$ProductRendering
Projects at denkwerk GmbH, 2026
While many of the products we at denkwerk and our clients develop are not physical, there were still times when we created product renderings either as prototypes, illustrations, or full virtual photoshoots.
Shipping Boxes for an Upcoming Logistics and Supply Chain Company: Part of our team developed the brand design, including the reusable boxes. The reusable boxes made from durable material instead of paper got a clean but colorful design.
I did take the plain 2D previews of our design team and transform them into digital twins. First, only created for the validation of the placing, proportions, and sizes, we then also had fully virtual photography before the first boxes went into print.
I created a setup in Blender geometry nodes, which was able to render all product types—three boxes and one pouch in proportion, up to three color schemes in 6 view directions for usage in all kinds of digital touchpoints. This rather large batch of renderings was distributed across multiple GPUs via our small render farm in the Cologne office, running Blender Flamenco to handle the asset and render management.
As with almost all 3D projects do, this also needed compositing of multiple render passes. Color grading and light post-processing. After Effects was used for that task, importing a combined pass, color pass, and shadow pass. Exporting each asset in two layers, one for the product and one for the shadow pass, in one click made changes on the print layout quickly available to all team members.
Other tasks in this project included rendering and compositing larger metal and fabric return boxes in photo environments to inform potential business partners how the return stations would look in their stores. We used fSpy to camera match the photos with our virtual camera and added manual corrections like contact shadows or diffuse reflections by hand.
Devices
Thinx Product Renderings (2013 – 2015)
Right after starting my internship at denkwerk I was involved with rendering concepts developed by the thinx lab. A space for a product designer, colleagues and summer interns to imagine and develop products that bridge the virtual with the physical. The lab was led by Gregor Kuschmirz and Lu Grompone who supplied many of the designs and concepts.
