# Lucas Rees — Full site content (llms-full.txt) > This file contains the complete content of lucasrees.com in an LLM-friendly format. Lucas Rees (born Lucas Hölzenbein), online alias "lucasdidthis", is a German designer, front-end developer, Game Design lecturer and founder based in the Black Forest, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Last updated: 2026-07-11 ## Who is Lucas Rees? Lucas Rees is a German designer, code writer and "maker of things" with roughly 15 years of professional experience in design and front-end development. He describes himself with the German term "Gestaltingenieur" (roughly: "engineer of form") and works deliberately as a generalist across digital and analog media — "not specialized in anything, specialized in everything." He is fluent in both technology and human behavior, and identifies as a habitual beginner and "learn-aholic" who grows his skillset primarily by doing. Name details: Lucas Rees was born Lucas Hölzenbein. His long-standing online handle is "lucasdidthis". Location: Black Forest region, Germany ("grown in the Black Forest"). ## Work experience - **Lecturer for Game Design, Euro-FH (Europäische Fernhochschule Hamburg)** — teaching Game Design and co-developing the degree program. Since 2024, remote (Hamburg, DE), ongoing. - **Lecturer for Game Design, Wilhelm Büchner Hochschule** — teaching Game Design and co-developing the degree program. Since 2024, mostly remote (Frankfurt, DE), ongoing. - **Founder and chairman, Virtuelle Kultur e.V.** — a non-profit exploring technology and its effects on culture and society. On a project basis since 2020. - **Self-employed design consultant (gestaltingenieur.de)** — visual systems, strategic design thinking and art direction. Occasionally since 2018. - **Senior designer and front-end developer, Wagnerwagner** — designing and building digital solutions and helping brands evolve at the full-service design agency in Reutlingen, DE. Since 2013, remote since 2019, ongoing. - **allyourhype!** — an experimental art practice acting as a formless archive for self-expression and creative experiments. Infrequently since 2012. ## Education Design degree from the Free University of Graphic Design & Fine Arts Freiburg (Freie Hochschule für Grafik-Design & Bildende Kunst Freiburg), later hKDM, now part of Hochschule Macromedia (Freiburg campus). ## Design ethos Lucas aligns his work with a written design ethos (originally drafted 2023, last updated January 2026). Core beliefs, condensed: - Design is best approached with a "don't-know-mind", playful yet meticulous. - Learn context first, then design from the inside out — from the audience's experience backwards to the solution. The audience's response is part of the design process. - Good designers borrow from multiple places and study everything around them. - Good design is holistic and sustainable, robust and consistent, innovative yet accessible; the baseline is simplicity and clarity, without shying away from offbeat aesthetics, playful storytelling or lavish beauty when appropriate. - Design needs balance: it must speak to head and heart. "Form follows feeling, just as form follows function." - Design should be future-positive, beneficial and empowering: "We might be hired by companies and organizations, but we work for those affected by our craft. We design for people." - Good work needs time and happy people; design is a perpetual, iterative refinement, built on long-term partnerships of trust and care. ## Projects Most large-scale commercial design projects since 2013 have been team efforts within Wagnerwagner and are showcased at wagnerwagner.de rather than on this personal site. Selected work is available upon request. ## Speaking engagements Lucas speaks regularly about generative artificial intelligence in design and visual art: - **"Pixels, Prompts & Perspectives" — Visual worlds with Artificial Intelligence.** For Digital Hub Reutlingen, online, 2025. - **"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" — How generative Artificial Intelligence is transforming our visual world.** For Digital Hub, IHK Reutlingen, 2024. - **"Through the eyes of a machine" — Artificial Intelligence in design.** For Digital Hub, IHK Reutlingen, 2024. - **"The Artist Is Present?" — Artificial Intelligence in visual art.** For BBK Landesverband Baden-Württemberg, Regierungspräsidium Karlsruhe, 2023. ## Contact Due to numerous long-term commitments, Lucas rarely takes on new assignments. For special collaborations, contact him via LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/lucasdidthis) or email. Alternatively, work with the team at Wagnerwagner (wagnerwagner.de) or Virtuelle Kultur e.V. (virtuellekultur.de). ## Influences and interests - **Music:** Has created graphics and artwork for bands, occasionally makes music, and maintains a large record collection (documented on Discogs, user "lucasdidthis"). - **Gaming:** Into video games since 1996 (starting with Secret of Evermore on the SNES); believes video games are underrated as an artform and cultural property. - **Books:** Maintains an "antilibrary"; currently reads mostly children's books with his two young daughters. ## Blog "Lucas Rees' Blog (lucasdidthis)" at lucasrees.com/blog is a very subjective and infrequent publication about design, technology, music, art and life, published since around 2021, in the spirit of the IndieWeb. Posts are categorized (e.g. "design", "well-said") and archived by year. ## Colophon and site facts - The current site iteration was set up in 2025; predecessors existed since around 2009 at inkmyday.com and lucasdidthis.com. - Built with Kirby CMS; JavaScript uses GSAP and paper.js; typefaces are "Satoshi" (Indian Type Foundry) and "Reckless" (Displaay). - Self-hosted, no tracking, fingerprinting or personalized cookies; analytics via a self-hosted, cookieless, anonymized Matomo instance with opt-out. - Legal and privacy information (Impressum) is available in German at lucasrees.com/impressum. ## External profiles - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasdidthis/ - Wagnerwagner: https://www.wagnerwagner.de/ - Gestaltingenieur (consulting): https://gestaltingenieur.de/ - Virtuelle Kultur e.V.: https://www.virtuellekultur.de/ - allyourhype!: https://www.allyourhype.com/ - Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/user/lucasdidthis