Karsten Schmidt

Current

Owner at PostSpectacular (Sole Proprietorship)
Adviser at Moving Brands

Past

Owner at toxi.co.uk
Senior Developer at Lateral
Senior Creative at Zinc

Senior Designer at Omniscience Ltd.
Web designer/developer at ID Media GmbH

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Education

Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Dresden

Recommended

6 people have recommended Karsten

Connections

190 connections

Industry

Design

Websites

Karsten Schmidt’s Summary

Karsten Schmidt (aka toxi) is an award-winning computational designer merging code, design, interaction, art & craft skills. Starting in the deep end of the early 8-bit demo scene, for the past 2 decades he's been adopting a trans-disciplinary way of working and been laterally involved in a wide range of digital disciplines. With his studio PostSpectacular, he is actively exploring current possibilities at the intersection of design, art, software development and education and applying these in a variety of fields. A strong conceptual thinker and always striving for maximum creative freedom, Karsten’s design approach is based on treating ideas as software at the heart, which in turn informs all other facets of each project. When not creating, he travels the world consulting and teaching workshops about the generative design approach, open source and employing code as creative tool. He's been an early contributor to the Processing.org project and to various books about programming and graphic design, and his work has been featured in the press and exhibited internationally, including the MoMA, New York.

Karsten Schmidt’s Specialties:

Generative design, interaction design & research, conception & art direction, custom design tool building, software architecture, information architecture, data modelling & visualization

Technologies: Processing, Java, ActionScript, JavaScript, LAMP, XML, XSLT, RDF, microformats

Karsten Schmidt’s Experience

Owner
PostSpectacular (Sole Proprietorship)

(Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Design industry)

November 2007 — Present (2 years 1 month)

PostSpectacular is a small London based design studio and consultancy actively exploring the growing possibilities at the intersection of interaction design, service design and software development, often within a branding context. Working cross-disciplinary with a network of other creatives, our design approach is based on treating ideas as software at the heart, which in turn informs all other facets of each project. We are using code as primary design tool to build unique, highly adaptable platforms, installations, services and systems for some of the world's most respected & innovative brands.
Adviser

Moving Brands

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Design industry)

August 2005 — Present (4 years 4 months)

specialist design concepts & execution, interaction design & programming, technical direction, strategy consulting, brand consulting, research direction, software planning & development
Owner

toxi.co.uk

(Design industry)

2000 — 2007 (7 years )
Senior Developer

Lateral

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

August 2001 — August 2005 (4 years 1 month)
Senior Creative

Zinc

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)

February 1999 — August 2001 (2 years 7 months)
Senior Designer

Omniscience Ltd.

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

January 1998 — December 1998 (1 year )
Web designer/developer

ID Media GmbH

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)

August 1996 — December 1997 (1 year 5 months)

Conception, design and implementation/web development (front & backend) of various content sections & interactive sound toys and webradio station on West.de, one of Germany's first major websites.

ISDN live-streaming of events (Keith Haring exhibition tour, WestSound Circle, LTJ Bukem tour)

Audio production for company showreels & CD-ROM projects.

Karsten Schmidt’s Education

Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Dresden

BSc , Computer Science of Media , 1995 — 1998

Cancelled studies after 2.5 years due to previous knowledge and overtaking freelance engagements

Additional Information

Karsten Schmidt’s Websites:

Karsten Schmidt’s Interests:

design, art, opensource, programming, generative processes, new materials, fashion, electronic music, music production, mapping, visualization, philosophy, psychology, social software, semantic web, game theory, networks, design patterns, language, hiking, skiing, cycling, strategy