Smashing Magazine
Showcase Of Web Design In Germany
Germany, which is situated in the heart of Europe and neighbors nine other countries, is not only the motherland of eminent philosophers, poets, composers, world-famous automobiles and great beer, but also a place where some of the most talented and highly ranked Web designers live.
German design is certainly worthy of respect and a delight to the eye of anyone who takes the time to observe it. For years, we have accumulated knowledge, upheld eternal principles of style, simplicity and accessibility, adopted best practices and kept up with the latest global trends. I’m proud to present here a showcase and discussion of world-class German Web design.

German Web Design: jung von matt
[Offtopic: by the way, did you already get your copy of the Smashing Book?]
State Of Things
The creative industry in Germany is extremely competitive and consists of thousands of freelancers, studios and agencies. We have the pleasure here of presenting a brief interview with several German design gurus to lend some insight into the local design scene. As talented creative professionals, blog and book authors and freelancers, they are passionate about sharing their knowledge with others. Our participants are:
- Prof. Fons Matthias Hickmann, graphic designer, typographer, Professor of communication design at the University of the Arts Berlin, Director of Fons Hickmann m23 design studio, author of “Beyond Graphic Design” and “Touch Me There” books;
- Mike John Otto, founder and Creative Director of blackbeltmonkey design studio;
- Kai Becker, Creative Director at Elephant Seven agency;
- Christian Bartsch, Associate Creative Director at Neue Digitale / Razorfish agency;
- Dirk Ollmann, freelance Creative Director;
- Markus Angermeier, design freelancer;
- Björn Seibert, Web designer, information architect, founder of the Webzeugkoffer blog, and author of the book “Professionelles Webdesign mit (X)HTML und CSS”;
- Dirk Behlau, graphic designer and photographer.
Question: Could you please describe the current state of the German design market. What is the life of a freelancer, developer or designer in Germany like? How much do designers earn?
Prof. Fons Matthias Hickmann: Working with interesting and open-minded people is not something you can take for granted. And earning money by doing what you love involves luck.
Mike John Otto: The current situation for good designers, developers and especially freelancers is surprisingly good. That strange year 2009 wasn’t as bad as many thought it would be, and there was a big demand for good creatives with experience to help realize projects at agencies. As many bigger agencies reduced their team sizes, freelancers were highly welcome, and I honestly think that shrinking in such a “crisis” always benefits the quality of creative projects, because people try harder to prove themselves with good work instead of just doing their job.
Kai Becker: I think 2009 has been a hard year for designers. Although we had a lot of work (compared to conventional advertising agencies), many clients cut their budgets, which often meant less time for the design process. I also missed jobs in which the design or idea played a leading role. Briefings were very conservative or half-hearted and often came with a very reduced budget. A screen designer earns around €2000 to 2800; from there on you’d be an Art Director. Most of them earn €2900 to 4000, but a few earn a bit higher. Freelance screen designers earn in the range of €150 to 250 per day, Freelance art directors get from €300 to 500. Because conventional agencies had to sack quite a few designers, a lot more freelancers have been available in 2009, and as far as I know they have had a hard time.
Christian Bartsch: I think we have the perfect market right now for small studios and freelancers. All the big agencies tried to build up knowledge of digital services in the past five years to be more integrated. Those that failed now have to to work with specialists and independent freelance networks to be competitive. Clients want their 360° communication, and you need professionals for that. A lot of these professionals, including myself, can be found on Design made in Germany, a platform for German designers. Money-wise, I would say it is the same as everywhere else. If you are good, you’ll be booked.
Dirk Ollmann: The financial crisis had a strong impact on the freelance market. I know a lot of them were starving and sleeping under the bridges in Hamburg. Just joking. Life is not that bad, but agencies tried to manage all of their work with their own staff, and so hiring freelancers was a no-go for the last two years. Now the market is rising again, and the fact that agencies were very cautious and kept their staff counts low will now help freelancers. An art director can earn between €300 and 500 a day, depending on his skills, quality and speed.
Björn Seibert: Web designers and developers are working — surprise, surprise — as freelancers and employees. Freelancers work more on interdisciplinary projects and teams. The employees work in small specialized agencies, in bigger full-service agencies and large industry enterprises. I would guess the majority work for small to mid-sized businesses. But overall, I don’t think that this is particular to the German market.
Working as a Web designer or developer is rarely a 9:00 to 5:00 job. Your income depends of whether you work as a freelancer or employee. Secondly, it depends on whether you work for a small agency or large enterprise. It may also depend on education. Employees can earn from €35,000 up to 50,000 or even more. As a freelancer, it depends on your market, target groups and customers. As a freelancer, you can and should ask for an hourly rate of at least €50 and up.
Dirk Behlau: Hmm… I have been working as a freelance graphic designer and photographer for ten years now, and I have been lucky enough to develop Pixeleye Interactive (my business) from year to year. I mainly work for international lifestyle, car and custom-bike magazines and top brands. For example, I was in Mexico with the Finnish rock band Leningrad Cowboys in the fall of 2009; we will produce a photo book and DVD documentary together. All I mean to say with this example is that I am not sitting in my office every day from 9:00 to 5:00. I travel a lot, meet cool people and a lot of new things happen. So no day is like another, which keeps me motivated. How much do designers earn? That depends on how “established” you are in the business… I have all I want and can make a good living out of it.
Question: Are there any patterns of usability or rules of thumb that are typical of German design? Are the standards of Web design in Germany changing?
Prof. Fons Matthias Hickmann: Although the Web is completely different from print or anything else we thought we knew, you can still apply your principles and tastes to Web design. At the moment, almost anything is possible, and that makes it exciting.
