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Tomorrow’s ideas
won’t
come in
yesterday’s order

Experiment. Fail. And stumble into something
groundbreaking. Ditch the
structured path, trip over
your own feet – and land on an idea that changes

everything: Our creativity feeds on surprise.
It kicks in when logic taps
out. The perfect breeding
ground? It’s a mess! Where things collide that no
one
in their right mind would place side by side. In a
world built on
predictable patterns and AI-generated
sameness, we embrace the inspiring
chaos of creative
mess. Because that’s where new aesthetics and concepts
are
born – the kind that truly shift culture and spark
what’s next. 

Speakers & Workshops
Speakers & Workshops
Speakers & Workshops
Speakers & Workshops
Speaker Image
Speaker

Nicolas
Gebbe

Nicolas Gebbe is a filmmaker, 3D artist, and sound designer, merging all of it into hybrid works that challenge our comfort zones. Inspired by everyday objects and the architecture that surrounds us, Nicolas quotes places and environments we consider familiar and expands them through digital realities. Their attributes are isolated, alienated, combined, and distorted. Realms that usually escape our attention are made visible, and viewing habits are questioned.

Speaker Image
Speaker

PAURIC
FREEMAN

Pauric Freeman is a multidisciplinary artist based in Dublin, Ireland, working across audiovisual performance, generative video, sound, and installation. His practice explores translation as a process, using data collected from live instruments as the basis for realtime visual compositions. Moving beyond representation, his work examines how one system of meaning can be distorted or expanded through another.

workshop
19.09.

Type and Code
with p5.js

Mix typography with creative coding: We’ll jump straight into programming tricks and math functions – but relax, they’re on your side. With that under your belt, you’re ready to dive into p5.js and craft type experiments that pop.

Speaker Image
Speaker

FELIX
DAMERIUS

Since 2015, Felix has headed the Corporate Design team at the Peter Schmidt Group in Frankfurt – and with it, has won just about every heavyweight client imaginable: Mercedes-Benz, Deutsche Telekom, E.ON, and before that, Deutsche Bahn. With them, he develops design systems that are both powerful and flexible, positioning companies to succeed in the future. Always digital. Always with uncompromising technological standards. The result: since 2024, as Executive Creative Director, he sets the creative course for the agency – and takes a seat on the ADC jury.

workshop
19.09.

Motion Design
Kickstart

Always felt a bit intimidated by animation? Time to ditch that. Swap it for the thrill of experimenting, dive into After Effects, and create simple but striking motion designs. Experience? Not required.

Speaker Image
young talent

Esteban
Barco

Esteban Barco is a designer from Medellín who fuses creativity, strategy, and technology into corporate identity, motion, and web design for bold brands. A language enthusiast, he speaks six languages – three fluently – and starts every day with hot chocolate. His work draws on creative coding, turning math into living visual systems. With experience in agencies and as a freelancer in Germany and Colombia, he has collaborated with a wide range of brands and institutions. His graduation project “Transform, Learn, Liberate – Building Generative Design Systems for the Web with Creative Coding” was honored at this year’s ADC Talent Awards.

Speaker Image
Speaker

Lucas
Memmert

How can humans and machines truly team up? Who’s better at what, how do they sync, and what’s the ultimate setup for cracking complex, creative challenges? These are the questions Lucas Memmert digs into as part of the research project “Hybridization of Human and Artificial Intelligence in Knowledge Work”, which he’s been driving since 2021 at the Department of Informatics, University of Hamburg. With a sharp, scientific eye, Lucas dives straight into the big debates shaping our field right now: What exactly is creativity? Who is responsible for AI’s output? And what are potential pitfalls when it comes to AI usage?

Speaker Image
young talent

Miki
Kawamura

Miki Kawamura is a Japanese designer who has been working at Peter Schmidt Group for several years. Through her focus on packaging design, she has gained insights into different cultures and design approaches from around the world. Alongside her professional work, she follows her personal theme of “Keep creating through hands-on experience,” which serves as a foundation for developing many conceptual ideas. Although this portrait appears aged, it was not digitally altered. Instead, it was created using a traditional glass printing technique developed over a century ago.

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young talent

Lionel
Hale

Lionel Hale has always been drawn to the intersection of design and technology — from experimenting with motion graphics and sound design to exploring what code can do for visual systems. His master’s thesis, Branding the Multiverse: explores what happens to branding when identities stop being fixed and start becoming adaptive, generative, and personal — Visual identities that stay consistent even when they constantly change.

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Speaker

Espaday
Santacruz

Sounds like the start of a wild story: a mathematician, a philosopher, and a cultural manager meet and decide to start a studio for immersive experiences. That’s exactly how Espadaysantacruz was born. The place? Madrid. The results? Work that captivates brands like Ford, Samsung, Zara, and Adidas. Espadaysantacruz creates experiments that challenge perception and spark curiosity – from AI-driven installations to kinetic sculptures. Work that has been awarded at Cannes Lions, Clio, and LIA.

Speaker Image
young talents

Henrik
Bergerbusch,
Henrik
Mielicke

Henrik Bergerbusch and Henrik Mielicke are easily one of Peter Schmidt Group’s most memorable name. As dual students in the field of User Experience & User Interface Design, they are deeply invested in prototyping innovation projects that showcase future tech in branding. Some of them so memorable they even attracted new business. From A.I. and Spatial Computing all the way to user journey mapping with pen and paper. Their recent semester project ‚friendly.fire‘ won four awards at the 2025 ADC Talent Awards and is on display on-site at Future Playgrounds. Set to graduate in early 2026, they’re currently researching public design and cultural mediation, for their theses.

workshop
19.09.

Blender for
beginners

Step into the world of 3D with Blender, the free, open-source tool that does it all. Build objects, craft materials and shaders, animate the basics, and set up scenes ready to render and wow.

Speaker Image
Speaker

VINCENZO M.
RAGONA

Apple, Nike, Google, Spotify – and that’s just the warm-up: Vincenzo Marchese Ragona has teamed up with the who’s who of global brands, all while launching his own studio as recently as 2024. Based in London, he operates at the edge of visual communication, fusing graphic design, motion, and creative direction into one discipline-bending practice. His portfolio spans kinetic type beasts, editorial systems, AI-born visuals, and modular fonts built for the future.

workshop
19.09.

Hacking the Shelf

Supermarkets are chaos – at least from the customer’s point of view. But minds are easy to sway. Learn how to use psychological effects to your advantage right at the shelf. Play product manager for a day, pick your brand, and take a mini field trip to the nearest supermarket.

workshop
19.09.

The Loop Lab

Get into the basics of creative music production with software, hardware – and the magic of mixing both. Learn sampling and beatmaking, then wrap the workshop with your own short track built from the sounds and samples of the Peter Schmidt Group sonic branding.

workshop
19.09.

Build your
avatar

Generative AI and tools like ComfyUI are flipping how we design visuals: not static, not manual, but process-driven, interactive, and always learning. We’ll work with AI systems that respond to prompts, patterns, and feedback to create visuals that shift, adapt, and live in context.

Speaker Image
Speaker

Karim
Mustaghni

The wildest ideas always start with one question: “What if?” That’s the spark Karim Mustaghni throws at his guests in his podcast of the same name, where he pushes them to break patterns and think bigger. As the CEO of The Creativs and as a coach, Karim trains leaders and teams in Radical Creativity, the art of blending AI and human skills to think clearly in chaos, solve complex problems, and drive bold innovation even as the rules keep shifting. His passion for creativity also fuels his work as an entrepreneur, artist, and co-founder of Culturedesign.org. Previously, he helped grow Sigma Squared Society, a global network of 1,000+ disruptive start-ups, as its Community Director.

Speaker Image
Speaker

Friederike
Hantel

Friederike Hantel doesn’t illustrate to please. She creates to provoke, to seduce, to disturb. Her worlds shimmer in candy colors but bite like broken glass – equal parts pop, grotesque, and glitch. Based in Hamburg, she fuses manga, mythology, and body horror into 2D and 3D visuals that stick to your brain like bubblegum to asphalt. Commercial? Sure. She’s worked with Nike, Google, and Apple. But every frame screams: this isn’t branding, it’s a hallucination. Friederike Hantel makes illustration dangerous again.

workshop
19.09.

Welcome to
Mel’s Kitchen

Dive into typographic experiments. Not with pen, paper, or a computer – but with baby oil, gasoline, and kinetic sand. Smear it, blow it, shoot it. In pairs, you’ll bring letters to life.

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Speaker

LUKAS
COTTRELL

As CEO of the Peter Schmidt Group, Lukas leads one of Europe’s top brand and design agencies – and pushes it relentlessly toward the future. He sees design as strategy, as a system, as a force in constant dialogue with technology. Always with one goal: to create brand experiences that move people on an emotional level. His conviction: the more AI-generated sameness floods our channels, the clearer the power of the human idea becomes. Because only human creativity makes brands truly distinctive. And truly unique.

The Venue
The Venue
The Venue

DESIGN ZENTRUM HAMBURG
Hongkongstr. 8
20457 Hamburg

Visit website
Timetable

Thursday 18.09.

13:30 – 15:00

Check In

Keynote

15:15

Karim Mustaghni

Young Talent

15:45

Esteban Barco

Panel Talk

15:50

Lukas Cottrell, Karim Mustaghni and Lucas Memmert interviewed by Aysun Bora (Little Black Book)

Keynote

16:35

Vincenzo Marchese Ragona

Vincenzo Marchese Ragona is an Italian graphic designer based in London. His practice investigates the discipline of visual communication across media, platforms, and technologies.

Keynote

17:25

Nicolas Gebbe

Glitch as method: Broken digital aesthetics in „The Sunset Special“

Glitches, errors, and broken digital spaces are not failures. They are the raw material to create engaging artwork. In this panel we explore how fractured surfaces and pixelated distortions that shape The Sunset Special and the directors approach to the creative process. Together we’ll look at how the glitch becomes a tool for storytelling, critique, and creating meaning in a hyper-polished digital world.

Young Talent

18:20

Henrik Bergerbusch & Henrik Mielicke

Keynote

18:30

Espadaysantacruz

The Art of the Creative Mess: How Technology and Design Shape Disruptive Brand Content. // In this session, we’ll dive into a selection of our most daring projects, opening up the creative process and revealing what happens behind the scenes. Through these case studies, we’ll explore how technology and design become powerful tools for building brand content that truly stands out. We’ll show how embracing creative mess and unexpected solutions has helped our partner brands push boundaries and connect with audiences in new ways.

until 20:30

Get Together

Friday 19.09.

12:30 – 14:00

Check In

Keynote

14:00

Friederike Hantel

Join the Multiverses! Exploring the power of creative collaborations and immersive worldbuilding.

Young Talent

14:50

Miki Kawamura

Keynote

15:10

PSG Imagine

Young Talent

15:55

Lionel Hale

Custom Artwork on Netflix? Personalised shoes by Nike? Personalization is already reshaping the world’s biggest brands, but identity design hasn’t yet caught up. Branding the Multiverse steps straight into this gap. It investigates how generative systems, user data, and dynamic identities can converge into building a new branding paradigm. Think procedural algorithms instead of fixed logos, fluid identity layers instead of rigid guidelines, and personalized visuals tailored to every user. This thesis moves beyond static frameworks and asks: what principles can ensure brand consistency when identity becomes infinite?

Keynote & Performance

16:25

Pauric Freeman

Unpredictability in Deterministic Systems

This talk considers how rule-based processes can grow in complexity beyond easy comprehension, creating space for results that could not have been anticipated. The work builds on logical structures, yet the outcome resists prediction. Between system and perception lies a cluttered space where limitation and unpredictability become central to the creative process.

18:00

End

Get your Ticket
Get your Ticket
Get your Ticket
Get your Ticket

We Are happy to invite a limited number of
external design enthusiasts to join our Future
Playgrounds Design Festival in Hamburg.

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