Core77

Yesterday, Markus and Daniel Freitag, or the Freitag Bros., inspired young design students at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg).

Their lecture kicks off with this Still Truckin' video of their 15 year anniversary party, which shows that it's been a while that the brothers started as students themselves.

A one-hour stream of photos, videos and sweet music guides us through the early days from when they were washing truck planes in their bathtub as students, to today's factory in Zurich selling some 200,000 products yearly.

Continued after the jump.

The "holistic FREITAG perspective" goes beyond form and function and shows the importance of not only considering the product but to include all business aspects such as sales, marketing, production, logistics, etc. In other words, design the whole product life cycle, not just the product itself, which was the main message of their story.

Defining your values was one of the most important parts in becoming a brand. For FREITAG this actually means being "Honest", "Slightly F*cked-Up" and "Intelligent" which is demonstrated well by their products, shops, and fans. More serious fans participated at their recent truck design contest (see results).

The audience clearly enjoyed this kind of "story of my life"with lots of experiences in starting up a creative company from scratch. One of the audience questions mentioned the strong smell of the bags. Not surprisingly, the Freitag brothers themselves stopped noticing this after 15 years of work - they actually said: "we consider it part of the brand."

Today, the brothers are still in Hamburg to support and sign self-cut bags at the local store with drinks and music. Drop by if you are around!