GAME.IMPULSE - Björn Bartholdy - Games made in Germany

Björn Bartholdy studied communication design at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart and Media Design at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. He was a freelance television designer for Bayerischer Rundfunk, RTL, VOX, and VIVA. In 1994, he founded Cutup, a media design agency, and was its creative director and business manager until 2002. The agency won many national and international prizes in film and TV design and in the field of new media. In 1999, the majority of the agency was taken over by Bertelsmann. Björn Bartholdy ran the virtual design department at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy in Ludwigsburg from 1999-2002. From 2002 to mid-2004, he led the content strategies department at verytv in Cologne. Since 2003, he has been responsible for the Department of Audiovisual Media at the KISD, Köln International School of Design (TH Koeln). He has published several books: SHOWREEL.01 and .02 on audiovisual design and written “Broadcast Design,” an account of current TV design. He has also contributed various articles to the Design Dictionary (Birkhäuser) Magazines and other Publications.

In 2006, he started the initiative to found the Cologne Game Lab, where he has taught Media Design full-time since 2014. He co-directs the institute together with Prof. Dr. Gundolf S. Freyermuth.