
Celebrating 15 years of Innovation: Part 3 — Our Work
Over the past 15 years, the Vectorform team has built and maintained long term relationships with some of the world’s largest brands, working with companies...
Invent with us.
NavigationMunich is known for its beers, wursts, superior cars, that one invincible soccer team, and – as some believe – for being the northernmost city of Italy, which says a lot about the Bavarian mentality, but that is a completely different story. Because this, this is the story of Vectorform Germany. Vibrant Munich was not […]
Munich is known for its beers, wursts, superior cars, that one invincible soccer team, and – as some believe – for being the northernmost city of Italy, which says a lot about the Bavarian mentality, but that is a completely different story. Because this, this is the story of Vectorform Germany.
Vibrant Munich was not the first base of our German office. It all started, as most of successful German businesses do, in Berlin. Clemens Conrad, a graduate of the University of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economy, founded the company in 2008 together with Jason Vazzano and Kurt and Karl Steckling, to whom he was introduced in late 2006 and who had been successfully running the US company since 1999. Clemens was always passionate about the fine arts, design, and technology. Even before starting Vectorform, he founded his own award-winning company with honors including multiple Adobe Showcase awards and features in several design books, including publications from the design publishing house Taschen Verlag.
One of the first projects the office completed was the BMW 7 Series Configurator on the Microsoft Surface platform – a collaboration between Munich-based BMW, Microsoft and Vectorform in Berlin. That project earned the CeBit User Experience Revolution Award. The next project was an application for the longest running and most famous German crime drama television series, “Tatort” and the Federal State of Hessen. The aim was to test the new Microsoft platform and develop engaging content on the first 360-degree multi-touch and multi-user interface working with Microsoft’s Natural User Interface (NUI) design paradigms.With our close partnerships with BMW and Microsoft, moving the company from Berlin to Munich happened more or less naturally in July 2010. The annually held Oktoberfest did its part, too.
In November 2009 Alissia Iljaitsch joined the company. Alissia has a Masters degree in Economics with a major in Innovation Management, Marketing, and Media Law. Alissia had worked at BMW and Volkswagen, and her insights on and experience in product innovations and gamification were a valuable addition to the German office. With Alissia on board, the team won Volkswagen as a key account and developed the first iPad app for the popular German automotive brand. Vectorform Germany also designed award-winning iPad catalogs for several VW models such as the Beetle, up!, EOS, and Golf. Alissia´s key role is to develop digital strategies for leading European brands in their local markets in cooperation with Vectorform´s global design and engineering teams.
In 2014, Google Glass opened the new exciting chapter of Wearables. Interesting projects were undertaken and breakthrough experiences have been developed: smart home apps for the Swiss-based company digitalStrom, augmented reality experiences for the BMW i8 launch in cooperation with Mediaplus and Serviceplan, and point of sale innovation apps for Media Saturn, to name a few.
The German team has grown steadily over the past six years, starting from one to now seven employees and growing. In Clemens’ words: “It doesn’t take an army of people to innovate, just a handful of the right ones.”
The team combines experts in the fields of UX Design, Project Management, Social Media, Strategic Sales, Software Development … and Cooking. We strongly believe that the success of Vectorform Germany is linked to its people: every single one of them. The Munich team is a perfect multiethnic blend of talents and personalities which are unique all by themselves, but it is when brainstorming and working together as a team that they reach their full potential, and that’s when the magic happens.
Our family includes:
The Munich office lunches are legendary. The team prepares and shares their everyday lunch, and often it’s when chopping, cutting, and boiling that we get the best of ideas. We enjoy good, fresh, healthy food and all of us follow a more or less healthy lifestyle – except on days when our Project Manager makes his infamous cheesecake or Alissia is cooking her oh-so-German fresh pasta “Spätzle” (from scratch)!
To compensate for its calorie consumption, the Munich team is an eager participant in Vectorform’s Health Challenges that run monthly and globally. No matter if it’s running – Our team also includes two proud marathon finishers – Crossfit, hiking, or walking, we are all over it! We have also established our monthly team events, during which we get all crafty, and our daily fresh fruits and veggies juicing ritual – thanks to our UX Designer and his powerful juicer –gives us enough energy to survive meetings and boosts our systems to fight the cruel German winter. “Office foxes” and “cowboy hats” have their own special place in the Munich team code-language – and it’s these little things that have grown us together and make us feel like family.
2015 is the year to dive into digital product development and evaluate what is really enhancing the customer journey on a new digital touch point. Vectorform Germany focuses on new exciting topics such as the Internet of Things, Human-Machine interaction, and Digital Anthropology and is looking forward to cooperation and innovation with German brands to deliver ground-breaking digital experiences to the German market.
Our extended family includes:
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