Working has to be Inspiring, Create an Emotion and Make a Difference
Design School Kolding has most certainly helped us define our professional life, on one hand because of the professional skills we acquired, but also because this is where our working partnership originated.
We had both decided that our first step into a life of creativity was going to be a design education at the school, and we set our sight firmly on the Visual Communication line. The main attraction for us was Design School Kolding’s reputation as a creative and conceptual incubator with a high professional level. The unique study environment at the school, where all work takes place at the school, provided the framework for us to immerse ourselves totally in the subject from morning until midnight while at the same time being inspired by incredible fellow students.
Our collaboration began in earnest in the third year of our studies 2001/2002. We were the promoters of the school’s first visit to China with the project ’Designer Upside Down’ – a collaborative effort across the entire third-year class. Our aim was to challenge the usual focus on London or New York and instead look towards the East to be inspired by a completely different culture and approach to design. The desire to go against the tide, to create our own obstacles in order to face something new, has clearly always been a driver for us. In many ways, this is also the key motivation in our partnership in OddFischlein. Ever since we started working together we have always managed to build a creative space where ideas and approaches have challenged and cross-pollinated each other – and grown into new and better hybrids. On one hand, we are quite different personalities who approach things very differently (something like creative Icelandic lava versus cultivated Jutland soil) – and on the other hand, we are also like a set of twins who knows what the other one is thinking – a little like a long-time married couple in matching tracksuits, who finishes each other’s sentences.
For our graduation project we developed the business plan and the visual identity for OddFischlein and surfaced in the business world as self-appointed visual mates. Without any real experience running a business we took the plunge and were lucky from the start to track down some projects in the fields of culture and experience economy. In many ways that has been characteristic of our course ever since.
One of the most important skills we brought with us from the school, apart from the graphic abilities, is the need to work methodically with the creative process and be able to break down the work into some manageable phases. In addition, we are, of course, fundamentally curious and interested in people and the world around us. For us it is about exploring our customers’ universe; understanding their target audience; meet with their employees; learn their values and their history; we also have a desire to investigate, ask questions and transform ideas into a unique visual idiom. But it has never been aesthetics that have dictated the concept. It has always been the project as a whole: Visions, history, values, target groups etc. that have defined the communicative and visual grasp.
We feel enormously privileged. In many ways we are in the middle of what we dreamt of as students. We have our own company; we use our professional skills; we work with brands in the areas of cultural and scientific institutions; and every day we are lucky enough to work with a team of talented and dedicated co-workers, who help push us and the solutions forward.
The daily creative ping-pong among the team and the constant desire to challenge ourselves is what keeps us going. Working has to be inspiring; working has to excite; working has to make a difference.
We connect people and brands with good ideas. And the kick it gives us when the customer and the target audience are excited about our visions, strategy, concept and visual idiom – that is clearly what still drives us and the strange little creature that was conceived at Ågade 10.
