Website: Escalator

This website was part of an university project. We had to write a website about urban movement. I chose to create something about escalators. I packed it with some awesome futuristic features never done before (the CSS 3D escalator) to show of my skills. Check it out:

Features:

The clouds are animated with CSS Animations. You can navigate using your keyboard.

The third page shows a 3D escalator coded in CSS only! It is twistable and shows some extra information on hovering. Such complex 3D models have never been coded in CSS before. The advantage to regular 3D is that it runs much faster.

Then there is the an animated chart moving from a random position to the actual %. I coded it in Jquery:

Lastly there are the 3D cards. They can be flipped to reveal more information. Also coded in CSS only:

I mixed flat design with 3D features. Contrary to expectations it looks great together.

Movie poster: The Birds

We had to redesign a movie poster. I did Hitchcock's "The Birds". But as an origami like comic strip:

Magazine: Tschichold

This is the magazine I created about the awesome designer Jan Tschichold - his life, his works, himself:

Cookbook: Iss, Friss, Stirb!

Me and talented Photographer/Designer Chiara Hafen created this awesome cookbook. About the world hottest dishes.

Have Fun!

Comic: Das Brot

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At the university our task was to draw a comic about a short story. The academic assigned me "The Bread" by Wolfgang Borchert. It was written in 1945 during post-war Germany where food was in short supply.

Plot:

an old woman wakes up in the dark. She catches her husband cutting a slice of the rationed bread. They don't talk about it. Instead a perplexed conversation takes place. They end up with saying that there was nothing and that they both woke up because of the wind outside and the sound of the rain gutter. So they go back to bed. While they are trying to sleep, she hears her husband chewing the slice of bread secretly. The next evening she prepares dinner and gives him a slice of her own ration of bread under the pretext that in the evening she can't take the bread all that well. They avoid eye contact. After a while she sits down at the table.

Interpretation:

I don't think that it's a story about the situation after World War II. Neither the place or time is written down nor any names or other circumstances. So I guess that it is a story about disturbed love and interpersonal relationship in general. The "cold" and the "outside" symbolized by the wind is associated with the darkness, a symbol for fear and mistrust. Which serves as an excuse for the husband's behavior.

Character Sheets:

Printed Product:

Urbane Legenden

Kurz vor 5 Minuten Ruhm drehte ich meinen bisher längsten Kurzfilm, Urbane Legenden. Die Erstaufführung war für das Kino bestimmt, hat aber bis dato noch nicht stattfinden können, was demnächst hoffentlich nachgeholt wird. Es handelt sich um eine Sammlung mehrerer kleinen modernen Mythen. Alle Geschichten sollen sich so zugetragen haben.

5 Minuten Ruhm

Eine weile nach Maria entschloss ich mich erneut ein Film für ein Festival zu drehen, nämlich 5 Minuten Ruhm. Dieser ist fast ausschließlich aus der ersten Person gedreht und erzählt die Geschichte eines Schlagzeugers der innerhalb weniger Minuten alles verliert das für ihn einen Wert hatte. Als man ihm dann allerdings sein letztes Gut, nämlich das Schlagzeug, wegnehmen möchte, wehrt er sich mit seiner letzten Waffe, dem Schlagzeug. Somit wird er von der passiv, fremdbestimmten Marionette zu einem aktiv selbstbestimmten Sein

Photography: Self-Staging

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Über mich. Ein Essay.

