NMP Design – Natalie M. Preuß, Product Designer in Berlin

AWAKE is a still water with molecular hydrogen, launched in 2024 by H2 Vital, a venture built at [Wendero](https://www.wendero.com). It started in a can and later moved into a squeeze pouch with a spout, made for sport and for drinking on the go. At the time, water with added hydrogen was still a niche product, and few buyers knew what it was. The packaging had to make the drink understandable at a glance, with a clear name and a watery blue that keeps it light. That mattered most at the launch: we presented AWAKE at trade fairs and industry events, where the can had to introduce an unfamiliar drink within seconds, on the stand and in people's hands. I designed the packaging for both formats and prepared the print data for production, with art direction by Daniel and in co-creation with Sabine. For the pouch, I oversaw the packaging prototypes through to series production and coordinated with the producers. The project was held together by my colleague Janina Peters. She led the business consulting and handled the entire administrative side of the venture, from its founding onwards, and we worked closely on everything the start-up needed. The drink itself, its composition and its filling were the responsibility of H2 Vital and its producers.

[Bauhaus 4.0](https://bauhaus4-0.kh-berlin.de/), Episode 1 is a research project by [KHB](https://www.instagram.com/kunsthochschuleberlin/) and [TU Berlin](https://www.instagram.com/tu_berlin/) on digital technologies and workshop-based learning. In 2020/21, two UR5e cobots by [Universal Robots](https://www.instagram.com/universalrobots/) moved into the Rapid Prototyping workshop. We built our own end-effectors to stamp and stack clay and to cut Styrofoam with a hot wire, and designed the motion paths in Rhino and Grasshopper. Deliberate programming mistakes became part of the method. Developed with [Jasper](https://www.instagram.com/jasperneu/), [Lluw](https://www.instagram.com/lluwp/) and Moritz, supervised by [Jörg Hugo](https://www.instagram.com/joerg_hugo/), [Konrad Jünger](https://www.instagram.com/juengerkuehn/), [Andrea Rossi](https://www.instagram.com/a_r0551/) and Prof. Nils Krüger.

Every Kiez has a secret map, carried around in the heads of those who live there. Boxi puts it on paper: 31 independent shops around Boxhagener Platz in Berlin-Friedrichshain, gathered on one illustrated square sheet. The initiative came from Bianca of hAusen and Myrre of Frieda Hain, two shops where I worked as a sales assistant during my studies. Frieda Hain has a very analogue feel, and part of it was that we hand-lettered our own price tags. Myrre liked my lettering style so much that she asked me to illustrate the map. The map lives where people pick it up: as a tear-off pad on counters, shelves and tables, and in shop windows, free to take. It travels from there, folded into pockets, read on a bench at Boxhagener Platz, passed on to friends who are visiting. The map is an abstraction, not a city plan. The street grid is reduced to the axes people actually walk, drawn as broad, dry brush strokes instead of ruled lines. Each shopping street has its own colour, and the numbered dots take it on: a shop is found by its street first, by its number second. U-Bahn, S-Bahn, tram and bus stops are the only standardised signs. Everything else is drawn by hand. The first sketches went into a Moleskine notebook with a Smart Pen, which records every stroke digitally while it is drawn. In Illustrator they became the final line work: a loose contour with hatching instead of gradients, filled with flat colour that does not quite meet the line. A moka pot, a slice of cake, cinema seats and popcorn, a cargo bike, the pigeon on Krossener Straße. The imperfection is deliberate: the map should look as if it was made in the Kiez, not for it. The type is Cy Text, warm enough to sit next to the drawings and clear enough for street names at small sizes. I designed the map alongside my full-time job, as a homage to Boxi, my home for almost twelve years.

Daddy Do is a digital companion for fathers who want to take an active, equal part in family life. Each day the app puts one topic in focus – matched to the child's current phase, such as a developmental leap – explains the background in a few sentences and turns it into a concrete next step. The concept comes from founder [Philipp Macke](https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipp-macke/). I designed the logo and the first prototypes of the web app, including its UI style guide. The images show the core flow: today's topic, the background, the completed task.

FOMO – it's all about the form explores forming as a process. It was developed in 2020 within the semester project Container (Material X-pertise) at [KHB](https://kh-berlin.de/), in which our team researched wire, moulded wood and moulded felt for a desk toolbox. My part was the moulded felt (Formvlies): a polyester felt whose binding fibres melt under heat, so the material keeps any shape it is pressed into while its surface stays soft and textile. Starting from first sketches, the base shapes were laser-cut from the felt. The laser seals the cut edges, so small cross-shaped slits can hold a pen and spring back once it is removed. A wooden mould built from layered MDF then translated these flat shapes into three-dimensional forms. Moritz supported me in building the mould. Heat and pressure shaped the material precisely while preserving its surface pattern. The result is a set of functional utensils whose form is defined entirely by the making process. The project is inspired by the design approach of [Becker Brakel](https://www.instagram.com/beckerbrakel/).

Most drills are used for just 13 minutes in their lifetime. Lendle puts them back to work: a peer-to-peer platform for renting tools instead of buying them. People rent out what they rarely use, Swiss Post delivers it and brings it back. Created in 2022 with [Johannes Schmidt](https://studio-js.de/) in [Prof. Dr. Herbert Grüner](https://kh-berlin.de/personen/222)'s course Open Innovation in Corporate Responsibility at [KHB](https://kh-berlin.de/), in cooperation with Swiss Post. Our focus: user journey, experience design and system logic, checked for economic feasibility.

Lineà is a toothbrush designed for the rhythm of daily care. In a product design study at [KHB](https://kh-berlin.de/), supervised by Prof. Susanne Schwarz-Raacke and Luise Dettbarn, I explored ergonomic and sustainable toothbrush design through form, material and interaction. I analysed how people grip a toothbrush, sketched in clay and then turned, carved and sanded studies in wood and HDU foam – hand-made models focused on comfort, tactility and intuitive handling in everyday use.

MA*GES – Magical Gestures is a collaborative project between [KHB](https://kh-berlin.de/) and [Imperial College London](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/) / [Royal College of Art](https://www.rca.ac.uk/), developed in the semester course Ultratool in 2021. The project treats gesture as a living language that evolves through everyday interaction and could shape how we communicate with and control the Internet of Things around us. By combining citizen science, machine learning and wearable technology, MA*GES lets users define their own gestures: personal rather than prescribed, and designed for inclusivity, accessibility and agency. An e-textile wearable with an Arduino Nano and conductive threads can be attached to any joint and captures its movements. The gestures sync with the MA*GES app and open up new ways to control and interact with a smartphone. I was responsible for the physical prototype: the e-textile wearable and its Arduino code. [Ryan McClure](https://www.instagram.com/__ryanmcclure/) developed the app. The team was completed by Tian Dong and [Ahad Mahmood](https://www.instagram.com/ahad.mahmood/), supervised by Prof. Tomek Ness, Dr. Elena Dieckmann and Mika Satomi.

NOX – Filtering the Noise is my bachelor thesis in Product & Interaction Design at [KHB](https://kh-berlin.de/). It started with one day of screen time: 145 pickups, at least 133 of them triggered by push notifications. So I asked how we can filter what really matters in a constant flow of information, and pick up the smartphone less. NOX is a paper-thin, drop-shaped e-ink tag you stick to a wall, a mirror or a shelf. It shows only the essentials, a sender's initial and one keyword, right where they matter. Hold your phone to the tag to read the full message. It is not a new screen, but a quiet gatekeeper for your notifications.

Radia is a study in edge transformation from my product design studies at [KHB](https://kh-berlin.de/) in 2019, supervised by Prof. Susanne Schwarz-Raacke and Luise Dettbarn. Everything starts from a 200 mm square block. By reshaping its edges with tangential fillets, the block becomes a speaker: a stable base below and an open surface on top that holds the membrane cover. I explored the form in sketches and technical drawings, then shaped and finished the prototypes by hand in HDU foam.

Retorio is an AI-driven coaching platform that analyzes video interviews to help teams assess and train soft skills. At [Studio Hint](https://www.studio-hint.com/) I designed the dashboard and redefined the visual identity. I structured behavioral and training data into a clear information architecture, built a UI style guide for colors, typography and components, and refined flows and micro-interactions, from the recorder to the analytics. The result is an interface that supports fast, confident decisions.

SWEEP is a collaborative cleaning-robot concept by [Studio Hint](https://www.studio-hint.com/) and BSR, Berlin's city cleaning service. I designed the mobile app that lets street-cleaning crews work side by side with the robot. The dashboard shows the robot's status, battery level and capacity at a glance. Two programs cover the job: Spot Clean marks an area on the map, Follow Me lets the robot follow the crew along a route. Service screens show the condition of brushes, sensors and filter, so maintenance can be planned in advance.

Tech Tabu is a card game that Janina Peters and I developed at [Wendero](https://www.wendero.com) to open our workshops. We first used it in March 2024 at DATEV in Nuremberg, in the Chatbot Persona Workshop for the Knowledge Assistant, an internal AI chatbot. The workshop was part of DATEV's proof of concept for generative AI. The game works like Taboo. Each card shows a tech term and the words you are not allowed to say. Try explaining "Generative Künstliche Intelligenz" without "ChatGPT", "Maschine", "Bilder" or "Eingabe", and you end up using the words your colleagues use every day. After the game came the actual persona workshop. In small groups, participants worked on large canvases to define the user groups for the Knowledge Assistant: who will use it, what they already know, when they need it and what for. Each user group became a persona. We handed the personas to codecamp:n, our development partner on the project, whose team built them into the application as user groups. Wendero has since used the cards with other clients, including NürnbergMesse.

Unisono is a minimalist connector for EILIF felt partitions. The panels stand on their own, but nothing lets you join them, so I designed the missing piece: stack the panels, keep them stable, and flat-pack screens turn into a flexible, modular system. I started with hand sketches of the rounded clip, modelled it in Rhino and had it produced with selective laser sintering (SLS). The printed parts are precise and durable, and they let the panels form new, functional geometries in the room.

Wendero, based in Berlin, connects strategy consulting with venture building: it helps established companies test new business ideas and start-ups find their scale. The name goes back to the Latin vendere, to sell. What Wendero sells, though, is not a service but a possibility. The previous wordmark spoke in blue and red, the colour code of banks and insurers. It promised stability and, in doing so, contradicted the business: a company that sells change cannot look unchangeable. The rebrand starts from this contradiction. Identity and website were created by the Berlin agency [Taikonauten](https://taikonauten.com); on Wendero's side, I oversaw the project from the first inventory to launch. The answer is a mark that is never finished. The lowercase wordmark opens with a W drawn as one continuous line, and that line changes its form: rounded, pointed, square, a soft wave, a rising zigzag. Like a signal on an oscilloscope, the W shows a state rather than a fixed figure, and stays legible in every one of them. The typography grounds this movement. Roc Grotesk, from the Kostić Type Foundry, draws on American wood type of the late nineteenth century, letters made for posters and shop signs: wide, sturdy, slightly raw. The palette pairs a rich black with periwinkle, maize, bittersweet and turquoise, colours with more warmth than authority. The illustrations bring the hand into the system. Every team member appears as a line portrait, the office at St. Oberholz on Kastanienallee as a drawing, alongside a vocabulary of arrows, loops and scribbles. The lines are allowed to wobble; the circles stay open.