Congratulations to KISD student Valentin Schlitt for his award-winning poster “Schwarzmalerei“ in the context of the 33rd edition of the nationwide Poster Competition organized by Deutsches Studentenwerk (German Student Union). Schlitt’s work, at KISD supervised by Prof.Iris Utikal, was ranked first place with a cash value of 3,000 euro.
A face against a red background with a black bar in front of the eyes resembling some Virtual Reality glasses, in addition the lettering of “Es ist einfach für unsere Zukunft schwarz zu sehen, alles andere erfordert Vorstellungskraft“(Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world). It is this very motif through which KISD student Valentin Schlitt was ranked first place in the context of the 33rd edition of the nationwide poster competition hosted by the German Student Union.
The award ceremony took place on June 24, 2019 at Museum für Kommunikation Berlin (Communication Museum Berlin). Almost 500 posters from 243 students from 34 universities had been submitted for this year’s competition branded with the task of “#nextgeneration: Studying in the Future“: How will academic learning look like in the year 2050? What visions, ideas, approaches, images, and dreams have today’s students for tomorrow? How far will digitization affect our society?
Prof. Iris Utikal, who at KISD had supervised Valentin Schlitt’s project work, said: “In line with this year’s competition topic, the poster ‘Schwarzmalerei‘ by Valentin Schlitt perfectly makes the general skepticism towards new media subject of discussion. At the same time, however, Valentin Schlitt also wants to address that the many positive facets of this development should not be neglected.“
Two-year road show will feature 3 KISD project works
In 2019 thus, KISD and Valentin Schlitt were ranked first place. In 2018, KISD student Yu-Min Tsai and his project work “Where Am I?“ had been ranked second place in the nationwide design competition. After the competition’s award ceremony and starting in fall 2019, there will be a nationwide road show through Germany where 30 posters will be exhibited at various German universities, among them the KISD posters of Valentin Schlitt, Tim Schnettker, and Yuchen Cheng.
Prof. Dr. Rolf-Dieter Postlep, president of the German Student Union, said: “There have been very interesting submissions to our assignment this year. The answers given by the design students were though quite astonishing since we could acknowledge a lot of dystopia and skepticism about technology in the posters. I expected the outcomes to be more optimistic. But many students share a rather critical and pessimistic approach towards digitization. That is a reason more to engage with current students in today’s and tomorrow’s society.“
The Poster Competition of the German Student Union, addressed to design students, is being sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with the Berlin-based Museum für Kommunikation as an associated partner. The poster competition’s jury consisted of Prof. Uli Braun, Prof. Richard Jung, Tabea Dölker, Regine Meldt and Thomas Schmalz. Apart from Valentin Schlitt as winner on first place, the award features two students on second place, each worth 2,000 euro, and three submissions ranked third place, worth 1,000 euro each.
“#nextgeneration: Studying in the Future“
33rd edition of the Poster Competition by German Student Union (Deutschen Studentenwerk) 2018/19
Awardees:
First prize, 3,000 euro for “Schwarzmalerei“
Valentin Schlitt, KISD – Köln International School of Design of TH Köln
Second prize, 2,000 euro, for „#thisandnext“ (Series of two posters)
Nadège Jankowicz, University of Applied Sciences, Augsburg
Second prize, 2,000 euro, for “What are you actually studying?“
Franziska Brenner, Federal Academy of the Arts, Stuttgart
Third prize, 1,000 euro, for “Altruistic Technology“
Sulamith Gutwein, TH Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm
Third prize, 1,000 euro for “You are connected“
Sophia Hölz, University of Applied Sciences, Mannheim
Third prize, 1,000 euro for “make a change“ (series of three posters)
Lisa Klimesch, University of Applied Sciences, Augsburg
Photo credits: KISD (Schlitt), Deutsches Studentenwerk (Herschelmann)