"Anscheinend" is the title of my last year project at the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt Faculty of Design. "Anscheinend" is the German word for "apparently". This project was about authenticity in the profession of design.

Nowaday authenticity became a value like nothing else. They say, only if you are true to yourself you can cope with our modern world which is filled with artificiality and staging.

But what has design got to do with authenticity? Is there something like authentic design? Doesn't every design need staging? If you try to answer those questions, you get involved in communication studies quickly. They say that every kind of communication needs staging. The main problem of the attribution of authenticity is that you can't judge acts based on what you see. As a spectator you have to rely on what you see and can't access the intentions of the acting person. Even the acting person doesn't even has to know his real intentions. But that doesn't make the concept of authenticity redundant it serves for orientation.