from the evening on I will be available via this number. it’s my english mobile number. my german and my dutch mobile will be switched off.

I am a fanatic in taking pictures of other people. and sometimes I also love to play a role in my photography. yesterday my 3 buddies visited me to celebrate that I am going to london for couple weeks and we had a chance to capture the moment. the titel is ‘me and my bridesmaides’ because they wanna become the bridesmaides.

alex zurek, christian barden, me, oeskan demirdere
in a last supper moment

yesterday I have been close to the ‘apple store’ (may I really name it so?) in maastricht. I was passing by and was thinking about the store in san francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO

saturday - 10 am (they are opening the doors)

MAASTRICHT

thursday - 1 pm (I was standing there for 10 min and saw 2 people on the other side of the street)

it’s 4 am right now and I am at my apartment in maastricht. cleaning my ‘office’ (I use to call it so but it’s just the half of my livingroom) I had some unlabelled cd’s and found this content: lutz caesar (he is the one who took the picture of me you can see above, in the head), sebastian mueller, ulrich bartholomös (camera boy), kolja hebenstreit (sleeping) and me enjoying a sunny morning (I guess it was april 2007, about 8am) on a rooftop in berlin (recognize the main station and the ‘reichstag’). yeah, it was a funny and eventful morning (and night)..

the first scream is mine

on my way back from amsterdam I made a little stopover in utrecht (in my opinion the most beautiful city of the netherlands) and visited stephan siepermann in his studio. he studied at the design academy in eindhoven and graduated in 2005. since then he is working on his furniture and his lamps and he would never do something which doesn’t work and make any sense. high scores for functionality! but his designs need to have a link in the name like his duct’ chairs which are made of duct tape. just to make clear what kind of material he used. maybe because people should know what they buy. yes, stephan is as honest as his designs - a laid-back ex-wuppertaler (a city in west germany where he was born) who is satisfied when he gets the chance to go fishing with his fellas and who is all the while playing drums in a band. and for me he is superman because I understood ’superman’ and not ’siepermann’ when he introduced himself on a party in cologne. that’s where we met the first time, at the furniture fair in cologne in the begin of the year.

stephan siepermann

eating pancakes in front of the studio (we know whats good)

inside the studio

ript’ chairs and accicantelly candleholder

‘design is just a hobby’ - a stephan siepermann statement in 2008

draw yourself

stephan use to steal all hammers from a building site at his parents home when he was a kid

describe yourself in one word

‘playful’

draw your favourite product

his boat

his real name is maurits van de grift (so typical dutch) he loves girls and loves to dj. the first time that I heard about him was when I became a fan of strfckr on myspace. the 2 meter man with the long hair (he was brushing his hair 2 times while we were sitting in the meander office) actually wanted to became a fashion designer in his younger days but realized, after 2 years of study, that there is no adequate mission in the fashion world for him. being a dj is what he intends and even his mum is proud of her ‘little’ boy. oslo hilton started with hip hop in the 90ies but now his style is multidisciplinary without minimal (he hates it). amsterdam is his homebase but he would love to travel the world and spin the records everywhere. the strfckr dude is a darling who prepared egg salad sandwiches for me, a passion we have in common, and took me out to the paradiso club where we had some vodka and were dancing to hip hop and pop music. my final words: if life could be a strfckr song I would choose ‘I hate the 80ies‘.

olso hilton

oslo hilton wodka

polaroids on his wall

oslo at his desk in the club meander, this desktop background is the dutch female hockey team

maurits at home

draw yourself

oslo - the falco fan

describe yourself in one word

‘lieferd’ with an f, means ’sweetheart’ in dutch

draw your favourite product

he said: it’s his best-selling product!

for any booking requests contact the thriller agency

phillip schüller is a fashion designer. after graduating in 2007 he worked as a designer for h&m in stockholm. now he is back in amsterdam and works for elle fashion. he loves his 512 ipod shuffle because it’s already an classic.

