I bring ideas to life
I'm a designer that means business
The question that every aspiring founder or business owner needs to answer today before going on their entrepreneurial odyssey has changed. It is no longer: "Can you build the product?" The starting point is now: "Why are you building it at all?"
I want to help you answer this question for your business. Design is the key to identifying your why and how to bring it to the world. The most interesting innovation today is happening at the top of the stack — at the interface the with end user, where your idea touches the world. So, I keep people front and center when I work with you. It is the primary guideline so your products and services will touch peoples lives in a positive way.
Hi
I'm Hendrik Sommerfeldt, a Frankfurt based designer and design thinking consultant with a focus on digital transformation and innovation in B2B context. Over my career I have led product design teams, worked with clients from startup to enterprise and have been fortunate to develop a reputation as a leader in the UX Design Community.
It’s my conviction that design is the single best lever for building the greatest products and companies to come - at the intersection of technology and human needs.
I apply Visual Thinking
To work in our increasingly dynamic environment we need a high degree of visual techniques as they are the foundation for creative stimulation, collaboration and effective alignment. The new work floor needs to be a visual gallery with a matching workspace.
I connect Design and Business
I know that many designers feel like business is alienating or just not fun. I think money needs to be part of design conversations. Like other constraints in design it liberates creativity. Asking a customer to pay for something, is very different from asking, ‘What do you think?’.
I believe in Systems Thinking
We live in a massively interconnected global system. Every solution we create together will be enmeshed in this system. That is why I work with systems thinking as a mindset—a way of seeing and talking about reality that recognizes the interrelatedness of things we create and the environment.
I speak at conferences and in-house events
Over the course of my work, I learned that creatives and entrepreneurs want more than soft-win stories and framework walkthroughs. Your audience deserves actionable, entertaining, and inspiring content. Here's how we can deliver:
Talks and keynotes
Workshops
Design business ≠ usual
Design Sprints
Design to Learn
Current Workshops
Current Talks
Standing on the shoulder of giants
Every great artist, every great designer, is influenced by what has been done before his time. It essentially means that if you want to be a great designer, it’s not enough to look at today’s trends and new innovations. In this video, Steve Jobs emphasizes this fact by quoting Pablo Picasso, who famously said: “Good artists copy; great artists steal.”
How does the new come into the world? We connect thoughts, that were unconnected before. When I started my career as a designer years ago I was greeted by an open community that is sharing knowledge in a way I was not expecting it to. To this day I'm amazed how easy it is to get in touch with the leading experts of my field and how approachable they are.
Of the many, many books that fill my studio and my hard drive I picked a few that have become tools for me. From time to time I'll revise this area to reflect my current learnings and interests.
The future is design
There is no pre-determined path. We need to take the opportunity to design our own future everyday