Wer bin ich? Ich bin ich. Ich aber ist eine unbekannte Person. Ein unbekanntes Etwas, dass außer mir steht, denn mein ego ist immer nur die Projektion der Vorstellung, die ich von mir habe. So bin ich nicht Ich, sondern nur das was ich gerne wäre. Ein Anderer wird eine andere Vorstellung von meinem Ich haben und somit wird sich auch mein ego verändern. Da es sich je nach Betrachter verändert, ist es weder eine Konstante noch in irgendeiner Weise objektiv. Man könnte sagen, dass mein Ich ein eigenständiger Teil meines ego ist. Also wer bin ich? Ich weiß es nicht. Äußerlich ist im Bild das Andere spiegeln ersichtlich, dass ich ein Mann bin. Keine Frau. Kein Kind. Also bin ich wohl ein erwachsener Mann. Offenbar. Ich bin verantwortlich für mein Handeln und muss im Job eine gewisse Seriosität ausstrahlen. Innerlich beschäftige ich mich viel mit mir selbst und komme zu keiner Konklusion. Die Frage wer man sei, ist wohl die schwierigste. Irgendwie stehe ich neben mir, außer mir. Bin von Tag zu Tag und Situation zu Situation ein Anderer. Man ist die Summe seiner Handlungen heißt es. Was mache ich also? Den größten Teil meines Lebens verbringe ich wohl am Rechner. Allein durch die Arbeit. Was ich mache ist meistens nur digital realisierbar. Das Produkt, welches daraus entsteht, ist allerdings beides, sowohl digital als auch analog. Auch wenn der Rechner im Kopf die stärkste Waffe ist, ist der Rechner in den Händen der ausführende Arm, der Vollstrecker. Das Hirn wäre nichts ohne die Möglichkeit seine Gedanken um zu setzen. Was ist schon eine Idee wert, wenn sie nicht umgesetzt wird. Wenn also der Rechner meine Handlungen summiert, muss der Rechner ein Stück meiner Selbst sein. Er ist der Rahmen, der meine Phantasie sprengt. Er ist ein Teil von mir. Summa summarum bin ich ein hoffentlich sympathischer Verrückter auf der Suche nach sich selbst. Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich mich eines Tages finden werde. Dennoch möchte ich diesen Teil von mir mit Dir teilen. Lieber Betrachter.

Zur Realisierung lies ich mich inspirieren von René Magrittes Gemälde “Le Pèlerin”, weil es für mich genau das ausdrückt. Das “neben sich stehen”. Außerdem bin auch ich ein Pèlerin (Pilger/Wallfahrer) zu mir selbst.

Die Lichtanmutung sollte knackig, klar und zugleich weich sein. Darum wählte ich eine rundliche Softbox als Hauptlicht. Dazu einen Schirm seitlich um die Schatten so minimalistisch wie möglich zu halten. Zuletzt wollte ich die Figur vom Hintergrund trennen. Dafür richtete ich noch einen Strahler auf den Hintergrund und erhöhte den Abstand der Figur zu seinem Hintergrund.

Photography: Milk

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Concept - Milk bottle with a white object on white background:

The milk bottle will be photographed with a white plate. On the plate there is money. It remembers the derogatory donation plate like the toilet ladies use to have. The picture is taken when the milk is poured over the money. A crisp picture with as much white as possible was intended.

Background:

The aim was to raise awareness for unfair milk price. The price for milk is too low, therefore farmer have to fight for their living. From 2001 to 2006 the average price for milk went down from 32,70€/100kg to 27,30€/100kg. With this money the farmers have to pay their investments. They have to pay for electricity, fertilizer, infrastructure, land, reparations, animals, etc. For example: an average farmer earned around 39.700€. Thus he had a gross around 3.300€/month. But in average farmers have expenses around 6.900€/month. So the farmers constantly lose 3.600€/month. 2009 they had enough. They protested against the low prices by pouring their Milk on their lands. Which effectively raised awareness and caused trouble in whole Germany. Politicians had to act, thus they increased the subsidization for milk. Now farmers can live from their earnings. However on the cost of subsidization. Thus on the cost of taxpayers. And the taxpayer is you.

