1m² connecting strangers
"Hallo - Nein, ich will kein Geld" (ger. "Hello - No, I don't want your money") is a booklet about meeting strangers and connecting to them, if only for a moment. And what better place to do so than the arrangement of four seats that you can find on every bus and train (in Germany).
For two months, I travelled all around the cities of Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, and Mainz to see if my fellow passengers would like to have a chat with me. The result is a 48-page paperback filled with interviews and stories.
After deciding on the context of public transport, I started the design process with a first round of user research by observing people’s behavior in these seat arrangements as well as initiating conversations. Thereby, I learned how to best approach these interviews, which questions to ask and decided on photographic portraits that depict the mystery of meeting strangers.
During the second half of the design process, I focused on shaping the gathered materials into stories, creating context-specific illustrations, and bringing everything together in an original layout. For the latter, I played with the theme of public transport and roadmaps, transforming the booklet into a tour the reader can hop on and off – perhaps while waiting for the bus to come.
