Christopher Blum

Freelance
Creative Director (UI / UX / IxD)

s.Oliver Shopping App

Complete redesign of the existing hybrid shopping app as a native app built for iOS and Android.

Therefore we set our focus on device specific usability, intuitive navigation patterns and a simple mimimal design approach.

The new app comes with a set of features to help the customers needs.
It combines comfortable shopping with daily inspiration and newest fashion trends. Style recommendations based on the customers fashion profile help quickly find what they need. Inspiration seekers can also discover fashion through tinder-like swipe styles or shop-able Instagram outfits.

The new app is completely built in Sketch.

Project: s.Oliver Shopping App
Client: superreal
Job: Freelance Senior Art Direction

Birdy7

Birdy7 is a smart software approach to wind power plant management and SCADA systems.

Building a multiscreen surveillance center to completely control a windpark including monitoring, diagnostics, reporting, configuration and a dashboard from scratch was a challenging and very interesting job.

I’ve never worked on a project where understanding the actual topic was that crucial to success. For example you just cannot illustrate specific parts of a wind turbine if you haven’t understood how they work. That way I learned a lot about wind energy.

Regarding the design we gave some visual references to the Industrial Age and thinking on how we can combine these „hands on“ aesthetics with a modern material approach.

To make it even more complicated the final product should be a White label solution including a light and dark color scheme to be able to offer it to many companies in the sustainable energy market.

Project: Birdy7 SCADA System
Client: Natcon7
Job: Freelance Senior Art Direction

Billie

Billie is a Berlin based startup which is doing factoring both for SMEs and freelancers.

I worked for them from the very beginning so I could develop the whole branding as well as the product itself and the marketing page. As time was tight we started with a 2 day branding workshop so get a common understanding of the company and its product. It resulted in a brand filter which helped a lot during further development. With their main attributes transparent, convenient and fresh it was obvious they wanted to be different not only from their competitors but also from finance services in general.

The whole project was a great challenge to me as I have never done both UI and UX on such a big scaled project before.

Project: Billie Branding, product and marketing page
Client: Billie
Job: Freelance Senior Art Direction

BMW Group Relaunch

Bold, informative, highly functional. A responsive visual web experience.

We wanted to show the versatile aspects of this internationally operating company directly when you enter the homepage. Therefore we built the heart of the website – the »Panopticum«. Its goal is to offer different target groups relevant content on all devices. With its picture orientated topic filter it is easy to get an overview about all aspects of the BMW Group.

It is also the new framework for the 100 years campaign 2016.

Rework corporate Design for BMW Group online together with agency becc.
The new interface is optimized for mobile accessibility, clarity and navigation. Together with a modern look and motion design elements it underlines the dynamic and orientation towards future of the BMW Group.

Project: bmwgroup.com
Client: interone
Job: Freelance Senior Art Direction

Mutabor.de & Lingua 365

New brand site for design agency MUTABOR

The name MUTABOR has latin origins and means “I’m going to change”. With the new website they strengthen their roots and focus on their strategic topic “change”.

We wanted the new site to be simple, soulful and superior. Therefore we developed a flexible editorial grid filled with bold typography, full-size pictures and individual case studies. The whole site is responsive.

“Lingua 365”:
As MUTABOR is widely known for their great icons we developed “Lingua 365”, a daily graphic calendar for wordless global understanding. It gives employees a little playground to interpret political, social and other news in one icon. This concept was a huge success and has won several awards.

Awards:

ADC 1x silver / 3x bronze
Channes Lion shortlist

Project: MUTABOR.de & Lingua 365, 2014
Client: MUTABOR
Job: Freelance Art Direction

Orchester der Kulturen

New corporate design and website for Orchester der Kulturen

The “Orchester der Kulturen” is a collective of musicians from all around the world that plays a mixture of classic, world music and pop under the direction of Adrian Werum. We created a whole new identity based on the idea of multicultural exchange that creates new soundscapes. The flow of water colour and how it blends with other elements inspired this illustrative collage layout. This way we could find a graphic way to visualize the music.

We designed the logo, the general style, the website, the keyvisual, 36 individual Setcards for the musicians and the concert poster. The logo is made out of unique letters from all over the world to represent the cultural mixture. The website hosts an interactive journey around the world where user can create their individual piece of music. The globe also works as a keyvisual for all other media.

Project: Orchester der Kulturen, 2011-12
Client: Adrian Werum / Orchester der Kulturen
Job: Project Lead & Art Direction at Scholz & Volkmer

Illustrations

I love doing illustrations either for clients or for private fun.

Most of them are collages mixed with different other media. Those can be drawings, plumb, water colour, photographs or plain pixel. As I am interested in mythology many illustrations have aspects of this topic.

Projects: several, 2008-14
Client: mostly myself
Job: private

Panasonic Eluga

Call for fresh style

is the claim for the online campaign of Panasonics first smartphone ELUGA. It combines modern design, state of the art technology and good usability, which is reflected by the look and feel of the webspecial. The keyfeature “waterproof” is represented by the omnipresent visual element of watersplashes. In the center there is a model surrounded by water that seems to bounce off.

Through a complex 120° Matrix Shooting with 80 cameras we realized frozen 3d scenes. Within these the user can navigate to explore the 6 highlight features of the product which are explained interactively. The whole website is optimized for mobile and tablet use.

Project: Panasonic ELUGA, 2012
Client: Panasonic Europe Ltd.
Job: Project Lead, Art Direction & Design at Scholz & Volkmer

Dreamreaver

Album Artwork for Dreamreaver - a progressive power metal band

Dreamreaver wanted a characteristic visual style for their new album “The chameleon defect”. Which is about the misfunction of building a social connection to one's current social environment. Characters hide behind masks and are unable to see the reality as it is, gargoyles and monsters inhabit their world. I designed the whole album artwork which is handwritten by bandmembers and a huge backdrop for their stage at concerts.

Project: Album Artwork, 2011
Client: Dreamreaver
Job: private

Panasonic Live@IFA

Panasonic presents a very special guest at the IFA - you!

Ask questions online and get answers live in this Live-TV-Web-Event. Patrice Bouédibéla, a well known german MTV moderator guides through the programme and several product experts answer your questions live from the Panasonic booth at the IFA in Berlin.

Beneath product highlights this event also features live concerts in corporation with the music platform qTom as well as a controllable 360° webcam at the ceiling of the booth. User can also win great prizes link tickets to the olympic games in London. The whole event was also highly integrated in social media like Facebook and twitter with great success. During the 5-days live phase we had 180.000 visits from over 140 countries with a visit duration up to 1 hour.

Project: Panasonic Live@IFA, 2011
Client: Panasonic Europe Ltd.
Job: Art Direction & Design at Scholz & Volkmer

Coke Happiness Player

Listen to free music online

As part of the “Open Happiness” campaign we developed the Coke Happiness Player - a free to use music tool. It plays music that corresponds to the mood and genre the users choose. Teenagers can use this tool to express their feelings via the internet and share them with their friends in Facebook or StudiVZ. In addition to that we developed a new mascot: a talking and dancing Coke can, that presents the Happiness Player in its' studio.

Awards:

new media award

Project: Coke Happiness Player, 2010
Client: Coca-Cola Germany
Job: Art Direction & Design at Scholz & Volkmer

Panasonic VIERA NeoPlasma

Webspecial for the 2011 Panasonic VIERA NeoPlasma TV range

Light and colours represent the brilliant picture quality of Panasonic VIERA TVs. The User can go on an intuitive journey to learn about the new NeoPlasma and follow the trails of colourful glowsticks which stand for different aspects of this technology. Their light reveals all the information and content in the dark szenario of this webspecial. This also is the first fullscreen webspecial for Panasonic.

In addition we produced a Facebook App where user can create glowstick messages and send them to their friends.

Project: VIERA NeoPlasma Webspecial, 2011
Client: Panasonic Europe Ltd.
Job: Art Direction & Design at Scholz & Volkmer

Mercedes-Benz S-Class

Webspecial for the S-Class 2009

The vehicle is presented as an exhibit in a virtual exhibition. It focuses on trend-setting technologies from other sectors that are already implemented in the S-Class. The technologies are presented as exhibits in a three-dimensional, futuristic exhibition space around the S-Class.

The vehicle features can be experienced interactively with alternate input devices such as a webcam and microphone. Users move from exhibit to exhibit and around the vehicle in photo-realistic 3D journeys.

Awards:

“High design quality” at the red dot award
Annual Multimedia Yearbook

Project: Mercedes-Benz: S-Class Webspecial, 2008
Client: Daimer AG
Job: Art Direction & Design at Scholz & Volkmer

Retrospective

Long live the past!

This collection shows older work I still wanna show on one or two slides. These projects have mostly been realized at Scholz &Volkmer where I have been employed for 6 years. But there is also my thesis about my grandfathers life “Otto Blum” which has been a very personal journey through my families history.

Projects: several, 2005-08
Client: mostly Scholz & Volkmer
Job: several

Hello!