Category: Communication Design

1. Andrey Sudarikov: was a Russian designer which focussed on AR, Interaction and Game Design. He talked about very big and international design projects. A project which sticked to my mind the most was the one about the museum, where he tried to make exhibitions interesting for everyone.
   
2. Saskia Schmidt: talked about her path of being a graphic designer and at the end about working independently. I loved her style of presentation and the insights and tipps she gave us.
   
3. Astrid Kury: is the director of Akademie Graz and talked about how important it is to collaborate in our community. You can create unique solutions with different expertises, which is also important to me.
   
4. Florian Doppel-Prix: he showed the importance of working with a concept. He gave some interesting insights of his projects and I really like his sentence about „everything is manageable“.
   
5. Burcin Cem Arabacioglu: he made clear that designers have a great impact about presenting sustainability and passing it on to other people. 
   
6. Sylwia Ulicka: this lecture was unfortunately a bit hard to follow and I kinda struggled to get everything she said. But it was interesting to hear her opinion on material culture and that we should think and reflect about it more.
   
7. Ursula Tischner: her talk was about the topic sustainability, and designing sustainable systems and that we as designers should integrate it more in our designs that people can rethink their actions.
   
8. Anastasia and Martin Lesjak: they talked about their interdisciplinary studio in Graz and which projects they made so far. I liked the different fields they work in and how they for example combined architecture, exhibition design and fashion. 
   
9. Wolfgang Schlag: his lecture was about radio work and which was very interesting, because I don’t know a lot about it and its history. He also mentioned that he thinks radio will stay a long time even though there’s the Internet. 

Anastasija und Martin stellen in diesem Video das Architekturbüro Innocad und das Produktdesignstudio 13&9 vor. Die Arbeit der beiden Designer und deren Teams wurde mit vielen Awards ausgezeichnet. Bevor sie uns von drei sehr erfolgreichen Projekten erzählen, stellen sie ihre außergewöhnlichen und erwiesenen Arbeitsmethoden vor: Im der Arbeitsumgebung herrscht eine New Holism Mentalität. Diese zeichnet sich durch den transdisziplinären Zugang zu neuen Aufgabenstellungen aus. Dadurch und auch weil sie immer versuchen, sich auf alle Arten von Ergebnissen einzulassen, erzielen sie sehr innovative Resultate.

Sylwia gave an interesting talk about social responsibility and the consumption culture that we live today. She is a designer, researcher and lecturer. What drives her as a designer and when leading her students is the search for more sustainable ways of living. She dives in into the topic by defining what sustainable development is: 

„Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.“

Saskia Schmidt spricht in ihrer Lecture über ihre Anfänge in der Designbranche. Dabei lernen wir nicht nur sie und ihren Weg kennen sondern auch einige ihrer Projekte.

Angefangen hat alles in einer (für deutsche Maßstäbe) Kleinstadt in Deutschland, wo sie eine Gestalter-Ausbildung abschloss. Leider hatte sie nicht das Gefühl, genug über Kreativität gelernt zu haben und deswegen entschließt sie sich, ein Studium zu beginnen. Der Studiengang IND zeigt ihr Möglichkeiten und Gestaltungsbereiche, in welchen man später tätig sein könnte. Der Bereich, der Saskia am meisten interessiert, ist Branding und Markenbildung. 

First of all, I want to say that I liked the topics of the lectures in the course, and the way it was put at our disposal, because we had the flexibility to watch whoever we want, whenever we want, how many times we want.

And now a little bit about each lecture:

1.Andrey Sudarikov: I like the diversity of the topics he spoke about. He showed us how broad a field of implementation of augmented reality is, and how different projects develop over time, but also that sometimes spontaneous ideas and thoughts can turn out to be excellent projects. I like his positivity, and his enthusiasm for the tasks he worked on.

2.Saskia Schmidt: She was talking about her career and her life after she graduated from the FH, and it was really fun to listen. She also prepared a high-quality video, so I appreciate that she put so much time into it. It is always interesting to hear, a story of someone who went through something you are going through at the moment.

3.Astrid Kury: She gave insights on how important it is, to work with other creatives from other fields, because you have a wider field of work, and different perspectives, that combined give an excellent solution. For me, it was fascinating to watch all of the projects she showed, especially the one about “Casa Carlota” and the process of equal exchange.

4.Florian Doppel Prix: He pointed out that it is crucial to include all aspects of perception in your work to make it complete, and he also gave some insights on his projects, so we could see what happens behind the scenes. He spoke about his works in a relaxed and fun way, so it was a pleasure to listen to him.

