The First Aid Team 2022 introduces itself

After working intensively through the summer semester and wrapping up during July and August, the publication “Erste Hilfe” (First Aid) has been almost completed. Then 64 pages containing texts and 20 pages with images will get printed in the printing pool. Then the pages will get cut at the silk screen shop, where we students are going to sort and then spiral bind the magazines. When all of this is said and done, we can mark the final check on our to-do list for the first edition of our annual publication that has been produced in-house. 
For this year, Jasper Otto Eisenecker, Tim Schöning and Andrea Rauschenbusch, Professor for Communication Design and Corporate Design, led the effort to revise the visual concept.

Our layout was inspired by a manifesto we had defined at the outset of the production. We want to carry these ten principles forward ourselves and share them with our fellow students, of course including the incoming members of the freshmen class. These are the principles:

• Break down every wall
  Embrace the unknown
  Be radically sensitive
  Stay imperfect
  Hatch utopian thoughts
  Include everybody
  Follow up every ending with a new start
  Keep doors open
  Negotiate positions
  Make mistakes

Using scissors and paper, we set out to find courageous, authentic or mindful forms that we then scanned, collaged and finally assembled digitally. We presented the manifesto in black on neon green at the University Days 2022. These posters became the image plane of the publication. At the same time, the layout started to take shape: type sizes, line spacing or length of columns aspire to signal a willingness to risk experiments and openness, while being inclusive and accessible for readers. We tried to find the right balance between user-friendliness and aesthetics, made print outs, did testing and kept changing—until yesterday. For today, today we go on to the DIN-A2 risograph to fix our template on paper using a method of stencil printing similar to silkscreen printing.

From October 4 “Erste Hilfe” will be available around the University for free.

Participants at the project: Noura Asayed, Alina Beckmann, Sophia Feddersen, Nora Maria Fellerhoff, Hannah Günster, Josefine Idel, Joanna Jappen, Emmaly Johnson, Chaewon Kim, Eunhye Kim, Greta Lüdeman, Carola Mittelstraß, Celine Nastasia Schesnik and Carla Marie Schneider.