We are delighted to welcome Dennis Werner – Creative Director & Visual Director – as a member of our GoSeeAWARDS jury. For more than 20 years, he has realized creative concepts and campaigns for brands and clients in the luxury branch. From 1994 to 2000, he worked as an Art Director and Associate Creative Director for Select in New York. In 2001, he was the co-founder of the Select office in Berlin. His clients benefit from his keen nose for design and photos paired with his experience in marketing and conception as a freelance creative. 'To transform the principals of brand building and visual storytelling into the digital age' is Dennis Werner's slogan. He also shares his know-how with students as a lecturer at the BTK University of Design. We are pleased to present you the top creative in an interview on GoSee.
What is the difference between a Creative Director & Visual Director?
For me, there is a big difference. There are surely creative directors who also have a clear and penetrating visual signature, but it not necessarily always that way. You can also be a good CD without those kind of skills. Because if the main focus is on the concept, and visual realization is only secondary, the job is already done for a lot of clients.
Why is emotional storytelling so important in our day and age? Can you give us an example from your work?
It's this easy – people are people. And people have the same feelings – they all love to be digitally seduced. The effective communication ideas of tomorrow have to be technically fascinating, socially involving and, naturally, emotionally convincing. I try to find that very moment in all of my work which affects people – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't... But that should be the goal of every creative, no matter what they do, whether for products, media, art and design...
What projects are you working on at the moment or what can you show us on GoSee?
"Bloom" is a personal beauty project with photographer duo Sonja Gutschera and Leif Henrik Osthoff with the support of MDC Cosmetic, Berlin. The underlying idea was to stage the spring season with fresh faces from various model agencies together with new beauty products. It was important for us to break with the classic beauty approach in order to capture the individual strengths of the different protagonists and the randomness of nature. A clear graphical layout gives the individual designs a holistic packaging.
“Liberation of Creativity” is the name of the mutual project with THE SCOPE for TOM FORD in which you combine high-end technology with a strong visual concept...
The topic of CG photography has interested me for quite a while – and it is a topic of the future as I see it. The idea was to be realize a not-so-easy, still-life concept only with the computer. Creating black orchids and a flying hummingbird are a real challenge which is not that easy to create right off the bat. This is where Faruk HEPLEVENT and I came in. We thought of developing a series for Tom Ford which iconographically captures the scent of "Black Orchid".
You have also just finished the campaign for PETER HAHN?
Yes I did, together with Heike Gudella (Managing Director Strategy) and Swantje Pollex (Art Director) from the agency VSF&P, based in Hamburg, we went to Namibia this time around – an incredibly large and spacious country. Together with Director Stephan Hadjam, we were once again able to realize an emotional film for the client PETER HAHN. Work between clients, the agency and production is really marked by trust and the creative freedom to spontaneously react to the different situations on location. What more can you get out of a script? Fashion film thrives on big pictures and snapshots created in fractions of a second. A strict storyboard would simply not suffice.
GoSee brings you the new PETER HAHN film, which was produced with Director Stephan Hadjam in Namibia as well as the S/S 2016 campaign film shot in Cuba.
So seduce Dennis Werner with your stories and one-of-a-kind beauty spreads, reportages, CGI projects... Thru 24 August, photographers, illustrators, stylists and creatives can submit their most inspiring works – both personal and commissioned. Just log into your GoSee account and submit artwork for the GoSeeAWARDS. And meet the creative storytellers live and in person at UPDATE16 in Berlin.
