BraunPrizeBlog

As you might have guessed the afternoon part of the BraunPrize Jury session went a little bit different than the morning part. First of all and in line with my 12:25 hrs. note I must repeat that I’m more than impressed by the discipline & focus of the jury members as well as the degree of organization of the overall setup.

At the end of the day/afternoon all external jury members agreed that condensing from a total of 941 entries down to 68 entries hasn’t been possible without the great preparation the BraunPrize team has provided beforehand. Kudos to Gerlinde Kress, Christine Bachmann and Claudio Schneider on behalf of the whole BraunPrize team!

Anyway after lunch the jury did another walk around looking at the final 68 entries they’ve agreed upon at the end of the morning. Luckily enough I’ve had the chance to at least grab three of the total of five jury members for a short interview. For reasons of general convenience I’ve decided to go first for the three external jury members and include at the next jury meeting in June Peter Schneider as well as Udo Milutzki.

As you will notice from background noise in the video(s) below I only had a total of some 45 minutes to conduct the interviews as they’ve already started to take down the the poster walls and tables at the Kronberg town hall.

So my first interview partner has been Mark Breitenberg. Mark is the Dean of Undergraduate Education at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. He holds a PhD. in Literature and Critical Theory from the University of California and has published many articles in the fields of literary history, English literature, Shakespeare, and design education. Mark is also a member Executive Board of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID), where he serves as the Chair of Education and leads ICSID’s Global Education Network.

I must admit that this has been my first sort of ‘Video Show’ I’ve done so after watching the film I’ve discovered lots of issues to improve (note the bump with my chair at 01:30 min ;-) One thing I’ve directly changed was that I’ve moved the camera a little bit closer to the remaining interviews. Accordingly you will have to turn up the volume a little bit in order to follow Mark’s answers. My apologies for this! On the other hand I still find the interview highly interesting and it gives you a good impression of what kind of person Mark is. And I can confirm he is a really friendly, co-operative and nice guy ;-)

Link: sevenload.com

What I’ve find most interesting about Mark is his background and knowledge in Literature and Critical Theory and the way he’s applying this knowledge to the field of Design. Here#s just a short quote from the interview:

“When I look at a product it’s not only the thing, but it’s the story it tells. The story of the human experience, the human psychology of everything that goes into it …”

So, instead of regurgitating just watch the show and absorb.

P.S.: Next in line will be BraunPrize 2003 winner and these days jury member Benjamin Holch from frogdesign. I’ll post the video within the next couple of days.