Random Connections: Immersive experience at OFFF 2025

At OFFF Barcelona 2025, we didn’t just show up—we built a space you could feel.

‍We were proud to be OFFF’s sponsors, marking our second time participating in the festival and reinforcing our commitment to innovation and the global creative community. OFFF offers not only inspiring talks, workshops and exhibitions but also a dynamic platform for professionals and enthusiasts to connect, learn, and discover the latest trends in digital design. ‍

As part of our participation as sponsors, we designed an immersive installation called Random Connections: three sensory tunnels created to explore what happens when we disconnect from digital noise and reconnect with ourselves—and others. Each space invited participants to pause, reflect, and experience human connection from a different angle.

The Mirror Tunnel – Face yourself. Really.

Walls of endless reflections. Shifting lights. A visual illusion that blurs the line between self and other. Are you looking, or being seen? Are you alone—or seeing yourself in a whole new way?.

‍The Play Room – Where freedom sounds like laughter

Light and sound in joyful chaos. A space to let go, play freely, and create without overthinking. Because sometimes, the best ideas start with not knowing what you're doing.

T‍he Wild Path – Nature, unfiltered

A tunnel full of plants, scent of earth, sound of stillness. This space doesn’t compete for your attention—it gives it back. Reconnecting with nature means returning to what’s instinctive, essential, and deeply human.

These three environments laid the emotional groundwork for what came next: a hands-on design thinking workshop where spontaneity, creativity, and real human interaction took center stage.

‍Random Connections Workshop

Following the immersive installation, we took the concept one step further.

We hosted Random Connections Workshop, a 3-hour immersive workshop designed to explore what happens when you mix spontaneity, creativity and human curiosity in just the right setting. This workshop was part of the vibrant lineup of the festival, which annually brings together designers, artists and visionaries from around the world to celebrate creativity, art and digital design.

When was the last time you started a conversation with a total stranger?. What if the most meaningful ideas and partnerships came from the most unexpected connections?. In a world ruled by algorithms and carefully curated interactions, we’re losing the art of the unexpected. But in this session, we brought it back—with laughter, movement, wild interviews and zero screens.

The Goal?: To create the conditions for unfiltered, real-time human interaction—the kind that sparks surprising insights, fresh perspectives and meaningful moments—while exploring how we might bring more of that into the festival experience.

Our challenge?: How might we encourage conversations among strangers at OFFF Festival?

What we found goes far beyond OFFF:

• People want to connect—but often struggle to move past small talk or break the ice. They feel uncertain, self-conscious, or worried about being judged. This hesitation makes it hard to open up and engage in deeper, more meaningful conversations.
• Attending solo makes it harder to approach others, especially when everyone seems to be in a group.
• Great conversations often never happen—simply because we don’t create the space and conditions for them to start.

How did we do it?

25 participants joined the session, coming from all over the world. Most were solo travelers, none of them knew each other beforehand and all brought diverse perspectives from across the design industry. 

We followed the design thinking process—empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, testing and storytelling.

1. Empathy: participants started by going out into the festival. Literally. They approached strangers and asked them how they were experiencing OFFF, what helped them connect with others and what held them back. No assumptions—just real conversations to understand real needs.
   
2. Definition:  after uncovering real needs from real people at OFFF,  each group crafted their own How might we... statement. Each team chose a specific target to design for and framed a challenge they were excited to solve. It gave focus and just the right energy to move ideas forward.
   
3. Ideation: back in the room, we mixed individual and collective exercises to ensure everyone found their own way to express ideas—visually, verbally or through sketches. This helped surface unexpected thoughts and inspired others to build on them.
   
4. Prototyping: in small teams, participants created fast, scrappy paper prototypes—simple ideas made tangible. They role-played their solutions, acted out scenarios and pushed ideas further through doing, not just talking.
   
5. Testing and refinement: ideas came alive during our "Prototype Gallery," where teams walked around, tested each other’s concepts and gathered feedback. It wasn’t just about refining ideas—it was about learning from reactions, laughter, confusion and excitement. To make it more random, we introduced the game "Modifiers: You can only...". Each group selected a modifier and applied it to the rest of the teams for 30 seconds. These modifiers added a layer of unpredictability and encouraged participants to embrace improvisation, loosen up and break away from conventional communication patterns. For example: whisper mode, fake foreign language or one word each – you can only speak one word at a time, taking turns.
   
6. Storytelling: each group then presented their prototype through a quick role-play and elevator pitch. The goal? Share their visions, inspiring others and bringing the ideas to life in a way that felt human, fun and rooted in real insights.

Creating the right atmosphere:

We knew that for real creativity and connection to flow, energy matters. So we created a rhythm for the session—alternating between play and focus, movement and reflection.

• The unofficial start. As people arrived, we invited them to co-create the “Wall of Fame” : a poster space where they drew a self-portrait, shared their name, contact info and current creative obsession. It set the tone: low-pressure, high-expression, open to serendipity.
  
• Exchanging cards. To help break the ice, we used our newly designed deck of “Would You Rather…” cards. 

Would you rather be stuck in a super long meeting or stuck in a super slow elevator? Would you rather erase your worst memory or relive your best one?

The instructions to answer these questions were simple:

1. Ask your question to someone you don’t know in the room.
2. Let the conversation flow and answer a question back.
3. Switch your card with your new connection.
4. At the end, look at the color of your card—this is your new group.

This sort of light questions gave room to foster connections among the participants and made them feel closer to each other.
Strangers became teammates. The room softened. Curiosity took over. 

• The setting. We carefully selected music that matched the pace and nature of each activity, helping to create an engaging and motivating atmosphere. Additionally, we provided sugary snacks to give participants a quick energy boost, keeping everyone active and focused during the sessions.
  
• Gamification experience. We introduced a points-based system to make the experience more enjoyable and competitive, encouraging friendly rivalry and active participation from all attendees.

Spreading the randomness of meeting new people

We wanted to extend the randomness beyond the walls of the workshop—so we turned our warm-up cards into a festival-wide challenge. Participants were encouraged to keep the momentum going: hand the card over to someone new, take a photo together, connect and embrace the randomness.

It wasn’t just a one-time thing. We kept the spirit alive throughout all three days of the festival—encouraging unexpected encounters not only during the session, but in between talks, wandering through the venue or exploring our interactive stand.

Why this matters at work, too:

Whether you're bringing new team members on board, driving change or collaborating across teams, building real connections is what helps everyone thrive together. When people meet across silos, titles and disciplines, they bring more empathy creativity, and energy to how they work together.

Some of the ideas that emerged were about intentionally designing the moments where connection happens—for example, making it easier to identify people with shared interests, moods or intentions. Others focused on creating physical spaces dedicated to sparking spontaneous conversations and making those moments more visible and welcoming.

Random Connections acts as a cultural catalyst—helping teams break patterns, reconnect with their intuition and embrace playful risk-taking as part of innovation. Because sometimes, a trace of laughter or an unexpected question can do more than a strategy deck ever could.

One of our favorite moments?

Participants hanging out long after the session ended—still talking, exchanging contacts, and building on ideas they had just prototyped. That’s the kind of ripple effect we’re here for.

‍Curious how this kind of experience could support collaboration or culture change in your team or organization?

Let’s connect.