About

The beauty of understanding

Emotion and technology, form and function: there are at least two sides to everything. A tool, for example, needs to be practical, but it should also be fun to use. A convincing user experience design makes complex content easy to grasp and provides touchpoints for consumers to successfully interact with the product. At the same time, any solution also represents a company’s expertise, innovative strength and vision. The prerequisite for meeting these demands is full understanding, and this starts by asking the right questions.

These include e.g. the following:

What gives users the feeling that their needs have been understood?

What role does the product play for the company, its technical developers, and its sales staff?

And how does a solution become a visible statement of a brand in the market?

At zweigrad we aim to understand everything from scratch and from all perspectives. To achieve this, we speak to all relevant stakeholders, and we listen carefully. As we collaborate with our clients and partners, as well as at zweigrad itself, we incorporate knowledge from various disciplines. Our workshops are designed in a way to address all senses and spark creative exchange. But, above all, we adhere to a comprehensive, precisely timed process from strategy to realisation, which is aimed at creating design solutions that combine style with everyday practicality, and proficiency with brand strength. For us, this is what the beauty of understanding is all about.

Our Team

When passion makes the difference

We are a team of young creatives and seasoned professionals, comprising engineers as well as industrial, interface and graphic designers. Some of our team members have an industry background, while others come from large agencies in Germany and abroad, and we are supported by a number of dedicated freelancers. What we all have in common is a genuine passion for designs that are both intuitive and emotional. We identify with our daily work as we realise new ideas together with our clients and across all disciplines – and we do this in an authentic, approachable and open-minded manner.

Birte Jürgensen
Partner, Director, Founder

Partner, Director, Founder

Birte Jürgensen

Creating something every day, thinking big with a view to social and technological developments, and initiating visionary changes through small steps – this is what fulfils Birte Jürgensen most. Her creative drive goes hand in hand with an innovative power that is fed by the friction between emotion and functionality, art and technology. And these are indeed the two poles of her biography as Birte studied painting at the State Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, followed by mechanical engineering at the Hamburg University of Technology. As a graduate engineer, she also completed a degree course in industrial design at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel. After working as a designer in the interior design department of Volkswagen AG, she founded her own company, zweigrad Design, in 2002. As an engineer and industrial designer, Birte is always looking for new opportunities – and she does so with competence and perseverance. As a founder and partner, she continues to shape the company. Being in charge of the corporate strategy, Birte sees zweigrad as a dynamic living being she constantly supports with fresh ideas, analytical strength, intuitive decision-making, and the experience of twenty years in management. Her credo is: “Change, however small, emerges from an open mindset, structure, and, above all, passion.”

Timo Wietzke
Partner, Director

Partner, Director

Timo Wietzke

Even after 20 years in business, Timo Wietzke is captivated by the task of defining a three-dimensional body, providing it with expression and direction. He is particularly fond of complex challenges, which he loves to master using pragmatic, no-frills approaches. After completing a carpentry apprenticeship and studying at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel, Timo was involved e.g. in developing and designing the first two generations of Bosch IOXs – the world’s best-selling power tool to date. Together with Birte Jürgensen, he has been managing zweigrad since 2009. As a designer, Timo is an expert in creating and shaping products, processes and visions, which is also owing to his ability to listen carefully and to visualise the very essence of what is being said. With this, he creates a positive dynamic in the working relationships with our clients. To him, a holistic approach means considering design in context and fine-tuning products and systems until they make total sense to everyone – to users, to clients, and to the zweigrad team. In terms of business relations, Timo places great value on longevity – because how else could you accomplish great things together? With regard to the team, he attaches great importance to ensuring a positive working environment – because beyond all the hard work, it is light-heartedness and fun that make creative ideas flourish in the first place.

Claudia S. Friedrich
Partner, Director of the Interface Design business unit

Partner, Director of the Interface Design business unit

Claudia S. Friedrich

First and foremost, Claudia Friedrich perceives design as social responsibility and as added value for companies. She studied industrial design at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel and completed a design management course in London. Claudia is dedicated to driving design developments in a sustainable manner and embedded in a business environment. For over 20 years, she has been developing interface and UX design strategies in close collaboration with partners from industry and the medical sector. For example, in the context of Expo 2000 she worked with f/p design, at designaffairs she created mobile phone designs for the Siemens brand, and she spent many years as creative managing director at Human Interface Design. In her work, one of her key success factors is Claudia’s ability to harmonise user needs with corporate and brand goals in order to implement design languages for digital product eco-systems – in a holistic context and based on industrial design concepts. In doing so, she relies on highly diverse teams, discourse in the design process and knowledge transfer at various events. Today, Claudia heads the Interface Design business unit at zweigrad.