Susanne Moser

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Concept - first portrait:

Ich habe Susi portraitiert. Susi ist der hilfsbereitete Mensch den ich kenne und setzt sich immer für Andere ein. Schon während ihrer Ausbildung hat sie mehrmals Menschen, deren Kreislauf versagte, stabilisiert und reanimiert. Einmal waren wir unterwegs in der Bahn, als diese am Hauptbahnhof hielt. Kurz bevor sie weg fahren wollte sprang Susi aus der Bahn, so schnell, dass ich nicht hinterher kam, weil ein Mann auf der Straße einfach nach hinten weg gekippt war. Sie leistete erste Hilfe und stabilisierte diesen bis der Krankenwagen eintraf. Zuletzt hörten wir eine Frau im Wohnblock um Hilfe schreien. Susi zögerte keinen Augenblick und alarmierte die Polizei. Sie rannte raus um den Ort des Geschehens ausfindig zu machen. Dabei legte sie sich sogar mit dem Angreifer an. Zum Glück war die Polizei bereits eingetroffen. Immer wenn irgendjemand Hilfe braucht ist sie da. Auch bei Kleinigkeiten hilft sie immer wo sie nur kann. Sie spendet Blut, Thrombozyten, Knochenmark und ist auch als Organspenderin eingetragen. Dagegen hat sie, auch wenn sie schon sehr früh von zuhause ausziehen musste und Verantwortung übernehmen musste, ihr inneres Kind nicht verloren: sie erfreut sich über jede Kleinigkeit. Sagt kindlich naiv immer geradeaus was sie denkt. Liebt es in den Zoo zu gehen und pflückt manchmal sogar noch gerne Blümchen. Hier sieht man wie Susi, mit einer aus Gänseblümchen und Butterblümchen gebastelter Krone, draußen im Innenhof steht. Hinter ihr kann man kaum etwas erkennen. Man sieht nur noch die Umrisse einer Hecke und eine gelbliche wand. Die Farbe grün dominiert. Susis Blick ist fröhlich, kindlich und mädchenhaft. Sogar ein wenig demütig. Da sie sich bei der ganzen Fürsorge um andere Menschen sich immer ein wenig selbst verliert. Ich wählte trotz Mittagssonne einen ISO Wehrt von 800 und eine relativ große Verschlusszeit. All diese Einstellungen führten dazu, dass das Foto ist absichtlich überbelichtet wurde und nur sehr wenig Schatten aufweist um eine gute, schon fast himmlische Umgebung zu suggerieren. So stellte ich Susi als braver Engel dar, als Mutter Theresa. Was die Tiefenschärfe angeht, wählte ich eine Blendenöffnung von 3,5 um so wenig Tiefenschärfe wie mit diesem Objektiv nur möglich zu schaffen und den Hintergrund weitestgehend verschwimmen zu lassen um den Paradiesischen Charakter zu verstärken.

I've chosen to shoot a portrait for Susanne Moser (Susi). Susi is the most helpful person I know. She always speaks up for others. Already during her apprenticeship she saved the lives of people who had a cardiovascular failure. Once we where traveling with the metro. As the metro stopped at the central station, just before the doors closed, Susi jumped out of the tram, so fast, that I couldn't follow her. She jumped out because a man fell on the street. She gave him first aid and could eventually stabilize him. Lastly we heard a girl screaming for help in the housing block. Susi didn't hesitate and called the police. She ran to where the sound came from and nearly started a fight with the attacker. Fortunately the police arrived at time. If someone need help she's there. Even for the small things. She helps anywhere she can. She donate blood, thrombocyte, bone marrow and is registered as an organ donor. In contrast, even if she had to take responsability living on her own at a very young age, she never lost her inner child: she finds joy in small things. Speaks out loud what she thinks. Loves to visit the zoo and pick flowers. In the picture I portrayed her with a self made daisy crown, standing outside in the garden. Behind her we can hardly see a hedge and a yellow wall. The green color dominates. Susis glance is happy, childish and girly. But if you look twice you can see humility and abjection. As she losers herself in the care for others (negatively). I chose to shoot in highkey to suggest a good, celestial feeling. That way Susi seems to be angelic like Mother Teresa. I set my camera aperture to 3,5 (the minimum with my equipment) to reduce the depth of field and blur out the background to enforce the paradisiac character:

