Yesterday morning we hopped the Strassenbahn in front of the hotel and took a ride to Prenzlauerberg, where we were invited to visit a small web design company called Artx. The owner, Folker Silge, gave us the tour around his new offices and spoke about the Artx business model. You can see from their website that theirs is a volume business, providing inexpensive and fixed-priced services to customers who find them on the internet (first photo). Great office space with neat tiles.
After the tour we walked back to the train past the old L-4 (our school) which used to be in a multi-colored Art Nouveau building (I think there's a photo in the 2007 part of this blog).
After a lunch at 12 Apostles at Sevignyplatz and a wander through a fantastic art book store, we proceeded to Pentagram, close by in Charlottenberg. (On the way I took photo #2 of some students: Ruth, Karla, Kat, and Nathan, in front of Kaisers)
Justus Oehler, a partner at Pentagram and the head of the Berlin office, gave us a fascinating and opinionated talk about the importance of design and the puzzling indifference of - well everyone except designers I guess, to graphic design issues particularly and to a critical vocabulary and public discourse about those issues. (last photos. that's me with Justus). It was the second time I'd been to Pentagram with an Ai Study Abroad group, and truly a privilege to be hosted by Justus, who is a charismatic and compelling speaker.
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