Pink-Pong Design History
Pink-Pong just became four years, which is a long time in the new media. In the beginning there was no plan for anything, but it was clear that I was doing all the artwork and so I created the visual appearance step by step. It was a long journey from really bad designs and experiments to a grown-up brand with an own identity. Pink-Pong, is a music platform, driven by it’s blog, record-label and artists.
The adventure starts with some self-organized open airs at Mauerpark Berlin (Video) and Rummelsburger Bucht in 2009. The designs of the promotional materials were just hilarious and super bad at the same time. Every time I see them it makes me smile a little:
Since then we decided to raise a community around our website and started blogging regularly. Back in these days I had no idea about CSS, PHP and other web design technics. It was the first time ever for me to install WordPress on a server and I still remember how I felt after the installation: Like a magician. It was a poor designed website, but I updated it very quickly with a version that lasted with slight changes until November 2012:
West Coast
We were a group of 10 and traveled by RVs through the country of freedom this April. Never thought that it would be such a beautiful exploration. We started in Vegas, went all around Grand Canyon, hit San Fran and then drove down the 101 to LA.
Hidden Square – Designing my first Mobile Application
In April 2012 me and my partners decided to build a curated night guide for cities – starting first in Berlin with easy possibilities to win tickets for a range of events and concerts. The concept was simple, but we have chosen a mobile-first strategy. We decided to start designing for iOS, while having in mind to release responsive web- and Android-versions sooner or later.
When we thought of the app’s visual appearance one year ago, we wanted to spread the feeling of something hidden or even prohibited and equip the vehicle with a super simple and minimalistic UX. With that in mind I started designing the whole identity and discovered quite a lot challenges in different parts of the realization process:
Hong Kong Madness
Hong Kong is one of the World’s most expensive cities to live according to Forbes and the city itself proves it from the start. Paying for an apartment of 100m² around $100,000 USD per month without any furniture is a statement! It is getting even more unbelievable when you want to buy real estate.
In May 2012 the most highest price for real estate was payed ever: $55,000 USD for just one square meter!
The GDP of Hong Kong is $35,000 USD per year and there are 16,000 people living on just one square kilometer.
This is not only explaining the high real estate rates, but is also making Hong Kong to one of the most populous areas worldwide – next to Monaco. Inhabitants, who are earning less money share apartments with 10 others, dividing the space with boxes out of cardboard or wood, which are not bigger than two square meters. One cage or box costs around $100 to $150 USD per month.
When it comes to architecture Hong Kong features probably the most stunning skyline along cities like New York or Tokyo. The architectural approach to set up the city in a vertical way is very unique in the world and this is a standalone reason to visit this place.
Hong Kong is so diverse in every way! You can jump right into the trouble of street markets filled with thousands of people and then just switch from the stress and take a ferry to the small islands like Peng Chau and enjoy life at the beaches. The city is impressing and the business opportunities are great with direct connections to the many factories of China and the superb harbor. This makes Hong Kong to one of the most important cities for economical reasons. It is a great mixture of trouble, science fiction and tradition.
An abandoned Theme Park: Spreepark Berlin
When visiting this abandoned theme park, it was like visiting a whole new planet. It felt like being the only human being on that planet discovering traces of a former civilization from a long time ago. This is no place situated somewhere outside of nowhere – it is a place right in Berlin, namely Spreepark and it shows what happens to lost places and buildings, which were given back to nature.
The former theme park features a rich and spectacular history. It was back in the days the only theme park in the DDR with 1.5 million visitors, yearly. It was the main attraction for families and their kids. After the DDR was over, the park was sold to the private investor Norbert Witte. Berlin wasn’t informed that much about this guy, otherwise they would have known, that he already ran some attractions in Hamburg and one of them caused a bad accident with seven people dead and twenty ones
injured. He wanted to start over again in Berlin by beginning a new successful life, but things got even worser. In the beginning everything was all good and the park flourished, but in 1997 the park went insolvent after the entrance prices needed to be increased and the lack of parking-spots couldn’t be solved. This ends in liabilities of 20 million DM (Deutsche Mark) for Norbert Witte. He decided then to flew over night with his whole family and shipped six attractions in twenty containers to Peru.
After living in exile, trying to start over again and realizing that nothing worked out and his family was nearly broke he devised a plan. He wanted to return and pay back his liabilities. Therefore he had the glorious idea to smuggle 180kg of cocaine in one of his attractions to Germany. Of course, he got caught by the police in Germany, whereas his son was
arrested by authorities in Peru. Norbert Witte was sentenced to seven years in jail and his son got twenty years and is still sitting somewhere in Peru.
After that tradegy the park was never ever opened again. Further, no investors could be found willing to buy the land with all the liabilities. It is getting harder and harder to start something new there because of the spectacular take-over by nature. This place became a magical spot for discovering a wild flourishing vegetation. Plants are growing, which can only be found there – in whole Germany. Today, filmmakers from all over the world are shooting there and it is possible to book photo-tours to that inspiring place. I recommend to watch the movie Achterbahn for more information.
Why it is important to have an awesome Digital Strategist in your Company
We are facing times, when connectivity, networks and digital social interactions become all part of our lives and workflows. There is no doubt that the internet changed everything from the ground up. Human mankind stepped one step further on the evolutionary latter by introducing the digital age.
During the Industrialization around the end of the 18th century we invented machines that helped us automating our work and which supported us in producing goods more efficiently. Since then we got more and more better by inventing even more efficient machines, but something was still missing to take us to the next level.
In the digital age we finally achieved that level. We added networks and software on top of all that, which makes us more powerful and our tools and machines intelligent. Knowledge is available at everybody’s fingertips and due to Twitter, Facebook and other networks shareable to all of your followers and vice versa. This is actually a very impressive phenomenon of self-education. In times where knowledge is the most valuable asset the internet makes us all a lot smarter by the immense possibility to share and discover information. The ones who know technology will finally thrive innovation, set the rules and help others to gain the maximum output of the digital age. In other words: