You trained as an industrial clerk. How is it that you now work as a graphic designer
My mother always said: 'Do something commercial, then you'll have a job for life'. So, I trained as an industrial clerk at Mannesmann. After my apprenticeship, I started working as a contact assistant at Mannesmann's in-house advertising agency. That was very exciting, and I soaked up everything and simply learned everything I could get my hands on.
What does that mean?
I was very fascinated by the work there: What types of paper are used for brochures, what are colors? How are graphics created? Those were the days when we used to scratch off the letters for a layout. When the first graphics computers came into the market, I taught myself quite a bit after work. The graphic designers practically adopted me, and I learned a lot from them.
And how did you end up at Xella 20 years ago?
In 2004, the Head of Marketing at Xella Kalksandstein GmbH was looking for an assistant. That was also the year in which the Xella brand was launched, and the various business units and their products were brought together under it. In addition to assistant tasks, I gradually took on administrative and creative tasks or worked with external graphic designers and agencies. I have been working as a graphic designer at Xella International since 2016 and was initially responsible for the design of the Milestones, later also for the corporate design, for which I was also feared at one point.
For what reason?
We have really improved in recent years in terms of the uniformity of our external appearance. The corporate design doesn't look like this because it suits my personal taste, but because it must be easy to adapt and inexpensive to implement for all countries. At the same time, it also needs continuity. And someone who keeps track of that.
Taiko is a Japanese drumming art. How did you get into it?
My best friend from school took me to bongo drumming after work one day. But there was no more room for us in the group at the time. We then took part in a taiko workshop and spent three days drumming for six hours at a time. By the evening of the first day, we could no longer move. When we went to the restaurant in the evening, we couldn't lift our beer glasses because of the pain. Nevertheless, the first workshop was great, and I've stuck with it ever since.
