Claudia Doms

Finally there is something to see! The first outcome of a survey which I started over a year ago about post-graduate life of graphic designers. Evaluated were 422 answers from art school graduates in Europe and North America, the largest part being from the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, followed by Burg Giebichenstein Halle, EKA Tallinn, Werkplaats Typografie, HGB Leipzig, and many, many others. 221 complaints is the complete collection of answers to the question 'did you learn everything you needed in school and if not, what was missing’ – an intentionally provocative question, to which some graduates rightly answered that it is not possible to learn everything one needs during studies. More than half of the participants shared their direct feedback, and it is surprising and surprisingly similar: In the survey, the by far largest amount of complaints are about the everyday struggles of making a living, about money, about client communication and software skills. Hidden behind these complaints are a lack of preparation and awareness for the exploitative system that lures after art school. With 221 complaints I want to (re)present each and every of the complaints that I was entrusted with - thank you so much! I want you all to know that you are not alone with your complaints, and that they will be heard. Art school needs to start addressing the system that we work in to enable us to follow our vocation. 221 complaints is a book with a short essay as well as a video work of 28 minutes. Both can be seen at the end of the year show at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle this weekend and I am currently thinking of how to make it available to everyone, especially those who participated in the survey. Thanks for your support when it started @julesesteves @michomaca Thanks to @eliaserkan for recommending Complaint! by Sara Ahmed Thank you @andrea.tinnes and @chrsgrbr for your spot on feedback Slide 5: The Rietveld Academie is the most beautiful package to carry ❤️

Spaces for Orientation – Design Education in Precarious Times Tuesday, May 12, 2026 10:30–17:30 Braunschweig University of Art (Auditorium) Symposium with: Ren Loren Britton Noemi Biasetton Marion Kliesch Silvio Lorusso (remote) Nina Paim Krishan Rajapakshe Design exists in a permanent state of reciprocity with social structures, power constellations, and inequalities. It is shaped by them and simultaneously reproduces them – yet it also carries transformative potential. This ambivalence lends design a particular agility while placing design pedagogy in an ongoing negotiation of its own identity and legitimacy. The central discourse revolves around what contemporary design can – and should – achieve under present conditions. The profound upheavals of our time are unmistakable. The climate crisis, geopolitical conflicts, autocratic tendencies, and the increasing fragmentation of social lifeworlds destabilize established social and political orders. At the same time, trust in institutions that are meant to ensure continuity, dialogue, and democratic stability is eroding. The growing use of artificial intelligence in design practice further intensifies these tensions by transforming productive processes and reopening normative questions of authorship, responsibility, and the common good. In such a dissonant present, the social and economic continuities to which concepts such as development, maturity, or professional orientation traditionally refer are dissolving and cannot be conveyed in education. Against this backdrop, the symposium asks what role design education can play as a space for orientation and critical reflection. In what condition do students encounter these transformations? What competencies and dispositions do educators require in order to remain capable of acting under conditions of permanent change? How can higher education live up to its claim of not merely mirroring social reality but also serving as a physical and mental space of protection and possibility? And finally: What significance does design itself hold within design education – as method, as stance, and as an epistemic practice? Organised by @c_doms and @annaluiselorenz

RUNDGANG 2026 / Exhibition Identity 2026 (DE below) In December last year, we held an open workshop for all students of @hbk.braunschweig to create images for the upcoming annual exhibition. The images were the result of conversations between students from different departments. Over the course of one day, one hundred and fifty drawings, prints, and paper clippings were created. These are currently being developed by a group of visual communication students into the exhibition identity. --- Im Dezember letzten Jahres haben wir einen offenen Workshop für alle Studierenden der HBK Braunschweig veranstaltet, um Bildmaterial für die kommende Jahresausstellung zu entwickeln. Die entstandenen Arbeiten sind das Ergebnis von Gesprächen zwischen Studierenden verschiedener Fachbereiche. Im Laufe eines Tages entstanden hundertfünfzig Zeichnungen, Drucke und Papiercollagen. Diese werden derzeit von einer Gruppe Studierender der Visuellen Kommunikation zur Ausstellungsidentität weiterentwickelt. --- workshop concept @c_doms and @jasper.otto photographs by @tomke.bolle

places and people I met last year in educational contexts (i meant to write insightful and funny captions about conversations that followed workshops and presentation, but it went out of control :/) 1 talk What are we made for? — On Education, Unionization and Speculation alongside @noam_yr organised by @_davidvoss photo Elena Westiner 2 collaborative workshop with @_davidvoss @hsm.gestaltung reflections on students' past, present and future ambitions photo @_davidvoss 3 lecture, screening, round talk Stand in School Berlin organised by students of @ekagd_ma and @seanyendrys photo @seanyendrys 4-5 talk, conversation, 1 day (!) publication workshop @klasseredges organised by @rebeccastephany_ and @jmr.schaefer 6-8 talk, witnessing meme workshop, decompressing spritz Meme Things First @iuav_venezia organisation and design by @magaiubaba @serena__demola @pasquale_dsr alongside @noam_yr @eletrico.verde photo @ole.bojinov 9 screening and round talk organised by @typotype_hfg_of @kd_hfg_of Johanna Siebein, Catrin Altenbrandt hosted within the seminar Real Life @lukasmarstaller 10-12 last but not least... running @hbk_konzeptionelles.gestalten 🤍 - visit to Klingspor Museum together with @typotype_hfg_of + Johanna Siebein - 'Rundgang' works with @jasper.otto - results from workshop with @carstentabel

I am alive (link in bio) programming @temporarystate_type

Throwback to Claudia Doms’ full-house Bikini Talk from last November! 🎙️ “Afterschool Failures and Other Bad Feelings” delves into the challenges design graduates face in the “real world.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Year after year, design students exit school unaware of the exploitative and precarious conditions awaiting them after graduation. Drawing from her survey of over 400 graduates from Europe and North America, Claudia reflected on what schools could do differently to mitigate the frustrations of trying (and failing) to make a living with design. Our space was packed and conversations continued deep into the evening afterwards! This event was possible thanks to the generous funding by the @goetheinstitut_portugal . ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Following an apprenticeship at the Schauspielhaus Bochum and graphic design studies at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, Claudia moved to London to work as a graphic designer for cultural institutions, artists, and corporations. In 2017, she took on a full-time teaching position at the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow. Since returning to Germany in 2020, she has investigated the relationship between design education and the (often precarious) market realities. In October 2023, she premiered her first documentary titled School Family State. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ We’re hoping Claudia will soon bring her research into book form, perhaps to be published by a sassy design imprint from Porto—what do you say? 🤞🏽 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #DesignReality #DesignEducation #DesignIndustry #GraphicDesign #ArtEducation #CreativeIndustry #FightPrecarity #BikiniTalk #ClaudiaDoms #DesignSchools

🥁🚨🎀The Temporary State has a new webshop🎀🚨🥁 The Temporary State is Roman Gornitsky, who designs, draws, kerns, and codes everything by himself. And now he will have lots of time to spend with our kid. Please have a look, link in my bio. Kommuna Bold now available and new letters to come this year. @temporarystate_type 🤍

***Speaking of Conversations*** artist practices in the spirit of Seth Siegelaub - 31 conversations edited by Lucas Hoeben @hoebenlucas and Eva Pel @eva_pellini Published by Set Margins @setmargins in Dutch language Launching this weekend, January 21st, at 37PK Haarlem @37pkhaarlem a project with some of the kindest people on earth 💖

Time has come, SCHOOL FAMILY STATE will premiere at the Rietveld Academie on October 19th. Since 2019 I have been following a group of graphic design students, later graduates, from the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and BHSAD in Moscow (the latter now not existing as such anymore). While my original intention was to talk primarily about graphic design, I found out that all micro- and macro forces of life are interlinked, and so the working title SCHOOL FAMILY STATE stayed (I guess I knew it all along). The screening will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Paul Gangloff with Klara Eneroth and myself. Thank you Klara Eneroth, Filip Birkner, Lesya Kuranova, Vasily Dyakonov and Natalia Kukina for your trust, Eva Pel for your ever lasting support and camera work, Dmitry Kuvaldin for camera work, Philippe Ciompi for sound mixing, and Laurent Fluttert for colour grading. Thank you Roman Gornitsky, for all. More thank-yous to come in the film credits. With special appearances by Sebastian Campos, Sam de Groot and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville. Music by Tom Richards, A Fungus, Samčo, Vince Guaraldi, Lobo Loco. Made possible with the support of Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst @afk020 ---- ***Premiere*** SCHOOL FAMILY STATE Thursday, October 19th, 17:30h Theory Stairs (Auditorium) in the Fedlev Building Gerrit Rietveld Academie Fred. Roeskestraat 96 running time 41 minutes the screening is public and for free ---- Trigger Warning. The film is intrinsically linked to the Russian war against Ukraine. The content of this film can be emotionally challenging or trigger traumas. Please take the necessary steps for your emotional safety.

Lake Baikal. Buryatia, Russia. Great Wall of China. Huairou, China. Concentration Camp Buchenwald. Thuringia, Germany.