Björn Wehrli
Senior Transportation Designer

Senior Transportation Designer

Björn Wehrli

Björn is fascinated by the variety and diversity of design disciplines. His interests range from the theoretical analysis and development of solutions to the creative generation of ideas and drawings to atmospheric visualisations of designed 3D models. Impressive images that convey emotions and point to the future are typical of his visualisations. A deep fascination that he consistently pursues in his work. His career began with his studies at the HBK Braunschweig and the Institute of Design in Umeå/Sweden. This was followed by exciting positions at Toyota in Japan, Volkswagen, Skoda and Audi Design. For the science fiction film Ender's Game, Björn designed a vehicle for Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley, meeting the world of film in Hollywood. The Audi A4 and RS4 models he designed are also present on the road in many variations. As an industrial designer, car exterior designer and visualisation specialist for design concepts, he recently worked on his own art book. At zweigrad, Björn focuses on intelligent design and expressive visualisations. In the team, he appreciates a personal and familiar atmosphere with a good spirit and helpful cooperation. When dealing with customers, he attaches great importance to professional communication and mutual trust in order to bring projects to a successful conclusion.

Stefan Proud
UX/UI Design Expert

UX/UI Design Expert

Stefan Proud

It is often those projects that, due to their complexity and scope, require an enormous amount of thought and planning that make Stefan Proud truly love his work and keep evolving further. A trained UX/UI expert, Stefan has seen a lot of the world. In 1999, he founded a web design company in London, and at a San Francisco-based start-up, which was listed on the Australian stock exchange in 2014, he was the very first employee, then project manager, and finally CTO. Stefan joined zweigrad in 2015, adding more than 20 years of experience in the areas of full service UX, UI, coding and project management to the team. “I want to push our clients to go beyond emulating past achievements of competitors and instead focus on solving current issues and responding to the future”, he says. His goal is to create flexible solutions that anticipate future technological advances and that can be easily adapted across all platforms.

Martin Reuthe
Industrial Designer

Industrial Designer

Martin Reuthe

Martin Reuthe loves being part of the journey from idea to finished product. His aim is to turn sketches into something usable that meets the wishes of users and suppliers, honours sustainability along the product’s entire life cycle, and combines practicality and style in a unique way. The industrial designer has been with zweigrad since 2016 and has contributed his expertise in various industrial, interface and communication design projects. Martin is your point of contact for model and mock-up constructions, storyboarding, 3D and 2D animations as well as VR solutions. To Martin, a clear and timely definition of tasks and problems is just as relevant for the success of a project as good and close communication, which starts with getting to know each other. Martin believes in exploring unknown paths and in embracing the courage to fail early on. And one thing is clear to him: “For visionary ideas to become reality you need backbone.”

Aleksandra Chodur
UX/UI Designer

UX/UI Designer

Aleksandra Chodur

Aleksandra Chodur is always fascinated by the attention given to the exceptional aesthetics of her work. She makes decisions for her compelling design solutions based on relevant data. As an expert in Data Driven UX design, Aleksandra Chodur emphasizes fact-based design. The user experience is the focus of product development, which she approaches as closely as possible through survey data and user statistics. During her management studies, she won a rectorate award for the best student. Subsequently, she also completed a study in UX Design. Since August 2022, she has been a UX/UI designer at zweigrad. Step by step she creates explicit user experiences through curiosity, clear focus on goals and good communication with all stakeholders.

Fenja Bonn
Assistant to the Management

Assistant to the Management

Fenja Bonn

Fenja Bonn sees her main task in staying on top of things while keeping a cool head. So it certainly comes in handy that Fenja is passionate about organising and enjoys the diversity that comes with being the contact person for the entire team. Fenja completed a degree course in Scandinavian Studies and English in Kiel and Reykjavik (Iceland). After graduating, she gained agency experience as a project manager with a German-Danish advertising agency. For the next five years she was then in charge of coordinating operations at a large stud farm. Since November 2022, she has been contributing her motivation, curiosity and solution-oriented mindset to zweigrad alongside the willingness to rethink processes. Fenja Bonn believes that being at work should also be fun and makes it a point to treat everyone involved with the same respect.

