Published by Leonardo Calcagno
Who are you :
We are Katharina Mauer & Sebastian Schäder. We met during our design studies and fell in love while working for the diploma. Shorty after that, our son was born – Ferdinand – our first collective project. After a couple of time of freelancing work we were founding our design office Studio Ferdinand (studioferdinand.de), where we´re working for international clients like IPG Mediabrands, EWE, 30k and so on.
Besides the client work we were founding an own startup called Wechselwild (new.wechselwild.com). We had the vision that creatives can customize high quality products beyond usual art prints and benefit from the sales. But it´s not only about customizing – the designs can be changed everytime you want to. So fashionfictims can choose a new design every day matching the mood, outfit or event.
In which city are you located?
Hamburg, Germany
A word to define what kind of worker you are :
We´re looking at a design process in it´s entirety. That means no matter if it´s a branding issue, information- or interfacedesign – we´re consulting our clients beyond the design to the point of conceptional issues. Especially the experiences of working for Wechselwild helps us in understanding the clients issues better than a classical designer. It broadens our knowhow towards marketing, strategical and conceptual issues intensivley.
What tools are essential to your life (app, software, etc..)
Beside the adobe stuff anything about collaboration, Inspiration and Communication:
Google, google Docs, slack, Behance, iPhone, MacBook and so on.
What does your office space look like?
Nice 🙂 But we´re still not having any pictures on the walls. Despite we moved there a year ago
What kind of music do you listen when you are working ?
We love Byte.fm (http://byte.fm/) – it´s an independend radiostation without advertising, broadcasting out of an old bunker in the middle of Hamburg.
Do you have a way to organize your day to maximize your work ?
Once we are at the workstation, we make some updates with the team to plan the todos for the day/week. Then we are ready to stay focused on the hard tasks.
What tips would you give to improve productivity ?
Close the Facebook-tab in your browser – and your Mail-Client
You’re better than your colleagues to :
Sebastian: Conceptional stuff, UX/UI, texting and marketing-issues
Katharina: Branding, Typografie, strike the proper mood in designing for a product/brand.
Within our Team, there are specialists for any kind of tasks beyond design like marketing, project management, software-development and so on. Further through to our own projects like Wechselwild, we gained a wide range of experience in brandbuilding and productdevelopment. Thats a wide basis of knowledge by what we are able to consult our Clients all in all.
What is the best advice anyone has given you ?
“Do or do not – there is no try” from Master Yoda.
What is your best tip for saving time ?
Focus on the essential things.
What is your routine start and end of the day?
For the start routine see the answer more previous at the end of the Day mostly there Is another update with the mates to rock the next day.
Aside from your computer and your phone, what gadget can you not you go without?
The coffee machine, the fridge and the bikes
W: studioferdinand.de
F: fb.com/FerdinandLovesDesign
