This film by Nick Kapros tells the story of a friendship which began in the 1970s on Cyprus and was torn apart by the local political events of 1974. 30 years later, the protagonist is a border guard and as such part of a conflict which he himself no longer understands nor supports. Nick Kapros started working on his diploma thesis searching for the story of his father and his home country. After two months of research on location and many discussions with Cypriots from both communities, the concept for the film began to emerge. The film was realised in a two-week shoot on Cyprus. Nick Kapros acted as writer, producer, cameraman, director and editor.

Eszter Kapitany’s book »Subtown« is a work of fiction that tells a detective story set in an underground metro world. The protagonist is a heroic but introverted private detective called Peter Gocchi. The short novel, which
shows a great attention for detail both in writing and illustration, mixes a sinister fantasy world with classic noir elements. In the seven chapters of the imaginary metro ride, Peter Gocchi meets evil little mice and other strange characters. The female protagonist is Helga, a rebel who is planning to blow
up the artificial metro world of the GTA (Global Transit Authority). The happy ending, as well as the rest of Eszter Kapitany’s diploma thesis, which received
a distinction from the jury, are accompanied by mixed technique illustrations that are very rich in detail.

There are about 2,070,000 cats, 720,000 dogs, 220,000 cage birds, 580,000 rodents and bunnies as well as 4.06 million tank and pond fish in Austria - and almost as many pet owners. Nevertheless, only 17 animal psychologists are offering their services in the country. Nobody knows how many pets could use their help. For a book on abnormal animal behaviour called »Das bunte Buch verhaltensgestörter Tiere«, six animal psychologists from Austria and Switzerland agreed to be interviewed about their work. In his diploma thesis, Patrick Bonato, who graduated with distinction, describes and illustrates the five most interesting patient histories.

For his diploma thesis, Martin Wunderer took a detailed look at design awards. For graphic design alone, there are currently more than one hundred awards and their significance and quality are often difficult to assess for the designers themselves. In order to provide some orientation and guidance in the awards jungle for himself and others, Mr Wunderer developed »Design Award Awards«, an independent contest which confers awards for especially functional or innovative graphic design assessment systems.

Gudrun Olsen’s diploma thesis »Looking-Glass« is a subjective portrait of Vienna, which focuses on the windows of the city. Gudrun Olsen walked through Vienna from its western to its eastern outskirts along a straight
line drawn across the city map. The objective of the tour was to produce drawings of private windows in pre-fixed regular intervals. Gudrun Olsen thereby focuses on a detail of the city that reflects both public and private life. In the book »Looking-Glass«, Gudrun Olsen presents the results of her exploration of Vienna in a series of 45 detailed drawings.

Thrombophilia is an umbrella term covering a wide range of abnormalities which substantially increase the risk for blood clots. It is estimated to be between 3 and 10 times as common as haemophilia, the bleeding sickness, yet thrombophilia remains unknown in comparison. For over 20 years there has been an ongoing international debate about whether or not obligatory screening for thrombophilia should be established, sadly this debate has so far remained fruitless. The overall objective of the project is to impart knowledge and raise awareness about thrombophilia. To avoid such barriers as language, time and place a website was chosen to transport the message. The visitors of this website are introduced to the subject through personal stories, which are further enhanced through family portraits. In order to make the illness visible in these photographs, a knitted costume depicting the risk zones was created and worn by the affected persons.

For his diploma, Vedran Pilipovic launched a typographic experiment: under the name Chronomyth, he developed abstract typographic sign systems, i.e. video fonts that translate literary texts into rhythmic visuality based on their intra- and intertextual structures and references. For demonstration purposes, Vedran Pilipovic created four different abstract animations that allow for a structural visualisation of literary works, such as 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez or The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.

Always prepared and at your service – that is the concept of standby. In her diploma thesis, Leonie Lawniczak conducts a critical investigation of the energy consumption of electrical devices in standby mode and exposes the presumed resting state as a frequently underestimated waste of energy – 10 per cent of annual electricity consumption is due to standby. An informative video clip and a website enabling users to calculate their personal standby consumption are intended to encourage critical awareness among consumers and motivate them to increase the pressure on electronics makers and retailers.

