and it was a bumper year for OFFF on Tour.

Audiences at OFFF St Petersburg 2014 were treated to Skazka, The Mill’s experimental fusion of dance, watercolour and oil suspension reactions (above), while GMUNK and Autofuzz intergrated behind-the-scenes footage with handcrafted props to create a slick set of main titles for OFFF Cincinnati 2014 (below).

2013: From Form

In 2013, Dutch film and design studio From Form made their title debut through a magical collaboration with Part of Something for OFFF Barcelona. Check out the soundtrack on Jorinna Scherle’s dramatic main titles for OFFF Mexico 2013, and Onur Senturk’s visuals for OFFF Cincinnati 2013 are also worth a watch.

2012: Brosmind and Upper First

Brosmind and Upper First’s epic short for OFFF Barcelona’s 2012 main titles – above – mixed cinema with 2D and 3D animation.

But 2012 also saw Snask and Brikk let loose their unique flavour of creativity for OFFF Lille’s main titles, and Rob Chiu competed a trilogy for OFFF on Tour with a coming-of-age tale for OFFF Mexico, titled Once, When We Were Young. HelloHikimori, meanwhile, took on OFFF Istanbul.

2011: PostPanic and Si Scott

Written by Mischa Rozema and British graphic designer Si Scott, PostPanic’s dark OFFF Barcelona 2011 main titles (above) were shot on location in Prague, with post carried out back in Amsterdam. Spanish studio Vasava paid homage to the craft of creativity with a beautiful set of main titles for OFFF Cincinnati 2011.

2010: Julien Vallée

2010 saw The Mill creating underwater magic for OFFF Paris, while Julien Vallée’s hand can clearly be seen in the OFFF Paris 2010 sponsors titles, above.

2009: Kyle Cooper

Prologue's Kyle Cooper, Ilya Abulhanov and Elizabeth Newman combined stunning cinematography with strong type and minimalist graphic forms to create a mysterious sequence, set in a guerrilla future, for OFFF Barcelona 2009.

2008: Rob Chiu and Chris Hewitt

In 2008, Rob Chiu and Chris Hewitt returned to build on the success of their 2007 titles for OFFF New York (below) with the opening titles for OFFF Lisbon (above).

2007: Sintelevision

Sintelevision used 3D anaglyph techniques in their 2007 OFFF Barcelona opening titles…

2006: Dvein

And here’s one of 2006’s open titles, created by talented Spanish studio Dvein.

2005: Re*Nascent

Dutch motion designer Joost Korngold, aka Re*Nascent, designed OFFF’s first ever open titles in 2005.

2004: Inksurge

In 2004, Manilla-based studio Inksurge created this experimental short film One Sip At A Time, which the team debuted at OFFF.

2003: Yoshi Sodeoka

Amit Pitaru, Tetsu Kondo and James Patterson made Wind, in 2003, and multidisciplinary artist and musician Yoshi Sodeoka created Remix 4000, which was later published in a DVD.

2002: Wences Sanz

After being invited to generate content for OFFF 2002’s video installation, GMUNK created three experimental pieces "for the love of OFFF and what it stands for". Meanwhile, Wences Sanz created DMSTK DV1 (above).

2001: WDDG

And finally, kicking things off for the first time is a plethora of work that premiered at OFFF 2001. WDDG’s classic CG piece Anamorph (above), Vir2L v4 - "the version than never went live" and GMUNK’s Areo Coagulum, a short film inspired by London culture.

Roll on May 2015 to find out what OFFF Barcelona 2015 has in store. Head over to the OFFF website for speaker and ticket information.

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Julia Sagar
Editor-in-chief retail

Julia is editor-in-chief, retail at Future Ltd, where she works in e-commerce across a number of consumer lifestyle brands. A former editor of design website Creative Bloq, she’s also worked on a variety of print titles, and was part of the team that launched consumer tech website TechRadar. She's been writing about art, design and technology for over 15 years.