Inspiration break at ADC Summit 2010 and a sneak peek of things to come

Søren Birkemeyer  ·  20. Mai 2010

From time to time, it's good to raise your head over the rim of your cubicle and take a look around. In a daring attempt to fulfill my desire for an overdue escape from day-to-day work, I ventured to Frankfurt and this year's ADC Summit Expo with projekt-pr's Rüdiger Hahn and Anke Schöneweiß, a freelance graphic designer. 11.000 square metres worth of design samples were waiting for us on this sunny Saturday.

From time to time, it's good to raise your head over the rim of your cubicle and take a look around. In a daring attempt to fulfill my desire for an overdue escape from day-to-day work, I ventured to Frankfurt and this year's ADC Summit Expo with projekt-pr's Rüdiger Hahn and Anke Schöneweiß, a freelance graphic designer. 11.000 square metres worth of design samples were waiting for us on this sunny Saturday.

While most of the exhibited ideas were well executed, it was only a handful that really caught my attention, and none did quite match my favourite from 2009. Still, a few caused a good laugh, while others delivered their message with such force that it took a while to digest the visual impact and sometimes gruelling information.

I took a few pictures of questionable quality on my iPhone before its battery died on me (that is to say, "died.. again" — great fun, but a different story):

typographic visualisation of two hands gripping prison bars by coloring text in columns in different shades of grayA billboard on a white wall. The advertiser is jeep, with a paintbrush picture of a jeep climbing a rise half inside the actual billboard, half outside on the white wall.

Thankfully, these two were among my overall favourites. I absolutely love the simple and yet striking typographic visualisation in the first one, where the text doesn't need any accompanying image but becomes the image itself.

Jeep (or their agency) comes around with another strong punchline, "No limits.", and underlines it in a wonderful way. It is a reminder to think outside the box more often and even more unconventionally, and duly noted.

Fanning the embers

The day after my visit to the Expo, webfactory closed the agency for a week and went out to DevCamp, our personal in-house version of a BarCamp or HackDay. We've been working frantically on company projects, one of which is a redesign of this very website. Still aglow with creative energy and filled with longing for a desgin that conveys breadth and weightlessness paired with good typography, I set to work. Below is a sneak peek of what I am envisioning for the near future:

Sneak peek of a design re-interpretation for www.webfactory.de

Avatar von Søren Birkemeyer

Søren Birkemeyer

Frontend-Entwickler

2017 hat Søren zu unserer großen Freude bereits zum zweiten Mal den Weg zu uns gefunden. Nachdem er seine Ausbildung bei uns abgeschlossen und bereits mehrere Jahre als Entwickler bei uns Erfahrung gesammelt hatte, führte sein Weg ihn zunächst für einen Zwischenstopp hinaus in die weite Welt der Webbranche. Mit viel neuem Know-how im Gepäck kehrte er schließlich zur webfactory zurück und begeistert uns seitdem erneut mit seiner Expertise und seinem Engagement. Neben "Frontendisch" spricht Søren auch "Backendisch" und "Designisch" und sieht seine Rolle besonders in der Vermittlung zwischen den Bereichen. Wenn Søren mal nicht in die Tasten haut, dann hängt er gerne an Boulderwänden ab und besteigt den ein oder anderen Berg – am liebsten im hohen Norden.