(I guess lena and jens gonna laugh about the titel)

I’ve been in amsterdam for 2 days and was invited to a dinner at an agency where friends of mine are working - lena steinborn is my ex-roomate (I’ve lived with some people) and jens erfurth is her boyfriend. he is actually the one who introduced me to lena. both studied graphic design at the academy maastricht. lena was a fulltime student and jens was there for a exchange semester. they did their internships in amsterdam and after graduating in 2007 they both moved to the capital of the netherlands. now they even are colleagues at the atelier van gog, which calls itself a creative platform. so isn’t that a real couple?

real

lena steinborn

jens erfurth

lena and jens with wouter overhaus, founder of atelier van gog en designer of the kitsch kitchen corporate identity

jens and wouter as a playing card

lena’s desk

inside the studio

outside the studio - at the veemarkt, an industrial area in amsterdam

while you are studying you meet a lot people who are working in different disciplines. after a while you become a part of diverse projects. here is one of daniel van hauten. and I am the one you shouldn’t argue with. haha

Made in China “Action Trailer” from Daniel van Hauten on Vimeo.

next screening: trash film awards, berlin, 13.09.08

one of my favourite audio books is ‘generation golf’ from florian illies, a german journalist and author. ‘generation golf‘ is about life in the 80ies.(unfortunatly there is no english edition) florian is describing things exactly how I remember them while growing up. one thing I remeber is that he says that people who use to have leonardo glass (awful!) in the 80ies are buying alessi (no comment) in the 90ies. so what do people now? ikea glasswear? anyways, I found this illustration in the titanic magazine, a german satire mag. it declares everything. life is full of irony.

‘it’s from alessi’

I am living in a flat close to the city centre of maastricht. (some people allege that I just live here for 3 months p. a. - how come? at least I am a domestic person) within 3 years I moved 3 times but I spend the last 2 years in this apartment. jasper mueller was the first guy I lived with and then nika rams took his place. but during the last years I’ve spend my main time with miriam hartwig and anna pors. miriam graduated in fashion in 2007 and anna is studying video at my academy. miriam already moved out (last friday) and will be in new york for a month. she wants to visit some friends and say hello to her beloved city. anna will be in south africa for a half year. she is doing her internship at egg films. my plans are to be in london for the next 2 months and to do my internship at dezeen, online magazine for design & architecture. these pictures were the last one we took together. on a field, on a couch. very spontanious. but good.

coolest street in town

I have been at the highfield festival last weekend. weather wasn’t bad and people were flaunting their tshirts. most of them from bands, festivals or concerts. maybe to make converstation easier. I give you an example: ‘hey, I also saw madonna live in 1989 - great. let’s get wasted!’

the official festival shirt - cheap, easy to clean and comfortable

my favourite - ‘take a sip of sonic youth‘ - I want!

the indifferent - no public statement and not interested in a conversation

good one - I even like the fotos sometimes.

these girls have a lot in common - they live together, studied together and graduated together. they know what they want. they are demanding. but they are interested in different disciplines. severine jessen is the fashion designer, her collection was choosen to be 1 of the 20 best graduates at lichting, a talent show in the netherlands. she did her internship at spijkers en spijkers and found out that she wants to make her own fashion. eefje schenk is the product designer but prefers to say that she is occupied with concept design. she wants that single components are coming together in a natural way. things work together when they just happen. in her object, a sofa which seems to be a perspective drawing, she used her personal space, a room and combined it with a drawing. it’s kinda way of thinking she was skilled by jurgen bey in her internship. she could have done her internship abroad but she feels home in dutch design. meyke link is the textile designer. when she started to study at the academy she not even knew that there is a hole department for textile. she was fascinated by the possibilites of combining material, even in a graphic sens. putting elements together and developing new materials are a challenge and if she could choose she would arrange restaurants, hotels and any other spaces with her aesthetic concept. after working for kamer465 she find out that styling is not her will. but a desire is even an exhibition in a gallery.

now they are planning to exhibit at the dutch design week at the strijp-s in october in eindhoven. they want to present their individual work as a independant group and since today they call themself officialy demeisjes, which means ‘the girls’ in dutch.

