M81*

The art of cultivating attraction.

Brand Design & Art Direction

M81*

The art of cultivating attraction.

Brand Design & Art Direction

About M81* is the creative home of Hamburg-based brand designer Maximilian Gerdau. For 15 years, I have been helping partners and agencies translate business strategy into aesthetics and visual identities. My approach is to first identify a company’s most compelling truth and then tell its story through fresh, meaningful ideas and thoughtfully crafted design. Keep scrolling to find out more about past experiences that have shaped my perspective on design.

Bartle Bogle Hegarty is considered one of the most successful companies in the history of advertising. As Lead Designer of the brand invention unit Zag, I was reporting to Adam Arnold and Neil Munn, who would later lead BBH globally. My time in London was as exciting as advertising could get at the time, and the experience shapes my work as a creative until today.

In 2020, I launched the Hamburg-based skateboard label and eCommerce business Youth Lagoon. Specialized in the surf industry, we have been distributing 25 skateboard brands to over 40 countries. Despite being in charge of the brand and product design, I also manage all performance and content marketing. Youth Lagoon and being a retailer myself has been an incredible source of the knowledge I am using as a designer today.

Since 2022, I have had the chance to shape the brand and product design for CONWIN as designer-in-charge on a freelance basis. CONWIN is a SaaS business specialized in the logistics and waste management industry. After rebranding the company and launching various new products, the team was able to flip CONWIN from past its prime to the most watched challenger brand in the market.

Curiosity and research drive most of my design process. Since the early era of the internet, I have been interested in online publishing, HTML and CSS. Today I am actively following how AI and automation will change my profession and the agency landscape. Since 2020, I am also invested in researching blockchain technology – compared to the past and coming decade there has hardly ever been a time with so much change and opportunity around.

After starting my profession as a designer in an advertising agency, I returned to Hamburg with the intent to work for a traditional design agency. Factor Design is one of the most awarded German design agencies known for establishing the use of uncoated papers in Germany and its multi decade-long work for German furniture producers COR and Interlübke. At Factor Design, I worked project-based as a designer on pitches, new business and regular clients. As a long-term project, I took care of the visual identity of the HSH Nordbank.

I graduated with a Master of Arts in Planning in Advertising from Buckinghamshire New University in the outskirts of London. Prior, I earned a degree in Communication Design at Design Factory International in Hamburg. Exploring different perspectives on the creative industry helped me to create my own approach to design. My focus, however, always has been on branding – already as a student, I was working in brand design for Enterprise IG, which today is the Hamburg office of Design Bridge. I finished both my degrees with distinction.

Agencies Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Mutabor, Jung von Matt, Peter Schmidt, Pleksi, Design Bridge, Factor Design, Mother, Select World, Syndicate, Faktor 3, Popular, Monoki ...

Cultivating Attraction Much like objects in space are inevitably drawn together by mass and gravitation, we too sometimes experience a compelling attraction to certain companies and brands. While the mechanics can always be explained – both in physics and in design – the nature of branding remains remarkably delicate. To build and maintain a brand's spirit, we must continuously fine-tune, rethink and nurture what it stands for. Exploring what keeps a brand's forces of attraction alive is to which I dedicate all my effort.

M81* © 2025

»Logic will get you from A → B. Imagination will take you everywhere.« A.E.

Contact

max@m81.studio
+49 157 575 22 491
Lindenallee 44
D-20259 Hamburg

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Brand Design
Art Direction
Interface Design
Strategy

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