Inside OFFF Montréal 2025: A guide to the global design festival’s first local edition

The global design festival OFFF has finally made it to Montreal, and if we're being honest? It’s about time.

For over two decades, this event has been drawing artists, motion designers, and digital dreamers to cities like Barcelona, Mexico City, and Vienna. Montreal, with its creative depth and design-forward DNA, always felt like a natural next stop.

From September 8 to 9, 2025 (plus some pre-festival workshops and activities that begin September 7), OFFF lands at the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) downtown with days of talks, workshops, and community-driven creative chaos.

Whether you work in Figma or After Effects, you're focused on brand building for a living or just want to see what the future of design looks like, here’s everything you need to know about this upcoming event.

What Is OFFF?

In short, OFFF is part design conference, part cultural gathering, and part creative playground. For over two decades, the festival has brought together leading-edge thinkers and visual innovators from around the world to share ideas, processes, and provocations.

The Montreal edition is no exception. Our city's creative industry has long punched above its weight—known for its branding chops, immersive experiences, game design, and visual storytelling. With OFFF finally landing here, it’s not just a global design moment—it’s a local one too.

For the first time ever in this city, it’ll showcase global studios and local voices in digital art, branding, motion design, creative tech, and beyond—while weaving in the city’s collaborative spirit and love for community-building.

🧠 Talks, lineup & key speakers

The two-day main event is packed with creative leaders from every corner of the design world, including motion designers, branding studios, digital artists, and conceptual storytellers. Here are a few highlights from the 2025 lineup:

• Found (London): Known for “intelligent beauty” in 3D content and high-concept campaigns for Apple, Ralph Lauren, and more.
• Tendril (Global): Masters of design-driven storytelling and cutting-edge animation.
• Alexandre Tamisier (Paris/Toronto): A simulation-savvy motion designer diving into Houdini’s new Flow Solver.
• Territory Studio (London/San Francisco/Barcelona): The UI and motion graphics powerhouse behind Blade Runner 2049 and Avengers: Endgame.
• Caserne (Montreal): Local studio legends and the team behind Forum, co-hosting community events with OFFF.

• Véronique Lemieux (Montreal): Sustainability-driven winemaker and rooftop vineyard pioneer blending permaculture with design thinking.
• Lo Siento (Barcelona): Fusing graphic and industrial design with an artisan sensibility.
• Volvox Labs (NYC): New media artists exploring where digital meets physical.
• StudioRoses (Spain): Palma de Mallorca-based studio known for minimalist, conceptual work across identity and editorial design.
• Will MacNeil (London): Award-winning creative director crafting data-driven design, Olympic-scale installations, and playful, participatory tools.
• Vallée Duhamel (Montreal): Local duo of creative directors twisting everyday objects into surreal, lo-fi, high-impact visual stories with AI experimentation.

Talks will take place inside the SAT, creating a distinctly experimental, sensory, and collaborative atmosphere for OFFF.

Workshops, creative labs & beyond design

OFFF Montréal isn’t just for sitting back and soaking it in—you’ll get your hands dirty too. These sessions often sell out, so don’t sleep on booking early.

Confirmed workshops:

• Designing Collective Experiences with a Human-Centered Approach is a free workshop led by Simon Garant, a Creative Director at Moment Factory, where participants will explore how audiences shape immersive storytelling through real-world projects and a live design challenge.
• The Robots Are Here is a collaborative session hosted by Volvox Labs and UFACTORY that dives into how robotics are entering everyday life—and how creatives can help shape that future with intention and imagination.
• Creative Wine Lab with Véronique Lemieux of Vignes en Ville invites you to design your own wine label from scratch and share your creative process with the group, blending sustainability, storytelling, and visual identity.

OFFF Montréal is also teaming up with Forum by Caserne to host a series of casual, community-minded events including a creative run, a designer soccer match, and a DJ-fuelled block party. These all double as networking ops and a laid-back counterpoint to the typical industry conference.

Tickets & access

OFFF Montréal tickets are on sale now via the official site.

You can grab:

• General Admission for full access to talks
• Workshop Add-Ons for smaller breakout sessions
• Community Activity RSVP via co-hosts like Caserne and Moment Factory

Sign up early—capacity at the SAT is limited, and OFFF tends to sell out in most cities it visits.

Where to eat and stay around OFFF

As OFFF Montréal takes place at the Société des arts technologiques (SAT), it's right on the edge of downtown and the Quartier des Spectacles. That puts you in prime territory for some of the city’s best food, drink, and design-forward hotels.

To eat

From OFFF Montréal's homebase, there are lots of good restaurants in downtown Montreal and a some of the best Chinese restaurants in Montreal nearby.

Head up to Bouillon Bilk or its more casual counterpart Cadet for refined plates and one of Montreal’s most respected wine lists. Grab a daytime bite at Café SAT or upstairs social club Pavillon, the in-house café serving up coffee, lunch, and local beers. Tiramisu, La Capital Tacos and Poincaré Chinatown are some other solid picks for laid-back apéro and bites.

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To stay

You’re spoiled for sleep options nearby, as you'll be near some of the best hotels in Montreal. For immediate nearby recommendations, Hotel Monville brings Scandi-modern rooms and tech-savvy check-ins just a few blocks away. For something artsier, Hôtel Zéro1 is right across the street and known for its creative crowd. And if you’re leaning full design luxury, Humaniti Hotel Montreal delivers it with sharp architecture and rooftop pool access.

Wherever you land, you’ll be close enough to walk—and far enough to wind down.

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