Karlsruhe, July 29th, 2020

Located in the city of Karlsruhe, Dorfjungs is a digital first agency from Germany. Its main values are confidence, speed, honesty and commitment, offering a wide array of services that include branding, corporate and web design, interface and user experience design, content management, strategic planning, and e-commerce.

Norman Dubois is Dorfjungs Art Director and Designer and has been part of the agency for two years, after a career in Hamburg.

We talked to him to get an inside look of the daily work at the agency, including the challenges brought in by the pandemic, while learning from his experiences as an Awwwards Jury member.

Why is your city a great place to live and work?

Karlsruhe has a great startup scene, so there is a lot of potential acquiring new clients and helping them establish their brand and business. Furthermore there are a lot of hidden champions of the German middle sector, which are global leaders in their area of expertise.

Karlsruhe is also called the German Silicon Valley in the research area. There are institutions like KIT and Frauenhofer Institut which provide improvements and potential in topics like robotic, smart cities and climate protection. As a side note: The first e-mail was sent out of Karlsruhe, too.

Tell us about your personal journey. How did you find yourself working for Dorfjungs?

I was working for an agency across the street of Dorfjungs. After I quit there I decided to move to Hamburg to work at SinnerSchrader for their client Audi. I quickly realized that working in a large agency for mainly one client is not for me and I missed the creativity and diversity of smaller projects (and the beautiful landscapes of my home area). I knew Dorfjungs. because of my prior job, so I asked Jonas (one of the two CEOs of Dorfjungs) if they have current openings. We had a quick call and now I’ve been working here for 2 years.

Name a challenge your team is currently facing.

Due to Covid-19 we moved to home office with the whole team. At first it was a bit strange and we all had to learn how to do it, but with a bit practice it worked out perfectly fine. Having all client meetings remotely was an adjustment, too.

What metrics do you track on a daily basis?

We do not track any metrics other than the daily hours. We don’t use this information to control the team members, but to check if a project goes well or not. We can see if a project took longer than we estimated, where the delay occurred and what we have to do in the future to make it better.

Do you handle all development work in-house?

Mostly we are working on all projects with our own developers, since we believe that the best outcome will be achieved when design and development are working closely together from the beginning of the project, so both disciplines can inspire and influence each other. If there’s a specific skill needed, we work together with freelancers.

Share one of Dorfjungs’s recent projects that makes you proud.

There’s one which will be launched in a few days, which I’m currently not allowed to talk about (check our socials to get notified). Other than that is the website and branding we did together with the branding agency Yummy Stories for a German wine estate (josefwoerner.de). It heavily relies on typography, has some nice little design details and Easter eggs and is a great representation of our approach to new projects.

We strongly believe that purely optimizing for conversion is the wrong way to go – instead we want to create story driven experiences, which affect the user emotionally and force him to take action.

Can you tell us how were you approach to be one of the Awwwards’ jury?

I’ve been visiting the Awwwards platform since I started in the industry in 2014. Two years ago the team at Awwwards introduced the new format of Young Jury, a jury specific for new talent in the industry. I applied there and got accepted. After two years as a young jury member and a few in person meetings at the conferences with the Awwwards team and other judges (shout out to them, really lovely people) last year I applied for the real jury and am honored to be a member since January 2020.

When did you realize you wanted to pursue a career in design?

As a kid I was interested in computers, so I wanted to do an apprenticeship as a software developer. I was not satisfied with that, because I didn’t want to develop ugly software but innovative and beautiful web design caught my attention, so I quit the apprenticeship and started another one as a media designer. Suddenly I got passionate about all things related to design and typography.

What advice would you give to someone looking to pursue your position for the first time?

Work hard for your dreams. Don’t be scared, sometimes you have to risk something to move a step forward. Never stop learning and always try to push experiences forwards. Usability is important, but don’t sacrifice visual design to over optimize for conversion.

Form follows function, but sometimes form is the function. Don’t focus too much on working in a large or well known agency. Often you have much more responsibility in a small environment, the possibility to influence the direction the agency is heading to and more interesting and diverse projects.

If you have to think of a personal experience that shaped the way you are today, what would it be?

Definitely attending the Awwwards conference in Berlin 2018, which was also my first conference ever. The impressions and inspiration I got there reinforced my drive to move back and work in a small agency again. Of course the talks are already great and you can learn a lot and get inspired, but the best thing about these conferences is meeting the people you know from the internet in real life and exchange with them.

What are some apps or websites that you love/get inspired by?

Working as a judge for Awwwards has the benefit, that I have to judge a few websites a day, so I get a lot of inspiration there as well. Besides Awwwards I definitely spend too much time on Behance and Dribbble (don’t tell my boss). I am a strong believer in getting inspired by classical graphic design – you can learn a lot, especially editorial layouts and typography treatments, so browsing through books and magazines is my favourite source for inspiration. This has the huge benefit that you don’t just copy what other websites do.

Is there’s a playlist that helps you get focused?

I mostly listen to live sets of my favorite DJ’s on YouTube, mixcloud, etc. It always depends on my current mood and can range from deep house to hardstyle … With Spotify it would be this one.

Thanks Norman!

Learn more about Dorfjungs

Follow Norman Dubois, on social media:
Twitter
Instagram
Dribbble
Behance
LinkedIn

Follow Dorfjungs on social media:
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Dribbble
Behance

Norman Dubois