We don’t need to get fixed - We need to get witnessed

This week we received four inquiries: a website, a showroom, a logo and a spatial installation. The clients are curious to see what we will come up with and what a perfect result would look like. This trust is a great honour for us and at the same time it is an approach that only refers to single isolated formats.

Like someone asking you to cook a main course without letting you know what the starter, dessert, atmosphere, and guests are all about, it is an extracted piece. What we are missing is the overall context, the big picture.

And that is what we as designers need and seek.

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The potential of a work only reveals itself by questioning yourself. By listening and getting invested into wanting to understand the other person. That is what we wish from our clients: that we are being asked. That we are allowed to question them and frame a format within a context.

When you think about whether a trade fair stand will even exist in the future, or if I prefer to invite my clients to the company and develop a brand space. Is a logo still a logo or shouldn't it be an app and a website then becomes a live channel? Do I still have employees, people around me with whom I can spend time, go on adventures with and learn?

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Our website is a good example - I think it's terrible.

Because we also gave in to the temptation that we need a website for a design studio as a business. However, we have not synchronized it with the mission and vision that defines BLACKSPACE. In order to really understand our attitude and values and to recognize what is at the core of our work, we embarked on a coaching process for a year.

And now we are working on putting the formulated into shape. Otl Aicher would say from ‘Begreifen’ to ‘Greifen’ (from ‘Understanding’ to ‘Grasping’). You cannot yet see the results of this endeavour.

But in recent years we have learned that time cannot be forced. In design there is always an interacting simultaneity of development and cognition, of looking back and looking ahead. We are in this state of "not yet knowing what's coming" and "being open towards whatever that is".

And I'm just as excited as you are to see what's to come.