Mike John Otto: Well historically, German design has always been really clear and straightforward. On the one hand, everything produced in Germany, including the design, is usually very precise and content-driven. On the other hand, I see a new trend of more experimental designs that try to break out of grids and usability patterns. As globalization hits every one of us, and with one click anyone can see what is highly rated in other countries, German designers are trying to develop something new, a new German design language, as happened on the German music scene before.
A new German aesthetic language that still hasn’t quite developed but will hopefully soon be as strong as the German music and art scene is today. The most creative areas in Germany currently are Berlin, Hamburg and the Frankfurt am Main area. A lot of smaller German design and digital studios pop up and do remarkable work far away from daily advertising work, even if the big networks still play a bigger role in the German creative scene than they do in, for example, the UK or Sweden.
Kai Becker: I wouldn’t say so. This is a difficult point, but I can’t see anything explicitly “German” in Web design from here. Standards are always changing, but I think that affects Web designers and developers worldwide.
Christian Bartsch: The design culture in Germany is still very young. With the rise of Berlin as one of the hot spots in Europe, German design has taken a big step. We had and still have a lot of influence from Spain and France. If we speak of Web design, Germany always has been competitive in the global market. You will find a lot of German projects on The FWA.
Dirk Ollmann: For me, as a creative director who has worked on a lot on big brands in the car and consumer goods industries, the financial crisis has had a huge effect on marketing strategy and the process and technology of the Web designer. It turns out that the short-term “return on investment” is more important than long-term brand building.
Today, analytics is the driving force in Germany. But what effect has this had on Web design? The trend is “back from Flash to HTML.” This is the technology that works best with Google’s search engine. Actually, the new BMW website design is based on HTML. Last year’s Web designers were expected to have a lot of skill in Flash and inventing new navigation concepts and visualizations. Now, we’re going back to the roots of Internet, keeping it very simple, do everything that Google wants and trying to sell the product with a few clicks. That’s it.
Björn Seibert: First of all, I don’t think there should be a special rule set for a specific national market. We and others are working hard for a common understanding of Web standards, usability and accessibility around the world. There could be derivative or special requirements for special markets or target groups. But there is foremost a strong demand for international and widespread standards by which every designer and developer can build websites and applications of high quality and a high level of user experience.
Spurred by the Web standards movement in the US, and led by “General” Zeldman and his combatants, the Web standards movement accelerated very quickly in Germany as well. Many of us in Germany started thinking about those standards and proposed best practices. In 2005, Jens Grochtdreis founded the Webkrauts. The Webkrauts are working hard on doing awareness training for Web standards and best practices in Web design and development. Their publications help to educate others and point to obstacles.

colibri – contactlinse & brille
Question: How important is professional education in the design industry, and do you feel that the education available in Germany is adequate to develop world-class designers?
Prof. Fons Matthias Hickmann: Professional education is very important, and more open-minded and sensible young talents are out there than ever before. I am anxious for them to take over soon.
Mike John Otto: I truly believe that all world-class designers have an innate feel for design but have also learned and shaped their skills at art school and by working in agencies. So yes, a professional education is not only important but essential, and a few very good ones not only teach students creative and software techniques but open their eyes to art, design history, common trends and design rules as well as things like film, theater and marketing. Nowadays, design students who are looking for jobs have to know much more than they did a couple of years ago: about film, conceptual thinking, advertising rules, digital trends such as social media and online campaigns, to name just a few.
These so-called “digital natives” have a much wider range of techniques and hardware to mix into their daily work than I had when starting out in the business in 2000. This is a big opportunity and a big pain at the same time. Every good school has to prepare to students to meet this wide new range of market needs.

figurenschneider puppenbau norman schneider, bielefeld
Kai Becker: For advertising agencies, your portfolio matters the most. I judge designers by the work they have done already, not if they have studied the right thing. And yet Burg Giebichenstein in Halle, Germany, is the place that develops world-class online designers. If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.
Christian Bartsch: I think professional education shapes your style and keeps you focused. I experienced big differences in quality at German design schools. After four years, I transferred because I was unsatisfied with the conditions at my school. Design is evolving. Multi-touch and augmented reality offer new ways to approach content. Interfaces are becoming more and more complex. Some schools still think in paper.
Dirk Ollmann: Of course, a professional education is essential. It speeds up your talent. But learning your craft is only one aspect. You should also use your university or design school to meet people and network. World-class designers? Of course there is enough room for them in Germany. Have a look at the biggest multi-touch wall made by Sensory Minds!
Björn Seibert: This topic was the subject of my latest article for the German “Webstandards Magazin” (Issue 4/2009). And yes, I think there is a need for more professionalism in terms of education and orientation for job starters in the field of Web design and development. Indeed, we are seeing a bit of action with apprenticeship; people who study digital media and design have the opportunity to do some specialization. But so far, there is no special degree course or job training that fully concentrates on educating Web designers and developers. In my opinion, there is still a lot of work to do in offering more professional education and better safeguards to hopeful professionals — safeguard that would keep people from thinking that any Web design job could easily be done by their neighbor’s son.
Dirk Behlau: Nowadays, getting a good education is becoming more and more important for someone to be successful in the design field. There are a lot of good people out there. I started 15 years ago as a full auto-didact, developing my own style and look. Designers coming from university are often very impractical in normal “office life.” They may have learned how to use programs like Photoshop, but they don’t have the experience to be successful in their business. Self-marketing and self-promotion are very important, and these are not taught very well in universities.
Question: Where do you get inspiration from? How do you stay informed about the latest design trends? What books and magazines do you read?
Prof. Fons Matthias Hickmann: Like almost everybody I speak to about inspiration, I feel overwhelmed by the amount of information we process every day from the Web. A few websites are clever and thoughtful, giving insight into the creation and process of design, rather than just showing random pictures. Where do I get my inspiration from? From every form of culture. And from daily life. The Web now plays a part in both.
Mike John Otto: I get my inspiration from a mixture of influences: Hamburg and Berlin’s night scenes, youth culture and their dress and music codes, travelling, music magazines and my daily work with colleagues and students from my class. Of course, I check out design websites such as The FWA, High Floater and Digital Arts, as well as magazines such as PAGE and IdN, but I don’t get inspired by checking out other design work. True inspiration comes from fields such as music, theatre and story-telling. Sometimes new ideas are born of these influences, and sometimes one kind of recycles all of this stuff and creates something new from it.
Dirk Ollmann: Before you design, you need an idea. I think this is the most difficult thing. A lot of designers use the Internet to try to come up with a unique idea, but that’s the last place to find it. I try to keep my eyes open for things that happen in real life… keep my eyes open and record. After a while, you have a database of ideas waiting for implementation. Stop working, get inspired! Ideas will come by doing something completely different. Try something! I use to pet my cat, kite-surf, play bass, etc. Nevertheless, there are some websites I check regularly: Behance for random searching (those are some cool guys from Eastern Europe); for style, The Cool Hunter is one of my favourite websites; and The FWA for state-of-the-art Flash design.
Björn Seibert: A normal day starts with Google Reader and the Twitter timeline. These are my main sources of information for keeping up to date on Web design trends and issues. Actually, I’m subscribed to about 230 feeds, mostly covering design, Web design and development, usability and user experience topics. Further, I’m subscribed to some Posterous blogs. I love to discover small new unknown blogs with good and relevant copywriting. For me, inspiration is nothing you go out looking for. It starts with good content, smart insight into Web design issues and smart solutions to common problems. I read a lot of Web design-related books. Lately: Sexy Web Design, Designing with Web Standards, Integrierte Informationsarchitektur. At the moment, there is only one magazine I’m willing to pay for, the quarterly Webstandards Magazin.
Dirk Behlau: I travel a lot, meet new artists and exchange ideas with them. And I do read a lot of magazines and check websites, blogs, social network websites, etc. So, I do look everywhere, and I’m interested in a wide range of themes from movies, music, video games, travel, lifestyle, hot-rodding, custom culture, skateboarding, custom bikes, graffiti, tattoos, to name just a few. I do get a lot of magazines from around the world every month, covering everything from cars to tattoos to music. I love the Juxtapoz and IdN magazines.
Question: Are there any other issues unique to German Web design? Do you see any remarkable differences in comparing it to creative industries worldwide?
Prof. Fons Matthias Hickmann: One obvious difference is the language. English is omnipresent on the Web, German is big as well. How should we deal with that? Is translation a good method, or an alternative? How will our culture change? What can we do as designers?
Mike John Otto: Not really. British, US and Swedish influences are big in Germany, and so the product is becoming more and more similar. A German design and Web design language is being formulated more and more but is still not strong enough. Most of the German work seen at award shows and in magazines is still mainstream from a handful of very well-known German agencies. Although German ads and design are winning more and more at award shows: Germany was in the top five in quite a few rankings this year. I hope a remarkable difference will show itself in German design sometime soon.
Kai Becker: There may be slight differences between European, Asian and American Web design, but I would not say they are remarkable. Perhaps German Web design is typically straight, clean, simple and tidy. Kind of what you would expect from a German, wouldn’t you? :)
Christian Bartsch: Right now, Flash development is particularly good in Germany. Small studios such as blackbeltmonkeys, Less Rain and Artificial Duck are pushing the limits.
Dirk Ollmann: Germans are often seen as “number crunchers” — that’s absolutely true. The big brands always want to know what the results will be before we do anything, and we try to avoid any mistakes. The result is that we miss a lot of opportunities that the Internet provides. But maybe this is a worldwide problem as well. Styles and trends? I hope German Web designers will kill glossy 3-D buttons, wet-floor shadows and those ’80s trend next year. Website design will evolve into big clear typography, short copy, only a few themes per page, big easy buttons and a lot of video content.
Making videos will become increasingly easy, and we’ll turn away from the high-end glossy advertising grease. Even big brands will host their videos on YouTube or Google Video to allow users to embed. “Sharing” will be the driving force of content and Web design in the coming years. The biggest task of brands will be to conquer social networks like Facebook, MySpace, etc. But most brands have no idea how to achieve this. For me, this is one of the most interesting fields in advertising today.

das leben ist wie eine schachtel pralinen
Björn Seibert: I generally have a more global point of view. But what must be emphasized is that a line of German Web design has emerged. There are a bunch of very talented Web designers, and the Web standards movement is upon us, in no small part thanks to the Webkrauts initiative. There is also a highly recommended Web-standards podcast Technikwürze that covers the latest Web design trends and features the best from the Web in Germany. But I think that sometimes we should be more self-confident and share with each other our thoughts about modern Web design and current issues.
Dirk Behlau: That’s difficult to answer because I work for international clients that demand my particular style. Sometimes I think European and American clients are more experimental.
What’s Going On In Germany?
Events
A number of design and tech-related events happen in Germany on regular basis. Some worth mentioning are Forum Mediendesign; Designers’ Open; webinale ; WebTech, DesignCamp (January 24-25, 2009 in Cologne). A famous international arts festival, “Illustrative,” was held this year in Berlin.
- Forum Mediendesign
- Designers’ Open
- Webinale
- webtech conference
- designcamp
- Illustrative
- Volkssport Design
- Design Zoom
Awards
Among the most prestigious awards in the German design industry are the red dot design award, iF communication design award, Designpreis, Gute Gestaltung, Deutscher Multimedia Award (DMMA), BIENE-Award and LeadAward.
- DDC
- red dot award
- International Forum Design
- Designpreis Deutschland
- Deutscher Multimedia Award
- Biene Award
- LeadAwards
Showcase Of Web Design In Germany
In this showcase, we bring you a selection of the most inspiring and well-designed websites in Germany, either personal experimental or corporate.
friseur hamburg – rolf & bernd
pisto – magazin über web und die welt
erfolgreiche webseiten und marketing-kampagnen aus hamburg
oliver twardowski, addicted to coffee
dinge geregelt kriegen – ohne einen funken selbstdisziplin
kinderspiele, malvorlagen, kindergeburtstag
stefan velthuys – web & frontend-designer
stilvolles webdesign, printdesign, illustration und animation
noel nieto – strassenfussballer
high quality writing instruments
Julius Brink & Jonas Reckermann
photocase – kreative stockfotos
wm team – showtime for your brand
xplicit ffm / grafik – und webdesign aus frankfurt
Showcase Of Design Agencies
The design sector in Germany is dominated by a number of highly professional creative agencies that have earned international public attention and many prestigious awards: among them the red dot design award, iF communication design award and Designpreis.
Scholz & Volkmer
Clients: Mercedes-Benz, Adidas, Samsung, Coca-Cola
recom
Clients: Adidas, American Express, Audi, BASF, BMW, Bosch, Braun, Canon, Chevrolet, Citroen,Douglas, Ehrmann, Fiat, Ford, Gerry Weber
Mutabor
Clients: Adidas, Audi, BMW, Breuninger, L’Oreal, Nivea, T-Mobile, Volkswagen
Tilt Design Studio
Clients: Audi, Belmondo
Saint Elmo’s
Clients: BWM, Lufthansa, AxelSpringer
GNC Design
Clients: HTC Deutschland, Ford Deutschland, Renault Nissan Deutschland
Toca Me
Clients: Amway, BMW, Burda, Compaq, Fujitsu Siemens, Henkel, L’Oreal, Mc Donalds, Microsoft, MINI, Müller Milch, Novartis, Red Bull, RitterSport, Sony BMG, Vodafone, Xbox
hauser lacour
Clients: Bayer, Berlin Chemie, Commerzbank, Lufthansa
urbn;
Clients: McDonalds, Adidas, Sarotti, Hasseröder, hohes-C, L’Oreal
blackbeltmonkey
Clients: Mitsubishi, Edeka, FC Bayern, Chelsea FC
Taobot
Clients: Beck’s, Coca-Cola, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, GfK Group, Jay-Z, Leica Camera, Mercedes Benz, Metro Group, o2 Deutschland, Smirnoff, Swarovski, ThyssenKrupp, Toblerone
Moccu
Clients: L’Oreal, Garnier, Volkswagen, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Dior, Maybelline, WWF, Canon
Goldener Westen
Clients: Axel Springer, Coca-Cola, Edeka, ZKM Karlsruhe
MetaDesign
Clients: Volkswagen, OTTO, Conrad, Audi, Klett Verlag, Lufthansa, Nici, eBay
Aperto
Clients: Audi, Bayer, BenQ, Coca-Cola, F.A.Z., Siemens, Sony, Triumph, Volkswagen
Loved
Clients: Adidas, Audi, Comdirect, Görtz, s.Oliver
Antwerpes
Clients: Aral, Bayer
Are We Designer
Clients: BASF, Burda, Deutsche Telecom, Vodafone
Marctropolis
Clients: ARD, Beate Uhse, Bild, BMG, Burger King, Chupa Chups, Procter & Gamble, Red Bull, RTL, Siemens, Skoda, Universal Music, ZDF
Parasol Island
Clients: MTV, IKEA, Sony Ericsson
Fiftyeight
Clients: DHL, Mazda, Milka, Lacoste, Jaguar, RTL, Nintendo Deutschland, Disney, Procter & Gamble, Ferrero Deutschland, Karlsberg, Nike, Renault Germany, Warner Music Germany, Sparkasse, Opel, MTV
Showcase Of Web Design Freelancers
Besides the professional creative agencies, we find a lot of freelancers working in the industry.
United States of Design
Clients: Adidas, Audi, Bacardi, Berliner Sparkasse, Bertelsmann, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Mini, MTV, Mozilla, Plazes, Sprite, Siemens, Sony, Sony Ericsson, TDK, Volkswagen
Martin Anderle
Clients: Adidas, BMW, Sony Ericcson, Volvo, ZDF
kosmar
Clients: Stiftung Warentest, Daimler, SPD Berlin, Plazes
Dirk Schütze
Clients: Leibniz, Konica Minolta, Deutsche Post
Radekal
Clients: Gillette, IKEA
mediziehm
Clients: Peugeot, Ford, Jaguar
Round-Up Of German Design Resources
To stay competitive and successful on the creative scene, we have to know what’s happening in the fields of Web design, Web development, graphic design and typography and know what trends are set to become the next big things in the design world.
The round-up below of over 70 design-related resources should give you an overview of German blogs, Web design galleries (both CSS and Flash), communities, social networks and magazines (both online offline). You would be well advised to read or at least occasionally look through these to catch up on the latest design trends and get a daily dose of inspiration and encouragement. I invite you to discover some of these unique and enjoyable resources!
Blogs
- Das Web Design Blog
- Design Tagebuch
- Pixelgangster
- Pixelgraphix
- Colurz.de
- Webzeugkoffer
- Dr. Web
- Farbwolke
- Zwiebeltisch: Magazin für Gestaltung
- Create Or Die
- Webstandard
- Designpicks
- Designer In Action
- Peter Unruh
- Stilpirat
- Chukki.de
- Volderette
- Pixeleye Daily Design Blog
- Kulturbanause
- Pixey.de
- Designjournal
- Visualblog
- Webdesigner Blog
- Mediengestalter Blog
- Jung v. Matt
- BerlinDesignBlog
- StyleSpion
- Slanted
- Fontblog
- MyFonts
- Spatium
Web Design Galleries (CSS and Flash)
- CSSArena
- CSS Hamster
- Netzfrühling
- Distinct Styles
- Design Award
- Visueller Orgasmus
- Visual Safe
- Piepmatzel
- Spyline
- CSS Info
- PixelEyeGermany
- Quandtnet
Magazines
- art: Das Kunstmagazin
- PAGE
- weave
- Design made in Germany
- novum
- design report
- Destructed
- Castle: Illustrative Magazine
- form
- beef
- encore
Your Opinion Is Welcome!
What is your opinion of the German Web design scene? In case we’ve missed any exceptional websites, please share them, and your thoughts, in the comments section. We always look forward to your feedback and support!
Related Posts
You may be interested in the following related posts from our new series on global Web design:
Stay Tuned And Get In Touch!
This article is the fourth in our new Global Web Design series. Over the next months, we’ll be covering various continents, featuring Web developers and designs from different countries and looking closely at what is happening on the Web design scene worldwide.
If you”d like to prepare an article for this series, please contact us, and we’ll discuss details.
(al)
- 122 Comments
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January 26th, 2010 10:27 amAbsolutely agreee with Steve,
thanks for your work, but there are great philosophs and all the other disciplines in any country. This excessive overdose of “we are something special” in the intro is exactly the thing that makes it different to others, not the work.
Good work, bad habit.
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January 26th, 2010 4:53 amGreat Post, I Love Smashing Magazine….Everyday new Articles that inspire and surprise us..
regards
Anand - 4
January 26th, 2010 4:57 amThis sites have a particular stile! Love german designers.
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January 26th, 2010 5:17 amDefinately nice artworks!
What’re (TOP 5) biggest agencies in german? - 6
January 26th, 2010 5:31 amdamn that my website is not listed
nick jantschke – freelancer – germany
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January 26th, 2010 5:33 amLove the designs & SM…
Waiting for Indian showcase :) - 8
January 26th, 2010 5:34 amWow, Germany can boast of so many great designers! A good bunch of inspiration in this post. Thanks.
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January 26th, 2010 5:46 amSome very interesting design here. I’m really liking the showcases from various countries. Thanks SM!
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January 26th, 2010 5:48 amI read smashing daily and there are lots of reason behind that……
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January 26th, 2010 5:48 amYou should update the events, guess what: Even we Germans have already celebrated the New Year. :-)
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January 26th, 2010 5:48 amI read smashing daily and there are lots of reasons behind that……
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January 26th, 2010 5:49 amI was expecting this article for a long time. Great. Thank you.
“straight, clean, simple and tidy” - 14
January 26th, 2010 5:57 amsomething you guys really haved to missed to list is http://www.3spin.de/#/en/
check there site, it’s freaking awesome! - 15

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January 26th, 2010 8:39 amNice try, Dragothic. One question: can a website be more generic than yours?
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January 26th, 2010 6:39 amWhere are the women design gurus?
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January 26th, 2010 6:40 am@Mistyukevych Serge
the biggest web agencies in germany
http://www.newmediaranking.de/rankings_2009.html - 19
January 26th, 2010 6:43 amThis is a great series. Can you guys do a piece on India? I’d love to see that.
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January 26th, 2010 6:45 amGermany 4 evaa =)
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January 26th, 2010 6:50 amNice collection! If you look at the website of Mutabor and these flipping signs: Sometimes one of the girls does a mistake. It’s really funny to see ;)
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January 26th, 2010 6:54 amstunishing post.SM is the best around:D
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January 26th, 2010 7:10 amSorry, but i’ll have to swim up the stream of elogious comments on this one.
How come not a single one of the so-called designers mention the heritage of Bauhaus and its application in web design? Or the ZKM, for that matter?
it strikes me that you ask web designers to talk about their country’s web design. Web designers live on the web and have their own sub-culture. Will anyone admit that none of the websites shown here have anything really different than the usual flow of today’s mainstream webdesign icons?
If you want to find the specificities of German (or any country for that matter) have a look at their experimental actors, not the mainstream. Ask real designers (real= seeking something new) what is their take on the specifics of German history/ history of art and its influence in german (web) design.
Examples:
http://www.antireflex.de/exhibition.htm
http://www.raster-noton.net/
http://www.zkm.de/
http://www.lumicon.de/lippmann/full.htm
http://www.alvanoto.com/By the way, it’s 2010: it’s ok to say that the nazis had one of the most powerful logo, without implying that you support that ideology – we are talking design, not philosophy.
Hope this helps trigger a more interesting discussion.
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January 26th, 2010 8:09 amAgreed. So many SM postings lack any historic look back or insights how certain styles developed. They are usually shallow link lists with loads of “awesomeness”. But most people handle design posting like men’s magazines: they only here for the pictures …
I like to add the following topic to your list:
* German Surrealism & Dadaism
* Berlin in the 1920′s and 1930′s as an extremely progressive city / cultural mix
* German “Sachlichkeit”, especially such great Designer as Otl Aicher and his famous Olympic Pictograms
* one of the grestest Modernist and Typographer Jan TschicholdAnd so much more …
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January 26th, 2010 10:55 amEven though this particular post doesn’t mention Bauhaus and none of the German designers interviewed mention the history, to generalize Smashing Magazine not covering this is not fair. They’ve dedicated posts just on Bahaus (see: Bauhaus: Ninety Years of Inspiration). This is a showcase of current Web Design in Germany, not the history of design in Germany. That later topic alone can span three articles.
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January 26th, 2010 11:57 am@pixline: Do you really think the links you posted are good examples for german webdesign. I guess 10pt fonts are not really state of the art and the usage of black and white and one highlight color (usually magenta) is not that innovative.
You are right, maybe, the shown website look quite similar to other countries, but what do you expect? We germans life in a bubble, without looking left or right? I am not sure about the main goal of this article, but I guess they try to give an overview of general webdesign in german. So it’s not about art in german or about the history and that’s what they have done.
By the way the Logo of the Nazis was a egypt symbol for luck and the Nazis mirrored it.
@orangeguru: What the hell you are talking about, this article is about design and not art. Sure there is a synergy between both, but where is the point, you want to have a art lesson or talking about current design directions?
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May 19th, 2010 3:04 pmBy the way the “nazi” logo is not an egyptian symbol
It is the indian swastika
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastik
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January 27th, 2010 1:06 amI don’t agree that “real” designers are those who seek for something new. I don’t care if the design is inventive as long as it looks and feels good. And as the end user, i find the websites you cite as examples neither beautiful nor usable. You suggest interesting topics to discuss though, they just have nothing to do with showcase articles. Why don’t you write for SM?
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January 27th, 2010 9:57 amThere is no philosophy in nacism, I´m convinced.
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January 26th, 2010 7:12 amthank you for this great post!
best wishes - 31
January 26th, 2010 7:40 amw3.jvm.com is the worst example for german webdesign ever-i cant believe it. the real view to jvm is here http://www.designtagebuch.de/jung-von-matt-relauncht-website/ (only in german)
the others are very good.But webdesign is only good, when its user-friendly. And some website are …
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January 26th, 2010 7:43 amIt would have been nice if you had included some women. This certainly gives the impression that German Web design is an exclusively male club.
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January 26th, 2010 7:45 amBeautiful work!
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January 26th, 2010 7:46 amas a german designer i really like this post.
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January 26th, 2010 8:01 amAnother one of these endless lists of “cool designs” without any real insights into the teutonic mentality and historic roots.
Most of all it misses some good reflection on the most important aspect of German Webdesign: the German Clients and how to do business with them.
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January 27th, 2010 3:32 amteutonic roots of webdesign?
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January 27th, 2010 3:56 amInsights into the teutonic mentality? We’re in 2010, not 1941.
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January 31st, 2010 3:59 pmThe word Teutonic has not really anything to do with the year 1941 or the nazi regime…
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April 28th, 2010 3:09 amMost of all it misses some good reflection on the most important aspect of German Webdesign: the German Clients and how to do business with them.
You are right !!!
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January 26th, 2010 8:05 amFantastic collection, some really innovative and diverse designs here. Good work Smashing.
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January 26th, 2010 8:09 amGreat article and quite well presented. Love the amount of consistently good content you guys deliver!! Keep it up.
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January 26th, 2010 8:13 amquite an extensive list it seems. Pitty almost half of it doesn’t load inside this page.
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January 26th, 2010 8:14 amNearly every website featured looks like it’s trying to be a poster, if that’s a good example of cutting edge web-design then I’m confused :[
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January 26th, 2010 8:27 amnice showcase, but you forgot http://remood.net and http://cubeclub-chemnitz.de
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January 29th, 2010 4:01 amHallo Sebastian :-)
Da da dieser Artikel eine Momentaufnahme ist, ist wohl logisch das nicht alle tausende von website geprüft werden…klar gibte snoch so viele andere tolle innovative Designer in Deutschland. Mach dir nix drauß das ist ein Blog und kein Wettbewerb ;-)
Der cube ist ja auch keine Agentur^^ Nur eine deiner Referenzen, hahacheers Ronny
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January 26th, 2010 8:28 amwow.. it looks like the best showcase so far!! very conceptual
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January 26th, 2010 8:32 amlove the originality of many designs
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January 26th, 2010 8:40 amcheap. I agree – these “cool design” posts are getting a bit ridiculous. No explanations of WHY they are good. And I agree with some of the other comments…where’s the women?
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January 26th, 2010 9:04 amrolf & bernd is right around the corner of my parents place…
AWESOME! - 52
January 26th, 2010 9:15 amu missed out those two sites:
http://www.wilde-ruebe.de , a german kindergarden with special navigation design
eismann-it.de/ a typo3 freelancer with focus on search engine optimzation. - 53

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January 26th, 2010 10:02 amThe website: “Creative Style Agentur” at http://www.creativecomic.de ripped my http://www.simon-studio.com website :(
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January 26th, 2010 10:13 amI’m applying for internships in German new media, and this article was very informative, especially the showcase of agencies. Thank you for putting this together! I hope to see more about German design in the future.
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January 26th, 2010 10:18 amOne of the best showcases in the last time! :)
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January 26th, 2010 10:42 amGreat Work Germany!
didn’t you guys promised some showcase of Israeli web design? - 58
January 26th, 2010 10:57 amThx for featuring my Site. But i have relauncht since few days. You have a old Screenshot :)
And here is a Link to a another german Website Gallyer: Make Better Websites – http://www.makebetterwebsites.com
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January 26th, 2010 12:05 pmbecause they seemingly were left out of the article, here are the answers i had: http://kosmar.de/archives/2010/01/26/lage-der-webdesignnation/
take care and have fun!
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January 26th, 2010 12:53 pmyou forgot to mention this very good, young and upcoming design agency http://www.yoocon.de! They are awsome!
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January 26th, 2010 1:34 pmThanks for the great article and featuring our site http://www.kubiswelt.de :-) Lots of information for German webdesigners! Especially the list of blogs is very useful :-)
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January 26th, 2010 3:13 pmGermany’s web design skills are so awesome!! Makes me want to study there. There’s something about how intricate their designs are yet elegant and clean at the same time. Very sophisticated style and I like how they follow the grid (some of them).
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January 26th, 2010 4:01 pmSmahingmagazine auf deutsch wäre eine wirklich angenehme Erweiterung, ganz nebenbei ;)
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January 26th, 2010 4:11 pmDr. Web?
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January 27th, 2010 4:02 am….bietet aber nicht die selbe Qualität wie SM!?
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January 26th, 2010 4:21 pmbest showcases of German wirk
thanks
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January 26th, 2010 4:41 pmI propose that this article be renamed “Web Design in German” — because web design trends don’t change from country to country, the only thing that changes is the language.
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January 26th, 2010 5:47 pm@Andrew: I adamantly disagree. Apparently, you’ve never taken an art history class. Art and design are often distinct country to country. For example, when the Art Nouveau movement was happening — the style had similarities, but explicit distinctions in countries like France, Spain, and even America.
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January 27th, 2010 12:55 pmOh, really? Then please, do tell me the difference between so-called “German” web design and “French” or “Spanish” or “American” web design.
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February 16th, 2010 12:22 amYour assertion that he knows nothing about art history was presumptuous and somewhat rude. If you’re going to try and challenge someone’s stance, you can at least attempt to properly tackle their point.
Of course, web design can be influenced by older art and (non-web) design styles; however I’m yet to see a large collection of WEB-DESIGN work from England (for example) being clearly influenced from by pre-existing English art/(non-web) design styles. This is true for work in other countries too. I say non-web design because you chose to mention styles that existed prior to the web.
Even within print design, I see less distinct styles from country to country and it probably has something to do with accessibility to work from other countries. As it is there is nothing that separates work such as the Creative Styles and Taobot websites from other sites frequently seen on design inspiration blogs/showcases that feature work from designers around the world.
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August 14th, 2010 11:54 pmAgreed.
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January 26th, 2010 5:42 pmYay for the Bauhaus ;)
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January 26th, 2010 6:57 pmI think this post is a little bit nationalist…
NOTE: I love german design and Smashing Magazine, but what is it? - 74
January 26th, 2010 8:44 pmbest showcases of German
I love “www.tanner-tailor.de”didn’t you guys promised some showcase of Indonesia web design?
:D
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January 27th, 2010 12:33 amGermans are far better in Web Design than any other on the planet. Our company’s site fiberworks.com is missing in this list. – Alicia
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January 27th, 2010 1:19 amWow, you bought a standard web template and now you think you’re a big hitter. You read that nofollow is in use here, right? So quit the link dropping.
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January 28th, 2010 12:03 am@Chris , Its not standard template, fiber works is award winning site , Nobody competes with Germans , and what do you mean by nonfollow ? – Alicia -
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January 27th, 2010 12:42 amYOU MOFO’s!!!
why do you dxmn bast3rds have to go and FUX UP what was a very good Vampire Weekend Youtube playlist with your gawd awfullly LONGer than poppycoch post of bantha pudu! have you looked at this tripe? This page is probably over 2mb and as a crap wifi user you should be ashamed of yourselves for not using your POS blogOcrap Framework’s pagination function .. go choke on an exponential factorial
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January 27th, 2010 12:43 amVery nice collection.
You sure missed this guys: http://www.24-7media.de/v2/index.php
They’ve collected 11 FWA award so far ( http://www.thefwa.com). Their work is really insipiring - 80
January 27th, 2010 12:44 amP.S. I will refrain from using Smashing FROM NOW ON …
if this ever happens again
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January 27th, 2010 12:45 amthanks a lot for this fantastic web inspirations. really amazing concepts and programming.
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January 27th, 2010 1:00 amBeeing a german and living in Germany with some clients in several different European countries I see nothing specific “german” within the webdesigns of this showcase.
It is just a “patchwork” of webdesigns of some german companies.
And the interviews, … well it seems, some of the people asked, live in their very special own world outside of reality…
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January 27th, 2010 1:12 amSadly, Smashing once again focusses on showcasing mainly jurassic flash monsters that look fancy. Even though even one of the interviewees mentioned the (long overdue) move back to HTML.
This is one reason why I (as a German who is also a professional designer) don’t think Germany’s web design is as advanced as you make it sound. Looking around the products of the bigger agencies, I still see too many big footprint flash sites that nobody cares about. The Adidas Teamgeist “microsite” (there is nothing micro about it, it takes 5 minutes to load even with broadband internet) is one example for this attitude (don’t get me wrong though, it’s definitely nicely done. I just think the barrier it sets for the audience is too high. No promotional website is worth waiting one minute, let alone five).
The real avant garde of webdesign, to me, is what is happening in America. Beautiful, efficient, small footprint websites that take advantage of HTML5, are accessible from mobile devices, with a reduced “no frills” design. Germany is lagging behind at least 5 years. Partly it’s the customers fault. After years of being subjected to the brainwash of Flash developers they finally “got it” and what’s the result? Wasted time and resources.
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January 31st, 2010 4:10 pmI completley agree with you – we Germans are quite behind in terms of web design.
Extravagant designs and old technologies often beat simple and usable approaches.
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January 27th, 2010 1:25 amI would like to share one more link about web design in Germany:
Showcase of popular German blogs
http://en.tspot.pl/news/showcase-popular-german-blogs/ - 86

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January 27th, 2010 2:31 amIn combination with german BAUHAUS Design which is also very good known in the architecture scene we combined german webdesign, innovation and productdesign in one. So I think it should be on your list: http://www.woonio.de
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January 27th, 2010 2:54 amthe bloody truth is: there is no such thing like “german” webdesign and never was. countries and borders doesn’t exist within the digital world.
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January 27th, 2010 3:51 amThere is webdesign made in German however
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January 27th, 2010 3:40 amQuoting SM: “motherland of eminent philosophers, poets, composers, world-famous automobiles and great beer…”
You forgot Luther; what he did was more important than the above mentioned ‘stuff’. Don’t forget God, all else will fade away one day. Or as someone once said: Everything that is not eternal, is eternally useless. - 91

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January 27th, 2010 4:39 amperfect
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January 27th, 2010 4:55 amVery good article, i love Smashing Magazine! As a german i can say that there are still to many “(Web)design agencies”, who never heard about CSS3, HTML5, jQuery, tableless design etc… There are only a few good webdesigners in germany, in my opinion.
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January 27th, 2010 5:18 amThere’s a huge gap between the designs shown here and what most customers get / want. German design in my eyes is often very boring and full of “Sachlichkeit”. It’s depressing for creative people like me. :(
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January 27th, 2010 7:23 amA nice article and thanks for introducing my site.
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January 27th, 2010 9:39 amAmazing Showcase…
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January 27th, 2010 9:43 amDon’t forget: as a matter of fact you are looking at a website “Made in Germany” right here, right now!
Smashing Magazine rocks!
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January 28th, 2010 4:12 amWow! I think noone else can do that. An innuit not and an Norwegian neither an African not.
Stupidity is a tremendous gift, sorry.
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January 27th, 2010 10:20 amI’m missing some talented newcomers..
For example:
http://www.reimarseite.de/(don’t know the maker personally)
Cheers,
Marc - 100
January 27th, 2010 11:05 amdifferent in style but very Nice:)
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January 27th, 2010 12:00 pmThis is also a very nice website «made in germany» by nodesign.com: http://www.bielefelder-philharmoniker.de/
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January 27th, 2010 1:25 pmI would say the top 5 German Agencys are:
- KliXX GmbH: http://www.klixx.com
- Neue Digitale: http://www.neue-digitale.de
- McCann Erickson: http://www.mccann.de
- SinnerSchrader: http://www.sinnerschrader.de
- Saatchi & Saatchi: http://www.saatchi.deThese are top Agencys. I like saatchi & saatchi and klixx the most because they are really creative and also i love the fact that these two agencys don’t really do any advertising for themself but they are know really well. =)
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January 28th, 2010 5:27 amAmazing Collection
And another one: offczorz.de - 104
January 28th, 2010 7:52 amA long list – but where am I? pixelhorse.de
Schönen Gruss nach Schduagerd Aygul. Ein echt urschwäbischer Name, in der Tat….
My greeting to Aygul in Stuttgart. A really swabian name, really…
;-)
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January 28th, 2010 8:47 amI am sorta disappointed in the actual showcase. Out of this collection, I checked out about 15 or so showcased websites that immediately sparked my curiosity based on the screenshot provided in the article. Out of those I only encountered two that actually had both form and function. Sadly, several of the others either took too long to load (and therefore lost my interest before I got to see what they were about) or seemed “broken” – as in there were places that were supposed to be “clickable” that simply didn’t do anything. One of the sites was entirely lacking in any content at all! It was just a mildly interesting looking collection of characters that blinked when the mouse hovered over them and a two sentence quote off to the side… I have NO CLUE whatsoever that site was about. If I only found 2 hits and 13 misses out of the 15 that I chose to explore, I have to seriously wonder about the overall quality of the entire collection. If you wanted to showcase the best, many of these should have been culled.
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January 28th, 2010 12:44 pmwow that’s an extensive showcase of designs there. i’ll have to bookmark this page for future reference and inspiration. thanks.
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January 28th, 2010 2:53 pmAwesome just awesome post ……..
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January 28th, 2010 10:38 pmWhy is not 24-7media?
They have a lot of greate project. - 109
January 29th, 2010 1:09 amjust it is an awesome posting
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January 31st, 2010 5:57 pmIt was really interesting to learn the web landscape in Germany. I spent all of October there, visiting Bonn, Berlin and Munich. It would’ve been awesome to meet up with some of the panelists or designers. Next time! I loved Dirk’s prediction of what design elements need to disappear in ’10 – wet floor reflections!
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February 3rd, 2010 3:57 amawesome posting
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February 3rd, 2010 7:30 amawesome :-)
i love smashingmagazine…i’d like to buy the book :) - 113
February 25th, 2010 1:58 amhey for indian showcase … please check muktistudios.com
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March 1st, 2010 7:57 amThanks for mentioning my blog (Volderette). I was really surprised to see it listed between all these fantastic websites.
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March 16th, 2010 12:04 amHehe, Chris from Moargh.de went to my school ^^ … Besides that: Nice one!
Greetings from Germany,
Benni
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April 27th, 2010 5:17 amSome awesome work is coming out of Germany at the moment – you only have to glance at the screenshots to see what young, innovative web designers are getting up to there. There’s also a lot of innovation when it comes to business ideas – check out Michael Hansen and DubLi – though Hansen is Danish, his team is largely comprised of a young and dynamic German team.
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May 9th, 2010 5:15 amParasol Island is amazing! :)
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June 7th, 2010 1:12 amtypical German: no single woman interviewed!
Already 10 years ago I attended a design conference as a speaker – one of the American speakers was very surprised abaout the fact that she and me were the only female speakers! She said this couldn’t happen in America…
and nothing has changed since then… only, that it’s even less stylish today to remind of such facts! - 120
August 2nd, 2010 8:27 amWow, being 3 times featured with Junopilot, Supergid and my own website http://www.Sugah.de is a great honor to me!
Thanks a lot from Sugah Design outta Hamburg - 121
August 12th, 2010 4:29 amvery nice web designing !
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August 15th, 2010 12:12 amThanks for the great post. Germans are very innovative technologically. They have played a major role in shaping our internet. Didn’t anyone notice that PHP, Zend, various CMSs, et al came from Germany? What I like the most about Germans is their “best use of technology.” e.g. use of flash only where flash is absolutely necessary (given that majority of users worldwide run on less than 32kbps bandwidths), content is calculated, and just by looking at the site you can know what it’s all about, and it won’t disappoint!
From the post, its apparent that the level of web sophistication in Germany is rising while at the same time remaining user friendly, and purpose oriented.
Thanks again for the great, great eye opener on web design levels in Germany! Please do a round two this time covering a wider scope (i.e. not only the state of things, but say, the best of corporate, best of industry, travel, fashion, government, etc)
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Very nice “german-webdesign-summary”. Aygul, it’s like in other countries too – some good Webdesigners, some “less good” Webdesigners ;o)