5.Burcin Cem Arabacioglu: He gave some meaningful insights into the future of sustainable cities and interior design. He talked about problems in megacities like Istanbul, he is living in. He pointed out that just a few percents of owners hire professionals for designing an interior of skywalkers and buildings, even though they may have a solution for making big cities sustainable, so many solutions remain unconscious.

6.Sylwia Ulicka: I have to say, for me, this lecture was a bit hard to follow, so I had to listen more times, but it was worth it. The topics she was talking about are very important for the future of our society, and we should all question some things she mentioned, like society and the values of the world we are living in.

7.Ursula Tischner: She gave a detailed overview of the topic of sustainability, and designing sustainable systems. She mentioned some facts everyone should be aware of, like that global overshoot day happens earlier every year, that Indium and other precious metals will soon no longer exist on this planet, that there is already a water crisis, that 75% of the fish population is gone, that 70% of fresh water in the US is used for livestock production, etc.

8.Anastasia and Martin Lesjak: They inspired me with their transdisciplinary team and their extraordinary ides. They showed how successful working in such a diverse community can be.

9.Wolfgang Schlag: I enjoyed watching this lecture as well, because I got to know the history of the radio as a media. It was amusing to hear about radio station takeover in 1934 and again in 2000. He pointed out, that he believes the radio will stay alive, even in the era of the internet, because it stays politically important media, today as it was in the time of war when it was necessary to inform people in a very short form on the actual ongoing situation. He believes that with the radio, you can create a special world, like in the example of a concert through the radio, so the radio will definitely survive.

Innocad und 13&9 sind ein interdisziplinäres Büro mit Sitz im „Golden Nugget“ in Graz. Ihre Hauptdisziplinen stellen sich aus Architektur, Sound Design, Interior Design, Product Design und Research zusammen. 

First of all, I would like to say that the form in which the course was held appealed to me very much. Not only is it possible to repeat interesting passages more often this way, it also gives you the flexibility to carefully pick the content you want to focus on.

There were so many different topics, but the one thing that connects all of them is mindfulness. You really have to get to the root of something to fully understand a problem and how it can be solved in the best way possible. This means you have to be willing to do your research before you can get to the point of actively working on a solution. A nice little anecdote that points to this kind of troubleshooting was when Andrey Sudarikov told us about the problem he had with the internet connection that had worked before but didn’t anymore, when there were many people at the exhibition who had their phone wifi turned on. Sometimes the solutions are obvious, sometimes you have to consult experts. Vanity doesn’t help a problem solving process at all — it’s about the realization whether you can do a task alone or if you need help. In many cases, interdisciplinary approaches may add great value to the process, as Astrid Kury ans Anastasia Lesjak suggested. 

What I personally liked a lot is that sustainability was mentioned very often throughout various lectures, for example when Burçin Cem Arabacıoglu talked about the importance of sustainability within urban planning. Ursula Tischner also mentioned sustainable design, which should not only be an attractive option for the designer, but also needs to be accepted and recognized by the users. Sylwia Ulicka wants designers to question societies and and the values of the world they’re living in. Everything is relative, as we know. 

I also liked Florian Doppel-Prix’ approach to focus on the concept and not going for the easiest option. Everything is manageable.

Wolfgang Schlag’s lecture about radio work told us about the impact of the medium on people’s perception of social and political issues. 

Since I watched three lectures and wrote the longer essays about them quite a while a go I managed to watched all the others in the mean time. 

So here are my short comments on the missing ones:

Burçin Cem Arabacıoglu
Burçin talked about architecture and urban planning and why sustainability is a crucial aspect concerning it. I liked his idea of designers educating common people about sustainibility. 

Florian Doppel-Prix
Florian talked a lot about the importance of concepts. What was quite memorizable for me was his saying that nothing is easy, but everything is manageable. 

Astrid Kury
Astrid talked about the importance of collaborations between different creatives and I liked her thought of sharing ideas rather than keeping them secret. Together it is easier to make progress than it is all alone. 

Andrey Sudarikov
Andrey is a Russian interaction designer who talked about three of his projects. I liked the third one the most, because the idea of engaging (young) people to join exhibitions is something that is really significant in my opinion.

Ursula Tischner
Ms. Tischner was speaking about the importance of the acceptance of sustainable design by the users. She also adressed all the designers to make sustainable solutions attractive options for them. 

Thanks for reading,
Julian 🙂

To start off, I’d like to say that I loved the diversity of lectures, and also the applicability of the chosen topics. 

First of all, I want to say that I liked the structure of this course and that the videos were accessible all the time and we could choose when we want to watch them. I guess this could also be a good possibility for this course in the future, because it’s not always necessary to meet in person and it saves everyone a lot of time.