This year’s iteration of Offset may have moved to a later date in the calendar than we were accustomed to, but still takes place in the familiar surrounds of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Grand Canal Square and still hosts the now to-be-expected stellar line-up form all corners of the creative universe. Since we last met up with Offset, they’ve spread their wings and launched their first international venture, with Offset London taking place last November. Unlike certain other conferences that bring the world to Dublin (ahem), the team still see our city as their home and this edition of Offset will feature over 20 speakers on its main stage across three days, over 2,500 attendees through its doors, probably as many post-presentation pints and chats in the Ferryman and doubtless ten times as many ideas inspired by a line-up that is guaranteed to not disappoint. Continuing our look at some of the highlights of the line-up from Offset 2016, we take a look at the 4Creative.
4Creative
The work of 4Creative is immediately familiar to a huge audience, though perhaps without them knowing it. As the in-house agency of British television company Channel 4, 4Creative work has been layered into British – and Irish – viewers of television entertainment for decades, developing new identities which have become instantly familiar.
Channel 4’s position as both part of the broadcasting establishment and the most anti-establishment part of it has a peculiar Britishness to it. Since the channel was established in the early 1980s it has had a brief to be experimental, to increase coverage of minorities, to champion the arts on a nationwide scale while still ultimately remaining a populist, commercially-funded operation in a way that is unique in today’s fractured media landscape.
Headed up by joint-chiefs Chris Bovill and John Allison, 4Creative manages a staff of about 40 designers, directors, producers and writers who create advertising, promotion and branding for a variety of products for the various products of the Channel 4 empire – Channel 4 itself, E4, More 4 and Film 4. This encompasses everything from the easy-watching of Come Dine With Me to mind-numbing reality produce like Big Brother to Channel 4’s own presentation of sports like the Paralympics.
Defining the Channel 4 aesthetic to an audience who is already intimately familiar with it is fundamental to 4Creative’s work. The biggest challenge undertaken under Bovill and Allison’s watch so far has been the rebrand of the main station last year which saw them do deconstruct and reconfigure the classic Lambie-Nairn ‘4’ image, whose nine-figure puzzle had been central to the station’s image for 30 years. The project saw them collaborate with the director Jonathan Glazer (known for Under the Skin as well as iconic music videos), graphic designer and former Offset speaker Neville Brody and composer Mica Levi (of Micachu and the Shapes) on the campaign.
While 4Creative’s focus is on the medium through which it mainly works – television – it is not limited to that. Having won such acclaim for their work – not to mention a handful of D&AD awards along the way – they’ve been sourced by external clients for collaboration too, creating campaigns for Stand Up To Cancer amongst others.
