At the heart of this collaboration is a joint project in corporate design, supervised by Professor Anke Stache: students in their fourth to sixth semesters develop individual visual identities for young start-ups from the Campus Foundery OWL. This means that creative design ideas are translated into vibrant brand identities, from concepts to the development of logos, fonts, and color schemes, ensuring recognizability across all media through graphic elements and image styles.
Learning through practice – benefiting from collaboration
At the semester kick-off, four start-ups presented their business ideas. The students were then free to decide which company they would like to support creatively over the next few months.
During the project phase, the teams worked closely with the founding teams, exchanged ideas regularly, and received valuable feedback during an interim presentation. The project culminated in a presentation of all the results at the STUNT Coworking Space in Detmold.
External guests, including representatives from the agency "linea_weiss," provided additional professional feedback and praised the high quality and diversity of the work.
Win-win situation
Everyone involved benefits from the collaboration: the students gain valuable practical experience, learn about real business processes, and can implement their creative ideas in real projects. The start-ups, in turn, receive initial approaches to professionally developed communication and design concepts – at a stage when they often lack the financial resources for extensive marketing measures. Neither side is obliged to continue working together; both parties are now free to pursue their own paths.
Start-up founder Justin Debrassine sums it up aptly: "Great project! There are major overlaps between Detmold and Lemgo – this brings us closer together. Especially in the beginning, there is little time for marketing and advertising, and agencies are often too expensive. This is a great opportunity to get a glimpse into creative work."
Creative minds meet entrepreneurial spirit
This cooperation shows how practice-oriented teaching and start-up support can go hand in hand. The start-up center supports students and start-ups with coaching, workshops, networking events, and idea competitions – thus building a bridge between innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