Concept - Second portrait

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Passend zu ihrer Persönlichkeit hat Susi auch einen Sozialen Beruf ergriffen und sorgt als MTRA, also röntgen technische Assistentin, dafür, dass Krebskranken Menschen ein besseres Leben haben oder gebrochene Knochen wieder geheilt werden kännen. MTRA, dass heißt Schichtdienst, dass heißt arbeiten wenn alle Anderen zuhause sind. Dass Heißt unruhige, schlaflose Nächte. Heißt aber auch kein bisschen Tageslicht zu sehen, da es in der ganzen Abteilung keine Fenster gibt. Außerdem ist sie häufig auf Intensivstation eingesetzt, so wie heute. Dort hat sie sich mit den ganzen Betrunkenen rum zu schlagen. Diese in die richtige Position zu bringen um sie Röntgen zu können erweist sich meistens als äußerst schwierig. Wenn es keine Betrunkenen sind, dann sind es komatöse und bettlägrige Patienten. Um röntgen zu können muss es hinter dem Knochen eine Auffangebene geben, so wie es in der Fotographie einen Fotofilm (Träger) geben muss auf dem dass Licht gespeichert wird. Dieser befindet sich in einer schützenden Kassette. Die Kassette muss sie also meist unter den Patienten legen der sich nicht bewegen kann, also muss Susi die schweren Patienten heben um die Kassette darunter zu legen. Nach der Aufnahme muss sie den Patienten erneut heben um die Kassette wieder an sich zu nehmen um diese auswerten zu können. Wenn was schief läuft oft mehrmals pro Patient. Ganz schön anstrengend. Manchmal sind es aber auch Fälle die richtig an die Substanz gehen. An einem Tag trifft sie Patienten die noch kerngesund zu sein scheinen und da sie regelmäßig geröntgt werden müssen, um zu sehen ob der Krebs vergrößert hat, bekommt Susi genau mit wie sich ihr psychischer und physischer Zustand zunehmend verschlechtert. Manchmal bis zum Tode. Manchmal sogar bei Kindern. Wir sehen Susi durch die Glasscheibe, mit einem voyeuristischen Blick, sich erschöpft von der Arbeit an das Arbeitsgerät anlehnend. Durch ihr gähnen wird ihre Erschöpfung von der Psychisch und Körperlich anstrengenden Arbeit unterstrichen. Der Blick durch die Scheibe lässt das Bild wie eine authentische Momentaufnahme wirken. Im Vordergrund stehen Komputerbildschirme die auch ein wesentlicher Bestandteil des Berufes sind da dort die Photographien ausgelesen, dargestellt und gespeichert werden. An der Fensterscheibe kleben zwei Markierungen die von den MTRA benutzt werden um an zu zeigen ob es sich beim abgelichteten Knochen um den rechten oder linken handelt. Susi befindet sich relativ Zentriert in dem Bild. Bei dem verfügbaren Licht handelt es sich um abgedunkelte Halogenröhren in den Räumen und um die Beleuchtung der Geräte.

Matching her character Susi chose a social profession. As MTRA (medical technical radiology assistant) she look after people with cancer. She's there to give them a better life or to heal broken bones. MTRA means shift work. It means to work when anyone else is at home. It means agitated and sleepless nights. No daylight since there are no windows. Moreover she works often for the intensive unit, as today. There she has to help drunk people. To get them in the right position to x-ray them is very difficult. If it's not for drunken people, then it's the comatose and bedridden ones. To be able to x-ray them it is mandatory to have a layer behind the bone, like for a photography that will be the "holder" (photofilm) on which the light is saved. This one is in a case. The case has to be put under the patient. But often they can't move or don't want to move. It's then Susis job to lift them up, place the case and x-ray them. After the picture, lift them up again to retrieve the case and be able to develop it. Often several times per patient. Very exhausting. But in some cases it's not physically exhausting but mentally. One day she met someone who seems fit as a fiddle whose she has to x-ray several times to documtent the progress of their cancer. She notice every psychical and physical change. Sometimes Susi has accompany them until death. Worst case if they are children. In order to communicate all these feelings I chose to portay her behind a glass plate. We observe her like a voyeur. She's exhausted and lean against a tool. The physical and psychical exhaustment makes he yawn. The glance threw the glass let us believe that this could be a snap shot. Foreground we see computer screens - a component of her job since it's where the pictures are developed, pictured and saved. Two marks stick on the window. Those are used by the MTRA to distinguish wether it's the right or the left bone. Susi herself is centered in the composition. I only used available light - coming from the computers and the halogen bulbs - to create an authentic picture:

Fraport Cargo Services

Fraport Cargo Services wanted a complete redesign. It was our term paper for the first term at university (Semesterarbeit des 1. Semesters) This is the paper:

Zoo - Love

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Problem:

It might seem controversial to support a zoo as "charity project". Some who are fond of animals protest against zoos. Zoos are not good for the animals they say. But zoos are incredibly important to get to know the treasures of our world. To raise awareness for other creatures. Because only if you meet an animal and see his beauty you'll know how important it is to save our amazing nature. So who don't meet any animal will never value it. Also, the zoos make quite an effort to give them the best living environment. Sometimes they have even a better life than they would have in their natural environment.

This is why in my work the animals themselves form the letters for Love. A sitting giraffe for example looks like an L. The penguin, photographed in the right posture, gives an O. The horns form a V. And for the E I photographed a bug.

Aim:

Love is to raise the readers attention and interest on the animals or best case to directly fall in love. Moreover the postcards aim to encourage thinking about the dignity of animals, so that he wants to seek love for animals. To do so there is no better starting point then in a fascinating zoo where animals are treated well. How? Most zoos offer the possibility to "sponsor" an animal. So you can choose an animal to sponsor. For doing so you get gifts, but overall the good feeling of doing good. To help animals without detour!

Example for a board that lists supporters:

The first acceptable doodle:

Let's check out the animals:

The cover:

The Back:

There is enough space to enter the address and some kind words in the pink circle. So it can actually be used as a lovely postcard

Inspiration for the Back:

Printed:

Raise money for Charity!

False labeling

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Problem:

Bio isn't always Bio. Regional isn't always regional. Bio isn't regional. Regional isn't Bio. Fairtrade isn't always Fairtrade. Fairtrade isn't regional. Regional not Fairtrade. Fairtrade not Bio. Bio not Fairtrade. “local production” not local. “German Quality” not German. Germany is sometimes situated in India. A Thai village is sometimes declared as a German city.
Which color had napoleons the white? White. How old is the 90 years old granny? 90. But where does the "Aachen plums" come from? Thailand! The plums are produced in Thailand but as they are boxed in Aachen they can be declared as local product from Aachen. A typical food industry cheat. Outrageous!

Aim:

To untangle confusion. To raise awareness and train the observers view on his environment. Too much is just accepted indifferently or not even questioned. Products labeled as "regional" can be sold three times higher price than other products. People buy it. They believe it just because it's written on it without question. Therefore more and more producers try to sell they products as regional/local. Some suggest it already with a sneaky company name like “deutsches Land”, “Berlin farm”, “Grannys shop” or similar.

Hence I've chosen to create products with such obvious lies that it hurts. Like the regional peanuts for example. Regional Peanuts? In Germany? How is that even possible? Or which region is meant by it? Because peanuts are produced in India, China, USA, Nigeria, Argentina, Sudan, Senegal and Brazil. Not in Deutschland - since peanuts do not grow here! But they are still sold in some stores (like REWE) as “regional”. Something is wrong here! Finally terms like “local producers”, “German quality”, “typical German”, “regional“, “traditional German recipe” are very vague anyways.

Examples:

Investigation:

I could find diverse websites. Besides an article from newspaper “Die Zeit”, which tries to find the origin of the components on a Pizza and the conditions of employment. An article from newspaper "Süddeutschen" starting a quest for the origin of components in an yogurt. I wasn't able to find (2014) many other but privates websites where consumer complain about the issue and that it is impossible for individuals to find out where the products really come from. It is only declared on some animal products with a control number for all ingredients. This control number is obligatory for some products and informs about the place of production (not only the head office address!). Such a control number would be great to be obligatory on all products.

A great step forward is this consumer advice website. It's an initiative of the federal government for nutrition and agriculture. The page lists all dubious products, informs and gives the possibility to report products. The complains are taken seriously and sometimes lead to corrections by the producers.