Karin Freinhofer’s social design project »Ich und mein Planet« aims at raising awareness for global environmental and socio-political issues, such as poverty, climate change, overpopulation, etc. Through workshops at schools, »Ich und mein Planet« tries to reach as many children as possible – as well as their families – from various social backgrounds. Dealing with the big problems of our times on a factual and creative level is intended to help pupils make more conscious decisions and act as part of a big and complex system. The objectives of the project are providing comprehensive information for pupils, encouraging debate and helping the participants be active and responsible members of society.

Anna Kasnyik
»Second Hand Stories«

Anna Kasnyik has been collecting weird news articles for years, regarding them as handicapped fairy tales - the story is there, but so carelessly written, so short, that it is really hard to find the magic between the lines. Although the magic is there. For her diploma she decided to make an illustrated short story book, a weird fairy tale book for adults. Anna Kasnyik chose nine articles from the 341 she collected, and asked Iván Szabó, a hungarian screenwriter to write nine short stories, based on these articles. Anna Kasnyik made 40 illustrations, 9 initials, designed the book and made eleven self-bound examples. Her book was nominated in the Categorie Book Art at the Illustrative 09.

www.annasvisualbakery.com
www.illustrative.de

Natalie Dietrich
»Phantom Cooking«

»Phantom Cooking – Cooking by Evidence« is an investigation into the people who actually bought certain groceries and their individual stories. Day in day out people leave traces with every receipt they leave in the shopping cart. From these found items Natalie Dietrich created individual recipes in 20 Short Stories and presents them in the form of an exceptional, visually and textually highly entertaining cookbook.

Yanyan Li
»Voice Print«

Yanyan Li‘s project deals with the phenomenon of onomatopoeia. Yanyan Li documented the onomatopoeic sound activities of sixteen people with different mother tongues. This resulted in a video installation showing sixteen people simultaneously imitating concepts such as ‘car’ or ‘bird’ on the basis of different languages. The composi-tion of the individual videos leaves the impression of a choir where solo, trio, male choir and female choir can be heard.

Shanna Danek
»Qi – Boardgame«

Shanna Daneks boardgame »Qi« sensitizes one's handling with emotions and offers, besides a lot of fun, interesting knowledge about the fascinating world of the Traditional Chinese Medicine. Personal growth and releasing blockages is the final goal in »Qi«. The aim of the game is to create a consciousness for the connection of body, mind and soul.

Gerd Haselsteiner
»youmewe«
Personalized Web 2.0 Platform

The concept of the diploma project of Gerd Haselsteiner is about the idea
of the quickest and easiest way to manage and organize one´s world wide
web activities. »Youmewe« is the perfect realization of this idea. It bundles
all accounts of a person and her friends and categorizes informations in a customizeable, very clearly arranged user interface. In addition »youmewe« offers different modes of operationlevels and a feature which is unique until now – it permits to upload your own content to all your web 2.0 accounts at the same time.

Anna Nora Szilit
»Tel Aviv Jaffa –
Once Upon a Time Today«

The subject of Anna Nora Szilit‘s diploma project is a description of the city agglomeration of Tel Aviv-Jaffa from the time Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 up to the present day in the form of the conception and design of a book in English and Hebrew language which combines historical facts on the city with personal memories of its inhabitants. Illustrations dealing with historical and present-day aspects of Tel Aviv-Jaffa round up the text and visualize this city from Tel Aviv’s founding in 1909 to the present day.

Christoph Blocher
»spot-me«

»spot-me« has been conceived as an interactive information platform
for tourists in Vienna. The contributions can be consumed on site in
different languages using one’s mobile phone – either as an audio
message or a text message. Using »spot-me« one can widen one’s
horizon literally on the spot, spot connections and experience
the history of the city at the original historical locations.