A product derives its success in part from its branding through high-impact images. So it must be showcased in just the right way in advertising campaigns and photo spreads. But how is this targeted visual language created? How do designers, photographers, graphic artists and companies work together to achieve it? Who decides what the visual identity of a brand should look like? And how do these visuals then affect us? The exhibition “Hello Image: The Staging of Things” explores the collaboration between creative talents from the fields of design, photography and graphic art by presenting design objects and fashion items alongside their staging in both photographs and illustrations. Eight chapters tell exemplary stories about product and advertising design from the early twentieth century to the present. On display are design classics by Marianne Brandt, Charles and Ray Eames and Ettore Sottsass, fashion classics by Martin Margiela and Issey Miyake as well as exciting new discoveries, for example by the photographer Ingeborg Rams and the graphic designer Lora Lamm, among many others.

Participating designers: Otl Aicher, Don Albinson (Eames Office), Theo Baumann, Herbert Bayer, Arthur Benda, Lucian Bernhard, Fulvio Bianconi, Florian Böhm, Marianne Brandt, Ballo+Ballo, B.B.P.R., Santi Caleca, Clino Castelli (Olivetti), Charles and Ray Eames, Georg Eckelt, Michael Engelmann, Marina Faust, Hans Finsler, Emilio Fioravanti, Marguerite Friedlaender, Tomás Gonda, Hein Gorny, Konstantin Grcic, Hermann Gretsch, Gerd Grimm, Oskar Hermann Werner Hadank, Hans Hansen, Hildegard Heise, Louis Held, Bernd Heyden, Ewald Hoinkis, Margarete Jahny, Jasmin Jouhar, Peter Keetman, Joachim Kellner, Fritz Kempe, György Kepes, Perry A. King, Marvin Koner, Arthur Köster, Max Krajewsky, Béatrice Kunz, Lora Lamm, Franz Lazi, El Lissitzky, Heinrich Löffelhardt, Vico Magistretti, Gerhard Marcks, Martin Margiela, Michael Loos Visual, Herman Miller, Issey Miyake, Möbel perdu (Michel Feith, Rouli Lecatsa und Claudia Schneider-Esleben), Willi Moegle, Lucia Moholy, László Moholy-Nagy, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Ugo Mulas, Erich Müller, Hansi Müller-Schorp, Marcello Nizolli, Magdalene Odundo, Ian Padgham, Marziano Pasqué, Irving Penn, Trude Petri, Roberto Pieracini, Giovanni Pintori, Prince Gyasi, Dieter Rams, Ingeborg Rams, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Hans Roericht, Olivier Rousteing, Daniel Rubin, Alfred Runge, Wolfgang Schmidt, Hildi Schmidt Heins, Curt Schumann, Kurt Schwitters, Eduard Scotland, Ridley Scott, Ettore Sottsass, Philippe Starck, Josef Sudek, Ladislav Sutnar, Allene Talmey, Ikko Tanaka, Juergen Teller, Olivero Toscani, Hans von Klier, Wilhelm Wagenfeld

Brands in the exhibition: Apple, Artemide, Benetton, Elbeo, Erco, JW Anderson, Jacquemus, Jenaer Glas & gen., Staatliche Porzellan Manufaktur (KPM), Levy's, Olivetti S.p.A., Pelikan, Pirelli, Schott & Gen. Jenaer Glas, Schönwald, Telfar, Thomas Porzellanwerke, Rosenthal, Vitsoe

Berlin-based designer Katleen Arthen is designing the exhibition architecture, while the exhibition graphics are being created by Munich-based graphics studio strobo B M. 

The exhibition is supported by the Exhibition Fund of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg the Hubertus Wald Foundation and the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung.