An ingeniously inventive mind with a great track record

She’s experienced, highly motivated, and has a truly creative brain into the bargain. “Experienced” sounds almost as if she’s just celebrated 30 years with the company. But this is not quite the case with Laura Wittmann. Admittedly, she has not as yet clocked up three decades at Krones, but nevertheless she has a whole lot of experience and background knowledge to draw on.

After all, more than a year ago, she had already been working as an intern in the PET Packaging Design Department during her industrial design course at Regensburg university. From her internship, an interesting subject emerged for her bachelor thesis, so that she could write it here at Krones as well. Went like clockwork. True. Though in fact before her internship she didn’t even know that Krones also has a design department. Sometimes, it seems, fate likes to lend a helping hand. In this case for Laura herself and for Krones too, of course. Since for the company she’s a real stroke of luck.

And I can count myself lucky as well: I had an opportunity at the end of my internship to meet Laura and ask her a few questions. I quickly realised: this is a brainy young inventor who’s smart. Skilled and savvy – in abundance. Details? Let her explain in her own words. 🙂

Word’s already got around that you’re an innovative genius. Which is why the firm is bound to want to keep you. How exactly did you come to occupy your present post as an industrial designer?

I wouldn’t go around calling myself an innovative genius (laughs). I just really love tinkering with problems, and I enjoy finding solutions to them.

My post here actually came about purely by accident, since they were looking for someone to replace one of their colleagues on pregnancy leave. And I’d already been with the team for more than a year at this point in time, so I was familiar with the work and enjoyed it, which meant I didn’t hesitate, applied for the vacancy, and one year later I’m still on board.

What projects have you been involved in so far?

I think the two biggest projects so far have been the bicycle bottle and my bachelor thesis.

The idea of the bicycle bottle originated with Stefan Plath, a fellow-student who did an internship here before me. Together with Stephan Jäger, another intern, and our mentor Timo Janssen, we saw the project through from designing the bottle to creating the graphics for the imprint.

The second major project was then my bachelor thesis, entitled “Active Pouch”. The thinking behind this is to fold a bottle. The idea as such took shape quite early on. Overall, it wasn’t all that easy a task, but fortunately I had a lot of support. So it’s time to say a big THANK YOU again to everyone who had a hand in our shared success!

Both these projects came in for a lot of praise. So what specific accolades have they?

The bicycle bottle won this year’s A’ Design Award, and my bachelor thesis recently won the German Packaging Prize in the “Newcomers” category. I’m very gratified at this last accolade, and it’s my own personal highlight, so to speak (grins).

That all sounds very exciting and successful. So are there any challenges already in the pipeline for the near future?

At the moment, I’m very busy with my daily workload. But I’m sure that there will be lots more interesting projects, competitions, and events to come. And of course I’ll be delighted to provide updates about them when the time comes round.

I for myself am certain that we’re going to be hearing from Laura quite often in the future; she’s someone you can’ t help liking! Many thanks and all the best, Laura! 🙂