This is where I found the right products for my false labeling campaign. In store I noticed that many producer choose sneaky company names to confuse the consumer. Like Bayerntaler, Biotrend, Lokalpatriot, Nordseekutter, Sylter Hof etc. This way they can legally suggest local or bio products without the product being local or bio. Which, so I think, is a fraud. Then you have the products locally produced but shipped somewhere else to be packed and come back again to be sold. Is this still local? What do you think? Well to raise awareness for all those frauds I created this false labeling campaign:

Dota2 Shirts

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I designed this Dota shirt for my brothers birthday. We were impressed by the shirt's quality. I decided to share it with everyone. So I decided to put it on Spreadshirt. As the shirt was selling very well I got the idea to start an unofficial fanshirt shop for Dota. Finally within 3 Month I was selling 2 Shirts a day! = 60 Shirts a month... Wow that's a lot right? Well I don't want to keep my strategies for myself. I'll explain you how I did it:
first I set up a Shirt store. The URL was dota2shirts.com (it does not exist anymore. I'll explain why later on). I had just one design. As it was insufficient I started designing 8 more. Now I had 9 Shirts but wasn't selling any. I read the "Top-Rankings" book by Kim Weinand as well as some online blogs like the Spreadshirt SEO by Simon Fletcher (actually I read a lot and have a big list of books and sites I could recommend. Maybe I'll post them in my labs. Stay tuned!). Then I enlarged the store with more shirts from other designers. I found my partners mostly on Redbubble and Devianart. It was a win-win situation: they got more sales and I got more shirts for the store. We spread the loot: 10$ for Spreadshirt 6$ for the Designer and 4$ for me. Ok so now I had 100+ Shirts in my store. It was about time to start marketing: I started an Adwords campaign mainly to see which Keywords work best - not for revenue. It went on one week. Obviously I spend more to Google than I earned so I was at -50€ Budged but I had made up the right keywords to advertise. Then I used these keywords in any textual content on my Store. The Description, the title, the articles, the tags and so on. I submitted the page to the Webmaster Tools to make sure that Google indexes every page of my store. I waited 1 month and checked my stats via Analytics to see if I did everything right. Great, by now I got more natural clicks than with Adwords. That's why I decided to stop the Adwords since it was not cost effective. I made some sales. By now I was at -80€ Budget but I started selling like 4 Shirts a week - growing.
This is when I decided to make the next step redesigning the whole store - so it was optically attractive and very trustworthy (I added some 'Trust' like 100% money back if not satisfied (which was actually true but yet not written down anywhere)). After I "upgraded" the trust level I made up a Facebook page with a redaction plan. I posted a funny Dota related picture every Monday (because everyone hates Mondays). A post about one cool shirt from the store every Tuesday. As well as a Dota related video every Friday. This set up and schedule for one year I placed a big "call to action" button on the Store - so that visitors could directly like the facebook page. I was able to mirror the store on Facebook with an app in order to let my Fans buy shirts directly within Facebook. I waited 2 weeks to have some content and started a Facebook Campaign to get more likes. I spend like 40€ and got 200 Likes. At that point I had 6 Shirts selling a week but still -50€ Budget. So I decided to market the store exactly where my clients are. This is actually what Pushed my sales a lot: I registered to 4 Dota Related Forums including the Dota Reddit Page with "dota2shirts.com" as nickname (doing so I would market the store with every comment without spamming! Awesome right?). Everyday I posted at least 1 content on each board. Mostly I helped newbies with useful tutorials or just answered their questions. This gave me a big boost. Now I was selling 2 shirts a day - growing. But suddenly I got no more sales.. What the f***? Yeah. The reason is that Valve (the makers of Dota) got aware of my store and forced me to delete everything due to copyright issues. They don't want to see Fan-Art being sold. Since they're much bigger than I am, I did not wanted to go to a lawyer. All this effort was for nothing.. Well except a great experience and bette skills in marketing.