severine jessen - fashion

;pojmannaja babotschka’ (butterfly caught) - collection, the bag

eefje schenk - product

‘3d>2d>3d’ - concept couch ‘untitled document’

meyke link - textile

‘the one’ - no correct repetition

the girls in front of their house

draw yourself

severine - eefje - meyke

describe/draw yourself in one word

something that has to come out - room - detail

draw your favourite product

signet ring - elements of a room - pencil

reinder dam works as a pedagogue. but in his spare time he use to spin some records. his favourite is ‘bingo palace - live at the bingo palace‘, a gift from sasha crnobrnja better know as in flagranti.

there are so many people who romanticize the helvetica. a typeface that affected the life of millions. most, in typeface interested folks, know the helvetica documentary by gary hustwit. now he decided to make a movie about industrial design (I would also mention product design). about the people behind the products you use. to name just a few examples: ronan and erwan bouroullec from paris, jonathan Ive from apple, marc newson from london and hella jongerius from rotterdam. the title is objectified. things are seldom that unambiguous. the movie is currently in production and will have its world premiere in early 2009.

objectified logo by build

marc newson - lockheed lounge

hella jongerius - office pets

ronan and erwan bouroullec - rocks

jonathan ive - iphone

what’s the perfect banana? the brown one, the green one or the yellow one?! people like this fruit in a different way. I prefer a green banana because a brown pulpy banana made me throw up in my childhood. and now my life is affected by a paranoia. and how can people eat a fried banana (this one is even with ice cream ahhh)? you get these often in a chinese restaurant as a dessert. that gives me the creeps. anyway, I am in the mood of some banana topics because I found 2 pictures of bananas in my archive while I’ve been working on a new portfolio.

how to make a gun out of a banana? I am curios what kind of ammo I need for this one

here is the proof: bananas aren’t always curved

yo get what you see - banana juice - clever packaging from naoto fukasawa

the banana wall, an installation from stefan sagmeister - I never expected him to do something like this - but you never can tell

I was really fighting with myself about posting or not posting this, but I need to show it. obviously its a german invention (or a chinese one). and how can they write ‘ ideal for kindergarden, school..’ - I would never give that thing in the hand of my child. it looks so kinky it cries out for a reference in an ann summers or beate uhse catalogue.

banana bunker by erro ‘design’ - be ashamed when you carry this in your bag

last night I have been at the nike store opening in berlin mitte. a nice store and a bunch of people wearing nikes. artwork of diffrent creatives were shown. could not find something that I liked but one. there was this sarah illenberger creation and I immediatly had to think about my beloved maurice scheltens. it’s not that sarah is coping him but I see a striking resemblance (I guess I see a link between the work in the nike store and the one maurice did for psp. check my post from february about maurice’s work) I do not need to say that the dutch wins again, its obvious that he is stronger by use of form. maurice is doing that with an easiness and without adding any unnecessary extras.

sarah illenberger in the nike store berlin

sarah illenberger - mc forest

sarah illenberger - lauter nette kerle

SARAH ILLENBERGER

VS

MAURICE SCHELTENS

maurice scheltens - nike (hey, everbody wanna work for them)

maurice scheltens - fantastic man packing

maurice scheltens - audi

WHAT DO YOU PREFER?

I am back from poland (my stomach is resting from the vodka and the food masses) and in berlin right now. enjoying the big city feeling - a huge contrast to the little village I ‘ve been in the last days. I will go on with the fun time. that’s what I need right now. lalala

no post in 3 days - why? I am in poland, swiebodzice (my place of birth) and celebrating a 4 day marathon of 2 weddings. first vodka at 4 pm the last one 12 hours later in the morning (but the constantly served food helps to handle it) I’ve been at a lot german weddings but there is no comparison to a real polish one, which is full of love and warmth and a lot of laughter.

weronika and andrzej

the bridegroom has to take of the bride’s suspender with his teeth (one of the funny games you do for entertaining the guests)