“Create positive change”: denkwerk is Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2021
The honorary title “Red Dot: Agency of the Year” is the highest accolade awarded in the international competition “Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design” for consistently high design achievements. This year, this special award goes to Cologne-based agency “denkwerk”, which has repeatedly won over the jury in recent years with its outstanding design accomplishments. The agency won nine distinctions in the 2021 competition year alone.
Ground-breaking consulting and agency hybrid
denkwerk is an owner-managed digital agency founded in 1998 and now managed by Jochen Schlaier and Marco Zingler. The company has 220 employees, with offices in Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich. The agency’s objective is to accompany its clients on their digital transformation journey and to blur the boundaries between management consultancy and design services. The area of Research & Development plays a special role, with 15% of profit invested in this field. “Create positive change” is the motto informing award-winning work for clients such as DeepL, ESPRIT, Motel One, Santander and the YOU Foundation.
Success through creativity and digital expertise
“denkwerk impressively combines digital solutions with outstanding design as well as an enthusiasm for experimentation. In doing so, it wins over both its own clients and our jury over and over again,” explains Professor Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of the Red Dot Award. “The agency’s work is ground-breaking – particularly in the current era where digital transformation is taking over. Displaying great creativity and digital expertise, it is also always focused on the best possible user experience. denkwerk is now receiving the honorary title ‘Red Dot: Agency of the Year 2021’ for this special accomplishment.”
Jochen Schlaier, Chief Creative Officer at denkwerk had this to say: “We are delighted to be awarded the title of agency of the year. Our work is based on the conviction that good projects can truly have transformative power. That is why we design flagship projects that break new ground. The fact that we can now use this special title as an agency would indicate that we have succeeded in our objective. I want to thank Red Dot, and above all my wonderful team!”
Pioneer in the new category “Digital Solutions”
This year, denkwerk especially stood out from its competitors in the new Digital Solutions category. It was created to increase the visibility of projects that change the way we communicate in a lasting way within the context of digitalisation. denkwerk won over the jury not once but twice – including with the website whyarewecreative.com, which is based on a project by director Hermann Vaske and collates interviews with artists and creatives on the topic of creativity over a period of thirty years. Some of the distinctive features of the website are its interactive nature and special navigation, which give it a playful component. The project “fraenk” also won favour with the jury. This is the name of a new, app-based brand by mobile phone provider “Congstar”.
