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For me as a graphic designer, it’s very important to be inspired by beautiful things around me in order to fuel up with creative energy and power for my job. I’m lucky to live in the beautiful city of Innsbruck, the capital of Tirol, which offers me great inspiration. Here you see some great photos of my home: Obernberger Lake: Panorama lake Schlick: Tyrolean tapas (Auracher Löchl, Kufstein): Outdoor fun in Stubaital: Nordkette, looking down to Innsbruck: Alpbach (Copyright: Alpbachtal Seenland Tourismus): Skiing (Stubai glacier and Patscherkofel): #austria #holiday #innsbruck #tirol #tyrol #inspiration #mountain #nature #skiing #lake

The infamous Glastonbury festival takes place in Great Britain every year (this year from 25 to 29 June). I saw a poster with some confirmed live acts. As soon as I saw that poster, I thought of an advertisement for a BBQ sauce or a BBQ party. Black, red, white combined with Stencil like fonts is not really a good idea. What did the designer think when doing this? I would not want to know. Also, the official Glastonbury poster is a shock moment for the eyes. A pro could not have done this – maybe a designer that retired 10 years ago. But: The website definitely makes up for that design faux pas! A great and consistent typography scheme and colours that perfectly match make the website look just fantastic. It transports a vintage and hippie style feeling what stands for the festival. Poster: Flop Poster: Flop (BBQ sauce or festival? Who knows.) Website: Top! http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/ #glastonbury #festival #posterdesign

I saw many great things in my recent Thailand holiday: golden temples, white temples, emerald buddhas, spas in the jungle, tropical paradise beaches, living shrimp salad, stink fruit juice and many other funny things. As always when I travel, I was looking for outstanding designs and inspirations in Thailand. And once more it showed how important a consistent corporate design is. A corporate design guarantees a high value of brand recognition. Just take a look below: Despite the Thai font, I'm sure you know all these products (find the solution at the bottom of this blog post): Red Bull has a special status as it originally comes from Thailand (it was made big worldwide by the Austrian entrepreneur Mr. Mateschitz). The Thai Red Bull also tastes very different! As it's very hip in Thailand to be like a European (skin whitening creme, eye operation etc.), the canned Red Bull - as we know it - is sold as "European Import" in Thailand: Red Bull in the can: "Product of Europe" This is how the Thai Red Bull looks like. In our western culture, it reminds of medicine. As you saw in this blog post, a logo alone is not everything. Only a consistent corporate design concept guarantees a value of brand recognition and thus generates the client's trust in the product. If you need a corporate design, send me an email and I'm happy to help you. Solution product names (order like photos): Colgate Total, Fanta, Sprite, Coca Cola Zero, Danone Actimel. #branding #corporatedesign #packaging #thailand #logo

Companies spend thousands of Euros for print advertisements - some magazines even charge six-figure sums and maybe even more. Considering this, it is sad to see expensive advertisements placed wrong. The Indian Holi festival, infamous for its colourfulness, might have been the inspiration for the advert above. The viewer’s awareness is smartly brought directly onto the product (a car in this case) by using a frame. But: The whole frame should definitely be on the page and not bled-off. The focus on the product decreases. I cannot imagine that this was planned by the brand. The Tyrolean tourism region Hochgurgl booked a double-page advertisement in more or less the middle of a magazine. The claim was "Der Höhepunkt Tirols" ("The highlight of Tyrol" or "The peak of Tyrol" as the German word "Höhepunkt" can mean both). However, this claim was placed in the centre of the advert and, consequently, the claim "Der Höhepunkt Tirols" turned into "Der Höhept Tirols" which doesn’t make sense. It is not understandable why some companies hire professional photographers and pay for high-class advertisements, when they don’t hire a professional graphic designer in the end. It’s sad how money gets wasted! #advertisement #magazine #print

