About me
As a little boy I wanted to become a cartoonist. I was incredibly enchanted by the cartoons and comics from the Far West (USA) and Far East (Japan). After my teachers in school ignored my artistic ambitions, my mother wanted me to become a doctor and the employment office wanted to place me in the German army as a paratrooper, I decided to emigrate from northern Germany to study graphic design in Berlin.
In this studies, I was not only immersed in drawing, but also came into contact with brand and web design for the first time and was hooked. After my studies, I started my professional career, at that time still called web designer (today UI designer), at the Rocket Internet company "eDarling". In this job and the following ones, I was getting more and more interested in usability design, today known as user experience (UX) design.
I felt it was no longer enough for me to make the websites "look fancy", I wanted to test what works for the users and what doesn't. Since the topic of UX design was not yet too widespread in German companies, I decided to teach myself the subject and continued my career as a freelancer. What I learned during this time was priceless. Not only in terms of UI/UX design, but also the knowledge about the tech industry and networking in general.
After working with many Berlin startups and large corporations, my path eventually led me to ImmoScout24. I really liked the corporate culture, the team, and there were also interesting topics on the horizon. The company had just undergone a complete redesign, which I accompanied from the beginning and helped design the new UI, and I convinced the management to dare the experiment "Design System". After initial skepticism, since this topic was still very young, I got the time and freedom to fight my way through the design system jungle. At that time, I had few best practices to guide me and the tools were still half baked.
The ImmoScout24 redesign and the design system became a great success and I was hired on a permanent basis as I got the opportunity to become Lead UX Designer and to establish Design Operations in the company. This also led to great success and I am very grateful for that time.
However, after plenty of reflection, I realized more and more that I really missed the variety and freedom of the freelance lifestyle and decided it was time to work as a freelancer again. This time with a focus on design systems, design ops, design thinking, and of course UX design.
Comic drawing, I still do as a hobby, but my job is no less exciting and varied and I'm very excited to see what new tools and technologies the future brings that will once again change everything!
Today I live in the south of Brandenburg, with my wonderful wife, our three children and a lot of animals. I've been working on my projects from my home office for two years now, and when I close my MacBook in the evening, I don't squeeze myself into the S-Bahn, but go out barefoot and cultivate my self-sufficient garden.