Uncommon Harvests Biological Traces From Creatives for OFFF Barcelona Campaign

​Uncommon Creative Studio is putting the creative community under the microscope in a campaign for OFFF Barcelona, one of the world’s leading creative festivals.

Titled ‘Cultured’, the work reframes creativity as a living system that grows through participation and shared agency, rather than dictated by platforms or trends.

To make that idea tangible, Uncommon invited members of the creative community into its London and New York studios and collected biological traces from shared surfaces, such as fibres, imprints, and fragments of presence. That material was then translated into a bespoke design system, with forms, textures, and patterns literally derived from the creative community itself.

A big part of the idea’s magic was the surprise element. None of the mixer participants knew they had been invited to Uncommon’s event so the agency could ‘harvest’ their biological samples.

“We've always loved heists and magic tricks,” says Nils Leonard, co-founder of Uncommon. “The idea that something else has always been at play, that there is a smarter narrative unfolding you can't quite grasp.

“How better to speak to the power of this community than to involve them (and their germs) in the branding itself?” he adds. “Some fun, but ultimately a beautiful sentiment under it and hopefully people really feel the aesthetic.”

The result is a visual language built from the literal imprint of the people it speaks to. Textures, patterns and motion all stem from these collected traces, turning something typically invisible into the foundation of the campaign’s aesthetic.

The thinking draws on Yves Klein’s 1958 exhibition ‘The Void’, which saw visitors file into an empty gallery, only to realise later they had unknowingly become part of the artwork itself. It’s something Nils has been “obsessed with” for years, and has written about in depth.

“The idea that our bodies and our actual selves could become the art has always fascinated me,” says Nils. “We'd wanted to invest more in the broader creative and design communities of OFFF as the festival approached, so the idea of 'Mixers' was born. Mixing in every sense and giving us a way to involve the community in a fun way they might not see coming.”

Typographically, the campaign is inspired by experimental, biomorphic letterforms and Modernisme. To bring the quiet logic of living systems into headlines and signage, the team developed a custom typeface, Hyphae, defined by the organic movement and asymmetrical balance typical of fungal networks.

“We always look for reference points in our work, and the canvas of OFFF as a festival is incredible,” says Nils. “For us it has always been the building itself, The Disseny Hub, and the chance to wrap it in something beautiful that compelled us to find something organic. Something that wasn't just original and beautiful, but also had an idea and a story baked in. How amazing it could be for a creative community to see some branding that they were a part of come to life at this scale.”

Strategically, the campaign pushes back against what Uncommon sees as a broader cultural moment in the design industry – one saturated with jargon, trend cycles, and external pressures that can make creativity feel abstract or disconnected. Instead, it positions creativity as something grounded in participation and responsibility.

OFFF also collaborated with artist Dasha Plesen, known for working with bacteria as a medium, to develop a wider library of textural imagery.

Uncommon was invited to design this year’s OFFF campaign in recognition of its exceptional design practice. The work will be unveiled personally by Nils at the start of the 2026 festival, with a large-scale projection onto Barcelona’s Disseny Hub, extending its reach beyond attendees to the wider public.

“Design is everything to the studio,” says Nils. “But we have always believed in design with a capital D. That everything can be designed. You can design conversation. You can design culture. And we have always enjoyed the tension between fame, noise and disruption and the design world.”

He is unsure why, but Nils feels very few studios ever play well in both worlds. “Design tends to be silently beautiful while brand work tends to pursue noise. We believe that true reference point work only exists when both worlds are borne in mind.

“This is a bit of fun in a serious and pretty dark world, with a positive message and a beautiful body language,” adds Nils. “Hopefully people agree. A simple message that we are all we have. That we are the scene we are looking for. And that we are enough.”