We attended a D&AD President’s Lecture last night as part of the LIVERPOOL DESIGN SYMPOSIUM. It’s one we’ve been looking forward to for a while as we haven’t been to a Michael Wolff talk before. And everyone we know who has would tell us how it brilliant they are. Well, they were right. Is was that good.

We had to think back afterwards to how many hour-and-a-half auditorium talks we’ve been to before where there wasn’t any visual content projected onto a screen. The answer was none. Last night’s talk was done in Q&A format with CREATIVE REVIEW’S Patrick Burgoyne, and was more about Michael himself than the work he’s done. And for that hour and a half, the audience seemed to hang on his every word. We know we did. He came across like a kind of spiritual guru, sharing knowledge with his followers. Who needs fancy visuals?

A lot of what Michael talked about was the need for common sense, value, simplicity and a human approach to design, and life in general for that matter. We won’t go into too much detail, as the talk was filmed by Dion at D&AD so we’re sure you’ll be able to see it yourself online very soon.

What was nice to see last night was the large Manchester presence. The task of getting Manchester creatives to events outside their own city has been described in the past as ‘incredibly difficult’. They must have been told how brilliant a Michael Wolff talk is too.

Thoughtful thanks to Michael for sparing a few moments at the end to chat to us.