That is how you do it guys! Follow my steps 1 by 1 and you'll soon have a big thing running. I'm giving out this advice for free. As well as the Shirt Designs. However without the right to resell them. It's still my work. Just for you to print your own shirts with my designs since I can't sell them anymore. You can support me with a paypal donation if you like. That would be awesome. But it's not mandatory.
Here are all the Designs (click on the picture to get the High Res IMG):

These are only the designs - not the shirts - obviously (which makes it a bit harder to imagine how they look on a shirt. But hey, it's for free. So try it out)

Maria

"Maria" was my entry for an art competition. It's the story about a friendly girl that goes ballistic - or wait - not? The topic of the contest was "put a smile on your face" and we had to include the number 500 somewhere. Try to spot it!

Es war einmal ... Samstag

During my internship @ international filmscool of Cologne in 2010 I worked in several student productions. I had access to film equipment which I used to shoot "Es war einmal Samstag". "Es war einmal Samstag" is a movie where I present my naked psychical and physical self (at that time) to the audience. It's a story about how I saw the world, not how it really was. The movie has lots of inside jokes which sadly are difficult to understand for strangers. Anyways. Have Fun!

Sparta Ball

Sparta Ball was Filmed in 2008, it was my first finished and presentable short movie. Well the movie is intended to be considered as art. However, my aim wasn't at any time to make art that no one understands so it has still a kind of plot you can follow. It's the story of Nico whose favorite ball rolls away. As he does not want to lose his precious Sparta Ball, he chase it through strange locations. Until a thug picks it up and... Well, you'll see. The moral is that you should never judge a book by its cover. Enjoy it.

Badge

Just a small badge I did for some video game.

The young piper

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My task was to illustrate the young piper which is an old Irish fairytale. It is the story of a family with four children, three are beautiful and one is ugly and handicapped. The handicapped one is also an asshole who teases and dislikes everyone, thus everyone dislikes him. People think he's possessed or exchanged by fairies. That's why they want to test him by pinching his nose with a burning hot iron. But his mother, sure that he is her own son, protects him. One day an old bagpipe player, who travels from town to town playing bagpipe for a living, comes across. The kid seems attracted by the bagpipe and wants it badly. He manages to get it and starts playing like a boss. As soon as he plays, the music forces everyone and everything to dance. Even the chairs and desks. But as the young piper is an asshole he uses that skill to make the people fight against each other and harm them in any other imaginable way. Hence the family is forced to move house. As they pass a river the young piper jumps into the water playing bagpipe while sweeping away. It is said that the young piper returns to his folk, the fairies, as he is a changeling. A changeling in this case is: when the fairies give birth to an ugly child they exchange it with a beautiful human one without the parents noticing. Okay, pretty strange story isn't it? It's part of the Fairy legends and traditions of the South of Ireland (1834) by Croker, Thomas Crofton.

First I wanted to illustrate it the traditional way with nice drawings and all. But as 90% of all fairy tales are drawn that way I thought that it was just lame and overdone. That's why I dropped the Idea and went deeper into the story, thinking about its meaning and succeeded to interpret it: symbolically it's a story about the irish conflicts with the British. The changeling is an ugly stranger which invades a beautiful irish family (: The British invading Ireland). The changeling is a little bastard who teases and harm the Irish (: the Brits tortured the Irish). They try to fight the young piper but do not succeed as his mother protects him (: the Irish tried to fight the Brits back several times but somehow they didn't manage to get them off the isle). The young piper jumps into the river and sweeps away to his folk (: finally 1922 the Irish manage to become the Irish Free State). So I wanted to combine the tale with the history by using transparent interlayer. But I did not stick with that Idea as it wasn't appealing enough.

That's why one more time I started from scratch. This time I focused on Irish music since it's the story about an Irish bagpipe player. I listened mainly to songs from the Dubliners. Those lyrics and melodies got me in a flow and I started to paint very music oriented illustrations as you can see:

For the book cover I used real goat leather and for the binding, a traditional 4 hole Japanese binding, I used red thread to give it the look, feel and smell of a real bagpipe. As they're traditionally made of goat leather and often with red thread as you can clearly see in the next picture:

The Interior is green which is intended to project the reader to Ireland. As green is the principal color of the country and represents its amazing landscape.

