I close down my studio on 28/02/2011.
Thank you all for your support, hard work, patience, and ideas.
Please stay tuned for new contact information and updates.
My blog will move soon to www.peterroth.net, you can also keep in touch on facebook.
I’ve been working as a professional designer for some years now. As a trained graphic designer my skills focus on communication with text and images. But I never wanted to be limited by discipline and preconceived job descriptions. I still tend to create conceptual work — I do basic research, to create small individual experiences and unknown/unseen images. During the last five years some kind of “values” have emerged, and I would like to mention them here:
I prefer to focus on the creation of emptiness. Empty vessels are offering countless possibilities to be filled. Structures that do not give definite answers and involve the viewer/user. Thus I aim to create small poetic moments, small individual experiences in our everyday life. I believe these small moments are what makes our days so rich.
Coming up with questions is also creation. Questions create leverage and momentum. They challenge the status quo. That’s because many people intuitively block them. And that’s the reason I resist, and keep asking. There’s a scarcity of questions.
The interesting things happen inbetween (A and B). You start to see things you haven’t been able to think off before. Inside the process, when you just trying something, exploring something. And its usually the mistakes that take you somewhere you haven’t been before. These are the exciting moments. I need to be able to respond to that.
I like being involved with work that I can relate to. I like to do projects where I can use my own judgement. I use myself as the filter: how do I feel about this. I do work that means something to me, and creates value for my client.
The world urgently needs reduction. We urgently need focus. I miss a certain degree of profundity in the creation of everyday communication. An appreciation of naturalness. Profundity and suggestion rather than revelation.
As you can see I approach my work somewhat like an artist does. And yes, I deeply believe in the leverage of authorship and ‘Eigensinn’ (a term that only exists in German language, approx.: wilful obstinacy). Some may think this a no-go for a service contractor. But I guess it is a requirement in order to create something new and authentic.
Yesterday successfull brand communication was defined by the old message/communicator/listener model. Simple structure, precise message (hopefully), one-way – a monolog. Look over here, we’re cool – buy or die. Today (thankfully) this model has been replaced, the world has become far more complex. Now successfull branding and brand communication is based on conversations, on dialogs. On dialogs between customers/clients, on dialogs between the company and the customers/clients. Conversations with a human voice.
Evoking this kind of conversations requires a totally different approach in comunication design. Now there is no sense in creating closed/completed messages. When you complete the message too much, there is no room for the viewer/customer/client to involve himself. You need to concentrate on the (brand) essentials and leave bits of space. Small spaces of emptiness to be filled by the viewer. People want to talk about things they can relate to. So there needs to be room left for them.
As a consequence there is no single story about you, your company or your product. No single plot you have total control of. You are not the ‘owner’ of the conversation, you are a participant at eye level. Learn to listen carefully and find your human voice.
