Ideas for the ‘Campus of the Future’ soon to be featured in travelling exhibition

A great success for three students from the Digital Media Production programme at Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences: with their poster ideas on the theme of ‘Campus of the Future’, Milla Kirmse, Merle von Forstner and Michelle O'Shea have secured a place in the travelling exhibition of the 39th poster competition organised by the German Student Union. This makes them one of thirty selected students whose posters will be on public display in the coming weeks. A total of 388 students from all over Germany submitted up to three poster ideas each. Merle von Forstner had a special reason to celebrate: her poster entitled ‘Vision’ was awarded third place.

"We are delighted about this success for the students and Prof. Nicole Slink. For the fourth time in a row, students from Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences have been selected for the German Student Services Association's travelling exhibition. It's great that we came third in the competition and that two more works were selected for the travelling exhibition! The creativity of the students in Bremerhaven is inspiring and this renewed success is very impressive," said Hauke Kieschnick, Managing Director of the Bremen Student Services Association.

Focus on climate change and digitalisation

A person is standing knee-deep in water. They are wearing VR glasses and holding a sign that says ‘Lecture Hall’. Merle von Forstner's award-winning poster shows her vision of what the campus could look like in 2050 if climate change continues to advance. Originally, however, she had a completely different idea for the poster. ‘I wanted to show that the campus of the future will be location-independent thanks to digitalisation. So I first took a photo in a field. My mother then suggested that a picture in the water would also be great. Of course, that fits even better with Bremerhaven and also addresses climate change,’ says the student. Although you might think so, the image on the poster was not created using artificial intelligence, but is a photograph. The person who ventured into the water is Merle von Forstner's brother. 

Milla Kirmse asked herself what kind of rooms there will be on a campus of the future. Her poster shows signposts to, among other things, the ‘virtual library’ and the ‘hologram lecture hall’. ‘I thought about which rooms would still be needed at a university in the future, even when everything is digitised. I quickly came up with the idea of the signposts,’ said the student. 

One student cannot admire her poster entitled ‘AI drowns too’ in person at the travelling exhibition: Michelle O'Shea. The exchange student has since returned to her home country. She took a critical look at climate change in her design and used typography to convey her message. ‘They say the future is AI, but we all know technology doesn't work well underwater’ is written on the poster. 

Poster design as a study project

The posters were created in Professor Nicole Slink's ‘Fundamentals of Design’ seminar. There, students learn about various programmes they can use to design advertising materials. ‘Posters are a great medium for trying out different design techniques and learning how to focus on a single message and convey it well,’ explains the professor. She gave the students a lot of freedom in their designs. This is also reflected in the results. ‘The posters showcase the entire spectrum of design techniques – from illustrations and typography to photography. The topics are also diverse and deal with sustainability, AI, building structures and learning in the future, as well as fears about the future, among other things.’ 

In total, more than forty different posters were created. During the development process, the students were not only supported by their professor, but also helped each other in small groups. ‘We presented and discussed our ideas in practice seminars. The feedback was very helpful. We also created a Miro board for all the posters so that we could evaluate them anonymously,’ says Milla Kirmse. This allowed the students to further develop their best ideas and submit them to the competition. Nicole Slink is also delighted with the great success: ‘I find it particularly impressive that the students were able to achieve these great results in their first semester.’

Anyone who would like to take a look at the posters created by the Bremerhaven students will have the opportunity to do so outside of the travelling exhibition: the posters are now on display in the canteen of Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences.