Vollformat
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Perhaps one day Communication Design and Product Design will merge into Interaction Design. But what would that mean for young designers like me? What will become of Interaction Design as we know it now? “Applications must become more intuitive,” is the message of one interaction designer who has taken a bit of time for me. “You can‘t afford to think how you must use a machine. It must simply work, and explain itself.” We mustn‘t lose sight of the demographic changes taking place. Our society is getting older. I see that every day in the supermarket. How does the older generation deal with all the new technologies and their possibilities? “I think that our task as interaction designers will be in all areas. We‘ll have to communicate with machines more and more. It starts in the morning with the coffee machine and will at some time include our light switches and even our sneakers.” According to the ambitious interaction designers everything will become part of a huge information network. People‘s lives are to become more digitized too. It‘s already possible on the Internet to compile personal profiles of any number of Internet users. For that we‘ve got Facebook to thank in a large part. But to be honest it scares me a bit. Maybe one day I‘ll have a chip implanted to regulate my bodily functions and to communicate with my environment? “In the long term interaction designers should be concerned with the problems of the times and not light up everything,” says my ID colleague, “In the first instance we must be clear about the consequences of our actions. Mankind is starting to use bionics and sees a future in artificial intelligence. But maybe not everything around us must be intelligent.” The world should be better if it‘s sustainable. It can become sustainable by applying the ideals of individual people. This seems to be the message my design friends are giving. Slowly the place is emptying around me. The last orders have been served. What do I make of myself and of my future now? The best thing is just to wait and see what happens. My life is a design process. I discover and learn, and draw conclusions. And at some time these conclusions might be confirmed or contradicted. In any case I‘ll never stand still, because around me the times never stand still. That comforts me a little. Our times are characterized by change, and I‘m not on the outside looking in, but am right in the middle. I‘m a part of the change. My glass is empty and I‘m starting to feel sleepy. As I open the door of my local clear cold winter air greets me. I breathe in deeply and gratefully, then set out for home, satisfied.
course of training and I‘ve got precise ideas about what my future looks like. There‘s no question of an advertising agency. I hope that my studies will enable me to travel a lot and be in direct contact with clients. It‘s important for me to know my clients personally and to be in direct touch with them.Ideally I‘d like to have an advisory function in which I can provide conceptual ideas and impulses.”
Pages 26 – 27 A dream survey
Dominik Witzke, 24, 7th semester Interaction Design:
Thomas Schlüter, 23, 2nd semester Product Design: “I think it‘s exciting just to see what comes along. I don‘t have any specific dreams or ideas about my later work. After my training as a master goldsmith I took the next step and enrolled in Product Design studies. You can‘t plan everything; I‘ll just wait and see how things work out and enjoy my studies.” Jacqueline Möck, 23, 1st semester Communication Design:
“I dream of serving in my own shop and working on my own designs. That way I can remain in touch with clients and can continuously improve my work. My dream is a small shop where I can design and make my own products and then sell them. Nice little products at reasonable prices. They would range from cakes from my own oven in my own packaging, postcards and greeting cards with my own photographs, to individual pieces made of recycled materials. A dream of a creative craft design that makes good design available to all.” Jörg Kahlhöfer, 21, 3rd semester Communication Design:
“I want to combine my two loves – visual design and music. I‘d like to found a centre for musicians. A complex that incorporates all that you need for a successful career in music and where you could make sound recordings, professional quality photos, record a music video, or find management for a live show. I‘d like to found this business with my brother, with whom I‘ve made several recordings in our own home studio.” Sergej Ermolaev, 25, 3rd semester Communication Design:
“You get somewhere anyway, whatever you set out to do. I‘m convinced that you probably can‘t decide where you‘re going to work at the beginning of your career. You move from one job to another and finish up somewhere entirely different to what you‘d imagined. I dream of developing new game concepts and doing my own illustrations for them.”
When students start their studies they are highly motivated. They are full of dreams, hopes, and desires. During the course of their studies their expectations can change, develop, or be replaced by completely new ones. Some students have given us an insight into their most personal ideas about the perfect future.
“I don‘t want to be employed by someone else and be working for them. I want to be my own boss. It would be ideal to start up a design office with a few colleagues after the Masters course and then to make a name, preferably in a big city like Munich or Hamburg. I hope to work for large clients and to be in a research group developing concepts for challenging projects, for example in innovation design. Designing apps for iPhones wouldn‘t satisfy me.”
Tobias Strohbach, 25, 1st semester Interaction Design: “I don‘t want to have to be the classic designer in an office, staring at my screen all day. I‘ve already completed one
Pages 28 – 29 “No” instead of “Yes”, “Yes” instead of “No”