That is the first scene: the fairy coming from the river and bringing the changeling to the mother. The red hands are there to show that the mother accepts the child as her own.

This page shows the rest of the family. The dad on top of his three beautiful children. On the right, the changeling get's the bagpipe. He's not just getting it but literally becoming one. As you'll see the next page:

Here the changeling's body has become a bagpipe and you can see how he's teasing everyone, even the cat and the dog. The hands coming out of the changeling's head as he plays represent the music. This is because in the story he's able to take control of others body as well as getting chairs and desks to dance. Also, note the bucket which, in the story, is held by his mother and knocked over by the music.

That's the last scene with the young piper jumping into the river and returning to the fairies. Here the tears of the mother form the river. On the bottom you have the father who's quite happy because he they can return home now and he disliked the kid anyway. And the shocked brothers.

That's it, thanks for the love & feel free to mail me if you'd like to get a copy.

Android Game: Christmas

This was a private Project. Me and my brother made it as Christmas present for our dad. It is a casual android game. You have to tap the heads before they start to sing. If you have too much heads on screen you lose. For the heads I draw caricatures of us two. When touched they explode but it is not with blood but hearts. For every head, you get +1 on the scoreboard. The game is pretty addictive. Try it yourself on the android device of your choice! Click the button to download the .apk and install it on your device.

Bonn

A caricature of a city. Bonn in this case. "Where the f* is Bonn?" Well you grandparents should know the answer since Bonn was the capital city of Germany from 1949 before the seat of the government moved to Berlin around 1999.. And oh yes it is the city I spend the most crucial time in my life. I tried to transmit the look and especially the feel of the City in one picture. So first off I walked through the city taking pictures and absorbing the special aura the city emits. Important: Beethoven was born in Bonn, the university is well-known, the skyline is gorgeous and there are lots of green areas.

Then I draw a fast sketch combining key elements. Lastly I draw the whole thing starting from the sketch.

This Picture combines the university with the skyline in the background with the “Poppelsdorfer Allee” and Ludvig van Beethoven in the foreground:

Peridot

Here we had to design Beer bottles. As I'm from Belgium it might be obvious that I'm fond of beers. As I already tried to brew my own beer I was pleased about the task. So I decided to design a bottle for my beer which I named Peridot (: a green gemstone) because of the unique light green gleam of the beer. Feel free to write me to get one bottle of my delicious Peridot for yourself and Enjoy the taste ;-)

Brain

My brother and I used to share one server (b.eyer.be) so we wanted a common intro page representing our distinct skills. Lucas being by far the best coder I know and I being devoted to creative guidance. I came up with the Idea of a brain to represent our different skills at its best. Although we know that the left/right brained people stuff is nonsense it has a significant informative value as it is said that the left side of the brain deals with numbers, logic, structures, language and thus coding whereas the right side deals with the arts and emotions. Moreover the brain itself stands for intelligence, knowledge, Decisiveness, wisdom, leadership and humanity: everything we value. So the left brain will redirect users to Lucas Page (LucasB.eyer.be) while the right side points to mine (which was tjb.eyer.be but is now creativemate.net). A special feature is that if you hover a side, it will illuminate it.

Photo Manipulation/Art: Hell

I made this photomanipulation during my first semester on the Cologne Design Academy (KDA). Our task was to create a composing from different elements in Photoshop with the goal to create a bizarre picture. I wanted to create something surreal that still seems somehow real. Once I had a clear Idea I started by taking Pictures from Street view.

I had to combine them manually as we could not use automatic functions like photomerge. So I played around a lot with masks, transformations, cloning, smart-objects, textures, color corrections, lighting, burning, dodge, filter and modes. That way I got a decent composing. Same for street-view photos from wall-street:

I had to remove some people, by using the stamp tool and other helpful tools as well as modes to create a nice looking panorama. Afterward I added earth to combine both as well as elevators leading to the “Hell” by Hieronymus Bosch on every side. Just some wrapping and transformations at the end and voilà: