My name is Katja Koggelmann. I'm a London based German graphic designer and art director. With more than 10 years experience in numerous advertisement agencies, design offices and other companies, always finding the right solution for the given client in the time requested, I grew to a decent professional with a reliable and responsible work ethic.
I recently did a webdesign course to add this ability to my range of skills - way too late, if you ask me. So here you are, looking at my very first published website! Enjoy this portfolio.
I recently did a webdesign course to add this ability to my range of skills - way too late, if you ask me. So here you are, looking at my very first published website! Enjoy this portfolio.
Back in Germany I worked many years at the creative agency Jung von Matt, mostly in Hamburg. As BMW was one of their main clients, I dealed with numerous projects for them.
In 1999 my best friend and I wondered, why nobody was asking us out on dates. As we realised, we didn't do much ourselves to get closer to love, the idea for a loveschool was born.
For this project we actually got a golden LIAA award back then. It was the very first catalogue for the new Mini range.
Back in the 90ies I used to do graffiti writing in Berlin. I realised it would have (artistically speaking) the highest impact in the shortest time. In workshops and youth clubs and through comissions I realised a couple of canvases. Less street-style more artistic.
Here you can see some of my projects that I gathered up throughougt my freelance jobs in numerous advertisement and design agencies. Because they were usually done in a quite short amount of time they used to be a lot of fun.
For a couple of months I have been working for Tchibo on one of their new products. As Tchibo is quite big in selling non-food (they usually are well known as coffee producers) of about 70% of their turnover and they introduce every week another range of new products, we had to be quick and witty at the same time. Also being a traditional company and brand made it quite a challenge to come up with something right in such a short time.
At my art school I used to help some people out with their projects. It was always remarcable to work with them as they owned them. So I could get right to the core of what was needed and intended to be able to deliver the appropriate results for them.
Sometimes it's just visualising items for an unimaginative client. Which for some reasons (being a visionary maybe?) I do enjoy.
Another lovely little project for 2GH in Hamburg - stationery, logo development and some ads for Truscon.
VCCP was one of the agencies I enjoyed most working at here in London. A tremendously professional studio manager and my very first aquaintance with a night shift in an agency had quite an impact on me. O2 is one of their main clients, so I did some small jobs for them.
At VCCP again I worked on a lovely German product - Muller yogurt. Funny, how different brand images are in other countries.
Besides murals and canvases I did some other graffiti stuff - I airbrushed t-shirts, sprayed on a Golf 2 and left my traces while being in other parts of the world (somwhere there might still be a flat in barcelona with my wallpiece in it).
Sometimes I am "just" a fire extinguisher. Booked for a couple of hours or days I will have to salvage the work of weeks or correct made mistakes with a fresh eye. I always love these jobs as they show my flexinility and professional distance to the given tasks. No worries, I'll kill your darlings for you if you can't.
This was a job in which my Photoshop skills were beneficial. Having learned in a post production company I am capable of practically enchanting all kinds of images.
Last year for Christmas I decided to create a gift brand. I might turn that into a tradition. Sewing, printing, coming upo with the concept and ideas - all of that is as fullfilling as it is meditative for me. Roccococotte is a cheecky translation of baroque silhouettes.
Thomson - which is called TUI in Germany - was a challenging and fund client. The perception depended on the job. One of the fun projects brought me an award.
In 2003, one of the hottest summers, we had the amazing chance to spend a month in a former Nazi holiday building. It was in fact once the longest building in the world, spanning an area of about 4.5 kilometres along the pretty coast of the island Ruegen in Germany.
Being the sole inhouse designer at Peabody Trust was actually my very first job in UK since I moved. I was everything - production, creation, client, designer, admin. Because of the lenght of time I worked on quite a few projects.
In 2007 - parallelly to working as a freelance designer and art director - I finished my art school course with a diploma in visual communication. We practically could do anything. Which I did.
Sixt was one of the traditional clients with Jung von Matt in Hamburg. Over tens of years they worked together, creating some of the most hilarious campaigns. It was always very satisfying for me to see the end resluts of my work for them.
Ikea opens every now and then a new megastore in a town somewhere. So it makes sense to create campaigns that are locally aiming at potential customers.
Many flyers have been produced by me. I was practically drowned in them. So i desided to stick them all together and cut them. Not I have a paperback book consisting of randomly cut flyers and printed sheets.
Of course one leaves traces as a graffiti artist. The most visible are murals and trains. The latter I never got into. But murals I could not resist at all.
2GH, a small Hamburg agency, had clients like Ikea and Kappa. Sometimes I would come and work for just a couple of days for some of their clients.
Beau Doyle, a singer and songwriter from Hackney, has got many different bits and pieces all over the web 2.0. During my webdesign course I thought, I could use that as a starting point for some single page websites, bringing those links together.
Having done some projects on my terms, in my time and with varying budgets has tought me by doing more that working at a well organised advertising agency. Learning when an idea has been enough thought about, leading a team of artists, producing when there is no budget at all - priceless!
