The end....
I have finally made it to the point in my communication design study where I am done with all official courses and "just" have to tackle that last project to get my diplom degree for design (german degree somewhere in the middle between bachelor and master). For much too long I sat in those rooms and listened to various people telling me about the tricks and tools of the design trade. I have listened to endless theories and have been involved in so many projects in the meantime that I lost count - and let me tell you not all where inspiring or cool or hip (designing the corporate identity for a tv channel for people over 50 is definitely in the unhip category - but was still quite fun). There have been projects that where utterly cool at the time (one of the first was realizing a marketing campaign for a new cigarette brand - the outcome where some hilarious short cinema commercials and a poster campaign - after a frustrating week of yelling at each other in the team) and some that never made much sense but brought my thinking much forward (the invisible interface for the project "Inhalt im Rauschen" programmed with max/msp/nato 0.55++).
Overall I can say yes I have learned a lot in my school time - about a third from my teachers, a third from my fellow students and a third from the actual projects. So I still don´t agree with the school policy to force you to take some courses that absolutely where horrible and made you really think twice if design is what you want to do the rest of your life. Yet I am happy to have been through it and despite the last project in front of me I can look into a future in my trade with a lot fundation to draw upon.
I would like to take that space here to thank a couple of people who guided me through, have been inspirational or fun to work with.
Teachers: Prof. Michael Bette for enlighting me on the concepts of color and psycholigic perception of the world. Prof. Angelika Margull for not getting tired showing me how to draw, Prof. Klaus Dufke for his dedication to the moving image medium (even so I am in disagreement of some of the pop.culture concepts of him, his dedication is admiring), Prof. Betina Müller for dedication of detailed Typography - even so I have not finished the last two projects I have learned soo much about Typography in her courses and I even like Typography and I think that is a result of her teaching, Prof. Matthias Krohn for the low-profile approach to design and the systematic dissection of the creative process and last but not least the youngest Prof. Boris Müller for actually getting some vibe going at the school again and encouraging me to stick through the final courses.
Students: Annett, Katja, Wibke, fRED, Michel, Olli & Sven, Andre, Alex, Mythos, Beppel, Steffen, Jörg, Björn and Stex and all those that I properly can´t think of right now but have been equally important - feel thanked for the great very inspirational fun time inside and outside school with you. The lengthy hot discussions long wakefull nights and the final sometimes beyond strange projects will stay in my mind for the years to come.
I hope for a bright future for all of us so that all the suffering actually made some sense.