1. How long have you worked for USD?
Since the first days of USD. At this time it was called UPSIDEDOWN. The first logo was done by a very good friend of mine, a guy called Ray. Back in the days he was one of the first writers in Germany. I was responsible for the first ad's...my absolute favourite ad at this time was one for USD diaries called "DON'T FEED".
2. How has USD changed since you started working on it?
Not only the name changed, also style of logos, products and ad's. That's a result of all the people who were in involved in the USD designs. For example Shane Coburn did the famous "Phoenix" logo, Martin Fussenegger the "Superior", Martin Vajner the latest "Cube" logo and I did the "Falcon" one. Shane and Martin also did a lot of ad's for USD. Since 2 Years I'm the guy who is doing all USD ad's. We had much positive response of last years "Tomorrows Visions Todays Reality" concept. My favourite one of this series is still the team ad. This year we wanna do something else and want to show more the personality of each team member. We think you out there wanna know more about our heroes. At the moment BK is taking a lot of great pix to show you guys what every USD skater stands for.
3. Where do you get your inspiration?
Sometimes i'm surfing in the net or reading mag's to get an idea, but 95% comes straight out of my head which is useful 'cause from there it's not that far to my hand which is always ready to rumble the mouse.

4. What can you tell us of the inner workings of USD?
Of course I would like to tell you something about some internal affairs, but there we have a little problem. If you start working for USD you have to first visit the USD-Surgery Department where you get inplanted a small observation-chip. This chip affects your brain so that you don't wanna have more money, don't want to sleep, don't wanna go home and if you try to tell someone outside USD about inner workings this thing makes you horny for pets. For example yesterday Mark Korte tried to speak about internal workings to a magazin...5 minutes later he jumped on a fuckin poodle across the street.

5. How do you feel when you walk down the street and see kids skate by with skates, clothes and other stuff designed by you?
Believe me this feeling is much better as receiving the salary. It's the best thing to see that the people like the stuff which you've designed for them. We really want to be close on that what the skaters want and of course the most innovative skate brand and i guess the people see and respect this.

6. What is it like working with Skaters like Jon Julio, Dustin Latimer, Josh Petty, and the whole USD Team?
It's a very important thing to work together with the skaters. They know how a skate, a frame, everything should look and work. Also it's cool to work out ad and clothing concepts together with the team. So we are very authentic on what the people really want. We wanna get every skater involved in our plans and it's always very helpful to get the opinions from them. They are more for USD than only skaters - THEY ARE USD!

7. What are your personal goals and why do you think you ended up doing what you are doing now?
My ultimate dream is to design spaceships or anything else for STAR WARS or other big movies like 5th Element.
You wanna know something about my career? O.K. but there were a lot of things...I had defenetly the need to do something with designs, but in the beginning it was very hard for me to get a creative job, so after school i was working in a warehouse and on our local train station loading trains by day and night for almost 5 years. After that i was a courier and drove false teeths and dentures, I was working with mental handicapped people, later I tried to tell the people that they need to buy insurance, I even was undercover detective in a shopping mall to get thieves and i was also a painter, but you have to earn money so you have to do something.
After all these more or less interesting jobs and experiences I was forced to learn more about designing to do what I really wanted to do and after many failed applications my dream finally was coming true as I got the chance to study in London art & design. I really worked hard on it and i made it and after the studies I had no big problem to find a job.
I hope my story don't bore you, maybe it should show that you can reach what you want but you've to fight for it even if you think there is no way to make it, I think there is always a way. Everyone of you out there has some special skills (not everyone can make good drawings but maybe to sell them - what a designer can't), just figure it out for your own what it is and go for it. YOU ARE THE MAN!!!

8. Where do you think the direction of design is going? What would you like to see happen?
What I want to see in the future is the Playstation Game "Rolling" and of course "Hoverskates" and don't laugh some in our company are already working hard on that item. I think the designing in the skating biz is getting much more professional in any direction and it's getting much more harder in the future to be one of the best companies. But I think if you know that you don't have to be afraid of no one.


9. What else do you do besides designing? what are you personal interests?
Uhhhh. My favourite thing besides designing is defenetly soccer. I'm supporting the club of my hometown Bayreuth called OLDSCHDOD...at the moment they are playing in the 5th league in Germany but I'm sure 2008 they'll win the european champions league cup.

10. Can you tell us what the future of USD is design wise?
I'm not sure, sometimes I think i'ts good to get the look of the skates more futuristic with a lot of details and sometimes I think it's better to keep it simple...to be honest I don't know it so I'm also very curios what comes next out of our USD-heads. Right now
I'm working on some designs for shirts & sweater.