TheFWA - Peter Post & Christian Daul

There will be no websites in 10 years. The web will be about events, not places.

Please give us a brief bio of yourselves.

Christian Daul (CD): Born and raised in Baden-Baden (southwest Germany). First job as a banker, than studying applied economics (FH). Starting as a account trainee at Leo Burnett Frankfurt, then copywriter, then creative and managing director at Lowe &Partners. Continued as Unit director at Jung von Matt Hamburg, then creative director at McCann-Erickson in Hamburg and Frankfurt, then CCO Y&R Germany. Since two years managing director at Scholz & Volkmer. Married, two sons, no pets. Member oft the German ADC and member oft the board at the German Designer´s Club (DDC). Incurable addiction to design, books and fruity red wines.

Peter Post (PP): Born near Frankfurt (Germany), studied communication design, founded Agency for Sound Design and developed a „Graphic User Interfaces for Wide Area Networks“ before the first web browser appeared. Failed to make a fortune out of that. Then moved to the Netherlands and built and led interaction design teams in several dutch design agencies, amongst which Tel Design The Hague and Studio Dumbar, Rotterdam. Since three years managing director at Scholz & Volkmer. Married, two daughters, one hamster (which is driving me nuts at night).

Please list 3 of your favourite sites.

CD: Vimeo, The cool hunter, The Verge

PP: TED, Vimeo

What do you regard as being your biggest achievement?

CD: The next biggest around the corner. Constantly moving on.
PP: Rebuilding a run down house from the 1930s into our home.

How many hours do you work each week?

CD: Far too many. Growth takes it´s toll.
PP: approx. 16 hours of actual „work“, the rest is fun. Really.

How do you relax or unwind?

CD: Listening to music, cooking (oh yes – but not the sweet stuff!) and taking my KTM Enduro to forbidden places.
PP: Hunting down new music on the web, cooking, movies.

If you weren't working on the internet what would you be doing?

CD: For years I wanted to be a scientist in chemestry. Still seems somehow attractive to me. The other attractive option is to be a paleontologist and finding new prehistoric animals all around the globe.

PP: A professional Cook or a Percussionist.

What's your favourite part of your job? What's the hardest part of your job? What do you do when you get stuck?

PP: Favourite part: Early concept phase, when the sky IS the limit. And New Business, I l-o-v-e New Business. Hardest part: Numbercrunching. When got stuck: Talk to people.

What's the longest you've ever stayed up working on a project?

PP: 72 hours, and I am not proud of it.

If there are any pivotal experiences/decisions you could point to that helped shape your career, what would they be?

PP: Going abroad and marrying a (beautyful) creative mind

What software could you not live without?

CD: MacOS. Definitely.
PP: Agree, MacOS. I once turned down a job because they wanted me to run Windows.

How many projects does your company juggle at any one time?

CD: I am afraid sometimes it´s more than 20...
PP: I am afraid he’s right...

In terms of software, is there anything new you have been playing with lately or that has impressed you?

PP: A lot of iPad-Apps impress me because of the innovative interaction design. GarageBand on the iPad is amazing, especially the controlls for string-instruments brought me to tears – great work.

Who do you rate as being the top 3 design companies?

CD: IDEO, Big Spaceship, AKQA
PP: IDEO, OMA, Apple

What area of web design lacks the most?

PP: Interactive editorial graphics in frequently updated sites is still poor. Agencies and clients only seem to invest that kind of energy in webspecials, but we need to create truely interactive content on a daily basis.

Has winning FWA awards helped you in any way?

PP: It certainly helps to find talent, and our teams are soooo proud!

When dealing with major clients, how difficult is it to meet the needs of such wide target audiences?

CD: The problem always is to really understand the users needs and motifs. If we are dealing with the wrong insights the whole creative process is at stake. Therefore I do not like the term target audience that much. It feels top down. It is still a major task to force everybody in the process including the clients to truly think and breathe user-centred.

What did your very first site look like? Is it still online?

PP: It was a site for a large Railway project, and we had interactive CGI-Maps with hundreds of handmade GIFs to explain the seperate trajectories. I hope it’s not online any more, because the colors where sooo 90s.

Have you written any books, if not do you plan to?

CD: I recently had a part in „Brand Evolution“, an new German cyclopedia for interactive marketing.
PP: When I did „Soundtracks for products“ with two partners, we wrote a book with an Audio-CD to show our approach. Now I would like to do two books, one on Interaction Design Pattern Language, and one on Connected Products.

Are there things you do OUTSIDE of work to ensure that you are in the right mindset to be creative and/or successful in whatever you are doing?

PP: Dealing with other creative disciplines like fashion, interior, architecture, graphics is important. Every creative discipline has ist own opportunities and challenges. To learn from them is and adopt solutions to your own field is important to keep on track.

What was the last digital effort you saw (or were a part of) that used social media in a way that really made sense. Why?

PP: Projects like Twelpforce by Bestbuy or Swarm by Dell make sense, because they don’t just use social media for conversation, but actually incorporate them into their products and services.

The web is getting out of the web. Do you find that thinking in digital solutions alone hinders you? Do you feel the urge to solve the problem using all mediums necessary?

PP: Using all mediums certainly is an urge, but even further, thinking outside of media and communication and actually changing products and services with and for clients is teh real kick.

Looking 10 years in to the future, how far can websites go?

PP: There will be no websites in 10 years. The web will be about events, not places.

What are your views on design/graphic school. Do you think someone can get into the field without educational experience in a school environment?

PP: There are a lot of great designers without, but a lot more great designers with a classical education. The problem here is choice: When you are young, it’s hard to decide which track to choose. If I could do it again, I would mix much more different disciplines, do social, philosophical and political studies next to my design education.

If you were a student entering this industry or an aspiring FWA award submitter, what advice would you give them?

PP: Keep doing things differently.

What would be your ultimate vehicle to travel in?

CD: Surely a rocket. I am a huge fan of peaceful rocket sience (sic!) and built my own flying devices. But they not even scratch the stratosphere.

How do you keep your finger on the pulse of the latest web trends?

PP: There are some good blogs and magazines, but again, most important is your personal network of people who share hot links with you, and you have to feed that network as well.

What country excites you the most in terms of innovation?

CD: Israel. I trully admire how they cope with the circumstances and yet doing great stuff in technology, communications and ideas and my friend Gideon Amichay has always been an inspiration to me.

PP: The Netherlands. Designers there are brought up with a very strong sense of social and political responsibility, and most of the innovation reflects that. Small country, big thinking.

There must be a project that you have always dreamed of doing, what is it?

CD: A live transmission of the first maned NASA Mars flight.
PP: I have an idea for re-inventing the music industrie (again), but I want to make a fortune with that...

What are you excited about learning next and is there a long term challenge you are considering tackling?

PP: Right now I am excited about learning to play the cachon, a very basic yet powerfull percussion instrument. As far as the web goes, Scholz & Volkmer will use it’s skills to support clients to become more sustainable, ecological as well as social. We regard this as a key challenge of our industry.

What is the most expensive thing you have bought in the last week?

CD: A new Panasonic Blue Ray 3D recorder including a hdd sat receiver. A marvelous piece of technology and true swiss-army knife for all video/film purposes.

PP: A Bosch Crosscut and Mitre Saw. It has a laser pointer to exactly define the angle of the cut, and the wood smells a little burnt afterwards. Very physical experience.

What type of overcoat do you wear when Flashing, basically are you a labels man?

CD: Okay, I confess i am a label man. And my favorite designers I love to wear are Paul Smith, Kenzo and Armani.
PP: My label would be Drykorn.

Any parting shots or pearls of wisdom?

PP: The day Steve Jobs died, I came across a good one by Saint-Exupery: „ A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

It has been a privilege, thanks very much

PP and CD: Thank you!

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