...for the product design student Katrin Schulz (today Katrin Graw) to give free rein to her creativity. To this day, she looks back on those wonderful times with wistfulness and remembers the family atmosphere and people who influenced her and the many hours she spent experimenting in the photo labs and workshop.
She was most motivated by the support of Prof. Dr. Sachse and Prof. Dohr, who also accompanied her all the way to her diploma thesis. Prof. Dr. Sachse gave her the necessary freedom for her experiments in the photo lab (colored solarizations, photograms and photomontages). Prof. Dohr, who also employed her as a student assistant, always had exciting projects on offer. In competition with the other students and with real clients, exhibition stands, facades, pubs or a concept for the conversion of a library into an exhibition space including studios were designed.
The handling of machines and the respect required in the process was impressively conveyed by Mr. Weber in the model-making workshop when he raised his hand with only four fingers and admonished, "And this is what happens when you don't use the guide stick to push at the circular saw."
Prof. Dr. Hirner will be remembered as a walking encyclopedia of art and cultural history, who had every number and era at the ready, in addition to the names of all the students. She also made the students look at the world from new perspectives: "Please walk through Krefeld today and look up beyond the ground floor. But be careful not to run into a parking meter." The parking meters were also a problem in other respects, as they could be fed with a maximum of 50 pennies for half an hour. With lectures that were usually three times as long and Krefeld's meter maids working quickly, it is only too understandable that the parking tickets eventually became too expensive a nuisance and Katrin Graw made the switch to a bicycle.
Today, by the way, Katrin Graw would also study computer science in addition to design, which she finds simply super exciting and is the basis for every program, website or app. Looking back on her student days, she remembers the computer-technical beginnings in the graphics field, when just a few strokes and shapes could be drawn on "Macs," a few pixelated photos scanned in, and a few fonts used. And of course only in black and white, color came later.
As part of her diploma thesis she presented a slide clip as a "multimedia" presentation for the band "Jealousy Impact" and their music. Using two slide projectors and a floor-to-ceiling screen, she performed with cross-fades to the beat of the music while the band played live in front of it. Today, she, who in 2000 also won the business prize awarded by the magazine "Journal für die Frau" for her idea of all-round design via the Internet, still works in multimedia. Katrin Graw moved back to the Hochschule Niederrhein and is responsible for the image database, corporate design, presentations, graphics, wall installations, foiling and much more in the Department of University Communications.
She certainly misses the beautiful student days in Peterstraße and the spacious studio she shared with two fellow students. She also remembers the fellow student who asked for asylum for his red paintings. Red in all shades and the most diverse structures. At first a nice decoration and then it became more and more and they saw only red. Fortunately, the works then soon found a nicer home. They were exhibited in the "Alte Post" in Krefeld.
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