Wim Westerveld

Students: Maximilian Pecher, Waldemar Gildisch, Janine Hofmann, Christian Klier, Celine Van De Velde, Kamila Mitka, Astrid Farmer, Corinna Babylon, Chiara Granato, Marie Morassutti-Vitale

The students taking part in this project started by researching the visual appearance of Berlin’s public spaces, asking themselves questions such as “What is functional?”, “What could be improved?”, and “How could an appealing visual appearance and signage be developed?” The students analyzed relevant trends and cultural peculiarities. They also documented visual impressions collected along travels through the city’s public transport network, subcultures, and other sites of tension in line with various criteria and from architectural, demographic, morfologic (social, political, cultural), and neurological perspectives. Each student was given the opportunity to set up a “sub-area,” such as a signage system for cyclists, signposts for bus lines, signs and color-coded navigation systems in schools, visual orientation for museum visitors, public scenes, and even a subculture guide. Over the course of the project, the students also examined other high-traffic spaces and visited the designers behind the corporate Identity of the city of Amsterdam as well as the developers of the signage for Amsterdam Airport (Schiphol) in the Netherlands.