Every graphic designer or every person working in the creative industry knows them: creative blocks. You try to get your head around the job as much as possible but it just leads nowhere. I have such moments too and they are very frustrating of course. But there are a few things that help me break creative blockades in order to get back into a creative workflow. TIP # 1 - BRIEFING MEMORY I write important points of the briefing on little cards and mix them. Then I lay out the cards on a big table – like a memory game. Translating the briefing gets some oomph through this and I sometimes get new ideas. TIP # 2 - TAKE A SHOWER It might sound funny, but my best ideas are thought up under the shower. Maybe the soulapping of the water makes my creativity flow, I don’t know. But I can be quite sure that when I take a shower, I step out with a fresh body and fresh ideas in my head. Important: Write ideas down as soon as you’ve finished the shower! TIP # 3 - EXERCISE Sports always helps to get a tired creative mind going again – jogging outside is especially good. Fresh air combined with a good workout is the best method to „reboot“ your mind. TIP # 4 - COOKING I love cooking. When I have a creative blockade, chopping fresh vegetables and trying out new exotic spices helps me a lot to get a free head for a good, intense work session. TIP # 5 - ELIMINATE MESS It depends on the person, but usually if everything is in order then distractions are at a minimum. "A tidy desk is a tidy mind" - this is not just for your physical desk, but your digital desk too. I once spent a few hours organising 2500 images that were just numbered (which did not help anyone). So now if I need a certain image, I can view my options easily without losing precious time and creative power. TIP # 6 - IDEAS AT NIGHT It is proved that the human brain is extremely active at night. And indeed, many of my creative ideas I dream at night. The good thing is that I mostly wake up when I have an idea. I immediately write it down then so no idea gets lost. TIP # 7 - RE-ORGANISE THE DESK/OFFICE Re-organising my desk or office furniture helps me get a new perspective on things and projects for clients which can boost creativity. (Upon successful completion of the job, the desk or furniture is put back of course.) TIP # 8 -HOLIDAY When time and budget allow, travelling abroad is always a benefit for my senses. I love travelling to countries where everything is completely different than in Austria – another culture, another language, other smells, other food etc. This is how I broaden my horizon, which tremendously helps me in my creative job. TIP # 9 - LOUNGE, JAZZ OR CLASSICAL MUSIC Studies proved that listening to classical music makes you work more effectively. And I can only confirm that. Some of my best works I created while listening to classical, jazz or lounge music ( http://deluxemusic.tv/ is fantastic for the latter). TIP # 10 - A RELAXING EVENING Here and there, it is important to completely switch off your mind and relax. If it is a foam bath at home, an evening in the sauna or a day at a thermal bath: Taking a break from everyday life fills up my creative tanks with fresh energy. Important: Don’t forget to switch off your phone! These are my 10 best tips for breaking creative blockades. All tested and approved! I hope I can help some creatives out there to prevent themselves from future creative blocks. #inspiration #creativeblock

Today, HCG corporate designs celebrates 5 years. Yeehaaa! #anniversary #mountain #celebrate

We live in the 21st century. Terms like email, Skype, co-working, cloud computing etc. are very common in the digital times we live in. „Modern working“ is the name of the game and „modern collaboration“ is becoming a business standard as globalization is rising – that’s at least what I thought. I’m a graphic designer working for different clients in different businesses from different countries. The majority of my clients is located in Germany (I am in Innsbruck, close to the German border). However, I also worked for companies from other European countries, from Asia, Australia or North America so far – they all were happy with working with me. This is possible because I always make sure that the communication works smoothly and I’m also available at times that suit my clients. You always hear that companies want to work with people that are flexible and open for modern communication – well, that’s the theory. Everybody wants to be hip and modern, which is good for the image, right? Well, the practise often looks a bit different, what I found out in a few talks with potential clients that are only 150 km away from my office. And I also encountered that phenomenon at the Tiroler Exporttag (Tyrolean Export Day) in summer 2015. In talks with Austrian business delegates that are responsible for different countries, I heard that it’s necessary to have an office in the country you intend to export to. Even – you won’t believe it – in the service industries like graphic design! I talked with business delegates responsible for the USA, the UAE and Singapore for instance. Everywhere I went, I heard the same story. Incredible. I was really surprised. Graphic design, service industries – in theory, I could even work on the moon and the end result for the client would not be any different. Of course given that the communication works perfectly. Does „modern collaboration“ really exist only in theory? Are examples in real life exceptions? I can hardly believe it, but it seems to be true. Of course it’s good to discuss certain things in person, no doubt about that. But it’s sad to see that obviously so many businesses block themselves from benefiting from working with professionals from outside that bring whole new perspectives into the company. I’m not only talking about graphic design here, but about the whole spectrum of service industries out there. When thinking of „modern collaborations“, it looks like many businesses don’t practise what they preach. Maybe some managers are simply too narrow-minded or conservative, I don’t know. But you would expect a bit more open-mindedness in the 21st century, don’t you think? #business #export #globalisation

Sometimes you just can't get a whole object onto one photo. This can be quite frustrating. However, Photoshop can help! The photomerge function (File – Automate – Photomerge) merges several photos that belong together into one picture. Of course you need to have several single photos that you took in a row and will serve photomerge as puzzle pieces. Here you see some raw photos that photomerge has automatically merged for me. These photos really are totally un-edited! Some horizontal panoramas have a slight fish eye lens effect in the center, which can make certain objects in the photo look blown up. Depending on the photo and what story you want to tell with it, this can be a nice visual effect. Especially since the GoPro cameras have become so successful, the fish eye lens experiences a revival – not only in videos. However, if you wish to get rid of that fish eye effect, you can edit the picture in Photoshop accordingly. Go to Edit – Transform – Image Warp. You need some patience and a good eye for that though. As you can see, photomerge is a great function that can be used with ease. Go outside, take photos of a beautiful landscape and try merging photos yourself! #photography #photomerge