Key creatives: Steffen Knöll and Sven Tillack.
Career path: After completing a three-year apprenticeship at an ad agency, Tillack decided that there was still a lot he wanted to learn and applied to study communication design at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart (ABK, or Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design.) Having always wanted to study architecture, Knöll for reasons unknown even to him applied for communication design as a backup plan in case the architecture program at ABK didn’t accept him. Despite the fact that an architecture career could have still been in the cards, he decided to stay in design, which he attributes to the high rents in Zurich, Switzerland. The pair worked separately as freelancers for around seven years before launching Studio Tillack Knöll. Now, they also hold teaching positions at ABK.