Visiting Jörg Mennickheim in his studio is like stepping out of the city and into the jungle. The flat-roofed building—a former park café—is tucked away in the trees of the Klettenbergpark in south Cologne, and I am greeted with freshly brewed coffee and a selection of snacks from a local bakery. Jörg is a product and retail designer, brand consultant and design lecturer and has been working from this studio with various collaborators since 2003.
Upon entering the studio, the surroundings change from leafy and laidback to clean and industrious, with concept sketches, mood boards and design magazines lining the walls, a conference room full of neatly sorted material samples, and a well-equipped workshop.
The Vitra chair miniatures dotted around the shelves hint at his work for the Vitra Design Museum, one of the institutions where Jörg leads workshops and lectures. “I like to take the students out of their comfort zone” is how he describes the approach to his teaching work, the student groups include craftsmen, design students and architects alike.
A long pinboard shows inspirations for a retail design project he is currently working on – a fashion brand that went from wanting just new shop interiors to deciding to change the whole brand strategy over the course of the project.
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