In February this year, our content team joined 3,000 creative professionals at Graphika Manila, an annual event on creativity held in the Philippines.

In addition to learning about creativity from design agencies around the world, we peeked into exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage from CGI studios Weta Digital, Midnight Sherpa and Luma Pictures. These studios shared realistic animations and visual effects were made for several major superhero movies, such as Guardians of The Galaxy II and Spiderman: Homecoming.

Their attention to detail was amazing as they digitally created entire worlds from scratch, only to be seen on the big screen for a couple of seconds.

Here are some memorable moments from Graphika Manila 2018:

“Bite-sized content is the new still image”

The Purrington twins of Golden Wolf Studios shared this mantra, especially for social media content. The London-based character and motion design company is known for their viral animated GIFs, which started out as fun in-house projects that led to them working with Disney.

For them, social media is about convincing someone to share and have a conversation. We can do this by going beyond the single still photo format for your social media post. Think short films, doodle videos, motion graphics, multiple photo slides, GIFs or animation. Moving visuals or graphics attract people to share your content and get them talking.
 
The “feels” of humanity

In content marketing and design, being human is the goal in getting your content noticed (preach it!).

Whether you’re an agency or a one-man show selling personal work like New York-based graphic designer, Adam J. Kurtz, there should be authenticity behind your content that can inspire people to relate and engage. Pair that with unexpected mediums– in Adam’s case, it was mugs, balloons and pencils – to magnify the reach of your content.

Ben Hughes of content and digital agency, Stink Studios in New York, also emphasized on the “feels”.“Great design is when facts and feels are in sync”, he said. Merging both is the recipe to create meaningful engagement with your audience.

Let happy accidents happen
Lettering artist Alex Trochut believes that though knowledge is power, ignorance is also power, as some work evolved by accident. For instance, he came up with a scratched denim logo for the band, Arcade Fire, with accidental scratches on his jeans one day.

Be open to where your inspiration may come from. It may actually give you new ways to communicate your ideas or content objectives.

There’s value in the effort, time and expertise offered

Every creative professional will at some point face with clients who have a small budget for a complex project. The issue is not because it can’t be done, but rather because the work requires time, effort and expertise the creative professional has to offer to get the job done.

This was a reminder from Chris Do, an Emmy award-winning designer, brand strategist, and educator and founder of The Futur, an online platform teaching creative professionals the business of design.

Before creating any content, creative professionals need to understand their clients: who they are, what they want and need, what’s at stake if they win/lose, and how you (as a creative professional) can help.
 

Each slide an ad

We were particularly blown away by some of the speakers’ presentation slides – no blah corporate slides were on display.

The most notable one was from Evan DeHaven, creative director for companies like 72andSunny, Nike and Ignition Interactive. You may have seen his work in at least 50% of films from Hollywood – movie posters, marketing campaigns to immersive “transmedia” content that covers every imaginable platform, both online and offline.

Needless to say, his slides really captured our attention with big bold fonts, clean lines, and stylish video backgrounds reminiscent of a Nike campaign. They were strong and memorable. Now, we’re inspired to up our PowerPoint game too! (Sorry, we were too mesmerised by his slides that we forgot to take photos. Oops.)