Robert Rödiger
Senior Industrial Designer

Senior Industrial Designer

Robert Rödiger

Playing with the CAD LEGO construction kit, making the 3D printer dance or breathing in dust while sanding: as the son of a graphic designer and a ceramicist, Robert Rödiger feels at home in both the virtual and the real workshop. Precisely because he is enthusiastic about craftsmanship, he likes tangible products that last a really long time, are made sparingly from our valuable resources and are designed to be timeless for future generations. After graduating from Mu in Kiel, Fish Island in London with many artists in the Peanut Factory and his company Unison Design & Engineering, which he ran for ten years, he joined zweigrad in October 2023. The full-but designer, who supports the entire process from the initial idea to the prototype, prefers to work collectively. He inspires cooperation through precise perception, good listening and letting people finish, politeness and appreciation as well as the ability to take criticism and a very relaxed sense of humor.

Louisa Pankow
UX/UI Designer

UX/UI Designer

Louisa Pankow

Louisa loves how UX/UI allows people to intuitively and independently learn how to use a product. The ultimate goal is for users to effortlessly participate in a prescribed process without being conscious of it, thus perceiving it as a self-guided learning experience. Louisa first came into contact with her field of expertise while studying for her bachelor's degree in industrial design. Within our team she has been contributing her expertise in icon and transition design through open dialogue with customers and colleagues.

Vildan Emuce-Cesur
UX/UI Designer

UX/UI Designer

Vildan Emuce-Cesur

Fulfilling, wonderful and intense - that's how Vildan Emuce Cesur describes her parental leave. After her return to zweigrad, the UX/UI designer is looking forward to the creative re-immersion in holistic design processes - from the analysis of customer and user needs to highly aesthetic design. More than ever, lifelong learning will be in focus for her: Vildan wants to deepen her design expertise, explore trends and open up to new methodologies and tools. Her goal: to use interdisciplinary understanding to create sensual user, brand and product experiences that go beyond simply displaying information and visualisations. Together with the zweigrad team, she will design even more high-quality, intuitive user interfaces that impress and inspire in the long term.

Anna Friedlmeier
Intern UX/UI Design

Intern UX/UI Design

Anna Friedlmeier

Anna Friedlmeier joined our team in March 2025. Together with her colleagues, she shares a passion for design that puts people at the centre. To create designs that offer people positive experiences, Anna combines technical UX/UI design skills with creative freedom. She is currently studying Information Design in her fourth semester at HdM Stuttgart. As an intern at zweigrad, she likes to think outside the box with playful creativity. Her goal: simple solutions that are as entertaining as they are stimulating. Anna's favourite way to find new, better ideas is through collaboration.

Fritz Walter
Intern Industrial Design

Intern Industrial Design

Fritz Walter

For Fritz Walter, there are no limits to design, whether automotive, clothing or spaceship concepts. What particularly fascinates him is the opportunity to look at everyday objects from new perspectives in order to rediscover their value. Fritz's enthusiasm for design has been with him since childhood: even then, he preferred to build his own spaceships out of Lego rather than assemble prefabricated sets according to instructions. A decisive ‘aha’ moment in his career was the Hessen Ideas Scholarship for a university project, which laid the foundation for his own start-up and Kickstarter project. Fritz, who is in his 8th semester of industrial design at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, has been part of zweigrad since mid-March. In addition to his creative mindset, he has a great passion for craftsmanship and analogue experimentation. Fritz feels most at home when professionalism and relaxed co-operation form a good balance.

Lone Schlüter
Intern UX/UI Design

Intern UX/UI Design

Lone Schlüter

What does Lone Schlüter love about her job? When psychology and design go hand in hand, problems are analysed and identified, thinking and working is solution-oriented and ultimately a product is designed to be intuitive and accessible. This is exactly what Lone wants to experience during her internship at zweigrad, along with as many varied projects as possible. After completing her BA at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design, she has been studying for a Master's degree in Interface Design since October 2023. Lone is looking forward to honest and respectful interaction within the team and with customers. At zweigrad, she brings communication skills, reliability, commitment and a structured way of working.

Ellen Struck
Interface Design Freelancer

Interface Design Freelancer

Ellen Struck

Ellen Struck believes that interface design comes down to an interplay between people and technology. And in this interplay, it is paramount to step into the shoes of the user – who should be in the focus of each and every iterative development process. Following her degree course in graphic design, Ellen worked as an art director at an advertising agency before becoming senior art director at a tech company. With her expertise in the area of UX/UI design, Ellen has been supporting zweigrad as a freelancer since 2012. In her work, Ellen places great emphasis on creativity, user-friendliness and attractive designs – seasoned with a dash of joy, respect and variety.

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Collaborating closely

Our partners and networks

Long-term, interdisciplinary collaborations are the building blocks of our success as a company. As engineers, we work with our implementation partners at eye level, and as designers, we contribute our user-centred perspective and our special expertise to joint projects. We have known our business partners for many years and maintain close contact. This keeps us up to date with technological trends – and it helps us look at each project from the point of view of our partners and involve them at an early stage as required. In addition, we are active in various business networks that allow us to exchange ideas with like-minded people and help us develop our industry and technology expertise on an ongoing basis.

UITP- The International Association of Public Transport
Mobility transition via cooperation

We are actively committed to the mobility transition: By improving the user experience of public transport through design, we encourage more people to switch to rail. As a member of UITP, an international association for public transport, we have new opportunities to look beyond the German horizon. National associations, individual transport companies, the supplier industry, transport institutes and researchers from over 100 countries are organised in the UITP – the ideal platform for zweigrad to exchange ideas with experts and contribute our specialist knowledge and experience.

Krüger Aviation
Strong partners for innovations

With the plastics experts from Krüger Aviation we are not only united by our shared enthusiasm for innovations, but also by our expertises, which complement each other ideally and which we put into practice in a powerful partnership in the development of innovative products. An inspiring relationship with a future, simply because the “chemistry” is right. This becomes visible in our collaboration project K2-Lavatory.

LSN- Life Science Nord
The cluster for global healthcare

As a member of Life Science Nord, we benefit from a unique network in the fields of medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, which promotes targeted dialogue between business, science and politics and strengthens our innovative power. By collaborating with over 500 companies, universities and research institutions, we can utilise synergies and drive forward joint projects. We also actively contribute to the international visibility and strengthening of Northern Germany as a life science location.

Hamburg Aviation & Hanse Aerospace
Using well established local networks…

In the area of aviation we design all types of HMI: from IFE devices and their graphical user interfaces to seats, compartments and cabin interiors. To strengthen our expert’s assessment in the aerial operating range, we are member in the Association of Aerospace-oriented Companies and the Cluster of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. Both not only promote networking and successful cooperation in and between the aviation centers, but also make Hamburg a center of excellence for new flying. Together we promote the aviation location Hamburg.

Deutscher Designer Club e.V.
Discourse with other design professionals

Beyond realising design projects with our clients and partners, we are actively engaged in dialogue with peer professionals from various areas of design. As part of this, we discuss topics such as the following: What is the social responsibility of a designer? And how can design lead the way in addressing social, sustainability and political issues? As a member of Deutscher Designer Club (DDC) we are constantly prompted to question, and sharpen, our role as designers and to keep negotiating the value added by design.

German Usability Professionals Association e.V.
Keeping up to date on usability and user experience

Through the German Chapter of the international Usability Professionals Association (UPA), we are in constant dialogue on a wide range of topics relating to usability & user experience in business – from developing UX strategies and setting up UX teams to embedding a UX culture in companies and corporations. Discussions with partners from business and academia as well as agencies, other organisations and a wider public facilitate the transfer of knowledge and help shape opinions against the challenging background of balancing usability and profitability.

KNRBB
Expertise on the railways

Strong partners and outstanding solutions are needed to actively drive forward the mobility transition. As a member of Kompetenznetz Rail Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH, we are part of a strong network that gives us access to comprehensive expertise, resources and markets in rail transport technology. Close cooperation and partnerships on an equal footing enable innovative system solutions and the formation of international alliances. The best way to realise new, fantastic projects that inspire people to switch to rail.

Our clients

AIRBUS Operations GmbH
AerQ GmbH
ANT Applied New Technologies AG
Busch-Jaeger Elektro GmbH
COLLINS AEROSPACE
Danfoss A/S
DB Regio AG
Dentsply Sirona
Deutsche Lufthansa AG
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
Deutsche Telekom AG
DINSE G.m.b.H.
D.Med Consulting AG
Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA
Dr. Johannes Heidenhain GmbH
Eaton Industries GmbH
E+S Gesunde Lösungen GmbH
GEA Group AG
Gigaset Communications GmbH
Hamburger Hochbahn AG
Hauni Maschinenbau GmbH
Hegenscheidt-MFD GmbH
Heidenhain Corporation
Idair GmbH
Jungheinrich AG
KID-Systeme GmbH
Knape Gruppe Holding GmbH
Knorr-Bremse Evac
Krüss GmbH
Lufthansa Technik AG
Lürssen Werft GmbH & Co. KG
Makita Engineering Germany GmbH
Metabowerke GmbH
Miele & Cie. KG
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Air-Conditioning Ltd
Nabertherm GmbH
Safran Passenger Solutions
seca GmbH & Co. KG
Siemens AG Industry Sector
signotec GmbH
The L.S.Starrett Company
T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH
Unite Network AG
Volkswagen AG
Vossloh AG
Vossloh Rail Services GmbH

Awards